Park’s expression was pained, but his voice was gentle. “I’m saying no.”

  “But I’m saying yes,” Gift said, hearing the whine creeping into his tone.

  “I’m not going to kiss you, ouen,” Park said softly.

  Gift licked his bottom lip. “What if I kiss you?”

  Park made a sound that Gift couldn’t put a name to, then said, “That…would be a very bad idea.”

  Gift deflated back against the door, dropping his hands to his side. “Fine. I have to go. I’m going to the gym. I need to beat on something.”

  Spell broken, Park took a step back, clearing his throat. “The gym? It’s late.”

  “We’re on a military base? What’s the worst that can happen?” Gift reasoned.

  “But it’s almost curfew,” Park said.

  Gift rolled his eyes. “It won’t be curfew for a few hours. Besides, I have to do something with all this pent-up sexual tension or I’ll explode into a pile of fluff like the Stay Puft marshmallow man.”

  “Was that a Ghostbusters reference?”

  Gift shrugged, feeling sulky. “You made me watch it.”

  “But I didn’t think you were actually paying attention. You were on your phone the whole time.”

  “I see more than you think,” Gift said, stepping away from the door so Park could open it.

  Park shook his head, staring at Gift in wonder. “Who are you?”

  “Maybe you should try to find out?”

  “It’s not…a good idea. We can be…friendly, but that’s it.”

  Gift shrugged a shoulder as if his heart wasn’t crumbling into a thousand pieces. “Okay,” he said, walking out the door. When it started to shut, Gift caught it once more, peeking his head around the corner to find Park much closer than he expected. “Hia…”

  Park gave him a patient look. “Yes, ouen?”

  “If you don’t kiss me, I’ll find someone who will.”

  “Gift,” Park growled.

  “Night,” Gift said, leaning forward on impulse, then dropping the smallest of kisses on Park’s jaw before darting down the hall, not stopping until he was in the safety of his room.

  He’d kissed him. Sort of. Enough to feel the heat of his skin, the stubble on his chin. It was the tiniest of victories—one he’d won through trickery. His elation soured as he thought of Park’s rejection. He’d wanted him. Gift could feel it. He buried his face in his pillow and screamed, kicking his feet, feeling moderately better afterwards.

  Payton said it would happen. He said they’d discuss things in detail and adjust the course as needed. Park had won this battle, but Gift would win the war.

  Park made a concerted effort to ignore the soft brown eyes boring into him from across the room. He leaned back in his seat, legs kicked up on the table and crossed at the ankles while he stared straight ahead. He was not going to let that little shit think he’d gotten to him. Even though he most definitely had. Park hadn’t jerked off so much in one night since he was thirteen.

  “If you don’t kiss me, I’ll find someone who will.”

  The fuck he would. Did he mean Payton? Park’s gaze flicked to the kid in question, taking in his heavy black liner and wild hair. What the hell did that child know about sex? Or even kissing? Was he even old enough to drink? Gift had said kiss but he’d meant sex. He wanted to lose his virginity in every sense of the word, and that wasn’t fucking happening on Park’s watch.

  Not by anybody but me.

  No. Not by anybody. Park had more self-control than this. He was a trained killer. That took discipline. It took patience. All of which seemed to go out the window whenever Gift was within reach. The boy was haunting him, his voice bouncing around in his head so much he could barely hear his own thoughts.

  “He said he’d be gentle. He said he’d make it really good for me. I hear he’s a really good kisser. He’s a bit big, which might hurt.”

  Park slammed his hand down on the table, drawing the startled looks of almost a dozen students all with varying degrees of confusion on their faces. All but Gift, who started to smile but then had the good sense to hide it. He’d be lucky if Park didn’t put him over his fucking knee and spank him until he cried.

  Park’s cock twitched. Dammit. The last thing he needed was to think about Gift, underwear around his thighs, skin cherry red from Park’s palm, crying so sweetly. Begging, even. He huffed out an irritated breath. Who could have ever thought he’d be such a brat?

