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THIS WAS the definition of fucked. And not in the good way. Not in the way Icarus liked to be fucked, and not in the well-fucked way he made sure his clients left his bed. Nope, this was just plain old five-minutes-from-being-dusted fucked.
A far cry from the good kind of fucked of five minutes ago when he’d been putting on a show for the online client who’d paid for a virtual solo session. Icarus had nestled his favorite plug in his ass, clamped the rose gold cage around his cock, and tightened the leather cuffs around his ankles and wrists, naked and spread for his client on the other end of the private live stream. With a remote in each hand, he’d been slowly ramping up the vibrating plug and tightening the cock cage, his and his client’s moans escalating together. And then his remotes had stopped working. The vibrating plug had died, and the cage had gone mad, clamping down and strangling his dick.
Not mad.
Hacked.
By the client—the warlock—formerly onscreen who had materialized in his room, yanked open the curtains, and replaced Icarus’s soft leather cuffs with silver-laced ones that kept Icarus bound and pliant. The warlock stood beside the bed, finger hovering over a different remote that he’d promised would ruin Icarus’s dick or destroy his ass for good if pressed. In either event—or both—it would cut off Icarus’s primary source of income.
Assuming he survived the next five minutes. There was a reason he was called Icarus, and it had nothing to do with his currently magenta hair.
Ignoring the shaft of sunlight that crept across the foot of his bed, ever closer to his foot, ever closer to dust, Icarus tried sexy pouting at the warlock who held his dick and ass at his mercy. “Is this any way to treat the guy who was putting on a bang-up show for you?” He eyed the tent at the front of his captor’s kilt. “Now that you’re here, I could put on an even better show. Suck that for you. Make you come so—”
“He’s not the one calling the shots.”
Icarus’s attention snapped toward the voice, toward the movement at the far end of the room. A tall, broad-shouldered white man dressed in a high-dollar suit stood in the bedroom doorway. Icarus sniffed. Human. He didn’t carry the rotting wood stench of dark magic like the warlock beside the bed, but that didn’t make the new visitor any less frightening. The bulging impressions of pistols under each arm, likely packing lead and silver bullets, wasn’t the scariest thing about him either. No, it was the cold, hard malevolence that swirled in his big brown eyes. Such a beautiful color, one only humans possessed, one Icarus loved seeing bright with cheer or dark with desire. This man’s eyes were dark, but the only desire swirling in them was for power—no matter how deadly and violent the path—and that frightened Icarus to his chilly core.
He deflected the only way he knew how. “I can suck your cock too. Let you call the shots. Or you can watch while I suck his.”
The stranger nodded, and hope flared, but only for a second before the warlock’s open palm smacked Icarus’s cheek with unchecked force.
“Ow!” Icarus howled as stinging, magic-laced pain seared across his face. He’d cradle his cheek if he could but had to settle for gritting his teeth, waiting for the worst of it to pass. Once he could see straight again, he whipped his gaze back to the human standing at the foot of his bed. “That was fucking shitty! Your warlock has my cock in a cage and could tear my ass apart with the vibrator still in there, and I’m this fucking close to being dust.” He wriggled his toes enough to put the little one in the sunlight, a spark catching and a tendril of smoke pluming in the air. He yanked it back into the narrowing shadow before it fully caught fire. “You didn’t have to fucking hit me.”
“And you don’t have to keep running your mouth. I’ll have him hit you again if you persist.” He eyed the encroaching sun. “You don’t have time to waste.”
Meaning he intended to let Icarus live.
Meaning Icarus needed to shut the fuck up.
He pressed his lips together.
“Good,” the human said. “Now, at last count, you were fifteen grand in debt to me.”
“To you?”
“By way of Paris Cirillo.”
Icarus hung his head back and groaned. Again, not in the good way. “Of course this is about that fool.”
“That fool is my son.”
Icarus gasped and righted his head. Seeing the truth of the statement on the big man’s face, he slammed shut his mouth again.
“You’re learning.” Paris’s father smiled, a wicked, cruel thing, as he circled the end of the bed and came to stand beside the warlock. “I don’t dispute your assessment, but the fact remains that you owe us, and I’m here to collect.”
“I don’t have anything. Not worth that.”
“On the contrary . . .” He trailed a hand up the inside of Icarus’s thigh, hitching the leg higher and wider, as much as the ankle cuff would allow. Demonstrating his power, given the circumstances. He dipped his hand into the crease of Icarus’s groin, fingers skirting the edge of the cage. “You have exactly what we need.”
