Page 39 of Play Dirty
After pouring a couple fingers in a glass, he prowled restlessly in front of the windows showcasing a gorgeous twilight view of the Boston skyline, twinkling lights strung over the city like thousands of interwoven strands of beads. On other occasions, the hedonist in him would have appreciated the beauty. Instead, he was hung up on the traitorous man in the bathroom apparently choosing to suffer through the cold shower in silence. An entire city lay spread out before him, and it was the sleek architecture of Azrael’s jawline and the arch of his throat, the graceful curve of his spine, that Madigan couldn’t get off his mind. Easier to give into those primal thoughts than the fury, fear, and sense of vulnerability that lay behind them.
Madigan felt trapped in the safe house and he didn’t want to go back to the sensation of constantly walking around with a target on his back. As long as he’d been invisible, he’d been free, but now, Bennington was onto them.
Infuriating, too, was the moment he felt Az’s eyes upon him from behind. He’d not heard him walking, but he didn’t need to. Not when he was so attuned to the weight of that dark gaze upon him.
Madigan kept still and let him look, knowing that, as he did, the Angel of Death was calculating, trying to determine what to say. Or not, as the case may be. Madigan certainly wasn’t going to help the asshole out in that regard. Neither of them were people who regularly found themselves in situations where they were required to do much more than fulfill a duty or contract. Their solutions came wrapped in a full metal jacket or delivered in lethal doses. Not conversation.
From behind Madigan came the rattle of dishes, a noisy pour, the clink of glass against glass. In the window’s darkening reflection, Azrael was a hazy smear of color and movement. Maybe it would’ve been best if that was all he’d ever been to Madigan. Just distant, undecipherable imagery. But no. Madigan had gotten too close. He’d seen the individual brushstrokes that made up this man, and instead of becoming jaded, he’d grown more intrigued. The brushstrokes weren’t enough. Now, Madigan wanted the entire work of art. And that was dangerous.
Azrael’s approach was silent, but Madigan felt his proximity the same way he’d felt the man’s eyes. It pressed against him, wrapped around him, slid up the inside of his thighs and waited patiently for his acknowledgement.
Madigan flinched, the movement quickly replaced with pebbling skin as something cool and smooth pressed against the lower curve of his spine and then dragged up. The base of Azrael’s glass. Az held it there a beat and then removed it.
Madigan took another sip of his whiskey and tried to keep still.
Next, came pressure at the nape of his neck, and then a cool liquid trickle that made his spine arch before the heat of Az’s mouth chased it away. He sucked lightly at the top of Madigan’s spine and then pulled away, but the whiskey scent of his kiss hung in the air between them, now painted on Madigan’s skin.
“You’ve not killed me yet. Or pushed me away. You could’ve left, and you didn’t. Oh—” Azrael tacked on, expertly reading the tension that sprang in Madigan’s shoulders. “You thought about it. I know.” In the reflection, Madigan saw Az’s head turn toward the coffee table where his gun lay. “You thought about all of it, yes.” Az’s exhale washed over the back of Madigan’s neck.
Madigan tossed back another swallow of whiskey and spun around, catching Az off guard, judging by the flinch at the corners of his eyes.
“You’re still thinking about one of those things,” Az said softly.
Madigan set his glass on a nearby console table and danced his fingers up the curve of Azrael’s throat. Az stretched his neck to accommodate the spread of Madigan’s hand, letting his head fall back in surrender even as Madigan tightened his grip.
“Do as you will.” His voice was calm even as his pulse battered against the press of Madigan’s fingers.
“Have you heard the rumor that I killed my lover for a ridiculous sum? Sometimes fifty grand, sometimes twenty-five, as I’ve heard it told.”
Az nodded, his swallow palpable against Madigan’s palm, his neck taking on a purple hue from the pressure. But he didn’t struggle. Madigan hadn’t expected he would. That was another dangerous thing about Azrael.
“It’s not true.”
