I wasn’t planning on picking Jason up on my way home. In fact, I’d told myself several times to not even fucking think about it, not after what happened last time.

Plus, I’m saving my pennies. My two part-time jobs aren’t making me much. Not like I can throw away forty and eighty bucks on sex every time—and for what? I can pick up a guy at a bar like everyone else. Have sex without having to buy the service.

I still roll down the street, just to check Jason is okay. I know that otherwise I won’t get any sleep—because I’m fucked in the head and can’t stop thinking about him, right—and then I see him, standing at his usual corner, looking gorgeous even from a distance, dark hair framing his handsome face, black pants slung low on his hips and a black jacket, the very image of a sexy bad boy.

When I roll closer, he straightens from his slouch against the wall, slow and careful, brows lowering over his eyes. He looks straight at me, and I’m caught, like every time, by the pain lancing through his dark gaze.

There and then gone as he tilts his head to the side and one side of his mouth tips up in a crooked smirk. Fucking hot.

I shouldn’t stop, but I can’t for the life of me remember why I’d decided I shouldn’t. Clearly I stand no chance where this guy is concerned.

Rolling down my window, I lean out to talk to him, but before I open my mouth, a wintry blast of wind stings my face. Christ, I can’t imagine standing out there in that thin jacket. He’ll die of cold.

As if to confirm my words, he turns to the side and coughs, wiping his mouth on his arm, and fuck. I don’t like it.

Caught between desire and worry, I make a new decision—or maybe not so new: the same one I keep making over and over, every time I see him in real life or in my dreams.

“Climb in,” I say.

He looks at me for a long moment, those expressive eyes shielded, but the arch of a brow speaking volumes.

Then he nods and limps around the truck to do as I asked.

He actually fucking limps, and I thump my fist on the steering wheel just as he opens the passenger door and climbs inside.

What the hell am I gonna do with this guy—and why can’t I just leave him out of my life?

“You like punk rock?”

I blink at the quiet question, then realize what’s playing on the old stereo of the truck. “Yeah. This is DeathMoth. The group. Some friends of mine play in it.”

I glance sideways at him. We’ve stopped at a traffic light, and his face is washed in red. It looks disturbingly like blood, and there’s a dark shadow on his cheek I hadn’t noticed before. A bruise?

Son of a bitch. It is. There’s a dark line right below his eye, too, like a cut. In the narrow confines of the car, he stinks of something sour like trash and vomit, and still underneath it all there’s that cinnamon scent and male musk that I can’t get enough of.

“You mean Rafe Vestri and Dakota Madden from the tattoo shop you work at.” He fiddles with the cuff of his jacket sleeve and looks away, as if feeling my scrutiny.

“Right. How did you know?”

“Jesse Lee told me about it.”

Jesse Lee had once been on the streets with Jason, hustling for a living—until Zane Madden and Rafe Vestri found him and brought him to Damage Control as an apprentice. Like they did with Shun and all the Damage Boyz.

Like Jason would’ve been, if he’d accepted the help.

He shivers, and I reach for the heater, cranking up the heat.

“You’re good friends with Jesse,” I say.

He shrugs. “I don’t see him much these days. Not since he left this life behind.” There’s an odd catch in his voice.

“He moved on.”

“He sure did.” He chuckles, a deep, rich sound, and it makes me mad at him all over again. “Never looked back.”

“Why should he?”

He doesn’t reply to that. Doesn’t laugh again, either. “Right,” he says eventually as we’re rolling again through traffic. “You and the guys of the shop… you’re pretty close, huh? You and Jesse Lee?”

“What do you care?” It comes out with more force than I’d intended. What is it about this guy that gets me so pissed? “That’s none of your business.”

He jerks a little. “Sheesh, relax. Just making conversation.”

And that somehow pisses me off even more, especially when I take another look at his jaw. “You could do what Jesse did. Stop living that life.”

He’s quiet. Again avoiding the topic. After a while, he sighs. “Who pissed in your cornflakes today?”

Of all the things to say… Deflating, I shake my head and focus on the street ahead. “Fuck you.”

“Sure, but it’ll cost you.”

That startles a bark of laughter from me. Damn him. “Everything has a price with you.”

He looks at me then. I catch his gaze as I slow down to park the truck, and it’s… interested. Curious. Analyzing. “Everything has a cost. But if you wanna tell me what got your pink panties in a twist, I’ll listen for free.”

Really? I’m tempted to snark. How big of you.

But instead, as I throw the truck into park, I find myself saying, “It’s my fucking parents.”

A chuckle, quieter than the last. “I’ll just go out on a limb here and guess you don’t get along.”

