Page 35 of Shaman

He couldn’t take it. Didn’t deserve it. Had to get away. Had to hide. Had to…

He exhaled shakily. “I need…I need to wash my hands.”

Slowly, like he knew he might startle, Alec moved to stand in front of him, and took both of Ian’s hands into his own. “Your hands are clean,” he said soothingly. “You wore gloves, remember? And we threw them away. We bleached them and threw them in a dumpster.”

“Right,” he murmured, lips numb. They had done that. Fox, wearing latex gloves himself, had stripped the stained black leather off Ian’s hands. Had bleached them. Left them in a dumpster behind a Chinese restaurant. No one would ever find them, he’d assured. The justice system didn’t work in the unreal way it did on TV.

Alec laced their fingers together, ducked his head so he could look Ian in the face. “Do you want to take a shower?”

Hot water. Soap. Clean.

That’s what he always did at the club, after a client session. Got clean, worked the kinks out of his back beneath the warm spray.

“Yeah,” he rasped.

“Alright. Come on.” Alec put a steadying arm around his waist and guided him into the big, fancy marble bathroom.

Ian started a moment, realizing he’d expected the concrete, subway tile and exposed pipes of the club back rooms, where all the boys had showered together, where…

Alec halted him with a gentle press of a hand on his chest and went to the big glass-walled shower to crank the water on.

Ian turned his head and met his own gaze in the mirror.

For one startling moment, he didn’t recognize the man who looked back at him from the glass.

Because itwasa man. Not the too-thin, frightened boy who’d belonged to Miss Carla, with his eyeliner, and lip gloss, and bruises. He’d stripped off the uniform coveralls, and under his white t-shirt was a tall, broad-shouldered, lean but strong body. A dancer or a gymnast, long-limbed, striking. His face was pretty, everyone had always said so, but masculine, too. Regal. Little wisps of auburn hair had slipped loose from Maggie’s braids, and framed his cut-glass cheekbones, his jaw. He looked wild-eyed, hunted, but also dangerous – a little, at least.

He wasn’t the same person who the Breckinridges had assaulted at a club years ago. He wasn’t someone powerless, frightened, ashamed. Not to look at, anyway.

He wasn’t even the same person who’d walked into that apartment today.

He was a killer now. There was invisible blood on his hands that he could never scrub away.

And maybe…maybe he didn’t want to.

“Babe,” Alec said, and Ian turned to him. Took in the clean, sweet lines of his face, the steam slowly fogging his glasses, the worried set of his mouth.

He was safe now, because of what Ian had done. Because of what Ianwould do, in the future. Because he loved him. Because love wasn’t clean, not in the slightest.

Ian swallowed hard. “Am I a monster?”

“No,” Alec said, immediately, twitching a smile. “But even if you were, I’d still love you.”

Ian cupped his face – his wonderful, beloved face – in both hands and said, “Get in with me?” Half-request, half-plea.

“Yeah. I will.”

Ian reached with careful fingers and plucked Alec’s glasses free, folded them, set them aside on the counter.

Alec blinked up at him, trying to focus, his eyes big, and blue-green, striped with gold and rust.

“Beautiful,” Ian murmured, awed, something warm swelling in his chest, pushing out the fear and anger. “You’re just beautiful.” He laid his hand against Alec’s cheek, and Alec leaned into the touch, smile gracing his mouth. “I would doanythingto keep you safe.”

“I know.” Alec turned into Ian’s touch, lips ghosting over his palm. “I would, too. For you.” He glanced up through his lashes. “You know that, right?”

“Yes.” Ian gasped when he felt Alec’s tongue against his hand. “Yes, I…”

Alec lifted his head, and he reeled him in and kissed him.

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