[1: SHADOW PREACHERS]

SEONG-JAE YOON WAS NAKED, HIS ass was sore, and he had possibly just made one of the worst decisions of his adult life.

And considering he had a long and storied history of very bad decisions, that was saying quite a bit.

Yet in the moment he could not seem to mind it, when he was sprawled out in Malcolm Khalaji’s bed—tucked into the crook of his arm, head resting on his shoulder, one arm draped across that thick, tightly crafted barrel chest with the soft tufts of Malcolm’s chest hair teasing against his forearm. Sweat cooled on his skin, filming his body to Malcolm’s in an inextricable tangle, heat and the scent of wild, heated sex blending between them in a lazy cloud.

He was not wholly certain how he had come to be here. Tonight, after the successful resolution of the Tisha Jones case, in his relief and borderline euphoria he had simply needed to blow off some steam with his usual habits, yet without knowing Baltimore he had been left googling establishments with a walk-in policy for open mic night. And when he had seen Malcolm out in the crowd, he had almost ducked back behind the stage in sheer mortification, when his particular hobbies and habits were not anything he expected anyone to understand, let alone hardened police officers with no room for such frivolous things in their lives. The sort of officer he tried to pretend to be, day in and day out; too cold for such indulgences. No one in Los Angeles except his parents and little sister had known about his pastimes.

But then Malcolm had smiled, warm and accepting. Something inside Seong-Jae had twisted, tight and gripping and clutching him hard. And when Malcolm had watched him with such rapt fixation, looking at him as if he was the most beautiful thing Malcolm had ever seen…

Everything he had been repressing and ignoring and doggedly refusing had snapped inside him like a bubble bursting.

Even if he had known that falling for Malcolm Khalaji was the worst thing he could possibly do.

He lingered on the broad plain of muscle stretching in front of him, curling his hand to idly trace his fingertips over Malcolm’s ribs; if he were honest with himself he was marginally concerned, when Malcolm was still recovering from a hairline fracture and strenuous activity was not wise. Malcolm arching over him, his entire body slicked in sweat, powerful sinew bunching and rippling in shuddering coils under that tanned hide as he poured all his strength into surging deeper and deeper into Seong-Jae’s straining, aching flesh, filling him until he felt Malcolm everywhere, slicking and stroking inside him…

That counted, he rather thought, as “strenuous activity.”

Malcolm sucked in a breath as Seong-Jae’s fingertips strayed toward the hard chisels of his abdomen, and he laughed hoarsely, breathlessly. “Ah—ah, that tickles, I’m still too sensitive…” That laugh turned into a groan, though, as Seong-Jae’s fingertips strayed lower, following the coarse, narrow trail of hair toward the open waist of Malcolm’s slacks; Malcolm lifted his hips, hissing through his teeth. “Ah. Getting curious now?”

“Someone was holding me down so I could not touch him.”

“I don’t think you minded all that much,” Malcolm replied with a lazy smirk—and just for that, Seong-Jae curled his fingers and dug his nails into the sensitive slope of muscle just above Malcolm’s cock. Malcolm jerked, tossing his head back with a growl. “Nnh—!” After a few panting seconds, he subsided, turning a narrow-eyed look on Seong-Jae, eyes still dilated and dark and smoky, glittering slate blue in the faint light falling through the windows. “If you keep that up, you’re going to get pinned again.”

Seong-Jae arched a brow, keeping his fingers poised right where they were. “Is that meant to be a threat?”

“Closer to a promise.” Malcolm’s gaze dipped, trailing over Seong-Jae’s throat and shoulders…and everywhere those heated eyes landed burned Seong-Jae’s skin like drops of hot wax against his flesh, as every last bite Malcolm had bruised into him seemed to come alight. Malcolm rumbled with dark satisfaction. “I still haven’t finished marking you.”

“You should have warned me you were a biter. Be careful.” Seong-Jae slipped his hand from inside Malcolm’s slacks and tangled his fingers in his beard, tugging him in close. “I bite back.”

Malcolm smiled slowly, shifting to drape a heavy arm over Seong-Jae’s waist, gathering him in. “God, I hope so,” he rumbled, and brushed his lips across Seong-Jae’s.

Seong-Jae let himself sink into that kiss—let it moor him to earth with its softness, its quietness, nothing like the raw thing of lust and raking hands and biting teeth that had landed him in this bed. He did not do things like this…and the sweetness of that kiss calmed the feeling of being shaken loose from his foundations, his protective outer walls crumbled away by the earthquake that was Malcolm Khalaji.

