Renzo Vega was following him.

That knowledge washed over Low as he watched Renzo stride into the Starbucks on Lawrenceville Highway, less than five minutes from Low’s home.

He’d come here after spending most of the day with his nephew, Amir. They’d gone to the park to shoot some hoops with the gorgeous Asian dudes that seemed to always be there, then spent the rest of the day inside Low’s apartment eating pizza and playing video games. After dropping Amir back home, he’d decided to come here and handle some business.

Except everywhere he fucking turned lately, he saw Renzo.

He dipped his chin, forcing his attention on the open laptop in front of him. He was halfway done with his accounting assignment, but had gotten sidetracked browsing the internet. Obviously, Renzo’s appearance shot his focus all to hell. Still, he tried to pretend he wasn’t jumping out of his skin when a shadow fell across the table.

When Renzo sat?

Low swallowed, bracing mentally. Refusing to look up. But he was already sweating under his hoody.

“Lowell Scott.”

Mudda ass.

He lifted his head. Slowly. As if he wasn’t scared. As if he knew what the hell he was doing. “You doh have men to do this?” Normally, if he focused, he’d be able to make his words sound less textured, make his accent less distinct. His focus was for shit and his Grenadian dialect came out to play. Not that he wasn’t proud of where he came from, or that part of himself. It was just easier speaking the “American” way—whatever the hell that was—instead of having to slow his cadence so non-native speakers could understand him.

“Men for what?”

Seemed Renzo understood him just fine. Low didn’t like it. He tapped his pen onto the Formica tabletop. “Intimidation. Following people around. You does normally do it youself or wah?”

“I intimidate you.”

Low narrowed his eyes at that calm statement. “No. But you try, don’t you?” He leaned forward. “Showing up all over de place. You tink I scared ah you?” The force of the words made him shake and he dropped the pen, balling his fists. Renzo’s even gaze dropped to his hands, and Low ached to punch that smooth expression of his face. Kiss-me-ass man just sitting there, all calm and shit.

“I didn’t kill your cousin.”

Low slumped in his chair, briefly closing his eyes. The last thing he wanted to do was discuss Kenton with Renzo.

“Low.”

Every time Low saw him, and he’d seen enough of Renzo this past week than he was comfortable admitting, the club owner looked more and more weighed down. Tired. Not that Low cared. He was just an observant person.

“Low, look at me.”

The last thing Low wanted to do was make eye contact with that man. But he did, fingers aching as he squeezed his fist tight. Gray eyes, they begged him to believe. Looking the way he did at the moment—only slightly less dangerous, in need of sleep and a comb for that mass of thick black hair, eyes pinning Low to his seat—he could forgot Renzo’s age.

Forty-six.

Sometimes he looked it, but always in the most Daddy of ways. Self-aware, confident, mouth curved as his eyes ate you alive.

Jesus, Low.

“I didn’t kill your cousin,” Renzo repeated his words.

Low allowed him the chance and when Renzo was finished, he asked, “That what you came to say? Because I don’t care,” he whispered harshly across the table. “I. Doh. Give. Ah. Fuck.” Okay, he got a bit louder there toward the end because a couple heads swiveled to stare at them. “He was working for you. Doesn’t matter if you didn’t pull the trigger. So fuck your bullshit. You want me to throw you a jump up?”

“You’re angry.”

Low snorted. “Can’t get anything past you, eh?” He blew out a breath. “Everything about you angers me, Renzo.” He sipped his water.

“Because you want me.”

He didn’t know how he managed to swallow that water without it going down the wrong way, but he did. That pro move hyped him up, giving him the extra confidence to hold Renzo’s mocking gaze without flinching as he put down the glass. “You got that from me saying you anger me?”

“I got that from you going out of your way to pretend you don’t want me.”

Low’s hand trembled only the barest bit, but Renzo’s gaze was on Low’s face so he didn’t catch that giveaway. “I don’t want you, Mr. Vega.”

Renzo shifted and sat back, upper half tipped slightly to the right. His left hand hung over the arm of the chair, head cocked, the index on his right hand pressed to his temple. He watched Low as if he knew what was going on inside his head. As if he could see it.

The tension coiled tight in his belly.

The sweat slicking his back.

As if he could hear Low’s heart thumping.

“I see flames in your eyes,” Renzo murmured lazily. Like it was no big deal, this entire stupid fucking conversation. “And when I get near enough, I feel the heat.” His lips curved into a smile.

Low’s pulse raced at the sight, the way the small gesture crinkled the corners of Renzo’s eyes and turned the gray a shade darker. He was captivating when he smiled. Not handsome, not gorgeous. Captivating. He hurt Low’s eyes, but looking away was impossible.

