Rough Attraction (19 page)

Maxum had Darko backed against the wall, “You’re fucking him?” Maxum was seething red in the face as he leered at Darko.

“What business is it to you who I am fucking?”

“Are you or are you not fucking Vince Masters?”

“No! I’m not!” Darko brushed him back to gain some personal space.

“Don’t lie to me!” He thrust Darko back against the wall and leaned toward him to keep him pinned there this time.

Darko’s chin came up in defiance. “Why would I care to lie? Believe me if I had something to throw in your face right now I would— save my fist.”

“Then what are you doing with him?”

“Vida and I have been friends for years. We go out together every once in a while, sometimes at Dane’s request because Dane trusts me to date him and
not
sleep with him.”

“And the trip to
Salientis
? You’re going to tell me you didn’t do anything there?”

“Of course not. There were still plenty of sex-slaves on employment while we were there. Though, I spent most of my time with Paris.” Darko’s confession tightened, hoping that throwing a name out would hurt Maxum enough to make him back off. He watched every line and contour of the man’s face grow taut, but Maxum didn’t move. So Darko pushed further, turning the tables, “And what about you?” he sneered, “You and that pajama wearing queen sashaying on your arm. That’s the boyfriend you were hiding?”

“What about the pajama wearing queen?” Simeon’s shrill question shot towards them from just inside the hotel restroom before Maxum could defend himself against the foul play.

Maxum spun around to see Simeon standing just behind him hands on hips that were jutted out to the side in perfect hussy pose. And just behind him was Vince, only Vince’s expression looked far more wounded than Simeon’s did.
Shit this night was a total cave-in and the after math from it was certain to last a while.

Simeon turned on clogged heels and stormed out; Maxum’s heavy gaze flickered to Darko for a fraction of a second then went after the ex-significant other who shanghaied him here in the first place. If, for no other reason but to see to it, his hands weren’t forced into anything else before the night was over. “Dammit, Simeon. Wait!” he was calling out as he left the restroom.

Darko let the air out of his lungs with a hard huff through his nostrils, turned and slammed his fist into the stall door.

“Does Dane pay you to go out with me?” The fragile question from Vida-Vince pleaded with him.

Darko shook his head. None of what he said should have sounded that way but he could see from Vida’s point why it did. “No, Vida, he does not. I promise.” His voice deep and low with the pain that ripped at his chest and he punched the door again. Its hinges snapped sending the door reeling back, as well as something else, now flying shrapnel. Only the rebounding door came back so quick it smashed against his knuckles, unprepared for the return and his hand recoiled with a sharp pain far worse than the original punch had created.

Maxum returned inside after chasing Simeon out to the street where he hailed a cab and took off without him. He rubbed at the cheek smoothing out the sting from yet another slap. His emotions stewing over just that one thing. His tolerance of them overly used up whether he rightfully deserved them or not. He spotted Darko and Vince at the bar, he fully intended to park his ass at to drown his simmering emotions before heading home, but he held back a moment just watching the two.

Vince was taking a bar towel of ice from the bartender and holding it over Darko’s hand and was clearly crying. Darko was wiping the tears from Vince’s eyes and gave some attention to his forehead a moment before pulling the fragile man against his chest and kissed his forehead in the same way he had watched Darko kiss his sisters. Or the girl his older brother now called daughter. In the same fashion, Dane would kiss Vince.
Intimately
—
but not sexually
. Something they had said in that argument upset Vince and got the man emotional. Something Maxum was certain he’d hear about from Dane come tomorrow.

Maxum mentally added
putz
under the words
alone
and
failure
on his self-loathing chalkboard list and left.

~  *  ~  *  ~  *  ~  *  ~  *  ~

It was a Sunday but that didn’t matter in Tokyo.
Only
Americans think weekend is time for no work
. Mr. Hasamoto had often been heard to say of US businessmen, but so far had never said it to Maxum. He sat in his office after getting off the conference call, realizing he’d yet heard from Dane. It was nearly two. The man would have been up now.

