Chapter 4
Nicholas
“Hold still, pendejo,” Mateo ordered, draping the back of his palm across Nicholas’s forehead. They were in the locker room of the fencing club, freshly showered after finishing their weekly match. Nicholas had just informed him that he was giving up on the priesthood.
“I’m not sick.” He batted his hand away, dropping his towel and slipping into his boxer briefs.
Mateo had already been with Mrs. Bailey for about a year when Nicholas came to live with them.
They were three years apart in age. Mateo was a teen by the time the state had returned him to his mother’s care.
He’d remained close with their foster mother, often spending nights with Nicholas, and they were schoolmates until Mateo graduated high school.
“Nicky…”
He recognized the guilt in Mateo’s tone. There was hardly a moment between them lately when Mateo’s regret didn’t get in the way.
“Don’t, Mateo.”
“Is this my fault? Did I—”
“No. This is not your fault.”
Mateo straddled the locker room bench. Even wet, his dark, disobedient waves jutted in varying directions.
“I’m the one who introduced you to Eliana. If it weren’t for me—”
“If it weren’t for you, I’d probably be dead in an alley. I would’ve been reckless. I know it. At least working for Eliana provides a layer of protection.”
Mateo distanced himself from the church the moment he left Mrs. Bailey’s clutches, unable to wait any longer to explore his sexuality.
He enjoyed sex, lots of it, and could think of nothing better than getting paid for the pleasure.
As one of Eliana’s most popular escorts, he held sway.
He’d used it to put in a good word for Nicholas.
“I should be happy about this.” Mateo’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “No matter how many promises you made, I know our friendship would’ve ended the moment you slipped that white collar around your pretty little neck.”
“You don’t know that.” Nicholas’s words sounded hollow to his own ears.
“Yeah, it would’ve been fun watching you reconcile that.” Mateo gripped the ends of the short towel slung around his neck, voice lowering. “You know, I could help you. You wouldn’t need to pay me.”
Nicholas pulled his T-shirt over his head, removing his bag from the locker before taking up the opposite bench. “You’ve already done enough, and we’re brothers.”
Mateo unleashed a dark chuckle. “Except we’re not. We’re not brothers, Nicky. And you know that.”
He liked to remind Nicholas of that truth. Nicholas chose to believe he was simply pointing out a fact, not clearing away an obstacle. An obstacle Nicholas couldn’t get past, no matter how much he loved Mateo.
Mateo buttoned his shirt, the white a sharp contrast against his olive-toned skin. “Hey, the offer’s on the table.”
And it would stay there.
“Did you decide to take the hot, grievy guy up on his offer?”
“Grievy?”
Mateo shrugged, rolling his sleeves up his muscular forearms. “I made it up. He did say you reminded him of his dead lover. Sounds morbid and grievy to me.”
“No, I didn’t decide to take him up on it.”
“Ay dios mio. But you want to, don’t you?”
Nicholas neither confirmed nor denied, pulling on his jeans.
“You know, as a baby, you screamed bloody murder whenever anyone laid a hand on you. It took eight years and me beating up your bullies for you to even say hi to me,” Mateo greatly exaggerated.
“Yet, this guy gets you into a tricked-out suite for five minutes, and you’re considering a no-sex commitment?
I gotta say, I’m hurt.” He grabbed his chest for emphasis.
“It’s not a commitment, and I said I didn’t take him up on it.”
Mateo’s tone turned strict. “Be careful, Nicky. Eliana vets the shit out of her clients, but he’s still a stranger.” He checked the time on his phone, then hurried to finish getting dressed.
“I gotta go.” He smoothed his hair back, then ran a hand down his sculpted scruff. “I’ve got a train to catch.”
“A train?” He thought Mateo drove there.
“Yeah, and I hear it’s an alpha train. Really hope it’s a rough ride.” He winked, and Nicholas’s face grew warm.
“Oh.”
Mateo was tall, fit, and cocky. A dominant man who enjoyed being dominated. He’d sleep with anything that paid well, but an alpha-male looking for a challenge would always be his preference. More than one at a time would be his version of heaven on earth.
“Don’t be a prude, Nicky.”
“I’m not,” he said indignantly.
“The cheeks never lie, my friend.” Mateo patted his warm cheeks, laughing when he flushed harder.
“Call you later.” He left, shouldering past a few club members making their way to the showers.
Nicholas released the rein he’d been holding on his body, lurching forward, his stomach twisting painfully. He knew the signs, knew what came next.
Vision tunneling, he fished his phone out of his bag, his wallet and keys spilling out in his haste.
A small ivory card floated from his wallet, landing on the tiled floor.
The ten-digit number written in a beautiful font taunted him.
Mateo was right, Gabriel was a stranger, only he felt more familiar to Nicholas than his own name.
How could that be?
Nicholas appeared to be having a day full of painful truths, and as he sat there panting, he had another moment of honesty.
Until meeting Gabriel, his arousal had been out of his hands, unwanted, uncontrollable, and therefore not his fault.
How he handled it was his own doing, but not the infliction of it.
The lust that had slammed into him full force in that hotel suite was different, though.
That was in his hands to mold and escalate as he saw fit.
It wasn’t only arousal that crippled him; it was attraction.
Attraction had been the one component missing from his other encounters, which had given him an excuse, and therefore a good reason for God to forgive him—or so he’d hoped.
Nicholas wanted Gabriel. He wanted to be the person he was when they stood together at that window, pretending to watch the rain and not each other. That version of Nicholas wanted what Gabriel had to offer. Companionship, dinner without the expectation—without the desperation—of sex afterward.
Nicholas felt better around him because, in that moment, he’d experienced free will. His urges had receded long enough to allow him clarity, and the option to… choose. But now, his cock was hard, his mouth was dry, and he wondered if it had all been an illusion.
There’s only one way to find out.
Nicholas picked up the card, hand trembling as a cold blanket of fear crept around his shoulders.
It’s too much too soon. I’ve already given up the church; I can’t afford to give up anything else.
On the heels of those thoughts came Mateo’s warning, the words bouncing hauntingly around his skull.
“Be careful, Nicky.”
A vision assaulted Nicholas, then. He cried out, dropping his phone and gripping the sides of his head. Deadly eyes as black as night punched into his mind. The ebony irises bled to amber, glowing and growing like wildfire.
Nicholas clenched his teeth as the point of view shifted, and he now peered through the firelit eyes instead of into them. He was seeing through the eyes of the monster again.
A beautiful man with long, raven-colored hair undulated atop the much larger body Nicholas inhabited. Had he been looking from his perspective a second ago?
The man was youthful, no older than Nicholas himself.
Nicholas experienced both men’s pleasure. Was it because their bodies were joined? He could feel their impatience and desperation, and his own cock leaked as they chased their orgasms.
Tears trailed down the beautiful man’s cheeks, and Nicholas felt a mix of pain and anger collect like a vortex in the monster’s body. The beautiful man threw his head back in ecstasy as he came, and Nicholas’s mouth watered as he eyed the pulsing vein at his slender neck.
Massasu Dimae…
Nicholas was thirsty, so thirsty, but somehow knew the thirst wasn’t his, that it belonged to the monster.
The sound of footsteps and laughter coming from the shower stalls jolted Nicholas back to reality. He dressed quickly, his movements jerky, then debated between calling Gabriel or Eliana.
Gabriel, he knew, would take him further away from his God, while Eliana would provide only what was needed until he got over this hurdle.
He left the fencing club, his arousal demanding he make a swift decision. Nicholas made the call, praying it was the right one to make, praying that God hadn’t yet abandoned him.