Page 33 of The Kingpin’s Omega Lover (River City Omegas #2)

FOURTEEN

Shedding everything except his shoes, socks, and underwear in front of Aleks hadn’t embarrassed Malori at all.

Aleks had seen him in much more intimate places and positions, including squeezing a baby out of his asshole, so stripping in a hotel bathroom was nothing.

He was more concerned with what King might be thinking, listening to this, knowing everything Aleks was seeing. Unable to stop it.

And then Aleks flushed the wire.

After a quick frisk of his clothing, Aleks confiscated his cell phone, determined he was clean, and then told him to get dressed.

Malori did, fast, and then followed him out of the bathroom.

Down the high, wide hallway to an elevator.

Another couple was waiting, older, obviously intoxicated by the way the woman was clinging to the man’s right arm.

The man wasn’t doing a great job at staying upright either.

Their quartet got on the elevator together.

The man hit floor six; Aleks pressed floor three.

Close to the ground. Smart. Malori ignored the other couple and stood close to Aleks, his insides trembling with anticipation.

His son was so close now. The elevator doors slid open on the third floor.

Aleks led him down a long hallway lined with doors, past the little ice machine alcove, to a room directly across from the emergency stairwell.

Of course, he’s by the stairs.

Aleks wasn’t stupid. But maybe, just maybe, he’d underestimated Malori’s ability to lie.

Malori wiped his sweaty palms on the seat of his pants, which highlighted the hidden item that Aleks hadn’t been able to find during his clothing inspection. Not that Malori had forgotten its presence; he’d spent the last two hours with the constant sensation of needing to take a dump.

Worth a little discomfort, if Aleks took the bait.

Aleks inserted the key card; the light flashed green, and he pressed down on the handle.

Malori forgot to breathe for the time it took to step inside.

Typical hotel room with a mirrored closet on the left and the open bathroom door on the right.

Straight ahead was a single king bed, perfectly made, and the expected furniture.

No crib, no bassinet, no diaper bag or hints of a child.

Malori stalked deeper into the room. “Where’s Junior?”

“With his nanny, as I said.” Aleks flipped the door’s security bar. “I never said he was at this hotel.”

Son of a fucking bitch.

That was okay, though. This would be easier to go through with knowing his one-year-old child wasn’t in the same room. A baby that young didn’t need to hear his sperm donor screeching in agony, even if he couldn’t truly comprehend what was going on.

Malori still worked up a good snit over the deception. “How do I know you’ll keep up your end of the deal? An hour with me for an hour with my baby?”

Aleks strode toward him, shoulders back, hands loose by his sides, but still exuding menace. “I never promised you would.” He smiled coldly. “But I think you’d make a better nanny than the one I have. It’s worth a probationary period.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“Depending on how our reunion goes, I might take you with me when I go home. One big, happy family, like I’d planned. You loved me a year ago, you’ll learn to love and appreciate me again.”

Malori’s skin crawled with both Aleks’s proximity and the familiar, syrupy-sweet voice Aleks had used every day during his seduction.

Every promise, every vivid painting of their future together, every declaration of devotion.

Neither of them had said they loved each other.

Malori thought he loved the man back then, but he hadn’t been sure.

He’d been in love with the idea of a spouse and family, more than the man himself.

Now? He despised Aleks with every fiber of his being and to the depths of his soul.

Malori circled the wide bed, putting it between them, more as a show of reluctance than because he truly feared Aleks. Giving in easily was too obvious. “Can you at least show me a photo of Junior? Anything to prove he’s been with you recently? Please?”

Aleks rolled his eyes and pulled his cell phone out of his jacket pocket.

Hope fluttered behind Malori’s breastbone.

He hadn’t seen his baby in a year, beyond the brief glimpses in those DVDs, and all he wanted was a real photo.

Something to reassure him that this wasn’t one great big bluff on Aleks’s part.

That the nursery clips were months old and Junior was gone, never to be found again.

“Here, I took this one last week.” Aleks tossed his phone onto Malori’s side of the bed.

Malori grabbed it, turned it right-side up, and stared at the round-cheeked baby smiling at something out of view.

