Seven-Card Stud

by Ava Drake

  “The blond?”

  “Yup.”

  “The other one hit on me yesterday,” Collin relayed. “Said her name is Cher.”

  Oliver snorted. “Cher what? Cher Chlamydia?”

  Collin grinned. “I wonder where the rest of the Albanian mob is today. Don’t they usually travel in a pack?”

  Oliver shrugged. “Maybe the security thugs are getting laid back at the hotel while these guys wine and dine Desirée and Cher.”

  “I’m half surprised the directors didn’t bring in some male prostitutes to work the tournament.”

  “Straight organizers wouldn’t think of it,” Oliver replied dryly.

  “Their loss. Think of all the pillow-talk confessions they could have wrung out of us.”

  “How do you know I’m not a spy put in place to learn your deepest, darkest secrets?” Oliver teased.

  Collin actually paused to consider the question. “I might be more suspicious if I didn’t think you’re a primary target of whoever’s trying to kill off the top players.”

  “Unless, of course, I’m the mastermind behind the deaths,” Oliver quipped.

  “That Jet Ski came too damned close to you for you to have been faking it. And besides, you had no way of knowing I would step outside just then and see you nearly get your head torn off.”

  Oliver reached across the table and squeezed Collin’s hand briefly. The Albanians and the girls from the hotel wandered away. He and Oliver continued to sit, sipping coffee, until Collin’s cell phone beeped and he murmured, “That’s a notification from my computer.”

  They grabbed a taxi back to the El Rocca and split up, ostensibly heading for their own rooms. But Oliver circled around using the stairwells to come to Collin’s room inconspicuously.

  The door latched behind Oliver just as Collin finished sweeping the room for surveillance devices. “What’s up?” Oliver asked as Collin sat down at his laptop.

  “My algorithm has found a sequence of vulnerable code. It’s waiting for my approval to launch an exploit.”

  Oliver sat down at his system. “If we trip any alarms, they’ll launch countermeasures. We’ll have to move fast to avoid detection and identification.”

  “Then let’s not trip any alarms.” Collin hit the send button.

  They held their breath for the next several minutes, but when his worm program didn’t cause their laptops to blow up, Collin eventually relaxed. “It’s a very cautious protocol. It’ll move slowly and enter the resort server by slow degrees. Like a good seduction.”

  Oliver grinned. “I dunno. Seduction’s overrated. I tend to just go for it head-on. Can’t say as I’ve ever had any trouble getting what I want from who I want.”

  Collin grinned back. “Cocky much?”

  “You have no idea.” A pause. “Wanna find out?”

  Collin shook his head. “That kind of come-on would never work on me.”

  Oliver rolled his desk chair over beside Collin’s. “What would work on you?”

  “That’s for me to know and you to find out.”

  “Challenge accepted.”

  Collin looked up sharply from his laptop. “I beg your pardon?”

  “You heard me. I’ll bet you a hundred bucks I can get you into bed in, say, the next twenty-four hours.”

  Collin didn’t know whether to cheer or gulp.

  “C’mon, Collie. You’re supposed to be a gambling man. So gamble a little already.”

  Except that was the problem. He hated taking risks. At the end of the day, he liked his life safe. Predictable. Boring. There was a reason he’d sat behind a desk all these years, dreaming of being a field operative but never acting on it. Why he’d refused to commit to any kind of relationship with any of his sporadic lovers. “I’m worth a hell of a lot more than a hundred bucks, Shaggy.”

  “Shaggy?” Oliver asked.

  “The American cartoon character. You remind me of him.”

  “I’m allergic to dogs.”

  “It’s the hair,” Collin retorted. “And the surfer clothes.”

  Oliver very deliberately placed a knee on the chair beside Collin’s right thigh and, staring deep into his eyes, bent down toward him. Collin gulped. Oh. Holy. Hell.

  Oliver’s hands landed on his shoulders. “Are you saying no to this?”

  Collin opened his mouth, but his throat was so damned tight that no sound came out. He clapped his mouth shut ineffectually.

  “Mmm-hmm. That’s what I thought.” Oliver leaned down until their mouths were only a few inches apart. “In the name of rolling consent, I ask again. Are you saying no?”

