Chapter 11

 

BRENT IVERS had lied.

He’d said he was on a business trip and only visiting the Windy City from Florida. But it turned out the new job was a bust, so he’d moved back. All of that was in a message he’d left me when, as he explained, “that coven of yours wouldn’t let me in to see you after you were shot.” Apparently he’d called when I was in the hospital, and after Aruna informed him I’d been hurt in the line of duty, she went on to clarify that under no circumstances was he allowed to see me. She threatened him with bodily harm, and he reported all of it in his second message. He was still ranting on the fourth one he’d left.

“He sounds nuts,” Kowalski said as he dealt the cards.

I was explaining it to the table at our regular Thursday night card game, this week at Becker’s house. Originally we’d held the game on Fridays, but me, Ian, Kohn, and Ryan were all single, and Friday was the night we were usually out getting laid.

“Maybe you need a restraining order,” Kohn suggested before taking a long drag on his beer. “I can get one tomorrow since you’ll be on a plane with Becker.”

“You don’t need a TRO for your ex,” Mike Ryan—tall, dark, and built like the swimmer he’d been in college—explained to me. “Gimme his address and me and Sharpe’ll go over there and have a talk with him. He won’t bug you after that.”

“Yep,” Sharpe agreed from where he sat across from me.

I laughed. “I can fight my own battles, thank you, gentlemen. And it’s not like that, just funny, is all.”

“Yeah, it’s a riot,” Jack Dorsey said as he walked back into the room from the kitchen and passed Becker a Corona. “But if you see him hanging around, polishing a knife, you let us know.”

I scoffed. “Absolutely. Hey, Jack, I have a question.”

“What?”

“I was meaning to ask, what happened to your brother and his partner? I haven’t seen either of them here in months. I miss taking money off the nice ATF agents.”

He grunted. “Elliot’s partner moved to this little asscrack of a town in Kentucky with his boyfriend and—”

“What?” I blurted in surprise.

“What?” he parroted.

“That guy I met, Pete… he’s gay?” Holy crap, maybe the girls were right to give me shit about being oblivious. All I’d seen when I met agent Peter Lomax and his partner, Jack Dorsey’s little brother Elliot, was two very alpha guys. They both came off as swaggering douchebags in the nicest way possible. It had been obvious that Jack had a good relationship with his brother, and by extension, Pete. But I had no idea Pete was gay; he hadn’t pinged my gaydar even once.

“I thought all you gay guys knew each other,” he said seriously.

“You did not just say that,” Sharpe remarked dryly.

“What?”

“Finish your damn story,” Ching directed.

“Well, whatever. He’s gay, and so he moved to be with his partner, and so two months later when another opening came up in Louisville, my brother and his wife moved there too.”

“No shit.” Kohn sounded surprised too.

“Yeah, I mean, I thought for sure his wife Felicia would be upset about it, but her family ain’t here, they’re in Cincinnati. So it’s actually closer for her to see her side.”

“That sucks that your brother’s not here anymore.” I said sympathetically.

“Yeah, but he’ll visit in the summer, and me and Sandi are going for like a week around Labor Day,” Dorsey said, and he sounded okay with it. “And then he’s coming home for Thanksgiving. So it won’t be like it was, but it’s okay. I mean, I get it, right? I love my family but I spend more time with Ryan than I do with my wife.”

Sharpe nodded. “Yeah, I mean, if your partner moves, you’re supposed to do… what? Just get a new one? How would that work?”

I looked around the room. I couldn’t imagine Ryan without Dorsey, Ching without Becker, Kowalski without Kohn, or Sharpe without White. Or me without Ian. It was weird to even contemplate. And when one of us was away—or two as it was now, with Ian gone and White still off work—we all swapped around. Even though every single one of us would take a bullet for any of the others, your partner was the one who always had your back, who rode to the hospital in the ambulance if, heaven forbid, something happened, and he was the guy who always thought how much better whatever it was would be if you were there.

At least that was how it worked for me.

“What the fuck is this?” Ryan complained loudly from the kitchen.

Glancing over at him, I saw him holding up a thinly sliced piece of meat.

“It’s prosciutto,” Kohn called over.

“What is that?”

“It’s like fancy super-thin sliced salty ham,” Kohn continued.

“Why does it have a whole other name?”

Kohn huffed. “Why are you asking me? I’m Jewish; I don’t even eat that crap.”

“Just eat it,” Kowalski ordered Ryan.

Ryan growled, and I would have said something, but Dorsey joined him in the kitchen to try it.

