Unhinged (Necessary Evils, #1)

by Onley James

“Are you real?”

“What are we doing?” Adam snorted. “I’m trying to make sure you don’t die of a drug overdose. What are you doing?” Noah splayed his fingers over Adam’s knife-sharp cheekbones. “You’re really pretty. Has anybody ever told you that?” Noah asked, examining him for even a single flaw but finding none. Adam snorted. “Yes.” “Oh,” Noah said, letting his hands fall. He hated how defeated he sounded. Adam didn’t drop his arms, though, just continued to cup Noah’s face in his large hands. “You’re really…big,” Noah said, letting his gaze roam from Adam’s booted feet to the top of his head. Well, as much as he could while Adam held his face hostage. Adam tilted his head once more. “No, I’m average in size. You’re just kind of small.” Noah scoffed. “Not where it counts.” That wasn’t really the truth either. He was pretty proportionate in every way. He didn’t know why he said it, but Adam grinned and Noah’s heart tripped in his chest. What was wrong with him? Noah couldn’t help but notice Adam’s pointy incisors. He pressed a finger to the sharpened point. “Are you secretly a Cullen? You have vampire teeth. Is that why you’re so pretty?”

“Why are you following me?” Noah asked again. “Because I can’t stop thinking about you,” Adam said, sounding confused, like he hadn’t meant to say it. Noah’s eyes widened at the words. “Am I… Are you a hallucination?” Adam shook his head, leaning into Noah’s space. “I’m real.”

“You smell good,” Adam growled against his lips. “That can’t possibly be true. I smell like sweat.” “Yeah, but beneath that…you smell different. Something that’s just you.” “I don’t know what that means,” Noah whispered before kissing him again.

“What are we supposed to do with that?” Adam asked. August looked at him like he was stupid. “We have no idea how much of Atticus ended up on our friend here. So we’re going to dismember him, bleach him, package him up in nice little pieces, and chuck him into the river with some cement blocks. By the time he floats to the surface, any and all trace evidence should be gone. And then we won’t have to tell Dad that his pride and joy fucked up.” Atticus plopped his gloved hands on his apron-covered hips. “You know, it's not my fault I excelled at everything growing up. Maybe if you had all tried a little harder, Dad could have doted on one of you instead.” Adam rolled his eyes, crouching beside the body to start undressing their recently deceased serial rapist. “Oh, yes. Please tell us again how being Dad’s favorite is so hard.” Adam got some perverse pleasure out of knowing that the man who’d forced himself on others without their consent was now being stripped and dismembered against his will. Too bad he was already dead. “It was!” Atticus cried, indignant. “He always expected me to be perfect and to make sure you guys were perfect, too, and we all see how well that turned out.” Atticus and August looked down at Adam with their patented older sibling superiority. “Oh, fuck you both. I’m sorry I’m not a doctor or an egghead professor. Has it ever occurred to you that I did you all a favor by never applying myself?” Atticus snorted. “How so?” Adam grinned. “I half-ass everyth...

Half of his brothers liked dick, two of them didn’t care about gender at all, and August…well, Adam was pretty sure he was a fucking android. He couldn’t imagine his brother sticking his dick in anything that didn’t require batteries.

Next time, call Archer. Or Asa and Avi. The murder twins are always down for a little slice and dice,”

He just wanted to be near him. Adam spent his life dwelling in darkness and Noah felt like the light. He felt like the sun on Adam’s face. Whenever he saw him, something unknotted deep inside him and he could breathe…even if Noah didn’t know he was there. And that was the problem. Adam didn’t understand boundaries. As a child, he’d broken a lot of toys trying to make them do things they weren’t meant for. He didn’t want Noah to be another broken toy. He was already popping mystery pills and making out with murderous strangers in abandoned buildings. When he’d found out Adam wasn’t there to kill him, he’d sounded disappointed. Maybe Noah needed Adam? Maybe he needed somebody to take care of him, watch over him, show him what he was capable of. Adam snorted. He couldn’t be Noah’s guardian angel—not when every time he closed his eyes, he pictured him on his knees, begging Adam to do increasingly dirty things to him.

