Deep Deception (4 page)

“I have to think.” Adin shoved Santos away. “What
is
the boy that Harwiche wants him so badly?”

“That is a very good question.”

“All right,” Adin growled and looked at his watches. “You’ve made your mischief, and if you’re right, Donte will be here any minute. If you want to add jealous outrage, be sure and stick around.”

“Never. That would be too pedestrian for me and he knows I don’t share his peculiar tastes.” Santos shook his head. “You won’t believe me, but it’s always a pleasure to see you, Adin.”

“The pleasure was all yours.” Adin headed across the bridge toward the Right Bank but stopped after he’d gotten about ten feet. He sighed and turned back to shoot Santos a cheeky smile. “
Almost
, all yours. Thanks for the drink, Santos, and Happy Easter.”

A brief burst of Santos’s laughter followed Adin as he crossed over the river. Once on the other side, Adin couldn’t help the rush of emotions, the hard beating of his heart at the thought of seeing Donte again. The awareness that—at any moment—he could turn a corner and see Donte’s much-loved face quickened his footsteps and compressed his chest with tense anticipation. Adin truly hoped Donte was past his lengthy period of melancholy, because he wanted nothing more than to play.

“Damn you,” he said aloud, “come out, come out, wherever you are.” He turned another corner and headed down an alley on his way to the hotel. His skin hummed with keen urgency and the whisper of Donte’s many languages echoed in his head. Adin knew enough to recognize Donte’s playful stalking when he felt it. “I can feel you. I know you’re here.”

Adin passed a fire escape under which a faint puff of smoke curled away from a recessed doorway, redolent with the scent of Donte’s expensive cigars.

A tiny flare of light from a rather unusual, nearly original Zippo lighter caught Adin’s attention, limning Donte’s face, then going out.

Like fucking Harry Lime, there, a briefly lit face in the darkness, and gone again.

“Hello, my lover.” Adin went into the sinister shadows to be with Donte, moving with grace into his arms to swap smoke and spit and find skin. Sensation prickled all along the surface of his body when they touched.

“Adin,” Donte sighed when their bodies met. He cupped Adin’s face in his hands and studied him. “Più amato.”

“I’ve missed you,” Adin said between kisses. “Missed us.”

“Me too.” Donte tossed his cigar to the ground and reached both hands down the back of Adin’s pants. “Leather, caro? You’re dressed like a boy harlot. I have to admit, it has its charm.”

“Mmhmm.” Adin pulled Donte’s shirt from his trousers. He wondered if all vampires had such marvelous tailors; he had only to breathe in Donte’s scent and crush the fabric in his fingers to feel a surge of erotic excitement deep within him.

“Turn,” he told Donte, uncharacteristically brusque.

“Adin…” Donte resisted, but Adin gritted his teeth and clutched Donte’s jacket, spinning him so his face was pressed against the wall. He wasn’t thinking too clearly when reached around to unbuckle Donte’s belt and undo his zipper. He found the tops of Donte’s hips and slid downward to press into the hollows of his pelvis on either side of his cock. Adin dipped his hands lower, cupping Donte’s balls and cradling his dick as it thickened and firmed in his palm. Donte protested only slightly when his trousers hit the ground.

“Adin, surely—”

“Shh…” Adin used his upper body to push Donte’s into the wall even as he nudged Donte’s legs apart as far as they would go, trapped as they were. “Be my man, Donte.” He unzipped his leather pants, and his cock dropped hard and heavy against the skin of Donte’s ass.

“A—”

“My man and nothing more, right now,” Adin told him. “I need you, lover.”

Donte’s muscles relaxed beneath his fingers. “All right.”

“Oh, shit.” Adin reached around and stroked Donte’s uncut cock erect. “I want you so much. I dream about it every night. Tasting you. Filling you. Lying beneath you as you devour me. Only when I started looking for you, when I realized you were out here somewhere on the street waiting for me, I wanted so much more… I wanted—”

“To hunt me,” Donte finished for him.

