Page 94 of Crave

“You might not wanna hear this.” He raised his eyebrows. “Less you know the better, eh?”

He was right. And the tone alone told me he was slipping back into lieutenant mode. Sharp, calculating, untouchable. The armour was back on. And I couldn’t bear to see it. Not after the hours before, when he’d been something else entirely. When he’d spoken about Levi, his mother, his sister. When I’d seen the man beneath the reputation: burdened, loyal, guilty, human. And how I’d been the one to bring it all back. It struck me, as I turned away and reached for a pair of lounge bottoms, that yes, I’d been drawn to the danger of him at first. The thrill of it. The risk. But after seeing what lay under all that steel, I realised how easily I could fall for him.

“Do you drink coffee?” I asked as if this was any other morning after.

“Yeah. Two sugars.”

“Are you hungry?”

“Famished.”

He was punching in a number, one he clearly knew by heart. I caught the low rumble of his voice as I moved towards the door.

“I’ll find you some clothes.” I glanced back at the man I’d handed a get-out-of-jail-free card to and the faint, crooked smile he gave me as he murmured into the phone set my world alight.

“Yeah. I’m alive…” Then he was back into his world.

In the kitchen, I moved on autopilot. I made the good coffee, shoved two slices of Zara’s artisan sourdough in the toaster. Real butter, the good jam, smeared it on as if forgetting the world for a second. I piled it on a plate, wrapped the mug in my hand, and crept back upstairs. I paused at the bedroom door and listened through the gap, suddenly feeling like an intruder in my own home.

“Yeah…get the stash and take it somewhere far. Don’t care where, just far. Then destroy all phones. Burn any traceable link to Ghost or Cormac. Take the runners off the line…yes, Tyler, off the fucking line. No one sells. Everyone gives you their stash and cash. I want nothing on the street. You get me? Nothing. Leave Cormac to me.”

There was a rustle, a hiss of breath, someone speaking in the background. Razor scrubbed a hand through his cropped hair. “That little prick. Alright, send someone to find him. Bring him to me.”

I thought he was done so I pushed open the door.

He was on the phone, punching numbers. He spun as it went to his ear and looked up at me. Still naked except for white gauze wrapped around his ribs. I shouldn’t have stared, but I did. I wasn’t sure how many more chances I still had left to see him like that. And not just physically. His expression when he caught me was guarded. Not soft; as if the man on the line was a lens he couldn’t afford to lower.

“Yes, boss.” He lifted the handset, eyes flicking to mine as I set the tray on the desk. “I’m breathing… a safehouse.” His tone was clipped, controlled, but his gaze slipped away as he spoke. “I have something better…information. Yeah. I’ll meet you for a sit down at Joe’s caff.”

He hung up and exhaled, shoulders tense, looking for a second as if the world might finally cave in.

“Coffee.” I nodded to the desk. “Toast and jam.”

“Thanks.”

Razor flipped the phone, popped the SIM out, and crushed it between his fingers. Then his eyes found mine again. “Can I take a shower?”

I gestured towards the en suite. “Sure. Go ahead. Excuse the blood around the tiles.”

He snorted. Turned. Then came back. And I watched him drain the coffee, bite into the toast and before I could process it, he leant in and kissed me.

It hit like an aftershock.

But he pulled back, a flicker of awareness crossing his face, then he turned away. The gauze came loose in his hands as he stepped into the bathroom, leaving the door open. I stood there with my coffee cooling in my palm, watching the water cascade over his shoulders, streaking down the bruises and dried blood along his ribs.

I told myself not to look. Not to want. Not to care.

Then his voice came through the room, “Couldn’t give me a hand, could ya?”

I glanced up. He was half-turned, struggling to reach the dressing at his side. The water had loosened it, pink-tinged and threatening to tear. He didn’t need me to wash him. He needed help cleaning what he couldn’t reach. And maybe someone to keep him standing while he did.

So I set the mug down, slipped off my lounge bottoms, and stepped into the steam. The air was thick with heat and the scent of him. Soap, sweat, blood. I told myself I was only helping. Keeping him steady, cleaning the wound, nothing more. But the moment my hands found his skin, slick and hot under the water, I knew I was lying to myself.

I washed him. The slope of his back, the curve of his shoulder, the bruised plane of his ribs, careful where the wound pulled. And I pressed my mouth to the dip between his shoulder blades. His breath hitched once, a quiet sound swallowed by the water. My pulse matched it. Then his hand found mine and he tugged it forward, guiding it lower.

I didn’t stop him.

From behind, I wrapped my fingers around his fierce erection, and he reached back, catching mine with the same desperate rhythm. We moved together, bodies close but faces turned away, steam ghosting between us as if that could hide what we were doing. What we felt.