  A week ago, Park would have said Gift was too sweet, too soft, too naive for this world, this life. But it was Park who’d been naive. Gift had lied to Park from the beginning, and he hadn’t suspected a thing. Park shook his head. The boy could speak English the whole time.

  Sure, Gift had a point. They shouldn’t have assumed he couldn’t speak the language. In hindsight, it seemed obvious. There was no way an international school hadn’t ensured the students spoke English. But it was just so easy to believe he was still a sweet, innocent boy with soft cheeks and pretty brown eyes. Eyes that had looked up at Park so hopefully last night when he’d asked him to have sex with him.

  Park swallowed audibly. Christ. How did he get himself into this mess? Two days ago, he’d had his life totally under control, and now, it was chaos and not the kind he’d spent his life thriving on. Park had cut himself off from the reality of ever having Gift, resigning his desires to his nightly jerk-off fantasy. It was the right thing to do.

  But in one day, Gift had dug under his fence and planted the smallest seed of possibility in Park’s brain—that he was Park’s for the taking, in any way he chose—and now, that knowledge was spreading, overtaking his rationality like an invasive species, choking out Park’s resistance.

  Park was jerked out of his moping when Persephone rocketed forward in her chair, hair flying and hinges protesting. He blinked, looking around at the packed meeting room. His students had shoved several small tables together, and they all lazed around them, staring at the two manila folders in the center of the table.

  “So…what do we do?” Diego asked, his fingers dancing over the one closest to him. “Like, do we just dive in?”

  Park couldn’t care less how they solved their little project or even if they did. He hadn’t looked at the information in those envelopes any more than he had the digital files Archer had forwarded him sometime last night. He was just a babysitter.

  Park shrugged. “I’m not even supposed to be here, remember? Feel free to ignore me entirely.”

  “You’re not going to help us at all?” Remi asked, eyes wide.

  Park shrugged. “I’m just here to make sure you don’t die or embarrass yourselves. Other than that, I don’t exist.”

  Gift blinked in surprise, then dragged his top teeth over his bottom lip in a nervous gesture that had Park staring at the glistening wetness left behind. Thoughts of Gift on his knees, face smeared with saliva, Park’s cock heavy on his tongue, assaulted him without cause. Gift smiled shyly, then dipped his gaze like he could hear Park’s dirty thoughts.

  The others were blissfully unaware, clearly more irritated by his lack of help. Morgan scoffed, and Dove rolled her eyes, but it was Persephone who shook her head then snatched a folder from beneath Diego’s limp fingertips, ignoring his look of surprise.

  She flipped through each paper and photo in the file rapidly, running a finger down each page as her eyes darted back and forth. Did she have a photographic memory? Finally, she grabbed a picture from the file, marched to the white board and secured the picture in place with a magnet. She then took a red dry erase marker and wrote ‘victim’ in bold capital letters.

  Despite his lack of interest, Park studied the girl in the photo. It was the only thing in the room he could focus on that wouldn’t lead him right back to Gift’s innocent little face and his own dirty, dirty thoughts.

  The girl was young—high school age. She wore a pale blue polo embroidered with ivy leaves around a large crest. A school uniform of some sort. Maybe a Catholic school. She had chestnut hair, hazel eyes, and perfect teeth that Park suspected were from her orthodontist more than genetics. Her peaches-and-cream complexion assured Park that her murder was likely already all over the news.

  The Watch might not be tasking them with taking out a fascist dictator, but a girl like that garnered international interest. Eliminating her killer without drawing attention wouldn’t be easy.

  “Who is she?” Payton asked.

  Luca took the other folder in hand, flipping it over but not reading the contents. “Her name was Madison Byerly. Age: fifteen. Honor student at St. Agnes Prep School for Girls. It’s a cold case.”

  “How do you know that?” Drake asked, frowning at the table in confusion like he expected to find the information on its surface.

  Luca shrugged. “I remember when it happened. It was international news for, like, ten seconds. Until the next pretty girl ended up dead, anyway. They kept a lot of the details hush-hush, which I imagine had to do with her parents’ connections, but they never did solve her murder, so whoever did it is still out there.”