  Collin could only shake his head in the negative.

  “Good. Now that we have the necessary preliminaries out of the way, kiss me, you fool.”

  Foolish, indeed. And yet, he was still going there, apparently. Collin tilted his chin up, and Oliver’s mouth closed voraciously on his. Strong hands plunged into his hair, half lifting him out of the chair. Oliver stepped back toward the bed, dragging Collin with him, and gods below, he had no will to resist.

  This was madness. He knew better than to mix work and pleasure, friend and lover. Staying free of emotional entanglements meant choosing his sex partners with a careful eye to assignations with men he would never see again. Never need to speak to. Never even cross accidental paths with. Oliver was none of those.

  But when that slabbed, muscular body pressed against his, all his self-discipline flew right out of his head, along with his good sense, and apparently the word no. No will to tear away from those strong arms. No will to speak the words that would return this insanity back to a platonic work relationship.

  Oliver’s hands shoved under Collin’s polo shirt, lifting it over his head and tossing it aside. His belt buckle gave way to Oliver’s efficient fingers, and then Collin’s pants and briefs shimmied down his thighs. He would have kicked them free, would have reached for Oliver’s clothing, but Oliver backed him up impatiently, pushing him until he tumbled onto the bed. Oliver’s knee between his thighs, trapping his partially removed slacks beneath it, pinned Collin’s legs down.

  Collin’s dick jutted up like a flagpole, loud and proud and ready to party. God, he felt exposed. Oliver grinned, and his fist closed around Collin’s erection, giving it a light tug that nearly sent Collin over the edge right there.

  “How do you like it, English?”

  He gurgled something along the lines of “Wuhurmbuhgah.”

  Oliver laughed and drew his fist down Collin’s shaft, pulling the skin tight across the tip of his cock. And then the bastard leaned down and gave it a slurp that made Collin’s hips lurch up off the bed.

  “If you don’t tell me what you like, Collin, I’m going to do everything I’ve been imagining doing to you. And some of it’s pretty twisted.”

  He managed a groan as Oliver’s hot mouth closed on him again. Oh God. It was wet and tight and amazing, and he thrust up into the promise of dirty darkness, in spite of his best resolve not to.

  “Top or bottom?” Oliver asked around the throbbing head of his cock.

  “Uhhguhhuhyeah.”

  “Right. You get the bottom. Frontal or doggie?”

  “Muhahwahdah.”

  “Doggie it is. Reach-around, or do you want to be kept on the edge?”

  Oh. My. God. His experience didn’t extend much beyond mutual, furtive hand jobs or the occasional fast standing fuck in a bathroom or closet. Oliver was offering vistas of sexual experience he’d mostly jerked off to, dreaming about.

  “Dude, in the total absence of feedback here, I’m going to assume consent for whatever I choose to do. You all right with that?”

  Collin managed to nod and twist his fists in the bedspread, clenched there as Oliver’s mouth and tight fist pushed him right to the verge of madness.

  Oliver withdrew. “We need a safeword. How about ‘God Save the Queen’?”

  Collin couldn’t help but be amused. He opened his mouth to agree. Throat still not working.
He nodded breathlessly. Oliver was still fully dressed, but now, standing between Collin’s spread knees and partially undone trousers, he reached for the button of his own jeans. Collin watched with unbridled anticipation as the zipper slid down one tooth at a time.

  Yup. Commando. Oliver’s cock sprang free of its confinement, and Collin stared at the size of it. Christ almighty. The beast was a deep rose color and jumped hungrily as Collin gaped at it.

  “Can you take it?” Oliver asked. “Wouldn’t want to tear you up too bad.”

  Collin started as a groan slipped from his own throat. His asscheeks clenched and unclenched spasmodically as, suddenly, he wanted nothing more in the world than to be torn up by that magnificent cock. His own erection throbbed and Oliver grinned, reaching down to smear Collin’s precum all over the head of Collin’s dick, rendering it slippery and so exquisitely stimulated he could sob.

  “So here’s the thing. I don’t want you to come until I tell you to. Okay?”

