17. Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Seventeen
Gray seemed different as he sat across from me at my desk. Tense and impatient. He stared too hard at me as he tapped his fingers on the desktop.
“What?” I asked, only glancing up a moment before I resumed flipping through paperwork.
“Something weird happened this morning.”
“Define weird.” I shuffled things around and began signing checks for god knows what. I sent Gray a list, he took care of it, I just slapped my name on the money.
“I came in like I usually do before security change at six. There’s no security in the parking garage.”
“There is never security in the parking garage because you and I are the only ones who can get in.”
“That’s the weird part…I saw Rook drive out this morning as I was coming in.”
My pen stopped moving mid-stroke.
I fought the frown that tugged at my lips. “We had a business meeting.”
“At five in the morning? In the penthouse?”
I laid my pen down slowly and met his eyes. “What are you insinuating, Gray?”
His hand squeezed the arm of the chair. “As your employee or as your friend?”
I gestured for him to go on with both of them, curious. He had never offered his advice as a friend before.
“As your employee—be careful who you trust. I sure as hell don’t trust him. As your friend?” A smile almost cracked his hard outer shell. “I think company is good for you.”
“Company?”
“You’re alone all the time. It’s good for you to have someone other than me.”
“It’s not as if you’re a social butterfly,” I pointed out. When Gray attended an event or spent an evening at Avalon, I expected him neither seen nor heard. I didn’t think he had a thriving social life.
“I have the phone numbers of three different women from the last gala,” he said. “I promise you I’m not alone or lonely. You and Rook are a weird choice, but let’s be honest, boss…you’re not exactly a normal guy.”
I pressed my lips together and resumed signing. “Are you saying he’s boyfriend material?” I laid the pen down again and sneered at the idea.
“I’m saying he can handle you,” he said. “Most people can’t. And I know where the llama came from, by the way.”
I sighed at the thought of the wooly camelid. Maybe Gray had a point. Rook and I had a violent introduction, and we still barely tolerated each other, but he took it all—my attacks, my sarcasm, my cum.
“I trust you’ll be discreet about this.”
He leaned back in the chair and nodded. “Always.”
***
Later that day, Gray, who had been at the new warehouse making sure it was perfect for Bartos’s collection and preparing for the Russian shipment to be delivered the next day to my existing warehouse, walked back in and laid a folder on my desk.
Wesley Lake - magician’s candidate - opposition to Emmett Graves
“Someone else wants the job?” I asked.
“He just threw his hat in this morning,” Gray said. “He’s speaking at the next Council meeting if you want to find out what’s going on with him. You should probably stay on top of this.”
I opened the folder and scanned the pages inside. “What do we know about him?”
“Young, about your age, not originally from Ashbruck. He worked for the Boston Council. Wants to strengthen regulations to keep supernatural species separate, with the Council as the only point of intersection.”
“We all basically keep to ourselves outside the Council anyway.”
“He thinks magicians need more power, that they’re favoring the species less like humans.”
I snorted and closed the folder for later inspection. “Idiot. No one doubts that we’re more powerful than humans.”
“He wants it written into law.”
My phone buzzed on my desk with Rook’s name. I glanced back at Gray. “Thank you for this. You’re dismissed.”
The moment he was gone, I picked up the phone.
Rook: You owe me that game of chess.
Don’t get too eager. You won’t win.
Rook: We’ll see.
Tomorrow night, 9pm. Want to go to the next Council meeting with me?
I didn’t know why the words slipped past my thumb like I’d consciously thought about them. I hadn’t. It just made sense to invite him to witness the Council meeting for himself. We were, after all, working together on the serial killer, and there was some kind of Council connection there.
Rook: Is this a date?
A business invitation.
Rook: You’re no fun.
So you’ve said.
Rook: Council meeting. But tomorrow night at 9 I’m going to kick your ass at chess.
With that settled, I checked off my mental to-do list.
Russian shipment. Check.
Prague collection preparations. Check.
Rook dealt with. Check.
‘Dealt with’ was a strong phrase for what we were doing, but according to Gray, Rook could handle me, and I looked forward to our chess match. I couldn’t remember the last time I looked forward to something.
