Page 54 of The Kingpin's Omega Lover
Aleks wasn’t stupid. But maybe, just maybe, he’d underestimated Malori’s ability to lie.
Malori wiped his sweaty palms on the seat of his pants, which highlighted the hidden item that Aleks hadn’t been able to find during his clothing inspection. Not that Malori had forgotten its presence; he’d spent the last two hours with the constant sensation of needing to take a dump.
Worth a little discomfort, if Aleks took the bait.
Aleks inserted the key card; the light flashed green, and he pressed down on the handle. Malori forgot to breathe for the time it took to step inside. Typical hotel room with a mirrored closet on the left and the open bathroom door on the right. Straight ahead was a single king bed, perfectly made, and the expected furniture.
No crib, no bassinet, no diaper bag or hints of a child.
Malori stalked deeper into the room. “Where’s Junior?”
“With his nanny, as I said.” Aleks flipped the door’s security bar. “I never said he was at this hotel.”
Son of a fucking bitch.
That was okay, though. This would be easier to go through with knowing his one-year-old child wasn’t in the same room. A baby that young didn’t need to hear his sperm donor screeching in agony, even if he couldn’t truly comprehend what was going on.
Malori still worked up a good snit over the deception. “How do I know you’ll keep up your end of the deal? An hour with me for an hour with my baby?”
Aleks strode toward him, shoulders back, hands loose by his sides, but still exuding menace. “I never promised you would.”He smiled coldly. “But I think you’d make a better nanny than the one I have. It’s worth a probationary period.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“Depending on how our reunion goes, I might take you with me when I go home. One big, happy family, like I’d planned. You loved me a year ago, you’ll learn to love and appreciate me again.”
Malori’s skin crawled with both Aleks’s proximity and the familiar, syrupy-sweet voice Aleks had used every day during his seduction. Every promise, every vivid painting of their future together, every declaration of devotion. Neither of them had said they loved each other. Malori thought he loved the man back then, but he hadn’t been sure. He’d been in love with the idea of a spouse and family, more than the man himself.
Now? He despised Aleks with every fiber of his being and to the depths of his soul.
Malori circled the wide bed, putting it between them, more as a show of reluctance than because he truly feared Aleks. Giving in easily was too obvious. “Can you at least show me a photo of Junior? Anything to prove he’s been with you recently? Please?”
Aleks rolled his eyes and pulled his cell phone out of his jacket pocket. Hope fluttered behind Malori’s breastbone. He hadn’t seen his baby in a year, beyond the brief glimpses in those DVDs, and all he wanted was a real photo. Something to reassure him that this wasn’t one great big bluff on Aleks’s part. That the nursery clips were months old and Junior was gone, never to be found again.
“Here, I took this one last week.” Aleks tossed his phone onto Malori’s side of the bed.
Malori grabbed it, turned it right-side up, and stared at the round-cheeked baby smiling at something out of view. He was sitting upright but the background was out of focus. The heart of the picture was definitely his son. Malori recognized those wideeyes and button nose, and his heart fluttered with joy and love. He gasped and touched the screen.
The photo shrank. Annoyed, Malori tapped the screen, and it expanded again, flashing the date at the bottom. Last week, like Aleks said. “He’s beautiful, Aleks. Is he a good baby?”
Aleks shrugged, slowly inching his way across the foot of the bed toward Malori. “He cries a lot, but the nanny says he’s teething. I let her deal with it.”
Malori hated the tears threatening to show themselves. He didn’t want to cry in front of Aleks, not ever again. Not tears of grief, agony, or joy. None. Hit bit his tongue hard, aware of Aleks’s growing proximity. He had to keep control of Aleks’s phone, so he could call King once Aleks was subdued. The bedside lamp appeared to be brass and not attached to the table beneath it.
Aleks slid his left hand across Malori’s shoulder to squeeze the back of his neck. Malori shivered out of sheer disgust at being touched by this monster. “You know this is going to happen, Malori,” Aleks said, his breath hot in Malori’s ear. “It’s more fun for me if you fight, but it’ll be easier for us to leave later if I don’t have to hurt you.”
Malori curled his left hand into a fist but kept it by his thigh. “Can’t we go to where our son is first?”
“Nah, I want privacy for this. You’re anxious, which means you might not get wet, so this might hurt a little. Don’t need that in front of the baby.”
Bitterness and hatred rolled down Malori’s spine in a hot wave. How many men had Aleks caused pain, because they didn’t self-lubricate like omega males, and he couldn’t be bothered with any sort of lube? It made his stomach turn—but it also didn’t surprise him. Aleks was a monster. No one else’s life or pain mattered to him.
Aleks’s hand slid down the length of his spine and stopped to squeeze Malori’s left ass cheek. Malori jumped. “Please,” Malori said in a perfect whine. “There’s gotta be lotion or something in the bathroom. Can’t you pretend to be the Aleks I”—he swallowed hard, but had little saliva to force out the words—“fell in love with?”
Aleks licked the shell of Malori’s ear, and Malori bit back a full-body shudder of revulsion. “All the lube you need is in your mouth, darling. If you want it in your ass, you know how to get it there.”
Fuck. That.
That man’s dick wasn’t going anywhere near Malori’s mouth, not ever again. Malori shrugged out of his jacket and flung it onto the nearby desk. Undid his belt and pulled it out of the loops, making a show of tossing it across the room so it wasn’t easily accessible as a restraint. It left his trousers loose around his waist but that didn’t matter.
