Money was just the beginning. Pulling off a heist without leaving a trace, without a single shred of evidence, that was just to give the OCPD, the public, and any competing Elementals a taste of the new blood in town. The real goal was much bigger.
Thanatos had gone about things all wrong. If only he’d been able to show him.
The mob families had been thinned out, their neighborhoods left in shambles, and only a meager ten blocks belonged to Prometheus and his Titans. Taking over the city in its current state would be a breeze once enough cash was collected, enough targets were hit, and it became clear to the police, to Prometheus, and especially to Zeus just who had the power and how things were going to go down from now on.
No alarms were tripped as room by room in Virgil Labs was infiltrated. The cameras wouldn’t catch anything either other than a flicker before they went dark. The desired loot would simply appear to have vanished. It would be as if everything that was stolen had evaporated, and no one would know how or why until he made his entrance.
It was time for Olympus to witness the rise of Hades.
Chapter 5
Mal had enough Thai food to feed his entire team, which would hopefully be enough to feed Danny. Nothing if not a gracious, accommodating host, while Mal didn’t know the ins and outs of Danny’s powers as much as he wished he did, having a healing factor was difficult to hide, and Elementals with accelerated healing were known to use up energy faster than anyone on the planet. Danny would have a healthy appetite.
Closing the door to his third floor apartment with the takeout bag over his arm, the one luxury—well, one of many luxuries—Mal allowed himself was that his home was technically two apartments, extending to both the third and fourth floors of the building, giving him lofted ceilings and a bedroom up an open flight of stairs. He had few windows, if only for privacy’s sake and to be more practical, the largest being in the bedroom, which looked out over the skyline of Olympus City.
Some nights, when Mal wasn’t out on the streets himself, the sight of a certain flash of yellow lightning made him smirk as he settled into bed and occasionally let his mind and hands wander.
Tonight his hands could finally grasp the untouchable.
Setting the takeout on the kitchen island, the long countertop faced the living room from his open floor plan. Mal liked space, an openness that allowed him to breathe and see every corner clearly. His furniture was mostly trimmed in wood accents, oak, not too light or dark. The sofa was large and firm, not overly plush, in navy microsuede. From the walls hung a few paintings, a few photographs, some worth more than five times his rent, others worth very little, but nothing that had been stolen could ever be proven as stolen.
His favorite was a Mapplethorpe nude—Thomas, 1987. Like the god Apollo, all strength and beauty in the male form, twisted within a circular frame. Black and white. Unapologetic, like all of Mapplethorpe’s work. Most people would assume it was a print. They’d never guess it was the original and that a print had replaced the real thing when Mal acquired it. His few more personal photographs were kept in the bedroom.
Having sent his trench coat to the cleaners after Danny spilled coffee on it, Mal had replaced the jacket with a wool coat from his safe house, which he removed and hung in the closet near the door. His jacket and tie had been ditched earlier, but now he untucked his shirt as well, the first two buttons already undone. With his shoes placed on the rug in front of the closet, he was the picture of leisure confidence.
Everything around the apartment was in order, nothing needed to be tidied. But Mal felt uncharacteristically tense. Anxious to do something. Nervous.
It had been a while, but he knew how to please a lover. Maybe he was nervous about letting Danny into his home. It was a gamble, but Danny’s good nature always won out. He wouldn’t use this against Mal, not without mutual benefit. Danny didn’t have it in him to set up some grand trap. He was more likely to suspect Mal had a double-cross prepared. Best to keep his Prometheus gear out of sight.
Mal had a hidden room, nothing too cartoon villainous, just a seamless section of the wall that only he knew the exact location of to open up with a strategic press of his palm, and therein rested his gear—dark-lensed goggles; black, high-collared bodysuit; long, sleeveless duster. Everything accounted for, so nothing was at risk of being discovered in the open.
Closing the room again, Mal moved into the living room to wait. This was a bad idea. A terrible, dangerous idea. But when it inevitably turned disastrous, he still had a few cards to play to keep Danny in line.
