The Cross of Sins (29 page)

Then, with one almighty pull, Jake hauled him to the safety of the ledge and held him as tight as he could. "It's okay. You're one of us. One of us."

XVI

The Island of Filfla, Malta

The sun shined down on the beautiful, rocky beach as Professor Fathom's five boys made their way across the jagged rock and coarse sand to find the place they were looking for.

With two black eyes and a bruised jaw, Shane walked with the help of a crutch.

Luca's back was bandaged, and his arm in a sling from the pick wound to his shoulder. Eden's arm as also in a sling from the battering he received in Venice and the bullet wound to his shoulder. Will and Jake both carried shovels.

It was just after sunrise, and from a nearby hill, two wide branches—stretching upward from a tree so ancient it had petrified like stone—cast a V shape on the rocky shore.

Shane stopped and recited to the others, "The sun will rise, and the tree shall point thee to the five in the sand on the Island of Filfla. And
The Cross of Sins
, shall
The Cross of Freedom
be."

Will and Jake pushed their shovels into the V-shaped shadow on the shore and began digging away rock and sand.

Twenty minutes later, Jake struck something other than the island's rocky terrain. He and Will stopped digging and used their hands to push away the sand and stone.

Luca smiled when he saw it. He shut his eyes, and a single tear streaked down the side on his face.

In the crystal sunlight, Will and Jake heaved a wrapped object out of the ground. They unraveled the veil that covered it, revealing a five-foot tall figure of Christ on the cross, sculpted from marble. But it was Christ as nobody alive had ever seen him before.

Naked, but not vulnerable.

Beautiful, but not without his pain.

He was simply as his Father had intended him to be—a man.

XVII

Venice, Italy

All across Europe—all across the world—reporters stirred the controversy as
The Naked Christ
took its place in the Louvre. Religious leaders cried out in protest, conservatives demanded it be destroyed, free-thinkers rejoiced—and Eden rushed through San Giovanni hospital, one arm in a sling, the other carrying a bunches of flowers.

He pushed through the doors of Jacques' room and saw him sitting up in bed, the newspaper spread across his lap. Jacques looked up and saw Eden, and nothing could have wiped the smile off his face.

At first, neither of them spoke. Eden simply rushed to the bed and planted a long, soft kiss on Jacques' lips. "You're feeling better?" he asked eventually. "You look better."

Jacques nodded. "The doctors say I'll be out of here in a day or two."

"Then what?"

"You tell me," Jacques smiled. "I want you to tell me everything."

"There's nothing to tell," Eden baulked, not very well.

Jacques raised one eyebrow. "Eden, you crashed my uncle's party, tried to steal a stone treasure, and destroyed his palazzo. Not to mention the fact that I got shot by some ax-wielding psycho!" He picked the paper up off his lap and showed Eden the front page story with a picture of protestors and supporters outside the Louvre. "And why is it I've got a funny feeling you had something to do with this?"

Eden simply smiled and held out the flowers. Lilies. "Your favorite, right?"

Jacques shook his head. "No. But if you don't disappear so soon this time, maybe you'll find out."

He pulled Eden in for another kiss, crushing the newspaper between them.

Jacques smiled mischievously, "Now where were we before that one-armed maniac so rudely interrupted?"

Eden closed and locked the door to Jacques' hospital room.

He lifted the sheet that covered Jacques. Apart from the bandage around his torso, he wore nothing but a pair of white cotton boxer shorts that left very little to the imagination, as Jacques' cock stood firm and upright, holding the fabric up like a tent pole.

Eden grinned and said, "Mr. Dumas, you seem to have developed a rather stiff condition. Fortunately, it's completely curable."

Eden's hands gently pulled down the waistband of the boxers until Jacques' beautiful hard cock flicked free. Jacques raised his eyebrows and put his hands behind his hand. "What treatment would you recommend, Dr. Santiago?"

"Well," Eden said, "with only one operable hand, you have a choice. I can either perform a single-handed operation, or I can administer oral treatment."

"Given the seriousness of my condition, I think oral treatment would work best."

"I concur." Eden winked as Jacques spread both legs wide, dropping his feet over the sides of the bed.

Eden took the base of Jacques' cock in his hand and bent low.

The head of the cock was perfect and smooth, its eye already gleaming with jewels of pre-come.

As the tip of Eden's tongue gently played with Jacques' slit, Eden tasted that first sweet taste and wanted more. His tongue danced around the swollen head, and then his lips enveloped it, sucking on the edges of the helmet and forming a vacuum around the head.

For Jacques, the sensation was both tantalizing and taunting.