Adin jabbed his cock into the cleft of Donte’s ass. He hissed, “Yes. And I’ve caught you, so you’re mine.” Adin used glistening drops of precome from Donte’s cock to tease at Donte’s hole, but it wasn’t enough. “Shit. We need lube, lover. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Donte held his hand up to what little light there was and tore his palm with an incisor. Blood dripped, viscous and thick, from the wound. “Spit on that.”

Adin did as he was told. When Donte reached back and took hold of his cock, the sensation was exquisite. He squeezed through spit and blood, warm and nearly pulsing with life inside the tightness of a thick, cool hand. Adin drew in a shuddering breath and nearly blew right there. Donte played with fire by thumbing the slit of Adin’s cock firmly but eased before Adin’s balls drew up. Donte pressed his hips backward while he pumped Adin’s cock a few more times.

“Pay attention,” Donte teased when Adin momentarily lost focus. Adin wrapped an arm around Donte’s neck and surged against him, inching his way into Donte’s tight channel.

“Ah. So good,” Adin moaned when he’d pushed his way in to the hilt and pressed his face into Donte’s back, breathing in the scent of him. As that tight, hot channel surrounded his cock he clutched Donte’s muscled shoulder for purchase.

Adin wanted flesh beneath his fingers—not fabric—so he kept his dick in motion even as he helped Donte buck off one side of his coat. Together they unbuttoned and slipped his shirt off. As soon as Adin found skin he tasted Donte and teased him with teeth and tongue, nibbling and sucking up marks on his pale skin.

“Adin…” Donte dropped his head back. “You’re burning me up.”

“Touch yourself.” Adin held on and drove into Donte. Anticipation heightened when Donte shifted to get his hand on his dick. Adin felt the change in Donte’s muscles as he stroked himself, felt him tense in satisfaction when he gave himself a particularly pleasurable pull.

Sweat dripped into Adin’s eyes, stinging as he buried his face in the thick, dark hair at the nape of Donte’s neck. His heart thundered in his chest, and even knowing Donte’s heart would never beat for him in answer, he nearly sobbed with relief each time he sank into Donte’s cool body. Adin wanted to obliterate the awkward distance that grew so often between them. He pressed his cheek to Donte’s back, knowing he shoved him uncomfortably against the bricks on the wall beneath the fire escape, but unable to find the will to let him loose. He pumped frantically, flying toward his release, ready to come apart at the slightest sign or pressure.

Donte’s legs stiffened, and he groaned. His body clenched around Adin’s cock. Adin caught the rich, bittersweet scent of Donte’s come as it splattered against the wall, then sank his teeth into the meaty muscle where Donte’s shoulder met his neck. His legs nearly gave out as his climax hit him hard and he soared, hands skimming over the hills and valleys of Donte’s trembling frame, every molecule that touched Donte’s skin striking and dancing, sending sensation rippling back through him like a stone skipped in a pond.

Adin collapsed against Donte, who sank, sliding to his knees on the dirty street. Adin draped himself over Donte’s back, wrapping arms so tightly around his neck that if Donte had been an ordinary mortal, he’d have died from lack of oxygen.

Where he still had hold of Donte with his teeth, he tasted sweat and salt.

Maybe surprise.

“What the hell has gotten into you?” Donte gasped out as he tried to extricate himself and lunge for his clothes.

“Are you complaining?” Adin slid his hands down Donte’s chest and smoothed come across his belly.

Donte dragged his shirt and jacket on and stood to pull up his trousers. “Not really. No.”

Adin heard a smile in Donte’s voice. He hung on to some part of Donte as long as he could, but finally let go and fell on his ass “I claim what’s mine, vampire,” he said imperiously. “By the power of Count Chocula…and by the gods of breakfast cereal everywhere.”

“You’re unhinged.”

