Three
Ian had the driver stop at a bodega on the way back, where he bought a pack of smokes and a bottle of Smirnoff. When they got out at the hotel, he went walking instead, Bruce his constant, faithful shadow, and he found a green metal bench at the edge of the park, flickering orange maples leaves throwing dappled shadows on the sidewalk.
He lit a cigarette, took three long swallows of vodka, and slumped back on the bench with a hard sigh. “Well. Fuck.”
He waved the bottle toward Bruce, who stood a few steps away, hands folded in front of him. “Would you like some?”
“No, sir.”
“Good man, Bruce. If only you had that same attitude when it came to my Milanos.”
The big man’s brows jumped in a rare show of shock.
“Oh, yes, I know all about your biscuit stealing. I suppose I’ll forgive you for it.” After all, it was the least nefarious crime he’d ever suffered.
It was cold, but beautiful, the air crisp and clean, spinning with falling leaves. The park was full of joggers, and mothers pushing strollers, children’s shouts of delight carrying down the paths. Three benches over, an old man fed pigeons from a paper bag of birdseed, wrinkled face graced with a happy, peaceful smile.
Ian took a drag on his cigarette and felt a few carefully-stitched threads of his life come loose at the edges. How long would it take, he wondered, for the whole meticulous tapestry to come unraveled?
He held his cigarette between his teeth and dug his phone from his pocket. Found the emails Marissa had sent him and followed the links he should have clicked on weeks ago. There they were, airbrushed and smiling: Daniel and Rebecca Breckinridge, promising the utmost devotion to their models, vowing to launch epic careers. They’d been in operation for ten years, it said. Ian recognized more than a few names of superstar clients who’d walked all the Fashion Week runways.
How was this happening? Yes, he was a bad person, and yes he sold drugs, manipulated junkies, exerted leverage over gangsters. But after what he’d been through, wasn’t he entitled to that? Did he deserve this?
He was a fool to think there was such a thing as karma, that anyone got what they deserved.
He realized that his breathing was ragged, his heart pounding a panicked rhythm against his ribs. He took another swig of vodka and opened up his contacts list in his phone. Scrolled until he found Kev’s number, thumb hovering over the call button a seemingly-endless moment.
Kev had been victimized by these people, too. He would understand, could make soothing noises in Ian’s ear and tell him that he was nobody’s pet anymore, his own man and no longer a plaything to be passed around.
But he couldn’t dump this on Kev. On Tango, he corrected. Tango who was something like whole now, with a wife, and friends, brothers, a whole family who loved him and who worked hard to drive the darkness from his heart. Tango had been saved, and it wouldn’t be fair for Ian to drag him back into the shadows.
But tears burned his eyes, and he thought he might have a heart attack on a bench in Central Park, because nothing about the last few years counted at all if he was still beholden to the kind of animals who’d abused him.
He scrolled again, and called a different number.
Ghost Teague picked up on the second ring, the sounds of a busy garage clanging in the background. “Yeah?”
Ian realized he had to take a deep, shaky breath before he could talk. His voice wouldn’t quite settle into his usual haughty tone. “Hello, Kenneth. I wanted to beg a moment of your time.”
“Yeah…” Ghost said slowly. “Yeah. Hold on.”
The garage sounds dimmed. A door shut. And then it was quiet.
“What’s up?” Ghost asked, and Ian wanted to think there was a note of concern in the man’s gruff, hyper-masculine voice.
Ian took another drag. Another fast sip. Cleared his throat. “I need an opinion, actually. Let’s say, hypothetically of course, that you encountered someone from your past. Someone whom you despise…but someone who wants to do business with you. And who knows certain unsavory things from your past. Let’s say, just to be crude, that they had you over a barrel, as it were. What would you do?”
It was quiet a beat. “Hmm,” Ghost said after a moment. “That’s a really specific hypothetical.”
“Isn’t it?”
