“And you just figured the thieves would be stupid enough to pawn our diamonds directly across the street from the store they just robbed?” Luca scoffed, instantly regretting his tone as Delancey’s eyebrows drew together as he frowned at him.
“I need to talk to you right now,” Kane growled. Before Luca could take a breath, the detective had him by the elbow and was dragging him back toward his office. He had a habit of doing that shit and it infuriated Luca.
“What. The. Hell?” Luca shouted the moment they were inside his office and Kane had shut the door. “Rude, much?”
The words were barely out of Luca’s mouth when Kane had him pinned back against the closed door of his office, sandwiched between the hard wood surface and all six foot four inches of fully-aroused detective. Luca glanced up and his eyes immediately widened as his gaze connected with cold, light blue eyes. They were filled with desire and before Luca could open his mouth to object to the manhandling, Kane had the long fingers of one hand tangled in his hair. He his head was yanked back and a moment later, Delancey’s hot mouth came crashing down on Luca’s.
Chapter Thirteen
Kane couldn’t fight it anymore. The moment he’d seen Luca outside his store kissing the older man, he knew he was helpless to fight his attraction to the young manager any longer. Luca Price was beautiful, gentle, sweet, and downright sexy as hell. Kane had never been drawn to anyone, male or female, the way he was to Luca. He wanted him and he had no idea why. He’d been dreaming of stripping off all his designer clothes and getting him down to bare skin every night since he’d first seen him.
As he ground his mouth down on Luca’s, all he could think about was getting the man naked. He wanted to take Luca home and put him in his bed and fuck him until he’d worked the lust for him out of his system. As Kane mauled Luca’s mouth, he sensed the exact moment when Luca gave up all his self-control. He reached for his dress shirt, skimming both palms up and over his pectorals in a way that felt almost reverent. When Luca’s hands reached Kane’s shoulders, he twined his arms around his neck and slid his fingers into the hair at the back of his head. The gesture felt intimate, even more intimate than the way his hard cock was pressing into Kane’s thigh and grinding slowly back and forth over it. When Luca moaned into his mouth, seeming to completely surrender to Kane, he felt like he was the most important man in the world to him.
Luca opened his mouth and let Kane’s tongue inside, kissing him with a passion he’d never experienced with a woman. Then again, all his kisses with Luca had left him feeling like this. Kane remembered the way he’d kissed him My when he straddled him in his car, the way Luca’s hard cock felt slipping through his fist as he gripped him tightly. He remembered how his face looked, frozen in ecstasy as his orgasm ripped through him, spewing hot white come over Kane’s fingers as he cried out desperately against his lips. He groaned just with the memory of that moment.
Kane hadn’t gotten what he wanted that night. He’d purposely decided to wait to get off until he got Luca home and in his bed where he could do everything he wanted to do to him, but Luca had ended it before it ever got that far. He’d wanted to touch Luca’s bare skin, trace his tight muscles with his fingertips, feel more of those tiny hot gasps as he ground his body against him. He was who Kane had wanted—unfortunately, Luca had left him sitting in the parking lot frustrated as hell, with a swollen dick.
So, Kane had done the only thing he could do. He’d driven home like a bat out of hell with a raging hard-on, gotten into his shower and grabbed his shower gel, coated his thick shaft and stroked himself wildly. After only five or six hard pulls on his dick, he’d shot come against the shower wall, yelling Luca’s name. Worst of all, Kane had realized that all he’d wanted was a man with him in that shower… and only one man would do. It felt like the only person he’d ever wanted was Luca Price, the gorgeous jeweler he had pressed up against the door right now.
He kissed Luca, sucking on his tongue, swallowing his gasps, and smelling his own precome as it coated the inside of his boxer briefs. Unfortunately, Kane’s timing couldn’t have been shittier. He had to stop this because in a minute or two, Kelly was going to come back to the office and demand to know where they were and what the hell was going on.
Fuck!
