Page 12 of Wiley A.F.

Her lips pursed together, and she stepped backward, peering up at me with her light brown eyes. Maybe she was testing me, and if that were the case, I failed miserably. My muscles froze, and a knot of nerves gathered in my throat with the next thought to pass through my head. If she caught on that I wasn’t who she thought I was, there was no predicting her next move. The piece strapped to my ankle suddenly felt like it weighed a ton. It would be a tragedy to waste such a gorgeous woman, but I couldn’t risk everything for her either.

I bent down, messing with my bootlaces even though they didn’t need tying, buying myself time to weigh the options. In reality, there was only one solution if she knew I wasn’t her fiancé. This house would finally have something to decorate these plain ass walls, even if it would only be temporary, it would be spattered with crimson, before we cleaned it and vanished into the night.

“Malcom, your brain has been all over the place these last few months.” Hearing her call me by my brother’s name felt wrong, and it resonated into my core. Despite all the questions I needed answers to, I wished for a moment the two of us could have met under different circumstances. The tension between us was almost palpable, and we were mostly just talking. “And what are you wearing? I’ve never seen you so…” Her tongue pressed against her upper lip as she paused. “Rough. I like it.”

A smirk pulled at the corners of my mouth, and I couldn’t stop it if I had tried. I liked how honest she was. Fuck. I needed to leave. This shouldn’t be as hard as it was. My body count was well into the triple digits at this point, so killing this woman shouldn’t make me hesitate at all. It did, though.

“Fine. Go meet Dave at Heelers, but hurry back, and you better be wearing that,” she said, holding her hand out for me to take. I obliged her, straightening my spine as I stood, expecting her to release me. She didn’t. Her teeth sunk into her bottom lip as she brought my fingers to her body. Before I could stop her, she shoved my fingers under her skirt and between her legs. “I’m already fucking wet for you, and I’ll be waiting.”

My eyes closed, and I breathed out the longest cleansing breath that I had ever in my life. She was either the smartest opponent I had ever faced, or absolutely unaware to who I was. My mind bounced from one subject to the next, as my muscles froze in place. This was wrong on so many levels but fucking right on so many others. Her barely there lace panties were soaked, and it took every ounce of resolve I had to retract my hand from her pussy. It was torture. I had never been one to turn down a woman who was ready and wanting, but I didn’t take advantage of them either—otherwise, I would be on the same level as the sick fucks we’d been killing for years.

“Darlin’,” I slowly articulated the word, forcing myself to back away from her. “I want you to go get in the shower and sink your fingers into yourself. While you’re fucking your hand, think of me. Do it as many times as it takes to get me off your mind,” I said, hating myself a little that I was protecting her honor when all I wanted to do was drop to my knees and wear her thighs like earmuffs as I lost control.

“Hurry back?” she said in a lustful voice, intently staring at me through hooded eyelids.

“It’ll be like I never left,” I lied, and my mouth dropped open as she slid her black lace panties down her legs and handed them to me.

“Something to remember me by,” she joked, pushing her fingers under my chin to close my mouth before she walked up the stairs and disappeared.

As soon as I regained the ability to think straight, I ran toward the back door and stopped. I’d almost left my damned glove along with my cut. I rushed back to retrieve it, shoving her thong in with my gloves, tossed the leather around my body, and got the fuck out of Dodge.

“What happened? Is she dead? I didn’t hear shit,” Sac rambled as fast as his mouth would allow.

“Oh, she’s very much alive.”

“What took so long?” Ghoul asked, his eyebrows bunching together.

“I was getting valuable intel.” It wasn’t a complete lie. I found out usual info all the while earning myself the worst case of blue balls. Although I wasn’t sure of the reason, I left out the intimate parts of the story as I gave my brothers a quick run-down of what happened. I wanted that memory all to myself.

After telling Tin Man the name of the place, it only took him a couple of minutes to find, and he gave us directions. The place was a quick trip across town, and I prayed the other me had skipped coming home and went to Heelers instead. If this man we were looking for had all of my ink, then he probably knew I was in the club, too. Really, there was no predicting what he did know about my brothers or me. That fact alone didn’t set well with me. Not only were the FBI still more than likely tailing us, but he had to be as well, at least part of the time. Which brought the question to mind of how they had not already caught him to my mind. It wasn’t adding up in spite of the many different angles I tried to consider to make sense of things.

We left our bikes a block over in a parking lot conveniently tucked behind an abandoned building, making our way on foot to the place.

“How do we want to go about this?” Tin Man asked, looking to our Prez for instructions.

“Any ideas, Wiley? He’s your maybe brother.”

“No fucking clue,” I answered truthfully. “Regardless of who the fuckstick is, he’ll no doubt recognize me, so me being the first in the door doesn’t make sense.”

“Oh, my queens!” a shrill male voice squawked, and all of our heads turned in the direction, halting all of our planning. “Malcom, you have a fucking brother? What in the hell? How have you kept this a secret?”

“Brother?” Garrett asked, the confusion in his voice was clear until the moment he turned his attention to where the other man was glaring at me.

“Uh, yeah. I’m pretty sure that’s the only explanation for him.” Dave waved his hand in front of my body.

“And you are, man?” I asked in a fake pleasant tone, eyeing the chatty man beside of my brother as his attention rapidly shifted between Garrett and me. If we were lucky, he would continue to talk and give us the answers we needed. He seemed too friendly to be only an acquaintance of my brother, but some people were naturally this bubbly.

My eyes locked with a mirror image of myself, and within seconds, there was no denying that it was my brother. My heart sank into the lowest pit of my body when the blue spot I prayed I wouldn’t find stared back at me. I didn’t know how or what to feel. At first, betrayal was the only thing to course through my veins. He had been alive for thirteen years, and he couldn’t deny he didn’t know my whereabouts, even if he didn’t initially. Agent McFaye was right, his skin was colored with all my ink.

The second wave of thoughts weren’t as kind as the first, even though I had never considered betrayal to be welcoming until now. I wished for that emotion to flood my body again and lie to me. I didn’t want this sickening feeling that overtook me. Flashes of images of mangled bodies of children and women flashed into my consciousness, and it was all I could think about as I stood silently in front of my brother. I didn’t want to pull him into my arms and thank God for this gift. Much the opposite. I wanted to slam the devil’s neck into a guillotine and beg his lifeless body for the answers I would never get because dead men weren’t supposed to be able to talk, and they certainly were not meant to smile at you as if they missed you.

The man held his hand out to shake mine. and I took it, giving him a firm squeeze with my fingers. “Not just any man. I’m the best man, David, but everyone calls me Dave.” He confirmed a roundabout assumption of who he was, and if I kept him talking, maybe I could get more information from him. “Oh, Dolly and Madonna! Tell me you are here for the wedding.” Perhaps I didn’t need to say anything, and he would give us everything we needed simply by being there.

“Brother, I believe the man asked you a question,” I spat out through gritted teeth and feigned a smile. Not a single inch of Garrett’s body moved, other than his chest rising and falling as he breathed. I was pretty sure if he didn’t have to do that to live, he wouldn’t be doing that either. He didn’t expect us. Good! Although the element of surprise was lost, the fear glistening behind his eyes almost made it worth it. I would have liked to have been able to watch him more, gone undetected for a little while longer before he noticed I was in town.

“Yeah. That’s why he’s here.” Garrett lied.

“Eek! Does Z know?” Dave squealed.

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