A knock sounded at the door, stopping Mal in his step. Ten minutes early. Interesting.
Like an actor with jitters before an opening performance, Mal was calm and grinning and on the moment he opened his door for the show to begin.
The same teasing, heated expression he’d stared back at in shock at the coffee shop rested on Danny’s face. He’d forgone the sweater and blazer from work and replaced them with a white T-shirt, tan bomber jacket, and jeans.
“Danny.”
“Hey.” Danny flicked his tongue over his lips.
“Come in. Shoes off at the door.” Standing back to grant Danny entrance, Mal nodded at the rug. He hadn’t chosen hardwood floors to see them scuffed.
“Of course you’re a neat freak,” Danny said with a touch of derision, but he complied, heeling off his shoes and setting them next to Mal’s on the rug. “Is this your—wow,” and then he looked up, really looked and took a step further into the apartment.
Hands falling limp at his sides, he scanned every wall and surface in utter wonder. Mal noticed Danny’s gaze linger on the black and white nude—good taste, or maybe curiosity—before he whirled around to face him.
“Is this your actual home? Where you live?”
“One of several locations where I eat, sleep, and spend my time,” Mal answered, purposely cryptic. “Problem?”
Danny laughed, letting some of his usual jitteriness peek through his bravado as he averted his gaze. Rubbing the back of his neck like a nervous tick, needing to do something with his hands, he eyed Mal from head to toe. “Not at all. Never seen you so casual before.”
“We are on my turf, Sparky. Why, you hoping for a three-piece suit?”
“Maybe. Suits look good on you.”
“Well then. Next time I pull a heist, I’ll wear one. See if I can trip you up.”
Danny laughed again, more openly this time, and what tension had been clinging to his shoulders fell away. Ice broken. Mal was good at that.
“Hungry?” He gestured behind him at the Thai food on the counter, but when he turned around, the crack of lightning and rush of air was instant.
Mal’s breath escaped his lungs with a gasp, and when he blinked, he found himself staring out at his living room instead of facing the counter, his back pressed tight to the refrigerator as Danny pinned him. He’d turned his back on his enemy. Sloppy.
Instinct prompted a coating of ice to form over his hands, but Danny’s words made him pause.
“I didn’t come here for a date,” he whispered hot against Mal’s lips, all in his space, daring him to resist or fight back.
The show of power was an immediate turn on now that Mal saw no threat was involved. He let his ice start to recede, and the heat in Danny’s eyes was more than enough to keep it melted.
“If you feel like eating something,” Danny said, “maybe you should get on your knees.”
Mal shuddered and bit back a curse the moment he felt the tremor travel through him. He wanted to instill that sort of reaction in Danny. Danny had taken the lead that morning, but Mal had still expected he’d be the one calling the shots once things got serious. This was a whole other side to Zeus.
Leaning forward to capture the full, parted lips before him, Mal was surprised that Danny flinched back. A shimmer of indecision rippled across his feature
s, and Mal feared this would all end before it began. But then Danny’s confidence returned—the desire in his eyes, the firm set to his jaw as he bit his lip, leaving it reddened and begging to be sucked in between Mal’s teeth.
Smiling coyly, Danny backed away, holding Mal by the scruff of his shirt. He tugged him away from the fridge and led them out of the kitchen toward the sofa, one hand tangled in Mal’s shirt all the way there, even when he turned forward to move past the coffee table and sat in the center cushion. Still gripping the dark blue fabric, Danny toppled Mal forward with a swift yank.
Mal spread his legs, straddling Danny’s waist to accommodate, and fit snug and secure in Danny’s lap. While Danny had denied him a kiss moments before, now he initiated it, and Mal let him, let Danny grasp his neck and pull him down until they met heatedly in the middle.
Soft lips, wet tongue, the restrained pull of teeth. Danny licked his way in deeper and Mal shuddered down to his toes—damn, this kid. He felt so good between Mal’s thighs, face beneath his palms, as Mal’s thumbs stroked his fine, smooth cheekbones.
