Chapter 6
I shifted in my seat, and my hip protested, drawing my attention to the cane propped against the armrest, a constant reminder that his betrayal cost me eighteen months of recovery.
My hand drifted to my breast pocket, fingers brushing the outline of the Ace of Spades through the fabric.
Its edges had worn soft from decades of handling, and the bullet hole through its center had warped the spade symbol into something jagged.
The card had saved my life and marked me as a man who should have died.
I'd survived that bullet and the explosion that put me in Maxime's care. But survival always came at a price.
I needed a distraction before I did something I'd regret.
"The overhead light needs adjusting," I said.
He rose immediately, tablet in one hand, reaching for the controls with the other. He never let go of that damned device. The cabin's narrow aisle forced him to brush past my knee, and I inhaled sharply as his cologne hit me.
His shirt pulled tight across his back as he reached up. How many times had he moved through my spaces during recovery, adjusting everything to my preferences without being asked? I thought of his hands on me every night, professional and distant, while I lay there wanting things I couldn't have.
"Too bright," I said when he turned back. The lighting was fine. I needed him to keep moving. "And I want a drink. Macallan 25. Two fingers. One ice cube."
He moved to the bar without question. Something dark and reckless seized me as I tracked his movements.
"When you bring it back," I said slowly, "I want you on your knees."
He froze. The bottle clinked against the glass.
"Sir?"
"You heard me." I lowered my voice. "Bring me the drink on your knees. Let's see how devoted you really are."
The silence stretched between us. Thirty-two years of careful boundaries balanced on the edge of destruction. I expected him to refuse, to remind me of the walls he'd built between us for my own good.
Instead, he finished preparing the drink, crossed the cabin, and lowered himself to his knees beside my seat without hesitation.
The tablet stayed clutched in his left hand as he offered the glass with both, head tilted up to meet my gaze. The sight of him kneeling sent heat straight to my cock. I'd never dared command this, never allowed myself to want it. And he'd obeyed like he'd been waiting three decades for permission.
I took the tumbler. Our fingers brushed, and his whole body shuddered.
"The files on Shaw," I said roughly. "Spread them on the table."
He rose and began arranging documents. I sipped the whiskey and watched him lean across the table. His ass in those tailored pants made me shift to accommodate my growing erection.
I was getting hard watching him sort papers. Pathetic.
The leather creaked as I stood, ignoring my leg's protest. My cane steadied me as I moved behind him. The silver tip tapped once against the floor, and he froze.
I pressed close, close enough for him to feel my body heat, close enough to catch that cologne again.
"You've been watching Shaw for eight years," I murmured near his ear. "That's a long time to study someone so intensively."
He swallowed loudly.
"Show me the 2016 file."
His hands trembled as he found it. I pressed my chest against his back, reaching around him to flip through pages. Investment records. Personnel files. Surveillance photographs.
"Ah." I let satisfaction color my voice. "Here we are."
Maxime and Shaw were at an intimate corner table at Le Bernardin. Maxime's head was thrown back laughing, an expression I hadn't seen in over a year. Shaw leaned forward, clearly enchanted.
"He wanted you," I observed against his neck. "Look at how he's watching you."
"Many people have wanted me." His voice remained neutral. "I've never let it interfere—"
"With my grand destiny? With the empire we were building?" The words tasted bitter. "Always protecting me from distractions. Even from yourself."
He stiffened but didn't deny it.
The next photos showed him outside the Baur au Lac with another man, a young, devastatingly beautiful man. An expensive man.
Red hazed my vision.
"You let him buy you a whore?"
I spun him around and slammed him against the cabin wall. My cane clattered to the floor as both hands pinned him. Photos scattered everywhere, and his tablet finally fell from his grip.
"Algerone—"
"Shut up." My hand found his throat. "You let Shaw pay for another man to touch you?"
His pulse hammered against my palm. But his eyes showed heat rather than fear. His lips parted, and that pink tongue darted out. The bastard was getting off on this.
