Chapter One

Riordan

Just a few days before Christmas and what was I doing? Was I getting together with family that I hardly ever saw during the year to stuff my face with way too much rich food? Was I putting up decorations only to take them back down again a few days later? Or maybe joining the teeming crowds at an overpriced mall, shopping for expensive Christmas presents for people I didn’t even like all that much?

None of the above—although, come to think of it, none of that sounded like anything I wanted to do anyway.

Instead, I was sitting here in what was actually one of my favorite kinds of places—a seedy, dimly lit gay bar that smelled of sex, spilled whiskey, men’s cheap cologne and maybe a little desperation. I was a thousand miles from home, waiting for the right opportunity to approach the gorgeous little fugitive I’d been tracking for the past few days and maybe figuring out a way to get him into bed before we started the long trek back to Atlanta. Maybe this was shaping up to be a pretty good Christmas after all.

When I first left the Army, I’d had trouble finding a job, because former Rangers tended to sometimes make bad employees. We’re too damn independent and don’t take direction well, or at least not in a civilian situation. That’s what my first two bosses had claimed, anyway, as they were firing me.

After a few months of trying to work for other people, with at best mixed success, I decided to start my own business and became a Bail Enforcement Agent, working with a couple of bondsmen in town. That, of course, is a fancy way of saying I became a bounty hunter. Though while “bail enforcement agent” looked better on forms when you were trying for a small business loan at the bank, it just didn’t sound nearly as badass.

I fucking loved the job, and I was damn good at it, so I didn’t want to give it up, even though it turned out that running my own business wasn’t something I actually excelled at. I hated doing paperwork, and dealing with bondsmen meant you had to stay on top of them to get your money in a timely manner. And that was another thing I couldn’t seem to be bothered with. I soon learned that running my own business meant I didn’t have the luxury of taking only the jobs that interested me, which made it a lot less fun.

When I’d first gotten out of the Army, I’d had a little trouble finding a job I wanted right away. I’d been living in North Carolina then, and for a while I was beginning to think I’d made a big mistake in leaving the service at all. Then one day I reconnected with an old friend at a bar I used to frequent. He was in town visiting old friends. Lucas Hayes was an ex-Army buddy, who had left the Rangers a year before I had, to go to work for his father-in-law, who had opened up his own private detective agency. He invited me to come see him in Atlanta where he now lived and meet his father-in-law, who was an impressive guy and who might have a job for me.

His name was Ed Colton, and though I called the business he ran a detective agency, in reality, it was more than that. I think he did some work for the government that was above my pay grade, and that was fine with me. The less I knew the better, as far as I was concerned. Plausible deniability and all that.

Ed was ex-FBI or ATF or some other alphabet agency—he was pretty cagey and secretive about which one, and there was definitely a story there that I wasn’t privy to. Probably because it was none of my business, and as I said, that was all right with me. He seemed like a good enough guy, and best of all he paid well.

When he found out I was recently out of the Army and looking for work, he’d asked me to step into his office and have a chat. Lucas came in too, and while I was there, Mr. Colton asked me about my service record. When he found out I had some commendations from my time in Afghanistan, along with a wound that had taken out my knee and caused me to take an early retirement, he had offered me a job. I had an artificial knee now, and I was still working at the agency, going on three years now, doing whatever they needed me to do.

So far, my job had consisted mostly of looking for people. All kinds of them. Runaways and missing persons, for sure, but also those who had skipped out on their bail or who had stopped paying their court-ordered child support. I was a lot like a bounty hunter in that regard. In Georgia, I didn’t even need a license to hunt them. I just took a state course, and my agency paid the fees. The officers who worked for the state called themselves Bail Recovery Agents in Georgia, but I kind of liked the more old-fashioned term of bounty hunter—or what my boss called me, which was an “Acquisitions Specialist.”

I really enjoyed tracking down deadbeat dads who weren’t paying any child support and encouraging them to make a better effort. I was given quite a bit of leeway, and maybe that’s what I loved the most. State laws varied with regard to the rights of bounty hunters, but as a general rule, we had greater authority to arrest someone than even the local police. A fugitive could be taken into custody and removed to any state without extradition, and all I needed was a copy of Jazz Devlin’s guardianship papers, which was in my suitcase, along with some airline tickets. Armed with that paperwork, I didn’t need a warrant and could enter private property unannounced if I had reasonable suspicion. I didn’t even have to read him his rights when I took him in because at that point, he didn’t have any. All I needed was that handy reasonable suspicion that the fugitive was on the premises, and I could waltz right in. It was what enabled regular law enforcement to go anywhere they pleased in search of a suspect.

As a bounty hunter, I had the same rights. Even better because I didn’t have to have a warrant like the police did. I was also authorized to use deadly force, if I needed to. I gave my bail jumpers a choice. I told them I could bring them in warm or I could bring them in cold. It was totally up to them. So far, most of them had made the right choice.

I was in Albuquerque, New Mexico so close to Christmas due to an unfortunate incident involving a drunken poker game and a recent bad run of luck. My personal bank account was currently a little lower than I liked it to be, so I had agreed to take this assignment when my boss offered it to me, as it involved a nice little bonus for working over the holidays.

I glanced over at the kid again, Kitt Devlin, again to make sure he hadn’t moved from his chair and that he was still quietly, steadily getting drunk, though it was hard to see how those fruity little drinks he was putting away could do much more than give him a headache in the morning.

This bar was the kind of place that did much better with the lowest lighting possible, and the murky, low-lying smoke hanging in the air helped too. I’d been in a lot of places like this over the years, and it was beginning to get just a little old. Or hell, maybe I was.

