Nothing Good (Gratuitous Violets #1)

1. Florida Man Commits Murder, Public Indecency

Chapter 1

Florida Man Commits Murder, Public Indecency

R ainy’s evening was turning out to be sort of a mixed bag. On the one hand, he’d gotten what was probably the best blowjob of his life. On the other, his date had followed it up by pulling a gun on him.

Really fifty-fifty, if he thought about it.

It had started out as a pretty typical workday. Rainy had pulled up to the valet station of the five-star hotel, pushing his sunglasses up on his head. It was October, tail end of the rainy season, and the Miami air was so thick with humidity that you could taste it, rub it between your tongue and the roof of your mouth. Rainy’s shirt stuck to his back as he climbed out onto the pavement. He checked his kit in the trunk of the silver convertible, making sure everything was in place before zipping the suitcase shut and lifting it out.

The valet was a skinny Latino kid who grinned when Rainy tossed him the keys, and Rainy felt a flash of pleasant nostalgia, like digging through the closet for an umbrella and finding an old photo album instead. He winked and told the kid to take it for a little spin. He’d be a few hours at least.

The lobby was vaulted and airy with a clean white aesthetic that did little to hide old-money sensibilities. Rainy breezed through the off-season denizens of the hotel, the businesspeople and wealthy retirees, all white and gracelessly aging. They were the furniture of Rainy’s city—the static and interchangeable backdrop around and over which the locals moved.

As a rule, Rainy never dressed up for work. His half-buttoned Hawaiian shirt, sneakers, and tattoos earned him a dubious glance from the receptionist, but a subtle one. In this part of town, you never knew which trashy streetwear hid a surprise tech millionaire or trust-fund kid.

“Do you have a reservation?” she asked, smoothing a hand down her uniform blouse.

“Luis Pliego,” he told her, rolling the syllables of the fake name like a handful of dice. She clacked primly at her desktop, then beamed at him, satisfied that he was, in fact, a paying customer. Her smile was whitewashed and genial as the lobby itself.

“I have you for one night. Room 1243.”

“Lovely,” he said, and accepted the key.

His room was taken up by a king-sized bed upholstered in the most ridiculous eggshell duvet set he had ever seen. It looked like a fucking wedding cake. He heaved the suitcase up onto it and started unpacking.

His pearl-inlaid Colt 1911 got set aside for now. Rainy gave it an affectionate pat before letting it sink into the froth of the bedspread. Next came two prescription pill bottles—benzos and the strongest muscle relaxant he’d been able to get his hands on. He picked each up with a handkerchief, then folded it around them and set them down.

The final two items were a small plastic baggie and an unopened bottle of top-shelf, thirty-five-year-old scotch.

Whistling to himself, he cracked open the scotch and took a swig. It burned smooth, splashing warmth along his jaw and down into the center of his chest. He set the bottle down on the dresser and opened the baggie.

Inside were two plastic capsules, each about the length of his pinkie and half as thick. They were filled with fine white powder. Rainy tore the seam of one pouch and tipped its contents into the bottle. He wiped the excess from the rim, then recapped the bottle and swirled it until the silt disappeared.

The powder was a mix of the pills from the two prescription bottles, which he’d crushed by hand earlier that day and premeasured into two extra-hefty doses. He tucked the empty capsule back into his bag and dropped the full one into his shirt pocket.

You never knew when something like that might come in handy.

The spreadsheet Malia had typed up for him was pulled up on his phone. According to her—and she was never wrong—Holister would be arriving back to the lobby from his client dinner right about now. Rainy tucked the bottle under his arm and went out into the hall.

He’d asked for room 1243 because it was exactly one turn from the elevator. He stood just behind the corner, drumming his nails on the neck of the bottle, until he heard the elevator chime. Then he counted to ten under his breath and stepped out.

Dean Holister was a salt-and-pepper man in his late fifties with a haughty expression and a bad habit of fucking over people he wasn’t remotely prepared to get away with fucking over. His tie was loosened against the humidity, and he pawed at the lock to his room as Rainy approached.

