10. Damian

Over the years, the word body had come to mean something very different to Damian.

A body was typically a dead man. An anonymous vessel packed and wrapped, ready to be dumped in the ocean or buried in a forest upstate.

But that morning, body was quite possibly meaning something else altogether more wholesome.

Damian woke up with a feeling of renewed vigor. Damian had slept alone for so long that he'd forgotten what it was like to share a bed. Of course, with Jake being so small by comparison, it was hardly a case of fighting for position or making a grab for the bed covers. It was simply nice to have the warmth and sensation of another body in the bed.

Of course, Damian hadn't planned to fall asleep. Far from it. Damian's thinking had been to chill with Jake for a bit and then get back to plotting how he was going to move against Connor Reed.

But something about the gently snoozing Jake had in fact put Damian to sleep too. Not normally one for falling for distractions, Damian allowed himself a little slack…

I guess at least this way I've got some extra sleep.

There could be tough, dangerous times ahead…

I'm going to need every moment of rest I can get.

As Damian sat up in the bed, he looked over toward a still sleeping Jake. The sight of Jake's cute, toned body snuggling up to a spare pillow was undeniably wholesome. It was the kind of vision that Damian had always dreamed of waking up to. Except… now it was a reality.

‘But you're not mine,' Damian whispered. ‘Not yet.'

Damian ran his hand through his hair and rubbed his eyes. It must have still been quite early. At some point in the night Damian must have removed his t-shirt, possibly due to the extra heat from having Jake in the bed with him.

Damian looked down at the tattoos that covered his chest. Each and every inking had a meaning, and a great number of them related directly to important hits he had carried out during his career in the mafia.

There's a lot of history here.

Dead men.

Souls I've taken…

Damian knew that the work he did would be categorized as being evil by many people. That was an understandable opinion for a civilian to hold. But what most people didn't understand, and what kept Damian sane, was the knowledge that everyone he had taken out was knowingly involved in a life of crime.

The prospect of taking a life hadn't always sat easily with Damian, but through his connection with his mentor Gianluca, Damian had learned that a quick, dignified death was nothing to fear – and as hitmen it was their duty to take rivals and rats out with respect.

With Gianluca's words in his heart, that was why Damian had decided to have a tattoo, however small or big, inked on his body as a mark of respect to the life he had taken. And it was also why Damian was determined not to lose his life to a lying, underhand coward like Connor Reed.

Don't worry, Reed… there's a free space on here for you too.

But rather than allow himself to get too bogged down in the Connor situation, Damian decided to have a closer look at Jake. The boy looked so sweet and angelic as he slept, a far cry from the sassy, stubborn and occasionally bratty boy who Damian had experienced since catching him thieving from the restaurant kitchen.

‘Wait… what the fuck…' Damian muttered, squinting his eyes and then holding his phone up to the side of Jake's face. ‘Is that… ice-pop juice?'

The sneaky little brat!

No one pulls the wool over my eyes.

Especially not a dumb kid…

But rather than totally lose his cool there and then, Damian decided to let Jake sleep. After all, Jake would need the rest for what Damian had in store for him.

As Jake continued to sleep, Damian got up and out of bed. It may have been barely dawn, but Damian had plenty on his mind. And the best way of dealing with a restless brain was by hitting the city streets and parks and going for a hard and fast run.

Damian may have been in his late forties, but he was still as fit as the best of them. In fact, Damian would have bet his life savings on beating ninety-nine percent of men half his age in a sprint or even a marathon for that matter.

Putting on his running shorts, t-shirt and sneakers, Damian grinned wickedly at Jake, still fast asleep. Not only would the run give Damian time to consider the next move with Connor, but it would allow Damian plenty of thinking time to work out exactly what kind of punishment he could dish out to his disobedient little ice-pop thief next…

* * *

The run was tough. Damian had a lot more on his mind than even he had realized, so decided to push himself even harder than usual. It wasn't so much a case of a comfortable morning jog, more like a heavyweight boxer running up a mountain at full speed before the biggest fight of his life.

‘God damn, am I getting old?' Damian muttered to himself as he walked through the apartment building lobby and toward the elevator. With his upper body drenched with sweat and his muscular thighs feeling every inch as if Damian had just been put through his paces by a Marine Core training camp, Damian knew beyond doubt that he had done a proper workout.

But exercising hard was a good thing.

