Run This Town 03 - (Watch Me) Unmask You (11 page)

Lucky gave him his fingers again. One at a time, and Elias took them with low curses and loud grunts, ass flexing, channel hot and needy, stuffed full of his cum, but still so Goddamn tight. He gripped Lucky, clamping down on him to hold him in place. As if Lucky could find the strength to leave. Fuck. Left hand at his lower back, he screwed him with those fingers.

Hard and punishing. Using that to communicate his need, his want and his fears. He laid it all out as he plunged the three fingers in then retreated only to slam in again. And Elias rode him, lifting up on his toes, slamming down on them, his pleasure rumbling in his throat and vibrating under Lucky’s palm.

Fucker was hungry.

Every time he slammed back on Lucky’s fingers they both winced and cried out, but Elias wasn’t stopping and fuck if Lucky was about to leave the heat of his ass. He kept finger-fucking him and when Elias rocked his hips, Lucky added the fourth and pushed it in.

“Fuck!” Elias shouted. His tremors turned violent then. But did he stop moving, riding it, taking it? No and Lucky didn’t stop. He worked those fingers in. Tightest fucking fit in his entire life. “Lucky. Fuck!”

“Got what you need, scarlet.” Lucky didn’t stop forcing those digits deeper. He wanted to see Elias come for him. Elias bucked, scrambling to keep hold of the table. “Beg me for it. Beg me,” he spoke through gritted teeth. He was 
thisfuckingclose
 to losing his shit and coming all over the floor again.

“Do it.” Elias reached back and pulled his cheeks apart. “Fuck, Lucky. Give it to me.”

Fucking invitation like that? Lucky accepted. He slammed the four fingers in. Elias shouted. Lucky rammed into him again and again.

“Yes. Yes. Jesus.” Elias was just saying shit that made no sense. That was a boost to the ego. Lucky reached in front, grabbed his cock, hard and hot and pounding like a fucking drum. He sawed in and out of Elias’s ass.

Shit. He wanted to taste him suddenly. Wanted to swallow Elias cock, choke on it, have him knocking on the back of his throat. Damn. He swallowed the pool of saliva in his mouth and moved, pulling his fingers away. Not fast enough because Elias made a sound of denial and shackled Lucky’s wrist.

“Don’t.” He looked over his shoulder at Lucky, eyes dark and brooding, color high in his cheeks and bite marks on his bottom lip. “Don’t stop.” He indicated with his eyes to where Lucky’s fingers were still inside him. Four fingers. Only thing missing was his thumb and he’d be wrist deep in Elias. “Keep going.”

Lucky’s eyes widened and something hot bloomed in his chest, spreading over his body in a rush of anger. He looked from where his fingers were crammed into Elias to the other man’s face. “You’ve had this,” he said as calmly as he could with his throat aching. “A fist. You’ve been fisted.”

Something must have given away his turbulent thoughts because Elias froze and pursed his lips. “Yes.” He nodded stiffly. “But it wasn’t—”

Lucky wrenched away, ignoring Elias’s wince as Lucky pulled his fingers free from his body. He stood and his jeans dropped to his ankles, his dick hanging out, fucking with his need to get to the other side of the room and away from Elias.

“Lucky.”

Lucky hauled up his pants and zipped, pacing to the other side of the room. He couldn’t think. He was shaking. Fucking anger and jealousy and just… he didn’t know what else. A jumble of shit that clouded his eyes. “Fuck. Fuck.” He wiped his clean hand over his face, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

“Look at me.”

Lucky took a deep breath and did just that. Elias remained at the table, but he had straightened. Naked from the waist down, he didn’t look ill at ease. He looked comfortable, save for the confused frown on his face.

“What’s going on, Lucky?” He shook his head and his long hair escaped the rubber band, falling to his shoulders in red waves.

Lucky didn’t really know what was going on. He just opened his mouth and, after two tries, attempted to explain the tightness in his chest. “Is it completely hypocritical of me to be fucking livid that you’ve experienced something so intimate with another human being?” He tore his gaze from Elias’s face and paced, talking rapidly. “I mean, I was just in a relationship with Chad.” Elias growled at Lucky’s ex’s name. “I did some fucked up shit with some fucked up people.” He could admit that. “But the thought of you trusting someone so much that you let them touch you in that way…” He rubbed his chest. “I want to find them and stomp them out, and I want to tattoo my name on your forehead so everybody knows you’re mine.”