Kane yanked his mouth away and stared down at Luca’s swollen lips, his chest heaving as he stepped back, letting Luca have his space as he realized he’d nearly had an orgasm right there in Luca’s office. He reached up and ran his fingers through his hair, which for some reason was sticking up every which way. He hadn’t even realized that Luca had been pulling on the short strands of his hair as they made out against the office door.
“Well, I’ll say… damn… you do know how to surprise me, Delancey.” Luca panted as he glanced up at Kane through his long, full eyelashes, darting out a pointy pink tongue to lick over lips swollen from Kane’s kisses. The man was simply breathtaking and Kane couldn’t get enough of looking at him. Luca was as beautiful and delicate as any woman he’d ever dated but he possessed an ethereal beauty none of them ever had. The simple fact was, he couldn’t compare Luca Price to a woman at all. Luca had a defiant streak with fire in his hard belly. He was smart, funny, mature beyond his years, and a quick glance down to the front of Luca’s suit pants confirmed he was all man—nothing womanly about him. The hard cock that tented his slacks and the presence of a wet circle near the man’s zipper spoke to Luca’s need for Kane as well.
So, I have the same effect on you as you have on me. Huh.
Kane smiled slowly, as he raised his gaze to meet Luca’s dancing eyes. He shrugged innocently.
“What can I say?” Luca reached down and grabbed his cock through the dark slacks he wore and adjusted it, trying to force his erection away. “You make me hot, Detective.” He looked down, nodded at Kane’s hard-on and then turned a dazzling smile up at him. “I guess I have a similar effect on you.”
Kane smirked as he reached for his suit jacket, drawing both sides together and buttoning it to help hide his problem from Kelly and the others in the store as Luca chuckled.
“It’s hopeless. You can’t deny it anymore. You want me, Delancey,” he said.
“Cocky little shit,” Kane said as he reached out and pulled Luca away from the door. “What time do you get off?”
Luca chuckled. “If you’d have given me another minute, you would have answered your own question.” When he got no response, Kane heard Luca chuckle again.
“What time do you get off work, Luca?” Kane reached for the doorknob and looked over at him.
“I’ll be off in an hour but I have plans tonight.”
“With who? That old guy I saw you kissing?” Kane growled with frustration as jealousy crept into his words before he could stop it.
Luca straightened and reached down, checking his cuffs with more interest than Kane would have thought anyone could have in a wool blend coat. He cleared his throat and looked back up at Kane, lifting his chin as he tried his best to look dignified. It only had the effect of making him look even younger than he was.
“He’s not the one I have plans with. If you must know, I am going to play charity bingo at Hamburger Mary’s in WeHo.”
Kane chuckled. “Bingo. Right. Because you’re like ninety or something. I can just see you now… sitting at a table with a bunch of blue-haired old women, stamping your card with a big fat purple pre-inked sponge.” He laughed again.
Luca smiled wickedly. “I’ll have you know my family live in Miami so I have a lot of experience with those ninety-year-old blue-hairs.” He sniffed. “They can be quite terrifying. And actually, Bingo is exactly what I’ll be doing, except instead of blue-haired old women, I’m pretty sure I’ll be in a booth with a three-hundred-pound woman named Bertha, dressed in black leather who could crack your nuts with one pinky.”
Kane couldn’t help but laugh out loud. He let go of the doorknob and pulled Luca back into his arms, leaning down and kissing him soundly. He was pan
ting when he finally let go of him. He cleared his throat and once again straightened his clothes.
“I’m going back to the station with Kelly since she drove but I’ll be back to pick you up.” He grabbed the doorknob again, looking Luca up and down and pointed at him. “Stay back here. You look like you’ve just been fucked.”
Luca’s mouth fell open. “I-I just told you I have plans, Detective.” He sounded downright huffy as he raised his chin again.
“I like bingo too,” Kane said with a smirk. “Besides, I’ve never yet met a woman who could crack my nuts with a pinky. That’ll be a sight to see.” He turned the knob and swung the door open. Before Luca could say another word, he was out the door and headed back to his partner.
When he got out to the sales floor, Kelly and Sebastian cocked their heads to the side in unison like a matching set of dogs. They both watched him but it was the expression of poorly-concealed amusement on Kelly’s face that had Kane looking down to examine how he looked. His erection had subsided but he realized his tie was askew. He reached up and straightened it, swallowing hard as he came over to stand beside his partner. She looked up at him.
