by Cindy Dees
“Jesus! You just broke steel!”
Sebastian grinned. “Sorry to disappoint you, but that’s a breakaway key. Designed to jam locks.”
“Vandal,” Zane retorted. “Up or down?”
“Down.”
They raced two levels down, and Sebastian scanned the space. The garage was silent. Etienne had reversed direction on the last floor and would now be heading back up to street level and out another exit, where he would try to lead their tails away from here.
Moving cautiously now, Sebastian eased into the garage. Crouching and using parked cars for cover, he led Zane over to an elevator and punched the Up button. Sebastian pulled his service pistol from its holster and held it ready as the doors slid open.
Empty. Exhaling hard, he slipped inside with Zane. Using a fireman’s key to override the normal commands, he closed the door and sent it directly to the tenth floor of the building without stopping. While the car rose, he jumped up and bumped a ceiling tile out of place. He jumped again, yanking it down.
“I knew you were a commando, but I didn’t know you were a secret agent too,” Zane commented.
“I’m a man of many talents.”
“Say that to me in bed. I dare you.”
Sebastian’s gaze snapped to Zane’s. An urge to press him back against the wall, kiss him senseless, and then have his wicked way with Zane roared through him. From between clenched teeth, he muttered, “Don’t distract me.”
Zane subsided but looked well satisfied with himself.
When they got to the tenth floor, Sebastian jammed the tile between the elevator doors so they wouldn’t fully close, disabling the car.
“Hurry,” he urged Zane in a low voice.
“Where the hell are we?”
“One of my buildings that’s under renovation.” He added, “I hope you’re not afraid of heights.”
“Why?”
“Follow me.” He led Zane through the construction debris of the unfinished floor to a sky bridge that was also unfinished. “The subfloor is laid, but there’s been a delay getting the glass panels for the wall delivered. Hang on to the guide railing, move quickly, and don’t look down. Stay on my heels. Got it?”
“Umm, okay.”
Sebastian paused to scan the scantily lit street outside and saw no movement. At this time of night, the city was as asleep as it ever got. Walking fast, he crossed the sky bridge in the dark. Taking his own advice, he avoided looking down between the gaps in the plywood boards laid flimsily over the sky bridge’s steel frame. There was one tense moment when a gust of wind hit them, buffeting him badly. He could only pray Zane wasn’t knocked off his feet behind him. He pressed on grimly. They couldn’t stop out here, exposed and vulnerable, ten stories above the ground.
They reached the vestibule at the far end of the sky bridge, and Sebastian punched in a number code on a lock pad. The door opened to reveal a long hallway. He hurried to the stairwell and climbed three stories with Zane on his heels. He used another number pad to open a locked, unmarked door and let Zane out into an unfinished floor in the second building. The space was wide-open, with steel poles at intervals, dangling electrical conduits, and exposed ventilation ducts.
On the far side of the room, what looked like a giant box, perhaps thirty feet square, filled a corner.
“What is this place?” Zane asked.
“Thirteenth floor. It doesn’t exist.”
“Excuse me?”
Sebastian explained, “This building doesn’t officially have a thirteenth floor. The elevator goes from twelve to fourteen, and the windows are arranged so the building appears to have one less floor than it actually does.”
“Do you own this building too?”
“No. But I renovated it and sold condos in it a few years back. I still own this floor. It makes for a decent safe house because I have the only elevator keys that will open the doors onto this floor. In fact, this entire floor doesn’t exist on any but a few obscure architectural plans conveniently buried deep in the bowels of City Hall.”
Zane strolled around in the dim light seeping in through the tinted windows. “How are we supposed to eat or use the facilities?”
Sebastian grinned. “Come with me.”
He led Zane over to the box, more specifically to the steel door on the far side of it. He opened a complicated sequence of locks and identifications that were as close to undecryptable as were available today.
He tugged on the heavy steel door and it swung open ponderously. “Step into my parlor, said the spider to the fly,” he misquoted.
Zane passed him, and as he did so, motion-activated lights illuminated the interior of the safe room. Or safe apartment, as the case might be.