“It’s good whatever the fuck it is,” Ryan said, shrugging.

“I want a sandwich,” I announced.

“Well, get the fuck up and make it,” Ching instructed.

I snorted out a laugh, folded my 2 and 7 off suit, and got up.

“Oh, oh!” Becker said, his phone in one hand. “It looks like boss man says that I ain’t makin’ the trip to Tennessee.”

“Then who’s going with me?” I asked, glancing back to the poker table.

Everyone checked their phones and no one else had a text.

“Oh man,” Ching groaned. “Tell me we don’t have a newb.”

Kohn cackled. “I bet we’ve got help since White and Doyle are both still out.”

“Yeah, but White should be back next week, and Doyle’ll be back… when?” Becker asked, glancing toward me.

“Monday.”

“Yeah, see?” he said, looking at the others. “There’s no room at the inn. We got everyone we need.”

“Don’t be an elitist pig,” Ryan warned. “If the team never grew beyond the first guys, it would still only be me, White, Sharpe, Dorsey, and Kowalski. You wouldn’t even be here. Change can be good.”

We all threw food at him.

“Assholes!”

It was good to laugh with all of them, but really. Babysitting for a twelve-hour drive was not my idea of fun. I’d rather go alone.

 

 

SINCE I was flying, I had been smart and stopped drinking right after midnight, chugged water, and took Tylenol before I went to bed. So when 6:30 a.m. rolled around and it was time to get up and go to the airport, I was in pretty good shape. At the gate, I was slurping coffee and sipping from a bottle of water at the same time.

“Did you get water for me?”

Ian Doyle stood over me, dressed casually with his military backpack slung over one shoulder.

We weren’t supposed to stand out in any way; we weren’t marshals transporting a witness, instead we were just two guys on vacation. But there was no way for him to blend in. Even in the junker pants and military boots, the white T-shirt under the heavy wool sweater, and the duffle coat I’d bought him for his last birthday, he looked amazing. Nothing he had on went together at all, and yet, the smirk made that fact meaningless. I was weightless with happiness.

“Oh shit.” I whimpered without meaning to, leapt to my feet, and grabbed him tight.

Because he was slightly taller, whenever he hugged me, he leaned heavily, giving me more of his weight than he was probably aware of. I loved it because it meant that, every time, we notched together tighter than I did with anyone else but a lover.

“You thought I’d make you have to endure a whole day in a car with Becker?”

He smelled so fucking good, like the damn citrusy soap in his bathroom and the aftershave he bought at a little place in Chinatown. Supposedly he wore it because it took care of razor burn, but I didn’t care. I liked the way it smelled. It was like mint with a trace of lemon, and woodsy and smoky at the same time.

He chuckled. “Did you miss me?”

“Yeah,” I whispered, realizing that for once, he was hugging me back as hard as I was hugging him.

“That’s good.”

He already had clear blue eyes and dimples, a smile so incredible that once you saw it you’d do anything to see it again, and a long and lean powerfully muscled frame. It was ridiculous, really, that he also smelled like heaven. To be fair to the rest of us, something needed to be wrong with him. Various women in his life had complained about everything from intimacy issues to him being crappy in bed, but I didn’t actually buy that he wasn’t perfect. An asshole, absolutely, but no more than any other guy I knew.

I pulled back, because any longer and the hugging might have been weird for him. I didn’t want to make him uncomfortable. “So,” I said, smiling like an idiot, I was sure. “You look good, no holes or nothing.”

His brows furrowed.

“What’s wrong?”

“Right shoulder and left collarbone?”

“What?”

“Where you were shot?”

“Oh. Yeah.” I put my hand on my right shoulder. “Both went straight through, so it was no big deal. I was really lucky.”

The muscles in his jaw tightened, and I slipped my hand around his throat, rubbing over his jaw with my thumb.

“It’s okay.”

His gaze stayed locked with mine, and then I noticed the feel of Ian’s whiskers under my callused thumb and realized what the hell I was doing.

Coughing, I moved my hand. “I’ll go get you some water,” I announced. I didn’t wait for him to say anything, bolting away instead.

When I returned to the gate, he had his coat off, discarded on the seat next to him, and was bent over, hunting for something in his backpack. As I watched, he pulled off his sweater, rucking the T-shirt up, revealing the bare stretch of skin of his powerful back.

I was abruptly bumped from behind and twisted to see a woman looking at me, mouth open, before she snapped it shut.

“You walked into me,” I teased.

She bit her lip.

