The Cross of Sins (12 page)

Luca leaned out of the shower and reached for Will's beer. Will handed it to him.

"Mark my words; there'll be a knock on our door before the day is out."

"Twenty bucks says you're wrong."

"Fifty says I'm right."

"Done." Will watched as Luca stood naked in the shower drinking from his beer bottle. His brown body glistened as the water slid down his every muscle, splashing against his large chest, running down his rigid stomach, caressing the length of his long uncut cock.

Luca felt Will's eyes on him. He looked sideways, pulled his lips away from the beer bottle and shook his head. "Na-uh. Not like last time."

Will grinned. "What?"

"I know that look. Remember Paris?"

Will's grin grew even bigger, his white teeth shining, his boyish good looks spreading from ear to ear. "Of course I remember Paris. So does the bulge in my jeans!"

Will indicated his own crotch, and then peeled off his shirt.

"No," Luca said firmly.

"But I owe you. You saved my life today. That bus would have been the end of me. The least I can do is—"

"The least you can do is forget it. It's not happening."

"Tell that to your cock."

Luca didn't have to look down. He could feel his cock swelling fast. He felt the head slide out from beneath the long foreskin. He felt his shaft form a limb of its own, defying gravity, rising in an arc perpendicular to his body.

He turned off the shower, and the water drew the last of its glistening patterns down his chest and stomach. He stepped out and reached for a towel, but Will got to it first.

He moved toward Luca with the towel in both hands and began to dry him with it, using long, slow, tender strokes. Like a painter, Luca thought. Indeed, despite his age, Will Hunter was quite the artist when it came to seduction.

Luca stood in silent surrender to Will's advance. He let Will take his left arm in his hands and towel it dry. He took his right arm in his hands and did the same. He ran the towel down Luca's large brown chest, drying the sparse trimmed hair, over the mounds of his abdomen, and down to his cock, so hard now it bobbed and pulsated. He wrapped it in the towel and gently squeezed.

Luca's eyes closed for a brief moment, his mouth falling open, just a fraction. A small gasp could be heard.

Will smiled at him and descended to his knees.

He took the towel and dried Luca's giant left thigh, followed by his muscled calf. He did the same to his right leg. Then, he put the towel down by Luca's feet, knelt upright, and came eye to eye with Luca's throbbing cock. The sheath of Luca's foreskin had peeled back completely, his cock too long and its swollen head too large now to be concealed.

Will took the base of Luca's shaft in one hand and swallowed the engorged head, massaging it with his tongue inside his watering mouth. He slid his other hand down his own rigid stomach, stopping to unbuckle his belt, unzip his jeans and unleash his own stiff cock. He began stroking it, gently at first, and then harder and harder as he built momentum.

Luca moaned a loud, deep sound.

Will didn't want the fun to end too soon.

He slipped Luca's cock out of his mouth, and then ran his tongue down the length of the thick-veined shaft 'til it reached Luca's balls. He took first one ball, and then the other, into his mouth, and with his tongue, he juggled them slowly, tauntingly, from one cheek to the other.

He stopped stroking his own cock and ran both hands up and down Luca's massive thighs, feeling the muscles twitch with the jolts of pleasure that were shooting through his body. As he sucked and teased the balls in his mouth, he felt the heat of Luca's cock against his cheek, his eye, his forehead.

Luca's balls clicked together in Will's mouth.

Luca took in a short, sharp breath.

Will smiled and let the balls slip from his mouth like huge warm plums.

He followed the shaft back up to the head and enveloped Luca's cock with his lips again. The thickness of Luca's cock filled his mouth, all the way. He felt its huge head touch the back of his throat. He pulled back quickly, letting the cock slide from his lips.

It was a tease, a trick, and Luca fell for it. Hungry for more, he pushed himself back inside Will's mouth.

Will began sucking on his cock with increasingly deeper, swifter thrusts, listening to Luca's breath as it grew shorter and sharper, faster and faster.

Luca's hands seized Will by his tousled blond hair, guiding him, making certain his cock didn't slip from the embrace of Will's lips again.

