by Wasp, A. E.
“So is this.” His gaze challenged me to refute him. “Even if my having sex for money disgusts Ridge.”
“I think he’s angrier at you for not coming to him when you needed money, and disappointed in himself for not paying better attention, rather than disgusted by what you’re doing. Ridge is no choir boy.”
“I think he can be disgusted at the same time,” Breck said. “He’s multitalented that way.”
God, he was even more adorable when he was being stubborn. “Well, if he is, I think it’s more about what you did with the money he gave you than what you’re doing to earn it back. Judging from the little bit of conversation I heard, that really wasn’t your money to give away, was it?”
“You know, I didn’t ask him to give me that money!” Breck said, blue eyes blazing. “I tried to refuse it a hundred times. I knew it came with strings, no matter what Ridge said, and I didn’t want this fucking expectation between us, like he was investing in me, and I owed him some kinda return on his money!”
I frowned. “Jesus, Breck. It’s not about strings! He’s worried about you getting hurt. Hurt by your mom.” I paused and looked at him significantly. “Hurt by a client.”
“Screw you. Now you’re on his side?” He crossed his arms over his chest and glared at me.
“No.” I leaned back against the couch, trying to look as nonthreatening as possible. “I’m not on anybody’s side but my own. I’m just saying you might want to cut him a little slack. Because it sounds like he went to a lot of trouble to get you a shit ton of money so you could make a better life for yourself. And you just turned around and gave it to your mama, who doesn’t sound like the most fiscally responsible person in the world.”
“Don’t act like you know anything about my mother.”
“Not your mother, specifically, but I know a lot about addicts, kid. And I know whenever they come around asking for a lot of money, it’s not because they’re collecting money for Toys for Tots.”
“No shit! But you know what? I didn’t give her the money because I’m an idiot, okay? I gave it to her because… well, because I had to. And I don’t have to defend my choices to you or to him. This is my life. I’m a grown man, the exact same age as he is! If I wanna risk my life, I will. If I want to have sex with someone for money, I will.” He crossed the room, locking eyes with me the entire time. I didn’t stop him as he climbed back onto my lap. “And if I want to have sex with somebody not for money, I will.”
I set my hands on the back of the couch, trying not to touch him. “Breck.”
“What? I want you, Steele. And I know you want me.”
I winced. That obvious, huh? “For right now, I work with your brother. Your very protective brother, who doesn’t want anyone taking advantage of you. You and me… that would make things complicated.”
His reply was succinct. “Fuck Ridge.”
“He’s not the boss of you?” I asked, trying to lighten the mood.
He put his hands on my shoulders and leaned in and spoke directly into my ear. “No one is the boss of me.”
Goddamn. I had no doubt that was true. And it was going to make protecting him very difficult.
He would hate being packed away like a princess in a tower no matter how angelic and delicate he appeared. Since I couldn’t do that, I’d have to do the next best thing. Stay close to him at all times. That wouldn’t be hard, but right now, in this room at this moment, the thing he needed protection from the most was me.
Despite all my flirting and the come-ons, I was actually a little frightened of the idea of sleeping with Breck. One of the reasons I knew about addictive personalities so well was that I was one. I could tell from that one taste of Breck that I could become addicted to him twice as easily, and I didn’t know if that was an addiction I’d ever be able to break. I already loved the way he felt straddling me, and it was taking all my self-control not to grab him, pull him against me, and kiss him until we both lost our minds.
But Breck didn’t belong in my life, he didn’t belong in this house. And he certainly didn’t belong in the bed of some douchebag senator. He belonged someplace better with good kids doing good things that would make the world a better place.
I wasn’t sure how to convince him of any of those things, though, without coming off as pushy and overprotective as Ridge had.
Breck’s lips touched my ear, and I shivered. I reached for his hips to push him off, I swear, but apparently my body had other plans. My fingers tightened around him, my thumbs slipping into the grooves of his hipbones as if those delicate hollows had been carved just to fit me.