“Where have you been?” she asked, batting her eyelashes coyly as a smirk played around her mouth.
Kane tightened his lips and carefully monitored his breathing since he’d practically been panting a few minutes before. He frowned at Kelly, knowing how fucked he was and knowing if he was going to continue seeing Luca, he was going to have to come clean with her. In a short period of time they’d grown very close. He’d only ever felt this close to one other partner and he’d had several. Dev could usually read his body language and he wondered whether she’d be able to decipher his attraction to Luca as readily as Kelly seemed to be able to do. He prayed she wouldn’t make a big deal of it or spread around the fact that he was interested in Luca. He didn’t think she was the kind of person who cared.
I’m not even gay. Right.
Kane ignored the thoughts racing through his head and shrugged at his partner, offering her no explanation.
“You ready to go?” he asked.
She smiled. “Yes, I was just telling Sebastian that we came to check out some diamonds that were pawned across the street but unfortunately, none of them match the stones stolen from Auerbach’s.” She looked around. “I also told him the store looks fantastic and he was telling me the store owner said the same thing just moments before we arrived,” Kelly said. “Did you see the Bentley parked at the curb when we were across the street?”
“Yeah, I saw it. That was Auerbach?” Anger flooded through Kane. Luca had been kissing the insanely wealthy owner of the jewelry store when he’d first spotted him from across the street. Maybe he was hustling after all. How much could Luca make working as a store manager, no matter how high-end the merchandise was? He did wear designer suits and he did live in West Hollywood which was by no means cheap.
Things began to slot into place and Kane hated the way the puzzle of Luca Price was beginning to fit. When he’d seen Luca talking to Slade Ruiz at Barcelona, Luca had promised he wasn’t hustling, but clearly he had something going with his boss which might explain being able to afford that kind of rent. Who kissed their boss if they weren’t fucking? Kane felt sick to his stomach.
“Are you okay?” Kelly asked, interrupting Sebastian who’d begun rapidly explaining that indeed, that had been Stephen Auerbach at the store just before they arrived… that he was such a nice man… and oh, what a gentleman he was… pure class… yadda yadda yadda. Kane turned and glared at Kelly.
“Let’s go. I need to get back to the station,” he barked, turning on his heel.
“Um… okay…” Kelly said to his back as he strode toward the armed guards flanking the door. “Goodbye, Seb…” The rest of what she was saying to the salesman was cut off as the heavy glass door closed behind Kane. He put his hands on his hips and breathed in gulps of evening air. When he heard the door behind him open, he ignored it, trying to wrestle his emotions back under control.
Kane wasn’t this kind of person. He was happy at the ATF. If nothing else, he often matched Jarrett Evans’s wit and comedy antics. It had to be this assignment that was fucking with his head. He was becoming a completely different person. Knowing his mother and Glenna could be exposed to danger from Enoch Moore or his son if they figured out who he was, terrified him more than he wanted to admit.
That has nothing to do with how I feel about Luca.
“Delancey!” Kelly suddenly grasped his forearm and when he turned, she was frowning at him. “That was rude, partner. What the hell is wrong with you? Did something happen with Luca?”
“It’s this case,” he said. That explanation didn’t even sound reasonable to his own ears.
“Get in the fucking car and stop lying to me or this partnership ain’t gonna last, asshole,” she spit, stepping off the curb and jogging across the street.
“Fuck me,” he ground out through gritted teeth, following Kelly across the street to her Mini Cooper. She was already behind the wheel when he opened the door and folded himself into the car. She made no attempt to start the motor but turned to face him in the cramped space. She looked like she could chew glass and enjoy it. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I shouldn’t… I don’t know… I guess I should tell you… stuff.”
She glared at him. “Stuff like the fact that you desperately want Luca Price?”
“What?” Kane felt all the blood drain out of his face.
