Under the Skin (9 page)

“So it is a mark of honor,” Patrick commented slowly, his voice carefully neutral as he reminded himself that Alexei came from a very different world. “And the others? Are they marks of honor as well?”

Alexei shrugged a shoulder, frowning. “Nothing you would consider honor,” he answered.

The answer was much as Patrick feared it would be. “I know you have a checkered past,” he said after a moment’s pause. “I knew that the first time we met. I accepted it before I ever let you touch me.” Closing his eyes, he tried to remember the other tattoos he had seen. “The Madonna,” he suggested, thinking such a symbol of purity would surely be innocuous, maybe even redeeming. “What does she mean?”

“It tells that I have been a thief—a criminal—since I was a child,” Alexei answered shortly, hoping Flaherty did not plan to ask him the meaning of every one of his marks. If he asked, Alexei would answer—Patrick deserved to know the truth about the man he had chosen to risk his professional career, if not his life, to be with.

Patrick flinched at the answer, trying to imagine the world that celebrated such madness. “The church?” he wondered aloud, having seen the domed edifice that covered Alexei’s back on more than one occasion as his lover prepared to leave him.

“Means prison,” Alexei rasped. “Three domes say I have been in prison three times.” Most of it in solitary confinement, though he did not tell the younger man that. Those were memories he did not choose to dwell on himself—it was nothing Patrick needed to hear.

“And the words above it?” Patrick forced himself to ask. He would hear this answer, ask about the new ones, and then stop torturing them both. He didn’t need every detail. What he had already learned was more than he truly wanted to know.

Alexei hesitated, surprised that Patrick had paid so much attention that he had noticed the words. He considered lying—there was no way the other man would know if he was telling the truth—but what did it matter in the end? In this, at least, he would offer the truth. “It is an old saying,” he answered. “‘
Chto posyeyesh, to i pozhnyosh
’
—
‘what you plant, you will harvest’.”

The words were so at odds with the image Alexei projected, so counter to everything the men he worked for represented, that Patrick realized they had to be sarcastic. Nothing else made sense. At least he had avoided hearing that Alexei was a murderer, though he suspected if he kept asking, one of the tattoos would tell him just that. Still, like he’d told Alexei, he’d accepted the past. It was the present, the future that concerned him now.

“And the new ones?” he asked, truly fearing to hear the answer but knowing he had to ask. Alexei’s past was past, but the thought that his lover was still active, still earning new marks, bothered him in a different way.

There was the question Alexei had known all of this was leading to, and his gut told him the outcome was as inevitable as the query. Turning his gaze for one last look at the man lying in his arms, he spoke the words that would decide his fate. “They mean I have been accepted—as
vor
,” he admitted.

“As
vor
,” Patrick repeated slowly, a chill settling through him. He knew Alexei was associated with the Russian mob. He knew his lover had done things in their service that should have sent him running in loathing, but he had accepted all that because Alexei had to make a living somehow, and he was just following orders. But now…. “As
vor.
” His disgust must have been clear in his voice, because Alexei tensed against him even before Patrick sat up, reaching for the light so he could see his lover’s—his betrayer’s—face. “How could you do that?” he demanded, his voice rising slowly in volume. “How could you do that to us?”

“Us?” Alexei retorted, cursing himself as soon as the word left his lips. “You know what I am,” he continued, swinging his legs off the bed and rising to his feet. “I do what I must.”

“Why?” Patrick demanded, staring at the tattooed back. “Did they order you to become a
vor
? I didn’t think that was the way it worked. As long as you were just a minion, it was all right. You were just following orders, and while I might hate what those orders were, I did understand. But now… now you’re one of the ones giving the orders. Or am I wrong?”
Tell me I’m wrong,
he pleaded silently.
Dear God, let me be wrong!

“I give no orders… yet,” Alexei admitted, his voice flat as Patrick’s expression twisted with disgust. He had expected nothing different, after all, for how could he expect trust when he had never offered any in return? There was too much danger, for both of them, to risk something as nebulous as hope; he
had
hoped, nonetheless, and for that he cursed himself as a fool. “But one must be
vor
to deal with other
vor
.”

Anger flaring out of control, Patrick reached for his sweater. Pulling it over his head with sharp, short movements, he spat, “What did you have to do to prove yourself this time? Rape a helpless girl? Or am I going to get to work in the morning to find a body waiting for me to deal with, professionally processed at your hands?”

“You will find no body,” Alexei answered coldly, leaning over to pull on his black boxers. He saw a grimace cross Flaherty’s face and realized the policeman had interpreted his words to mean only that he had hidden the body well. He did not bother to defend himself—there might be no body to find this time, but there had been bodies enough in the past. Flaherty had made his judgment; there was nothing left to be said.

Disgusted at his own weakness for still wanting Boczar even now, Patrick bowed his head and grabbed his pants. “I hope it makes you happy,” he spat. “I hope it gives you everything you think it will, because I can’t anymore. I would have given you anything you asked for, anything within my power anyway, but I can’t anymore. Not if you’re
vor
.” He rose, not looking at his former lover, and left the cabin, returning to the cockpit and starting the engine.

Alexei dressed in silence, the iciness inside hardening his soul until warmth was only a memory, a story he had heard as a child. He knew better than to believe in fairy stories. Sneering at his own foolishness, he combed through his hair with his fingers and glanced up the passageway. It would be cold on deck, but he could not sulk in the cabin like a whipped dog. Wishing vainly for a cigarette, he climbed the stairs to the cockpit and took the empty seat, staring through the windscreen at the lake’s black water. Patrick’s Glock now sat next to the wheel the detective used to steer the boat, retrieved from wherever he had hidden it before.