He nipped at my earlobe, his fingers tugging at my hair, and my cock jerked. I could feel him smirking against my skin.
“Senator Harlan,” I blurted.
Understandably, Breck leaned back, not accidentally grinding his ass against my growing hardness. “Wow. Way to kill the mood. What about him?”
“We have to stop him.”
“No shit. That’s why I’m trapped in a mosquito-infested state with my judgypants brother and his psycho group of Super-frenemies. Can we at least fuck before we fire up the jet and take down the bad guys?”
I slid my hands under the hem of his shirt. Damn, his skin was soft and the muscles under it were sleek and strong. He was gorgeous and fiery, and I wanted to protect him more than I’d ever wanted to protect anyone. The best way I knew to do that was to eliminate the threat.
Breck leaned in to kiss me, and I let him for a long second. I’m only human. But before things could get too heavy, I pushed him away gently. “Sweetcheeks, we can’t do this.”
“Yeah, we totally can.” Breck settled heavily in my lap, shifting so he dragged his ass across the erection pressing painfully against the seam of my cargo shorts. He groaned softly. “We absolutely should do this. Ridge can fuck himself.”
“That, right there, is a reason why we shouldn’t,” I said firmly. “I’m not into you using me to score points against your brother.” My totally not-virtuous dick, meanwhile, was screaming use me, please use me.
Breck shook his head. “Ridge isn’t here right now.” He reached down and popped the button on my shorts with a quick flick of his wrist. “Hello, beautiful,” he said as he rubbed his thumb over the head of my cock.
“Fuck, Breck, you’re going to kill me.”
“Well, we can’t have that now, can we? If you die, who will protect me?”
“I thought you didn’t need protection?”
“Hmm.” He slid his hands down my shorts, cupping his palm against my cock. “Damn, you’re a big boy. I tell you what, you let me get my mouth around this delectable cock, and I might let you protect me.”
“Fucking hell.” I was trying to hold on, but I’d been half hard around Breck since yesterday morning, and it had been months since I’d been with anybody. My encounters tended to be quick, anonymous, and basically forgettable. I didn’t think anything with Breck would be forgettable.
Breck laughed at me, and I broke.
Wrapping my arms around him, I pushed him down to the couch with a growl. He laughed again, wrapping his arms around me and grabbing onto my shirt with both hands. “You want this?” I rested on my elbows and searched his face — his bright blue eyes, his pink lips — for the truth.
“Fuck you! Yes, I want this. What else do I have to do? Send you an engraved invitation? Because I will. I bet Josie knows where to find one.” He struggled underneath me, as if trying to get away. I pressed my weight down, grinding our cocks together in a way that rode the border between pleasure and pain.
“Oh, god, yes. Kiss me,” Breck said.
With one massive exception, I had never been one to disobey a direct order. I kissed him. His soft lips parted beneath mine, and he wrapped his legs around my waist as best he could. His mouth was hot, and the small whimpers he made as I tongue-fucked him were even hotter.
I fucking loved kissing, and it had been a long while since I’d been able to take my time and le
arn the taste and feel of a man’s mouth.
Breck’s hands were all over me slipping under my shirt as far as he could reach. His nails dragged lines down my back. The leather squeaked under us as we dry humped like teenagers.
Breck moaned into my mouth, his fingers slipping under the leg openings of my shorts and digging into my thighs.
“Jesus, Steele,” he panted. “Please, let me blow you. I have to blow you. Please, please. I’ll make you lose your mind. Fucking let me get my mouth on you.”
My entire body shuddered, my balls pulled up tight as the combination of begging and ordering pushed me right to the edge of orgasm. I dropped my head to the curve of his shoulder and bit gently on the cords of his neck. Holy shit. We still had all our clothes on. What would it be like when I had him alone to myself for hours in a private room? I might not survive that.
Breck laughed, loud and incredulously. “Goddamn, you feel fucking amazing.”
