“You need to eat too,” he said when I got out of the bathroom. I felt more alert, but I was reminded yet again that I wasn’t as young as I once had been. Altered sleep patterns were dulling my senses, though I was getting adequate hours. “What should I get you?”
“Anything,” I said with a shrug. “Not Chinese. Something light.”
He came back with a halfway-decent Caesar salad, and more Chinese for himself. And then he settled down with the laptop and the flash drive files again, and began to reread them, taking notes every now and then. I almost asked him what he was doing, but I didn’t want to give him another opening for conversation. I simply rearranged the curtains as darkness came in to make sure the glow of the computers wouldn’t give us away from the outside.
And still nothing happened in the building opposite.
I began to wonder how long, exactly, a man like Donnie Greco could last in his apartment without going out. There had been a few deliveries of food now and again, but it was impossible to tell which apartment in the building they were delivering to.
“Go to bed,” I told Bax at midnight.
“Not tired.”
“I’ll be waking you early again, so you need to sleep.”
He kept typing away on the laptop.
“Doing what you were told,” I reminded him softly, “was part of our deal.”
I felt rather than saw his glare at the back of my head, but the room descended into further darkness as I heard the laptop shut. He fell asleep fast enough, judging by his breathing.
Around four-thirty, he made a noise, a little cry. I went over to the bed and looked down at him. In sleep he looked even younger, his hand curled up on the pillow near his face, almost as if he might begin sucking on his thumb at any moment. His mouth was parted slightly, and his thick lashes quivered as his eyes moved under the lids.
He was dreaming.
I glanced over at the monitor. Nothing was happening outside.
When I looked back at Bax, I found I was reaching out a hand toward his face. I don’t know what made me do it, or even what I wanted to do. Touch his cheek? Run a hand through his messy hair?
But just before I made contact, he began to pant, as though he were running in his dreams. A sudden gasp made me start. “Flynn,” I said softly. “Bax, wake up.”
His eyes flew open. Still dull with sleep, he flailed in the bed for a moment, twisting under the blankets. “Where am I?” he demanded, and then he saw me. “Oh,” he breathed, sounding relieved.
“You’re okay,” I told him. “Bad dream?”
He relaxed back onto the pillow, but frowned. “Maybe,” he said in a low voice, so I had to lean in to hear him. “I can’t remember…”
I put my hand on his shoulder. “You’re safe now,” I said softly, keeping my face close to his. I had never said that phrase to anyone else, something so soothing and intimate, certainly not to either of the Mob Bosses I’d protected for most of my career. “You’re safe now,” I said again, trying it out on my own tongue as much as saying it for his benefit. Under my palm his skin was cool. “Do you want me to turn up the heat?” I murmured.
“Yeah,” he said. “I really do.” He reached up, slid a hand around the back of my neck. He was panting again, but this was no dream. “Angelo—” he began, but I beat him to it.
I closed the last few inches between us and kissed him.
Chapter Twenty-One
Angelo
I’d lost myself.
Special Agent Baxter Flynn, I reminded myself, but it didn’t seem to matter about his job, about that silly title that came before his name. In that moment he was a beautiful boy who wanted me to kiss him, and I wanted to kiss a beautiful boy. Donnie Greco flitted through my brain, but just as quickly the thought melted away, because Bax’s mouth, which had started soft, turned urgent. His hands ran into my hair, over my shoulders, pulling and then yanking at my clothes so that I had to strip off my top or have it torn from me.
“Angelo,” he gasped again, moving with me as I pulled back. But when he realized I was only taking my clothes off, he gave a short, happy hum.
And then he clambered over the bed and tried to help, pulling at my zipper, tugging at the laces in my shoes and all the while kissing my bare skin wherever his mouth could find it. Once all those useless clothes were on the floor where they belonged, I threw myself at him. We bounced together on the bed and he gave a delighted laugh before I captured his mouth again.
This. This had been what I wanted from him—not just his cock in my hand, not just his body writhing as I wrung pleasure out of it, but his heart and soul and hismouth, his tongue against mine, his face in my hands.
Thank God it was still dark. Thank God I couldn’t see the full expression in his eyes. Thank God he couldn’t see mine.