Mal had expected at least one drink. Maybe dinner. Some attempt of Danny’s to tell him about his day. He didn’t think Sparky had it in him to request a booty call and actually deliver. Mal had never so thoroughly enjoyed being proven wrong.
Danny’s left arm snaked around his waist, found the hem of his untucked shirt, and pushed up underneath it. Wincing at the contact of skin, Mal fought the instinctive reaction down. Not tonight. He wanted to enjoy this, without the hang-ups, without the revulsion that sometimes coiled in his gut. With the right partner, doing enough to make him feel good, Mal could forget that there was ever a time in his life when no touch to his body had been done in tenderness.
He focused on Danny’s warm skin, on the tangle of his tongue, on the feel of him growing hard in his jeans beneath Mal’s weight. The blood rushed from his brain southward, and the din of disquiet drained away as well. Danny was going to feel so good…
Bucking up into Mal as if to stress that point, Danny gasped from the kiss, hot and noisy against the side of Mal’s mouth. Tongue darting out, Mal kissed his way along Danny’s jaw in response, kissed his neck, sucked on the skin there hard and eager, and ground his hips down into Danny at the same time.
“Yeah, yeah…” Danny huffed, sending another tremor to flutter low in Mal’s belly.
Clawing at the back of Mal’s head, Danny urged him to pull away, only to drag him back to his lips as soon as their eyes met in a brief dance of dilating pupils. More teeth. More tongue. Deeper. Deeper. The grip of Danny’s hand at Mal’s head, the other clutching the skin of his hip and dragging nails into the waistband of his slacks—it was rough, demanding, but not painful, not violent. It grounded Mal how Danny held back even while, for the wayward hero, this had to be as out of control as he ever got.
Dropping his hands to the collar of Danny’s jacket, Mal pushed it from his shoulders. Danny wouldn’t release his hold on Mal, so the jacket caught at his elbows and Mal reached for his jeans instead. As soon as his fingers brushed the skin of Danny’s stomach, the hand at Mal’s head and the other dipping low along his backside started to spark with a tingle of electricity.
Mal startled. It should have hurt, should have shocked him like a jolt of static on a cold, dry day—he’d felt Danny’s lightning offensively before, and it was not a pleasant experience—but this was different.
Automatic reactions out of self-defense or eruptions from extreme emotion were one thing, but usually only children who’d just Awakened had trouble controlling their abilities. Though, to be fair, Danny had been an Elemental for only a year. Mal never would have allowed his powers to get out of hand like that, but even as he thought the reprimand, his ice seemed to stir in response, wanting to creep over his skin like frost and seek Danny’s lightning out.
Fighting to hold his ice at bay, he was still intoxicated by the tingling sensation from Danny.
“Sorry!” Danny jerked away once he realized what was happening and reined his sparks back in.
“No,” Mal said, already missing the strange, enthralling buzz. “Do it again.”
Danny’s puzzled expression made him look so young as he stared back at Mal, but when those words caught up to him, he grinned.
Kissing Mal hard, one hand slid to his neck while the other squeezed his ass with heady possessiveness. The sparks began again, tingling across Mal’s skin. Too much would likely still hurt, but feeling Danny’s power in the touch of his hands spurred Mal on, and he rocked into the body beneath him like it was his first time and every moment counted.
“Wait…” Danny said, keeping out of range from Mal meeting his mouth again. Too close to focus on more than the hooded look in each other’s eyes, Danny said it again, “Wait,” but not like he wanted to stop—not at all like he wanted to stop. He slid his cheek beside Mal’s and whispered like he had in Pronto that morning. “Slower.”
Mal shivered. He never, not for one moment, would have imagined that that of all things would be the hottest word to ever pass Danny’s lips.
Obeying, how could he not, Mal slowed the rhythm of his hips and rolled them instead at a torturous, teasing pace. His slacks and Danny’s denim created too much of a barrier, not nearly enough friction. It was awful. It was wonderful.
Danny’s hands maintained a mild buzz of electricity. “You know…your face would look real pretty between my thighs.”