“Lucky—”

He spun to face Elias. “I want to erase the memory of every fucking body who ever touched you. I want you untouched.” His voice rose and Goddamn it, he sounded unhinged, but he couldn’t help it. He couldn’t contain it. “I want you untouched.”

“Your touch is the only one that matters,” Elias said. Soft, but Lucky had no problem hearing it, and he had absolutely no problem disbelieving it.

He chuckled to hide the pain. “But that’s not true, is it? Because we don’t allow random fucks to shove their fists up our ass. It’s an act of trust, of vulnerability. And you had that with someone else.” He grabbed a fistful of his own hair, tugging on it to show his frustration. “Another person has seen you vulnerable and open. Another person knows just what it feels like to watch you surrender.” His voice cracked. “It was so fucking stupid of me to think I was special.”

“Don’t.” The word was a slap across the face. Sharp and affective. Elias strode over to him and clasped Lucky’s face in his hands. “Fuck that special shit. You’re my heart. My fucking life.”

But Lucky didn’t believe it. Elias saw it, too, because he pressed their foreheads together.

“I’ve been places and I’ve done things, Lucky. Others have gotten my body, but this,” he thumped his own chest, “this is surface shit. The façade. No one touches me where it matters.” He grabbed Lucky’s hand and brought it up to his chest, over his heart. The L. “No one touches this except you. This is the only vulnerability that matters, and you have the exclusive.”

Lucky bit his bottom lip, falling into Elias’s fierce eyes as his heart beat steadily under Lucky’s palm.

He wanted this, wanted to believe in all the promises blazing at him from Elias’s gorgeous eyes.

“I love you,” Elias spoke against his lips. “And no one in this world has ever gotten those three words from me. We’ve both had our share of life, different though it may be. We’ve been with other people.” Something dark flashed in his eyes. “I want to hurt anyone who’s ever touched you, Lucky. You must know that,” he murmured. “You must know that just hearing you mention that ex of yours sends me into bloodlust.” His fingers on Lucky’s face tightened. “I accept it, though, because I left and you wanted something I wasn’t around to provide.”

Was it the same for him? Had Elias wanted something that Lucky hadn’t been around to provide? Lucky took a step back. He cleared his throat. “We both have our past indiscretions.”

Elias nodded. “That we do.”

Like he’d get off that easy. Lucky grabbed a fistful of Elias’s hair and yanked him close. “I will fuck you again tonight, scarlet. Get you crawling again for me, my cock down your throat again. Because you look good like that. You look like you belong to me.”

Elias’s nostrils flared.

“Starting tonight—” He rubbed his cheeks over Elias’s jaw, snarling when Elias grabbed his ass and bucked into him. “I will be the last man you ever fuck.” He bent and bit Elias’s neck, hard and deep enough to make the other man cry out and shudder.

“Lucky!”

Lucky cupped him, squeezed his hard cock and roughly thumbed the wet head. “You were my first,” he murmured as he stroked Elias’s cock and pressed his own to the thigh Elias had shoved between his legs. “I will be your last, scarlet.” He kissed Elias, plunging his tongue inside his hot mouth as he fucked himself on that hard thigh against his balls. He tightened his hold on Elias’s shaft, pumped him twice and Elias was coming, grunting into Lucky’s mouth, hot cum spreading over Lucky’s hand and triggering his own release.

His knees buckled and he would’ve sunk to the floor if it wasn’t for Elias’s tight grip on his hip. They didn’t stop kissing. Lucky led all the way and Elias seemed all too willing to let Lucky put his stamp all over him. Hungry swipes of tongue, sharp bites and small nips. He sucked Elias tongue hard then finally pulled away when he needed to breathe.

But Lucky didn’t retreat far. He bit into Elias’s bottom lip, holding him there and staring into his eyes. This man. He wanted everything with this man.

“I want you,” Elias murmured when Lucky reluctantly released his lip. “I want to give you everything.”

