OCTOBER IN Chicago was already cold, so as we sat outside in the car on the moderately busy city street, I turned the heater on. The problem was, though, that once Ian got warmed up, he was out like a light. Because of his military training, if Ian wanted to sleep, he could do it on command. It took maybe a minute for him to be dead to the world, and it was annoying as hell, because I had to power down my brain to reach that same REM sleep he could achieve so easily. Even sex wasn’t a certainty for knocking me out, and I was frankly more than a little resentful.
“Will you wake up?” I growled, jabbing him with my elbow to roust him.
“What?” he complained, sitting up, scowling at me. “Don’t be jealous.”
I went back to checking the street with the binoculars as he got situated again, leaning his head against the driver’s-side door. We were a street over from the house we were monitoring, our fellow marshals, Eli Kohn and Jer Kowalski, were across the street, and Chicago PD was there with cars on the other three corners of the block. It wasn’t for our case, or even a fugitive the marshals were looking for, but instead another task force op.
“Hey.”
My gaze flicked over to him.
“Why don’t you just tell me already?”
I had no idea what we were talking about. “You lost me,” I said, again glancing around the perimeter to make sure I hadn’t missed anything.
“We both know that ever since Altman was here you’ve been even weirder than usual.”
This wasn’t the marriage thing. This was something else, and I really didn’t want to get into it. “I don’t know what you’re—”
“Stop,” he ordered. “Spill.”
His Army buddy, Sean Altman, was one of the guys in the twelve-man team Ian was a member of, and whenever Ian was away on a mission, Altman was with him. He was in charge of communications, while Ian was a weapons specialist. Altman had expounded, because I’d asked, what kinds of tasks Operational Detachment Alpha did. He talked about training, and that each member of the team had an insertion specialty—which of course made me snicker, because no matter how old I was on the outside I was still a little boy in my head—but didn’t give me more details about the group. And while I understood, I felt like he shouldn’t have asked what I wanted to know if he really couldn’t say.
I had excused myself to give the two men time alone, but I got annoyed that Ian didn’t stop me, didn’t want me there. Upstairs in bed, I realized how possessive and idiotic I was acting, made peace with the fact that I was being an asshole, and let it go. They stayed up into the early morning hours talking, and I finally fell asleep around two. When I woke up to make coffee, I was surprised that Altman wasn’t passed out on the couch where he’d been the day before.
“Where’s your buddy?” I asked Ian as he walked up behind me and planted a kiss on my bare shoulder.
“He had to go,” was all he said.
But there had been more to it than that, because another week later, Ian had to report to training because Altman had been replaced with a new guy in their group. When I prodded him, he told me he wasn’t sure why Altman had transferred but he was certain the man had his reasons.
“Everyone has reasons, Ian. Don’t you care what they are?”
“It’s none of my business?”
“He’s your friend.”
“He is.”
I was confused. “So I could go ahead and request a new partner, and you wouldn’t want to know why?”
“That’s different and you know it,” he husked, leaning in, hand on my cheek to keep me still as he kissed me. He put his coffee cup down and used his free hand to divest me of my sleep shorts. When he dropped to his knees, I forgot why I cared that Altman hadn’t stayed in my house.
As the weeks wore on, my mind kept returning to Altman, and now, in the car on a stakeout, I had no way to tiptoe around the subject.
“Miro?”
I was good and caught. “What?”
“Don’t do the what, just ask your fuckin’ question.”
I coughed softly. “I want to know why Altman left that night and then later left your group.”
Ian let his head roll sideways so he could see me. “He wanted to fuck me.”
I accidentally inhaled the water I was drinking and nearly drowned right there. “Jesus Christ, Ian!” My roar was loud in the car. “Are you tryin’ to fuckin’ kill me?”
“Nope,” he sighed, “only answering the question.”
“Ian!”
“Stop yelling,” he said with a yawn.
“Then explain.”
Quick shrug. “He told me he was gay.”
“Why? Why would he do that just outta the blue?”
“It wasn’t like that. He trusted me ’cause I came clean with my team the last time I saw them.”
“You did?”
“Sure I did,” he explained. “I couldn’t have them find out by themselves down the road. It wouldn’t be fair. So I told my CO first and then the rest of the team.”
I was overwhelmed. “I can’t believe you did that.”
