Finished (Auctioned)

Gray automatically brushed his fingers over the ink on the back of his neck. “You know what they mean?”

Ryan furrowed his brow. “You don’t?”

Gray shook his head quickly and felt a ball of urgency drop into his stomach. Now he had to know. “He said he was gonna tell me one day, but between becoming foster parents and preparing the house and… It kinda got lost.”

Ryan’s eyes lit up with humor and affection. “Well, he can’t take credit for coming up with the code—that one belongs to Pop—but he can take credit for being a whole lot more romantic than I ever thought. And the funny thing is, he couldn’t have known. When he marked you, there’s no way he knew exactly what he was doing.”

That was…confusing. “You mean he didn’t choose them on purpose?”

“No, he most definitely did, but he couldn’t have known that whatever hunch he’d had back then would basically be his future.”

Okay, Gray couldn’t take another second of the riddle. He stood up abruptly, asked Ryan to put the hot dogs on the grill, then excused himself to hunt down Darius. He better not have fallen asleep again.

Their bedroom was empty, but he heard the shower running in the en suite bathroom, which sparked some worry. Gray hurried in there and asked if Darius needed help.

“I can get you a chair,” he offered. “Hold up—did you remove the dressing on your knee altogether? You’re not supposed to do that.”

Darius opened the shower door enough to poke his head out. “Baby, I can stand for five minutes, I promise. And chill, for the love of God. This ain’t my first rodeo.”

Gray couldn’t bring himself to argue. Just setting his eyes on Darius was enough to bring out a stupid grin on his face, so he sat down on the toilet lid instead.

“I’ll be here just in case,” he said. “Finish your shower. I’ll sit and watch. And praise whatever construction company that built this bathroom with such good ventilation that the glass won’t fog up.”

Darius snorted in amusement and closed the door again. “If you wanna make yourself useful, you can grab the medic kit on the sink and put together a new wrap for my knee.”

“Of course. And your shoulder?” Gray grabbed the bag from the sink and unfolded the compartments.

“Just need something smaller there. I didn’t know the doctor stitched me up.”

“Stitch you up is a stretch,” Gray replied. “She applied surgical glue and told me to take you straight to a hospital for a proper exam as soon as we were able to.”

“That’s just shit doctors say.”

“For a reason, Darius.” Gray shook his head, half amused, half exasperated.

“Whatever. I’m not bleeding.”

“I don’t know, we haven’t checked your brain yet,” Gray muttered.

That made Darius laugh.

Gray dug through the collection of gauze, Band-Aids, tape, and pads while he side-eyed Darius’s body. He had his back to him, and all Gray saw was hot water cascading down the hard planes of Darius’s shoulders, his sexy ass, his thighs—fuck, those thighs. Darius had great legs. Muscular, thick, but not beefy. His body hadn’t been built in a gym.

“So, uh… Ryan didn’t spoil anything, but he may have mentioned that it was time for me to ask about the numbers you marked me with.” Gray gathered what he needed from the bag before returning it to the sink. “He said your father had come up with the code or whatever.”

“Ryan told you that, huh?” Darius chuckled quietly. “Why do I get the feeling you’ve been talking about me?”

“No idea, but we definitely have.” Gray smiled to himself. “I wanna know about the numbers.”

Darius turned down the water and reached for the body wash. “First, I gotta know if you’re a flight risk. The meaning has changed a bit since I put them there.”

Carved was a better word. Because it’d had to be sinister enough to pass as entertainment for slave owners. Darius’s method meant that Gray felt the digits more than he could see them in a mirror; in fact, they were barely visible at all because they were so small. But now he was thinking…maybe he could ask Madigan to put his skills as a tattoo artist to use. And that would tell Darius all he needed to know about Gray being a flight risk.

“Me? A flight risk? On a scale from one to ten, I’m doodling hearts around your name in my textbooks. We also have children together, so I’m kinda stuck.”

Darius laughed softly. “I’ll take that answer.” It was kind of distracting when he rubbed his sudsy hands over his thighs and buttocks. “Do you know the digits?”

Gray had long since memorized them. “Yeah, 583928.”

Darius nodded once. “Add them all together. Five plus eight plus three plus nine, and so forth.”

Gray knitted his brows together and chewed on the inside of his cheek.