Pack of Lies, page 17
“What’s the matter, David? Don’t trust me?” Patrick asked lightly.
A complicated expression flickered across Bucknell’s face too quickly for Julien to understand. “I just thought you already had plans.” He didn’t make a big deal of looking directly at Eli, but his eyes did flicker in that direction.
Eli didn’t appear to notice. His gaze was slightly unfocused and he was drifting closer to where Cody stood by the window. Julien couldn’t imagine why. From Cody’s steadily reddening face, neither could he. Suddenly Eli stooped, reaching under the kitchen counter, forcing Cody to stumble backward. When he straightened, he held something in his hand. “Did you drop this?”
Cody’s face spasmed. He reached out to snatch it away, but Eli was too quick, pulling it just out of reach. Julien recognized the small carved wooden figurine from Annabelle’s desk. He opened his mouth to say...what? Hope my fingerprints aren’t still on that!
But fortunately, Annabelle beat him to it. “That’s mine. I have no idea how it got in here.”
“Is that one of Ian’s creatures?” Patrick asked curiously, looking over Eli’s shoulder. “God, I’d forgotten he did those.”
Julien cleared his throat. “What is it?”
“Nothing. A—a memento, really. Ian carved them for fun. I held on to one or two when he left.” Annabelle forced a self-conscious laugh and reached for the statuette. This time Eli let it go. “How pathetic is that? Maybe you’re right, Cody. Maybe I...” She trailed off, frowning in confusion.
“Something wrong?” Eli asked lightly, but he was watching Annabelle with a very intent expression. Julien took a closer look, too, and realized with a jolt that it wasn’t the same statuette at all. Raw wood, palm-sized and also clearly whittled by hand, this wasn’t the same creepy monster as before. This one was rougher, more crudely done, and seemed to be a perfectly ordinary wolf rearing up onto its hind legs.
“I’ve never seen this before,” Annabelle said slowly.
“Perhaps it’s a newer piece. A little welcome-home present,” Eli murmured.
“You think it was Ian?” Annabelle asked incredulously. “Here in the kitchen?”
“Is there some reason you don’t?” Eli asked, but Annabelle just shook her head and looked back down at the wolf.
“Does it look like Ian’s work?” Julien asked.
Annabelle scoffed. “He’s a hobbyist, not Dali. I’d hardly say he had a signature style.”
“What about this?” Eli asked, plucking the electric lantern off the counter and holding it up toward the wall over the sink. “Does this seem like his style?”
There beside the window someone had carved a word directly into the light green plasterboard: Thief.
Everyone in the room broke into surprised chatter. Bucknell strode forward to examine the wall, pulling a small flashlight from his belt, Annabelle sagged against the counter, just barely held up by Patrick at her side, and Cody... Cody was staring at the carved wolf that Annabelle had dropped to the floor. At the center of it all, Eli just stood there surveying the chaos with a smug look on his face.
Theatrical bastard, Julien thought, and had the sudden, inappropriate urge to kiss him.
“Anyone steal anything recently?” Eli asked, which shut the room up pretty quickly.
“Who the hell do you think you’re talking to?” Cody exploded, stepping in front of Annabelle.
“The same person for whom this brand-new bit of wall decor is intended, of course. I don’t think it’s a leap in logic to suppose whoever was in this kitchen, be it man or myth, believes someone in this lodge has stolen from them. It seems to me that the simplest way of finding the accuser is to identify the accused. So...” He paused and tilted his head at Cody, blinking innocently. “Is this the part where I demand we strip-search you?”
Cody’s hand shot forward toward Eli in a wild punch. Julien cried out, and stepped forward to stop him, but he was too far away to get there in time—
Smack.
Eli caught Cody’s fist inches from his face. There was a ringing silence of shock. Cody tried to yank away, but Eli didn’t let him go. He didn’t even sway.
“I don’t like to be hit,” Eli said. His expression was uncharacteristically serious, and the lantern hanging limply in his other hand threw strange shadows across his face, making it look a bit sharper, strange. Julien felt an involuntary shiver run through him. “Don’t ever try it again.”