Why did it have to be you?

He curled his fingers against Malcolm’s chest, parting his lips to let them move slick and warm against Malcolm’s, his mouth tingling and his tongue hot with the lingering taste of them captured close, melting into him and easing away the subtle sense of self-recrimination that always seemed to haunt him after sex.

As if he had somehow betrayed his own convictions, by being weak enough to yield to this rare and yet irresistible attraction.

Yet Malcolm made it easy to forget that feeling, to forget the why of it, as they traded stroke after stroke of lips to lips for long, lingering moments where all Seong-Jae had to think about was the dizzying, heady feeling of being wanted by someone who turned him completely inside out.

He exhaled softly, opening his eyes as their lips parted; Malcolm held him so close, those compelling eyes taking up his vision, drawing him in. Malcolm offered a smile, almost too sweet for that grizzled face, too boyish for that graying mane tumbling everywhere, too heart-stopping for a man who tried to pretend to be so very cynical.

“You feeling okay?” Malcolm asked. “Not too sore?”

Seong-Jae ducked his head. “…just sore enough.”

Malcolm chuckled; his fingers worked in slow, soothing circles against Seong-Jae’s hip, coarse hand so very warm. “I’d never have guessed you were a bottom.”

“I am whatever suits my mood at any given point.” Seong-Jae stole a sidelong glance at Malcolm; he could not seem to look at him for too long right now, when his heart did not seem to want to remember its proper place within his chest. “What would you have done if I was not so flexible?”

“Been a little flexible myself.” Desire sparked hot in Malcolm’s eyes, his smirk turning downright wicked. “It’s not something that happens often, but…you could’ve coaxed me.”

Oh.

No sooner did Malcolm say it than Seong-Jae could see it: Malcolm underneath him, that broad, powerful bulwark of a body tensed until every corded muscle stood out in thick blocks, Malcolm’s fingers digging furrows in the sheets and his teeth clenched on a snarl, face-down with his hair spilling everywhere and thighs so tightly spread, weathered skin gleaming with sweat as he pushed himself up to meet Seong-Jae’s every thrust, this wild beast barely taming himself and—

And Seong-Jae had no room to call foul on Malcolm for his lechery, right now.

Not when the very thought of Malcolm giving his body to Seong-Jae that way made his blood feel too hot, as if it would scorch right through his skin.

He ducked his head again, skittering his gaze away from those watchful eyes that seemed to know, glittering with amusement. “I see,” he said faintly.

Another chuckle rumbled between them. “You see.” Then rough knuckles brushed against his cheek, before gentle fingers tucked a few strands of his hair back, skimming soft-shiver friction over the curve of his ear. “So. We did this.”

“We did,” Seong-Jae agreed, and tentatively leaned into that touch.

Malcolm rewarded him with fingers weaving into his hair, stroking back to cup the back of his head—affection in every touch, and if Seong-Jae was not careful he could grow to crave it.

“Does it bother you that we did this?” Malcolm asked carefully.

Seong-Jae drew in a sharp breath, gaze flying back to Malcolm. But the old wolf only watched him with a sort of quiet fondness; Seong-Jae searched his eyes but could find no judgment, no expectation, no rejection, no tension.

Only warmth, and quiet curiosity.

“No,” he admitted after a moment, then smiled slightly. “Does it bother you that you actually know my name?”

With a short, sharply startled laugh, Malcolm shook his head. “Not at all. But I guess that brings us to the question of what we just did, doesn’t it.”

“If you would be more comfortable pretending, by tomorrow, that this never happened…”

“No,” Malcolm answered so quickly he almost stumbled over the word, shaking his head, erasing any idea Seong-Jae might have that Malcolm would treat this like another one of his trysts. “No, never. Knowing how this is for you…I wouldn’t have asked for it if it…if I…” He took a shaky breath, and Seong-Jae realized…

Malcolm was nervous.

Even with those sure, steady fingers stroking through Seong-Jae’s hair, with that grizzled and stoic façade Malcolm tried so hard to project…

Right now, here with Seong-Jae, tangled in each other’s bodies and these feelings just as tangled in Seong-Jae’s heart…

Malcolm was nervous.

“If I didn’t want it to mean something,” Malcolm finished softly, so husky and heartfelt.

He meant this.

And Seong-Jae did not know what to do with that.

