THE GENTLEMEN'S CLUB Brian
By Lady Poetess. Copyright c 1999.
Feel free to reproduce and distribute as long as you leave the credits and the author's note below intact. If you somehow make money out of this, well, good for you but please send some to me at egiggles@moose-mail.com!
Author's note:
This is actually a part of an ongoing fantasy fan-fiction about a fictional group of friends in New York whose weekly poker games form the basis of their story of finding love and laughter. These friends are - under inexplicable circumstances! - dead ringers from some music and movie celebrities, obscure or well known, that I find worth a write or two. The men and their lives depicted here have nothing in common with the real people they are based on apart from their appearances and names. I am not speculating on their sexual orientation or personal past. Again, everything is strictly fictional, apart from the character's good looks. Suing me is a waste of time, as frankly, to be blunt, I'm penniless.
PROLOGUE
"Lovely night, Nightshade." The man known as Nemesis casually pressed his automatic at the dead center of the thief known as Nightshade's back of the neck. "Now be a good boy and drop that disc back into the drawer."
They both knew Nightshade was two years older than Nemesis.
"I really need this disk, Nemesis." Nightshade's tensed posture betrayed a twitch of nervousness, however - a slight tremor at the shoulders that didn't escape Nemesis' sharp eyes. "It's mine by right."
"What your quarrel with Jonathon Blacken is, frankly, I don't care. What I care is that when you place the disk back, I will let you go and we can both go back to our beds early and easy. Now be a good boy and cooperate before I lose my temper."
"So, Blacken actually called the Nemesis to stop me, a mere thief. I'm flattered." Nightshade turned, his hooded face shielding everything from Nemesis' view but a strong square jaw and two glittering eyes. "Very well. I'm calling it a day."
He made to pull open the drawer. In lightning-quick reflex he turned and rammed the heavy metallic drawer into Nemesis' stomach. The gun went off and fell across the room. Nemesis didn't even make a sound - his hand reached into his shirt before the thief realized it.
The tip of the blade in Nemesis' hand touched the thief's Adam apple in deadly accuracy the moment Nemesis' own gun, in the thief's hand, pressed at his temple.
"You don't want it to end like this," Nightshade murmured. He winced when the blade pressed a shallow indentation at his neck.
"Actually, I don't care how this thing ends," Nemesis said flatly. "I know you won't shoot me, and fuck it, I definitely will cut your throat. Put the gun and the disk now. NOW!"
The hand holding the gun trembled for a blink of an eye.
"You're out of your league, Nightshade. You can't walk out alive with that disk in your hand." Brian sneered. "You're a dead man one way or the other."
"It's my disk. Blacken stole it from me. Look, I made this program, it's mine. I just want - "
"I don't care."
There wasn't any sympathy from the most ruthless agent of the nameless shadowy agency that did everything covert and ugly. Nightshade didn't know why Nemesis was called into his trail, for Nightshade was nothing more than a thief who stole back his security programs from the men who destroyed his mentor's company and absconded with the software. There was nothing to warrant the attention of a man like Nemesis, whom word among the underground had it had organized rescues of political prisoners in Third World countries and killed people Uncle Sam deemed irritants. No one, however, wanted to cross Nemesis.
But Nightshade had one trump card to play.
"Maybe we can make a bargain?" he offered, the fear in his voice quite real.
"There's nothing you have that I want except the disk on your hand."
Nightshade dropped the disk, close within his reach. Both of them knew it. Nemesis obviously didn't anticipate it when the thief casually held the hand holding the blade and lowered the hand to his chest. Only a brief widening of those cold brown eyes revealed the agent's momentary weakness. More telling was the ease at which the thief managed to coax the hand to drop the knife. Nightshade took a steadying breath and led the agent's fingers to the zipper of his cat suit.
"Is this what you are offering?" Nemesis' voice was somewhat raspy, as if he had just awakened from a trance.
His hand, however, wasted no time in pulling the zipper down, revealing Nightshade's tightly muscled chest. And Nemesis' hand separated the fold to reach in and gently knead the left pectoral of the thief.
"I'm offering it, yes." Nightshade bit back a sigh of pleasure when the agent's fingers squeezed hard.
"One fuck and I'll let you go, is it?" Nemesis' voice was that of amusement, however. But his hand, that hand told a different story entirely when it glided down the thief's stomach, pausing to knead the well-defined stomach muscles and play with the thin line of fur in the trail from navel down to his groin. "With the mask on, I guess?"
