Chapter 20
Two days had passed, two days of long boring meetings in the war room as they tried to form a plan to destroy Nicholas…
two long days of Malachi not having a fucking clue as to how to handle what was happening between the two of them…
but still driving so desperately hard to be what he thought Justice needed him to be.
Thoughts of what Megan had told Justice about RAD still ran on a continuous loop inside his brain.
It made sense…
but then it didn’t make sense.
Malachi was too smart, too together, too fucking everything perfect.
Yet, it explained a lot of things.
It also made him even more determined than ever for them to find a way to destroy Nicholas, remove him from Malachi’s life forever.
Things might end up where he wasn’t able to give Malachi everything he wanted or needed from a sub, but he could find a way to fucking give him his freedom from Nicholas.
So, he sat in the war room, listening and waiting, wondering how he was going to be a part of the shit show when it started because Malachi had made it damned clear he was never leaving the castle again…
ever.
Didn’t matter, he was going to find a way to give this gift to Malachi.
Yet another positive point could be that Malachi would see that he wasn’t breakable.
He still was confused about how he had gone from the biggest pain whore in the world to some pussy that needed to be cuddled at night, instead of being fucked and spanked hard.
He wasn’t kidding and it wasn’t RAD…
he didn’t like to cuddle.
He liked to fuck.
He liked getting his ass stuffed and whipped.
He liked having his limits pushed.
Hell, he’d settle for fucking vanilla missionary right now.
He half listened to what Malachi, Dante and Dustin were saying and made sure he did a lazy visual sweep of the room every few minutes, but his mind mostly focused on sex.
Hah!
Focus.
Not funny.
With a frown, he wondered if the ‘you-can’t-touch-it’ rule regarding his cock was still in place when the man who implemented the rule didn’t touch it either.
Lazy sweep of the room and…
well, well, what have we here?
Justice pretended to not notice when Goldilock’s hand had reached into the pile of pictures of intel strewn across the table and slipped a picture into his pocket.
Malachi and Dante were arguing over what the plan of action needed to be and he was pretty sure neither of them had any brilliant ideas at the moment.
Minutes passed before Jasper finally stood up, excused himself, and walked out of the room like he hadn’t just…
well, whatever he’d done.
He’d just sat there, wondering what the fuck Jasper was up to and waiting for the moment when he would be able to call him on it.
He’d remained seated for a nerve-racking three minutes after Jasper had excused himself before he stood up and intended to make some excuse and go find Goldilocks.
His mouth slammed shut when he caught Malachi and Dante staring at him, a strange expression on both their faces.
What the hell had he done now?
“Playroom. Now,” Malachi growled even as he jerked Justice by the arm and forcefully propelled him out of the war room, down the hall, up the stairs…
away from everybody else.
At the top of the stairs, Justice dug in his heels and opened his mouth to ask what the hell was going on.
Malachi would have nothing to do with that.
Justice found himself slammed, face first, against the wall and Malachi’s rock-hard body pushed immediately against his back, pinning him between both unforgiving and unmovable forces.
No sooner had the wind gushed from his lungs and out his mouth, Malachi placed a large hand over his mouth, effectively stopping any argument he might have been about to try.
“Don’t say a word, lover. Not. One. Word.” Malachi whispered in his ear.
The voice was low and husky and sent shivers coursing through his body.
“We are going to go to the playroom and I’m going to tie you to a bench and fuck every single question and insecurity out of your head. So help me God, if it takes all night and all day, I will fuck it out of you.”
He hauled him away from the wall, but kept his hand over his mouth and his body trapped tightly against his chest.
Forcefully, he pushed him down the hall.
“I see it now. I see when you’re about to fall…to slip into the fucking darkness that is trying to take you away from us. I should have seen it before. I should have recognized you needed me, but I wasn’t doing my fucking responsibility to you.” He pushed the door open and shoved Justice inside.
The door slammed and the locked clicked into place.
“Strip.”
“Malachi…I don’t need you to…”
He was on him before another word managed to escape from between his lips.
Strong, determined hands removed his clothing with relentless determination.
He paused only when he came across a bruise from his accident.
.
There, his strangely colored eyes would darken even more as fury blazed brightly for Justice to see.
Once he had him completely naked, he dragged him across the room and bent him over one of the high tables.
He didn’t dare move as Malachi efficiently locked his restraints around his wrists and ankles, spreading his arms and legs wide.
It was at that moment that he realized that Malachi was just as fucked up as he was.
Megan had been right.
Sure, they were different…
had different symptoms to the same disease, but they were equally fucked up.
Malachi clearly thought sex fixed everything…
it was all the man knew.
