It was the masked man’s turn to laugh. Something passed over his face, some shadow, followed by a moment’s indecision. Then, softly, the man murmured, “You can call me Jeff.”
Silence hung between them, punctuated only by the ragged rhythm of their breaths. The man’s eyes raked over his face, then lower as warm fingers changed their grip. For just a second, Jeff released him, and Mack mourned the loss of the touch he’d dreamed of. At the same time, he watched the man’s expression change, blue eyes widening. Then those hands were on him once more, those long fingers surrounding his wrists.
Jeff’s lips quirked up into a smile as his eyes lit with comprehension. “I know who you are too.” He slid his hands down Mack’s arms to rest them on his shoulders.
Mack was almost afraid to ask.
“Who am I?”
“Mack,” Jeff said, his voice low. “I do believe you’re the Invisible Man.”
HOW long had Jeff dreamed of this? In a world of flashy, vain men all jockeying for position, out-macho-ing each other, there was just one man who did good without the expectation of reward. He worked silently, never showing his face and never asking for accolades.
This man.
“You are, aren’t you?” Jeff asked, his words coming out in a rush, his excitement spilling over. “I’ve been following you for years. Saving the Masen widow. Taking down Dr. Cephalopod. And never sticking around to take the credit. I always wondered how you did it, but….”
But he hadn’t had a choice, had he?
Mack chuckled underneath him. “I’m no hero.”
“Of course you are. You could have done anything you wanted. But you chose to do the right thing. You have no idea how much I admire that.”
Jeff’s voice grew softer and softer with every word, as did his grip. He didn’t let go, though. He’d already tried that, had watched Mack disappear before his eyes the moment his hands had left his skin. And he wanted to see this man. Wanted to look at the deep color of his eyes and the shape of his lips. At all that warm flesh….
Jeff paused for a minute, stiffening, and in more ways than one. His preferences were well-known, and yet here he was, pinning a naked man down. Mack might think—
Glancing between their bodies, Jeff sucked in a shuddering breath. If Mack wasn’t comfortable being in close proximity to another man, he had a funny way of showing it.
God, his cock was perfect. Long and hard, the head shining.
Jeff forced his eyes closed and shifted so that when he looked again, it was at Mack’s face. Into eyes that were darkened with arousal.
His voice was rough when he spoke. “You always fight crime in the nude?”
“Have to,” Mack answered. His words were just as strained. “People can see the clothes. Tends to tip the bad guys off.”
It was all but an admission. Jeff was really talking to the Invisible Man.
“How long have you been like this?”
“Since I was thirteen.” Mack’s mouth drew into a mournful line. “Puberty, the best I can figure.”
“God.” Jeff dug his fingers into Mack’s shoulders. “And no one could see you? No one at all?”
“No. No one. Not until you.”
Beneath him, he could feel Mack’s muscles tensing, and the man’s gaze darted from Jeff’s eyes down to his mouth and back again. He had the worst poker face in the world, but then again, after all those years of never being seen, he wouldn’t have had much cause to practice, would he?
So Jeff saw it coming, but he didn’t back away. Oh no. When Mack lifted up, closed his eyes, and pressed soft lips to lips, Jeff met him halfway.
Jeff kissed him back.
OH GOD.
It was too much, all sensation and the pressure of lips against his, hot breath and a mouth opening, the wet swipe of tongue. Mack moaned, tasting another man for the first time.
He wasn’t a virgin, technically. Shameful as it was, in moments of desperation, he had found partners willing to meet with no information exchanged. Willing to be blindfolded.
He wasn’t proud to admit that he’d had to pay. But there weren’t many options for a man incapable of being seen. He’d been touched, been sucked. Once or twice, he’d even fucked, but it had been nothing to this.
This was something else entirely.
Lost in the kiss and in the shape of Jeff’s chest and arms, Mack gave himself over. He wrapped his legs around the other man’s hips, arched his back at the pressure of the hard cock sliding against his own. Jeff groaned, and it threatened to send Mack spiraling. Gasping for air, he pulled his mouth away.