There was an art to homicide. There was also a structure to it—best practices, maybe. Rainy liked to call them the three Rs: research, relax, and relocate.

Malia handled the first step, research. There were all sorts of interesting things to learn about Holister. For example, his schedule. His chronic back pain that required prescription meds. His fondness for a certain label of top-shelf scotch.

“Oh, thank God,” Rainy said, hurrying up to him just as he got the door open. “I thought I was going to have to go down to the lobby.”

Holister squinted at him. Rainy plowed on:

“Came out to get my delivery and locked myself out of my room. Could I use the phone in yours? I don’t want to trek all the way back down.”

He shook the bottle at Holister, double-checking that it was unclouded. The man’s eyes caught on the label, and his skeptical frown eased.

“That an ’85?”

“A ’90,” Rainy offered. He uncapped the bottle and brought it to his lips, pressing his thumb over its mouth to pretend to drink. “Trade you some for a minute on the phone?”

Holister shrugged and pushed open the door.

“Be my guest.”

That was the trick to the second R—approaching the mark in a role that felt unassuming, unthreatening. Getting them to relax.

Holister left the door propped open, tossing his tie and room key onto the table in the entryway. The suite had a sitting area with plush carpet and a sideboard with glasses and champagne already sitting on ice. Rainy plunked the bottle down there and strode toward the bedroom.

“Help yourself.”

He paused for a moment in the next room, listening to Holister shuffling around. There was a clink of glass. Satisfied that he was sufficiently occupied, Rainy planted his hands on his hips and said to the empty air:

“Hi, yeah, locked out. Room 1247.” He waited, drumming his fingers on his pants. “Great; I’ll be waiting.”

He walked back into the sitting area to find Holister already halfway through a tumbler of scotch. “Thanks, man, you saved my ass. That good stuff?”

“The best,” Holister sighed.

Rainy laughed and passed the bottle to him again. “Pour yourself a taller glass. Least I can do.”

Holister agreeably poured himself quite a tall glass and sipped it with a blissful expression. Rainy screwed the cap back onto the bottle and saluted him. “Thanks again.”

On his way out, he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and picked Holister’s room key up off the table. He kicked the door shut behind himself without touching the handle.

Rainy returned to his room and packed the scotch back into his bag. He sat on the bed and checked the time. When the minute hand on his watch made it to the spot he’d marked, he tucked his Colt into the back of his jeans and tugged his shirt down over it. Then he snapped on a pair of latex gloves from his handy 120-count medical-grade box and stuffed the two prescription bottles into his pocket.

He checked to make sure there was nobody in the hall before using the swiped keycard to open Holister’s door. A pause to listen yielded nothing but silence. Rainy closed the door behind himself and moved to the bedroom.

Holister was sprawled across the top of the duvet—a matched set with Rainy’s, huzzah—with his eyes half-lidded and drool gathering at the corner of his mouth. His face had the slack deadness of unnatural sleep. Rainy sighed, cracked his neck, and went to work.

Unlike many, he actually liked this kind of job. It didn’t need to be flashy and bloody; Emilio Espinosa, Rainy’s employer for this hit, wasn’t trying to send a message. He just needed Holister out of the way. That meant Rainy had the opportunity to get creative with it.

Holister wasn’t a small guy, but Rainy had a linebacker’s build. He’d spent his teen years playing Mike on the varsity football team, making a full-time gig of throwing around guys twice Holister’s mass, and his post-high school career had ended up being much of the same. He picked Holister up off the bed and carried him to the bathroom, only bowing a little under the weight. Holister stirred but couldn’t do much more than mumble his discontent.

He made quick work of Holister’s suit and underwear, dumping them onto the counter. Holister groaned when Rainy dropped him into the tub and turned the water on. While it filled, he withdrew the pill bottles and placed them on the counter, unscrewing one lid. By the time the water had risen to cover Holister’s chest, the man was squirming ineffectually toward the lip of the tub, fingers clumsy.

“Ah-ah,” Rainy chastised, coming to sit on the bathmat. He placed his palm on Holister’s forehead and pushed him under.

