Dark Soul Vol. 3 (9 page)

“Then what do you do with the others?” Silvio teased him.

“What . . . others?”

“The guys you’re having sex with.”

Franco grimaced, didn’t want to think about it. Remember. Sex was always a battle between loathing himself and loathing the other man. “I don’t . . . often.”

“But when you do. What do you like?”

Leaving afterward is the best part.

“You got the wrong idea,” Franco managed.

“Like? That sex’s fun?”

Gotcha.
Franco couldn’t help but laugh and pulled Silvio closer by the neck to kiss him again, and gasped when Silvio thrust against him. “What . . . about you?”

“I prefer getting fucked,” Silvio said close to his lips. “But I fuck men I don’t know.”

“Why?”

Silvio gave him an ironic grin. “I’m a killer.”

Being in control. Unable to give up control. Fighting tooth and nail to stay in control. Yes, they were messed up in the exact same way.

“That works for me,” Franco whispered. “It’s safe, too.”

“You fuck your strangers, too?”

Franco pressed his lips together, then nodded, remembering the officer’s words.

Oh, you’re such a top, aren’t you?

Silvio shifted his weight a little, then pushed off, just enough to look for something to the side of the couch, stretching so far above Franco’s head that his dick very nearly touched Franco’s col arbone.

Franco slid deeper and captured it with his lips, drawing a shocked, sensuous gasp from Silvio and an involuntary jerk from his hips that drove his cock deeper into Franco’s mouth.

Franco placed a flat hand against Silvio’s belly, but slung his other arm around Silvio’s hips, then kissed and licked the exposed tip, tasting pre-cum and salt, male and familiar, and he didn’t really care about anything else. He wasn’t particularly good at this—he’d rarely tried, and never managed to get another man off like this. Eventually, he grew bored or started to have second thoughts, but with Silvio, that was less of an issue.

“That’s good,” Silvio groaned.

Franco took Silvio’s balls in his hand, noticed they were shaved, and smiled, squeezing them lightly. Then less lightly, when Silvio gave another one of those gasps that seemed to be begging for more.

Silvio jerked again, then laughed. “Shit. I’m going to lose my balance if you keep that . . . up!” Franco let him slip from his mouth and watched, amused, how Silvio tried to move back down to him.

“Thanks,” Silvio said and grinned at him, showing every one of his white teeth. “Got the lube. Turn around.”

“What? Have I become a stranger?” Franco asked but rolled over onto his belly. Immediately, his hackles rose, a response that had nothing to do with Silvio and everything with that position. Unable to fight. Yet, prone was also focused and ready to kill. His fingers itched for his rifle.

“Bullshit,” Silvio whispered. “But it’s easier for me to find a guy I can trust.”

“I guess.” Franco opened his legs when Silvio’s fingers slid into his crack, but craned his neck to watch Silvio’s face. It would have been easy to close his eyes and let it happen, pretend whatever, but that would have been cowardly, and the pretending thing didn’t work very well. Certainly not when he was about to have sex with his brother.

Silvio’s lubed fingers found his anus easily, probing there, but Franco knew enough in theory to relax at the prodding and poking, and besides, the teasing felt good enough to simply accept it for what it was.

“How’s that feel?”

“Good.” Franco opened his legs wider. “I’m good.”

Silvio kissed his shoulder blades, then Franco felt his weight shift.

Tearing of a foil packet. At least Silvio wasn’t taking any more risks.

The blunt intrusion came as a bit of a shock, and Franco pressed against it to get his muscles to yield. His knowledge was purely academic, but applying that knowledge was as close as natural as sex ever got.

Silvio moved slowly, carefully, focused on getting inside him, but definitely also responding to his reactions. Franco reached behind himself and found a hand that clasped his. Reassuring. Role reversal.

Silvio seemed older, more experienced, more everything, and Franco felt himself moving toward the point where he wouldn’t be in control.

Where Silvio would have to catch him. Scary thought.