Jeff seemed to be on the same page. “Too fast,” he murmured, but he didn’t stop. He just pushed his lips down Mack’s chin, down the column of his throat to suck at the arch of his collarbone. “We can’t. Not here. They’ll be coming back—”
“My place.” Mack closed his eyes and let his head tip back at the sensation of being consumed this way. “Not far.”
Mack had never taken anyone home with him before. It was a sterile place, stocked entirely with supplies that could be bought online or over the phone. Paid for electronically, from wages earned at a remote work-from-home job. It had never known another person’s presence. Had never known love.
Mack suddenly wanted it to be seen.
In one swift move, Jeff tore himself away, sat back on his haunches. But he never lost contact with Mack’s skin. Eyes burning, he said simply, “Lead the way.”
Mack cast a regretful eye down at where Jeff’s palm was resting on his calf. “You’re going to have to let go.”
“I know.”
JEFF watched his fingers the entire time as he slid them down Mack’s ankle, lingering there near the sole of his foot. “You’re hurt,” he said quietly.
“I’ve had worse.”
“Would you let me bandage it?”
Mack shook his head and sat up. “Not here.” He pulled away another inch.
The instant he lost contact with Mack’s skin, Jeff felt it, felt the absence of warmth. And he watched as the man faded away before his eyes.
It was easier to stay focused on him now, though. That was how it went with superpowers involving illusions. The better Jeff knew them—the longer he’d been canceling them out—the easier it was to peer through them, even without the physical contact. While Mack was insubstantial, all his colors muted, he was still there. Still beautiful.
“You’ll have to stay close,” Jeff warned as they each stood.
“How close?”
Jeff backed up a couple feet, and with every increase in the distance between them, Mack’s image grew fainter, until a little over a yard, when he was lost entirely. Panic closed the back of Jeff’s throat, and he advanced again, sighing in relief when Mack reemerged from the darkness. “About that far,” he said.
Mack nodded, then turned and started walking. When he looked back to see if Jeff was with him, Jeff didn’t hesitate.
It was a surreal experience, moving through the building, following a ghost. Sure enough, as they emerged out into the hall, Jeff heard the voices of his partners, of police officers. Mack whistled low and gestured toward a stairwell Jeff hadn’t seen. Checking in both directions to make sure they weren’t being watched, Jeff opened the door and held it for Mack, then moved through it himself.
The stairs emptied out into a hall that led to a back exit—one not flanked by press or cop cars, thank goodness. Jeff didn’t know what he would do if he was stopped or recognized or, worse, asked for an interview. Fortunately, Mack led him down alleyways and side streets, kept him away from peering eyes. Even beyond the fact that he was following a naked man that no one else could see, it felt strange. It was strange not to be in the private jet his team used or speeding down the streets in his tricked-out car. It was strange to be walking. In full costume. Toward a man’s home.
Finally, Mack stopped, and Jeff looked up. It was a nondescript apartment building, no different from any other, except that the ladder to its fi
re escape was already extended. Mack hoisted himself up without fanfare, and after checking one last time that there was no one around to observe Neutralizer scaling a building in the middle of the night, Jeff started climbing too. At the very top floor, Mack hoisted open a window and crawled through.
Jeff’s defenses went on high alert. Whether or not he should, he trusted Mack, but he couldn’t help being wary. With one hand on the holster of his stun gun, he peered through the window into a darkened space. It looked like a normal apartment.
Then there was warm pressure on the back of his hand, fingers grasping his. And suddenly the apartment was anything but normal.
It was Mack’s. And Mack was waiting for Jeff inside it.
ON SOME level, Mack had been waiting for it. After all, who did this? Who followed a stranger back to his home? Hell, a stranger he’d met at a crime scene, no less?
Still, when the hesitation appeared in Jeff’s gaze, right there on the balcony outside Mack’s apartment, it made something inside Mack ache.
