I leaned back in the rocking chair and surveyed my surroundings.There wasn’t much to see except for acre after acre of farmland, some untouched, some looking like it had recently been turned under. There was a long fence bordering Magnus’s property and I could see some cows grazing on the other side. I figured they belonged to the farm that appeared to be Magnus’s only neighbor since his property didn’t seem to have anything to do with raising cattle. But even that farm had to be at least a half a mile away.
I stiffened as I heard the front door open, but I forced myself not to look that direction. But I did anyway when I didn’t hear footsteps or the door closing. I saw Magnus standing in the doorway, his eyes on me. He had two beers in his hand and his hair was damp. He’d also changed his clothes. I waited for him to say something, but he just stared at me…well, not me exactly.
The chairs…he was staring at the rocking chairs.
Fuck, were these off limits too? I bit back the urge to make a snide comment about how fucking uptight he was about his personal space, but decided against it and climbed to my feet instead. “Sorry,” I muttered. Before I could even take a few steps, Magnus was moving.
“No,” he said softly as he stepped in front of me, blocking my escape. “Please,” he said as he motioned to the chair I’d been sitting in.
I warily lowered myself back down and kept my eyes on him as he dropped down into the other chair. He handed me one of the bottles of beer. When I didn’t take it right away, he said, “Peace offering.”
I hesitated and then took the beer. Was he just playing with me? And why the hell did he smell so damn good?
I eased back into the chair and forced my eyes on our surroundings again. One positive thing about living out in in Bumfuck, you could see someone coming from miles away…literally.
“I owe you an apology, Dante,” Magnus said.
“Just one?” I automatically responded and then cursed myself. Only guys who gave a shit expected apologies.
And I didn’t give a shit, right?
“Don’t worry about it,” I muttered as I took a sip of the beer.
I was greeted with silence except for the creaking of Magnus’s rocking chair and the occasional sounds of crickets doing whatever it was they did when they were looking for action.
“I didn’t want to see her room,” Magnus murmured, but when I glanced at him, his eyes were on his beer and he was worrying the label with his fingernail. “I hadn’t seen either room since…since a few days after she left. I searched hers once to see if I could find anything that would tell me where she’d gone, but after that, I closed the door and I never looked in it again. Not even after Hawke showed up.”
Magnus’s pain-shrouded gaze shifted to me. “I’d planned to have the movers pack up all her stuff and put it in storage for Matty. I figured he might want to go through everything one day…see what she was like, the things she liked.”
“Makes sense,” I said since I really didn’t know what else to say.
“Anyway,” he began, turning his attention back to the bottle label. “I shouldn’t have taken my anger out on you. I know you were just doing your job.”
That surprised me because I hadn’t ever expected him to acknowledge my reason for being here. An unwelcome flare of excitement lit up deep inside my chest, but it took nothing more than remembering how this man had dismissed me in Ronan’s office the day of the wedding to snuff it out.
“And I didn’t mean anything by that comment about you saying my house was nice and saying my name a few times…”
Ihadoverreacted to that and I still wasn’t sure why. “It really is a nice place,” I said, in the hopes of keeping the peace. Magnus shot me a doubtful look and I clarified, “Yeah, it’s looking a bit run down at the moment, but that shit’s easy to fix.” I glanced at one of the broken shutters and unthinkingly murmured, “I could probably help you out with some stuff.”
What the hell had possessed me to makethatoffer?
Heat crawled up my neck as Magnus looked at me. He was clearly as surprised by the offer as I was.
When he didn’t say anything, I stammered, “Or…or whatever…no skin off my-”
“Dante,” Magnus interjected and I met his gaze. “I’d appreciate that.” He leaned forward to run his fingers over a broken porch rail. “I was going to just sell the place as-is, but since we have some time before the trial starts and after I testify too, maybe we can get some things cleaned up and I’ll be able to get rid of it more quickly.”
Between watching his finger rub over the worn wood in front of us and the softness of his voice as he actually accepted my offer, I was both turned on and suspicious at the same time. He wasn’t even going to ask me if I knew anything about construction or home repair? I watched his finger return to his beer bottle. He took a long swig and I immediately focused on his throat. I had no idea why I was so obsessed with that part of his body, but every time I saw the strong muscles flex, I imagined what they’d feel like beneath my hand as I wrapped my fingers around his neck and held him in place while I fucked into him. I wasn’t into breath play or any of that shit, but the idea of holding him down, feeling his pulse beating frantically beneath my fingertips as his pleasure built…knowing he had the strength to force my hand away butchosenot to…that was what was doing it for me.
I shifted in the chair as my cock began to thicken in anticipation. I desperately tried to think of something that would distract me so I wouldn’t be forced to excuse myself so I could take care of my body’s untimely response to his presence and realized Magnus had actually given me the opening I needed to find out more about why I was here.
“So, the trial isn’t starting right away?” I prodded.
Magnus shook his head. “Jury selection happens on Friday. The prosecutor will call a few witnesses before me, so I probably won’t testify until Tuesday. Whole thing should be wrapped up in about a week or so and hopefully the jury won’t take more than a few days to reach their verdict. It’s not a slam dunk case, so who knows.”
“What kind of case is it?”
“Murder.”
