Page 22 of Headcase
“We?” Asa asked.
Zane rolled his eyes. “What fucking choice do I have?”
Asa shrugged. “That’s fair. Where do we start?”
Zane thought about it for a moment. If Asa was going to let him out of the bathroom, he’d have ample opportunities to signal for help if it seemed Asa wasn’t really holding up his end of their deal. “What’s the likelihood of us being able to interview your father’s friend?”
Asa sighed, scooting in close once more. “Slim to none. My father’s friends, the ones in the know anyway, tend to want to remain anonymous. At least, to everyone but my father. But I have a friend who owes the Mulvaneys a favor. He goes to school at Henley. I figure maybe we can start with him.”
Zane arched his brow. “You have friends?”
Asa smirked. “No. I have friends who owe me favors. Not quite the same thing. A different kind of friends with benefits. If we hurry, we might catch them before they leave work.”
Asa stood, so Zane did, too. Once they were on their feet, Asa looked him over with interest. “Do you want to shower? I have nothing that would fit you, but at least your scent wouldn’t be so strong.”
Zane’s eyes went wide. “Wow. Fuck you. I smell like this because I went running through the woods, got tased, and then held hostage in a bathroom.”
Asa crowded him up against the wall, pressing his face against Zane’s throat and inhaling deeply. “That’s not why you smell like that. I mean, yeah, you smell like sweat and a little like fresh dirt. But more than that. You smell like fear. You smell like me, like us. And believe me, I’m not complaining. But it’s distracting as hell.”
Zane’s traitorous dick hardened as much from Asa’s words as from the feel of his breath against his skin. That shouldn’t have been hot. Fuck. This was a bad idea for a thousand different reasons. Mainly because being a murderer should have been a deal breaker for his libido. The way Asa spoke should have disgusted him, knowing what he now knew. His touch should have repulsed him.
Asa touched Zane like he belonged to him, like he had a claim, like them falling into bed again was a foregone conclusion. That should have infuriated him, and it did, a little. But the truth was, he liked it. He enjoyed having the undivided attention of someone like Asa. No, not someone like Asa. Just Asa.
Zane blamed his mother and his fucked up childhood. It wasn’t normal to be horny for a man who kidnapped you. It wasn’t normal to want to kill somebody and fuck them. None of this was okay. But he knew he wouldn’t say no. He knew he’d do whatever Asa asked, at least for now.
Still, he tilted his body away from Asa’s lips so he could look him in the eye. “If I get a chance to run, I’ll take it.”
Asa’s laugh was downright diabolical. He gripped Zane’s chin in his hand, his gaze dropping to Zane’s lips. “I hope you do, sugar. But just remember what I’ll do to you if I catch you.”
Somehow, Zane didn’t think he was threatening his life.
“Are you giving me the silent treatment already, sugar britches? That doesn’t bode well for our future.”
Zane didn’t answer, just continued to glower, as he stared straight ahead out the windshield of Asa’s black SUV. He’d been silent since Asa had insisted on watching him shower. It wasn’t like he was trying to get off—though, he easily could have. There was something very appealing about a naked and soapy Zane. But, truthfully, Asa just didn’t trust him not to find a way out while he wasn’t looking. Zane should be flattered. Asa found most people to be stupid.
The joke was on Asa, though. Zane no longer smelled like sweat and sex and cum; he now smelled like Asa’s soap and shampoo and, somehow, that was so much worse. Adam liked to joke that Asa and Avi were more animal than human, but he wasn’t wrong. Asa truly preferred to trust his baser instincts. When he stripped away all the window dressing of polite society, Asa was just a hunter and he had the instincts of one.
Which was why sitting across from a sulky Zane was driving him nuts. He wanted to bury his face against his neck, rub all over him, let the world know that he was his, whether he liked it or not. But that was insane. Because Zane wasn’t his. Zane was a total stranger. A total stranger hell-bent on destroying Asa’s family. That should have been a massive deterrent. But it wasn’t. Not even a little.
What would Avi think of Zane? Would he see it, too? Would he welcome him into their little cozy den of two? It was only a matter of time before it became a den of four. His twin might not see it, but Felix was already marking his own territory when it came to Avi. He’d been cockblocking his brother for months. Not that Asa would ever tell him that. It was just too much fun, watching Avi be outwitted at every turn and not even notice.
Or, at least, it had been. Until his little reporter threw a wrench in his plans. “Come on, don’t be mad, Lois. I was just trying to ensure I didn’t lose you before the fun even started. Don’t act like you aren’t curious about this. I bet you’ve never met an unanswered question.”
Zane turned his furious gaze to Asa. “You watched me shower.”
Asa lowered his voice, giving him a confused look. “We exchanged DNA. I came inside you. My blood and skin is still under your fingernails. I thought we were long past being shy.”
“Consent can be revoked at any time,” Zane muttered, turning his whole body away like a sulky toddler.
Asa should not have found that as cute as he did. “Maybe in sex, sugar, not so much in kidnapping. A lack of consent is a key element. Though…I’d be okay with exploring your consent boundaries once I convince you not to throw me in prison. I think we could have a lot of fun together. Besides, I found your spare glasses for you, didn’t I? At least you’re not blind.”
Zane snorted but said nothing more.
Asa liked the wire-rimmed frames more than the thick black ones from earlier, but he kept his opinion to himself, fairly certain Zane would have rolled down the window and chucked them out just to spite him. They pulled onto the sprawling campus, Asa following the GPS to find the coffee shop tucked away in the farthest corner, directing the car into the shadows of the empty parking lot.
“Who are these guys?” Zane asked. “Are they dangerous?”
“One of them is a psychopath. The other once killed somebody. But in the grand scheme of things, these two don’t even ping at a one on the danger scale.”
