by Aiden Bates
I was his prize already. I had been, since the moment I’d first asked him to stay. Now, it was my turn to see exactly what I’d won.
He left his belt undone, a promise, as he pulled off his t-shirt. For a man who made his living fighting in cages, his torso was completely devoid of scars. Instead, there was only muscle, ridges and trenches he’d risen and dug over the course of years in weight rooms and gyms. When I’d first met him, he’d been big, but lean still. Youthful, playful, puppy-like. What I was staring at now, though…Rusty had the body of a veteran fighter. Bigger, broader, so powerful looking that all I could do was lay back and stare in awe.
Then he tugged his pants down, and that awe only grew. His cock sprang up like a soldier’s salute, rock hard and ready. It made my chest flush, my mouth water. His thighs were thick, built for driving into me as rough as I wanted, as hard as I needed. Even his calves rippled with muscle as he kicked off his boots and stepped out of his jeans.
Perfection. He was perfection, pure and simple. And as he approached me, slow and determined, there were only two thoughts on my mind:
How the hell could any man be so fucking gorgeous, and how the hell could he really be mine?
“Spread your legs for me.” It was a gentle order, but one that I didn’t hesitate to comply with. I would have done anything he’d asked in that moment, but spreading my legs for him—for that, he wouldn’t have even had to ask.
“You want me?” I still couldn’t believe it. I’d hurt him. Just knowing me had hurt him. I needed to hear it from Rusty’s own lips, just to make it real.
“I want you, Daniel.” He settled between my thighs, his hands on my knees. He pushed me back, spreading me further. Baring me to him. His lips dipped down to my hole, coating his mouth in my honey. It left a hot, sticky lip print on my balls as he moved up to kiss them, his tongue flicking out to lick all the way up my shaft then all the way back down again. “Always wanted you. Always will.” He straightened, his gaze serious as he took his cock in his hand. “And you want me?”
“Yes,” I said immediately. “Always. Always will.”
A growl. His cock pressed against my hole, searching for resistance. There was barely any to be had, though. I was hot for him, soaked, eager to be filled and Rusty—he was always eager to oblige. First his tip, then an inch of his shaft, then another probed into me, stretching me so deliciously that involuntarily, my eyes rolled back.
“Rusty…” I gasped. “Yes…god, please—”
He stopped me, shaking his head and pressing a finger to my lips.
“Shh.” A little smile bloomed on his mouth. “Like I said. We do this my way this time.”
I could feel that smile on my own lips as he folded himself over me, claiming a kiss. I could taste myself on him, my tongue slipping against his, my heart racing, my body electric. Salty, hot and sweet.
He rocked into me like an entire ocean, a tide rolling in and out to lap against a white sand beach. With every thrust of his hips against my thighs, he found a new place to kiss me. My neck. My chest. My cheek, his teeth scraping against my skin. Suddenly, he shifted one of my legs up to his shoulder, and then his nose was tracing the line of muscle on my own calf. In the next moment, more kisses, so passionate and raw against my shin bone that it left every hair on my body standing on end.
Then he pushed into me again, even harder this time. Even deeper. So hard and deep, if it had been anyone else, it might have hurt.
But not with him. With Rusty, nothing ever hurt. Not anymore. He ravished me in the way that only he could, and my body was primed to take his every thick, hard, throbbing inch.
We growled at each other, rolling on the bed until it was creaking from the way we moved against each other. One moment, he was on top of me, his cock delving into my very core. The next, I was riding him, my fingers clawing at his back, my teeth bared in a snarl.
When I finally felt my orgasm rising in me, tendrils of pleasure and heat unfurling from my ass all the way through my body, he was on top of me again. Sweat dripped down from his brow onto my skin. I pulled him closer, lapping against his neck. Licking the salt off of him, tasting him, relishing every sensation, every moment.
I came explosively, the clenching of my ass reverberating into my balls until I was shooting cum between us both like a fucking canon. Only a second later, Rusty joined me. His balls tightened against my ass cheeks, pushing every drop of his seed deep into me and painting my insides pearly white with his own cum while my ears rang and my breath came up short.
