Page 79 of A Life Imagined
“So long, Beauvais,” Enzo said with a smirk.“Hope it’s worth it.”
Mathias stood in the doorway to the office and watched Enzo make his way across the warehouse to the staff entrance.He listened for the click as the door closed behind him.Then Mathias returned to his desk and knocked back the remainder of his drink.He gripped the glass in his hand and waited for the regret to surface, but all he felt was a calm clarity.
He didn’t have to hope.He knew.
Rayan parked in the driveway beside the house but couldn’t muster the energy to get out of the car.The clock on the dashboard said it was almost ten.Had it only been six hours since a frantic Elise had come to their door?He felt like he’d been up for days.
He let out a long breath.There was nothing for it.He was sitting on a veritable fortune that wasn’t going to hide itself.
He flicked the lever to open the trunk and got out to walk around the back of the car.It took both hands to lift the duffel bag and haul it into the house.He’d been surprised to discover, in Boulogne, that the thing weighed a ton.
Once inside, he headed for the study and unlocked the safe beneath the desk.First, he removed his holster and stowed the gun, then he began emptying the bag, lifting each stack of notes one by one.Rayan kept a mental tally as he went.He got two-thirds through the bag before the safe was full.He locked it and headed upstairs.
There was another safe, in the closet in their bedroom, that contained Mathias’s cash reserves and a series of questionably legal documents—passports and citizenship papers that secured them freedoms in a handful of countries.Mathias liked to plan for contingencies.
Rayan hadn’t given much thought to what would happen with the money, but Mathias was a magician when it came to that sort of thing.He’d probably launder the money through a Swiss-owned company then funnel it back to his various accounts here and abroad.At least, that was the extent of Rayan’s knowledge on the subject.He would leave it in Mathias’s capable hands.
He finished stashing the remainder of the cash and had just returned downstairs when the front door opened, and Mathias appeared in the entranceway.Mathias kicked off his shoes and walked past Rayan into the living room, where he sank onto the sofa.Rayan moved to join him, not sure, once he’d sat down, whether he could pull himself up again.
Mathias leaned his head back and closed his eyes.“Christ, what a day.”
“That’s one way to put it.”
Suddenly, Mathias stiffened, and his eyes snapped open as though something had just occurred to him.He turned to Rayan with a veiled stare.“I asked you to fuck me, didn’t I?”
Rayan faltered, a flush rising along his neck.“Not in so many words,” he replied carefully.“But if it’s something you want—”
“That’s another conversation.”Mathias sighed and raked a hand across his face.“Anything else I’ll have the misfortune of remembering later?”
Rayan shot him a look.
“Right.That.”Mathias’s expression shifted.“I’ve never said it to anyone.”
Rayan reached out and tilted Mathias’s chin toward him.“I don’t need words.I only want you.”
“You have me, Rayan.”
Rayan felt a pang in his chest, hot and tight.He pulled himself onto Mathias’s lap and took the man’s face in his hands.Mathias winced as Rayan made contact with his bruised skin.
“Sorry.”
“Do your worst.”Mathias looked up at him, eyes unflinching, and Rayan lowered his mouth to kiss him.
The jolt of sensation cut through his exhaustion and sent his body humming.He was no longer tired.Mathias wrapped his arms around Rayan’s waist and parted his lips with a sudden urgency.Rayan rocked against the growing bulge between Mathias’s legs, and the man broke away, letting out a sharp breath.
“That shit messed with my brain.I’ve never been this pent-up.”
“Let me help with that.”
Rayan rubbed a palm across the front of Mathias’s pants, baring his teeth to graze the man’s neck.When he began on his zipper, Mathias stopped him.“Shower first.”
In the shower, Mathias could no longer hide his untamed arousal.His cock stood tightly between them, pressing against Rayan’s stomach as Rayan rubbed soap across Mathias’s chest.He gently cleaned the last remnants of dried blood from Mathias’s face then knelt under the thunder of water and took him into his mouth.Pent-upwas an understatement.Mathias lurched past his lips, and Rayan could already taste the salt from his slit.He was rough and needy, drawing his cock in and out of Rayan’s mouth at speed.
Rayan pulled back to catch his breath, and Mathias shot unexpectedly, glancing across his cheek.It was sluiced away in seconds, and Rayan got to his feet with a wry grin.“Don’t get used to that.”
Instead of a snide retort, Mathias crushed him against the shower wall in a passionate kiss.The man had lost his edge, his body no longer tense but warm and pliant, and Rayan melted into him, opening his mouth around the press of Mathias’s lips.Then Mathias lifted him, wet and dripping, from the bathroom and tossed him onto the bed.With his hunger momentarily satiated, Mathias turned his attention to Rayan.
In the time he spent edging Rayan with his mouth and fingers, leaving him slick, open, and desperately wanting, Mathias’s cock had returned to its earlier glory—thick and hard, kept at the ready as Mathias lowered a hand every so often to give it an absent stroke.
