On Your Knees, Prospect (Kings of Hell MC 3)

Vars seemed confused at first, but then he laughed, relaxed, with his skin wrinkling slightly around his eyes.

He was so hot.

“I don’t think either of us could have prepared for what happened tonight. It’s a good thing you noticed me back in that water. I’d have... drowned,” Vars said, his voice suddenly trailing off, as if he’d noticed something, but there was no movement around.

“It was freaky. I could see everything in the dark.” They started walking, but Jake stumbled, too busy watching Vars instead of the uneven ground under his feet.

Vars stuffed his trembling hands down the pockets of his wet pants. For several moments he was silent, up to the point where Jake was starting to worry whether he’d said something Vars didn’t want to hear.

The path through deep snow Jake had made when he’d last come here to skate was still there, and they retraced it in energetic strides.

“I almost drowned not that long ago,” Vars said in the end.

“Oh. I… I’m sorry, I didn’t know.” Jake hesitated, but eventually slipped his hand into the same pocket where Vars’s was, his heart going out of control and making his body heat up again—so much so that there was vapor coming off the damp clothes on his skin. He’d never really held hands with a guy. Not with any of the patches, and not before he’d come to live at the clubhouse. Relief flooded his heart when Vars’s large yet still cold hand squeezed around his.

“I guess I’m still not over it. I should have stayed calm and looked for an opening in the ice, but my mind got back to that moment when I couldn’t breathe, and it just wasn’t possible.”

“How did it happen?” Jake wished he could make Vars warm already. But soon enough they’d be home. He’d take Vars to their bathroom, into the shower, and pour hot water over the two of them until Vars was no longer cold.

Vars exhaled, and it took him several seconds to answer. “My ex tied to kill me.”

Jake swallowed, losing his balance when his foot hit something hard in the snow. Vars held him up, as if Jake deserved any of his help and care after what he’d done. At least in the dark Vars wouldn’t see the shame painted all over Jake’s face. “Oh, God. Vars, I’m so sorry.”

Vars took a deep breath and continued down the path. “Doesn’t matter. He thinks he succeeded. I’m never going to see that motherfucker again.”

Jake swallowed, cold despite his body generating unnatural heat. Guilt was a collar much tighter than the physical one resting against his collarbones, and it squeezed around his neck when he realized that revealing the truth would inevitably damage the fragile connection they’d forged. But Vars was with him, Vars helped him without demanding anything in return, and he deserved to know the truth. “I’ve done something very bad, Vars. I’m sorry. Please don’t be mad. I didn’t know shit was that serious with him.”

Vars stopped so abruptly Jake almost walked into him. Slowly, he looked back.

Jake’s stomach clenched, but it was time to admit what he’d done. “I texted him. I… I was panicking about you. I wanted you to go. I never thought he was an actual danger. I thought he was just unwilling to let you go.”

Vars’s exhale formed a thick cloud in the air, and he pulled his hand away, stepping back. Tension transformed his features into a mask. “Get out of my face, Jake.”

Jake gasped, hauled away from Vars as if his body wasn’t his own anymore but a puppet with no strings. His legs moved in hurried, chaotic steps, and within seconds he was leaving Vars behind.

“Vars, no!” he yelled, but his head turned to face the way he was going and he could no longer see him.

His feet sank in the snow, taking him farther away from the house and back toward the lake. The collar tightened on his throat, until he was certain he'd start choking to death at any moment. Fighting its influence was futile.

Vars’s voice descended on him like hot rain, loud and clear, as if it were resonating with the metal shackle resting around Jake’s neck. “I take back the order, Jake.”

Jake dropped to his knees, panting, and a complete mess. “I said I was sorry! I am! You promised not to do this!”

Hurried steps echoed behind him as Vars ran his way. “I didn’t mean it like that! Jesus Christ, can’t a man be angry without this fucking thing taking it literally?”

“That’s how it works! That’s why I didn’t think it was a good idea!” Jake’s voice echoed, scaring off a whole flock of birds—or worse, bats. “I just wanted for my life to stop spinning out of control!”

Big hands twisted in Jake’s clothes and pulled him up to face Vars’s sneer.