Order (Tattoos and Ties Duet #2)(16)

“At least not right now. Are you in bed? Want me to get you off before you fall asleep?” Alec asked, watching his blanket tent.

“I’m hard as stone. Your voice does it for me.” Key’s voice deepened, suggesting he’d already started without Alec.

“Exactly the same for me. Are you touching yourself? I want you to touch yourself and think of me. It’s my hand there on you,” Alec said, whipping the blankets off.

“Hmm…” Oh yeah, that was a good sound, and Alec curled his fingers around his cock, giving a solid tug.

“Key, it’s not gonna take me long. Be there with me.” Alec stroked himself. Maybe they could switch to video. His hips eagerly rolled into his palm at the prospect. As Alec started to make the suggestion, he heard a heavy exhale that didn’t scream extreme lust. It was too thick and lazy. He listened closer as a deep inhale came next.

“Key, baby, you there?”

He listened closer and got nothing. Alec looked over at the clock on the nightstand. It was a little after one in the morning, which meant Key had been awake twenty hours. Of course he’d be exhausted. Not even disappointed, Alec laid the phone on the pillow next to him. It was a silly move, but he rested back in his spot and listened to the sounds of Key’s breathing while he finished himself off.

He had needed this tonight. His heart had somehow managed to reconcile the pain and suffering of Key’s life to the love he wanted to give this man. And Alec would love Key, or at the very least, he’d try. If patience and an open heart were necessary to accomplish his goals, he had an abundant supply where Key was concerned.

Alec reached for tissues to clean himself up. Once done, he whispered his love to Key as he tugged the blankets around him and left his phone on the pillow, still connected to the call. He closed his eyes, listening to Key’s soft snores. They easily lulled him to sleep.





Keyes pulled out a chair at the conference room table tucked inside a backroom they called the church in the club’s private clubhouse. A sacred place designated only for the patched members of the Disciples of Havoc, a place where he and his brothers regularly gathered to talk confidential club business.

For all the years Keyes had been with the club, he’d never had an experience like this one before. He and Fox, the club’s prez, were behind closed doors all alone. Even more different than normal, an eerie quiet descended over them. The only sounds came from the chair legs scraping across the floor before he took his seat.

Fox sat in his normal seat at the head of the table with a stack of papers in front of him, seemingly not paying any attention to Keyes’s entrance. Keyes leaned back in his seat, crossing his arms over his chest and waited.

“Thanks for comin’ in early,” Fox said, not lifting his head from the pages he worked with.

Keyes didn’t respond. He was growing too freaked out and tightened the cross of his arms at his chest. He stared at the top of Fox’s head as he diligently kept working and ignoring him. Maybe as much as five minutes passed before Fox placed his pen on the table. The prez still didn’t look at him, but did scoot a wrapped bundle across the table toward him before gathering his paperwork and stuffing it inside a well-used file folder. Keyes knew what the envelope held and reached for it, stuffing it in the front pocket of his cut.

“I wanna talk to you privately about your old man,” Fox said, and for the first time, his weary gaze lifted, looking Keyes straight in the eyes. Okay, that wasn’t the worst thing Fox could have said but still terrible in its own right. “I know shit’s real fucked up with you two, and I know it’s the reason you’re stayin’ away. I also know I haven’t handled this shit right with you and him and the club, but it’s just so fucked up. Your old man never fuckin’ quits. And there’s no fuckin’ common ground between you two, and that’s completely Smoke’s fault.”

Huge understatement, but Keyes kept that to himself for now. Fox reclined in his chair, scrubbing his hands over his face. He looked tired, haggard, and old. That was a mind-blower. Keyes had never thought of Fox as old until right this minute.

“We’ve got some shit goin’ down. Real fuckin’ problems. The Serpent club’s growin’, doubling in size, while we’re fuckin’ stagnant because of that bitch DA. Our prospect pool is shit, and your goddamn father’s recruitin’ is a fuckin’ joke. He’s bringin’ in trash.”

Keyes didn’t need to respond to those statements either. He agreed completely. The Serpent motorcycle club was their oldest rival. The beef between the two clubs was legendary. Of course, it wouldn’t sit well with any of his brothers that those sorry sons of bitches were building so quickly. Keyes also agreed that, since they’d named his father head of recruiting—an honorary title to give him something to do after his motorcycle accident—his old man had brought in nothing but shitty trash as potential prospects. A bunch of sorry thugs whose vision was to take the club back thirty years to their outlaw roots. Keyes would never vote any of those guys in as prospects much less for their full member patch.

“Here’s my problem right now,” Fox said, shifting his chair to a sitting position, leaning forward to where he rested his elbows on his knees. “Mack and I decided to keep shit from you. I don’t know if it was the right thing to do or not, but I heard about yesterday. Your old man threatened you, and I don’t fuckin’ like it at all. And I don’t like the revenge you’ll be forced to take if he tries to follow through.”