It occurred to me that I should consider settling down. Find myself someone cute and cozy to come home to and stay closer to my base in Atlanta.

It wasn’t all that late, maybe around nine o’clock, but the place was nearly empty. I guess it was a slow night. A few customers were scattered around the room at various tables and booths, but nobody was on the tiny scrap of a dance floor. Hell, I was shocked there even was a dance floor, but I guess this place had once seen better days. The majority of people in the room were sitting at the large, semi-circular bar.

An old and catchy Dolly Parton tune, “Hard Candy Christmas,” was playing softly in the background, with Dolly singing about how she was, “barely getting through tomorrow, but still I won't let sorrow bring me way down.”

I felt that in my soul.

Kitt Devlin, the one I was here in Albuquerque to pick up, must have been feeling it too, as he was tapping his fingers on the side of his glass, keeping time, and he had a thoughtful look on his pretty face. One thing I could definitely say about the little punk—he was probably the best-looking thing I’d seen in…hell, maybe ever. Tall, but not too tall; lean but not too lean; dark hair that fell perfectly across his broad, unblemished forehead. I felt like one of the bears in the Goldilocks story assessing him, because to me, he looked just right.

He had the look of a wealthy, spoiled brat too. A haughty nose—the better to look down on people with—and dark slashes of eyebrows, one of which was currently quirked up on the side, showing his nearly complete contempt for this place. Nevertheless, here he was, and considering the early hour and the fact that he didn’t look over legal drinking age in this state, it was a bit surprising that he’d managed to get served at all and able to get drunk so quickly. It probably spoke to both his ingenuity and his strong determination. I knew he had a fake ID—I’d seen him flash it—but he really didn’t look twenty-one, so the bartender must be letting it slide.

He sure wasn’t doing it on his charm alone, as he looked and acted sullen, jaded and extremely bored. Not to mention moody, like the bad-tempered teenager he wasn’t all that far from being. Boredom was a big problem for Kitt, according to his file, because when he got bored, that was when trouble seemed to blow up around him.

I was a little surprised at the strong reaction I was having to him. From the first moment I laid eyes on Kitt two days ago in person, I’d felt an instant attraction that I’d been fighting hard ever since. I mentally chastised myself, because I should have been concentrating only on the job at hand—which was keeping him in one piece and getting him back home to Atlanta.

My eyes fell to his wrists when he lit the cigarette, and I noticed not only how slim and somehow fragile they were, but also the little red and green beaded bracelets he was wearing on both wrists—a lot of them. Friendship bracelets, the Swifties called them. According to his file, he was only ten years younger than I was, but he seemed like such a kid.

Kitt had a history of being a loose cannon. It hadn’t been long since he was kicked out of his college, and since then, he had been picked up by the police on three, separate occasions. Two of them were drunk and disorderly charges along with one resisting arrest charge. Since I’d been following him, he seemed to be almost always short of cash and was sleeping wherever he could find an empty couch to crash on. He drank too much, smoked too much, and ran that smart, little mouth of his way more than was good for him. He was also far too inquisitive—he liked to stick that patrician little nose of his in other people’s business, which was probably part of what had landed him in the trouble he was in now.

From the information I had about him, he had witnessed a shooting in Atlanta, after being out clubbing half the night. The participants were members of the Everybody Killa gang, a hybrid criminal street gang based in the area that had ties to a major national gang called the Bloods. They had long been engaged in a violent feud with Red Tape Gang, another hybrid criminal street gang based in the city. For years, the rivalry between EBK and the RTG had resulted in several shootings and homicides. On the night in question, at around three in the morning, a man named Jamal Ferguson and four of his friends left a nightclub in a section of Atlanta called Five Points. As Ferguson and his friends headed to their vehicle, a second vehicle came down the street, stopping immediately next to Ferguson’s car. A few seconds later, without provocation, multiple occupants of that vehicle opened fire on Ferguson and his friends. Ferguson and his friends returned fire, and both Ferguson and another man with him had died at the scene as a result of the injuries they sustained in the gunbattle.

A person in a third vehicle parked in alongside Ferguson’s car had witnessed the entire thing. And guess who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Kitt Devlin wasn’t involved in any way, but he fled the scene. He did, however, stay around long enough for the other participants to see him. He called 911 from another location but refused to tick around and talk to the police. When detectives recovered the footage of the shooting from the incident, however, they identified the third vehicle by its license plate and requested Kitt’s cooperation in testifying to what he witnessed. Kitt refused and when they insisted…he refused again. A warrant was issued for him to be taken into involuntary protective custody until a trial could be scheduled.

And then Kitt Devlin ran. It was such a juvenile, stupid thing to do, it was almost breathtaking.

Just then, Kitt got up unexpectedly and sauntered over to the old-fashioned looking jukebox in the corner. It was actually a new machine, just made to look retro. I hadn’t seen a jukebox, new or old, in years, but it fit in with the country western vibe of this place. He leaned over it, studying the selections, I guess. He was wearing a denim jacket and sinfully tight jeans, ripped across the thighs. I sat back and admired the way he looked, and I wasn’t the only one. He was lithe and slim and sexy, and though I considered myself to be mostly bi, there were times when only someone like Kitt would do. Not that I could do anything about it, except admire the way he looked. Not ethically, anyway—but I’d done a lot worse for a lot less.

I justified my interest to myself by thinking it was okay to look at him, as long as that’s all I did. I needed a bit of kink to really get me going anyway. Not whips and chains or anything so dramatic. That was rare and it took the right kind of guy—someone who actually got off on that. But spanking some cute little ass or dominating my partner a little if he enjoyed it and needed it—I could get into that. Unfortunately for me, Kitt seemed to fit that bill nicely. He was definitely a bottom and almost certainly a brat, if I were any judge.