To his credit, Holister did try to wriggle away, but those pills were good shit. The fight went out of him quickly, and Rainy watched as the bubbles slowed from a roiling stream to an occasional blop. Once they stopped, he kept one hand under the water and checked his watch. When he’d counted out the appropriate number of minutes, he stood. Holister looked pale and small under the water. His eyes were closed. Rainy gave him a final poke, just for good measure, and turned away.

He dropped the keycard on the entryway table and let the door lock behind him.

It wasn’t perfect—it rarely was—but it was a satisfying enough story to keep the cops occupied. Wealthy man gets his hands on some prescriptions he shouldn’t have, gets drunk at dinner, and goes overboard self-medicating his aching back. Takes ill-advised bath. Accidents happen.

Whether or not the cops bought it in the end, Rainy’s hands would be clean of it by morning.

Back in his room, he texted Malia, Back from swimming. Time for a drink.

You’re such a freak, she replied. Be back by three.

Rainy mussed his dark hair in the mirror and undid another button on his shirt so the tattoo over the hard line of his left pec peeked out. Satisfied, he packed his kit into the suitcase and left it on the bed along with his gun.

The hotel’s restaurant had crisp white tablecloths, a few tasteful crystal light fixtures, and a long backlit bar. It was the end of the dinner rush, and the scrapes of cutlery on plates were few and far between as diners leaned back in their seats, occupied with wine.

Rainy sidled up to the bar and leaned his back against it, surveying the field. At first, it was just his instinctual recon—noting the exits and checking for suspicious body language or too-bulky clothing. Then he let his gaze linger on a few of the other single patrons. A woman in a green cocktail dress eyed him from the end of the bar, and he winked at her.

His job meant that he was often stuck working when the rest of the city was having its fun, scattered, neon-saturated, across the bars and clubs and beachside cabanas. As such, Rainy had developed a bit of a tradition: whenever he pulled off a job at a place with a bar, he was obligated to pick someone up there for a quickie before heading out for the cleanup. It had started as a competition with Marco, but then Marco’s affections had been drawn… elsewhere. Now, Rainy saw it almost as an integral part of pulling off a successful hit—like a kiss for luck.

The woman at the end of the bar had curly black hair and a ballerina’s silhouette. Every graceful angle of her seated position on the stool, back curved and ankles crossed, gave an impression of careful arrangement. Rainy rumpled his hair again as he watched her, feeling that familiar dance of mutual awareness, the weight of her gaze sliding like water over his skin.

He waved absently for the bartender, who approached from the corner of the bar. He was tall and dressed in a tailored gray three-piece suit rather than the hotel uniform, but there was a name tag pinned to his breast pocket. When Rainy turned to face him, he had to bite down on a wince. The man had a brutal scar on his face, a pink line that puckered the skin from the corner of his mouth to his right ear.

“Yes?” the bartender asked. In the unusually open slide of the syllable, Rainy sensed an accent.

Already distracted by the woman still watching him, running her cocktail pick around the rim of her empty glass, Rainy nodded and dug for his wallet.

“Two Manhattans. One for me and one for the lady.”

The bartender made a small, skeptical noise in the back of his throat. Rainy turned to him, incredulous.

“What?”

The man pulled two glasses and a cocktail shaker from under the bar top, shrugging.

“I didn’t say nothing.”

The accent was thick and Deep South—Alabama, if Rainy had to guess.

“You hmm -ed something,” he accused.

“Well. Don’t you think she’s a little out of your league?”

Rainy’s jaw dropped. “Excuse me?”

The bartender’s gaze, burnt-coffee brown, was unimpressed. He dragged it pointedly over Rainy’s patterned shirt and too-bright sneakers.

“I might be crazy,” Rainy said, “but aren’t you supposed to be polite to me?”

“Oh, yes, sir. Of course, sir.” The bartender’s voice was deadpan as he selected a bottle of bourbon without looking at it. “I’m assuming you like a heavy pour?”

Rainy leaned over the bar, woman briefly forgotten. He dragged the shaker away so the bartender was forced to look at him. The man clunked the bottle down on the bar and held Rainy’s gaze.