“Just tell me to stop.”

“No. I’m good.” Franco pressed Silvio’s hand again. So much easier to communicate with touches than with words. He relaxed, pushed his forehead into the rough fabric of the couch cushion and lifted his hips, offering himself to that feeling of fullness, of slowly ceding control.

When the pleasure hit, it was blinding and unexpected.

Silvio pulled back, added more lube and then found that place again, pressure and light and a sense like being on the verge of coming.

Franco gritted his teeth and pushed back to get more of that, oddly relieved that no, this wasn’t a stranger. He couldn’t have accepted this feeling from anybody he didn’t know inside and out.

“Lie down,” Silvio said, a low murmur.

Franco obeyed, too aware of the roughness pressing against his dick. Silvio lay down on top of him, head to toe, lips sucking on the side of his neck, toes and calves making contact with toes and shins, but above al , hips moving with slow rol ing motions against him, cock teasing his pleasure mercilessly.

Still, Silvio’s weight was not oppressive or crushing—he was too light for that, Franco himself too strong. More like a ful -body embrace, stroking and touching him everywhere, and damn, but that was the most sensuous thing anybody had ever done to him.

“Like you’re part of me,” Silvio whispered in his ear.

Yes, exactly like that. Franco tightened with the pleasure, muscles responding to every small motion when Silvio’s shallow thrusts became faster, then alternated and got deeper, harder. Franco curved his spine, opened his legs further until one knee rested on the ground.

Every thrust went deep now, right to his core, turning him mindless, thoughtless. His dick chafed against the couch, which was probably the only thing keeping him this side of orgasm.

“I could pull out and you could fuck me.”

“No.” Franco reached back for Silvio, twisted to stare at him, but the humor in the black eyes and the flushed face told him Silvio had been joking. Thank God. He wouldn’t last thirty seconds if anything touched his dick now.

“Okay. Ready to come? I am.”

Franco just nodded and lifted up just enough to make it easier when Silvio slid his hand down to his dick. Lube-slick, tight. Franco could pretend he was fucking something in return while Silvio drove into him over and over again. When he came in long, hard spurts, Silvio’s thrusts became erratic, and that shared orgasm was another first. He’d never managed that with another man, and sharing that glorious abandonment sparked a bone-deep tenderness that he struggled to contain. Like life was worth something. No disgust or self-loathing anywhere. No urge to wash and run. Another first.

“God,” Silvio breathed against his neck and kissed him lazily.

Franco rested for a moment, fought sleep and exhaustion and contentment, then figured it didn’t matter if he lost. “Made a mess of your couch,” he said.

Silvio chuckled. “Totally worth it.”

“Not your couch, either.”

Silvio pressed his forehead against Franco’s neck. “Don’t bring Stefano into this.”

Voices woke him, and Franco slid into a T-shirt and training slacks before he left the bedroom. Silvio was already up, the bed not even warm anymore. He opened the door, and the voices muted for a moment.

Stefano Marino. He’d almost expected him. “Morning.”

Marino smiled at him. “Good morning, Franco. Look what I brought.” He gestured to the breakfast bar where Silvio was assembling a Bushmaster with the casual grace of a seasoned warrior.

Franco padded to the fridge, found a stupidly large container of orange juice and poured himself a glass. Nothing like vitamin C to wake him up. Also, the stuff was near-unaffordable in Djibouti.

“An associate of Augusto’s owns a large tract of land not far from here. If you want to do some hunting and training, that’s the place to do it.”

“Anybody using it?”

Marino shook his head. “I took the liberty of having him tell his associate to stay off the land.”

Associate—lowest run in the mafia ladder. Just one of many small favors that might get that associate “made” one day. If he was lucky.

Or unlucky, depending on how you saw it.

“You can use the house, too. Not much more than a hunting cabin, but should be more comfortable than camping.”

“I like it,” Silvio announced. “What about the car?”

“The car should arrive at the location during the day. If you need any modifications done . . .”