  Collin nodded cautiously, sensing more to the game than that.

  “I’m going to get some lube out of my bag, and I need you to finish getting naked and get all the extra pillows out of the closet. We’re going to need them.”

  All but whimpering in anticipation, he did as Oliver instructed. In a matter of seconds, he was face down on the bed, his ass presented for Oliver’s pleasure, and the hardest erection of his life threatening to explode at any second. He clenched his teeth against coming right then and there.

  Aw, jeez. Oliver’s hand slid across his flank and the back of his thigh to cup his balls, which tightened instantly and almost painfully in response. The lube in his palm was warm and slippery, sliding all over Collin’s junk in an erotic massage that did actually make him sob into the bedspread a little. All his fantasies were coming true, one on top of the other. Too much. Too fast.

  A tiny voice somewhere in the far recesses of his brain complained that this was a terrible idea, and he shouldn’t be doing it. But he couldn’t remember why, and for the life of him couldn’t work up the give-a-shit factor to care.

  Oliver knelt over him, his big, lanky, strong body spooning Collin’s intimately. Lips and teeth closed on his right earlobe and Collin turned his head, giving Oliver better access. A wet, warm tongue swirled into his ear, and he groaned.

  “God, you’re hot,” Oliver muttered.

  Said the pot to the boiling kettle. If he was hot, it was because Oliver made him this way. The snap of a condom announced that Oliver was a responsible lover. Oliver’s hand intruded between their bodies, lubing up both of them, and then all thoughts whatsoever flew out of Collin’s head as that impressive dick probed his ass. No matter how bad he wanted it nor how well lubed he was, he still had to work hard to relax the appropriate muscles and accept Oliver’s invasion. He’d done this before but was by no means an expert. He panted, caught on the horns of pleasure and not-quite-pain as he slowly, deliciously, took Oliver into himself.

  Oliver seemed to understand, though, and was perfectly still as Collin’s body adjusted to the size of him. And then Oliver’s hand snuck around his hips and closed on Collin’s raging erection, setting up a rhythm, pumping slow and steady, up and down Collin’s shaft, like a piston gradually gathering speed and power. Images of steam engines flashed through his head. Black iron. Hot steel. Steam. Smoke. And those pistons. Always those pistons chugging away, transmuting fire into raging sexual magic.

  Before he knew it or could stop it, Collin’s hips were rocking into Oliver’s fist, moving him up and down on Oliver’s dick. The twin sensations of penetrating and being penetrated were almost more than he could bear.

  “You ready?” a deep, breathy voice muttered in his ear.

  He’d been ready for this his entire life. He’d just never known how to find a lover who could or would give it to him. “Uh-huh,” he managed.

  Oliver’s hips rocked forward, meeting his as he rocked back, and his entire being was filled to bursting with all that glorious man muscle and burning heat. His balls tightened, on the verge of explosion, but then Oliver’s fingers closed into a vise at the base of his cock, shocking him into momentary stillness.

  “Not until I tell you to,” Oliver ordered darkly.

  A shiver of delight rippled through Collin. Oliver rode him like an ocean wave, swerving up and down, side to side, as quick as a seal and strong as the ocean itself.

  Oh God. It was so sexy to be taken like this that his entire body felt limp with joyous surrender. Oliver took him for real, then, driving into him relentlessly, seating himself to the hilt time and again, flesh slapping on flesh, sweat sliding on sweat, rhythmic groans in his ear driving Collin completely out of his mind. To hell with fantasies. This reality was better by far than anything he could have ever imagined.

  Oliver gripped Collin’s hipbones in his big, strong hands, and Collin gave himself over to it and to Oliver with abandon. It was messy and undisciplined and joyously free, totally unlike anything he’d ever experienced before.

  Oliver bent over his quivering, bucking body, absorbing Collin’s unschooled movements into his belly and reaching around again with one hand to milk Collin’s cock in rhythm with his primary plundering of Collin. Taken to the very edge of explosive release, that tight ring of Oliver’s fingers held him tethered to the edge of the abyss, suspended between consciousness and little death, unable to pull back, unable to break free and fly. It was, in a word, insane.