He was sitting upright but the background was out of focus.

The heart of the picture was definitely his son.

Malori recognized those wide eyes and button nose, and his heart fluttered with joy and love. He gasped and touched the screen.

The photo shrank. Annoyed, Malori tapped the screen, and it expanded again, flashing the date at the bottom. Last week, like Aleks said. “He’s beautiful, Aleks. Is he a good baby?”

Aleks shrugged, slowly inching his way across the foot of the bed toward Malori. “He cries a lot, but the nanny says he’s teething. I let her deal with it.”

Malori hated the tears threatening to show themselves.

He didn’t want to cry in front of Aleks, not ever again.

Not tears of grief, agony, or joy. None.

Hit bit his tongue hard, aware of Aleks’s growing proximity.

He had to keep control of Aleks’s phone, so he could call King once Aleks was subdued.

The bedside lamp appeared to be brass and not attached to the table beneath it.

Aleks slid his left hand across Malori’s shoulder to squeeze the back of his neck.

Malori shivered out of sheer disgust at being touched by this monster.

“You know this is going to happen, Malori,” Aleks said, his breath hot in Malori’s ear.

“It’s more fun for me if you fight, but it’ll be easier for us to leave later if I don’t have to hurt you. ”

Malori curled his left hand into a fist but kept it by his thigh. “Can’t we go to where our son is first?”

“Nah, I want privacy for this. You’re anxious, which means you might not get wet, so this might hurt a little. Don’t need that in front of the baby.”

Bitterness and hatred rolled down Malori’s spine in a hot wave.

How many men had Aleks caused pain, because they didn’t self-lubricate like omega males, and he couldn’t be bothered with any sort of lube?

It made his stomach turn—but it also didn’t surprise him.

Aleks was a monster. No one else’s life or pain mattered to him.

Aleks’s hand slid down the length of his spine and stopped to squeeze Malori’s left ass cheek.

Malori jumped. “Please,” Malori said in a perfect whine.

“There’s gotta be lotion or something in the bathroom.

Can’t you pretend to be the Aleks I”—he swallowed hard, but had little saliva to force out the words—“fell in love with?”

Aleks licked the shell of Malori’s ear, and Malori bit back a full-body shudder of revulsion. “All the lube you need is in your mouth, darling. If you want it in your ass, you know how to get it there.”

Fuck. That.

That man’s dick wasn’t going anywhere near Malori’s mouth, not ever again.

Malori shrugged out of his jacket and flung it onto the nearby desk.

Undid his belt and pulled it out of the loops, making a show of tossing it across the room so it wasn’t easily accessible as a restraint.

It left his trousers loose around his waist but that didn’t matter.

This would end soon.

“Suit yourself,” Aleks said. He shoved Malori forward, and Malori hit the bed on his stomach and elbows.

Aleks gave him no time, and the instant rough hands were pawing at his pants, yanking at his briefs, panic rose.

Old terror and hatred and an all-encompassing sense of despair. He didn’t want to be touched.

His only saving grace, the one thing that allowed him to remain above the panic and to think, was knowing his body was not betraying him.

No medication was forcing him to get hard, to get wet, to fake wanting the sex about to happen.

This time, Malori wanted the penetration—because it was going to fucking hurt.

Not him.

Aleks.

Malori did fight. His body knew this wasn’t King, this wasn’t the man he cared about, not who made his body sing.

This was his enemy, someone who wanted to harm him, and his fight instinct was in charge.

But Aleks was bigger, stronger, and he had all the leverage to keep Malori restrained while he bared Malori’s ass.

Got his own suit trousers down and his cock out.

Malori heard him spit. Felt the head of Aleks’s cock between his cheeks.

“Missed this pretty little hole of yours,” Aleks sneered.

Malori closed his eyes and locked his hips.

Aleks shoved, a single, powerful thrust forward.

Malori gasped at the sudden pressure and fullness, but that was drowned out by the high-pitched shriek of pure agony Aleks released, once his brain caught up to his dick.