That was where Noah called home—a rusted out Airstream trailer parked in the lot. Noah worked there as a dishwasher. An angel and devil were squabbling on Adam’s shoulder. Left brought him to Noah who he knew for a fact was home. Right took him to his studio apartment in the heart of the city. He needed to go home. He needed to leave Noah alone. He was vulnerable; small and sweet and so fucking malleable. Adam wanted to be the one who made him cry, who made him whimper and moan and sigh. Maybe even the one who made him scream.

Adam was the worst, a bad guy who did bad things to bad people for good reasons.

Noah deserved something good in his life, and that would never be Adam. The least he could do was stay away from him. But when the light turned green, Adam made a left. Fuck.

“Why are you here?” “I wanted to see you,” Adam said with such sincerity that Noah couldn’t help but smile. “You just saw me a few hours ago.” Adam flopped on his back, making himself at home on Noah’s bed, looking way better than he should there. “It wasn’t enough. I needed to see you more.” “You know I’m not going to have sex with you, right?” Adam’s gaze darted away from Noah and back again, his heavy black brows furrowing once more. “Okay.” “So, if that’s why you’re here, you should go,” Noah prompted. Adam’s brows raised. “But…that’s not why I’m here. So, I’m gonna stay. Okay?”

“Why are you taking your clothes off?” “Did you want me to sleep with my boots on?” Noah’s hands gesticulated wildly. “Why did you take your pants off?” “Chafing,” Adam said, deadpan. “You’re certifiable. Like chasing butterflies, bats in the belfry, not all there.” “That’s rude. I am a psychopath. Words hurt, you know.” Noah opened his mouth to apologize when Adam grinned. “I’m kidding. Do you have more questions or can we go to sleep now?” Noah’s brain was turning a mile a minute. “Don’t you live in a mansion on the other side of town?” Adam shook his head with a smile. “No, my dad does. I live in a studio apartment on the other side of town.” “And why can’t you go sleep there?” Adam shrugged. “Because you’re not there and I want to be with you.”

Adam woke with his arms around Noah, his body tucked snuggly against him. He was small compared to Adam’s six foot two, but he fit perfectly, allowing Adam to all but envelop him when they spooned. He liked the idea of people having to go through him to get to Noah. It was a foreign concept. He didn’t know how to describe it. From the moment he’d seen him standing there, holding that gun on him, Adam had just known he wasn’t going to let him go. Ever.

He nuzzled his nose against Noah’s neck, inhaling deeply. Noah had said he smelled like sweat, which would have been fine with Adam, but it wasn’t true. Noah had his own peculiar scent, something that evoked a sense memory deep in Adam’s lizard brain. Something that made him think home. “Are you sniffing me?” Noah asked sleepily. Adam liked Noah’s voice, not too high, not too deep. Everything about Noah was just right. “Yes.” He felt Noah’s body shake with laughter. “You’re so weird.” Adam grinned, even though Noah couldn’t see it. “Other people think I’m charming.” Noah stretched deeply, craning his head around to look at Adam but making no attempt to leave his arms. “But you also said last night that other people don’t know the real you, so...” Adam let that tumble around in his head for a minute before saying, “So, you think people only find me charming because they don’t know me, but you don’t find me charming because you do?” He didn’t like the idea of Noah not liking him, but he wanted whatever Noah wanted. “Do you want me to be fake charming me or real me?” Noah sighed, rolling to face Adam, wiggling up until they were all but nose to nose on his pillow. “No. I guess I like how weird you are.” “I like your face,” Adam said, sweeping his hand over Noah’s freckles. “Your stars are gone.” “Sorry.” “Don’t be. I like your freckles. They were the first thing I noticed about you.” Noah smiled ruefully. “And here I thought it would be the gun in my hand.” “Nah, I’m used to ...

