CHAPTER 14
Will
I’d eaten way too much of the most amazing candy in the world by the time the guests finished traipsing through Vaughn’s House of Horrors, and I waited patiently while he did the schmoozing that seemed to make up the majority of his duties as a philanthropist.
As I waited, I tried not to think too hard about him dressed like Lucius Malfoy.
Finally, the only people left were those doing post-party cleanup. The lights went on and the fog gradually faded, showing the gruesome props for what they were, the bowls of organs just kitchen scraps and food coloring. Strange how sinister the simplest things could look in the dark.
Vaughn was talking to someone by the door, and I could heard the low timbre of his voice even though I couldn’t make out what he was saying. It was unusual to see him with his hair down in public. I’d asked him once why he’d grown it so long if he didn’t ever wear it down, and he’d said it was a longstanding rebellion against his father. Vaughn Sr. had very strict ideas about what counted as masculine, and long hair was definitely not one of them.
I loved Vaughn’s hair, and I preferred it down. Maybe because no one else ever really saw it like that. So while I completely approved of his costume, I found myself jealous that other people were seeing him with it down.
To distract myself, I started looking around the house. Not at the temporary macabre additions, but the more permanent décor. It wasn’t precisely Vaughn’s style, which made sense since, he’d explained, he hadn’t changed it after his parents died. It was what you’d expect to find in a historic Virginian home. Like Mount Vernon, but without the velvet security ropes.
I found myself in the study on the ground floor, remembering the day of Valerie’s wedding when I’d shown up and threatened him and he’d crowded me against the wall. I’d been so angry at him, for making me want something I knew I shouldn’t have. We’d moved on from that, but part of Vaughn’s attraction for me was rooted in those first few times we’d met: that strange combination of his charm and that mind like a clock, always ticking. His intelligence was as attractive as his hair, and it was another thing he rarely let anyone see the full extent of.
I rolled my eyes at my mental gushing and helped myself to a glass of excellent bourbon from his stash. I sipped as I ambled around the room, content to let my evil wizard track me down when it was time to show me his magic staff. On a small table was something I’d never noticed before: an ornate pair of crossed pistols.
Eyebrows raised, I picked one up, half expecting to set off an alarm or have someone appear and tell me not to touch them. When that didn’t happen, I quickly checked to make sure they weren’t loaded before I handled them. They weren’t, of course. Yes, Vaughn had his father’s firearms stored in a gun safe, but he wasn’t a hunter, despite his father’s best efforts, and had no real interest in them. Besides, shooting someone was definitely not his style—too much of a mess.
I turned the pistol over in my hand, admiring the craftsmanship, especially of the filigree. My own firearm was a purely functional thing, black and unadorned. A service weapon that I didn’t much like having to carry, though it went with the job. I wondered why Vaughn had them in his study, of all places.
A prickle of awareness went up the back of my neck and I half turned toward the door, still holding the gun. There Vaughn stood, hair framing his face, still looking ridiculously hot in that damned Lucius Malfoy costume. My cock stirred, and I had a whole new appreciation for Halloween. “You’re not planning to Avada Kedavra me, are you?” I asked. I waved the gun. “I’m armed like a proper fifteenth-century duke.”
“Like a twentieth-century Italian count, actually,” he said, moving toward me.
I looked at the pistol, then back at him. “This is one of those times when you say something and I don’t know if you’re serious or not.”
“I’m deadly serious.” He winked at me and laid his staff on the desk. “That’s where they came from.”
“How did your family end up with dueling pistols from an Italian count?”
“Well.” Vaughn seemed to choose his words carefully. “They were a gift.”
“For what?”
“My affections.” I laughed, but Vaughn didn’t.
“Wait, really?” I examined the gun again, more closely this time. “I think all I’ve given you are a couple of movies and a combo popcorn deal.”
At that, Vaughn did laugh, and the sound warmed me. It wasn’t the laugh I’d heard all night when we were around other people. It was the one he’d given when I’d been a bit disconcerted by the clown. (Not afraid. Disconcerted.) His real laugh, the kind that made him smile and caused faint lines around his eyes. Lucius Malfoy, laughing; who would have imagined it?
