Read His to Claim for Free Online

grown men, and then stood awkwardly in the
doorway wondering what to do next.
    "You look exhausted. Why don't you lie
down while we wait for breakfast to be delivered?"
    As appealing as that sounded, lying on a bed
in the same room with this particular man was just a little bit too unsettling
for Alex's peace of mind. There was something very appealing about Kyle
Barton—except that wasn't even his name.
    "What should I call you?"
    Kyle raised an eyebrow, but didn't offer an
answer.
    "You said 'Kyle Barton' is an alias.
What should I call you?"
    "Oh." The man actually managed to
blush. "Kyle is the name I was born with, so 'Kyle' is fine."
    "So it's Kyle…?"
    "Kyle Alateeka," the man said with
a shrug and a grin, "but I'm not supposed to use Alateeka again at least
for another fifty or sixty years. My siblings and I take turns using the
Alateeka name so that it'll always be a family owned company."
    Alex was still trying to decide why the
siblings would need to take turns using their family name when the rest of that
statement finally hit him.
    "You mean Alateeka? As
in 'Alateeka Protection Services'? The largest
privately owned security firm in the country? That Alateeka?"
    "Yeah, that's us."
    "So…um…why are you telling me?"
That sounded rude, and kind of insulting to…well, probably to himself , but he couldn't quite fathom why a man with access
to so many aliases and so much money would bother to tell Alex who he really
was.
    Kyle shrugged. "To be completely
honest, I'm not quite sure why. It just feels right to tell you."
    "So when I said you don't talk about
this very much…?"
    "You weren't wrong. I don't think I've
mentioned my bear form to anyone in the past century, maybe more."
    "Cen…tury?" Surely he'd heard that
incorrectly.
    Kyle moved closer, just the way he'd done
when the woman had turned into a three-tailed fox right in front of them.
Annoyed at his own reaction—Alex wasn't a fucking damsel with a propensity to
faint—he took a step away and glared at Kyle.
    The man quickly moved back to where he'd
been.
    "Sorry," he said, making Alex just
feel downright mean. "I'll be three-hundred-and-ninety-seven next
month."
    It was clear Kyle was waiting for some sort
of reaction from Alex, but he honestly had no idea what that should be.
"Ah…happy birthday?" he asked, just a touch facetiously.
    Kyle laughed softly, but before he could say
anything else there was a knock on the motel room door. Grinning, Kyle answered
the door, paid the delivery guy who didn't seem at all interested as to why
he'd be delivering so much food to a single room, and then indicated for Alex
to join him at the small round table that was squeezed between the door and the
bed.
    Breakfast was awkward. The food was
delicious, but Alex simply couldn't shake his sudden awareness of the man he was sharing a meal with. He even found
himself contemplating things such as what it might be like to bottom for Kyle.
Alex had never really considered the idea before. In his mind it took way too
much trust—a commodity he had very little of after ten years on the police
force in an area plagued with criminal activity—to allow someone inside him. He
took a great deal of care to make sure the men he hooked up with weren't
injured by his actions, but he'd never found a man he was willing to hand his
trust to.
    Alex was so busy wondering why he would
suddenly be thinking these things it took a while before he finally realized
Kyle had stopped eating with a spoon halfway to his mouth.
    Unsure why, Alex raised an
eyebrow and waited for an explanation.
    "I…um…" Kyle shook his head,
apparently unable or unwilling to finish that sentence. They were literally
still staring at each other a few moments later when there was a knock on the
internal door to the adjoining rooms. "That'll be housekeeping," Kyle
finally said, getting up to open the door.
    He thanked the maid, handed her a tip, and
then came back to the table. He didn't sit down.
    "I'll leave