“I want a relationship.” Lucky watched him closely. “Commitment.” He didn’t know if Elias could do that. The redhead didn’t strike him as the settle down type.

Elias lifted an eyebrow. “Do you think I don’t want those things, Lucky?” He shook his head. “I want them. I fucking crave them. You make me hungry for life. For love. For you.”

Well. “Okay.”

“Let me give you that.” Elias touched him, knuckles rubbing Lucky’s cheek. “Let me give us that.”

“Do you think you can?”

Elias grinned, a chilling sight that sent a shiver of something dark and frightening down Lucky’s spine. “I can and I will.” Lips against Lucky’s, he whispered, “For us, I will do that and more.”

Right Now…

“Nothing personal.”

The man on his knees, hands taped behind his back, mouth stuffed with his tie, didn’t seem appeased by Elias’s words. It was the truth, though. None of this was personal.

Pure business.

He shook, Mafer Contreras. Hell, his face and clothes looked windblown. A man facing his death. Elias didn’t look away from him as he crouched in front of the whimpering attorney in his home office.

“Whenever you’re ready to talk, I’m here.” He sat back on the floor, legs stretched out in front of him. Mafer’s red-rimmed eyes, wet with tears, went wide. “I mean, I don’t have all day, but I’m available to you for the next—” He checked the watch on his left wrist, a gift from his husband. “Half an hour.” Tearing his gaze away from the watch, Elias winked at Mafer. “Lots we can do in thirty minutes.”

“Mmm. Mmm.” Mafer strained to speak behind the tie in his mouth. Something fancy, purple label and everything, that tie. Now, it was just a very expensive gag, soaked through with Mafer’s spit and tears.

“Something you wish to share?” Elias leaned forward, head cocked. Waiting.

Mafer nodded, those sounds coming faster and faster, his body twitching as his eyes begged. Personally, Elias could go either way with the begging. Some days he liked it, others not so much.

Today he was in no mood to hear a grown man beg for his life. Getting up on his knees he circled Mafer and undid the tie. Immediately Mafer doubled over and threw up on his carpet. Elias sighed. He fisted the man’s hair and jerked his head back.

“Time’s running out for you,” he murmured. “Your family will be here in a few minutes, correct?” He smiled when Mafer stiffened. “I know you don’t want them to see me here.”

“No. Please. Whatever you want.”

Uh huh. Elias rolled his eyes. “I’ve been asking you for a name the past ten minutes, Mafer.” He shrugged. “That’s what I want.”

“Then you’ll leave me and my family alone?” Hope flared in Mafer’s eyes. Poor fool. Didn’t he know how this worked? He’d been using his position in the Brooklyn DA’s office to feed information to the very dangerous Nieto brothers out there in Culiacán in exchange for money and gifts.

One of the Nietos’ rivals had hired Elias. Mafer had to die, but first the rival wanted to know who else in the DA’s office was in on the racket with him.

“Name, Mafer.” Elias narrowed his eyes, arms crossed, and waited. He held Mafer’s gaze as the other man stared up at him, lips trembling. Elias never bothered hiding his face since whoever saw him never lived long after.

The sound of a vehicle pulling into his driveway made Mafer sit up straight. “Don’t hurt my family. Please.”

“That depends entirely on you.”

Mafer licked his lips. “Lloyd Williams.”

Elias lifted an eyebrow. “The assistant DA?” Damn.

Mafer nodded as a car door slammed.

“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Elias pulled his gun and squeezed it twice. Two bullets between Mafer’s eyes. The man’s body seized up then he rocked back and forth slightly before falling forward, body remaining hunched over.

Elias jumped up and yanked away the tape from around Mafer’s wrist, tucking it into his pocket. One glance around the room then he was out the bedroom window, climbing down the trellis and escaping into the neighbor’s yard. He flipped up the collar on his wool coat and pulled off his black gloves as he stepped over a blue kiddie pool and sidestepped the toys scattered in Mafer’s neighbor’s yard.

He pulled his phone from his pocket, his work phone, and dialed.

“Talk to me.”

“Got that name for you.”

“It’s done?”

