If The Seas Catch Fire (10 page)

He continued down, down, down, and Sergei couldn’t breathe as Dom kissed his way along the ridge of his hipbone. Warm breath. Soft kisses. Rough stubble. All inching toward Sergei’s hard-on.

Oh yes. Please. Do it.

Yes.

Like that. Holy shit. Holy…

Sergei stared up at the ceiling with watering eyes. He couldn’t remember the last man who’d been
so into
giving head. Dom groaned with pleasure, his breath hot on Sergei’s skin and his voice vibrating against sensitive nerve endings.

Sergei combed his fingers through Dom’s hair. This was not what he’d expected tonight. Not even a little bit. It was dangerous, too, but it didn’t feel dangerous. It was sexy and amazing, and nothing else mattered.

Dom stopped abruptly and pushed himself up. “If I keep doing that,” he panted, “I’ll come too soon.”

“You’ll come?” Sergei reached for Dom and pulled him down on top of him. “You’re not the one who was getting his dick sucked.”

“I think you underestimate how long it’s been since I’ve done this.” Dom kissed him deeply, tenderly, hungrily. “Just being here with you turns me on. I can’t… I can’t even describe…”

“Then don’t.” Sergei pulled Dom all the way down, and let himself get completely lost in Dom’s kiss. This may have been completely physical sex with no investment whatsoever, and maybe he was just a sex worker to Dom, but God, Sergei liked the way this man felt against him and on top of him. And though Dom wasn’t a virgin, he may as well have been, and in an innocent, endearing kind of way that Sergei liked.

Dom broke the kiss and started on Sergei’s neck again. “The whole time you were dancing,” he whispered against Sergei’s skin, “all I could think was how good you were with your hips.” He kissed beneath his ear, making Sergei shiver. “Tell me you fuck as good as you dance.”

Oh. God
.

“Only one way to find out.”
Why am I shaking?

“I’ll get a condom.”

Sergei let him go, and Dom got up long enough to retrieve the condoms and lube from the table. Dom tore open the box of condoms, but their eyes met, and his hands stopped.

Sergei reached for him, grabbed his neck, pulled him in, kissed him. God, he wanted to fuck Dom, but he had to kiss him again, and Dom didn’t protest at all. The gentleness was gone now. They kissed hard, taking sharp breaths through their noses and gripping each other’s shoulders, arms, necks—whatever they could get their hands on.

Sergei couldn’t take anymore. “Turn around,” he breathed.

He fully expected Dom to put up a fight, insisting he’d be on top, but instead, he damn near tore himself out of Sergei’s grasp and turned around. Sergei’s heart sped up as Dom leaned forward onto his hands.

“You want to be fucked, don’t you?”

Dom nodded. “
Yes
.”

Sergei grabbed the partially open box of condoms. He tore one of the strip and tossed the rest on the nightstand. “You’ve done this before? Bottomed?”

“Not… recently.”

“I’ll go slow.” Slow sounded both torturous and amazing. As much as he wanted to pound Dom into oblivion, the thought of fucking him slowly was enough to make Sergei’s hands tremble as he rolled on the condom while Dom got on his hands and knees.

Sergei put some lube on his index and middle fingers. Steadying them both with a hand on Dom’s hip, he pressed a slick finger against Dom’s tight hole. Carefully, patiently, he worked his fingertip in.

“Fuck,” Dom breathed as Sergei teased him open.

“Doesn’t hurt, does it?”

“N-no.” Dom shook his head. “Just… intense.”

“As it should be.” Sergei fucked him with a finger for a moment, and then added a second. Jesus—he could have listened to Dom moan like that all damned night. Helplessly, hungrily, as if this—just being fucked by a couple of fingers—was the most amazing thing he’d ever felt.

Sergei’s mouth watered. If Dom was this responsive…

He shivered. Gently, he stretched him, pushing his fingers apart as he slid them in and out.

“Just fuck me,” Dom slurred. “C’mon. Please.”

Sergei chuckled. “Eager?”

“Very.”

“Good.” Sergei withdrew his fingers. He put some lube on his cock, and some more on Dom. Then he guided himself to Dom and pushed against him. After just a second of resistance, Dom yielded to him. Sergei eased himself inside—sliding in, withdrawing, sliding in a little deeper.

They were both panting already. Cursing in their native tongues and English and maybe some other languages that they couldn’t even identify. Sergei knew as many ways to tease a man as he did to kill him. Tonight, he didn’t care about impressing him with any hip-centric sex voodoo. The only thing that mattered was getting as deep inside him as he could, fast and hard. Sex wasn’t an art form tonight—Dom had tapped into some primal, animalistic side of Sergei, and there was no reining it back in. Not until he came. And Dom came. And they both came again.