“You’d guess right.” It’s dark now inside the truck, the only light the next street lamp that’s casting a pool of gold on the sidewalk. It’s drizzling, the fine drops weaving a sheet of sparkles from the lightbulb down to the street. “We never have, even less so since they swindled my brother out of all his money and skipped town.”

He nods. Maybe Ocean told him about it. Maybe he’s just being polite.

“Well now they’re back, and want more. As if they haven’t taken enough from Shun already, from both of us. Our whole fucking childhoods, just… They should be in jail, both of them, not out and about, demanding more. I wouldn’t have made it to adulthood if not for my brother. He was mother and father to me, and I’ll be damned before I see them suck him dry.”

I’m clutching the wheel so hard I’m probably leaving dents in the old plastic. Dammit, no idea why I’m telling him all this. Could be because he’s so quiet, listening, his eyes on me.

I sigh. “I’ll set a meeting with them. With my dad. Settle this once and for all. Tell him to get lost.”

“Did he threaten you?”

“What?” Jesus. A chill runs through me. “Why are you saying that?”

How would he know?

“Did he, Raine?”

I swallow hard. “Yeah. But that’s bullshit. He has nothing to back those threats with.”

“You sure about that? Ocean was into illegal street racing back where you lived, wasn’t he? Who knows what the hell your dad was involved in. Just… watch your back. That’s all I’m saying.”

You’d almost think he’s concerned. About me.

Yeah, whatever.

“I can take on my father,” I say, killing the engine and opening my door, letting the cold of the night in. It sobers me up, chases away the fog of doubt. “Let’s go.”

The moment I step inside the apartment, I switch on the lights and crank up the heating, then take off my jacket.

Jason closes the door softly behind me. He’s still limping—I can hear his uneven steps.

“So what happened tonight?” I ask, keeping my tone casual, preparing for another round of snark and yelling, followed by furious silences. “Run into another thug in a back alley?”

But he doesn’t take the bait. I turn around prepared to repeat the question, ask why he smells like he rolled inside a dumpster, and the words die on my lips.

The look in his eyes is so bleak it’s like a punch to the chest. His bruised face is drawn, his shoulders slumped.

Not glancing at me, he turns away and limps over to the sofa, shrugging off his jacket. His movements are slow and a bit uncoordinated, and then then as I watch, he stills, the jacket off his shoulders, his arms still in the sleeves, his back to me.

What the hell? I realize I’m holding my breath, no idea what’s going on but a weird feeling twisting me inside. I want to go to him, help him. Ask again what is wrong, check that bruise and that cut on his face.

But I don’t move.

The moment stretches.

Then he moves again. Taking a shallow, ragged breath, he slips his arms free of the sleeves and lets the jacket drop to the floor.

“So listen,” he rasps, without turning around. “I don’t normally do this, but before anything… Can I use your shower?”

I watch his broad shoulders, the narrow dip of his waist and hips, his rigid back, his hands clenching at his sides. His black pants have wet patches and stains on them, and when he turns around to face me, the front of his light blue tank top looks smeared with something dark like blood.

Even more disturbing is the fact that he won’t meet my gaze, and he’s biting his lip like he wants to gnaw through it. He attempts a smile, but it crumbles around the edges.

What the fuck happened?

“Sure, no problem,” I say, and wave a hand vaguely in the direction of the bathroom. “I’ll find you a clean towel. Water heats up fast, just run it for a minute.”

Dark brows draw together over his eyes, and he glances at me—a question, a flash of warmth, a shadow of doubt—and then he’s nodding and starting in the indicated direction, still gnawing on his lip.

In a strange daze, I watch him find the bathroom and get inside, then shake myself and go look for that damn towel.

So many questions buzzing around in my head, and in any case, imagining him in the shower, with suds and water running over his strong body, shouldn’t affect me so much, shouldn’t get me hard as a rock. I mean, I’ve seen him naked before, right?

But hey, I’ve never had any control over my body when it came to Jason Vega. And that hasn’t fucking changed.

“Here you go,” I call out as I crack the door open and hang the dark blue towel on the hook on the wall. “Everything okay in there?”

Steam is rolling out of the shower stall, and his body is silhouetted against the Plexiglas, a dark, perfect shadow of a man.

The water stops, the shower curtain draws back, and he’s there, naked and wet. Much more handsome than I remembered. My memory can never do him justice, it seems.

That sexy, crooked smirk is back, as if his five minutes under the hot water put together whatever was cracked and broken. As if he used that time to mend himself, glue the pieces back together.

It should bother me, the falseness, the wrongness of it, the pieced-together front that is so obviously a lie—but when he reaches down and wraps his hand around his dick, I forget to get angry. In fact, I totally fucking lose my train of thought and stare like an idiot.