His new barely out of the box phone on his desk where the old one used to sit buzzed with the call from the front desk. “What is it, Lee?” Lee being his weekend assistant and intern who over saw most of the quiet operations. If something came up with a client, usually one of the overseas ones, and it was more than the average to-do, Lee knew to call him or one of his employed men if needed. After all, they were Americans and Maxum didn’t force his staff to work seven days a week. Lee was a godsend in the sense too. A graduate student working towards his Masters in Global Marketing, who had so many classes crunched into his semesters, he didn’t have time for a nine to five office job. And so few financial firms came with weekend schedules that paid well. Maxum needed more than a gopher in the office so the arrangement worked well for them both, and to show his appreciation Maxum sponsored most of Lee’s student fees and his tuition. However, it came with a four-year contract of employment too. As Maxum always said, he invested in the long term, and he knew when he had a good thing in front of him. Except perhaps when it came to Darko Laszkovi. Darko spun him about and made him all sensation and emotions until he couldn’t think straight at all. Maxum was so predetermined to invest in the long run, it made enjoying the short term bliss he had with Darko complicated and painful.

“
You received a call from Vince Masters while you were on conference. He seemed upset. Something about his brother going after him? Do you know what he was referring to
?”

“Shit. When?”

“
About a half hour ago
.”

Damn
. It’d take Dane about an hour to reach Darko’s shop from his house out at the Hamptons, that gave Maxum only thirty minutes to intercept. “Cancel the rest of my day.” Maxum knew the motorcycle shop stayed open over the weekend then was closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, so that’s where he headed. He only hoped that’s where he would find Darko before Dane could.

Twenty-three minutes and a hand full of seconds later, Maxum pulled into the parking lot of Darko’s motorcycle shop. Dane’s Audi was already pulled up to the front glass windows of the shop. The driver’s side door left wide open. Maxum could hear the heated conflict going on inside when he turned the car off and quickly jumped out to get in there before it got worse.

“I wanna know why the hell my brother was seen leaving the wine cellars last night while crying his eyes out, then wound up in the ER and won’t tell me a god damn thing about what took place!” Dane Masters’ tempered bellowed off the walls like thunder.

“Nobody hurt Vida. I swear it.” There was a pause followed by some fast explaining. “I got into an altercation with someone else an—” And that was it. Maxum rounded the front counter of the shop just in time to see Dane’s fist come flying at Darko, knocking him back into one of the bikes he’d apparently been working on, and he and the machine went crashing to the floor.

“Dane!” Maxum ran up, but it was too late. Darko was out cold on the floor.

“What the hell are you doing here? Was it you?” Dane lurched towards him. “You, I can fire! Though it won’t do much good. I can’t afford to buy you out!” Dane spat at Maxum. Flames cooking in the man’s eyes like he was sucked-up into some peripheral war zone hallucination.

“Dane! Calm yourself!” Maxum bellowed back at him. His own focus flickering to his lover on the floor still not moving.

“I don’t want to be calm! I want to know what happened to Vince last night!”

“Darko and I got into an argument. I accused him of being more involved with Vince then he is. In the defense of Vince’s honor, Vince was inadvertently hurt by it.”

Dane eased back on his heels reining himself back in and took a deep breath to Maxum’s relief. Obviously, Darko hadn’t exaggerated about trusting the two of them would never wind up in bed together. “What the hell were you two arguing about?”

Maxum was next to take a long deep breath. Running his fingers into his hair as he glanced down at the unconscious body that still managed to arouse him somehow.

“Start talking or I start punching again.” Dane warned.

Maxum’s gaze flicked to the other men in the shop hovering nearby like they wanted to come to the aid of their co-worker, but smart enough to stay clear from the Titans involved. “Darko and I have been having an affair. And last night he discovered Simeon and Simeon discovered Darko.”

“Fucking great. An affair. That doesn’t explain why those two ended up at ER.” Dane’s hand waved back to the body on the floor.

Maxum glanced back down at Darko’s right hand sporting the black arm brace and his fingers taped to a splint. “What happened to Vince?” He asked the only question he figured Dane would care to answer right now.

“Three stitches above the left eye. I had to yank them out and glue the cut shut so he didn’t have a permanent scar. Fucking idiot doctors!”

“I’m sorry Dane. I don’t know how that happened, but I’ll take a wild guess and say a bathroom stall door had been involved.”