Adam was glued to Noah’s back, his hands on Noah’s hips and his chin resting on his head, like they’d been dating for a decade when, in reality, they were little more than strangers. If what they were could be reduced to such a simple word. Still, Noah felt himself leaning into the reassuring heat of Adam’s torso but hated how comfortable he already was with him. Hated how much he liked the feel of his hands on his body.

hand. “You have freckles on your fingers, too,” he mused. “You’re obsessed with freckles,” Noah teased. Adam flicked pale blue eyes upwards, snagging Noah’s gaze. “No. Just yours.” If he didn’t stop saying things like that, Noah was going to do something stupid like fall in love with a murderer.

“Who hires a—what?—sixteen-year-old to kill people? That’s how old you were when you did my dad, right?” Adam nodded, looking impressed, Noah wasn’t sure why. “I wasn’t hired. I don’t get paid. Community service, remember? I’m a mandatory volunteer.” Noah scoffed. “You can’t make it mandatory for somebody to volunteer their time.” “Tell that to my father,” Adam muttered. The pieces began falling into place for Noah. In the trailer, Adam had said, ‘we were raised for this.’ It had sounded like some Batman level vigilante bullshit last night when he was half asleep and fully high. But maybe Adam was serious. “Wait…your dad? Thomas Mulvaney is a…murderer?” Noah whispered. Adam snorted a laugh; then took a long drink of his coffee before saying, “Please, my father would never get his hands dirty like that. No, my father trained us to be murderers.” Noah sat on that sentence for a minute. “Us? Like…your brothers?” Adam shrugged, seemingly unbothered by the conversation, like they were discussing traffic. “I mean, you can’t fault his logic. My brothers and I are uniquely qualified to do what we do. And honestly, we turned out better than the doctors could have hoped, given our initial diagnoses.” A finger of unease ran along his spine. “Which was what?” Adam smiled softly, shaking his head. “I told you, I’m a psychopath.” Noah choked on the bite of pancake he’d just forked into his mouth, sparking a coughing fit that drew far more attention than he wanted. When it was over and t...

“So, are all your brothers like you?” “Psychopaths, you mean?” Adam asked. “Yeah, that’s why he chose us.” A thought suddenly occurred to Noah. “Am I going to get merced for knowing this information?” Adam’s face grew serious. “I would never let anybody hurt you.” The rawness in his declaration almost made Noah teary despite its absurdity. Nobody had ever protected him. Ever. He’d always told himself he didn’t need it. But now, here was this dangerous stranger swearing to protect him from his family.

“Why did you tell her I’m your boyfriend?” Adam frowned. “Because telling her that you’re the son of one of my murder victims and we’re together because I happened to get off with you this morning sounded like a mouthful.” Noah shook his head. “You could have just said friend?” Adam’s brows furrowed. “But then she might think you’re available.” Noah’s brain stumbled. “But I’m not? Available?” “No.” “Do I get a say in this?” Noah asked, not even mad, just feeling like he’d definitely slipped into an alternate universe. Adam tilted his head. “Yeah. Did you not want to be my boyfriend?” Noah laughed at the genuine confusion in Adam’s tone, like the notion was preposterous. Maybe it was.

“I hate to keep harping on this one point because it's starting to feel a little mean to keep bringing it up, but we don’t know each other.” “You know me,” Adam insisted. “But you don’t know me,” Noah countered, voice a harsh whisper. “I don’t need to know everything about you to know that you’re what I want.” “That makes no sense.” “It will eventually,” Adam promised. “But if this is too much for you…if I’m too much for you, I get it. I’m…a lot.” “Why would you want to be in a relationship if you can’t love somebody?” Once more, Adam pondered the question. “What does that word even mean? Lots of people throw the word love around without actually treating the people they supposedly love like they are loved. I don’t have the same signals firing in my brain that you do. I have to rely on instinct. My instincts tell me you’re the one. What do yours tell you?” That you’re going to rip my heart out some day, maybe literally. “My instincts have really never done anything for me. If you give me two choices, I make the wrong one every time.” Adam leaned in. “Instinctively, what do you think you should do?” “Run fast and far away from you,” Noah said without thought. Adam grinned like he’d just somehow put Noah in check mate. “Then, by your own logic, you should do the opposite. And stay. With me.” “This is crazy.” “All the best things are.”