“Shut up. I’ve had a helluva day.” Adin sighed again, tucking his cock into his trousers, then scrambling to his knees to zip up his fly. “That was epic. We should do that all the damned time. As soon as I get the feeling back in my legs I’ll run and you can fuck me if you catch me.”

When Donte had his pants done, his belt still dangling, he reached down and hoisted Adin up, then wrapped his arms firmly around him.

“Pazzo.” Donte kissed him gently, nearly reverently. Adin locked his arms around Donte and pushed so they fell back against the wall again with a
thud
. Out of any human man a burst of air would have escaped, and Adin missed it a little so he voiced it.

“Ooooomph,” he sang out, ignoring the shushing Donte was doing in his ear.

“Have you been drinking?”


“I had a glass or two of wine,” Adin admitted.

“With Santos,” hissed Donte.

“Yep.” Adin stepped back and began to pull Donte along toward his hotel, even as he tried to do up his zipper one-handed. “Your immortal enemy.”

“Shh,” Donte chided. “It’s late.”

“
To the last, I grapple with thee;
” Adin intoned, giving it all the Moby and a little more of the Dick than it absolutely called for. “
From Hell’s heart, I stab at thee; For hate’s sake, I spit my last breath at thee.
”

Donte tried to hide a smile. “Come along, Melville. It would be better if you could make less noise and more sense. I thought you might have had enough of the gendarmes for one day.”

“Oh.” Adin slowed his steps. “You heard about that, did you?”

“Yes. Explain.”

“Come along, my lover.” Adin sighed. “I will tell all once we reach the hotel. It’s this way.”

When they reached the street where Adin’s hotel was located, Donte took Adin’s elbow and pulled him into the shadows to help him fix his clothing. Adin returned the favor, running his hands over Donte’s shoulders and smoothing the wrinkles from his jacket as well as he could. He couldn’t stop himself from
pulling Donte in for a kiss as he cinched his tie into place.

“It’s good to see you,” Adin said, hoping Donte could read the truth of his love in his eyes.

Donte stroked a finger over the bruise on Adin’s forehead and pressed a kiss tenderly over it. Guilt surged as Adin recalled Santos licking that very spot.

“If I had a beating heart, it would stop whenever I look at you, più amato. You are my life. You know that, right?”

Adin softened considerably. “Yes.” Adin kissed Donte’s hand and led him into the lobby of his hotel. “My monster.”

He didn’t much care for the look he got from Monsieur Villiers, but when all was said and done, it was an honest mistake. Arguably he’d had plenty of men in his hotel room already.

“Why on earth did the clerk look at us like that?” Donte asked once they were alone in the elevator.

“Why indeed,” Adin murmured.

Chapter Four

Adin wasn’t surprised when—after he invited Donte into his room—he discovered that nothing was there. Not Bran. Not Boaz. Not his luggage or personal effects. He sat on the bed with a sigh and scrubbed his hands through his hair, now just tacky from the gel and product he’d used to style it what seemed like days before.

“Don’t bother trying to lock the door.” Wearily, Adin rose and headed toward the bathroom. “Santos broke it down.”

Donte flipped idly through the television channels while Adin washed his face clean of makeup. When Adin returned, Donte opened his arms and enfolded him in an embrace that said as much about the longing Donte had been feeling for him as it did about their present circumstances.

“My things are gone,” Adin told him.

“Outwitted by Santos again, were we?” Donte murmured into Adin’s hair.

“I don’t think so. No.”

Donte shot him a look but said nothing.

“Santos invited me to stay at his home. Call Boaz and ask him if you don’t believe me.”

Donte’s brows knit together. “Oh, I believe you.”

Adin rested his head on Donte’s broad, lightly padded shoulder. “I believe Santos was legitimately offering me a safe place to stay. How much do you know about what happened today?”

“I know you did an extremely foolish thing, going to meet Harwiche in a cemetery.”

Adin froze. “How do you know about that?” He jumped to his feet. “You’re having me
followed
?”

