Four
“No, just the one, darling, thank you,” Ian said to the waitress, sending her off with a little wave and a bare smile.
She liked his accent, he could tell, so she flashed him a dimpled smile and left him with the instruction to flag her down if he needed anything.
“Poor thing,” he told Bruce when she was gone. “She thinks I like girls.”
Bruce nodded and continued to scan the bar for threats. Reliable and dull as ever.
After two hours of hammering out details with Rebecca and Daniel, Ian had spent the rest of the day meeting with his regular New York clients, pressing flesh and making his presence known. With all of them, he’d been the sophisticated, aloof boss that he’d always been, but he’d found none of his usual joy in making them feel small.
Now, it was six-thirty, and he and Bruce – well, just him – were enjoying a glass of subpar merlot in the kind of bar that was just classy enough to keep out career drunks, but casual enough to attract a particular…opportunistic element.
An element a lot like the blonde at the end of the bar who kept playing with the cherry in her drink and shooting him covert glances.
He leaned back in his chair and took a long, contemplative swallow of wine, letting his gaze move over her slowly, assessing. He was gay, but he wasn’t blind. She had long, toned legs, shown off by sheer gray leggings and a clinging wool dress. Narrow waist, generous hips and breasts. A sweet face with a wickedly curved mouth. Lots of eye makeup. And she was on the prowl.
Before Ian had dragged him into bed, Alec had thought he was straight, was doubtless still attracted to women.
She would do.
“Watch my drink, Bruce,” Ian said, smoothed back his hair, and got to his feet.
~*~
Her name was Mandy. She had just finished grad school, was scheduled to start a job in Germany in a month, and she blushed when he called her “darling.” Eyes downcast, face heated, she’d admitted that a wild night with two experimental men sounded “awesome,” and she was totally on board with Ian’s scheme.
At least, the version of it he’d given her.
She kept her hand in the crook of his arm as they walked down the hall toward the suite at the Ritz.
“He goes with you everywhere?” she whispered, a laugh threaded through her voice, leaning in close to him and darting a look over her shoulder toward Bruce, following at a discreet, but accessible, distance.
“How else would anyone know I was filthy rich?” Ian quipped, and she giggled.
He’d texted Alec earlier, letting him know that he was on his way. Leaving out the fact that he was bringing a…gift. Of sorts.
The problem, he’d realized earlier today, was that Alec had stopped having chances to flirt with the opposite sex, and that, if presented with an attractive woman, would realize he didn’t really want to be with Ian and would leave on his own.
In some part of his mind, Ian recognized this as an insane conclusion, but he was so frightened and desperate that he was clinging to straws, feverish in his need to remove Alec from the constant threat that was his life.
Hating every damn thing about himself, he swiped his keycard, pushed open the door to the suite, and ushered Mandy inside.
The living room was dark, save a puddle of soft light coming from the bedroom.
“Alec?” Ian called, pulse pounding in his throat. “Where are you? I’ve brought you something.”
Mandy giggled, and followed him into the bedroom.
Alec was propped up on a small stack of pillows in bed, reading a novel – an actual paper one, his hair beautifully mussed. He glanced up with a lopsided, but hopeful smile…
And then his gaze landed on Mandy.
He sat upright. “Ian. What.” Not even a question, just a stunned breath of sound.
Ian wanted to die. Mostly because he hoped this worked.
“Mandy, this is Alec, who I was telling you about. Alec, darling, this is Mandy.”
Mandy waved and smiled and blushed. “Hi.”
Alec slowly closed his book and set it on the nightstand. “Hi, Mandy.” He looked absolutely gobsmacked. “Um…”
“Do you want a drink?” Ian asked.
Both of them said “yes” at the same time.
Ian went back to the living room and poured three whiskeys from the mini bar, neat since the ice bucket wasn’t full. He threw his back and refilled it before he returned to the bedroom.
Many had progressed to sitting on the side of the bed, legs crossed primly, clutch handbag held in her lap. She and Alec regarded one another with the wariness of stray dogs. Only…Mandy looked eager, beneath her nerves. And Alec looked devastated.
Ian went to the bed and set the drinks down on the nightstand.
“Thank you,” Mandy said, letting her slim fingers caress his knuckles when he passed her a glass.
When he passed one off to Alec, his lover grabbed his wrist. “Ian.” His voice was calm, but his gaze was hectic. “What’s Mandy doing here?”
Ian took a beat too long to answer, his glib response catching in his throat.
Just long enough for Mandy to say, “Wait. You said you two did this all the time.”
“Do what all the time?” Alec asked, anger starting to color his voice.