"It was just business." His voice came out wrecked. "Intelligence gathering—"
I tightened my grip until he gasped. "Did you let him fuck you? This intelligence asset Shaw bought?"
His hips jerked forward. His erection pressed against my thigh, and my cock throbbed in response. We were both fully hard now, the pretense of professionalism shattered.
"Answer me." I leaned in until our faces nearly touched. "Did you let him have what—"
I caught myself before finishing. What I've never had. What I've never allowed myself to want.
"No." The word strangled out. "I sent him away after documenting everything. I swear. I never let him—"
I kissed him.
No, I attacked his mouth with thirty-two years of suppressed hunger unleashed in one brutal moment. My hand tightened on his throat as I crushed my lips against his, all teeth and tongue and desperate need. He made a sound halfway between a sob and a moan that I swallowed whole.
His mouth opened immediately without hesitation or resistance, like he'd been waiting decades for permission to surrender. I plunged my tongue past his lips and tasted him for the first time. He was all whiskey and copper where I'd drawn blood, with something darker and almost floral underneath.
This was nothing like the careful touches of recovery, nothing like his steady hands checking my temperature, adjusting medication, helping me through exercises.
This was conquest and claiming and everything I'd denied myself while lying helpless beneath his competent, indifferent hands for eighteen months.
I tangled my fingers in his hair and yanked his head back, deepening the angle.
I bit his lower lip hard enough to make him whimper, then soothed it with my tongue before biting again.
The Ace pressed against my chest through my jacket.
The bullet had marked that card forever, changed it, made it something other than what it was.
Now, I'd do the same to him.
He shook against me, trembling as I devoured his mouth. His hands clutched my shoulders, fingers digging in, holding on like I might disappear. His tongue met mine with equal desperation, and the sound he made when I sucked on it nearly undid me.
I pressed him harder against the wall, eliminating all space between us. I ground my cock against his through our clothes, and we both groaned.
I broke away just enough to speak against his swollen lips. "All those nights. You touched me every day for a year. Hands on my body. And you gave me nothing."
His glazed eyes sharpened with pain. "I couldn't. You were healing. You needed—"
"I needed you." The admission ripped out of me. "Not your competence. You."
"I know." His voice broke. "But I couldn't be the thing that complicated your recovery—"
"My distraction?" I laughed. "You've been my only distraction for thirty-two years."
I shoved my thigh between his legs and ground up against his erection. He moaned, and his head fell back, throat exposed, pulse racing under the bruises my fingers had already left.
"And yet you betrayed me." Venom dripped from every word. "Took everything. My children. Their mother. Twenty years."
His face crumpled. "I know. I'm sorry. I'd do anything—"
"Anything?" I mocked. "Would you crawl on your belly? Lick my shoes? Press your forehead to the ground and beg?"
"Yes." No hesitation. "Anything. Everything."
I ground against him harder and let him feel exactly how much I wanted this. His broken moan made my cock leak.
"Is this what you want? To be punished? Marked? Reminded of who you belong to?"
"Please." The word sounded like a prayer. "Algerone, please—"
I reached between us and palmed his erection through his pants. He bucked into my hand, gasping, his whole body straining toward me. I squeezed hard enough to make him whimper.
"Eighteen months," I said against his ear. "You touched me every day for eighteen months and never once let me have this." I stroked him roughly through the fabric. "You kept yourself just out of reach while I lay there wanting you. Needing you. Hating you for making me need you."
"I'm sorry." The words came out broken. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry—"
"Don't apologize." I bit his earlobe sharply. "Show me."
I released his cock and stepped back. The loss of contact made him whimper and reach for me.
"On your knees."
He dropped instantly, looking up at me with those desperate dark eyes while I unbuckled my belt. The sound of leather sliding through loops made him shudder.
"You want this?" I freed my cock and stroked myself slowly while he watched. "You've been waiting thirty-two years for this?"