Patrick did not look over when he heard Boczar join him in the cockpit, focusing on piloting the boat back to the industrial docks as quickly as he could. He needed away from the other man’s enticing presence. He could still feel the hard hands on his body, touching him with too much tenderness for a black-hearted mobster, could still hear the raspy voice whispering in his ear with words too soft for a cold-blooded killer. He stiffened his resolve, determined not to give in again to the leanings of his heart that insisted it knew better than his head. Listening to his heart had landed him in this mess, but no more. He would let Boczar off at the docks and forget about him, no matter how impossible a task he feared that would be.

Glancing once at Flaherty’s unrelenting expression, Alexei settled into the seat, his hand closing around the gun in his pocket. That was what he needed to focus on, the reality he had to deal with—not dreams he had known were impossible from the beginning. He did not turn his head for the rest of the trip back to the docks.

Patrick pulled the boat up to the pier and left it idling. “I won’t be calling again. Find someone else when you need a piece of ass to fuck,” he said without looking at his former lover, his voice dull with the pain of the decision he had made.

Alexei’s head snapped up at the dismissive words. Despite his intentions, he rose and stared down at the young man who had worked his way through all his carefully crafted defenses. “You think that’s all this was?” he grated, seizing Flaherty’s arm in an implacable grip and dragging him to his feet. “A piece of ass when I need it? I could find
‘a piece of ass to fuck’
any time I want one, without risking my life being seen with you.” He shoved the policeman back against the rail, holding him in place with the weight of his body. A smirk twisted the corner of his lip when he felt the hard outline of Flaherty’s cock pushing against his thigh. “It seems your body still craves to be fucked, despite all your high-sounding words.”

Patrick could not stop the hiss of pleasure that escaped him at Boczar’s touch. He knew his body’s weakness all too well. Despite all his good intentions, despite all his resolutions, hearing Alexei admit that this was—had been, he corrected himself—more than some meaningless fling soothed Patrick’s battered conscience and forestalled the notion of pushing the other man away. His hips arched forward, his body instinctively seeking its mate in the matching hardness between Alexei’s legs. A deep groan escaped him without his conscious direction. He tried to harden his resolve, but that was useless with Alexei’s demanding touch hardening his body.

That groan, and the thrust of Patrick’s hips against his, broke the last of Alexei’s control. If Flaherty thought all he wanted was a fuck, then that’s exactly what he’d give him. Wrenching the younger man around so that he pressed forward against the ship’s rail, he yanked the jeans roughly down the policeman’s hips before unzipping himself just enough to free his engorged cock. Wrapping his arm around Flaherty’s shoulders to hold him still, he slid his shaft up the cleft between the other’s legs, nudging at the still-loosened portal. Flaherty bucked beneath him, and Alexei reached down to steady himself, his pulse pounding hotly. “Tell me you want this,” he snarled, aligning himself but not pushing forward. “Tell me you want me to fuck you….”

Patrick wanted to deny it, but his lips refused to cooperate. “Yes,” he moaned, pushing back. “Fuck me.”
One last time.

Alexei surged forward, burying himself to the hilt in the hot, tight channel. His hand reached forward to grasp Patrick’s cock, pulling it roughly as he drew back and thrust again, pounding the younger man against the side of the boat. His thrusts were brutal, his face contorted as he fought to hold back, to memorize each gasp and groan, to burn the feel of Patrick clenching around him into his brain, the last memory he would have to carry away with him. “Come,” he demanded, his fist squeezing the younger man’s cock as their balls slapped together, Patrick exploding over his hand while Alexei convulsed inside him, his jerking cock emptying the last of his soul into his ex-lover’s body.

The unexpected rush of hot semen inside him pushed Patrick over the edge, his own seed shooting out to coat Alexei’s hand and splash into the dark water beneath them. His eyes shut tightly as he bit back a shout, part of him quailing at what they had just done, another part rejoicing.

The trickle of fluid down his thighs as the Russian pulled out brought him back to reality with a crash. He hadn’t allowed himself to dream of a time when they wouldn’t have a condom between them, hadn’t let himself imagine a life with both of them safe enough to make those kinds of promises, but he had yearned for it nonetheless. To have it happen now, in such a mockery of all he had begun to hope they could be, was the final straw. “Get off the boat,” he ground out, pulling away sharply and refastening his jeans.

“Now you remember what fuck feels like,” Alexei rasped, cleaning himself with a dark handkerchief before zipping his trousers. Climbing over the rail onto the dock, he buttoned his overcoat and turned away, walking down the dark alley without a backward glance.

Chapter 6

P
ATRICK
sat at the table in his loft in Bucktown, staring down at the dossier in front of him. His new captain had ordered him to read it when he’d transferred from the detective squad to the Organized Crime gang intelligence unit. He’d turned down an earlier offer of the transfer back in December, when accepting it would have put him in the position of directly investigating the family Alexei worked for, but that was in the past. Alexei had made his choice that night on the boat two weeks ago, and Patrick had made his two days later.

It had taken some time for the transfer to take effect and for Patrick to get settled in his new position, but now that he was, the first assignment that had landed on his desk, of course, involved the Volkovs.

Running his hand through his hair, he opened the folder and began to read.

Half an hour later, stomach churning, Patrick pushed the dossier back. He’d known the Volkovs were involved in some nasty shit between prostitution, gun running, and electronics smuggling, but he’d managed to push most of that to the back of his mind. He couldn’t do that now, not with the list of suspected crimes on the table in front of him. To his relief, Alexei’s name had figured only as bodyguard to Konstantin Volkov, the son and heir apparent of Fyodor Volkov, the head of the family.

The rest of the information about Alexei he had already known from their conversation on the boat.