Ian cleared his throat. “Invite a lovely woman to join us for a – what is it you Yanks call it? – a playdate?”
“Ian said,” Mandy started.
“Yeah, well, Ian’s full of shit these days,” Alec snapped, jaw clenching, eyes flashing as he turned his gaze on her. “Get out.”
Mandy jumped to her feet.
“Don’t be rude,” Ian admonished.
Alec ignored him. “Get the fuck out!” he told Mandy, shouting now, vein popping in his throat. His face was growing red and his respiration was accelerating, and oh shit, Ian had made a terrible, terrible error in calculation.
“I’m sorry,” Mandy whispered, and hurried out.
Ian tried to go after her, at least to make his apologies, hold the door, ask Bruce or one of the other guards next door to see that she got home safely. But Alec held him fast, his grip surprisingly strong around the bones of Ian’s wrist.
His nostrils flared as he inhaled. “What the hell are you trying to pull?”
The door opened and slammed shut out in the main room.
“Fucking answer me!” Alec shouted.
There wasn’t enough air in the room. Ian had been stupid enough to think that somehow this stunt would end with Alec reviving his lust for women…and instead it had become this tense, one-on-one, sexless standoff that he wasn’t ready for.
He couldn’t breathe.
“I thought…”
“Thought what?”
It didn’t just spill, but punched its way out of him, like rot leaving a lanced wound. “I thought you could sleep with her. And like it. And see that you’re better off going back to being a straight boy from a good family than staying with me.”
Alec’s face went blank. He blinked a moment. “You wanted me to sleep with her?”
“Yes.”
“Did you really?”
Ian fought it, but a soft, rough “no” worked its way out.
Alec tugged on his wrist. “Sit down.”
It was more of a collapse, his knees giving and the bed catching him.
Alec pulled his hand into his lap and clasped their palms together. Tears stood in his eyes, but his voice came out surprisingly strong. “Okay. So. If you bringing home random women is any clue, you want me to move on. Message received. My question is: do you want that for your sake, or mine? Because–” his breath hitched “–if you’re bored with me, and you just want to be finished–”
“No.” Ian clutched his hand. “No, that’s not it.”
“I know you’re this too-cool, super rich, elegant…master villain kind of guy–”
“You got that from Ghost.”
One corner of his mouth twitched. “What I’m saying is: don’t feed me one-liners and cut-downs, babe. Talk to me. Please, for the love of God, tell me.”
“You’re…being terribly reasonable about all this.”
Alec’s smile was sad and watery. “I’m trying.”
“Because…”
“Because I love you. Ass. Try for me.”
Ian could only marvel a moment. The drinks made him honest. “You’re unreal. I don’t deserve you.”
“Ian.”
“Right. Right.” He took a deep breath and found that he was shaking all-over, full-body tremors that made it hard to speak. He was terrified. “Here goes.”
And so he told him everything. Everything.
A numbness overtook him. He’d thought that he’d stammer, and blush, and duck his head in shame. And instead, just as it had when he was a part of Miss Carla’s stable, a professional calm stole over him. He was like a spectator to his own recitation, blank-faced and calm, explaining with ever-increasing detail and crassness, not able to react to the horror that bloomed across his lover’s face.
Alec squeezed his hand so tight it started to cramp. And he reached up under his glasses to dash a few tears away.
“So,” Ian said with a deep breath, and felt fear and panic start to eat away at the edges of his manufactured calm. “That’s it, then.”
The pause before Alec spoke was unbearable. Ian heard a low siren start up in the back of his mind, like the kind they’d sounded in London when the Luftwaffe started bombing.
Please, he prayed to whatever deity was willing to listen to someone like him. Oh please.
Alec watched him, expression unreadable, for an interminable handful of seconds. Then his face crumpled. He opened his arms and said, “Oh, sweetheart, come here.”
Ian went. He fell forward headfirst into Alec’s waiting embrace, tucked his face into his throat, the smooth skin and clean soap smell of him; the warmth of his body bleeding through his clothes; the unexpected strength in his slender arms. Ian’s chest ached, and he struggled to draw a deep breath, and his eyes were wet.
Oh. He was crying.
“Hey,” Alec murmured against the crown of his head, and rubbed his back with both hands, soothing, slow sweeps. “It’s alright. Let it out.” And then, when the sobs overtook him, “I love you. I love you.” Over and over, steady and sure. Like it was a forgone conclusion that wouldn’t change.
Once the tears started, they wouldn’t stop, and Ian hated it. These weren’t subtle, manly tears, but great ugly sobs, complete with runny nose and sore throat. He pressed his face into Alec’s shirt and tried to get them under control for five solid minutes.
