by J. P. James
“You didn’t what?” Don grunts now, his voice going low and bestial. “You didn’t think I’d ever find out you’ve been skimming the whole time we’ve been in business together?”
I swallow my scornful laugh. Hunt probably wouldn’t have found about it if I hadn’t told him, but hey, this clearly isn’t the time to mention that fact. I’ve seen how this guy does business. He’s only loyal as long as the money’s flowing in his direction. And right now, I’m sure Lancaster promised him a cut of the billion dollar ransom. Probably just a small slice, but a slice nonetheless.
Nonetheless, they’re all greedy assholes. Once I’d confirmed Lancaster’s plan, I told Don he could have all the money and do to Victor whatever he sees fit. All he has to do is to return Milo unharmed. Well, that, and I let him know that I have everything the cops need to financially ruin his business interests all over the city.
He fell in line quickly enough soon after.
“I don’t like being the one shafted, Victor. And I don’t like thieves.” Don looms over Lancaster, his gun pointed at the other man’s forehead.
“Don! Don! I wouldn’t do that to you — you know that. I’m not that kind of guy. Don’t let Woods play you. This is all a set-up!” Lancaster is whimpering now. He’s covering his face and trying to peek through his spread fingers at Don Hunt simultaneously. “Woods is the liar here! He’d say anything to get his bitch-boy back.”
“Liar, huh? It’s interesting you’d use that word since your nemesis is the only one who’s been honest with me this whole time.” Don nods my way as he crouches down low to the ground to press the barrel of the gun against Lancaster’s forehead.
Nearby, Milo is trembling like a leaf in a summer storm. He looks ready to pass out. Time for me to get him out of here.
I take a quiet and deep breath. “Are we good here, Don?”
Don Hunt doesn’t even look up from his prey. “Yes, we are Neil. And thanks again for the tip about this dirty dumbfuck. The numbers haven’t added up for a long time, but I wasn’t sure where to look. I owe you one.”
With a quick shake of my head, I lob that one back at him. “Nothing owed, Don. Just consider us square.” I don’t want this man thinking that he owes me anything. I want to wash my hands of him, the sooner the better.
“Square then.” A quick look up from his prey has his guys moving away from Milo and converging on Lancaster, who’s still blubbering and stammering on the ground.
I don’t waste any time rushing over to Milo and pulling the gag from his mouth. With a switchblade hidden in my boot, I easily cut away the zip ties holding Milo’s wrists captive. He stares up at me, eyes wet with tears of relief, looking like he’s about ready to keel over.
With a low grunt, I sweep him up into my arms and take him to the car. Like the precious cargo he is, I carefully slide him into the passenger seat and buckle him in. After a quick look behind me to make sure Don Hunt isn’t sending his people after me, I jump behind the wheel and then pull away from whatever Don and his goons have in mind for Lancaster.
He’s their problem now, and Milo is my treasure to take safely home.
Epilogue
Milo
Five years later.
“I can’t believe you talked me into getting on that damn amusement park ride.” Adjusting my sleeping daughter in my arms, I look over my shoulder at Carla, who’s smirking at me.
She doesn’t look the slightest bit sorry for talking me onto the ride that almost dragged my stomach out through my spine. “I told you that you could do it,” she replies with a smug grin.
“Yeah,” I say with a reluctant smile.
Carla has always had faith in me when I’ve doubted myself. Even with something as crazy as that killer roller coaster. I’m just thankful that her husband didn’t mind hanging with the kids for a bit while she and I ran around the park like teenagers. My buddy definitely won the jackpot when she found Gary.
Although we’re talking with our normal voices, my sweet four-year-old, Jade, is completely knocked out. After a long day of sunshine, junk food, and fun, she’s totally exhausted. The darling’s slept for most of the ride back from the amusement park and it looks like she’ll be out for the rest of the day. It’s summertime and school’s not in session, so I’m not worried about messing up her sleeping schedule. My little button can snooze as much as she wants.
“You three look like sun-kissed angels.” Neil walks down the stairs into the main level of the penthouse. He’s wearing soft jeans and a black T-shirt that shows off his muscled arms and sculpted chest. “I’m guessing you all had a great time,” he says.