He’d withheld it from him for the past two days, thinking he probably didn’t’ want to be touched, spanked, or fucked…
when that was really what he wanted most.
When that hadn’t worked, he was now moving to the opposite end of the spectrum.
Oddly enough, Justice realized he needed this…
this touching as much as Malachi needed the fucking .
They both were truly and decidedly fucked up…
but they were perfect together.
Maybe they would never get to where they needed to be.
Maybe they would.
A lubed finger slipped inside of him, stretching him with a rushed rhythm.
It wasn’t the kisses or the softly whispered words of love that Justice craved…
but it was what Malachi could give.
Knowing this, he greedily took whatever his lover offered him.
Hours later, his body ached and his eyes were heavy with exhaustion but he did feel carnally cherished by the man he loved.
Fuck, but the man had to have popped a bottle of Viagra before dragging him in there.
When he’d vowed to fuck him until he was senseless, he hadn’t been kidding.
He couldn’t think, he couldn’t worry about whether Malachi loved him as a lover or played with him as a plaything.
He could revel in the fact that they were both trying.
Malachi stood behind him again and he couldn’t stop the frown from crinkling his brow.
His ass was seriously beginning to edge past the sore level.
Thank the fuck, Megan chose that moment to sort them out.
“That’s enough!” Her voice echoed through the room.
“For fuck’s sake, Malachi let the boy up. Gretchen won’t let a one of us have supper until we are all there.” To take the edge off, she smiled sweetly at both of them.
“Get your asses down stairs in twenty minutes.” She started out the door but whipped back around.
“I’m giving you twenty minutes so that you both can shower…not for you to slip in one more fuck before dinner!”
Two more days passed with Malachi trying to fuck him into oblivion and him just craving a soft kiss on the lips even more than he hoped to shit they didn’t run out of lube anytime soon.
It had also been two more days of stealthy stalking Goldilocks…
waiting for what-the-fuck-ever the brainiac had planned when he had stolen that picture from the war room.
.
Forty-eight hours of being fucked, being forced to cuddle, seeing Malachi getting seriously fucked up as he struggled to come up with a viable plan to find and obliterate Nicholas, and him being determined to do something to rescue his man from the bastard that forced him into putting that damned protective barrier around his heart.
Finally, it came…
Megan and Susannah were locked away in Susannah’s playroom, practicing whatever the shit they practiced every day.
What he wouldn’t give to watch that interaction one lovely day when he didn’t have a villain to kill.
Dante, Malachi, and Dustin were in the war room.
Travis was probably dancing aimlessly somewhere in the castle, waiting on Dante to come rock his world.
He loved the boy but he was fairly certain he would be useless in a stalk-and-kill-Nicholas vacation trip.
The moment he heard Jasper say he wouldn’t get to join them in the war room, he’d known whatever was going down…
was about to go down.
He’d given dear Goldilocks just enough time to think he was safe to make his move and then he’d simply followed him.
The boy knew how to sneak off the castle grounds, but he didn’t know a damned thing about checking to see if he was being followed.
When he’d slid into the backseat of the taxi he’d obviously contacted to have waiting for him, he’d just slid right in on the opposite side.
“What the fuck, Justice?” Jasper hissed.
“Why did you take that picture?” Justice countered.
“How often do you sneak out of the castle, Jasper? I’m fucking certain that wasn’t your first rodeo.”
“Long story,” Jasper answered.
“Get out of the car.”
The driver looked back at them like they were raving lunatics.
“Listen boys, my meter is running. Where are we headed? I don’t have time for a lover’s spat.”
Justice watched Jasper’s jaw clinch at the lover’s spat comment.
Cornflower blue eyes narrowed at him.
“You need to go away, Justice. This doesn’t concern you.” He looked so fucking innocent but Justice knew that Jasper’s vulnerable and innocent appearance was fucking misleading.
No one could take what that kid had taken without being one of the strongest mother fuckers strutting this earth.
“The hell it doesn’t!”
“Get the fuck out of the taxi, Justice. Go back into the castle and keep your mouth shut, man.” His voice was pleading, his eyes desperate.
“Tell me what you’ve got planned, man .” Justice countered.
He felt excitement starting to build in his gut.
“No. Go away.”
Eye roll.
“If I go away, I’m going to back to Malachi and Dante and I’m telling them you took that picture and that you are planning something…without them!”
Jasper’s back straightened and his eyes narrowed.
“You would be selfish enough to throw away our only chance of destroying Nicholas?”
“Boys! Where to?” Every time the man swiveled around in his seat, the delightful aroma in the taxi grew stronger.