“Mine,” I heard him growl in my ear in the moments after, almost distantly. A holy chant, a mantra. “Mine. Mine. Mine.”
Somewhere in my dreams early the next morning, I heard a phone ringing. But to my annoyance, it didn’t stop even after I’d blinked myself awake.
“Rusty,” I groaned, rolling over and swatting at his ribs. I didn’t want to be awake again. Not yet. I wanted to stay asleep in Rusty King’s arms. Possibly forever. This phone thing, it was bullshit.
“Phone?” Rusty smacked my hand away from him and sat up, blinking tiredly. “Mine or yours?”
“Yours. Has to be.” The sound of another ring crashed against my ears. After the night we’d had, I’d envisioned hearing church bells. This, though. This was an air raid siren. “Mine’s on vibrate.”
Rusty pulled himself up out of bed like the floor beneath his feet was the untrodden dirt of a new, suspicious land. He didn’t want to be up any more than I did. But at least when he answered the phone, it stopped ringing.
“Harper?” he croaked, then cleared his throat. “This had better be good.”
A pause. Faintly, I could hear Harper’s voice. It sounded…sharp. Alert. Panicked even, maybe.
Not a good sign.
Rusty hung up the phone without a goodbye.
“Get your clothes back on and meet me out in the living room. We’ve gotta get to a TV.” He tossed me my boxers, then slipped into his own, plus jeans and a shirt. If it hadn’t been for the urgency in his voice, I might’ve complained about that. Rusty was a fucking vision in boxers. Out of them, though…
But there wasn’t time for me to go imposing my jerk-off fantasies on Rusty now. Whatever Harper had called about, it was obviously a big deal. I struggled into my boxers, then threw on the rest of my clothes from last night before following Rusty out into the suite’s main room.
He was on the couch already, hunched over with one arm resting on his knee and a hand covering his mouth. In front of him, the light of the television flickered sinisterly, all red and blue.
“Rusty, what—”
His eyes met mine, the green in his hazel shining out like a warning.
“Come here, Daniel. You…you might want to sit down.”
My heart was beating in my throat as I took my place on the couch next to him. His fingers curled around mine immediately, squeezing my hand tight as I shifted my eyes to the television screen.
At first, it didn’t make sense. There was Alicia’s face on the screen, a picture from Facebook that I’d taken myself. She was smiling, looking gorgeous as ever. Radiant. Happy. I could even see the place where the broadcast team had cropped Lissa out of the picture. It was one of the ones I’d shown Rusty when he’d asked to see some pictures of our daughter. I knew that our little girl was there in spirit, dressed in her pirate costume just out of frame.
But why the hell was Alicia on the television screen? Sure, she was a knock-out, but how was that news?
The headline that followed answered my question. But first, it made my heart plummet from my throat into the pit of my stomach.
SPARTANBURG RESIDENT MURDERED. SUSPECT STILL AT LARGE.
Then Rusty’s picture came up on the screen. A bad picture of him, from after one of his fights. They’d cropped out his body, brought it in close so you could see his face. He was grinning like a mad man, with a black eye and blood splashed across his face. Not his own.
SUSPECTED MURDERER RUSSEL KING. The word
s were plastered across the screen like a curse.
As soon as I read them, my entire world fell apart.
21
Rusty
He sat there in shock for nearly a minute without moving. For that whole minute, I didn’t move either. I didn’t know whether to throw my arms around him and hold him to my chest, or to give him space. Let him deal with it on his own time, in his own way.
I’d lost so much time with Daniel, I was quickly realizing. If we’d had all the years that were owed to us, I would’ve known exactly what to do.
But then, finally, the tears welled up in his eyes. When that happened, I couldn’t stop myself. I took his body in my arms as it went slack. His tears soaked little raindrops into my t-shirt as his body was wracked with a sob.
I held him tight. There weren’t words that would make it better, but I knew what losing someone felt like. When Josh died, all I’d wanted was to be held.
