Operation 12 When Love Lies #3
He thanked them and waited for each of them to pull out of the parking lot before he cranked up his bike and shoved his helmet on.
The ride home felt much shorter than usual.
When he turned onto their street, he saw the porch light was on and Syn’s car was still sitting in the driveway.
Furi’s heart slammed against his ribcage.
Syn
Syn had been home almost three hours before he made his final decision.
Three hours of pacing from the kitchen to the front room, from the front room to the bedroom, from the bedroom back to the kitchen.
His one night he’d decided to take off wasn’t supposed to go like this.
He’d planned on taking a long, hot soak in a tub filled with Epsom salts, eating dinner with Furi, and—after they’d cleaned and locked up—taking Furi upstairs to do him slowly if he had patience… hard if he didn’t.
He wanted Furi’s hair in his fists, his long body on top of him, and his deep voice in his ear.
Instead, he was sitting at the breakfast counter in the dark, the only light coming from the small bulb over the stove and the glow of his laptop screen.
His hands were balled so tightly on the counter his knuckles ached.
The house was quiet, but not peaceful. Not with his friend Mason’s voice still ricocheting in the back of his mind.
His last delivery had been across town, a stupidly expensive sushi order to a woman who’d stared at him through her ring camera for several seconds before telling him to leave it on the bench.
On his way back to his car, sweat sticking his shirt to his back and irritation chewing at the base of his skull, his phone rang.
Mason’s name flashed across his screen, making him smile.
Mason was a brilliant, tough-as-hell cop. After he’d made detective, he’d been on the fast track to joining the task force before the audit bullshit. He had the instincts for it too, that hunger for real justice and a grit strong enough for the work.
Syn had liked him almost immediately and Free loved him.
He answered before the second ring.
“Yo, Mase. Long time no hear, man. How’s the new title treatin’ ya?”
Mason laughed, low and easy. “Well, it’s not as exciting as the task force would’ve been, but I can get used to not wearing that blue polyester in one-hundred-and-five-degree heat.”
“No doubt,” Syn chuckled as he unlocked his car. “How’s Jesse?”
“He’s great. He’s been made head of the English department at the high school. We’re going out to celebrate this weekend. I wanted to ask if you and Furi could join us, make it a double celebration.”
Syn snorted, tossing the empty delivery bag onto the passenger seat.
“Oh yeah? And what am I celebrating? The fact that I haven’t been brought up on charges by IA yet?”
Mason laughed again. “I meant Furi. His new video that came out last week is breaking records. You guys must be through the roof. I didn’t know he was back in the business. Jesse loves his films. He says they’re classy and romantic, not like the weird shit their putting out these days.”
Syn stopped moving, the car door hanging open.
What?
“Sydney?”
Silence.
“Bro, you still there?”
Mason’s jovial energy died on the line.
Syn couldn’t answer as he stared over the roof of his car seeing nothing, his ears filling with a low buzzing pressure.
“Shit,” Mason muttered. “Syn, I…”
More silence.
“Damn man, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that you didn’t…”
Know a single fucking thing about it? No I didn’t.
“I just…I didn’t watch it. I’d never,” Mason hurried and added. “I only know about it because Jesse was talking my ear off and…”
Syn squeezed the phone.
Mason was quiet a beat longer, then said in a somber voice, “I’m sorry.”
The line went dead.
Syn sat there sweating for another full ten minutes with the phone still gripped in his fist.
When his mind came back online and was able to continue giving commands to his body, he drove home.
Now, three hours later…he knew everything.
Actually, no he didn’t. He didn’t know the reasons for the lies, the secrecy, or what Furi told himself to make him think it was all right to do this without talking to him first, but he knew enough.
Illustra’s homepage glowed—like a beacon of betrayal—on the laptop screen in front of him.
He paid for the platinum membership with a level of calm that scared the shit out of him.
He’d entered his information, clicked through the age verification, and selected the upgraded package, for the privilege of watching what probably thousands of people had already seen…and enjoyed
The page opened like a shrine.
It wasn’t some generic, cluttered page with flashing buttons and bad fonts. Illustra had gone all-out and dressed the site as if it specialized in lavishness and elegance.
The black background, gold lettering, slow-moving banners, elegant thumbnails arranged like gallery portraits instead of adult clips, whispered class and exclusivity.
There were velvet-red accents, diamond-sharp graphics, and a massive scrolling banner across the top that moved in a shimmering loop.