“What I can’t see is how anyone could get you over a barrel, you slippery fuck,” he said with a snort of amusement.
Ian smiled a little. “I appreciate the confidence.”
Ghost became serious. “You in trouble, kid?”
“Possibly quite a lot of it.” He felt his smile turn bitter. “It won’t affect the club.” He hoped not, anyway. “No worries.”
“Hey,” Ghost said. “I’m serious. You alright?”
Ian sighed. “I have to be.”
~*~
In retrospect, adding alcohol to the situation wasn’t the best idea. But it was too late for that.
It took two tries to swipe his keycard at the door before Bruce took it gently from him and did the honors.
“Brilliant,” Ian told him. “You’re capital, Bruce.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You can go away now to your own room. I’m going to have a nice row with my boyfriend.”
“Yes, sir,” Bruce said, sounding distinctly sad.
The man looked downright hangdog when Ian turned around and shut the door in his face. Poor oaf. Ian was too buzzed to care. He put his back to the door and let it bear his weight, surveying the living room of their suite.
It was after five and night had its hooks in the sky beyond the window, the lamplight welcoming and golden. Alec sat on the sofa, reading a book, down to his trousers and shirt-sleeves, socked feet tucked up beneath him, hair mussed from passing his fingers through it. He was a regular bookworm, and he got so invested in the stories he read that he curled up, and finger-combed his hair, and became this rumpled little librarian sort that pushed all of Ian’s buttons.
He’d been resisting this look diligently over the past weeks, but now, inhibitions lowered by vodka, lonely, frightened, aching, he had no guards against Alec’s gaze when he shut his book and looked across the room at him.
His brows tucked low. “You okay?”
Ian closed his eyes and tipped his head back against the door. “No. Not at all, darling,” he admitted with a groan.
He heard the book land on the end table. Heard the rustle of clothes as Alec got up, the light scuff of socks across plush carpet. If Ian was going to stop him, push him away, this was the moment to do so.
And he really needed to do so. What would happen to his poor sweet boy if the business collapsed under the Breckinridges’ threats? He’d given up his whole life to be with Ian, and if Ian fell…well…
He felt a warm gust of breath against his throat. His skin tingled in response to the warm proximity of another person, a person he loved and wanted and knew.
Soft lips brushed his jaw. His chin. “Baby,” Alec whispered. “Please.”
Ian tipped his head, and they were kissing, warm and sloppy, fueled by weeks of distance. Alec’s hands landed on his shoulders, slid down his chest, his stomach.
And it was good, so good.
Ian was just fuzzy enough that he allowed himself to reach for his lover, gripped him at the waist and reeled him in close, their bodies pressed together, heated and urgent.
“Oh, please,” Alec breathed against his mouth. “I’ve missed you.”
And Ian had missed him. Acutely. But he was a horrible person, beholden now to his molesters. Run away, he wanted to tell him. Go back to the life you had before.
But the part of him stripped bare by vodka said, Please, oh darling, I want you so much.
But his heart was breaking, and he was terrified, and he’d had most of a bottle of vodka.
Alec slid a hand down to the front of his trousers…and then froze.
Ian was soft.
Alec’s head kicked back. He uttered a disbelieving sound. “So I was right.” He sounded so hurt. “You don’t want me anymore. There’s someone else.”
“No!” Ian shouted, grabbing at him, gripping his shirt tight in both hands. “No, please, I just…”
Alec’s eyes looked too-bright behind his glasses, watery and vulnerable. He sniffed. “No, it’s okay, I should have–”
Ian didn’t so much drop to his knees as fall to them, clumsy and rushed. He fumbled at the waistband of Alec’s pants with numb fingers.
Alec tried to pull away, breathing fast and irregular. “No. Don’t. Ian–”
But he was hard under Ian’s hands, as he finally opened the button and pulled down the zipper. Hooked his fingers in the belt loops and drew the fine black pants down. Alec’s hard cock strained at the front of his boxers; Ian closed his hand over it and Alec’s protest became a whimper.
