Justice (7 page)

“I’ll get the bags and the lamp,” he offered.

“Oh no you don’t, I’ll get the lamp. Don’t be thinking you’re getting any credit for this beauty.” Viv touched the lamp.

“Not a problem. By all means, carry it.” Justice grinned at her. “Just remember, ugly wears off. Don’t handle it too much.”

“Dick.”

Chapter Six

Honestly, Paul couldn’t figure out what was going on with him. His stupid dick wouldn’t behave. It was like he had priapism or something. Except he thought he’d heard that was painful and he wasn’t hurting. In fact, it felt good to be turned on. Truly turned on, horny, not seeking for release as a means to prove he was in control.

It was so strange. Paul blinked and pressed his forehead against the window. The cabin he was sharing with Preston and Nischal was new, and large. Good thing, considering Sabin lived there too. Paul wasn’t quite sure what to make of Sabin. His white hair was a cause for envy. Paul could never get his hair that white. He bleached and toner’d it so much he was surprised it hadn’t fallen out. It still had the faintest yellow tint to it.

Sabin didn’t bother him. The first day or two, he’d tried being friendlier than Paul felt like dealing with. Paul had snapped and that had put an end to Sabin saying more than hi—maybe—to him.

Probably he should feel bad about that, but the fact was, Paul was tired, and so torn up inside he could hardly see past his own problems. It was a level of self-absorption that shamed him yet he couldn’t shake it. His past had its claws so deeply entrenched in his psyche that he could hardly function like a normal person.

No, he
couldn’t
function like a normal person.

He wished the cabin were closer to Marybeth’s house. He’d like to see Justice—
Jesus, what a name
—again. The longing to do so had him twitching and putting his hands to the window, as if he could just seep through the glass and morph into a man on the other side of it.

Of course he could leave, go out of the door, but he’d have to walk past Preston and Nischal unless he went to the back door, and Sabin had been in the washroom last Paul saw, which meant he wouldn’t get out unseen that way, either.

Or he could just tell them he was going to Marybeth’s. There was a sudden tug in his gut that had him staring out of the window in that direction. Crazy as it seemed, he would have sworn that Justice had arrived. He couldn’t know that, so maybe he was even crazier than he thought, because his mind was insisting the man was just a half mile away.

Paul curled his fingers against the glass. His cock throbbed as need coiled tighter in him. He wanted to touch Justice, to really touch him, to taste him, and one thing Paul did know about shifters, they didn’t catch human diseases. Preston had even told him so.

Justice hadn’t argued about the condom, though. Did that mean Justice had been so desperate for him that he’d acquiesced to the use of latex?

Paul remembered the need in those pretty eyes. Justice had looked up at him and Paul had seen the raw lust there. It had shaken him to his core, because he’d felt the same thing. Still felt it as he stood at the window.

He heard a throat cleared behind him and knew it was Preston. One glance in the window showed him his twin’s reflection.

“Are you okay?” Preston asked.

Paul almost reverted to that sickening self-pity he’d been rolling around in. It took him a minute to work past it. He turned enough to prop his shoulder on the window frame and look at his brother, but he kept one hand dangling—casually, he hoped—over his erection.

“I will be, maybe, one day.” Paul shrugged his other shoulder. “Today, I’m still a mess. I feel…” He searched for a way to explain it then shook his head. “I don’t know. I can see that I spent months taking dangerous risks that were contrary to me saying I wanted to live. I don’t know why.” That wasn’t the crux of his problems just then, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to talk about Justice with Preston.

His brother knew him like no one else did, at least when it came to some things. Preston cocked his head. “What about Justice?”

“I want justice,” Paul answered, “Who wouldn’t? What was done to me was wrong.”

Preston gave a much-put-upon sounding sigh and rolled his eyes. “I meant, the man Justice, but yeah, of course you want the other kind. I hope I get to beat the shit out of some of those assholes, Paul. I’ve never wanted to kill anyone before, but God, do I want to now.”

Paul looked away. He hated that his brother felt such hatred. It wasn’t his fault, he knew that on some level, but he couldn’t make it sink in. If he hadn’t been stupid enough to go to the sideshow featuring the snow leopards, if he hadn’t flirted with the man hosting the damned show then, if he hadn’t been fucking stupid—

“I really think you need to talk to Justice,” Preston said, cutting through Paul’s thoughts. “I don’t know about the sex part of it, but I doubt you’ll be able to avoid him here.”