So he didn’t think when he reached out and put his hand on Jeff’s. The instant their skin touched, Jeff’s head jerked up, his gaze going to Mack’s face, and the tightness in Mack’s chest eased at the softening in the other man’s features. Even while they’d been walking, Jeff had looked so uncomfortable, so wary. The moment’s pause outside the window had just been an escalation of a trend that had followed them the entire way from the museum. Jeff had become Neutralizer—the public figure and the superhero.
But now, as they looked each other in the eye, that all peeled away again, leaving them just two men. Two men who wanted each other.
Mack couldn’t think of anything he’d ever wanted more.
Clearing his throat, pushing past all the arousal and the nervousness, Mack gestured toward his living room. “Would you like to come in?”
Some part of him was still waiting for Jeff to say no, was watching the tight lines of muscle on his body for the signs that he was readying to flee. But the only movements Jeff made were to push himself forward, to use Mack’s hand to steady himself as he climbed inside.
The instant Jeff set both feet down on his side of the wall, Mack felt his heart start to pound, and as he reached forward to touch Jeff’s jaw, needing to know that he was real, his hand shook. But then his fingertips connected with rough skin, the scratch of stubble.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
All the urgency from the museum was gone. So slowly, Jeff leaned forward, and Mack did too, until their lips connected in a kiss as soft as a breath. As he opened for him, darted his tongue out to taste him, Mack slid his fingertips along Jeff’s jaw, up his cheek toward silky fabric.
He looked into Jeff’s eyes as he asked him, “Can I take this off?”
IT HAD been a rule of Jeff’s for so many years. The Neutralizer didn’t date. He’d never brought a grateful victim home or given in to the rush of hormones after a mission, letting one of the closeted heroes he worked with seduce him. He’d kept the lines clear.
They were beyond blurry now.
And yet, as Mack touched the mask that separated Jeff from his alter ego, Jeff wanted to get rid of the line altogether.
His voice was gruff, his throat tight. “Yeah.”
As if he knew exactly how monumental of a shift this was, Mack used slow, careful fingers to find the edges of the mask and to lift them. The instant the fabric slipped away, Jeff shivered, suddenly feeling naked, even though he was the one still fully clothed.
For what seemed like the longest time, Mack swept his gaze over Jeff’s face, his expression maddeningly neutral. It took almost all of Jeff’s patience to stand there and let himself be examined.
Then Mack’s lips twitched up, his palm coming to rest on Jeff’s neck. “And I thought you were handsome with the mask.”
Jeff could hardly explain what happened next. With a growl building in his throat, he attacked Mack, sliding hands up his torso and then down his back to grip his ass and pull him close. He wanted too much, wanted to take and be taken, to give himself to this mystery of a man and to let him see him. To be both the hero and the man, all at once.
Picking up on his urgency, Mack moaned and reflected it all right back, tugging Jeff toward the hallway and tearing at the fasteners for his cape. Still keeping even with him, Jeff helped, dropping the cape on the floor before starting in on the rest of his costume. By the time they stumbled into a neat, small bedroom, Jeff had the top half of his outfit hanging low on his hips, and all he could feel was the heat of Mack’s hands on his bare chest.
Spying the bed against the wall, Jeff pulled Mack closer and kissed him fiercely, then picked him up and pushed him backward onto the mattress. He climbed up right after him, working hard to keep a hand on skin at all times, but even the flashes of invisibility that accompanied separation were becoming less disconcerting now. When Mack slid a hand between their bodies and pushed the red-and-gray tights all the way down Jeff’s thighs, Jeff cursed, reached down, and shoved his briefs away himself.
The next thing he knew was the full expanse of Mack’s body, the warm slide of so much skin on skin as he pressed the man down into the mattress. He groaned, kissing harder and shuddering when their cocks met, hard flesh trapped between their hips. There was the sticky slick of precome and the hot squeeze as Mack wrapped his thighs around Jeff’s hips.
“God,” Jeff said with a gasp, biting his way from Mack’s lips to his jaw and then his ear. “I want you. So bad.” Just so there’d be no mistake, he thrust forward, pulling a deep sound of pleasure from Mack’s throat as their cocks slid, hot and wet, against each other. He dug his fingers into the other man’s hips. “I want to fuck you.”
