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“I tried to make a move without my team.” Sometimes, the man Adam used to be whispered in the Devil’s ear, and the thing inside him would slip its leash. Would do something impulsive, like the man Adam used to be.
“You were protecting me.”
“You mademefeel invincible. And human again.” He reached out and lightly grasped one of Icarus’s hands. “I don’t know how to turn it off, Icarus.” None of it—the lover, the cop, the gatekeeper, the fire. “It’s who I am.”
“Who you are...” Icarus threaded their fingers together and stepped closer. “Why did Vincent tell me your name was Adam Devlin if he knows who you were before?” He glanced over his shoulder toward the door. “Why do they all call you Adam?”
“Why do you call yourself Icarus? Why do you only refer to your sister asshe?”
He pressed his lips shut.
“That’s what I thought.” Adam released his hand and pushed to his feet. “We all have our secrets, our reasons for keeping them and for inhabiting the skin and personas we’re in.”
“Okay, so back to my original question...” He laid a hand on Adam’s forearm. Still warm, still kind, still more than Adam deserved. “What does Adam need Icarus to do?” He wrinkled his nose. “Besides play nice with the stinky, grumpy dog.”
Adam took his hand in his again, not immune to the warmth and comfort, but stopping himself short of everything the old him wanted to drown in. “Get us the details on your police contact. Let us check them out. If we don’t spot any immediate red flags, you can proceed.”
“I’ve already done the excavation on him. It’s solid.”
“Atlas managed to fool you.”
“Atlas is a warlock with skills. This is an overworked cop, married with three kids, who jerks off to me fucking myself on a dildo.” He spread his arms far apart, taking Adam’s arm with him. “Big difference.”
Adam chuckled. “Okay, then, set it up.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Shore up defenses, work with my team, and consider different angles.” He rested his other hand on the strip of skin exposed between the edge of Icarus’s sweater and jeans. “Get you a change of clothes.”
“That would be appreciated. Little hot up here in knits, even for me. I’m surprised you’re not sweating.”
He’d learned to live with the heat, here and inside him, long ago. He twined his arm around Icarus, hand settling at his lower back. “We have a contact checking on your place. If it’s still standing, I’ll have them grab your go bag and computer. I assume you need that for work?”
Icarus nodded. “I’ll get you the safe code for the laptop. Would also be nice to get my crochet stuff and my robe.” He snuggled closer. “For when it gets cold here at night.”
“We’ll get you the crochet stuff.” Adam dipped his hand below Icarus’s waistband, palming his ass and imagining how good Icarus would look in that robe and nothing else. “The robe was already on my list.”
Still, it wasn’t the time to entertain those fantasies. He had a long list of to-do items, and Icarus wasn’t on it. But when he tried to pull away, Icarus slung one arm over his shoulder and grasped his shirt with his other hand, holding him close. “Whenever you need to take a break from Adam and the Devil”—he leaned in and kissed the corner of his mouth—“I’m here.”
TWENTY-FOUR
It wasnear nightfall when Robin’s familiar tread echoed down the stairs. Icarus, who’d been relegated to the cellar when his fingers had started to smoke, must have also recognized their approaching visitor. Shoulders tense, he turned from the overstock metal tanks he was pretending to be interested in and let his arms hang loose at his sides, at the ready, fingers spread as if preparing to flex his claws.
“Easy,” Adam coaxed. “If he wasn’t here in peace, you wouldn’t hear him coming.”
“I’d hear his heartbeat.”
“Maybe.” Adam tilted his head. “Maybe not.”
Icarus’s brows raced north. “Oh, really? How’s that?”
“My secret to tell,” Robin said as he cleared the bottom step. “Not his.” He met them beside the retired tasting table in the middle of the cellar great room and dropped Icarus’s jam-packed go bag at their feet. “Your apartment building was still standing. Too big to burn down.”
Whereas a fire at Adam’s house in the Terrace looked like just another arson in a dying neighborhood. A blaze caused by a squatter or a property owner trying to collect insurance. Barely a blip on the radar. It was what Adam wanted—as erased as he could make it—but memories were harder to scrub clean, the mental door on them impossible to keep shut.
He turned away, chest burning and eyes stinging.
Icarus skirted a hand across his back, a gentle sweep of comfort, enough to steady him on the edge of the abyss, to anchor him while he caught his breath. Icarus, meanwhile, interrogated the messenger. “What about the apartment itself?” he asked Robin. “Atlas broke in before.”
