Chapter 6 #2
I was nearly up to my knees, and the branches were smacking me in the damn face from the wind. He was fast, too fucking fast.
He ran toward me, a flash in the dark night, but I could see him. I didn’t take my eyes off of him, shining my flashlight toward him. Every lean, wet limb was lit up, and the way his muscles flexed with the water made it look like his tattoos were dancing.
“Geez. Sky daddy really said thunder farts were needed, didn’t he? My name’s Judas, asshole. Not Noah. Can we stop this flood shit?”
I watched him curse the sky, and the glint of that scar across his ribs as his muscle shirt moved with the wind made my stomach go tight.
I tried to take a step forward but slipped again. This time, the mud rounded over my knees, and I growled, reaching to grip a tree branch and haul myself out. Judas didn’t even pause. Just smiled, watching me flail like a beached whale.
“You’re slower than I expected,” he said, nearing closer to me, not at all affected like I was. “Maybe it’s all those fancy muscles you got there, big boy.”
I growled, angered by the flush of heat spreading down said muscles. He made a pose in the rain, mimicking a bodybuilder and kissing each bulging bicep of his own. I did have more muscle mass than Judas. I was rounded with pounds of hours of training where the asshat mocking me was lean and toned.
Why the fuck do I keep thinking about how he looks? He looks like a criminal and an annoying one at that.
“Laugh while you can, inmate,” I grunted, lunging for him. His steps were light, even though the guy was fucking giant. He practically danced around me now, and I missed his feet with each skip around my half-submerged body. “You won’t be when I catch you.”
He tilted backward, easily dodging my grasp, with his eyes glittering with mischief and menace. “Ooo, promises, promises, Randall. But we both know you’re a notorious cock tease.”
My jaw flexed, and I pulled harder on the branch, pulling myself forward, making progress as the thick mud let go of its hold little by little. Lightning lit the forest in jagged bursts, illuminating him for a heartbeat as he continued that fucking skipping dance around me.
“If you want me to paint that pretty face again, all you have to do is ask, Randy Pandy.”
He met my glower with his sardonic grin and gleaming eyes. His hands were poised like claws, his scars showing through his soaked white shirt. The translucent fabric showed every ridge of his abs and the story of his survival from that damn fall.
He was mocking me, toying with me, and I couldn’t help it.
I burned with both fury and need.
I lunged again, barely catching the hem of his coat, but he twisted away, laughing low and sinister as he slipped past me, gasping in a mock insult.
“Hey! Stop! Don’t touch me there! This is my no-no square.”
I’m gonna kill him. Screw putting him in a cage. Badge be damned.
Judas continued to do some dumb dance and song, and I used the moment of his distraction to my advantage. The branch was still in my grip, and a few more tugs and I’d be out of the thickest part of the mud enough to move again.
“So sneaky, Liebling. Brava. You’re free, but you still can’t catch me.”
“God dammit!” I roared, slipping again in the muck, barely keeping my balance of the newfound freedom. “Stop fucking running!”
“Why?” he called over his shoulder, glancing back at me, while skipping forward and back like a fucking square around me, just out of reach. “It’s more fun this way. I get off watching you try, Baby. Watching you flail around like a grumpy kitten. Ooo, and listening to that growl. Rawr.”
The mud was too thick. My pants were weighed down so badly that it hurt to move my legs forward.
Making a decision, I moved my feet forward toward him, but this time, instead of fighting to keep my pants on my hips, I let the pull of the mud jerk them down and off me.
I had to catch him. Every instinct screamed at me to reach him.
He zigzagged between trees as I caught up, twisting and laughing at me.
“Yes, baby, take it off! Don’t be offended, I can’t tip well on account of paying to dig up your mommy.”
That made me falter.
He’d paid to exume my mother? Why? What the fuck was the angle? And where did he even find her?
“What are you talking about?” I couldn’t help but ask the jarring question, but Judas didn’t answer.
Instead, he muttered something that I couldn’t catch to voices, imaginary people, maybe even demons. His schizophrenic murmurs were always dark humor or very sinister sexual exploitations. This time, he was singing that damn song again.
Wasn’t that from grade school? I recognized the lyrics, but he warped the tune into his own sexy dance. Leave it to Judas Masters to claim any and everything, even a damn child’s song.
I stumbled for the fifteenth fucking time, slipping hard on the ground. Mud got in my eyes, and rainwater poured into my mouth. I could still feel him ahead of me, even though I couldn’t see him now. He had been waiting for this, waiting for me to make a mistake.
And now I had.
“That one looked like it hurt your beautiful dick! Need me to kiss it better?”
I cursed and rolled over onto my back. My teeth gritted, and my fists were tight. This was fucking hopeless. The sound of his retreat faltered, and I heard him pause for a heartbeat.
“That a no?”
I ignored him, trying to catch my breath.
“Let’s play a game, Randy Pandy. Clearly, tag isn’t your strong suit, so I will be the amazing specimen I am and change it to something more in your very large wheelhouse.”
“Judas—”
“I know, I know, no need to thank me. The game is hide and seek. If you find me, I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
I scowled in his direction, trying to get back to my feet. “I already know the club’s name and that she was caught up in the Masks organization, Judas. I don’t need you.”
