Chapter One

“You coming to Sunday dinner?”

Creed Michaelson shook off his hangover and glared through blurry eyes at his cousin.

Stone laughed and handed him a beer. “Hair of the dog.”

He eyed the bottle, snagged it, and chugged down half. It helped some.

“So? You comin’?”

“Yup.” He studied his cousin over the top of his beer and ignored the satisfied smirk on the guy’s face.

They’d been close all their lives. Not only that, but they were each other’s doppelganger. Somewhere in the wombs of his mother and his aunt, they managed to produce identical boys. Could be because his mom and aunt were cousins who married twin brothers. The only difference was that Stone was older than him and had a few more gray hairs.

“Good, it’s been too damned long,” Stone said.

Creed gaped. “I was just there last month.”

“Like I said, too damned long. You know they have dinner every Sunday.”

Creed snorted. If his mom and aunt could get away with it, he was positive they’d have people over for dinner every single night.

Creed drained his bottle. “Want another?”

“Yeah.”

Creed shoved from his sprawl on the leather couch and walked across the living room toward his massive kitchen. At the sink, he pulled down a glass, filled it with spring water from the dispenser, and took two of the pain relievers from the bottle near the sink.

“That says a lot, bro.”

“What?” Creed frowned.

“That you have ibuprofen on the kitchen sink.”

“Screw you,” he muttered and placed the bottle back on the counter as his cousin laughed.

“This place is nicer than I expected.” Stone stood and glanced around his spacious living room in the five-bedroom home before entering the kitchen.

This place was Creed’s dream home and something he’d worked for his whole life. Being employed by Pegasus and having connections had made the purchase possible. His boss had known of a home that was going on the market before the homeowners listed it. The place was located just shy of Port Hueneme, in a small beach city of Ventura County. When Creed had stepped inside, it felt like he’d come home. Taking a small portion of his grandfather’s inheritance, he’d made the offer that day.

The spacious living room had a cathedral ceiling and plush cream carpet just off the white-tiled entryway. The five bedrooms were big and the master suite was humongous with a walk-in closet and master bath with a tub that had jets. The separate shower stood alone behind a glass enclosure and was large enough to fit him. The house was big enough so if he had the guys over for a party, they could crash and not have to drive home.

Decorating the place with the new furniture he’d bought and placed in storage until the sale was final had been a bitch and he sent Stone an irritated glance.

“If you hadn’t disappeared on me, you’d have already been here. I could have used the help moving in.”

“Why am I suddenly glad I was out of town?”

Creed grunted, “Is that what you’re calling it now?”

Stone leveled a flat gaze at him and tucked his hands into the front pocket of his jeans.

“So, are you still with Erebus?”

“Not right now, no.”

Creed handed his cousin a fresh beer and snagged one for himself out of the stainless-steel appliance. He couldn’t be sure if Stone was lying to him, but he also knew he shouldn’t have asked. Erebus was a group of assassins that would kill you to keep their secret society under wraps. So yeah, if Stone lied, that was all good with Creed. He wanted no further part of those sons of a bitches. Cold-blooded killers, every single one.

Stone was like that. His cousin had gone into Special Forces the same as he had, but Stone had come out changed. Gone was the exuberant boy from their childhood. That boy had been replaced by a cold, hard killer. A man who would kill without batting an eye.

Creed had been one of them, the assassins, until he’d walked away and locked that darkness so far inside, it would never escape again. He knew for a fact that a few of the men from Dave’s private teams had worked for the assassins in the past. Creed imagined that Dave creating the specialty units had been his way of letting them have an out when that way of life became too difficult.

Stone leaned his elbows on the marble island countertop and studied the condensation on his beer bottle.

“Where are you working?” Creed asked, just to change the subject when Stone went silent.

“Here and there.”

“Didn’t Rossi offer you a job with Pegasus?”

“Yeah, and I turned it down,” Stone mumbled. “I can’t work with that man.”

“With what man?”

Stone scowled and twisted off the top and guzzled down half the beer, but Creed saw the pain behind Stone’s fierce scowl.

So maybe that meant his cousin really wasn’t working for the assassins.

“I’m just messing with you.” Creed smiled and slapped Stone on the back.

He knew Dave was the man Stone couldn’t work with. Stone and the SecDef had a history that Creed wasn’t quite sure about, he only knew that when Dave was mentioned, Stone went way too fucking grim and quiet. Creed made a mental note to ease up on his cousin.

“I’m hungry,” Stone said.

“I got steaks.”

Stone pushed from the counter and walked to the wide patio doors just off the kitchen. “And a hell of a barbecue.”

Creed approached and stood next to his cousin, gazing out at the monster appliance. The enormous barbeque was his pride and joy.

“A man is nothing without his grill.”

Stone snorted. “All right, weirdo…I’ll stay for food.”

Creed cackled. “Then you’ll make the salad.”

