KAGE (KAGE Trilogy #1) (19 page)

His laugh that came across the phone was deep and slow, and I felt it down to my toes. My still-hard dick twitched, and I stifled a groan.

“Focus, Kage.” I said through clenched teeth. “Why did you call me? What do you need?”

“Ohh, fffuck,” he slurred. “I called you?” He paused, as if in thought. “I think I wanted you to come get me.”

“I’ll be right there.”
With fucking bells on, baby.
“Where are you? Which hotel?”

“Ummm… where are we?” he asked his female companion. She mumbled something I couldn’t hear. “We’re at the Alcazar, Jamie. Suite three-fourteen.”

“You’re here? I don’t understand.” He didn’t say anything, so I told him, “I’ll be right there. Let me get some clothes on.”

“Are you naked?” he asked, his voice sounding high-pitched and playful. I couldn’t help smiling.

“Uh, yeah. I just got out of the shower.”

I tucked the phone between my shoulder and my ear, hopping from foot to foot as I pulled on my boxer briefs and a pair of shorts. Then I put on the first clean t-shirt I could get my hands on. I slid my feet into my sneakers without socks, stuffed my key card into my pocket, and hurried from the room. The elevator seemed to take forever as I listened to the irritating sounds of partying over the phone line. Laughter and music, the shuffling of Kage’s phone as he moved, and that annoying woman’s voice.

What the hell was he doing, anyway? How would he be when I found him? The thought of him being in a compromising position of some sort set my teeth on edge. I couldn’t get to room three-fourteen fast enough.

“I’m here,” I told Kage over the phone as I banged my fist on the door of the suite. “I’m knocking on the door right now. Let me in.”

“Thass my boy,” I heard him tell someone. “Open the door. No, it’s not the cops.”

When the door swung open, I was assaulted by the mingled scents of alcohol and weed. There was some cigarette smoke mixed in there, too, and I was hoping like hell Kage hadn’t been smoking cigarettes. He’d probably never forgive himself for that.

“Jamie,” he called from across the room. “I’m over here.”

What I saw made me boiling mad. Most of the party guests were packed on the floor around the coffee table in various states of undress, and Kage was right in there with them.

“What the hell is this?” I couldn’t help asking.

“Strip poker,” the glassy-eyed woman next to Kage told me, scrunching up even closer to him to make room. “Wanna join in?”

“No, thank you.” I glared at Kage, who had apparently lost everything but his boxers and his socks. “You. Get your clothes on and let’s go home.”

It was irrational of me to be so angry. Kage was a grown man, and he could get drunk and play strip poker if he damn well pleased. I knew it, and still I was acting like a pissed-off father.

Or boyfriend.

Kage just looked up at me through slitted eyes and grinned. I’d never seen him like that, and I had to wonder how much alcohol a guy his size would have had to consume to be that smashed.

“Why would you do this to yourself?” I asked rhetorically, as I searched for his clothes. I grabbed his shirt and shorts off of the sofa behind him, and his sneakers from beneath the coffee table. “Come on. I tucked his clothes under my arm and reached down with the other arm to help him up. Thankfully, he accepted my help and staggered to his feet.

“Thank you for coming,” he slurred, draping his big body over me, his arms around my neck. I thought we’d both topple over, but I managed to remain standing long enough to get him to step into his shorts, trying to ignore the subtle dangling movement behind his boxers.

“Don’t worry about the shirt and shoes,” I told him. “Let’s just get out of here.”

The woman who had been sitting beside him threw me a pouty look. “You taking my sexy fighter? He was supposed to stay here tonight. He promised he’d show me how to wrestle.”

I laughed humorlessly in her direction. “He’s not gonna be showing anybody anything tonight.”

I slammed out of the room with Kage still draped over me, but now he’d moved around to the side and had one arm around my shoulders. It was breaking my heart to see him so out of control, for more reasons than one. I could barely even look at him.

I took him to my room, because I couldn’t locate his key card in his pants, and he couldn’t seem tell me where it was. Hopefully, no one from the party would find it and break into his penthouse. That was too much of a disaster to contemplate.

