Total pages in book: 169
Estimated words: 156808 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 784(@200wpm)___ 627(@250wpm)___ 523(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 156808 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 784(@200wpm)___ 627(@250wpm)___ 523(@300wpm)
“You were so fucking hot, Kel. I almost came from just watching you. I want you to fuck me…hard.”
Kellus’s jaw clenched as his guy swallowed. Arik bit back a grin as his cock twitched at the thought of Kel manhandling him. Damn, he loved egging his artist on, and he also reveled in the fact that Kel’s first instinct was to defend him. He was breaking through Kel’s walls. Thank God. He needed some kind of sign that things were truly advancing for them. Damn, that felt so good.
Chapter 19
Sunday afternoon, Arik lounged in his in-home office desk chair with his feet kicked up on the desk and the laptop balanced on his lap. Kellus was en route, twenty or so minutes away, and then he’d still have to unload his luggage and supplies because Arik knew his guy wouldn’t willingly let the others load his things to then transport to the executive airport where his private plane sat waiting. Kel would feel like he needed to do that heavy lifting himself. That gave Arik a solid thirty minutes to read this detailed security report on John.
His calm demeanor gave no indication to the anxiety coursing through him. He was absolutely certain Kellus didn’t know the half of it about the guy he had once loved. If he did, his honorable, integrity-filled artist would have never allowed John back inside the house again.
Petty theft, prostitution, selling illegal narcotics, mandatory rehab stays, and then to top it all off, he was a fucking rat. He’d kept himself out of the pen by becoming an informant. How his investigators had ever gotten their hands on that tidbit of information was astonishing. But if he could get access to it, so could someone else, and the bigger question was how this would affect Kellus. Was there any chance Kellus could be drawn in to John’s fucked up mess by association?
Arik didn’t linger on that train of thought for too long. It scared the crap out of him to consider the possibilities. That slime ball had put Kellus through enough. Arik reached across his desk to grab a notepad. He needed to see what else they could do to keep Kellus safe.
Arik turned the pages on the screen. John’s work history was a joke. His longest stretch of employment happened four years ago. He had managed to keep a part-time job at a liquor store just south of downtown Dallas. How fitting. He could totally see John doing very well down there.
He turned another page. John’s address showed Kellus’s home. John’s name was nowhere on the tax roll. A hundred percent in Kellus’s name. They were never married; he hadn’t even considered that they might be. There was absolutely nothing more than the childhood connection and Kellus’s fierce loyalty that tied the two together.
Flipping to the next page, he got the information on John’s family. Lower middle class, the father had a long, disjointed work career; the mother never worked. John had no siblings. His parents still lived in the same house he’d grown up in. Arik wondered about them. What did they know about their son? Did they even care? Kellus had mentioned once that John had been kicked out, but Arik didn’t know when or hadn’t caught that part.
Lost in thought, he continued to flip pages and consider everything put in front of him. There was no doubt Kellus had blinders on where John was concerned. Kellus had always been the shiny one; John just hung on to his coattails for the free ride. Arik hated to admit it, but he got why Kellus’s family did what they did.
Lost in thought, he didn’t hear the footsteps coming down the hall until they were almost to his office door. It was Kellus’s casual gait; he’d know that distinctive swish of the blue jeans anywhere. His grin grew. Kellus’s abrupt shift in attitude after last night’s showdown had changed the course of their relationship. Any lingering doubt about whether Kellus was truly in or not had vanished. From the time they had arrived home last night, Kellus had been an aggressive, imaginative lover, attentive friend, and the shock of all shocks, Kellus had started off the evening’s extracurricular activities by asking for a blow job. His guy couldn’t seem to keep his hands off him, touching and caressing Arik any time he had been within a few feet. When he’d left this morning to work and pack, he’d even kissed Arik like it had hurt him to leave. The tides had truly turned in their relationship.
The small rein Arik had managed to keep on his own feelings where Kellus was concerned had been obliterated. God, he had it so bad for the guy. Kellus infiltrated every single thought he had. He was so in love with the man that just hearing him coming down the hallway made Arik’s heart do a quick pitter-patter as he hurriedly cleared the screen and closed the lid before dropping his feet to the floor.