Dirty Angel-BarbaraElsborg by Barbara Elsborg Page B

woman’s purse? Asked for food and not stolen it? Fed the dog? Picked up litter? Helped that horse? It had made him happy and the horse happy. It was a start.
    He’d had to lie. That didn’t count against him when he could hardly tell the truth. The idea of a recruitment exercise was a pretty good one. Except he didn’t much look like a guy any intelligence agency would have an interest in. If telling that lie didn’t count against him, fucking Brody to get a roof over his head would. Though Aden wanted him, imagined Brody writhing beneath him, begging him to fuck him harder, and he exhaled shakily.
    Once he’d stripped, he stared at his bloodstained shirt. He couldn’t let Brody see that. He wrapped it into as tight a ball as he could. It could go in a bin later. He opened the door and picked up the clothes left there and put his coat, muddy jeans and black briefs outside. They were probably bloodstained too but the blood wasn’t obvious.
    The bathroom mirror was a full length one and now Aden was naked, it drew him like a magnet. He stepped in front of it and stared at his reflection. Not actually what he wanted to look at, but he was building up to checking out his back.
    He looked a mess. Hair stuck to his head. Blood on his face. Blood on his legs. Particularly the one he’d had to straighten after he’d been knocked down. If the bone had come through the skin, there was no sign of it now.
    A lot of people thought he was good-looking. He’d been told often enough except never by those he’d wanted to hear it from. In his experience, telling him he was cute or stunning or fucking gorgeous had too often been followed by an invitation to sit on a guy’s knee or unzip a pair of trousers or take a cock in his mouth.
    Aden had been put into care after his parents had died. What a misnomer that was. No one cared. Not even the guys who abused him. All they were bothered about was him keeping quiet about what they did to him. When Aden had his voice back and tried to speak out, no one believed him and he paid for his treachery with pain. It was a quick lesson that cooperation hurt less than rebellion. He did as he was told while inside he seethed. Eventually, he learned that not caring kept his head safe, his body less bruised. They touched but never really touched him. Using his looks to get what he needed became a habit, one he might have to continue even now.
    Except Raphael wasn’t going to be fooled by anything less than the real thing. A month to fall in love when he’d managed twenty-seven years without it?
    He tried to smile as he stared in the mirror. He looked unhealthy, though not dead. That brought a quiet chuckle to his lips. He had bits of straw in his still damp hair, he smelled of horse, and needed a shave. His eyes seemed darker than usual, his face paler. He was a bit skinny—years of too many drugs, too much alcohol, and irregular meals. He’d never let himself get addicted to either dope or booze. Or to sex, though he never went long without that. But he was always careful. No fucking without protection. Ever. No getting involved. Not that he’d ever been tempted.
    He rubbed foam on his face, and started to shave.
    Maybe he was lucky his willpower was strong enough to enable him to resist going too far with anything he wasn’t really into. The rigid control he’d had to adopt as a kid had been ingrained in his psyche. An unexpected by-product of a deprived, abusive childhood. He’d never had a problem stopping anything once he’d set his mind to it, had never been persuaded to have another drink when he didn’t want one, snort another line of coke when he knew he’d had enough.
    Dante had said Aden didn’t know the meaning of temperance. He was wrong. It was just that at times, Aden chose to push his limits, chose oblivion. He had no problem getting what he wanted by any means at his disposal. He was a manipulative bastard and now he had a month to prove he could be something different