Those strong hands were suddenly on his bare ass, squeezing and massaging before parting his cheeks. Cool air brushed briefly against his hole only to be warmed by Gabriel’s firm, soft lips and tongue. Oh fuck, he wasn’t going to last. Gabriel licked and sucked at him again and again. That wicked tongue moved down slowly to lick along his taint. He carefully nuzzled his balls, sucking one into his mouth and then the other before moving back up to his hole.
The slow torture was exquisite. Justin could feel his cock leaking, demanding that he take himself in hand for some relief, but he couldn’t get his fingers to release the ironing board that was already creaking ominously under his weight. Justin found himself pressing his ass into Gabriel’s greedy mouth, but it meant balancing more of his weight on the board.
“Gabriel, the board isn’t going to hold me much longer,” Justin warned again. His voice was so harsh and strained that he barely recognized it.
Gabriel bit one ass cheek as he pulled away. “That won’t do. I’m not finished with you yet. Get on the bed. On your hands and knees. Ass in the air.”
Justin didn’t hesitate. He kicked his briefs off his ankles and turned to find Gabriel still on his knees behind him. He had one hand on his cock, slowly stroking himself, while he licked his lips.
“You like me on my knees?” Gabriel asked with a smirk.
Justin reached out and rubbed Gabriel’s glistening lower lip. “I like how you look at me when you’re on your knees.”
“How’s that?”
“Hungry. Like you can’t get enough of me. Like you’re starving for me.”
“Get on the bed,” Gabriel growled.
Justin released Gabriel’s face and climbed into the middle of the bed just as Gabriel had described. He reached one hand down and stroked his cock to give himself a little relief. Fuck, he already wanted to come so bad. He wasn’t usually one for handing the reins over to someone else. He liked being in control, and he loved making his partner writhe with pleasure beneath him, but there was something about a bossy Gabriel in the bedroom that drove him insane.
A hard smack landed on one ass cheek, sending a surprising flash of pain through his body.
“I didn’t say you could touch yourself. That’s mine,” Gabriel said.
“Then fucking do something with it,” Justin snarled.
“Soon. I have other plans right now.”
Justin could feel the mattress shift and sink behind him as Gabriel climbed onto the bed. Gabriel’s tongue returned to his hole, but this time a hand also wrapped around his cock. It wasn’t enough to send him over the edge. Just enough to tease him a little, to leave him panting and sweating. No one had ever worked him over quite so thoroughly as Gabriel, keeping him so perfectly balanced on the edge of orgasm that he could barely breathe.
“Please, G,” Justin whimpered. He wrapped his fingers in the sheets so tightly, he was sure bones were going to break.
The hand moved from his cock, and Gabriel kissed one ass cheek and then the other. Long, nimble fingers came up to play with his hole, slowly stretching him with only the barest hint of pain along the edge of pleasure.
“I want to fuck you, Justin,” Gabriel murmured. His mouth brushed along his spine when he spoke, but Justin was now more aware of Gabriel’s cock bumping so deliciously against his hole. “I know this isn’t your preference, but I need it.”
“Yes,” Justin cried, the word coming out broken and desperate. “Please. Oh God, please.” Need crawled along his flesh and vibrated in his chest. No, he didn’t prefer to bottom, loved to top, but with Gabriel everything was different, and he didn’t want to think about it. He needed Gabriel inside of him, needed to come so fucking bad.
Gabriel disappeared from behind him for a moment. There was the sound of a drawer opening and closing, the condom wrapper, and then finally the cap on the bottle of lube opening. Warm, slick fingers pressed into him, stretching him even farther. The burn was worse this time, but it eased some of the frantic need clawing at his sanity.
The sheathed, slick head of Gabriel’s cock pressed steadily into him, pushing the air straight out of his lungs and filling him so damn completely. He could only plead for more.
