Damn it.
“Till the count of three,” Rock growled. “Then I’ll throw you in there myself.”
He would, too. Her brother’s head enforcer wasn’t known for his subtlety. At least not when it came to doing Max’s bidding.
“Now!” Rock barked.
She could hear the sound of sirens from down the street, prayed the police would be there any minute. They would help Reese; she knew they would.
If he wasn’t dead already.
Her stomach clenched, but she did what she’d been taught to do.
She got into the SUV and let Rock whisk her away to safety.
Chapter Twenty-Three
For a brief moment—very, very brief—Trey wondered how much an Uber to Coyote Ridge from Dallas would cost him.
Yes, he was well aware it was a stupid thought, something only irrational, desperate people would even indulge in. Yet he’d had it, and now, as he sat alone in his hotel room, he considered it again. If only he hadn’t carted Evan and Charlie up here with him, he could’ve driven his ass back home tonight rather than wait until morning without worrying about how they were going to make it back.
“You’re losin’ your fuckin’ mind,” he muttered to himself, snatching up the remote and stabbing it in the direction of the television.
He simply needed a distraction. Something to watch until he could fall asleep. Then tomorrow, he’d wake up, and they’d head back to Coyote Ridge. Another trip to the training camp from hell out of the way.
Trey heard a door slam outside, and he winced. While the hotel was decent—some would even consider it nice—the one thing it lacked was soundproofing in the walls.
With a sigh, he leaned back against the pillows, stared at the muted television. There was hockey on, so he left it there. It wasn’t a sport he was particularly interested in, but he did enjoy a game or two from time to time. It certainly beat the nightly news and all the depressing shit going on in the world.
His cell phone buzzed on the nightstand. In a move that reeked of desperation, Trey snatched it up, read the screen. When he saw Magnus’s name, that strange sense of euphoria came over him.
Despite his best efforts to deny it, Trey and Magnus had been indulging in … well, the truth was, he wasn’t sure what to call it. An affair? Fucking? Scratching an itch? Whatever it was, Trey still got chills when he saw Magnus’s name on his phone. The good kind. The ones that were a prelude to a mind-blowing, body-rocking orgasm.
“What’s up?” he grumbled, playing his role as the man who wished Magnus would go away.
“What’re you wearin’?”
He fought back a grin, hated that he even wanted to. “What do you need, Magnus?”
A soft chuckle sounded. “What I want and what I need are in direct cahoots these days.”
Trey didn’t even try to decipher the riddle. He’d learned that he didn’t understand half the shit Magnus said. Considering their age difference, that wasn’t exactly a big surprise. Having just had his thirty-seventh birthday back in May, Trey felt ancient in comparison to the twenty-five-year-old he was fucking these days. But the good news was, Magnus had aged a year, too, since their first encounter on New Year’s.
“I’ve got shit to do, Magnus,” Trey relayed, ensuring he maintained his put-out tone.
“Yeah, you do.”
A knock sounded at the door, and Trey looked up. He was not going to answer because he was tired and wanted to sleep. The only person who would intrude would be his brother, and Brantley had more important things to deal with.
“If you don’t have somethin’ important to say, Magnus, I’ve got to—”
“Answer the door, Trey,” Magnus said softly.
“What?”
“You heard me. Answer. The. Door.”
Confused but curious, Trey got up from the bed and strolled across the room. He planted his eye on the peephole only to see that someone was covering it from the other side.
He unlocked the deadbolt, turned the knob, and opened the door, not caring that he’d just acted like every teenage girl in every horror movie ever made.
Standing in the well-lit hallway was Magnus, wearing flip-flops, a pair of tan cargo shorts, and a white T-shirt with Camp K-9 on the front. He had a day’s worth of stubble on his square jaw and a gleam in his hazel eyes.
“What the fuck?” Trey muttered, wondering if he was dreaming.
“Perhaps you should rephrase that,” Magnus said, disconnecting the call as he stepped forward, effectively moving Trey backward. “How about would you like to fuck? That sounds far more appropriate, considering.”
Aww, hell.
“What are you doin’ here?” Trey managed even as Magnus closed the door and leaned into him.
“I got tired of waitin’ for you to come back.”
Was this real? Maybe Trey was dreaming. For the past six months, he’d spent far more time than was appropriate thinking about this man, dreaming about him. It wouldn’t surprise him if he was dreaming now. He was tired. It made sense he’d fallen asleep, more so that Magnus had invaded his unconscious mind since he spent so much of his awake time thinking about him.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were expectin’ me,” Magnus said, his mouth brushing over his.
“What?” Yeah, he was well aware he sounded like a dumb ass. A dumb ass on repeat.
Trey sucked in a breath when Magnus’s calloused hands skimmed over his bare stomach, his thumbs gliding up the center of his abdomen. His rough palms scraped over his nipples, and Trey wondered if he could come from simply being touched. It was no secret that Magnus knew just how to do it to make it happen.
When Magnus’s hands reached his neck, those thumbs hooked under Trey’s chin and tilted his head back. Then there was the warm, wet rasp of a tongue on his neck, licking, sucking.
“Fuck, I missed you, Trey,” Magnus moaned, gliding his lips downward, over his collarbone. Licking from one side to the other. “Did you miss me?”
“Not even a little,” he lied, knowing that was exactly what Magnus expected to hear.
They’d been playing this game for months. While Trey would pretend not to be interested, Magnus would continue to pursue him until Trey would give in. Although in the beginning, Trey had been serious about resisting this man, he now found it impossible to do so. But he also found it easy to continue with this ruse because that was all it was. He refused to want more, and Magnus clearly wasn’t looking for serious, so it worked well for them.
“Then it sounds like I haven’t been doin’ my job well,” Magnus said, meeting Trey’s gaze before he dropped to his knees.
“What job is that?” Trey asked, his voice gruff.
He sucked in a harsh breath when Magnus yanked Trey’s shorts down his legs, freeing his iron-hard cock.
“This one.”
“Ahh, fuck,” Trey hissed when the blessed heat of Magnus’s mouth engulfed his dick, taking him to the root.
Instantly, his fist was in Magnus’s hair, tugging roughly as that skilled, eager mouth sucked, his tongue swirling around his shaft.
Magnus pulled back, slowly releasing him, looking up with a mischievous smile. “And practice makes perfect, right?”