He had short brown hair with a hint of curl to it and a flat, stern expression, like he was gearing up to tell Rainy to sit down and button his shirt. His neck was elegant and just a little too long in a way that made him interesting to look at. The scar on his face distracted from the handsome angles of him—a painting of an angel someone had slashed with a box cutter. He was long and wiry and stood with his feet a little too far apart. His hands had come to rest behind his back. Perfect, perfect posture. Rainy wanted to push him over.

His name tag read: Jesse.

“For your information, Jesse, I belong here plenty.” Rainy turned on a megawatt smile, one he had on good authority should be labeled an air traffic hazard up there with fireworks and high-powered lasers. “I just closed on a big contract, and I wanted to celebrate by blowing some money on someone pretty.”

Jesse reclaimed the shaker and started making the drinks. “Oh? And what is it that you do for a living?”

“High-profile talent agent.” The lie came smooth and familiar as ever as Rainy watched Jesse pour the liquor with careless efficiency, barely glancing down while he worked. His hands were deft and long-fingered. There were freckles and white flecks of old scars across the knuckles.

“Mm,” Jesse said. “With that shirt, that was gonna be my second guess after ‘ten-dollar escort.’”

Rainy couldn’t help the laugh that startled out of him like a puff of kicked-up dust. “Does insulting customers get you off, or do you just have a terrible personality?”

Jesse’s mouth finally tilted up at the corner, smug and mean. “Both.”

His accent was starting to get under Rainy’s skin. The lazy stretch of the vowels was like a hand running down his shoulders, up the back of his neck. Rainy wanted to bite that snide little expression off his face.

“Shit,” he said. “Forget the girl. Can I buy you a drink?”

“Hitting on the help? Classy.”

“Oh, now you’re concerned with appropriate employee-customer interactions?”

Jesse leaned against the bar, languidly uninterested, and shook the drinks. Rainy listened to the rattle and crunch of ice, watched the amber-red liquor trickle into the glasses. When it settled, he pushed one back across the bar.

“Come on. I said I wanted to buy a drink for someone pretty, and you’re starting to look like the prettiest person here.”

Jesse rolled his eyes. “Flattery won’t get you nowhere.”

“What will?”

“Depends on what you’re offering.”

Rainy leaned in on an elbow. “Sweetheart, you can have anything you want from me.”

“Don’t call me that.”

There was a flash of fight in Jesse’s eyes now, feral and deadly. The cut of his teeth made something hotter and heavier than gravity tug at Rainy’s stomach.

“All right,” Rainy said with false ease. “I’ll go test my luck elsewhere, then.” He picked up the glasses and turned away toward the end of the bar, where the woman in the green dress was starting to look annoyed at her empty glass.

“Wait,” Jesse said.

Rainy bit down on his smirk and turned. “Yes?”

Jesse plunked a jar of Luxardo cherries onto the bar. “You forgot the most important part.”

Rainy set the drinks back down and watched Jesse spear cherries with gold-enameled cocktail picks, dropping one into each glass. He felt a pleasant rush in his ears, a warmth starting to radiate up his neck, like the scotch he’d drunk earlier had suddenly decided to make him tipsy after all.

“I’m Luis, by the way. And you’re—don’t tell me—Jesse.”

“Amazing. How’d you guess?”

“I’m observant like that.” Rainy took a sip from his glass and raised his eyebrows. “This is fantastic.” The bourbon and bitters were perfectly balanced by the sweetness of the vermouth and the rich curl of cherry.

“I’m a man of many talents,” Jesse said drily.

“Oh, I bet you are.”

A pair of businessmen had walked up to the other end of the bar and were trying to get Jesse’s attention. He ignored them.

“Look. I don’t got patience for people who dance around words. So just look me in the eye and tell me you wanna fuck me.” His voice dragged derisively over the word fuck. “So I can turn you down and we can both get on with our nights.”

The bite in his tone was more challenge than irritability, smugness and sharp teeth. That was the best part, Rainy thought—the way Jesse talked like they were playing a secret game that he’d already won.