Fabulous.
Goldilocks just had to draw the only stinky cabbie in Texas.
Justice stepped out on a limb.
“To the airport, sir.” The flash in Jasper’s eyes told him he was right.
He might not be brilliant like Jasper but it was a pretty safe bet Nicholas wasn’t living in their neighborhood.
“Don’t do this, Justice. Please.”
He wasn’t backing down.
He was going to give this to Malachi…
or die trying.
“I suspect we have a flight to catch. I seriously doubt you added in any extra time for Dante or Malachi to catch you. Tell the driver to start moving. Now.”
He told the driver to take them to the airport.
“Seriously, Justice, I don’t want you involved with this. It’s going to be ugly because there’s no other way for it to be. Malachi would kill me if something happened to you.”
“Yea, yea, Susannah will beat my ass if something happens to you,” Justice countered.
“So, let’s just make sure we nail the son o f a bitch and come back alive…more than ready to accept our punishments.”
“You really are a pain whore, aren’t you?”
“You really do look like Goldilocks, don’t you,” Justice countered.
“Now, get your phone out and get me a ticket to wherever you are going because I am going with. If you try to ditch me at the airport, so help me God, I will scream a bomb threat loud enough to shut down the entire airport before you get to the end of the tarmac.”
Jasper snorted.
“They say you look like me, Goldie Jr.” He pulled out his cell and started punching numbers.
Justice had to believe he was purchasing the ticket like he’d demanded.
With his luck, he was probably paying somebody to ice him at the airport.
The kid was just that spooky.
“Nope, I’m older. You look like me.” He said when he was satisfied Jasper was indeed purchasing him a ticket.
At the airport, he followed Jasper straight to their international flight and held his breath until they were both on board.
Goldilocks wasn’t happy, not at all, but he hadn’t really left him any other options.
They both knew Malachi would be on their asses the second anybody realized they were missing.
Clearly Jasper didn’t want him but wasn’t willing to take the risk of trying to ditch him.
He smiled sweetly at Jasper as they taxied down the runway.
Jasper flipped him off.
Two hours later, Justice was fairly certain he was going to die from boredom.
Hell, even Malachi was gracious enough to tie him up if he wanted him to be in one place this long.
While Goldilocks pecked away at his computer, talking to himself like a fucking genius, Justice had busied himself doing…
not a damned thing.
He was going to go nuts.
Sure, he knew Jasper was the brains of their dynamic duo and he was definitely going to be the brawn, but the kid could throw him a crumb every now and then, try to make him feel useful.
“At least tell me where we are headed? You haven’t shared a damned thing with me. We’re in this together.” Justice complained.
“You’ll know when we get there. Shit, do you ever stop moving? Some damn part of your body has been twitching the entire flight. Sit the fuck still and keep quiet. I’m thinking.”
In his defense, he was perfectly quiet and somewhat still for a full forty minutes before he tried again.
He knew it was forty minutes, he’d timed it, going fucking nuts with each passing second.
“Can you at least give me a hint as to what your plan is?” Justice asked.
“I know I’m on a need-to-know-basis, but I really think I need to know. You do realize Malachi is going to beat my ass for this, right?”
“Probably,” Jasper conceded as he continued to type into his laptop computer…
which was probably against every airline rule known to man.
“Why are you doing this?” Justice asked.
“I know why I’m doing it but I’m still confused about why you are willing to risk everything to try and capture Nicholas.”
Jasper leaned his head against his seat.
“What they just did to you, that happened because of me. The way Malachi and Dante are worried sick right now, that’s because of me. The possibility that Susannah might be in danger if Nicholas decides to come after her, that’s damned fucking well because of me. Because I was so fucking weak before, Nicholas has been given the opportunity to hurt people all over again.”
“Weak? What the shit are you talking about? I’m pretty sure you’re on the opposite end of the weak scale, dude. Malachi told me he thought you were the strongest person he’s ever met in his life.”
“Malachi gave me the option on whether to let Nicholas, Victor, and Tyler live or die that night. I let them live.” He turned and locked eyes with Justice.
“And the rest is history.”
“Uh, Jasper, I’m pretty sure not giving the green light to kill someone doesn’t make you weak…it makes you a good person.”
Jasper made a very un-like Jasper snort.
“I’m not the innocent everyone, including you, believes me to be. We may not come out of this alive, Justice. Sometimes we are forced to become somebody we aren’t, forced to forfeit a part of our soul in exchange for what we want most. If you want to leave me with it, I understand. Hell, I want you to leave me with it. Please.”
It was Justice’s turn to snort.