  Grabbing a pillow and plastering it to his face, Collin keened in desperate need to come. But… he’d… promised….

  Oliver’s hips increased in speed and urgency until they were going at it like wild animals, any sense of grace or restraint be damned. And then, without warning, Oliver let go of Collin’s cock, pushed up onto his knees, and slammed into Collin with a shout of pleasure.

  Collin exploded, a shout ripped from his own throat that devolved into an undulating cry as Oliver’s orgasm went on and on. And so did his.

  His arms gave out at the same time Oliver collapsed, the two of them pancaking onto the pile of pillows, gasping for breath.

  “Can’t. Move,” Oliver managed.

  “Don’t. Move,” Collin managed.

  “Mind. Blown.”

  “Like. Wise,” Collin sighed.

  They lay in silence for several minutes, floating in and out of a semiconscious pleasure coma that Collin had only heard of but never come close to achieving.

  “You okay?” Oliver mumbled as he finally rolled onto his back beside Collin.

  “Much better than okay.”

  “I didn’t hurt you?”

  “No.”

  “Good.”

  Collin rolled onto his side and pulled the pillows out from under his hips. A long leg looped over his calves, and a muscular arm snaked around his waist. And all the glorious, muscular heat that was Oliver curved along his back from neck to heels.

  As sanity gradually returned, his brain finally gained dominance over his body’s pleasures. And a single word consumed his mind, flashing in bright lights and accompanied by jarring alarm bells.

  Mistake.

  Chapter Seven

  OLIVER looked around the poker hall with a frown. At least a dozen players had disappeared in the twenty-four hour hiatus. Most of them had been hanging on near the bottom of the chip standings. Maybe they figured discreet withdrawal was better than risking death by continuing to swim in this particular shark tank. Smart guys.

  Genius though he might be, common sense had never been his strong suit. A smoking-hot affair with a British secret agent being a case in point. But his dick started to get hard at the mere thought of Collin stripped of all that stiff, proper veneer, dancing beneath him like a wild thing.

  Where were the Albanians? One of them had been in the top ten chip leaders, and the other had been just behind Oliver when play was suspended. Oliver looked around carefully but didn’t see either man. Weird.

  The only woman remaining in the tournament looked smu
g, her body language confident as she took her place at the same table with him. She was in the top twenty somewhere, but she’d come onto the poker scene after Oliver had left it. He’d heard she was a tough cookie and a decent card player.

  The round of play started, and he had to admit, she was good. Between the two of them, they decimated the other four players at the table, driving two of them out of the tournament outright and leaving the other two gasping on life support.

  When play was called for the night, Oliver glanced around the room, casually, he hoped. Thank God. There was Collin sitting in front of a middling-size stack of chips. Interestingly enough, it looked like most of the top players hadn’t advanced their causes much tonight. If anything, the top few players looked to have diminished their stacks.

  Trying to duck the killer, perhaps? It made sense. Better to ride along in the middle of the pack, not call attention to oneself, and wait until the final tables of play to pounce on the remaining players.

  The woman player, Stacy Kiern, moved up from number sixteen to number eight overall, and he slid up from number nine to number five. Wow. He’d had a good night, but not that great. His suspicion that the other top players were sandbagging solidified.

  He grabbed a quick sandwich out of the buffet line and headed straight back to his room, as he and Collin had agreed to earlier. They couldn’t afford to be seen as having formed too tight an alliance, or else the other players would gang up on them.

  But after eating, taking a shower, and stretching out on his bed to catch a nap, memory of the previous day in bed with Collin flashed into his head and would not get out, no matter how many differential equations he solved in his head. Fuck.

  He grabbed his phone and texted Collin. “You up?”

  An immediate “Yes.”

  “Lonely?”

  “Missing you. Does that count?”

  Oliver smiled in spite of himself. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had missed him. His parents had found him a gigantic and embarrassing inconvenience, and he’d been nearly a decade younger than everyone he ever went to school with. Then, when his peers were bombing around frat parties, trying not to flunk out college, he was the professor doing the flunking. After he’d moved to the beach, he’d focused entirely on making no emotional connections at all. And, overachiever that he was, he’d succeeded spectacularly.