“You’re not going to answer it?” Adam’s fingers began to trail along Noah’s arm. “If they’re calling this late, they want something. If I don’t answer, I can pretend I was sleeping.” Noah mulled that over while Adam’s phone vibrated three more times, then stopped, before starting once more. On the third attempt, Noah said, “I don’t think they’re going away.” Adam blew out a breath through his nose like an angry bull, crawling to the foot of the bed to fish his phone from his jeans pocket. “What?” he growled into the phone. “I’m busy, can’t this wait?” Noah could hear a tinny sounding voice speaking rapid-fire but not what was said. “In the morning. No, in the morning. August, I’m fucking naked in bed. I was almost asleep. Yes, I was. None of your business?” Adam’s mouth formed a hard line as the voice once again spoke angrily. “Oh, my God. Fine. Fine. Fuck you.” When he disconnected, he looked at Noah. “I gotta go to my dad’s for an hour or so.” Noah’s heart sank, but he sat up, prepared to find his clothes. Adam’s hand pushed him back onto the mattress as he crawled over him. “What do you think you’re doing?” “Getting my clothes?” Noah said, frowning. “Did I say you could go?” Adam asked, his voice sexy enough to make Noah’s dick try to rally. “You don’t want me to leave?” “No, stay here and wait for me. Naked. I love having you naked in my bed.” Noah hated the smile he could feel forming on his face. “You sure?” Adam gazed at him with that same feral tenacity that sent a...

“Noah had his chance to get his revenge. He stuck a gun in my face. He wanted to kill me. When I showed him who his father really was, he instantly backed down. He doesn’t want to ruin us. He just likes being with me. Why is that so hard to believe?” Atticus sighed. “How is he going to feel when he realizes your whole life is a fraud? That you’re not this charming playboy supermodel?” “He knows. I don’t have to pretend around him. He knows exactly who and what I am and he accepts me.” Atticus darted his gaze to August, aggressively gesturing to Adam in a do something with him gesture. August shook his head. “Adam, you’re putting us all in danger by associating with this boy.” “Atticus almost married that psycho Kendra, and none of you batted an eye at that train wreck,” Adam snapped. “She didn’t know about our secrets,” Archer said, sounding bored. Adam could feel his anger rising. “Exactly. If she had, she would have used it to drain our family dry. She was an absolute fucking nightmare. Noah doesn’t want anything from us. Besides, if you’re so concerned he’s going to go run and tell the world, wouldn’t the more prudent move be to keep him close, not alienate him further?” “Adam, you’re being childish,” Atticus said. Adam shot a glare in Atticus’s direction. “Why are you even here? Shouldn’t you be synthesizing a protein or growing ears on the back of rats or something? Why do you care who or what I’m doing all of a sudden?” “I care for the same reason we all do. There ar...

“Who pissed you off this time? Archer? Atticus? It couldn’t have been August. Avi and Asa aren’t even in town. Aiden doesn’t talk enough to piss you off. So, who was it?” “Nobody. I just need to think.” “You can’t lie to me, you know. I’m the one who taught you how. I know all your tells.” Adam blew a breath out through his nose. “They were staging an intervention.” “And why is that?” “Because they don’t like my new boyfriend.”

“This is gonna last, like, thirty seconds,” he warned. Adam pulled off him with a pop, grinning up at him. “Then I’m doing something right.”