“The best!” I lean up to kiss his bronzed cheek and then his firm lips. “Our little Jade didn’t want to come home.”
“And she was having so much fun that she just fell asleep,” Carla laughs softly and brushes a hand through my daughter’s thick brown hair. Jade was born from my sperm, but sometimes I think she looks more like her dad, with those playful blue eyes.
“There are worse ways to fall asleep,” Neil says. Smiling, he reaches out for our daughter. His platinum wedding ring, the mate to mine, catches the light. “I’ll put Jade to bed while you guys chat.”
“Oh, I’m not staying,” Carla says quickly. “The hubby and kids are actually waiting in the car for me downstairs. I’m just picking up the poster from Milo. I can’t believe he actually got it signed for me!”
Gregor Ilyavich, a world-famous concert pianist and probably the only man Carla would ever think of leaving her husband for, came to see me at Carnegie Hall a couple of nights ago. The night ended with an amazing standing ovation from the sold-out crowd, and my heart beat fast with gratitude and appreciation. When I’d texted Carla from backstage that Maestro Ilyavich was willing to give autographs, she had almost passed out from excitement and shock.
“Hold on. Let me get the poster,” I tell Carla and dash into the music room. On a shelf that’s high enough to be out of Jade’s reach, I reach up on my tiptoes to get my friend’s gift.
When I get back into the living room, Neil is nowhere in sight, and Carla has her phone in hand, sending off a quick text, probably to her impatient husband. Gary looked tired and about as cranky as Jade by the end of our trip, but my friend’s unfazed. She looks up from the phone with a bright smile and practically snatches the poster out of my hand to unroll it. “Thank you so, so much! This is incredible.”
To Carla, an incredible friend and music lover, Ilyavich wrote.
Of course, the poster is an image of the superstar maestro at the piano, his thick blond hair down to his waist and his green eyes heavy-lashed and sensual as he gazes at the camera. Even I have to admit he looks hot. Not as hot as my husband, but then again, no man is.
I giggle. “Just don’t get too naughty with the poster. Gary would definitely not appreciate that.”
Instead of being offended, Carla just laughs. “What the hubs doesn’t know, won’t hurt him,” she says with a chuckle.
We chuckle again over the handsome Russian and then exchange hugs.
“See you on Friday for the kids’ benefit concert,” she says, pulling back from the hug. “The parents are really excited to have the Milo Barnett-Woods performing for them at the fundraiser.”
“Oh, stop!” I blush, despite knowing that it’s true. It’s taken me a while to get used to being pseudo-famous among our group of friends and fellow parents. After a few years at school, my career took off in stunning fashion. With Neil’s support, I toured as a concert pianist for a year or two, but I didn’t like it because it took me away from him and Jade. So now, I only perform in the Tri-State area so that I can be close to the ones who mean everything to me.
“You stop!” Carla said playfully, flicking a finger at my nose. “Humble is fine, but take your due, my good friend. You’ve worked so hard for this wonderful life you have, and I’m so proud of you for—” Her cell phone rings, interrupting whatever else she was going to say. “Oops! That’s my love calling. I guess I’ve be
en up here longer than I thought.”
I laugh. “Go, before he comes up here looking for you.”
“Fine, fine!” We hug again, and Carla rushes off to the elevator and down to the street, where her husband is not-so-patiently tapping his heels.
A moment later, Neil comes back down the stairs. “Is she gone already? I was going to invite her and Gary to dinner later this week.”
I smile, lifting my arms to twine them around Neil’s neck and kiss him. “Are you going to cook again?”
Neil made dinner last night, and it was amazing. Even Jade had seconds, and she’s a fussy child who only eats a few things on the food pyramid.
“Not this time, unless a certain someone has a special request.” He presses a kiss to my throat, and I moan with pleasure. It’s been incredible having Neil home these days.
Barely three years after we married, he reached his financial peak. Now, he’s training his former assistant, Shelly, to be his second-in-command at the company while he spoils me and Jade with more of his time and attention. My happiness is so palpable that it’s scary.
I don’t know what I did to deserve this life of complete bliss — a husband I adore, a gorgeous baby girl, and a career I can be proud of. Sometimes, I have to pinch myself to confirm that I’m not dreaming.
