Mad Man, page 24
“That’s not true,” Felix said, batting lashes at Avi. “I just wanted to look nice for my last day.”
“You look like sex every day, kitten. But this…this was a strategic attack, and you’ll never convince me otherwise.”
Felix tilted his head, breath catching as Avi did that tongue thing against his ear. “By now, George has probably filed some kind of indecency complaint against us.”
“If George doesn’t want to watch, he can go make his nightly rounds,” Avi growled, his hands already up under the leather skirt Felix wore, eyes going wide when he realized there was nothing to slide off. “Have you been naked under this the whole time?”
Felix threaded his hands in Avi’s hair, guiding his mouth where he wanted it, moaning as he licked along his collarbone. “Yep.”
Avi made a low rumble deep in his chest. “While I was giving design notes to the staff?”
Felix dragged him in for another dirty kiss. “Yes.”
Avi wrapped a hand around Felix’s length, jerking him slowly. “While I was in with the corporate buyers?”
“Uh-huh. I was so fucking hard watching you in there. You in dress clothes should be illegal. Your ass looks so good in those pants.”
“You only say that because you picked this outfit.”
“I picked this outfit so I could stare at your ass,” Felix countered.
Avi wrapped a hand around Felix’s throat, pushing him back on the desk. “And you expect me to believe you didn’t know this was going to happen?”
Felix was already pulling up the skirt, letting Avi know exactly what he expected. “Oh, I knew it would happen. I just didn’t think it would happen on your desk in your office made of glass with three cameras trained on us.”
Avi chuckled. “Four. There’s one on the shelf over there, but that’s just for me.”
“Just for you?” Felix said, moaning when Avi yanked his hips almost all the way off the desk.
Avi traced his tongue along the seam where Felix’s thigh and pelvis met. “Yeah, for when you’re gone. That way I can sneak away and jerk off while watching us.”
“There is such a thing as video chat, you know,” Felix reminded, then gave a noise of frustration as Avi’s tongue seemed everywhere but where he wanted it.
“Oh, I have no doubt we’ll be getting lots of that. But, sometimes, I just like to be a spectator. There’s something so hot about just listening to us fuck.”
“Stop teasing,” Felix groaned.
Avi dropped down into his office chair, rolling it close. “Who’s teasing? I just like to play with my food before I eat it. Feet up, kitten.”
Felix pressed his heels into the padded leather arms, letting his knees fall open. “That’s better,” Avi said, spreading Felix open and burying his face in the heat of him, tonguing at his hole. Felix immediately started to wiggle, his feet scrabbling for purchase as he gyrated, trying to fuck himself on Avi’s tongue.
Avi couldn’t believe he’d ever worried that fucking one person for the rest of his life would get old. But he’d also never imagined somebody like Felix being his one and only. It was impossible to get bored with him. And not just because of the sex. It was everything.
Avi didn’t know what he was going to do with Felix starting his own label. Sure, it was literally just across the street, and yeah, they were married and got to see each other every night. But Felix would no longer be just across the room. Avi wouldn’t be able to look up and know he was there.
The idea left him feeling a little…unsettled. He’d never thought he’d feel more connected to anyone than he did to Asa, but when Asa was gone, it was a phantom pain, like an itch in an arm that wasn’t there anymore. With Felix, when he wasn’t right there, it was like trying to breathe underwater. Like his lungs would burst.
Avi jerked to his feet, hurriedly unbuttoning his pants, shoving them out of the way. He grabbed the lube he kept in his top drawer, slicking himself, before pushing inside of Felix in one hard thrust, driving a harsh cry from him.
“Sorry,” Avi muttered, even as he dragged Felix impossibly close.
Felix sat up, wrapping his arms around Avi’s waist. “Shut up and fuck me.” Avi caught Felix under the knees, lifting him from the desk entirely. “Oh, fuck. Yeah. Like that. God, you’re so fucking deep.”
