Pros & Cons of Vengeance

by Wasp, A. E.

  Then again, Harlan was high on his own self-importance. Maybe he kept his shit protected with a friendly golden retriever and a padlock.

  “We’ll find out.”

  “I want to get that Cisco guy, too,” Ridge said. “Even if we give him the benefit of the doubt, say he didn’t know what kind of scum Snow White was the first time, he damn sure knows now. And he’s sending Breck and Danny back into that torture chamber.”

  Cisco. One of Harlan’s procurers and Breck’s pimp. “Don’t worry,” I said. “We’ll take him down, too.”

  Leo met my eyes in the rearview mirror, looking like he wanted to say something. Wisely, he kept his thoughts to himself.

  Back at the house, Ridge headed straight for his room. I’d expected him to go talk to Breck. They had to talk, sooner rather than later, but his loss was my gain.

  My brain knew Breck was safe in the house, but after dealing with Harlan all evening, feeling his filthy hands on me, my heart wasn’t so sure. I’d feel better once I saw him.

  I could admit I’d been avoiding him. I’d told myself I needed space to concentrate on the job, and that was partly true. But more than that, the guy scared me. Made me wanna rip the senator’s head off and break the hands of every guy who’d ever laid a finger on him in anger. I was taking the mission personally for the first time in a while.

  Once the job was over, we’d see what, if anything, we could have. A good time at the very least.

  * * *

  “Where’s Breck?” I asked Wesley when I dropped off my tech for him to check out.

  “Am I his keeper?” he asked, mock-offended.

  I raised my eyebrows and looked deliberately at the monitor on his desk that was very clearly displaying video feeds from inside the house.

  “Okay, fine. He’s in his room with Danny.”

  “What are they doing?” I took a step toward the monitor as if I could control the cameras with my mind.

  Wesley shrugged. “Dunno. There aren’t cameras in the bedroom, at least none that I’ve found yet. Believe me, if there was one in there with them, I’d be watching.”

  “You’re such a fucking horn dog, Bond. I had no idea.”

  “I’m a healthy young man with healthy appetites, Alvarez.”

  I slapped him on the back so hard, his chair rolled forward. “That you are. Just keep them away from Breck.”

  “And Danny?”

  I wanted to tell him to keep away from Danny, too, if only because the kid was so young and obviously had had some trauma in his life before his run-in with Senator Douchebag, but Danny was an adult, legally. Besides, I’d keep an eye on them. “Danny can make his own decisions, but I’d be cautious if I were you. Kid’s been through a lot.”

  Wesley leaned back in his chair. “Yeah, he has. I’d love to get his story.”

  “Well, take him out to dinner or something when all this BS is done.”

  Wesley snorted. I left him to it.

  I told myself there was nothing going on between Breck and Danny, but I’d seen evidence with my own eyes that they’d shared a bed before. I’d been ignoring Breck, so it would make sense for him to turn to the only person he knew here besides his brother. And, like Wesley said, he was a healthy young man with healthy appetites.

  I wouldn’t blame him. That would be fine. It wasn’t like we were dating or anything.

  Yeah, like fuck it would be fine.

  By the time I hit the hall outside Breck’s room, I was not quite running, but I would have placed in a speed-walking race for sure.

  Knock or barge in? Knock or barge in? My brain argued with my body, and in a surprising turn of events, my brain won. I knocked. Like a normal person.

  “Come in,” Breck called.

  I did.

  To my great relief, both guys were fully-dressed and watching a show on Breck’s iPad. Well, Danny wasn’t quite dressed but as covered as I’ve ever seen him. His shorts actually hit the tops of his thighs. No shirt though. I could tell by his tan he’d been making the most of his time here. Something of my relief must have shown in my face, because Breck smiled at me like he was amused and turned on at the same time.

  Danny rolled off the bed. “That’s my cue to leave.”

  “You don’t have to leave,” I lied. “I don’t want to interrupt your movie.”