Sebastian gave him the nickel tour of the one-room space, which took about ten seconds. “Bathroom is over in that corner behind the partition. Kitchenette is behind you, along with a pantry of nonperishable foods. I had Etienne stock the place with some fresh foods earlier today, in case we had to hide out here. That stuff will be in the refrigerator.”
Zane stood in the middle of the space and turned in a slow circle, taking in the sofa, flat-screen TV, desk, dual-screen computer, and bed. “You’ve thought of everything for riding out the apocalypse in comfort, it seems. Why on earth do you even have a place like this? Are you one of those doomsday prepper guys?”
“I’m not worried about doomsday, but call me a pessimist.” He shrugged. “I do like to be prepared for contingencies, however.”
“Well, hell,” Zane declared. “All we need is a gaming console to hook to the television, and we’ll be set for life.”
Sebastian grunted. “Sorry. No games in here.”
“I’m deeply grateful that you take these kinds of precautions, regardless of the deep-held paranoia they suggest.”
“I’m not paranoid!”
Zane stepped close to him and pressed his fingers against Sebastian’s lips. “No worries. I like you the way you are. And we can make up our own games to pass the time. It’s perfect.”
Games? What games?
Chapter Thirteen
AFTER THE steel door closed and faint pressure on his eardrums announced that they were sealed into the panic room, Sebastian placed a quick phone call on a landline to report to Etienne that they were safe. Apparently the maneuver to dive into the parking garage had successfully thrown off their tails as well. Etienne was currently on his way back to his place and, no doubt, whatever woman du jour was at his apartment waiting for him.
Zane waited until Sebastian had hung up the old-fashioned wall-mounted phone to ask, “So, we’re safe in here? Nobody knows where we are?”
“Correct,” Sebastian answered.
“And the plan is for us to spend the rest of the night here, undisturbed?”
“Yes,” Sebastian answered a little less certainly. “Why do you ask?”
Ahh, he did so enjoy stringing Sebastian along. It was good for the man to get nervous now and then. He was entirely too self-assured for his own good. It made for an ego that tended to run away with itself.
“I’m hungry,” Zane announced. “Let’s see what Etienne brought us.”
He moved over to the tiny kitchen in the corner and spied a picnic basket sitting on the counter. Gotta love the Frenchman’s style. He opened the picnic basket and peeked inside.
God bless Etienne. Like any self-respecting Frenchman, he’d included a bottle of wine with the salami, cheese, assorted fruits, croissants, and pastries. Zane fished around in a drawer and found a corkscrew—of course. Every properly stocked panic room came with one of those.
The cabinets yielded a pair of wineglasses. During his search for those, Zane found a couple of pillar candles and a box of matches as well. While they were probably meant for a power outage, they would lend the picnic a romantic ambience, and he grabbed them too.
He carried everything over to the coffee table in front of the couch, efficiently popped the cork on the wine bottle, and poured a rich
red burgundy vintage into the glasses. Damn, Etienne had fine taste in wine.
“Since we’re safely tucked in for the night, can I convince you to take off your gun and have a glass of wine with me, Sebastian?”
“You can, and I will, thank you.”
Zane unapologetically watched Sebastian shrug out of his suit jacket and pull a sinister-looking pistol out of the leather holster strapped across his chest. Truth be told, he nearly hyperventilated at the sexy sight of those broad shoulders, starched shirt, and well-worn leather. It was all so damned masculine.
Who would have guessed that a macho military type could be so wildly attractive to him… and actually be attracted back? He just wanted to wrap himself around all that yummy brawn and feel safe and protected for once in his life.
He had barely finished lighting the candles when Sebastian said, “Computer, dim the lights to ten percent.”
Zane rolled his eyes. “Of course you have a completely automated safe house.”
Sebastian grinned. “I like my tech toys.”
Zane waggled his eyebrows. “Toys, huh? Duly noted.”
Sebastian snorted. “Perv.”
“What? Are you saying you don’t like toys?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
Zane stared. “Just how repressed are you, dude?”