“You have to be honest with the men you serve with—they have your back.”
“And do they still have yours?”
“Of course,” he said irritably, like how dare I doubt them. “They know me. They’ve been in combat with me. What would have changed?”
“People are stupid sometimes, and the gay part freaks them out.”
“Yeah, okay, but not—you know, my guys. They’re soldiers first. The only thing that matters is do you carry your weight.”
I understood that too.
“But so I told them, and that night Altman was here, he propositioned me.”
I tried hard not to sound defensive. “And what’d you say?”
“What the fuck do you think I said?”
It was the niggling fear in the back of my head… what Ian could have or could do with someone other than me. I wasn’t the only man able to tie him down; he knew others.
I stared at him. He stared back.
I relented. “You trust those guys too.”
“Meaning what?”
I shrugged.
“I’m that easy to give up?”
“You know that’s not how it is.”
“Oh yeah?” he taunted. “How is it, then?”
I leaned into him, close, my mouth hovering over his so we were sharing breath. “I want to know what you told your friend.”
“And I wanna know what’s going on in your head.”
I went to ease back, but he slipped his hand around the side of my neck and held tight, making sure I stayed where I was.
“I’m not the only one who could be in bed with you.” It was true. “We both know it.”
“There are other guys,” he agreed. “There’s no doubt.”
My mouth went dry because this was another fear that rode me, along with him thinking that marriage was not for him.
When we’d started, I’d thought it was only me who could give Ian what he needed physically, but if the men he entrusted his life to were also vying to fuck him… it would be hard for me to compete.
He asked the question I didn’t have the balls to. “So why you, then?”
I pulled away, hating the conversation, mad that I’d brought anything up and wanting it to all just go away. Why I always had to push, I had no idea. I didn’t need to know this badly what had happened with his friend.
“M.”
The streetlights had all my attention.
“Look at me.”
I did as he asked, slowly, reluctantly.
“You’re such an idiot.”
“That’s helpful,” I muttered, letting my head thump sideways against the window.
“Kohn,” Ian said softly, and I realized he was now on his phone. “Miro and I are out for twenty. We gotta eat.”
“Where the fuck are you eating out here? This is Englewood.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning just stay in the fuckin’ car. It ain’t safe.”
“It’s not that bad.”
“The hell it’s not,” he scoffed, and I could hear Kowalski chuckling in the background. “Is your vest on?”
“Could you shut up already and cover our position.”
“10-4,” he said snidely.
I needed air, so I shifted to get out of the car, trying to remember what was close, but Ian grabbed the front of the wool hunting jacket I’d changed into at the office and held tight. “What’re you doing?” I muttered.
He yanked me forward, framed my face with his hands, and kissed me hard, rough. I opened for him as he shoved his tongue inside, seeking mine. It was a hot, brutal onslaught, and I whimpered in the back of my throat as he reached around me to lower the seat so that once he leaned over the console, I was under him, taking what he was giving.
He loosened the long, gray cashmere scarf I had on and made me jolt under him when he suckled the side of my neck.
“Ian—”
He kissed me again, biting my bottom lip to shut me up before his lips settled hungrily, possessively, on mine.
Not much of a talker, my boy, but I heard him anyway, loud and clear.
“I trust you,” he panted in a broken whisper before he went back to mauling my mouth. “Only you.”
Only me. There was only me.
So yes, he could have other lovers, but he only trusted me, and because he did, that translated to a singular desire.
I needed air, so I shoved him back enough to gulp some.
“If I fuck someone else,” he rasped, “I’ll lose you, and I can’t have that.” He looked good all excited and hot for me, with his blown pupils and swollen lips and flushed face. “When Altman said what he did, all I could think was—if I fuck him, Miro’ll leave me, and then he’ll be lookin’ for a new guy to take home and put in his bed, and I wanna be the only guy who ever gets to be there.”
He was the only one I wanted. I didn’t even see anyone else but him.
“And besides, you’re way prettier than Altman.”
I snorted out a laugh. Having Ian—the man who was physical perfection himself with his sculpted body and gorgeous eyes; the smoky, seductive sound of his voice and his wicked grin—think I was beautiful was overwhelming. Him wanting me did fantastic things for my ego.
“Miro,” he rumbled, bending to kiss me again, “I’m yours.”