So I could give him that. I couldn’t make right this wrong. Couldn’t make it better. But I could hold him until he felt better himself.
I was just gaining the space of mind to contemplate what all of this meant for me when Lissa’s door opened. Fuck—not a good time. She didn’t need to see the news reporter hanging outside of what was being described as a “grisly crime scene” any more than she needed to see my face up on the screen while the anchor called me a murderer.
I flicked the television off in an instant, but it was too late to keep her in the dark completely. I could feel Daniel try to stifle his tears, but that wasn’t how tears worked. When you lost someone and you felt it, you couldn’t turn them off. Just had to wait for them to pass.
“Daddy? Are you okay?” She balled up her fists and rubbed them against her groggy eyes. “What’s wrong?”
Daniel composed himself more quickly than I expected him to. His eyes were hot pink and already swelling as he pulled himself straight, but his voice was measured. Clear and strong.
“Come here, Lissa.” He patted his knee and sniffed against his wrist. “I’ve got some bad news.”
“What’s wrong?” Lissa repeated as Daniel pulled her onto his lap.
Poor thing. She knew that adults didn’t cry for no reason. She knew that something had happened.
I felt my heart break for her as Daniel broke the news.
“Aunty Alicia has passed away, honey. I’m so sorry.” Daniel’s voice broke like he’d just severed a vocal chord as he clung to our little girl. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“No!” The tears formed in Lissa’s eyes immediately—but there was anger in her chest, not sadness. She tried to thrash away from Daniel, punching him in the chest and kicking her little slipper-clad feet. “No she’s not! You’re lying! She can’t be dead!”
Her voice shattered into a sob as Daniel held her tight. All he could say was, “I’m sorry, honey. I’m so, so sorry,” over and over again like a mantra.
For a moment, I felt like it was wrong for me to even be in the room.
I didn’t know Alicia. I wouldn’t be able to remember the sound of her laughter, the smell of her perfume. All of her inside jokes with Daniel and Lissa were lost now. The memories that remained were ones that I didn’t have access to.
And seeing as I was being blamed for her murder, I didn’t even feel right saying, “I’m sorry for your loss.”
But Daniel and Lissa were hurting. I could feel that like it was a knife between my own ribs. While Lissa struggled and Daniel’s chest heaved with grief, I shifted my arms around them both.
“It’s okay to cry,” I told them. My own father would’ve told me differently, but I didn’t care. They didn’t deserve this, but it had happened anyway. So dammit, they deserved to be allowed to feel what they felt. “I’ve got you. Just…just let it out.”
But Lissa wasn’t having any of it. She was my kid too, after all. While Daniel’s sobs cracked beneath me, Lissa fought her way out of his arms.
“She’s not dead. She’s not!” Hot tears streaked her cheeks, but her brow was set into the deepest scowl I’d ever seen on her.
I knew it well. I’d scowled like that when my Omega dad died, too.
Lissa raced off, slamming the door to her room behind her. Daniel rose to give chase, but I held him back.
“Let her go, darlin’.” There was the sound of a book being thrown across the room from behind Lissa’s door—yeah, she was my kid alright. “She needs to let loose for a little bit before she can…process this.”
“She…she needs me,” Daniel stammered. He shook his head as his whiskey-colored eyes met my hazel-greens. “Shit…she’s gonna destroy Ernesto’s room.”
“He doesn’t keep anything in there that can’t be replaced,” I assured him. “She’s got my temper. Trust me—she’ll come out when she’s ready.”
Daniel sniffed, then nodded. “Yeah. M-maybe you’re right. Rusty…”
He took my hands in his, but I twisted them out of his grip so I could wrap my arms around him again.
“It’s okay. For once, you don’t need to monologue at me, darlin’.”
“No. Just…just let me say this, okay?” He pulled away, and I let him. “I know you had nothing to do with this. I know this is my father’s work.”
“Thanks, sweetheart.” I took his face into my hands, smoothing his tears away from his cheeks. “That means a lot. But it’s not me I’m worried about right now.”
“You should be, Rusty. You’re…they think you killed her!” Daniel’s lip curled with disgust. “That bastard told them this was you.”