Sebastian scowled. “I’m not repressed!”
“Sounds like it to me. Have you ever had a threesome? Gotten tied up or tied someone up? Dressed in a costume of any kind? Role-played?”
“No. But that doesn’t make me repressed. That makes me private.”
“I dunno. You sound severely uptight to me. I think we need to loosen you up a little.”
To that end, Zane picked up his glass and gave it a swirl. He sniffed… oh, my. He sipped, smiled, and sniffed again. “Holy wine country, that’s a smooth vintage. Are you a fan of fine wine, Mr. Gigoni?”
“I am. You?”
“When I can afford it. Unfortunately, my tastes usually run ahead of my wallet.”
Sebastian shrugged. “I thought it all tasted like vinegar until I discovered the good stuff. Only way I can drink wine is to drink expensively. Even then, I only sip at it. Side effect of having an alcoholic parent; I’m not a fan of getting drunk.”
“Or of losing control?”
“Correct.
“Fine. Then we’ll just sip at this magnificent wine together,” Zane replied.
Sebastian’s eyes lit with gratitude and maybe even a little newfound respect. “Are you seducing me?”
“By keeping you sober?” Zane asked humorously.
“I guess so.” He waited for Sebastian to protest, or to get up and leave their impromptu picnic, but instead, the man very deliberately and slowly picked up his wineglass and took a long sip from it.
Zane grinned. He bloody well knew an invitation when he saw one. “Well, then, Mr. Directness, what do I have to do to get you to play along with me?”
“I’m already playing along with you.”
Zane rolled his eyes. “I’m talking about you getting in bed. Naked. Doing dirty things to each other. Expanding your experience and making you a little less uptight.”
Sebastian didn’t move a single muscle, but his pupils dilated hard and fast. Ha. He wasn’t as immune to Zane’s suggestions as he was trying to pretend.
“What kinds of dirty things?” Sebastian finally mumbled.
Zane shrugged. “Depends on what you like. Are you a vanilla pudding kind of guy, or do you like to live on the wild side?”
“I’d say it’s pretty wild to be gay, wouldn’t you?”
“Maybe where you come from. It’s not such a big deal here.”
“Lucky,” Sebastian retorted.
“The good news is it’s the twenty-first century, and we’re in a nice, forward-thinking city where very few people care who anybody else sleeps with.”
They toasted to that, and he emptied the last of the bottle into Sebastian’s glass.
Inside the reinforced walls of the safe room, the silence around them was profound, sinking deep inside him. Zane rarely slowed down enough to experience such stillness, and he stared into the steady flame of the candle, the moment mesmerizing him. It was actually kind of magical. He murmured wonderingly, “I feel alone.”
“I’m here with you,” Sebastian replied, sounding surprised.
“I get that. I mean, I’ve lived in big cities most of my life, and I’m always aware of being surrounded by crowds of people. For once, I feel completely isolated. As if we’ve stepped out of the city into a private world all our own.”
Sebastian nodded slowly. “It does feel that way a little.”
Zane reached out and laid his hand on Sebastian’s shoulder. “Do you mind if I put my hand here? I feel a need to be connected to someone else.”
“Go ahead.” Sebastian’s shoulder muscle bunched into a mass of hard knots.
“Are you always so tense?” Zane asked.
Sebastian shrugged, but the movement did nothing to relieve the terrible tension beneath Zane’s fingers. “Turn away from me,” Zane ordered.
Sebastian complied, and Zane gave him a shoulder massage, taking his time, gradually working his way toward Sebastian’s neck, kneading gently at first and then deepening the massage, digging his thumbs into the thick muscles, working out the kinks one by one.
At last, Sebastian groaned and his head fell forward, a reluctant release of the held tension.
“Better,” Zane murmured.
He massaged his way up Sebastian’s neck to his hairline and then down the center of his spine to his shoulder blades through the fine cotton of his shirt. The man really did have a gorgeous physique. A photographer would have a ball capturing all the bumps and curves of his musculature. He could see the images now. Black-and-white photos, extreme lighting angles, all the shapes of Sebastian’s muscles cast in light and shadow.