Aleks screamed again and yanked away. Malori yelped at the fast, painful exit of the special surprise from his ass, and he rolled onto his back.

Aleks was staring dumbly at his penis, which was ensnared in what, on the outside, looked like an opaque plastic sheath.

But blood was dripping down his pubes, onto his upper thighs, and his hands hovered over the thing, as if unsure if he should try to pull it off or not.

He’d gone pale and was panting through a wide-open mouth.

Malori didn’t gloat, didn’t wait for Aleks to figure out he’d put his own dick into what was essentially an anti-rape device.

Based on a kind of Chinese finger trap, the interior of the sheath was lined with sharp plastic spikes facing the end of the device.

Once a dick went in, it wasn’t coming back out without medical intervention.

“What the fucking fuck?” Aleks wailed.

Malori lurched for the lamp, happy he’d been right in assessing it had a heavy, brass base.

Knocked the shade off. Climbed off the bed and swung the lamp in a solid arc toward Aleks’s head.

It connected with a sickening crack. Aleks jerked sideways, crashed into the desk chair, and then hit the floor.

He didn’t move, but Malori wasn’t taking any chances.

He slammed the lamp into Aleks’s head again. Then he grabbed the cell off the bed and punched in King’s number.

Eight minutes and forty-six seconds.

The longest eight minutes and forty-six seconds of King’s entire life, and they began the moment the tracking dot started moving. Over, up, over again. Then it stayed put in a room on the third floor.

King desperately wanted to pace, but he couldn’t pace in the backseat of a car.

He needed to get into that room, to stop Yovenko before he seriously hurt Malori.

King abhorred the part of Malori’s plan that required Yovenko to penetrate Malori, in order to shock and impair him with the anti-rape device.

King had no idea they existed, but Malori had ordered it off a website that specialized in personal safety.

The fact that such a thing had even been invented said way too much about the state of their society, but that was a sociology lesson for another day.

More seconds ticked by.

Nine minutes and twelve seconds. Thirteen. Fourteen.

His cell rang with an unknown caller. “Yes?”

“He’s out fucking cold,” Malori said. “It worked, and then I hit him twice with a lamp.”

Some of the icy fear gripping King’s heart loosened and allowed him to breathe more easily. “Thank fuck. What room?”

“Three-forty-seven.”

“We’ll be there shortly. Are you all right?”

“Yeah. See you in a minute.”

“Don’t hang up, Mal.”

“Okay.”

They didn’t speak again over the phone. King had no patience for the elevator, so he led Garvey and Patch up the stairs to the third floor.

The room was directly outside. He only managed a single, sharp knock before the door swung open.

Garvey and Patch went in first and crossed straight to Yovenko’s crumpled body.

King pulled Malori into his arms, savoring the heat and shape of the brave man he treasured. Malori clung to him hard, his chest heaving, shaking all over. Then Malori started laughing. “I can’t believe it fucking worked,” Malori said. “He’s such an arrogant prick.”

“An arrogant prick with a mangled prick.” King kissed Malori’s temple. “Are you really okay?”

“My asshole’s a little tender, but it’s worth it for the way that fucker screamed.”

“I wish I’d heard it.”

“Boss,” Patch said. “Found another hotel key on the bastard. Commonwealth. Uptown. Sleeve has the number six-oh-four on it.”

Malori jerked in his arms then looked up. “My son’s there. I thought he might be here, but Aleks said Junior was at another hotel with the nanny. We have to go get him.”

King nodded, recognizing the fire in Malori’s eyes.

He wasn’t taking no for an answer, not when a reunion with his son was so close, both in time and distance.

King called Bishop’s cell. “Situation secure. Garvey and Patch have the package. I need you to meet me in the parking garage of the Commonwealth Hotel as soon as possible.”

“Baby shower location change?” Bishop asked, using coded language they’d come up with earlier that evening. They never knew when the authorities were listening, hoping to catch King in something illegal.

“Yep, last-minute change. See you soon.”

“Yeah, boss.”

King shoved his phone into his pocket, and then he kissed Malori solidly on the lips. “Let’s go get your baby back.”