“Caro—”

“So what? You have me watched when I leave the hotel, you have Boaz on speed dial to get me out of trouble, and you race here like a biblical angel when you perceive I’m in danger?”

“Yes.” Donte turned cold eyes toward him. “What of it?”

“You act like my mother!”

“I do nothing of the sort,” Donte turned away.

“Well, no actually, you’re right.
She
had faith in me.”

“I—”

“Admit it, you have not one molecule of confidence that I can take care of myself.”

“In the world you knew, yes. You had every right to feel like the master of your fate. In my world…in this new world we inhabit together…” Donte left his sentence hanging as he pulled the phone from his pocket. He took only a second to check his messages and put it back. “Boaz has your adolescent friend. What were you thinking, Adin? Buying that boy?”

“I doubt it would make any sense to you.”

“Nothing you do makes sense to me.”

“I hope you’re being facetious here.” Adin frowned. “The boy—Bran—reminded me of my friend Edward. I don’t know why. Edward never seemed lost like that when we were growing up. Bran is almost feral, yet something about him felt familiar to me. And he was in trouble. I had to do it. You didn’t see where they were keeping him.”

“Fine.” Donte stood. “If you want your things you need to come with me.”

“I need to tell Villiers I’m checking out so he can fix the broken door.”

“The door
Santos
broke. Fine.”

Donte waited as patiently as he ever did while Adin accomplished that. Adin returned from the registration desk in time to see two stunning, dark-haired women engage Donte in conversation. As usual, he was his charming self with strangers. Donte sent another impatient glare Adin’s way when he walked over to join them.

“Ah, Adin. At last. Let’s go find out how much trouble you’ve purchased.”

Adin followed Donte glumly out the door and just like that, they were back where they’d begun when he left Spain, silent and separate, walking the streets of the most romantic city on earth without communicating.

Adin slipped his hand into Donte’s and they walked a few more feet before Donte stopped and pulled Adin under his arm. They walked the rest of the way to a taxi queue like that, laughing when someone honked and shouted the German equivalent of “get a room”.

Once inside the taxi, Adin faced Donte. “Let me look at you at least. Are you well?”

The expression on Donte’s face softened. “You are positively the silliest man. Of course I’m well.”

“Did you get a lot of brooding done while I was gone?” Adin teased. “How’s your chair, the one with the leather upholstery? Did you sit by the fire and doodle pictures of bats with little heart-shaped eyes? I did.”

“I am not in the mood to be mocked.”

“Beloved, I mock you only as a last resort.” Adin framed Donte’s face with his hands, running his thumbs over the bones of his cheeks and the arch of his brows. He leaned in and whispered in Donte’s ear, “Do you need me?”

Donte lowered his gaze. “I do. Always.”

“Feed,” Adin ordered. “I had Thai food for lunch before I met Harwiche. Let’s see if you can tell me what I ate.”

Donte looked at the driver. “We could wait—”

“I’m sure you can make him believe he dropped Italian nuns off at the Louvre. Now, come to me.” Adin’s voice roughened. “Maybe I need
you
, lover. Didn’t you ever think of that?”

Donte allowed Adin to draw him in. In the end neither of them could fight the attraction they felt. Adin’s heart quickened as Donte pressed his lips to the pulse in his neck and a terrible excitement stole over him when he felt Donte’s teeth tease the skin there. Donte could tear his throat out with little more than the effort it would take Adin to place a chaste kiss on someone’s nose, but maybe that was part of the thrill.

“I wish you didn’t like this so much, caro,” Donte murmured. “I worry that you’ll be indiscriminate.”

“You don’t mean that.” As fury brought a high color to his cheeks, Adin pushed him away. “I am no one’s
cheap eats
.”