Gritting his teeth, Sergei slammed into him. “This hurt?”

Dom’s head fell forward, and his shoulders rippled. “N-no.”

Sergei held his hips tighter and fucked him even harder. “How about now?”

Dom cried out, and God knew if it was pain or pleasure, but he didn’t try to stop him. He dug the heels of his hands into the bed and rocked against him, and it was even getting painful for Sergei now. Fuck, but he felt good.

Little by little, Dom fell apart, swearing and shaking, hopefully unaware of how difficult it was for Sergei to concentrate on keeping a steady rhythm. Sergei’s muscles burned. After a full shift at the club, he should’ve been completely exhausted, but he kept fucking Dom, kept slamming into him, silently begging him to—

Dom cursed aloud in Italian, and clenched around Sergei. “My God…”

And for the second time tonight, Sergei lost it, this time deep inside Dom. He thrust as hard as he could, squeezing his eyes shut and cursing in his own mother tongue.

Dom relaxed. Then Sergei did. Together, they sank down to the bed, and Sergei panted against Dom’s shoulder.

“Holy fuck,” Dom murmured. “That was…” He trailed off, slurring something in Italian.

“That’s good, right?”

“Very. Very good.”

Sergei kissed the side of his neck. His arms were wet noodles, but when he could trust them to hold him up, he carefully pulled out, and then got up to get rid of the condom.

When he returned to the bed, they shifted around and collapsed on the pillows, side by side. Not cuddling, but not on opposite sides of the mattress either.

For the longest time, neither of them spoke. Sergei couldn’t quite believe he was lying beside a Mafioso. A Maisano, of all people. And it had occurred to him that it would be a hell of a “fuck you” to the family, knowing he’d been inside one of their own, but he didn’t feel that way now. Dom was one of them, but he was different. He hadn’t been selfish like the last man Sergei had been with, or rushed like the one before him.

Dom cleared his throat. “I, um… I noticed your accent earlier. Russian?”

Sergei nodded. Nerves, he guessed. Not sure what to say after a tryst like that, so he was making small talk.

The attempt at conversation didn’t get off the ground, though, and the silence set in again.

After a while, Dom turned on his side, propping himself up on his elbow. “Listen, you already know what I am.” His eyebrow rose slightly. “I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that discretion is… a priority.”

The dangerous undercurrent in his voice sent a chill through Sergei—either he trusted the promise to keep things quiet, or he’d already decided Sergei wouldn’t have the opportunity to let his secret out. The presence of that .357 tingled on the ends of the hairs standing on the back of Sergei’s neck.

Sergei wasn’t afraid of him, just… alert. If Dom tried anything, he’d be expecting a terrified stripper to fight back. Surprise, motherfucker…

But he hadn’t tried anything yet, so Sergei played it cool and didn’t let on that he was mentally calculating a few escape strategies as he said, “I dance all over men who could lose their jobs and wives if anyone caught them. Discretion may as well be my stage name.”

Dom laughed softly. “Discretion the Dancer. It’s catchy. I like it.” The upward curve of the corner of his mouth leveled out, and he watched himself trail the backs of his fingers down Sergei’s arm. “To be serious, I need to be sure no one knows about this but us.” His eyes flicked up and met Sergei’s. “Especially if there’s any possibility of continuing this… arrangement.” The slightest lift of his eyebrow put the ball in Sergei’s court.

“Continuing?”

Dom nodded. “I want to see you again.”

Every instinct told him to run like hell, but they’d told him that at the club too. And at the door. Lying here now, body aching from sex with Dom, he was hard-pressed to convince himself this was a bad idea.

“Continue, how?” he asked. “Sleeping together?”

Dom nodded. “That’s probably all I can offer or ask for.”

“So I’d be… your concubine?” Sergei meant it playfully, but the words came out with slightly more venom than he’d intended.
I’m
not
a hooker
, he wanted to tersely remind him.

“If you think about it,” Dom said quietly, “I’d be yours too.”

“I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

“It’s only good if we’re both getting something out of it.” Dom smoothed Sergei’s hair. “But it can’t go any farther than sex. And it’s not forever. There’s going to come a time when I have to get married. I’m not the slightest bit interested in women, but marrying one is part of the life I live, and once I do…” He shook his head, and his voice softened a bit as he ran his fingers down Sergei’s arm again. “Once I do, there won’t be any more of… this.”