Icarus gnashed his teeth, fighting a moan and his fangs, the natural reactions of his body as the cage clamped painfully around his cock. “I thought—”
“Not for me.” He removed his hand from Icarus’s groin and palmed the warlock’s straining cock. The magician moaned deep in his throat, and the sharp, salty scent of precome tinged the air. “My needs are well taken care of.”
“You wanna fuck and make me watch?” It would hurt like hell. Just the thought was making him harder, making the cage tighter, despite his fear, despite the pain. But right then, he feared the creeping sun more, the pain the warmth on the side of his foot was already causing. “Fine, I’ll watch, but you gotta let me out of the sun first.”
Paris’s father shook his head. “As soon as we’re done here, Mr. Magic is gonna snap us back to my car parked in the alley behind this shithole building, and I’m gonna bend over his lap, flip up that skirt, and take his uncut cock in my mouth and suck him dry.” He pumped the warlock’s erection, and the scent of precome intensified. “Then he’ll crawl onto his hands and knees in the back seat, and I’ll shove my cock into his ass, over and over, until I fill him so full he’ll be sore and dripping for days. So no, we don’t need your help in that department.”
Icarus stared, turned on and confused all at the same time. “I don’t . . .”
If he thought the man’s grin was wicked and cruel before, the one he flashed then was downright deadly, so full of rank hunger—for power—that Icarus’s erection waned, even as the magician’s continued to strain.
“We’ll let you out of the sun,” the terrible man said. “Then tonight, you’re gonna put on the show of your life. For the Devil.” He released the trembling warlock, circled to the foot of the bed, and snapped the laptop closed. “If you fail, it’ll be the last show you ever perform.”
Icarus gulped. If this man wasn’t the Devil, who the fuck was?
ADAM DEVLIN, aka the Devil.
That was who Vincent—Paris’s power-hungry father who’d eventually introduced himself—had commanded Icarus to seduce. To what end, Icarus hadn’t asked. Not like he had a choice. Once they’d given him his “mission” and made clear what would happen to Icarus if he failed, Vincent and his warlock, Atlas, had fizzled into thin air. Five minutes later, so had the cuffs. Five seconds after that, Icarus had freed his cock from the cage, removed the plug, and chucked both toys out the open window. Shame, as they’d been personal favorites, but he could never trust them again.
Hours later, lurking in the shadows of a crowded club, Icarus thought the same about the human sitting by himself at the end of the bar. He could never trust someone that good-looking, who sat that eerily still, and who went by the moniker the Devil. Six feet, broad shoulders, fit build. Not as fit as Icarus, but not everyone was frozen in time at twenty-five. Not everyone was in peak physical condition in their twenties either. Something about Adam Devlin made Icarus think he was far more dangerous in what looked like his forties than he would’ve been in his younger years. Maybe it was the dark hair and beard flecked with silver, or the peaks and valleys of his long, sharp face, or his pale weathered skin, or the blue-gray eyes that never stopped surveying his surroundings, even as he lifted a glass of amber liquid to his lips.
Barrel-aged whiskey.
Icarus had tasted it once on the lips of a ridiculously wealthy, seriously buttoned-up pack leader who occasionally liked to take a walk on the wild side. Warm and spicy with hints of oak and vanilla. Flavors derived from natural resources that didn’t exist in abundance anymore—precious, expensive commodities. Only the rich and powerful were able to afford vintage bottles or the sky-high price tag of a single shot in a place like Club Sutro.
Icarus bet on both about the Devil—rich and powerful. A rival of Vincent, who Icarus was beginning to understand was rich and powerful too, especially to have a warlock in his thrall. Of course the internet was scrubbed clean of their identities—Adam, Vincent, Atlas, and Paris, all of them erased persons—rich-and-powerful clue number whatever count Icarus was up to. He probably should have known better, probably should have kept an ear closer to the ground of Yerba Buena, especially where his dealers and clients were concerned, but staying oblivious was generally better in his line of work. The performance was easier when his sole focus was seducing his mark and keeping his own secrets.
Tonight’s performance was going to be the opposite of easy. “The show of your life,” Vincent had said. And the curtain continued to rise higher with each sip of whiskey Adam took, until the drink was all but gone and the stage lights were shining bright.
Showtime.