Ian swallowed. “Yes?”
Alec gave a wordless, breathy gasp in response.
He drew the boxers down and, too drunk and unsteady for skillful teasing, took Alec’s cock in his mouth. All the way to the base in one clean swallow.
“Jesus,” Alec hissed. Ian heard the sound of his hand slapping at the door for balance. His other hand came to Ian’s head, fingers threading through his hair, gripping his skull lightly, carefully. “Oh…”
Ian was good at this. He could do this in his sleep – no doubt he actually had at some point. He had no gag reflex, and it was something that, with Alec, had never felt like a power struggle. So he shut his eyes, shut down all his rampant worries, and devoted himself to the task. Breathed in the soap and musk on Alec’s skin, gripped his narrow hips with both hands, held him close. Curled his tongue, and hollowed his cheeks, and let experience take over.
He didn’t linger, didn’t try to draw it out; took Alec straight to the edge and pushed him past it. But he allowed himself one glimpse, a quick glance up through his lashes. Alec had the top of his head pressed to the door, eyes shut, lip caught between his teeth. His face was tense with building pleasure…and with grief. There was a deep sadness in him, one that Ian had caused.
Because he was horrible.
Alec cried out softly when he came, heat and salt spilling over Ian’s tongue.
He sucked him through it, easing him, pulled off slow, swallowed, licked his lips. He sat back on his heels and wiped his mouth on his sleeve, and had no idea where this would go next.
Alec stayed above him a long moment, the door holding him up. Then he took an unsteady step back and folded himself down to sit cross-legged on the floor across from Ian. He took a deep breath and nudged his glasses up his nose.
“Ian,” he said, oddly calm. “I love you. You know I do. But I can’t do this anymore.”
Ian shut his eyes to stop the room from spinning. He felt a sudden, intense wave of nausea, and then it settled again. Something almost like relief took its place. This was it, finally: the end. Waiting for it to happen had become so nerve-wracking that its arrival was a blessing.
“Right then. I’ll call downstairs and ask for another room.”
Alec growled something under his breath and Ian opened his eyes again to find his boyfriend glaring at him. “No, you asshole, that’s not what I mean.”
Ian blinked at him, brain too fuzzy to come up with a proper retort.
“I mean,” Alec said with a sigh. “That we have to have a conversation. A real one. Or go to, I dunno, couples counseling or something.”
Ian snorted.
“I’m dead serious right now.”
“I know you are, darling, but I’m afraid I’m very drunk.” And getting more so by the minute as the vodka worked its way through his system. “In the morning. We’ll talk then. If you’ll let me stay here tonight.”
It was Alec’s turn to snort. “Are you gonna puke in the bed?”
“It’s a distinct possibility.”
~*~
He didn’t puke in the bed, but he slept poorly, heart beating too fast, cold and then hot, tossing around until the sheets were tangled at his hips. He woke for good, finally, just after dawn, a thin stripe of light falling in through the drapes and across the pale carpet, its glow just enough light to make out Alec sleeping on the far edge of the king-sized mattress. He was tucked into a tight ball, brows pinched – worried even in sleep.
Ian did a quick self-assessment. His head throbbed, his stomach churned, and the inside of his mouth tasted like something dead. He hadn’t woken up feeling this bad in a long time, and he could only hope that Alec would stay asleep a little longer so they didn’t have to–
Alec’s eyes snapped open.
“Bollocks,” Ian said with great feeling.
Proving that he’d been awake for some time, and only pretending to sleep, Alec sat up, clear-eyed and composed. “How’s your head?”
“Terrible.”
“Be right back.” He slipped out of bed and Ian heard the rustling of a suitcase, the faucet running in the bathroom. He was back a moment later with a glass of water and two aspirin held out on a flat palm. “Take those, and then we’re going to talk.”
Ian groaned, but sat up and choked down the pills.
