Texas and Tarantulas (18 page)

Trent would have asked Bill about that but the guy was in the hospital, still fucked up from the tranquilizer. From what he’d heard, Bill was lucky to be alive. “Yeah, well he didn’t mention that part to us. Just said he’d missed his boyfriend or something.”

“Mm. The thing is, there’s no ID on the boyfriend. All we have is the first name you gave us. Maybe Bill will fill us in once he’s coherent. Can’t believe some idiot kept bears as pets or…or trained assassins.” Kenzie shook her head in disbelief.

Trent, Mahon, Joe and Diego didn’t say a peep. Kenzie was closer to right than she’d ever guess.

“You know you need to come in tomorrow and give a formal statement, Trent. You were within your rights to do what you did. Hell, if I were you, I’d have shot that jerk a few times. Don’t worry about that part. I’m sorry, kiddo. I know you’re a gentle soul under the sarcasm.” She patted Trent’s arm.

Trent let her comments go. She was five years older than him and had never called him kiddo before. He wasn’t a gentle soul, either, but whatever kept him out of jail. He had been within the boundaries of the law, though.

Kenzie left along with her deputies and all that was left to do was dispose of all the bears.

Joe grimaced as he looked at the two by his house. “I am so sick of dragging these fuckers to the silo.”

Trent grunted.

“If we don’t, you’ll have scores of neighbors deciding to drop by just to gawk,” Diego said. “Well, that’s going to happen anyway. People like y’all, and people are also nosy.”

“It’s all going to come out in the paper anyway. We need to get rid of the bears before the stink gets too bad. Anyone shows up, we’ll put them to work helping us.” Seemed like a good plan to Trent.

* * * *

Hours later, when it was almost midnight and the last visitor had left, Trent looked at all the food piled onto Joe’s table. “I don’t understand how food is supposed to make up for my trailer being blown up and me losing my things, but I like the concept.” There was a freshly baked peach cobbler he was going to dive into as soon as he wasn’t so stuffed.

“I’m really sorry about your place. You know, you and Mahon can always stay here.”

Trent smiled at his brother. “Yeah, thanks. I don’t care that I lost everything in the trailer. I still have the important things—my partner and my family.”

Joe returned his smile. “That’s sweet. Wish you’d had insurance on the place, though.”

“It wasn’t worth nothing. Uncle Mike bought it new back in the late eighties, right? Something like that. All I really had of value was the guns and—”
Fuck.
“Pictures of Mom. I took them that day, when Dad told us she was gone. Remember, I was going to make you copies, just never got around to it. Damn it.”

“I’ll make you copies of the ones I have. They aren’t the same, but it’s something.” Joe looked at Mahon. “The day Dad told us Mom was gone, he bagged up everything of hers, including the photo albums she’d kept with pictures of us in them. We tried to get him to let us keep them, but damn. He took a belt to my hide and Trent, lucky dog, got off with a day locked in his room.”

“But I went out the window and ripped open one of the bags. I just managed to grab a handful of pictures out of a photo album before Dad came outside. I thought I was busted. I ran and hid in the barn until I heard him drive away. Saw him heading off the property. He dumped all her stuff somewhere. That was after he’d talked to the sheriff, I guess.” Trent didn’t know what happened at that part of the story. His dad had sent them to school in the morning and had told them about their mom when they’d got home on the early release day.

“I’d snuck out too. Me and Trent both stole some pictures. Guess Dad was too pissed off to notice the holes in the bags.” Joe tapped the tabletop with his fingers. “Sure wish I knew where he dumped her stuff.”

“I wish I knew if he killed her,” Trent blurted out.

Everyone looked at him.

He got a little defensive. “It’s not like I’m the only one thinking it’s a possibility. I wonder it enough that I even dream about it.”

Joe sat up a little straighter. “What do you mean, you dream about it?”

Trent tried to dismiss the question. “Aw, you know how your brain is, doing weird shit when you’ve been fretting over something. That’s all. I guess it doesn’t matter if he did kill her. He’s not going to be punished for it now.”

“I want to know,” Joe said. “She was a good mom. She didn’t deserve to end up buried out on this place, lost to us all those years. When did you start having the dreams?”

The question caught him off guard and he answered immediately. “After seeing her bones.”

