Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
Icarus tried not to focus on the heads that swiveled toward him and Adam as they crossed the restaurant to a corner booth.
He wondered what was more of a shock to their audience—the fact he was wearing heels, jeans, and a slinky halter, or the fact he was walking arm in arm with Adam Devlin.
Adam, who was arguably more dressed down than him in a sweater, nondescript—if well-fitting—jeans, and work boots.
In one of the most exclusive restaurants in the city, where all the other patrons were dressed for a special occasion, where there were items on plates and liquids in glasses that Icarus never thought he’d see again.
But the staff hadn’t blinked when they’d entered.
They’d greeted Adam like an old friend—definitely a frequent visitor—and led them to the table where two cut crystal glasses of whiskey were waiting.
The high-dollar liquor went a long way to helping Icarus ignore the stares they continued to catch over three courses of food the likes of which Icarus was sure he’d never taste again.
He didn’t need human food to survive, but he could eat and enjoy the fuck out of it.
But in the moments when Icarus wasn’t overwhelmed with the tastes and aromas of the food—or by the heat blanketing his side and the hand under the table nestled in his groin—he couldn’t help wondering where this “date” might lead.
To Adam in his bed or to Adam dead?
That kidnap plan was sounding better and better if only Icarus had an ounce of faith he could execute it without fucking up.
He tossed back the rest of his whiskey, savoring the meld of smooth and spicy flavors and the internal warmth that rivaled the space heater beside him.
“You want another?” Adam asked.
“Lord, no, I can’t—”
The rest of his words died on Adam’s lips, stolen by the kiss Icarus had wanted so badly back at his apartment.
Deep and slow, maddening in its intensity and its restraint.
Maddening because they were in public, and Icarus couldn’t crawl onto Adam’s lap, grind down on him, and keep kissing like this until they came together, breathless and spent.
Adam drew back first, but only far enough to rest his forehead against Icarus’s, sounding breathless already. “I’ve been dying to taste the whiskey on you.”
Icarus ran the tip of his tongue along Adam’s upper lip. “And?”
“Better than I imagined.” He hummed contentedly and palmed Icarus’s erection under the table. “Like I imagine this is going to be too.”
“Oh, you have no idea.” Icarus grinned. “How many more courses?”
“Just two.” Adam kissed the hinge of Icarus’s jaw while slowly stroking his length. “Should I tell you all the ways I plan to worship this tonight?”
Icarus rolled his hips with the next stroke, eager for more friction. “I think you’re enjoying this a little too much, Mr. Devlin.”
Like a flipped switch, Adam withdrew into himself and away from Icarus, taking his teasing lips, warm breath, and claiming hand with him.
Humor and desire fled his gaze, sadness and longing taking their place, the rain clouds moving in, the sight eerily similar to the one he’d worn that first night back at his house.
An awkward silence filled the space between them. Icarus had tripped a memory wire. Something Deborah or David used to say or do? What kind of explosion had he unintentionally set off? The Adam-shaped hole in his chest made itself known again. “Fuck, Adam, I’m sorry.”
Adam wiped his mouth with the cloth napkin, then folded it on the table. “I’m sorry I interrupted your work tonight.”
“I think I needed to be here instead.”
“Why’s that?”
Finger under his chin, Icarus refocused Adam’s gaze on him.
“Back at my apartment, and at the club the other night, you said you wanted me to”—he lowered his voice—“fuck you senseless.” He shifted his hand to cup Adam’s face and tapped a finger against his temple.
“What are you running from in here?” Adam tried to look away, tried to knock Icarus’s hand loose, but Icarus wasn’t letting him or this point go that easily.
“You want a good, hard fuck, I got that, and I’m more than happy to oblige, but there are other moments when you want something else, something you miss.
Whatever those memories are, whatever you’re missing, I don’t want to make you forget that.
Lust shouldn’t blot them out.” He firmed his grip on Adam’s face, prepared for a reaction to his next words. “Neither should vengeance.”
Adam’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t jerk away—yet.
“I heard you,” Icarus explained, giving part of the story, hoping it would be enough. “I heard you talking to the other two in the Canyon Lands the other night once you got away from the fire.”
“Stay out of it, Icarus.”
“You caught my name, right?”
Adam’s hardened expression faltered on a chuckle. He lifted a hand, holding Icarus’s to his face. He angled his face and kissed his palm. Another of those knee-stealing intimate moments. “I’m trying to keep you safe.”
Icarus gave him more of the truth, more afraid not to, more afraid each second that Adam was headed the direction of dead instead of his bed. “Maybe I’m trying to do the same.”
