Chapter Thirty–Two

CHAPTER THIRTY–TWO

O n the whole, the job was not that complicated. From an IT perspective, that was.

All Mayhem had to do was take both the images being generated from the thirty-two cameras, and the sound feeds from the microphones, and channel them into a sorting and storage platform whereby the users—whoever they might be—could sift through them, isolate them into permanent files, and transfer or store the data depending on what was needed. It was standard security monitoring stuff.

Any idiot could fucking do it.

Okay, fine, any idiot who—like his good self— knew the program being used, and how to link up each of the units, and what was a problem that could be troubleshooted—troubleshot?—and what was going to require a rebooting if things were only momentarily brain-dead or a replacement if a component was defective.

A good two hours into the shit, and Mayhem was very aware that Apex, for however smart the guy was, did not have the disposition necessary to perform this job. Patience was required, a real go-with-the-flow kind of problem-solving: On the second unit failure, the guy would have taken out his gun and started aiming for the ceiling.

And it was hard to pinpoint exactly what was the trigger for the catch-on, but when light dawned on proverbial Marblehead . . . Mayhem was seriously under-impressed with himself.

He was at the top of the cellar stairs when the realization occurred to him, standing under a unit they’d placed directly above the entrance to the lower level, the laptop balanced on his palm, his neck getting a strain as he looked up to confirm the fucking little red light was turning green—

When all of a sudden, he straightened his head, looked back over his shoulder, and started counting.

One . . . two . . . three . . .

There was a total of five units down the hall and in what he could see of the great room with the hearth and the animal heads.

The math continued. Each of the bedrooms down below had a sensor. And also the rooms upstairs that were unlikely to be slept in by vampires, even with all the daylight shutters in place. All the bathrooms. The kitchen, too. The whole house, wired for image and sound.

Like it wasn’t so much about security . . . but rather, eavesdropping.

And the back end was interesting, too. The feeds were consolidated and sent to three places—

“Hi.”

Mayhem jerked to attention. “Oh, hey. I didn’t see you.”

“Sorry,” Mahrci said softly.

Frowning, he glanced around. “You okay? Is there someone here?”

“Can I ask you something?” she continued at a whisper.

He nodded. “Sure.”

“I don’t mean to put you in an awkward position. But . . . Apex said we all had to leave because some kind of timeline has been moved up. Can you tell me what this is about?”

When he shook his head, he discovered that however frustrated he’d been by the blackout on information, he was now glad Apex hadn’t told him much—because it meant he could be honest, here and now.

“I don’t know anything.” He shrugged. “And I asked Apex a hundred times. I’m just supposed to sync up everything and supply the feeds to a couple of sources. That’s all he would say.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Well, I’m packed up. Not that I brought much.”

Don’t come on too strong , he told himself. Be cool, be cool —

“You can leave with us, if you want. And if you need a place to stay, you can stay with me—or Apex would take you in, if you want—”

“No, I wouldn’t ask anybody to do that,” she murmured. “Especially Apex, given that he works for my father.”

“Well, I’m still an option. Just sayin’. No pressure.”

Mahrci’s flush lit her cheeks, in a way that made him realize how pale she’d gotten. “Oh, thank you, but I have somewhere to go. And no one will find me.”

So it’s like that , he thought with a pang in his chest.

As he locked his molars, he told himself he needed to put his zip code where his mouth was: He’d told her he was fine being used. He needed to back that shit up and not be a little bitch about being left behind—

“Are you safe?” she asked. “In your home?”

“It’ll do.” He didn’t bother to inform her he had more booby-traps in his one-bedroom apartment than there were snowbanks around them. “Don’t worry about me.”

When the laptop made a chirping noise, she said, “Are you finished?”

“No, not even close. I still have to do the upper and lower levels.” He looked around again—and saw nothing but her. “I’m making good progress, though.”

And what do you know, he decided to work even faster. If he could get this wrapped up soon enough, he might just ghost out before dawn and not have to stay over day.

Drawing out this goodbye with Mahrci seemed harder than getting it over with.

“You mind if I take care of your room now?” he asked. “I can get it done and then you’re free to—whatever.”

“Oh yes, of course.”

Together, they descended to the lower level. Her bedroom was the first on the left, and the door was partially open. He wondered if it was still from him dragging her ex out of there. Good times, good times.

Stepping aside, he waited for her to go in first—and, oh, man, she’d just had a shower. He could smell the shampoo and conditioner, the soap, too, and not just in the air, but on her.

He might have noticed upstairs, but he’d been distracted by a choking sense of dread . . . that he probably was never going to see her again after this—

He stopped his sad sacking and frowned once more. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

Mahrci stared up at him, her hands worrying at the sleeves of her sweater, pushing them up, pulling them down.

“You can tell me what’s really going on,” he heard himself say. Then he motioned to the security unit on the ceiling. “That isn’t connected to the system yet.”

“You already know . . . everything.”

“All right.”

He gave her a chance to continue. When she didn’t, he walked under the pod he’d screwed in earlier and fired up the laptop. Waited for its light to change. Double-checked that it was entered in the manifest right.

“Bedroom one, I’m calling this,” he murmured.

