Johnny V and the Razor (4 page)

“God, you’re tight,” Sloane said, inching slowly into Johnny.

Resting Johnny’s feet on his shoulders, Sloane brought both Johnny’s hands up over his head and held them there while he slid into his ass. Johnny tossed his head slowly side to side, feeling Sloane filling him, pressing deeper into him. He was thick and hard and pulsing and when lightning flared through the windows and thunder rolled overhead, Johnny didn’t care. All he wanted was more of Sloane, more of him filling him, taking him.

Sloane smiled and stroked into Johnny, slow at first, then faster. As his strokes picked up, the storm raged harder across the skies. Lightning flashed and glittered against the glass. Shadows jittered over them as Sloane claimed Johnny’s ass for his own.

Johnny had seen a lot, been forced to do things he wanted to forget, but Sloane was different. He wanted Sloane to take him, wanted to give him all he’d never given to any man.

Sloane seemed to sense that and bent over Johnny, stroking harder, deeper. “Go on,” he said. “Come for me. Let me feel your ass come around my cock.”

Johnny pumped his hips up and down, taking Sloane deep, moaning. With his arms pinned over his head, he rubbed his cock against Sloane’s hard belly and groaned at the delicious friction against his hot flesh. He arched his back, exploding hot come onto both of them.

Sloane grunted, pinned Johnny harder to the bed, and pumped into him mercilessly, his hips driving his thick cock deep. He clenched his teeth, threw his head back, jammed his fat cock deep into Johnny, and came in a single savage thrust.

Johnny’s cry of pleasure and pain was drowned in a clap of thunder that seemed to split the sky and pour jagged lightning through the night.

Sloane pulled out of Johnny and collapsed next to him across the bed. He pulled Johnny into his arms, and Johnny lay against his strong chest, listening to Sloane’s heart pound like a racing engine.

Johnny threw one of his legs over Sloane’s, nestled closer to him, and said quietly, “I know this is real. I wouldn’t dream about thunder and lightning.”

He kissed Sloane’s shoulder, caressed his smooth chest, and licked at his nipple, until Sloane pressed his head down, fingers stroking through his hair. “Your rail riding days are over, Johnny.”

E
VEN
as he said, it, Sloane knew what he really meant was
Don’t try to leave. Don’t make me hurt you
. He didn’t want to think it, but he did.

After he came inside Johnny, Sloane knew his life was over. Whatever he’d thought he knew, it was all gone, and he was starting over.

Sloane moved so they were lying the right way on the bed. He kept Johnny in his arms, felt his breathing slow down, and thought about how many times he’d watched until a man breathed out for the last time. That was how it worked. Every man had a day when he breathed out and didn’t get to breathe in anymore. Sloane had seen it enough times to know.

His thoughts drifted to Nick. Except for specials like Donnelly, Nick left the blood work to Sloane, because to Nick, dead was dead. He didn’t care how a man got there. He was good about letting Sloane do what he wanted when it came to his work. His brother only cared about one thing: loose threads. Lying next to Sloane was the loosest thread since that whole Garden of Eden thing unraveled. Sloane couldn’t keep Johnny hidden forever, but he couldn’t send him away either. When he let go his last breath, he wanted to do it knowing he’d done at least one good thing in his life.

Sloane ran his fingers through Johnny’s hair. He didn’t know what was happening, or why he hadn’t taken what he wanted from Stephen instead of Johnny. None of what was happening to him made sense. He wrapped his arm around Johnny’s thin body, kissed the top of his head, and closed his eyes.

Thunder rolled through Sloane’s dreams. Except it wasn’t thunder. It was a train, riding under a dark sky, and ahead nothing, just night.

S
LOANE
came awake the way he always did. Between one heartbeat and the next, he was fully awake, eyes open, fully alert.

He heard his brother come in. No one else would have the guts to walk into his place. He let go of Johnny, pulled on pants, and went out into the living room, shutting the door behind him.

“What are you doing here?” Sloane said.

Nick leaned against the wall next to the door, playing it cool. “I used to think you were smart.” He glanced at the bedroom door. “How could you be so dumb?”

Sloane rubbed his eyes, pretending he was sleepy, but he watched every move his brother made.