“Go lie down on the bed,” I told him as I went to the kitchen to fix him some water. If there was one thing I knew about hangovers, it was that water was the best way to avoid them. Fortunately, the refrigerator was stocked with bottles of filtered water. The last thing I needed was for Kage to start a drunken tirade about the horrors of drinking tap water.

“Ooh, someone’s been a bad, bad,
bad
boy,” Kage slurred from the bed, and as I rounded the corner, my heart stopped. He had woken my laptop from sleep and was staring at the gay porn website I’d been trying to join.

I pulled the laptop from in front of him, took a look at the sign-up page, and felt like the biggest asshole in the world when I dropped my jaw and acted like it was the first time I was seeing it. “What the hell is that? Guess it was one of those pop-ups. See, that’s why I hate free porn sites. They inundate me with pop-ups for things I’m not even remotely interested in.”

“Yeah?” Kage asked with a drunken smirk. “Like what?”

“Oh, I don’t know… like what you saw.” I couldn’t even say the word
gay
in his presence. “And like underage girls and BDSM and stuff.”

“So no handcuffs for Jamie. What
do
you like?” He seemed suddenly far too sober. I was about ready for him to pass out.

“Um, I like…” I faltered, unable to come up with a single thing that I liked.

Kage laughed. “That much stuff, huh? You’re a wild man.”

I huffed. “Well, what do you like, since you think I should be so forthcoming?”

“Forthcoming,” he repeated with a laugh. “You crack me up, college boy. Okay, if you must know, I like dark hair.” He smiled and closed his eyes, laid back on the bed, looking like he was conjuring an image in his imagination. “Big brown eyes that melt your soul every time you look into them.”

I swallowed and suddenly had a little trouble breathing.

“Athletic body, long legs wrapped around my waist,” he continued in his slurry voice. “Smart, funny, sexy… glasses. Where are your glasses?”

I cleared my throat. “I thought we were talking about porn.”

“Oh yeah, porn.” He smiled again without opening his eyes. “I imagine we probably like about the same things in that area. Pretty close, anyway.” His voice trailed off, and he got quiet.

I didn’t dare prompt him for any more conversation at that point, because I got the feeling he was trying to turn the focus back onto me. Best to avoid that at all costs. Instead, I removed the laptop from the bed and worked the covers down. Kage helped me a little by scooting around as needed.

“You want to get rid of those shorts and socks?” I asked— innocently, of course.

“Yeah, but I need your help.” He peeked at me out of one eye before closing it again.

Trying to be as emotionally removed as a doctor examining a patient, I pulled off first one sock then the other and tossed them on the floor. Then I hooked my fingers into the band of his shorts and began to shimmy them down his hips. I had to work them over the bulge in the front of his underwear, noting in a very clinical manner that either he had the largest soft dick of anyone I’d ever seen, or he was at least partially hard. But then, he was drunk. He couldn’t be held accountable for anything, including the state of his dick, right?

My fingers
accidentally
trailed down the outsides of his muscular thighs, the hair tickling my fingertips. I took a deep breath as I hovered over his prone body and caught the distinct scent of his manliness— a hint of sweat mixed with warm musk. Passion bloomed in my belly, unfurled and spread through me like wild vines. I had the ridiculous urge to bury my face in him and just breathe. His scent was driving me crazy.

I slid his shorts the rest of the way down his legs and threw the covers up over him before I did something to embarrass myself. Then I undressed down to my boxer briefs and burrowed down under the covers on my side of the bed. I stayed as far away from him as I could, afraid of what would happen if I caught his scent again. It took me forever to go to sleep. By that time, Kage had long since begun the labored breathing of a drunken slumber.

The next morning, I woke to the sounds of him getting dressed.

“Hey,” he said apologetically, looking like the hell he must have been feeling. “Sorry to wake you. And sorry about last night. I have no idea what I might have done.” He shrugged and offered a half-hearted smile.