“I’m not sorry at all. What was I supposed to do with you all naked and warm in my bed?” “I can see your dilemma,” Noah deadpanned. “In the future, I have no problem being woken up like that.” “In the future, huh?” Noah flushed. “Well…if there’s another—” “Oh, there’s going to be another…and another…and another. I told you, you’re mine now. Deal with it.”

“Are you sure you have to go to work?” Adam asked, leaning across the center console to give Noah his biggest puppy dog eyes. He didn’t want Noah to go. Waking up with Noah in his arms had been like waking up and finding somebody had left him a chocolate cake. The best kind of sweet surprise. They’d spent the morning trading lazy blow jobs before getting in the shower where they’d gotten each other off once again. Adam had taken Noah to lunch afterwards, without the fanfare this time. And now, he had to drop him off to get changed for his shift. But he was having a hard time letting him out of the car.

“I mean, several people could live off mine. But you’re the only one I’m extending the offer to.” Noah moaned as Adam’s tongue traced the shell of his ear. “As much as I’d love to be your sugar baby, I can’t just quit the day after we break into Gary’s house.” “He’s not going to notice we were there,” Adam assured him. “A broken picture doesn’t equal a home invasion.” Noah tilted his head, letting Adam’s mouth explore the column of his throat. “I can’t risk it. He already accused me of stealing his backpack full of cash and guns.” Adam chuckled. “To be fair, you did steal his backpack full of cash and guns.” He threaded his fingers into Noah’s hair, turning his head for a kiss that lingered. He couldn’t keep his hands off him. He wanted to taste every part of him, touch every part of him, crawl inside him and live in his skin. When Noah whined into Adam’s mouth, their lazy kiss turned dirty, his hand sliding up Noah’s thigh to run his thumb along the rigid outline of his dick in his jeans. “Fuck, you’re already hard,” he growled against his lips. “I can take care of that for you if you just quit your job. I have a whole list of things I want to do to you. Unbutton your pants and we’ll start right now,” he vowed. Noah ground himself against Adam’s palm briefly, but then tore his mouth away. Adam was undeterred, biting at his jaw, his ear, any place he had access to. “No. No. No,” Noah said, pushing his palm into Adam’s face and physically pushing him back to his side of the...

“I’m warning you, I smell like French fries and—” Adam snagged him by the shirt, dragging him in for a kiss that made Noah’s whole body tingle, murmuring, “I love French fries,” against his lips. Noah let himself get swept up in the kiss but was unable to shake the feeling he was being watched. “Wow, dinner and a show,” a low voice drawled, filled with humor. Noah jumped at the unfamiliar voice in the backseat, jerking around to see two strangers, mirror images of each other. “There’s two of you,” he mumbled.

“This was your idea. I would’ve had you bent over the mattress by now, my fingers already deep inside you, working you open so you’re nice and ready for me.” Noah’s eyelids fluttered, lips parting as his breaths quickened. Noah was always so responsive. “Do you feel how hard you make me? I want to be inside you so fucking bad right now. I want to breed you, mark you… I want my scent on your skin. People need to know…” “Know what?” Noah whispered. Adam’s hand closed around his throat, gripping just tight enough to pull a shuddery sob from him. “That you’re mine. Just mine. That you fucking belong to me.”

They didn’t even know each other, but he wanted to be Adam’s, wanted his heat, his passion, hell, even his violence. But, buried deep down, Noah wanted Adam because he knew he would burn the whole fucking world down for him and never feel a shred of remorse.