Plus, the last few years have been a whirlwind. I’ve gone from being a journeyman piano player performing at random parties to a fulfilled husband, father, and concert pianist. Plus, I survived a kidnapping. Even thinking about that now feels surreal, even though it was only a few years ago.
But everything that goes around comes around. The man who orchestrated my kidnapping, Victor Lancaster, is in jail now while Don Hunt, the mobster who killed my old boss, is still running free. He thinks he owes Neil something, so he keeps away from us, but I know that it’s only a matter of time before the Justice Department gets him. You can run, but you can’t hide from the long arm of the law.
But I’m grateful my part is done. To finally be at the other end of those trying times is a relief, and now that we have a daughter, that kind of danger is out of the question.
“I’m so lucky,” I sigh into my husband’s devastating kisses. “My life can’t get any better.”
Neil pulls back to grin down at me with a devilish smile that always makes me hard. “I can think of a way your day and mine can get better,” he growls. “You ready, pretty boy?”
He grips my hips and presses his beautifully thick cock against my belly. I give him a throaty laugh and wriggle into the throbbing erection.
Oh, he always turns me on so much. Since Jade is walking on her own now, the days of making love all over the penthouse are over. But the passion between Neil and me is just as hot.
“Let’s take this upstairs, my songbird,” Neil murmurs in my ear.
Once we’re in our bedroom, Neil strips the clothes off my body, kissing every inch of skin he reveals. His delicious stubble rubs against my skin, making me purr with pleasure.
“I love you,” he groans into my belly button, sending delectable vibrations humming through my body as he drags off my boxers and sends them flying to the floor.
The rush of cool air against my cock is a shocking pleasure. I open my legs for him, and he slips between my thighs like he was born to be there. His rough leg hairs rub against mine, as his muscled chest drags across my tight nipples. His open mouth slants hard over mine. A rumble of pure masculine satisfaction hums in his chest as he devours my mouth.
“I love you, my darling husband.” I tear my mouth away from Neil’s and gasp out my adoration. Then he lifts my knees, pushing them back so that he can get access.
“Stay there, pretty boy,” he commands before reaching to the side drawer and grabbing the lube. Squeezing out a dollop, he smears some on himself and then a good amount on my tight pucker. I moan at the cool sensation even as my pleats tighten in anticipation.
“Good boy,” he murmurs, getting back in position again. His cock probes my tiny hole and I take a deep breath. This is it. My man, and his manhood. With a swift slide, he pushes into me, thick and perfect, even after all these years together.
We move together on the big bed. His hard rod strokes me deep inside, torturously slow and so damn good. My body opens up to take more of him, squeezing with my anal walls. I’m so full of desire for my gorgeous husband, and the squelching sound of our love-making makes me moan louder.
My ankles lock around his back, and my hips tilt back to give him better access.
“Neil, you’re so deep in my butt.” I whisper his name over and over as the pleasure inside of me builds and rises like the waves in a storm.
“I know, sweetheart, but that’s how you like it, right? You’re my little anal whore.” With those words, I plummet over the edge. Hot jizz squirts from my tip and splatters onto his chest, but it only pushes him to greater heights, and he increases the deep pounding in my butt.
I moan ecstatically, thrashing beneath him. With Neil, I’ve never felt safer. I’ve never felt more loved. I’ve never felt this much emotion, period. Being with him has been like living an incredible dream every single day of our lives together.
“My songbird.” Soft grunts build in his throat as he moves his beautiful dick inside me. His hips pump furiously, adoring me with each stroke. The tide of our desire carries us closer to that intense place of explosion we both crave. “I love you,” he gasps against my throat. “I love you, my songbird.”
When the explosion comes, it feels like a rebirth. Thick ropes of cum pump into my behind, and I see stars as my man lets out a huge roar of satisfaction. I have no words, but a thankfulness fills me even in the throes of ecstasy. After all, I have a man who loves me and the best possible life ever. This dream is my life, and my life is a dream.
I couldn’t be happier.
The End
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About the Author
J.P. James is an MM author who’s secretly been writing LGBTQ romance novels for a decade. She looks forward to bringing you more steam, heat, and passion between handsome billionaires, beautiful boys, and the men who rock her world.
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