And I knew that, I did.
“Don’t second-guess me. Don’t think stupid shit anymore, all right? I don’t stay ’cause you’re the only guy who could hold me down or tie me up or whatever. I stay ’cause it’s us and we’re real and I’m safe, so”—he growled—“stop.”
He was safe because I made him feel that way. There was nothing else he needed and nothing else I wanted. I had an opening there, because in that moment he was vulnerable and I could’ve pushed. It would be easy to bring up the marriage thing again, say that if he felt the way he so obviously did, then there was, in fact, a logical next step. But it was nice between us now, and I didn’t want to screw it up by returning to an already sore subject.
“Okay,” I agreed, sighing as I accepted another kiss, “okay.”
“I wanna go home,” he said raggedly, and when I reached down between us and rubbed over his rock-hard cock straining against his zipper, his moan was sweet.
“You want me bad,” I teased, tilting his head and licking the base of his throat.
“Don’t gloat,” he cautioned, twisting around to flop down into his seat and then gripping the steering wheel tight. Moments later he called Kohn and told him we were back.
“Hold on, I’ma put you on speaker ’cause Jer wants to—”
“That was fast. What’d you eat?” Kowalski wanted to know.
“Nothing,” Ian said, his voice brittle with annoyance. He wanted to leave.
“Ohhh-kay, so—oh, wait. We have movement on the north side of the house. Everyone hold position.”
We were out front, so we couldn’t see anything.
“Shit!” Kohn yelled. “Go-go-go—suspect is fleeing on foot down 77th Street east toward Racine.”
Ian exploded from the car and took off running. I had no choice but to climb into the driver’s seat and whip the car out from between the two parked ones and into the street. I hated driving when Ian was running, and it was only worse at night when I had a harder time following him.
My phone rang seconds later. “Do you have a visual on Doyle?” I yelled at Kohn. “I can’t see him anywhere!”
“In pursuit down an alley—he’s on Bishop now, headed toward 79th!”
Shit.
I made a U-turn in the middle of the street, much to the annoyance of other drivers if the blaring horns, screeching tires, and yelling was any indication.
“Shit, wait,” Kohn gasped, “it’s Loomis, not Bishop.”
It was good he told me since I had been poised to make a hard left and instead drove by, flying down the street to the next one and turning in, barreling down it probably much faster than I should have. Alleys were dicey; you never knew who could pop out of one of the buildings.
A man was in a dead sprint toward me, and my partner was in quick pursuit. I came to a lurching stop, and as the guy went to veer around me, I threw open the driver’s-side door. He hit it hard, slamming it shut, but it stopped him.
Ian was there a second later, hauling the dazed man roughly to his feet so I could get out. He cuffed him, then spun him around and shoved him against the car.
“This is police brutality,” he gasped.
“We’re not the police,” Ian stated, not even winded from his run, pulling his badge from the inside of his coat so the guy could see the star. “We’re marshals.”
“Shit,” he groaned. “I don’t wanna go back to the joint.”
“Too late,” I replied cheerfully as Kohn and Kowalski came whipping down the alley—we all drove too fast—followed by three police cars, blue lights pulsing, sirens screaming.
We were surrounded in seconds, but Kowalski had more important things on his mind than the apprehended fugitive.
“Did you guys really eat?” Jer wanted to know before anything else, big bear of a man that he was. He looked like one of those powerlifters in the Olympics, all barrel chested and huge. In contrast was his partner: sleek, metrosexual Eli Kohn, who apparently took a new woman home every single night. I always wondered where he got the energy.
“What?” Ian asked, clearly annoyed.
“What? Why you gotta say it like that? I was gonna treat for dinner, but not if you’re gonna be a prick. I’ll take your partner and leave your ass here.”
Ian’s scowl got darker, and I apologized for him and said we’d love to have dinner at any restaurant of Jer’s choosing.
“There, ya see, douchebag—that’s how not to be a dick.”
“Where’s Sergeant Joyner?” I asked everyone around me.
“Here,” she called out, striding up to me as the men cleared a path.
I passed her the fugitive’s wallet when she reached me. “I release into your custody one Derek LaSalle, formerly of Gresham, Oregon, wanted for assault and battery.”