Gabriel pounded into him, setting a brutal pace that sent Justin back to teetering on the edge, and he loved it. Loved the bite of Gabriel’s strong hands on his hip and shoulder as he held him in place exactly where he wanted him. Loved the sound of his ragged breathing and the steady slap of their bodies each time they came together. He never wanted it to end and begged for that brilliant starburst orgasm he knew they were both building toward.
“Fuck, Justin. I’m so close,” Gabriel panted. “Can…can you hold it?”
“What?” Justin was pretty sure the question came out as little more than a squeak. He was so damn close to coming now, and Gabriel wanted him to hold it?
“Want you to be fucking me when you come,” Gabriel said.
Damnit. Now that the seed was planted in his brain, Justin wanted that too. “Hurry,” he groaned.
Gabriel increased his pace, his rhythm becoming more uneven as the orgasm started to slam through him. Justin clenched his muscles around Gabriel, desperately trying to ignore the sounds of pleasure coming from him. He definitely tried not to think about how he was filling the condom or wishing the damn thing wasn’t there in the first place.
Still panting, Gabriel carefully pulled out of Justin. He didn’t wait. Justin pushed up and turned enough so he could snag a condom from the drawer. His fucking hands were shaking so bad that he struggled to get it on. He applied the lube and then shoved Gabriel down on his back in the middle of the bed. Climbing between his legs, Justin carefully pressed some more lube inside of his lover. He prayed that their recent sexual escapades meant that Gabriel didn’t require his usual stretching.
Carefully, he pressed inside of Gabriel. The relief and pleasure were immediate. Gabriel moaned beneath him, shifting slightly.
“You okay?” Justin demanded. His voice was harsher than he intended, but he was balanced on the edge of a knife.
Gabriel flashed him a lopsided smile. “Fuck me like I’m yours.”
Threading his fingers through Gabriel’s hair, he pulled his head back just enough to add a slight bite of pain. At the same time, he slid his cock so that the crown was stretching the muscles of his entrance. “Never doubt it. You are mine.”
Justin hammered into Gabriel hard enough that he was sure they both saw stars. Gabriel cried out for more, and Justin gave him everything he had. He didn’t last nearly as long as he would have liked. His orgasm snapped like a stretched rubber band after only a handful of strokes, but it felt like he poured everything of himself into that fucking condom that separated them.
As he collapsed to the bed a panting, sweaty mess, he wrapped his arms around Gabriel’s loose body, pulling him in tight. He could feel the condom Gabriel still wore leaking between them, but he didn’t give a damn. He just needed to hold him, feel his frantic heartbeat against his own. There was zero doubt in his mind. Gabriel Prescott was his. And he belonged to Gabriel completely.
Now they just had to find a way to be together without someone attempting to kill them.
Gabriel touched his tie and then tugged at the cuffs of his shirt again. When he looked up across the table, Justin was smiling that knowing little smile of his. He knew. Their first dinner in public had been different. They’d been adversaries of a sort forced to work together. Gabriel hadn’t given another thought to the people around him. His only concern had been the skilled killer across from him.
But tonight was different. They were lovers and he wasn’t looking at Justin with an eye for the best way to disarm and disable the man. Gabriel was wondering how long it would be before he could peel Justin out of that dark suit and pin him against the wall. And he couldn’t help but wonder how many other people in the restaurant could guess at his thoughts.
Justin had given him another first in an ever-growing list. Justin was
the first man to ever hold his hand in public. The first to kiss him in public. Now, he was on his first date with a man, and it was both exhilarating and nerve-wracking. Hence the stupid nervous tics he couldn’t quite stop.
After sex, he’d been sorely tempted to cancel the reservations and stay in bed with Justin. They could order in some Chinese from a place he found just a few blocks away. But dinner out was important. He had to know what he was fighting so hard for, what he was risking his life for. It wasn’t just for great sex with the man sitting opposite him. It was a chance to build a life. For both lounging in bed wrapped in each other and afternoons out in public followed by candlelight dinners. And if he was lucky, it was about building a home together.
