“I’m a magpie.”
Ambrose shifted in his seat, as if there was any way he could retreat from Kane without dismantling the back of the sofa en route.
“Albatross.” He turned his hand over to display his mark, too. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“You said that already.” Kane caught hold of Ambrose’s hand before he had a chance to move it away, and held it between both of his hands, bringing both his sets of knuckles to rest on Ambrose’s crotch. “Everet wants to find a position for me in the nest, one that suits my talents,” Kane went on. “What do you think my talents are, Ambrose?”
Somehow, he managed to make the question sound like an invitation to do a million different depraved things with his body. His tone completely overwhelmed his words. His body language was all seduction.
“Um…”
“Kane,” Everet cut in. “Back to the chair.”
Kane turned his head toward Everet, but he made no attempt to rise from his current position.
“I only asked him a question,” he said. The faked innocence was the last straw. Everet stood up, stepped behind Kane, caught hold of his arms and pulled him bodily to his feet before dumping him unceremoniously in the chair.
“That hurt!”
“You’re still too high to feel anything,” Everet snapped, well aware that he’d made damn sure his actions hadn’t hurt the boy in the least. “Quit playing the sympathy card, it won’t do you any good with me.”
Kane glared at Everet before turning back to Ambrose. His expression instantly changed. The smile spread across his face like the sun rising on a cold winter’s day. Suddenly he was all warmth and charm.
“Before we were so rudely interrupted, you were going to tell me what talents you thought I had,” he said.
Ambrose was so far out of his depth he needed a stepladder, and probably a couple of levels of scaffolding, to help him back to ground level.
“Throwing yourself at my friends won’t get you anywhere either,” Everet warned, sitting on the sofa once more.
“Yes, it will,” Kane said. “For one, it may well get me transferred to the protection of a far superior avian.”
“To a far more easily manipulated man, you mean,” Everet translated.
Ambrose made no objection to the description. He knew it was the truth, just as well as Everet did.
Kane sighed and moved lethargically in his chair, until he settled upon a different, although equally suggestive, pose. His cock was completely hard now, curving up toward his stomach. He stroked it a few times, before letting his hand drop away, as if to better display his merits.
“I think I’d better leave,” Ambrose said, shuffling to the edge of his seat.
“I’ll see you tomorrow.” Everet didn’t take his eyes off Kane as he listened to his friend hurry out of the apartment, closing the door softly in his wake.
“What is it with the big ones?” Kane asked the world in general, as he found himself once more alone with his new provider. “It’s as if they all went around the muscle queue twice and forgot to visit the brain one at all.” He spread his legs a little wider as he relaxed more comfortably into his seat. He’d found that soft, fuzzy place where nothing hurt and, god, it felt good.
“Leave him be.”
Kane turned his head and smirked at Everet.
The raven moved forward in his seat, but his posture and expression were both very different to those the albatross had displayed when he made his escape. “Let me be perfectly clear about this,” Everet said. “You are under my protection. I’m responsible for you, and you will obey the rules I set you.”
Kane raised an eyebrow. His temple throbbed for a moment, before the sensation faded into the pretty pink mist that occupied all the other corners of his mind.
“The first rule is no sex—with anyone.”
“You mean, anyone apart from you, right,” Kane said, knowingly.
“I mean anyone, me included.” He actually sounded serious.
Kane bit back a grin. “Whatever you say.” It wouldn’t be long before Everet broke the rule himself, Kane would see to that. And, once Everet had fallen off his self-appointed pedestal of virtue, Kane would never let the sanctimonious bastard forget it. “Anything else?”
“That will do for tonight. Go and get some sleep.” Everet nodded toward the bedroom.
“And when do you intend to join me?” Kane asked, pulling himself to his feet and stretching in a way he knew showed off all his best assets.
“I’ll sleep out here.”
“Don’t you trust yourself to share a bed with me?” Kane teased. He dropped his gaze pointedly to where Everet’s erection strained against his trousers. “It seems my talents haven’t deserted me after all. I’ve always been a brilliant cock-tease.”
Everet just glowered at him.
On his way into the bedroom, Kane made sure Everet got a good look at every inch of his body. At the door, he looked over his shoulder. “Oh, Everet?”
The raven looked toward him, and the wonderful view of his arse that Kane took care to present. “What?”
“You know the best cure for a cock-tease, don’t you?”
“Go to bed.” Everet ground the words out from between clenched teeth. Kane laughed as he slipped into the bedroom. This was going to be fun.
* * * *
“Wake up.”
Someone grabbed hold of Kane’s shoulder and shook him. Kane had no idea who it was, but he knew that the guy deserved to die a very slow and excruciating death. Every part of Kane’s body ached. His fingernails, his toes, even his eyelashes seemed to pound with pain unlike anything he’d ever felt. He lay on his stomach, but his back hurt just as much as the front of his body. The cigarette burns were bright stars of anguish, hot as any supernova.
