Ángel’s room was the corner unit on the second floor. Charles rapped his knuckles against the door; a few moments later, the curtains over the window fluttered subtly, and Ángel swung the door open wide.
He was soaking wet, having clearly just gotten out of the shower, wearing only a threadbare motel towel low on his hips. Charles’s brain short-circuited.
Ángel smirked.
“I would have waited for you to put some clothes on,” Charles said, already so irritated that he had trouble getting the words out. This did not bode well.
“Doesn’t bother me.” Ángel leaned against the doorway, cocking one hip, and his towel slipped a little farther. Beads of water streamed down his chest and over his flat, ripped abdomen, begging to be licked off.
Charles jerked his eyes back to Ángel’s face. “It’s not safe for you to stand here with the door open.”
Rolling his eyes, Ángel moved away from the door to let Charles inside. Charles made sure the door was bolted and the security chain had been thrown before he set the tote bag on the table.
“Ed told me about your situation,” he said. “I brought you some food.”
“How generous,” said Ángel, his hands on his hips. “Why don’t you tell me why you’re really here?”
Calm. Professional. Deep breaths. “I . . .”
Ángel tugged off his towel, baring his sleek, beautiful body in all its slippery wet glory.
“Jesus Christ, Ángel,” Charles snapped, turning his head aside. His resolve to stay calm and professional shattered like fine glass. “What’s wrong with you?”
Ángel lifted the towel to scrub his hair. “So uptight, Charles. It’s nothing you haven’t seen before.”
“It’s nothing half the men you’ve met haven’t seen before.”
“Oh, so you’ve come to slut-shame me,” Ángel said, flinging his arms wide. “What a shocker. I’d have thought you’d learned the words to a different song by now.”
“That’s not . . .” Charles clenched his hands into fists and breathed through his nose. He couldn’t help a quick sideways glance at Ángel; his ass was a crime against man. “This isn’t why I came here. Could you please get dressed?”
Ángel scooped a pair of boxer briefs off the bed and put them on. They were a marginal improvement over his nudity, the stretchy fabric outlining his cock in front and clinging to his narrow hips and lush ass in back. To have convinced Ángel to concede even that much was a victory though, so Charles didn’t press for more.
“Your debrief went well,” Charles said.
“They wouldn’t have let me leave the office if it hadn’t.” Retrieving his towel from the floor, Ángel rubbed down his chest and arms. “What do you want, Charles?”
The question had been nagging at Charles all afternoon, refusing to allow him any peace. “I need to ask you about something you said during your polygraph.”
Ángel went still, narrowing his eyes. “You read a transcript of my polygraph?”
“I was there, actually. I watched part of it.”
Ángel flung his wet towel at Charles, who caught it with an exasperated grunt. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“I had permission—”
“Should I get you a copy of my therapist’s notes too, just to make sure you didn’t miss anything?”
“Ángel, come on, I don’t want to fight,” Charles said, though that wasn’t entirely true. That old familiar itch crawled beneath his skin, that low burn twisting in his gut. Fighting with Ángel was almost as good as fucking him. “Just hear me out.”
Ángel crossed his arms and waited with a lifted eyebrow.
“When the examiner asked if you’d ever empathized with Esparza, you said yes.”
“Of course I did,” Ángel said. “It’s impossible for an undercover agent to do their job if they can’t empathize with their mark.”
Charles shook his head, bewildered. “Esparza killed hundreds of people, and those are only the deaths he’s directly responsible for.”
“Yes, and he hated bananas, and he was embarrassed by the difficulty he had speaking English, and his daughter was the most important person in the world to him.” Ángel sighed. “Human beings can’t be boiled down to a single aspect of their personalities, no matter how heinous. Raúl was a terrible person—but he was still a person, and empathizing doesn’t imply condoning. You’ve never been able to understand that.”
Charles’s heart clenched at the casual way Ángel referred to Esparza by his first name. “I know you told the examiner you didn’t, but . . . did you love him?”
Ángel’s face went blank, save for the lines of tension around his eyes and mouth. “Get the fuck out of here,” he said with cold fury.
