Counterfeit Conscience

by Helena Maeve

  Ignacio stepped away with his chest heaving and a dark scowl on his face.

  The sideboard was on a diagonal from the door. He didn’t have to go far to seize the bottle of gin and pour a splash into his now-empty glass. “Take your clothes off.”

  Will hesitated. “What?”

  “You want to negotiate, you’ll give me something I want first,” Ignacio gritted out, his back to Will. “Take your clothes off or get out.”

  Thor’s hammer shook the windows as though to underscore the point.

  Numbly, Will reached for his belt buckle, obeying like a wind-up toy.

  Chapter Five

  Lightning split the sky with a flash of iridescent blue. The sunroom was suddenly thrown into focus, every angle sharp and hazardous, every decanter filled with fine liquor which looked more and more like a poisoner’s paraphernalia by the minute. The ceiling fan was motionless above their heads. The wall fixtures had sputtered and died a few seconds ago.

  The heavy tread of footfalls announced Ignacio’s staff frantically working to restore power.

  A voice bellowed through the door. “Sir, is everything all right?”

  “Yes, fine.”

  “The power is out.”

  “I noticed,” Ignacio confirmed in a drawl. “Get on with it.”

  Will couldn’t say if the barb was meant for him or the man outside. He held his breath, worried that the bodyguard might feel tempted to be thorough, but the sunroom door remained firmly closed.

  At length, the footsteps receded.

  Ignacio turned the lock on the door for good measure. “Well?”

  The kiss had bruised Will’s lips. He could still feel the pressure of Ignacio’s mouth on his, though it wasn’t nearly enough to distract him from the task at hand. Gingerly, he pried his shirt tails from his trousers and started undoing the buttons from the bottom up.

  The dark didn’t shroud him for long. Another flash of lightning brightened the room as he shed suit jacket and shirt in one go.

  “Leave them,” Ignacio said, when Will looked for somewhere to drape the garments.

  A flash of frustration kindled. Did Ignacio think a bureaucrat’s salary was so high he could afford professional dry cleaning every bloody day? The sentiment faded as soon as it arose. Will shivered beneath Ignacio’s gaze. Half the room lay between them and he was still closer to the door than Ignacio. He could always run. He could always smash one of those pricey crystal decanters and use a shard to slit Ignacio’s throat.

  MI6 agent on the brink of retirement settles score with gangster lover.

  It was almost a pity the Daily Mail would never get their hands on the story.

  Shivering, Will toed off his shoes and stepped deeper into the room. The floor did not undulate beneath his feet. He was steady, in control, when he reached for his zip fly. He thought he saw Ignacio’s throat bob as he followed the motion with his gaze, but it might have been wishful thinking. He sucked air into his lungs. No need to make a show of it. Ignacio had seen him before—albeit a long time ago, when he was still fresh out of training and his body was compact with muscle, a source of vanity as much as a tool of trade.

  Will shoved his trousers and underwear down his hips and stepped out of the circle of loose fabric. He spared no more than a thought for the ironed crease in his trousers, or the hundred reals it had set him back.

  Trying to read contempt or revulsion in Ignacio’s gaze was a futile task. The eerie glow of lightning didn’t offer more than a glimpse of his expression. He was too far away for Will to make out more than the outline of his features. It should have been a comfort to think Ignacio couldn’t see him blush, either.

  Then the lights flickered back on.

  Will closed his fists at his sides, fighting against the urge to cover up. “Satisfied?” he barked, when Ignacio made no move to emit an opinion.

  Just say “I’ve let myself go” and be done with it.

  “Come here,” was Ignacio’s answer, clipped but not as curt as it might have been before.

  He had it in him to be cruel—Will knew that well—and yet he was holding back the instinct.

  “Come,” he said again, when Will hesitated.

  Barefoot on buffed hardwood floors, Will obeyed. He stopped within arm’s reach of Ignacio, his heart pounding like a bird flinging itself against the walls of a cage. What now? He was wary of asking. He dreaded the answer.

  Worse, a small, self-sabotaging part of him desperately wanted to believe that Ignacio’s plans were more ambitious than settling for cheap humiliation.