“Well, I am quite fond of movie popcorn.” He stepped beside me, and I resisted the urge to reach out and run my fingers through his hair. Barely.
With one black-gloved finger, Vaughn traced the filigree on the pistol I was holding. It sent a shiver through me to watch it, a low burn of desire flaring as if it was my cock he was touching.
The sheer power of my attraction to him sometimes shocked me. I’d never felt this strongly about anyone, and occasionally it hit me: that, as well as things were going now, they could go very, very wrong. It spooked me, made me want to pull back, put some distance between us. But now, the bourbon relaxing me (especially on a stomach full of nothing but sugar), I didn’t want to be anywhere but here. I wanted him to leave those gloves on and touch me like he was touching this pistol.
“I had a rather…tempestuous affair with an Italian count,” he said casually.
“Of course you did.” I shook my head.
“I’m serious.”
“Oh, I believe you. I mean, I’d never believe anyone else who said that, but you? Yes.” He picked up the other pistol. “Where do you even meet Italian counts?”
“Italy, William.” He gave me a look.
Right, of course. “Tempestuous? It didn’t end well? I mean, you didn’t have to use these, did you?” I joked. I smiled at the vision of Vaughn dueling with a jilted lover at dawn. He didn’t even like getting up early for work.
“Well, actually,” he started.
I held up a hand. “Don’t make me arrest you. There’s no statute of limitations on confessions of murder.”
“Such little faith you have in me, darling.”
I flushed a little, still not used to the endearment. Also, I couldn’t help the twinge of discomfort that my initial thought was about Vaughn being a criminal.
“He shot one at me, so I took them with me when I left,” said Vaughn simply.
I gaped at him. “He shot at you? Someone actually tried to kill you? An Italian count?” Vaughn’s history was ridiculous. I wondered what I’d been doing when this had happened. Trying to work up the courage to ask my first guy out on a date? I shook my head. “Why?”
“He didn’t want me to leave.” Vaughn shrugged. “I wasn’t feeling the same, ah, level of attachment. While I had genuinely enjoyed his company, I didn’t see myself living the life of a kept man in Italy. Dreadfully boring.”
“No aspirations to be a—what would that be, a countess?”
“Not in the slightest. Besides, he already had one of those.”
“Are you telling me you got these from a polyamorous Italian count? Because I’m starting to think you got these at a yard sale and you’re having me on.”
Vaughn gave an elaborate shiver and placed one gloved hand over his heart. “A yard sale,” he scoffed. “You know how I feel about getting up early when I don’t have to. And on a weekend.” He sounded horrified.
I smiled at having my logic about his preferences reflected back at me.
He cocked his head, his hair falling around his face. “Polyamorous is rather a formal term for two people accustomed to doing as they pleased. His wife was a lovely woman and a gracious hostess. And preferred women in her bed, or so I was told. It worked out well all around.”
“Let me get this straight,” I said, ignoring Vaughn’s eyebrow-raise at my word choice. “You had…an affair with a gay Italian count who was married to a lesbian countess, and then he was so mad when you decided to leave that he tried to shoot you with an antique dueling pistol, which you then stole?”
Vaughn considered me for a long moment. “Yes, that sounds about right. I can’t remember if he was gay or bisexual though. I don’t recall the topic ever coming up, and we certainly never invited anyone else to bed with us, given his jealousy issues. But I suppose it could be that he—what?”
I was laughing so hard I had to put the pistol back on the table. “Amory, sometimes I don’t think I’m interesting enough to date you. I don’t have a single story that is anywhere near that…” I couldn’t even think of the word.
“Convoluted? Italian?” He gave me a searching glance and dropped his voice an octave. “Erotic?”
“That is not erotic,” I informed him, still laughing. “Well. Maybe you fucking a hot Italian is erotic. But the shooting part, not so much.” I sobered at that. “How close was it? Why didn’t you have him arrested?”