Sergeant Adele Joyner out of the Portland PD was more than happy to take him off our hands. “Thank you,” she said, shaking my hand and then Ian’s. “Without these task forces, I’d never pick up the criminals who aren’t involved in our open cases.”
It was true. Most cops were so busy not drowning in their day-to-day caseload that people who evaded capture, ran to other states, or crossed jurisdictional lines slipped through the cracks. Many PDs didn’t have the resources or manpower to simply follow a fugitive across the country. But what they could do was bring their missing violent criminals to the marshals service, and we would form what basically amounted to a posse made up of federal, state, and local law enforcement personnel to hunt down whoever they were after. Joyner had approached the marshals in Portland, and they had in turn accessed case records in Chicago and found a lead on her fugitive. The rest was simply waiting and watching.
“I appreciate this so much, gentlemen.”
“It’s our job,” Ian assured her.
“It is,” I agreed.
“So tell me a good place to eat before we go back to the hotel.”
I suggested Girl & The Goat downtown, but Ian wanted meat and beer so we decided on Trenchermen over on North Avenue. I’d taken him once before and the hanger steak there was his new favorite thing. Sadly, when I called to check, the dining room was closed, and since it was past 10:00 p.m., our options were dwindling. Ian’s second idea was Mexican, El Charro over on Milwaukee Ave. He went on and on about the extralarge super burrito with scrambled eggs and chorizo until even Kowalski was salivating. Joyner and some others agreed to follow us there.
He was excited to see that the driver’s-side door on the Taurus was caved in from the fugitive’s impact, so we had to have it towed back to our garage. We technically weren’t allowed to drive a vehicle in any condition where the structural integrity could be called into question.
“Gimme a break, it’s fine,” I told Ian. “It’s still drivable. That’s only a ding.”
“It’s a big fuckin’ ding,” Kowalski informed me.
I pointed at Ian. “He just doesn’t wanna drive it anymore.”
“Yeah, I can’t blame him,” Kohn admitted, looking revolted. “It doesn’t scream armed and dangerous, more middle management.”
Kowalski shivered. “I can’t even fit in that.”
I snorted in spite of myself, and Ian cracked a grin. “Fine,” I relented. “We’ll have it towed back so the dent can be banged out.”
Ian’s whoop of happiness made me smile.
“Call it in,” I directed, shaking my head when he hit my abdomen in excitement.
HEADING TO the restaurant, riding in the back seat of the Mercedes Benz that was Kohn and Kowalski’s vehicle, I complained about how slow he was driving.
“Miro’s used to me taking the corners on two wheels.” Ian snickered.
“I try and keep all tires on the road at all times,” Kohn affirmed in his superserious voice.
I approved of that, just not the lack of speed. When I complained some more, he actually hit the gas, but not enough to make me happy.
“I could die of old age back here,” I insisted, leaning forward between him and Kowalski. “Lemme drive.”
“Not on your life,” Kohn assured me as his partner put a massive hand on my face and shoved me back.
I turned to Ian. “You gonna let him treat me like that?”
Since he couldn’t stop laughing, I figured my backup was not forthcoming.
After we’d eaten, we walked three doors down to a bar Ian knew, and he and the marshals from Oregon, along with me and Kohn—Kowalski bailed to drive Joyner and one of the other detectives back to their hotel—got down to some serious drinking.
When the stories started getting swapped, I was ready to go. It was well after midnight and we all had to work later today. But Ian got talked into darts and more drinks and finally, around one thirty, I had to take drastic measures.
I caught him coming out of the bathroom as I lay in wait.
“Hey.”
He turned fast, saw me leaning against the exposed brick wall, and strolled over.
“What’re you doin’?”
I shrugged. “I’m beat, so I’m gonna head out.”
“Without me?” he asked, instantly concerned.
“I don’t want to keep you from having a good time.”
He took a breath.
“Unless you’d rather come home with me?” I asked softly, taking hold of his hips and pulling him into me, my eyes locked on his.
“I… yeah,” he rasped, inhaling sharply as I opened my stance, allowing him to push in closer, my thigh sliding between his legs.
“I wanna kiss you,” I promised softly, gently. “But I can’t do that here.”
“But you will at home.”
“Oh yes,” I said, smiling at him.
“Okay, let’s go,” he replied hoarsely.
