Holding Elias against me, my cock still inside him, I lean forward and drop the pill into his drink.
***
I go through a lot of motions between handing Elias that drink and getting him in my car. At some moments, I’m almost robotic. Others … I struggle.
My brain isn’t working quite right. I think that’s why I don’t notice that I’m being followed until I turn off the main street for the hotel’s parking garage.
I see the black Audi in my rearview mirror. It was parked outside Lush when I emerged with Elias. I only noticed it then because I was gauging potential interpretations of me scooping up a very drunk-looking Elias. But there was no reaction, so I moved on.
But it’s the same car.
I park in my private section of the hotel’s garage and haul Elias from the passenger seat. He’s completely out now, a total ragdoll, so I heft him into my arms. I take him up to his floor and into his apartment.
At this point, I’m not really acting out my role. Elias’s stalker would lie down in the bed with him. He’d walk around the apartment, maybe take pictures, maybe leave some sign of his presence. He’d feel a sense of power.
He’d also be preparing to deal with the fact that, come morning, Elias will realize that his stalker has extensive access to the hotel and must, therefore, be an employee.
But something is eating at me. A lot of things are, actually, but I focus on the easiest one. That Audi.
So I take off the purple silk ribbon binding Elias’s eyes and leave him in his bed with a sense that something is unfinished, that we’ve been interrupted.
As I’m walking out, I pull up the hotel’s exterior security feeds on my phone. It takes me a minute to find the Audi, but when I do, when I zoom in, I frown.
The image of the driver isn’t great, but it’s a man, maybe 30, Italian. I wouldn’t be able to discern that much from the grainy image if I hadn’t already seen him tonight.
He’s the one who took a picture of Elias at Lush.
I’d forgotten about it, but I shouldn’t have. On another night, with my head clear, I wouldn’t have.
My skin prickles with goosebumps. Why the fuck did this man take a picture of Elias then wait outside for him and follow us?
I grit my teeth. There’s nothing I can do with this shitty image and the bare fact that I saw the guy earlier. I need information. I need to know who he is.
And there’s only one place to start, one person to talk to. Rafael.
Fuck.
TWENTY
Andre
Rafael is no longer at the bar when I return to Lush. He’s lounging in one of the deep chairs watching the BDSM show on stage with the dark, intense man that I saw palming his ass earlier. Rafael is between the guy’s legs, leaning back against him not unlike the way Elias leaned back against me not long ago. The guy has a hand on Rafael’s throat. He’s squeezing a little but also massaging. There’s something both violent and tender in their connection. Rafael is saying something. The other guy speaks in his ear. Rafael smiles.
He always was shockingly beautiful when he smiled, and he knew it. He used it. It kept the men softer with him. Mostly.
I find that I’ve stopped walking. My body is locked. I can’t move.
Rafael spots me. His smile fades. The other man follows Rafael’s gaze to me. Rafael draws away from the other man, who very clearly doesn’t like that. Rafael says something to him, which earns him a narrow-eyed look that most people would not enjoy receiving. But Rafael looks amused, maybe even pleased.
The man’s dark eyes follow Rafael as he walks over to me. Rafael’s hard cock is very obvious against the front of his white pants. His silver corset vest cinches a slight curve into his waist.
I envy him that he can be so sexual, so comfortable in it. But then, he always was.
That’s not fair, I know. He didn’t have any choice. None of us did.
That’s why I can’t move. This doesn’t exist for me. I don’t allow it to.
Even when I took my revenge on Peter Grange, I did it as a role. I didn’t allow myself to think, not directly, not most of the time, about why I had to destroy him. That was made easier by the fact that Grange, fifteen years later, didn’t recognize me and had other, newer crimes that I could use against him.