  He startled when Ignacio ran the back of his knuckles over his pectoral, heat rising to his face as their eyes met. Mockery was far more painful than contempt and he read it in the curve of Ignacio’s lips. The glide of his hand down Will’s body was slow and leisurely, less caress than a dull inspection for dents in the chassis of an expensive car.

  Property was always Ignacio’s way.

  “I don’t remember this,” he murmured, worrying his thumb into a shiny bit of skin right above Will’s right hipbone.

  “Grenade. In Pakistan.”

  “What were you doing in Pakistan?”

  “Classified.”

  Ignacio snorted. “Of course it is… When did they move you?”

  He knew enough about Will’s work to understand that as an operative he didn’t have a say in his assignments. Of course, that hadn’t stopped him from taking advantage of their shared affinity the last time Will was posted in South America.

  It didn’t stop him palming Will’s cock now.

  Will choked back a whimper. “After—after you fucked me over.”

  He had to cling to that sense of betrayal, that heart-rending loss. Otherwise, Ignacio would get into his head and root around in there until he found fertile ground. He’d planted false hopes in Will’s mind before. He was a master manipulator—fit for the service if only Section had recruited him before he got involved with the mafia.

  “I thought you were married,” Will bit out.

  “I am.”

  “And does your wife know where you are tonight?” What you’re doing to me?

  Ignacio smiled wolfishly. “Does she know that I have an MI6 agent quite literally by the balls? No, I don’t think so… I can call and let her know, if you’d like. Or better yet, invite her to watch. We use Skype too.”

  “You’re sick.”

  “And yet you’re the one who’s naked, and getting hard, and pretending he didn’t come here ready to do anything it takes to get the job done…” Ignacio released him almost gently.

  It embarrassed Will to admit how much he wished Ignacio hadn’t.

  His body betrayed him, conspiring against his rational mind to propel him into Ignacio’s trap. With the lights back on, Will couldn’t hide. He tried to take comfort in the knowledge that with weather so bad there would be no one in the gardens, or out in the bay, snapping pictures of the house and its occupants. This was as exposed as he was likely to get.

  Ignacio tipped forward and gently rested his head against Will’s shoulder. “Do you remember when we first met?”

  “You put a knife to my throat,” Will recalled, striving for apathy.

  “You hit me over the head with a potted plant. I thought they only did that in films…”

  “It was a fern.”

  “Whatever it was.”

  Will turned his head fractionally and brushed his lips against Ignacio’s cheek. As long as they were pretending to reminisce about the good and ignore the bad, he had a few memories of his own.

  “I took you home with me, put you into my bed…”

  “All part of the ruse, wasn’t it?”

  That doesn’t make it any less real.

  “What do you think this is?” Will asked and slotted their mouths together again.

  He knew how to kiss Ignacio to elicit those soft, breathless moans he’d once prided himself on. There had been others before and since, men and women alike, according to wha
t the job required. It was another unwritten rule that if the occasion called for it, he was to serve in whatever capacity he could—on his back, if need be, or on his knees.

  He’d never drawn as much pleasure from selling himself as he’d done in those short months with Ignacio. He hadn’t fibbed or tendered false reports for anyone else’s sake.

  He hadn’t risked all on a pitiful, doomed affair since.

  Foolishness was out of his system.

  Ignacio palmed the back of his neck as they kissed. Will melted into his arms, legs threatening to buckle beneath him. He wasn’t as young as he used to be. The rush of adrenaline was enough to make him dizzy, never mind the scrape of Ignacio’s linen slacks against his cock, friction so delicious and so difficult to bear. He didn’t notice he was grasping at Ignacio’s lapels until he felt a huff of laughter against his cheek.

  Ignacio caught his wrists in a bruising grip. He’d never been a gentle man, but this was forceful, even for him. Will found himself being marched back until his shoulder hit the cool windowpane.

  “Turn around,” Ignacio snarled. When Will didn’t obey fast enough, he gripped him by the hips and flipped him around with a brutal twist, knotting a hand in his hair to keep him in place.