~  *  ~  *  ~  *  ~  *  ~  *  ~

Darko felt the piercing pain long before he even thought to open his eyes. Damn his head hurt, but—
oh yeah
— Dane was punching him. He jumped with a start.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa there. Easy now. The match is over. Just sit tight.” A familiar voice spoke while a warm hand settled over his shoulder easing him back to the sofa. There was a flash of white light that hit him when Darko opened his eyes, dimmed and there in its place was Maxum, sitting at his side. His face drawn up as if he was actually concerned over something.

Darko reached up his hand searching until he found the weight holding him down and brushed Maxum’s hand from his shoulder, feeling the flood of his own pain and anger coming. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Maxum took a deep breath just contemplating him, “I tried to beat Dane to the draw. Guess I had the wrong car with me today.” He tried joking, to make light of the circumstances, still pressing the cold compress to Darko’s cheek.

Darko wasn’t taking the bait or letting go of his emotions so willingly. He shoved Maxum’s hands from him, grabbed the wet washcloth, and tossed it across the room.

“You should leave it. You took a quiet a punch.” Maxum mildly scolded him for the defiance.

“Yeah, well, there’s still plenty more to come when Pyotr finds out I can’t practice for two months. It was only fake-luck I got out of the ER before Pavle discovered I was there.” Darko grumbled. Though Maxum wasn’t sure how Darko’s brother Pavle played out in all this, he figured right now probably wasn’t the best time to ask.

Darko brought his arms up crossing them over his eyes and just lay there silently fuming— and beating back tears as he retreated mentally from the man sitting on the edge of the beat up shop-sofa next to him.

Maxum could only think to offer whatever request Darko might ask of him, and the remorse he felt rang out in every word. “Is there something, anything I can do?”

“Yeah— get the fuck out.” The words spilled before Darko could second-guess them. But there was no taking them back and it was probably best when the man didn’t refute him. He peeked out from under his arms and watched as Maxum got up. Even in the dim light from just the small desk lamp in his office, he could make out the man’s body inside the tailored slacks, and crisp clean shirt. No jacket hiding his perfect ass this time.
That was odd
. Maxum never stepped out without his jacket.
Must’ah been in a hurry to get somewhere
. And that’s when he felt the punch to his chest and the sting of tears threaten his eyes further.

Shit
.

Maxum stepped out, closing the door behind him. He stalled, his hand still holding the door handle. Just hovering there a moment. He knew he wasn’t welcome and he had been ordered to go, but he couldn’t bring his feet to obey and take him away.

He heard Darko moving inside the office, followed by his forlorn voice.

“
Zdravo. It’s me Darko. I was just calling to check
—
hey you’re up
—” Maxum heard Darko’s caring voice from inside. “
No, no. I’m good. Everything’s fine. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Darko’d obviously called Vince. Maxum could tell, because Darko spoke to Vince the same way everyone else did. Overly nurturing. Like a big brother.

What’da ya say we go out tonight? Say dinner and a movie, my treat.
” There was a pause,
“Yeah
—
talking would be great.”

Maxum finally forced himself to step away. He had no right to feel jealous or lay claim. Darko had made it clear, if he wanted Darko all for himself, he had to keep him, and Maxum hadn’t done that because he already let someone else get in the way. Darko had every right to move on.

~  *  ~  *  ~  *  ~  *  ~  *  ~

CHAPTER TEN

~  *  ~  *  ~  *  ~  *  ~  *  ~

Darko had given up on hearing from Maxum; phone calls he never made that would have gone unanswered even if he had. He’d thought for sure their weekend together at his brother’s had gone well. It was necessary from his view of it, the attraction they shared was so searing hot they needed some kind of grounding, just to prove that even an intense attraction like theirs could be serious. That they could in fact share a real relationship not just an affair of excessive fucking for a flighty moment. For all that, not even the sex had happened between them since their weekend together. Nothing more than the possible chance he saw him at Club Pain then the run-in at the Wine Cellars Christmas Event that didn’t go over so well. The three fingers of his right hand still taped and splinted were a reminder of that night. He’d since tossed the arm brace so he could at least start working out again.