Page 26 of Dressed to Kill
My lip had split again sometime after lunch. I'd tasted blood twice in the last hour and ignored it both times. The hard-on I'd had since two had finally settled into the background of my body like bad posture. Present. Annoying. Not technically an emergency.
My hands were steady. That was the important thing.
The rest of me could get fucked.
By half nine the adhesive had started to turn properly clear around the edges of the backing patches. Six hours of work. I wasn't going to blow it by getting impatient. I capped the resin, cleaned the brush with acetone, and rolled my neck slow enough to hear something click.
"Fin," Aleksi bellowed from the bedroom.
I shot a glare in that direction and didn't answer.Fuck off, I thought, and decided then and there that I wasn't going to come running like a fucking dog just because he'd called for me. I was on my feet and down the hall before I'd finished the thought.
The bedroom door was open.
That was the first bit of theatre. He could have made me knock. He could have made me wait in the hall. Instead, he'd left the way clear. Walking in was my choice. So was stepping into a snare, if you were the rabbit.
I went in anyway.
His bedroom was lit by a single lamp on the nightstand, leaving the corners of the room dark. An untouched drink sat on the nightstand beside him.
Aleksi sat in the armchair, his tie pulled loose at his throat. His sleeves were rolled to the forearm, and the gloves were gone, and my pulse did something I hadn't given it permission to do. Bare hands looked wrong on him now. Too intimate.
He pointed two fingers at the floor in front of his boots. "Kneel."
Like fuck I would. I crossed the room and stood a half meter from where he'd pointed.
Aleksi narrowed his eyes at me. Then he gripped me by the shirt and hauled me in front of him. "I said kneel."
The absolute fucking bastard.
I knelt. It wasn't worth another split lip.
Aleksi's fingers dropped to the arm of the chair.
"Good," he said.
"Careful," I said. "Praise me like that again and I'll start thinking ye like me obedient."
His eyes slid over my face, then down my body. Slow.
"I don't like you, Fin," he said.
"Aye," I said. "That explains the bedroom summons. Very normal way to hate a man."
Aleksi's hand flexed once on the chair arm. Then he reached for the untouched glass on the nightstand and drained it in three hard swallows. The sharp smell of whiskey cut through the faint acetone still clinging to my fingers. I'd seen men do it before a hit, before a betrayal, before they crossed a line they couldn't uncross. The fact that he needed it for me sent a vicious little thrill through my gut.
He stood without warning, brushing past me close enough that his thigh grazed my shoulder. I stayed on my knees because standing now would feel like losing. He crossed to the dresser, yanked open the top drawer, and pulled out a revolver, matte black, well-oiled, the kind of gun that had seen real work. My mouth went dry.
Aleksi cracked the cylinder open with a practiced flick. Five brass rounds glittered under the lamplight before he tipped them into his palm. One bullet went back in. He spun the cylinder hard, snapped it shut, and gave it another casual whirl against his thigh. The metallic rattle was obscenely loud in the quiet room.
"Strip," he said, voice low and rough from the whiskey.
I looked up at him. The gun hung loosely in his right hand. His eyes were dark, pupils blown wide. The pulse beat in his throat.
I rose to my feet. "Make me."
Aleksi's smile was thin and ugly and perfect. He stepped in, pressed the muzzle of the revolver under my chin, and tilted my head back. The metal was cool and heavy. "Strip, Fin. Or I'll do it for you, and I won't be gentle with the clothes."
I smirked and pulled my shirt over my head. Boots kicked aside, trousers and briefs shoved down together. When I straightened, I was completely naked, cock hard and flushed, curving up toward my stomach. I didn't cover myself. I let him look.
