"Are you ready for this, baby? I mean, because if you feel you're not ready, we can just postpone it or even...even cancel the whole damn thing. I mean it! I'll just throw everyone the fuck out of here and just...just-. I swear if they do anything to hurt you imma just-."
A single finger was pressed to Rafe's mouth to stop his crazy ranting as Andre smiled into his scowling face. "Do you even hear yourself right now?" he asked softly. "You sound crazy. Of course I'm ready, Rafe. Without this surgery I will die. I thought you wanted me alive so you can keep me locked in a basement somewhere and ravish me to your perverted heart's content."
Rafe slapped a hand over Andre's mouth and blushed about a million shades of red as he looked around in panic only to realize they had been left alone. Scowling deeper, he seared Andre with his best glare. "Don't you ever do that again, you minx!" he whisper yelled as he pinned the smaller man to the wall. "Who knows how thin these walls are."
Andre raised a brow. "Probably as thin as the walls in my room." He deadpanned to which Rafe only looked around again, a prominent hue on his face.
"You are going to be punished as soon as I am able to touch you again, you little troublemaker." Rafe threatened, grasping both Andre's hands and pinning them high above his head even as he set his lower body close. "But then...you would like that, wouldn't you?"
"Why don't you just punish me right now?" Andre challenged, shifting his hips sharply. "Three weeks is such a long time to wait. The impact of the punishment might lose its glow if it's not addressed immediately." He blushed and averted his eyes. "Or...so I've heard."
Rafe studied his turned face and released his hands so he could bring his own down to the swell of Andre's hips. Spreading his long fingers, he spanned the width of his angel's waist and squeezed, bringing the man's body even closer, relishing the feel of the bulge which pressed against his own.
"Well, then let's not waste a single moment more, shall we?" Reaching down between them, Rafe brought his trembling fingers to the clasp of his jeans. "I'm sure I can keep the glow going with just a bit of incentive from your sexy little body. Hehehe..."
"Rafe De' Notti, you better put that boy's legs right back down on the tiles beneath your feet and take your hands off them jeans button right now cuz you know you ain't gon be doin' no funny stuff up in here when he bout to get an operation to save his dag on life, you dag on pervert!"
Of all the interruptions to ever receive, why in damnation did it have to be that woman?
Rafe growled in frustration and slammed his palms to the wall behind Andre, his rampant cok all but shriveling at the tone in Wanda's voice. He didn't even know at what point he had raised Andre's legs to his waist. That's how ready he'd been to have his little angel.
"Dab nabbit!" he seethed. "You pop up all over the place woman. Why can't you ever give us any dag on privacy?"
Andre giggled against his neck. "Babe, you're even talking like her now." he whispered. "You're like dag on twins."
Rafe frowned as Andre burst into a fit of giggles and turned fiery eyes on Wanda. "Don't you have anything better to do than to make my life hell, you insufferable woman?" he asked angrily. "I should fire you right now for harassment."
Wanda, hands on hips, kicked him right in the shins, eliciting a string of curses unfit for anyone's ears. "You think that just because you the CEO now, you can just fire people left and right, you muscled truck? You is cray cray honey. You ain't gon be firing me. That's for sure."
Andre frowned and looked from one to the other in puzzlement, noting the way Rafe's face was suddenly devoid of all color as he stared incredulously at Wanda. "What is she talking about, Rafe?" he asked, to which they both suddenly seemed too busy to answer.
Wanda started humming loud church songs while Rafe seemed to be learning how to breathe again without choking on his own spit. Something was up between the two. Some secret they thought to keep from him and Andre didn't much like that.
God bless Wanda's big loose mouth.
"Wanda, leave the room right now and before you assume I might be joking, look at my face. I'm very fuckin serious. So, don't you dare even so much as knock on that door or talk through it even if you get a Pentecostal church, god given compulsion to." Andre said firmly, his eyes pinning Rafe's and promising retribution.
"Rafe and I need to have a little talk about honesty and keeping secrets." He cocked his head at the bigger man. "Don't we Mr. CEO De' Notti?"
Rafe gulped, the noise loud in his head and he hoped Andre couldn't hear the way his heartbeat had accelerated at the mention of secrets and honesty. "I...I guess?" he stuttered.
Moving away from Rafe but keeping his gaze firmly on the older man, Andre walked toward the door and locked it behind a snickering Wanda. The lock sliding into place sounded more like a nail driving into a coffin to Rafe but he couldn't be sure because the beat of his heart was the loudest sound in the blasted room.
Dammit, he should have told Andre the truth sooner. "Andre, I can explain..." Even to his own ears, he sounded pitiful because he could have explained way before now and his doing so now, a week later, deemed him secretive and untrustworthy.
Andre pushed away from the door after staring pensively at him for a long moment and made his way toward the chair across the room. "Little too late for explanations, isn't it, Rafe?" he asked lowly as he sat and relaxed his tired legs, his gaze burning through the distance across the room, keeping Rafe hypnotized and immobile, unable to look away to save his life.
"I was going to tell you, okay?" he said guiltily, averting his eyes from the fire burning in the brown orbs he had always deemed angelic till now.
"When, Rafe?" Andre whispered harshly, bringing Rafe's gaze back to him. "When you thought I could finally handle it without possibly fainting or something? Huh? Am I that weak and gullible, you would actually think something like this would be too much for my little self to take?"
"I would never think that about you and you know it!"
"You. Thought. It!" Andre bellowed, rising to his feet and stomping toward the bigger man with a sudden burst of strength despite his earlier ache. "Do not think to lie to my face and expect sweetness from your little naïve angel. I am anything but and you will not keep things from me and think I will be complacent with whatever bits you feed me!"