Elias stood at the corner of the street at a red light, waiting to get to his car he’d parked a block over. “Of course.”

“The name?”

Elias repeated the name Mafer had given him.

“My thanks,” the man on the other end said.

“You know how to contact me in the future.” With their business concluded, Elias ended the call.

He drove home with single-minded focus, the drive from Brooklyn to Jersey, by way of Staten Island, moving at a snail’s pace. Lucky would be home by now from Scarlet Ink. He’d renamed the tattoo studio, branched out, done all of it while going back to school to get his MBA. Maddie would be home, too, from the nursery. Normally she stayed home with Elias, but on occasions like these when he had business to take care of, she went to the daycare center.

As he drew closer and closer to his home, to his family, Elias shed the skin he’d just worn, the persona he’d been wearing inside Mafer Contreras’s house. He became the man it was getting harder and harder to be.

Husband.

Father.

Not killer. No, never that. Because in Saddle River, in that house, he was everything but who he really was.

Killer.

In his driveway he sat for a few seconds, listening as the mechanical gate closed in around him, locking, protecting what was most precious to him.

He’d just killed a man.

He met his eyes in the rearview mirror then looked away, down at his hands. At his fingers as they gripped the steering wheel.

It was getting harder and harder to come back when he disappeared into the mind of the killer he was. Harder and harder to hold it in, to pretend. But he would. He must. Always. Pretend.

He got out of the car and walked up the steps and into the house. It was quiet. Lights on. He kicked off his shoes, shrugged out of the coat and put them away in the hall closet before going in search of Lucky. He found him in the kitchen, stacking dishes in the dishwasher.

Elias walked over, throat clogged with so many things, too many emotions, all of them a threat to him. He wrapped his hands around Lucky from behind, laid his head on his back. A threat to this.

“Hey.” Lucky tried to turn, to look at him, but Elias couldn’t look into his eyes right then so he held him fast. “How was the meeting?”

Meeting. Every time he went off to do what he was so good at, Elias lied to Lucky, told him he was off meeting a client for his security consulting business. The business he used as a cover for what he was really doing.

“Went okay,” he murmured into Lucky’s nape. “Maddie asleep?”

Lucky nodded. “Yeah.”

Elias turned him finally, until they were face and face. Lucky squinted up at him and brushed a lock of hair away from Elias’s face. Still so beautiful after all this time. Eyes just as captivating.

“Are you okay?” Lucky asked.

Not really. “Yeah.” Elias nodded. “Why?”

“You look… grave. Something happen?”

“The client was difficult,” Elias told him. That wasn’t a lie. “Made me work hard for the deal.”

“But you got it, right?” Lucky smiled up at him. Fucking trusting. Lucky trusted him, and Elias was pissing all over that. Every day. Every day for ten Goddamn years.

“I got it.” He always did, but at the steepest cost.

“Good.” Lucky kissed him, a quick press of his lips. “Pizza’s warming in the oven. You can eat while I shower, or you can forget that—” He stepped away, eyes twinkling. “And join me in getting wet.”

Elias cupped his face, brushing his thumb over Lucky’s jaw. “Go on, I’ll be there in a minute.” He watched as Lucky walked away then slumped against the kitchen counter. There was nothing he wouldn’t do to keep that sparkle in Lucky’s eyes, to keep that smile on his face.

Nothing.

He checked his phone, finally playing the voicemail message he’d been ignoring. The one Stavros had left a day ago.

“Elias.”
 His ex’s voice grated on Elias’s nerve, a reminder of just how much Elias was deceiving Lucky. 
“You’ve been ignoring me. I don’t like it. I’ve got a job for you. Let’s meet.”

In addition to making Elias kill for his family business, Stavros had taken to pimping him out, selling his skills to the highest buyer. Sometimes Elias could say no and sometimes, he didn’t even bother. It was what he did, wasn’t it? What he was fucking good at?

He’d built up a sort of client base on his own, even had a bit of a reputation if you listened in on the right conversation in the right circles. He made obscene money doing exactly what he’d sworn he’d never do, turning into the very people he’d promised himself he’d never become.

And what did it all mean to the man showering upstairs? The little girl sleeping upstairs?