“I didn’t think you did, but you completely overreacted to that question, even though you must have known they’d ask something like it,” Charles said, barreling on despite the clear warning in Ángel’s glare. “You put so much effort into making sure the examiner wouldn’t go anywhere near those questions again. There was something you didn’t want her to know, and that doesn’t make sense, unless . . .” Oh. Oh, obvious. “He was in love with you.”
Ángel’s nostrils flared.
He had a bite mark on his collarbone, Charles noticed for the first time, now that he wasn’t making such a pointed effort not to look at Ángel’s body. Bruises on his hips in the shape of fingers.
Charles stepped toward him. “Ángel, please, I need to know if this is my fault,” he said, giving voice to his anxiety for the first time.
“What are you talking about?”
“The fight we had, the way we ended things . . . Is that why you did this? Did I drive you to him?”
Ángel blinked, and all the rage went out of him, his shoulders slumping. “You don’t know a single fucking thing about me, do you?” he said wearily.
Charles moved closer, close enough now that he could touch Ángel if he reached out. “If he hurt you—”
“I need you to leave.”
“This isn’t what I wanted,” said Charles, his insides twisted with guilt and anger and pain that was almost as strong as it had been two years ago. “I was angry—I’m still angry, if I’m being honest—but it’s driving me crazy, thinking about what he must have done to you, thinking I could be responsible for it—”
“It shouldn’t,” Ángel said, his voice low and dangerous. “I loved it.”
Charles shut his mouth. Too late, he recognized the spiteful flash in Ángel’s eyes. He should have left when Ángel asked him to, but he hadn’t, and he’d pushed too far, and now Ángel was going to make him pay for that.
“Fucking Raúl was the only good part of that assignment.” Ángel stalked toward him; Charles backed up, giving ground because he didn’t want to engage Ángel in a physical confrontation. “I enjoyed it. I looked forward to it. He was the best I’ve ever had.”
“Don’t do this,” Charles said. He knew, rationally, that Ángel was provoking him, trying to get under his skin. Knowing that should have meant it didn’t work.
It was working. God, was it working. Charles’s breath came short, his blood pumping with adrenaline. He couldn’t look away from Ángel’s face.
Ángel got Charles up against the wall and planted his hands on either side of Charles’s shoulders. “Say what you will about Raúl, but the man knew how to use his cock. You can’t imagine how good it felt inside me, fucking me, filling me up—”
Charles grabbed Ángel’s forearms, intending to push him away. Ángel twisted out of his grip and shoved Charles hard, so that his back slammed into the wall. Charles exhaled harshly.
“How dare you come in here all prissy and sanctimonious and try to make the last two years of my life about you?” Ángel said. He fisted his hands in the collar of Charles’s shirt, as if he was about to shove him again. Charles seized both his wrists, but Ángel didn’t move, didn’t try to free himself again. “I don’t want your condescending pity, Charles, or your fake guilt.
I don’t want anything from you anym—”
Charles yanked him close and kissed him, their mouths crashing together. Ángel wrenched his wrists out of Charles’s hands only to throw his arms around Charles’s neck.
The kiss was messy and violent, Charles clutching at every inch of Ángel’s warm, damp skin that he could reach, Ángel’s nails digging into Charles’s scalp through his short hair. Charles was hard—had been hard since Ángel had shoved him into the wall—and Ángel caught up quickly, his swelling cock pressed against Charles’s.
Charles groaned low in his throat, ears ringing and body shaking with the intensity of his desire. He pushed one hand down the back of Ángel’s underwear to grope his ass. Ángel grunted in response, dropping his own hands to Charles’s shirt buttons. Together, they wrestled Charles out of his shirt, and Charles slipped an arm around Ángel’s waist, herding him back toward the bed. They kissed as they stumbled along, biting at each other’s mouths, Ángel tugging open Charles’s belt and fly.
When Ángel’s thighs hit the edge of the mattress, Charles broke the kiss and pushed him backward. Ángel sprawled, propping himself on his forearms, all long, lean limbs and smooth golden-brown skin. His cocksucking mouth was swollen, his tousled, wet hair in his eyes as he looked up at Charles.