"Yes." Too late, the thief realized the thickening of his accent that might give him away, and the slow drowning of his logic in the haze of lust the agent's rough exploration of his torso was kindling. He pressed his raging cock to the other man's, lifting his right hip over Nemesis' to give himself purchase as he climbed onto Nemesis.
The aching need between his thighs burned when Nemesis' erection nestled in its groove. He heard the agent curse, then he felt the man's savage mouth on his, plundering his mouth, forcing his lips to yield to the man's insistent tongue. Already Nemesis' buttocks had tensed under Nightshade's palms and the agent's hips had already started a short hard thrusting rhythm at the juncture of their bodies. The man's cock was seeping so much fuck juices in anticipation of their coupling that Nightshade felt the wetness of that cock bulge soaking the fabric of his own trousers, right there where Nemesis was grounding his cock at his anal opening.
A wild part of him reveled in the sexuality of this man, while logic told him that Nemesis wouldn't let him walk out alive, even after his submission.
He owed it to his mentor to escape this man.
The thought gave him strength. His one foot on the ground gave him support as he shoved at the man with all his might.
"What the-" Nemesis lost his balance, and staggered.
Nightshade pushed - it wasn't easy, for the other man was heavy despite his slim frame - and they fell forward toward the wall.
Something snapped, and Nemesis gave a choked gurgle.
The thief stood back and murmured, "Oh no."
Nemesis had fallen onto the model of a skyscraper Blacken had kept in his office. And the model had given way upon impact. A long, bloodied metal rod protruded from Nemesis' left shoulder. It wasn't a clean thrust. Blood and torn ligaments seeped a hideous stain on Nemesis' white shirt.
The thief gagged. Nemesis only eyed him silently, and the thief felt rooted at the spot.
"Get the disk," Nemesis at length said, his voice noticeably faltering with each increasingly staggered intake of breath. "Get out of here."
The thief could only obey. As he ran down the cold empty streets, he heard Nemesis' parting promise still ringing in his ears: "I'll find you, even if I have to spend my life on it. And when I do, God help you."
Only when he was in his car did he made an anonymized call to the hospital.
ONE
The man known as Cousin watched as the young man charmed the patrons of Club Abracadabra. Brian Thomas Littrell, in simple office-hour white shirt, tie loosened around his neck, and black crumpled slacks, looked exactly like a harmless office executive. And with a guitar, he sang songs and easily swayed his listeners into the magic.
And Brian had great rapport with these people. The crowd was especially thick today, for Brian had just returned from a month's recuperation from a heart attack. "Hey, play us some good old-fashioned love songs, Litty!" someone called, and Brian smiled boyishly, brighter than the neon lights of the club really, and broke into a gentle rendition of Prince's Raspberry Beret - an acoustic version the Purpled One would surely approve. The crowd sure did.
It probably was true the rumor that recording companies had practically begged Brian to sign up with them. Not that Brian would. He, like Cousin, valued their anonymity too much. Killers and assassins like they had simple wishes in life.
"Okay, before I go on, I really ought to thank you nice people for the cards and flowers," Brian said, to which he was booed. Someone threatened to kill Brian should he ever dared work too hard and get another coronary.
They loved him, Cousin realized, not without some envy and surprise. They really wanted him to sing here every Friday and make their problems fade in that temporary moment of music. If only they knew how good Brian could be in making problems fade.
"Cousin," Brian said half an hour later, falling into the seat opposite him.
"Nemesis. You know why I'm here."
Brian ran his fingers through his sweat-soaked hair absently. "So I failed. What's the problem? I agreed to do this Nightshade affair only because for the papers. Success was never a stipulation."
"Surely you're not that na‹ve," Cousin said.
"No, I'm not. I failed. Too bad."
Cousin sighed and pushed the parcel across the table to his former boss. "Here, the papers promised. With this, you can officially burn your bridges with Control."
"Now who's being na‹ve?" Brian ripped open the parcel and did a quick perusal of the documents within. "They didn't pass me the more incriminating ones, just as I thought."
It had been four years since Brian turned his back on Control, but Control never actually let him go. Cousin suddenly felt weary for Brian, for the both of them. "I wish I can do more," he said.
"Thanks. But I can do more." Smiling cryptically, Brian did a mock salute and left the table.