“That wouldn’t have made for a very good story, would it?” Vaughn quipped, moving closer. “And you’re very interesting, William. You tried to save me from a chainsaw-wielding maniac, don’t forget. Clearly my taste has only improved over the years.”
“Well.” I took a glance around the room and sipped the last of my bourbon. “I did try and arrest you.”
“Oh, we both know you didn’t try very hard,” Vaughn said.
I didn’t want to think about that, so I gave in to my urge to run my fingers through his hair. This really was a perfect costume for him. His hair wasn’t quite as long as Jason Isaacs’ in the movies, but he still pulled the look off with ease. “I like your costume.”
“Your sister suggested you might,” said Vaughn, smirking.
I leaned in to kiss him, which meant tugging him down by the hair to account for our height difference. “I had some bourbon.”
“I see,” Vaughn murmured against my mouth. “And I can taste.” He kissed me, and I might have been a little tipsy and a lot stupid with hormones, but I didn’t think anyone had ever kissed me like Vaughn. Ever. “Are you ready for bed, or shall I tell you the story behind every antique in my house? I warn you, my parents didn’t have the same aversion to early morning estate sales that I do.”
Only Vaughn could hear me say “yard sale” and respond as if they were the same as estate sales.
“Do they all have stories involving you fucking counts?” I murmured, not really paying attention to what I was saying. I slid my hand up into his hair, tugging a little harder. I pushed my hips against his, the pleasant haze of the bourbon making me more aggressive than usual. Or maybe it wasn’t the bourbon. Maybe it was the thought of that count, thinking he could keep Vaughn locked away in some castle. Or whatever they called the domiciles of the Italian aristocracy.
“Not quite,” Vaughn murmured, biting gently at my lip.
I responded by biting not so gently at his.
“You are in a mood tonight, William. Who knew wizards got you so worked up?”
I smiled and pulled away, breathing a little faster. “It’s not Lucius Malfoy that gets me worked up, it’s you.” I thought about that. “And maybe you…you being a villain is doing it for me.” I crossed my arms over my chest, ignoring how impossibly wrong it was for me to say this, given my job. “A little.”
Vaughn looked delighted by this admission. “You know I’d never join an organization that required I get a tattoo,” he scoffed.
I pitied the organization that tried to require Vaughn do anything. “Not to mention the part where they’re racists,” I pointed out. “You should take off that costume.”
“I intend to,” Vaughn murmured. “Upstairs, where we have a bed.”
Obviously, I liked the idea of that. Of a bed, and Vaughn in one, his hair sweaty and tangled and in his face. I wanted to fuck him. But I didn’t want to wait for a bed. “I don’t think so,” I said in my agent voice. My agent voice, after a few whiskeys and a dinner comprised entirely of candy. I locked the door to ensure no one still milling about the house stumbled into the study. The drapes were drawn over the windows, which meant we had perfect, glorious privacy.
Vaughn’s costume consisted of a suit, a black cloak that swirled in an appropriately stately and sinister manner, black gloves, and a staff. He discarded the cloak, and pulled off the gloves. I shook my head. Here I thought the plastic fangs might have been too much. I should have saved myself the three dollars.
His jacket was fitted, with a wide, tapering collar. It looked vaguely like the tailcoats that would be worn to the symphony. I knew Vaughn had season tickets—was this what he usually wore there? He paused, fingers at his top button, watching as my mind spiraled into nonsense.
“Take that jacket off,” I said, and felt a thrill as he obeyed me. It was more intoxicating than the bourbon.
I picked up one of the dueling pistols again, and shook my head as I thought about his story. The thing was, I didn’t doubt that every word of it was true. I could see someone getting obsessed with him to the point of doing something dangerous. After all, hadn’t I done the same thing in this very room not that long ago?
“You have an interesting effect on people, Mr. Vaughn.” I slipped the mister in there, wondering if he’d catch it.
Of course he did. He noticed everything. “Are you saying it was my fault someone shot at me, Agent Fox?”
