Chapter 7
I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.
I shouldn’t have let Cason crawl so deep beneath my skin, squirming around under there until he found the only switch to flip that would make me snap.
Because he’s right.
Something about this job is off. Wrong.
I started thinking that a few days ago, and the fact that Cason has picked up on it too is…even more concerning. If something really is wrong, then I am bad at my job for not knowing what it is. Cason calling me out pissed me off. The doubt that’s been eating at me cracked wide open.
Malcolm isn’t communicating. The entity who hired me has only checked in twice, saying that everything is right on schedule and telling me to keep doing what I’m doing.
Which…feels like nothing.
I hate sitting on my ass.
I’ve already missed out on my next job I was supposed to be on. I didn’t care at the time since this one paid so well, but now…
I’m furious at Cason’s prodding and poking.
And then he had to let out one of the most obscene moans I’ve ever heard in my life.
It’s still replaying in my head. That sound. The way it echoed off the concrete walls. The way it wrapped around my spine and dragged something ugly and primitive to the surface.
I’ve been in combat zones. I’ve been shot at. I’ve broken men with my bare hands.
Nothing has ever made me lose control like that.
And the second he started touching himself—showing off, taunting me, daring me to react—I needed that control back. I needed distance. A reminder of who we are.
Captor and captive.
Not whatever the hell this is.
Except that line has been blurring for a while now.
There have been moments when I forget the rule. One hour of silence in exchange for a question. It was supposed to keep him manageable, under control. Predictable. Instead, there have been days when that stretch of silence is shorter. He keeps talking, and I keep answering.
Like the night he asked about my tattoos.
We were sitting there like usual, me at my desk and him chained against the wall. I kept time for the first hour while we ate dinner, but then I just…forgot.
Cason is the only one who’s ever been able to distract me.
“What’s that one?” he asked, pointing to the largest tattoo in the sleeve inked into my left arm. “The skull with the flowers. It’s pretty. Is it symbolic? Are you secretly a poet?”
“It’s a reminder.”
“Of?”
“That everything dies.”
He made a face, his facade cracking. Just a flicker for half a second. “That’s…intense.” He took a deep breath like he was inhaling life back into his mask. “Do you also have one that says Live, Laugh, Leave No Survivors, or are we saving that for the other arm?”
I’m not usually one to roll my eyes, but I did then. I think it was to keep from showing amusement.
He kept going, tracing the designs in the air, asking about each one like he had all the time in the world.
Eventually, without thinking, I asked, “What about yours?”
He lit up. Actually lit up.
“You mean Penelope?”
“Penelope the unicorn, sure.”
“She’s not just any unicorn,” he said, offended. “She’s a warrior. Very brave. Very noble. She once saved an entire village from—”
“Let me guess. A dragon.”
He looked at me as though that was the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard. “No. Tax fraud.”
I paused what I was doing at my computer and raised a brow. “Tax fraud.”
“It’s a real problem in the magical community. Nobody talks about it.” He leaned forward, lowering his voice. “Governments are terrifying, man. Even for unicorns.”
“Why did you get it?” I asked before I could think twice.
He shrugged as he leaned back against the wall again. “I have a tattoo artist friend, and she let me pick something when I turned eighteen. I panicked. She said, ‘Pick anything.’ I said, ‘Unicorn.’ Now Penelope and I are bonded for life. She’s seen things.”
When I didn’t respond, his expression turned sharp, curious. Victorious.
“You’re smiling.”
I didn’t even realize I was.
I cleared my throat and got back to work, demanding another hour of silence from him.
The memory sits heavy in my chest now.
That was a mistake. All of it. Letting him spend time out of his room. The questions. The pizza. The conversations. The way I haven’t even realized he’s been chipping away at the walls I’ve spent years building and maintaining.
Getting close to your hostage is dangerous. It’s innate knowledge. Emotional compromise leads to hesitation.
Hesitation gets you killed.
And yet here I am.
Which is why I’m still aiming my gun at him and soaking up that mixture of fear and arousal swirling around in his eyes and filling the shower as tangible as the steam.
“Turn the water off.”
My voice comes out rough and tight, unfamiliar even to my ears.
He does what I say, the sudden silence loud in the concrete basement. The steam clings to the glass, blurring him. Softening him.
