Chapter Two
Graham
After an earth-shattering welcome home for Leland and a quick recouping spell for me, I rolled onto my side facing Lee, ready to get right back at it. I ran my palm down his hip and when he didn’t turn toward me or lift his face as mine lowered, I frowned. “You can’t be done. Not yet.”
A slight flush overtook Lee’s face. “You knocked the ball out of the park first pitch and wore me out. I don’t have the energy for another round, baby.”
I tensed and searched his face because Leland never skipped a turn to top—and, fuck, I wanted him in me and felt a jab of disappointment I wasn’t getting it.
Still unable to believe he was serious, I asked, “You’re fucking with me, right?”
“Would that I were. Hell, would that I could.” Leland gave me a salacious grin then pouted. “But I don’t have it in me, baby. Something tells me I’m going to need to pace myself today if I’m going have any hope of staying on my feet until the party’s over.”
Was he joking? What was happening here? Leland had the sexual endurance to service a harem.
I marched my fingers down his chest toward his cock. “You don’t need to be the whole day on your feet. I was thinking you might break it up by getting on your knees, your back, a squat on my cock. The variety is endless.”
His purring laughter was all the invitation I required to move in on his mouth, but before I could claim his lips, Leland pulled away and sat up.
“I’m going to hop in the shower, Graham,” he announced, and I was taken aback when he followed that by climbing from the bed.
My mouth gaped as he disappeared into his bathroom.
What the fuck was that?
Shower over another round with me?
When time allowed it, we always kept coming and roaring until there was nothing left in either of us. And of the two of us, it was anyone’s guess which one of us was the greedier.
But, fuck me, after three months apart Lee was finished with our anniversary gift exchange—wood for wood—after one romp.
True, I was pretty sure he was troubled by something that had happened on his last op. What I hadn’t expected was for whatever occupied his mind to continue claiming him after our reunion sex. That had never happened before: his work winning the war against his desire for my body.
I collapsed back against my pillow, staring at the ceiling and rubbing my forehead with my fingertips.
I heard his shower turn on.
Fuck.
This was not how I expected our morning to play out. Not by a long shot. With my thumb, I pushed my wedding band around my finger as though it contained divine wisdom. But it didn’t. Even after all this time with Leland, there were moments I couldn’t read him at all. Cautioning myself not to leap to any wrong conclusions, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right with him.
One thing was for sure: Leland was hiding something and when he did it this poorly it was always bad.
Fuck.
Work issues?
Us issues?
Or Leland issues?
Or was it our discussion while we were running? How that had become an issue between us boggled the mind. A month ago, by phone, completely out of left field, Lee announced he wanted us to have another kid and we’d been bickering about it ever since, even though my vote day one had been a flat hell no. That complication I never expected to rear its ugly head. It wasn’t exactly the run-of-the-mill gay couple marital problem. Oh fuck, maybe it was, for all I knew.
I could take my pick of the thorns to our bliss–all four on Sunday—and probably still not get the right answer as to why Leland was in his present annoying state.
Groaning, I briefly debated asking what was going on with him before demanding he get over it, and if I thought that would have worked I would have probably done it. But instead, I decided not to let Lee’s mood fester inside me, climbed from the sheets, and headed to my bathroom for a quick wash and rinse.
After a few minutes beneath the shower, I toweled off and went into my closet, grabbing some shorts and a Hawaiian shirt as I shoved my feet into sandals. If Lee wanted to act like a moody wife on our anniversary, I’d put on my daddy clothes and pick up Ella myself from sports camp.
I skipped the shave I needed, finger-arranged my hair, and slipped my phone and keys into my back pocket. I decided to take a pass on our his-and-his special breakfast prepared by Patty and would grab a bagel from the fridge on the way out. Lee could eat alone, thank you very little, and if he thought I was going to spend the day immersed in the same old shit of trying to figure him out, then he was wrong…
My mental tantrum was cut short when I entered our room to find Leland sprawled out, naked—again—with the teak breakfast tray set in the middle of the bed. He’d showered in record time, and if my eyes weren’t mistaken, that was eggs benedict on the plates he’d uncovered.
Hmm…maybe he’d changed his mind and decided to continue our morning the right way. Never let it be said I couldn’t be the bigger man, because it was true that marriage required the ability to let things go when circumstances changed on the ground and a certain degree of flexibility.