“’Cause you were looking at the pretty man.”

A nod.

“So was I,” I confessed, and she smiled at me before she rushed off.

After taking a steadying breath, I walked up to him at the same time as he pulled a dark blue Henley over his head and tugged it into place.

“What was wrong with the sweater?” I grumbled as I flopped down into my chair and held the bottle of water up to him.

“I’m burning up. It’s hot in here.”

“Could you not get naked in front of everyone?”

He squinted at me. “I’m not naked. I’m taking off my sweater.”

I pretended to be engrossed with checking my phone for any status changes until the call came for boarding.

“What’s wrong with you?” he asked while we stood in line, his backpack slung over one shoulder.

“Nothing,” I said, because it would pass—the feeling I always got when he returned home. The surge of possessiveness nearly choked me every time. It was like I needed him marked or something, I wasn’t sure how, or… I just needed people to know he belonged to someone and that they shouldn’t think he was attainable.

“You always get like this when I come back.”

I ignored the comment even though he was right. Immediately after the vicious desire to keep him—to tie him down—dissipated, I was hit with the exhaustion of having to redo all my work. Getting Ian comfortable with me, getting him to trust me, was like housetraining a feral cat. His time away always erased whatever had been built up and I was back to square one. He would come back to our world and his training would be riding him, looking for threats from every corner, and that included me. It was so tiring, the uphill battle of returning to Ian Doyle’s circle of trust.

“Maybe you would have liked Becker with you better,” he muttered under his breath.

“Becker keeps his clothes on in the middle of airports,” I said petulantly, the only thing I could think of to say, smiling for the gate agent who scanned my boarding pass.

“Have a nice flight, Mr. Jones.”

“Thank you,” I said crisply, striding forward quickly, putting a little distance between me and my partner.

He caught me quickly on the Jetway, his hand on my left shoulder, his fingers digging into the muscle there. “Why’re you….”

He didn’t finish and neither did he move his hand, and after a moment I registered that he was using a lot of pressure to hold me still. I could feel the heat from his hand through the zippered cashmere cardigan and T-shirt, and a throb of need spurred by the rough caress went straight to my groin.

I’d never survive ten to twelve hours in a car with him if I didn’t get myself under control. I should have slept with someone, anyone, even Brent, while he was gone. As it was, friendship and lust were riding me at the same time. It was a bad combination.

“You’re so hard all over, M,” Ian said softly, brushing against me as we moved forward. “I bet you could….”

I waited, but he didn’t say more. “Could what?”

He shrugged.

“No, c’mon. Could what?”

Quietly, he cleared his throat. “I always wonder how you can move so fast and run guys down and go deep when we play ball, being as bulked up as you are.”

It had been a conscious choice. When I was little, I was small, and people took things from me. They took shelter, food, and money, anything that was mine, because I was weak. Now that I was older, between the strength in my body and the gun I carried, I would never be anyone’s victim again.

“It’s because I’m all power, buddy,” I teased, bumping him gently, wanting us to be back to how we were before he left, so desperately, but knowing it would be weeks before we would be okay. “You know that.”

“I….”

When I turned, he caught his breath, and for a second, I let down my guard and gave him my total and undivided attention. I was usually so careful: I reminded myself often not to stand too close, not to turn my head so my lips accidentally grazed his ear or jaw or cheek when he leaned in to tell me something. I didn’t touch him too much, I hugged him only when he left or came home or when one of us almost died. I didn’t study the clear blue eyes or notice the flecks of silver in them or admire how dark they shaded when he was worried or excited or angry. When we played football, I always played on the same team so I would never have a reason to tackle him. And most of all, I never, ever, manhandled him. I knew if I ever put my hands on him, I’d never take them off. But his sharp inhale, the sound of it, wasn’t like fear, but like vulnerability and need, like submission…. My hand moved before my brain caught up.

I grabbed his bicep and yanked him sideways against me. I immediately saw the confusion on his face, but even more importantly, I noted the blown pupils, the parted lips, the flush that blotched his throat, and the shiver that ran through him. And for once I didn’t think about what it would mean if it was anyone but Ian, and instead thought about what I would do if the beautiful man beside me was a stranger.

Breathe in—

My vision blurred for a second, like the beat of my heart was an electromagnetic pulse, and everything stopped. I was frozen, trapped, aware of nothing and no one but Ian Doyle.

—breathe out

The rush of movement and color and sound was fast, so fast, but it was enough. I wouldn’t have to start over with him this time, but only if I changed everything. I had a decision to make: Pretend I had never glimpsed any want in the man or take the leap of faith.

