Chapter Twenty-Five #2
He flicked the lever to open the trunk and got out to walk around the back of the car. It took both hands to lift the duffel bag and haul it into the house. He’d been surprised to discover, in Boulogne, that the thing weighed a ton.
Once inside, he headed for the study and unlocked the safe beneath the desk.
First, he removed his holster and stowed the gun, then he began emptying the bag, lifting each stack of notes one by one.
Rayan kept a mental tally as he went. He got two-thirds through the bag before the safe was full. He locked it and headed upstairs.
There was another safe, in the closet in their bedroom, that contained Mathias’s cash reserves and a series of questionably legal documents—passports and citizenship papers that secured them freedoms in a handful of countries. Mathias liked to plan for contingencies.
Rayan hadn’t given much thought to what would happen with the money, but Mathias was a magician when it came to that sort of thing.
He’d probably launder the money through a Swiss-owned company then funnel it back to his various accounts here and abroad.
At least, that was the extent of Rayan’s knowledge on the subject.
He would leave it in Mathias’s capable hands.
He finished stashing the remainder of the cash and had just returned downstairs when the front door opened, and Mathias appeared in the entranceway.
Mathias kicked off his shoes and walked past Rayan into the living room, where he sank onto the sofa.
Rayan moved to join him, not sure, once he’d sat down, whether he could pull himself up again.
Mathias leaned his head back and closed his eyes. “Christ, what a day.”
“That’s one way to put it.”
Suddenly, Mathias stiffened, and his eyes snapped open as though something had just occurred to him. He turned to Rayan with a veiled stare. “I asked you to fuck me, didn’t I?”
Rayan faltered, a flush rising along his neck. “Not in so many words,” he replied carefully. “But if it’s something you want—”
“That’s another conversation.” Mathias sighed and raked a hand across his face. “Anything else I’ll have the misfortune of remembering later?”
Rayan shot him a look.
“Right. That.” Mathias’s expression shifted. “I’ve never said it to anyone.”
Rayan reached out and tilted Mathias’s chin toward him. “I don’t need words. I only want you.”
“You have me, Rayan.”
Rayan felt a pang in his chest, hot and tight. He pulled himself onto Mathias’s lap and took the man’s face in his hands. Mathias winced as Rayan made contact with his bruised skin.
“Sorry.”
“Do your worst.” Mathias looked up at him, eyes unflinching, and Rayan lowered his mouth to kiss him.
The jolt of sensation cut through his exhaustion and sent his body humming.
He was no longer tired. Mathias wrapped his arms around Rayan’s waist and parted his lips with a sudden urgency.
Rayan rocked against the growing bulge between Mathias’s legs, and the man broke away, letting out a sharp breath.
“That shit messed with my brain. I’ve never been this pent-up.”
“Let me help with that.”
Rayan rubbed a palm across the front of Mathias’s pants, baring his teeth to graze the man’s neck. When he began on his zipper, Mathias stopped him. “Shower first.”
In the shower, Mathias could no longer hide his untamed arousal.
His cock stood tightly between them, pressing against Rayan’s stomach as Rayan rubbed soap across Mathias’s chest. He gently cleaned the last remnants of dried blood from Mathias’s face then knelt under the thunder of water and took him into his mouth.
Pent-up was an understatement. Mathias lurched past his lips, and Rayan could already taste the salt from his slit.
He was rough and needy, drawing his cock in and out of Rayan’s mouth at speed.
Rayan pulled back to catch his breath, and Mathias shot unexpectedly, glancing across his cheek. It was sluiced away in seconds, and Rayan got to his feet with a wry grin. “Don’t get used to that.”
Instead of a snide retort, Mathias crushed him against the shower wall in a passionate kiss.
The man had lost his edge, his body no longer tense but warm and pliant, and Rayan melted into him, opening his mouth around the press of Mathias’s lips.
Then Mathias lifted him, wet and dripping, from the bathroom and tossed him onto the bed.
With his hunger momentarily satiated, Mathias turned his attention to Rayan.
In the time he spent edging Rayan with his mouth and fingers, leaving him slick, open, and desperately wanting, Mathias’s cock had returned to its earlier glory—thick and hard, kept at the ready as Mathias lowered a hand every so often to give it an absent stroke.
No longer patient, Rayan rolled Mathias onto his back and straddled him.
He took a palmful of lube and slowly lowered himself onto Mathias’s cock, taking a moment to ease into the feeling.