“Why do you think I need to talk to him?” Paul asked as his heart fluttered at the thought of it. “Please don’t dwell on my sex life.”

“But—” Preston began. Paul held up one hand.

“No.” Okay, that kind of wasn’t fair and he knew it. Paul sighed internally. “Look, I told you about what I was doing, and that I figured out, finally, that it wasn’t about sex. It wasn’t. Today, with Justice? It was definitely about sex. Sex, and need, and…” To Paul’s utter humiliation, tears pooled in his eyes and spilt over in a heartbeat. “Shit!” He swiped at them and averted his face. He didn’t want to be such a pathetic twit. “Don’t,” he rasped when he heard Preston approaching. If Preston hugged him, he just might shatter.

“Paul.” Preston sounded as gutted as Paul felt.

Paul scrubbed at his face until his skin burned. “I just felt good for a few minutes today. Imagine that, feeling like a god in a dingy bathroom at a truck stop.”

Preston laughed, the sound coming across as rather forced. “I bet lots of guys can say that, actually. How many stories have you heard about hook-ups at rest stops and restrooms?”

“Dark alleys and dance floors, bathhouses.” Paul grinned at his brother, some of his funky mood fading. “I even saw this video of two guys fucking in a lumber store. That one was wild but boring, too.”

Preston bobbed his head. “Oh my God, I know what you mean. I saw it too. They couldn’t move much or make any noise, so the sex itself wasn’t all that, but the idea of them doing it in public was kinda hot. Until I thought about some poor little kid running around a corner and getting an eyeful.”

“Or someone getting a handful later on when they grabbed a two-by-four,” Paul said.

He and Preston snickered like they’d reverted to their teenage years. It felt good—so twice in one day, Paul had come up out of the darkness that seemed to swamp him constantly. Maybe there really was hope for him yet. It’d be nice if he could keep those promises of getting better. God knew Preston had been through enough looking for him.

After a minute or two, Preston came closer and hooked an arm around Paul’s waist. “Seriously, maybe you and Justice should talk.”

Paul tipped his head to the side and studied his brother. “Are you playing matchmaker? You seem to think that a hookup in the restroom might mean eternal love.”

Preston jerked his gaze away, denying Paul a chance to read those windows to his soul. “No, but I think you’ve had a hard-on all this time, and maybe that’s something, and you said you felt good with him for a few minutes, so that’s another something. And you laughed with me, Paul. I’ve waited for that for so long.”

What was he scared of? He wanted to see Justice, and do every raunchy thing with him that he could think up. All those nights he’d been out fucking around, he hadn’t wanted to touch whoever he was with. This was so different. He didn’t just want it with Justice, he was beginning to think he needed it.

“Marybeth will be sticking her nose into it if I show up, especially since I haven’t showered,” Paul pointed out. “Give me about ten minutes, okay?”

“Okay,” Preston agreed. “Although she has a sharper scenting ability than Nischal, so unless Justice has showered, there’s a damn good chance Marybeth will know whose scent is on him.”

“Shit.” Paul was glad he wasn’t in Justice’s shoes right now, not if the old lady was pissed about him hooking up with Paul.

Then again, she might not give a damn. Paul was just a human, the brother of one of her long-lost relatives’ mate.

“That’s not confusing at all,” Paul mumbled as Preston left the room. Paul left his spot by the window and headed for the bathroom. He had some serious scrubbing to do.

* * * *

Justice covered his sore ear. “Grandma, I didn’t know!” Gods, being a shifter had its downsides, especially if your grandma was also a shifter and she smelt sex and Paul on you. Then you were just fucked.

“That’s the only reason I didn’t twist your ear plumb off,” Grandma Marybeth told him. “Although since you let your sister buy that god-awful lamp and give it to me…”

Justice danced back a few steps. “You told her—”

“Hush, boy, she’s coming back.” Marybeth patted her hair then looked at her nails. “The lamp will be lovely on the end table by the door.”

Right where it could easily be knocked off. Justice would bet the lamp would be broken in under a month. Probably right after he left.

“Oh, Grandma, that’s not a good spot. It’ll get broken in no time,” Viv said as she came back into the room. “Your bathroom sink is dripping, too. Justice can fix it if you want.”