The grip around his hand would have crushed a human one. “What did you say?”
Icarus didn’t flinch, didn’t shy away from the cold, hard stare assessing his own. Adam apparently didn’t like what he saw. He jerked away, yanked out his wallet, tossed a stack of bills on the table, and bolted out of the booth.
Icarus fisted his hand and thumped the seat of the leather booth.
“Fuck!” He couldn’t grab for Adam, couldn’t block his path, and couldn’t flex his speed or strength without making a scene and exposing himself.
He was pretty sure Adam knew already given that grip, and he hadn’t staked him for it, but Icarus couldn’t be certain no other patron in this restaurant wasn’t carrying.
Namely the shifter two booths over who’d eyed him warily all through dinner.
He just needed to get outside, into the dark, and follow the whiskey scent. He could catch up to Adam.
He slid out of the booth, calmly crossed the dining room, apologized to the waitstaff and host, then slipped outside. He sniffed the damp foggy air, caught Adam’s familiar scent, and followed it around the corner into the alley where Adam had parked the Camaro.
And promptly met the business end of Adam’s pistol. “What did you mean?”
Icarus held up his hands, palms out, and kept his voice as low and calm as the rising panic in his chest would allow. Not panic for his own life, but for Adam’s. He argued with the only thing he thought might convince Adam to not race off. “Would Deborah and David want this for you?”
Adam shoved the gun’s muzzle against Icarus’s chest, backing him against the alley wall. “Stop with the fucking riddles.”
“You stop chasing your own death.” Icarus shared another truth, hoping it would convince Adam since appeals to sentiment had not. “Vincent is willing to sacrifice his own son to get to you. What do you think he’ll do if he finally catches you?”
Adam’s eyes flared, surprised perhaps that Icarus had given him the honest truth, but then they narrowed, and his mouth twisted into a sneer. “Nothing, if I catch him first. What exactly did Vincent say?”
“That they had a line on your location. That the source required a human in exchange for the information.”
“Paris?”
Icarus closed his eyes and nodded.
“Is that source you? The location here?”
His eyes flew open. “No!” He made a slow show of moving his hands toward Adam’s face.
Adam remained still, his grip on the gun firm.
He could pull the trigger, lodge a silver bullet in Icarus’s chest, and end him just as fast as Icarus could snap his neck.
But he didn’t, and Icarus lightly clasped his face.
“I answered the door tonight because I knew the only hope for either of us was to convince you not to run into the fire again.”
“But Vincent sent you to me?”
“Yes, but I’m trying to make sure they never catch either of us again.” Icarus hoped to hell and back that he’d said enough to convince Adam to let this go. That maybe for once he hadn’t made a complete fucking disaster of the situation.
But his name was Icarus for a reason.
Adam lowered the pistol, wrenched his face free, and turned away. He withdrew his phone with his other hand, tapped at the screen, and brought it to his ear. “Meet me at the pier in twenty,” he told whoever answered on the other end of the line.
“Adam, don’t!” Icarus grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around. “Please don’t! We can leave together. We can just go.”
Heartbreaking sadness and aching loneliness stared back at him. Adam hung up the phone and tucked it in his pocket. “My name isn’t Adam.”
Icarus skated his hand down Adam’s shoulder, gripping him by the biceps and pulling him closer. “It is to me.”
As gently as Icarus had held his face earlier, Adam returned the gesture, using it to draw Icarus the rest of the way in, forehead to forehead. “Go back to your apartment and wait for that man.”
“Like hell.”
“I can’t protect both of us.”
“You don’t—”
“I don’t know how to turn it off, Icarus. It’s who I am.”
He remembered back to that first night in the bar, how Adam had sensed his approach, how the cop instincts just wouldn’t turn off.
Was that what had happened to Deborah and David?
Could Icarus bear to put more of that guilt on Adam’s shoulders?
“How do I know you’ll come back? That it won’t be someone else knocking on my door? ”
Adam shoved the butt end of the gun against Icarus’s chest, forcing him to take it.
Icarus flailed. He didn’t need it, and he sure as fuck shouldn’t handle it if those were silver bullets in the chamber. “I don’t—”
“They’re real bullets, not silver,” Adam said. “In case it’s not me at the door.”
The hole in Icarus’s chest grew wider, and he closed his eyes, leaning more of his weight against Adam. “My name isn’t Icarus.”
“You’ve told me that before.” Adam’s lips brushed his. “But you’re Icarus to me.”