He’d known it would be difficult, living this way. He’d accepted that, but it was way more than he’d anticipated. He’d measured the lies and deception against the definite danger Stavros and his father posed, and deemed it acceptable. But it wasn’t. Would never be.

They lived quietly, had long before they decided to try at having a baby. Lucky handled his tattoo studios, managing them, hiring people to staff them, opening new branches. They had a very small circle of friends, namely Lucky’s people at work. His friend Pia was his assistant, and Maddie’s Godmother. Elias couldn’t lower his guard to trust too many people. He stayed home, running the small private security firm from home.

Three years ago he’d pledged to love Lucky, to be honest and faithful to him in a small courthouse in New York. A reserved affair in keeping with who they were. It had taken him six months to convince Lucky to move into the house Elias had bought for them. Years to convince Lucky he was in it for the long haul. They’d sold the Mousasi family home and put that money in a trust for Maddie.

Yet, every morning it surprised Elias that his world hadn’t come crashing down on him while he slept.

He was in no mood to speak to Stavros so Elias sent him a text to meet the next day. Then he took a deep breath and went upstairs. He stopped at Maddie’s bedroom first, went in and just stood staring down at her.

She’d come into their lives nearly a year ago. Their daughter through a surrogate. The journey had been interesting, scary and enlightening in a way Elias had never imagined. The money he made doing what he did, he put it to good use. Getting them their daughter. She was the most frighteningly perfect thing he’d ever seen. This little girl who depended on him, who expected everything from him.

To keep her safe he’d journey to hell and back every minute of every day.

He reached out to touch her then froze, hand mere inches away. His hands, covered in blood only he could see. He curled his fingers into his palm, head bowed, and brushed her delicate head with his knuckles.

His Maddie.

Sometimes she made it bearable. The deceit.

Before the emotion could overwhelm him, he spun away and exited via the door connecting to the master suite. In his and Lucky’s bedroom, he undressed and followed the sound of running water, joining Lucky in the shower.

Lucky stood with his back to Elias, water sluicing over and down his body. Elias crowded him, pressing his body to Lucky’s wet skin. Lucky hummed for him then turned and yanked him directly under the water. They came together, kissing, moaning, hands caressing.

All things he’d done a million and one times over the years. Nothing he took for granted. Everything he appreciated, everything he depended on to keep going, fighting, living. He gave himself over, so fucking freely to Lucky, his hands roaming, teeth biting, fingers clutching at Elias. His body bucking, straining, sliding, pushing Elias into the cold shower wall. Then those fingers were dipping in, plunging deep, stretching, making room for Lucky’s cock to enter him, center him, master him.

The sound of the shower muffled his cries, the water dripping from his hair down into his face hid the penance falling from his eyes, and Lucky’s claiming thrusts kept Elias pinned where he was, unable to look away from his hands spread on the slippery tiles.

His killing hands.

Lucky’s mouth was on his ear, his panting breath hot and bringing shivers. His fingers pinched into Elias’s flesh. A tangible reminder of where he belonged. And to whom. He threw his head back, letting it fall onto Lucky’s shoulder and let himself accept it, this love. Let himself deserve it, just once more. Let himself be worthy of it, even now.

Lucky spoke, words Elias could barely decipher because he was melting, body turning into hot fucking liquid as he combusted, a mostly quiet orgasm that scrambled his brain and had him struggling to retain his footing. Lucky clung to him, still using Elias, still driving into his body, teeth in his nape as he spilled, cum searing, marking, claiming.

****

Later, Elias swam through the blood drenching his dreams, panting, gasping, fighting to breathe. Men begged for their lives, their voices blending together and providing the soundtrack to his nightmares.

“Fuck.” Someone touched him, his face. “Elias, wake up!”

He blinked into the darkness, the red haze falling from his eyes. He came back to himself and found horror. His hand was around Lucky’s throat, and his husband was gasping, struggling to free himself.

“Lucky. Oh God.” Elias flung himself away from Lucky, from the fear and questions in Lucky’s eyes. “Sorry. So sorry.” Everything. He was sorry for everything. He backed away from the bed, from the man staring at him as if he didn’t know him. “I have to—”