Page 33 of Compulsion

“Hi, Max,” he said sleepily. “Don’t say you’ve got to go. You usually do.”

I snorted and slipped back down in the bed. I knew now what he meant when he said I just fucked and ran. It’s my nervousness! I wanted to say. My need to make the decision to go before you make it for me. Before you tire of me.

And maybe not that at all. Maybe some kind of self-preservation.

“You look great.” He smiled, his gaze running over me. “Your hair’s great.” It had gotten seriously tousled as we rolled about in the hallway last night, and then I’d slept on it without a comb through. It was the one disadvantage of longer hair. Now Seve ran his fingers aimlessly through it, gently tugging out some of the tangles. “It feels great. All of you feels great. Want to fuck?” His hand was very warm and it was teasing between my legs, nudging my already eager boner with his knuckles.

I couldn’t roll over against him fast enough.

Chapter Fifteen

I FINALLY got up and dressed at about ten o’clock. My polo shirt was dry, though probably creased beyond recovery, and my jeans were stiff, but I managed to pull them on. The night before, I’d emptied my jeans pockets out on the side table—now I scooped up my phone, keys and wallet, loose change, and the red lighter with the Arsenal crest on it, and padded down the hallway in bare feet to find some coffee. I made a quick and quiet call to work to say I wouldn’t be in until later in the day. I didn’t like doing it, but I knew I wasn’t going to make it across town in time to clock in this morning. I didn’t often let them down—I was one of the most reliable contract workers they had. And even after the beating up, I’d gone back into work as soon as possible. I needed the money, but more than that, I wanted to do right by them.

I stood in the kitchen doorway and looked around. A bag of ground beans and a coffeemaker were two of the more familiar things I spotted. Otherwise it looked more like a showroom. Seve had all the latest gadgets—dishwasher, bread maker, food processor—but there was little evidence of cooking. And after I’d taken a nose around the fridge, not a lot of food, either. I found more bottled beers and only the basics: bread, cooked meat, and cheese. I supposed he ate out most of the time. The empty cartons from last night’s Chinese meal were still piled up on the counter.

To be honest, I wasn’t hungry, the taste and imprint of Seve’s cock and tongue still vivid in my mouth. I poked at the settings on the coffeemaker for a while, trying to find points of contact with Louis’s rather less sophisticated model, and eventually got it going. Then I went back to browsing around the cupboards while I waited for it to heat up. There were expensive-looking preserves, packets of dried pasta, bottles of oil with herbs suspended in them, and a couple of jars of something that looked like caviar. Definitely nothing I’d ever seen in my local supermarket. The coffee grounds had a Spanish name on the packet, and I nearly missed the sugar because it was a tin of solid brown crystals rather than the common granules I was used to. On the quest for milk, I examined an impressive store of red wine in a rack by the fridge. Some of them had names I’d only heard about in those celebrity dinner parties they show on reality TV.

Seve appeared in the doorway a few minutes later, smoothing his hair down, scratching his beard. Smart pair of sweats. Barefoot, no shirt. I wanted to jump him there and then.

“Not much for breakfast, Seve,” I joked. “What do you offer guests?”

“I don’t have guests,” he replied.

I was going to laugh, but then I realized it wasn’t a joke. I bit my tongue and placed a cup of coffee for him on the table. We sat down to drink. We both stared absentmindedly at the corner of the table where we’d fucked last night. I imagined I could see a stain from my come, but it was probably just spilled sauce from last night’s takeaway.

“I want to know more about you, Seve,” I said eventually.

He was quiet for another few seconds. When he replied, his voice was calm in that expressionless way he did so well. “That’s not information I share easily, Max. You don’t need to know anything else, really. You know what I do. What I like.”

Not really, I thought, but that wasn’t the topic for today. “I want you to tell me about Peck.” I knew I was pushing my luck, but something was driving me on. “How long has he worked for your uncle?”

“Peck?” He shook his head slightly as if he didn’t know what I was talking about. “Ah… him. I didn’t know him, I told you. I don’t hire all the men.”

“How did Peck get to be working here? Do you know what he does for your uncle in London?”

“What?” His eyes were hooded again, and his hands shook slightly. I think I was upsetting him—the man I thought was always in control. “You mean his job? You mentioned this before. I had assumed security, though you’re implying that’s not the whole truth. But I don’t need to know everything that goes on.”

“Seve, don’t you ask?”

“Ask what?”

I tried to work out if he was deliberately avoiding my questions or if he genuinely had no idea what I was talking about. “You must know what people say about the Medina Group—about the clubs. That they’re a front.”

“What the hell for?”

“Drugs. Money laundering.” I took a quick breath. “They have a network of couriers, sometimes including kids.”

“It’s a lie.” Seve’s expression darkened. His fingers tightened around his cup.

“I don’t know if the same things are going on at Compulsion—”

“They are not!”

I didn’t let him distract me. “But you’re either for or against it. You’re either ignorant of it all or… you’re part of the problem.”

“Is this all to do with Peck—with that man? I told you I’ve sent him back to London. I recommended my uncle fire the men who attacked you.”

I couldn’t believe Seve thought that was all it took. “Do you think he’s going to take any notice?” Peck had been in place at the London club for years before I even went there, or so I was told. He was well established and doing very nicely from it, thanks. That implied a working relationship with the Medinas that wasn’t going to crumble just because a “friend” of Seve Nuñez had been awkwardly in the way.