“Good,” I agreed, glad that we didn’t have to go pick up Chickie from my friends Aruna and Liam, since they’d agreed to keep him overnight. I’d had no idea how long the op would run, so I’d made arrangements.
When we got back to the table, the others wanted to know what bar we were hitting next. I got it, I did, we worked a crazy scary job, and the unwinding was necessary and allowed people to bond. But I was beat and could barely make conversation, let alone sing “Kumbayah” with all of them.
“Actually we’re both going,” Ian apprised them. “Work and all that.”
We were called lightweights, but Kohn called it a night, too, and we caught cabs, Kohn over to Roosevelt and State where he lived in some new high-end apartment building, and me and Ian down to the Loop where we caught a bus out to the Fullerton stop in Lincoln Park. It took longer than a cab would have, but that would have cost a mint. As it was, the walk from the stop to the Greystone was short.
I was about to start telling Ian all the hot sweaty, sticky things I had planned for him the second we got home when his phone rang. As soon as he looked at the caller ID, I saw his face fall.
“Oh no,” I said without meaning to, because I’d had a few drinks. “No-no-no.”
But it was obvious and unchangeable. He was leaving on a mission later this morning—I caught that much listening to his yes-and-no answers—and all we’d have would be a few hours, for God knew how long. His smile after he hung up tried hard to show me that everything was going to be all right.
Once inside, Ian locked the front door before we both took off our jackets and hung them up, and then he turned to say something to me, but I grabbed him instead.
“You’re leaving me again,” I whispered, shoving him against the door, my chest plastered to his back, holding him in place. I caught his left wrist with my right hand and pinned it above his head, using my other to reach up under his shirt and pinch his left nipple, hard.
“Fuck!” he yelled, writhing against me as I pulled him away from the door just enough to run my hand down his abdomen, savoring the feel of his muscles flexing beneath my fingers.
I let go of his wrist and worked open his belt and jeans and got under the elastic of his briefs to take hold of his gorgeous cock, already dribbling precum.
“Someone’s ready for me,” I husked into his ear before he tilted his head back and to the side and offered me his mouth.
I milked his length as I devoured his lips, breaking the kiss only after he was squirming against me.
“Let me—I need to get these down,” he whispered before shoving his jeans to his knees. When he reached behind him and pressed a lube packet into my hand, I was surprised.
“Where the fuck did this come from?” I asked, my voice thick with need as I let go of him, only moving away far enough to shuck my pants and briefs down and slather my dick.
“I carry these for you,” he said, splaying his hands on the door, arching his back, offering me his hard, beautiful body, “just in case.”
“Very smart,” I growled, taking hold of my slicked, seeping dick and pressing slowly into his body.
“Miro!” he gasped, shivering, jolting back against me, impaling himself on my length, pushing in deep, hard, wanting me, needing me to fill him fast, the gentle and slow saved for another time. “I wanna feel it when I’m gone.”
“I would never hurt you,” I whispered, thrusting quickly, holding on to his lean hips tight, dragging myself from him gradually on the retreat, only to piston back inside a moment later.
“Fuck, you feel good,” he rasped brokenly, the yearning there. “Don’t… stop.”
He was slick and hot, and I wanted to be gentle, but he wouldn’t let me.
“Miro, fuckin’—hurry!”
I could do nothing less. His demand, with the dark strain in his voice, the breathless catch, the way he trembled—I wanted all of him.
I drove into him over and over until we were both sticky with sweat and he was braced against the wall with one hand, jerking himself off with the other.
“I’m gonna… come,” he ground out.
I ran my hand up the back of his head into his hair and fisted tight, yanking hard to claim his mouth. He opened for me and I sucked on his tongue, the kiss brutal and desperate. I wanted to absorb him into my skin, have him with me all the time, and it was heartbreaking and joyful all at the same time.
God, I loved him.
His muscles clamped around me as he broke the kiss to yell, spurting onto the door, shuddering against me as my own orgasm followed his and I pumped into him, filling him up, semen dripping hot and thick between us.
I leaned heavily, still buried in his ass, and kissed along his jaw as he let his head fall back on my shoulder. “I love you,” I said, licking the sweat from his skin. “Be careful while you’re away from me.”
He moved his head, just barely acknowledging my request. “Kiss me more.”
It was all I wanted to do.