“Kane?”
“Hurts,” Kane managed to croak out. Opening his eyes was out of the question, so was shaking off the hand on his shoulder—no matter how many waves of rolling misery it sent through him.
“Your high’s worn off?”
Kane didn’t try to answer. He wasn’t sure his vocal cords would survive another attempt to speak. All the pretty colored clouds that had filled his mind for the last two years were gone. All that remained was blackness, and pain, so much pain.
“Have you ever gone cold turkey before?” That was Everet’s voice. Kane recognized it now. He also recognized the complete lack of sympathy in his tone.
Very slowly, Kane pushed against the mattress in an attempt to lever himself up off his stomach, so he could get out of bed. Every muscle and joint screamed at him. He couldn’t make it an inch off the mattress.
Kane’s stomach turned over. If he’d eaten anything, he’d have thrown up. He swallowed his queasiness down as best he could. Something was more important than that—even more important than any stab of pain.
Quicksilver.
A little bit of quicksilver and Kane would be fine. All he had to do was get up and find someone with a stash. There was bound to be someone in the nest who bought and sold the stuff. There had to be a dealer who’d take payment in kind.
Kane tried to get up again, only to slump back onto the mattress, incapable of lifting his own weight.
“Kane, can you hear me?”
The words seemed to come from a long, long way off, but Everet’s hand still rested on Kane’s shoulder. That meant the raven was close enough to provide him with what he needed.
“Quicksilver,” Kane whispered, his voice as raw as if he’d screamed in torment all night. If he couldn’t get to his drugs, he’d just have to get someone to bring them to him.
Everet cursed. “Quicksilver, that’s what you were on?”
“Need.”
Everet slammed his hand against Kane’s forehead, hard enough to make his mind spin. “Bloody hell, you’re burning up.”
Through super-avian effort, Kane managed to lift a hand and blindly grab hold of Everet’s wrist just when the raven would have taken it away. “I’ll do whatever you want.”
Everet pried Kane’s fingers from his skin and retrieved his wrist. The next moment, all the blankets that covered Kane were gone.
Yes. That was good. Still face down on the sheet, Kane dutifully shuffled his legs a little farther apart. “Quicksilver,” he repeated. That was what he’d trade his arse for. It was important they were very clear about that.
Everet’s hands pulled at Kane’s limbs, forcing him to turn over. Flames screeched through Kane’s veins. His usual inclination to say the man with the drugs could have him any way he wanted, was completely absent in that moment. The fire that filled his muscles was too much to bear. He tried to scream, but his throat killed the sound.
Suddenly, Kane felt Everet’s arms push their way beneath him and lift him off the bed. Kane couldn’t grapple for a hold on Everet. He couldn’t even demand to be told where the raven took him. He managed to open his eyes, but the whole world was a blur.
The sound of hurried footsteps competed with the buzzing in Kane’s ears. The world bobbed and weaved around Kane. A sound that Everet couldn’t place filled the void left by the footsteps when they came to a halt. Kane was vaguely aware of being lowered down, then, blessedly, wonderfully, he felt the flames fade a little.
There had been no scratch against the inside of his arm, no searching for a vein healthy enough to take the needle. There was just relief and it poured over his skin like…
Kane blinked as his vision slowly came back to him.
Bright white light surrounded him on all sides. For a second, he thought he’d died and, against all the odds, he’d been given the chance to float off toward some wonderful paradise. Then, lines appeared in the whiteness, dividing the blur into neat little squares. The bathroom in Everet’s apartment at the nest.
In infinitesimally small increments, Kane lifted his hand. He stared blackly at it as he turned it over. Droplets clung to it.
Kane felt Everet’s fingers sliding through his hair, stroking it back from his face. The other man’s palm was cool and blissful against Kane’s skin. It was also wet. Kane lifted his head from whatever it had been resting on. He was in the bath. The shower was on above him.
Everet was in there too, kneeling behind Kane’s back, supporting him and keeping him upright.
Shower sex?
Thoughts plodded sluggishly through his brain.
No, that didn’t make sense.
“You’re dressed,” Kane mumbled.
“I didn’t have time to strip off.”
“Oh…” Kane let his head drop back against the other man’s shoulder. The explanation seemed reasonable enough to him. He closed his eyes. He’d thought that the last shower he’d had at the nest was good, but this one was bloody amazing.
Nothing but the sound of dripping water filled the air for several minutes.
Kane groaned as instincts reared up. He couldn’t just lay there. He had to think, had to make his brain work. That was how a man stayed one step ahead of everyone else, how he stayed safe.
Everet hadn’t had time to get undressed.
Okay, Kane could work around that.
“You’ll have to take the time to at least undo your zipper,” he said. The words came out slurred, but it wasn’t because he’d had too much to drink. Kane was sure of that. Lifting one hand, he scratched clumsily at the inside of his other elbow. No, he hadn’t had his shot of quicksilver either.