Eli released his hold on Cody, who stumbled backward, slipping slightly in the gasoline.
“All right, that’s enough of that,” Bucknell said, stepping up to them.
“Oh, fuck you,” Cody snapped. “Fuck all of you! I’m so done with this shit.” He stomped out of the kitchen.
“Cody, wait!” Annabelle said, belatedly, but he’d already disappeared.
“Let him go, Annie,” Bucknell said, touching her arm gently.
“But what if he leaves? It’s too dangerous to—I’m sorry, I can’t,” Annabelle said, pulling away from him, and hurried after Cody.
Bucknell stared after her for a moment, expression worried.
“Mama Annabelle runs to kiss the booboo better while you and I are left to clean up. Just like old times,” Patrick murmured. “And here I thought she wouldn’t be able to find someone less willing to grow up than Ia—”
“Don’t,” Bucknell interrupted. “Just don’t.”
Patrick’s eyes glittered, but he shrugged and placed a hand on Eli’s shoulder. “Are you all right?”
Eli’s answering smile trembled so pitifully that it seemed impossible he’d been the one to humiliate Cody less than a minute ago. “A little shaken up. I think I need to lie down, actually.”
“I can walk with you,” Julien said hastily, itching to push Patrick’s hand off Eli’s shoulder where it still sat, gently rubbing soothing circles, petting him like an animal.
“Good idea. You two better head to your rooms. Patrick, looks like a spot on patrol duty just opened up.”
Patrick looked like he wanted to protest.
“I’d also like to take a look at your monster kit. See if there’s anything I can use to get some samples off this.” Bucknell gestured at the Thief carved into the wall.
“Right. Of course, no problem.” Patrick squeezed Eli’s shoulder. “If you need anything, anytime, my door is open.”
Eli blinked gratefully up at him. “Thank you.”
Patrick patted his back one last time and turned away. Eli met Julien’s gaze and winked.
Something loosened inside Julien’s chest. “Right, we’ll leave you to it!” He consciously pulled back on the cheerfulness when the others looked startled. “Be careful.”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Doran,” Bucknell said. “This is nothing but low-life scare tactics. No one here is in any real danger.”
They said good-night, and Julien and Eli walked in silent agreement across the lodge, up the three flights of stairs and down the dark hall until they got to Julien’s door.
“Want to come in for a minute?” Julien asked, already holding the door open for Eli, who wordlessly entered.
As soon as the door closed behind them Julien blew out a breath. “What in the ever-loving fuck is going on?”
“I couldn’t have put it better myself,” Eli mused. “Did I miss anything beforehand? A communal sipping from the cup of delirium, perhaps?”
“No, no, nothing like that, Jesus. More myth talk and Mrs. Miura won two hundred and forty-five dollars off me. Thanks for that, by the way. Mind telling me whose drawers you were rifling through while I covered for you?”
Eli shot him a look, half appraising, half delighted. “You know, you’re getting awfully familiar for a stranger I picked up on vacation. I thought it was a good idea to poke around the myth man’s room. I had a theory. I was wrong. Even the greats, et cetera et cetera.”
“A theory that Patrick West isn’t being honest about what the hell he’s really doing here because it sure as shit isn’t convincing Annabelle to sell?”
“Call me a cynic, but when someone asks what’s more believable, having an affair while searching for untold riches or tromping around the woods chasing after fairy tales, my answer will always be sex and money.” Eli sighed and looked out toward the balcony window and the moon that kept the room from total darkness. “That said, I didn’t find anything connected to Ian, Nielsen, or what the hell he was doing in town last week.”
Julien acknowledged that with a neutral hum and studied Eli’s face draped in shadows. “Mmmm. Why a wolf?”
For a moment it didn’t seem like Eli had heard him. Then, without turning away from the window, he asked, “Hmm? Why a wolf what?”
“Ian’s carving. Do you think it’s...significant? Like a calling card for some kind of group or—or something...” Julien trailed off as Eli shot him a skeptical look.