All of it hit me within seconds of recognizing what I had been missing when I was with him.

“Miro?”

Maybe it was a mistake, but I had to know. Because if there was even the slightest chance that Ian could be mine—I had to take it.

The people in front of us moved and he made to follow, but I tightened my grip and didn’t let him.

I received a quick exhale followed by another sharp intake of breath.

God, how blind had I been?

“M?”

“Sorry,” I said quickly, letting him go.

It was almost scary to realize that if I was reading him right, if Ian wanted what it seemed like he might, then this would be the very last time I wouldn’t be able to touch him whenever I wanted. Everything would change, because Ian Doyle would belong to me.

 

 

BUSINESS CLASS was a few steps up from coach, so we had more leg room, more seat room, and fortunately, only two seats next to the aisle.

“You should sit by the window,” I directed. “You’re gonna pass out as soon as we take off, and that way I won’t have to climb over you.”

“Okay,” he agreed, getting in after I shoved our coats into the overhead bin. We had to keep our carry-ons with us at our feet since we had our badges and guns in them.

Once we were settled, listening as the captain welcomed us aboard, explained that we’d be taking off on time, and directed us to give our attention to the flight attendants, I sucked in a breath, lifted the armrest between us and leaned into him with my whole body. All along one side—shoulder, hip, thigh, knee—we were touching. I waited—mouth dry, heart stopped, left hand clenched into a fist—to see what he would do.

“Did I miss lots of poker nights or did you guys not play?”

I turned my chin so I could look at him.

He was waiting.

“I—what?” I rasped. My voice sounded like I’d been choked to death. I needed some water.

“Did you guys play cards or no?”

Weird thought: maybe he didn’t realize I was crowding him. “Yeah, we played except for the week my clan was here. Last night I took home eighty bucks.”

“Impressive,” he said, and he tried to smile but it looked odd, strained. “And that’s nice that your friends came to see you.”

“Yeah, it was.”

“But they wouldn’t’ve needed to if I was here.”

“No. You would have taken care of me.”

“Yes,” he agreed, studying me. “You should drink some water, your voice sounds funky.”

That was my cue, so I leaned forward, pulled my water bottle out of the seatback pocket where the barf bag was, took several deep gulps, and, when I sat back, gave him room.

I was so relieved he wasn’t pissed that for a second I didn’t register what he was doing.

“I swear I’m cooking,” he grumbled, reaching up to turn on the air vent. He fiddled with it, and when he sat back, he pressed up against me, exactly as we’d been moments before. “Aren’t you hot?”

Was I too warm?

“There’s never enough air on planes.”

I was freezing.

“And staying hydrated is important.”

My throat was dry; drinking something was a good idea.

“Are you all right?”

I wasn’t. I was terrified. But I was ready. One way or another, I would find out what I could have. I put on my seatbelt then, right before the flight attendants checked. I never put it on until I absolutely had to.

“M?”

“No, I’m good,” I said softly. I let out a deep breath, feeling the calm wash over me as I closed my eyes and listened to everything going on around me. I registered people talking, bells dinging, the sensation of lifting as we took off. Most of all, I savored the closeness the man sitting beside me was allowing.

I’d had fantasies, of course. They always started off fast and hot. He would walk across a room, throw me up against a wall, and take me right there, rough and dirty. Or we’d be stuck somewhere, in some tiny little hole in the wall, like a border town in Texas or… the scenarios were always the same, with him jumping me.

He was a super soldier; he threw around guys twice his size. I’d seen him do incredible things with his body; his strength was daunting, and in combat training, he’d taken on ten men at once. His spinning high kick was really something to see. I never worried when he was with me, never. Even if, for some reason, we were ever unarmed and cornered by people who were, still, even then, I wouldn’t worry. Maybe that was unrealistic, but he was a Green Beret. They dumped him behind enemy lines to retrieve others and that’s what he did. Thus, because I knew so well the kind of man he was, there had never been a time when I thought I would be the one holding him down.

But he was waiting for me to do… something. It was so very obvious. The hitched breath, taking direction, wanting to be close…. I’d been missing all the clues. I was normally much better than that, and it was probably why everything with me was off, why I missed it when guys were hitting on me, oblivious to the signs and innuendo. Ian Doyle had totally jammed me up.

I had always thought that if he ever even considered sleeping with me, it would be him on top—when apparently the truth of the matter was it would be me.

“M?”