“This isn’t a game. I don’t play games. If I didn’t mean it, I wouldn’t say it. Honestly, if I said half the things I think when I look at you, you’d run screaming into the night.” Noah’s pulse hammered in his throat. He pulled Adam’s hand from his lips. “Like what?” Adam searched his face like he was truly uncertain whether what he said next would send Noah running. “Like I want to stitch my body to yours. Like I want to live inside your skin. Like I would handcuff you to the radiator if you tried to leave me.” Noah smiled despite himself. “You don’t have a radiator.” “I don’t want to be like this.” Noah frowned. “Like what?” “This,” he said, sounding frustrated. “Crazy. Possessive. I know my brain doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to, but it never really mattered before because I knew why I was put on this planet. My dad said the world needs people like me to maintain order. Balance. But I never thought I’d meet somebody and feel the way I feel when I’m with you.” “I like that you’re possessive.” Adam scoffed. “You won’t be saying that when you’re chained to the bed.” Noah lifted a hand to cup Adam’s face. “I like the idea of being chained to your bed.” Creases formed on Adam’s brow, his expression almost pained. “I won’t let you go.” “I’m not trying to leave,” Noah said. “But you don’t get to leave either. You don’t get to walk away when you’re done with me.” “I will never be done with you,” Adam promised. Noah shook his head. “You can’t promise that. We’re strangers. ...

“Can we go to sleep now?” “Only if you come up here.” Noah wiggled himself up beside Adam. “Better?” “Uh-uh, roll over.” Noah rolled his eyes but did as he was told. “You could have just said you wanted to be big spoon,” he teased. Adam kissed just behind Noah’s ear, voice low. “In the morning, I’m going to fuck you awake. This just makes it easier.”

“What time do you work today?” Adam asked, pulling back to look at him. “Five, why?” Adam grinned. “Just want to know how many times I can fill you up before we have to shower.” Noah blushed. “You need to feed me first.” Adam sighed. “Fine. Shower, then breakfast. Then sex. Then lunch. Then sex. Then another shower. Then work.” Noah rolled his eyes. “I’m only willing to commit to food and a shower. The rest is to be negotiated on a case by case basis.” Adam made a sulky face. “This is why you’re going to end up chained to my bed.” Noah shoved Adam off him with a snort. “You’re ridiculous. I’m starving.”

“You can never love me,” he blurted. Oh. That. Adam reached out and took Noah’s hand. “I don’t know what love feels like. I don’t know what empathy or guilt feel like. But I know this: I want to fuck you and fight with you and fight for you and make up with you and make out with you and eat Greek food naked with you. Is that enough?”

Then I called my dad and asked him what I should do about you.” “Do about me?” Noah echoed, wondering if that only sounded harsh because his brain was pickled. Adam sighed. “Not…about you. For you? I don’t know how to help you through this. I want to help you.” Noah’s eyes filled with tears at the sincerity in his voice. “What did he say?” Adam sneered. “A bunch of shit about recovered memories and you needing to process them with a trained therapist and that I wasn’t qualified to deal with what you’re going through.” Noah’s heart shriveled in his chest. “Oh.” Adam scoffed. “Yeah, oh. So, I hung up on him and called Calliope.” Noah swiped at the tears on his cheek, wondering how he had any left. “What did she say?” Adam pulled out his phone, reading from it like he’d made some kind of list. “She said to wrap you in a…blanket burrito? To buy your favorite things to eat. To hold you if you wanted it. To leave you alone if you didn’t. She said if you wanted to stay in bed all day and cry, I should let you, but that I shouldn’t leave you alone to deal with this. So, I stopped at the store and then came back as fast as I could.” Noah’s chest ached. Adam had called two people to find out what humans did when other humans were hurting. Was that romantic? What the fuck did Noah know? It felt sweet. “What’s in the bags?” Adam brightened up a bit. “I didn’t know what you liked, so”—he upended the bags in the center of the bed—“I got a little of everything.”

“Can we order pizza?” Adam met his gaze. “We can fly to Chicago and eat pizza at Lou Malnati’s if it will make you smile,” he promised.

Adam saw the cameras come out then, knew people couldn’t resist photographing and recording the two of them and how in love they appeared. Adam wished he was capable of loving somebody. If he could love anybody, it would be Noah. Just Noah. But he couldn’t. He could only protect him and spoil him and give him lots of pancakes and orgasms. He hoped that was enough. He hoped Noah never changed his mind because, the truth was, he wasn’t letting him go. He couldn’t. But he’d already warned Noah of that. He just hoped he’d taken the warning to heart.