Charles toed out of his shoes and hesitated with his hands on his waistband.
“Take your fucking pants off,” Ángel said, kicking Charles’s thigh.
Charles stripped off the rest of his clothes while Ángel shimmied out of his boxer briefs. Then Charles was on him again, crushing Ángel into the bed with his weight, kissing the fuck out of him and frotting their cocks together. Ángel’s hands roamed Charles’s sides, grasping at his shoulders, raking over his chest.
There were times it had been soft and sweet between them, bodies moving together languidly, Ángel gasping compliments into Charles’s ear about his strength, the breadth of his shoulders, the rhythm of his hips.
This wasn’t one of those times. Ángel scraped his fingernail over Charles’s nipple, then pinched and twisted viciously. Charles bucked against him.
“Are you going to fuck me or what?” Ángel said.
Charles bit Ángel’s throat, sucking until Ángel squirmed and cursed underneath him. Having successfully retaliated, Charles released his flesh and said, “I don’t have anything.”
“Bedside drawer.”
Frowning, Charles reached over and opened the drawer in the nightstand. Sure enough, it contained a brand-new bottle of lube and an unopened box of condoms.
“When did you get this?” he asked as he dropped them on the bed.
“When I went to Target today.” Ángel still rubbed his cock against Charles’s, his eyes half-closed. “I was going to go out tonight.”
Charles’s jaw tightened. “Of course you were.” He rose, grabbed Ángel’s hips, and flipped him onto his stomach.
Far from protesting the new position, Ángel arranged himself on his knees, flexing his hips to present Charles with his delicious, round ass. Charles cracked open the lube and squirted it messily over his fingers without looking away.
The satisfied sigh Ángel let out when Charles slid a finger inside him unraveled Charles’s self-control. “You can’t even go a single day without this, can you?” he said, giving Ángel a second finger too soon. “How were you even going to get to a bar? Bus, cab? You don’t have any money.”
Ángel rocked back against Charles’s hand, his ass tight but accommodating, taking the penetration with no problem. “I would have figured something out.”
Deliberately avoiding Ángel’s prostate, Charles corkscrewed his fingers in and out of his hole. “Probably wouldn’t have made it past the parking lot before you were bending over the trunk of some guy’s car.”
Ángel’s laugh was sharp and cruel. “Speaking from experience?”
Charles hadn’t been thinking about that time, but now that Ángel had reminded him, he couldn’t think of anything else. Though it had been illegal and stupid and so vulgar, he’d once taken Ángel over the trunk of his car in the parking lot of his apartment building—because when Ángel Medina wanted a cock up his ass, it was very difficult to refuse.
The fact that he hadn’t wanted to refuse was beside the point.
He pushed his fingertips against Ángel’s prostate and pulsed them until Ángel cried out, his smugness collapsing into a litany of breathless moans as his hands clawed at the comforter. Ángel’s prostate was insanely sensitive; with enough stimulation, he could come without touching his cock, something that had always fascinated Charles.
“Fuck, fuck, you asshole,” Ángel said when Charles pulled his fingers out. His entire body trembled.
Charles ripped open the box of condoms and fished one out, rolling it onto his cock with unsteady hands. Ángel turned onto his back. Annoyed, Charles took hold of his hip to flip him back over, but Ángel slapped his hand away.
“If you’re going to fuck me, you’re going to look me in the face when you do it,” he said.
“Fine.” Charles grabbed the backs of Ángel’s knees and spread his legs wide, lifting Ángel’s ass off the bed and settling it on his own thighs. He had to release one of Ángel’s knees for a moment to guide his cock into place, but as soon as the head popped in, his hand was back in position, keeping Ángel splayed open for him. Charles rolled his hips, working his cock into Ángel’s slick, tight hole with slow thrusts.
“Ah, fuck, I forgot how big your cock is.” Ángel braced one hand against the headboard, turning his face aside and panting into the pillow. “Shit.”