TWO
One year later
A knock on the door reminded Enriquez Martin Morales of the play that was about to begin. He took a deep breath and tried to still his nervousness. Breathe, he told himself.
Brian Littrell frowned at the empty room. He placed one hand on the desk and was about to leave when he saw a rather shapely jeans-clad pair of buttocks under the desk. He coughed.
He was rewarded at the sight of those great buns tensing - and felt the responding rise of his own cock in his pants. Damn, but this stranger was giving him really obscene fantasies at this very moment, and Brian hadn't even seen his face. Then the other man eased his way out from under the desk, with a hard crash of his head against hard wood on his way out.
So this was the new security software expert. The thin-rimmed glasses on the man's Roman nose at first distracting, but he soon noticed the man's clean-cut, if somewhat bland handsome features. Bland, he thought with some disappointment. From what he heard, this man had a car and he could use someone to drive him to work every morning. His last boyfriend, a muscle-bound model, had been dumped the moment the man's car went to the garage for a month's tuning up.
"I need to talk to you about the shutdown of the security system," Brian said.
"Oh, that." The man crashed onto this seat and placed his feet on the table, his scruffy sneakers almost touching Brian's immaculate trousers at the left leg. "Shoot."
Fucking hell but the man was impertinent. Brian gritted his teeth. "I want to know how long the system will be down. I have to deploy the manpower before word gets out that we have no security system."
"Oh, the system's up already. Ten minutes ago."
"Why am I not told?" Brian demanded.
"Why should I?" Ricky opened a can of Coke and took a hearty gulp. "The Board that runs this museum, they're my number one superior. Then Mr Fraser, your boss, he's my next in rank superior as it is he who contacted Courtetron Securities and asked for me. Jeremy Northam, the head of securities, comes third. You, being merely the man Mr Fraser sent to assist Mr Northam, comes fourth. I'm sorry but I am a busy man, as you can see. Writing out three reports a day is my limit."
Brian blinked. Did that man actually say that to him? Loss of equilibrium was something new to him. And he scrambled for some leverage of control. "What work? Your computer monitor is dark." Feeble, but that would do for start.
"This? It doesn't need to be switched on. The bulk of the work done is in the supercomputer in which this monitor is just an extension."
The rest of Ricky's jargon-laden explanation was lost to Brian, for whom computers were used for nothing more than emailing and websurfing. He gave an exasperated snort and make to leave.
"Hey, you leaving so soon?"
Ricky's words stopped him in his tracks. He turned. "Yeah?"
Ricky grinned, flashing straight white teeth that could make a toothpaste company orgasmic. "How fast can you run?"
"Run?" Brian started to wonder if he had stumbled into some sort of twilight zone.
"Yeah run. I'm a college runner. Held the '89 record for the 100-m dash. How about you?"
"I don't run." That's the partial truth. His heart made it impossible for push to push his stamina beyond his limits.
"Pity. I prefer a man who can keep up."
Brian sat down. He had to. "Are you coming on to me?"
"You can say that. Actually what I have in mind is nothing risqu‚, just some dates and you showing me around town. Anything beyond that is strictly optional and on mutual consent." Ricky switched on the monitor and Brian watched the monitor burst into life. "By the way, there's a hacker trying to crack in."
"What?" Brian shook his head in a daze. Shit, the man switched topics fast. "Let me guess - again, you didn't inform me."
"Actually my report's right on waiting in your email box. I take it you didn't check your mailbox before you came here. Don't worry though - I'm updating the software even as we speak. The hacker can try again, but this time he would find himself facing a brand new, never-seen-before Grade A Ricky Martin prototype."
"Really?" His skepticism must have shown on his face, because Ricky's eyes narrowed slightly.
"At last count, three hundred of the three-hundred-and-fifty largest private galleries of precious art in the world use my custom-made programs, and the fail proof rate is at 99.6%. The Interpol verified that, if you want to check. And thirty- three of the fifty remaining ones have submitted Courtetron their request for my services." Ricky's fingers flied over the keyboard. "Believe me, Bri, when I say I am worth every cent of the $3.2 million your employers are paying Courtetron." Now the printer came to life. "That's why the system is down, by the way - I have to rewrite the whole thing to make my program compatible with the hardware. It's almost done. now done." With a flourish, Ricky pressed a key and turned back to Brian. "Half my job's done. Now back to our date. What time shall I pick you?"