I should make him get out. Put on clothes. Lock him back up.
Instead, I open the door and step inside. The heat hits me first. Then that damn look in his eyes. He stands there, wet and tense, chest rising and falling too fast. Water tracks down his body in slow lines. His gaze flicks from the gun to my face and back again.
“Well,” he says, voice a little shaky but still somehow managing to have that cocky edge. “You finally decided to join me. Took you long enough.”
“Shut up.”
“Aw. You always say the sweetest things.”
I move closer, and his back hits the wall of the shower. He’s trapped between it and my gun, but he still lifts his chin like he’s daring me.
“Do you have any idea,” I say quietly as I brush the barrel of my gun across his forehead, sweeping a strand of wet hair away, “how dangerous it is to provoke someone aiming a gun at you?”
He swallows hard, staring into my eyes like he trusts me a lot more than he should. “Sure. But you haven’t shot me yet, so I’m feeling cautiously optimistic.”
My grip tightens on the weapon as I bring it down to press just below his chin, tilting his head back. “You think this is a game?” I ask in a low growl.
“I think,” he says, speaking just above a whisper now, “that you don’t actually want to hurt me.”
The certainty in his tone makes something twist behind my ribs.
“You don’t know anything about me.”
“I know you brought me Hawaiian pizza after I told you it was my favorite, even though you think it’s disgusting. I know you give me time out of that room because I told you I was going crazy in there alone. I know you’re thinking about what I said earlier, even though you won’t admit it.”
Then his mouth curves, slow and wicked despite the fear still lingering in his gaze.
“I know you could use a distraction like I could.”
His arm moves. His breath hitches.
I peer down to see his hand wrapped around his semi-hard cock.
He’s cut, his length curving upward, the head already turning a violent purple.
Instinct screams at me to look away immediately.
I should not be watching another man jerk off inches in front of me, close enough that we’re sharing the same humid air.
But my gaze is locked on.
He grows harder under my stare, and…
So do I.
Mercifully, my eyes finally obey and snap back to his. His face is flushed, full lips parted as he pants, tiny moans escaping with every twist of his palm around the head of his cock.
There’s something about him that’s been slowly and steadily carving away at the reality I thought I knew.
A month ago, I never would’ve gotten hard in a situation like this.
At least, I don’t think I would’ve. But over the course of the half dozen or so showers I’ve supervised, I’ve caught myself staring more and more. And more.
There was also that one time I caught him jerking off in his room on camera. I tried to ignore him and focus on work. I really did. But…I watched instead.
I shove the gun a little harder under his chin because my dick is pressing against my zipper and I’m pissed about it. He whimpers, and that does not help.
“Are you trying to make me develop a conditioned response to holding a gun to your head?”
He rakes his teeth over his bottom lip. “I wouldn’t mind.”
It’s official. Cason Bellrose is going to be the death of me.
Or at least of everything I thought I knew was true.
“Well aren’t you a kinky fucking menace?” I move the gun, brushing it over his cheek before trailing it down the column of his throat. “You should be afraid of me.”
“Oh, I am,” he says with a shaky nod as if in confirmation. “I’m terrified.”
A beat. He swallows, his throat working against the metal.
“But not for the reasons you think.”
My control frays another inch.
He’s shaking so badly, his body trembling between me and the wall like he’s going to vibrate out of his skin. The barrel of the gun travels lower, over his collarbone, down his chest. I let my eyes follow its trail, taking in the sight of his smooth, pale skin still glistening with beads of water.
“Come on, Reese,” he pleads as he continues working his fist over his cock, his snarky, confident grin starting to shine past the fear. “You could at least let me come before you shoot me.”
The gun meets his nipple in a slow, caressing circle, and I watch, mesmerized, as it turns into a firm peak. His thick lashes flutter against his cheeks, and he arches his back into the touch of the weapon.
“Fuck,” he moans. “I think you should touch me too. I don’t want to die curious.”
Something inside me snaps.
The rest of the world narrows to heat, steam, and the way his eyes go wide when my gun moves lower and lower and lower…
His hand falls away, leaving his cock jutting up with a pearl of precum sitting prettily at his tip. I sweep the black metal of my gun across his head, collecting the drop before bringing it up in front of his face.
It’s as if he knows what I want him to do before I know myself. My body is making decisions before my brain is able to catch up.