Stone rolled his eyes and began pulling things from the fridge. Reaching under Stone’s arm, Creed pulled the raw steaks from the shelf and carried them and a plate out the back door. He gazed around the yard. The grass needed mowing and he’d yet to plant any flowers in the beds, so the dirt sat empty. Just like the walls in the house. While he had the furniture, he hadn’t bought any artwork. He also needed to find a person for the swimming pool maintenance.

He started the flame and scraped the grill.

A while later, Stone came out and placed a bowl of fresh salad on the patio table along with oil and vinegar.

“So, how come you don’t have someone special?” His cousin sprawled into one of the patio chairs that sat around a long glass table.

“What?” Creed frowned. Where the hell had that question come from? Was it the house?

Just because he had a very large, empty home didn’t mean he needed someone in his life to fill it up. Living alone suited him. Sure, it got lonely, but he had plenty of family dropping by to fill the void. Plus, he was mostly at work or on a job, so the loneliness was fleeting.

He wasn’t sure if he wanted his house to be like it had been growing up with two sisters and a brother all the time. Also, when Stone and his siblings came over, it had been a fucking madhouse of noise. And laughter.

Okay, he did miss that a lot, if he was being completely honest. It had been fun, but those days were a long time ago.

“You know…” Stone waved his hand around, getting his attention. “A significant other. Man, woman? Anyone?”

“I’m taking a break.”

“Well, yeah, after Monica I could see that, but it’s been three fucking years.” Stone’s laugh grated on Creed’s nerves.

Monica had been a mistake all right, but it hadn’t been hers, nor had it been her fault that he’d lost interest. She’d done it for him in the beginning, but after a while, he’d grown distant because the attraction had faded. He frowned at his cousin.

“Ease up on Monica. She was hot. And nice.”

“Yeah, yeah. I know. I’m just giving you shit because this is the longest I’ve seen you without someone,” Stone said and took a swallow of beer.

“There is someone I’m interested in,” Creed said to get his cousin off his back.

“Oh? Who is it? What’s her name?”

Creed groaned. Why the fuck had he opened his damned mouth? Now Stone would never let it go. Creed knew from experience that his cousin would ask until he got answers.

Fuck.

A picture of Kellum came to mind, and he grimaced. Kellum was skittish and the last person on earth who would welcome his advances. Creed remembered how he’d waited at the Halloween dance at Ace and Jacob’s party for Kellum to arrive. All Creed had wanted was to hold Kellum in his arms and dance the night away.

Only, Kellum hadn’t shown up that night, and the evening had turned sour.

Creed had left the event with a feeling of rejection that still lingered.

“So?”

“Kellum, his name is Kellum,” Creed said and put the steaks on the grill.

“A guy,” Stone nodded. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

“Yeah, five years ago… I guess.” Creed poked the long barbecue fork at the steak. But hell, Kellum made him want…just fucking want, and he didn’t understand it.

His desire for Kellum just was.

Stone knew he was bisexual, so that wasn’t any surprise. But typically, Creed went for females, so people thought he was straight.

“That’s unusual.”

“What is?” Creed squinted at Stone.

“Kellum, the name.”

“Yeah, it’s his last name, but it suits him more than his first name: Daniel.”

The steaks sizzled and the smell made his stomach growl.

“Is he pretty?”

“Gorgeous.”

“Have you asked him out?”

“No.” He tapped the fork against the BBQ and the metal rang. “He’s way too young for me now that I think about it.”

“How old?”

“He’s twenty-two.”

“And you’re thirty-eight.” Stone nodded. “Old fuck.”

Creed shot his cousin the middle finger. “You’re older, ass.”

“So, you’ve had young boyfriends before.”

“Not this young.”

“So what? If he’s into you, who cares?”

“He’s also…skittish,” Creed admitted.

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you scare him?”

Creed scowled. “No.”

“Maybe there’s something in his past that’s making him leery.”

“Maybe,” Creed agreed. He’d thought the same damned thing, and the thought of Kellum being afraid made him want to crush something or at the very least, squeeze the life out of anyone who’d made him feel afraid.

Those feelings had Creed pulling back and spending his nights in a bottle of whiskey. He couldn’t remember a time in his life when he’d felt this way. It was fucking weird and disconcerting to be so intensely focused on one person.

“Ask him out,” his cousin said.

Another minute went by and Creed flipped the steaks. Both he and Stone ate their steaks medium rare.

“Maybe.”

Stone snorted, shoved from his chair, and snagged plates and utensils from the kitchen. Once back at the patio table, Creed stabbed one steak and placed it on Stone’s plate, then took the other for his own.

They sat at the table and ate in silence for a while.

“Creed?”

“Hmm?” He looked up from his food.

Stone pointed his fork at him. “Just do it. You deserve to be happy.”

“So do you.”

“Now that’s just crazy talk.” Stone shook his head with a snort.

Creed smirked, but he couldn’t stop Stone’s comment from sticking in his brain, nor the idea formulating into a plan.

Should he?