"Yes." His voice was wrecked and reverent. "Please. Please let me—"
"Open your mouth."
He obeyed, and I pushed past his lips, groaning at the wet heat that enveloped me. His tongue pressed against the underside of my cock as I slid deeper. His eyes stayed locked on mine, watering slightly as I hit the back of his throat.
The sight of him on his knees with his mouth stretched around me, finally giving me what he'd denied for three decades, was almost too much. I tangled my fingers in his hair and held him there.
"Is this what you wanted?" I pulled back slowly, then thrust forward again. "To finally be used? To stop pretending you don't belong to me?"
He moaned around my cock, and the vibration made my hips jerk. His hands came up to grip my thighs, steadying himself as I fucked his mouth. I wasn't gentle or careful.
The pressure built fast, too fast. I wanted this to last. I wanted to punish him properly. But his mouth was perfect and hot and finally mine after all this time.
I pulled out abruptly. He gasped, his lips swollen and slick, a string of saliva connecting us.
"No," he breathed. "Please. Let me finish. Let me—"
"You don't get to have everything you want." I tucked myself back into my pants with shaking hands. "Not after what you did."
"Algerone—"
"You touched me every day for a year and gave me nothing but your competence." I grabbed his chin and forced him to look at me. "Now you know what that feels like. To be touched and given nothing. To be marked and left wanting."
The intercom crackled. "Gentlemen, we're beginning our descent into Zurich. Twenty minutes to landing."
I released him and retrieved my cane from the floor. My cock ached with unsatisfied desire, but denying him was worth it.
"Clean yourself up," I ordered. "We have work to do."
He stayed on his knees for a long moment with his hand pressed to his throat where the bruises were blooming purple. His lips were swollen, his hair wrecked, his cock still straining visibly against his pants.
He looked exactly like what he was: claimed, marked, and mine, but not forgiven.
"Get up," I said coldly. "Retrieve your tablet. We need to discuss the operation."
He rose on unsteady legs and gathered the scattered items with shaky fingers.
"You'll contact Shaw when we land," I said. "Tell him you're reconsidering his offer. That you're tired of my restrictions."
"You want me to pretend to betray you." His voice was still rough and affected.
I finally looked at him directly. He was debauched and perfect. "I want you to do whatever it takes to get us inside his operation. Whatever he asks for. Whatever proof he requires."
"Even if he wants—"
"Whatever it takes," I repeated. "You're good at being whatever men need. Use that."
He flinched, but his cock was still hard, and I knew he felt the ache of denial as keenly as I did.
The plane touched down smoothly. As we taxied toward the terminal, I moved to where he sat. He looked up at me with those dark eyes, still glazed.
I grabbed his chin and forced his head back. The marks on his throat stood vivid against his pale skin, purple and red fingerprints advertising my claim.
"Shaw thinks he knows what would buy you," I murmured, thumb brushing the bruises. His breath stuttered. "He's wrong. You can't be bought."
I leaned down until my lips brushed his ear. "You can only be owned. And you've been mine since the day we met." I bit his earlobe sharply. "But don't mistake this for absolution."
He shuddered. "Algerone—"
"Now get up. We have a weapon to retrieve. Xander and Ash are already running surveillance on Shaw's contacts."
I stepped back and adjusted myself. The ache of denied release would keep me sharp.
As we prepared to leave, I stared at his throat one more time. The bruises pulsed against his skin as evidence of my loss of control and my claim, but not my forgiveness.
Shaw wanted to steal my weapon. But the real enemy stood beside me, wearing my marks like a collar. The man who knew exactly how to make me lose control. The man I wanted to destroy and worship in equal measure.
The man I was sending straight into our enemy's orbit.
The thought sent a dark thrill through me because I knew with absolute certainty that no matter what Shaw offered, no matter what games he played, Maxime would come crawling back to me.
And when he did, I'd make him pay for every second he spent in another man's presence. I'd make him beg. I'd make him bleed.
I could hardly wait.