“I’m not sure you would turn me down. And if you did, I think you’d regret it.”

“Mister Luis, you wouldn’t last two minutes with me.”

“No? I’m a strong boy.” Rainy demonstratively flexed a tanned forearm, where the outline of a boxer was tattooed with only the red, red gloves filled in. He enjoyed the way Jesse followed the movement with his eyes and then tried to pretend he hadn’t. “I can take it.”

Jesse plucked the cocktail pick from Rainy’s drink and closed his lips around it. He drew it out slowly, gold glinting against the wet pink of his bottom lip. A drop of juice gathered there. He chewed the cherries, then tipped his chin back to swallow. With that neck on him, it was a whole spectacle.

“Excuse me,” one of the men down the bar called.

“Fuck off,” Rainy told them mildly, eyes still locked on the spot where Jesse’s throat disappeared under his collar. Fuck, he wanted to get under that collar.

“Come on. Anything you want, remember?” And then he added, deliberately, “Sweetheart.”

Jesse’s eyes smoldered, deep and dark enough to swallow all the light in the room.

“I told you not to call me that,” he said, voice all fangs.

Rainy’s pulse was a wild thing under his skin. He wondered if Jesse could see it jumping against his sternum.

“You going to stop me?” he challenged.

Jesse tipped his head. He had a strange way of holding it, Rainy had noticed—chin tilted slightly to the right, scarred side canted away, so he was always looking at Rainy a little bit sideways. He turned to face him fully now. The cool lighting of the bar silvered the scar tissue on his cheek.

“Finish your drink,” he ordered.

Rainy lifted it for a sip and sputtered when Jesse’s hand suddenly covered his, tipping the glass further, forcing him to drink it all. Bourbon ran out of the corner of his mouth, burned in his sinuses. He met Jesse’s eyes over the glass as he swallowed. They were black and shuttered, unreadable. Rainy’s jeans were much too tight.

When the glass was empty and the pick clinked against Rainy’s teeth, Jesse pulled it away and set it on the bar.

“I’m gonna take my thirty-minute break, now,” he said. “Are you coming?”

“I sure fucking hope so.”

Jesse turned primly on his heel and stalked to the corner of the bar, where he flipped up the top and walked out. Rainy enjoyed the lithe line of his back and the way his pants were tailored across his ass.

“Hey, man, we’re still waiting on drinks!” one of the men down the bar complained. Jesse pushed through the swinging door into the kitchen without a word.

Rainy offered the two men a shrug. What can you do? Then he hopped off his stool and all but scampered after.

On his way, he passed the woman in the green cocktail dress. Her gamine figure was stiff with irritation. Rainy gave her an apologetic wince before following Jesse into the kitchen.

Steam and sound, the smell of pan-fried fish and fresh-baked soufflé. Rainy hurried down a whitewashed hall past the kitchen proper, following Jesse’s retreating back. It skipped a dish room and a pantry, rounding a corner. Rainy made the same tight turn—then the world jerked around him, and he found himself pinned against the wall.

Adrenaline flashed along his limbs like lightning, and he started to go for his Colt before remembering he hadn’t brought it. Fine, then—his knife, or his hands. Rainy, as Marco fondly told him, was built like a pile of bricks. He could put Jesse on the ground easily enough, and Jesse—

And Jesse was kissing him. Sliding their mouths together and biting down on Rainy’s lower lip. It was forceful, aggressive. Challenging. Rainy’s adrenaline had never shifted faster from one priority to another. He kissed back hard, his blood rising higher at the delicious contrast between Jesse’s soft lips and the sharp, insistent tug of his teeth. His mouth tasted like cherry syrup, sickening-sweet.

The wall at Rainy’s back was gloss-painted and slippery against his sweat-dampened shirt. The drab, unopulent innards of the service side of the hotel were stifling. He didn’t know how Jesse was surviving in all those designer layers. The narrow bones and lean muscle of his body where he pressed Rainy into the wall were burning hot.

