THIRTY-ONE
Luca
A few days pass and we’re off to Aspen. Max stays focused on his game, turning inward. Maybe seeing me kill a man and that I have a feral hellcat for a sister turned him off. I accept we may have taken this as far as it can go.
As far as it should go. I’m his fucking bodyguard, I know better.
After the solid win against Aspen, and to get everyone’s minds off the two games against Richmond coming up, Coach Beck flies the team to Las Vegas for one night.
Where Max and the team go, so do I.
Some players, ones with wives and kids, fly home.
Damn, I respect that.
GM Reid is loving his players, so he pays for several suites. Each has two bedrooms, but Max gets one all to himself. He watches me with steady scrutiny while I retreat to the end of the hall where Duncan, my fellow guard, and I are scheduled to stay.
Max deserves a night off from me. Duncan and I plan to post in the hallway in shifts throughout the night anyway.
The player who took the free trip, waste no time hitting the hotel’s casino and private lounges. Coach Beck warned the players to not leave the property.
Max removed his travel suit, and changed into a pair of dark jeans, a white T-shirt, and charcoal blazer, looking hotter than any human male has the right to be. His chestnut hair with glints of gold is thick and styled away from his face. His blue eyes are the color of the Aegean Sea, and I want to swim in it. Drown myself, really.
In the hallway, he gives me a once-over. “Don’t you ever dress down?”
“I’m working.” I adjust my tie. “When I’m with the team, I’m on duty.”
He looks to make sure we’re alone in the hallway and leans into my ear. “Is kissing me and shoving your dick in my mouth part of your job?”
My cock twitches at what he’s implying. “If I’m not in a suit, I’m not working.”
“Pity, I like you in a suit.” He brushes a hand over mine, also tugging my tie.
Considering I could get fired and lose my bonus, I say, “And I like you out of your suit. But we have to be careful.”
Pursing his lips, Max strides toward the elevator. “Maybe I’m tired of being careful.”
I step in his path. “That doesn’t mean you can go near anyone else.”
“Are you laying claim to me?” His eyes blaze with a hunger I wasn’t expecting, maybe it’s adrenaline from the win. “Are we in a relationship now?”
I’m not looking for one. I like to play at my club, and if I were to be in one, it wouldn’t be with a professional athlete whose first love and priority will always be to sport.
Max Ryan is my dream guy, but there’s a reason he’s a fantasy and not reality. Even if I’ve tasted drops of heaven when his mouth is on mine and he’s sucking my cock.
Maybe we can just relieve stress until I leave the team.
Max hasn’t given me any kind of clue that he’s fucked a guy recently. It’s not something I want to peel back the curtain to know. I don’t need those images in my head.
The elevator arrives at our floor, and I motion for him to step inside first.
“Well?” he asks, standing over me, challenging me to answer if we’re in a relationship.
“Usually, two people decide together if they’re in a relationship.” I don’t give him a chance to hurt me. “You’re not sure what you want, Max. Or who you really are.”
“Got it,” Max says and leans against the rear elevator panel.
I know myself all too well. If my plan works out, I’ll be working for Sebastien Daria, a mob boss in Manhattan, and sworn to Queen Domenico’s house. If he needs me to kill people for him, I will. That’s not the kind of life to share with a hockey star who can’t exactly lay low when I’m trying to live back in the shadows.
I’ll find relief at Club Dare until something else changes. They were meaningless encounters anyway. That’s just a place to get off when I get bored with my hands.
The door to the casino floor opens, but Max doesn’t move.
“Max?”
His eyes flutter. “I get nuts when you say my name.”
With no one around, I steer him out of the car and toward a darkened corner where I kiss the shit out of him. His mouth opens for me and we go at it like our lives depend on it. My suit and his blazer have us both sweating.
I’m ready to suggest we go back to his suite when a voice behind Max has fear and loathing skittering down my spine.
“Daniil? ”
Max whips around at the voice because of how I stilled. Danger is at our doorstep. All I can do is hope he didn’t quite hear my real name with the loud music and the blood pounding in our ears from our heated kiss.
“Go back to your games,” I say to him, brushing him off with a look of fury. “Forget you met me, pretty boy.”
Looking confused, Max wipes his mouth and storms away. I’m not sure if he’s playing a part like I am. Has what I’ve been telling him all this time finally gotten through?
With a clear view of Gideon and Dev, L.A. capos who work for Belova, I fold my arms. “What do you want?”
Dev glances in the direction Max left. “Who is that?”
I snap my fingers, relieved he didn’t recognize Max. Then again, Belova’s brotherhood is a large organization and rarely a target from the top gets broadcast to a wide net of people.
Just the assassins, and Gideon and Dev aren’t assassins. They run the west coast for Belova. Max is an east coast problem at the moment.
Right now, these two knuckleheads are my problem. They’re looking at a ghost. The guy who disappeared from a room full of dead mercenaries in Boston five years ago.
I never had an issue with these two, only saw them occasionally when they’d show up to one of Ivan Belova’s annual meetings at his multi-million-dollar lake house in Winnetka, right outside of Chicago.