“No, that’s not his job,” Marybeth said, flapping a hand at Viv. “Oscar has already promised to fix it this evening. He’ll be mad if someone beats him to it.”

Justice arched a brow at his grandma. “Well, if that was supposed to dissuade me from fixing it…”

She pointed a finger at him. “Don’t get your cousin wound up. It wasn’t all that long ago that Oscar had you pinned to the ground, calling Uncle.”

“Nope, and I owe him for that,” Justice informed her as he edged towards the hallway. “Think he’ll want to wrestle me again? It’s been a year and a half.”

“Because you missed the last family reunion,” Marybeth groused. “Oscar had to wrestle Marvin instead.”

Laughter slipped from his lips at that. “Marvin? Uncle Marvin? He has to be seventy!”

Marybeth sent him a searing look. “Marvin is younger than I am.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He wasn’t totally stupid. “You know why I couldn’t be here for the family reunion. There was nothing I could do about it.”

“Leave the sink alone and go answer the door instead,” was all she told him.

Justice wondered how long his grandma was going to give him shit for missing the reunion. It wasn’t like he could skip out on the mandatory training he’d had to attend. Being a Phoenix policeman had been a dream of his as a boy. He’d joined the military first, though, just to give it a try. Being a cop was a better fit in the long run.

He hadn’t heard anyone pull up. Justice frowned just as a knock sounded. How had his grandma known someone was coming?

Justice grabbed the door knob and a sense of déjà vu hit him. He suddenly saw himself standing at the door, reaching for the knob, turning it, all as if he were an observer from a distance rather than the man doing it. The weird sensation stopped when he began to pull the door open.

Then he was looking at Paul. Someone else was beside Paul, but Justice didn’t particularly care who it was. All he could see were those sexy green eyes, and the wary look on Paul’s face.

Wary.
That was a kick in the balls. Justice pushed at the screen door while stepping back as far as he could. “Come in.” Damn, his voice had gone all husky on him.

“Thanks.” That wasn’t Paul. Justice finally looked to the other man.

“Preston.” He nodded. Preston did the same. “Grandma is in the den. Watch out for the ugly lamp. She loves that thing and will be upset if it gets broken.” If Marybeth was going to give him shit, he was going to dole a little bit of it right back to her. Maybe she’d have that lamp longer than she planned on it.

Preston hooked his arm through Paul’s but Paul grunted and tapped his brother’s hand. “I’m fine. Go on.”

Paul was fine? Justice looked him over, taking his time. Paul was short, compact, and now, without the makeup on, Justice could see the numerous freckles on his face and neck.

He wanted to kiss each one.

Paul’s eyelashes were thick and dark where they met skin, but the tips were gold, and looked soft as down. His eyebrows held a high arch, either by design or nature. Paul’s lips were plump but not outrageously so. The pale mauve colour of them reminded Justice of a pomegranate sorbet he’d had once at a fancy restaurant in Phoenix. It’d been sweet and cool, just like he imagined Paul’s lips would be.

He realised they were standing there and that he was ogling Paul. Justice bit back a curse and stepped out onto the porch. Paul followed him, pulling the door shut behind them.

“I didn’t know it was you,” Justice said, turning to face Paul. He looked at that bleached hair. “I guess I expected hair like Preston’s. You had your freckles covered up, too.” He wondered if Paul’s hair was soft or pokey, like Viv’s had been after she’d dyed it three times in one day. Her hair had been as brittle as thin strands of spun glass.

“I hate these freckles,” Paul muttered. “The orange hair and them, Jesus, you have no idea how many times they’ve caused me trauma.”

Justice imagined Paul wasn’t just talking about teasing.

“I wasn’t allowed to cut my hair, you know.” Paul glanced at him, checking, Justice thought, to see if he knew what Paul was talking about. Justice nodded slightly and Paul’s entire face turned red as he looked away. “Yeah, figured you knew. They liked my hair and freckles, just as much as I hate them.”

Justice had no idea what to say. From his understanding, mates were able to develop a mental bond, but he wasn’t feeling any of that with Paul.
Maybe it just takes time, or he probably has up some massive walls, considering.

“I like the blond.” Justice shrugged, even though Paul wasn’t looking at him. The fact was, he’d like Paul with any colour of hair, or none at all. And he loved the freckles—they’d always driven him nuts on a lover.