Sergei studied him. “So what you’re telling me is that you want us to fuck on the down-low so you can get gay sex out of your system before you get married?”

Dom hesitated. “I’m not sure I’d put it quite that crudely, but… yeah. I guess.”

If it had been any other man, Sergei would’ve told him where to shove that arrangement, but this time… he didn’t. He liked the sex they’d had so far. He liked that this was discreet with no strings attached.

But that wasn’t what made the decision for him. Regardless of their arrangement, Dom was the first man in a long time who’d touched him like a lover and not an object. Sergei had to admit, Mafioso or not, that was addictive.

“All right.” He sat up. “Total discretion. Just sex.”

Dom grinned. “You’re in?”

Sergei licked his lips. “I’m in.”

Orgasm still tingling along his spine and curling his toes, Dom collapsed. Sergei dropped to the bed beside him. This was the… fourth night they’d met up? Fifth? He was losing track. The days and nights were starting to blur, especially since the two of them always met at eye-wateringly late hours, but he didn’t care. As long as they kept burning up the sheets like this, he didn’t care what day it was or how much he paid for it the next day.

Sergei kissed his temple, then got up to get rid of the condom. Eventually, they’d no doubt move to the bathroom for a shower, but for the moment, Dom didn’t dare stand up. Not with his head still spinning and his knees still shaking.

His uncle would’ve had his head if he knew where Dom was spending the wee hours of most nights.

Let him find out
. Dom wiped a hand over his sweaty face.
Don’t fucking care. Feel too fucking good
.

He knew damn well this couldn’t and wouldn’t last long. Once Brigida Passantino was back from Italy, the pressure would be on again to think about getting married. As long as she was gone, though…

Sergei returned from the bathroom and climbed into bed again, his movements graceful and catlike even after he’d just finished fucking Dom for the second time tonight. He lay beside Dom and propped himself up on his elbow. “I’m curious about something.”

“Hmm?”

Sergei studied him, his blue eyes intense with scrutiny. “You said it’s been a long time since you’ve been with another man.”

Dom nodded. “Almost fifteen years, I think.”

“Why?”

“Why… has it been so long?”

“Yeah.”

Dom moistened his lips. “It’s too dangerous. If someone in the organization found out I was gay…”

“They’d shoot you.” The comment was matter-of-fact. Not quite flippant, but not spoken with great concern.

Dom swallowed. “Yeah. Which means this can’t get out or—”

“Dom. Relax.” Sergei smiled, and the intensity in his eyes faded in favor of some actual warmth. Sliding a hand up Dom’s chest, he said, “We’ve talked about this. I know the risks. And besides, it’s not really in my best interest to out people.” He paused, then gave a quiet laugh. “It would cut into my client base.”

Dom raised his eyebrows. “You have one dark sense of humor.”

Sergei shrugged unapologetically. “How else do you stay sane in a town like this one?”

“Is it even possible to stay sane in this town?”

Sobering a little, Sergei nodded. “Fair point. Makes you wonder why anyone stays here if they have a choice.”

Dom laughed dryly. “No kidding. If I had half a chance…” Well. That wasn’t even worth thinking about. No sense raising his own hopes, even with a fantasy that he knew could never happen. He shook himself and met Sergei’s eyes. “Cape Swan’s a shithole, that’s for sure.”

“Yes, it is.” Sergei’s hand drifted lower. “It does have its perks, though.”

“Does it?”

“Mmhmm.” He trailed a fingertip along Dom’s thigh. “Some of the… locals are friendly.”

Dom sucked in a sharp his as Sergei’s hand neared his dick. They’d just finished fucking for the second time. No way in hell did he have enough for another go-round.

Right?

Maybe. But not yet. He took Sergei’s hand and brought it up to his lips. As he kissed the backs of Sergei’s long, fine fingers, he looked him in the eye. “You’re going to be the death of me, you know that, right?”

Sergei swallowed. He blinked a couple of times, as if, despite his dark sense of humor, he had no idea what to say to that. “I…”

Dom let go of his hand and put his arm over him, drawing him closer. “The way you fuck me, you’re definitely going to kill me.” Just before their lips met, he whispered, “But what a way to go.”

Sergei stiffened a little, but he didn’t argue.

And then Dom kissed him, and Sergei slowly relaxed with in his embrace. As the kiss went on, they held each other closer. Tighter.

Sergei’s hips brushed his, and Dom shivered.

Hell. Maybe he had enough left for a third round tonight after all.