“Craft beer isn’t lowbrow,” Toby countered. “Besides, I actually enjoy beer. Which of your parents was the alcoholic?”
“You don’t waste any time. Is that one of your questions?”
Toby nodded as he wrapped his hand around the glass the bartender pushed across the counter at him, then took a long, savoring sip.
“Both of them,” Soren confessed, and then twisted around to face Toby, expecting a barrage of questions he’d probably end up answering. Instead, Toby simply nodded, took another sip of the beer, and then pushed it away as if he was done with it.
“So, I suppose you’ll be on your way now that everything is taken care of?”
Soren chuckled. “Not likely. First, ‘everything’ is not taken care of. Second, I’ve gotta be in town a little while longer anyway to help out a friend. Considering I got you in to see one of the biggest bosses in Boston, I think you owe me a favor or two.” Toby’s petulant scowl amused him.
“Help out a friend how?”
“He needs to leave town but has a job that needs to be taken care of. I figure it’ll make another good practice round for you.” Soren met Toby’s unflinching stare evenly until he gave in with a soft, “Fine,” that wasn’t quite resignation.
“Next time, you could tell me when you’ve got an ace up your sleeve,” Soren said as they walked back toward the car fifteen minutes later. “You played dumb about Rafferty’s operation with me when you knew.”
“It got us to where we needed to be, didn’t it?”
“You’re playing head games with me, Doc. I’m not a fan.”
“And you’re not with me?” Toby pulled the car keys from his pocket and jingled them a couple of times in his hand, his sidelong glance at Soren openly curious.
“I suppose I am on occasion. Sure. But I’m not good at it the way you are.” The bigger problem was that Soren didn’t mind it. Like everything else where Toby was concerned, Soren was swimming in shades of gray, and he didn’t mind it at all. He switched gears, lips twisting in a frown. “Ronin’s intel was pretty vague, but if there’s a mark out on you, that means we still haven’t figured out who it is. Rafferty could be lying, too.” Soren’s gut feeling was indecisive, though, and that unsettled him. “The messed-up office doesn’t quite fit.”
Tobias clicked the key fob in his hand to unlock the doors of his Volvo, his expression placid. “I told you, you’d be surprised how often things like that have happened to me over the years, and in almost every instance, nothing comes of it. It’s part of the job. I do my best to be safe and take precautions, but I can’t live in a bubble and still do what I do. It’s not out of the ordinary for those in my field to deal with.”
Tobias was confident enough in his answer that it should’ve settled Soren’s stomach. But, even an hour later, he still couldn’t shake the strange feeling.
15
Tobias
“I’m only here because you promised to let me kill someone,” Tobias said, unprompted, breaking the bubble of silence in Soren’s—probably stolen—car.
Soren chuckled from the driver’s seat, cutting his gaze quickly in his direction. “Does this mean you don’t want to hold my hand, Glasses?” he asked, extending said hand.
Why did Tobias itch to actually press his palm to Soren’s, to intertwine their fingers? He huffed out a breath through his nose, continuing to stare straight ahead and focusing on the blur of the headlights through the raindrops on the window and the steady rhythm of the windshield wipers. “You need a moisturizing routine before I’d even consider it.”
“You loved these hands when they were spreading you open in your kitchen,” Soren reminded, voice low and rough.
Tobias shifted uncomfortably, his cock throbbing at Soren’s visual. He was outmatched. He’d overplayed his hand the moment he’d opened his mouth, had somehow known he would. Maybe he’d even wanted to. He’d willed himself to stay silent a thousand times since they’d dropped Mantis at the Puppy Palace Doggy Kennel. But he couldn’t help himself. Talking was the only way to stop the endless loop of thoughts bouncing around in his brain.
Soren had thrown off his whole life. His rhythm. Tobias didn’t know who he was if he wasn’t the character he’d made himself out to be. But he couldn’t be that guy with Soren because he’d somehow learned to discern real from fake. Not that Tobias would ever admit it out loud.
Soren wasn’t like others. He’d somehow breached Tobias’s defenses and made himself at home on the other side of the wall, and now, Tobias felt like he was suffocating. No, not suffocating… Drowning. Like Soren was in him, all around him, forcing the air from Tobias’s lungs to make room inside. But that was the thing about drowning—it only hurt until you opened your mouth, then a feeling of euphoria set in as you starved your brain of oxygen. That’s what Soren was, the water driving the air from his lungs, his every touch leaving Tobias euphoric and hazy in the best ways. It was impossible to hide the pieces of himself he needed to hide with Soren so close. Worse, Tobias didn’t want to hide. He liked the way Soren looked at him, how he found all of Tobias’s proclivities fascinating. He was addicted to the way Soren looked at him, touched him, manhandled him where he wanted him without waiting for Tobias’s permission. He held tight to every aspect of his life, for his sanity and other’s safety, but Soren overshadowed Tobias’s reason whenever he was near, when he kissed him, touched him. He didn’t need to think, just feel. And Tobias did feel things. Things he thought he lacked the capacity for. Lust, attraction, warmth…happiness? Maybe it was the sex. It did have the ability to change a person’s brain chemistry. Maybe this was all just chemical.
They pulled into the parking lot of a dilapidated motel with chipping cream-colored paint and brick red trim. There were only four cars in the parking lot of the strip mall-like motel, which Tobias found surprising, given the state of the parking lot and the businesses surrounding it.
Soren threw the car in park just outside of the office and reached for the car door. “Stay here.”
Tobias frowned but didn’t protest; he never had the chance as Soren slammed the door shut and jogged to the office, ducking inside. He watched the exchange, wondering what Soren said to the balding man behind the desk. Before he could even field a guess, Soren was on his way back, getting pelted with rain as the sky opened up the moment his hand was on the door handle.
When Soren fell into the driver’s seat, he shook himself like a dog, causing his hair to stand up in all directions and sending water splattering against Tobias’s cheek. He smelled like rain, and Tobias suddenly wanted to pull him in for a kiss to feel the chill of his skin against his lips.This all felt so…intimate, like they were two lovers meeting for some filthy tryst in a seedy roadside motel.
This was getting out of hand.
Soren drove a short distance to park outside a door with the number seven hanging crooked against that same brick red paint as the trim. That was when Tobias saw the key. “We’re…staying here?”