"Oh, God," he breathed. The heart-rate monitor by his bed began to beep a little faster.

Then faster still.

Eden didn't want to tease him too long, not so much for Jacques' sake as for his own—Eden was hungry for the Frenchman's cock, he was thirsty for his come.

With his lips open wide and his mouth wet with saliva, Eden swallowed Jacques' cock whole. His lips and tongue slid up and down the length of the shaft in time with the beeps on the heart-rate monitor, increasing with speed.

Jacques began to heave and moan with pleasure, louder and louder. "Yes," he breathed. "Yes, yes, yes."

The heart-rate monitor went into a beeping frenzy.

Suddenly, there came a knock at the door.

"Don't stop," Jacques said desperately. "Don't stop now."

Eden had no such plans. His head bobbed furiously as his mouth danced up and down the shaft of Jacques' cock, faster and faster, until Jacques' back arched, his face twisted as though in pain, and he cried out "Fuck! Oh, fuck!" before erupting inside Eden's mouth.

Eden's lips clamped around the head of Jacques' cock to maintain suction as he gulped hard on the hot surge, sucking Jacques' come straight down, tasting the salty-sweet creaminess fleetingly on his tongue before it slid down his throat.

The heart-rate monitor sounded as though might explode.

The banging on the door became frantic. "Signor Dumas! Signor Dumas!"

Keys rattled in the lock.

Eden pulled back on the suction and let Jacques' cock slip from his lips. It smacked against his bandaged stomach.

Jacques uttered one last pained cry.

The door flew open.

Eden threw the sheet over Jacques, who was panting now, trying desperately to catch his breath.

A nurse came running in. "Signor Dumas! Are you all right?" She checked cords and gauged readings as the beeps of the heart-rate monitor began to slow dramatically, returning to a normal, healthy rhythm.

"What happened?" she asked Eden, eyeing him suspiciously. "This patient needs rest. Did you say or do anything to excite him?"

She took Jacques' pulse and pressed the back of her hand against his sweaty forehead to check for fever, and then noticed the bulge under the sheet. She looked quickly at Eden and noticed a similar bulge in his pants. She gasped with disapproval.

"It's all right. He's fine," Eden smiled reassuringly, quickly wiping dry the corner of his mouth. "He's just excited about the flowers."

Jacques chuckled like a naughty school boy.

He reached for Eden's hand and held it lovingly, knowing deep down that one day Eden would leave once again without saying goodbye. The beautiful Brazilian had too many secrets to stay in one place, to love just one man.

Perhaps it was one of the things that Jacques loved about him the most. The mystery.

In the meantime Jacques was just happy to have Eden around.

Just happy to hold his hand—

—at least while he still could.

XVIII

Ankara, Turkey

The camel merchant hated the English and the Americans. If they weren't self-righteous and ignorant, they were rude and obnoxious; if they weren't rude and obnoxious, they were stupid and fat; and if they weren't stupid and fat—they were thieves!

"Excuse me," he heard a man say in a Texan accent, somewhere behind him. He knew that voice. He spun around quickly and saw Shane standing there holding the reins of not just one, but three happy, healthy-looking camels.

The merchant immediately began cursing Shane in Turkish, his hands waving wildly and his mouth spitting all manor of abuse at him.

Shane nodded and took it all on the chin. "Whatever it is you're saying, I deserve it. I'm very sorry about stealing your camel and losing it. I'm sure he's quite happy wandering across the desert right about now, but I realize that doesn't help your livelihood—"

The man wasn't listening at all. He kept shouting abuse. In fact, to make matters worse, the camels themselves seemed to join in the game. One started slurping on Shane's hair, yanking at it; another starting sniffing his butt; and the third started chomping on his shoulder.

"Ow!"

But through it all, Shane remained the gentleman—or at least, tried.

"And so, by way of apology—hey!—I want to give to you—
ouch!
—these three—
Stop it!
—beautiful—
Je-SUS!
—camels!"

And with that, Shane shoved the reins into the waving hands of the crazed merchant and limped away as fast as he could!

The merchant kept abusing him as Shane scampered all the way to the end of the block. Then, when Shane was out of sight, he stopped—and burst out laughing.

XIX

San Diego, California

Slowly, being exhausted and jet-lagged, Will opened his eyes and saw the red blinking digits—10:11am.

"Oh, shit!"

He jumped out of bed naked, his ample young cock swollen and semi-firm from a dream he could barely remember. He tucked his dick swiftly into a pair of jeans, frantically pulled on a t-shirt, grabbed a stack of messy ruffled papers off his desk and raced down to the garage, shouting to Felix in the kitchen on his way out the door.