When he saw me, his amber orbs lit up. That got me moving toward the bed instead of the door. Then the fork in his hand started making angry gestures in front of him as he swallowed down the food in his mouth.
“That man will never be my president,” he barked. I turned my head to see what had him so worked up and found the flat screen on with six channels playing news at once.
Fuck to the no.
Not this.
“Don’t say that. You know I can’t stand it when you talk that way.”
I grabbed the remote and clicked the TV off.
“How can you defend him?” Leland blustered, puffed up and staring at me like an angry rooster ready to argue to the death. “He’s going to get us into another war, Graham. You know it and I know it. And what do we do? We do our jobs and help him. Well, fuck that. Not another war. Not for this president.”
Was he itching for a fight and using this dead horse to get it? Christ, the man was going to be out of office in a year. Crisis adverted by the electorate as intended.
Running my hand through my hair, I counted to ten inside my head. “I don’t defend him. I defend the office and the constitution. I serve the office and my country, not the man. And we both know there isn’t going to be another war. It’s all bullshit blustering and nonsense.”
He shook his head as he stabbed his eggs with his toast. “Do you have blinders on or are you being naïve, baby?”
“Neither. I don’t worry about things before they happen and I don’t stew over things I can’t change.”
His gaze rose, hurt. “Is that your way of saying I’m being irrational, Graham?”
“It’s my way of saying it’s our anniversary, we’re both home at the same time for a change, and I want to fucking enjoy it. Not argue the geopolitical landscape or politics or who should or shouldn’t be president.”
Damn, my voice rose that round, but his he’s not my president rants had worn my nerves thin. I wanted to enjoy life and Leland and our family, and by fuck, I deserved and had earned the right to. I had no desire to be dragged into petty squabbles that wouldn’t change a thing—and yes, I agreed with Leland on the substantive points—but his delivery and constant harping when he was home had grown unbearable.
The entire country was on edge. People bickered and fought at the drop of a hat. But this house—our house—should have been a conflict-free zone and wasn’t.
The morning had gone from wonderful, to not so great, to awful, and I tensed since I was confident this wasn’t over.
He slouched back against the headboard and crossed his arms. “Why don’t we both resign from the company? That’s something we can do. Something we can change.”
Well, fuck me, that took me by surprise since I’d only gone back to work for the CIA because of Leland. And now he wanted to resign. I wasn’t sure if I should groan in frustration or dance a jig.
Calling his bluff and upping him one dose of anti-irrational, I pulled my phone from my pocket and sank down on the edge of the bed. Rapidly, I typed out a five-word email then hit send.
A second later, Lee’s phone dinged. He grabbed his cell from the nightstand, swiped it open, and read the screen aloud. “‘I quit. Love, Graham Carson.’”
When I glanced over my shoulder I found him reclined on a hip, studying me as if he didn’t know what to say. We warred with our eyes and he was the first to relent; he laughed. “Nice email. Concise. I only wish it was that simple to get our lives back.”
His expression changed in a way that made my mood soften. “It is that simple. You do the things you can. I can resign so I did. You let go of the things you can’t. I can’t change the world so I don’t try to. And whatever happens in the field when I work an op, I leave it there, because this is where we are and I don’t want to fuck that up. You should try that sometime, Lee.”
His face reddened and he puckered his lips as he nodded. He tapped his phone and I heard the whoosh of my email being deleted. “Resignation not accepted,” he murmured softly. “It’s better you stay with the company instead of resigning.”
Something about how he said that collided in my gut with all the other junk he’d put there in the last twenty-four hours. “And why’s that, Lee? Do you want to finally tell me what’s going on or do you just want to continue having flash arguments and mouthing cryptic ambiguities?”
His mouth tightened and I sensed the conflict within him. He let out a ragged breath. “Both, but I can’t do the former. You know that, Graham.”
I didn’t like how he said that. “Something tells me that maybe this one time you should fuck the intel classification and share. What the hell’s going on that has you so spooked?”
He pushed the tray from between us. “Nothing I can talk about. Nothing that makes it irrational that I’m spooked. And nothing I can change.” He came up behind me and slid his hands over my shoulders. “And the only thing I want to fuck right now is you.”