"Hold it." Brian raised his hand, then frowned at it. What was he going to say again? "Why me? What the hell's going on?" A thought hit him. "Did Jeremy set you up to this?"
"Well, he did tell me of your penchant for muscle-bound airheads. I guess you'll jump at the chance of going out with a dark, Latin gay guy for once. I mean, hey, if you're still not bored with your Ken dolls, go ahead and forget that I ever asked."
Brian's eyes narrowed dangerously. "They are not Ken dolls."
"Whatever."
"Now see here!"
"I know. I'm rude and impertinent. But I'm good at what I do, so I guess you'll have to bear with it. Hey, I'll bear your overbearing terrorist-tactics in return." Ricky flashed another brilliant smile.
Brian rubbed the bridge of his nose wearily. One heart bypass and no one respected you anymore. Fuck it. "Okay. Pick me up at seven at the museum front porch."
"Don't look like a martyr. I'm asking for your virtue."
"We're not going to f-" Brian paused again. He gazed at the man before him. Hell, he wouldn't mind fucking this man, he realized. No, it wouldn't be any problem at all. The latent lust surged full force again as he watched the man's hands on the keyboard, their movements strangely sensual as they danced on the keys. And when Ricky carelessly reached out one file for a file behind him, the loose T-shirt stretched taut against his chest, revealing the smooth well- defined contours of a well-muscled torso. And the man's nipples were erect buds against the fabric, making Brian's mouth water at the sight.
When Ricky reached for the Coke can just beside Brian, Brian's hand reached out and closed around the other man's large hand. The heat of the contact almost seared his senses into incoherence.
He was trying so hard to clear the confusing desires in his mind that he missed the reluctant desire in Ricky's eyes or the man's soft gasp of a man seduced despite himself. But when Ricky's hand closed around Brian's tie and almost choked the man to death when he pulled Brian across the desk, Brian came to life. He fell on Ricky, and with a choked laugh, they both felt the chair topple over, sending them crashing to the floor.
"You're right. Maybe it's time I try a Latin date," Brian said, and rubbed his lips against the man's.
Ricky's mouth welcomed him, and Brian kissed him, letting his tongue rub against Ricky's in a sinuous mating rhythm. He felt Ricky's hands pulling his shirt out of his trousers before reaching up to caress his back, and Ricky's hand on his fevered naked skin only made him thrust his rock hard cock between Ricky's thighs. He deepened the kiss even as his hips twitched, pushing urgently at Ricky's anal pucker.
He wanted to so badly to plunge deep into Ricky and seared the man's insides with his semen, marking that man like a territorial mutt, in fact, that when Ricky pushed him away, Brian's first instinct was to lash out at Ricky.
But he never hit anyone unless he was paid to do so, and since he wasn't in the market, he never intended to even start. "Why the fuck did you push me away for?" he snarled, driving his fist to the floor hard. It wasn't as great a release as howling at the moon in frustration, but it was something.
"Too fast," Ricky said, putting his fingers to his lips - they came away with some blood and he looked at it dumbly. "I don't think I."
"I thought you're a college runner."
"Rub it in, will you?"
Brian stood up somewhat unsteadily and adjusted his clothes. As he tightened his tie, he caught Ricky's look. "What?"
"Nothing." Ricky looked at Brian and noted somewhat resentfully that the man didn't seem to be shaken by their near-fuck. The man's breathing was pretty steady unlike Ricky's, which seemed like a train derailed. That man probably got laid on his office desk all the time.
Brian certainly looked pleased. In fact, the man was now smiling rather stupidly, as if he was enjoying a private joke. "What?" he asked, echoing Brian's earlier question.
"Pick me at seven," Brian said, tucking in his shirt and shutting the office door behind him.
Ricky sighed. Shit, somehow his plan to throw Brian off-balance, to make that man so irritated with him to a point that the man wouldn't look too closely at Ricky's activities, had backfired. He reached for the phone and dialed a number. Poor Brian - each time they met, Ricky ended up playing him for a fool.
Guilt and anticipation warring in his chest, he waited until the person at the other line answered.
"Mr Fraser? I have something I should better tell you."
THREE
"I want Enriquez Morales fired."
"No, I won't fire him." Brendan Fraser sounded amused.
Disgusted, Brian kicked at a pebble before him. "He has no respect for authority."
"I take it he doesn't bow before you like everyone else." There was clear laughter in Brendan's voice now.
