And I am going to destroy Nathan Grant with a hard-on throbbing behind my zipper and a promise already sharpening in my teeth.
I sit there in the passenger seat, staring out at the blur of trees and half-dead towns, pretending my pulse isn’t still hammering in my throat from the image burned into the back of my eyes—Julian, sprawled in my bed like he owns the fucking place, hand wrapped around his cock, mouth buried in my hoodie like it’s the only thing keeping him from unraveling. He looked wrecked. Worshipful. Dangerous.
He looked mine.
And I could’ve let it go—could’ve tucked the phone away, locked the feed, buried the memory under layers of cold focus and turned back to the hunt like a good little predator. But restraint has never been my fucking virtue when it comes to him, so I pull the phone out again, open his thread, fingers moving before my brain can talk itself out of it. No emojis. No punctuation. No explanation. Just three words: Do it again.
Then I hit send—no hesitation, no regret—watching the text fire off like a bullet I’ve already chambered for his chest.
Misha glances over again, eyes slicing to the screen just as I lock it. “You’re smiling.”
“I’m not.”
But maybe I am, the corner of my mouth twitching like it knows something the rest of me is still pretending not to feel.
He scoffs, low and amused. “Fuck me. You really got it bad.”
I lean my head back against the seat, close my eyes, and let the image flood back in perfect, obscene detail—Julian gasping into my scent, hips stuttering against the sheets, whispering something I can’t hear but feel bone-deep, like a prayer only I’m allowed to answer.
Do it again, little halo. And maybe next time, I’ll be there to finish it.
The drive is only supposed to be a couple of hours—quiet backroads, long stretches of nothing, a gas station every fifty miles and the kind of silence most people would kill for. I’d usually appreciate it. Hell, sometimes I need it. That cold emptiness between cities, the silence before a kill. But today? I’m crawling out of my fucking skin.
I’ve chewed the inside of my cheek raw. Lit twelve cigarettes. Smoked maybe six of them halfway before stubbing them out like they tasted wrong, the rest burned down in the ashtray untouched while I stared at the window and thought about how Julian looked when he came all over my sheets. How his thighs trembled. How his mouth moved. How he said my name, I know he said my name.
I’m out of smokes now. And out of patience. My fingers twitch against my thigh like they’re itching for a trigger or his skin—either one would do at this point. Preferably both.
Meanwhile, Misha hasn’t shut the fuck up in forty-five straight minutes. “—and then he fucking vanishes again. Vanishes, like I’m the problem. Like I didn’t just take a knife to the kidney for him last week. You’d think a guy would at least text you after that, right? But no. Not a word. And then last night—last fucking night—he leaves a note, Rafe. A note. ‘Don’t wait up.’ What am I? His wife?”
I grunt. “You sound like it.”
“I feel like it,” Misha snaps. “You know what I did? I waited up. Like a dumbass. On the roof. Had a drink ready. Thought maybe he’d finally say something real. Nope. Just radio silence and three new corpses with piano wire smiles.”
“He was working,” I mutter, jaw clenching again, because my brain is not in this car anymore. It’s back at the compound. Back in my container. Back in that goddamn frame where Julian’s got his knees spread and my hoodie up around his face like it’s the only thing that still feels safe.
Misha groans. “Working, my ass. He’s ignoring me on purpose. He likes the control. The drama. The—what’s that word—dynamic.”
“You like it.”
“I want to staple his mouth shut and kiss him through the bandages,” Misha growls, then pauses, rethinking the words out loud. “Wait. That sounded weird, yeah?”
I don’t answer.
Because I’m three seconds from yanking the wheel and slamming this car into a fucking tree just to feel anything other than this slow-burning ache, my cock hard for two straight hours, throbbing so viciously I can’t even think about jerking off without Julian’s face flooding my skull—his mouth open on that moan I never actually heard but my soul fucking did, raw and wrecked and mine.
Because I need this job done fast, clean, brutal—need Nathan Grant erased so I can get the hell back to my bed and the boy currently destroying himself on it.
“Hey,” Misha says, glancing over again. “You good?”
No.
But I nod anyway, jaw locked, because Nathan Grant is a couple miles ahead, and the faster I burn him out of this world, the faster I can go home and make Julian scream until his voice gives out.
My phone buzzes—just once, a single sharp vibration against my thigh, barely audible under the engine’s growl and Misha’s low muttering about Corso ghosting him again.
I shouldn’t check it. We’re five minutes out from Florence Grove, Nathan’s last known ping, armed to the teeth, already riding the razor edge of the hunt. But something in my chest yanks tight like a leash, and my fingers are already reaching, unlocking the screen before reason can stop them.
One message.