Low gulped as the heat in his belly spread south.

Mudda ass. Again.

“I want that heat,” Renzo continued, voice all husky. “I want you.”

“No,” Low blurted out. No, for so many reasons, but the main one would always be Kenton. “I don’t want you.”

“Your eyes say differently.” Renzo’s tone was almost pitying. “Your body says differently.”

Low shook his head on a brittle chuckle. That fucker. “I’m a lot of things—” Bastard. Coward. Closeted. “But what I am not is crazy.” He wasn’t, right? To think about Renzo Vega touching him. Putting that mouth on him. He hardened further and Low had to take a breath, take a second to collect himself.

Because apparently, he was fucking crazy.

Thinking about it.

Rough hands around his neck.

Rough.

Chance wasn’t rough. But Chance was a good guy. He didn’t anger Low. Low didn’t hate him. Didn’t fantasize about punching him. Chance didn’t scare him by stealing away his common sense. He wanted to believe.

The hunger in Renzo’s eyes.

The need.

The sadness when he told Low he hadn’t killed Kenton.

Low wanted to believe. But he didn’t.

“I think about it, putting my hands on you.” Renzo didn’t move, but somehow his raspy voice was touching Low, bringing visions of sweat dripping and fingers white-knuckling damp sheets.

“Stop.” Low barked the order to both himself and Renzo. He snatched up the glass of water and gulped the last of it down. Lukewarm now, but damn it. He needed it desperately. He was parched.

Renzo’s eyes gleamed, because he knew. He fucking knew what he was doing.

“I’m not doing this with you.” Low closed his laptop and put it back in its case along with the pen. Done, he was done. Except he remained sitting there. Unable to move. Renzo was fucking with his head, his life, and Low stayed right where he was, granting him permission to continue.

“Does Chance give you what you want?” Renzo asked.

“Don’t say his name.” He wasn’t even mad that Renzo knew about Chance. Of course he fucking did.

“Okay.” Renzo lurched forward, elbows on the table, fingers laced. “I want you. I want your nails in my back, my hands on your ass while I’m deep inside you.”

Low’s lips parted. Sweet Jesus. He couldn’t breathe. The exterior noises of the coffee shop faded as his hearing and vision narrowed down to them. Just them. This moment, and the things Renzo made him feel. The things he made Low imagine and ache and long for.

“Will you call me Daddy, Low?”

The table vibrated between them. Renzo’s eyes flashed, and Low realized his legs were shaking, rocking the table. He couldn’t speak. Renzo kept his tongue frozen with his words, spoken in that tone.

Spiced rum.

Burning.

So good. So fucking good.

“When I go so deep in it that you’re shaking, fingers sliding as you try to hold on. When I take you there…” Renzo bit his bottom lip.

Low tightened his grip on the strap of his computer bag.

“When I take you to the point where you can’t remember your name or the lies you tell yourself, will you call me Daddy?”

“You is me enemy.” Low’s voice failed him. Cracking, barely there at all as he quickly threw up the last of his remaining defenses. “I doh fuck my enemies.”

Renzo inhaled deeply. He stared at Low, looking very much like a man who had way too much on his shoulders, on his mind. Weary and sad, always sad. “I’m not your enemy, Low. You call us that to try and dismiss this, and me. But we’re not.” He grabbed Low’s wrist, halting his retreat. Trapping and stranding them in the middle of this—this storm. “You and I, we are wanting,” Renzo told him. “We are on fire, and we are thirsty. But not enemies. Never enemies.”

Low firmly believed there were times when lies were better than the truth.

Right now, he desperately wanted to be on some Beres Hammond-type shit. Sweet lies. He wished Renzo would’ve lied to him. Make him believe something else, anything else. He dropped his gaze to Renzo’s fingers wrapped around his wrist and as he watched, Renzo’s thumb stroked him.

Back and forth over the inside of his wrist.

Every slide broke something inside him.

He wanted to walk away, leave this and them behind in the coffee shop. Leave Renzo’s words and his rough hypnotic caress right here at this table. But Low feared he’d leave himself here, too.

“Low.”

Weighted down with sadness, with hunger, with guilt. That’s how Renzo sounded. His eyes probably held the same thing, but Low kept staring at his wrist.

That thumb.

Wanting more. Unable to make himself ask for what he couldn’t have.

“Low.”

Voice like cocoa tea on a goddamn Sunday morning—hot, sweet and so obscenely dark—when Renzo said Low’s name it resonated deep inside. When he spoke Low’s name, he sweated. He snatched his hand away and jumped to his feet. “Stop following me.” Then he ran away, because apparently that’s all he did nowadays.

Run from Renzo Vega.