A hand slid up into Rainy’s hair, tightening at the scalp. Jesse dragged his head to the side, exposing the arch of his throat. He leaned back and examined him, eyes more black than brown. The collar of Rainy’s shirt had slid down to bare most of one shoulder and the tattoo on his chest. He watched Jesse take it in—a tangled burst of wild violets inked over his left pec, like his skin had split open and they’d come spilling out. Rainy swallowed, and it felt too thick, vulnerable.

“Are you—” he started, and then forgot what he was going to ask, because Jesse leaned down to the juncture between his neck and shoulder and bit him.

“ Fuck. ” Rainy’s hips bucked involuntarily.

Jesse’s teeth dug in punishingly hard, enough that Rainy thought in a flashbulb of fear and arousal that he might actually break the skin. Then they released, and his tongue swept in to soothe over the damp, bruised skin. He found the line of spilled bourbon and followed it up Rainy’s throat, then paused, open-mouthed, at the pulse point under his jaw. Rainy’s heart was pounding, and he could feel the blood rushing just below the soft skin of his neck, against Jesse’s hot mouth and the skate of his bared teeth.

Jesus Christ, he thought, this man is going to kill me.

Then Jesse kissed him there, gentle and unhurried, and Rainy needed to touch him now, now, now. He slid his hands over the surprisingly powerful curve of Jesse’s shoulders. The wool twill of his suit jacket was soft.

When Rainy went to lean forward, Jesse let him, releasing his hair. He nuzzled Jesse’s chin back until his head was tilted at a devastating angle. His Adam’s apple jutted out sharp as a broken neck. Rainy latched onto it with his mouth. God, that neck was really something. Jesse shuddered as Rainy sucked his way down it, tasted the hollow of his collarbone and then the spot behind his ear. He ground their hips together.

Rainy was almost fully hard now, dick hot and aching. The sharp press of his zipper and the friction of rough denim was unbearable. He wanted to get under that bespoke suit of armor, starting with the jacket. His hands roamed down Jesse’s back to the tailored dip of his waist—

Jesse spun out of his grip. Rainy’s skin smarted at the loss, his hips pushing forward into empty air. He stared at Jesse in the white fluorescent light of the service hallway. His suit was still immaculately pressed, but below the surface, his face was flushed and his chest was heaving, and there was a red mark on his neck from Rainy’s mouth. Rainy reached for him.

He stepped back. “Let’s take this somewhere more private.”

“I have a room,” Rainy offered immediately.

Jesse scowled. “I’m not waiting that long. Come on.”

He grabbed Rainy by the arm and dragged him up the hall, away from the kitchens. His grip was strong, enough to break Rainy’s wrist if he so chose. Rainy followed eagerly.

“I like the way you think, Jesse.”

Jesse led him down a set of concrete stairs, the air turning a little drier as they descended. The hotel was built on a rise, and on the backside there was a small lower level where the building sprawled down over the hill. They hurried down the narrow hallway that ran its length, Jesse’s fingers digging into Rainy’s skin hard enough to bruise.

In the center of the hall was a door that opened with a key Jesse fished out of his pocket. It swung inward to reveal a wine cellar. It was a deep room with brick-covered walls. Low light glinted off rows and rows of dark green and aubergine glass. There must have been some kind of atmosphere-control system, because the air was dry as chalk against Rainy’s sweat-slicked skin when Jesse tugged him inside and closed the door behind them.

“Take your pants off,” he ordered.

“Well, someone’s e—”

Jesse pushed him back until his knees hit a stack of pallets and he sprawled across them. By the time Rainy managed to scramble up into a sitting position, Jesse was already on his knees in front of him, wrestling with the zipper of his jeans.

“Okay, Jesus, okay.” Rainy wriggled out of his pants. His breath was coming frantic, everything high-contrast, gilded with alcohol-warmth. He was painfully aware of every centimeter of himself, every nerve and capillary, the hot damp of Jesse’s breath on the inside of his thigh. There were tattoos there too, geometric mandala patterns that wrapped around and up the insides of his thighs, and Jesse traced one with a finger.

Looking down on the top of his head, Rainy could see that there was gel in Jesse’s hair, taming the soft natural curl of it into a meticulous sweep. He wanted to run his hand through and ruin it. He forgot about that pretty quickly when Jesse dragged down his underwear and took him in hand.