Suddenly, I remembered I’d never heard the door close after everyone left. With a feeling of dread, I pushed myself up high enough to look over the back of the couch. Sure enough, the door stood halfway open. “Shit.”
“What?” Breck asked, even as he grabbed the front of my shirt to pull me back down.
“Door’s open. Anyone could’ve walked in or heard us from outside.”
“Good. I hope Ridge got an eyeful.” Breck’s mouth and chin were red from kissing and stubble burn. A flush of arousal tinted his cheeks pink, the rosy glow disappearing into the neck of his T-shirt.
Okay. I had to stop. With one last kiss, I pushed myself reluctantly off Breck. I fell back against the arm of the couch.
“What the hell?” Breck pushed himself up on his elbows, his hard cock tenting the front of his shorts. “You can’t just fucking stop.”
“Not like this,” I said.
“Like what, then? Do you want to go to my room?”
“No. I think we should stop.”
“Why in the hell would we stop now?”
“Because, when we do this, if we do this, I want to know that you want me for me. And that it has nothing to do with proving something to your brother or to yourself.”
“Huh,” Breck said. “Is that so?”
“It’s for the best. For us, and for the mission.”
Breck nodded. “For the mission.” He popped the button at his waistband and unzipped his fly slowly. Licking his lips, he pushed his shorts down to reveal a cock just as pretty as he was. He had a thin happy trail leading to a nicely trimmed nest of gold curls. His cock was long and hard, pink shading to dark red at the top. He wrapped his hand around it, and his eyes fluttered shut as he dragged his hand slowly from bottom to the top.
“Oh, Sweetcheeks, what are you doing to me?”
“This isn’t for you, and this isn’t about my brother. This is for me.”
I couldn’t help myself. I leaned forward, crawling over to him. He stopped me with a hand to my chest. His other hand didn’t stop moving on his cock.
“No. Stay still or leave.”
My cock was so hard, it hurt. Obediently, I sat back so that I wasn’t touching any part of him. Gorgeous bastard made a show of it. Caressing himself slowly, breathing heavily and groaning. The whole time, he kept telling me how good it felt, how much he loved it. His hand moved faster and louder until the slap of flesh against flesh was so loud, they must’ve heard it downstairs. I didn’t care if they did.
I bit back the don’t stop that desperately tried to force its way out. I was panting as hard and as loudly as he was. I kept my hands clenched on the back of the sofa, so hard my knuckles turned white.
Breck’s chest heaved, and I could tell he was close. The tips of his ears, the skin over the bridge of his nose, and the delicate curves of his cheekbones flushed dark pink, and his thighs trembled.
Eyes locked on mine, he reached under his shirt and pinched his nipples harder than I would have dared. “Oh, fuck,” he groaned, his hand speeding up on his cock. “Oh, fuck.” He shoved his fist into his mouth to muffle his shout, and his back arched up off the sofa as he came, shooting onto the glorious, smooth skin of his stomach.
I clenched my teeth together so hard, I thought I heard something crack. Lust stabbed sharply into my gut as my balls tightened painfully. Biting my lip against a yell, I pressed my hand against my cock and came, shooting hard and seemingly endlessly into my briefs.
Breck ran the finger through the pearly streaks on his chest and then sucked it clean.
My body trembled with a huge aftershock as I watched his eyes close in bliss.
I had been right. I was addicted to him; his taste, his sounds, his laughter, his eyes, and his spirit. And I hadn’t even had to touch him to feel the high.
“We’re going to get this guy,” I said as my breathing evened out and my heart rate settled back to normal.
“I know you will.”
I clamped my lips shut against the need to say more, to make promises about what would happen once the mission was complete. That was exactly the kind of thing I was trying to avoid.
We had just pulled ourselves together when Josie knocked quietly on the door.
“Lunch time,” she said in her sweet southern voice. “If you boys are hungry.”
Josie wasn’t old, but she was still the kind of woman who would call every man under the age of ninety “boys.”
“We’ll be right down, Josie,” I said. “Thank you.”
