Under the Skin (4 page)

“Everything has price,” Boczar countered smoothly.

“You think you know something valuable enough?” Patrick retorted. He’d proven many times since that all it took was Alexei touching him, but they hadn’t known that then. Then it had been a real negotiation.

Boczar shrugged. “You are one making offer.”

Patrick hesitated, his ambition, his drive, and, yes, his cock, keeping him from walking away from the insolent offer. He’d done plenty of questionable things while he was undercover in order to take down his mark. This wouldn’t be any different. And he’d get to find out what those hard hands felt like on his body.

Apparently he was taking too long to decide, because Boczar muttered something about wasting his time. Patrick grabbed his arm to stop him, not to restrain him, but to keep him there, talking. Boczar didn’t interpret it that way, and Patrick found himself truly pinned this time. Patrick struggled, the movement enough to press his gun against his ribs, but he did not reach for it. Even then, they had both known he wouldn’t reach for it. His body rubbed against Alexei’s, getting him that much more worked up.

Boczar’s hand—the one that wasn’t braced next to Patrick’s head as his shoulders wedged Patrick against the garage—slipped between their bodies, gliding downward until it cupped the bulge straining the zipper of Patrick’s jeans. “I ask again what you offer.”

“You’re already taking it,” Patrick said with a groan, his head falling forward. He had no idea what would happen next, but he’d roll with the punches, and maybe, if he was lucky, he’d walk away with more than he had when he walked into that alley.

“Maybe I give you something instead.” Boczar’s fingers splayed across the worn denim, his palm stroking, tantalizing, demanding.

The thick fabric of his jeans, especially there along the zipper, muted the feel of Alexei’s hand somewhat, but not enough to stop Patrick from bucking into the unexpected caress. The pressure of Alexei’s shoulders against his eased, giving him more freedom of movement. It would have been obvious to a child that Patrick wasn’t trying to get away. It certainly was obvious to Alexei. In an embarrassingly short amount of time, Patrick came in his jeans. “I gave you what you wanted,” he rasped. “Pay up.”

“I think I gave what you wanted,” Alexei retorted, stepping back and eying Patrick with a self-satisfied expression. “That is what you follow me for, no?”

“You’ve got that backward,” Patrick insisted, trying to keep his thoughts on track even as his body wanted to melt to the pavement. “I followed you because I’m trying to find your friend’s murderer. I gave you what you implied you wanted just now in exchange for information to help me do that. So pay up, or I’ll have you on charges of assault and molestation.”

“Assault?” Alexei’s eyebrows rose and his lips narrowed. “I did not see you fighting to get away.”

“Who do you think they’d believe at the precinct?” Patrick challenged. “A fellow cop or a Russian mobster?”

“I am businessman,” Boczar assured him blandly. “Though since you ask so nicely, I remember the day Grisha was shot, man in car wore gold and black jacket.”

Patrick recognized that information for what it was. To a different informant, he might have offered his hand, but given the mess in his pants, that seemed a little awkward. “Nice doing business with you,” he said instead. “You know how to reach me if you think of anything else I need to know.”

Boczar inclined his head. “And you know how to reach me.” He turned, one hand slipping into his trouser pocket as he walked away.

Patrick had stayed in that alley for a long time before going home. The next morning he’d gone back to the morgue, looking for a body wearing black and gold gang colors. He’d found one, strangled. It hadn’t come to his unit because it didn’t look like gang violence despite the colors the man wore. Patrick had contacted the detective in charge of the case and gotten a glimpse of the man’s file. Strangled by hand. It would take a powerful grip to do that. He’d flashed back to the image of Boczar’s hand on his body through his clothes. The Russian hadn’t been rough with him. Demanding, yes, but not to the point of causing Patrick pain. No, the idea had definitely been to give Patrick pleasure.

Other than the method of murder, the other detective had next to nothing, and Patrick hadn’t been able to explain why he thought the two incidents were connected, so he’d settled for getting a photo of the dead man’s face. He’d gotten information from Boczar once. Maybe he could get more.