I added Wesley Lake to my ongoing list of tasks right under finding Teddy, who still managed to slip through my fingers, and opened my laptop to check on the one item on today’s list I hadn’t completed.
veilknight
Without Death, the spirits of the dead might have trouble reaching the other side. She keeps the balance, shows the path. Killing her would upset the balance, leaving spirits stranded. They aren’t meant to stay here.
Lovely. More of the dead to chatter in my ear all the time.
j-aust13
I don’t give a fuck about the consequences. How do I bring her here?
veilknight
You’re short-sighted.
j-aust13
I asked how I could bring her here. Don’t mistake this for me believing you. I don’t know if you’re trustworthy.
veilknight
There is a ritual.
j-aust13
I assume you have it. How do I know what you’re saying is real, and if it is, what do you want for it?
veilknight
I don’t have it, but find the grimoire with the spell to trap her, and I will tell you the rest.
The final word of his last message hung there like a hook, and I was the fish taking the bait.
Because there were seven hundred books weeks away from arriving in my warehouse, and I dared for one moment to believe fate might have sent it to me. This might be the breakthrough I was waiting for.
j-aust13
What grimoire?
If Death had never shown her face, if she hadn’t granted me thirteen lives, I might have blamed my mother’s killer for her death like a sane person.
They never caught him. I could have traveled the world hunting him down instead of pointing my grudge at Death, but she gave me more than enough lives.
She could have spared one for my mum. He killed her, but in the end, Death took her from me.
And I would make her pay for it.
***
“Don’t cry when I obliterate you,” Rook said, sitting across from me at my chessboard. The moment he sat down, he took off his shirt, and now sat across from me with his biceps straining at the motion of crossing his arms and his abs flexing as he leaned back to smirk at me.
If he thought distraction was the strategy that would ruin my composure in this game, he was wrong.
My father believed chess was one of the finest displays of intelligence.
I was a very good chess player, and I’d learned in a private school full of attractive young men.
His body had no power over me, not regarding this.
I didn’t reply to his lazy taunting. Instead, I moved a cream-colored pawn two spaces forward.
He followed up with a reddish brown pawn.
“So are you going to tell me how you survived that bullet yet?” he asked.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I did.” I didn’t look up at him, but kept my gaze on my pieces and calculated moves.
“Try me.” One blink after I made my move, he made his, as if he didn’t have to think about it at all. He was edging toward controlling the center of the board.
I scowled at my pieces, taking far too long to decide what to do next as my attention split between that and his question.
“I had thirteen lives,” I said, because he probably wouldn’t believe me.
“But you don’t now?”
“I spent a few, and thanks to you, I’m down to nine…like a bloody cat.”
He laughed and I glared up at him, my hand resting on the rook I was about to move.
“You’re cute when you scowl.”
“Nothing about me is cute.”
“You gonna touch me later like that rook you’re fingering?”
“I’m not—bloody hell!” I muttered, sliding the piece into place. “You’re baiting me again. Why do you delight so much in tormenting me?”
“Because I like the face you make and the way you sound when you’re irritated.”
“The way I sound?”
“Bloody this, bloody that. Pip pip I hate you,” he mocked my accent.
I glared at him and jerked so hard my knee bumped the board and almost sent the pieces sailing to the ground. “I do not sound like that!”
Rook didn’t reply, just made a smooth next move and smirked at his pieces that outnumbered mine on the board.
“How do you get thirteen lives?” he asked.
I watched the board, not him. I needed to calculate better strategies, but his question made my eyes snap up to his. I swallowed once, my throat unyielding, and said, “You trade something terrible for it.”
He observed my face for a long moment, his eyes cutting holes in my composure, and decided not to ask me to elaborate.
And then he won the game.
***
I was still stewing about it as we lay with limbs wrapped together, snogging in my bed. His hand cupped my cheek too gently, possessive in a way that was tender. He was less confusing when he was aggressive with me.
“How did you go from a chess genius to making money off men beating each other to a pulp?” I asked, putting distance between myself and that soft touch.
He groaned against my lips and drew back to see my whole face.
“That’s what you’re thinking about while I have my tongue down your throat?
I was bullied a lot when I was a kid, so I learned to fight.
Then I taught other people how to fight.
A year ago, an opportunity presented itself here, so I took it. It’s not an exciting story.”
I sighed, and when he reached for my lips again, I shoved the sheets aside and traced one fingertip down the crack of his arse. I circled his hole and pressed gently, making his hips jut forward, then press back against the pressure.