Mathias steadied him at the waist and waited, staring up at him, his gray eyes smoldering, letting Rayan call the shots.
Rayan rolled his hips, biding his time before he started to move.
Mathias captured the head of Rayan’s cock in his fist, and he thrust forward into the man’s hand as he clenched and released.
Rayan moved faster as the pleasure grew, spreading through his chest and causing the heat to rise to his face.
He leaned down, and Mathias slid a hand around the back of his neck, bringing Rayan’s mouth to his.
Then Mathias released him altogether and gripped Rayan’s hips. He raised his knees so that his feet were planted flat on the bed and began to slam Rayan down on his cock. Rayan groaned, the intensity of the angle sending him hurtling toward the limits of his restraint.
“Fuck—” He dug his fingers into Mathias’s shoulders, leaving marks in the skin, and was rewarded with the man’s quickened pace. His mind began to fracture as the illusion of control slipped out of reach. He thought of Mathias pressed beneath him at the motel, his lips brushing Rayan’s ear.
I’m all yours.
It wasn’t just Mathias who’d been pent-up. Rayan came in forceful arcs across Mathias’s chest, reaching as far as the man’s chin. Despite being entirely spent, his cock gave a jerk at the sheer audacity of the sight of his former capo marked with his pleasure.
Mathias drew a thumb through the slickness and brought it to his mouth.
Rayan felt a shiver run through him, and he bent to kiss Mathias, tasting himself on the man’s lips.
Then strong arms looped around his waist, and Rayan was swung down onto the mattress—Mathias now above him but still inside him.
Rayan moaned as Mathias began to thrust, powering toward his release.
Mathias had him doubled over on his back, and Rayan’s hands clenched the sheets beneath them.
Rayan’s vision blurred. He was aware of little but the merger of their bodies and how desperately he needed this man, how much he loved him.
“Yes… please—” Rayan choked out.
Mathias gritted his teeth, his lips twisting into a snarl as he came.
His body gave a shudder, and he buried his face into Rayan’s shoulder.
Rayan reached up to stroke the man’s hair, the wet strands sliding through his fingers.
Mathias raised his head to kiss him deeply, and they lay like that, still joined, mouths pressed hard together.
In the soft warmth of their embrace, Rayan found it difficult to imagine needing anything but this—Mathias beneath his fingers, in his bed.
Mathias eased himself onto his back, and they lay in a silence punctuated only by the sound of their breathing as it slowed. Mathias was the first to speak.
“Enzo was at the warehouse.”
A cold panic pierced Rayan’s insides. “Enzo Carbone?”
“The man himself.”
“For fuck’s sake, Mathias,” Rayan snapped, sitting up. “I told you not to keep this shit from me.”
“I’m telling you, aren’t I?”
“Tell me first. That’s what you should have led with.”
“I wanted to fuck you first. There’s a natural order to these things.”
Rayan let out a snort. How am I to supposed to argue with that?
He lay back and tried to curb his racing thoughts. “I presume he’s not here to clip you, because you’re very much alive.”
“They want me to head the family.”
Rayan felt as though a crate of lead had been dropped onto his chest. He realized he’d stopped breathing. When he finally spoke, he couldn’t hide the fear in his voice. He’d been too long out of practice.
“And what did you say?”
Mathias’s eyes scanned Rayan’s face. The man had him figured out. Rayan had said he wouldn’t stop Mathias from doing what he wanted, but this was the one thing Rayan couldn’t bear for him to want.
“What do you think I said?” Mathias asked.
“I know why they want you, and I know you could do it. You’d do a better job than Giovanni—hell, better than Russo even.
You’d bring the whole city to its knees—I don’t doubt that for a second.
This is your chance to become everything you’ve ever wanted to be, prove once and for all that you’re in an entirely different league from your father.
” Rayan’s throat tightened, and he swallowed hard. “But please… don’t fucking do it.”
He turned away. He didn’t want to see Mathias’s face when he told him he was leaving.
“I said no.”
Rayan exhaled shakily and closed his eyes. “Why?”
“You know why.”
“Tell me.”
“Thought you didn’t need words.”
“Tell me,” Rayan whispered. He felt Mathias move so he was above him. Rayan opened his eyes, meeting the man’s steady gaze.
Mathias cupped Rayan’s face, his thumb running softly across his cheek. “Because you’re my family now.”