Dominate (Deliver 8)

“I need to deal with the stiff in the desert.” Sleep closed in, heavy and persistent. He slumped onto his side in the narrow space next to Rylee. “In a minute.”

“The stiff can wait.” Cole rubbed his whiskers and stared at Rylee’s unconscious form. “Go grab a few hours of sleep in the other bedroom. I’ll clean her up.”

“You’re not touching her.” Christ, that came out sharper than he’d intended. He softened his voice. “This is my mess. I got it.”

“Yeah, I see that. Suit yourself.” With a grunt, Cole left the room and shut off the light. “Stubborn fuck.”

Within seconds, Tomas passed out.

He slept hard and deep, but not long. An hour maybe?

When he woke in the dark, he registered Rylee’s body pressed against the front of his. With his arm around her tiny waist and her head tucked beneath his chin, he didn’t move.

Had she rolled into him? Or had he subconsciously grabbed her to keep her from escaping?

His eyes slowly adjusted to the dimness, bringing the room into focus. A new bag hung from the IV pole. Cole must’ve slipped in and swapped out her fluids. Her boots were off her feet. Cole must’ve done that, too.

She still wore her grimy clothes and reeked of sweat and desert dirt. Or maybe the odor was coming from him.

He removed the phone from his pocket and stared at the locked screen, stunned. He’d slept three hours? Jesus.

Without waking her, he untangled himself from her soft, small body. Then he checked her vitals and headed to the bathroom.

After a quick shower, he set out bottles of water and apple juice on the nightstand, checked her breathing, and left her sleeping to go deal with his other unwanted visitor.

Cole perched on the couch in the front room, eyes glued to a laptop.

“Feeling better, princess?” The man idly flipped a black coin-sized disk back and forth between his fingers, his gaze never leaving the computer screen. “You two looked so cozy in there I didn’t want to disturb you.”

Tomas didn’t acknowledge the dig as he lowered into the armchair. “Any updates?”

“The guy she’s banging, Evan Phillips, walked through her house an hour ago. In and out in ten minutes. No other movement.”

“You think he knows something?”

“I think we can’t rule out pillow talk. If they’re fucking on the regular, she’s telling him things, sharing secrets, like how she’s been reading the incriminating ramblings of a dumbass vigilante for ten years.”

Pounding heat flared beneath his skin, his system flooding with the ire he’d been holding back for days.

“You have something to say to me, fucking say it.” He shot from the chair and stood over Cole, hands clenching. “Better yet, use your fists. You’re the one who taught me how to fight. We both know you can kick my ass. If you’re going to do it, fucking do it already!”

Cole slowly shifted his gaze from the computer screen, moved it over Tomas’ rigid stance, and stopped on his eyes.

The air thinned, and the tension in Cole’s lethal glare grew taut. Then he blinked.

“Nah.” He returned to the laptop. “You’re beating yourself up enough for the both of us.”

Irritation twitched through Tomas’ muscles. He spun away and paced the room, noticing the lack of dust on the surfaces. Cole had kept himself busy for the past few hours.

Everything that once filled these rooms had been replaced with new furnishings. Nothing remained from his childhood. No photos. No keepsakes. He’d moved it all to the Milton house and burned it.

His mother’s home and the land it sat on was the only tether he allowed himself to keep.

“I was seventeen when I sent the first email.” Tomas paused at the kitchen table and rubbed his brow. “It started out harmless. Just the words of a boy who missed his dead girlfriend.”

After his mother died, he’d spent two weeks alone in this house. That time in his life left a black hole in his memory, the grief more than he could bear. The only thing he could recall was his urgency to leave, to go somewhere, to be anywhere but here. So he’d left.

“Two weeks after my mother was put in the ground, I drove east. Ended up in Austin.” He laughed hollowly. “A small-town kid in a big city. I’d never seen anything like it. So many tall buildings, flashing lights, loud noises, and the people… Christ, they were everywhere, packed together on the streets in every size, color, and creed. I was so fucking out of my element. It’s no wonder I didn’t last a week.”

“That’s when Van captured you?”

“I was easy prey. A young, naive boy with a decent physique and no sense of danger, wandering the streets, utterly lost.” Lost in life. “I walked right up to Van’s car and asked for directions. Next thing I knew, I was chained in his attic.”