“And you like it?”
Finally calm and relaxed, Mike let his So, head loll against the side of the mattress. “Duh,” he said in answer to Aiden’s question.
“Damn, Mike Zielinski, the good soldier boy saidduh. You must be high.”
“I meant yes, Sir. And yes, I am high, Sir.”
Aiden laughed at that and the happy sound set Mike off laughing too. Aiden was still giggling when he leaned down and gently bit the shell of Mike’s ear.
“You’re perfect,” Aiden whispered.
Mike shivered at the soft breath and intimate touch on such a sensitive spot. “Hmmm... I’m not. But thank you.”
Aiden stayed in the curve of his neck, nuzzling against him and whispering more words of how good he was.
“You’re an amazing fighter. And lovely and polite to the people you help. You look so damn good when you’re submitting to me. Big and beautiful and eager to please.”
Each compliment filled Mike with a happy glow that fit perfectly with the peaceful vibe from the weed. Finally, Aiden sat up straight again.
“What do your parents do?” he asked before drawing in another inhale of the lavender scented weed.
“They were bank robbers.”
Aiden choked and coughed on his inhale, short puffs of smoke bursting from his mouth.
“They werewhat?”
“Bank robbers,” Mike repeated as he calmly took the blunt back for his turn. “Down in Oklahoma where I’m originally from.”
“You said were. Are they in prison?”
“No. They’re both dead.”
“How?”
“Short version, they were killed during a heist.”
“And what’s the long version?” Aiden asked in a tone of hushed shock.
Mike turned to the side, resting his shoulder against the mattress so that he could look up at Aiden as he told his story. “We moved around a lot. When I was nine, I figured out why and what my parents did. They admitted to it when I asked them but they swore me to secrecy. I was never to talk about the family business.”
“Kids aren’t exactly the most reliable secret keepers.”
“I certainly wasn’t. I was trying to find a way to fit in at my latest new school and bragged about how cool my parents were. Told the kids on the playground that they knew how to pick locks and crack safes. Of course, those kids told their parents and eventually the talk made its way to the police. They were ready for my mom and dad when they tried to rob their next bank. Things went bad and there was a shootout. Both my parents were killed that day. I didn’t speak for years after that.”
“I’m sorry.” Aiden carded his fingers through Mike’s hair as he offered words of sympathy.
Mike shrugged. He missed his parents and it did hurt to think of them. But the pain had long since stopped being an open painful wound. “Thank you.”
“You blamed yourself,” Aiden accurately guessed.
“Yeah. They told me not to talk about it but I did. Plus, the shock... Anyway, my mother’s family had cut their ties with her long ago and they refused to raise or even acknowledge her child. And my father’s parents were already deceased. With no family to take me in, I ended up in the foster care system. I wasn’t young enough to be snapped up by a family that wanted a cute blue-eyed baby. And the fact that I didn’t speak, combined with my family history, meant the families thatwereinterested in an older kid gave me a wide berth on visitation days. I stayed in the system for years, moving from group home to group home until I aged out at eighteen. I went straight to the Army because I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”
“Wow. I would never have thought you had that kind of background. I pegged you as an Army brat following family tradition.”
“If I’d followed family tradition, I’d be one of the guys you took out with those flashy gold sai of yours.”
“Hmmm.” Aiden tipped his head to the side, his loose hair spilling over his shoulder. “But maybe I’d convince bad guy you to come to the good side.”