Avi couldn’t think of anything to say. He was too wrapped up in the feel of being inside Felix, fucking up into him again and again, like he could somehow fuse their bodies together forever. Felix must have sensed he was spiraling. He captured Avi’s mouth with his, and it was like completing a circuit somehow. Electricity zinging through his blood.
He wasn’t sure their mouths ever parted as he moved inside Felix. When Felix cried out, he swallowed the sound, and when he found his own release, his grunt was pressed against Felix’s parted lips.
Avi collapsed into his desk chair, muscles burning, still buried inside Felix.
“Why are you so pouty all of a sudden?” Felix asked, cupping Avi’s face.
“I just don’t know why you can’t do your work here? In our studio.”
Felix rolled his eyes but gave him another kiss. “I’m literally across the street. I was going to get that loft space downtown, remember? This was the compromise. I need my own space.”
Avi gave a huffy sigh. “I know. But what if I miss you?”
“Then look out your window,” Felix said. “Or walk across the street or FaceTime me. We can have lunch together every day.”
“I guess.”
“You’re just addicted to the adrenaline of spending our lunch hour getting each other off in broom closets and empty offices. We’ll still get to do that. We’ll just have more options, now. Two buildings instead of one.”
Avi perked up a little at that. “Yeah, I guess that’s true.”
“And we get to go kill that guy tonight. Asa said we can torture him any way you want. Zane only asked that we not do the rats in the bucket thing because it’s not fair to the rats.”
Avi frowned. “I would never hurt a rat. Or any animal. It’s not allowed.”
“You could use your birthday present from me?” Felix said, clearly trying to cheer Avi up.
Felix had ordered him a custom-made bat covered in thorn-like spikes, but he’d told him to wait to use it, just in case. It was unlikely that the maker of the bat—a man who created realistic weapons for cosplay—would ever come across a news article about a man being bludgeoned to death with a spiked bat.
They now did their best to make bodies disappear altogether to make Zane’s job slightly easier. Speculating about missing criminals was a much easier way of building the vigilante narrative without leaving any evidence behind for the cops to follow.
“You sure it’s been long enough?”
“Yeah. Besides, that guy’s got a date with a tub of lye before the night is over. Truthfully, after what he did to that little girl, he’ll be lucky if we kill him before we dunk him.”
Avi’s eyes went wide as he realized they’d never dissolved anybody in lye while they were still alive. “I need to text Asa.”
“Can you at least let me get off your dick first?”
Avi frowned. “What does that matter?”
Felix snorted. “You’re the worst.”
Avi wiggled his hips. “No, I’m the best.”
Felix flopped back against him as he listened to Avi’s phone ring.
“His head exploded like a grape,” Avi exclaimed with glee from under the shower’s powerful spray.
“Yes, I know,” Felix muttered as Zane picked another piece of skull off his black sweater. “You could have warned me before you swung for the fences like Babe Ruth or whoever.”
“I was telling Asa,” Avi said, sounding like a sullen child.
Asa was also in the enormous shower, cleaning up after the disposal, which had left him with blood under his nails and a small chemical burn on his hand. Felix had showered at the warehouse with Avi, but the anemic water pressure there had done little but wash the blood off, which was why Zane now sat on the edge of the tub, picking skull fragments from his hair like a primate.
“Besides, it was your idea,” Avi said around a laugh.
Felix glowered at him, looking at Zane for backup.
Zane flicked his gaze to Avi, giving him his sternest look. “He gave you permission to use the weapon, yes. Not to pop the guy’s head like a zit with Felix standing a foot away.” Zane shuddered. “It was so gross.”
“It was so cool,” Avi countered. “That bat is literally the nicest gift anybody has ever given me and Dad once let me feed a whole ass human to my pet snake.”
“What are we bringing for game night tomorrow?” Zane asked from his perch on the side of the tub.
“Ugh, do we really have to do this?” Asa said around a groan. “Playing Cards Against Humanity with my father is the definition of torture. He’s going to be analyzing every fucking card we play like we’re rats in a maze.”
“How did Lucas even get anybody to agree to this?” Avi asked, still sulking.