MACK’S whole body arched, his head pressing back against the pillow as he clung to Jeff’s shoulders, his orgasm rising up at just those words. He pushed it down and bit hard at his tongue, then sucked in a rough gasp of air.
“God, yes.”
Hot lips pursed around his earlobe, the teasing nips of teeth, and then Jeff was sucking his way down Mack’s throat to the place where his shoulder met his neck. A burst of pleasure rushed through Mack, shooting through his spine and to his groin. No one had ever found that spot before.
And there were so many more to discover—the center of his chest and the edge of his nipple, the crest of his hip, and the very base of his cock.
“Jesus, Jeff,” Mack hissed. He slid tentative fingers into the other man’s hair and held his breath. Blue eyes stared back up at him, and then there was just wet heat. Mack slammed his fist into the mattress and clenched his jaw to keep from crying out as Jeff sucked him down. He felt himself hitting the back of the man’s throat, and then going deeper.
It was too intense. Too good.
“Slow down,” he begged, and Jeff appeased him, switching to slow, wet kisses up and down the sides of his cock before stopping to pull one ball and then the other into his mouth. His hands were splayed on Mack’s hips, holding him down. Holding him to this earth when everything felt like it wanted to fly off of it.
And yet Mack still wanted more.
He wanted everything.
Unwilling to be parted from the pleasure of those lips, he flung one arm out to the side, flailing as he felt around for the drawer on his bedside table. When he finally connected with wood, he wrenched the thing open and dug around until his fingers curled around the little bottle he’d kept there for so long, knowing he would never use it with someone else. But always hoping. Dreaming.
He practically threw it at Jeff, grunting out a wordless plea. Jeff disconnected his lips from Mack’s skin just long enough to smirk and murmur, “Eager, are we?” before sucking the head of Mack’s cock back into his mouth.
Mack stuttered out a low groan and spread his legs. Seconds later he was rewarded with the gentle probing of fingertips around his hole. When he pushed back against them, they retreated, only to return, slick.
So slowly, so carefully, Jeff opened him. Mack brac
ed himself for pain, then relished the low burn as Jeff pressed deeper and deeper. More and more.
“Tell me what you want,” Jeff begged.
“You.” Mack panted, starving for air and for this. He looked down into burning eyes, connecting with them just as Jeff hit something inside him—something that threatened to turn him inside out. “Christ,” he gasped. “Fuck me. I want you to fuck me.”
And then he was empty again, reeling and desperate, and Jeff was climbing up his body, gaze level with his, mouth hovering so close.
“Mack,” he whispered. There was something in his expression, something that was more than just lust. Something so earnest it almost hurt.
Mack wrapped his legs around Jeff’s waist and touched his face. “I know,” was all he could say. “I know.”
THE first press inside Mack’s body took Jeff’s breath away. It was tight and hot, the way made slick for him. All these little noises escaped Mack’s throat, and he dug his fingers hard into Jeff’s arms, like they were sharing both the pleasure and the pain. Only it was all pleasure, all of it. The press and the squeeze, the hard and soft.
Jeff kept his gaze fixed on Mack’s eyes, watching them flutter closed and then open again. Even as their mouths met in a crushing kiss, as Jeff felt his hips push flush against Mack’s ass, they stared at each other.
He saw Mack. And in that moment, it was as if he saw into him. As if Mack saw just as deeply back.
“Move,” Mack gasped.
Jeff groaned and finally closed his eyes, lurched forward to press his forehead to the pillow beside Mack’s ear, open mouth against Mack’s cheek. He drew his hips back only to push forward. He rocked slowly and shallowly, lost in the heat and the velvet grip. As he pushed, he shifted his angle until all the air seemed to leave Mack’s lungs at once.
“There?”
“Right there.”
Mack twisted, pressing hot lips to Jeff’s, and Jeff answered. With their mouths connected, with Jeff’s body buried so deeply inside, they pushed and pulled, flying higher and higher.
Men of Steel Page 12