I got up and walked over next to him before somebody else did, leaning against the jukebox and showing off his assets like he was.

“You look a little young to be in this bar.”

He glanced over at me and started to say something smartass and sarcastic—I could see it trembling on his pretty mouth—but then his eyes widened as he got a good look at me, and he let his gaze run up and down my body.

“What’s it to ya?” he asked, but he let a little smile play around his lips and even batted his lush eyelashes a little to show me he wasn’t mad about it.

“Well, I was just wondering if you knew what kind of place this is. Let me clue you in, just in case you wandered in off the street and didn’t know. This is a gay bar, though it’s not getting a lot of action in that regard tonight. Normally, guys come to a place like this to meet up with and fuck other guys.”

“Oh yes, I’m well aware.” He toasted me with his glass. “I didn’t just come in here for the drinks.”

I nodded and plucked the glass out of his hand, putting it on top of the jukebox as an old Conway Twitty song, “Hello, Darlin,’” came on.

“Prove it. Dance with me.”

Kitt’s eyes widened, and he looked around the place—no one else was dancing.

“Are you kidding? No one else is doing that. We might look stupid.”

“So what? Do you only do what other people are doing?”

He gave me a reckless grin, and his eyes lit up. “No, I don’t, now that you mention it. Okay, then. Let’s do it.”

He grabbed my hand and pulled me out on the tiny dance floor, but then he didn’t seem to know what to do once he got there. He held out a hand to me like he expected to lead, but I grinned again, grabbed his hand and tucked it behind his waist, while I pulled him so close he had to tip his head back to look up at me. He had no choice but to awkwardly put his free hand on my shoulder.

I began to move him around the tiny dance floor to the sad old song Conway was warbling, holding Kitt tight against me and enjoying myself probably way too much. I could feel the sweet lines of his body all up and down my own. His breath was warm against my throat, and though at first, he wasn’t doing much more than swaying a little to the music, I added a few fancier steps, and he tried his best to follow me. He looked down at his feet, though, so to keep him from it and keep him off-center, I whirled him around a few times until he was breathless and dizzy and holding onto me for dear life.

I hadn’t shaved since early that morning, so my beard scratched along his smooth cheek as I held him close and bent even closer to him. He looked up at me with a slightly confused expression, and I knew he was beginning to wonder if he’d gotten in over his head. His sweet submissive nature was coming out a little as we danced, and I was feeling it a little too much myself, actually, so I put a little distance between us, by twirling him out away from me and then reeling him back in. He drew in a sharp breath and threw his arms around my neck as I dipped him way down toward the floor. The music stopped, and he pushed at my chest to get me to let go of him. I set him back on his feet and pretended not to notice how unsteady he was.

“Thanks,” he said, looking a little pale. “But I think I’m probably done. Too much to drink, I guess. I’m going to sit down for a little while.” He stood there awkwardly a moment before giving me a slight smile. “Is that okay?”

There was that submissive nature showing itself again.

“Of course. Thanks for the dance, sweetheart.”

He blushed, as he grabbed his drink again and scooted quickly back over to his table.

I took a seat at a table nearby after a minute or two, not looking at him, because I could feel his gaze on me. I think he sensed something, and I made him nervous. I didn’t want him to get so nervous that he thought I was stalking him, so I pretended to ignore him.

He picked up his glass and threw back the contents remaining in it with a snap of his head. His hair shone as black as midnight in the light and his face was really gorgeous.

Not two minutes later, some guy came over and asked him to dance. Kitt laughed at something he said, and I noticed how infectious his laugh was. The guy who asked him was a tall drink of water, wearing jeans and a damn cowboy hat and boots. Then again, this was New Mexico. Kitt got up to go with him to the dance floor, and I felt a jolt of possessive jealousy.

The “cowboy” he was dancing with was showing him some kind of complicated line dance shit. Kitt hooked his thumbs in his belt loops like the guy showed him and started trying to follow what he did. It was cute as hell, and I thought again that he was way too young for me. I also noticed that he had begun to stumble a little, and I knew he was drunk on his ass. I still wanted him with a fierceness that shocked me.

He took off his damn shirt then and tied it around his waist, showing off a luscious, tanned body that looked strong and a little muscular, like he worked out a little. The cowboy gave him a sip of his beer that spilled and ran down the strong column of his throat onto his chest. The cowboy laughed and leaned over to lick it and that did it for me. I got up and went over there, grabbing his arm.

“I think this is my dance,” I told Kitt, and he looked up at me in confusion.

“Oh, hi. Did you want to join us? It’s a line dance, so you can if you like.”

I smiled at him, and the cowboy said, “Get your own, mister.”

I turned my back to Kitt and gave the cowboy a look that quickly changed his mind about arguing, and he took off back to the bar.

“He left,” Kitt said. “Why did he do that?”

“No idea,” I said. “Why don’t you just dance with me? I’m not going anywhere.”

“Okay,” he said, and I took him in my arms and began to whirl him around so fast he had to throw his arms around my neck to hold on. He gazed up at me with those big, dark-fringed eyes and his lush mouth fell open in surprise.

Somebody started playing “Little Bitty” by Alan Jackson on the juke box, and I pulled him into a fast two-step. He couldn’t keep up, so I lifted him off his feet and swept him around the floor. I may have made him a little dizzy, accidentally-on-purpose as I twirled him around so that he’d cling to me even harder. Finally, the music stopped, and he stayed in my arms, still holding on tightly and blowing his sweet breath in my face. He gasped out the words, “Dizzy,” and I pushed his head down on my shoulder and held him close.