Icarus cinched his corset around his bare torso, tugged up his sheer black gauntlets, checked his garters were secure, and finger combed his hair, making sure his magenta strands were spiked to maximum height. He might have been a fuckup in every other aspect of his life, but in
this one area, he was in control. He was the best. As if this was what he’d been born for—turned for. He relished the rare slice of confidence.
Emerging from the shadows, he sauntered across the club at human speed, his stilettos clicking on the cement floor, his lace garters and nylon stockings brushing with each step. Every paranormal in the club could hear his approach and how, after two steps, Icarus adjusted his gait so his steps were in time with the Devil’s heartbeat. On the hunt, no other paranormal in the club would interrupt him. Not unless they wanted their heart torn from their chest or their jugular ripped from their throat.
Adam, however, shouldn’t have been able to hear him, not over the thumping club music. Shouldn’t have been able to sense him at all, Icarus approaching from his blind spot, but the human’s frame stiffened with awareness. Maybe not completely human. Adam whipped his face around, glaring over his shoulder. Storm clouds gathered in his steely gaze, a back-off warning aimed squarely in Icarus’s direction.
Icarus didn’t falter; he didn’t scare that easily. He swayed his hips as he closed the distance between them, sidling up to the bar beside Adam. “I’d offer to buy you another”—he ran a black-painted fingernail along the rim of the glass—“but even I don’t have whiskey-kind-of-money, and I’m the best courtesan here.”
The Devil shifted on his stool as if to leave. “Not interested.”
“Yes, you are.” Icarus propped a foot on the bottom rung of Adam’s stool, planted a hand on his bent knee, and boxed Adam in. “If you weren’t, you would have ignored my approach.”
“You’re new here.”
“Nine months or so, up from Portola.” A practiced line. Never mind the decades between when he’d left Portola the first time and arrived in Yerba Buena.
“Which is why you don’t know.” Adam’s gaze darted past Icarus, sweeping the club again—along the wall of windows, the actual stage, the crowd, the exits—before landing back on him, impatient and unamused. “I used to be a cop. Not my instinct to ignore danger at my back.”
Icarus didn’t think that was Adam’s only instinct at work. He went to work on another, widening his stance and giving Adam a bird’s-eye view of everything being offered. The skimpy boy shorts beneath his garters did little to hide his package. Intentionally. “The only danger you’re in is missing out on the best night of your life if
you leave here without me.”
Adam didn’t take the bait. He lifted a hip, withdrew his wallet, and pulled out two bills. “I already had the best night of my life. Ten years ago.” He slipped the bills under the glass, then tucked his wallet away. “Just here to commemorate it and move on. Same as every October first.”
A hole opened in Icarus’s chest, dark and fathomless, the sadness and loss in Adam’s voice a wrecking ball like Icarus had only experienced one other time in his life: the day he’d been turned, which was why he’d never turned anyone himself. He couldn’t bear to be the cause of that feeling. Couldn’t bear it now for Adam either. He lifted a hand, ignoring Adam’s flinch and the gun he’d glimpsed on the Devil’s hip, and cupped his cheek. It was warm despite the gray clouds that hung around the man. “I can make you forget it. For a night.” His own instincts—beyond mere self-preservation—demanded it.
Gray gave way to blue, a deep sad shade that reminded Icarus of Picasso’s Blue Period. “I don’t want to forget it,” Adam said. “I can’t.”
“Relive it, then?”
Adam’s bitter laugh made ragged the edges of the hole his earlier words had torn open in Icarus’s chest. “You’d end up dead.”
He already was, but Adam’s instincts hadn’t caught on to that detail. Hadn’t caught on to the fact that the opposite of his words was doubly true. If Icarus didn’t succeed in seducing him, Icarus would be dead. For good this time. He teased the corner of Adam’s mouth with his thumb. “Risk I’d be willing to take.”
Faster than he should have been able, Adam clasped his wrist. To yank it down and push him away, Icarus expected—but Adam did the unexpected. He pulled Icarus closer and swiped his tongue over his own bottom lip, the tip brushing the pad of Icarus’s thumb. “Could I even afford you?”
Icarus bit back his gasp—surprise, victory, and lust all warring for a voice. Any of which, if spoken, would crater the mission.
The mission.
“If you can afford that whiskey”—he flicked his gaze to the glass—“you can afford me.”
A shaky breath coasted over Icarus’s palm, and Adam’s gaze finally drifted down, taking in all of Icarus. His pulse sped, a blush streaked across his high cheekbones, ...