  “What happened to her?” Jay asked, his soft accent landing somewhere between formal British and native Indian. If Park remembered correctly, his parents split their time between Delhi, London, and the US.

  Persephone leaned over and grabbed another photo, slapping it onto the board beside the first. This one was much different. A body lay on a filthy green carpet, limbs askew, bloodstained hair covering a chalky bluish complexion with only one milky white eye visible.

  It was hard to resign the girl in the photo on the left with the one in the photo on the right. The images were clearly crime scene photos. Tiny yellow triangular markers sat beside several objects in the room. A large crystal ashtray propped against the leg of a couch. A black purse with a gold chain, the contents of which spilled onto the floor.

  The girl herself wore a short sequined dress that was hiked up around her waist, not necessarily because she’d been sexually assaulted, but because the scrap of fabric looked barely big enough to cover the girl from chest to thigh and she’d clearly put up a fight. Good for her.

  Another bright yellow marker sat beside a garish dangly earring on the floor, and another by one clear stacked heel, the type favored by porn stars and exotic dancers. The other was still on the girl’s foot.

  “That is her?” Mos asked. ‘That is the same girl?”

  “Yes,” Jay said. “At least, according to the police report.”

  Morgan stood, walking until she was directly in front of the board before hopping up onto the table, long legs dangling from her plaid skirt. “How did that”—she pointed to the smily girl, then swung her finger towards the new photo—“become that?”

  “Drugs?” Remi asked quietly.

  “Tox screen only shows molly and phentermine in her system,” Lennon said, holding up a piece of paper from the file. “Hardly addictive.”

  “What’s with the hooker heels?” Dove asked.

  “Kind of matches the rest of her outfit,” Payton said, rocking his chair in short little bursts.

  “But they don’t,” Dove said. “Not really. Like, why is she wearing that cheap dress, fake jewelry, and those shoes when her purse is worth six grand?”

  Drake was looking down at his phone now. “It says she was found in a trailer park off MLK Boulevard approximately four days after her parents reported her missing. How does a girl like that not get noticed? Aren’t trailers, like…close together? Nobody in that trailer park saw her?”

  “Or nobody wanted to get involved,” Gift said.

  “Gift’s right,” Payton said. “People tend to mind their own business, especially in rougher neighborhoods. It’s safer that way.”

  “I’m sure you’ll all get to the bottom of her case,” Park said, not at all certain that was true.

  “Shouldn’t it be the handler’s job to solve the case and our job to punish the bad guys?” Mos asked, staring at Park.

  “I don’t care how you do it. Work it out amongst yourselves,” Park said.

  Payton shrugged. “I don’t know. I kind of like puzzle games. And this is definitely a puzzle. Besides”—he pinched Gift’s fleshy cheek—“I don’t want to be away from my baby that long.”

  The muscle in Park’s jaw ticked as he contemplated the satisfying crunch each of those long fingers would make as he snapped them one by one. Gift flushed while the others gaped openmouthed at the two. Park didn’t blame them. The idea of the two of them was ridiculous. Utterly absurd. Gift’s gaze flicked to Park’s. He held eye contact as he reached below the table, and then Payton’s eyes went wide, a smirk spreading across his face.

  Park bit the inside of his cheek. Beating a student half to death probably wouldn’t set a good example, but if Gift’s hand wasn’t back up on that table in ten seconds, Park was going to lose his shit. He didn’t realize he was glaring at Gift until the smile slipped from his face, his hand timidly landing back on the table.

  Park dragged his gaze back to the board, pretending to ignore Gift’s little show, pretending his cock wasn’t rock hard. Yeah, Gift was ripe for a spanking. He was pushing his luck. Would he cry? Would he beg for forgiveness? Would he get on his knees for Park?

  Christ.

  He did his best to covertly adjust himself behind the unforgiving fabric of his trousers. He needed Gift to understand he was playing with fire. That Park would only be pushed so far before he snapped, and Gift had him rapidly hurtling towards that threshold.

  What was the harm? He was an adult. They both were. Who could possibly get hurt?

  Anchali.