His skipping steps hitched a bit, and I felt a spike of remorse but brushed it away.
“Brava, Cop. You aren’t a complete idiot. But I didn’t mean about your mother.”
My brows furrowed as I watched him clap and tried to focus on the words, but before I could question him further, he stopped skipping and took off at a dead run toward the opposite side of the trees.
The chase had begun.
And I would not let him go.
I took off after him, letting his cackles lead me.
Mud exploded under my boots as I barreled toward him, rain pounding down like bullets now, and the sharp stings pushed me harder. He was so fucking fast, but when I began tracking his patterns and how he liked to weave through the trees, I took a shortcut and lunged for him.
He twisted just in time, those long limbs dodging me yet again, and I slammed into a tree instead. Splinters cut my shoulder, and water ran into the gash on my forehead.
Fuck!
I shook it off, feeling my adrenaline spike, and my heartbeat travel to the wound on my head.
“Now you’re just trying to make me jealous,” he called out from somewhere close, his voice was low, dripping with mockery. “Didn’t peg you for a tree hugger, maybe I should call you Randa Panda instead.”
“I’m not fucking playing, Judas!”
“Oh, but I am,” he replied, lunging from behind me.
His hands grabbed my shoulders, slippery and strong, and before I could catch the motion, he slammed me backward into the mud, pouncing on me like a fucking panther.
We tumbled in the mud, rain soaking both of us, our arms locking as we rolled. I tasted the wet sludge in my mouth, and the rain stung my eyes. I pinned him down, getting a grip on his biceps and locking his legs down with my knees.
He stared up at me, that damn smirk playing at the corners of his wet lips. For just a heartbeat, I looked down at his mouth, watching his tongue lick away the blood welling there. His hips rolled into my ass, and his dick poked the fabric of my boxers, and I hissed, jerking away from him.
Damn it.
He twisted away from me and laughed, that type of eerie, echoing laughter that cracked like thunder.
“See,” he whispered, rubbing over his bulge in his low-cut black jeans. “Cock tease.”
I threw myself at him, rolling on my stomach and swiping his feet out from under him. He laughed when I had him back under me, not putting up as much of a fight as before.
“Careful,” he moaned, his dark voice close enough to send shivers down my spine. “I may just give you what your innocent big brown eyes keep asking for.”
“Shut the fuck up,” I hissed, trying to catch my breath.
I couldn’t stop myself from looking at the blood still pooling on his bottom lip, and I felt myself lean forward to study the cut. Judas watched me, his Hazel eyes practically sparkling.
“I warned you this time. Just remember that I was being nice.” I didn’t catch his lightning-fast reflexes.
One second, I was looking at the blood droplet on his busted lip, and the next, he yanked his leg out from under my knee, and I fell forward into him, his hands linking in my hair and his mouth crashing into mine.
“Fuuuck.” He moaned in my mouth.
I couldn’t move away. I couldn’t stop myself from letting my tongue continue the fight we started. His hand in my hair gripped harder, and the pain made me groan, my mouth opening further for him to explore.
“Mmm, Baby. That’s right. Taste me. You asked for this, Liebling.”
I felt his cock lengthen further as he pressed it into my own. The flimsy fabric of my boxers was shamefully thin, and I couldn’t stop him from feeling how hard I was.
For him…
“Wanna tell me again, how straight you are? Suck on my tongue again while you tell me you like girls.”
His words made something in me snap, and I bit his damn tongue, the splash of metallic spilling in my mouth while I shoved off him, pulling away from his smirking face.
“You’re fucking insane,” I snarled, pushing down my erection with all my strength until the pain made me soften.
Judas twisted and caught my wrist, and I looked at him. Blood poured out of his mouth. I cut him deep, but he’d heal all too soon. My handcuffs were still in my belt on my pants, a little ways from here. Maybe I can flip this on him and play his stupid ass game.
“Hide and seek, right?” I got to my feet, wiping away what I could of the mud.
Judas’s eyebrow perked up, and he smiled.
“You didn’t play right, big boy. You broke the rules.”
I tried to refrain from cursing at him and took a deep breath instead. “Fair enough. Why don’t you count, and I’ll hide now, and you can find me.”
He didn’t seem to buy that I wanted to play a dumb kids’ game, but his enjoyment of playing any game overcame his skeptical look, and he finally walked toward a tree, covering his eyes.
“One penis…two penises…wait penises? Maybe penile? No, No, Judie! Damn, I need to restart now…One Randy Pandy dick…two…”
He began his solo arguments with random numbers included, and I bolted toward my tactile belt and pants in that damn mud.
When Judas Masters found me, I’d be ready, and this inmate would finally go back behind bars.
The farther I ran from him, the more I felt the heat on my skin.
Why do I still feel his fucking lips on mine?
Why the fuck can’t I keep this man off of me?
I was supposed to hide and get this shit done once and for all.
I was good at being hidden. Hell, I spent most of my life concealing the real Randall King.
Hide my past, hide my emotions, hide all the pain and failures. I had to push it all away and be the man everyone expected me to be.
But Judas fucking Masters saw me, no matter how hard I tried to disappear, and it wasn’t the facade I gave everyone else.
It was just…me.