Damian always felt much better after working out to his absolute limits. Arguably it was the only time where he was able to let go and just focus on helping his body perform to its absolute top capabilities.

Suddenly, the thought of naughty Jake sneaking out of bed and raiding the refrigerator wasn't so bad. In fact, Damian even allowed himself a wry smile.

So what if the kid's a thief?

There are worse fucking things in this world.

I should know, I've been around enough death to last a lifetime.

With this fresh perspective in mind, Damian decided that perhaps he wouldn't punish Damian quite so harshly for his late-night indiscretion. Perhaps a firm but measured over the lap spanking would suffice in this instance.

But as Damian used the fingerprint sensor to enter the apartment, he heard a rustling sound coming from the kitchen. Perhaps the boy was awake and preparing breakfast for him? Maybe Jake had decided to do some tidying as a way for correcting his bratty behavior up until this point?

If Damian was expecting either of these things though, he couldn't have been more wrong. Instead, as he moved stealthily into the kitchen what Damian saw was a greedy boy in nothing but his briefs tucking into yet another ice-pop!

‘I… I… I can… explain?' Jake said, looking like a deer caught in the headlights. ‘It's not what it looks like!'

For a moment, Damian felt like bawling Jake out and giving him a verbal roasting. This was outrageous. Not only had Jake helped himself to ice-pops in the middle of the night, but he was now eating one… for breakfast. This was a total outrage.

But try as he might, Damian couldn't get his words out.

Standing across from him, the sight of Jake in his cute little white briefs with nothing but a lurid neon-green ice-pop to defend himself was just…

‘Way too fucking cute,' Damian blurted out, striding over toward a stunned looking Jake.

‘B-b-b-b-but…' Jake said, scared and not knowing what was going through Damian's mind.

Damian grabbed Jake around his petit yet firm waist. It felt good. Jake was so soft, his body supple and smooth. Damian could feel his cock harden almost instantly, quickly beginning to strain inside his short black running shorts.

Damian growled, his eyes drawn to Jake's delicate face and innocent yet mischievous blue eyes. ‘This cannot go on. It just can't…'

‘I'm sorry, Damian!' Jake squealed, clearly not caught up to the fact that Damian wanted to devour every inch of him. ‘Please, don't kill me!'

Damian kept a close hold of Jake.

‘Kill you?' Damian said, confused but then bursting out into a full belly-laugh. ‘Kill you?'

‘Uh-huh,' Jake said, quivering.

‘The last thing I want to do is kill you,' Damian said. ‘But I do want to do something. I want… to make you all mine.'

Jake gasped and Damian could see that his words had hit home with the boy. Quickly looking down, Damian could see that there had been significant growth in the bulge at the front of Jake's briefs too. By the looks of things, it wasn't only Damian who was turned on by what was going on between them in this moment…

‘Damian… I…,' Jake said, his voice full of anticipation as he moved in even closer for a kiss.

Damian moved his head down toward Jake's. The very second that their lips touched it felt like the brightest, most intense bolt of electricity shot through Damian. Jake's lips were tender, soft, and the perfect contrast to Damian's stubble.

In that moment, nothing would have felt better to Damian than picking Jake up and pushing him aloft against the kitchen cupboard, their bodies together, their tongues intertwining as they kissed…

But no.

Damian had to show restraint.

Because if Damian didn't slow things down right there and then, then there was only one direction that this was heading, and that was the bedroom. Or, possibly, the kitchen floor.

‘Boy, we have to stop,' Damian said, his breathing heavy and his dick now desperately straining for release. ‘That's an order.'

‘But…'

‘No buts,' Damian said. ‘If this is going to be something, then we need to do it right. We need to make things official. And there's only one way to do that. We need to sign a kink and business contract.'

‘A what?' Jake asked, puzzled and evidently frustrated at not being able to carry on making out with Damian. ‘I don't want to talk about stupid contracts!'

‘Trust me, you'll be glad we did this,' Damian replied, lifting Jake up and carefully sitting him down on the chair next to the kitchen table. ‘We'll both be glad. Now wait there. I'll be back in a moment, so don't even think about getting another ice-pop out of the freezer. Unless you want me to stick it all the way up that tight ass of yours…'

Jake blushed and giggled.

Damian had a feeling that no matter how crazy things were out in the big, bad world for him right now, him and Jake were about to embark on a whole heap of fun together.

But, before all of that, it was time to get the contract…