Page 35 of A Breath of Life (Shadowy Solutions #4)

Diem

T he shower ran. Echo slept on the couch. Alone, I dug through the freezer until I found the bottle of Jim Beam I’d stashed behind the box of frozen fish Tallus hated. My nerves were shot. Too many hours on alert, searching for a tail, and worrying about Nana had destroyed my self-control.

I uncapped the bottle and drank deeply, savoring the burn as the liquor coated my throat and pooled warmth in my belly.

Tallus could bitch and moan and give me all the wrinkled-nose-faces he wanted.

I was at the end of my rope and needed something to cushion the anxiety.

It was this or smoking, and I didn’t have any cigarettes.

Another long swig. My blood tingled pleasantly.

I carried the bottle with me as I made a circuit of the apartment, checking locks and ensuring the curtains were pulled flush.

I may not have seen Ace’s cronies out on the street, but they were there.

I felt their presence in my bones. My skin crawled every time I was in the open.

At least inside the apartment, I felt a modicum safer .

While Tallus was occupied, I dug through the closet in the bedroom and found the lockbox containing my pistol.

I had a permit to carry but hadn’t strapped it on since leaving the police department many years ago.

The knife pressed against my calf already upset my equilibrium.

I didn’t trust myself with weapons. Self-control was a fickle thing on a good day.

I was my own weapon and hard enough to control.

I didn’t need an arsenal at my disposal, but the lingering threat made it hard to breathe, demanding drastic measures.

Whenever my mind strayed to images of Tallus or Nana getting hurt, I thought I might self-destruct.

I removed the pistol from the box, loaded it, and tucked it under the pillow on my side of the bed.

Just in case. I needed to sleep, but sleeping left me vulnerable.

I would not be caught off guard and unarmed in the middle of the night if a threat landed on my doorstep.

Not where Tallus or Echo were concerned.

If those motherfuckers made another move, I would be ready.

I considered the leather pouch strapped to my wrist. Could I remove it for the night? Should I? It irritated Tallus. I’d seen the way he looked at it with questions burning his tongue. Reluctantly, I tugged it off and left it with my charging phone.

The act of walking out of the bedroom without it made me sick.

The Consigliere had said ten feet, but with a leveler head, I’d decided it was a scare tactic.

If they were tracking me—which I had no doubt—they knew I was at home.

Unless they had top-notch, government-issued gear, they wouldn’t be able to tell if I was in my kitchen, living room, bathroom, or bedroom, anyhow.

I downed more whiskey as I returned to the living room, dimmed the lights, and double-checked the windows, peeking from behind the curtains at the empty street below.

The shower cut off .

I took a final, generous gulp of liquor before returning the bottle to the freezer.

In a kitchen drawer, I found a box of Tic Tacs and tapped a few into my mouth, crunching the mints down.

The effort was futile. Tallus always knew when I drank.

However, if I attempted to hide my addiction, he rarely shone a light on it.

For my benefit or his own, I had no idea. Blissful ignorance?

So I had a fucking alcohol problem. Story of my life.

Tallus emerged from the bathroom dressed in nothing but tight underwear and the knee-weakening dark-framed glasses that rendered me useless. No one had any right to look that good. Tallus was head-to-toe perfection.

The alcohol sucker punched my bloodstream all at once. It was enough to leave a cushioning haze around my brain, but I was far from drunk. I was barely tipsy. The pleasant warmth uncoiled my tightly wound muscles enough so I could breathe.

Tallus peered from the hallway in the assessing way he’d adopted in the past twenty-four hours. My evasion of the truth had made him suspicious.

I was too edgy for bed. I would lie awake until dawn if I didn’t find a way to temper my anxiety.

If Tallus invited me to join him, I would go—I couldn’t tell him no.

If he went without me, I planned to stay up and finish the bottle of Jim Beam before dissolving into an alcohol-drenched pool of self-hatred on the couch so I didn’t have to think about my predicament anymore.

I wanted the bottle. I wanted oblivion.

Intoxication was not in the cards. Tallus had other plans.

He sauntered toward me with a swagger that stirred my cock, making me momentarily forget all my troubles and the lure of alcohol.

The sass and mischief on his face told me that he wouldn’t be crawling under the covers alone tonight.

Despite the late hour, sleep was not on his agenda—and a drunken stupor wasn’t on mine.

