Wild Tiger Chase | Book #2 (Complete)

45: in for a pound-ing

— Rob —

Rob could understand Toni missing him—he missed him too. They were close once. They shared a bed. A relationship. A life.

It was dizzying to even talk to him. To hear his voice again. To recognize the half-hidden, almost imperceptible signs of the lateral lisp he used to have, decades ago.

Shouldn't Toni be dead? Didn't Rob see him in pieces, right in front of his eyes? Didn't something terrible happen because of it? Something involving him, Léon, The Mayor, Rafa, and a weird machine?

Rob shut his eyes and massaged his temples. Damned be that headache.

"Don't you miss it too, Robbie?" Toni whispered.

He looked at him but didn't answer. Rob could deal with the stolen glances, with the half-whispered comments, and with the way Toni looked for excuses to touch him. Bloody hell, Rob could even pretend he didn't see the feelings behind all those gestures! It's just... it's been so long since they last saw each other, and it was so comforting to know that Toni was alive and well, that Rob was willing to be a little lenient. A little permissive. A little too kind.

He was willing to accept Toni's affection, as wrong and cruel as that was.

This would be the third time Toni inched forward and whispered one rubbish or another about the good old times and how much he wished he could go back to them. He leaned a little closer every time. Touched him a little longer. Penetrated his gaze a little deeper.

Rob's stomach churned; his heart raced, but not in pleasure. His body urged him to notice how uncomfortable he felt. How scared he was. Pay attention to me, it said. Get away from him.

He moved his gaze aside. Widened his eyes. If there was one thing Roberto Tiajaru Tapir could never ignore, it was the hurt in Léon's face.

Enough is enough.

"Let's stop this, Toni," Rob murmured. "We're making Léon uncomfortable." He almost grimaced as those words left his mouth. Léon wasn't the whole reason; he didn't want to blame his husband or to use him as an excuse—Léon was troubled by Rob's actions—but he didn't want to push Toni away either. He wanted what Léon and Phillip had. He wanted Toni in his life, but in the present, not in the past. "That's not how two old friends should act, is it?"

Rob thought that putting emphasis on that word would be enough to get his message across... but it wasn't.

Toni's demeanor changed. His cerulean-blue eyes grew cold, and the edges of his mouth slid down, shaping his smile into something more akin to a vintage Halloween mask. Toni lowered his eyes and those lanky fingers of his met the back of Rob's hand.

"Sure, Robbie, whatever you want. I just thought"—he moved his hand upwards, his fingertips brushing Rob's arm and leaving behind a cold trail of goosebumps—"that you would want to be by my side again, even if only a little. You'll see that there are some things in this world that only I can do for you."

Power seeped into him, killing his words; wherever Toni touched, Rob's tattoos awakened. Red at first, with a violent, hungry color that beat in the same rhythm as the muscle in Rob's chest. As the power pooled inside him, filling the wounds that lay open in his skin, the color and the sensation and everything changed.

Rob's shoulders relaxed as the marks on his arms turned green.

He opened and closed his hand. This sight was so familiar and so comforting. There was a power he could understand. There was a power he could trust, the power in his arms and legs, in his physical body, the one he'd been training with for his entire life.