“I don’t want distance,” Tobias snapped.
Soren’s eyes widened, his head tilting to the side. “Oh, Toby. You are one sick ticket. You need to see it happen. You need to watch the light flicker out. That’s what does it for you, huh?”
Tobias turned back to the fridge and pulled out the package of chicken breasts. After deftly cutting through the wrapper, he used the pointed edge of the knife to penetrate the meat and drop it into the dish. “If I’m going to kill somebody, I want them to know it was me. Death is an intimate experience. Nobody should die alone.”
Tobias hated Soren’s teasing tone, the way he called him Toby, but he found he hated his silence even more. He wrenched open the fridge again before realizing he had everything he needed and slamming it shut hard enough to rattle everything in the door. He focused on assembling the ingredients over the chicken until the sharp buzz of the oven pierced the thickening silence between them.
Tobias popped the chicken in and turned on Soren. “What about you? Why do you do this? Sport? Just something to do between fishing trips and piña coladas?”
Soren’s lips twitched in an aborted smile. “I look like a piña colada guy to you?”
“Kind of. Yeah.”
“That hurts, Toby,” Soren said, pointedly not answering the question before glancing at the kitchen timer. “We got twenty-five minutes before dinner. Why don’t you show me your kill list.”
Tobias scoffed. “What makes you think I have a kill list?” Soren arched a brow, holding Tobias’s gaze until he couldn’t take it another moment. “Fine, it’s in my office.”
“Of course, it is,” Soren said, once more sounding amused. “You are—”
Before Soren could finish his sentence, Mantis reappeared with a menacing growl. She clawed and bit as she made her way through the seams on her latest stuffed toy, gleefully kicking up stuffing into the air.
“Bad girl.” Tobias fixed his face into a disapproving scowl. “That’s your fourth toy this week. No new toys for you. Go to bed.”
They both watched as the tiny dog gave one more growl, then pranced out of sight.
“You were saying?” Tobias asked. “I’m…”
Soren stared at him like he was looking through him, and for the first time Tobias could remember, he actually wanted to know what the guy would say. Maybe it was because Soren was the only one who’d ever seen the real him, thesick ticketthat Tobias truly was deep down, and he hadn’t run screaming—not yet, anyway.
Tobias didn’t know why he cared, but he did. He stood there, holding his breath and waiting for Soren to finish his statement, more than a little disappointed when the man said, “Nothing. Show me your list.”
8
Soren
Soren shamelessly checked out Eastman’s—no,Tobias’s—ass as they walked down the hallway. Turned out the doctor was hiding a killer body under all the sweater vests he padded himself in. His shoulder blades and back were carved with definition, his hamstrings and calves sleek like someone who pounded out the miles regularly. He still looked like a fucking model, but less so a mannequin without the starched shirt, ties, and trousers. Now, he looked more real. Touchable.
And Soren was starting to think he’d like touching Tobias a lot. So much so that it’d been half the reason he’d ended up on Tobias’s doorstep. A double challenge. Teach the doctor what he could and get into his pants while he was at it.
As Tobias led Soren down the hallway, a cracked door caught his eye. He’d just caught hold of the knob and started to push it open when Tobias whipped around, gripping Soren’s wrist with such unforgiving intensity that the strength in his hold caught him off guard.
“Not that one.”
Soren’s brows shot up. “Kill room or a storeroom for your dollhouse collection?”
Despite the vise grip, Tobias’s lips curved unexpectedly in what Soren read as genuine amusement. And damn if that didn’t look good on the doctor, too. Soren didn’t move an inch when Tobias stepped closer. When he inhaled, their chests brushed.
Tobias looked up at Soren, an enigmatic shadow passing through his eyes before he leaned in closer. Just the rush of his breath over Soren’s skin sent a tingle of awareness mixed with pleasure down his spine.
“Your defense mechanisms are showing, Soren,” Tobias murmured, a seductive confidentiality in his tone. Soren couldn’t help but imagine that voice saying other things. His cock throbbed as Tobias stepped away and pulled the door, Soren’s hand still wrapped around the knob, firmly closed. “You wanted to see my list. I agreed to that only. Maybe we need to have a conversation about boundaries. Do you honor those?”
Soren pasted on a smile. “Sometimes.”
“When it serves you.”
“Just like you.”
The doctor’s eyes tightened at the corners, and then he turned and continued down the hall, leading them into an office that so closely resembled the one Soren had visited days before that, for a briefly disorienting moment, he wondered if the two were somehow the same and he’d actually come here first. Even the photo frames were similarly placed.
