Page 6 of Play Dirty

Cortez lay watching a woman posing beside the pool in a one-piece that revealed far more than it covered. Az walked toward him, doing his best to look confused, like perhaps he’d had a few too many at the cabana bar and gotten turned around.

He was six feet from his target when a chunk of concrete disappeared an inch away from his big toe. A few people turned to look at the divot then immediately seemed to lose interest. But not Az. He craned his head, searching the rooftop. Az cursed. He could just barely make out the glint of the sun on the rifle’s scope.

Madigan had been waiting. Had he known Az would attempt to kill the man before heading to the room? Did he have his own version of Carrington alerting him of Cortez’s whereabouts? He didn’t like that he was so predictable to him. If Az took another step, would Madigan take another shot?

“Excuse me,” a man said from behind him in a heavily accented voice.

Robert Cortez tried to push past him. Az looked up at Madigan and grinned, then clasped Cortez on the shoulder, deploying the near microscopic needle inside the lancet. When he stepped away for Cortez to get past him, the man hadn’t even noticed what Az had done. There wasn’t so much as a speck of blood. Az was halfway through the lobby when he heard somebody screaming about needing an ambulance.

After retrieving his bag from the bathroom, Azrael made his way to his room. In the morning, he’d swing by the morgue to get the evidence needed to collect the money. For now, his husband was waiting for him in their suite. Az imagined he’d have a lot to say.

2

Madigan

The second Madigan heard the click of the hotel door’s lock, he straightened in the club chair he’d dragged from beneath the window and set down his glass of Scotch. It’d done nothing but fuel the burn inside him, anyway.

“Honey, I’m home.” Az’s voice carried a lilt of irony that both grated on Madigan and turned him on.

He cocked the gun in his hand as Az stepped fully inside.

Az chuckled as he shut the door and took a few steps forward before canting his head. “Ahh, I do think someone has missed me.” Madigan noted a flash of hesitation he’d have missed completely had he not stared so deeply into those dark eyes on far too many occasions prior. “You put me out for a month last time I opened the door to you and your gun. At least be so kind as to aim for the other shoulder. It’s unsportsmanlike conduct to hit me in the same spot twice.”

Madigan’s stony expression cracked into a sardonic smile. “Do we have a code of ethics now?” Az made Madi’s skin crawl as much with irritation as desire, and he despised the fact that he’d gotten addicted to that exact sensation. Azrael seemed to have the same gift with alchemy where Madigan’s emotions were concerned as he had with inert chemicals. Madigan had fucked an entire army of men trying to prove otherwise. The closest he’d gotten was Jonah, but that had been different, too. That had been an attempt to…he didn’t know what. Settle down? Except, men like him, Jonah, and Az didn’t settle down—or so Madigan would have said until Jonah had run off to Belize with his pretty little hacker boy.

Madigan relaxed his grip on the gun, satisfied with the tension pulling Az’s shoulders. “Don’t you get bored with the same old trick every time? No real skill required. Just chemicals.”

“Don’t you? With your big gun, too far away to truly experience the thrill of a job well done.” Az lifted a brow and prowled closer, his gaze following Madigan’s hand as he traded the gun for the glass of whiskey and took a long swallow. When he set it down, he didn’t pick up the gun again, but Madigan smiled inwardly for Az’s laser focus. They’d learned each other well over the years.

“I did the guy in Beirut with knives.” Two strategically thrown from behind a display of rugs in a market, one buried in the nape of the man’s neck—just to be sure—as the market broke into chaos.

“And I did the man in Paris with a Glock.”

“Funny, I heard it was Prichard who did that job.” Arguably one of the weakest mercs out there. Madigan gave him another couple of months at most before someone put him out of his misery. Last year Jonah and Madigan had spent a month cleaning up the fallout from a job Prichard had botched.

Az’s moue of utter distaste told Madi his comment had hit its mark, though.

He grinned and pulled a knife from the sheath strapped to his thigh, the walnut burl handle gleaming as brightly as the high-carbon stainless steel blade.

Az stepped between Madigan’s thighs, eyes on the glinting silver even as he reached for the glass of whiskey and took a small sip. He let out a soft murmur of satisfaction. “Still with the expensive whiskey.”

“I’ll put it on your tab, along with the room. Seems fair.”

“You shot at me. I think you owe me the drink, at minimum.”

“What was it you said when you walked in? I missed you? Consider that earlier bullet me blowing you a kiss.” Madigan winked and rolled forward onto the edge of the chair, drawing the flat of the blade up the inside of Az’s thighs and watching the dilation of his pupils. It was one of the few things Az had little control over, and god, did Madigan love to exploit it.

Az inhaled quietly through his nose, nostrils flaring as Madigan angled the tip of the knife so that it caught with soft snicks of sound, fraying fine threads as he dragged it over Azrael’s straining fly.

“I like this game.” Az hummed and shifted subtly forward, undeterred by the teeth at the tip of the blade. The fucker liked to walk a fine line. But then again, so did Madigan.

How many times had he been perfectly positioned to sever an artery, to make Az go away forever, and the prospect of sex won out in the end?

One day, one of them would do it. One of them would be open and vulnerable, and the other would take advantage. Az knew it. Madigan knew it. He supposed that was part of the thrill.

Madigan caught the hem of Azrael’s shirt between his fingers and held it taut as he slipped the knife between the placket and lifted. He rose from the chair to maintain one long, steady movement of his wrist, buttons dropping between them and tawny miles of skin exposed. Az tipped his head back, displaying the seductive curve of his throat, dark stubble peppering a strong Adam’s apple. Madigan thought to himself, as he always did,do it.He entertained the notion, as he always did, of following through on the reflex. He saw it perfectly in his mind’s eye. The gush of blood, how even then, Azrael would show no surprise.

Az groaned as the knife’s tip kissed his sternum and left behind beads of red that Madigan chased with his tongue. He’d never call it soothing, though the sounds Az made suggested it was that and more.