Hayden and I had lived in a house like them, boarded-up windows and overgrown grass in the front yard. It’d been before Mum met her latest husband and married him, after she fell pregnant with our little sister. Our stepfather wasn’t a bad man—he treated us respectfully enough when we were teenagers—but it was Mum who couldn’t handle Hayden’s and my attitude, sending us to Miami in hopes that Dad could sort us out. Tough luck there. He was too busy working to be anything but an absent father. That hadn’t been anything new for him, though.
I shook my head, shoving away the thoughts of my childhood, and focused on the road in front of me. River was abnormally quiet, his hands curled into fists in his lap. I wanted to say something, but I didn’t think it was the best time right now.
He lived in the city in a swanky apartment building that looked too expensive for my tastes. I imagined it cost a pretty penny as well. Places like this were all about location, rather than size. I preferred my home with three bedrooms and a yard, big enough to start a family if I ever got the chance again.
Fuck, I’d thought Alex was my happy ever after. Life had a funny way of kicking a man in the knackers.
I stopped in front of River’s building and went to get out of the truck, but he grabbed my arm, making me stay in place. He glared at me, and while I’d seen that expression scare the shit out of cops before, it did nothing but make my cock twitch, reminding me of what we’d done earlier.
“I don’t need you to follow me in like a guard dog.” He shoved his glasses farther up his nose, the gold rims glinting as he opened the door, lighting up the cab.
“Am I not allowed to be concerned? It was only last night that you were drugged.”
“Didn’t care about that when you stuffed your cock in my mouth.” River raised his brows at me, but there wasn’t any malice in his voice or expression. If anything, his shoulders relaxed and his lips quirked, like he was going to smile and then thought better about it.
“You have a nice mouth.” I shrugged, even if my stomach twanged in guilt over that, too. Had I used his body for my own gain? Yeah, I did, but I helped him get off as well. I didn’t leave him hard and hanging. “Listen, about that—”
River rolled his eyes. “I got off, I don’t need to hear your apologies. Are the British always so fucking nice? You remind me of Canadians.”
I barked out a laugh, and he startled. “Not always. I’m half American, too, you know? Floridian. The worst.”
“Poor you.” His expression didn’t change, but amusement flashed in his eyes, and I took it as River’s version of a joke.
“Vic will come around. They always do.” I awkwardly patted him on the shoulder. I assumed he wouldn’t appreciate me leaning over for a kiss. “I’m a cop, I know this shit.”
“We shouldn’t have told him who you were,” he said with a long, drawn-out sigh.
“I know guys like him, he’d have figured it out.”
He nodded. “Yeah, he would have, and then he wouldn’t give two shits about getting me the info.”
“I have a feeling he’ll call you.” I twisted in my seat but kept one hand on the steering wheel, squeezing the leather beneath my palm. “This is his livelihood, too.”
River gave me a long stare that I felt in my balls. He had the prettiest eyes I’d ever seen. It wasn’t often I thought a man’s eyes were pretty, but his glinted in different shades of arctic blue. My favorite color.
“You did good tonight, boy. Pretending to be mine.”
He shuddered, and I grinned. Obviously he liked being praised.
“When should we do this again in one of the other clubs?” I sounded too eager, but I didn’t have the energy to care.
River pursed his lips and stared at the apartment building. A man stood near the door, frowning at us. He looked to be a doorman. What was it like to live in a building that had security keeping an eye on your home? I didn’t think I’d ever find out. It was a reminder that River had a lot more money than I ever would.
“We’ll give Vic a few days. See if he wants to give us any information. I’ll call you.” He didn’t wait for an answer, only began rummaging near the floor on his side to gather his belongings. He stepped out of my truck, slamming the door shut roughly. I winced for my poor baby but didn’t look away from the nice view of River’s arse encased in leather pants as he walked toward the doorman. They said something to each other, and the attendant, a tall man with muscles and dark hair, smiled as he let River into the building.
I sighed and put my truck into Drive, heading back toward the outer suburbs and my own home. I’d enjoyed tonight, more than I thought I would have, and while I’d done a lot of research on BDSM, it made me want to do even more. From one sentence, River’s expression had changed, and I was curious about subs who reacted to praise. Was that a thing in the community? I thought I’d read that it was.
I smiled at the thought. If that’s what got River going, I’d make sure to praise him a lot more from now on.
* * *
I sucked at my coffee,wincing when it burned my tongue, but I didn’t care. This was exactly what I needed this early in the morning. I fucking hated being up in the first place, but I had one more day of working for Slater before I went back to shifts as a cop. I’d thought about cutting more of my shifts as an officer and doing more work for Slater after he’d taken on an even larger case load. The name of his business had gotten around, especially to Madden’s high-end friends, which meant he had even more work for us all.
“You think the boss is getting a morning fuck again?” Conrad, our coworker and Slater’s ex-force-partner, grinned salaciously at me, and I rolled my eyes.
“Who cares? He’s the boss, he can do what he wants.” I took another sip of coffee and shifted to fall into one of the nice leather chairs around our long dark-wood meeting table. I sighed and attempted to blink away my tiredness. It didn’t work. One day off—yesterday—wasn’t enough, but I’d grown so used to working as much as I could to forget about Alex that it never usually bothered me. Until now. It wasn’t common for me to go out to a club at night. Not anymore.
“I know he can. I’m just saying that since he and Polunin got together, they’ve been going at it like rabbits.” He paused and frowned. “Eh, I actually think they were going at it like that before they got together.”
