I fumble with his belt. My fingers are clumsy, desperate. I free him. He springs into my hand, hot and velvet-smooth and leaking.
"We have to go," I say, even as I stroke him. "The police... the rest of the team..."
"Fuck them," Killian growls. He pushes me back against the steel wall. "Let them wait."
He kisses me. It tastes of copper and smoke. He bites my lip, reopening the split, licking the blood.
He lifts me up. My legs wrap around his waist instinctively. He grinds against me, friction and heat and pressure.
"You're mine," he says against my mouth. "Covered in blood, covered in cum, you're mine. You understand?"
"Yes," I gasp. "Yes."
He doesn't take me. Not here. Not in the filth. But he grinds against me until he spills, hot and messy between our stomachs, soaking our shirts. I hold him through the tremors, listening to his harsh cries in the dark.
We stand there for a long time, holding each other up in the pitch black container, covered in the fluids of life and death.
Eventually, Killian steps back. He adjusts his clothes. I do the same.
"We need to move," he says. His voice is steady again. The Reaper is back.
"Where?"
"Safe house. One of mine. Off the grid. No phones. No trackers."
"My father will be looking for us."
"Let him look." Killian finds the door handle. He opens it, and the grey light floods back in, hurting my eyes.
He turns to me. He looks at the blood on my face, the stains on my vest. He reaches out and wipes a smudge of dirt from my cheek with his thumb.
"We're going to ground," he says. "And then we're going to hunt them down."
I nod. I follow him out into the rain.
I am not the same man who walked into this warehouse district an hour ago. That man relied on logic. That man believed in clean solutions.
That man is dead.
I follow Killian to the car. I get in the passenger seat. I check the Škorpion on my lap.
Let them come. Let them all come.
We are ready.
Chapter Fourteen
KILLIAN
The darknessinside the shipping container is heavy. It has a weight to it, pressing against my eardrums, smelling of things I shouldn’t be smelling in the middle of a firefight.
Gunpowder. Industrial grease. And under that, sharp and undeniable, the musk of sex.
I know what I walked into. I know what the crooked belt buckle means. I know why Alessandro is breathing like he just ran a mile, and why there is a wet, dark stain on the Kevlar of his tactical vest that catches the sliver of light from the doorframe. The realization hits me in the gut, a low, hot pull that I don't have time to examine.
I file it away. I lock it in the same box where I keep the memory of his mouth on me and the fact that ten minutes ago, he put a bullet in a man’s head to save my life.
"Are you hit?" I ask.
