“Do you know why they look like this right now?”
Jonah’s heart pounded, and he could feel the matched cadence in Cas’s pulse. After a few beats of silence, he nodded slowly. “Is it the same reason I’ll move to Timbuktu with you?”
Cas nodded, nose brushing alongside Jonah’s first, then his lips, featherlight over his jaw and mouth. Soft, fluttery kisses that warmed and deepened and gradually ebbed until Cas rested his cheek against Jonah’s chest. “I don’t want everyone to die because of me, though.”
“If everyone dies, you won’t know because you’ll be dead, too.”
Cas angled a frown up at him. “You’re shit at motivational speaking, you know that?”
“I never claimed to be perfect.”
Cas sighed and let go of Jonah. “I’m going to go mess with that list again.”
“Eat first.” Jonah clamped a hand on Cas’s shoulder and directed him toward the table. Once Cas sat, Jonah fixed him a glass of water and sat down beside him. “And just so you know, everyone who’s here understands how all of this works. Red did, too. If you’re carrying any guilt about that, you need to let it go. Every connection in our world comes with a death clause attached. That’s just how it is. It’s why I was hoping you’d get out.”
23
Caspian
Cas laid stretched out across the bed, his laptop in front of him, Jonah and the rest of the apartment down below. He kept his back to the ladder in a lame attempt to put his focus where it should be, on the files, instead of where he wanted it, which was forever on Jonah.
How had Cas functioned those years they lived together? Maybe it was never knowing what Jonah’s touch felt like? Because now that he did know, it was impossible to ignore.
Still, he had to figure out what was so important about this list or none of it would matter. Cas would be living on a deserted island waiting for Jonah indefinitely like some dutiful spouse.
Cas didn’t want that. Not that anybody had asked him what he wanted. All of them still treated him like a child, despite having a net worth that would probably keep him from having to do another day’s labor for the rest of his life. But Cas didn’t want to retire at twenty-three years old. He was good at what he did. He’d made some super impressive hacks for somebody barely past legal drinking age. He had a reputation. He was one of a handful of people who could set his own prices. He still had work left to do. Why should only Jonah get to keep working? It wasn’t fair.
It wasn’t happening.
The only way for Cas to keep doing what he loved was to figure out what the fuck made this list so fucking important and why the Russians and the Turks were so hot for it. It had to be something with some global ramifications for them to be throwing around so much money, and, somehow, Global Data Networks played a part.
The more he learned about Global Data Networks, the scarier they became.
Cas now suspected the generic company name was by design, a clever way of hiding that they were essentially the monsters most people only talked about in the darkest corners of the internet, where conspiracy theorists held court spilling tea on everything from the JFK assassination to Area 51. Except, Global Data Systems didn’t hide the scary shit they did. They doubled down on their business dealings, which were varied. Private militias for small foreign factions, gun running, arms dealing. Pretty much anything you were willing to pay them for. Which, for Cas, begged the question: if this was the shit GDS bragged about, what the fuck were they into that they were hiding beneath layers of encryption and silly word games, and why the fuck couldn’t he find it?
The loft ladder protested as Jonah made his way up.
Even with his back to him, Jonah’s effect on Cas was instantaneous. His nipples stiffened into tight peaks. His cock started to harden, even though it was trapped against the mattress.
Cas didn’t acknowledge him, not verbally, but the air around them was charged, like the air before a lightning strike, and Cas struggled with the keys, just knowing Jonah lingered behind him.
Disappointment seeped into his veins as Jonah rifled through the items in the plastic bin just beside the ladder. He was just looking for something. Something that wasn’t Cas. He gave a huge sigh but went back to focusing on the names on the screen.
His breath caught as the mattress sagged, and then Jonah’s fingers hooked in the waistband of Cas’s sweatpants. “Up.”
It wasn’t a request. Cas lifted his hips, and Jonah slid his joggers off, blunt nails scratching along Cas’s skin, raising goosebumps as he went. Cas risked a look over his shoulder to find Jonah kneeling behind him, still dressed in jeans and a pale blue t-shirt. He met Cas’s gaze, and he shivered at the hunger in Jonah’s eyes. Nobody had ever looked at Cas that way. Maybe they’d wanted him, but Jonah looked at him like he wanted to devour him whole. Cas’s dick was so on board with that plan.
Jonah hauled Cas’s hips up, palming his ass and spreading him open. Cas swallowed hard, rocking toward Jonah almost without thought, desperate for his touch, and not even caring if he seemed needy. But Jonah didn’t budge, just held him there, open, until Cas was hard and leaking, uncertain of what would happen next. “Jonah,” Cas whined.
“Keep working,” Jonah commanded a moment before his tongue laved over Cas’s entrance in one broad stroke.
Cas shook his head, trying and failing to make sense of Jonah’s behavior. Was he fucking joking? He could barely breathe, much less worry about the screen in front of him. “What?”
“Keep working,” Jonah repeated, his hand cracking over Cas’s ass, lighting up the nerve endings along his skin in a burn that made his cock throb. Yeah, Jonah spanking him was definitely a thing. Cas wanted more. He needed more.
Cas whimpered, rocking back into Jonah, but Jonah refused to budge. He held Cas in place, his breath fanning across Cas’s entrance in a maddening stand-off. Cas growled in frustration but pulled his laptop closer, trying to force himself to concentrate as Jonah speared his tongue into him. “Oh, fuck,” he managed.
Jonah was insane if he thought there was any way in hell Cas could concentrate while Jonah tongue-fucked him, fingers holding him tight enough to bruise, stubble scratching against his skin in a weird pleasure-pain that made Cas cross-eyed. Still, he tapped on the keyboard, even as the words blurred on the screen.