His hands were strong, broad, and surprisingly rough, the calluses on his palm scraping over the flushed, sensitive skin. He squeezed with his thumb and tilted his wrist in long, torturous strokes that had Rainy arching his hips off the pallets, a drop of precome gathering at his tip. Jesse bent down to lap it up.

Rainy had to bite down on his own wrist to keep from moaning when Jesse’s mouth latched onto him, hot and wet and soft. His tongue ran a teasing sweep and then he sank down, taking Rainy in all the way.

“Oh my God.” Jesse’s mouth was tight and warm. His lips slid all the way down to the base and he swallowed. Rainy’s body drew tight at the feeling.

He set a brutal pace, drawing his mouth and tongue and teeth over Rainy until Rainy was shaking with the effort to keep himself from thrusting up into Jesse’s throat. The heat that had built up in his hips was spreading through the rest of him, warm and liquid and throbbing with his pulse. Electricity was arcing over his bones, ready to bite and fry.

Jesse’s hands gripped his hips. He used them as leverage to guide Rainy’s cock up into his open mouth, gliding in and out. Rainy took the hint. He tried a tentative thrust, and Jesse sank in close around him, coaxing and pliant. He rolled his hips again and again until he was fucking his mouth roughly, Jesse’s fingers still digging into his hip bones.

He made the mistake of looking down just as Jesse looked up, and the breath was punched out of him. Jesse’s eyes were round and wet, with long, long lashes that were sinfully pretty. Innocent as an angel’s, while his lips were stretched wet and pink over Rainy’s cock. Rainy brought a hand up to cup his cheek. He traced his thumb gently over the scar.

Jesse bit him. Fucking bit him.

Rainy grabbed him by the back of the neck instead and snapped his hips forward hard, hard enough that he hit the inside of Jesse’s throat. Jesse’s eyes blew wide, and Rainy leaned back on his other elbow for leverage, thrusting deep enough to choke.

Jesse was moaning now. Rainy could feel it vibrating against him. His skin felt flash-boiled. His whole body was pulsing, the pleasure surging and stretching. Every bit of smug sternness was gone from Jesse’s face. He looked desperate and fucked-out as Rainy thrust into his mouth. Rainy wanted to pull out and come on his face, watch the mess drip down the front of his still- immaculate suit. The image was so overwhelming that he felt that low ache crest like a breaking wave.

“Fuck, I’m going to—”

He tried to pull back, but Jesse chased him with his mouth. Rainy bit down on his palm hard enough to bruise as he came buried in Jesse’s throat. The orgasm lit his whole body up in an incandescent wave and he was left raw as a burnt-out filament. He whimpered as Jesse kept sucking, drinking him down.

When Jesse finally pulled away, there was a smear of come at the corner of his mouth. He wiped it demurely away with a thumb and checked his watch.

“I guess you did break two minutes. Not by much, though.”

Rainy had to tip back against the wall, boneless, while his breath caught back up to his body. As he gasped there like a dying fish, chest slick with sweat, Jesse stood and brushed off the knees of his suit. His movements were calm, but Rainy could see the outline of his own dick straining against his pants. Rainy tilted forward to feel him, going to slide his hands under the tailored vest and shirt.

Jesse skirted out of his grip again. “Sorry, I don’t give it up to guys who ain’t even bought me a drink yet.”

Rainy laughed. “God, you’re a bastard. Are you going to let me buy you one now?”

His body was loose and shaky with the lingering sensation of Jesse on him, and he needed more. Normally, he preferred giving to receiving, but right now all he wanted was this awful, beautiful man to hold him down and call him nasty things while he fucked Rainy raw.

Jesse made a show of considering, teeth sliding over his lip. “Maybe.”

Rainy took him in, how his eyes crinkled, smug and satisfied and a little cruel. The scar on his face, the tall, lithe arch of him, the tiny spatter of freckles across the bridge of his straight nose.

God, this man was really something.

It was too bad, Rainy thought, that Jesse was here to kill him.