Call the Coroner (Staniel, #1)

by Avril Ashton

“I’m gonna eat you. The fuck. Alive.” Stavros grabbed him by the hip, pushed one leg backward. And fucking dined.

“I am ending it.” How could those four words echo so loud and long inside of him? How could they sink so deep into his flesh and hurt so badly? “This thing, this thing we can’t put a name to. This thing we can’t ever seem to run from, you want to end it.”

“You’re on my bedsheets,” he told him. “The scent of you, all over my bedsheets. I could wash it, but you’re also in my head. How do I fix that?”

He wasn’t this man. Had never been this man. But this man wanted to hold on to this. This man wanted to wrap himself up in all of it. “You’re in my chest, my gut.” He pressed the bottle of whiskey to his stomach. “You’re inside me. How do I get you out?”

Daniel’s expression didn’t change, though his jaw ticked. He was unmoved, and Stavros did...

Stavros threw the whiskey with a roar, right past Daniel’s head. The bottle smashed against the closed elevator doors, spilling the last of the liquo...

“There is no forgiveness,” he said hoarsely. “What we’ve done, what we did to each other....

He sounded so grave, Stavros wanted to go to him. Touch him. Soothe him. But what about the ache inside him? Was Daniel the one to soothe him? “I want to be selfish.” He tipped his head upward. “I can be selfish.” The impending loss spread through him, turning his words into the harshest of whispers. Torn from deep inside. From that deep space...

I already know what you have to offer…” He looked into Daniel’s eyes that gave away nothing. That gave him nothin...

“Go. It’s done. It’s over.” He gave Daniel his back, slumping over the bar, eyes squeezed tightly closed. He’d fucked it all up, too blind to notice just how fast and far he’d been falling.

Ice gripped his chest, the cold shocking a gasp from him. This was loss, shaking his body and rattling his teeth. This was heartbreak, the searing pain that made his entire being curl in on itself. This was pain.

Daniel Nieto had finally ...

A hand settled on his shoulder and he yanked himself away, but Daniel caught him. They were fighting, scrambling. Daniel pulling him, and Stavros ...

Daniel finished opening his own pants and shoved Stavros face-first into the bar. Hand at his nape, forcing him down. Down. He went, because he wanted this. One last shot at this. One last taste of it. One last everything before he went back to

Like it was a race. As if they had an expiration date, which they did. As if they were in danger of getting caught.

So when they were done, he’d be alone. Daniel would go back to his dead wife.

However it happened, Stavros had fallen in love with Daniel Nieto. Now he had to let him go.

He’d had him on loan, after all.

Everything about this was necessary, even the restriction around his neck, denying him an easy breath. Daniel panted into his mouth, tongue delving deep.

Stavros clawed at him, striving to leave his own marks behind.

One last journey. One last time.

Staring into Daniel’s eyes, eyelids weighted down with lust. With regret. With more.

Stavros rejected that notion of more.

Over and over Daniel banged into him. Stavros cried out with each stroke. Death strokes, because they killed him. Yet he didn’t stop loving them.

it touched Stavros where not even Daniel’s cock could reach. So deep inside, Stavros couldn’t handle it, not then. He twisted around, flipping onto all fours.

“Daniel.” Whatever breath he had left, he used it up to speak his name. The fingers eased up and

“Don’t.” The ragged whisper hurt. “Don’t go.” For a second there, he wasn’t just talking about Daniel’s departure from his body.

Stavros pushed back onto him, trying to urge him to go for that bit of rough again. That wildness. The breakneck, punishing pace again. But Daniel kissed his neck.

He stretched out on top of Stavros, hands sliding down Stavros’ arms. Fingers reaching for his, clutching him. Stavros’ breath hitched. Don’t do this. But it was too late. Already too late. Daniel fucked him in silence. Slowly. Making sure Stavros’ destruction was complete.

One last fuckup, Stavros realized, as cum rushed out of him and onto the mattress. No protection.

How could he have fallen in love with Daniel Nieto? How could he let that happen? He picked up something, a soap dish, and threw it across the bathroom. Then he scrubbed a hand over his face. His body was still quaking. As he stood there, cum leaked out of him, trickling down the back of his legs.

He clenched his muscles, gritting his teeth. It was over, right? This sex, their sex didn’t make a difference. He’d thought they were making progress. All those nights in that bed out there. Every day Daniel would ride that elevator to the penthouse at sunset, and he’d stay until the sun rose. Stavros thought—

“You don’t have to worry,” he managed not to sound as shattered as he truly was. “You’re safe.” He swiped a hand through the cum on the back of his thigh and held it up, palm to Daniel. “You’re—You’re safe.”