The silver piercing glints with every stroke of his fist, and the ink on his chest shines, flowers and hearts and exploding stars and faces fading into black. His stomach is tight, his abs clenched, his small nipples hard, the silver hoop in the left one catching my eye before I look up at his face.

Front or not, he’s fucking hot with his lashes wet, his mouth slack and soft, droplets running from his short hair over his nose and cheeks and down his throat and chest.

“You’re overdressed,” he says, that husky voice doing the trick of getting me from hard to aching. “Come here.”

Fuck, I shouldn’t.

And why not? that treacherous voice in my mind whispers even as I kick off my shoes and socks and reach behind my head to pull off my sweater and T-shirt. Goddammit, just a taste.

I step into the fog of steam and pull him to me, put a hand on his face—the unbruised, uncut side—and kiss him.

His mouth opens on a gasp, and he jerks against me. He tastes of darkness, bitter and blood sweet. His hands come to rest on my shoulders, and I push him until his back presses into the tiled wall.

It’s warm in here. Hot. He’s a naked flame in my arms, scorching me, his hard chest against mine, his muscular thighs rubbing on me. My cock is trapped in my jeans, so fucking hard, and sparks of pleasure run down my spine as we rub together, our mouths fused.

I thrust my tongue into his mouth, and he makes a plaintive noise, like a whine, in the back of his throat that has me panting.

Fucking hell, this is crazy. Crazy good.

I need to get naked, too, and I draw back to undo my jeans. His hands are there already, unbuttoning and unzipping and shoving the material down, partly wet from the contact with his body. His dark eyes are so serious, his face set in lines of concentration, his dark hair spiky, his shoulders sparkling with water.

Giving in to the urge, I lean in and lick a line from a strong shoulder to his neck. He stills, his breath catching, fingers still caught on the elastic of my briefs.

“What are you—?” he starts, and I cup his face, using my body to push him back against the wall. I like him there, even more so now that his bare skin drags deliciously over mine, my dick caught between us, slipping over his taut belly.

I rock my hips and crush our mouths together, swallowing a long, deep moan that rumbles up his chest. His cock is stirring against my thigh, thickening, the piercing a sharper counterpoint, and the feel of it, the knowledge he’s turned on, it ratchets up the pressure, turning my hard-on to steel.

“Raine,” he whispers against my lips when I break the kiss to draw breath, then I’m eating up his mouth again, unable to stop. The bitterness is gone, replaced with something spicy that’s lighting up my blood, setting me on fire.

Jase, I chant in my mind, fuck, Jase.

Freak, the familiar demon in my mind howls. You’ll rot from the inside. You’ll rot in hell.

Fuck you, I think. Fuck off, voice.

By now, one of my hands has wandered up to the wall by his head, steadying me as I move against him, the other to the back of his neck as I kiss him.

This isn’t enough, this rubbing together, and it’s everything. Nothing else exists in the world right now but me and him, our slick bodies moving together, our mouths nipping and sucking and tongues warring.

The heaviness in my balls, the burning pressure in my cock are too much. I’m going to shoot, but I need something more. I release his neck to reach between our bodies for my cock.

He beats me to it, those long fingers curling around my hard-on, and he starts sliding down the wall. I stop him. Not sure why. His mouth on me would be fucking awesome.

“Look, it’s okay—” I start, then groan when his hold tightens, and my dick likes that. Too fucking much. “Oh God. I want to try something else.”

“Dammit. What?” He sounds exasperated, and it makes me grin.

“This.” I find his cock, half-hard like last time, and give it a good squeeze, twist and stroke.

“Fuck…” His head lolls back on the wall when I do it again, eyes going heavy-lidded, his hold on my dick slackening, his fingers slipping away. His gaze is questioning, as if he can’t understand what’s going on. “Raine.”

Funny that he’s so sure of himself when he works me over, and so unsure when it comes to himself. To his own pleasure.

Grinning wider, I bring our cocks together, and wrap my hand around both.

Shit, this feels better than I thought it would. My eyes all but roll back in my head. Oh yeah, this is good. This is so good, and I’m already hovering so close to the edge, I feel it start, a crack in the dam, a huge wave rising, and I put my mouth on his.

Need to taste him as I come.

His hands grab at me, blunt nails raking down my arms, his tongue twisting with mine, gasping in my mouth—and I’m coming in hot, long spasms that shake me to the core, turning me inside out.

Jase…

In degrees, I come back to myself, my mouth on his shoulder, one hand still splayed on the tiles, the other gripping his hip. His heart is hammering against mine where our chests are mashed together. His dick in my hand is still half-hard.

The realization sobers me up.

He hasn’t come. Of course not. I somehow managed to convince myself he was into it this time, that he was having a good time, when he’s so tired he can barely stand.

This isn’t what I brought him here for, dammit.

What the hell am I doing?