  Will had trained in self-defense. He knew about seventeen ways to kill a man with the contents of his briefcase alone. For some reason being with Ignacio bled those highly relevant details from his mind. Threat assessment went out the window.

  He found himself gasping for breath even before Ignacio pressed their hips together into intimate contact. He trembled when he registered the stiff outline of a cock between his buttocks. Outside, rain drummed against the windows, slanting on a blustery wind. The wall fixtures dimmed, as though leaching power to the tension building between Will and Ignacio.

  “Are you—?”

  “Quiet,” said Ignacio.

  The click of his zipper sparked arousal and alarm all at the same time.

  Will laid his brow against the cool glass, his breaths fogging up the view within seconds. He’d done worse. He wasn’t afraid. He’d never been able to muster the appropriate fear of Ignacio—least of all when he could just about see his reflection superimposed on shaking tree branches and roiling surf.

  He saw Ignacio grimace as he pulled out his cock and tugged Will flush into his lap.

  We’ve been here before. Not in this house, not on these terms, but recklessly ravenous for each other’s touch.

  A dozen vivid snapshots rose up behind Will’s eyes as he hissed breath through clenched teeth. “You’re not taking me dry,” he forced out.

  “Shut up,” Ignacio growled again. He gripped Will’s hips tightly, fingers pressing on bone and tendon, fingernails sure to leave a constellation of half-moon dents on his skin.

  Like battle scars, Will knew he’d finger them in the shower and remember, and wish he couldn’t.

  Ignacio slid between his cheeks, his length rigid and hot. They’d used condoms once or twice, but this was how Will remembered him best—bare and aggressive, committed to finding his own pleasure. He rutted roughly against Will, using his body with little care and far less tenderness. His grunts deepened as he neared his peak.

  Will recalled that, too, and made a halfhearted effort to roll his hips to help Ignacio along. It was a futile attempt. Ignacio clenched his hands, forcing him to stillness.

  He came a moment later, bent over Will and shuddering through his climax as he spattered Will’s spine with thick, hot ropes.

  Pornography had convinced Will that sex between men was an impersonal, humiliating experience. In his own past trysts, he’d always preferred to feel his partners come inside him, holding him as tight as they could bear. Ignacio broke all the rules and still, being with him felt more intimate than anything Will had ever done. It felt right. Lightheaded, Will blamed that aberrant sentiment on the delicious scrape of stubble against the wing of his shoulder, on Ignacio’s hot breaths in his ear.

  He blamed it on Ignacio cradling his length in a tight fist and coaxing his thumb into the slit.

  Desire had always crackled in the air between them, simmering just beneath the surface, until the floodgates gave away. A moan tore out of Will’s throat, pleasure so intense he nearly bucked out of Ignacio’s arms. “Oh, bloody fuck…”

  Ignacio hummed what might have been a note of agreement or mockery—or both—but Will couldn’t bring himself to care. He was close, teetering on the edge. For a moment he’d worried that Ignacio would leave him hanging.

  Will curled his toes into the floor, fruitlessly pumping his hips. Sweat-damp hair hung into his eyes, obscuring his view of the droplets that clung to the windowpane and the shiny, wet trickle of pre-cum that stained the floor between his feet.

  Ignacio stroked down his length once, then eased up again with a featherlight caress. He pulled at the sensitive cockhead, knowing precisely what it would do to Will—he laughed against his nape when Will swore.

  “Are you close?” he asked conversationally, only the faintest trace of weariness in his voice.

  “You know I am,” Will panted, already hoarse. “Wanker.”

  “Ask me nicely.”

  “Go to hell.”

  Ignacio took his hand away, fingertips slick when he pinched Will’s nipple. Pain shot up Will’s spine, a back-bending flash of agony over as soon as it had begun. “My house, my rules,” Ignacio warned.

  “My body,” Will gritted out, not entirely certain of the point he was trying to make. He hadn’t needed to plead with Ignacio not to bugger him. He hadn’t required a great deal of prompting to shed his clothes.

  The moral high ground was long lost.

  Ignacio pressed a kiss to the topmost jut of bone in his spine. “Very well… Then you might as well get dressed.”