“Where do you keep the lube?” he asked.
I laughed. “You don’t rely on your gifts enough.”
I smeared lubricant over him, the slick glob appearing from my fingertips, and dipped one inside him to my first knuckle.
“Turn over,” I said, pulling my hand away.
Rook rolled onto his stomach and I climbed behind him, straddling his thighs.
I scratched my nails lightly down his strong back muscles and kneaded his backside with my palms. When I spread his cheeks, he inhaled a hiss of breath, and I dipped my head low to taste him.
I swirled my tongue around the ring of his arsehole and pried him open. Dipping and licking, I worked him open, my chest glowing when he relaxed for me.
“Fuck, England, yes. Just like that.” His hands fisted in the pillow above his head and his shoulders shifted.
I lapped at the soft skin of his arse one last time before I sunk two fingers into him, more lube pouring from the pads of my fingers.
He relaxed through the intrusion and laid still and ready.
I pushed further into him, coaxing his arse to open for me, to make space for my cock.
A third finger joined the first two, and he tensed slightly.
“Breathe, love. If you can’t take three, you can’t take my cock.”
Rook let out a throaty chuckle and let me prepare him.
I slapped the side of his thigh. “Lift your hips.”
He rose halfway to his knees and I positioned myself behind him. His hole glistened with lube and I bent to kiss his spine as I eased into him.
He muffled a string of incoherent curses into the pillow.
I stopped when my hips were flush against him, my cock buried deep in his arse, his inner muscles squeezing me until I could barely breathe.
“Move,” he rasped.
I landed a light smack on his ass. “I’m savoring it for a second,” I gritted out as I caught my breath. I withdrew and thrust once, testing how much he could take, and when I pounded harder into him, it turned out he could take a lot.
“Fuck, Austin, that feels so good.”
I rammed into him until he had to brace his knees to stay upright. He moaned and writhed, and soon I felt the rhythm of him taking himself in his hand, his pace matching the intensity of mine.
“I wonder if coming with you in my ass will feel as good as destroying you at chess,” he snarked, his hand moving rapidly along his shaft.
I growled and threw my head back, reaching for a sly comeback that would put him in his place, and finding nothing but the way he squeezed my cock until the pleasure overwhelmed me.
But this was safe—his irreverence. It wasn’t the strange touches and soft glances when things got too quiet between us. It wasn’t the way gravity reoriented itself around us when we stood still together.
It was safe enough to drive me over the edge, my fingers strangling one of his hipbones as I dumped my cum deep inside him.
My chin fell to my chest as I basked in the moment of perfect, consummate release, and when I opened my eyes, he’d come all over the bed in front of him and leaned on one elbow with the exhaustion of being spent.
As we dressed, Rook asked, “Are you going to tell me how you know the killer wears a mask?”
I froze with my pants halfway up and listened hard, but if the spirits were eavesdropping, they had nothing to say.
“I can’t tell you, but be careful. He might be following you too.”
Rook nodded and pulled his shirt on. “You be careful too.”
It struck me how odd this moment was. We’d gone from trying to kill each other to worrying about one another’s safety. I tried to imagine Rook being brutally murdered, and the glee it would have brought me a few months ago was replaced by a twisting in my chest.
“I have three fights tomorrow night, but I’ll be around if you want to text me.” His face gave nothing away, but he shoved one hand through his blonde hair—a small tell? Was he nervous about my safety, or that I might not contact him again?
“If I have time,” I said. “I have a shipment coming in from abroad and I’m after someone who failed an assignment I gave them and fled town.”
“Who’s that?”
I shook my head. “Teddy Abner. No one of consequence, but unfortunately someone good at hiding. I’ll find him, eventually.”
Kiss him goodbye.
Three or four voices all chimed in at once.
They just couldn’t fucking stay away, could they?
I hated that I wanted to do as they said.
I circled from where I stood on the opposite side of the bed from him and wrapped my hand around one of his elbows.
He didn’t pull away, not even as I stepped closer and leaned toward him, testing whether that inch of space between our faces was a short distance or a long one.
He didn’t hesitate, just captured my lips in his and slipped the arm I held around my waist.
“See you later, England.” He smirked up at me and squeezed my hip once before he let go and left the penthouse. When he did, I was struck with the realization that the distance between us was even shorter than I thought.