Chapter Five
Sky jerked upright and away from the big body sprawled next to him. Looking at Hawk’s face, he found the man awake and watching him.
“Still here, then. Why didn’t you just leave me?” Sky asked, and for good measure, he aimed a glare at the man’s smug face.
“Why?” One of Hawk’s eyebrows lifted all sexy. “You cuddle up to me all night and now you’re chasing me away?”
Sky felt his face go hot and he rubbed at his sore wrists. Hawk’s eyes dropped to the bruises and something dark flashed in the killer’s eyes.
Throwing back the blankets, Hawk sat up and walked over to pull on a pair of jeans before he yanked a t-shirt over his head.
“What are you doing?” Sky chewed on his lip. Was Hawk really going to leave him?
“Getting dressed so we can talk.”
“Talk?” Sky frowned. “About what?”
“About the fact that your stepfather put out a very convincing hit request.” Erebus didn’t just take any old hit, they had rules they lived by. Granted, they were gray sometimes, but rules nonetheless. And Dave was a stickler for rules.
“Convincing, how?”
“Yeah, supposedly you stole all the money and when your stepfather confronted you, you shot and killed the maid in your escape.”
“What?” The younger man’s voice wobbled.
“Instead of the FBIs most wanted, your father made some calls. Apparently, he’s friends with some pretty powerful people.”
“Stepfather,” Sky corrected him. “I’m not related to him.” Then it dawned on him what Hawk was telling him.
Melissa was dead.
His hands slammed to his mouth to hold back the harsh sound, but the cry emerged and then another and the room blurred. Hawk was there, holding him tight and even though he struggled, the man refused to release him—so Sky stood there and cried in Hawk’s strong arms for the woman who’d been like a mother to him.
Hawk’s big hand cupped the back of his head and he was pulled close. Sky wrapped his arms around the solid strength of the assassin and held on for dear life.
“I’m sorry. I had no idea you didn’t know,” Hawk whispered the soothing words.
“She was… I loved her.” The words came out clogged and stuffy and Sky pulled back to wipe his nose.
“Tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“Why did you steal the money?”
“What money?” Sky’s mouth hung open but for the life of him, he couldn’t grasp what Hawk was saying.
“The money from the estate?”
“Who told you that?”
“Your stepfather.” Hawk didn’t like how pale Sky’s face went and he hurried to continue. “He said you cleaned out one of the accounts.”
“So, he hired you to what? Get the money back or kill me?”
“Kill you.”
“Yeah, I bet,” Sky choked the words out. The world went gray and then red all at once and he knew Hawk was calling his name, but he couldn’t answer because he was once again chained and trapped in a room beneath his stepfather.
“Sky!” Hawk’s fingers were brutal on his arms and the man was shaking him.
Sky gasped, sucked in huge gulps of air, and shuddered. “I…I…I…I’m okay.” He bent over and Hawk’s rough, comforting palm rubbed over the back of his neck and down his back. Finally, he was able to sit up, keeping his eyes glued to the window.
Hawk wanted to fix everything and kill anyone who made Sky cry. It was such a strong reaction to someone he’d only met a day ago and he chalked it up to the fact that he’d always wanted kids and had never had any. If he’d had a son, he would have hoped someone would have helped like he was now helping Sky.
Bullshit. That snarky voice in his head said, You do not think of Sky as a son or anything close to that.
Hawk gritted his teeth. And even though there was a twenty-one-year age difference, the irritating voice was correct. No matter how much he wanted to stifle his attraction to Sky, he couldn’t do it. Just remembering the feel of the soft blond hair beneath his hands and the fragile, too-thin body clinging to him in the night made his heart race.
“What?”
Sky’s trembling voice brought him out of his fantasy.
“What?” he echoed.
“You were staring.”
“Was I?” He turned away because he had indeed been staring, but it really wasn’t his fault.
Skylar Thomas was a vision.
“What now?” Sky chewed on his bottom lip.