“You were fine. Don’t worry.” I laughed. “You didn’t do anything embarrassing.”

Unfortunately, I couldn’t say the same for myself. Maybe he wouldn’t remember the porn site, and maybe he had been too far gone to notice how long it had taken me to get his shorts off, or how I’d scented him like a bloodhound.

“Whose shirt is this, anyway?’ he asked, pulling the plain white t-shirt over his head.

“It’s not yours?” I giggled. “Oops. I have no idea.”

“Well, I guess it’s mine now. Meanwhile, someone has one of my favorite Under Armor shirts.”

“I’m so sorry. I was just in a hurry to get you out of there. You were playing strip poker, and you were down to your underwear. It was an emergency situation.”

“Emergency, huh?” He rounded the bed, coming to stand over me. Then he shocked me by leaning down and giving me a hug. “Thank you for coming to get me. I’m really ashamed that I called you, and I promise it won’t happen again, okay?”

“Have you lost your damn mind? If you get into a jam again, you’d better call me. I’m not mad, okay? I’m here for you.” He was still hugging me, and I wrinkled my nose and pushed him away. “And you’re right, that is definitely not your shirt. It doesn’t smell like you at all. Take it off.” As soon as I realized what I’d said, I started backpedaling. “I don’t mean literally take it off. I just mean I wish I’d grabbed the right shirt. Now you smell like cigarette smoke and cheap cologne. And some other guy.”

He raised a brow at me, looking as cocksure as he could through the haze of what had to have been a massive hangover, and pulled the shirt back over his head. Then he strutted over to the trash can in the kitchen, balled it up, and threw it in. “Happy now?”

He stalked back over to the bed, reminding me of a panther the way his muscles moved beneath the flesh of his increasingly tempting upper body. I wanted to close my eyes, but I couldn’t. He climbed onto the bottom of my bed and crawled up toward me, sending my heartbeat skittering out of control. Then he climbed roughly on top of me and covered my face with his chest.

“Does that smell right? Huh? Do I smell like myself?” Knowing from our sparring that I couldn’t handle being tickled on my sides, Kage went straight in for the kill. He tickled like he fought… one-hundred-percent invested.

“I can’t breathe,” I screamed in a voice muffled by the press of his chest. “Help! Marco!” I don’t know why that was the first name that came to my lips, other than the fact that I thought if anyone in the hotel could drag Kage off of me, it would be him.

“You think Marco can help you? He wouldn’t stand a chance against me. Nothing can save you now.” He burrowed in even harder, tickling me until I was just a trembling heap unsure of whether I was laughing or crying. For a split second, I thought maybe I felt his lips brush the side of my throat in something like a kiss.

“Please… please…” I gasped, my thrashing limbs useless against his superior weight and strength. Even through the pleasure-pain, I felt the blood rushing to my cock, filling it out between my legs, making me all too aware of the slide of skin and the way my hips were bucking against his. Feeling his cock against my cock, and the rub and the friction. My legs wrapped themselves around his waist, my ankles locked together, and I rode his movements like a desperate bull rider just trying to make it through eight seconds. It was excruciating. Glorious. Shameful.

“Please…” I cried again, this time with a different meaning altogether. In that moment, I needed him so much it was scary. I felt like I would do anything.

Everything.

He laughed against my ear, his breath teasing the sensitive flesh there. “Please what, Jamie? Tell me I smell good.”

“You smell good. You smell great.”

“Yeah? You think so?” he asked, feigning surprise, as if my compliment hadn’t been the least bit coerced. He finally stopped tickling me, and my whole body seemed to spiral down into the covers, tingling from the aftermath of Kage’s sensual onslaught.

“Yes,” I sighed, panting hard to catch my breath, relaxing by body, my arms and legs falling open and limp. I was too weak to wipe the tears from my cheeks. “You smell fucking awesome, Kage. Now get off of me.”

He did as I asked and climbed off of me, but he still wore the smug expression of victory. He had every right to wear it. The guy had just broken me in every way I could think of, and he didn’t even know it.