"He's intentionally rude and he told me I'm insignificant in his scheme of things." Brian realized that he was close to sounding like a petulant brat. "And what do mean? No one bows before me."
"He told you that?" Brendan hooted. "For that, I'm upping his pay."
"Well, I gotta go." Brian saw Ricky's simple battered car coming from the corner. "See you." He cut off Brendan's answer and shoved his cell phone into his coat pocket. He picked up his guitar and waited. For the first time in a long time, he was looking forward to a date. Funny - the man was rude and insulting, yet Brian found nothing but amusement in his heart at Ricky.
Ricky, Ricky, Ricky. Their kiss had just inflamed his lust and curiosity, and he darned well intended to further that kiss into something more. For the fiftieth time in the hour he imagined the great fuck that would have taken place if Ricky hadn't pushed him away. And the painful throb in his groin only made him aware of how long it had been since a man actually drove him this hard.
"Step into my parlor," he murmured when Ricky pulled up.
"So this is the apartment of the infamous Whip," Ricky said.
"What `Whip'? That's a stupid name they gave me. I'm just Brendan's right hand man." Brian took Ricky's coat off him, his hand sending chills up Ricky's spine.
Ricky thought of the name `Whip' - it was appropriate. He knew, for it was an open secret, that the unassuming, quiet young man was Brendan Fraser's most dangerous weapon. It was Brian who spearheaded the instant cleaning up of an oil spill in the Pacific Ocean when Brendan's tanker sank, and the fast action prevented his employer from being sued billions and saved the company's reputation. Likewise, many of Brendan Fraser's mishaps and accidents that would cost any other men their reputations and fortunes were repaired and covered up by Brian, and when heads rolled, it was Brian who did the ruthless cutting down.
Brian was twenty-eight last June. Young indeed, but already his appearance struck fear in many players in the industry even as they tried their best to lure this man over to their camp. Nothing Brian did was against the law, but he could bend them - a valuable asset in a world where only the most mercenary survived. Yet Brian was loyal to Brendan.
Ricky wondered if Brian realized how much Ricky knew of Brian's past, that Brian wasn't a Harvard business grad he claimed, things even Brendan didn't know.
"Coffee? Champagne?" Brian switched on the light.
Ricky couldn't help smiling. Brian's pad was that of a man who obviously couldn't outgrow his obsession with childhood. A large stuffed Garfield dominated the couch, huddled beside Donald Duck and Winnie the Pooh. Pictures of Disney characters vied for space on the ornate mantelpiece and on the wall. Car models and model trains lined the cabinets. It was a perpetual toy paradise. "Wow."
"There's more in the bedroom. Care to see?"
"No." Ricky swallowed nervously. Coming in was a big mistake.
"You're still mad about Roy?" Brian sat beside him and placed two glasses on the table. He switched on the TV, to a Bugs Bunny cartoon. "I'm sorry he hissed at you."
"I'm not mad. Really, I don't get into cat fights over a man."
"Roy's nothing to me. He's just a guy who's just a diversion." Brian bit his lip. That sounded callous even to his ears. "I mean, we were just having some affair that is long over."
"Jeremy told me your boyfriends have come for the art industry since Brendan assigned you here," Ricky murmured. "Mixing business with pleasure. I salute you - the information you gleaned in their beds must make your boss happy."
"I'm not taking anything that isn't freely offered, I assure you. Look, if you want me to be exclusively yours for the time being, just say so and I'll oblige." Brian reached close and his tongue snaked out to taste Ricky's right ear. "I'll sleep with you. I'll even let you stay the night."
Ricky's eyes darkened with desire, Brian noted with satisfaction, but the man, fuck him, pulled away. "I said, not so fast," Ricky said. "Please."
Brian gritted his teeth. He'd offered to spend the night with Ricky, hell, something he hadn't done with anyone before. He'd even offered his monogamy and stud service exclusively for this man. What more did Ricky want? "Fine, we'll go slow," he conceded.
He stood up and blatantly adjusted his erection before reaching for the answering machine. Ricky sat back and listened to the various messages. Brian's family sure demanded a lot of his attention. Ricky counted two messages from uncles asking for a loan, an aunt asking Brian to convince her son to take up business, the son calling up to ask Brian to tell the mother to back off, and several call-back-urgent messages.
