Bovian Image - 16. Chapter 16

He couldn’t let it go, Savan thought a few weeks later. This raging desire that burned between him and Cole, it was intoxicating and he couldn’t let it go.

Each week that passed, he promised himself it would be the last. He needed to break it off, he needed to walk away before they got too intense. Three weeks later, and he was still sinking deeper. After Takayumi’s show ended, Savan figured his trysts with Cole would dwindle to an end, after all, they weren’t working together anymore.

How wrong he’d been.

Every night, he ended up at Cole’s penthouse, or Cole ended up at the loft in Bovian Image.

What scared him in all this was his growing need to be around Cole. To hear him laugh, or talk about the plans he had for Niad Fashions, or even gripe about his mother’s latest petty projects. It scared him every time he felt compelled to be in the kitchen while Cole cooked. On the weekends they were both free, Cole took him on two-day long trips out of the city.

Savan let out a shaky sigh as he finally realized something.

He was having a relationship!

The sharp sting of pain on his left index finger had him dropping the knife on the chopping board and jumping around cursing loudly. Shaking his finger, he brought it to his mouth, sucking on the painful cut, while he glared at the potatoes on the chopping board.

This was harder than he thought. Bloody Cole made cooking look so simple.

Moving to the sink, Savan ran water over his finger trying to wash away the blood so that he could see the damage. There was plenty, he noted after a few seconds. Three cuts on his left hand, two of them on his index finger and one on his thumb.

Fuck dinner, they could eat out.

Turning off the water, Savan left the kitchen and went in search of band-aids in the common bathroom.

Cole found him cursing up a storm as he tried to wrap his thumb with the stubborn band-aid he'd found that was supposed to make the cut seal right away.

“What happened?” Cole asked, coming into the bathroom and taking his hand for a thorough inspection.

“It looks like he was trying to cook.”

Liang commented from the doorway. Glancing up from where Cole was blowing his cut, Savan frowned at his best friend.

“The last time that happened, I almost had to call the fire brigade.”

“Oh, baby, were you trying to make us dinner?”

Cole took over the first aid making Savan blush when he dropped a kiss on his thumb before putting the band-aid.

Looking up, Savan found Liang laughing silently at the doorway. Making a face at him, Savan showed him the finger behind Cole’s back. Liang doubled over with laughter and had to rush away when Cole finished bandaging Savan’s fingers.

“You don’t have to do this to yourself. I don’t mind cooking,” Cole said with a small smile. “Although the idea of you in the kitchen wielding knives is rather sexy. Do you think Liang would mind if I had you on the kitchen counter?”

Savan wrapped his arms around Cole’s neck and lifted up to meld their lips together in a kiss. He didn’t know about the kitchen counter, but the bathroom one was quite available right now and a session with Cole might alleviate his sudden irritation.

Cole pulled back slightly, his hands resting on Savan’s hips.

“I’m starting to think you have a thing for bathrooms.”

“I’m not the one who insisted on doing it in a public bathroom last night.” Savan leaned up to kiss and lick at Cole’s neck. Nipping slightly, knowing that it was driving Cole crazy, he pressed a kiss to the spot again. The night before, they'd supposedly gone to the movies, but thirty minutes into it, Cole had dragged him out of the dark theater to the bathroom.

“I never got to see the ending of that movie.”

Cole hissed at him, using his hold on Savan’s hips to pull him closer so that he could feel how hard he was.

“You’re a terrible tease. You needed to be taught a lesson.”

“You could have waited until we were home.”

Coming up on his toes, Savan fused their mouths together, enjoying the feel of Cole pulling him closer, as he tightened his arms around Cole’s neck. He loved the taste of Cole’s mouth. Melting into the kiss, he closed his eyes as Cole took control. Deepening the kiss, relentlessly exploring his mouth, taking his breath away, he clung tightly to Cole’s broad shoulders wondering if it was possible to be any closer. The darned clothes were in the way. Savan bunched Cole’s shirt in his fingers and moaned.

An impressed whistle interrupted his clouded senses.

Cole let go of him reluctantly. Pressing his face into Cole’s shoulder, Savan sighed.

“What is it, Liang?”

“I was wondering what you wanted to do with the potatoes.”

“Get screwed,” Savan said, peeking at his best friend over Cole’s shoulder.

“I’m not the one who has potatoes decorating every inch of the kitchen. If you’ve had enough, you two should come help me clean up the blood too.”

Cole laughed and Savan punched him with his right hand since his left was still stinging from all the cuts.

“Laugh all you want, that’s the last time you’ll ever see me try and make you anything to eat.”

“Come on, Savan, he’s just teasing you,” Cole said, when Savan pulled out of his arms and headed for the door.