“If you ever get tired of modeling, you should take up being a masseur.”
Zane chuckled. “I’ll keep that in mind. If you’ll take off your shirt, I’ll work on the rest of your back. It’s a mess, my dude. You’re all knots and kinks.”
Sebastian shrugged out of his empty gun holster and shirt, his back still to Zane, who gulped at the sight of all those acres of ridged muscle—much better than the mental imagery he had a moment ago. The power he would have as a lover… yowza. His breathing accelerated until he felt a little light-headed. Or maybe that was just the wine hitting him.
“Have you got some kind of oil in here?” he asked. “Something to keep me from making your skin mad?”
“No idea. I didn’t stock the joint. A disaster expert did.”
“Back in a minute.” Zane poked around and found a jar of coconut oil in the kitchen cabinet. Perfect. “It’s about to smell like a beach in here.”
“I like beaches,” Sebastian murmured.
“You wanna lie down so I can do this right?”
Without answering aloud, Sebastian moved across the room to the big, Sebastian-sized bed and stretched out on his stomach. His frame sprawled across much of the king-sized mattress, reminding Zane of just how large a man Sebastian was. He scooped out a small blob of the congealed coconut oil and rubbed it between his palms. It melted in seconds, and hesitantly, he laid his oiled palms on Sebastian’s back.
The scent of coconut rose around them. He could almost feel a salt breeze on his face, and it was no stretch to imagine palm fronds fluttering in a breeze and the rolling rumble of the ocean. Starting at Sebastian’s neck where he’d left off, Zane massaged his way slowly down Sebastian’s torso, kneading away the stress and tension. And at the same time, his own tension drained away. The concentration of the moment was simple and complete, and he relished being in it. He worked his way down each of Sebastian’s arms, all the way to the fingertips. Then he took another slow journey up Sebastian’s spine to his scalp.
His almost zen state was only interrupted when Sebastian groaned in pleasur
e and said, “I don’t know if it’s just you or the wine and you, but I haven’t felt this good in a long time.”
Zane murmured, “I’ve only gotten to about half your body. Think how great you’d feel if I massaged your legs.”
“Go for it.” Sebastian started to sit up, but Zane pushed him back down.
“Relax. I’ll get your pants for you.”
He plunged his hands under Sebastian’s stomach to unbuckle his belt and unzip his fly. As tempting as it was to cop a feel while his hands were so close to Sebastian’s privates, he refrained. Instead, he slowly stripped the wool fabric off Sebastian’s hips, hooking the silk boxer shorts at the same time. He pushed the clothing down over ripe buttocks and slipped the pants down Sebastian’s powerful thighs. He stopped when the pants and boxers tangled around Sebastian’s ankles.
“Need me to kick them free?” Sebastian asked.
“Nope. I want your pants right there.” Zane shoved Sebastian’s knees apart and knelt on the tangled fabric, effectively turning the pants into ankle bindings and pinning Sebastian in place.
Sebastian tugged once against the restraints, realized what Zane had done, and went tense from head to foot.
“Relax, already,” Zane murmured, leaning forward and starting over at the top of Sebastian’s head and massaging down his back, past his hips, and all the way down to his toes this time. The turn-on of having Sebastian Gigoni sprawled out naked beneath him, totally relaxed, was almost more than he could stand. “I won’t do anything you don’t like or want.”
He wanted to put his mouth on all that skin, to slurp off the musky sweet coconut oil, to take Sebastian into his mouth and drive him out of his mind again. But he bided his time, working his way up Sebastian’s calves, lingering on the backs of his knees—which turned out to be ticklish—and up the backs of his thighs.
He re-oiled his hands and went to work on Sebastian’s glutes. He worked gradually toward the tight crevice between his cheek muscles, drawing a finger down into the crack again and again until Sebastian finally relaxed and gave him full access to his nether regions. Zane worked the oil into the whole area, daring to dip his middle finger a tiny bit into his tight anal sphincter.