Brian reached the end of the tape and calmly discarded the tape into the trash. "The Littrell Help Center," he told Ricky. "They have been calling even after I tell them I'm not going to run their lives for them. Fucking lot, the whole of them. They never even send me a card during my stay in the hospital, and they still expect me to give them money?" A part of him wondered why he was telling Ricky this. "They think I'm the Solve-It Energizer Bunny."
"I don't blame them. You are a capable man."
"Any smart person with a brain would be." Brian sat back on the couch and shut his eyes. "Look, maybe you ought to go. I'm pretty tired all of a sudden."
This was his chance to escape. Yet Ricky looked at the man, and felt his heart weighed. He had seen how people reacted to the silent charisma that Brian, unwittingly perhaps, radiated. When Brian walked in a crowd, people moved away without thinking, because Brian was. well, scary. Something about him wasn't stable, there was always an element of danger behind Brian's calm, brown eyes. And Ricky was afraid too, yes, but he was also attracted to the danger. And now, to his dismay, he realized he was just as moved by the tired, vulnerable human barely visible under Brian's tight control.
He really shouldn't, but he placed his palm on Brian's forehead. Normal, no fever. "Maybe you should meet my family in Puerto Rico," he murmured.
"They're still there?"
"Mum and Dad wouldn't want to come over, while my brothers and sisters have their families there. They love dancing and music."
Brian kissed the man's fingertips. "Maybe one day you'll take me to visit them."
"Maybe." Ricky couldn't breathe, not when Brian was so close, this close that his body heat burned Ricky. He couldn't give in, not when there were already so much between them. "Brian, I -"
"You won't hurt me."
"What?" In a daze, Ricky watched Brian place a finger on his lips, and he could almost taste the man's skin.
"I know you have secrets, Ricky. And it's okay. They won't hurt me." Brian smiled, the smile crooked and rakish. "I'll let you keep them for now."
"I never meant to hurt you." Brian was in the way. Ricky reached, then hesitated. His hand was over exactly where Brian bore the scar when the metal rod went right through. He recalled the man's feral words, and he couldn't help it: fear seized him at the thought of being at this man's mercy. Fear and a heavy surge of arousal.
He felt mouth on his navel. "Bri?" he murmured, looking down. When had Brian manage to unbutton the lower half of Ricky's shirt? Then Brian was there, tasting the soft skin of his stomach, his tongue gliding and licking the soft supple skin while feeling the hard muscles underneath. And when Brian's right hand lifted to Ricky's belt buckle, deftly unbuckling the belt, Ricky didn't resist. Brian only murmured something incoherent as he lapped at Ricky's navel, the tongue dipping shallowly into the groove, as his hand hooked into the waistband of Ricky's briefs and pulled both trousers and briefs down his thighs. His penis stood hard, throbbing and jutting straight up, only inches away from Brian's cheek as he made his way down Ricky's body. Then Brian's lips hotly closed over the tip of Ricky's cock, the tongue making circular swirls around the slit and the mouth sucking at the clear salty fluid droplets already seeping from it.
It wasn't fair for this man to service him. "Brian, please. Turnabout's fair play."
Brian's mouth reluctantly left him, and they both sighed at the loss, simultaneously. And it embarrassed him as it embarrassed Brian to realize that. "I have a feeling this is going to be great between us," Ricky couldn't help saying, his heart beating like a nuclear reactor in meltdown as he watched Brian unbuckled his belt and pulled his zip down. Brian's thick cock was already throbbing in eager anticipation, and when Ricky greedily sucked it down his throat, he felt Brian's mouth on him again.
On the couch, in a tangle of limbs, they fed each other's mouth greedily. Brian was on top, and he couldn't help grunting softly with each rough thrust, the pleasure of the friction of his cock crown rubbing against the smooth, wet roof of Ricky's mouth almost unbearable. His damaged heart sang along with each increasingly closer plunge to his climax. Ricky too was losing control, his hips buckling up, almost throwing Brian off with each upward thrust, and Brian sucked, swallowed the leaking semen, and reveled in the scent of Ricky's sex in his senses.
Ricky never noticed, and Brian hoped the man never did, that a stray tear flowed down Brian's right cheek even as he gasped and spilled his climax into Ricky's greedy mouth.
"It would feel better, much better, I assure you, if we come up each other's asshole," Brian murmured as he nuzzled Ricky's sweat-soaked hair three nights later. They lay on his great coat that was their makeshift bed on the grass and Brian gazed at the night sky. "Much better."