That’s when I knew we were playing. He’d barely “Agent Fox”ed me when I’d been about to arrest him for real. “I’m not talking about the attempted murder,” I said. Thinking that someone would try and hurt him made me angry on a visceral level. I struggled to keep my voice even. “And anyway, there’s no proof of that. All I have is your word that someone tried to kill you with an antique gun.”
Vaughn gave me an innocent look. “You could call him, but please not with my number. I went to a great deal of trouble to make sure he can’t find me.”
Was that true? I wanted to ask, but didn’t break character. I put the dueling pistol down and clasped my hands behind my back. “I find it hard to believe that you had the presence of mind to grab a valuable antique on your way out the door when someone was trying to kill you.”
“They’re not that valuable,” said Vaughn.
I almost—almost—smiled.
“Besides,” said Vaughn. “It was self-defense.”
“You were going to, what, shoot him with both barrels? Like a gunslinger?”
“I took one so that he couldn’t use it, and the other to protect myself. Surely you can’t blame me for that, Agent Fox.” He smiled, that charming smile he gave when he wanted something. Had it ever worked on me? I didn’t think so. I liked Amory’s smiles, not Vaughn’s.
But I was happy enough, caught up in the heady rush of liquor and whatever game we were playing, to pretend. That’s all this was, wasn’t it? Pretending Vaughn had stolen something, and I was the agent on his case. Was this something I could do? I was still disturbed that I’d let him get away with the Staunton. And—I could admit it to myself if no one else—powerfully curious as to how he’d done it.
He was watching me, gray eyes thoughtful, waiting to see what I’d do. I could carry on with the pretense we were making this about the dueling pistols, and it’d be hot and a little bit wrong. I could drop this altogether and suggest we go upstairs.
Or I could pretend to do what I should have done months ago, in this same room, when I’d confronted him about the painting. Skirting the edge of something that we absolutely shouldn’t. Cross a line that I’d insisted be laid between us in steel. Admit that while I knew Amory’s moral compass was skewed and possibly cracked, it didn’t make me want him any less. I’d never been one to chase the bad boys. I guess I had just been waiting for one to chase me.
We were facing each other next to his desk. A few weekends ago, I’d sucked him off while he was on a conference call and bored out of his mind. Then I’d laid on the couch and stroked myself off, giving him something more interesting to concentrate on. And yet when I was alone and I thought about Vaughn, and this room, that wasn’t the memory that got me hard and aching.
I rested a hand on the slick wooden surface and leaned in. “Tell me about the night of Keith Oakley’s party.”
There were so few times I was able to surprise Vaughn. When it happened, I relished it—the way his eyes widened slightly and the skin around his mouth tightened, the briefest falter after which he was forced to rearrange his façade. “That was months ago,” he said, and his voice wasn’t quite even. He was staring at me, trying to figure out what game we were playing now. I could tell he wasn’t quite sure what to make of this.
And I liked it.
“Let’s say it wasn’t. Let’s say it was, oh, three days ago.”
“Well, Agent Fox,” he said, and I could tell the caution in his voice was honest, and it made my cock hard. “As I recall, I attended that party and met a very charming gentleman who didn’t seem to be having a very good time.”
“Mmm.” I kept my face blank, though my heart was racing. “Tell me about that.”
He was watching me like a hawk, and I knew I’d piqued his interest. I’d probably piqued more than that. I didn’t know what he liked more—that I was a stickler for following the rules, or that he’d made me break them.
“Well, Agent Fox, I noticed the man watching me as I was enduring the tedium of familiar ass kissing with the hope of receiving funding from my foundation. He was sipping whiskey and standing next to a young woman. He blushed when I caught him staring. I remember that since the woman looked like him, I hoped she was his sister.”
I had no idea if that was true or not, but he had no reason to lie. Then again, he didn’t always need one. “I see. And then what?”