“Oh really, well, then you two should be best friends, and you’re sleeping on the couch tonight.”

Liang guffawed at the comment, and Cole grumbled.

“I didn’t even say anything about the fucking potatoes. Why do I get punished?”

Clean up took only a few minutes, Savan was restricted to the island table while Liang and Cole set about making dinner. Apparently, while he’d been chopping his fingers off, the two had gone off grocery shopping together. They teased him mercilessly about his attempt to cook through the whole process. Cole couldn’t stop laughing when he threatened to throw them both off the balcony if they didn’t stop. When dinner was ready, they sat around the island table talking about the upcoming holiday week.

Golden week was tough for the salon, since people still wanted to look fabulous on their day offs, Bovian Image remained open while Niad took the week off.

“Does that mean we can’t go on vacation together?” Cole asked, looking between Liang and Savan. “You two can’t miss out on the hot spring at our home estate. Come on, it will be a blast, Michael and Antonio are bringing their wives down.”

“Unless it’s after Wednesday,” Liang said, popping pieces of fish into his mouth. “Usually, Savan and I run the place with one other assistant until Wednesday. The staff returns on Thursday and we take our off then.”

“That will have to do,” Cole said with a sigh. “You’ll love it, and Liang can get to know my family. Savan, when do I get to meet yours? Since you already know everyone in mine, I think I should at least make an effort and pay my respects to your parents.”

The glass of water Savan had been sipping dropped on the table. He hadn’t been expecting that. Grabbing the napkins in the holder, he dumped them on the spilled liquid, while he tried to figure out the best way to answer Cole’s question.

Liang reached out to right the glass. Amazingly, it hadn’t broken.

Pushing his chair back, Savan wiped up the mess.

“What?” Cole asked, when they finished and Savan and Liang had taken their seats. “Did I say something wrong?”

“No,” Savan said shaking his head.

He glanced down at his food. His mind blank, he couldn’t bring up any of the stories he always had ready for this kind of thing. It had been a while since he’d actually had to answer questions about his family, and he didn't want to lie to Cole.

“Savan’s parents died when he was young,” Liang came to the rescue.

Savan looked at Liang and gave him an appreciative smile before he turned to Cole and shrugged.

“It’s no big deal.”

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t think—” Cole sighed. “I should have known. You don’t talk about it.”

“It’s no big deal,” Savan said again standing up abruptly. “Don’t worry about it.”

Unable to keep up the lies, he took his plate to the sink. This was the reason why he shouldn’t be getting closer to Cole. The deception between them was getting difficult. Cole had nothing to hide: he was opening everything in his life to Savan.

But he could share nothing about his own life.

“Who’s up for a little fun?” he asked abruptly. Anything to get away from all this thinking, he wasn’t cut out for relationships. “Let’s go to Hitoiro. I feel like releasing some steam.”

“Savan,” Cole started but Savan stopped him by leaning down and kissing him.

The taste of lemons filled his mouth. Savan wondered if Cole tasted his lies, pulling away, he smiled at Cole.

“I’ll go take a shower first.”

***

Pacing in the security room at Club Hitoiro, Ahmon watched his head of security running the picture he’d gotten from Han through facial recognition software. They’d run it through so many programs he was starting to think he was never going to get the proof he needed. He had his suspicions, but he couldn’t approach his father without proof. If he couldn’t get a positive identification on the picture, they were going to have to keep investigating.

“Why are we running this using the club’s cameras?” The head of security asked as he continued to add data from two years back.

“I have a hunch,” Ahmon replied.

Walking to the windows, Ahmon stared at the Bovian Image building across the street. He was in time to see Liang and Savan emerge from the salon followed by a taller man. They crossed the street and a smile formed on his lips. It looked like he was about to meet Cole Lucianne. Everyone at Bovian Image had been talking about the romance brewing between Cole and Savan. It was pissing him off that Savan had yet to bring the man over. Or maybe he was feeling abandoned.

Moving away from the windows, Ahmon was about to leave the room to go meet Savan when his head of security exclaimed.

“Boss, we have a match.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, he just walked in.”

Ahmon let out a relieved sigh moving closer to the monitor to stare at the confirmation blinking on the screen.

“This stays between you and me. If it goes beyond us, there will be consequences. Do you understand?”

“Yes sir.”

“Delete the research, hand me the original copy of that confirmation. No other documentation is necessary, and report straight to the Ashika consortium house to watch Han. I’ll call you for further instructions.”

After a few taps on the keyboard, the man handed Ahmon a small memory card. Ahmon waited for him to corrupt the hard drives. He didn’t care about cost, replacing would be the only way to help Savan, no, SarEr.