“Promise me?” Donte searched him for any sign of duplicity. “Santos—”

“Santos closed my wound without permission from me,” Adin wanted to scream with frustration. “I will never willingly be with anyone else, in any way, as long as you and I… I don’t know what I have to do to prove myself to you…”

Donte struck, his teeth sliding into Adin’s neck like ice picks, quick and sure. Adin felt the sudden surge of hot lightning throughout his body that began as searing pain, but brought him almost instantly to an equal ecstasy.

“
Donte
.” Donte had to know that feeding brought Adin a release that was both profoundly sexual and emotionally gratifying. “Don’t you know how I feel? Don’t you understand what it means to me to nourish you this way?”

Donte used his tongue to soothe away the pain and Adin breathed in deeply, committing to memory the ambiance of Paris as it mingled in his mind with Donte’s own deeply masculine scent.

“Ah,
lover
.”

“Più amato.” Donte nuzzled him. Adin’s head swam. It wasn’t unusual for him to get light-headed after Donte fed. He’d grown to count on curling up in Donte’s arms afterward and letting the lassitude take him even as Donte’s body warmed and quickened with borrowed life.

After a while Donte broke the silence. “Are you sure you want to go to Santos’s place?”

Adin opened his eyes. “Can you think of a logical reason why I shouldn’t?”

Donte glared at him.

The familiar argument dragged Adin down far more than the loss of blood. “If he wanted me dead, I’d be dead.”

“Who knows what he wants? What if he plans to kill you next week? He could kill you—”

“At any time. So can anything. Accept that or don’t follow me next time.” Donte’s hold tightened around him and Adin felt unreasonably constricted. He pushed away from Donte, who glared at him, hurt and angry. Adin caught the door handle and opened it to step out but Donte caught his arm.

“Wait—”

“I’m human; I will die,” Adin said tersely. “Accustom yourself or walk away.”

“If I thought you meant that for one second I would have no trouble killing you myself.” Donte gave Adin a shove that sent him sprawling onto the pavement of the road in front of Santos’s home and pulled the door shut, even as Adin heard him tell the driver to go. The cab sped away, its taillights winking back as it braked and surged into the Parisian traffic.

“Bastard.” Adin got up and dusted himself off, then walked to the wrought-iron gate of Santos’s impressive property. While he waited for someone to answer the intercom he muttered, “Time for a new Cosmo poll. Ten ways to tell if your boyfriend is The One… Question #1. Is he willing to throw you from a moving vehicle…?”

Boaz clucked like a mother hen as he led Adin down the long hallway. “I settled the boy in the guest suite and put your things in the adjoining room. I take it Donte found you. You reek of jizz and blood and regret.”

“I want that for my epitaph, Boaz, please write it down. Adin Tredeger, PhD. He reeked of—”

“All right, remind me later,” Boaz said gently as he opened the door to a beautifully decorated but simple bedroom in soothing tones of green and gray.

Adin looked around. “I expected something more…Versailles. I’m delighted to be disappointed. I envisioned Louis XIV gilt furnishings and fleur de lis.”

“Santos is a monster, not an American.”

“Ah…” Adin allowed Boaz to help him off with his coat. The knob of a door on the interior wall of his room turned. Bran’s manacled hands appeared before his face peeked out. He appeared to be more vibrant; the smudges under his eyes were fainter and the drawn look had all but disappeared from his still-pale face.

“You’re back,” Bran said carefully, looking Adin over. His nostrils flared and he turned his head slightly, his cheeks pinkening in the light thrown from his room.

“Boaz, can you show me somewhere I can bathe?”

“With
pleasure
.” Boaz shot Bran a look that made him grin.

“Bran, we’ll talk after I get cleaned up.”

Bran gave Adin a nod and then entered into the adjacent sitting room. He sat in one of two elegant leather chairs and picked a book off the table between.
Splendours of Christendom.

Adin followed Boaz back out to the hallway. The hardwood floors were old and rich, the walls decorated with black and white photographs of stars from the silent era of American films. A particularly fetching picture of Garbo as barely a girl caught his eye and he stopped to admire it.