  Her name popped into his head unbidden, halting his dirty thoughts in their tracks like an uttered safe word or like someone invoking a demon. This was his best friend’s son he was imagining naked on his knees. He’d look so goddamn pretty like that. Park huffed out another irritated breath. He needed to be an adult about this. Anchali had given her son to him to protect, not violate.

  But maybe protection involved discipline?

  The psychiatrist was right. Park was a psychopath. No matter how much he wanted to care that Anchali would hate him, he just…didn’t. He’d been able to fake it before, told himself if he just stayed detached he could make this work, could keep Gift at arm’s length. But it was all bullshit. The only thing keeping Park from mauling Gift was the knowledge that it would break the boy.

  Gift might not have been as sweet and innocent as Park had once suspected, but he was a virgin. Hell, he’d never even been kissed. He now hoped this meeting dragged on. If he had to stand up anytime soon, his entire pod would see just how turned on he was and getting a hard-on while staring at a picture of a dead girl might be a step too far, even for a group of psychopaths.

  Park forced himself to zone out and ignore Gift and the others for the rest of the meeting. He played chess in his head, replayed kills that could have been cleaner. He even started a fantasy baseball league. Anything to ignore the heated glances Gift threw his way every few minutes.

  Just when Park was about to pull the plug himself, Drake pointed out the time. They all stood, as if they’d just been waiting for a chance to run. Some stretched, others yawned. Park remained seated as they gathered their things, his mouth a hard line as Gift made a show of bending over to grab his bag from the floor. Park stared greedily. Those uniform pants clung to Gift’s pert ass like a second skin.

  Were those regulation?

  Park snapped out of it when Dove asked, “Are we going to, like, get to interview witnesses? If so, how do we do it without drawing suspicion?”

  “That’s a great question,” Park said with a smile. “One you’ll have to figure out yourselves. Let me know what you decide. But remember, the other pods are working their own cases so don’t wait too long to strategize.”

  Morgan and Remi groaned. Luca and Jay sighed. The others just sort of shuffled towards the door, unbothered, bags thrown over their shoulders. Everyone but Gift, who lagged at the back of the group. Once they were gone, he closed the door, dropping his bag back on the table as he studied Park like he was a bomb he needed to disarm. Park stood, suddenly feeling like sitting left him…vulnerable. Gift looked amused by Park’s behavior. He studied him for another moment, then started to move.

  Park thrust his jaw forward, forcing that mask of indifference back into place. There was a pink tint to Gift’s soft cheeks, and he looked anywhere but at Park, but his hips swayed with each step. Park watched them move like a metronome, riveted.

  Park needed to leave. When Gift was near him, he lost every ounce of resolve. He couldn’t remember a single time in his life when he’d been so weak around another person, but Gift’s clumsy seduction attempt already had Park’s dick taking notice. He felt like a fucking teenager.

  Gift stopped when he stood between Park and the table, leaning back on his hands, finally meeting Park’s gaze from beneath long lashes, biting the corner of his lip. It should have looked ridiculous, over the top, but he was beautiful. A walking wet dream.

  “What are you doing, Kla?” Park asked, a little hint of warning seeping into his tone.

  Gift’s face fell, lips pooching out in an exaggerated pout. “Back to that again? Can’t you call me ouen? Or at least Gift.”

  Park should have never called him that in the first place, but it had rolled off his tongue so easily. Gift was adorably plump in all the right places, his lips, his cheeks, his ass. Park ached with the need to intimately acquaint himself with all of them. It was impossible to look at Gift and not just…want.

  “We shouldn’t be alone in here together, ouen,” Park said, giving into Gift’s request without thought.

  Gift hopped up on the table directly in front of Park, leaning back on his hands and letting his knees fall open, leaving just enough space for Park to step between. “Why?” he asked huskily.

  Park’s heated gaze dragged over Gift’s form, taking in long limbs and a tiny waist, legs that went on for days. Park couldn’t help the way his eyes lingered at the juncture of Gift’s thighs. He wondered if the boy was hard, or if that was a well-placed fold in the fabric.

 

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