The worst was yet to come, and if Gabriel was going to face the long road ahead of him, he wanted this night together to hold in his mind when his body was threatening to break.
“You’re nervous,” Justin announced with a growing smile.
“Shut up,” Gabriel muttered. He reached across the table and grabbed the goblet of water sitting in front of him. He took a drink to hide his own smirk.
“Why? You know I’m a sure thing.”
“Maybe it’s not about that.” Justin’s brows bunched over the bridge of his slightly crooked nose and Gabriel swallowed back a sigh. “You’ve done this before?”
Justin gave a slow shake of his head. “Eaten at a restaurant? Or do you mean here? I’ve never been here.” Justin looked around, taking in the rich decor. The walls were painted a deep red, but you could barely see them behind the massive paintings and random stuffed animal heads.
Rules was known as one of the oldest restaurants in London and prided itself on maintaining the stuffy atmosphere people tended to expect from the British. The servers even wore black tuxedo coats with tails and stiffly starched white shirts, though their demeanor was far from stuffy, which helped to ease the mood for the night. Gabriel had selected it as partially a tongue-in-cheek joke since Justin had somehow spent so little time in England, but also because Rules specialized in wild game, which Gabriel encountered far too rarely in other restaurants.
“I mean a date,” Gabriel said, dropping his eyes back to the menu lying on the table in front of him. He managed to keep his eyes locked on it for several seconds without seeing the words. When the silence stretched too long, he finally looked up at Justin.
The man was watching him, but the joking was gone from his expression. He’d told Justin a few small things about his past, but Justin had likely filled in a lot of the gaps on his own, and he probably wasn’t far off. There had been only one other true lover in Gabriel’s past, and that man had been his former partner and mentor at the KGB. In those days, there had been no dates or public displays of affection. They’d only had stolen moments behind closed doors and shuttered windows. And each one of those had felt risky.
“I’ve been on several dates in the past, but only after I went solo.” Justin paused and cleared his throat. He grabbed his water and took a drink. “There was one man. Chris. We dated for a couple of months. Nice guy. Good sense of humor.”
Gabriel didn’t care for the jealousy and disappointment that surged through his veins at that moment. It was ridiculous to think that Justin hadn’t had someone special in his life before, that he wasn’t sharing the same firsts with Gabriel. But there was an irrational part of him that didn’t want to think of anyone touching Justin. Didn’t want anyone else to receive that sweet, teasing smile that Justin blessed him with. He wanted it all to be his and his alone.
“Why didn’t it work?” Gabriel asked, trying like hell to keep the jealousy from his voice. He glanced up and thought he saw amusement return to Justin’s gaze, but the man didn’t say anything about it.
“I tried having him sleep over one night.” Justin paused and cleared his throat, a slight blush rising to his cheeks. “It didn’t go well. Having someone sleeping in my space, trusting someone to move around my home—without watching them every second—drove me a little crazy. We split up a couple of weeks later.”
Gabriel nodded and gave up trying to hide the proud smile that pushed its way onto his lips. Sure, Justin had definitely not been thrilled about allowing Gabriel to sleep in his home, but he’d stayed there for three weeks, and Justin didn’t try to kill him once. He actually asked him to stay. Oh yeah, he beat old Chris.
“I should have known it wouldn’t work since I had no intention of telling him what I really did for a living,” Justin muttered. His fingers played along the stem of the water goblet in front of him, turning it slowly so that the little drops of condensation caught the light. “He was a great guy, but I didn’t see the whole ‘I kill people for money’ conversation going over well, and I definitely wasn’t ready to walk away from it.”
“And you are now?”
Justin sat back in his chair and stared at Gabriel, who struggled to hold his piercing gaze. “You’re different. This is different. I’m not giving you some bullshit act, G. I know we’ve both spent a lifetime conning and fooling the world around us, but when I’m with you, I finally feel like I’m in touch with me. I get to be me, and you really seem to like that guy.”