With open eyes, Will watched Luca's dark pubic hair, his muscled lower abs, slide toward his face, and then pull back again.

In and out.

Faster again.

Faster still.

With one hand Will began to jerk himself off. With his other hand he grabbed Luca's balls. They were heavy and still wet with Will's saliva. He thumbed them, rubbed them, squeezed them in the cradle of his palm and felt them rise and fall like puppets in his hand, until soon they drew upward.

Further upward.

Preparing to release their load.

Luca groaned and the word "fuck!" slipped out between breaths, again and again.

Will quickened the stroke of his own cock—hot and hard and tall and thick—until his fist was slapping up and down its shaft. He felt himself on the brink of coming and tried to groan, but his mouth was full of Luca's cock, and his throat gulped down the sound at precisely the same moment that Luca let out a cry.

Once.

Twice.

Then suddenly, Will's mouth flooded with Luca's come. It shot across his tongue, hot and sweet, and hit the back of his throat.

The taste of it, the sensation of it, launched a load of Will's come up the shaft of his cock, spurting up into the air in a hot tendril, streaming and slapping across Will's stomach and chest.

At the same time, he swallowed hard on Luca's cock, feeling the come slide down his throat into his fiery belly.

Luca cried out once more with the pressure of Will's suction on his cock.

Then slowly, almost precariously—when his balls were empty and his dick swollen, spent and tender—he pried Will off his cock.

Will gasped for air, a wide satisfied grin on his face.

Luca scooped him up, lifting the young American to his feet. They stood panting, leaning into each other, chests heaving. Then, Luca kissed Will and could taste his own come inside Will's mouth.

He pulled out of the kiss with a smile. "This won't happen again," he warned.

Will shook his head. "Of course not," he panted. "Never again," he whispered, as he planted another kiss on Luca's lips.

Luca showered again, and then wrapped a clean towel around his waist and fetched a fresh beer from the mini-bar while Will showered.

Luca took the cap off the bottle and drank his first mouthful, when a knock came at the door.

He glanced into the bathroom with a knowing grin.

Will had heard it, too, and poked his head around the shower screen. "You gotta be shittin' me!"

"Fifty bucks, remember?"

Luca opened the door and sure enough, Elliott Ebus stood before him wearing his tweed jacket, bow tie and spectacles. Clutched tightly in both hands was a small brown paper package tied with string.

"Oh," he said with surprise, eyes wide at the sight of Luca in his towel.

Behind Luca, Will suddenly appeared, also draped in a towel.

"Oh!" Elliott said louder, even more surprised, before his mind jumped to the logical conclusion. "Perhaps I should come back later."

"No, come in."

Elliott reacted to the invitation timidly, not moving or saying a word.

"It's all right, dude," Will smiled. "There's nothing to be scared of. No hidden surprises here." At that moment his towel lost its grip on his waist. It slipped off. He managed to catch it just in time.

Elliott Ebus looked away, embarrassed. He turned to leave, but Luca swooped out the door and collected him, wrapping his strong arm around the little man's shoulders. "It's all right, really. We know you have important things on your mind."

Luca gestured to the package in Elliott's hands.

"Yes," Elliott said.

"Come in."

With Luca guiding him, and taking one cautious step after another, Elliott entered the room. Luca closed the door behind him and locked it.

Elliott seated himself down on a sofa beside the balcony door. Still in his towel, Luca sat in a chair opposite him. Still in his towel, Will fetched three more beers. Elliott declined, but then changed his mind and took the beer. "I don't normally drink. But I'm rather nervous."

"Is that the book?" Luca asked directly.

Elliott nodded. "Yes. Videlle's name is here, inside the back cover. I told you I'd never heard of the book. But that was a lie. I've known about it for a long time now. I've been its guardian. Its keeper. And it's been my curse."

"How did you come across it?"

"Five years ago, a man came into my store and said he'd sell me the book on one condition—that I never sell it to anyone else. That I never give it away, or even acknowledge its existence. He offered to sell me the book for a single euro, and in return he gave me ten thousand euros to keep the book a secret. It was an irresistible transaction."

"Have you read it?" Will asked.

