Chapter 16
CHAPTER 16
Deacon
After-parties were not my favorite thing. Not my least favorite thing. That honorable title would always belong to cockroaches.
Seriously, fuck cockroaches.
They gave me goosebumps just thinking about them.
So, not as bad as cockroaches, but still not my favorite thing.
I was wiped out after putting in so much work to get the show together. Now that it was done, just wanted to go home and enjoy a long bubble bath to unwind. Instead, I was stuck socializing with a bunch of rich assholes simply because they were the “elite” of the fashion world, and I needed to impress them.
Although, an after-party was where I met Nathan, so maybe they weren’t so bad.
Remembering our fateful first encounter, I clung tight to my glass of champagne to avoid repeating history and took a long drink.
Luckily, Nathan and Kiki were happy to do most of the talking as we mingled among the crowd. A few people asked me about my designs and my artistic style, but I didn’t usually get more than a sentence or two out before they moved onto the next topic.
The only people who cared about the artistic process were other designers, and there were very few of those here.
They were all probably home, working on their next creation and relaxing in bubble baths, just like I would rather be.
The Bellagio’s Grand Ballroom could hold over four thousand people. So, although Nathan had invited enough guests to throw a lively after-party, it still wasn’t enough to fill the room to capacity. There was plenty of space for everyone. I had no excuse to feel claustrophobic, yet I did. Most of the time I stayed near either Kiki or Nathan, happy to let them lead the conversation and filling in my opinions only when asked.
That way, everything went smoothly, and my impulsive tongue didn’t get me in trouble.
At least Oliver and Ashes were there, accompanying D’Angelo. Whenever the social niceties and fake smiles got to be too much, I could step aside to discuss the show with them.
They’d noticed the unintended tiger stripe pattern on the second model as well, and we gushed about it together. Plus, I couldn’t seem to stop complimenting Ashes’s jewelry, which looked even better in the noonday sunlight than I’d hoped. We also nitpicked the flaws, such as one model’s broken shoe, and the rosette that had fallen off my finale piece right before the show started, which I had been forced to cast aside.
Even the flaws were fun to discuss. Only someone with an artist’s eye would notice such a small detail, like a single missing flower, or care enough to bring it up. Unfortunately, I couldn’t spend the entire night talking with them, and had to get back to the “important” people.
I made my way through the room, smiling and shaking hands with everyone who greeted me, and even stopped to take pictures with a few of the more eager guests. Eventually, I managed to make my way back to Nathan’s side. He was speaking with some investors, using a bunch of terms and words I barely understood. The way they spoke made it seem like money was a living thing with a mind of its own that had to be tricked and coaxed into their bank accounts.
They sounded more like hunters stalking prey rather than businessmen.
These were the worst kinds of conversations. The ones I couldn’t even participate in, and my smile felt hollow as I nodded along like I knew what they were talking about. Nathan must have sensed my discomfort and draped a reassuring arm over my shoulder without even a pause in his conversation. A few of the investors eyed his arm around me with obvious disgust but said nothing. It was the twenty-first century, and homosexuality was still not universally accepted. Yet, enough money could persuade even the most outspoken bigots to keep their mouths shut.
Eventually, the conversation ended, and the investors walked away. Nathan took the opportunity to lean over and press a quick kiss to my cheek and whisper directly into my ear. “You doing okay?”
“Yeah.” I sighed. “Just tired. It’s been a long day.”
He hummed in agreement and his breath tickled my ear. A flush of arousal ran through my veins right to my dick, and I desperately tried not to squirm.
Of course, Nathan noticed immediately and laughed at me under his breath.
“Not too tired, it seems.”
“Shut up,” I hissed at him between my teeth. “This is your fault. You always talk right into my ear like that during sex, so of course I’m going to respond.” I batted at my ear, as if that would cleanse the arousal that was already thrumming under my skin, but it did nothing.
After a quick squeeze to my shoulders, Nathan let me go. At first, it seemed like he was about to walk away and leave me to deal with my problem on my own, but then he grabbed my wrists and dragged me with him.
Not that I needed to be dragged.
Sometimes I felt like a well-trained dog. All he had to do was tell me to heel and I would follow him like a circus poodle.
I even discreetly wiped my mouth with my free hand just to make sure I wasn’t panting.
The bathrooms in the Bellagio were exactly what one would expect of a hotel of such high caliber. Fancy, large, and most importantly, clean. However, as Nathan pressed me up against the sinks and kissed me until my legs gave out, I wouldn’t have cared if it was a truck stop toilet, so long as he kept touching me.
The bathroom also wasn’t empty. A moment after we arrived, a stranger stepped out of one the cubicles, only to freeze at the sight of us. The man quickly apologized and left without washing his hands.
“We’re going to get kicked out for indecent exposure,” I said between kisses.
Nathan just grunted and lowered his head to run his lips along my neck. I wasn’t foolish enough to think he hadn’t noticed the stranger. He was too careful to be so oblivious. No, he’d simply deemed the stranger a non-threat and proceeded to ignore them.