“Not what you expected is it, Dr. Tredeger?” Boaz asked.

“No.” Adin couldn’t quite put his finger on why that might bother him. “So much nicer to picture the castle with walls that drip blood.”

“Santos isn’t a monster any more than Donte is, except, they all are. Which makes it difficult to explain.”

“You’re making my head ache.”

Boaz paused to usher Adin into a sumptuous bathroom. “You’ll find everything you need in here. Can you find your way back? I left the door to your room open and it’s the only green one.”

“My room is right after John Thierry but before Clara Bow.” Adin glanced back. “Is Bran safely locked in?”

“There’s no need.” Boaz leaned in and whispered, “He’s very weak.”

“Are you sure he won’t try to run?”

“Bran and I have an understanding. He knows he’s far safer here than he would be anywhere else.” Boaz smiled. “Besides, I think he likes you.”

“Likes me?” Adin thought of all the different things that might mean to Boaz, and not a few of them involved things he didn’t want to contemplate with regard to a boy Bran’s age.

“He realizes you saved him from Harwiche,” Boaz clarified, his voice betraying his distaste. “And the men who kept him prisoner. He saw how you held your own with Santos. I believe he thinks you’re heroic.”

“Spare me.” Adin began to remove his clothing. “He probably saw Donte throw my jizz-covered ass out of that cab and now he’s changed his mind.”

Boaz went to the tub and opened the taps. “That was amusing, sir. In a
can this marriage be saved
sort of way.”

“I’m not in the mood.” Adin barely folded his clothes as he piled them on the wide marble counter. “It wouldn’t be so bad if Donte was angry with me, but I always seem to hurt him in some profound new way.”

“He loves you, and he hates himself for it.”

“Cool. Just when I didn’t think I could feel worse.” Adin stepped into the tub and sank into the shallow water. As Boaz added herb-infused oils, Adin’s muscles relaxed and tension drained from his body.

“Don’t fall asleep,” Boaz reached his hand down to slap a light splash of hot water into Adin’s face. “You’ll drown.”

“I’ll be fine,” Adin lied, even as he began to let himself drift. He’d fallen asleep in a tub before and didn’t think he’d drown. He had a moment of concern that the water would overflow but even that left him as he sank dreamily into the comfort of heat and coriander…maybe juniper berries and lime.

Like hot gin it went straight to his head. At some point, Boaz turned off the water, murmuring something before the door closed behind him.

Adin dreamed of driving an old-fashioned metal pedal car, squeak-squeaking down the dirt road in front of his parents’ rented home in Pakistan. When his father was working there on geological studies, the families from his small company of surveyors and scientists all lived in a rural outpost consisting of several low homes facing a courtyard just outside of a small village.

Crowds of ragged boys waited for their turn, and Adin was ready to relinquish the car as soon as he reached the rusted paint can that signified his trip around the property was over. Dust flew up from the wheels, covering him with grime, and an occasional automobile snorted its way past, forcing him to pull over and wait.

Just as Adin reached the can and began to step out of the car, the Imam called some of the boys—Adin’s Muslim friends—to prayer. They scattered to attend to their devotions with their families, and Adin left the car where it was, assuming they’d return sooner or later to begin their play again.

He headed for the back door of his house, the one nearest his mother’s kitchen so she or Yasmina—the teenage girl who cooked for them—could scold him or feed him. Adin never knew beforehand which they planned.

As he passed by the window to his parents’ bedroom, he heard laughter drifting from within like music. Fascinated, he stepped up to the opening and watched as his father caught his mother against the wall and kissed her. Adin could see her struggling to get away but knew that she was only pretending. Her laughter was low and filled with something he didn’t understand. It wasn’t anger; he’d never heard his parents angry. They’d argued, certainly, especially about taking more jobs outside the U.S. His mother believed things were changing around the world, and she wanted to go back home where she felt more comfortable. His father was a bit of an adventurer and liked to travel.