Page 27 of Knot Playing Fair 2

The rest of the meeting was more productive than I might have guessed it would be, even if we still had no good answers by the end. Neither Luca nor Emiel made a reappearance, and Byron limited himself to the occasional snide remark.

But it was clear that Zalen knew his shit when it came to dealing with gangs—and also to dealing with the legal system. I could easily picture him building a youth center from the ground up and running it day to day. I tried very, very hardnotto picture him balls-deep in Mia. Were the two of them together, outside of her recent heat? Were she and Byron together?

I shoved those thoughts aside as best I could while Mia walked me back to the front door.

“I still don’t know what we should do,” she said morosely. “I’m worried they’ve already won.”

The restaurant’s profit and loss statements would tend to support that conclusion, but somehow, I just couldn’t bring myself to give up on what we’d built.

“I want to at least talk to the U.S. Attorney’s office,” I said. “There’s no harm in exploring that avenue first.”

She gave a tired nod as we reached the door. “I suppose not. In the meantime, let me know when we can get in the restaurant and start cleaning up the mess. Goodnight, Nat.”

I squelched the awkward sense that I should give her a hug, or a kiss on the forehead or something. The tiny distance between us ached, despite the fact that I’d been the one to put it there. “Good night, Mia.”

I trudged back to the Jeep and climbed inside. The drive home was punctuated with all the unwanted thoughts that I’d successfully managed to keep under wraps during the meeting. Even as Byron had spent the better part of an hour tossing cutting little comments my way, it had felt like he and Mia were magnets, and I was steel. I couldn’t stop picturing the two of them together, interspersed with searing memories of the two of them withme.

By the time I pulled up to my house, I was fully hard despite my best efforts, my dick aching against the crease of my jeans. My ears burned hot with humiliation, my adopted father’shateful voice muttering in my head aboutsinandcucksandfilthy faggot queers.

My breath was coming fast and ragged as I slammed the front door behind me and stumbled back to the cramped bathroom. I shed my clothes like they were burning me and stepped into the shower before the water even had a chance to warm up.

The cold spray should have helped. It didn’t.

In my mind’s eye, a hard-muscled, tattooed body pressed me down from behind, driving my dick into Mia’s soaking pussy even as something thick and hot pressed into my ass, nearly splitting me in two. The water grew lukewarm rather than chilly, and my hand circled my throbbing cock without conscious direction from my brain.

I leaned my forehead against the cool tile, a sob lodging in my throat as I jerked myself hard and fast, desperate for even a moment of that quiet, peaceful mindlessness that I’d found beneath the hands of a male alpha in a three-star hotel room. The Mia in my head writhed and bucked, clenching around me as she cried out her release. My balls drew up, come squirting out of my cock in spurts so strong it was almost painful.

The strength leached from my muscles, and I slithered down the shower wall, barely managing to twist my body so that I landed in a sitting position on my ass. The water pounded down on me, washing away the evidence of my pathetic weakness.

The only way I was ever going to have either of them again was inside my own fucked-up head. I’d made good and sure of that by being a clueless asshole.

The next time I saw Mia in private, I needed to bite the bullet and offer her a divorce before I fucked things up any worse.

TWELVE

Luca

THE TASTE OF BILE INmy throat didn’t subside when I was back in my nest with the lights off and the door closed. The urge torun, run, runthrummed in time with my pounding pulse.

Why had I stayed in St. Louis after escaping Blaze and his goons, instead of going someplace far away? I’d put a single, stinking river between us, when it should have been an ocean. Now my old gang was going after Mia. Was that my fault? Or would it have happened even if I was sipping sangria in Spain, or eating fish and chips in Soho?

If you hadn’t met her, you wouldn’t care if it was happening or not, whispered a snide voice in my head.Mia’s right—you don’t give a shit about the people SSG hurts, as long as it doesn’t affect you directly.

A knock sounded against the hollow wood of the bedroom door. I frowned, willing whoever it was to go away, but a second later the knob turned and the door swung open. Light from the hallway streamed in, silhouetting a tall, broad figure that took up most of the available space. Old instinct sent a jolt of adrenaline through me, and I froze.

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