Voyeurism really wasn’t one of my kinks, so how did I keep ending up having sex with Nathan in public places?
Furthermore, how come I kept enjoying it?
Lifting me to sit on the fancy marble sink, Nathan guided my legs to wrap around his hips. The downside to wearing such tight pants was that they took forever to take on and off, so Nathan didn’t even try. He seemed content to keep worshiping my neck and sucking bruises into my skin while grinding against me.
I growled low in frustration and fumbled for the button to my fly. My pants were quickly growing too tight. Maybe I wouldn’t be able to remove them, but I could at least give myself some relief.
It took some struggling, and Nathan had to stop and help me, but in the end, I got my pants undone enough to free my suffering cock from its prison.
Almost as soon as I felt blessedly cool air on my heated skin, Nathan wrapped his hand around my shaft and started stroking me.
Moaning, I let my head fall back and knocked it against the mirror over the sink.
“Ah, fuck, these pants were a bad idea.”
“But you look so good in them,” Nathan said directly into my ear. The rumble of his voice sent another wave of arousal rushing though me, and I bit the inside of my cheek to keep myself from coming on the spot.
Yep, that Pavlovian response was deeply ingrained and wasn’t going away any time soon. I’d just have to accept my fate and a future of inconvenient boners whenever I felt the vibration of his voice.
I knew ears could be an erogenous zone. I just never expected it to be true for me. Things had been so much easier when all my sensitive spots resided under my clothes.
With only a few strokes of my cock, Nathan already had me on the edge of orgasm, but he made sure to never let me finish. He kept his strokes just a little too light.
My fist hammered against the sink under me in frustration. “Damn it, Nathan. Stop teasing me.”
His only response was to smirk at me before biting harder at my neck.
I moaned again as he twisted his wrist in a way that nearly sent me over the edge, then kicked my feet uselessly in the air when it still wasn’t enough for me to finish.
Mustering as much composure as I could, I glared at him, then reached for the zipper of his fly as well. Nathan’s own arousal sprang free with just as much enthusiasm as my own. Yet, before I could get my hands on him, he grabbed both my wrists and pinned them above my head against the mirror.
“So disobedient. You can’t just let me have my fun, can you?”
I squirmed, trying and failing to free myself.
“Nathan, please,” I whined. “You’re killing me.”
Keeping my wrists pinned with one hand, he wrapped his other hand around both our cocks at once.
“Not yet, I’m not.”
He stroked our cocks at the same time so both shafts were engulfed in the heat of his palm. The friction of his calloused hand juxtaposed against the velvet slide of his arousal made me shiver all the way down to my toes. I panted and whined, but was then silenced when he caught my mouth in a deep kiss.
Pleasure washed over me in waves. I instinctively gave my hips useless little thrusts, trying to push myself harder against him. I was a slave to the motion of his hand.
An instrument just waiting for my strings to be plucked so that I could sing.
A clock ticked somewhere in the bathroom, marking the minutes that passed as Nathan toyed with me.
However, even Nathan’s seemingly endless patience had a limit. His hand sped up and he gripped both of us harder, pushing us together toward completion. His kiss turned brutal as he neared his end, as if he were trying to swallow me whole.
I couldn’t move, I could barely breathe, and my blood felt like it had turned to fire in my veins.
I loved it.
When I came, I clamped my legs around his hips, locking him as close as possible to me. He moaned into my mouth as he joined me. Together, the two of us clung tight as we rode out our shared orgasm. Something hot and wet hit my stomach, but I was too overwhelmed to pay it much attention.
So what if my shirt was stained. Everyone probably knew what we’d done anyway. I may as well wear the evidence with pride.
Plus, watching the prudes and homophobes try to hide their disgust would be fun.
When we managed to calm down, and feeling once against returned to my legs, Nathan helped me down from the sink. The damage to my clothing wasn’t as bad as I feared, but it still took us a few minutes to get cleaned up and put ourselves back into order.
Nathan finished first. He’d barely removed any clothing, and because he’d been standing over me, gravity had kept him mostly clean. I, on the other hand, had to scrub myself with bathroom paper towels.
“Go on,” I told him as I struggled with my pants. “I’ll follow you in a minute.”
My pants had wormed their way down my thighs while we’d been busy. The tight material was difficult to put on under normal circumstances, but my skin was damp after my hasty clean up, and now my pants refused to budge.
“Are you sure?” Nathan asked as he watched me struggle. The fact that I was losing the fight against my own pants clearly amused him. “I can help.”
He reached for me, and I slapped his hand away.
“Oh, no. I know you. Your ‘help’ will end with me fully naked on this bathroom floor and we’ll miss the rest of the party. Shoo. Go shmooze with all the fancy rich people and I’ll catch up as soon as I can.”
It took some convincing, but he eventually left, and I was alone in the bathroom.
I struggled with my pants for another minute and eventually, succeeded in getting them pulled up after resorting to the jumping technique.