I found him smiling at me.

“The nice lady wants to know if you want something to drink.”

The flight attendant was waiting on me. I’d lost time, totally checked out, absorbed as I was with Ian. “Sorry, uhm, just some apple juice, if ya got it.”

“Sure,” she answered, smiling at me and then looking to Ian.

“A Coke’d be good.”

We both got plastic cups with ice and the cans, along with bags of pretzels.

“What’re you thinking about?”

I shook my head. “You should read up on Drake Ford.”

He nodded. “Gimme your laptop. Mine isn’t updated since I haven’t synched it with the mainframe in two months.”

Leaning over, I lifted my bag up onto my lap and pulled it out for him.

“Thanks,” he said, smiling. “So, this is okay, yeah? You’re not afraid I’ll find any porn or anything?”

I scoffed. “All my porn’s on my desktop at home.”

“I see. More memory.”

“That’s right.”

He chuckled as he put down the tray table and opened the laptop. “Hey, M, your e-mail’s still up.”

“Go ahead and close out of it. It’s frozen anyway.”

“Oh, look who it is,” he muttered. “Brent.”

“You can’t delete it, I’m not connected. But the stuff you need to read is on the desk—”

“I’m reading, shut up.”

Groaning, I bumped his knee with mine. “I’m ducking him and he’s getting annoyed, I guess.”

“You guess? Did you read this? He sounds a little off.”

“He’ll be fine.”

“He—oh, this is kinda… explicit.”

“Yeah? Lemme see,” I teased, reaching for the screen.

He bumped me with his shoulder, and I laughed as I settled back in my seat.

After a minute of more reading, he cleared his throat.

“What?”

“I wanna ask something, but maybe it’s too personal.”

“No such thing,” I assured him, easing close so he could whisper if he needed to. “Tell me.”

“Brent, he—it sounds like he… like….”

Ian was nervous. How much hesitancy, choking on words he couldn’t say, and restless unease needed to be piled on before I did something? Before I acted?

“What did—I mean, do you…. Wait.”

“Do I what? Want Brent?”

He nodded, clearly uncomfortable.

“No. I don’t want Brent.”

And that fast, he was better. Was that relief? How long had I been missing all this?

“But he clearly still wants me, or at least wants what I used to do to him.” I turned my head so my lips brushed his ear as I spoke. “Brent liked me on top. I like that better, but I can do either.”

Sharp indrawn breath.

“I like the control of topping. I like making someone else take me in. I get off on that.”

He didn’t shiver; it wasn’t that gentle or controlled. He trembled.

“Ian,” I said, turning into him, sliding my hand under the tray table and up his thigh—slow, so he could stop me whenever he wanted—until I reached his groin. His eyes were heavy-lidded, sweat sheened his forehead, and the dappled flush was back, spreading over his throat.

“When you come back from being away, it takes you weeks to settle down and be okay with me again.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Do you know you do that?”

“It’s not so easy to simply walk back into my—”

“Is there something I can do to show you that you’re home and safe?”

Silence.

“Ian?”

But he couldn’t say. He couldn’t tell me. I was just supposed to know. Giving in to temptation, I cupped him through his pants, feeling the long, hard length under my palm.

His halting groan was all agony.

“I’m gonna think I can take what I want, if you don’t say anything,” I whispered.

Now there was a reason for him to remain quiet.

“Ian, this is like steel, buddy,” I said hoarsely, my voice deep and low as I stroked over the cock I had seen so many times but never touched. He bucked, wanting my hand, needing the friction; his soft, low moan was the sexiest thing I’d ever heard in my life. “If I wasn’t on a fuckin’ airplane, I would take this down the back of my throat for you and suck out every drop.”

He jolted, and I worried for a second that I’d pushed too far, scared him, been stupid, shredded three years of friendship in a rush of desire. But instead, he took a deep breath and exhaled slowly before turning to me.

“Don’t be a fuckin’ tease, all right?” he said gruffly. “Do what you say.”

I nodded.

“And you can’t—I’ve seen how you are, with guys. You fuck and forget or you pick the wrong ones, like with Brent.”

“Yeah,” I husked.

“But you can’t do that with me. You gotta mean it.”

“Okay.”

“It can’t be just whatever. I value myself more than that.”

Had I been that much of a whore before Brent? “Course.”

He took a breath. “I think there’s a reason I’m shitty in bed.”

I felt myself frowning, unhappy with him running himself down. “Which is?”

“I think it’s ’cause I’ve never been in bed with you.”