Page 72 of The Hitman's Prince

Orion dragged his tongue across the front of his teeth, brow furrowed as he dissected the obvious truth of my observation.

“He can clean you in the shower,” Orion conceded, as if there was ever a question as to whether he’d go against Vince or not. “But not the cuts.”

“You can bandage me up,” I promised.

I thought back to our first night together, me on my knees at the church, Orion wielding the whip at Vince’s command. And then together alone at the end of it all, the tentative and careful way he touched me until he knew gentle wasn’t what either of us needed. If I closed my eyes, I could sometimes still feel his finger digging into my skin, the hot blood trickling down my spine.

Orion pushed to his feet and held out a hand for me,which I readily accepted as the concession it was. Standing, he looked more himself, even with his disheveled hair and the quickly darkening bruise around his throat.

“It’s a shame you hate him so much,” I said, knocking my shoulder into his as we walked together toward the bathroom. “He’s fun to fuck.”

Orion made a derisive sound and shoved me onto the closed lid of the toilet so he could get past me to turn on the water. The shower roared to life, raining down and ready. Orion stepped out of the way so I could move under the spray, and Caspian appeared in the doorway, naked and…

Fuck.

“Vince sent me,” he said by way of explanation.

“I know,” Orion said, leaning against the wall and crossing his arms in front of his chest. “You can wash him.”

Caspian gave me a meek look and hurried past Orion, into the shower behind me. He was gentle with the soap, using his fingers instead of a cloth to make sure I was clean. If Orion noticed the way Caspian paid extra attention to the blood and dried cum between my legs, he didn’t say anything about it. Caspian reached behind my balls, smoothing his fingers down the sensitive patch of skin between my sac and my hole, but moving quickly away before it was enough to get me hard.

“I think that’ll do it,” he said softly.

Orion handed me a towel, which I wrapped around my waist after stepping out of the shower. He tradedplaces with me, giving me a wary look before moving under the spray in the place I’d previously occupied. Caspian gave him the same attention, choosing to focus his long and trembling fingers against the bruise around Orion’s throat before moving down to his half-hard cock.

The tension between the two of them was thick enough to cut with a knife, but as long as Caspian had his hands on Orion’s battle-scarred skin, the air in the room hung soft like a truce. Caspian avoided the scars that crossed Orion’s chest and back, and then he was clean and finished, and standing in front of me with a towel clutched around his waist. Caspian stepped out and dried himself off as Orion squatted down to get a first aid kit out from beneath the sink.

“Thank you,” Caspian said, not to me, but to Orion. He dusted his fingers across Orion’s shoulder blades, then let himself out of the bathroom without another word.

Chapter 54

Caspian

Iwanted to talk to my brother, but it had been days since he’d answered my calls. I was truly on my own. At least as much as a person could be while surrounded by three other men who didn’t know if they wanted to fuck or kill me. That wasn’t entirely fair either. Orion knew he wanted to kill me, Vince knew he wanted to fuck me, and Jacob…he probably wanted to do both.

I didn’t blame any of them.

“I don’t even know what time it is,” I said to Vince. “I don’t know which way is up.”

“That’s the point,” he answered, stretching out with his back flat against the headboard. “That means you’re well-fucked.”

“It means I’m distracted.”

He patted the bed and I stretched out alongside him, propping my face up on my pillowed hands. “All I wanted was…”

No.

The confession was too much.

“What you wanted was what?” he asked.

“I’ve wanted you for so long,” I whispered. “I thought if it was me…”

He stared down at me, rubbing the scar on his chest from where I shot him the first time.

“You thought it would be a mercy,” he suggested.

I groaned. “That’s so wrong. I know. I know.”