Az made a soft noise in his throat and shut his eyes, the rise and fall of his chest slowing as he labored to drag in a breath.
“The hit was on me. I was the target. The man I trusted and loved took the job because he was never actually the man I trusted and loved. He was a plant. Back then, I was doing off-the-books ops for the government through a private agency. He was, too. Just a different government. I didn’t know any of that, of course. I didn’t know it until I was in the position you’re in right now.” Madigan’s gaze dropped to the fists Az had formed, though his arms remained motionless at his sides. Madigan hadn’t had that kind of resolve. He’d clawed wildly at his lover with a mixture of anger and terror. “I don’t know why he chose to do it like this rather than put a bullet in my head, or poison me, or any number of other things. I spent years pondering that and got fucking nowhere. It doesn’t matter, I guess. Because he hesitated. He hesitated for one second, and it was enough for me to get the upper hand.”
Madigan had managed to knock him off kilter with a right hook. They’d grappled onto the floor, destroyed half the apartment wrestling around until Madigan had finally hauled him up and thrust his neck against the sharp glass corner of their dining table over and over. He’d felt nothing but numb as he did it, but he’d shaken for weeks afterward, flinched every time someone got too close. It’d taken him years to quell that instinct as well as he had.
“It was better to let the rumor mill spin its wheels than to admit that I’d been caught off guard. It could’ve ended my career.” Madigan’s voice softened with resignation. “And now, here I am again.”
He released Azrael’s throat, and Az sucked in deep lungfuls of air that wracked his chest.
“You know exactly what I am,” Az growled when he’d regained enough breath to speak. “I’ve hidden nothing of my character from you.”
Madigan shook his head. “No one ever knows exactly what anyone is.”If I could kill you, I would, but, somehow, you would manage to take a piece of me with you.Az’s words from days before bounded through Madigan’s head. He’d understood them then, but now, they’d infiltrated his marrow. “What is there for people like us? Nothing.”
“Wrong. We could have each other. What will it take for you to forgive me?” The light in Azrael’s eyes said he was aware of the irony in his words, in the turnabout of their positions.
Maybe that was what they were destined to be, a revolving door of insecurity, treachery, and obsession. Madigan supposed that was better than love. Many things were. But none of those words reverberated through his gut the way the latter did.
Madigan stepped away from Az, his proximity throwing him off balance. Or maybe it was the whiskey on a painfully empty stomach. He dropped into a club chair that faced the view, and Azrael, seeming to have anticipated him perfectly, turned away to retrieve the whiskey glass as Madigan watched the subtle shift of muscle in his back. Az passed the glass back to Madigan, then stepped between his thighs, nudging them wider before he knelt, his hands hot when they closed over Madigan’s knees. “What will it take?”
Eternity, Madigan wanted to say, but that wasn’t true. It wasn’t true because, deep down, he understood Azrael’s motivations. He just didn’t want to; they were much too similar to his own. Instead of answering, he leaned forward in the chair, forehead skimming Az’s, careful to pull back when Az tilted his chin up, avoiding his lips for now.
Az’s neck bore the beginnings of a bruise from his grip, and Madigan was fully aware he was a deviant for being seduced by the mottled tones. Reaching, he tugged the knot on Az’s towel open, letting it fall to the ground. Az’s grip on Madigan’s thighs tightened as he skimmed an insignificant touch over the length of Az’s soft cock, then reached deeper, hefting his balls and rolling them in his palm before releasing them.
He let himself be pushed back in the chair, let Az work the waistband of the sleep pants he’d found earlier lower, let Az curl over the chair and suck one testicle into his mouth, then the other, tongue whirling expertly over the sensitive skin until Madigan gritted his teeth at the pleasure and dug his nails into the leather arms of the chair. He arched his hips with a growl when Az rubbed his lips over his semi-hard cock, tongued his slit, then swallowed him, the suction so intense Madigan hissed even as he grew hard on Azrael’s tongue.