HUNTER
It’dbeenaquiet three days since Cosmo and I returned to Cross Keys. Three days since I found out the truth that he’d killed people. Three days since I discovered I would do anything, including covering for him to keep him. I’d been so sure I would turn him in. After locking him in the closet, I’d spent the afternoon alone, thinking, until I’d concluded that I couldn’t abandon my morals in the name of love.
My meeting with Knight had been out of anger. Throughout dinner with him, I’d tried to find the words to tell him everything, but Knight hadn’t been interested in Cosmo or the case. Knight had wanted me in his bed. The moment we’d entered his house, he’d been on me, kissing me. The feel of his body pressed against mine, the muscles in his body, the thickness of his cock, was all wrong. Then I knew I was completely fucked and ruined for any other man but Cosmo.
How could I give him up to a system that wouldn’t be able to protect him in prison?
I was sitting on the couch with Cosmo’s head in my lap. I brushed back Cosmo’s hair, and he smiled at me. A smile that took my breath away. How could someone who had taken lives look so innocent? Damn Virgil for what he’d done.
“What do you say I make dinner?” I asked. It was almost seven, and we’d both had lunch early.
“Can I help?”
“Sure.”
Cosmo sat up, but before I could stand, he straddled my lap. He was so affectionate. I took his hands in mine. How could these hands take a life? Yet I’d witnessed them doing just that.
“You know I love you, right?” he asked.
“Do you?”
He frowned. “Of course. So much. I adore you, Hunter Neely, for all the sacrifices you’ve made for me and for loving me despite everything.”
“You didn’t give me much of a choice.”
I caught his lips in a soft, sweet kiss. One so different from our usual feverish frenzy of teeth and tongues. I took my time to explore his mouth and to show him I adored him right back. Regret for locking him up in the closet without food or letting him use the bathroom still gnawed at me.
The doorbell rang, and I groaned, but Cosmo wouldn’t stop kissing me. I laughed. “I have to get the door.”
“They’ll leave when you don’t open it.”
“My SUV’s parked right in the driveway.” I’d collected it this morning after the FBI had processed it.
“So? Maybe you’re too busy making love to your boy to give a damn who’s at the door?”
“Is that what we were doing?” He was now sucking on my neck. “I could have sworn the plan was to make dinner.”
“I tricked you.”
Laughing, I lifted him off my lap and set him to his feet. “I’ll see who it is and send them off. Then you can have your way with me. No biting or scratching or anything to do with taking blood from my body. You’re on a blood ban.”
He pouted. “Fine, but hurry back.”
He didn’t have to tell me twice. I opened the front door. Barney, not looking too happy. Guilt rolled over me. I had neglected him.
“Glad to see you’re still alive, asshole.” He slapped a few envelopes into my chest and bulldozed his way into the house. “I’m not leaving until you tell me what the hell’s going on. Where did you disappear to, and why the fuck won’t you pick up the goddamn phone and return my calls?”
I hurried after him. “Barney, it’s—”
“Is it what I said? That I’d let you fuck me? Because I—holy shit!”
Fuck.
Cosmo was spread out on the couch, naked. Barney’s eyes all but bulged out of the sockets. Cosmo squeaked, grabbed a cushion, and covered his groin. His face was red.
“This is why you haven’t been answering my calls?” Barney snapped, disgust in his voice. ”This?”
I walked around him, picked up the throw from the armchair, and draped it over Cosmo.