  “Yeah, no. Hot as it would be to have a three-way with you guys, I have a feeling I would be something way beyond a third wheel here. Of course later, if you want a third, you know where to find me.” He winked and flounced out of the room.

  Breck set the tablet aside and patted the bed next to him. “How’d it go?”

  “I’m going to kill him,” I said. “Harlan. He’s dead.”

  I stood next to the bed, staring down at the gorgeous man.

  “For me?” Breck swung his feet off the bed and sat up, looking directly into my eyes.

  “For you.”

  He stood, sliding up against my body. My arms wrapped around him, and my mind short-circuited.

  Fuck whatever objections Ridge had and whatever stupid part of my brain had been holding me back. I needed to hold him, I needed to feel Breck whole in my arms.

  “Think we can take him down?” Breck molded to my body, his arm reaching around my waist.

  “Yeah. I do. I wasn’t sure at first, but I think it’s gonna work. I gotta say, Charlie pulled a good team together. He knew what he was doing.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I trust these guys. I mean, not with my life or anything. But they’re not fuck ups, you know?”

  “Even Ridge?”

  “Let me tell you, your brother can be a scary guy.”

  “Yeah. I like that about him.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Are you scared of him?” Breck asked me.

  “I’m more scared of you.”

  10 Breck

  Steele’s entire body tensed against mine with his words, like he’d just confessed some deep, dark secret. Maybe for him, it was. But for me, his words were more like a magic spell, an incantation that took away all of my own worries and hesitations.

  I’d known from the first day that Steele wanted me - I’d seen his eyes heat and felt his cock thicken against me often enough that I didn’t doubt he was attracted - but wanting was common as dirt. If Steele wanted to get his rocks off, he could find a willing partner anywhere. Hell, he wouldn’t even have to leave the house, if the admiring glances I’d seen Leo throw him were any indication. He could get in, get off, get out, and get on his way without a single complication.

  Meanwhile, between us was a veritable complication minefield.

  A sick-as-fuck senator was threatening Danny and me, my overprotective brother kept inserting himself into my business like the chaperone at an eighth-grade dance, and Steele’s own moral code seemed determined to make him step back every time he got close to me. Steele wasn’t even aware of what Danny and I had been planning before he came in tonight, which was just as well, since it might make his head explode.

  What he did know was enough to make any guy run away screaming.

  But instead, Steele had come to me. He’d sought me out so he could tell me about the operation they’d run tonight, because somehow he’d known I’d find it comforting. He’d practically slammed the door shut behind Danny, even after Danny had made it clear he’d be down for a threesome – an offer other guys would have (and had!) paid big bucks for. Steele wasn’t just here for the sex, and neither was I.

  It should have been scary as fuck. It was scary as fuck, for a guy who’d never felt anything more than lust and, if I was lucky, simple affection, for the guys I’d taken to bed. Whatever this more-than-lust thing growing between Steele and me was, I’d never felt anything like it before, and I wasn’t sure I could trust it.

  But I knew I didn’t want to walk away from it, and I didn’t want him to walk away either.

  “You scare the shit out of me, too,” I whispered.

  He flinched.
/>
  Not exactly the reaction I’d been hoping for.

  I pulled back from his embrace and found his dark eyes wide.

  “Sweetcheeks, I really don’t want to hurt you. And I don’t mean physically, although obviously, that too. It’s just…” He hesitated. “I don’t want anyone to take advantage of you or force you to do anything. Including me.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “Right, and?” I did not like where this was going at all.

  “And… well, I think we should wait. Before we…” He gestured back and forth between us. “Just until things are done with Harlan. Once you’re safe – and I swear to Christ, Breck, I’ll make that happen no matter what I have to do – then when you have all the facts, you can decide if you really want… me.” He shrugged. “No pressure. No expectations. No feeling like you owe me or anyone else.”

  Is that what he was torturing himself with? He was adorable, he really was.

  “Steele?” I lifted up on my tiptoes and interrupted him by pressing a kiss to the stubbled underside of his jaw.