It was stupid the way he held his breath, waiting for Ricky's answer as if it was the most important thing he would ever want to listen to. It wasn't. Ricky was just a temporary diversion, like all the others. But, his heart acknowledged where his brain daren't, somehow Ricky had done something no one else had.
Ricky made him feel. He hadn't felt anything remotely resembling human emotion in years, except when he was singing in Club Abracadabra, but Ricky, sweet dear Ricky, Ricky made him laugh. And Ricky never treated him like a scary bulldog. Letting his guard down and laughing more than he ever had in his life were novel traits in his life.
He didn't know how to deal with it. For once, he wished he was good with words like Mike or Ethan or Jeremy, he wished he could offer poetry and make Ricky laugh like the way the man make him laugh.
"Don't rush things, please," Ricky said softly.
Brian willed himself to turn away from the stars and to Ricky. He hoped his hurt wasn't showing in his eyes. "Why? You want me, I want you, why can't we fuck?" He trailed his finger along Ricky's back, once again marveling at the softness of Ricky's skin, soft yet so strong in the muscular tensile strength.
Ricky turned to his side, exposing his front nude body to Brian. Brian felt savage pride at the sight of the red bruise at Ricky's left nipple, made by Brian's overeager lips, and the stray trickle of Brian's semen at the corner of Ricky's lips. He wanted Ricky to be marked as his in any way, in all way. His sperm swimming in Ricky's systems would be the ultimate possession, and Brian's cock leapt to life at that image.
Mine, he thought as he pulled Ricky over him. "How long more?" he demanded even as pulled Ricky's lips down to his.
"Two weeks." In two weeks his mission would be done and they would be free to start again or not.
"Two weeks," Brian repeated, not liking the length, but for Ricky, he would wait. He was good at waiting, hell, he had been waiting for Ricky all his life.
FOUR
"I can't do it. I won't lie to him anymore," Ricky told the man at the other end of the phone.
"You have no choice," Brendan Fraser said. "We have everything riding on you, not only the museum, but Interpol and Comtech. You can't back out." He softened his voice. "Ricky, Brian will understand more than you'll think. In a way he's used to intrigue and betrayals."
At his office, Ricky shut his eyes in pain. Brian was used to being betrayed. He told Ricky one night as they lay on his Scoody Doo bed, that he had learned since young never to expect anything above minimal from anymore - everyone would disappoint eventually. Poor Brian. Ricky was one of these.
"Very well," he said to Brendan even as his heart broke into a million pieces. He was a bastard, the lowest of low. Perhaps he should just walk out of Brian's life.
A part of him was serious when he told Brian he would love to introduce the man to his family. Logic told him that he had to be mad to be attracted to a former man who arranged assassinations and carried out a few himself, among other activities that no one else would do. But damn logic - Ricky believed Brian when he said he would never hurt Ricky, and he believed when Brian told him of his past, his sins, his crimes. Yes, Brian told him his secrets, making a nonchalant display out of it.
Ricky knew, if Brian didn't yet, that Brian's telling him of his darkest secrets was damning evidence of Brian's falling in love with him. And that cut him deepest, because he couldn't see how he could repay Brian's na‹ve trust with anything but betrayal.
He put his head into his hands and wept.
"I'll come in." Brian placed his hands at each side of Ricky's head as the man bent to place the key in the doorknob. "I've never seen your place before."
Ricky stood up and found himself enveloped by Brian's quiet strength. "Sure? It's still pretty empty."
"More room for us then." Brian pulled a bottle of champagne from his coat. "Let's put this in ice."
Ricky's blood burned. "Two weeks are up," he murmured.
"Oh yes."
Ricky swallowed, and stopped hesitating. One night. They deserved one night, and the morning after be damned. Brian was already casually unbuttoning Ricky's shirt one by one, even though they were still standing on the front way. "My neighbor is an 80-year old woman. If she sees us her heart would stop," Ricky hissed, fumbling at the doorknob.
Brian's answer was the unzipping of Ricky's trousers.
The door barely closed when Ricky, his shirt hanging loose and open on his body and his trousers falling to his ankles, found himself pressed against the door. He steadied himself, spread his legs, his asshole already puckering with lust. Fuck foreplay - Brian tore at his zipper and when his cock sprang out, he spat on it, and rammed the slick shaft up Ricky's heated anus. Ricky howled at the penetration, lifting his hips and slamming his buttocks into Brian's crotch, begging the man to shove it deeper.
