Page 40 of Burn this City

Sal Rausa was attractive, and Jack’s own body was interested; there was no need to fake anything. But would he be able to ignore the fact that Rausa was his torturer, maybe his executioner, and get past the fear of him? Could he loosen his self-control enough to allow himself to use sex as leverage? Exactly how he was meant to do that when he’d never used sex for anything? How to seduce a man when all of this was new territory? His experience so far was comprised ofresistingany attempts at seduction, so not much help there.

What if Sal Rausa turned the tables on him and humiliated Jack further? If Jack tried this, he was committed, and there was no way to back out. Rausa would then have the power to hurt him in totally new ways. It didn’t matter. If Rausa wanted to fuck him, he would, whether Jack was willing or not. But Jack couldn’t resist the hope to gain just a scrap of leverage.

“You want to hear me beg again?”

“Yeah.” Rausa gave him a lop-sided grin, a dangerous glimmer in his eyes.

“Please leave Beth alone. She’s not—”

“Enough. Stop talking about her. It’s messing with my boner, Jesus.” Rausa chuckled. “Sorry, but she’s not my type. You don’t fuck small birds that have fallen from their nest. You just don’t.”

One thing they could agree on, Jack assumed. “She’s had it pretty rough.”

“I said, stop talking about her.” Rausa’s voice was low and held no edge, but the authority was still there. Interesting to witness Rausa wield a much quieter power than brute force. “We both know you don’t want to fuck her. Or any other woman.”

Jack swallowed and said nothing. He couldn’t imagine how Rausa knew that. Maybe because a red-blooded male responded differently? He should shove Rausa away in anger, insult him and his lineage, but he found himself quite mesmerized by that single point of contact.

Rausa winked at him. “And always thinking. You’re never not thinking.”

“Not thinking is dangerous,” Jack said quietly.

“In the big picture, you couldn’t be in more danger than this.” Rausa slowly moved his hand to the side, to cover Jack’s left pec, brushing over his nipple. The sensation was a sharp dart through his body, soothed by the slowly moving heat.

Jack should use his elbow to push the hand away. This touch was more than a simple squeeze of his ass, or a wink, or a number scribbled on a paper napkin. Strangely, now Jack wished he’d been more reckless in the past, so at least he would die knowing what it felt like. But even more than that, he hadn’t realized how much he’d longed for touch—a friendly one, or a deliberate one, rather than an accidental or threatening one. The intensity of this caress was unbearable—Rausa this close, watching him, maybe truly seeing him.

“You’re never not thinking.”

How ironic, maybe, that of all people in the world, Rausa would be the one to recognize him.

“Does Andrea know about you?”

Jack tried to keep his face neutral, because the whole trajectory of the conversation was disturbing, yet he couldn’t think of a way to change it. “Know what?”

Rausa squeezed his nipple between two fingers and Jack jerked involuntarily. “I can’t quite figure out what you are, Jack Barsanti, but you’re not straight. And not quite vanilla either.”

“Are you fucking saying I enjoyed drowning?”

Rausa regarded him with amusement and a strange heat in his eyes. “Anger. Always good. You heard what I said.”

The truth was, Rausa was possibly right. Jack found himself unable to tear himself out of this situation, and, heaven help him, he liked the touch too much. The mix of pleasure and that lingering fear of death had twisted his brain and slowed him down.

“Where do you think this is going?” Jack asked.

“Unlike you, I’m following my gut.” Rausa slowly moved his hand across to Jack’s right pec, and the deliberateness made Jack nearly squirm. He was glad there were two layers of cloth between Rausa’s fingers and his skin—without those, he’d be losing his mind.

“You must have a plan?”

“Big picture stuff right now.” Rausa grinned at him. “Though, honestly, I wish I had more time with you. I’ll be annoyed to have to smash up a half-solved puzzle box.”

Annoyed. That was one way of phrasing it. He’d beannoyedwhen he killed Jack. He had to focus on that. Death. Not Rausa’s touch. Rausa was mocking and manipulating him, using that one weakness against him, and what a weakness it was. The old consigliere had been right—emotion and losing his nerve were the two things that could unmake him, in more senses than one. But dragging himself back from the precipice took everything Jack had and he wasn’t even sure why he should. Falling could be so easy.

If he could let himself do it, maybe he could reverse this situation, get under Sal Rausa’s skin, though that seemed like a terrifying place to be. But with death so close, there was no point denying himself one selfish pleasure—feeling what it was like with a man, feeling all of it, hunger, need, hell, even desire. Everything else was decided, everything he’d sacrificed that part of himself for was gone now, stripped away.

Rausa re-centered his hand on Jack’s sternum, and then slid it further down, to where the hard cage of bones ended and only muscle protected him. From here, angled upward, a knife would stab him right in the heart. Judging by the gleam in Rausa’s eyes, he knew that too.

“I can’t tell whether you’re turned on or scared or both, but your heart’s racing like hell.”

Jack swallowed but didn’t dare to look away or close his eyes. “I got no answer.”

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