Zane scoffed. “Um, Lucas told August he wanted it and August threatened to make anybody who didn’t agree miserable, and nobody wants to be on August’s bad side. He’s fucking terrifying.”
Felix took both of Zane’s hands that sat on his shoulders, threading their fingers together. “You’re lucky Adam and Noah managed to get them to agree to Cards Against Humanity. They originally wanted to play Monopoly. Can you fucking imagine the bloodbath that would ensue if the Mulvaneys played Monopoly? The cops would be called. For sure.”
“I wanted to play Clue but there weren’t enough pieces,” Zane said.
Avi watched Felix give Zane that indulgent look he saved just for him, like he was this adorable puppy who had passed his obedience training with flying colors. Zane could do no wrong in Felix’s book, and woe betide the creature who even looked at him sideways. Noah had emotional support vodka. Zane had an emotional support Felix.
Felix squeezed Zane’s hand. “That’s okay. The one time we tried to play Clue, Adam threw a fit because he couldn’t be Colonel Mustard and sulked all night, and then Archer pissed in Dad’s favorite houseplant—”
“Dad has a favorite houseplant?” Zane asked.
That was also an odd development. Sometime shortly after old man Simmons had peacefully passed in his sleep, but before they’d slowly tortured the four stragglers, Zane and Felix had started referring to Thomas as Dad. And once they had, the others had followed suit. Lucas and Noah, too. Even Jericho. Avi had thought it might upset Thomas to suddenly have so many children, but it seemed to have relaxed him somehow. And nobody needed to relax more than Thomas.
“Yeah, I know. It’s weird. But he’s still hot enough to look past it,” Felix noted.
“You know, it's highly disturbing that the two of you keep commenting on how hot Thomas is while simultaneously calling him Dad.”
Zane scoffed. “You’re just mad I won’t call you Daddy.”
Asa gave Zane a hot once-over, his intentions obvious. “Please, Lois. When I’ve got you tied to that bench, you’ll call me anything I tell you to, and everyone here knows it.”
“And when he’s not tied to that bench, you let him run you around by the…” Felix let his gaze drop to Asa’s dick. “Nose. And everybody here knows it. You’re lucky he likes what a cocky ass you are.”
Zane gave Asa a self-satisfied smirk. “Yeah. What he said.”
Asa grabbed Zane’s hand, helping him up before wrapping his towel around him and pulling him close. “I was just kidding, Lois. You didn’t have to sic your murder kitten on me.”
Yeah, Felix was protective of Zane to a near pathological level. He’d once pulled a knife on Adam just for making a crack about Zane’s glasses. Felix rarely jumped to Avi’s defense. Granted there was little reason for him to have to. He could take care of himself. But he could at least pretend.
Felix wasn’t so much protective as possessive. Any man who thought he could come between him and Avi soon found themselves blacklisted from their lives. And those men were lucky all Felix did was banish them; he wasn’t a very benevolent king. He would happily be yelling, ‘Off with their heads!’ if it wasn’t for prying eyes.
Still, it was fascinating how quickly Zane and Felix bonded in a way that was similar to Asa and Avi, but also entirely different. Asa and Avi didn’t snuggle each other. They didn’t curl up and watch movies together or help each other pick out clothes.
Felix and Zane were as close as siblings but cuddled like they were more. Whatever was above siblings but below lovers. Some strange hybrid of the two that made Zane Felix’s caretaker and Felix Zane’s fiercest protector. Well, second fiercest. Asa was as possessive of Zane as Felix was of Avi. Though few existed bold enough to try to steal from a Mulvaney.
It wasn’t like Avi didn’t like Zane. He did. He even loved him in the ways he knew how. He’d kill to protect him. He let him have the aux cord when they had to drive somewhere together. He let him have his brother. That was as close to love as Avi could get aside from Felix.
Zane was sweet and smart and he made their house like…a home. He was constantly adding things like throw pillows and weird wooden bowls that held things that nobody needed. He hung a rack so they could hang their keys and he insisted they take off their shoes when they got home.