Each hard pump sent loud slapping sound of flesh meeting wet flesh, in rhythm with the thudding of Ricky's body hitting the door at each thrust of Brian. Then Brian's mouth was at Ricky's neck, then the ma actually sank his teeth gently at the nape, and Ricky lost it. He shuddered, groaned, and clawed into the door as he came, his semen gushing from his raised balls along his stiff throbbing shaft to spray heavily into Brian's waiting hand. Then Brian was pulling out, and he swiftly spread the semen on his hand along his cock, slicking it until it was glistening with a coat of lubrication, then he roughly penetrated Ricky again.
"Oh fuck, Bri, have mercy," Ricky gasped, clinging to the doorway weakly when Brian's rough pumping resumed. He lost sense of time or space, everything but the glorious sensation of that big thick cock shafting him again and again and again. Brian's breathing was harsh, and he was making soft obscene oaths as his speed increased. He was practically slamming his groin, each thrust resounding in loud wet crack as his pubic bone rammed at Ricky's, the savage impact cushioned by Ricky's hard yet taut buttocks. Then Ricky felt Brian's cock thicken with semen surging along that shaft, spreading Ricky's anus even wider, and when Brian lifted his groin, then rammed in hard and down a steeper angle, that thick cock crown jamming right past to roughly nudge Ricky's prostate, Ricky had his second white hot and cataclysmic climax. If not for Brian's holding him still, he would had fallen to the floor.
Ricky watched the silhouette of Brian bathing in the shower two hours later. He had made up his mind as to what to do. Brian's slim body, an enigma in itself, fascinated him. The man followed a strict gym and exercise regiment to keep his heart in working condition, but he had never allowed his body to attain the muscle-carved perfection everyone aspired to have. "Are you crazy? First rule of being a spy is never to look like a spy," Brian had said. "Get a muscle-bound body and I'll look even more fucking scary."
"You're scary enough already," Ricky said, and Brian laughed.
"You think I should get a better body?" he asked when he could stop laughing.
"No," Ricky had answered truthfully, a part of him amazed at how easy he made Brian laugh. "I like you the way you are already."
Now, he had to break Brian. He walked and pushed open the shower stall door.
Brian, beautiful Brian, his body slick with shower foam, turned to him. His smile didn't change when he saw the tears in Ricky's eyes, but his eyes darkened into inscrutable darkness. His words threw Ricky off-guard. "So, Nightshade, you want to tell me everything? `Bout time," he said gently.
"You knew?" Ricky whispered.
"Always. The moment I kiss you. The moment you kiss my scar as if you are sorry and would walk fire to make it up to me two hours ago." Brian lifted his right hand to Ricky.
Ricky took it. "And you sleep with me? Why?"
"Because it doesn't matter to me what you did in the past. I know about your stealing back your things from the men who cheated your mentor and caused him to kill himself. I applaud it, in fact. Ssh," he said when Ricky made to speak. "Once I told you your secrets wouldn't hurt me, Ricky, and trust me, they don't."
"I'm sorry." Ricky's voice trembled. "I'm so sorry."
Brian sighed and pulled the man into his embrace. "There, there, love. Just be grateful I'm not like other men, for then I won't be so forgiving." Ricky didn't even chuckle. The man was heaving as if he was crying tearlessly, and Brian couldn't stand that. He made Ricky face him and tried to smile his brightest.
"I should've told you. I never should've lied to you."
Because he heartily agreed, Brian tried to switch topics. "Look, let us finish this shower, get some hot chocolate, you tell me everything, and we watch the cartoon network `til morning, okay?"
Ricky nodded, and Brian kissed him.
FIVE
The Interpol's trap didn't work. Rick's security code convinced the notoriously infamous art thief Billy Zane that he had succeeded in breaking it, and when he stepped into the museum dead of night, security was there waiting.
"But he managed to escape, though rumor has it, not before kissing Jeremy right on the mouth," Brian said with a laugh. His ran his fingers lazily through Ricky's hair as the man placed his head on his lap.
He was laughing more these days. In fact, he was actually happy. Now all he had to do was to convince the man with him that it didn't matter that Ricky had lied. Brian didn't care, hell, to be honest he had no clear concept of what right or wrong was. All he knew was that this was the right thing, Ricky was the right thing. But how to put all those in words?
He looked down at Ricky.
Taking a deep breath, he cleared his throat, and asked Ricky, "Would you like to go to Disneyland with me?"