It had still taken him nearly a week to pick up the phone and arrange to meet the Russian again, because now he knew the price of cooperation.

They’d met in Pulaski Park after dark. Boczar had been suspicious when Patrick called, but he could hardly blame the other man. Patrick had insisted all he wanted was to show him a photograph, to see if he recognized a potential suspect. He’d even suggested the park as a sort of neutral ground, rather than having Boczar come in to the precinct. The Russian had relented after that, and Patrick had known why. At the park, inside the field house restrooms, they could find somewhere relatively private to conduct their exchange. Patrick would try to negotiate a different settlement on his part, but they had both known how the evening would end, even then.

Boczar wore the same dark coat and gloves to their second meeting as he had always worn. Patrick wondered if the man even owned casual clothes, but he wasn’t about to ask. Instead, he greeted the Russian curtly and pulled out the picture right away. “Is this the man who shot your friend?”

The Russian scarcely glanced at the photograph. “I never see him before.”

“How do you know?” Patrick challenged. “You barely looked at him. Or do you need something to sweeten the deal?” He hadn’t meant to bring it up so quickly, but his mouth had run away with him. Once he’d said it, the words couldn’t be taken back.

“I think this time I take what you offer.” Boczar inclined his head toward the field house, not looking to see if Patrick was following as he made his way inside and into the restrooms. Entering a stall at the far end of the row, he secured the door behind Patrick and unbuttoned his coat. “Unzip me.”

“What, no kiss first?” Patrick joked even as he undid the zipper and slipped his hand inside. Boczar was already halfway to hard. It only took a couple of strokes and he was fully erect. Deciding the angle was awkward, Patrick worked the other man free of his boxer briefs—black, like everything he wore was black—so he was fully exposed. He didn’t want to kneel on the dirty bathroom floor, but the toilet provided a perch at the perfect height.

“
Da
, like that,” Boczar ordered, leaning his head against the graffiti-defaced side of the stall, his hooded eyes never leaving Patrick’s face.

It was that gaze that got Patrick worked up, even more than the feel of a hard cock pulsing in his hand. It didn’t take long for Boczar to spill all over his fingers, and with those compelling eyes still watching him, Patrick gave in to his own desire and lifted his hand to his lips, licking it clean.

A sound suspiciously like a groan echoed against the cinderblock walls of the toilet as Boczar pulled Patrick roughly to his feet. “I take that kiss now,” he muttered, his mouth covering Patrick’s, his tongue forcing its way between Patrick’s lips to plunder the taste from the moist cavern.

Patrick wasn’t able to do anything but stand there helpless beneath the onslaught, giving in to Boczar the way he never gave in to anyone. His head spun as they stood there, locked in an embrace in a dingy restroom on a cold night in the middle of November, but the surroundings didn’t matter. When Boczar finally released him, he was as flushed and aroused from that kiss as from anything any lover had ever done to him. “And the picture?” he forced himself to say instead of pulling Alexei back into another embrace.

“Was not shooter.” Boczar tucked himself up and buttoned his coat, pulling his leather gloves from a pocket. “Was driver.”

Patrick let him go, digesting that information. There was another body out there somewhere, either unlocated or unidentified. That was a problem for later. The immediate problem was his aching erection. He went home and jacked off, not to the feeling of Alexei’s cock in his hand, but to the memory of Alexei’s lips covering his.

Even in hindsight, Patrick could not say when Alexei had gone from informant to lover, but it had happened well before the CPD had finally found the body of Grisha’s killer. He only wished the problems of their relationship were as easy to solve as the problems on that case.

Chapter 3

A
LEXEI
pulled into the deserted parking lot and killed the engine, sitting for a moment in the darkened car. The vodka he had drunk earlier still hummed in his blood, though he could ignore that. The memory of what he had been commanded to do would be far harder to shake off. He wished again he’d had time to shower and change his clothes before this meeting, but it had been set long before Konstantin decided they needed to celebrate tonight. Grimacing at his reflection in the rear-view mirror, he smoothed a hand over his hair and stepped out of the car, crossing the cracked tarmac to the empty warehouse.

