Nine
He couldn’t breathe. He was choking on nothing, on air, hands around his throat like he could pull the invisible obstruction out through his skin. Like there was any real reason why he wheezed and choked.
Behind him, Alec made another assurance and then the door shut and locked with a soft, but final click. Careful footsteps came to him; he flinched, anticipating a touch, a strike.
“You little shit,” Miss Carla’s voice echoed inside his head. “Those were valuable customers!”
“…Ian. Ian.” His name was being said, over and over, slow and gentle. Soft. “Ian. Baby. Sweetheart. I’m right here. It’s okay.” Loving. Worried, but not pressuring him.
“You won’t be able to sit down when I get through with you,” Carla said.
“What do you need? How can I help?” Alec said, right next to him, in real life.
Because Carla was dead. Mercy had snapped her neck. Had dropped her to the floor like wet laundry.
Dead, dead, dead. The bitch was dead.
A hand landed on his arm, and he jerked, every nerve firing, every muscle clenching. Strike. Hit. Defend. Cower. Old, deeply ingrained instincts compounded by his more recent defense training; a confusing tangle of fight and flight.
“Ian,” Alec said.
He swallowed, and it took every effort to drag a breath into his lungs and restrain himself. To stay still.
“What do you need, babe?” So sweet, so tender.
He couldn’t take it. Didn’t deserve it. Had to get away. Had to hide. Had to…
He exhaled shakily. “I need…I need to wash my hands.”
Slowly, like he knew he might startle, Alec moved to stand in front of him, and took both of Ian’s hands into his own. “Your hands are clean,” he said soothingly. “You wore gloves, remember? And we threw them away. We bleached them and threw them in a dumpster.”
“Right,” he murmured, lips numb. They had done that. Fox, wearing latex gloves himself, had stripped the stained black leather off Ian’s hands. Had bleached them. Left them in a dumpster behind a Chinese restaurant. No one would ever find them, he’d assured. The justice system didn’t work in the unreal way it did on TV.
Alec laced their fingers together, ducked his head so he could look Ian in the face. “Do you want to take a shower?”
Hot water. Soap. Clean.
That’s what he always did at the club, after a client session. Got clean, worked the kinks out of his back beneath the warm spray.
“Yeah,” he rasped.
“Alright. Come on.” Alec put a steadying arm around his waist and guided him into the big, fancy marble bathroom.
Ian started a moment, realizing he’d expected the concrete, subway tile and exposed pipes of the club back rooms, where all the boys had showered together, where…
Alec halted him with a gentle press of a hand on his chest and went to the big glass-walled shower to crank the water on.
Ian turned his head and met his own gaze in the mirror.
For one startling moment, he didn’t recognize the man who looked back at him from the glass.
Because it was a man. Not the too-thin, frightened boy who’d belonged to Miss Carla, with his eyeliner, and lip gloss, and bruises. He’d stripped off the uniform coveralls, and under his white t-shirt was a tall, broad-shouldered, lean but strong body. A dancer or a gymnast, long-limbed, striking. His face was pretty, everyone had always said so, but masculine, too. Regal. Little wisps of auburn hair had slipped loose from Maggie’s braids, and framed his cut-glass cheekbones, his jaw. He looked wild-eyed, hunted, but also dangerous – a little, at least.
He wasn’t the same person who the Breckinridges had assaulted at a club years ago. He wasn’t someone powerless, frightened, ashamed. Not to look at, anyway.
He wasn’t even the same person who’d walked into that apartment today.
He was a killer now. There was invisible blood on his hands that he could never scrub away.
And maybe…maybe he didn’t want to.
“Babe,” Alec said, and Ian turned to him. Took in the clean, sweet lines of his face, the steam slowly fogging his glasses, the worried set of his mouth.
He was safe now, because of what Ian had done. Because of what Ian would do, in the future. Because he loved him. Because love wasn’t clean, not in the slightest.
Ian swallowed hard. “Am I a monster?”
“No,” Alec said, immediately, twitching a smile. “But even if you were, I’d still love you.”
Ian cupped his face – his wonderful, beloved face – in both hands and said, “Get in with me?” Half-request, half-plea.
“Yeah. I will.”
Ian reached with careful fingers and plucked Alec’s glasses free, folded them, set them aside on the counter.
Alec blinked up at him, trying to focus, his eyes big, and blue-green, striped with gold and rust.
“Beautiful,” Ian murmured, awed, something warm swelling in his chest, pushing out the fear and anger. “You’re just beautiful.” He laid his hand against Alec’s cheek, and Alec leaned into the touch, smile gracing his mouth. “I would do anything to keep you safe.”
