Murder and Mayhem (27 page)

It was different this time. Gentler. Tender. With a softness Rook didn’t know if he could stand without breaking apart under Dante’s hands. It was as if Dante’s touch tore him open, peeling back layers of filth and disgust until Rook lay open for him to delve into, the very deepest parts of his soul bared for Dante’s pleasure.

As well as Rook’s darkest fears.

Their coming together had none of the roughness they’d had before. Lying naked against one another, Rook had time to explore Dante’s body, to see what life had left on the skin under his fingertips. He found a few old scars, bleached white from time on Dante’s golden skin. His lover murmured soft encouragements when Rook kissed a tiny starburst mark he found on Dante’s ribs, a reminder of a long-ago fishing trip where Dante’d thought he’d pretend to be fly-fishing with a bamboo pole.

“You’re lucky you didn’t catch a hook in the eye,” Rook tsked. “Could have blinded you.”

“That’s what my mother said. Right as she was screaming at one of my uncles for not watching me.” Dante gasped when Rook bit the spot.

“Manny said you were… that they kicked you out.” Flat on his belly and stretched out beside Dante, Rook lifted his head and stared up Dante’s muscled chest. The man was all planes and strength, a fierce, powerful predator cloaked in golden skin and gentled voice. Rook couldn’t imagine anyone… any family… rejecting a son like Dante, not when he was everything Rook was not.

“I talk to my mother. She calls me. I don’t call the house,” Dante explained. “I made a choice. I either lived how they expected me to, or I became my own man. The price of that was my family. But they made me pay it. I didn’t want to. I didn’t have to.”

“And you have Manny,” Rook pointed out.

“And I have Manny,” he agreed. “You talk at the worst times, you know that?”

“You’re the one who brought his mother into the room.”

Dante twisted quickly, grabbing Rook, then flipping him over onto his back. Gulping in surprise, Rook flailed, nearly slamming his elbow into the side of Dante’s head.

“Dude! Warn a guy.”

“Hey, Rook.” Dante licked Rook’s left nipple, blowing on it to tighten the bud. “I’m now going to fuck you. Just a warning.”

“Good to know,” he shot back. “I’ll try not to fall asleep while you’re doing it.”

Rook’d already dug out the condoms and lube he’d stashed in the chest of drawers, tossing the handful of packets onto the bed where they glittered a sleek gold on the sheets. Dante reached for one, and Rook’s insides clenched in anticipation. On his back, Rook had a full view of Dante’s thick erection, and even in the dim wash of shadows, its florid length stood out sharp against the pale latex sheath Dante rolled over it.

“Just putting it on,
cuervo
.” Dante glanced down, his hands busy as he kneeled on the bed between Rook’s parted legs. “I want to spend some time with you first. Right now, it’s all about you.”

It felt weird to lie back and let Dante have his way. His skin itched, and there were whispers in Rook’s mind telling him to move, to take control, to do
something
other than spread out and allow another man—Dante—to take what he wanted.

A moment later, the voices were quieted, dulled and muted as Rook finally realized Dante wasn’t taking. He was giving.

The press of Dante’s thumbs along the long muscle of his thighs warmed his skin, then the muscles beneath when his lover worked his fingers over the taut balls of stress living in his legs. Still bruised from the car and aching where he’d been shot, Rook briefly fought the seductive promise of relief from the pain. Dante’s touch seemed like another form of pill, something else to get hooked on and then mewl for after it was jerked away.

There was too much of his mother in that moment—addicted to chemicals to make her heart race or slow down—and of all the times when he called out for her in the middle of the night and found only the cold emptiness of her abandonment.

His bones began to sing, the core of his body tightening with want when Dante’s dark hair brushed over his chest. The tip of Dante’s tongue touched the center of his chest and began a trail down to his belly button, stopping only long enough to rim its curve before heading back up to his nipples. Tiny nips from Dante’s sharp teeth released sparks along Rook’s cock, its sheath peeling back and pulling down from its head.

He couldn’t hold back a gasp when Dante slid a fingernail around his cock’s ridge, barely scoring a line around its plum-shaped head. The slight burn set his dick on fire, and when Dante gripped his shaft, Rook couldn’t help rocking his hips up to feel the glide of Dante’s callused palm over his cock.

