Page 15 of Hunt Me

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My heart is racing,my legs carrying me back to the truck as quickly as I can move. I need lube and a condom. A perfect, round, pale ass wrapped in lace is patiently waiting for me in one of my favorite spots.

The idea of taking him over a gravestone makes my cock hard.

It makes him hard too. I saw it straining against his pants and then against those pretty panties he’s wearing.

The way he’ll feel bent over for me.

Or maybe he’ll run, and I’ll be able to chase my little rabbit.

Mm. The way his cheeks darkened when I called him that.

I liked it very much.

I reach the truck and hear the cat howling from its place in the cage. I move toward it, trying to calm it with my voice. I know it won’t work, but Milo insists I try.

“It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you. I only want to help,” I murmur, but it only screams louder, now clawing at the cage as though it can will the door open. I cock my head, watching it, wondering if I’d feel the same—stolen away and confined to a small place.

I think I wouldn’t like that. When I put myself in a small space like my coffins, I do it willingly. Happily. I do it when I need the pressure of being enveloped by silk and wood to calm me down.

So I don’t blame this little fucker for being angry.

I glance back toward the edge of the tree line where I left my little rabbit. He’s waiting so patiently for me.

I want to return to him, to take him, but the cat has gone suddenly quiet, and when I turn around, I see it on its side, its breathing labored. The cat’s tongue is sticking out, and I hear a faint panting noise, which tells me immediately that the cat is sick.

“Fuck.” If I let this cat die, Milo may have me fight to the death as retribution. Or at least until I’m sufficiently injured. And I don’t mean that as a metaphor. He literally beat the snot out of me when we were younger, when he felt I was in the wrong.

We might have changed over the years. We aren’t as violent as we used to be. But that doesn’t mean the core of who we are is different.

It makes me think of that man who was choking my little rabbit the night I was finally close enough to touch him. I felt rage inside of me, deep and ugly. The same rage I felt when someone tried to kill my best friend. The same rage I felt when someone took Milo—which was the night I earned my scar.

I am the same man I have always been, and I will draw blood willingly and happily if it means protecting the people I love. And the people who I know I will come to love, just like the man currently bent over a tombstone waiting for me.

Denver is perfection in this land of dying things, and I do not want to keep him waiting, but I also know that I have obligations, and I must fulfill them, no matter what.

As I peer back over my shoulder once more, dread fills my stomach as I realize what I must do. Denver won’t wait forever. He’s not the most patient man, which is something we can work on in the future when I have time for him and only him.

I will make it up to him, I think as I slip behind the wheel and start the truck.

Milo will never forgive me if I let a cat die because I want to fuck a man over a headstone. No matter how romantic it is. So I will do this, and then I will find my little rabbit and make it right again.

I will give him time and attention, flowers and gifts. I will spoil him until he’s liquid in my hands.

But for now, I will focus on this.

Thank god there are only two vet offices in town, and the one I’m bound for is run by a guy I’ve seen at the gym where most of Denver’s friends work.

I’ve spent way too much time in that parking lot, staring at the gray building with all the construction work being done after the fire. And normally, that wouldn’t be my business—and in fact, I don’t really give a shit about a building burning down—but Percy’s certain the fire has something to do with the reason we’re in this town.

This place is meant to be our sanctuary, the escape from the life our father raised us in, but it comes at a price. Percy, as usual, agreed to shoulder most of the burden. One hit—one final job—and then we’re released from our chains.

The only problem is, the man who ordered the hit has no idea who the target is. Percy was given bare-bones information, the location and the man’s job. Nothing else. But the fire wasunexpected, and it erupted without reason at one of the spots we were meant to be monitoring for Percy’s target, so now we’re trying to find out who’s responsible and why they hit the gym.

I don’t think it’s the vet, of course. His name is Palmer, and he’s a strange, awkward man—something I relate to—and he doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who’d be involved with people in our world.