Pul ing out some spare seats and sawing a hole into the back of a van—and camouflaging it—was Crafts 101. “I can do that.” Franco glanced at Marino, wondering how the man responded to being interrupted.

Marino merely shrugged, though, and lifted his hands. “I’ll leave that to the pros.”

Franco looked at the rifle, then to Silvio. “I’ll need some tools.”

“We’ll get the stuff.” Silvio offered him the rifle, but Franco shook his head. Plenty of time for that later, and no need to posture with them. He liked to familiarize himself with the tools of the trade when he was alone, just him and the real, non-negotiable facts of life and death.

“How many targets are we talking?”

“We’re at war, Franco.” Marino crossed his arms in front of his chest, but as usual, Franco’s eyes focused on the blemishes on his face, the discoloration under his eyes from the broken nose, the fading purple stains under the skin that spoke of a more savage reality than Marino’s businessman and golf club exterior suggested.

More real, more vulnerable, more mortal than he probably liked, but the suggestion of suffering and humiliation made him damn near irresistible.

“I don’t think we’re thinking the same numbers when we use the term ‘war,’” Franco said mildly.

Marino’s eyes widened for a moment, then he laughed. “Well, gang war. Not . . . your kind of war. Maybe a dozen in total. We’ve already weakened them considerably, but we need to take out their boss.”

“Prominent citizen?”

“Not a citizen at al . Russian immigrant.”

“That’s lucky. Can’t imagine the police being too keen on digging up why he was killed.”

“They’ll work out the pattern. I’m more concerned that they can’t build a case or get me under RICO.” Marino smiled wryly and looked Franco in the eye. “What are your plans after the hit?”

“Clean up, vanish, and leave no trace.” Like any other sniper.

Keep moving.

“He could stay with me,” Silvio said immediately.

Marino looked at Franco, and Franco could almost read the man’s thought:
That means you’ll work for me.
A shelf full of cans filled to the brim with worms. Despite Marino’s attractive looks and amiable

ways, he was still a wiseguy, and nothing good could come out of it.

Franco took the rifle and felt its solid weight, the frozen power in its stark utilitarian ugliness. He knew weapons, but he wasn’t good with people.

“We’ll see,” he said, feeding Silvio an easy line he couldn’t call out as a lie to help prepare him for the inevitable. Then he turned from Silvio, met Marino’s eyes. “Silvio and I will win that
war
of yours.”

You don’t know what a real war is.

He’d brush up Silvio’s rifle skills, and once he was satisfied that Silvio could just as easily have done the job on his own, he’d vanish, much like Silvio had vanished eight years ago. The other option was too complicated and too painful. He couldn’t live with his brother, couldn’t anchor him and couldn’t free him of all this, either. There was no bending Silvio’s will, and eventually Marino would notice.

Getting into bed with the boss’s lover was a recipe for disaster, even if Silvio had no qualms about it. Marino could never know.

Also by

Aleksandr Voinov

Dark Soul (Vol. 1) (Riptide Publishing) Dark Soul (Vol. 2) (Riptide Publishing) Break and Enter, with Rachel Haimowitz (Samhain Publishing) Counterpunch (Storm Moon Press)

Scorpion (Dreamspinner Press)

Dark Edge of Honor, with Rhianon Etzweiler (Carina Press) The Lion of Kent, with Kate Cotoner (Carina Press) For a full list, go to www.aleksandrvoinov.com/bookshelf.html About the Author

Aleksandr Voinov is an emigrant German author living near London, where he makes his living editing dodgy business English so it makes sense (and doesn’t melt anybody’s brain). He published five novels and many short stories in his native language, then switched to English and hasn’t looked back. His genres range from horror, science fiction, cyberpunk, and fantasy to contemporary, thriller, and historical erotic gay novels.

In his spare time, he goes weightlifting, explores historical sites, and meets other writers. He singlehandedly sustains three London bookstores with his ever-changing research projects and interests.