I walked him back over to the bar and sat him down on a stool next to mine so he could rest a few minutes before I took him up to my room. I thought he was about ready to retire for the night, whether he knew it or not.

He pulled a cigarette from the pack in his pocket and inclined his head slightly to the side to light it up, twisting his head to avoid getting smoke in his eyes. Damn it, even that move was sexy as fuck, like every other move I’d seen him make. But I got the feeling he wasn’t even aware of how good he looked.

One of the ones leaning over the bar at the far end was a salesman—at least he looked like one. Big and beefy, with a red face, he wore a rumpled suit and was going on and on, telling the bartender stories with a Christmas theme. The one he was currently in the middle of was about how much he used to love Christmas as a kid and how much better everything used to be back then. He was pretty obviously drunk and getting louder. Most of the other customers were trying to ignore him, except for one. I saw that Kitt had begun to pay close attention and had his head slightly tilted toward the guy, his eyes narrowed and his lip curling as he listened. I wondered what was going on in that pretty little head of his.

“Christmas morning used to be the best at my house,” the salesman was saying. “My brother and I would get up before everyone else and run downstairs to see if Santa Claus had come. To see what he’d brought us.” He chuckled. “We were too damn old for it by then, but we were afraid that if we told our mom that we knew there was no such thing as Santa Claus, we might stop getting presents. So, we’d run to the tree and make a lot of noise until we woke her and our Dad up and they’d come down, all ready to raise hell with us, but then they’d realize what day it was and plop down on the couch to watch us. Mom would go off to the kitchen to get Dad his coffee and make us her special Christmas pancakes. Dad would watch us open our presents and after breakfast, he’d be on the floor beside us, putting our toys together and saying that Santa must have forgot to do it the night before.”

“Oh yeah?” the bartender replied. “What kind of toys?”

“Trains and little toy cars that fit onto a track—you know the kind. Just cheap stuff that mostly tore up after a day or two—we were a little rough on them, but that was part of the fun. Christmas was the best back then, man. Not all commercial and expensive like it is today.”

The bartender, who must have been bored—though probably not as much as I was—kept talking to him. Maybe he knew the guy or else he was angling for a good tip.

“What about your pancake breakfast? What was so special about that?”

The guy laughed. “Not a damn thing. My mom was a terrible cook, but she’d stick some frozen pancakes in the toaster and then use whipped cream to make faces on them after she took them out of the toaster to make us laugh. I still remember how bad those damn things tasted. But man, I’d love to go back to that time again, just for that one morning alone.”

Kitt shook his head. I focused on Kitt as he signaled the bartender for another one of the fancy cocktails he’d been drinking. He’d had enough, but I let him do it, hoping he’d just pass out and not cause me any trouble about going along with me to my room. Whatever he’d ordered had another little umbrella in it and fruit hanging off the side. The bartender turned to look over at him and nod. That drew the salesman’s attention too.

“What do you think, boy?” the salesman asked. “Don’t you agree that Christmas is too commercialized and not what it used to be?”

Kitt turned his head a little and stared coldly at him. “Are you addressing me?” he asked in a prim, patrician little voice that was only a little slurred, but more than a little incredulous. He sounded like the queen might have sounded if someone had asked her for a light for their cigarette.

“Well, yeah. I asked if you agreed with me.”

“About what?”

“That Christmas when we were little kids was the best! Much better than today. It hasn’t been that long for you, but don’t you agree, buddy?”

Kitt smirked and tilted his glass at him. “Whatever you say...buddy.” He took a long swig of his drink.

“You don’t sound too sure,” the salesman said, his tone getting more than a little belligerent. He probably objected to that smart-ass smirk on Kitt’s face, and hell, you couldn’t blame him.

“You got a different idea?” The man yelled at him, and he must have been drunker than I’d first thought, because he’d puffed up belligerently. It looked like he was trying to start a fight over nothing much at all. And Kitt was just the kind of boy who’d give him one. I tensed, getting ready to stop this if it went much further.

I had no idea why Kitt was getting so mad about the guy’s stupid, but innocuous question. I knew that his parents had divorced when he was really young, and that he and his father had a contentious relationship. Maybe that was it. But he was about to start a fight over nothing much at all and I wasn’t in the mood tonight. As Toby Keith used to say in his song, “there was a time, back in my prime, when I could really lay it down…” But like Toby says, I ain’t as good as I once was.

“Oh, are you still talking to me?” Kitt asked the salesman, looking over at him with an incredulous look on his face.

“Yeah, damn it, I asked you a fucking question, you little asshole.”

“The thing is,” Kitt said, taking a drag off his cigarette and blowing a long plume of smoke up in the air, “I’m tired of hearing you running your big mouth. I just came in this place to have a drink. Not to listen to you. Can you lower your damn voice or at least talk about something else that doesn’t have a question for me in it? Or better yet, why don’t you just do us all a favor and shut the fuck up?”

The man lurched to his feet and began coming around the end of the bar, his face hot and bothered. I stood up, all six-feet, four inches of me, ready to head this thing off.

“The fuck did you say to me?” the drunk guy yelled.

He was going to make me get involved, damn it, and the last thing I needed was drama that would attract undue attention. I sighed and laid a hand on his shoulder.

“Why don’t you sit your ass down?” I said softly, my voice low and stern as I held the salesman’s gaze. You could have heard a pin drop in that bar anyway, though, as everyone suddenly got very interested. In the background, somebody was playing Brenda Lee “rockin’ around the Christmas tree,” singing her heart out about, “everyone dancin' merrily, in the new, old-fashioned way.”

