Chapter 26 Alessio
ALESSIO
THE NEXT NIGHT I tried to work. Really, I did. I’d promised King there wouldn’t be any distractions on my part, nothing that would have me making stupid mistakes, but I couldn’t deny that my mind was elsewhere. At least I wasn’t in denial about that.
And anyway, we didn’t have any pressing matters happening within our circle, nothing life or death, which was a nice change from the past few months.
No stalker to track down. No retribution to dole out.
Just keeping things running, double-checking accounts, all things that relied on muscle memory as my fingers moved quickly across the keyboard and my eyes scanned the screens in front of me.
Shep had left a while ago, encouraging me to do the same, since it was late, but no way in hell was I leaving.
I found myself glancing at the time every two minutes, my leg bouncing up and down.
The quiet of our underground space was usually soothing, but tonight I was hyperaware of every creak, the hum of the computers…
my heart trying to take a flying leap out of my chest.
I hit enter, starting a scan of one of our accounts and sat back, scrubbing a hand over my face.
My gaze shifted to the screens that monitored the long tunnel that branched off toward St. Andrews, even though no one could enter without the tracking chip my brothers and I wore or without unlocking the checkpoint doors spaced out at intervals.
I checked the time again, groaned, and shot to my feet, shaking out my arms and pacing to get rid of all the nervous energy coursing through my body.
He’d come, right? Rafael wouldn’t change his mind…would he?
No. I shook my head and cracked my neck from side to side, then took another peek at the monitors.
He would come. What was that he’d always teased me about before? “Patience is a virtue.”
Yeah, well fuck patience, and fuck my virtue too. I’d lost that a long time ago.
Without seeing him, it was too easy to think that what had happened last night was all in my head, that I’d made up how perfect every single second with him had been. Had I made up those nipple piercings too? Because that had been a sexy surprise I never could’ve expected.
God, the way he’d looked naked was one thing, but the way we’d fit together again? The sounds he made when he came deep inside me? All of that had left their mark, but it was the way he’d looked at me when he told me he couldn’t leave me again that had me hoping…
And hope was a dangerous thing.
I checked the cameras again without meaning to and then did a double take.
Movement. Just inside the entrance from the church.
My breath caught as I moved toward the monitor and saw the familiar figure entering the tunnel.
I caught a clear look at him briefly before the door closed and shut out the light.
He was dressed in his usual black shirt and slacks, his collar on and his hands loose at his sides like he didn’t know quite what to do next.
A smile curled my lips and my heart skipped a beat.
Rafael was coming. I hadn’t imagined it. He hadn’t changed his mind. He stood there in the tunnel, the soft glow from the torches lining the walls illuminating him as he looked around and then stared straight at the camera up in the corner.
At me.
Something in my chest cracked open, and I quickly moved back to the keyboard.
With a tap, I unlocked the first gate, the sound of it unlatching echoing off the walls. Rafael walked forward, sure, steady strides as he moved through the tunnel.
I couldn’t take my eyes off him as he reached the second door, and I opened it as he approached without having to slow down.
Maybe I was a little eager.
He slipped past the third door, each barrier between us sliding away, one by one.
It felt like more, somehow, like with every obstacle that was freed, he was making a deliberate choice.
For the first time, it felt like Rafael was choosing me, every step he took bringing him closer, and not just physically.
He felt within reach. It was impossible not to get my hopes up, not when everything I wanted was only two locked doors away, and I blew those barriers away quickly before running out of my office toward the last one.
It opened slowly, too fucking slowly, and I was breathing hard when I got there, waiting for him to appear.
And then…there he was.
“Hi.”
One word, in that voice, and I was glad for the wall I was leaning against as I tried my best to look anything other than giddy with excitement.
“Hi, yourself. You find the place okay?”
A small smirk curved Rafael’s lips as he took in the cavernous underground and nodded. “Yes, surprisingly. But I think I had a little help with that.”
My eyes swept up his long legs to his trim waist, where his black shirt was neatly tucked in. He would’ve fit in perfectly down here, if it wasn’t for the sliver of white at his neck, but I could overlook that. He was here. That was all the mattered right now.
“Maybe a little, but don’t tell anyone.”
“Your secret’s safe with me.”
“I know.” I pushed off the wall and walked over to him. “I’m glad you came.”
Rafael’s tongue slid over his lower lip, and it took everything I had not to reach out and pull him to me so I could do it myself.
But I’d made a promise; I just wanted to see him. I’d keep things platonic. The last thing I wanted to do was scare him off when he’d finally come to me.
“Would you like a tour?” I held my hand out, and, without a moment of hesitation, he took hold of it.
“I’d love one.” My stomach flipped at the sincerity behind his eyes as he interlaced his fingers with mine. “Show me.”
I tried to speak, tried to answer him, but couldn’t seem to talk around the lump in my throat. My emotions were wreaking havoc on me now that Rafael was finally standing here in my world, asking to be shown around.
It was unreal. Everything I’d ever wanted.
I turned away from him—knowing the only way I’d be able to move, to function again, would be if I wasn’t staring at him—then led him through the tunnel and to the office that was my home away from home.
“This is—”
“Yours,” Rafael said, his voice full of wonder and awe as he let go of my hand and stepped past me to look at the wall of monitors and shelves of gadgets and tech that had yet to hit the market, and cameras—lots and lots of cameras.
“This is your space. Your world. I can imagine you here,” he said, more to himself than me, as he ran his fingers along the desk and moved behind the chair.
“Watching the screens, deciphering code.” He glanced over his shoulder at me. “You still write it too?”
“Code?” I stood tall, puffing my chest out a little and crossing my arms. “Best in the business.”
Rafael’s lips crooked into a grin. “If you say so yourself.”
“Well, so do political leaders, crime syndicates, and—”
“I believe you.” His eyes trailed down over me in a way that felt a lot more than the platonic. “You always did love working with computers.”
“I did.”
“And swore never to go boring corporate.”
“Couldn’t get less boring than here.” I winked at him. “But don’t tell my parents. Dad thinks I’m a system programmer.”
Rafael turned back to my setup, making his way over to where the camera screens hung on the wall. A couple monitoring the outside of Libertine, one on the secret church entrance and tunnel system that Rafael had just walked through, and then—
Fuck.
“Is that the church gardens?”
Why in the hell didn’t I turn that off? Stupid. Stupid. Stu—
“Alessio?” Rafael turned to face me. “Is that—”
“Yeah, I… Fuck.” I ran a hand through my hair, more embarrassed than I could ever remember being. “I just like to—”
“Look at the roses?” Rafael’s eyes twinkled, and it suddenly occurred to me that he wasn’t mad—he was playing with me.
Well, two could play that game.
“Actually, I like watching you smell the roses.”
He bit down on his lower lip and glanced back at the camera. “How long?”
“Huh?”
“How long have you been watching me?”
My heart thundered against my ribs as the air in the space crackled between us. He wanted the truth? I would give it to him. “Feels like forever.”
“Do you always like watching from a distance?”
My words left me as Rafael reached up to his throat, hooked a finger behind the white collar, and pulled it free. “I, um— What are you doing?”
He tossed the white material onto the desk and started in my direction, and my dick took immediate notice.
Not wanting to read too much into it, though, I joked, “You know, if anyone else threw something on my desk, I’d threaten them with bodily harm.”
Rafael stopped in front of me, and the expression in his eyes was anything but platonic, anything but priestly, as he asked a question that all but brought me to my knees.
“How about you just destroy my body instead?”