“Finally,” I gasped when I pulled up the zipper. “I don’t care what Kiki says. I’m never wearing these things again.”
The door opened behind me, but I was too busy double checking my clothing to care. During the heat of the moment, I’d thought about walking out of the bathroom wearing the evidence of our tryst, but that was just a fantasy. I didn’t actually want people to see me in sex-stained clothes.
“A little slut, aren’t you?” someone said behind me.
Before I could turn around to give the stranger a piece of my mind, something hard and cold pressed against the small of my back.
“Shut up and don’t say a word,” the man spoke directly into my ear.
Unlike with Nathan, there was nothing sexy about his tone.
Looking in the mirror, I got a good look at the man standing directly behind me. He was large in a muscular way, though not unusually so, with a face just handsome enough to be pleasant to look at without drawing too much attention.
It was the kind of face I might give a second glance, but not a third or a fourth.
All of this information filtered through my brain like white noise. None of it mattered. The only thing my attention focused on was the gun pointed at my back.
“What the hell are you doing?” I demanded.
Faster than I could see, the butt of his gun struck the back of my head.
“I said, shut up. Now, come with me. My boss wants a word.”
The blow left me dizzy, but not seriously hurt. My vision blurred for a moment, but quickly cleared as the man marched me out of the bathroom, always keeping his gun trained on my back.
Outside, the hallway was empty. Off to my left, the noise of the after-party echoed off the walls. For one moment, I considered calling for help. Surely, if I screamed loud enough, someone would hear, and Nathan would realize I was in trouble.
But what if it wasn’t enough?
With so many people in one room, their voices could even drown out a gunshot. Not to mention the music playing over everything. Even if I shouted at the top of my lungs, the guests in the ballroom probably wouldn’t hear me, and I would enrage my kidnapper for nothing.
Uncertainty kept me silent, and I was herded off to the right, away from ballroom.
I thought my kidnapper would take me out of the hotel, whisking me off into some lethal unknown. Instead, they dragged me over to the hotel’s service elevator. My kidnapper hit the button for the top floor, and the doors closed behind us with a cheery little ding. The gun digging into the small of my back dissuaded me from causing any problems as we waited for the ride to end, though I didn’t need the reminder. I wasn’t stupid enough to think I could fight a professional criminal, and even if I could, there was nowhere for me to go trapped inside a metal box.
On the thirty-sixth floor, the door opened into the penthouse suite. A neutral palette of cream and beige met my eye, with unassuming pictures of flowers acting as the only accent color. I’d never been to the top floor of such a fancy hotel. The Bellagio even put the hotel I’d visited with Nathan to shame.
For a moment, I almost forgot that I had been kidnapped as I looked around, taking in the details. The space was tastefully decorated, but a little boring. For something so expensive, I expected more.
I was quickly reminded of my situation, however, as the gun dug harder against my back, forcing me to walk forward into the room’s main sitting area.
My eye was drawn first to the woman standing just off to the side. Caprice Vidales was easy to recognize, but she looked a little different than the last time I saw her. Her black hair was still cut into its usual harsh bob, but it was frazzled, like she hadn’t spent as much time as usual styling it into perfection. There were bags under her eyes, which she had applied a thicker layer of makeup over to try and cover, and she stood with an obvious stoop to her posture.
One hand hovered in front of her stomach, as if protecting it. Although I couldn’t see it, I had no doubt that there was some heavy bandaging under her clothes. The knife wound to the stomach that Nathan had given her was obviously causing her problems.
Too bad it hadn’t killed her.
The vicious thought made me pause.
I’d never been so bloodthirsty before.
In the past, whenever I’d thought about wanting someone dead, it had never been serious. Now, I knew with absolute certainty that if I had a chance to kill Caprice Vidales, I would without hesitation.
Was this Nathan’s influence?
Maybe.
It was hard to say. Certainly, my new attitude toward violence had appeared at the same time he entered my life, but I couldn’t say for certain that he was the cause. Until recently, I’d never faced a situation where I legitimately feared for my life or the life of someone I cared about.
Kiki and I were bullied growing up. Even when we pretended to date each other, people in our conservative neighborhood could still sense there was something different about us. We’d often faced bullying, but it was rarely more than harsh words. On the rare occasions when the bullying turned physical, the biggest threat had been scrapes and bruises.
Not once growing up had I ever wondered if I would live to see the next day.
So, maybe Nathan had introduced me to a more nonchalant attitude toward violence. Or maybe I’d always been this way and I’d just never been pushed far enough to know this side of myself.
I spent so long staring daggers at Caprice and wishing to spontaneously develop pyrokinesis and set her on fire with my mind, that I forgot everything else in the room. Even my kidnapper was secondary in my thoughts.
Eventually, the room’s other occupant grew tired of waiting for me to notice them and not so subtly cleared their throat.
I finally looked away from Caprice and found myself gazing into very familiar eyes.
“Nathan?”
No, wait. The eyes were the same, but the rest of the face was wrong.
What was going on?