They knew me as Lia’s husband, Belova’s brother-in-law, and third in line on the enforcer team. They had to have noticed I disappeared. Or figured out I’d been targeted for destruction.
“How much do you two want to turn around and forget you saw me?” I consider my finances .
I have a few million in an offshore account, money I stole from Belova, according to him , when I collected Lia’s life insurance. It’s the account I worry is booby-trapped. But I found a way to siphon small amounts at a time.
Ironic that Ivan forced his sister to marry me, take oaths, sign a marriage license, and when I take out a dual life insurance policy to make sure my son is protected, thinking I’d go first, Belova says Lia’s payout belonged to him and not me.
I said otherwise and hence the start of our war. But it felt hollow. He has billions.
Gideon and Dev love Las Vegas and are probably in debt. Only, I don’t know if I can trust them.
“Pay my cage bill?” Dev says with a shrug. He knows I’m heading back to where I disappeared, and he doesn’t have the resources to figure out where I’ll go. His cage bill is more important to him.
“I can use a few grand,” Gideon chimes in.
Thirty minutes later, I’m out seven thousand dollars, but they accept the money in exchange for leaving the hotel and not mentioning me, or there will be hell to pay. Gideon and Dev wisely disappear. They know I have resources to hurt them.
They leave happy to go run up tabs in another casino, and consider themselves lucky for spotting me. No point in ruining their karma by killing me.
AFTER CIRCLING THE casino to confirm those two losers are gone, I case one of the lounges where Willis and Madison sit on a velvet sofa talking to a couple of women who I know are hookers.
Not seeing Max, I scan deeper into the room, until I see him. With a guy. Who is clearly gay, and flirting with him .
The thing about being into guys, I sense deep inside who else is. This fuckface, whoever he is, zeroed in on my man.
After making eye-contact with the other players, I stroll inside. The way Max takes me in and lights up, brings me to my knees.
I found you...
You’re mine.
Max whispers something to the man and eyes immediately dart my way. Looking pissed, the guy moves on to someone else in the lounge.
I stand tall, my face hard as granite and not giving away the dirty thoughts going through my head. It could make a corpse blush, the things I want to do to Max behind closed doors.
I crook a finger toward him and we leave the lounge. The other players don’t even look up. I’m his bodyguard, he’s supposed to be with me.
In the elevator, Max and I stare at each other, a drunk crowd separating us all the way to our floor of suites.
The elevator door opens, and Max gets out, politely excusing himself. No one notices him, and I breathe a sigh of relief.
Inside Max’s suite, I text Duncan, who’s taking the first hallway shift, that I’m posting tonight in Max’s room. Duncan will think I’m sleeping on a sofa.
I close the door behind me with purpose. I slide the security lever in place and add an extra bolt I carry with me. Gideon and Dev could get drunk and do something stupid. I doubt it, but being careful is part of the job.
“Who was that before?” Max asks. “Daniel, is it?”
I stride toward him, not correcting the pronunciation of Duhn-eel .
“Forget you heard that name.” Even though it’s my dream for him to pant it to me while I fuck him. “I told you what that can do to you.”
“They work for your...brother-in-law?”
I wonder if Belova will be that for the rest of my life? Or just until I marry someone else? Lia and I didn’t divorce.
Till death do you part doesn’t include relatives.
“They’re from L.A. They’re here fucking around. I paid them to leave.”
“How much?” Max drops his arms.
“Don’t worry about it.”
He takes me in with a full sweeping gaze. “You have money for very expensive suits, you walk like you come from wealth, and you pay off mobsters.”
“I’m comfortable. Don’t let the fact that I live on a crappy houseboat fool you. It’s to throw off someone looking for me.”
“If you paid them off for me, I want to reimburse you. I make eleven million a year.”
My eyes flutter, because I can’t comprehend guys who are essentially blue collar from middle class homes making that much money. Guys like Belova in his mansion built from dirty money, sure.
Max’s penthouse obviously set him back some serious green. He dresses well, but he doesn’t look like a millionaire. Or act like it. He acts like a bruising, glove-dropping defenseman, and dedicated to sport above and beyond anything else.
“They set me back seven grand.”
Max scoffs at the amount. “A small price for my safety. I’ll write you a check when we get home.”
Home.
I’d only had a home with Lia. Built on lies.
“If it pleases you.” I give him a once-over. “Who was that guy at the bar? Did you want to hook up with him ? Let him fan boy all over you? Quick, no strings. No death in the air when you fuck him?”
Max’s jaw tightens. “No.”
“No to what?”
“No to all of that. All I want is you.” His words shift something inside me, but I play it cool.
“Good.” I smooth my tie, wanting to wrap it around his wrists and bend him over the sofa arm, I’m pumped with so much adrenaline. “I really want to fuck you, Max, but you’re not ready, so I’ll break my rules...for you. I’ll let you fuck me . On one condition.”
“What?” Max asks with a tight jaw.
But, holy fuck, that wasn’t a No way . Or a Go fuck yourself, Luca .
“Let me at least finger you there. Earn your trust.”
Max’s lips twitch, his breathing ragged. “How?”
“While I blow you.”
Fire rages in his eyes. “Get your ass in my bed, Sheppard.”