Inside the warehouse, concealed by the dark windows frosted with age and neglect, Patrick watched the older man cross the deserted space, his breath wreathing his head like the smoke from the cigarettes he preferred. Patrick’s groin tightened as he imagined how the night would end, uncomfortably aware of the condoms and lube he had dropped in his trouser pocket. Always before, he had relied on his contact to be prepared, but tonight…. He glanced away from the compelling form. Tonight he would be complicit in his own downfall.

Alexei found the door unlocked, as Flaherty had promised it would be, the heavy chain rattling against the rusted metal as he entered. As he stood in the doorway, his eyes scanned the space around him out of habit, seeing nothing but the man standing against the windows at the far side of the open room. He lit a cigarette, knowing he was stalling, drawing the harsh smoke into his lungs before stepping inside. The door shut behind him, blocking out all but the faint light from one or two broken windowpanes. His footsteps echoed against the cement walls as he walked toward Flaherty.

“You’re late,” Patrick said from across the room, though there was no heat in his voice. As much as he hated it, he understood that Boczar’s time was not his own. “A few more minutes and I might not have been here still.” And that, he knew, was a lie, albeit one he had to utter. He would have waited far longer than he had, hoping against hope that his lover would arrive. They had agreed not to wait more than half an hour if the other one did not arrive on time, knowing that either of them could be delayed beyond their control. Their meetings were dangerous enough without adding to the risk by being careless. But the need to see the other man, to feel his hard body, had grown large enough that Patrick was willing to take that risk.

“It was… unavoidable,” Alexei answered, stopping a few feet away from where Flaherty stood. He could have called to cancel the meet, could have simply not shown up, but a part of him needed this time, needed away from his life and his memories if only for a few brief moments. He dragged at the cigarette again, then dropped it to the floor and ground it beneath his shoe. The grittiness and their breathing were the only sounds. “And you complain about my choice of meeting places,” he said, one corner of his mouth quirking up.

“It’s deserted,” Patrick retorted, eyes raking the wiry body in front of him, hidden beneath the heavy coat. He didn’t need to see, though, to know what lay beneath. Every line of that body was imprinted on his own, on his mind and heart. On his very soul. Pushing aside those hopeless thoughts, he went on, “The raid here a few days ago pretty much guarantees neither the police nor the owners will be coming back to bother us. There’s a back room with a couch and a cot. Somehow I didn’t think you’d come if I suggested my apartment as a meeting place.”

“You’re right,” Alexei admitted, rejecting the easy joke he could have made at the detective’s choice of words. Given what had happened earlier, there was a possibility he couldn’t come again, though with the way his body was reacting—the way it always reacted—just to being this close to the younger man, it didn’t seem he’d need to worry about that. He ought to turn around and leave, but instead he inclined his head to meet Flaherty’s gaze. “So, are we waiting for someone else or can we do what we came here to do?”

The blunt words shocked Patrick for a moment, but he pulled his wits about him again, reminding himself that with no chance of anyone around to see them, they could dispense with the pretense of meeting only as cop and potential informant. He started to reach for the other man’s hand to lead him toward the back room, but something in the cold gaze stopped him. “This way,” he said simply, walking across the empty space toward the minimal comforts of the office.

The room was as spartan as Flaherty had described, though marginally cleaner than the rest of the warehouse. The fluorescent light whined and flashed overhead, and Alexei snapped it off, not wanting to question why he preferred the darkness. Shrugging out of his topcoat, he hung it on a hook at the back of the door, the grimy window letting in just enough light for him to see Flaherty unbuttoning his denim jacket and removing his shoulder holster to reveal the slim body beneath. Alexei felt his cock thicken, knowing what was still concealed would be far more arousing than anything else he’d seen this night.