“He moved around the room but continued to watch me, and I found that…intriguing. Because he wasn’t watching me the way so many people do at these events. As if I were a doorway to money or opportunity. He was watching me like I was a man. I decided to see if he’d like to talk, or just keep eye-fucking all night over our cocktails. Not that I’d have been averse.”
At any other time, I might have laughed at that. But the memory was there, how I’d felt every time we’d met each other’s eyes across the room. I still felt that way. I’d felt that way tonight, when he was off being charming and would look up from whatever group he was with to seek me out. The smile that came after our gazes met was new. Hard-won.
The look in his eyes? That was the same. Possessive, interested.
“However, as I was on my way to make his acquaintance, he turned and ran away.” He smirked at this and I resisted rolling my eyes. “I almost lost sight of him, until I realized he was going downstairs.”
“Downstairs,” I repeated. “Where Oakley’s art collection lived.”
“It’s hardly a collection,” he scoffed. “He paid far too much for that Nedja abstract, and I’m not convinced one or two of the others down there aren’t cleverly disguised forgeries.”
I blinked. He’d never said that before. Then again, we’d never talked about it. When we spoke of our relationship, when I thought about it in terms of beginning, it was our first date: the picnic after the gala. The day he’d agreed not to take things that weren’t his, and I’d let him take me. Even my sister didn’t know about the Staunton, or Valerie’s wedding. No one knew Vaughn was a thief. Just me.
My blood roared for a moment in my ears, my face heating. “And the Staunton?”
“Original,” said Vaughn, “but hung too low. And the lighting, as you know, was abysmal.”
I stepped closer and ran my finger down his lapel, like he’d done to me that night. “And what else do you remember?”
“Seducing the man I’d come down there to find.” Vaughn stared at me, shrewd, the telltale flush on his face signaling he was turned on. “Getting on my knees for him. The rug Oakley referenced as the impetus for purchasing a painting he thought would match. I imagine he overpaid for that too.” Vaughn’s tone dripped with derision.
“You were focused on the rug? Must not have been that memorable of an encounter.”
“Oh, believe me, agent. It was.”
We were getting to the part that might be dangerous. Oakley’s Staunton was back where it should be—though Vaughn was right about the placement, and it had nearly killed me not to raise it up a few inches. I supposed, technically, I could haul Vaughn in if I wanted, and use his confession as probable cause. But that wasn’t the point, and it wasn’t why I wanted to do this.
I wanted to let myself have him. Not just the Amory Vaughn who had elaborate theme parties ostensibly to raise money but really so he could outdo the neighbors. Tonight, just for tonight, I wanted him to be the liar I’d once accused him of being. I wanted the thief. The villain.
And I wanted to be the one who brought him down.
I edged closer, sliding a hand to my hip. I didn’t have my gun, and my badge was in the car, but it was a typical agent stance, the same one I’d use if I had both on my person. “And then he left without giving you his number.”
“Mmm.” Vaughn’s eyes were as sharp as cut glass. “Imagine if he’d only given it to me. We might not be here today.”
We probably wouldn’t be, and we both knew it.
“So, what did you do, Amory? Instead of asking his sister, who you knew was the party planner, what did you do instead?”
Vaughn went still, likely at the use of his first name. I wondered if it bothered him that I’d used it. If it was throwing some hint of uncertainty into this whole thing. Good. I hoped it was. “William,” he said, softly.
I pressed my fingers to his lips and moved in, kissing them and by extension, his mouth. “You knock me off balance all the time, do you know that? I’m beginning to see why you like it.”
I pulled back and we stared at each other, the tension ratcheting up a few uncomfortable degrees. The safety net of our relationship was new enough that I didn’t trust it not to tear if we fell.
“What did you do, Amory? Tell me.”
He stared down at me for so long I thought he wasn’t going to, and then he said, “I left a wedding invitation outside his door.”
Casually, I grabbed a fistful of his hair. I loved doing that, especially when he was above me, fucking me. I loved how it felt on my thighs when he was sucking me off, silky and slightly ticklish. And I loved remembering how I’d pulled it in anger and frustrated wanting the night I should have arrested him. “Why?”