Rafe reared back at the intensity that practically exploded from Andre's lungs and smothered back a growl of unadulterated lust. He had never seen Andre this angry or frikkin manly and domineering before and it was turning him the hell on.
It was all he could do not to pounce on him and take him right where they stood. Instead, he opted for an aloof approach and just stood with his arms crossed over his chest, waiting for the right time to strike. And he didn't have long to wait at all.
Andre, so livid and lost in his own scolding rant, didn't notice the change in Rafe or the fact that his folded arms were nearly constricting his own chest in his need to keep himself in check. Pointing, mid-yell, he stepped close to poke Rafe in the chest to make his point.
And that was when Rafe struck.
Growling low in his throat, he latched onto Andre's outstretched arm and yanked hard, effectively turning the man and pinning him to the wall. "Gotcha!" he said triumphantly, struggling to keep a wriggling Andre still while trying to release the button and zipper on his jeans. "Stop moving around dammit and let me fucking hold you!"
Andre stilled his movements but only so he could glare into Rafe's face and silently curse him out. How dare he grab him up like that when he was trying to yell at him? "I don't want to be held and whatever plans you have for unbuttoning your pants, squelch them." He spat. "I want you to tell me the truth. Right now! Why is it that Wanda knows all about this CEO crap and I don't?"
"I was going to tell you dammit." Rafe yelled into his face. "When the hell have I ever lied to you? I always tell you everything. I was just...I was just waiting until after your surgery. Why is that so wrong?"
"I should have been the first to know and yet you made up this insane shit about me making love to you just so you could keep me blind. I believed that was what you wanted. You tricked me!"
"I did not make that up." Rafe bellowed. "I would never make something like that up. What you did to me was beautiful! And if I ever kept anything from you it was for good reason. I don't ever want to lose you, Andre. I did what I did, for you. Why can't you see that?"
"Is this why I'm suddenly getting this operation even though I'm practically last on the list for a donor?" Andre squeaked as realization struck. "You...you abused your power to bump me to the top even at the risk of other's lives! How could you?"
Rafe punched the wall beside his head. "I did it so that you can live. Why is their life any more important than yours? Huh? Why must I lose you just so they can live happily ever after while I have nothing?"
"What you're doing is wrong, Rafe." Andre whispered, caressing his cheek. "And if you think I am going through with this surgery, knowing a life could be lost because of me, think again. I won't!"
"You will!" Rafe yelled out. "The doctors are here. The tools and instruments have been washed and your new lung is ready for you to take it. You can't just say you don't want it. I forbid it!"
Andre sighed deeply and pushed out of his arms despite the strength with which Rafe held him. "I know you think that if you're stern and strong enough, you can make the world bow at your feet and do your bidding but you're wrong, Rafe." He said softly.
"That's not what I'm tryna do, though. I'm just-."
"I know within myself what is right and even if I should die, I'll know it was just my time and I didn't cheat someone else out of their bliss. You're forever forbidding this and forbidding that. Not everything can be within your total control and until you learn that, you will always be disappointed."
Rafe reached out for him, his eyes wet and full, begging not to be denied and Andre was powerless to turn him away.
"I can't lose you, baby." Rafe said hoarsely. "I love you so much I'll die right along with you if you dare try and leave me. I...I did it only for you. You'll die without it." With a choked sob, Andre let himself be pulled into the large man's comforting embrace where he cried softly into a solid shoulder.
"I want to stay with you...forever if I can but not like this. Not by cheating."
Rafe kissed the top of his downy head and smiled sadly. "Brookoff hung himself four days ago in his cell almost immediately after he was raped by his two cell mates." Came his whisper. "Everyone was let out for yard time and when they returned he was just...hanging there. The two men confessed, horrified at seeing him there that way."
Andre shuddered in his arms, wondering why he was saying this now of all times but Rafe continued.
"There was a conference set up right away and even though I was unsure whether I still had my job, I attended. There were lawyers present as well as Nathaniel Brookoff, Daniel's father. His son, Bradley, was also there and he told us all everything that led up to your stay at the hospital as well as the forged life insurance policy his father tried to pin on him. They were impressed by my devotion to the company as well as my devotion to you.
I've been Brookoff's right hand man for eight years now and the fact that I knew how to run things better than the boss himself, really set an impression on his father who never really gave two shits for his son or the way he ran all over everyone in his quest for money. He appointed me as CEO and he didn't even care that his own grandson was in the will as heir. He signed all control to me while the poor guy watched. And even though I know it all happened, I still can't believe any of it."
Andre hugged him tighter. "So...it was never Bradley who wanted to hurt me?"
"No. Does that make you feel better somehow?"
"A little. I was pretty miserable for a long time because of him. Although, I can't really argue with how things turned out for me." He looked up at Rafe and smiled when he saw his misty eyes. "I have you and nothing in this world makes me happier than to just look at you and know you're mine."
Rafe guffawed softly and held him closer. "Hmm, I like the way you just said that, baby." He murmured, pressing a small chaste kiss to Andre's soft lips. "And I don't ever wanna be anyone else's."
"I love you, Rafe." Came the whisper. "Please don't ever hurt me."
I would ask you the same but how can you promise you won't...only to leave me broken and alone in the end?
He resolved within himself that no matter what it took, he would get Andre what he needed to stay alive but to do that, he would have to make sacrifices even he didn't think he would be brave enough to make.
He had to keep Andre. Anything else would positively shatter his soul...
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