There was no sense of time passing, and Rook fell into a fold of sensual joy he could barely think in, much less escape. The play seemed to last forever and still, not long enough. Dante played with him, running his pinky under Rook’s foreskin, then following up with a lap of his tongue.

“Dante… fucking hell,” Rook whimpered. Dante
breathed
on his damp cock head, a pucker of lips and a whispery gust barely strong enough to ruffle the hair on Rook’s belly, but his body reacted as if he’d been caught in a thunderstorm.

Then Dante wrapped his mouth around the tip of Rook’s cock, and Rook lost his mind.

It seemed as if his lover’s hands were everywhere. Rubbing at his nipples while his mouth sucked Rook’s seed up from his balls. He dug his fingers into Dante’s hair, more to have the man under his touch than to guide him down his shaft. A sloppy wet sound echoed from Dante’s lips when he pulled back off Rook’s cock, a soft pop, then another long lick of Dante’s tongue down to Rook’s balls. He nuzzled them, rolling the sac in his hand, then suckled at the velvety pouch, slickening Rook’s crease with a thin sheen of spit.

Rook kneaded Dante’s shoulder, his arms stretched out to an ache as he tried to keep hold of the man working his way across Rook’s senses. Dante’s hair was silk in Rook’s fingers, sleek and soft on his belly when Dante lowered his mouth to the hollowed dip of Rook’s hip. He left kisses along the way, brushes of affection wet with promise, and then Dante broke through the lulled peace Rook floated on with a casual brush of a thumb over Rook’s leaking cock head, startling his too sensitive nerves to an almost painful, tart ache.

The smell of vanilla oil reached his nose as Dante pressed his fingers against the edge of his hole. Rook swallowed, unable to do anything other than ride the pleasures of Dante’s mouth working his cock and the shallow burn of his body being opened up by Dante’s touch. His shoulders seized up, anticipating the push in, and when it came, Rook cried out, fighting the urge to close his knees and force Dante back.

“Lift up for me,
cuervo
,” Dante murmured, cupping the back of Rook’s thighs in his powerful hands. “Put your legs up so I can be inside of you. Please?”

It would have been easy enough to whisper
no
. To show Dante he would stop what they were doing at a moment’s notice, just to say he could. Just to
show
he could.

And that he trusted Dante enough to
actually
stop.

Not like the others before. Not
ever
like any time before.

“Please back, Montoya,” Rook teased, resting his calves on Dante’s rolled shoulders. In the soft light, Dante’s features were both wicked and peaceful, a rush of softness in his sloe-eyed gaze while his mouth offered the darkest of sins.

Then Dante was in, and Rook broke apart once again.

Rook stretched around him, clenching down hard on Dante’s cock as if he never wanted to let go. He tried not to laugh at the thought… tried not to imagine Rook never letting go. He’d spent his life working toward a normal he’d known as a child. A nice house in a good neighborhood, having family near him, and eventually finding someone he’d love.

Certainly not a foul-mouthed con artist with a penchant for lying and shoving people away. The face of Dante’s imaginary lover was much like his own, and there he was, balls-deep in a funky-eyed pretty man who’d stolen a hell of a lot more than his heart.

“Fuck,” he muttered, falling into Spanish. “I don’t want him to let me go.”

They burst through the awkwardness of finding a rhythm nearly as soon as Dante struck Rook’s core. Their bodies were seamlessly joined together, moving in slow, long drives until Dante felt as if he would peel apart from the inside out. Rook’s heat closed in over him, milking his dick with each pass, and when he angled his hips up, he brought Rook up off the mattress, striking at the spot inside of him hot enough to send shudders under Rook’s skin.

Their bodies grew wet, moist from sweat and sticky along their stomachs where Rook’s cock smeared cum in the tight space between them. He took his time, rolling his hips slowly when it seemed as if his lover was about to lose control, then speeding up as Rook dug his fingers into Dante’s hips.

Each dip in was another lash of possession, and Dante shifted his knees, parting Rook’s legs farther so he could deepen his plunging strokes. He wasn’t sure who was possessing whom. Not when Rook clamped down on his dick hard enough for Dante to ease his thrusts.

“Is this good,
cuervo
?” Bending down, Dante captured Rook’s mouth, whispering hotly over his tongue. He played inside his lover’s mouth, sucking and pulling on Rook’s lips until they were as pink as his hole. Rook’s body pulled at him, tantalizing Dante with its heat. “Do you like it like this? Or do you want me to go deeper.”