“Probably.” I let my shoulders slump slightly. “Which is going to make getting to the bottom of this a lot harder. Moving around in Fort Greene is going to be limited for me now. Especially with Sorenson in bed with your dad and Governor Kelsey.”
Knowing that Rasner was behind this, I wouldn’t be surprised if Sorenson already had men at Harper and Nick’s house with their guns drawn.
“W-what are we gonna do now?” Daniel was giving it his all to hold himself together. I was proud of him for that. I knew how hard it must be. “How do we f-fix this?”
I wanted to tell him that I’d handle it. That he was safe and Lissa was safe and that they didn’t have to worry about any of it.
But that wasn’t fair to him. After all the lies that had been swirling around us since we met, it didn’t seem right to add one more to the dumpster fire.
“I don’t know,” I told him instead. “But between me, KPS, and my brothers, we’ll figure it out. For now…”
“I know.” Daniel leaned forward to rest his forehead against mine. He was burning up. His shoulders were trembling with how hard he was trying to fight back his tears. “You have to go.”
It might not have been the perfect time for a kiss. It was certainly a wetter, more bumbling kiss than I was used to when it came to Daniel. But where my words failed me, I knew my mouth could pick up the slack.
It wasn’t a goodbye kiss. It was a kiss that said see you soon. Stay safe. I love you.
Words that I’d never gotten a chance to say to him. Words that wouldn’t matter right now—not if I couldn’t figure this whole thing out.
And fast, too.
I left the safe suite with the salt of Daniel’s tears still on my lips. When I went down to talk to Ernesto, one look told me he’d already heard the news too.
“Rasner. That piece of shit.” Ernesto looked ready to grab his biggest knife and go after the congressman all by himself. “He’s trying to slow us down.”
“He’s succeeding.” I crossed my arms over my chest and stared down at the floorboards beneath my feet. “But why now?”
Ernesto drew his lips into a thin, grim line as he handed me a tablet from his desk. “This might have something to do with it.”
I held the tablet between my hands and stared down at the screen. Ernesto had an article about the upcoming vote on the Omega Workplace Rights act pulled up. A picture of the Omega protesters that had camped outside Rasner’s
offices was beneath the headline. The article said the vote would take place a week from now.
“He’s just buying time?” I frowned. “A murder is a hell of a means to that end.”
“Keep reading.”
But reading further just made my frown deepen. The article went on to quote Rasner on the birth control scandal Josh had been digging into. The fucker reckoned that the recent outburst of rampant Omega heats proved that while Omegas were certainly just as capable as Alphas, there were biological realities in play that couldn’t be ignored.
“Now, we all hope that some day the concerns created by the Omega biology can be mitigated,” Rasner had told the reporter. “But we’re clearly a long way off from that day.”
“Bastard!” I snarled.
But Ernesto only shook his head. “Keep reading.”
Further down, I caught Josh’s name in the article’s text. Rasner had given a statement about Alicia’s death— “A great tragedy for the Sanderson family, the city of Spartanburg and the state of South Carolina as a whole”— then had been asked about the other recent tragedy in his district—the murder of journalist Joshua King.
It seemed that Josh still had friends in the journalism world after all. If it had been anyone other than Rasner answering that question, I was sure they would’ve cracked under the pressure.
But Rasner didn’t crack. Rasner had been waiting for that question for a long time, from the looks of things.
“After the loss of their brother, I understand that the remaining sons of the King family—Harper, Kaleb, and Russel—have been looking for an explanation. But while I sympathize deeply with their loss, I’m afraid their vigilante investigation has finally gone too far. Russel King has done something unforgivable. I have it on good authority that he is the primary and singular suspect in Miss Sanderson’s murder. I also have good reason to believe he’ll be in custody soon.”
Then, unbelievably, Rasner turned the commentary to Daniel, of all people. He spoke about how close Alicia was to the Rasner family. How this was the second time tragedy had struck them, and how he hoped for a day when men like me were all behind bars so that no other family would suffer like this again.