“Don’t tell me you’re back on your mafia theories,” he said.
“No, but...what if the wolf itself was some sort of message?”
“Well, I don’t think the intruder unintentionally dropped the most conspicuous clue since Cinderella’s glass slipper, if that’s what you’re saying. It’s a message certainly, but whether it’s shorthand for I’m watching you. Best wishes, Ian, or something else entirely, I don’t know.”
“Cody does. He couldn’t take his eyes off it. I can’t believe he took a swing at you. Nice moves, by the way. Consider me thoroughly intimidated.”
Eli brought back the same tremulous smile he’d turned on Patrick. “I don’t know what came over me. God, I was terrified.”
“Save it,” Julien said bluntly. “Unlike the rest of them, I haven’t underestimated you since I washed up on your shores one night seeking shelter and ended up as a whetstone to sharpen your tongue instead. I just didn’t realize your hands were twice as quick as your mouth.”
“I have no idea what you mean. I promise you, my mouth is the most dangerous thing about me,” Eli said, absurdly innocent and wide-eyed for one unnatural moment, before he grinned, a brief flash of teeth in the moonlight. “Besides, you’re one to talk. I can’t remember the last time I was tackled to the ground. An amateur sleuth and a trained fighter? I had no idea you were so versatile.”
“I’m not. A fighter,” Julien added a touch too quickly, and felt his face heat when Eli huffed. “But my stepfather was a stuntman. I can take a man down.”
“I bet you can.”
Julien stared at him and Eli stared back, eyes glinting. Belatedly Julien reached for the light switch on the wall. The flick was loud in the suddenly quiet room, but the room stayed dark, and Julien remembered the power was still out.
“Well.” He cleared his throat. “Where have they put you?”
Eli examined his keycard. “Three doors down to the left. Neighboring Cody, as it happens. Perhaps we may mend fences yet.”
Julien frowned. “I don’t like the idea of any of us being alone tonight.”
“As you insisted on pointing out, I’m tougher than I look.”
“I’m not. This whole undaunted exterior is a carefully constructed facade. If at any point during the night you hear someone screaming, it’s the real me. Feel free to come meet him. Bring that dangerous mouth of yours.”
That was when Eli reached for him. Their bodies met and Julien’s arms automatically went around Eli at the same time he felt Eli’s hands slide up his chest, skirt over his throat and into his hair, where they clenched and tugged until their lips were almost touching.
Julien stopped him. Because he’d never forgive himself if he didn’t at least try. “Eli,” he breathed, looking down at his beautiful face with all its contrasts of light and dark, delicate and deadly. “No complaints. Not one single one. But...you said we shouldn’t do this again. I can’t trust you. You can’t trust me.”
Eli shook his head, denying something—what he’d said then, what Julien had said now, himself. “But do you want me?” he asked softly, which wasn’t really an answer, but Julien hadn’t really asked a question, and he could feel the words on his skin.
“Yes,” Julien choked, and his hands slipped daringly down Eli’s back until his fingertips brushed the top swell of his ass. More than I should. More than I thought I still could. “So badly.”
“I can work with that,” Eli hissed, and shoved him backward against the door. Julien hit the wood with a rattling thud that could absolutely be heard up and down the hall. Probably downstairs, too. Hell, they might have caught Sweet Pea’s attention, for all Julien cared. At that moment, all he could think about was the sight of Eli dropping to his knees and crawling toward him with that sharp, almost predatory focus.
“Fuck,” Julien groaned, and Eli pressed his face up against his dick through his pants and hummed an agreement. He nudged and mouthed at Julien a few times as if assessing the position of him like this, hard and trapped, then suddenly sat back on his heels.
Julien watched, his entire body taut with anticipation and arousal, but Eli didn’t move. Just knelt there, looking up at him, a little coy, a little hungry. Slowly, deliberately, Julien undid the button and zip of his pants. Eli’s eyes flickered with excitement.
“Is that what you’re waiting for?” Julien murmured, squeezing himself roughly. “Do you want to suck me?”