“I know.” Alec turned into Ian’s touch, lips ghosting over his palm. “I would, too. For you.” He glanced up through his lashes. “You know that, right?”
“Yes.” Ian gasped when he felt Alec’s tongue against his hand. “Yes, I…”
Alec lifted his head, and he reeled him in and kissed him.
They’d kissed before. Hundreds, thousands of times. In all manner of ways.
But this kiss. This one. This was a first of sorts. A stripped bare, all cards on the table kind of kiss. It unlocked something in Ian’s mind; in his heart. Something that came roaring to life; that he’d squashed for so long; elemental, protective, masculine, powerful.
He grabbed Alec by the hips and dragged him in close, until their bodies were flush. Slanted his mouth across Alec’s, probed his open, gasping lips with his tongue.
It was sweet. It was so, so good.
All his life he’d been preyed upon, but now he was free. His own man. Able to protect himself…and the person who was his. Who loved him. Who he loved in return.
“God,” he breathed against Alec’s mouth. “Oh, God. Darling. I…”
“Hush,” Alec said, and leaned into him, up on his toes. Kissed him and tugged his shirt free of his waistband, drew it upward.
They pulled the clothes off one another in hurried, clumsy movements. Stumbled into the shower. The hot spray was a shock, and a wonder, some last breakdown of a barrier.
Ian threaded his fingers through Alec’s hair, tipped his head back, kissed his throat. Wrapped an arm around his waist and held him close; for the first time felt the true strength in his limbs. Not a boy, no longer helpless. A man. A lover. Someone’s partner.
He chased Alec’s pulse with his tongue. Sank his teeth into the join of neck and shoulder, that stretch of pale, vulnerable skin there.
Alec melted. Sighing and arching into him, fingers splaying across Ian’s ribs, needy sounds catching in his throat. And he was Ian’s. All his.
Ian loved him. And he wanted him, with a kind of startling savagery he hadn’t known possible until now.
He backed Alec into the corner, where the hot water could pour down his back, Alec’s hot skin pressed down his front. Things had been so perfunctory and hesitant between them for so long, and now Ian was starving for touch – he let himself touch, hands moving across Alec’s chest, his trim waist, over his hips and down the long, slender muscles of his thighs, his ass, cupping the tight swell. Familiar territory, but held at arm’s length so long that it felt like relearning. Mapping the body of a lover thought lost. Cherishing it.
Ian found his mouth again and kissed him deep, tongue curling and flexing. Slid his hand down the flat of Alec’s belly and took his hardening cock in hand.
Alec made a soft sound against his mouth that moved down Ian’s spine like an electric shock. He tucked in even closer, hips kicking, grinding his own painfully hard cock against Alec’s hip. Their bodies were wet, and slippery, and it was an easy drag, grinding together. No friction, not enough.
Ian trailed his lips along Alec’s jaw, little kisses, little bites, boiling inside, desperate. “God, darling, I…I need…” He wanted so many things, but he couldn’t wait for any of them, hands going clumsy, skidding on Alec’s wet skin.
And Alec, bless him, seemed to know it. “I know,” he murmured against Ian’s ear, biting down gently on the lobe. “Here. I’ve got you.” He reached between them and brought both their lengths together, adding his hand to Ian’s, starting up a rhythm. Tight and perfect.
Ian shut his eyes, pressed his face into his throat, and clung to him. Thrust into their hands and lost himself to the need and the sensation.
It didn’t take long, and when he came, his knees almost gave out.
“Whoa.” Alec put both arms around his waist, pressed a kiss to his temple. “Are you okay?”
“Sorry, sorry.” How embarrassing, but he was too floaty and spent to care at the moment.
“No. You needed that.” Alec petted the top of his head a moment. “Let’s wash off.”
They did, trading the soap back and forth, along with slow, lingering touches. Alec unbraided Ian’s hair and worked shampoo and conditioner through it with loving care, picking each tangle out with his fingertips.
They climbed out when the water started to cool. Wrapped up in the fluffy white hotel robes. Went to sit on the end of the bed. There was a little gas fireplace in one corner and Alec switched it on after a moment of fumbling with the remote, tongue poking out his cheek on one side, brows furrowed as he tried to read the buttons without his glasses.
Ian felt as calm and content as he had in…well, ever, probably. Loose from his orgasm, warm and clean, safe here with the man he loved, free to look at him at his leisure. And look he did. At the way the robe clung to his damp skin in places; the pale, narrow shapes of his feet with the high arches and squared-off toes; the curl of dark hair that had flopped onto his forehead. He’d meant it before when he called him beautiful; he’d never seen anything more beautiful in his life.
