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Adam pressed his nose, then his lips against Icarus’s erection. “Just this.” He lowered his hand back to Icarus’s thigh, holding him close. “Just for a minute. It’s been so long.”
Ten years, if Icarus had to guess. A guess he was sure was right this time. Ten lonely, melancholy-filled years without a caring, intimate touch from anyone. The Adam-sized hole in his chest ruptured into a canyon like the one they’d run through tonight. Ever-changing, life-threatening, terrifying and beautiful all at the same time.
A minute lasted five, and Icarus relished all three hundred seconds of them. When Adam stood, Icarus relished more the glide of Adam’s hard body along the front of his. He brushed his lips over Icarus’s cheek. “Thank you.”
Icarus barely resisted grinding his stiff cock against the erect one nudging his hip. “You’re welcome.”
Adam shifted them, making enough room so he could step back and close Icarus’s coat, cinching it tight and knotting the belt. “Take the cot.”
Icarus shook his head. “Unnecessary.” Adam needed the rest, he didn’t, and the hours until dawn were dwindling. “It feels like you’re running a fever already.”
“Wasn’t a request.” Adam ducked out of the bathroom first, claimed a spot on the bedroom wall opposite the cot, and slid down to the floor. Icarus shot him a glare as he entered the room, and Adam glared a path for him to the cot. “We’ll talk in the morning.” He waited until Icarus was curled on his side under a blanket on the cot before shutting his eyes.
“You did good tonight, rescuing that kid,” Icarus whispered, sensing Adam needed that too. A kind word, an acknowledgement of the victories in this war he was fighting.
A divot formed between Adam’s brows, pain streaking across his features. It was gone the next second, a flinch to anyone not watching as closely as Icarus. Eyes still closed, the Devil’s face smoothed, his breaths evened out, and he was fast asleep in less than two minutes.
Icarus wondered if he’d picked up that skill from David and Deborah. He recalled how the soldiers in the veterans’ hospital where he’d started his training could fall asleep anywhere, anytime, on a dime—in those awful plastic hallway chairs, on the too-short waiting room sofas, on the cold hard floor of a platoon mate’s room. It was a talent Icarus did not possess. He stretched out his legs and his senses, keeping watch over Adam, the house, and the surrounding area.
Hours passed without incident, and when the night sky began to lighten from black to early morning blue, when Icarus’s head hurt from the math he couldn’t square—those happy family pictures on the mantel had to have been from before the Rift, over thirty years ago, yet Adam didn’t look thirty years older now, and he’d also lost Deborah and David during that time—Icarus climbed off the cot. He left his orphaned designer heel on the folded blanket and moved with the speed and silence he hadn’t dared display last night. Crouching in front of Adam, he studied the lonely man and tried to find the smiling one from those pictures under the rough yet not old enough exterior.
Icarus barely resisted the urge to run his fingers through Adam’s hair again, to skate his fingertips over his cheek and drown in his warmth. Temptation, a long-forgotten drug, was riding him hard. “What are you?” he mumbled to the sleeping man, to the dawn, and to whatever twist of fate had put the Devil in his path.
SEVEN
The tripback to his apartment took Icarus less than five minutes, the morning fog heavy, the sun still shy of the horizon. Good cover for him to move through the shadows at a quickened, inhuman pace. His mind likewise operated on high speed, replaying images from last night. To say the performance—the mission—had not gone where expected was an understatement. He couldn’t say he understood where it had gone at all. And that was fucking dangerous. On so many levels. He needed to excavate—Adam, David, and Deborah—and needed to sort a strategy for dealing with Vincent. Sort a way out of Yerba Buena if he had to.
At his apartment door, Icarus inserted the key in the lock, then recoiled as magic blasted through the metal, prickling his skin and lifting the hairs on his arms. Same as it had yesterday when Atlas had first appeared in his bedroom. He backed away from the door, clear across the hall, and contemplated running. To Adam and his armory? To Portola? To some place else altogether? But as sure as he’d felt the current of magic, so had its wielder felt him. He could try to run, but would he even make it out of the building?
Debatable.
Better to buy time and work on his survive-until-tomorrow to-do list. He crossed the hall and gritted his teeth, prepared for the shock this time. He grasped the key, turned it quick, and shoved open the door. His unit was dim, the blinds drawn and the lights off, but Icarus had no trouble seeing—and smelling—Atlas on the sofa in his living room. The warlock sat in the far corner, one ankle resting on the opposite knee, an arm stretched across the top of the couch, the other along the armrest, hand dangling off the end in the muted light that crept around the blinds of the sliding glass door.
How long had he been waiting there?
Icarus shut the door, undid his trench, and hung it on the metal wall hooks. He continued with his routine as if the warlock wasn’t there, venturing into the tiny kitchen, laying his phone on the charger, and grabbing an express meal out of the fridge. He tipped back the vial and forced himself not to cringe. Fresh and warm was better, but convenient and safe was more valuable—and his default, absent a willing food source or an agitator who found the pointy end of his fangs.
Atlas tutted, tongue clicking behind his teeth. “Where are your manners, Icarus?”
He lowered the empty vial and licked his lips. “Oh, did you want one? I didn’t think these were on your diet.”
“They’re not. I was thinking along the lines of vodka. You know, basic hospitality.”
“I reserve hospitality, basic and otherwise, for invited guests.” Icarus tossed the vial into the waste bin. “Which you are not.” He crossed his arms and leaned a hip against the end of the kitchen counter. “What are you doing here?”
Atlas dropped his leg and reached between them, stroking his half chub through his slacks. “Came to finish what we started yesterday.”
Icarus rolled his eyes, not the least bit tempted by the warlock’s cock anymore. “World of fuck no, and aren’t you supposed to be sore and dripping?”
Atlas smirked. “Who says I’m not?”
It was a shame he was a liar and an ass. He’d been filthy as fuck during their private online sessions and hands down one of the most gorgeous beings Icarus had ever seen. A toned, compact body under flawless fair skin, blond hair with an enviable wave, sinfully long lashes, and green eyes the color the forests used to be. Through computer screens, Icarus had pegged him as a white-collar professional sort. The fake profile Atlas had given him—Pierce Wilkes—confirmed as much. Perfectly groomed, expensive business casual attire that “Pierce” liked to trade for buckles and kilts, a kink or twenty that needed regular working out. He’d been Icarus’s best client the past two months between solo sessions and live stream hits. The “businessman” with money and upbringing and access to resources.
Which he had, only magically.
Magic that was tied up by another.
“Where’s your master?” Icarus asked.
