Page 97 of Savage Lover

I love that I can do this to him. Nero is the most intimidating man I know, but for these five minutes, he’s at my mercy. I can tease those groans out of him with my tongue, and I can make him explode whenever I want.

I draw it out just a little longer. Then I go to work on him, building the pace and intensity until I know he won’t be able to hold back anymore.

Sure enough, his back arches and he thrusts hard into the back of my throat. I feel his cock twitching, before he lets loose a stream of boiling cum into the back of my throat.

He sounds like he’s being tortured. The pillow can’t cover it up.

I don’t care—I love making him yell. He’s done the same to me plenty of times.

I keep my lips wrapped around his cock until I’m sure he’s done. Then I let go, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.

“You’re going to kill me,” Nero says, from under the pillow.

I laugh, absurdly pleased with myself.

“Now you can go,” I tell him.

He throws the pillow aside, his eyes narrowed at me.

“No fucking way,” he says. “Not until we’re even.”

He pounces on me, throwing me down on the mattress and climbing on top.

22

NERO

Planning a job is like building a Rube Goldberg machine. One where you only get a single chance to move the ball from point A to point B. You set up all your pulleys and ramps, your levers and wheels. And then finally, when you’re certain that every part of the machine is perfect, down to the tiniest angle, then you set your ball rolling. If it makes it all the way to the end, you get away with the money. If it falls short, you and all your friends are spending the rest of your life in prison. As a best-case scenario.

I never really focused on the consequences before.

Having Camille involved changes that. I can’t let her down. I just can’t. She won’t take money from me. But we can steal it, together.

I’ve got Mason fabricating the equipment we need, using his uncle’s shop. Jonesy is back on his meds—or so he swears—and back to researching the alarm system of the Alliance Bank, instead of obsessively researching QAnon conspiracy theories like he’s been doing the last four months.

I’ll be the one doing the actual safe-cracking. I built myself a scale-model of the mag-lock door system and the electrical grid, which I’ve been practicing on blind-folded so I can do it by touch alone. And I’m figuring out exactly where Camille should be the night of the heist, to lead our friend Schultz on a merry chase, with enough time left over so she can pick us all up afterward.

The only thing I don’t have is muscle. Dante is still uninterested in the job, though at least he hasn’t ratted me out to Papa about it. I could get someone else, but I don’t trust anybody else outside the little circle. And it probably won’t matter in the end. If all goes to plan, there won’t be any bullets exchanged, or any blows either.

If there is, I’ll just have to handle it myself.

So there’s one last thing to sort out. One little mystery that I want to put to bed once and for all.

I have to take a road trip to do it. I was planning to go alone. At the last minute, I ask my little brother if he wants to come along.

Sebastian has always been on the periphery of the family business. He made it clear that he had no interest in running poker rings or shaking down developers for cash. He wanted the straight life—college education, college athletics, maybe even a professional career.

Then he went from basketball star to barely walking in one night.

He doesn’t hold a grudge against Callum or Aida—the feud between our families is water under the bridge. But it changed him. He went from gentle and dreamy to silent and unpredictable.

He’s still attending classes at the U—in fact, he took them all summer long, staying on campus instead of coming home for a few months like he usually does. He barely ever comes home on the weekend anymore, either. When he does, he looks hungover.

I know what it’s like to have one night change your life. To have a demon crawl inside of you and take up residence.

I call Seb up and ask him if he wants to drive out to Braidwood with me.

There’s a long silence on the other end of the line, then Seb says, “Yeah. Why not.”

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