12. Alek
ALEK
“You should really get out of here. Go get some sleep,” I tell tommy as I sit across from him. He looks fairly sobered up by now, so driving should be safe.
He shakes his head. “I don’t want to go back to the estate and to my apartment, alone.” Tommy looks up at me, and then stands up. He walks over to me and leans against the desk.
“Maybe if I had company,” he says.
I eye him from head to toe and see that look in his eyes. Hungry. Needy.
“It’s not a good idea,” I tell him. “You really think we can be alone together and not…” I swallow hard. “I shouldn’t.”
Tommy’s own face shifts with confliction and he sighs. “I didn’t ask if you should. Or if it’s a good idea. Do you want to come to my place?” His voice is low and desperate in my ear. “Who says we’ll do anything… Just talk. Hang out.”
“You want to hang out with me? Do you realize how dangerous it is if we’re caught together?” I ask him with a scoff.
Despite my questions, I can’t help but feel a tightness in my stomach. A heat that spreads down my spine into my hips and groin. My cock throbbing in my jeans.
My heart pounding in my chest as he leans in closer to me.
“Do you want to?” he asks me again. “Yes or no.”
I feel a lump form in my throat and all I can think about is what we did the last time we were alone together. What I did. How freed and alive I felt. Bringing both pleasure and pain to Tommy. The only way I’ve connected with anyone in years.
I know what might happen if I go with Tommy. How tempted I already am to lean up and see how far I can take things right here in this office. With the door closed, and the music pumping through the air in the club. Leaving its drunken consumers none the wiser.
I swallow down the lump in my throat, and I fold my arms, simply looking at him for a moment. My neck and chest feel hotter by the second.
“Yes.”
Getting into Tommaso Dresvanni’s car in the middle of the night when I’m supposed to want to kill him and his entire family, isn’t exactly the smartest thing I’ve ever done. Actually, it’s one of the most idiotic things I’ve ever done.
Still, I find myself in the passenger seat as he pulls into the parking garage of his apartment complex. It’s a good twenty minutes outside the border of Tessari, which I find odd.
“I would have thought you would want to be as close to the estate as possible,” I tell him.
He chuckles as he pulls into a spot and turns the engine off. “Fuck no. Sometimes I need to get away from all of the family bullshit…but I can’t be too far away. So, this is the middle ground I found.”
I raise my brows for a second. “Let me guess, you bring all your conquests here?”
He takes off his seatbelt and looks at me with a slight smirk. “You consider yourself a conquest, Alek?” he asks me.
My face goes red and I yank my seatbelt off as well before opening the door. “You wish,” I mumble the words before I step out.
The ground is a bit wet even inside the parking garage but we’re safe from the rain that just started, for now.
“You know I’m risking a lot being here,” I remind him as he locks his car with several beeps.
“You’re the one that said yes,” he reminds me in return.
I follow him through the garage and to the exit. The rain is drizzling down from the cloud darkened night sky, but Tommy doesn’t seem to care. He steps right out into it, jingling his keys in his hand the entire time.
I step out behind him and ignore the moisture collecting in my eyelashes and my hair. I don’t really mind it. The cold rain actually feels nice on my hot skin and I tilt my face up slightly to feel it on my chin. The rain starts to pick up however and we’re both walking faster and faster.
By the time we get to the front door of the building, my hair is damp and the rain is running down my chin.
Tommy opens the door for me and I step inside, following him up the stairs to the second floor and to his door. The corridors are empty, no one else coming in or out.
“Is this where you keep all the skeletons in your closet?” I ask him quietly as he opens the door after unlocking it.
He rolls his eyes and steps in first. I notice he takes his wet boots off by the door so I do too.
As he flicks a dim light on in the entry way, my eyes take in his wet skin. The droplets of water running down his neck and soaking into his shirt underneath his leather jacket.
His hair is wetter than mine, and strands of it cling to his forehead and the back of his neck.
My cock twitches inside my jeans and I ignore it as I close the door behind me and promptly lock it.
“You know it’s dangerous for me to be here,” I tell him. “Why did you push this on me?”
Tommy glares at me. “You’re not the only one it’s dangerous for,” he insists. “I didn’t push anything on you. I asked you, you answered, you got in my fucking car. If you don’t want to be here, then leave.” He waves a hand and walks down the short hallway to what I assume is the living room.
I follow him despite my anxiety at being here. Who knows if it’s bugged or who else could be here? Watching, waiting.
“I’m the one…undercover,” I remind him.