Amory Vaughn was not the kind of man who backed down from a dare. “Well, Agent Fox, I suppose I wanted to make an impression. From one art lover to another.”
He still wasn’t saying it. I moved in closer, catching a moan at the last minute as I felt how hard he was. I pulled on his hair again, brought my mouth to his ear and murmured, “Tell me what you did, Amory.”
“I stole Keith Oakley’s Staunton, and left it for him.”
The air between us vibrated and I leaned in closer. “How?”
“Well,” Vaughn said, and one hand slid down and around my waist to pull me closer. “I think I’d prefer to have this conversation with a lawyer present.”
I paused, ensnared by my own game and unwilling to back down. “I don’t think that’s necessary, Mr. Vaughn. Surely we can come to some kind of understanding.”
Vaughn gave a quiet laugh. “I’ve seen enough television to know that’s absolutely not possible, Agent Fox.”
He was right, and part of me was glad to hear that. “Well then. If that’s what you want.”
I kissed his neck, then moved quickly, pushing him face-first over the desk, holding his hands behind his back. He looked at me over his shoulder, hair half in his eyes, and a smirk playing on his mouth.
“Amory Vaughn,” I said. “You’re under arrest for grand theft larceny. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand the rights I have read to you?”
“Mm,” said Vaughn, eyes flashing up at me.
“With these rights in mind, do you wish to speak?”
“Oh, probably,” he said as I moved to stand behind him.
I pressed my erection against his ass. “Tell me how you did it.”
“I don’t see my attorney present, Agent Fox. I’d call, but you’ve got my hands restrained.” He tugged against my grip. Not hard, but enough that I had to tighten my grip to keep him where I wanted him.
“Tell me how you did it,” I repeated, eyes closing briefly as I rubbed myself harder against the firm muscles of his ass. “I want to know how you walked out of there with a painting and no one noticed.”
“People are surprisingly nearsighted,” Vaughn said, pushing back against me. His own voice was breathless. If he hadn’t figured out that what was getting me hot was hearing the details of how he’d done it, then he wasn’t half as smart as I thought.
I let go of his hands and reached around him to fumble at his pants. It took me a few tries to get them undone, then I shoved them down along with his underwear. I didn’t have any restraints, so I said, “Put your hands behind your head, and keep them there.”
I looked around, wildly, after he’d complied. There was something I was forgetting, something I needed…
“Top drawer. I’ve plans to fuck you over every desk I own, William.”
I smiled because he couldn’t see, then retrieved the lube from the desk drawer. He had fucked me over a desk, and if I wanted to even that score like I had with that blowjob, I could do the same to him. But that wasn’t what I wanted. Amory wasn’t in charge of the game. Not this time. “Stand up.”
He did, and I put my hand in the small of his back and scanned the room, finding a spot on the wall that wasn’t blocked by a table full of knickknacks or boring, stuffy portraits. “Over there.” I gave him a bit of a shove, and he shuffled toward the wall, shackled by the pants around his ankle.
His hands were still behind his head like I’d told him, and I knew he hated this—stumbling around, being mussed, out of control. Hated it, and I’d bet anything if I reached around and grabbed his cock it’d be slick.
I pushed him against the wall. “Keep your hands there.” I closed my eyes and let myself rub my cloth-covered erection against his naked ass. “Now tell me how you did it.” With one hand, I undid my own pants and pushed them down, the lube clutched in the other.
“I told you,” Vaughn murmured, voice muffled. “People see what they want. The caterers were packing up, so it was easy to move around the house. I went up to Oakley’s bedroom, found his closet—atrociously disorganized. I wouldn’t want him anywhere near my bank account—and found a garment bag. Then I went downstairs, put the painting in the bag, and left through the back door.”
I was lubing my cock with one hand and keeping Vaughn pressed against the wall with the other. I blinked. That was it? “You just walked out of his house, with a painting in a garment bag?”
“Yes.” His voice was choked. I kicked his legs apart and fitted myself against him, holding his hips tight as I slid my slicked cock up and down his crease.
