Snowblind by Eli Easton

Author:Eli Easton [Easton, Eli]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: gay romance
ISBN: 978-1-63533-147-9
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Published: 2017-03-01T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

JUDE Devereaux watched out the window of the Mercedes as he was chauffeured up the coast road from Rio. The backseat held a chilled bottle of sparkling water and a platter of fruit, crackers, and cheese. Bishara had paid for Jude’s first-class flight to Rio from San Francisco, and now this.

It felt like a last meal. Jude was on his way to meet Bishara for a weekend rendezvous at a villa up the coast. And he was, frankly, afraid. It wasn’t the fear that came in a rush—heart-pounding, body-startling like when someone jumped out at you and said “boo.” This was a low, frozen ache in his gut, an ominous sense of foreboding. It was dread wrapped in a sense of the inescapable, like a man going to the gallows.

As he stared out at the landscape rolling by, he had the distinct feeling of unreality and loss. This was probably the last time he’d ever ride in a car as a free man. This could be the last time he saw the countryside—a chicken on the side of the road, signposts to a host of small towns with exotic names, the ripe apricot color of the sun as it hung high above the gray-blue sea.

Unless Jude was very lucky, within a matter of days, he would either be dead or in prison. But even more than he feared that outcome, he dreaded the next day or so with Bishara.

Bishara was a dangerous study in contrasts. He’d courted Jude—at that wedding, at a private date they’d shared the following week, in his e-mails and several Skype calls. But despite the surface charm, there was a dark thread underneath. And when he’d kissed Jude on their “date,” it hadn’t just been a kiss. He’d had to dominate Jude, nearly strangling him, biting his face, causing pain. Along with sexual passion, a dark anger had rolled off him in thick waves.

Bishara was a controlling, sadistic bastard. Sex went hand in hand with violence for him. It was as if by being forceful and nasty, he could make the act of gay sex not gay, could make it about power and not desire. He punished Jude for his arousal, for his own failure to be heterosexual. His self-loathing and internal rage were palpable.

Bishara pretended that it was all a sexy game, hinted that Jude liked it that way too, that they had “similar eclectic tastes.” Jude played it up. It was his job to get close to the man, after all. But it was a delicate tightrope dance. Getting close without getting too close. Flirting while keeping his distance. It was easy over e-mail and Skype. But that bait-and-switch game was over now. This weekend, Jude would have to play along, in the flesh. He’d have to play along right up until the moment when Bishara was dead. That had always been a dreaded prospect. But now, after being with Hutch, the thought of letting Bishara touch him was reprehensible.

Jude had never been ashamed of his work before.

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