As we walked down the stairs, not touching but completely aware of each other, I swore I would bring Harlan’s world crashing down around him. He had to be stopped.
I’d met many men like him in my line of work. They were like wild tigers that had gotten their first taste of human flesh and had to have more. Harlan wouldn’t stop. The power of having someone else’s life in your hands had turned stronger men than him into monsters. If he got away with hurting Breck and Danny, there would be more lives ruined in his wake.
8 Breck
“Hey,” Danny said, knocking gently on my open door. “You up for a swim?”
I had been lying on my stomach in the middle of my big, four-poster double bed, idly scrolling through Tumblr on the secure, encrypted tablet Josie had given me to replace my possibly-traceable phone, but I looked up at Danny’s knock.
Damn, but the sun had done good things for him. He was wearing another tight little Speedo – he seemed to have an endless supply of them – and every inch of his visible skin was golden brown and glowing.
Last week, I would have salivated over him. Right now, all I could think about was one particular jerk who’d refused to lay a hand on me, even after I’d literally begged him, and had avoided me like a contagious rash ever since.
I rolled over, flopping on my back like a starfish. “Nah,” I told Danny. “I’m good.” I was exhausted and enervated at once, and not even the delightful men of Tumblr could hold my attention.
“You sure?” he asked. “I’d love the company.”
I looked over at him again, more closely this time. Though he looked healthier than ever, his eyes were troubled and more haunted than they’d been yesterday. Maybe he was freaked out about tonight’s mission, where Carson – aka, Ben Waters – was going to infiltrate Senator Harlan’s house.
I knew I was.
“Yeah,” I said, sighing deeply. Maybe some exercise would be good for me. “Okay. I’ll get changed and meet you down there.”
He nodded, then disappeared down the hall while I put the tablet on my nightstand and levered myself off the bed.
All but the one small duffle bag of stuff I’d brought to Chad’s house was in storage back in D.C., so I had to knock on Ridge’s door to beg for a bathing suit. I wasn’t sure if I was relieved or disappointed when I opened the door a second later and found the room empty. Ridge and I hadn’t spoken since our showdown in the media room, and the standoff was gnawing at me.
The shitty part about being stuck here with no distractions was that I couldn’t
stop thinking about the shit Steele had said, that Ridge might be feeling guilty rather than judgmental, and worried rather than controlling. And annoyingly enough, the more I thought about it, the more I started to think he might have been right.
It had always been Ridge and me against the world, literally since the womb, and we’d fallen into roles over the years, without ever thinking about it. I had been the distraction, keeping kindly store cashiers engaged in helping me “find my Mommy,” while Ridge stuffed his jacket full of bread and Skippy, and snuck outside.
Then, later, I was the one who’d taken tests for both of us and gotten all of our homework done so the school would stay off our backs, while Ridge had been in charge of keeping the rent paid and the lights turned on. I was the one who’d taken care of our mother when she was high as a kite or, worse, coming down off something, while Ridge was the one making sure her fucking dealer didn’t come after us when she got in too deep. All the while, we’d been a team.
The older we got, though, the deeper Ridge seemed to sink into this criminal world, and the more he pulled away from me. He went after bigger scores with bigger paydays, trying to build something up so we wouldn’t be living hand to mouth all the time. And he encouraged me to focus on school, to do extracurricular activities like a “regular” kid. “Please, Brekkie. That’s one less thing I have to worry about, yeah?” I hadn’t exactly protested – I think I knew even then that Ridge was trying to live his “regular” teen life vicariously through me, and I was doing it for both of us. But I don’t think I got until this week just how fucked up our roles had become.
Somehow, he’d given himself over to darkness and put me on a pedestal. He’d decided he was corrupt and I was incorruptible. He’d convinced himself I needed the protection neither one of us had ever gotten as kids… and to be fair, thinking of the way I adored the protection and comfort Steele offered, maybe Ridge wasn’t too wrong about that. But I didn’t need it from him. He wasn’t being fair to either of us.
