Chapter 1
Matias
“And what happened when you entered the house?”
“I snapped the fucker’s neck,” I responded simply as I held the police officer’s gaze. The kid was clearly a rookie because he paled and swallowed hard. I couldn’t help but think that if me telling him I’d snapped some guy’s neck made him want to puke his guts out, maybe he needed to rethink his career choices.
“Yes, but, um, can you be more specific?”
“I snapped the fucker’s neck and then he stopped moving and fell to the floor,” I responded. When the officer just stared at me, I added, “Because. He. Was. Dead.”
“Right,” the officer murmured. He automatically looked over his shoulder to where the coroner was zipping up the body bag that held the dead man in question. Then he began jotting something in his little notebook.
I sighed because I could tell by his hesitant scribbles that I was going to be here a while. I glanced around the room. My younger brother, Cruz, was having a conversation with the paramedic who’d been treating the bullet wound on his arm. The mere sight of the bandage on his bicep made me want to bring the asshole in the body bag back to life just so I could kill him all over again.
I’d known something was wrong pretty much as soon as I’d arrived at the house. Cruz and I had been tasked with protecting a young man named Elliot Wittier after he’d been attacked a few days earlier. My job had been to shadow my brother as he’d gotten close to Elliot. After getting to the house, I’d realized something was off and I’d approached it from the back. It had taken next to nothing to pick the lock on the back door. I’d heard the raised voices long before I’d seen anyone. But as soon as I’d lain eyes on the guy with the gun as he’d railed at Elliot, Cruz and several others, I’d known what I’d had to do. The guy hadn’t seen me coming but he had managed to get a couple of shots off before I’d broken his neck.
Even if my brother hadn’t been one of the people shot, the gun-wielding asshole deserved a hell of a lot more of a painful death for putting his gun to the head of a little kid in a wheelchair.
“I killed him too quick,” I muttered absently as I pulled my eyes from my brother. The bullet had only grazed him, but I still found myself fisting my hands. The last time my brother had been shot, he hadn’t been anywhere near as lucky…
“What?” the officer asked, interrupting the rage that was simmering in my veins.
Interrupting it but not quelling it.
Not much did that these days. Pounding on guys like the one in the body bag definitely helped, but like any drug, the effect was short-lived.
“Did you say something?” the officer asked again.
“Yeah, I said—” I began, but then my eyes shifted beyond the officer to the kitchen and fell on the owner of the house. With the way he was standing, I could only make out his profile, but not surprisingly, my dick didn’t seem too concerned about that. Of course, my dick wasn’t necessarily selective when it was looking for the next warm body to lose itself in for a while.
No, what was a surprise was the fact that instead of telling the newbie cop how I wished I’d taken my time killing the scumbag in question, I actually paused to consider my words.
How often did that happen?
Oh yeah, never.
I once again opened my mouth to say what I meant when the guy in the kitchen suddenly looked my way and then it was like time decided to stand still for a while. The rage that was racing through my veins faded as something else took over my blood entirely and sent all of it south.
Way down south.
And just like that, my cock went from interested to something different altogether.
Something that had me not only pausing my words but forgetting them entirely.
What the hell?
“Mr. de la Vega…” the cop said, clearly waiting for me to finish my earlier thought.
Him and me both.
“What?” I finally asked. For the life of me, I couldn’t take my eyes off the man in the kitchen, which made no sense since he wasn’t my type at all. While my dick didn’t care whose body it ended up in, my mind liked ’em big and tough because getting a guy like that to his knees and begging for release was part of the fun. Not to mention I could be as rough as I wanted with a muscle head.
But the guy in the kitchen was anything but muscular. He was… average, though not in a bad way. And he was considerably older than the guys I usually fucked around with. I put him at his late forties or early fifties at best. Although I couldn’t really tell much about his body from his position, he wasn’t heavily built. His jeans and casual button-down shirt did nothing to accentuate any muscles he could have been hiding beneath the material. His short dark hair was peppered with silver and he had a mustache.
A fucking mustache.
A fucking mustache that was turning me on like nobody’s business. I could practically feel it tickling my skin as the guy’s mouth trailed down my body. And when I shoved my dick down his throat, I’d be able to feel those little hairs on my—
“Did you say something—” the officer with the bad timing asked.
“Do you have any more questions for me, Officer…”—I glanced at his name tag— “Officer Hard-on.”
“It’s Harden,” the officer responded. “With an ‘e.’”
“You sure?” I asked, letting my voice drop another octave as I pinned the man with my eyes and gave him what Cruz referred to as my oh-yeah-please-fuck-with-me look. The man paled even more and then shook his head before nodding it. I nearly smiled when he reached for the radio on his shoulder… the one that hadn’t been going off.
As the officer did an unnecessary status check via his radio, I shifted my attention back to the man in the kitchen. I managed to tamp down the lust coursing through my veins, but it took every ounce of focus that I had. That lasted all of about fifteen seconds because then all of a sudden, the man turned his head to look at me.
And that was all she wrote.
I wasn't sure how I'd ever considered the guy average because he was just beautiful. His eyes were a stunning shade of green that I could say I'd never seen in any of my travels all around the world. Even with his features marred by exhaustion and stress, he still stole my breath. It was the most bizarre reaction I'd ever had to a man and God knew I'd been with plenty of men. But I couldn't remember any of their faces. I knew that it wouldn't be the same with the guy who was currently watching me like he didn't know what to make of me. I'd remember that face for the rest of my days.
If I had my way—and I always got my way—I’d get to see more than his face soon enough. I didn't even care that I’d gone from being fascinated with him to wanting to own him in the space of a few seconds. I wasn't into all that analyzing one's feelings bullshit. If I wanted something, I took it. If I liked something, I had more of it. If I didn't, I walked away. The challenge was in the hunt.
As I held the man's gaze, I knew this particular hunt would be unlike any I'd ever known.
The man, who I assumed was the wheelchair kid’s father, shook the hand of the female police officer he'd been talking to and then glanced at me once again. I clearly made him uncomfortable, but that was a good thing. I liked when my prey was off-balance. It made the hunt more interesting.