“I found out who he is. What are you doing bringing Donnelly’s boy here?” Nick’s act about being cool broke down completely. He stalked across the room and slapped his brother’s face. “Are you fucking crazy? You trying to get yourself dead over a pretty face?”

The slap didn’t hurt, but Sloane rubbed his jaw, buying time to think. “He wants to stay with me.”

“
He
wants? Get rid of him, little brother.”

“No.”

Nick went on as if Sloane had stayed silent. “A tall building, a deep grave, under a fucking church. I don’t care. Take him some place, do what you want to him. But make sure he doesn’t come back.”

Sloane knew his brother wouldn’t let him go to death row over this. Nick would kill Johnny first. “All right,” Sloane said. “I’ll take care of it.”

Nick left and slammed the door behind him. Sloane sank onto the couch, head in his hands, staring at the floor. About an hour later, he was on his feet, and he’d settled his face into a dark, neutral mask, the face he wore when he had a job to do. He went down into the empty speakeasy, pulled out a floor board no one knew about, took out the wooden box hidden in there, and stuffed his pants pockets. Then he went upstairs.

In the bedroom, he shook Johnny awake. “Get up,” Sloane said. “We’re going out.”

Without a word, Johnny slipped from the sheets and dressed fast, his eyes on Sloane. “Something wrong?”

“My brother found out who you are.” Sloane turned to Johnny and took him by the shoulders. He was trembling, and breathing so hard, his breath came out in soft little sounds. “I get a cut for every job I do. I have a stash.” He bent over so Johnny could see his eyes. “It’s almost morning. When’s the first freight train out of the city?”

“Which way?” Johnny asked.

“Doesn’t matter,” Sloane said.

G
ETTING
out of 39 was easy. For a man like Sloane, walking the city streets at night with enough money on him to start a new country was even easier. They walked ’til they were just outside the train yard, where Johnny said it was a good spot to run and jump. Johnny talked him through jumping on the boxcar, and then they settled down and waited.

When the freight line rolled out of the city, Johnny and Sloane were inside wide doors, watching streets and bridges slip by. Sloane pulled Johnny into a corner, settled him between his legs, and they jostled to the rolling iron under them.

They got off in Massachusetts, where Sloane found a farmer who needed cash more than he needed a house and land.

Sloane got tanned from working outside, fixing up farmer’s places. Johnny V got muscles that Sloane teased him about in their long, candlelit nights. Neither of them minded living so far outside a city that there weren’t electric lines. There weren’t any phones either. That made it easy for a man and his nephew to live a quiet life.

When winter came, Johnny was in school. In front of the fire, with snow blowing hard against the window, Sloane taught him to read the papers. By the time Johnny learned how to read little kid books, Sloane had stopped checking the horizon every night for headlights coming down the narrow dirt road that led to the farm.

By summer, when Johnny could read dime magazines, Sloane only checked every other night. By the time he and Johnny were sitting by the radio, hunched over, listening to Babe hit his sixtieth home run, Sloane had made himself forget about his brother, forget about the lights that might come down the road through the dark. By then he’d told himself a man could live and forget, because the past was so far down the track, it would never catch up.

About the Author

R
YSSA
E
DWARDS
is a writer of paranormal romance. Her day job just outside Dallas supports her writing habit. She can be found in local malls, camping out at the food court, with notebooks, papers, and scribbled notes spread all over one of those nice big round tables. So if you live near Dallas, and you see a lady at the food court in your local mall scribbling away, come on over and say hi.

Copyright

Johnny V and the Razor ©Copyright Ryssa Edwards, 2011

Published by

Dreamspinner Press

382 NE 191st Street #88329

Miami, FL 33179-3899  USA

http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover Art by Anne Cain   [email protected]

Cover Design by Mara McKennen

This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of International Copyright Law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines and/or imprisonment. This eBook cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this eBook can be shared or reproduced without the express permission of the publisher. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Dreamspinner Press at: 382 NE 191st Street #88329  Miami, FL 33179-3899  USA 
http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/

Released in the United States of America

November 2011

eBook Edition

eBook ISBN:
978-1-61372-212-1