Dark Soul Vol. 2 by Aleksandr Voinov Read Free Book Online

this time in the middle of the night, chest pounding, and reached over to the nightstand for the painkillers.
    Somebody took the bottle before he could touch it, and he glanced up. Silvio was sitting in the leather chair in the corner of the room next to the nightstand.
    “Shit. What are you doing here?”
    Silvio handed him three of the white pills and poured him a glass of water. “I should have been there.”
    Stefano winced. “You’d be dead like Cesare.”
    “I don’t think so.” Silvio handed him the glass, and Stefano washed the pills down with a mouthful of water, then sank back into his pillows.
    “Oh shit, that’s better.”
    “Doctor said they might mess up your stomach.”
    “If they make the pain go away, I don’t care.”
    Silvio’s lips twitched. “I used coke when I got messed up. Works instantly.”
    “I’m already type-A. Guys like me should stay away from uppers.”
    Stefano chuckled and regretted it almost immediately. “Shit.”
    Silvio stood and came to the bed. He was wearing the black Armani that looked like it had been poured down his frame, and the tight black top underneath it gave him the appearance of a priest . . .
    but without the dog col ar, of course. “Anything you haven’t told the others about the ambush?”
    “No. I left out some details, but they aren’t important. They mentioned Grozny.”
    “Russians . . . Grozny—would be a military connection.”
    “Yeah. They certainly looked and acted like ex-military.” Stefano pushed his pillow in place. “Fucking thugs.” No doubt mentioning the “most destroyed city on earth” hinted at the scale of destruction the Russians were ready to inflict.
    Silvio sat down on the bed and studied him. “Want coke?”
    “No.”
    “It’ll sort you out faster.”
    “Silvio, no. I need a clear head.” He’d certainly not start with marching powder in this fucked-up situation. “The painkillers work.
    They just take a little longer.”
    Silvio’s gaze travelled down Stefano’s body, intense enough to feel almost like a touch, probing, exploring him. How he’d come to the rescue in that motel, the strength and steadiness in that body— that was exactly what Stefano craved now. That strength, that barely contained dark energy in Silvio.
    “Thanks for getting me out.”
    “I shouldn’t have let you get into this shit.”
    “It was your day off. You texted me right before.”
    Silvio shrugged, as if in apology. “Yeah.”
    “Where did you go?”
    “Just some bar.”
    “To get drunk or laid or both?”
    Silvio shrugged again. “Doesn’t matter now, does it?”
    “Sorry for ruining that.”
    Silvio’s eyes flashed. “Wouldn’t have remembered his name the next day anyway.”
    Oh, Silvio. “Did you go to his place?”
    “We were on the way when I got your cal .”
    Stefano imagined it—Silvio getting hot and heavy with some anonymous guy from a bar, somebody as surely caught in his magnetism as everyone was. He half imagined Silvio just putting his dick back into his pants and rushing out. “How annoying.”
    Silvio stared at him. “Stop that. You called me, I came back to you.”
    The “to you” jolted Stefano pleasantly. “It’s okay. Nobody could have seen that com—”
    Silvio’s lips ended that sentence. Stefano winced against the sudden pressure spiking pain down his back and into his nose. But then Silvio opened Stefano’s mouth, tongue exploring his teeth, sliding along his own tongue, and all of a sudden, he could do nothing but kiss back, reach up, dig his fingers into Silvio’s short hair and keep kissing him. Silvio hadn’t been in the car. He hadn’t been at risk.
    Instead, he’d come right away, had made sure he was okay, put him first, then brought him back home. Was that loyalty? Care? Desire?
    Silvio broke the kiss. “You want to be in control.”
    “Yes.” No. Maybe. Stefano caught his breath, which was so fucking difficult with his bruised face and chest. Everything still hurt.