“I’m taking this with me. Going to run some tests to see who it might belong to. In the meantime, keep your head down, eyes low, and ears peeled. And let me know if someone from your inner circle is missing.”
“Wait—” Preston pulled away from me, his red-rimmed eyes locking on Shane. Shane paused on his mission toward the front door, then slowly turned to face Preston, doing a perfect left face like a well-oiled soldier. “Where are you going? Why can’t you stay here? What if someone is after you? What if?—”
“Preston.” His name falling from Shane’s lips had Preston snapping his jaw shut. The single word was low and warm, but it held the command of a drill sergeant. “I will be fine. I promise. But if it makes you feel any better, I’ll text you when I get home.”
Preston deflated a little, some of the tension bleeding from his shoulders. “You will?”
Shane nodded once, then turned and disappeared out the front door, taking that godforsaken fucking box with him. Stepping back from me, Preston crossed his arms over his chest and glared up at me. “Why didn’t you come home?” he demanded.
I sighed and leaned back against the kitchen counter. “Too wound up,” I told him gruffly. Which wasn’t a lie. I’d been hoping a damn good fight would get my anger and need to protect out of my system, but it hadn’t. It’d dulled it a bit. Made it manageable. But it hadn’t truly gone anywhere. “I was afraid of hurting you by accident. I wasn’t in a good headspace. Even my mask was slipping this morning with Shane.”
Preston’s features softened, and his arms dropped to his sides. “You’d never hurt me, X.”
I shook my head. “We don’t know that. I was losing control. Fucking slipping, baby.” Preston took a step closer. “You’re the one thing in this world I will never risk.”
His hands landed on my biceps. “I know you like to think you’re some kind of monster just because you like beating people up, but you’re not. You know boundaries. You controlled yourself long before you ever met me. I trust you, X. You need to start trusting yourself.”
Gripping his hips, I drew him against me, then leaned down to seal our lips together. He groaned into the kiss, his hand coming up to cup my jaw as the other pushed beneath my shirt. My abs flexed against his smooth palm—the hands of a doctor who loved treating people. The hands of my doctor.
Turning us, I lifted him onto the kitchen counter, then quickly began to untie his sweats. Getting the memo, he quickly began to undo mine as well, and then, I was wrapping my dry fist around our cocks. But he didn’t seem to care, already rocking against my length as he panted into my mouth, still trying to kiss me.
“Fuck, I love the sounds you make,” I growled when Preston moaned. His fingernails dug into my upper arms through the sleeves of my hoodie. I worked us faster, knowing him so fucking well by now that I knew when he was close to the edge. When he was ready to give me what I wanted from him. I was always eager to see Preston come apart for me, whether I was riding his cock, swallowing his length, or my hand was wrapped around his shaft.
Preston was beautiful when he let go and let me give him everything he needed.
“That’s it, baby,” I rasped, leaning back to watch his beautiful face. His lips were parted just the slightest bit, and a light sheen of sweat was already glistening on his skin. “Look at how fucking beautiful you are for me. You gonna come for me, baby? Gonna soak my fist in all that?—”
Preston moaned my name, his eyes opening to slits so he could look at me as he came. My grin was feral, and unable to contain myself, I leaned in to kiss him so deep and punishingly, his lip split open and bled. I licked up the blood, then pumped three more times into my fist, which was sloppy with his cum, before I came with him.
Cupping his jaw with my clean hand, I tilted his head back to look down at him. “I need you to know that no matter what the fuck I may have unleashed by my stupid as fuck actions, I will protect you, Preston. No one will fucking touch you. If they even attempt to, I’ll give in to my instincts, and I will slaughter them and lay them at your fucking feet like a trophy.”
He rested his forehead on my shoulder. I let my hand slide around to cup the back of his head. “Do you think our chance with Shane is ruined?” Preston blurted.
I snorted a laugh. “That’s what you’re worried about, baby? And you’re supposed to be the level-headed one.”
He sighed. “I just want something good to happen. I don’t like all this stress and anxiety.”
I pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “Give it time,” I soothed. “He’s softening toward us. Just… give it time.”
I just hoped I hadn’t fucked everything up and we’d lose all that time I was counting on us having to make Shane ours. I knew Preston wanted him, nearly as much as I did. But what I wanted even more was Preston having Shane to take care of him and protect him as well.
Preston deserved everything good in this world, and I was determined to give it to him.
Chapter 9
Preston
I couldn’t stop staring at my phone. It’d been three fucking hours since Shane had left the apartment with that godforsaken ear, and I hadn’t heard a peep from him about him being home. I’d even sent him a text asking if he was okay, but I got nothing. He hadn’t even opened the damn message. It was just sitting on “delivered”.
“He’s probably not home yet,” X said when I glanced down at my phone for the umpteenth time. I sighed and set it back on my lap. Poor X was trying to distract me by putting on my favorite Thai BL show, but even that wasn’t holding my attention. Love in the Air just wasn’t doing it for me right now. What I wanted was for Shane to stop dicking around and text me so I knew he was safe.
“Preston, baby—” X started, reaching for my phone to probably take it from me so I’d stop obsessively checking it, but when he did, it suddenly began ringing. Shane’s name appeared on the screen. I snatched it off my lap and quickly lifted it to my ear. X smirked and dropped his hand to my thigh, giving it a gentle squeeze. I ignored his knowing look. So what if I’d sort of become obsessed with the man, too?
“Shane?”
“X near you?” he asked in lieu of a greeting.
I frowned. “Um, yeah. Beside me. What’s?—”