Joe nodded, watching him. “Guess that makes sense. We know it was her no matter that we have to wait on the DNA results. Are you sure they’re dreams?”

Trent wasn’t up to this. He got up. “I’m sure that I killed more shifters today, and one in particular is going to haunt me. I want to go to bed, but I’m afraid to close my eyes. I don’t want to see that image, but I will. I’ll see it until I can get past doing what I had to do.”

He wasn’t angry. He was tired. Too much had happened too fast, and he wanted to escape it all for a while.

Joe got up and reached for him. “Trent, I’m sorry. I didn’t—I wasn’t thinking. I don’t want to think about what I did today, either. I’m sorry,” he said again.

Trent gave him a one-armed hug. “It’s fine. We all need to stop talking about it and stop focusing on it.” He hoped Mahon understood his message.

* * * *

Once they were in their room, Mahon showed him that he did understand, very much. Mahon washed him in the shower then had him lie down on the bed.

“I’m going to try and give you a massage. I’ve never done it before, so tell me if something doesn’t feel good.” Mahon straddled his thighs.

“Feels damn great so far.” Trent wiggled his ass.

Mahon scooted up and the tip of his hardening dick poked Trent’s butt. “Behave and let me do this.”

Trent managed to look over his shoulder at Mahon. “You can do whatever you want to me tonight.” Then he closed his eyes and let Mahon treat him to a massage that left him melted into a relaxed, horny puddle of man.

Mahon rolled him onto his back and kissed him tenderly. While he did so, Mahon framed Trent’s face with his hands and rubbed his temples.

There was a new current between them, along with the strong, pulsing sexual one. Mahon reinforced the newer one when he whispered, “I love you.”

Trent added more power to it. “I love you, too. I meant what I said. Even losing Mom’s pictures. As long as I have you and my family, I’m happy.”

Mahon kissed him again. He left a trail of purple marks down Trent’s neck and Trent didn’t care. He’d never cared for proprietary displays before, wouldn’t have let anyone scatter hickies all over him. He sure as hell would never have let anyone bite him like Mahon did.

“Only you,” Trent thought he said. The words might never have escaped from his head.

Mahon held Trent’s hands at his sides while sucking on his nipples, then minutes later, Trent’s cock.

Trent had never been interested in bondage, and he wasn’t now. What Mahon was doing to him wasn’t bondage. Mahon was comforting him, making sure Trent knew he was there for him.

The warm, wet rippling throat muscles around his cock almost undid Trent. He tried to buck up, to get more of Mahon.

Mahon let go of his hands and pushed Trent’s legs up so that his knees were on his chest. Mahon left off sucking and went back to licking, taking a path down Trent’s shaft to his balls.

There Mahon suckled, working Trent’s whole sac into his mouth.

“G-Gawd,” Trent wailed, grabbing onto his legs and losing himself in the sensations spreading up from his nuts. He rocked his hips and found that the mild tug was good. Very good.

Mahon laved Trent’s balls and jacked his cock.

Trent couldn’t be still. He felt so much, more than any one body could hold.

Mahon dragged a thumb over his asshole then pressed it in.

Trent came so hard his teeth clacked together.

Mahon exchanged the thumb for a finger. He massaged Trent’s gland and released his balls to return to sucking on his dick.

It never went soft.

Trent hadn’t wanted to think, and there wasn’t a chance that he could.

Mahon played his body to perfection, stretching Trent patiently, then sliding his cock deep into Trent’s body, where he held still for so long, Trent had to beg him to move.

Trent clenched around Mahon’s length, wanting him to stay deep, wanting him to thrust. “Mahon, fuck me,” he finally managed to put together.

Mahon did—short, gentle, hard, fast, everything in between. Mahon put Trent’s legs up on his shoulders and slammed into him with a breathtaking thrust.

Trent could only grab at Mahon’s shoulders and try to hold on.

Mahon pulled out and put Trent on his side, then entered him that way, straddling Trent’s lower leg and pushing Trent’s other leg up.

“Good,” Mahon said, sweat dripping down from onto Trent. “So good.”

Trent would have agreed but he was too busy jacking his dick to get a word out.

Mahon pushed Trent’s shoulder down, and seconds later, sank his teeth into Trent’s flesh.

Trent jerked from head to toe as he came again.