Waiting for the creak of the mattress. For the sound of clothes sliding against skin, and the jangle of belt buckles. For steady footsteps that got farther and farther away. And finally for the sound of his private elevator.

Then he allowed the grief and his fucked-weak knees to take him to the floor.

He’d been left before. Had his heart broken, too. That blow had never tossed him on his ass before now. That blow had never hollowed out his chest before today. This love. This l...

But the cold knot in his chest from moments ago? It was now fire-hot, a gasoline soaked blaze already thawing… Melting.

Much like a rock dropped into an otherwise calm pond, Stavros’ voice rippled over Daniel’s skin. In all the ways this could be deemed wrong and a betrayal—in all the ways that this connection forced him to choose between past and present, her and him—it was una necesidad. Breath and water and touch. Necessary. It was life.

Something happened when they got in the same room. When their eyes met. When they breathed the same air. A dangerously potent something.

“You fucked up by walking away from me,” Stavros told him. The deceivingly soft words arched between the two of them, cutting out Toro who stood like a quiet sentry at the bottom of the stairs, and the bound man off to the side, bleeding out. Stavros pushed away from the wall and walked over slowly. So relaxed. Hands still in his pockets, gaze as hot as a cattle brand on Daniel’s face. “But I fucked up more,” he said when they stood chest to chest. “Letting you think distance between us was an option.” “Toro,” Daniel bit out. “Leave us.” He didn’t check to see if his nephew moved. Instead Daniel grabbed Stavros by the

throat, gloved hand slick with Hector’s blood digging into him as he drove Stavros backward. One step. Two. Three, and he slammed Stavros into the wall he’d been leaning against earlier. His lover chuckled, eyelids lowered. Daniel inhaled him, that scent of Stavros that stayed in his nostrils. Drugging. “Diablo.” He breathed the name across Stavros’ lips, and it lit up the other man’s eyes. Softening his features. Damn him. Damn them. “Did you miss me?” Stavros gripped Daniel’s hair, holding him just as tight. Despite Daniel’s hand at his throat, Stavros bent forward until their foreheads were pressed together.

“Then don’t fucking try to leave me again.” Daniel kissed him, hard and fast, sinking his tongue deep enough to taste that shine. Delving beyond that for the taste he craved. He didn’t want the polish or the shine. He wanted the darkness. The danger. And he got it. Hot and slick on his tongue, rocking him backward. Stavros held on to him by his hair, pulling so hard as they battled the way they always did. Chest to chest, heads angled, and mouths fused as they came together with greedy swipes. Daniel forgot the man dying mere feet away. He forgot disapproving Toro. And he accepted the guilt. He accepted it now, because there was no other way. No going back. They were connected, he and Stavros. Connected by blood, by death. By guilt and betrayal too. But also by this crazy unexplainable and emotional need they had to be near each other. Touch each other. Taste each other.

Daniel tasted him now. All of him, aching to get closer, to put his bruises back on Stavros’ skin.

“Who’s the dying dude with the judgmental eyes?” Daniel glanced over his shoulder to find Hector’s head had rolled to the right, and he was watching them with slitted eyes. “Hector the Hitman.” “Ah.” Stavros lifted an eyebrow. “You’re taking your time with him?” “I was.”

Daniel released Stavros’ throat and stroked his cheek, leaving smudges of blood behind. “But something more important came up.” He peeled away the glove, dropping it to the floor as he brought two fingers to Stavros’ mouth. “Wet it.”

His lover was aroused already. But he grew harder in Daniel’s grasp, crown slick with warm pre-cum that flowed freely. Flowing for Daniel. With that knowledge came immense power. Stavros sucked his fingers hard, and in turn Daniel stroked him.

He removed his fingers with a pop then brought them to his own mouth, sucking off Stavros’ taste while holding the other man’s lust-filled stare.

They were going there, to whatever lay past the point of just sex. To whatever resided on the other side of casual. Burning normal to ash. Stavros’ taste spread through Daniel’s bloodstream and he smiled.

It wasn’t that much of a revelation at all, to realize he’d set himself on fire to keep ...

With one hand, he tugged down Stavros’ pants and underwear to just past mid-thigh. His other hand, the one with fingers slick with saliva,...