“How do you mean?” Tobias asked, stiffening in his arms.
Soren’s mouth was close enough to Tobias’s skin for him to feel the words when he said, “I mean, are you okay? Physically? Mentally? Spiritually? I’m checking in, Glasses. It’s the gentlemanly thing to do after you’ve just rearranged a person’s insides for forty minutes.”
His words sent a lightning bolt of awareness through his dick, but Tobias scoffed. “Since when are you a gentleman?”
“Hardly ever, but you make me want to be a better man,” Soren said, tone teasing.
“You are the strangest person I’ve ever met,” Tobias mused, trying to stuff down the way his heart had tripped at Soren’s joke.
“Now, we both know that’s not true.” Soren kissed Tobias’s shoulder. “But seriously, are you good? No need to play the hero. It’s okay if you’re feeling off about things.”
Soren really needed to stop being so goddamn understanding about everything. It confused Tobias. It tricked his brain into releasing chemicals that told him he had feelings for Soren and that was just unacceptable.
Tobias was far too practical to start having feelings, especially for somebody like Soren. He wasn’t the kind to stay behind and play house. He was an assassin who jetted around the world visiting Tibetan gurus and dating supermodels. He and Soren didn’t make sense. They were doomed from the start. He blamed those two killers, John and Akil; they’d made him give in to his murderous impulses, which had set off this chain reaction that would only end in disaster. Just because they made this murder husbands thing work didn’t mean he and Soren got to have a happily ever after. Sooner or later, this would end. Tobias needed to start acting like it.
“I’m fine,” he said, trying and failing to sound icy. “Are you okay?”
Great job, Tobias. Way to stick to your guns. When Soren didn’t answer, Tobias craned his neck to look over his shoulder.
Soren took advantage, kissing him in a way that made his insides shiver. “Yeah, I’m good, Doc.” Just when Tobias thought the conversation might become a little too intense, Soren wiggled his brows. “Next time, you get to do me.”
Tobias shook his head, dropping it back on the pillow before he snickered. “Can we do it somewhere with a sturdier headboard?”
“Why? It’s not like the next door occupant is going to file a noise complaint,” Soren said. “But you can have me anywhere you want me, Glasses. I’m all yours.”
If only that were true.
That hollow feeling filled Tobias again, only this time it was behind his ribs.
18
Soren
Toby was quiet for much of the drive back to Boston, engrossed in something on his phone. The few times Soren caught sight of his screen, it appeared to be journal articles. Soren let the guy have his peace, figuring he probably had plenty of shit to process in that big ol’ brain of his.
Soren had long zoned out on the endless black asphalt in front of them when he gradually became aware of Toby staring at him. He shifted his attention from the road and lifted a brow in question.
“You’re humming,” Toby explained.
“Was I? What was it?”
“I’m not sure.”
“You want me to stop?”
Toby’s lips quirked, then he shook his head. “It doesn’t bother me.” He turned his attention back to his phone screen. “I like it, actually.”
Soren smiled to himself and picked up where he’d left off, some tune he’d forgotten the name of that he’d collected on one of his island stays somewhere.
His thoughts drifted to his lack of roots, how he floated around the planet while Toby stayed rooted in the same place. Sometimes, roots sounded nice. It wasn’t as if he didn’t have enough money to rent or purchase a place in Boston, and Ronin had been the one to suggest recently that he find a place Stateside while they worked on the deadpool list. Soren’s protests that he was retired had fallen on deaf ears, and even he didn’t believe them at this point. Retirement was boring.
But if he had a base in Boston, he could fly in and out and see Toby as often as he wanted.
Soren studied Toby’s handsome profile sidelong, unsure whether or not he would be into something like that. Eastman was a strange one. But hell, Soren was weird, too, and he couldn’t deny he liked being around Toby, liked that he was quirky, smart as hell, and always had something interesting to say. Liked that he seemed to get Soren and wasn’t so much interested in changing him as he was just understanding him. And, when Soren looked at Toby the way he was looking at him right then, a warm feeling swirled in the depths of his stomach, something he couldn’t remember experiencing in years. A desire to protect, to claim, that he hadn’t been able to shake.
And fine, Soren wanted to keep an eye on the doc as much as he just plain wanted to be around him.
“You like Boston, Doc?”
