I fell asleep fast, hard, dreamless.
Chapter Nineteen
Angelo
The next day Bax woke before I did, and I was unnerved to find it so. I was unused to having men in my bed overnight, much less men who got up before me and cheerfully went about their business while I lay still insensate and vulnerable.
It was the running shower that woke me, the squeaking of the tap as it turned on cutting through my dream like an alarm. I sat up in bed with my heart beating fast, alert, watchful, reaching for my gun from the bedside table.
And then I cursed myself for my foolishness, for sleeping so deeply, for not waking when Bax had got out of bed, for—
For everything I’d let him do to me last night.
It all flooded back in excruciating detail. The smell of his skin, his hair, his release. The way he’d rutted into my hand, all abandonment, with only one need in his mind. I envied that lack of control. God, did I envy it.
Especially now as I looked down at myself, half-hard already. I lay back again to stare at the ceiling and reminded myself aboutwhyI’d touched him last night, the night before, why I’d do it again tonight if he made it clear he wanted me to.
It wasonlyabout control, and I needed to regain mine. I was ashamed of myself. “You get soft, you get careless,” I muttered. It was what Tino had always told me.
I rolled over onto my back and stretched, the sheets cool now on Bax’s side of the bed. But for a moment under my hand the bedding feltwet, hot and soaking, and I could smell something sweet and coppery, taste it at the back of my throat. I sat up again so fast it made my head spin. The sheets were bright crimson, dripping red—
I kicked my way out of the bed, landed on the floor with a crash—checked my hands—checked the sheets—
They were as creamy white as always.
* * *
By the timeBax got out of the shower, I had made coffee and was already at work planning our stakeout. I’d assigned a watch on Detective Daniel Kowalski, just in case. I’d sent through instructions to another associate, who would have set up external cameras around Donnie Greco’s apartment by the time we arrived in the area. All I’d have to do would be to patch in.
The building in which Greco lived was supremely useful to our purpose, having only one entrance and exit, apart from the regulation fire stairs hanging off the side of the building. That would make my life much easier.
“Morning,” I said to Bax, who had wandered out still damp, only a towel wrapped around his waist.
“Not really, though,” he said cheerfully. “It’s almost noon. Don’t you get tired of living under these fluorescent lights?”
“No,” I said simply. “Hurry up and get dressed. I want to show you the plan.”
He ignored my first request and came over to sit next to me on the little couch, staring at the computer screen. His thighs spread, his left pressing into my right. I thought about what lay under that towel, wondered if he’d teased another orgasm out of himself in the shower. For the first time, I noticed a small, flaky streak along my wrist. A splash of his cum that I’d missed when washing my hands before making coffee.
“Angelo? What am I supposed to be looking at?”
I used my other hand to point at the laptop screen. “This is Greco’s building. His apartment is here, on this level. Two access points only to the building: the entrance and the fire escape.”
“Good,” Bax said. All his concentration now was on the job. I wished the same could be said of mine. “And we’ll be—where?”
I cleared my throat to give me time to return my mind to the work at hand. “Here.” I pointed to a hotel across the street. “Gives us a clear view of both the entrance and the fire escape.”
Bax nodded. “And if the room we need is taken?”
“It won’t be a problem.”
He slouched back on the couch and slung an arm along the back of it. I stayed where I was, leaning forward.
“Just how rich are you, Angelo?” he asked. When I glanced at him, he had a wide grin on his face and an inviting hand curling in his lap.
“Why do you ask?”
“Because that’s not your motivation, is it? Not really, I mean. You grew up poor, and that can make people loose with money when they get hold of it. But not you. Everything you own is chosen for its purpose.”