Looking a little surprised that he suddenly had a new opponent in this fight, the drunk guy glanced up at me and my disapproving face, and then he stumbled back a few steps as he got a good look at me. He fell back down on his bar stool, still looking like he wanted to fight. Now that I was closer to him, I could see how really drunk he was. He could barely sit up straight.

“Stay there and sober up, pal. As my mama used to say, don’t let anybody steal your joy. Those memories of yours sound nice. Don’t pay any attention to little assholes like this one.”

“Hey!” the little asshole yelled from beside me and started to get up. I pushed him back down again.

“Are you the bouncer?” the drunk asked.

Before I could answer, Kitt stood up beside me, trying his best to get in the middle of it again. “Maybe he is. Or maybe he’s just sick of hearing about your shitty frozen pancakes or your stupid Christmas toys, and your stupid daddy, just like everybody else.”

I turned to stare down at him. “Shut up, sit back down and let me handle this. And you don’t need any more of these,” I said, plucking the drink the bartender had just brought him out of his hand. I pushed it back across the bar. “He’s had enough. Bring him his check, please.”

“Wait—I wanted that! And I don’t need my check! I’m not ready to go yet,” Kitt said in a loud and petulant voice, trying his best to give me an intimidating look—all one hundred fifty pounds of him, soaking wet. “Who the hell are you anyway and why are you all up in my business?”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “Get out your wallet so you can pay the nice man. Then get back on your feet, because you’re coming with me.”

“What?” he yelled and shoved me when I wouldn’t turn to look at him.

I turned back around, looming over him and suddenly he changed his mind.

“Okay, okay, don’t get excited.” His gaze roamed me up and down again as a blush stained his cheeks and a slow, seductive smile lit his face. “If you insist. Why not?”

I plucked his wallet from his back pocket to pay his tab since he still hadn’t made any move to do it yet. He had very few bills inside, yet here he was, drinking up what little money he had left. I took his arm in a strong grip, and he didn’t resist—mainly because he’d had quite a night for himself. And it wasn’t over yet.

From beside me, the salesman slapped me on the back. “Thank you for those kind words, sir.”

“You bet,” I said and turned to take Kitt by the elbow and get him out of there.

“Hey, wait. Where are you taking me?”

“To my hotel room.”

“Oh,” he said, seeming to think it over. “Okay then. I guess that’ll work. Why didn’t you say so to start with?”

We went out into the cold night air—the temperature had dropped a lot since I’d been out there—and as I pulled him along, he leaned into me for warmth. That thin denim wasn’t doing much for him. It was only a short walk, but I let him stay as close as he seemed to want to all the way. We went in the wide glass doors leading to the lobby, which was decorated for the season with strings of white lights and a pretty, though very artificial looking, Christmas tree towering up in a corner of the room. I walked us past it on the way to the desk.

I’d arranged for a room while I’d been sitting at the bar so all I had to do was check in and get my key. Kitt stood patiently beside me, leaning slightly into me, and my arm went around his waist, like it had a mind of its own. Luckily for both of us, I came to my senses and gently eased away from him, letting him stand on his own two feet instead. Thankfully, the clerk was fast and handed over the key a few minutes later.

I’d had an idea of what I thought this boy would be like when I was first given this assignment. I’d seen his photos, of course, though they didn’t do him justice. In them, he’d looked like an actor or maybe a model, too good looking to be anything else, with a straight little nose, sad eyes and always a pout on his pretty lips.

Tonight, he also looked young and more than a little messy, like he was tired and hadn’t showered lately. I knew he was staying with whatever friend he could talk into allowing it, so he was having a hard time. His oversized denim jacket was buttoned up the wrong way. He looked bad tempered too, but that was more than likely because he was.

I wasn’t looking forward to explaining to him why I was here. Or the fact that when I left, he was coming with me. Like I said, I didn’t need to be distracted, so the idea of spending time with him over the next couple of days was not pleasant. The last thing I needed in my life was complications. He had a history of running away and of throwing temper tantrums, too, so I’d have to be vigilant and stern with him.

My agency been hired by his brother, Jazz Devlin, a wealthy Atlanta businessman. (I had no idea what their parents had been thinking with those names, by the way. One of them must have a fascination with double consonants. Not to mention silly names) Anyway, Jazz Devlin had chosen the private agency I worked for at random, from what my boss told me, and I’d happened to be the one to get this assignment.

When I talked to Jazz Devlin, he had been worried about finding his kid brother, Kitt, who had witnessed the gang-related murder in Five Points a couple of weeks earlier. The feds wanted his brother to testify, which he’d agreed to do. Yet when they warned him that the bad guys would be after him before the trial to shut him up, did he then do the right thing and let them put him into witness protection and agree to testify? Hell no, of course, he didn’t. He’d decided to run away, like a kid, and he’d been on the run ever since.

His older brother Jazz had tried to reason with him, until Kitt stopped talking to him. They had a troubled history, going back years, Jazz had told me when I spoke to him over the phone. He’d said this wouldn’t be easy, and I was beginning to think he’d been more right than he’d known.

I kept my hand locked tightly on Kitt’s arm as I walked him down the corridor to my room. We reached the door, and I ushered him inside. This was a suite, paid for by my expense account, and it was dim and quiet at this time of night. The maids had already been in to turn down the bed and put mints on the pillows.

Kitt had been quiet all the way up in the elevator, and I wondered what he must be thinking. It didn’t take me long to find out. He turned to me a little belligerently.

“Are you a cop?”

One hell of a time for him to finally ask.

“No, I’m not,” I replied. Which was absolutely true—I had no such affiliation.

He narrowed his pretty blue eyes at me. “It’s entrapment if you lie about it and say you’re not when you really are, you know.”