“And, what, walked home?”
“I don’t live that far from Oakley, as you know, Agent Fox. I simply went home, found your address and a crate big enough for the painting, ordered some sushi, and waited for a time I thought any sensible person would be asleep.”
I pressed the tip of my cock to his hole. “And then you drove to Arlington.”
“And then I—drove to—Arlington,” Vaughn agreed, breathless, the muscles in his back shifting as I pushed inside. He tried to angle his hips but I put my palms on either side of his head, stilling him. He could bend slightly to adjust for our height difference, and steady himself when I pushed in, but I was in control of our movements.
“And no one ever noticed you were carrying a painting in a bag,” I said, sweat stinging my eyes as I started to thrust. God, he felt so good—and something about hearing this, hearing the sheer audacity of it, was getting me as hot as the sight of him, naked from the waist down, hair everywhere, pushing back to try and get more of my cock as I fucked him.
“Of course they noticed the bag. That’s the thing, Agent Fox. It doesn’t matter if they see you. What matters is that they think you belong wherever you are.”
That was so perfectly Vaughn that if I’d been able to think past the haze of lust and the feeling of him so tight around my cock, I might have laughed. Instead I groaned, pulled his hips back, and tried to fuck him through the wall. I was already dangerously close to coming. “Why?”
“Why, what?” He was panting now, using his leverage on the wall to fuck himself on my cock. I spit in my palm, reached around, and took his dick in my hand. Vaughn’s cock was wet with precome, and the spit and remnants of the lube on my hand gave him a nice, slick fist to thrust into. I heard something fall off the wall next to us as I fucked him hard, but I didn’t stop to look.
“Why did you do it,” I hissed, moving my hand faster, feeling his legs shake and those frantic pushes of his hips stall as he neared orgasm.
“I didn’t know—what you did—for a living,” he managed. He looked at me, face red and sweaty, hair a tangled mess, eyes wild. I wasn’t sure I’d ever found him more attractive, falling apart and telling me things he probably would’ve preferred I never know.
He came in my hand, gasping, before I could say anything, and it made him tighten around my cock so that I nearly saw stars. I was incapable of speech, and I struggled to support him as he moaned through his orgasm.
I grabbed his hands and shoved them behind his back, fucking him flat against the wall, graceless as I neared the edge. When I came, the roar in my ears was deafening, my shout harsh and honest. My knees buckled, and my vision went white, and I bit Vaughn’s shoulder through the sweat-dampened fabric of his shirt.
I moved away from him, sweaty and overheated, and pulled at my clothes until I was in my undershirt and suit pants. I sat down heavily on the couch and caught my breath, looking up only when I’d stopped gulping at air.
Vaughn was leaning against the wall, strands of his fair hair sticking to his face. He’d pulled his underwear and pants up, but hadn’t bothered with anything else. He was also out of breath, staring at me with a look that bordered on unfriendly. It was, I thought, one of the most honest expressions I’d seen since I’d met him.
“I did it because you made an impression,” he said, finally. “No one ever does. Not on me. So I wanted to do the same.”
I’d fucked a confession out of him. It wasn’t admissible in court, but that was fine. That wasn’t why I’d needed it. I nodded, elbows on my knees. I wondered if we’d gone too far. If I’d crossed a line I shouldn’t have. If I’d fucked this up.
“I’m going to have a shower,” he told me, and he was all Amory now, no pretense and no charm and no arrogance. In that moment I realized I loved him, and wondered if I’d just lost him.
“That wasn’t—” I winced at the sound of my own voice, rough with emotion and sudden self-doubt. “I wouldn’t ever—”
Turn you in. I couldn’t finish that sentence, choked suddenly by the knowledge that I meant that, absolutely.
Some of Vaughn’s tension eased, though I was now paralyzed by how willing I was to compromise my ethics when it came to this man. He gave a brief nod, then pushed away from the wall and headed toward the door. He was going to leave me there, I realized. He wanted space, because whatever that was we’d just done, whatever game we’d played…it had affected him too.