“I do,” Gabriel quickly agreed.
To his surprise, Justin reached across the table and grabbed the hand resting next to his plate. Gabriel flinched but didn’t pull away. This was something he loved about Justin. He never hesitated to touch Gabriel if that was what he wanted. He just dove right in.
“And I get that you’re still finding your way. But when it’s just us…” Justin paused and flashed him such a smile. “I want to spend days, weeks, months learning about what makes us who we are.” He paused and gave a little roll of his eyes. “Well, beyond the illegal stuff.”
“What if there’s only the illegal stuff?” Gabriel asked, finally giving voice to the nagging fear in the back of his mind that he’d been avoiding.
“I don’t believe that. I figured out that I’m pretty good at cooking. I enjoy it too. What about you?”
Gabriel fought the urge to tell him that there was nothing else to him. There was only the sneaking and killing. That his skills were limited to a proficiency with countless weapons and breaking through security systems. But there had to be something else. If there wasn’t, why would Justin ever want to be with him in the first place?
“I…I like being outside…and making things with my hands,” Gabriel said haltingly. Those were two things he did enjoy but didn’t get to spend too much time doing. But if they both managed to escape their current lives, then maybe he would get to explore those parts of himself more.
Gabriel let himself bask in that idea for a moment, soaking it in straight down to his parched soul. He could definitely get on board with spending months stretching on into years getting to know Justin and all his eccentricities. Getting to know himself better. But even as the idea formed, he knew there was a catch.
“But we can’t do that until we are both free,” Gabriel whispered.
Whatever Justin might have been about to say was put on hold as their server returned to take their order. It wasn’t the easiest of moments since Justin chose to continue to hold his hand while they spoke to the server. If the man thought there was anything amiss with it, he never once betrayed his thoughts, maintaining the same pleasant tone the entire time.
When they were alone again, Justin changed the topic. They chatted easily about other places they’d traveled over the years without ever giving too much away about why they were in each particular location. In fact, it wasn’t until they were both sipping their coffee following a delicious meal that Justin turned serious again.
“When are you going to tell me about why you’re being hunted?”
Gabriel clenched his teeth, swallowing back the automatic denial that rose up his throat at Justin’s question. The denial was ridiculous. Justin had easily spotted the man following them while they were playing tourist that afternoon.
“It is as I explained a
t your home months ago. There are people who do not wish to let me live because of what I know and what I am. I’m an affront. For me to be free, I must spend a little time tying up some loose ends.”
“To what end?”
“To the end that these people either realize that it is not in their best interests to come after me or that they lose the ability to come after me.”
Justin frowned. “I don’t like this.”
Stirring his coffee, Gabriel nearly grinned at Justin’s petulant tone. “I don’t see how that has any bearing on this matter.”
“It’s doesn’t, G Love. Not even in the slightest, but I don’t care. I don’t like it. You have to let me help you.”
Gabriel took a sip of his coffee and carefully placed the cup back down on the delicate saucer. “That’s not going to happen.”
“Why? It’s not like I can’t keep up with you. I’m damn handy to have in a fight.”
A different kind of warmth spread across Gabriel’s chest and wrapped around his heart, making him severely tempted to take Justin up on his offer. Only his need to keep Justin safe was stronger.
“It’s not going to happen, and you know it.”
“Why?”
“This is a very personal mess for me, and I will clean it up. I don’t want you hurt by this.”
“And maybe I don’t want you to be hurt. Two heads are going to be better than one.”
Gabriel grimaced. He could be just as stubborn as Justin, and this was one thing he was not going to waver on. “I can move faster as a single. I’ll be careful.”
Justin sat silently for a minute, glaring at his coffee. When he did finally speak, his tone was more of a growl when he asked, “How long?”
“A few more months,” Gabriel said. Hopefully, he mentally added. He wanted this done quickly. Then he could get back to Justin and his world. His old life dead and buried.
The Exit Strategy Bundle Page 24