I smiled at him. I wasn’t a cop, and I couldn’t arrest him. That didn’t mean I wasn’t there to take him back home. I was going to take him into my custody in my capacity as a recovery officer, aka bounty hunter, and I was going to transport him back to Atlanta to hand him over to his brother. But I had no plans to arrest him, so technically, it wasn’t that much of a lie.

“I have no interest in taking you to jail.”

He seemed to think about it for a minute and then he lifted one shoulder. “Okay then.” He looked around the room. “This is nice. Are you rich?”

“No.”

He put his hand on his hip and gazed at me like he was trying to decide if I was lying or not.

Finally, he nodded. “Okay. Cool.”

I loosened my tie and took off my jacket to drape it around a chair. He watched every move I made like a little hawk. He made himself comfortable too, shrugging off his jacket and slipping off his shoes to tuck his feet underneath him as he lounged back on the couch.

“Why does a guy who looks like you,” he said, looking me up and down, “need to pick up someone in a bar to hook up with?”

“Who said I did?”

He held out his arms and wrinkled up his straight little nose. He was very cute. “Here I am. Isn’t that why you asked me here?”

“What if it was?”

“Then I’d ask you what you wanted. Why don’t you sit over here next to me and tell me all about it. I won’t bite.” He flashed me a flirty look. “Not unless you want me to.” Damn it, I’d thought my cock couldn’t get any harder but here we were.

I sighed, shook my head and took his hand in mine. “I can’t, Kitt. I’m here because your brother Jazz sent me to bring you back to Atlanta. Hopefully, you’ll cooperate, and this time will go by quickly for both of us. Can I count on your cooperation?”

It took a second or two for what I said to register, but when it did, his reaction was sudden and violent. He twisted away and jumped to his feet, turning on me like an outraged cat, his voice raspy and hoarse. “I need to get out of here!”

He squirmed away when I grabbed for him, snatched up his jacket and ran for the door. I was there before him, pulling his jacket from his hand and tossing it across the room. “No. I’m sorry, Kitt, but I can’t let you leave.” He blanched with alarm and gasped, and I could see the fear and panic in his eyes.

I backed away a step and raised my hands in the air to try to show him I wasn’t going to hurt him, but he wasn’t convinced and hell, who could blame him after the way I’d tricked him to get him here to my room.

Kitt stared at me furiously for a moment, but there was fear in his eyes too, and I hated myself for putting it there. He started wringing his hands a little. Then his face changed, and he straightened his back and gave me a shaky smile. He reached up to touch my jaw.

“I-I think we’ve got off on the wrong foot. If you want a blow job, I’ll be glad to oblige you. Just don’t get rough, okay? I’ll give you whatever you want.”

I felt like the worst kind of fraud as I reached for him, wanting to apologize and reassure him again that I wouldn’t hurt him, would never hurt him.

I told him that and when he smiled seductively, I said, “I just have to take you back to Atlanta.”

He flinched quickly away from me, as if from a wild animal, his eyes darting around the room, looking for a way to escape. He kept backing up until he hit the wall. I stopped and tried to make my voice gentle and calm.

“Kitt, listen to me, please. I’m sorry about all this. I’m not here to harm you or take advantage of you. I promise I’m not going to hurt you.”

He gave a bitter laugh. “Despite all evidence to the contrary, huh?”

Moving in slowly again, I just wanted to comfort him and let him know I didn’t mean him harm. He glanced up at me from under those thick eyelashes with a fearful expression in his dark eyes. “I’m really sorry,” I whispered and drew him carefully, gently into my arms. “Please sit back down. It’s going to be all right.”

Instead, he closed his eyes and lifted his lips to mine, though he was still trembling. Surprised and charmed by his actions, I couldn’t help myself. I lowered my head to kiss him. When he didn’t push me away, I deepened the kiss, sweeping my tongue over his and tasting him. He tasted sweet. I moved my hands down to cup his ass and gently draw him even closer. I felt him whimper softly under my lips, and I made my kiss sweeter and even more gentle, teasing his tongue a little. I could feel his response in his rock-hard cock, which was now pressed up against my stomach, and I pulled his body closer, wanting to consume him, to own him.

He smiled up into my eyes and put a hand to the back of my neck to pull my head down to his. I leaned in, mesmerized by his beautiful dark eyes and noticed irrelevantly again the golden flecks radiating out from his pupils. When our faces were inches apart, and I could feel his hot breath on my lips, Kitt whispered up to me.

“Fuck you.”

Without any more warning than that, he pulled my forehead down to ram his, and I literally saw stars, just like in a cartoon. I reeled back away from him while he pushed me off him, and then he hit the door running hard. Not stopping for his jacket or his shoes, even though it was freezing outside, he streaked down the corridor before I could shake my head clear enough to go after him. I took a moment and then I ran after him and caught him as he jabbed frantically at the elevator buttons. I picked him up around the waist, manhandling him back to my room. He screamed bloody murder, but despite his yelling, I got lucky and not one person so much as stuck their heads out of any of the doors.

When he began to curse me at the top of his lungs, I clapped a hand over his mouth and got him inside, turning around to lock the door firmly behind us. I sensed him behind me and threw up an arm just in time to catch a lamp he’d intended to crash down on my head. He tried to make a break for the bathroom and slam the door in my face, but I shoved it open, grabbed him, and whirled him around to push him face first up against the wall.

Holding him there by the back of the neck, I nudged his feet farther apart. “Feet back and spread ‘em, damn it! Now!”

Shaking hard, Kitt complied, and I hesitated. I should have been putting restraints on him, but I just stood there, sniffing his skin like an idiot, regretting so hard that we’d gotten off to such a bad start and wishing I could wipe away the last five minutes and start over.