He could barely stop his excitement. When they finished, they left the security room and he urged one of his men to drive the head of security down to Ginza.

Taking the elevator down to the second floor, he located Savan immediately. He was on the dance floor with two of the waitresses. The deejay had just finished warming up the crowd and was now spinning full-blown dance music. He’d missed Savan’s energy. There were nights Savan came into the club to dance and get as drunk as he could. Immersing himself into the loud atmosphere, as though he was trying to forget.

Ahmon fingered the memory card in his pocket. It all made sense now. It was hard to imagine that the long lost heir to the largest corporation in Asia was standing right there and he could say nothing.

Ahmon couldn't even alert Savan that he knew who he was.

“You’re staring.” Liang came up beside him pulling him out of his disturbing thoughts. “You’re pissing off his boyfriend.”

“He’ll get used to it,” Ahmon said dismissively.

If Savan was SarEr, then Liang had to be the boy from the Lee family, the dead girl’s brother. Liang was Zun. He fought the need to ask that question and instead brought up their previous encounter.

“Is he alright? He’s been avoiding me. You did tell him there was no harm done that night.”

“Yeah, he’s fine.” Liang dropped a heavy hand over his shoulder. “You had better be supportive of his relationship with Cole. I like the person he is when he’s around Lucianne.”

“As opposed to whom he is when he comes to me.”

“Yes,” Liang said. “I’m not exempt in this, Ahmon. Cole is good for him.”

“We’ll have to see about that,” Ahmon said. “But, for now, I don’t think I’m the one Lucianne has to worry about. Looks to me like Savan is about to let it go on the dance floor with that woman.”

“Wait for it,” Liang said leaning on him. “Cole is the jealous types.”

Cole had managed to navigate through the crowd and was now standing right behind Savan. To Ahmon’s surprise, Cole didn’t miss a beat, fitting his body to Savan’s shorter one, he held on to Savan’s hips, grinding his own into Savan. Savan leaned back against Cole, eyes closed, his lower lip caught in his teeth. He looked aroused, all that blonde hair falling over his handsome face in jagged edges. His slender body encased in black leather and a slim fitting shirt. Cole was all kinds of man in jeans that hugged his ass to perfection.

“I hope you have a license for indecent exposure,” Liang teased when Savan turned after a few minutes and seemed to wrap himself around Cole. “Those two don’t know when to stop when they get started.”

“You’re not making it easy,” Ahmon said with a sigh.

He could never get Savan to be that open with him even on the dance floor. The couple kissed, and he felt a sharp stab in his heart. So that was how it was.

“Fine, whatever, I’ll give them space.”

Liang chuckled and winked.

“I don’t think there is anything else we can do right now.”

***

The night they returned from their visit to Cole’s family home, Cole insisted they stay over at his pent house.

Savan didn’t want to leave Cole after their fabulous weekend together. He urged Liang to stay over at the penthouse too. Liang took one of the guest rooms and after a light dinner, they all turned in for bed early, anticipating a busy morning the next day.

Cole made love to him that night with his usual intensity. Savan fell asleep afterwards content in his lover's arms.

Savan wasn’t sure what made him wake up deep in the night. He moved to sit up in a panic. Before he could fully come up, a hand clamped over his mouth and his head slammed down to the pillow. Eyes wide, his hands coming up to fight off the hand at his mouth, he froze when he felt the barrel of a gun against his forehead, and the owner of the hand pressed a knee to his chest.

“Shh…” the masked intruder said.

Turning his head slightly, Savan turned to his left, hoping to find Cole asleep. Shadows moved in the room and the lights came on. Savan felt everything inside him still at the sight of five men standing around the bed. All of them wore black masks, each armed with a gun. The man standing close to Cole pulled out a syringe out of Cole’s arm and Savan shook his head in terror.

“Come with us, or he gets hurt, make your choice. I want a single nod, and no talking when I let go of you.”

The words barely reached his ears, all he could think about was keeping Cole safe.

Closing his eyes, Savan gave a single nod and the man holding him down eased his hold on him slowly. The gun didn’t move as they flung clothes at him. Taking the jeans, he pulled them on under the covers, and sat up to pull the white t-shirt on. Turning to make sure Cole was alive; he shrugged off the hand that clamped his right shoulder in warning. He couldn't leave without knowing that Cole was still breathing.

Pressing a finger to Cole’s pulse on his neck, relief flooded him when he felt a strong beat. Pulling the sheet up to cover Cole, he pressed a kiss on his forehead and got off the bed. His captors grabbed his arms and led him out of the bedroom, their footsteps so silent, it felt like he was dreaming.

***