Great, that’s all he needed.
Ledger sprawled back on the bed and rested his hand on his stomach. The skin twitched under the brush of his skin. He did OK financially—the cursed-antiquities trade had its ups and downs, but he was good at what he did—but he didn’t think anyone had the money to casually support that kink.
He thought about how easy it would be to slip his hand under the waistband of his pajama pants and wrap his fingers around his erection. His cock twitched in reaction, and heat smeared under his skin like warm butter. The tip of his tongue touched his lower lip, a brief caress, and his hand drifted down.
Ledger threw a handful of half-put-together fantasies of broad shoulders and a tight ass against the wall of his libido to see what stuck. The dregs of his dream tangled with them—rough hands, worn leather, and the nick of a knife against his throat—and he tilted his head back into the thin pillows. He kicked the sheets off and hooked his knee up as he wrapped his hand around his cock through his pants. The soft gray fleece outlined the shaft as he gripped it, a darker spot at the head where pre-come soaked through the fabric.
He tightened his grip and bit his lower lip at the throb of almost-painful pleasure that sank down into his hip bones. Before he could get started properly, though, his phone went off. The discordant rattle of notes was a persistent interruption he couldn’t jerk off through. By the time he rolled out of bed and padded over to turn the alarm off, the thought of going back to cheap sheets and a sweaty mattress didn’t appeal.
His cock disagreed. The dull ache of it argued its point right up until he got into the shower and turned the cold water on. That did the job.
Ledger turned his face up into the stream of water and closed his eyes as it battered his skull. He didn’t need any complications, particularly not ones that tied him to Bell’s legacy. The only reason he was back here was to divest himself of any interest in whatever passed for an estate. Not take on Bell’s sins.
He didn’t have the shoulders for that.
Besides, Ledger thought as he turned the water from cold to hot and reached for the shower gel, he still didn’t knowwhatWren was. Not that he was a speciesist, but there were different precautions to take.
Humans could give you STIs; a demon could give you an STD—sexually transmitted damnation. And praying mantises weren’t the only things that ate after they fucked.
As an old friend of Ledger’s used to say:If you don’t know,you don’t blow.
Ledger paused mid-scrub, soapsuds frothed up over his knuckles, as his brain firedthatmental image straight to his cock. He could almost feel the pressure of Wren’s fingers on the back of his skull, the ache in his jaw of a job well done.
Fine.
Cold water it was.
Ledger turned the temperature down and finished his shower goose-bumped, shivery, and annoyed at himself. He was over thirty. Too old to be having cold showers like some horny teenager.
And while he was on that topic, just to put one final nail in the coffin, Wren was too young for him.
Probably, Ledger corrected himself pedantically. That depended on what he was. There was a chance he was something old enough thatLedger’scradle was the one being robbed.
Not that it mattered. Ledger ran his hands through his hair, squeezing water out of the blond waves, and made an absent mental note to get it trimmed soon. He reached for a towel as his mind circled back to the discussion in hand. Too youngortoo old, Wren would need to deal with his contractual obligations on his own.
Bell was dead—charred, ground up, and turned to slurry on the road—and any easy answers about the forged deed had gone with him.
The threads of a few non-easy routes to a solution teased at the corners of Ledger’s mind. It was tempting… but no. He had rent to pay, a car note to pay down, and clients to keep happy. None of which could be done from here.
* * *
“Mr. Conroy.”
The name made the back of Ledger’s neck itch. It wasn’t like he’d changed it. He’d been Ledger Conroy since birth, like it or not. Not that many people used it, his line of work was short on formalities and long on insults, but some did.
The bank teller.
The Uber Eats delivery person.
The wet thing that lived under the pier in Kioni Harbor.
So it wasn’t like he never heard it used. It was just the sound of ithere. His name in that Inland North accent, with the drawn-outOsound and the quiver of revulsion in the voice that put his hackles up. Nobody’s fault but his own, though.
Ledger paid for the lighter and the gas and turned around. Sheriff Syder had gotten older. It had been fifteen years. He was one of those men who didn’t get softer as he aged, just harder and bonier like bad jerky. His hair had gone gunmetal gray, and his beard was on its way to white, while his face had tightened and sunken in harsh lines.
“Can I help you?” Ledger asked, tucking the lighter into the pocket of his slacks.
They didn’t have a great history. It had been Syder who’d driven Ledger to the hospital to get him admitted, cuffed in the back of a police car. He and Bell had been friends back then. Obviously, Syder had gone off Bell once the bodies started to turn up.