Elliott shook his head, and then nodded guiltily. "It's some sort of cipher. Half of it's written in Italian, the other half is all symbols and shapes. Almost like hieroglyphs, but not quite. It's a language I've never seen before."

Luca sat forward. "The man, have you seen him again?"

"Not since that first day. To be honest, I'd be happy if I never saw him again. As well as this book." With that, Elliott put the package on the coffee table in front him. "I may not know what it is or what it stands for, but after all these years I've decided that a secret worth that much money, is a secret I don't want to keep anymore. That's why I came. To pass it on. To let it go. You asked for the book, and now it's yours. I want it gone from my life, forever."

Suddenly, Elliott let out a huge sigh of relief, as though years and years of stress and drama had suddenly been lifted from his shoulders. "Oh, my," he smiled. "That does feel good. At last it's over."

But the sudden
CRACK
at the door told all three of them that the drama was only just beginning.

Crack! CRACK!

The hinges of the door buckled, the lock strained, the wood splintered. Somebody was trying to kick the door down.

Elliott gasped in horror, but Will and Luca were already on the move. Luca seized the book, shoved it between his towel and his waist, and then swung about in time to catch the revolver that Will had snatched out from under the bed and thrown to him.

Will swiftly locked a cartridge into a pistol of his own.

Luca backed up behind the door.

Will leaped over the coffee table, grabbed Elliott Ebus by the collar of his tweed jacket and pulled him down behind the sofa.

CRACK!

Just then, the lock gave way and the door flew open.

The first black-robed man took a bullet right between the eyes, courtesy of Luca's steady revolver. The dead man's body jolted and stumbled backward into the six other black-robed men behind him, all of whom opened fire immediately.

Bullets took huge chunks off the walls inside the room, punctured the glass panes of the windows and sent feathers billowing into the air from the pillows on the bed.

Elliott Ebus squealed as bullets plucked stuffing out of the sofa he and Will were using as a shield. "I don't want to die!"

"Keep your head down!" Will snapped, shoving Elliott as low to the floor as possible.

Will fired off several bullets, taking out another of the black-robed assailants before they could get through the door.

Luca, too, continued his fire, killing a third intruder, and then kicking the door shut again.

As he did so, Will leaped over the sofa and kicked the coffee table along the floor toward the door. It skidded to a halt at Luca's feet. Luca snatched it up and slammed it against the door, wedging one end against the door handle and one end into the floor. A precarious doorstop indeed, but enough to buy some time.

"The balcony!" Luca yelled. "Go now!"

Will kicked the balcony doors open and broken shards of glass fell away.

Behind them, their attackers shot several more bullets into the door and rammed themselves against it. The coffee table held strong for a moment or two, but then began to give way.

Will seized Elliott off the floor and shoved the blubbering little man out onto the balcony.

"Let me go! I don't want to die!" he sobbed.

"Do what I say, and you'll be okay," Will said sternly.

He steered him out onto the balcony, and Luca followed them out, his revolver still firing shots at the barricaded door.

The moment the three of them made it onto the balcony, the coffee table slid across the floor and the door burst open.

The sound of gunfire filled the air.

Will grabbed Elliott and pushed him out of the line of fire, to the left of the balcony door, forcing him over the balcony railing and onto a precarious ledge, two stories above the street. Elliott shrieked as he looked down at the busy Piccadilly traffic passing below. He began to lose his balance, but Will had him by the jacket.

"Steady there, big guy!"

Will glanced back and saw that Luca had dived right, now scaling the opposite balcony railing, climbing away from them.

"You got the book?" Will shouted over the traffic and gunfire.

"Yeah. You got him?"

Will nodded and rolled his eyes, not overly happy about his end of the bargain.

"Vienna," Luca said.

Will nodded again. "See you there."

The men in black robes would come charging through the bullet-tattered curtains that billowed onto the balcony any second.

Will shook Elliott. "When I say jump, you jump."

"Jump!" Elliott gasped. "Are you crazy? I'm not going to—"

"Jump!"

Elliott glanced down in horror. A double-decker tourist bus was about to pass underneath them, its top deck open and filled with American and Japanese tourists taking happy holiday snaps.