  It took everything Will had not to crumble when he was released, his body achingly bereft.

  “What?”

  But it was already too late, Ignacio was tucking himself back into his underwear and zipping up, a moue of studied nonchalance on his flushed face.

  Will rested his back against the window and wrapped a hand around his cock. “Are you going to stop me?”

  “No.” Ignacio simply turned his back and returned to the sideboard to mix another drink.

  Slurs and fist punches couldn’t have been so effective in knocking the breath out of Will’s lungs. He closed his eyes and stroked himself with swift, furtive motions.

  This was humiliation—not the nudity, not Ignacio bending him over like a cheap whore. This. Being discarded.

  Being abandoned.

  Where Ignacio’s fingers had been delicate and practiced around his length, his own touch chafed. Will gritted his teeth through the discomfort, desperate to push himself over the edge. He felt Ignacio’s gaze on him but refused to meet it.

  He wasn’t at his mercy. He never had been.

  You screwed up my life once. That’s all.

  His erection wilted despite his best attempts, arousal waning. Something akin to a sob built in his throat. Will swallowed it back down again. The telltale scent of sex was pungent in the air, yet he only felt ashamed.

  Ignacio heaved a put-upon sigh. “So stubborn…”

  His crystal tumbler slid onto the sideboard with a click.

  In a few short steps, he crowded Will, knocking his hand away and kissing him wetly, coaxing out a startled moan. It was over far too swiftly, Ignacio kneeling down—and Will liked to think of himself as sharp-witted, but still it took him a few embarrassingly long seconds to grasp his intent.

  His knees shook as Ignacio seized his softening cock and drew him into his mouth.

  How this factored into the role of a mafia don, Will didn’t know and didn’t care. The windows rattled when he thrust his head back, lost to the sweet suction of Ignacio’s lips around him. A handful of strokes were enough to bring him to full hardness again, stomach hollowing as he gasped for breath, pleasure boiling in his veins.

  “Ign
acio, oh fuck—”

  He couldn’t choke out the warning in time. He shuddered violently, grimacing through the worst—the best—of his orgasm, dimly aware of Ignacio working his mouth around him to coax out every drop of his release.

  Seconds passed with nothing but the sound of Ignacio coughing politely and Will’s blood whooshing in his ears, louder than the clap of thunder outside. When he came back to himself, Ignacio had already risen and was delicately dabbing at the corners of his mouth with a cloth napkin.

  Will swallowed past the lump in his throat.

  Thank you rose to lips, only to be discounted out of hand. Ignacio was a powerful man now. Acknowledging that sometimes he liked sucking cock might not fit too well with his new station in life. Why did you do that? had similar limitations. Will had learned that it was best not to question Ignacio’s motives.

  He made his way to the puddle of clothes on the floor instead and tugged on briefs and trousers in one go, giving himself the illusion of propriety. Orgasm had left him groggy and spent. He dropped into one of the low armchairs under the guise of lacing up his shoes and propped his head into his hands instead.

  He didn’t expect to feel Ignacio’s fingers in his hair.

  “Here,” he said, and held out a glass of clear liquid. “It’s only water.”

  Will accepted the offering. Misgivings about taking drinks from strangers aside, he doubted Ignacio would stoop to poisoning. He wanted to trust that the tender brush of fingers through his hair was not the prelude to a scalping.

  “Now…what are we to do about this impostor?” Ignacio wondered.

  “He’s not your problem.”

  “He made a fool of me,” Ignacio noted. “That makes him my problem. Drink your water. You must be dehydrated.”

  “You don’t need to mother me,” Will grumbled, but he obeyed.

  He was parched and exhausted, orgasm as draining as the verbal tennis matches he and Ignacio seemed to fall into so easily.

  Ignacio cupped the back of his neck. “Have you forgotten how it was between us?”

  Heat gained Will’s cheeks. He hoped that Ignacio would blame it on their earlier exertion and not the sting of bittersweet memories. There had been earnest joy on Ignacio’s face whenever he played puppet master in the past, an almost juvenile delight in the control Will surrendered to him.