  He swallowed. “Yeah?”

  “Do you want me?” I whispered in his ear.

  “Oh, God. Sofuckingmuch,” he said in a rush, like the words had been sitting there dying to break free. His hands came up, almost involuntarily to grasp my hips. But then he cleared his throat and pushed me away, just slightly. “But that has nothing to do with anything. The circumstances are…”

  I couldn’t help grinning. “The circumstances are absolute shit,” I agreed. “But just so I understand, this isn’t about you needing to focus, right? And it’s not about you trying to let me down easy?”

  He let out a chuckle that turned into a moan when I licked his earlobe with the tip of my tongue. His hips kicked toward mine involuntarily, providing very welcome friction to my half-hard dick. “I should be focusing. I told myself I wanted to wait so I could focus. But my self-control is for shit where you’re concerned.”

  I should not have been so excited to hear that.

  “Are you worried about Harlan? Or about my damn brother?” I demanded. I let my hands drift up his chest and pressed my torso to his.

  “Not Harlan. I told you, our team is solid. And your brother is too professional to let personal shit interfere. But Ridge, ah… oh, fuck me,” he growled as I flicked my nails over his nipples. “That’s just not fair.”

  “Continue,” I demanded.

  Steele let out a shaking breath. “Ridge makes a…fuck.” He tilted his head to the side to allow me better access as I licked and sucked at the smooth, salty skin of his neck. “You really need to stop doing that,” he said.

  The lust in his voice was so palpable, my cock gave an answering throb.

  “Uh, no.” My breath brushed over his damp skin, and he shivered. “I’m pretty sure I need to do this more. A lot more.” I moved to lick his Adam’s apple, and my fingers drifted to unbutton the top few buttons of his shirt. The stupid things wouldn’t open. It was like the buttons were too big. “Fuck it.” I grabbed two handfuls of shirt, sending buttons flying.

  “Wait,” Steele mumbled as my hands mapped his chest. “Wesley put a…” Whatever he was trying to say dissolved into a moan as I pinched both his nipples.

  Steele whimpered, his hands clenched in fists at his side. “I’m tryin’ to do the right thing here, Breck. Be the gentleman I was raised to be, for once. Ridge wants to protect you, and maybe he has a point.”

  “God save me from overprotective alpha males,” I muttered. I grabbed his head in both my hands and forced his eyes to meet mine. “You listen to me, Castille Alvarez. I am a fully-grown man.”

  “I’m aware,” he said, more than a little breathless. His fists came to rest on my hips, and he was holding himself so tightly, he was practically vibrating. “I’m really, really aware.”

  “Excellent. So I’m sure you’ll understand that as an adult, I make choices about my own life.” I took a step forward, forcing him back a pace. “If I choose not to go back to college, that’s my business. If I choose to have sex with every fucking senator and all four-hundred-thirty-five Congress-people too, that’s my call.”

  “Right, yes, I know. It’s just right now…”

  “And after I make those decisions? I don’t need to justify them. Not to you, not to Ridge. I should not have to convince anyone that I was in the perfect frame of mind for decision-making, I shouldn’t have to get my primary care physician and a notary public to sign off on me being capable of making a choice, Steele.” I let go of his head and braced my hands on his chest, pushing him back another pace.

  “Breck, I’m not saying that you’re not capable of deciding any of that shit. Just…”

  “Just what? Just talk to Ridge and make sure he gives us his blessing? Gives you two cows and a donkey, and you sign a marriage contract? Hmm? Just wait until some arbitrary time when you’ve decided that I should have recovered from the level of trauma you think I should feel?”

  “I… that’s not… no! I just want to…”

  “Protect me?” I demanded. I pushed him again, harder this time, and he landed on my bed with a plop. “Yes, so you said.” I shoved his shoulders until he was lying flat on the bed, all six and a half feet of muscle sprawled on the white coverlet. He seemed stunned to find himself there.