“Can I help you?”

“No, I got it.” He eyed the Vuitton duffle that had been set just outside the bathroom. “Are you leaving before dawn, too—”

“Will you come with me?”

Mayhem stopped breathing. Then he slowly lowered the laptop. “What . . . are you saying?”

Across the way, in the garage quarters, Apex was out of his mind and totally grounded at the same time, especially as he looked down his body again and saw his arousal stretching Callum’s mouth, going in and out of those lips, being slicked from the sucking. And then at his base, that fist that was gripping him. And there was also a cup around his balls—

“I’m coming,” he growled as he tried to hold it in. “Callum—”

The wolven just went all the way down, and big surprise, that caused the ejaculations to explode out of him.

Whereupon they were promptly swallowed.

Arching into the pleasure, giving himself up, Apex was exactly where he wanted to be—he just wasn’t sure about the other male.

Except then Callum retracted until things popped out, literally. After that, the two of them just stayed where they were, Apex loose-limbed and on his back, the wolven perched over the cock he had just sucked off.

“Are you all right,” Apex asked hoarsely.

There was a heartbeat of pause. And then the male answered—by extending his tongue, lowering his head, and licking his way around Apex’s stomach. Which he’d come all over the first time.

“Oh . . . fucking hell . . .”

The sensations of that warm, slick tongue lapping over his abs was enough to bring the good times back for a third time—and he was never, ever going to forget the sight of Callum bent down to him, the wolven’s arms bowed out, his icy blue eyes gleaming from under his lowered lids, the heat and the sex making everything razor sharp and totally buffered at the same time.

“Sorry,” Apex mumbled as he got hard all over again. “It’s been—”

He stopped himself.

Callum paused, too. “It’s been . . . what?”

“A really long time. Since I’ve done anything like this.”

“How long?”

“I don’t want to freak you out,” Apex muttered.

When all he got was a whole lot of no-more-tongue-action and an arched brow, he groaned, “I haven’t been with anyone in person in decades.”

This got him rewarded with another lick, right over his belly button. “And what about by yourself.”

“I’d rather not answer that.”

“Why?” More with the licking. Thank fuck. “Why don’t you want to—”

“Not often, okay. It wasn’t often.”

And when it happened, you were all I was thinking of , he thought—

Callum froze again. “I was?”

Fuck, guess he’d said that out loud. “Yes, you were.”

In the silence that followed, Apex looked over at the ashes in the hearth. Then at the suitcase that was still sitting there with its top blown off, like it was a shooting victim. And finally, he returned to the wolven’s beautiful, masculine face . . . specifically those lips, those eyes, that flush.

“What did you think of,” Callum said softly, “when I came to your mind?”

“It wasn’t anything bad—”

“What did you picture?”

Apex lowered his lids. “That I was about to kiss you.”

“About to?”

“That was all . . . it ever took.”

Callum licked his lips. “Are you thinking about kissing me right now?”

“Yeah. I am.”

With the prowl of the wolf he was, Callum stalked his way up Apex’s chest. Then he hovered his lips just two inches away.

“Was I this close?”

Apex started to breathe heavy again. “Yes.”

The wolven lowered himself a little. “How about . . . this close?”

“Yes,” Apex whispered.

Down a little more. “What about this close?”

All Apex could do was nod—because suddenly he was coming once more, his cock kicking as he groaned, his chest pumping as his hips did the same.

And that was when Callum sealed their lips—and went even farther. He laid his body down, all his contours fitting Apex’s like they’d been made together. The kissing just kept on going, but Apex was careful. His arms stayed by his sides.

He wanted Callum to know that he was free to leave at any moment.

Even as he prayed the male would not go.

The kissing . . . was waking up parts of Callum that he hadn’t accessed for years. Decades. Not since before he’d been—

No, he wasn’t going there, to that female and her guards. He was staying right here , on top of his vampire, in front of the fucking ashes of the past.

Callum felt Apex’s orgasm once again, the wetness, the heat, fusing their stomachs together. And the mouth-to-mouth was incredible. Apex was a harsh male, a killer with a prison record, a remote mystery in so many ways. But fucking hell, he had the softest lips, and the sounds he made? It was a purring, a groaning, a panting—

And that was when it happened.

Callum started to find his own release.

He’d been so focused on Apex that he hadn’t paid attention to his own body: the fact that he was hard, that he was straining for a release, that his balls were getting tight. And his hips just took over as he began to work his erection against Apex’s.

Even though his combats were a barrier, he felt enough.

He felt so much.

Breaking off the kiss, he dropped his face into Apex’s neck and shuddered and bucked and grabbed on to whatever there was—the vampire’s arms, his shoulders. Then he locked ahold of the other male’s hands.

It was so good, it was so right.

It was like being cleaned from the inside out. And when he finally stilled, he exhaled and went limp.

“Are you okay?” Apex asked roughly.

Dimly, through his wonderful float of relaxation, Callum thought . . . that was the third time the vampire had posed him that question.

Callum lifted his head. “I’m trying to be.”

Apex closed his black eyes. “You shouldn’t force it.”

“I think . . . I might be,” Callum whispered.

He had to believe it was possible.

He just had to.