“Please. Just let me go.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Who are you? Oh god, did my brother send you?”

“Yes, Kitt. I already told you that. I’m here to take you back home.”

“You can tell my brother you couldn’t find me. I won’t tell anyone, I promise!” He glanced over his shoulder at me when I didn’t reply, his lips only inches away. He was breathing hard, but his tone was resigned. “Please. Please let me go.”

“You know I can’t do that. I’m a bounty hunter. Your brother paid me to come after you.”

He gasped and looked back at me, his eyes wild. “I can’t go back there. I won’t!”

He glanced at the door, as if trying to decide if he could get out.

“What do you mean, ‘my brother sent you?’ What are you even talking about? And how do you know my name?”

“You’re not listening. Your brother Jazz sent me to pick you up and bring you to him so he can get you into protective custody.”

“But why? What does any of this have to do with him?” he said, his face still shocked and alarmed. I took a breath to calm myself and decided we could still do this the easy way. I tried again.

“Why don’t you sit down so we can talk? I’m going to order myself a drink, but you’ve had enough, so you can have a soda or some juice. Come on. This thing might take some time to explain, but I’ll tell you everything I know. Let me try to do that.”

“Okay,” he said, seeming to finally accept the fact that he was caught. I led him back to the couch with no restraints, since it seemed he was willing to be cooperative.

His long, lush eyelashes fanned down over his eyes as he stared at the floor.

“I’ll order you something to drink, okay?”

He nodded, but the second I turned my back, he suddenly shot to the door, pulling a chair that sat beside it down to the floor. He took off down the hall for the second time, while I had to take a second to move the chair out of the way. I raced after him, but the little shit was fast and lucky. He was already halfway to the elevators, sprinting down the long empty hallway. I was determined to stop him before he got on the elevator and got away. If he did, I’d deal with it, but I needed to catch him.

Kitt glanced behind himself, and the sight of me charging after him down the hall made him put on extra speed, like in a Roadrunner cartoon. The doors opened just as he got there, and he shot inside. I ran up, just in time to see him grinning and giving me the middle finger as the doors closed in front of him.

I flung myself down the service stairs nearby and raced down a few floors, jumping over a few rails to maximize my speed. Elevators could be notoriously slow in big hotels and if luck was with me, and he got stopped at a few floors, I could catch him.

I jabbed frantically at the elevator buttons when I reached the bottom floor, out of breath from all the running. I was getting too old for this shit. A minute later, the door slid open and there he was, looking wide-eyed and shocked. I stepped inside, got him around the waist and manhandled him to the back corner of the elevator. While he tried to yell and kick and curse at the top of his lungs, I clapped a hand over his mouth and held on tight. Some older ladies got on the elevator at the third floor, and he tried his best to appeal to them for help, but I held him tighter and shook my head at them apologetically.

“These kids today…I’m so sorry ladies, but my little brother sneaked out and had a little too much to drink, and our parents wanted me to find him and get him upstairs and into bed.” I sighed. “He gets vulgar when he doesn’t want to go someplace, and I don’t want to expose you ladies to all the cussing.”

One of them smiled. “You’re such a nice boy. You must be a good older brother.”

“Thank you, ma’am. I do try.” He stomped my foot, and I winced and took my hand away long enough to slap his butt.

“Ow, that hurt, damn you!” he yelled, and I clapped my hand back over his mouth.

“Settle down, now. You know Dad’s going to ground you for a month for this.”

I looked over at the ladies and shook my head. “He’s always been such a handful. Our poor parents.” I leaned in a little in a conspiratorial way. “It’s because he’s not quite right in the head.” I tapped my temple. “Poor thing never has been since he fell off the top of that playground slide when he was six years old.”

That garnered me some sympathetic looks and shakes of the head, and they smiled at me again as we reached their floor, and they got off. One of them stopped on the way out the door and looked back. “Your parents are so lucky to have you, dear.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” I said, trying to look modest and well-meaning.

As soon as the door close, I popped his ass a couple more times and we rode to our floor. His face was flushed with anger. I hustled him off the elevator and down the hall, tossing him through the door and locking it firmly behind us. Spinning around, I caught him again as he tried to make a break for the bathroom, probably intending to lock himself in. I grabbed him and pushed him face first up against the wall.

I was trying really hard not to hurt him, because he was so much smaller than I was, but he was making it difficult. I leaned against him, squashing him in place with my body and putting my hands over his. “Settle down, damn it! Stop all that yelling and behave yourself. Now!”

He leaned over trying to bite my arm, so I turned him to face the wall and popped his little ass a few times as he yelled, “Stop it! No!”

Trembling with anger, he huffed and puffed and finally settled down, but still I hesitated. I knew I should release him; I knew I was probably scaring him, but I didn’t want him to run again.

Hell, the truth was, I didn’t want to let him go.

“Are you feeling calmer?”

I got a quick nod of the head.

“Are you going to be good if I let you sit back down?”

Another quick nod.

“Use your words, Kitten.”

“Yes,” he spat out.

“Yes what?”

“Yes, I’ll be good! Damn it, let me go!”

I tightened my hold instead. “We’re going to be together for a little while, and I think we need to get a few things straight between us. I warn you that I don’t like bad boys. Are you a bad boy, Kitten?”

“Fuck you,” he said, pouty and sullen as hell. “And don’t call me that stupid name.”

“See,” I said, shaking my head. “I think I can call you anything I like. And that’s not an answer. I think you are a bad boy. So why don’t you own it? Just tell me the truth. Admit you’re a bad boy, but you’re going to be good for me now.”

He huffed a few times and squirmed and sighed, but I said it again in his ear. “Come on. Tell me, so I can let you go.”