“And I’m the one working with your ass. You’re working with an entire family, two now, that want me and my entire family taken out of the picture. You could easily change your mind and decide you’d rather work for them than us.” He grabs a bottle of whiskey off a nearby shelf.
“Is that such a good idea?” I ask him.
He huffs and slams it down on the coffee table. “Don’t judge me. And don’t ignore what I’m saying.”
“I’m not,” I tell him as I sit down on the black leather couch facing the patio.
There’s no TV in the living room, which I find strange for Tommy.
I would have thought he was a big watcher of sports or at least some kind of television program.
Instead, there’s a record player in one corner of the room and several shelves of vinyl records around the room.
“I’m not playing a game with you,” I promise him. “I’m not working with the Bianchi just for fun either. I…need to get them where it will hurt, Tommy. You have no idea how much is riding on this.”
He pours himself a glass and stands on the opposite side of the coffee table from where I’m sitting.
“Then tell me,” he says.
I shake my head and look at him from head to toe. Somehow, he looks even sexier than usual. Damp and brooding. His eyes are dark as he looks into mine with frustration.
“No,” I mumble.
“Why not?” he asks me and downs his drink in two seconds.
“You tell me why you invited me here,” I reply. My stomach tightens as I watch him set his glass down, and take off his jacket. Tommy throws the jacket onto a nearby chair and then stands there with his arms crossed.
“You really can’t guess?” he asks.
I lick my lips and my eyes find his biceps…shoulders… strong and broad. I swallow the saliva pooling in my mouth.
“Why do you think I agreed to come?” I meet his eyes, and I see something mirrored there. Desire, but also…guilt.
“I can’t stop thinking about you,” I say before he answers.
He steps around the table and sits down beside me, just a foot or so between us.
“No?” he asks, his eyes flitting to my lips.
“No,” I tell him. “I can’t…get you out of my head. The way…” I cut myself off and close my eyes, groaning softly.
“The way I taste,” he finishes my sentence.
I nod slowly.
“I can’t stop thinking about you either, Alek,” he admits. “No matter how hard I try.”
“Maybe we’re not trying hard enough,” I say with my eyes still closed. I’m scared about what I’ll do if I open them.
I feel Tommy move closer to me. I smell him. Musky and warm.
My dick throbs in my jeans and I dig my fingers into the fabric over my thigh.
“I’ve never felt so drawn to anyone in my life, Alek,” Tommy tells me. “It’s…it’s fuckin’ ridiuclous I know, but…” His words fade off and I want to tell him he’s right. That it is ridiuclous and I don’t feel the same, but I can’t.
I could blame him being tipsy for what he’s saying, but even I know he’s barely tipsy now after one drink just a few seconds ago. And I definitely can’t blame alcohol for how I’m feeling.
“It’s not ridiuclous,” I tell him, voice low. “I’m drawn to you too, Tommy.”
I open my eyes and finally look into his. “I shouldn’t be.”
“I know,” he whispers. “I shouldn’t be either, but I can’t help it.
Every time you’re around, I want to be closer to you.
I want to breathe in your scent…I want to feel you against me.
That’s not it, though. I want to know you, Aleksandr. I’ve never really wanted to know anyone in my life. Not like this.”
I swallow hard and find my other hand slowly moving between us to where his hand is. I brush my fingers along his knuckles. They’re scarred and scabbed, but it doesn’t bother me.
“Why shouldn’t you be?” I ask him curiously. “I see guilt in your eyes when I look at you, but I don’t know what it’s about. I know what I carry, but…it can’t possibly be the same thing you do.”
“I’ve noticed something going on with you,” Tommy admits. “I wasn’t really sure if it was guilt or not, but now I am. It’s…stupid. It makes no sense, I’ve never felt guilty about much in my life, but this? I feel like I’m betraying my family somehow when we’re together.”
“Betraying them…” I mumble. “Because of how this could turn out?”
“I guess,” he admits with a shrug. “I feel like I should be doing my work instead of messing around with you, but it’s starting to feel like what we’re doing is more than that.”
“More than messing around,” I whisper. My heart squeezes hard in my chest and I slowly brush my finger tips from his battered knuckles to his wrist. “Is it wrong if I feel the same way?” I ask him.
“Maybe,” he whispers in return and I feel him lean in closer to me but I shake my head and lean back. “We can’t.”
“I haven’t felt so desperate for anyone in my life, Alek,” he tells me. “It can’t be wrong. I didn’t even feel this way about my ex-boyfriend.”
“Your ex?” I ask.