He moaned against hard skin, his mouth pressed tightly to it to try and muffle his sounds, but the body which pinned him down moved and flexed as they fucked like rabbits, and Fox’s mouth broke free.

He licked salt from his lips and threw his head back, giving in to the pressure inside him, the force of Axel’s cock over his prostate, the slick slide of their chests sticking them together.

Fox groaned himself awake, almost in time to realize what he was about to do.

But not in time to stop it.

Great. Just great.

He quivered and panted in his sheets as the ruined orgasm left him a quivering wreck. Couldn’t have woken up a minute later, could he? No.

Shit.

Eight years later, he was still having wet dreams about a man he’d met once, for less than twenty-four hours. Fox had been in and out of Syria so fast he’d barely had time to eat, and he sure as hell hadn’t had time to jump into bed with anyone while he was there.

He pushed the sheets aside in a flurry of anger, then hissed as his hands brushed over the wet patch. “Seriously?”

Fox kicked the rest of the sheets off himself and stalked away to the shower, but there was no doubt he’d be under a black cloud all damn day now.

There was no worse way to start a day than with bitter regret.

* * *

Fox was a stranger to Texas, and he figured it was as much a stranger to him. He drove to his current office, which was just south of Houston, and idly wondered if he’d be in the area long enough to pick up an EZ Tag, since that seemed to be what he’d need to gain access to the Loop’s faster lanes. He’d have to look into what the thing actually was, though it was probably some kind of a pre-paid toll road card.

He’d come to Texas with his nose to a data trail, and they didn’t have spare room in the main Houston CIA offices. As a result he’d been palmed off to a small satellite office, but that suited him just fine. The Houston team had a lot of Russians on their hands, and Fox didn’t have time to have his own investigation derailed by their needs.

The satellite office was a discreet little thing, tucked away just inside the outskirts of some Podunk little town Fox hadn’t ever heard of before he came down here. He had a hundred and one jokes about the name Hidden Creek lined up, but when he’d tried them on the locals they all had better ones. He figured they’d had more time to work on them.

Fox turned into the little parking lot, showed his pass to the guard in the security hut, then stowed his Ford into the first available bay.

I totally didn’t get a Ford for the name. No matter how many times he thought it, it never became true.

He killed the engine and sat a moment, his hands light against the warm leather of the steering wheel. The car was a rental. Like it was for most agents, just about everything in Fox’s life was a rental. There wasn’t any point to buying a house, a car, even a television, when he could be uprooted and sent to another state or country overnight. All he really owned were his clothes, and everything else was in a state of flux, of impermanence.

Like he wasn’t real, like he didn’t leave footprints when he walked.

That was kind of the point for the most part. Fox was a ghost. He came and went, hunting his prey, and if he were invisible enough they never saw him coming. He hadn’t been in an operation that went so badly wrong as it had that one time in Syria, thank God, but it was always a risk.

It was a risk now, the way his target liked to blow things up all the damn time.

He forced himself to take a deep breath. Maybe this was why he’d dreamed of Axel. After all these years, the only time he’d been in a bullets-flying shit-exploding situation, his ass had been saved by a big goddamn hero. And like all heroes should be, Axel remained a total mystery, swooping in just in time to save Fox and then disappearing off into the night like his Bat-Signal was going off somewhere else.

Fox snorted and shook his head. Now he was just making stuff up. It was Fox who had left. Axel had remained in Syria where he was needed. Maybe he’d been killed in action since then. Eight years was a hell of a long time in a war zone.

No. That was too horrible to contemplate. Maybe Axel had come home, married, raised a family. That was a good future for a hero. The kind of future a man like Axel deserved.

Whatever kind of man that was.

Fox grabbed his backpack from the passenger seat and launched from his car, trying to tamp down the frustration he felt building inside his chest. All this dwelling on the past, it was just kicked up by a wet dream which at his age he should be well beyond by now. It was all nerves. Just nerves. And he’d be over it by tomorrow. Just like he always was.

He plastered a smile across his face and made for the front door.

* * *

“Good morning, Agent Walker!” The dawn chorus came from the pool of admin staff as Fox breezed past them.

“Good morning, Ladies, Gentlemen, Darlings, and Monsters!” He waved with false cheer, but the warmth of their welcome had managed to prop up his spirits somewhat. “Is Peter here yet?”

They all nodded. A few said, “Uh-huh,” and he got a “Yes” in the mix.

“Thank you kindly!” He flipped a salute and swooped on through to the server room, pausing to swipe his card at the door to unlock it. “Peter, you hairy asshole! Have you figured out which of the tubes you own contains deodorant yet?”

Agent Peter Stone was a big guy, in the could win cuddle contests for his country kind of way. He looked warm and smooshy like a human marshmallow, but his hair was down to his waist, and his beard almost was, too. Still, he probably gave pretty good hugs. He looked that kind of guy, always smiling, eyes kindly and warm.

“No,” Peter laughed as he turned his chair toward Fox. “I smell minty. Maybe it was toothpaste? You wanna sniff me?”

“Maybe later, sweet pea.” Fox grinned as he dropped into his own chair. “First I got work to do. You know, that thing they pay us for. You do know what work is, right?”

“I mean, I guess, since I’m the one who bothers turning up on time,” Peter chuckled as he swiveled back to his own laptop. “I guess that’s why you’re not called Fox Runner am I right?”

Fox groaned as he pulled his laptop out and booted it. “You’re getting way too quick. Careful or they’ll give you a promotion.”

“No way. And don’t you dare put in a good word, either. I’m the worst guy you’ve ever worked with, I leave litter all over the floor, and the server room is on fire at least three times a week, okay?”

Fox puffed out his cheeks as his fingers flew over the keys to enter his password and open the apps he needed. “What do I get out of it?”

Peter’s fingers disappeared into his beard a while as he scratched his chin, then he nodded. “How ’bout I help you out with that mountain of data you’re gonna wade through. Twice the eyes, half the time. Deal?”

Fox glanced to him and blinked. All joking aside, that was a hell of a generous offer. He had thousands of terabytes to sift through, and any little bit here or there could be the piece of data he needed to figure out where his mystery data trail was headed.

“Okay,” he agreed slowly. “You got yourself a deal. Don’t come crying to me when your eyes dry up and fall out of your face, though.”

“Cross my heart,” Peter chuckled. “Send it over.”

Fox felt just a little better about the day. If he could clear this work in half the time, he could be out of Texas and back to Virginia in a flash. Big whoop. He grimaced.

Still, at least Virginia had mountains.

He settled in to start poring over reams and reams of information, seeking out the needle in this haystack that would set him off on the right path.