His big body was tense and shaking, his inked skin covered in darkening bruises he believed I could not see. But I saw them, each and every one, and my decision to slip back onto the compound he called home was vindicated with each mark I catalogued.
He needs me.For business, pleasure, and apparently, the practicalities of staying alive.
Cam’s deep groan brought me back to the present. I searched his face and found his eyes open, his ebony gaze a dark pool of wonder and heat, though he was not entirely lost to it. Curiosity was there too. Like me, he did not know what was happening between us orwhy, and he didn’t like it.
Maybe it scared him.
It scared me, an emotion I ignored as Cam’s pleasure peaked. He gave a full-body shudder, setting his jaw. His cock surged in my hand, and with another animalistic groan, he came.
Silence blanketed us, broken only by his laboured breath. I worked his cock until he began to soften, then brought my hand to his tight abdomen, smearing come over his clean skin.
He gave me a wicked smirk. “Trying to get me dirty again?”
“That would only serve me if I had time to shower with you.”
“You don’t?”
“No.”
Cam’s gaze flickered. Disappointment? I couldn’t tell. But I did need to leave, for reasons other than a commitment to be somewhere else.
I stepped closer to him, barely keeping my shirt clean and dry, and brought my lips to his neck, kissing his pulse point, drawing another shiver from him. “Get some rest. I will hear you when you need me again.”
“That makes you sound like a vampire.”
My smile was deadly. “Maybe I am.”
* * *
Leaving Cam was hard, but necessary for us both. He needed to sleep, and he would not do so as long as we were together in that room. And as for me, I had pressing matters to attend to, mainly the discovery of whoever was trying to kill him. I had a feeling my life would be much easier without worrying that he would be dead before I next saw him again.
I slipped out of the compound and back to my car. No sooner had I shut the door, my phone buzzed.
Cam:tell me how you got in here
Alexei:No
Cam:the security cameras show you leaving half an hour before I got back but nothing else
Alexei:Get better cameras then
It wouldn’t help him with me, but I was willing to bet there weren’t many souls in his corner of Devon who could move so undetected. At least, I hoped there weren’t, or he was in more danger than he already knew.
I cast my phone aside and drove away from my hidden spot at the back of the Rebel Kings’ compound. I had work to do at home, but there was somewhere else I wanted to check out first.
Devon was a large county—a two-hour trip from Whitness in the north to Paignton in the south. I parked my car close to the compound of the Dog Crows MC and got out, slipping seamlessly into the shadows of the rocks that surrounded their coastal club house, of course fronted by a motorcycle service and repair garage.How quaint.
My lip curled with distaste. I watched patched members roar through the gates, obnoxious cuts plastered to their backs, and mentally annihilated every single one of them before they reached the strip where they parked their bikes. And that was without knowing for sure if they were the source of the failed attempt on Cam’s life.
The failed part of the equation didn’t work in their favour. I ran through the criminal organisations I knew to have business in South West England, and none were incompetent enough to leave cut brake lines so obvious that they would be discovered before they had served their purpose. That clue alone pointed to the Dog Crows, and I pondered the efficiency of lighting the whole place up with their entire board of officers inside. An electrical fault. Disabled fire alarms. It wouldn’t be hard.
Then I spotted a woman in leather jeans entering the clubhouse with a child on her hip, and my taste for blood waned. I was a professional, not a monster.
I backed off and returned to my car, my mind spinning with possibility. There were many avenues for discovering the source of Cam’s troubles, but only two were without complication: watch and wait, or ask him. Watching and waiting was a method that had kept me alive long enough to reach this point, but the second option held more appeal than I entirely understood. A test, maybe. Cam was sure enough of me to resist calling his brothers to evict the intruder in his bathroom, to stay naked and vulnerable before someone he now knew could kill him. But did he trust me enough to confide in me?
Doubt prickled my skin, and I didn’t enjoy it any more than I did the compulsion to eliminate the threat to Cam’s life.
Back off. You liked him fucking you because he was good at it. Saving his life is unnecessary. And complicated. You’re a ghost, remember? You paid the price.