He expected a smart-ass reply, but Eli’s lips just parted passively and he squirmed slightly in place on the floor. Julien took off his heavy-knit sweater and dropped it in a neat pile at his feet. “Here. Get on that.”
Eli knelt up on the padding obediently, still looking up at him. Julien maneuvered his pants down just enough to get his dick free and fisted himself slowly. Eli’s gaze dropped, but when Julien tsked, he immediately looked back up. “I’d like to watch your pretty face while I feed you my cock. Can you do that?”
Eli blinked slowly and paused long enough that Julien actually stopped midstroke, arousal abating as the silence grew. “Yes,” Eli said finally, simply.
Julien studied him, worried he’d gotten this horribly wrong. Again. “Are you sure? We can do something else. Whatever you want,” he said recklessly, and hoped he meant it. “Or if you changed your mind—”
Eli reached up and gripped Julien’s hand, cutting him off. “I haven’t. But I don’t like...speaking. During sex. Is that a problem?” he asked in a disinterested tone that might be convincing if Julien’s fingers weren’t going a bit tingly from the tightness of Eli’s grip. Clearly it had been a problem for someone before and Julien’s distant anger at that thought untangled the last of his nerves, replacing them with an odd sort of protectiveness.
“Would it bother you if I talk?”
“No,” Eli said immediately, and Julien bit back a smile. “No more than usual,” he snipped.
“And if I ask you questions, will you nod or shake your head so I know you’re good?”
“Yes, fine,” Eli said stiffly.
“You can pinch me if it’s urgent. I don’t like being pinched, so there’s no chance of misinterpreting that. Okay?”
Eli opened his mouth, but Julien brushed his thumb over his lips to stop him from speaking.
“Okay?” he asked again.
Eli’s gaze softened to something pleased and very nearly shy. He nodded and Julien was surprised by the pulse of arousal that simple movement sent through him. Usually he liked nothing better than wringing a loud and desperate yes from his partners. Finding this spot and that tone and every single touch that made a particular person’s body begin to babble. Apparently Eli’s silent consent was just as thrilling. Either that or Julien was overcome with how efficiently they’d actually come to an agreement, for once.
“Then I don’t see any problem with that at all,” he said, and tapped the head of his cock on Eli’s lips. “Now suck.”
Eli groaned and eagerly took him in. Not all the way, Julien certainly didn’t expect him to, but more than enough. He tried to stay still and patient as Eli’s tongue got acquainted with all his most sensitive spots. Suckling the tip, then pulling off to lap at the shaft and flick that one place that made his knees wobble. When Julien really started to throb, Eli began to bob his head, finding his own greedy rhythm while doing his best to keep his eyes fixed obediently up.
“God, you’ve got a smart mouth when you’re on your knees, too,” Julien croaked.
Eli’s lips curved into a quick smile around him and Julien couldn’t resist running his hand over his head, combing his fingers through his hair and then taking a careful grip at the root. He didn’t try to control his moment, just rode the motion, felt the softness of his hair, the warm brush of his cheek against his wrist.
Just like everything else Julien had seen him do, Eli was sinfully good at sucking dick. And no wonder, since he clearly enjoyed it. The sounds he was making alone—all desperate gulping and helpless whimpers—would be enough to get Julien off and his hips twitched forward, pushing just that little bit deeper into his throat. Eli groaned, sending a merciless vibration through Julien’s balls.
“You like that?” Julien asked, and carefully rocked forward again. “Choking on me? Taking what I give you?”
Eli couldn’t add much in the way of nodding to the frantic pace he was taking now, but his eyes slipped shut and he had maneuvered his own dick out to stroke in time with his sucking. Julien couldn’t really see from this angle, and he felt an ache that had nothing to do with his fast-approaching orgasm. Was he really going to let a second chance, a second chance with a man like Eli, slip through his fingers? Or rather not through his fingers?
Julien nudged Eli’s moving elbow with his toe gently but firmly, and Eli’s eyes sprang open, beautiful and bright in the darkness.
Julien cleared his throat. “Save that for me. I want you coming in my hand tonight.”
