Play Dirty (Wages of Sin #2) - Neve Wilder Page 0,57

Sometimes fifty grand, sometimes twenty-five, as I’ve heard it told.”

Az nodded, his swallow palpable against Madigan’s palm, his neck taking on a purple hue from the pressure. But he didn’t struggle. Madigan hadn’t expected he would. That was another dangerous thing about Azrael.

“It’s not true.”

Az made a soft noise in his throat and shut his eyes, the rise and fall of his chest slowing as he labored to drag in a breath.

“The hit was on me. I was the target. The man I trusted and loved took the job because he was never actually the man I trusted and loved. He was a plant. Back then, I was doing off-the-books ops for the government through a private agency. He was, too. Just a different government. I didn’t know any of that, of course. I didn’t know it until I was in the position you’re in right now.” Madigan’s gaze dropped to the fists Az had formed, though his arms remained motionless at his sides. Madigan hadn’t had that kind of resolve. He’d clawed wildly at his lover with a mixture of anger and terror. “I don’t know why he chose to do it like this rather than put a bullet in my head, or poison me, or any number of other things. I spent years pondering that and got fucking nowhere. It doesn’t matter, I guess. Because he hesitated. He hesitated for one second, and it was enough for me to get the upper hand.”

Madigan had managed to knock him off kilter with a right hook. They’d grappled onto the floor, destroyed half the apartment wrestling around until Madigan had finally hauled him up and thrust his neck against the sharp glass corner of their dining table over and over. He’d felt nothing but numb as he did it, but he’d shaken for weeks afterward, flinched every time someone got too close. It’d taken him years to quell that instinct as well as he had.

“It was better to let the rumor mill spin its wheels than to admit that I’d been caught off guard. It could’ve ended my career.” Madigan’s voice softened with resignation. “And now, here I am again.”

He released Azrael’s throat, and Az sucked in deep lungfuls of air that wracked his chest.

“You know exactly what I am,” Az growled when he’d regained enough breath to speak. “I’ve hidden nothing of my character from you.”

Madigan shook his head. “No one ever knows exactly what anyone is.” If I could kill you, I would, but, somehow, you would manage to take a piece of me with you. Az’s words from days before bounded through Madigan’s head. He’d understood them then, but now, they’d infiltrated his marrow. “What is there for people like us? Nothing.”

“Wrong. We could have each other. What will it take for you to forgive me?” The light in Azrael’s eyes said he was aware of the irony in his words, in the turnabout of their positions.

Maybe that was what they were destined to be, a revolving door of insecurity, treachery, and obsession. Madigan supposed that was better than love. Many things were. But none of those words reverberated through his gut the way the latter did.

Madigan stepped away from Az, his proximity throwing him off balance. Or maybe it was the whiskey on a painfully empty stomach. He dropped into a club chair that faced the view, and Azrael, seeming to have anticipated him perfectly, turned away to retrieve the whiskey glass as Madigan watched the subtle shift of muscle in his back. Az passed the glass back to Madigan, then stepped between his thighs, nudging them wider before he knelt, his hands hot when they closed over Madigan’s knees. “What will it take?”

Eternity, Madigan wanted to say, but that wasn’t true. It wasn’t true because, deep down, he understood Azrael’s motivations. He just didn’t want to; they were much too similar to his own. Instead of answering, he leaned forward in the chair, forehead skimming Az’s, careful to pull back when Az tilted his chin up, avoiding his lips for now.

Az’s neck bore the beginnings of a bruise from his grip, and Madigan was fully aware he was a deviant for being seduced by the mottled tones. Reaching, he tugged the knot on Az’s towel open, letting it fall to the ground. Az’s grip on Madigan’s thighs tightened as he skimmed an insignificant touch over the length of Az’s soft cock, then reached deeper, hefting his balls and rolling them in his palm before releasing