Read Online Wicked Lies: A Dark Mission Novella by Karina Cooper - Free Book Online Page B

two blocks away. He set it on the counter, grabbed the carton of protein mix he’d included for his reluctant patient, nudged the door closed with a hip. He reached into the single, chipped cabinet for two glasses.
    “Oh, no you don’t.” Jonas didn’t even see him move, didn’t realize he’d gotten off his sick-couch. Suddenly, Danny was in his space, reaching over his shoulder and plucking the can from the counter. The line of his chest pressed against Jonas’s upper arm, seared through cloth and skin and bone.
    The wild rush of adrenaline foiled once, surged back into his heart. His veins.
    Stupid.
    “You need real food,” Danny told him, tucking the energy booster out of reach behind him. Jonas whirled, mouth open, then found every muscle locked into place as Danny’s eyes sparkled inches from his. “I’ve been watching you not eat. You can’t survive off soup and this crap.”
    He had no idea what Jonas could survive on. And what his body demanded of him.
    It wasn’t worth the risk. Jonas stepped aside, peeled himself from the wild energy of Danny’s physique. The kid was intense.
    And so not a kid.
    “Thanks, mom,” he replied lightly. “Go sit down, Danny, I mean it.”
    “Or what?”
    Or . . .
    Not a single thought in his head seemed appropriate.
    Danny wasn’t his kind of guy. Period. Wasn’t going to happen. Jonas didn’t play with the nice ones, and damn it, Danny was a nice one. He deserved hand-holding and shared smiles and hi, how was your day? , not the hard, quick fuck of a man who didn’t deal with morning-afters. Jonas didn’t play well with others.
    He’d never known how.
    And he was too young for Jonas’s brand of interest.
    He shoved a hand through his hair.
    Flinched when Danny caught his wrist in his larger hand. Those dark eyebrows knotted again as he turned Jonas’s hand palm down. Unlike Danny’s, Jonas’s fingers splayed crookedly at his ring- and smallest fingers, broken too badly all those years ago.
    The scars over his knuckles weren’t nearly as intense as they used to be. Time and therapy had faded them to smooth discolorations rippled out from each point of trauma. Fire, shrapnel.
    They were worse on his legs. His waist, even low on his back.
    “What happened?”
    He pulled his hand away. “None of your business.” The words fell out before Jonas could stop them; the same words he gave every one-night-stand he’d ever had. My history doesn’t concern you except to note I’m clean.
    Jonas’s fingers curled into his palms as he hobbled stiffly across the apartment. Halting at the couch, he jerked the abused pillow into his hands and tossed it on the other side. It bounced once, a deflated cushion. As he reached for the first of two tangled blankets, intent on straightening up, Danny watched him. He could feel his gaze on him, practically sense where those damnably intense eyes landed. On his shoulders, his back. His
    No way.
    He turned, but too late.
    Strong hands thudded against his shoulders. Snapping off a sharp cry of surprise, Jonas’s knees buckled, sent him down onto the couch as Danny bent, braced both hands against the back of the couch and hemmed Jonas in between them.
    Jonas’s hands flattened into the cushions by his legs. Even as his cock pulsed in record time awareness. Readiness. “Stop it, Danny.”
    “ You stop it.” There was nothing amused in his eyes now. Nothing nice . Even, steady, they met his with a challenge Jonas would have to be dead not to understand.
    He’d settle for dead.
    Because this close to Danny’s mouth, sculpted and so very masculine in a too-charming face, Jonas was having a hard time remembering exactly why he wanted to put on the brakes.
    “I’m not playing with you,” he managed, summoning up a stern facade from somewhere. Hell if he knew where. He didn’t have the energy to fight this. To fight him.
    Danny didn’t push away. Didn’t even soften his posture, which had to be awkward as hell. Instead, jaw