The fire lit with a soft whump and Alec said, “Aha,” pleased and smiling. Ian wondered what must be showing on his face when Alec turned back to him and pulled up short, expression becoming one of wonder.
“What?” Alec asked.
“Come here.”
He did, sitting down close – closer than he had for months, so Ian’s knee touched his hip.
Ian put an arm around his waist and hauled him even closer, half-into his lap. The warmth was starting to bleed out of him, and with it his contentment. A little chill skittered across his skin, raising goosebumps, and he tucked his nose into the soft patch of skin behind Alec’s ear.
Alec looped an arm across his shoulders. When he spoke, it was in that same soothing tone he’d been using all day. It spread across Ian’s rattled mind like balm across a burn. “It’s okay to be upset,” Alec said. “Or to not know how you feel.”
“I feel…” The rest of the sentence caught in his throat, hitting that old roadblock that was part British stiff upper lip, and part the reticence of an abused child. Mercy, the big bastard, had said talking helped Tango, right? Ian had never talked, not ever, not to anyone. He couldn’t bring himself to sit down in a therapist’s office, not anytime soon, but maybe he could do this. Put his jumbled thoughts and feelings into words for Alec, who’d watched him kill two people, and who loved him still.
He cleared his throat and tried again. His breath came a little short, but he pressed on anyway. “I feel like I protected you today. Like I was useful. Like an actual man, for once,” he added, under his breath.
“Oh, baby,” Alec said, voice tender and Southern, pressing his lips to his forehead.
“And I also feel like, if I think about it too hard, about the sound of – of – that I’ll be sick. And that I might never sleep again. I.” He swallowed and pushed his cheek into Alec’s neck, seeking out the warmth of skin, the reassurance of a steady pulse. “I don’t know, darling, I just don’t know. How could you still want me? How could I deserve you?”
Alec sighed, breath rushing through Ian’s wet hair. His arm tightened. “I love you,” he said, slowly, like he wanted to make sure Ian heard every word, “because you’re you. Because you’re a snob, and also because you’re sweet, and you care. And are really good in bed.” Ian felt him press a smile to the top of his head, and then sober again. “I don’t love you for your money, or because you can physically protect me.” He took an unsteady breath. “I love you so much, and when I think about the horrible things that people did to you, I want to wreck them. I want to tear them to bits with my bare hands, get their blood on me, rip them apart.”
“Oh.”
“Please don’t push me away anymore. I just want to be with you, wherever that is, with however many guards you want to hire. Please, Ian.” He turned pleading. “All I need is for you to love me back.”
“I can do that.” He squeezed him tight. “Oh, darling, I can do that.”
Ian lifted his head and Alec met him halfway, a kiss that was tender and hungry all at once. It felt like a promise. Like sealing a pledge to one another. I’m with you, no matter what.
Ian laid him back on the bed and Alec went down easy, pliant and open, trusting.
They went slow this time, shedding their robes and chasing the damp terrycloth with gentle hands. Touching, teasing. Tasting. Moving against one another until they were both hard and leaking.
Separating long enough for Ian to grab the lube out of their bags felt like an eternity, but it was worth it for the way Alec welcomed him back, catching him by the hair and pulling him in for a bruising kiss, wrapping his legs around Ian’s hips.
Ian opened him up with careful consideration, stretching, taking care of him, until Alec was whimpering, begging “please, please. Come on, I’m ready.” Panting and sweating and testing every ounce of Ian’s patience.
“Stop,” he said, trying to sound stern, laughing instead, as he smoothed his hands along the sensitive insides of Alec’s thighs, spreading him, lining himself up. “Wait, wait, I…oh.”
He entered on one smooth slide, Alec grabbing his shoulders, pulling him. And it was almost too much; he almost came right then. But he leaned down and rested their foreheads together, breathed through that first perfect surge. And then Alec’s hands smoothed down his back, and found his ass, kneading, encouraging.
“Please, Ian, please, I need you.”
Ian needed him, too. He kissed his throat and he moved, slow at first, building steam, going harder, deeper, faster.
Alec caught his face in both hands, smoothed his thumbs across his cheeks until Ian opened his eyes and looked at him…
And nearly drowned in the adoration he found there. The wealth of emotion he had no right to evoke, but which he would take, selfishly, grab onto with both hands and not let go.
“I love you so much,” Alec said, gaze full of wonder, and that was it.
Ian went tumbling over the edge, but not into an abyss, no. Someplace warm, and wonderful, and welcoming. A place where he could fall, and Alec would always catch him.