Chapter 11
ELEVEN
Once night fell, Icarus followed his intuition from Tuesday to the cluster of glitzy high-rises on Sunset Hill.
He hunkered down on a park bench across the street, keeping to the shadows and keeping an eye on the multiple entry and exit doors of the buildings, waiting for his target to emerge or arrive.
The night was relatively quiet, only the occasional passing car or departing guest interrupting the crash of waves against the nearby bluffs.
His head wasn’t nearly so peaceful. He couldn’t help but contemplate the phone call from earlier.
She would chide him for coming here, for making a direct approach, but he needed more information, needed a better sense of exactly what he’d gotten himself into.
And what he might get her into if he took her up on the offer to run.
Was there a way to slow the chase? Avoid it altogether?
To protect them both? Because after last night, he couldn’t be certain he could deliver Adam to the Canyon Lands tomorrow.
Hell, he couldn’t be certain he could deliver Adam anywhere but to his bed.
That was a whole other scenario his imagination wouldn’t stop spinning.
Where would a kiss like the one from last night lead?
What would it feel like to actually have Adam’s mouth around his cock or to bury himself in Adam’s ass?
What would every inch of that hot skin taste like on his tongue, starting with the puckered rim of Adam’s—
A yellow sports car screeched to a halt in front of the complex, shattering Icarus’s fantasy.
It didn’t take a genius to guess who owned that flashy piece of trash.
Paris Cirillo unfolded from the driver’s side, and two women emerged from the passenger side, their doors opened by the valet.
Paris rounded the front of the car and tossed the keys to the valet, then linked an arm through each of the women’s.
The one on Paris’s right moved fluidly, like a cat of some sort.
Vaguely familiar, but Icarus couldn’t place her. The one on the left was like Icarus.
Paris had always insisted Icarus meet him elsewhere, at Club Sutro or at one of the other clubs or hotels where Icarus did business.
So why had Paris brought these two paranormals here, to his home?
Either Paris was a total fool, or the women worked for him.
The latter, probably, which made Icarus’s approach more precarious.
Unless he wasn’t the one who approached.
He’d dressed for the possibility, knowing exactly what Paris liked, what would draw him in.
He shrugged off his dark hoodie and slouched on the bench, legs spread, red lace panties peeking out from the top of the gray sweatpants stretched taut across his lap, nicely showing off the semi helped along by Adam-fueled fantasies.
He laid one hand on his bare midriff below a cropped tee and shoved two fingers of his other hand into his mouth, amplifying his whistle.
The paranormals’ heads swiveled his direction one second, their steps moved his way the next, and by the third second, they were across the street, into the park, and on him.
The cat perched over him on the bench, claws around his wrists, holding his arms outstretched, while the other zipped behind him and circled his neck with her arm, putting Icarus in a chokehold.
“Wait!” Paris shouted. A car horn blew as he darted across the street, and once on the other side, he ran toward them at bumbling human speed, gravel crunching beneath his loafers. “I asked him to come here!”
Or maybe the women worked for Vincent, because that was a fucking lie.
The chokehold tightened. “You’re not supposed to have visitors,” Icarus’s captor said to Paris. “Not here.”
“I got hooked, okay?” An out-of-breath Paris arrived at their sides and made a sweeping gesture at Icarus. “I mean, look at him. Can you blame me?”
The cat cracked a sideways grin, dark eyes devilish in her tan face, as she glanced at his erection. “Not completely.”
Icarus shifted to draw the fabric more taut. “I’m down to party.”
The woman with her arm around his neck was not. “We already have a party to attend.”
Paris grimaced, and Icarus suspected the party he was pretending to offer sounded way more fun than the party Paris was supposed to go to. “Fine,” Paris huffed. “But can I have a minute with him first?”
Icarus tilted his head back as much as the chokehold allowed. “I promise not to bite.”
Her blue eyes flashed, as did the white of her fangs. “You bite, it’ll be the last bite you ever take.” She cut her gaze to Paris. “And that would be a fucking waste of a last bite.”
“Hey!” Paris protested.
She definitely worked for Vincent.
“Two minutes of his time,” Icarus said. “Then I’m gone.” He hoped they heard in his voice the finality he intended in the last word.
Whatever they heard, it was enough to back them off, and Paris slipped onto the bench beside him, his voice uselessly lowered. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
Icarus didn’t waste time, cutting right to the chase. Or rather, how to end it. He hoped Paris had a different answer for him than Atlas had earlier. “How much will it take to get your father off my back for good?”
“There’s not a number.” Paris dipped his chin and laid a hand on Icarus’s thigh, petting the soft fabric, petting him. His voice was rough when he spoke again. “It could have been a single dose of Daylight and it still wouldn’t have mattered.”
Icarus bumped off Paris’s hand and crossed his legs. “You gave Atlas my number. I was the mark.”
“Not you.” He folded his hands and cast his gaze aside. “Not exactly.”
“The Devil,” Icarus reasoned, and Paris nodded. “Why me?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t want to know.”
“So you sold me out instead?”
Paris clutched his hands in his lap, knuckles white. “They said you’d be safe.”
Fool was right. But one who didn’t mean to get in the trouble he did, at least not this time. Icarus knew something about being in predicaments like those. He laid a hand over Paris’s fidgeting ones. “Why are you telling me this now?”
“Because you were always good to me.” He lifted his eyes, and sincerity and apology swirled in their beautiful brown depths.
“I know I’m not the brightest. They know it, and so do you.
I don’t have the head for my father’s business.
I act before I think, but I don’t know any other way to be, to survive this as me.
” He shrugged. “You never made me feel less for who I am.”
Icarus forced out words around the lump in his throat. “You had something I needed.”
Paris smiled, a soft, sad thing. “Don’t sell yourself short.” He gave Icarus’s hand a squeeze, then withdrew his and stood. He leaned over, dropping a kiss on Icarus’s cheek. “Goodbye, Icarus.”
Icarus’s face heated, shame at ever thinking or calling Paris a fool. He caught the young man’s chin and gave him a proper goodbye kiss, sure it would be the last they ever shared. Maybe the last Paris ever received. Leaning back, Icarus held his chin and gaze. “Don’t sell yourself short either.”
“Thank you.”
Paris made his way back across the street, shoulders drooping more with each step.
The hideous yellow car was back at the curb, and Icarus overheard the cat mention a change in plans.
She took the wheel, Paris the passenger seat, the other paranormal in the back.
Icarus hoped like hell Paris got out of that car alive, but he couldn’t be sure of any outcome.
His stomach sank. He didn’t like being set up, and he didn’t like being the cause of someone else’s setup either.
He didn’t have long to beat himself up about it.
Atlas and Vincent emerged from the building less than a minute later just as a hulking black SUV pulled out of the garage and around to the curb.
It was hard to hear over the rumbling engine, but Icarus flexed his powers, picking up words that made his stomach sink further.
“What’s the backup plan,” Vincent said, “if Icarus doesn’t deliver?”
“I’ve got a line on the Devil’s location,” Atlas said. “But they want a human in return.”
“Give them Paris,” Vincent said without so much as a blink, not even a dollop of fatherly remorse.
Icarus had enough guilt for both of them. He’d never caused another human’s death before. Tonight, it seemed he’d cursed Paris Cirillo to that fate twice over.