He set his phone on the coffee table and eyed me before tapping the screen. A moment later, a heavy bass beat filled the apartment, and my eyes widened.

“Now?”

I must have looked terrified.

Tallus chuckled as he gyrated his hips in slow, purposeful circles, hands mimicking the action as he found the beat.

“Why not now? You saw my incredible lockpicking skills firsthand. I won the bet fair and square, sweetheart, and I expect payment in a timely manner. Think about it, Guns.” He spun, displaying his taut ass as he moved fluidly to the song.

“You’re the only man on the planet who gets to grope, touch, and fuck this hot little ass. Are you going to say no?”

I couldn’t say anything. My throat tightened, the saliva in my mouth vanishing.

Club music had always confounded me. I recognized the songs—sometimes—but they were remastered to include a pulsing beat meant for dancing. I didn’t dance, and mostly, it wasn’t a genre of music I followed, but Tallus belted out the lyrics like he was on stage.

Oh god, it was awful. How come I didn’t know he was such a shitty singer?

I fought a smile. My boyfriend moved like a dream, but he sounded like a dying seagull. Discovering his imperfections was refreshing. He was right, though. A career on Broadway would have been a disaster. No amount of lessons would have helped.

Tallus didn’t insist that I join him. He seemed content to put on a private show and damn if I would ask him to stop.

The man was sex personified. I’d never been able to resist him.

It was why I’d stalked him in the beginning.

It was why I’d shown up at his door time and time again, waiting for him to get sick of me.

Without even trying, Tallus turned me into a quivering, drooling, aching teenager ten seconds from coming in his pants.

For a time, he simply danced with his eyes closed. His lithe frame became one with the beat, gliding and bumping, catching and matching the rhythm as he popped his hips and thrust his groin.

He bit his lower lip at one point when our gazes locked. “Like what you see?”

My blood electrified. All I could do was nod.

He humped the air, fingers clasped behind his head.

Tallus Domingo. The definition of seduction, ladies and gentlemen.

I was at his mercy, and he knew it. In the next moment, he stroked a path down his pecs, pinched his nipples, and moved his hands over his abdomen before stroking seductively over his thighs.

He dropped to a wide-stance squat before roving his hips on his way back up.

I was hard as a fucking post, hands itching to reach out and take him into my arms, but dancing? I couldn’t fucking dance. I would flounder. Step on his feet. Do it wrong.

This bump and grind horny shit the guys did at the clubs looked fantastic. I’d always admired them from a distance, but it wasn’t something I could do. Tallus made it look effortless.

By the end of the second song, my sultry boyfriend upped his game. The swell in his underwear wasn’t hidden. He touched himself, squeezing his balls as he tipped his head back and moaned.

My cock jumped, begging me to go to him. I wanted to be the one to give him pleasure. To make him lose his mind.

His half-lidded gaze locked on me with such intense yearning it didn’t feel real. Nothing about our relationship felt real.

Then, the unthinkable happened. Tallus crooked a finger.

I floundered and shook my head. “I can’t. ”

He crooked it again, wetting his lips in a languid drawing of his tongue.

Mouth too dry to form words and brain too rattled to argue, I moved toward him despite my uncertainty. Tallus hooked an arm around my waist when I was within reach and urged me forward the last few inches until our bodies aligned.

My joints remained locked and immobile as he rubbed against me. The hard press of his erection grinded my thigh. My brain misfired.

When I didn’t reach out and touch him, Tallus hitched a brow. “Don’t just stand there. Touch me, D.”

I didn’t usually need reminders anymore and cursed under my breath, which seemed to amuse him. Touch him. I’d learned how to touch him. I loved touching him, and I wanted nothing more than to obey.

Tallus’s shower-warm skin melted my resolve. I pressed one hand to his lower back and glided the other over his perky ass. My hold hampered his ability to dance, but that didn’t stop him from trying.

The solution was to join him, but I couldn’t figure out how to move.

“Come on, Guns. You can do it.”

Tallus, ever in control, clung to my hips and gently guided me in a sway. “That’s it. Feel the beat. It’s a delicious grind. There you go. You’ve got this.”

And fuck if my head didn’t want to explode when I found Tallus’s rhythm. The friction of his body brushing my cock was minimal, but I was so fucking turned on the pleasure decimated me.

“Jesus, Tallus,” I growled.