Mahon growled and snarled, primitive grunts escaping him as he fucked Trent even harder. The sounds Mahon made served to amplify Trent’s own pleasure. It was almost more than he could handle, and for one moment, he feared passing out completely.

But he didn’t. Trent stayed conscious and aware of every bit of bliss he felt. When it finally ebbed, exhaustion and a warm, comforting joy blanketed him.

Trent sank into the peace coming for him. He slept, and that night, he had no dreams at all.

Chapter Fourteen

Mahon woke Trent up with a blow job. It was a treat for them both, especially when Trent told him to get his dick up there.

Mahon wiggled around and got to push into Trent’s mouth. He moaned and sucked harder.

Trent fingered Mahon’s asshole, pushing a dry finger in.

Mahon came in record time, and he should have been ashamed, maybe, but he wasn’t. Trent shot down his throat before the last spurt had left Mahon’s dick.

A month ago, Mahon would never have imagined he’d be anything other than the trained assassin-slash-enforcer he’d always been. He supposed there had to be a kernel of dissent in him to begin with or else he wouldn’t have seen Trent and known on some deeply instinctual level that he could put his life, heart and body in the man’s care.

“Man, I am sore all over,” Trent complained as he sat up in bed, rotating his arms around in big circles. “If we ever have to dispose of big dead things again, we’re just going to dynamite them or something.”

Mahon snickered and realized he was a little stiff in the shoulders, too. “A hot shower should help us both.”

Trent wagged a finger at him. “You just want to get me all sudsy so you can play with my pecker again.”

“Do I have to get you sudsy for that?” Mahon asked.

Trent gave his soft dick a mournful look. “I think it’s out of commission for an hour at least.”

“Sounds like a challenge to me.” Mahon stood and strolled to the bathroom.

Trent was right behind him, groping Mahon’s ass. “Well, if anyone can change its sleepy state, you could.”

Mahon did, too, getting off again himself as he let Trent pin him to the shower wall and frot against him.

After they dried off and took care of their grooming needs, Trent turned to him. “I want to go ahead and talk to the sheriff if she’s in this morning. I want this done with.” He rubbed his cheek. “You know that means we still have to deal with Diego’s pack—or that alpha asshole.”

“He has to be running out of pack members to send. I haven’t asked Diego, but we need to confirm with him if the wolves we’ve killed have been from his old one,” Mahon said. “There are no more bears for that alpha to hire. When he finds out they’ve all been killed, he will quit trying to get Diego back. Or he’ll show up here personally, and he will die. I don’t think we should go looking for trouble.”

“We weren’t looking for it in the first place,” Trent pointed out.

“True enough. We can drive out and hunt the wolf alpha down, or we can stay here, with Diego and Joe, and move on.” Mahon waited for Trent’s decision.

Trent sputtered and flung a hand in the air. “Well when you put it like that, I’d have to be a real asshole to insist on killing the fucker.”

Mahon disagreed. “Not an asshole, just an extraordinary man who wants to protect the people he loves.” Mahon brushed a kiss over Trent’s lips. “And I want to protect you from having to kill again. Silly, since you proved you’re more than capable of taking care of everyone.”

“Sweet,” Trent corrected. “Don’t tell anyone I fell for it. You’ll ruin my reputation.”

They dressed and joined Diego and Joe in the kitchen.

Trent got them each a cup of coffee, then sat between Joe and Mahon. “Trent, I’d like to go on in and get the interview with Sheriff Kenzie done with.”

“Go ahead. Diego and I will handle the chores here. When you get back, we can help you see if there’s anything left at the trailer.” Joe nodded at Mahon. “And your camper.”

“Sounds like a plan. Guess I need to see about getting some kind of cleanup equipment out here. Like a bulldozer and a backhoe. Oh!” Trent wiggled in his chair. “A wrecking ball, just so we can make thank you cards for all the people who brought us food.”

“I see where you’re going with that, and no, you aren’t the next Miley,” Joe said. “We do need thank you cards, though.”

“I’ll pick some up, spoil sport.” Trent chatted throughout the meal.

Mahon enjoyed listening but occasionally contributed his opinion.

* * * *

Sheriff Kenzie was nice to Trent. She was okay with Mahon, though not as familiar-acting. He was fine with that. She didn’t know him, and he’d bet she’d run his credentials. All she would have found was the information that had been established for him.