Hawke (24 page)

twenty-eight

Hawke

He watched the blood drip from his hands and into the sink. He stared at his raw knuckles, at the top layer of flesh gone from them.

“Nine,” he murmured to himself, hollowly.

He’d just killed nine men in the span of four hours.

That was a personal record.

First, the four fuckers in the city that robbed three of Borden’s businesses. They’d been big men and, worse, the sober kind. He had to tear down the door to the small apartment they’d hid out in with all of Borden’s cash sitting in a neat pile on the couch.

Hawke had never been more grateful to be the size he was.

He kicked one man’s head flat. Number two ended up with a knife to his heart; quick and effortless. Number three was tough, the biggest of them all, and Hawke had to go back to his roots, using every ounce of his strength to gain the upper hand in a fight that earned him a dozen strikes across the body.

Number four was the most pathetic. When he realized it was a losing battle, he’d tried to abandon the men by gathering all the cash in his arms. Hawke ended up tackling him to the ground on his way to the door and buried his head in the hundred dollar notes, thinking it appropriate the man died suffocating on the paper he had risked his life to steal.

When all was said and done, Hawke had gotten up and collapsed on the fuckers’ couch. Then he sat there, with his elbows on his knees, and the strangest thing happened.

He felt fear.

Fear because if he’d failed, he wouldn’t see her again.

Tyler had been on his mind every minute of every day, but never so aggressively as on that couch. Hawke was utterly disturbed by it.

And fascinated.

He tried to be rational about his growing fixation on the girl. It was just her beauty, wasn’t it? He attempted to convince himself she was a gorgeous piece of eye candy, and no man goes through life without crossing a kind of beauty he’d drop everything for. Physically, she was everything he’d ever dreamed of in a woman, with just the right of meat to grip as he pounded into her.

Yeah, it was just physical.

But…fuck, it wasn’t just physical, because he’d loved the sound of her voice. Loved the faces she made. Loved what she’d had to say. When she’d handed him that ointment and he’d rubbed it on that fucking tattoo, he remembered thinking, “I could hear this woman’s voice all day.”

It was dangerous liking a girl this hard.

He’d always known she’d be different, but never in a way that made him
want
her.

And wanting her made him paranoid.

What was she doing?

Was Jesse around her, trying to get between her legs again?

Was Hector keeping a close eye on her?

The thoughts dragged him down, until he was growling into the silence and so fucking annoyed that he was where he was, he ended up pacing the apartment and kicking one of the dead fucks just to get it out of his system.

He wanted her.

Yeah, it was good to at least be honest with himself about it, but…what did it mean to want her? Enough to
have
her?

Suddenly her words flooded through him, biting him in the ass:

What if you want me one day? And what if it’s too late when you do?

The fucking girl was fifteen when she’d asked him that question, and now that he thought about it, it sounded more like a fucking threat. A threat that was causing him serious anger issues.

It was never too late. Even if she was with someone – with airhead Jesse – he’d force her to him, and the thought didn’t even bother him. Nothing that was morally questionable bothered him. It was the only way he’d made it this far in life. Borden, in all his fucked-upness wasn’t as far gone as Hawke was, and it was Hawke that had to carry out the tough calls when Borden lost sight of the real goal.

Hawke ended up calling Borden right there and then.

“What?” Borden barked on the other end.

“You free?”

“It’s fuckin’ midnight, Hawke,” he retorted. “Don’t you have fuckin’ things to do than to call me up at fuckin’ midnight?”

“I found the fucks who did the robberies.”

Borden sighed. “Fuckin’ hell, Hawke, we’ll take care of them in the morning, alright?”

“I already took care of it.”

“When?”

“Twenty minutes ago.”

“Alone?”

“Yeah.”

Borden muttered another curse. “You need a fuckin’ life, Hawke. You keep tryin’ to clean the streets like some night crawling vigilante. You tryin’ to be a superhero?”

“Do superheroes murder the criminals?”

Hawke heard Emma’s soft voice in the background asking Borden what was going on. “Nothing, kitten, go back to sleep,” he murmured to her. Then, “Hawke, call the kills in and we’ll have the guys take care of it. Anything else, you fucking psycho?”

“Yeah, I’m headin’ out,” Hawke said. “Going back to Norwich to handle the shipment.”

“Thought that wasn’t due for another three weeks.”

“Yeah,” was his reply.

Borden went quiet on the other end. Hawke heard him shuffling around and the sound of a door closing. Wind whipped through the phone, enough for Hawke to know Borden had gone outside.

“Is everythin’ alright, brother?” he asked him, a note of concern in his tone.

“I gotta make sure she’s alright,” Hawke answered.

“Going soft over a girl?”

“My bottom half is sayin’ hard.”

Borden chuckled. “You fucking pussy.”

Hawke cracked a smile.

“I saw her at the club,” Borden said thoughtfully. “Very pretty girl, Hawke, but she was fucking scared shitless looking at me.”

“Is that right?”

“Oh, yeah. I was pretty sure she thought I would add her to one of my mass gravesites or some shit.”

“That’s something Tyler would think.”

“Go and see her, Hawke, but don’t leave me for long, alright?”

“I didn’t think we were an item, Borden.”

“Fuck you,” Borden retorted. “I’m being serious. You can’t leave me, man. I need you in my life. We’ve been through hell together, huh?”

“Yeah, you fuckin’ risked your neck to bust me out of prison.”

