Chapter Eight

The week before Christmas

“Are you coming?”

“What?” Hawk glanced up from his laptop, over the rim of his glasses.

Sky waved the towel he had slung over his shoulder. It was getting damned hard to ignore how sexy Hawk was in those freaking glasses. He cleared his throat. “Swimming?”

“No, you go. I need to finish this,” the man rasped and gazed back at the laptop.

Sky bit back his sigh of annoyance and let himself out of the room. He walked down the hall and took the elevator from the twentieth floor, where their room was, to the fourth where the pool was.

Every day since the day after they had been shot at had been the same. Hawk working on his laptop, trying to find a way to get into the house Sky had lived in before running for his life. Franklin had turned the pleasant estate into a fucking fortress. Not that it mattered to him. It was Franklin’s place, it had never been his. He sighed and stepped out when the elevator doors pinged open. While Hawk stayed focused, he had tried everything imaginable to get the assassin’s attention.

It hadn’t worked.

Well, that wasn’t necessarily true. Just two days ago, he’d come out of the bathroom wearing a towel and crashed into Hawk. He shivered remembering how the man’s big hands had closed at his hips, their naked chests smashed together because Hawk hadn’t been wearing a shirt at the time. Sky had taken that moment to run his hands up the man’s chest and slip them behind Hawk’s neck to clutch him tight.

“Sorry,” Hawk had said gruffly, but his hands hadn’t moved away. Instead, they had slid firmly and roughly up his back. Sky had let his head tip back on his neck, gazing up into the green of Hawk’s eyes. When his tongue had darted out to wet his lips, Hawk’s gaze had darkened and then his head lowered and their lips were together, with Hawk’s tongue pushing inside.

“Hawk,” Sky had moaned into the man’s mouth and the kiss had grown deeper until they were both hard and gyrating.

But then, Hawk had pushed him away and bolted for the bathroom, closing the door between them.

Sky sighed and dropped his towel on a chair next to the pool and pulled off his t-shirt. Wearing a pair of board shorts, he entered the warm water and swam laps until he forgot about everything.

Hawk let the laptop fall onto the bed and groaned when the door to their room shut behind Sky.

“Fuck.” The muttered word did nothing to stop the flood of memories nor the feel of Sky in his arms. He wanted the younger man with an obsession that bordered on manic. The thing was that Sky had no idea that if they’d gone beyond the point of kissing, he’d never let him go. It was one of the reasons he’d only fucked faceless men and women through the years.

His motto was: don’t get attached, don’t get names, never fucking kiss them, and always leave right after. None of that would apply to Sky, he knew that down into the pit of his soul, so he kept his distance. Yet, every day it became harder and harder to resist the sleek, beautiful man flitting around his room. He gazed at the rumpled bedding in the other bed and steeled himself to keep from grabbing the pillow and inhaling.

Forcing himself back to the laptop, he squinted at the screen. Finally, he’d gotten a breakthrough. After nearly a year of staying locked away in his fortress—and Hawk was pretty sure Franklin had done that to avoid any repercussions if the truth about Sky came out—the fucker was coming out of his hole for a day.

That meant he had one whole day to plan the perfect execution and by the day after tomorrow, Sky would be free of his stepfather.

Hawk had already taken care of the numerous killers Franklin had sent after Sky. Not that he’d done it all personally, but with the help of Erebus, it had taken them two weeks to kill the fuckers who had taken the assignment and put fear into anyone who even thought of taking Franklin up on his offer.

Bottom line was that nobody wanted to fuck with Erebus or get on their bad side. His boss had gone one step further and put the word out that Skylar Thomas was Hawk’s and anyone who fucked with one of their own got fucked themselves.

The day after tomorrow when Sky was free, Hawk would leave. And while he thought it was the best thing to do, he couldn’t stop the sour taste on his tongue at the thought of never seeing Sky again.

Life was a royal bitch sometimes.

He shook off the vision of those blue eyes and got his gear together. Sliding his HK 45 with the suppressor already twisted on into the specially made arm holster, he shrugged on his leather jacket. Black tactical pants, an equally dark long-sleeved t-shirt, and black combat boots completed his attire. He tucked the hoodie into the small backpack that he slung over one shoulder.

Sky left the pool about an hour later and made his way back up to their room. He flipped the card at the reader and entered to find Hawk sitting on the edge of the bed. The man was fully dressed in black with that smoking hot leather jacket. When Hawk looked up, Sky let the door fall closed as his heart sank. The look in Hawk’s eyes told him without words that the man was able to find a way to get close to Franklin.

“Will you be back?” Sky asked around the lump growing in his throat.

“It’s better if I don’t.”