It was just little things, but it made staying at the country house feel less like they were rattling around a deserted hotel. Zane’s books were everywhere, and his laptop lived on the grand dining room table they never used. Well, half of the table. On the other side was where Felix worked on his sketches, leaning over his tablet, his hair in his face as he muttered to himself in Cantonese.
It was cute. It was a sea of normality in their otherwise tedious lives. Avi and Asa coming off the market at the same time caused a flurry of attention that had sent Thomas off the deep end for a month. Rumors flew about Felix and Avi being into weird blood magic and speculation about how long they might have been together given that Felix was Avi’s brother-in-law.
There was just as much interest in Zane, especially given the way his mother kept running to the press every five minutes with one ridiculous claim after another. The funny thing was, the more Beverly talked about Zane, the more people wanted to know him. Not because he was the nightmare his mother claimed but because he was just too fucking likable for people to take her seriously.
Felix on the other hand…they loved him for the exact opposite reason. Felix was savage in every sense of the word. He could cut somebody with a stare just as easily as a knife, especially if they dared to talk down to him or hinted he hadn’t earned a seat at any table.
He was a fashion icon, with his outfits constantly making headlines. He had fan accounts dedicated to him, not just for his fashion but his whole life. People wanted to be him. When Asa and Avi left the house with their spouses, they were no longer the ones people were clamoring to see, which made it much easier for them to slip away and tend to their other jobs.
Avi shut off the water and stepped out of the shower, noting the way both men’s eyes perused his body. The funny thing was, he knew Zane was merely looking for ways Avi was different physically than Asa. They’d tried to Parent Trap them both a few times, but Felix and Zane just knew them…on a molecular level.
There was no modesty in their house. There were far too many times when it was necessary to strip down and scrub evidence from their bodies. Besides, no matter how big the house was, sound carried. There were no secrets among the four of them, but a million kept between them.
They lived their lives with an intimacy not shared with the other Mulvaneys, one impossible to even explain. They just worked as a unit. The four of them just worked.
“I need you to stop at the bakery on Brandywine after work tomorrow,” Zane said. “Oh”—he turned to Avi—“and we need to grab some wine.”
“By we you mean me, don’t you?” Avi asked.
“Us. We do ride to work together,” Felix said with an eye roll.
“Oh, and we should probably grab something for the girls,” Zane said, still in Asa’s arms. “Maybe I can stop at that fancy overpriced gourmet grocery store.”
“They’re a year old. What can we possibly bring them that Dad hasn’t already showered them with?” Asa asked.
“One isn’t old enough for a good house white?” Avi teased. “What are you going to buy at a fancy grocery store? I don’t think they make vintage milk.”
“I’m pretty sure vintage milk is called yogurt, babe,” Felix said, wrinkling his nose. “And you know how I feel about yogurt.”
“It smells like it’s already gone bad,” they all chimed in unison.
Felix sniffed. “You act like I’m the weirdo for not wanting to eat spoiled milk.”
Zane shrugged. “Well, they might not make vintage milk but they do make gourmet formula. And that shit’s expensive.”
“It doesn’t matter. Cricket’s got them on the most expensive milk around—the one that comes straight from her tits,” Felix reminded. “And keeping Cricket happy doesn’t come cheap. So, we need to make sure there’s cheesecake or the only humanity being crimed tomorrow will be me for forgetting it.”
“I don’t think that sentence is grammatically correct,” Zane said.
“Well, we can’t all be literary geniuses,” Felix muttered.
“So, that’s cheesecake for Cricket, booze for us, no sour milk for the snot faucets,” Avi repeated back. “If we’re all riding together, we’ll have to take the Mercedes.”
Zane’s face lit up. “If we all ride together, then only one of us has to be the designated driver.”
“Not it,” Avi and Asa said in unison.
Zane’s face fell. Felix pulled him from Asa’s arms and hugged him. “Don’t worry, Zaney. I got you. I’m still hung over from last night. I’ll drive.”
Zane’s gaze went wide. “N-No. It’s fine. I’ll drive. It’s all good,” he said hurriedly.