Fuck, Mal could not process this—this Danny. He stared at him dumbfounded.
Gently, Danny pushed at Mal to urge him to the floor. “Turnabout’s fair play, right?”
“Does that mean when I’m through with you, you’ll…turn about?”
“Give me a reason to.”
Mal almost wondered if this was an imposter, but he knew Danny too well. “I am enjoying this side of you, Sparky,” he said and stole one more brief, slow kiss while he rolled his hips to match Danny’s unhurried tempo. Then he shifted his legs to lower himself to the floor, tucked in between Danny’s thighs. He finished drawing down the zipper.
Danny never took his eyes off of him. There was an edge of darkness in that gaze, and it was beautiful. Cupping Mal’s face, Danny brushed a thumb over his bottom lip. “Imagine all the other sides of me you’ll get to see.”
ß
Danny was wired, thrumming, hadn’t felt so free and alive in months. This was the best idea he’d had since he first put on the cowl.
Cho fell to his whims so readily, Danny almost couldn’t believe it. Feigning confidence made him feel like he had it. Cho certainly seemed to believe he did. Danny had already reduced the man to a quivering mess several times over.
Maybe it was the power Danny possessed—a show of lightning, of the sparks that danced about his skin when he lost control. Danny hadn’t meant to start sparking. He’d certainly never done anything like that with Vanessa. Maybe it was an Elemental thing, his powers reacting to Cho’s. The response felt so natural, Danny was relieved he didn’t have to hold it in, not when Cho seemed so enamored by it.
He really was gorgeous as he opened Danny’s jeans and urged him to lift his hips. Down came the denim. Danny’s boxer briefs were soaked through in the front. Cho’s tongue flicked out, and he brushed his fingers with only the barest pressure along the stain, feeling the contours of Danny through his underwear.
Danny’s sparking got away from him for a moment, and a tiny lightning bolt zigzagged up his body. Relaxing into the feeling, he let the pulse thrum through him, communing with his element in ways he never had before. He never knew being with another Elemental could feel like this and wondered what Cho’s ice could do to him.
Slower, with more care, down came his underwear.
Slamming Cho against the fridge, pulling him onto his lap, taking every ounce of control between them—it made each moment worth it, being with someone who looked pretty, talked
smooth, commanded attention, but who Danny ultimately despised.
He’d never had Cho so powerless before. This was what he wanted, what he needed to glue together his cracked and broken pieces, just one aspect of his life where he had all the power, where only he knew how everything would end.
This was Cho’s home. Manipulating his way into Cho’s heart would be just as easy.
If the man’s face was pretty, then his hands—damn. They were art, as much as that sensuous photograph on the wall. They fluttered long and expressive around Danny’s length, settling into a firm hold.
No one had touched Danny in months. His short list of anyone who’d touched him was dismal. Not that he’d ever wanted a long list of conquests, but he could count them all on one hand and still have an extra finger left.
Well. Not anymore.
With Danny’s jeans and underwear at his ankles, knees parted to let Cho in, Danny couldn’t tear his eyes away. One of Cho’s hands had a hold of him, the other braced on his thigh. Danny’s jacket was still caught at his elbows. Shimmying his arms free, he reached forward for the side of Cho’s face, slid his fingers into the silky black hair up to the crown of his head, and pulled him closer.
“So impatient,” Cho snickered and descended of his own accord.
Spreading his legs wider, Danny watched with rapt attention as Cho’s lips parted, as he held Danny firm and—
“Fuck.” Danny had to drop his head back into the cushions at the slick, smooth heat as it enveloped him.
Nails scratching along Cho’s scalp through his long, dark hair, Danny didn’t hold him in place, just kept contact and urged him on with the desperate curl of his fingers. He let his mind go blank and watched the slow slide between Cho’s lips.
It had been so long. He was going to finish soon. Too soon…
Then his phone erupted from his jacket pocket with the theme from Firefly.
Shit. Andre.
“They can wait thirty seconds,” Cho husked out before he hastened his pace.
Lovesick Gods Page 6