“You idiot. Did you really think I’m that shitty of a detective not to notice that you have it bad for Luca?” Kelly shook her head, staring at him like he was dense and brain dead. “You want that man in your bed and every time you see him, the thought of it twists you up in knots.” Her words softened as she reached out and laid a hand on his forearm. “Kane, is it possible you didn’t know you were gay?”
He tore his eyes away from her and stared straight out the windshield. “I’m not gay, Murphy.”
“Liar.”
He turned his head slowly, letting his gaze come to rest on her. “Listen, I’ve never dated a guy, Murphy, and besides, even if I wanted to, I like my job. I can’t be gay at my job.” He knew the words were a lie as they came spilling off his tongue. Jarrett Evans and his partner, Thayne Wolfe, were married to each other. Nico Devecchio, the resident brainiac on his team at the ATF was in a relationship with Mac McCallahan at the FBI. His own partner, Dev, was an out and proud lesbian. No one said a damned thing about any of them.
Evans was a former Marine like Kane was. McCallahan had been a Green Beret. None of them let their sexuality define who they were and no one would dare to question whom they chose to fall in love with. Their boss, Sarah Connor, sure as hell didn’t care and Lincoln Snow trusted Mac to have his back at the FBI. Their SAC didn’t seem to care that McCallahan was gay either. They did their jobs. Obviously, this was Kane’s own issue. If he was bisexual because he was attracted to Luca, maybe he should explore it. No one—even Kelly—would care, that was clear.
“I’ve known Cassidy Ryan for nearly nine years, Delancey. He’s happily married to a man and is a former Navy SEAL. Do you think Mike Williams gives a shit that his partner sleeps with a man? They’re like brothers and I know there are gay men on your team at the ATF so why don’t you come clean, Delancey? If not with me, at least be honest with yourself, idiot.”
Kane rolled his eyes at her as she dropped her hand. “The people you mentioned are all law enforcement. They’re hard as nails and no one would question them.”
She laughed but it wasn’t her usual sweet laugh. “And Luca Price is what? Oh, yeah, he’s not big and tough like all those gay military types you work with? He wears designer suits and works in a jewelry store. He’s not a big macho badass so being with him means people might look sideways at you if you were with him?”
Kane swallowed hard. She’d hit the nail right on the head and he suddenly hated himself for thinking that. He looked down at his hands, ashamed
of himself.
“You want to know what I think?” she asked, stuffing her car key in the ignition and turning it until the engine roared to life.
Kane looked over at her as she checked her rearview mirrors before pulling away from the curb. After she’d safely steered the Mini into traffic, she glanced over at him. She frowned hard before turning her attention back to the road.
“I think if you have any decency left in you, you’ll leave the balance of the jewelry store investigation to me and stay far away from Luca. He deserves someone who will cherish the man he is. He’s amazing and kind and brilliant. The fact that he doesn’t carry a gun doesn’t change that he has character.”
“How do you know he’s got so much character?” Kane asked, frowning deeply at her because her words hit home. “You saw him kissing that old guy—Auerbach. How do you know they aren’t a thing? Maybe the guy pays Luca’s rent.”
“He doesn’t,” she said quickly. “Luca lives alone in a tiny apartment that takes a lot of his money. He buys his clothing on sale and at thrift stores. He also sends money to his mom and disabled sister in Florida. He makes a decent living because he gets a percentage of what the store sells.”
Kane grunted. “How do you know all this?”
“Because I looked into him when we first got the case, Delancey,” she said, sounding frustrated as she turned away from looking out at the road and rolled her eyes at him. “Of course I had to rule him out as a suspect right away. Now, either accept him for who he is, or fuck off of him because he doesn’t deserve someone who will force him back into the closet. He’s interested in you—that’s evident—but Luca deserves someone who will love and cherish him and clearly, Delancey, you’re not ready for him.”
Every word out of her mouth hit home and the truth was she couldn’t have been any righter. Luca was a good man and Kane clearly wasn’t ready to accept the feelings he’d been having ever since he’d met the guy. All he could do now was keep to himself and forget he’d ever met the man who’d turned him upside down and inside out.
Stay with Me (The WITSEC series Book 1) Page 18