Alec knelt on the bed, poised for interrogation, hands braced on his thighs. His earnest expression should have been absurd, coupled with his plaid sleep pants and the velvet-soft old t-shirt he wore to bed, the one Ian had stretched out the neck of a few months ago so he could kiss his collarbones. Should have been absurd, but wasn’t, the grim set of his mouth enough to make Ian want to crawl down under the covers and never come back out.
“Alright,” Alec said with a deep breath. “Just listen first, okay?”
Ian moved to sit with his back against the upholstered headboard and nodded – which was a bad idea, because it kicked off a wave of dizziness and tweaked his headache into something fierce and sharp.
A sympathetic look flickered across Alec’s face, but he smoothed it away and pressed on. “Something’s been wrong for a while. For months.” His mouth quirked to the side, but it wasn’t a smile. “I thought you were cheating. I always thought I was the sort of person who’d get the hell out of a relationship where my partner was unfaithful – then again, I always thought I was straight, too, before I met you. I’ve learned a lot about myself since I met you, including that fact that I’m not the kind who walks away, however pathetic that is.”
“Alec, you’re not pathetic.”
He held up a hand. “Let me? Please?” When Ian nodded, he said, “Last night.” His voice wavered. “After you fell asleep. I…well, I got a little desperate.” He glanced down at his hands, fingers flexing on his thighs. “I had to know. I just wanted…well. I went through your phone.”
“You little shit.”
“I know, I know.” He had the good grace to blush. “But you wouldn’t talk to me–”
“So that gives you the right to look at my phone? Which I use for business?” Ian hissed.
“I don’t give a damn about your business,” Alec snapped, head lifting.
“Except for the fact that it pays for all this, right?” Ian made a sweeping gesture to indicate the room, the city, this whole trip. “Buys your nice clothes, keeps you in wine, and electronics, and keeps your days full of delightful distractions. You’d bloody well care about my business if it was taken away, wouldn’t you?”
“What are you talking about? I’m not trying to sabotage anything–”
“But it’s okay to dig through my messages?”
“I thought you were back with him!” Alec shouted, and Ian felt his brows go up.
“Him?”
Alec was breathing fast through his mouth, chest heaving. “Your old…whatever he was. You ex. Your Kevin,” he spat the name. “I thought you were–”
“He’s married–”
“I know!” Then, quieter, miserable: “I know, okay? But I thought – the point is, hate me for it all you want, but I looked through your phone. The last call you made was to Ghost Teague.”
Oh shit.
“I called him.”
And just like that, Ian didn’t feel so badly about pushing Alec away for weeks.
Just like that, he was furious.
“Ah.” His voice came out calm and polite. “I see.”
Alec recognized that tone; had stood by while Ian had wielded it like a blade against prospective business rivals and overreaching clients. His eyes widened.
“Thinking I might be fucking my ex – who is married, as established – you decide to mine through my recent calls and then contact my most loyal client so you can, what, bend his ear about my assumed infidelity? You bent the ear of the mother chapter president of the world’s most notorious motorcycle club about your insipid romantic drama?”
Alec bit his lip hard, until it went white, and visibly gathered himself. “No. I called the man you look to as a father figure to see if he had idea what’s been bothering you so that I could help you through it.”
Ian took a breath. And another. “Right.” He flipped back the covers and got unsteadily to his feet. “I have a meeting.”
“Ian,” Alec said, pleading, desperate.
“I need to get ready.”
Alec followed him to the bathroom and braced a hand against the door when Ian tried to shut it in his face. “Ian,” he said, tone firming into something steely Ian had never heard from him before. “Ghost said he thinks someone’s trying to threaten you. Who is it? Let me help you.”
Ian took a steadying breath and studied him a moment, the jut of his chin, the way he looked cute when he was trying to be ferocious. “You violated my trust,” he protested, but there was no heat behind it.
“You’ve treated me like shit,” Alec shot back, equally mild.