“Why do they only catch us when I look like death and you look hot?” Noah asked. “One: you always look hot, and two: because I have a habit of feeding you when you’re sad.” “Will you still want me when I’m fat and happy?” Adam gave him another smirk, popping an entire piece of bacon into his mouth at once, chewing and swallowing before he said, “We’ll get fat together.” Noah laughed. “I could be down with that, but I think your fans would cry.” Adam’s smile faded as he leaned in close. “Fuck them. Fuck everybody but you. Yours is the only opinion that matters. So, don’t change your mind about me. Okay?” There was no missing the threat in Adam’s tone, but Noah’s gaze was solid when he said, “I’m not going anywhere.” Adam reclined once more. “Good.”

“How did I never notice how weird you are?” Noah craned his head back to look up at him. “Your dad has a shooting range…in his house…and I’m the weird one? Maybe you’re just a spoiled brat.”

“Yeah, we’re not your boyfriend’s personal hit squad,” Atticus added. “I think we should scrap the whole project.” Adam exploded from his chair, taking Noah with him, stomping towards Atticus. Noah jumped in front of him, hands on his chest, scrambling to walk backwards as Adam continued to advance on his brother. Atticus had this ass whooping coming for years, the smug piece of shit. Atticus was now also on his feet, calmly removing his glasses like he found Adam tedious. “Adam. Adam!” Noah shouted. “Stop.” He did stop, looking down at Noah with a frown, nostrils flaring, chest heaving. Noah cupped his face. “Stop. They’re just trying to piss you off. Don’t you see that? Stop letting them bait you. Breathe, baby.” Adam took in a deep breath and let it out, the cool touch of Noah’s palms on his cheeks soothing the heat burning through him until the throbbing red rage faded back to just mild irritation. “I told you,” Asa said, talking not to Adam but to the others. “Told them what?” Adam growled. “That Noah has superpowers,” Avi snarked. “That he somehow keeps you from raging out or, at least, from staying enraged.” “So, you were being a dick to Noah as some kind of test?” Adam asked, his anger trying to make a comeback. His father raised a hand. “I needed to see how Noah reacted to you at your worst. Asa and Avi said I didn’t have anything to worry about but I needed to put it to the test. I asked the others to be deliberately provocative.” He looked directly at Noah. “I’m...

Noah left the bathroom, flipping off the light and walking straight to Adam, wrapping his arms around his neck. Adam returned the embrace, surprised when Noah lifted his legs and wrapped them around his waist, burying his face against his throat. Adam dropped his hands to cup Noah’s ass, shifting his weight before carrying him farther into the room. “What’s happening here? What are we doing?” He nuzzled his nose against Adam’s neck. “You’re carrying me to bed.” “To bed, huh?” Adam teased, walking towards the staircase. “And what are we going to do when we get there?” “Slow boning,” Noah said, kissing his way along Adam’s jaw. “I’m sorry, what?” Adam asked around a laugh, trudging up the stairs with Noah still clinging to him. “I want you inside me, but I don’t want it rough. I’m not in the mood. I want the feelings stuff. Kissing. Missionary. Lots of eye contact and mushiness. Fuck me but make it romantic-like.”

“He wasn’t your dad.” Noah sucked in a sharp breath. “What?” “You were kidnapped from Mexico City when you were two years old. Either by Holt or by somebody who gave or sold you to Holt. He wasn’t your father.” Noah dropped to his knees in front of Adam, looking up at him, face pale. “That’s not true.” “We ran your DNA.” “What? How?” “I took your hair while you were sleeping and Calliope sent it to an ancestry website to see if we could find any familial matches.” Noah blinked rapidly, like he was attempting to process this information, his expression pained as he asked, “Why didn’t you just tell me?” Adam cupped his face. “Because if we couldn’t find your family or if it turned out you were put up for adoption or sold by your mom, I didn’t think you needed to know that.” “So, you just wouldn’t have told me?” Noah asked, not exactly accusatory but close. Adam swallowed. “Probably not. It would have done you less harm not to know. But you weren’t given away or sold. You were taken. You have a family. Cousins. Siblings. A mom. We have their information if you want to get in touch.” Noah’s face was hot beneath Adam’s hands, his eyes wet with unshed tears. He pushed Adam’s hands away and stood, wiping at his eyes with the back of his hands. “What I want is to go see what’s in that storage unit.” “Are you mad at me?” Adam asked, unsure if he’d somehow betrayed Noah. Noah shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t know how I feel. I get that your heart was in the right place, but it wasn’...