“Fuck you,” he said through his teeth.

I grinned at how pissed off he sounded. “Still not what I need to hear. Tell me you’re going to change your ways now and you’ll be a good boy for me.”

I nudged him when he didn’t answer. “Will you?”

Finally, he shouted his reply, his face bright red. “Yes, damn it!”

“Yes, what?”

More sighs and finally, “Yes. I’ll be good. Just please get off me.”

“I like the word ‘please.’ Okay, I’m moving away now, and you’re going to be calm, right?”

A quick nod of the head.

I eased off him, and he whirled around, staring up at me, openly belligerent, both his fists clenched and ready for a fight. I looked down at them pointedly. “I don’t think you want to do that.”

We stared at each other a little longer before he finally dropped his gaze and unclenched his fists.

“Do you?” I prompted.

“I guess not.”

“I need a simple yes or no.”

“No!”

I pointed toward the chair he’d recently vacated. “Go sit down over there.”

He glared at me and couldn’t resist stomping past me to dramatically throw himself in the chair, showing me more of his bad attitude. He reminded me of a young, spoiled rotten teenager.

“What do you want from me?” He ran a hand through his pretty hair. “Who the fuck are you anyway?”

“I told you what I want. I want you. My name is Riordan Jeffries. I was hired by your brother, Jazz, and I work for a private detective agency. Is any of this sounding familiar?”

“I don’t know you. What the fuck?”

I came to stand over him and leaned down, tapping the tip of his nose with my finger. He swiped at my hand. “Stop all that cussing. And apologize.”

He folded his arms over his chest and stuck out his bottom lip.

“No apology? All right, suit yourself for now. But as I already told you, Kitt. I’m taking you back to your brother in Atlanta whether you like it or not. He’s going to convince you to go into protective custody.”

“Oh, no, he won’t!”

“That’s between the two of you. I’m just telling you what I’ve been paid to do.”

“So, you’re just going to kidnap me? I don’t have any say in any of this?”

“I’ve been sent by your legal guardian. It’s not a kidnapping.”

“Yes, it is! I’m almost twenty-one now!”

“No. He showed me the papers. You’re subject to his rules and his control until you’re legally of age and until the courts release the guardianship.”

“Fuck him! Fuck the courts and fuck you too!”

“Maybe later. In the meantime, what did I tell you about all that cussing?” I asked, leaning over him. “Now apologize.”

He huffed and puffed and few times and said, “Okay! Sorry. I apologize.”

“All right then. Only the courts can dismiss his guardianship, no matter how old you are. A doctor has stated that you’re mentally unstable and the court put your brother in charge.”

He glared at me like he was trying to peel off my skin with his gaze.

Suddenly, he flung himself out of the chair and sprinted toward the door again, but I got in front of him, putting a hand on his chest. I meant only to stop him from leaving, but he reacted like I’d punched him, reeling back and falling down into the chair and looking shocked. I could see he was trembling all over and his eyes had gone wide. It made me feel awful, because he seemed so young and vulnerable. I was trying to ignore the actual physical spark that hit me when I’d touched him again too. He was looking down at himself, like he’d maybe felt it the same time I did, and he looked back up at me with big, scared eyes.

“I’ve told you I’m not going to hurt you in any way, Kitt. I promise I won’t. I’m sorry if I scared you, and I didn’t mean to. But I can’t let you go.” I kept my voice low and soft, and he stopped shaking at least.

“Please,” he said in a voice so low I had to bend closer to hear him. He looked up at me with big, limpid eyes, brimming with tears. He was killing me. “Please let me go.”

“I’m sorry, but that’s not happening. I’m taking you back to Atlanta.”

“It’s not safe in Atlanta. There are people there who want to hurt me.”

“The police will put you in protective custody. You’ll be fine.”

“But it’s almost Christmas.”

Damn it, what the hell did that mean? I groaned on the inside—holidays didn’t mean all that much to me, but I still felt bad for him. Realistically speaking, he’d been running for a few weeks now, and he had been literally homeless since then, relying on the kindness of his friends and complete strangers—and their patience was obviously wearing thin from the state of him. It wasn’t like he’d be missing some grand Christmas celebration here. He had come up to my hotel room with me willingly and would have taken money in exchange for sex if I would have cooperated. His clothing looked a little shabby and he seemed exhausted. Going back home was absolutely the best thing for him.

I hated to see this happen to him, but this was part of the job. You couldn’t feel sorry for the ones you were after—it was a trap that would backfire on you every time. Once when I first started doing this job, I took pity on a young, sixteen-year-old high school girl from Tennessee, who had run away to be with her “boyfriend.” She begged me with tears in her eyes to let her just call him and say goodbye. When I gave in, she managed to somehow let him know where we were during their brief conversation, and he showed up with his buddy and a tire iron to get her. The fucker was thirty-five if he was a day, so I didn’t feel bad about leaving him and his buddy injured and crying on the floor of the hotel room, but it was all unnecessary and cost me time and a lot of money paid to the hotel manager to keep my name and my client’s name out of it.

This trip home to Atlanta would only take a few hours and then this would all be behind him. And behind me. He’d be back with his brother, Jazz, and then it became his brother’s problem and not mine.

I told him as much as he sat very still, with those damn long eyelashes lowered over his eyes, refusing to look at me. He looked pale and wary and unsure, but why did I get the feeling he would still bolt at the first opportunity I gave him? And why hadn’t his brother mentioned how fragile and young he was? I knew he was supposed to be mentally unstable according to the paperwork, though he seemed perfectly fine to me, if a little immature. I was regretting that I’d ever taken this assignment and wished I was anywhere but there in that hotel room.