“You talk too much, Montoya,” Rook growled, digging his nails into Dante’s arms. A rock of Dante’s hips made Rook hiss, and he arched his back, driving down on Dante’s length. “Yeah, ’Toya. Just… damn,
there
.”

Resting his weight on his knees, Dante grabbed Rook’s legs, angling them up against him. Rook’s ass parted, welcoming him in, and Dante eased in farther, loving the stretch of Rook’s body around him. Splayed out on the bed, Rook’s body lay underneath him, clenched tight and marbled in the dim LED light. Shadows danced across Rook’s face as he moved, his lower lip dimpled from bite marks, and his fingers were nearly white as his hands clenched the bedsheets, waiting for Dante to move again.

“Dante—shit, I can’t take it,” Rook pleaded. “Just… go. Fuck me.”

He heard the roughness in Rook break. Beneath the snarling and the sneer, there was a man Dante wanted to reach. He’d touched that man before, hearing laughter bursting like starlight from Rook’s mouth when he’d teased for a sleepy kiss in the middle of the night.

Needing to hold his lover, Dante slowed his thrusts and leaned in, wrapping his arms around Rook’s shoulders, then pulling him in tight. He rocked into Rook’s clench, barely moving his hips, but the motion was enough to slide Rook over him, sending them closer to the edge. A spot of wetness dampened Dante’s shoulder when Rook ducked his head down, tucking his face into the curve of Dante’s neck.

“I’ve got you,
cuervo
,” Dante whispered. “Just let go. I’ll be here to catch you.”

Watching Rook lose himself in pleasure took Dante’s breath away. His lover’s face softened, layers of hardness falling away before Dante’s eyes as he stroked Rook’s face, urging him to let himself be loved. Lust-riddled and glutted, Rook’s eyes lost focus, and his lashes swept down over his glittering gaze to hold back a storm of tears threatening to break. A vulnerability crept over Rook’s mouth, his lips parting to take Dante’s as his sibilant cries heated their kiss.

Dante felt the first splash of hot seed on his belly long before he saw Rook’s face contort in climax. Stiffening around Dante, Rook’s ass pulled Dante in, the muscles of his long body seizing up, then giving over as he rode another spurting orgasm. Holding Rook to his chest, Dante fell into the cresting tide, his balls riding up into his body as his cock rippled with gushing spasms. Caught between the sear of Rook’s hold on his dick and the musky scent of Rook’s spill on their skin, Dante gripped Rook’s shoulders, riding out the waves of his peak, drifting along the ridge of pleasure as every inch of his body went numb from the shock running through him.

They lay gasping, small tremors ratcheting through them, and Rook stirred beneath him, moaning softly when Dante’s softening cock slipped free from Rook’s inviting warmth. He sighed, wishing he could stay nested in Rook for the rest of the day, but a creaking moan escaped Rook’s bitten mouth, so he slid to the side, lifting his weight from Rook’s torso. The light from the bathroom played out over the bed, and Dante was reminded of the ocean of bruises riding Rook’s skin when he turned over, his rib cage heaving hard to recapture his breath. The dappling was sharper than the day before, darker as the marbling worked its way up to the surface.

“You make me lose my mind. You make me forget the crap that’s happened to you.” He lightly kissed a triangular purpled mark on Rook’s side, then whispered, “Do you want me to get you something? Do you hurt? Shit,
cuervo
, if I’ve hurt you….”

“You should shut up, Montoya. You’re exactly what I needed now.” Rook’s grumble was back, full force and deep. “Just hold me so we can get some sleep. And if you don’t snore too loudly, I might even let you fuck me again once we wake up.”

Dante’s list was a who’s-who of people Rook either worked with or avoided like the plague. Scanning the names, he used a pencil to cross off people he knew were in prison or dead. Sadly, the list didn’t seem to get significantly smaller, no matter how much graphite he used.

A cup of coffee showed up at his elbow, positioned carefully on a slatboard bookcase he’d picked up at a ninety-nine cent store a few blocks down. It wobbled with the extra weight, barely strong enough to hold itself up, much less a mug filled with hot liquid. Dante must have had the same thought because he picked up the cup and moved it over to the table he’d commandeered as his workspace, making room amid a laptop, small printer, and a forest of paper files he’d retrieved from his car.