HE’S BACK.
Beneath it, in all caps and sexy script, was the title.
FURIOUS STYLES: THE SILK ENCORE
Syn stared at it until his vision tunneled.
Beside it were badges declaring record-breaking views, subscriber counts, trending rankings, and a live counter that kept climbing in the corner like a monitor attached to Syn’s rage.
11.5 million views.
Million!
Syn choked, throat constricting.
Over eleven million people had watched the love of his life pleasure himself to climax. Gawked at him. Fantasized about him. Touched themselves to something Syn considered only his to enjoy.
His!
Something mean, hard, and possessive bared it’s teeth behind his sternum in a way he knew could be unsafe if he lost control of it.
Syn had known who Furious was when he’d fallen for him. Knew there were thousands of images and videos out there before there was a them, and he’d never punished Furi for that.
In fact he’d defended him for it. Furi’s past was never a stain he felt he needed washed off, because loving his man meant loving the road that had brought him to him, even the parts that had bite.
But this wasn’t before. This was now.
After the promises.
After Furi had told him he was done.
He hovered his finger over the play button.
For several minutes, he sat there breathing, staring at the thumbnail of Furi’s body draped in black silk and moonlight.
His face wasn’t visible, not fully, but Syn knew the line of those shoulders. The curve of his neck. The fall of that long hair.
Syn didn’t want to watch it…but he had to.
He dropped his finger.
There was no crude opening, cheap music, or rushed shots.
Illustra knew what they’d purchased.
Furi didn’t need noise. The scene opened in silence, almost reverent, with the camera facing a wall of glass overlooking downtown at night.
The city stretched beyond the window in blue-black distance, scattered with lights, while moonlight and stars cast shadows across the staged condo’s high-end bedroom.
The room was intentionally expensive.
A four-poster, king-sized bed. Sheer covers over the black lamps.
A high-back velvet chair in the corner of the room in front of a gas stone fireplace.
Above it hung a silver, black, and gray framed abstract painting at least thirty-by-forty inches on the wall, one that probably cost a full month's mortgage.
It was a sexy backdrop of glass, steel, silk, and shadows.
Illustra had several studios in Atlanta. They must’ve shot this one in their Stone Mountain high-rise studio, to get that kind of night-sky view.
Then Furi stepped into frame.
Syn’s breath stopped.
The camera didn’t push him. It loved him slowly. Moved with a kind of obscene patience, circling as Furi turned with it, his hair falling over one shoulder and keeping the side of his face out of view.
His honey-blond hair fell in a streaked curtain over his chest. It flowed around him, while his immaculately trimmed beard made his jaw look as firm as granite. It was as if the production team had brought in the best stylist in Atlanta to make him up.
It was more beautiful than Syn had seen it in months, and that hurt in a place anger couldn’t reach…only sadness.
Because he’d been too busy to notice. Too tired, stressed and frustrated to see that Furi’s hair had grown dull from neglect, that he’d stopped spending time on conditioning and treating it.
But on-screen, under professional hands and specialized lighting, he was luminous. Untouched by time. Like that world remembered how to worship him and Syn had been too damn buried in survival mode to remember how.
The camera kept rotating.
Furi wore an open black silk pajama shirt that glided over his strong back like water.
Jesus.
Syn was transfixed on the suggestion of those hooded eyes, peeking beneath heavy lids, the line of his cheek, the shape of his mouth when he exhaled.
Furi eased the silk off one shoulder.
Syn’s jaw clenched so hard pain shot toward his ear.
The shirt slipped lower, then lower, revealing the intricate ink Syn had traced with his tongue more times than he could count.
Every tattoo shone sharper under the lights.
Every line, shade, piece of colorful art along his arms, chest, ribs, and stomach had been accented as though the camera knew people would pause the frame to study it.
Millions of them.
Furi turned and gave the lens his profile, his hair shielding and exposing him at the same time. It was fucking magical and devastating.
Syn’s stomach twisted. He didn’t feel aroused and that just made him more livid.
He wanted to feel something. Lust, warmth maybe. Jealousy with heat behind it.
But there was nothing. Only anger. And beneath it, deception.
Furi moved with the kind of ease that came from knowing what the camera wanted from him. That was what tore at Syn the most. There was no awkwardness or hesitation. He performed as if he’d stepped out of one life, then back into another without missing a beat.