These weren’t just today’s tears, he knew. This was all the ugly, poisonous shit he’d been holding in check for years. For most of his life. And now, at the very, very end of his limits, lonely and tired and overworked, he was in a safe place, and it all had to come out.
Alec held him the whole time, murmuring sweet assurances and endearments, telling him it would be alright – even though that wasn’t possible.
Finally, Ian took a deep, shuddering breath, hiccupped, and knew that he was done. Puffy-faced, stuffy, disgusting, but done. He sat up slowly, wiping at his eyes, ashamed.
“Here.” Alec produced a tissue from the box on the bedside table and Ian took it gratefully.
“Thanks.” It came out sounding like “danks.”
It took three tissues, and he still didn’t want to look at his boyfriend.
“Ian.”
He turned, reluctantly, to find Alec’s smile a little wobbly.
“Thank you for telling me.”
Ian moved around so he could lean back against the headboard beside him.
Alec linked their hands. “Now let’s figure out what we’re going to do.”
Ian huffed a sound that was almost a laugh. “Did you not hear any of what I told you? They’re going to use threats against you to get me to go along with what they want. Not to mention threats against my reputation.” The last was said with a grumble.
Alec nodded. “Yeah. I also heard you say what that bitch and her creep husband did to you.” His jaw flexed, and he looked almost threatening, glasses, bedhead and all. “They’re gonna pay for that.”
“Darling–”
“No.” Alec twisted so he faced him fully, bringing their linked hands up to his chest. His eyes flashed with aggression. “You are a badass super villain, and you’re not gonna let someone like that push you around. Not some fucked-up monsters who paid to use sex slaves. Nuh-uh. No way. We’re gonna fight back. And you’re not gonna cut me out anymore.”
Ian made a wordless, frustrated sound. “Darling. A few months ago. When the building was attacked…” His heart leapt up into his throat just remembering it. The gleam of the gun in the sunlight; the jump of Alec’s pulse in the delicate skin beneath his jaw. “Those were idiot bikers, without connections or training. And I almost lost you.”
Alec swallowed with an audible click. “Babe.”
“No, let me say this. This is the reason things have–”
“Sucked?”
“Been strained,” Ian continued. “Yes, they’ve sucked. I’ve – no, no, I want to say this.” He’d almost admitted how much he’d missed him, their banter, and pillow talk, and waking up in the middle of the night to have wine and biscuits and wrap themselves around one another beneath the covers. He missed his life – the one they’d constructed carefully, piece by piece, together. He’d been successful and powerful before Alec, but after him he’d been alive. He’d been happy.
“I cannot,” he said, trying for calm, “allow anything to happen to you. Not anything. I won’t let you get hurt simply because you’re associated with me. You almost died, Alec. You almost got shot, and–” He was choking on air again, hyperventilating. “Bloody hell, I’m trying to protect you!”
“And how were you going to do that? Send me home? Split up? Ian, have you really been trying to drive me away all this time so you can protect me?”
“Yes!”
“You’re stupid.”
“I beg your pardon.”
“You’ve been trying to sabotage us, and that’s fucking stupid,” he said, with great sadness – and great affection.
“It’s safer,” Ian countered.
“How? The people who want to hurt you already know that we’re together. So what if we break up? Would you stop loving me? Would I stop being leverage?”
“I…” Oh. In his descent into overprotective madness, he hadn’t considered that.
Alec lifted his brows. “I mean. Really.”
“Shit.”
“Does this mean I actually thought of something before you did?” Alec teased.
Ian shoved him, and he laughed. “My God,” Ian sighed, looping an arm around his shoulders and drawing him to his side; he loved the little ripples that laughter sent through Alec’s body, into his own. “I don’t deserve you.”
Alec fidgeted, burrowing closer. “Do you really think that?”
“I do.”
Alec heaved a put-upon sigh. “Okay, listen, because I only want to have to say this once. The things that were done to you – the horrible, awful, illegal, amoral shit you were put through as a kid – doesn’t make you a bad person.”
“What about the drugs?”
Alec reached up and caught his jaw in one tender hand, turned his face so they were looking at one another. Alec wore an expression the likes of which Ian had never had directed at him before. “I love you,” he said, and Ian could feel that he meant it, the truth a vibration that traveled backward and forward between them, in the places they touched. “Isn’t that enough?”
“Yes.” And it was.
Ian drew him in and kissed him, the way he’d wanted to for so long. “I do love you, you know,” he said against his mouth.
Alec hummed, a happy sound. “I know.”