“Whatever. Just tell me the plan. Are we busting in…guns blazing?”
When Jasper didn’t say anything, Justice asked, “You do have a gun, don’t you?”
“Well shit, I knew I forgot something,” Jasper answered drily.
“I promise I have a plan, Justice. It might not be something either of us would prefer, but desperate times often call for desperate measures.” He said sadly.
“I told you not to get involved if you couldn’t handle it…couldn’t do whatever is necessary to protect our family.”
“Don’t you dare!” Justice warned angrily.
“You damn well know I’m in all the way…willing to die, more than willing to kill, if necessary. I love them.”
“Remember those words later on, Justice. Please remember those words.”
Justice pictured them killing Nicholas, blowing his brains in every direction…
slitting his throat for ear to ear…
gutting him while he was still alive.
He couldn’t wait.
“Are you seriously not going to tell me anything? How about you at least tell me why you took the picture? What does that guy have to do with anything? Do you think he can help us? I seriously doubt it since his face was mixed in with the group of fuckers that Malachi’s dad refers to as his besties.”
Jasper massaged his temple like he was fighting off a killer headache.
Yea, he had that effect on people sometimes, he supposed.
In all honesty, he didn’t care, he needed to know Jasper had some sort of plan bouncing around in his brainy head.
“According to what I could fine on the computer, he goes by the name of Emilio but his real name is Jameson Bentley. I’ve seen him before…he was at several of Victor’s parties .” He shrugged…
or shivered from the horrible memories this ordeal was probably dredging up for him.
“I think he might be able to help us.”
Justice sat in his seat, praying he hadn’t heard him correctly.
“Are you saying that you, no, we are relying on a man that is actively involved with the sex slave trade…that probably did shit to you that he should be killed for?”
“Lower your voice!” Jasper hissed.
His cheeks were blazing from fury and shame.
Justice dropped his voice.
“That’s our plan? Please tell me there’s more to it than that.”
“There’s more to it than that.”
“Fucker.”
If he’d thought to provoke a response from Jasper…
or more information, he’d been mistaken.
As silence descended on them again, Justice tried to focus on what was important – getting Nicholas out of Malachi’s life permanently.
He might not be the lover Malachi wanted, might not be able to give him everything that Megan could, but he could give him this.
After what the bastard Nicholas had done to Malachi as a child and then to Jasper when he’d been Victor’s sex slave, the fucker needed to disappear.
He gnawed his bottom lip, trying to calm the questions swirling in his mind.
He knew what he was doing could very well be fueled by the fire of one of his many symptoms, but he honestly didn’t believe they were related at all.
He was going to take care of Nicholas for Malachi because he loved him.
It wouldn’t make Malachi love him any more…
but it still needed to be done.
Yea, he had to keep focusing on the fact that his actions couldn’t make someone care for him more – they had to love him on their own.
Jasper kept toying with his computer, annoying the holy hell out of him.
“Whatcha working on?” He leaned over and expected Jasper to knock him away, but he didn’t, just kept reading whatever was on the screen in front of him.
“I’m reading about RAD. I need to know what I’m up against.” Jasper answered drily.
“What…the…fuck, dude?” Justice nearly screamed.
“You can’t…you can’t just do that shit in front of me.” He tried to yank the computer out of Jasper’s hands, but the kid was too quick.
“You need to learn to do that kind of shit behind somebody’s back! That’s fucking rude.”
Jasper gave him an eye roll that could equal one of his own.
“Is there a problem?” A stewardess asked politely.
Just their luck, she had to be strolling by at just the wrong time.
“Yes, there’s a problem. He’s an asshole,” Justice growled.
“Give me the computer, Jasper.”
“No problem, ma’am, we’re fine. Thanks for asking,” Jasper answered politely.
Justice nearly puked as he watched the chick fall, ass over tits, for Jasper’s sweet innocence.
She didn’t have a fucking clue how devilish Goldilocks could be.
With a wink for each of them, she strolled away, ass swaying from side to side.
He was certain that little demonstration was for both of them.
“Don’t be such a pussy, Justice. We all have issues, you’re not anything special. Get out your smart phone and look up PTSD, that way you’ll know what you might be up against with me.”
“Holy shit, we don’t have a fucking chance, do we?” Jasper cocked a brow at him but kept reading.
Jasper’s eyes never flickered away from the computer screen.
He’d used the photo and the old FBI equipment on Susannah’s computer to help him jumpstart how to find Emilio…
aka Jameson Bentley, the man with the kind eyes in a sea of evil.
Yea, that was about the extent of his plan.
In other words, there wasn’t a plan.