“What?” he asked because he was having trouble focusing on anything other than Sky’s plump bottom lip where it was swollen from his teeth and slick from his tongue.
“How do I get this resolved?” Sky’s hands waved about a bit frantically before perching on his slim hips.
“You mean how do you cancel the hit?”
“Yeah,” Sky whispered.
“We could cancel it,” Hawk said, and Erebus could end it with one phone call from him. However, that would not keep Jack Franklin from hiring someone else to snuff out Sky.
“Will that work?” Sky looked doubtful.
“No,” Hawk admitted with a sigh.
“So, that means the only thing left to do is to kill him.”
The thought of Sky killing someone, even the scum of his stepfather, sent a sour feeling in his stomach. When someone’s life was ended, the person doing the ending had to live with it for the rest of their life.
No way in hell did he want that weighing on Sky’s conscience. There was no coming back from that, no matter how skilled at martial arts or marksmanship Sky was, killing someone left marks on one’s soul.
Hawk held up a finger to stay the flow of words and logged into a secure server from his phone. He sent the email and a moment later, his phone rang.
“Delete the hit on Skylar Thomas,” Hawk said.
“You mean, close the file?” the former SecDef responded, and the puzzle in the man’s words was hard to miss.
“No, we have a hit on our books that isn’t above board.” And then he went on to explain the situation about Sky.
“And you’re sure this kid is innocent?”
“As sure as I know myself.”
Dave was silent for a moment. “And this is not your dick thinking for you, is it?”
Hawk snorted. “No. There’s a fuck up in your organization. That request should have never made it through the double check.”
“Apparently,” Dave growled, and Hawk heard the silent promise that someone would pay.
“I’m giving my notice.”
Dave gave a soft laugh. “I expected it a few years ago.”
“Yeah, well…” Hawk’s eyes moved over Sky’s face and then their gazes locked together.
“How about one last job?” Dave’s voice brought him back to his boss waiting on the phone.
“No,” Hawk said without one ounce of remorse. Dave would take care of whoever had taken the payoff from Franklin, and Hawk would kill the man he suspected to be the one haunting Skylar’s nightmares.
“Well, at least get word to me so I know you’re okay,” Dave grumbled and Hawk smirked.
“I will,” he said, and when Dave ended the call, Hawk tucked his phone away.
The list of things to do and complete before he went about disappearing went through his head. He’d planned out every single thing.
Except for the beautiful blond man in front of him.
“So, what are we going to do?” Sky asked softly.
Fuck.
Sky said the word “we” as if there was no doubt in his mind that it would be the two of them taking on Franklin.
And as much as the “we” aroused him, he couldn’t let Sky touch that part of his life.
“No,” he said flatly and the fire flared in Sky’s blue eyes.
“Screw you. You don’t get to tell me what to do.”
Oh, the defiance in the young man heated his blood and he wanted to jerk Sky over his knee and spank his ass just like he’d threatened the night before and then kiss him.
Sky didn’t trust the look that suddenly darkened Hawk’s eyes and he took several steps away. To hell with this, he thought, and yanked open the hotel door before darting outside. He heard Hawk’s bellow from behind him and sprinted down the sidewalk toward the ice machine and stopped just around the corner.
Running in bare feet was a pain in the ass and he really needed to retrieve his shoes from where he’d left them last night, but first, he had to plan.
A hand closed over his bicep, keeping him in place.
“What?” he snapped and tipped his head back to glare up at Hawk.
“It’s not safe out here.”
“I’m not safe anywhere,” he said mulishly.
“Perhaps not, but you’re…” The man’s jaw suddenly clenched hard. “Safe with me.”
His heart pounded at the guttural words and if he hadn’t been so flabbergasted, he might have thought about being scared. As it was, he wasn’t, scared that is, and he placed a hand on Hawk’s chest.
The bigger man froze beneath his touch and Sky had a moment to question his sudden bravery just before Hawk lowered his head and kissed his mouth.
The possessive crush of his lips brought a moan from his throat and he fisted his hands into the front of Hawk’s shirt and clung.