“You can’t help.”
“Try me.”
“You’re impossible.”
“Yeah.”
Ian gritted his teeth in frustration and spoke through them. “The problem is that my horrible, horrifying, fucked up past is catching up with me yet again.”
Understanding bloomed in Alec’s eyes…and sympathy.
“Don’t give me that bloody puppy dog look,” Ian snapped. “I can handle this.”
Alec sighed. “Right. Because you’re the man in this relationship, and I’m the wife who sits at home.”
“No. Because these people are sick, and I won’t have them touch you.”
“Oh, Ian.”
“I don’t have time for this.” He forced the door shut and went to take a shower.
He was running late and had to rush more than he liked. Nicked himself shaving. Couldn’t quite tame the flyaway bits of hair at his temples. He grunted in frustration, finally, doused his hands under the tap, and slicked the whole heavy mass of hair back with water – a temporary solution. The hotel had steamed his suit yesterday, but it looked rumpled and ill-fitting somehow, though it had been tailored to perfection.
Maybe it wasn’t the suit, he thought grimly, but his own skin that didn’t fit right this morning.
Alec was a runner, and went for three miles every morning before breakfast. Not today, though. Ian exited the bathroom to find his lover still in his pajamas, taking the lids off several cloches on a room service cart that had appeared in the center of the suite. The strong scents of coffee, and bagels, and oatmeal threatened to turn Ian’s stomach.
“Here,” Alec said, gamely trying to be cheerful. “You need to eat something before you go.”
“I don’t have time,” he said as he slipped his cufflinks into place. Really, he couldn’t eat even if he’d wanted to. The idea of food was bringing up sweat between his shoulder blades.
Alec gave him a steady, hard to read look. “You should.”
“Later.”
Ian half-expected to be chased out of the suite, but thankfully wasn’t. Bruce was waiting just in the hall, arms folded, staring down toward the elevator like the dutiful watchdog that he was.
The big man dipped his head in silent greeting and Ian fell into step beside him, shrugging his overcoat into place. “Bruce,” he said, once they were alone in the elevator together. “If you’ll permit me a little unsolicited advice. Don’t ever let anyone convince you love is a worthwhile endeavor.”
“Yes, sir.”
It was a low, gray dawn outside, wind funneling down between the buildings, full of tumbling paper scraps and crackly leaves. A hard shiver stole down Ian’s back, and he knew it was partly the chill, but partly his blood sugar. He should have choked down a bit of bagel, at least. He pulled his coat tighter around his throat and wished the damn driver would hurry the hell up and get here. He didn’t–
“Ian,” Alec’s voice said behind him, and he was filled with equal amounts of dread and joy. He just wanted to shake the man off for his own good. But he missed him so terribly it made his teeth hurt.
He turned and found Alec walking toward him, in pajamas and slippers, his black wool overcoat buttoned over it. He carried a paper travel cup in one hand, a bundle wrapped in a paper napkin in the other.
Ian tried to be stern, but his, “What?” came out more affectionate than hostile.
“Here.” Alec came in close, breath puffing into steam clouds in the cold, and held out his offerings. “Coffee and a bagel. Butter instead of cream cheese, like you like.”
“I…”
“Take it, you ass,” Alec said, a rueful smile tugging at his lips. “Be careful.” He stood up on his toes to press a fast, firm kiss to Ian’s lips. He tasted of coffee with too much sugar: sweet, and tender, and perfect, as always. He leaned in close to whisper in Ian’s ear, after: “Come back here planning to explain the situation to me. No excuses.” When he stepped back, he lifted his brows to drive home the point. “Okay?”
Ian sighed. God, he loved him, and he was so, so afraid of what might happen to him. “Okay.”
~*~
Ian managed to choke down half the bagel on the ride to Breckinridge Models, but regretted it when the same receptionist from the day before escorted him down the hall toward the office. His nausea spiked and he breathed deeply through his nose in an effort to quell it.