“I did that for money. I didn’t even fucking care if you made it at the time. I ain’t talking about that. I’m talking about everything else we’ve been through. I owe you.”

“Yeah.”

“So go then and…teach your brother some fuckin’ manners.”

“Alright, man.” Hawke rubbed his beard, thinking. “You got any new information from your sources, by the way?”

Borden paused. “It’s not easy. This is a very fucking difficult world to crack into. I ain’t seen something so buried in the underworld this much.”

“Can you unbury it?”

“Fuck, man, you unburied my girl once upon a time, I can unbury this.”

Hawke nodded, grateful. “Thanks, Borden.”

“See you on the other side.”

With that, Hector had hung up and jumped on his bike and took off to Norwich. The last thing he had expected was more trouble – more
bodies
.

Were they really Abram’s men? He just couldn’t understand it. It wasn’t Abram’s style to do something so fucking stupid, but if he had…

This would mean war.

War because his stupid fucking cousin died because he was a crackhead loser.

Hawke cursed under his breath and scrubbed at the blood. He grabbed Tyler’s pink soap, its fruity smell already hitting his nose, and he barked out a laugh.

A crazy fucking laugh.

He’d just killed nine men and here he was, standing in a bathroom with pink shit everywhere, washing blood away so his hands could smell like
fruit
.

And then, just like that, his laughter died and he bent over, breathing deeply with his eyes shut to keep the sick bile down his throat.

Think about it before you block it out, motherfucker.

He sucked in air, and it sat in his lungs until his chest burned. He let the air out slowly and repeated the process.

He forced himself to relive every kill, every drop of blood, every look of life bleeding out of every pair of eyes he’d taken tonight.

Adrenaline shot through him. He sucked the air in and out, until his body started to unwind and his mind had had enough, and those images drifted off to join all the others in nothingness.

Fingers ran down his back, and he opened his eyes, wondering how long he’d been bent over the sink, breathing it all out of his system. He looked up at the mirror and found Tyler standing behind him, trying to comfort him.

She met his eyes in their reflection. “Hey,” she whispered, “you okay?”

No, he wanted to say.

“I’m alright, babe,” he mumbled instead, feeling exhausted.

“Turn to me.”

He did, very slowly. She ran her hand over his face and down his bare torso, wiping away the dried drops of blood with her fingers. It burned wherever she touched, and he watched her intently as she continued.

“Gotta wash this all off,” she whispered to him.

She turned from him and started the shower. Then she turned back and began unbuckling his jeans. This was like a role reversal of the first night,
her
tending to
him
. The beautiful thing didn’t realize he didn’t need tending to.

This was just another day in Hawke’s fucked up life.

After she pulled down the zipper, she tugged his jeans down and then froze.

Her eyes shot up at him. “Why…” she started, not finishing.

“Why what?” he pressed. “Why am I
hard
?”

She just looked at him, her cheeks reddening. “You did things tonight.”

“You didn’t see any of it.”

“You’re looking for a distraction.”

He moved closer to her, dropping his head down to hers. “Maybe.”

She looked at his mouth and then his eyes, breathing more heavily as she replied, “You’re not thinking straight, Hawke. I don’t want you to regret anything.”

She was throwing his words back at him like she’d been analyzing them for days. She probably had too.

Instead of answering, he grabbed her hand and forced it to his dick. She wrapped her hand around it but didn’t stroke him.

“Hawke –”

“You wanna help me right now?” he cut in, his voice hard. “Then squeeze me. Fuckin’ do it, Tyler, because I’m going to lose my mind if you don’t.”

She must have sensed his need because she squeezed his cock and he hissed sharply, knocking his forehead to hers. “Good, fucking good, Tyler. Start movin’ your hand now.”

She did.

Up.

Down.

Squeezing around the head.

Repeating.

He groaned, moving his hips back and forth to control the pace.

She was fucking him with her soft little hand, and he grew harder, thicker, just staring at her watching herself pump him. Her other hand crawled up his hard abdomen, feeling his chest, running her fingers over his nipple with this drunk look in her gaze.

The girl wanted him, but he couldn’t make it decent with this fog in his head.

Hawke didn’t feel entirely like himself because she was right, he was seeking a distraction. He didn’t want to remember burning bodies, or a face pressed against a bunch of money. He wanted Tyler, and he wanted her mouth wrapped around his dick, sucking him ‘til he came on her tongue.

Spurred on with pleasure, he grabbed the back of her neck and forced her face to his. Then he kissed that sweet mouth, already parting her lips with his tongue to taste her. She moaned lightly, gripping his cock harder. He groaned back, his other hand grabbing at her tit, squeezing it through her top. She was so fucking sexy, it was killing him with need to be inside her, feeling her walls wrapped around his cock.

“Fuck, Tyler, you are perfect. Can’t get you outta my head…”

He saw how fast she was breathing, saw the way she licked her lips when she stared at his cock. He would have easily come, but…fuck, he was too weak to deny her.

It would be wrong to fuck her.

He knew that.

She would hate him later.

He was certain of that.

But… he wanted her something fierce. When he grabbed at her top and tore it off, everything – all the bullshit of tonight, the guilt of the past – ebbed away into the background.

He wanted her.

She wanted him.

That was all that mattered.

The rest was a train wreck for another day.

The second her top was off, he closed his mouth around her nipple and sucked hard. She squirmed beneath him, sucking air sharply at the sensation. She was so sensitive, he could blow on them and she’d come.