Then there was Adam. He had no doubt Adam could fake being charming. He’d seen it. He’d watched him easily slip the mask on without skipping a beat and had seen it come off just as quickly. But how would Adam take having to share Noah with others? Did Noah even want to be shared with others? He liked the cozy little bubble of their truly fucked up relationship.

“And you’d be okay with that? Me having a family? A mother, siblings…?” Adam was quiet for a long while. “I know I’m supposed to say yes. A normal person would say they just wanted you to be happy, which I do. But a selfish part of me wants to keep you all to myself. I have a family—people who always have my back—but I’m alone in all the ways that matter. It’s just how my brain works. At least, it was, until you. You are the family I’ll fight to keep. Nobody else. If you want to meet your real family, I definitely won’t stop you and I’ll do everything in my power to be whoever you need me to be around them. But the jealous part of me will always want you to pick me…just me, and that’s probably never going to change.” “I do choose you. I will always choose you. You’re my family, too. And I do feel safe with your family. Safer than I have ever felt, but a part of me wants to know who my mother is, while another part is terrified.”

“You know I’d fucking tear the world down for you, don’t you?” Noah smiled sweetly, crooning, “I know, baby.” Adam’s cock throbbed as much from the endearment as the way Noah’s smile turned bloodthirsty. “But, right now, the only thing I want you to tear apart…is me.” Adam was never letting Noah go. Never. He couldn’t. He knew that now. He couldn’t live without him, and he knew—in that deep, dark ugly part of himself he wasn’t supposed to ever acknowledge out loud—that he’d never let Noah live without him either. But that was the thing of it. Noah didn’t want to leave. Adam knew that on a cellular level. Noah felt safe, protected, loved. Even if that love was dangerous.

Adam protected him, comforted him, gave him what he needed as long as Noah gave clear, concise instructions. Adam did everything he could to show Noah that they belonged together. He knew it, too. He did. On the most basic, fundamental level, Noah knew there was nobody else for him but Adam.

“Yet, you’re the one with the gun to his head,” Gary reminded, his voice growing cold. “He’s not the only one.” Noah let out a sigh of relief at Adam’s voice. He stepped forward out of the shadows, a much smaller gun trained on Gary. Gary’s eyes went wide but he didn’t lower his weapon. “Who the fuck are you?” Adam pressed the gun to Gary’s temple. “I’m the guy who killed your boyfriend. Now, drop the gun.” Gary hesitated. “Do it now and I won’t fillet you before I kill you. Make me take it from you and I’ll make sure you die screaming.” Gary lowered his arm, the gun slipping from his fingers, head swiveling back and forth between Noah and Adam, like he couldn’t quite get the pieces to fit. “You couldn’t have killed Wayne unless you’ve been swimming in the fountain of youth. You would’ve just been a kid.” “I was sixteen. But I’m not anymore. And I promise you, I’m going to enjoy killing you far more than I did Holt.”

“I’m not the one who has a kill playlist on Spotify.” August bristled, giving an offended scoff. “You know all the screaming and begging gives me a migraine.”

His brothers seemed fascinated by Noah, but Adam… Adam had never been so horny in his whole fucking life. Noah looked fierce and so fucking sure of himself that it made Adam want to drag him out to the car and fuck him right then and there.