I waited a few moments before climbing the stairs. I saw someone scurrying by with the last of the Haunted House cleaning-up. He glanced at me and I nodded, too exhausted and too raw to care.
In the bathroom, I stripped the rest of my clothes and climbed in the shower with Vaughn, who stood with his hands against the slick tile, head bowed, letting the water run over him.
“Let me wash your hair,” I said, overtaken by the unfamiliar urge to take care of him. I’d gotten him to confess to the crime we both knew he’d committed, and now I wanted to touch him, soothe him, bring him back from wherever he’d gone in his head. Uneasiness thrummed through me as I reached out for his shampoo.
I squirted some into my hand and frowned. It was as blue as the bottle. “Is this from the drugstore?” I’d only ever seen shampoo that color if it was Pert Plus, and something told me Vaughn did not shop for hair care products at Rite Aid.
“William,” he said, a hint of his usual self in the recrimination. “Honestly.” I smiled with a rush of sudden affection for him and began working the shampoo through his hair. “The blue takes the brassy tones out of my hair,” Vaughn said, leaning into my touch. He was quiet and let me wash his hair, and we found ourselves kissing after the suds had washed away.
“Are you—”
Vaughn kissed me, his equilibrium clearly returning. “I’m fine. That was very…unexpected.” He smiled. With his hair wet and his lean body covered in suds and glistening with water, he looked younger than I was accustomed to seeing. Maybe just a little bit more vulnerable than he ever had.
Telling me that he’d stolen the painting, telling me how… Even if he’d been factual—maybe part of that was a game. But telling me why he’d done it? That meant something. “I know.” Now that it was over, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to talk about it. I felt tired, drained, but somehow at peace. “I can’t even explain…what you do to me,” I said, fingers tracing patterns on the smooth skin of his chest. He had very little body hair, and what he did have was so pale it was nearly invisible. “You make me…want things. That I shouldn’t.”
“Oh, William,” he said, and caught my hand. He carried it to his mouth and kissed it, an odd, courtly gesture considering we were both in the shower and his stupid blue shampoo had stained my hand. “Believe me. The feeling is mutual.”
It wasn’t until we were in bed, both dry and tangled together in easy familiarity, that he spoke again.
“Are you disappointed?”
I frowned, turning to look at him behind me. “About what?”
“My confession. I realize it wasn’t all that exciting. No Thomas Crown Affair master plan.”
I rolled my eyes in the dark. “If you think that wasn’t exciting… You know what? I’m not finishing that sentence.” I stared out of the window, trying to think what to say. “You want to know what I think? I think it was reckless. Reckless, and arrogant, and unnecessary.”
“Unnecessary?” Vaughn mouthed at my neck. “How do you mean?”
“You could have just asked for my number,” I huffed, tilting my head to give him more access to my neck.
“William, I’ve just confessed to a crime,” Vaughn murmured against my skin. “So do me the favor, please, of conceding it was necessary.”
That wasn’t true…was it? “I would have been happy to hear from you, if you’d gotten my number and called me,” I said. That was true. Wasn’t it?
“Would you have called me back?”
I didn’t answer right away. Would I have? Or with the rush of our initial encounter over, would I have slid right back into my daily life, everything predictable and ordered, and told myself it’d never work out? That I was bad at flirting, and relationships were a romance, and… “I don’t know,” I murmured. It felt like a lie.
Vaughn bit gently at my ear. “You wouldn’t have. You climb mountains for fun, William. A simple invitation wouldn’t have been enough to get you to take a chance on me. You like a challenge just as much as I do.”
“Larceny is not—ow!”
“Let’s not pretend you didn’t find that confession of mine hot, darling.” He nuzzled the spot where he’d bitten me.
“Fine.” I was huffy for a moment, but I reached around and found his hand, holding it tight to my chest. After a few long moments, I said, “I wasn’t disappointed.”
I could feel Vaughn’s smile against my neck as his arms tightened around me.