Page 5 of Shaman

“What’s wrong?” Alec asked, voice shaking, and pressed on before Ian could interrupt. “Don’t tell me it’s nothing. You’re not just busy – you’re always busy. But busy doesn’t keep you from kissing me. And touching me.” His throat moved as he swallowed hard. “Babe. Please. What did I do?”

“You didn’t do anything–”

Alec looked like he’d been punched. “You’re seeing someone else. Right? There’s someone else who–”

“No,” Ian said, fierce now, anger stealing through him. He hated himself for making Alec feel like this. It was unforgivable. He reached up to cup his face in both hands, careful not to knock his glasses askew. “There’s no one else. I promise you there’s not.”

“Then what’swrong?”

Ian pressed a thumb to Alec’s trembling lower lip, and his lover leaned into that barest of touches, body melting into his, pliant, and wanting, and begging for answers.

Ian could tell him. Try to, at least, and Alec would want to help, want to search for answers with him. He was good like that. Too good.

Tenderness would never work in this situation.

Ian let go of him and stepped back. The hurt in Alec’s eyes lanced through him, visceral and painful as a wound.

“I have to go to my meeting,” he made himself say, biting the words off through his teeth. “I’ll see you in a few hours.”

He didn’t look back as he left the suite. He knew if he did he’d hit his knees and not be able to get back up again.

~*~

His meeting had been scheduled for weeks, a request by a married couple who owned a rapidly-growing modeling agency who wanted to set up, in their words, a “discreet and professional” cocaine connection. They wanted their models hungry, healthy, and energetic, and didn’t want any of them buying off the streets and winding up dead thanks to OD’ing on shitty product cut with Comet.

Bruce shooed everyone out of an elevator in the designated high-rise and sealed them in together with a press of the button for the forty-seventh floor. Ian was scrolling through emails on his phone when his longtime bodyguard cleared his throat and said, “Um, sir?”

Ian didn’t look up from his phone. “What?”

“He’s worried about you.”

“Who is?”

“Mr. Alec. Sir.”

Ian lifted his head to give the man an incredulous look. “Beg your pardon?”

Bruce stared straight ahead at the polished elevator doors and twitched like his suit was too tight. “I know it’s none of my business–”

“How very astute of you.”

“–but you haven’t been yourself. Sir. Mr. Alec’s worried, is all. About you.”

Ian pocketed his phone. Smoothed a hand down his already smooth hair. “Tell me something, Bruce. Do you enjoy your job?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then kindly shut the hell up before you lose it.”

“Yes, sir.”

The elevator doors dinged open to reveal a lavish lobby, with glass walls and doors, and a long bank of desks manned by gorgeous women who’d probably been models themselves before the tiny, delightful laugh lines of their thirties rendered them too old for the job. Men, he’d learned a long time ago, were absolute idiots.

Bruce trailed him as he approached the counter, and he felt his face settle into that cool, pleasant, cat-with-the-canary grin of his he’d developed as a weapon in this business.

“Good afternoon,” the receptionist said with an understated smile of her own. She probably shared a bit of his background, he thought, doubtless some of his attitudes. “Are you Mr. Shaman?”

“Yes. Here to see Mr. and Mrs. Breckinridge.”

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