Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 91452 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91452 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
“Don’t kill yourself in the pool.” Chris yawned from his chaise lounge, beer in hand. “It won’t help anything.”
I squinted at him. “How do you stay in such great shape? All you’ve done is eat and drink on the plane, and then eat and drink since we got here.”
“Why’re you mad? I know you’re worried about your boy, but maybe don’t take it out on me.”
Finally, someone was calling Owen something reasonable. My boy. “You have kids, don’t you, Chris?”
His scowl was fast. “Yeah, but why would you bring that up?”
Good question. “I don’t—”
“Oh, ’cause I said boy. But you know how I meant it.”
“I do?”
“Yeah. Just like Efrem is Darius’s boy and Noah is Dante’s. Like, your guy, your boy. Like my wife, Jill, is my girl.”
“No,” I said flatly. “That’s not—no. Owen’s not my—”
“Oh, the fuck he isn’t, Jared,” he scoffed, taking another gulp from the bottle of beer he was nursing. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you, and it’s the same way Jill looks at me. Like I belong to her.”
I couldn’t breathe.
“It’s sexy as hell,” he murmured, and I knew he was thinking about his wife.
“What?”
“What?” he echoed, sounding confused.
“Owen doesn’t look at me like your wife…”
His brows furrowed. “Are you fucking with me right now?”
“No, I’m not fuck—of course not. What the hell is with everybody?”
He laughed at me then. “Jared Colter, you cannot think for a minute that when I said your boy, I meant anything other than your boy, the one who sleeps in your bed and whom you fuck every night.”
I stood fast, before my brain even registered who I was thinking of attacking. This was retired Army Major Christopher Mancuso, one of the best snipers I’d ever seen and the man I’d once watched take out five guys, alone, in a bar in Kabul. I was fairly certain he’d been armed with a spork or something at the time.
To his credit, Chris didn’t even get up. “Sorry, sorry. He fucks you, then,” he said dismissively. “Didn’t mean to get it wrong. Don’t get your panties in a wad.”
“I’m going to kill you,” I threatened him.
He squinted up at me. “Are you sleep-deprived or some shit?”
I stood there, dripping water, staring at him.
“You’re not serious?” he said, suddenly looking like he felt sorry for me. “For fuck’s sake, Jared, that man is head over heels for you. How the fuck did you miss that?”
“I don’t miss anything!” I declared. “And he can’t be in love with me. He’s too young.”
Chris sat up then, swinging his long legs over the side of the chaise, and met my gaze before gesturing me down. Once I took a seat, facing him, I noted how pained he looked. “Jared…are you stupid?”
Not what I was expecting. “You know I’m not,” I spat out defensively.
“Yeah, but…” he began hesitantly. “How are you missing the torch he’s carrying?”
“He’s not—”
“He is,” he assured me. “I’ve seen it, and think about it—I don’t see you that often, but the last time I was at your house…two years ago now? It was there, plain as day.”
“He’s too young for me,” I reminded him. “And whatever you saw, I’m sure was just him being grateful.”
“Grateful for what?”
“Chris, I saved him from being sold into sexual servitude when he was ten.”
“Yeah. I know.”
“And you don’t think that’s enough?”
“I think it’s old news, just like you saving him from prison when he was eighteen. The fuck does either of those things have to do with him being all grown up now and wanting to do bad things to you in the sack?”
“You’re so deluded.”
Chris nodded. “Yeah, sure. That’s me. Deluded.”
“You don’t understand. He’s more my ward than anything else.”
He laughed over that one.
“Chris, I—”
“He’s been living in your house since he was twenty-four, day in and day out, watching you be you in all your heroic glory, so of course he’s gonna fall for you. Hell, if I swung that way, I’d be hot for you as well.”
That took a second to process. “That is the most terrifying thing you’ve ever said to me.”
He shrugged and cracked a smile. “Come on, Jared. Owen’s all grown up, so it makes sense that it’s you he wants. You’re you. You’re the hero. You saved him, made his world safe, then did it again so he could be exactly who he was supposed to be.” His hands grew animated as he explained. “He was off the track, and then you put him right back on. In what realm of the imagination would Owen Moss not have fallen madly in love with you?”
“But that’s gratitude, not—”
“When he was eighteen with a fresh start in college, sure, that was gratitude. But now, at thirty-two… Use your head, buddy.”
I had to lie down, so I turned around on the chaise and did just that.