Charles had to close his eyes, because if he watched the rapturous expression on Ángel’s face as he was opened up by Charles’s cock, Charles would blow his load right now. He gripped Ángel’s legs and fucked into him until he bottomed out, then pulled back and slammed home again with one rough thrust. Sparks exploded behind his closed eyelids.
Ángel’s free hand scrabbled at Charles’s hip, pulling him forward. “Yeah, fuck me, come on. Come on.”
“Oh, God,” Charles said, surrendering to his body’s—and Ángel’s—demands. He snapped his hips, pounding into Ángel, thrilling to the way Ángel moaned and moved with him and accepted every aggressive stroke like he’d been made for it. “Take it. Fucking take it.”
“Give it to me harder, then,” Ángel ground out.
Charles opened his eyes, startled to find Ángel watching his face closely. Ángel stiffened and looked away, but Charles caught his chin and turned him back. Ángel’s freed leg wrapped around Charles’s waist without missing a beat, the rhythm of their hips never faltering.
“Did Esparza fuck you like this?” Charles said, hoarse.
Ángel met his eyes with a defiant glare. “Better.”
Charles barked out a laugh. “You’ve always been a little fucking liar. If you ever tell the truth, it’s completely by accident.”
Before Ángel could respond, Charles dropped the other leg and lowered his body, leaning forward on his hands so he could drive his cock deeper into Ángel’s ass. Ángel shouted, both of his legs clenching against Charles’s sides, and grabbed for his own cock where it bobbed rigid and leaking between them.
Ángel’s cock was as gorgeous as the rest of him, long and cut, the glistening head flushed dark with blood. Charles watched him stroke it, remembering how good that cock had felt in his mouth. Spurred by the memories, Charles changed his angle, fucking Ángel quick and shallow so he could catch his prostate over and over. Ángel’s answering cry was high and thready; he writhed, biting his lip as he stared down at where their bodies came together.
“That’s it,” Charles said, speeding up. “That’s it, you like that?”
Ángel pushed Charles’s shoulders, knocking him backward, his cock slipping free of Ángel’s ass. Charles hissed in discomfort, but before he could worry that he’d crossed the line, Ángel rolled them both over and climbed on top. He sank onto Charles’s cock with a throaty moan.
“I like this better,” he said, daring Charles to challenge him.
Fine by Charles. He planted his feet flat against the bed and held Ángel’s hips, helping Ángel bounce on his cock. Ángel braced one hand on Charles’s chest, jerking himself off with the other while he rode Charles, both of them exhaling punched-out breaths every time Ángel’s ass smacked against Charles’s hip bones.
Charles wasn’t going to last long, watching Ángel so passionate and uninhibited on top of him. Once, he would have tried to hold out, determined for Ángel to come first, but now he didn’t give a shit. He tightened his grip, rutting away, pumping up into Ángel’s sleek heat until he came in hot, throbbing pulses that sucked all the energy out of the rest of his body.
“Ugh, you selfish dick,” Ángel said when Charles sagged into the mattress. He pulled Charles’s hand off his hip and wrapped it around his cock. “Get me off.”
As Ángel circled his hips, rubbing his prostate against Charles’s shaft, Charles tugged his cock tight and hard, just the way he liked it. Ángel sucked in a sharp breath, then slapped Charles’s chest and threw his head back in orgasm, come spurting over Charles’s hand and splattering onto his abdomen. Angel’s hole clenched around Charles’s sensitive cock, and Charles let out a strangled groan, his spine arching and his hips coming right off the bed in a whole-body shudder.
When Ángel’s body relaxed, Charles dropped down. Ángel slumped forward over him, catching himself on his hands. He was breathing as hard as Charles, his body glistening with sweat. Their eyes met.
Charles lifted his clean hand to brush Ángel’s hair out of his face. Ángel’s gaze shifted to Charles’s mouth, and he leaned down a bit more. Charles’s fingers stroked over Ángel’s cheek, down his throat, and lingered over the bite mark above his collarbone.
It was then, with his tension purged and his mind working clearly for the first time since he’d seen Ángel again, that Charles realized the marks on Ángel’s body were fresh, one or two days old at most.
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