  “The thing is, Steele, I like that you want to protect me. I do. Makes me allllll warm and gushy in the best kind of way. But right now?” I put one knee on the bed next to his. “At this exact moment?” I pulled my other knee up to straddle his legs. “Your protection is the last thing I want.” I braced my hand on his sternum. “Do you understand?”

  His smile bloomed across his face, warm like sunshine. “I think I’m beginning to.”

  “Right now,” I continued, pulling open the remaining buttons on his shirt with absolutely no care whatsoever. “There are no expectations and none of the other bullshit you said earlier.”

  “Okay.” Steele stacked his hands behind his head and watched me, grinning.

  “There is no one and nothing in this bed but us. No old men to trouble us, no ghosts of Breck’s questionable decisions to haunt us.” I rolled my eyes. “And for the love of Adam Rippon, no twin brothers reminding us to leave room for the Holy Spirit.” I bent down to place a kiss in the center of his chest and looked up to meet his eyes. “Because twincest is only hot in fiction.”

  He pressed his lips together and nodded. “Understood.”

  I sat up and spread the two halves of his shirt wide. The man was a fucking miracle – every muscle lovingly sculpted from marble and covered in warm, smooth flesh. I wanted to take my time, to taste every millimeter of that skin with my tongue… and I would. But first I had to make sure we were on the same page.

  I sat back, just a little – just enough to slide my ass along his cock. “Right now, Steele… I’m just a boy, kneeling on top of a boy… begging him to fuck me.”

  He laughed, deep and full. “Jesus Christ.” He lifted his hands to knit his fingers in my hair. “You are beautiful, you know that? Beautiful and crazy.”

  “Possibly,” I agreed. “But crazy in a very, very sane sort of way. So what I want to know, Steele, is are you going to say yes?”

  He bit his lip, and his black eyes danced up at me. He curled up from his abs with zero effort, then paused when his lips were directly in front of mine. “I don’t know how the fuck I could say no to you.”

  He kissed me, and his lips tasted like laughter.

  He rolled us both over, still cradling my head in his hands, and didn’t stop until he was totally on top of me. He paused for a second to take all of the pillows off the bed and throw them on the floor.

  “What the heck was that for?” I said, watching the incredibly expensive, memory-foam wonders go flying into the window and then crash to the floor.

  “We won’t be needing them,” Steele said matter-of-factly.

  I snickered. “Oh, is that so? Are you psychic? Or is there a script I wasn’t given?
”

  “Oh, there’s a script,” he confirmed. He braced his elbows by my shoulders, pinning my arms, and rolled himself against me, rubbing his hard cock back and forth against mine.

  Holy fuck.

  I should not be as primed as I was. I had crazy stamina, for God’s sake. I had fucking technique.

  “I made it up yesterday morning in the shower,” he continued. “I tweaked it last night in bed… twice… and then did the final revisions this morning.” He leered down at me. “Also in the shower.”

  If I thought too hard about Steele bringing himself off in the shower… and his bed… my brain would break or liquefy. So instead of begging him to tell me every last detail, which was pretty much what I wanted to do, I gave him an exaggerated pout instead.

  “Awww! That’s so sad for you! All that creativity and effort going to waste!”

  “And why is that?” he challenged.

  “Because I have a script, too!” I said. I bit my lip and let my eyes go hot as I gazed up at him, tracing my fingers over every inch of his naked stomach that I could reach with my elbows pinned. “I worked on my script in the shower, too… but I didn’t finish it.”

  His eyes glittered. “You didn’t?”

  I shook my head. “No. I realized I hadn’t worked… hard enough? You need to work on these things really, really hard,” I told him earnestly.

  He swallowed and stared at my mouth.

  “I tried again in bed last night, but I couldn’t quite finish then either. It was the last thing I did before I went to sleep and the first thing I worked on this morning.” I sighed dramatically. “I brought myself right to the edge of finishing so many times.”

  “And did you?” His voice was gritty, an octave lower than usual.

  “No,” I whispered, blinking up innocently. “I figured I should wait for you to… help me.”