Page 87 of The Contract

Dante’s smile is so fucking beautiful. He grabs me and kisses me again. It’s getting easier for him, and I love it.

Then he takes my hand and leads me to the steel door. He opens it, releasing the sound of whimpers and the scent of blood and piss, revealing the sight of Rafael, shirtless, bathed in blood, with a knife in his hand.

Rafael is gorgeous. His body is perfect, like Dante’s, but it’s marked by more tattoos than scars. There’s one on his lower abdomen that peeks above his waistband. His cock is still hard. His eyes are drugged looking.

My psycho boss.

“Don’t worry, kitten,” Rafael says to me. “I know he’s yours.”

That’s when I realize my lip is curled. I smooth my expression. Dante squeezes my hand then leaves me to walk over to the rack of tools. While he’s choosing, I look at the naked man bleeding and shaking in the chair. His head is hanging. His stomach is jerking with his harsh breaths.

This man raped my brother. He kept my brother from me.

This cell was made for men like him. Literally. That’s why Dante does this. He and Rafael. It’s strange to me now, how it looked wrong to me before, how it horrified me.

Dante says, “You can leave whenever you want.”

“I’m not going to leave,” I tell him. Then, as though he might not have understood me fully, I add, “Ever.”

He smiles again, that fucking beautiful smile, and chooses a hammer.

TWENTY-NINE

Dante

I don’t want to wake Tristan, so I don’t let myself touch him. I want to though. Fuck, I want to. Iseehim lying beside me, on his side with his back to me, breathing quietly, peaceful in my bed. But my hands want to prove what my eyes see, that he’s really here. That I’m here with him.

I couldn’t believe when the security feed showed me Noah’s truck pulling up to the warehouse and Tristan getting out. It meant a lot to me that Noah brought him. It meant that Noah trusted me, so I should trust myself. But I didn’t expect Tristan to trust me enough to approach, even if only to tell me he didn’t want to see me again. I definitely didn’t expect him to accept me as I am. He didn’t tell me to stop. He didn’t ask me to change. He told me … that he loves me.

He said it once before, but I didn’t let myself believe it, not when he’d been out of his head with lust. But today …

Fuck.

I need to touch him. I do it carefully, laying my hand lightly on his hip. He needs sleep. I know that I do too, but it’s impossible.

I breathe a sigh of relief at the contact. My cock is hard, of course, but I can deal with it. I just need this for a second.

His hand lifts and settles over mine. Without rolling over, he says, “I didn’t know you were awake.”

“I didn’t know you were either.”

“I was trying to let you sleep.”

“Same,” I reply.

We stay like that for a while, just sharing the silence. I love that Tristan doesn’t feel the need to talk all the time. He speaks when he has something to say.

He says, “I want you.”

“I want you too.”

He rolls onto his other side, facing me. The room is dark. My eyes are adjusted enough to make out the lines of his body but no more than that, and I’m glad. There’s something I want, but I don’t want him to see my face. I don’t want him to see how I might react. Even though I want it.

I take his hand and draw it toward my cock. He startles when he realizes that’s what I’m doing. Then he relaxes and lets me do it. I know Tristan can’t hear my heart hammering, but I’m sure he can hear my rapid breathing.

I close his hand around my cock. Nausea and revulsion roll through me in waves. A shudder wracks my body. A broken sound escapes me.

I guess he didn’t need to see me to perceive my reaction. But he simply lets me have that reaction. Without comment. Without pushing. Without pulling away.

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