Bruce ghosted a hand at his elbow, the most concern the man would dare show him, and it helped some.
“Ready?” the receptionist asked, her smile strained, her hand on the office door. Like maybe she knew he was sweating through his suit and about to lose his meager breakfast all over the polished floor.
“Yes.”
She pushed the door open, and there they were, Lord and Lady Vice.
Ian pulled his Shaman persona on like armor, and stepped in to meet them.
“Good morning,” Rebecca said, and today, forewarned of his identity, she was back to her sly smiles and low-purring voice. When the door was shut and the receptionist was gone, she chuckled and said, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re looking a little tired, hon. Late night?”
Ian sent her his coldest, sharpest smile and settled into the chair he’d taken yesterday, legs crossed, head lifted at an imperial angle. “Not as tired as that girdle you’ve squeezed yourself into. You don’t honestly think you’re still young enough for that kind of dress, do you?”
It wasn’t that tight, in all fairness, but she wasn’t quite as sleek as she’d been back in the day. Also, being petty and bitchy had become his signature move. And in this case, it earned the desired result: her cheeks darkened with embarrassment and she tried to tug subtly at the short hem of her dress.
Daniel shifted forward in his chair. “Let’s talk numbers. No sense dragging this out.”
“Yes, I agree. I have a number for you: zero. That’s how many ounces I’m going to sell to you, but I’d be happy to direct you to one of my retailers.”
Daniel snorted.
“The Lean Dogs MC do most of my dealing for me these days, and you’re in luck because there’s a chapter here in New York. I’ll be happy to put you in contact with them if you’d like.”
Rebecca made a face. “We’re not dealing with white trash bikers. End of story.”
“Alright then.” Ian got to his feet. “Thank you very much for wasting my morning.”
There was a soft ding: an email notification from a cellphone. Daniel held up a finger and fished out his phone with his free hand. “Just a sec. I think you’ll want to see this.”
Ian had never been more grateful for his natural British stiff upper lip. He was trembling inside, but outwardly he could feel that his face remained disdainful and bored. The last time he’d felt like this, he’d been standing in the hallway of the house where Miss Carla lived, on the verge of a nervous breakdown, caught between wanting to snap her neck and being completely unable to.
That was happening now. His business had never disgusted him before, no matter how illegal or amoral, but the idea of selling drugs to these people – so they could give it to their models – revolted him. He wanted to storm out. Possibly murder them. And also, he knew – he knew – that he couldn’t risk exposing his past to the rest of his clientele. No one really minded that he was extravagant and dandified – but someone who’d worn a collar and cried under men who’d paid to use him…that wouldn’t go over with the mobster and outlaw set. The only people who knew his true story were Kev, Aidan, Ghost, and possibly that big monster Mercy.
And these reptiles who sat in front of him. Who could ruin him.
So when Daniel turned his phone toward him and said, “Here,” Ian walked closer to the desk against his will, leaned down, and examined the sequence of photos the man scrolled through.
The sidewalk in front of the Ritz-Carlton, Ian standing, waiting for the car and driver, Alec kissing him. There were two like that. And then, after Ian had stepped back, one of Alec’s face, zoomed in close enough to make out the warm color of his eyes, his confusion, worry, and, despite that, his affection.
Ian marveled at that expression on his lover’s face a moment, floored by the proof that even after being a royal ass for months, Alec still cared so deeply for him. Was fighting for him.
And then the weight of the photos sank in.
He straightened and glared at the two of them.
Rebecca smiled. “Your boyfriend’s cute. Do you take him with you everywhere? Like a little lap dog?”
Daniel pulled the phone back, serious in contrast to his delighted wife. “I think you can see where this is going.”
Ian swallowed with difficulty, his throat closing up. “Yes. I do.”
“Let’s talk about those numbers, huh?” Rebecca said.
Slowly, Ian subsided back into his chair.