Malcolm was his partner. His subordinate. Ten years his senior. Infuriating. Insufferable. Annoying. Stubborn. Mule-headed. Set in his ways. Entirely profligate with the rules of their job. Arrogant. Foul-mouthed. At times, utterly juvenile. Entirely too indiscriminate with his bedroom habits…but also kind. Empathetic. Charismatic. Intelligent. Intuitive. Deeply honorable, albeit by his own code. Brave. Proud. Dedicated. Loyal. Sweet, in his own strange and small ways.

And the only one who had taken the time to try to ask who Seong-Jae was, and not only accepted the answers…but tried to make room for him, and it was so new and strange that Seong-Jae neither knew how to deal with it or knew what to say to it.

“You actually like me,” he ventured, and Malcolm smiled, eyes crinkling at the corners.

“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

“Why?”

“If I tried to list the reasons, you’d punch me before I got to three.”

“I would not.”

“And blush.”

Seong-Jae scowled, an irritated heat building underneath his cheeks. “I do not blush.”

“Keep telling yourself that.” Malcolm’s low laughter faded into a sigh, and that stroking touch drifted down to play over the back of Seong-Jae’s neck, sending little sweet chills down his spine. “I can’t explain it easily, or in a few words. But just because we don’t know how to explain gravity doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist for a reason.”

“So this is gravity.”

“Do you feel it?”

“…perhaps I do,” Seong-Jae admitted…and those three simple words felt almost damning, but he could not take them back.

Nor did he want to.

“A ‘perhaps’ is a good place to start,” Malcolm said. “Some people start with the little things and work their way up to gravity. Some people start with gravity and work their way back.”

“To the little things?”

“Yeah.” Malcolm’s fingers firmed on the back of his neck, just enough to ask Seong-Jae closer—and when Seong-Jae obliged, leaning toward the old wolf’s radiant heat, Malcolm brushed a kiss to his cheek, all warm lips and grizzled, scratchy beard and soft little leaps of his heart. “So tell me a little thing we can start with.”

Seong-Jae grumbled. Annoying old man, making his breaths hitch and chest tighten like that. Muttering under his breath, he settled back into the crook of Malcolm’s body, tucking against his side and reclaiming his shoulder for a pillow once more.

“Like what?” he asked.

“Pet peeve.”

“Other than your every waking moment?”

“Ouch.” Malcolm’s soundless laughter shook them both. “You hate me that much, huh?”

“I feel something with some sort of intensity.”

Another laugh, before Malcolm trailed into an amused sigh. “Tell me the little thing.” Then warm breaths stirred Seong-Jae’s hair, as Malcolm nuzzled into him. “Just one.”

Seong-Jae thought for a few moments, timing his idle musings to the beat of Malcolm’s heart against his cheek, then said, “Television kissing sounds.”

Malcolm snorted. “What?”

“I hate them,” Seong-Jae said firmly, and wrinkled his nose. “They constantly smack and squirt. It is very unpleasant, and I would rather turn the television off than watch it.”

“So what should kissing really sound like?”

Seong-Jae tilted his head back, catching that devilish gaze fixed on him. “Are you asking a demonstration?”

“Absolutely.”

Of course that was his answer. Of course. Seong-Jae pushed himself up on one arm, looking down at Malcolm. In the dark, half-naked with his head spread across the pillow, his entire body lazy and nearly glowing with post-coital satiation…he was a primal thing, a deeply primitive force that pulled on something equally primitive inside Seong-Jae; something that yearned toward Malcolm, and he let it draw him down to trace his lips against Malcolm’s. His own mouth was so sore, so sensitive from deep-bruising, claiming kisses, nips, nibbles that even the lightest touch rippled through him in little gasping bites of sensation—and he savored each one as he teased Malcolm with soft, lazy kisses, barely touching, drawing back just enough when Malcolm leaned into him, until Malcolm was growling, fingers tightening in Seong-Jae’s hair. Seong-Jae smiled to himself…and sealed their mouths together, stealing deep, languid tastes of Malcolm’s mouth, twining their tongues together and tasting him until their lips grew so slick, so hot, that each time they parted and came together again their flesh met with the quietest of damp sounds, sweetly suggestive of other things and barely heard.

And as Seong-Jae pulled back, he traced his fingertips down Malcolm’s cheek, following the edge of his beard to lightly touch Malcolm’s mouth. “That,” he whispered, “is how a kiss should sound.”

“Duly noted,” Malcolm answered huskily, opening hazed eyes. “So what do you watch, where they make these squirting kissing sounds?”

“Horror films.”

“They kiss a lot in horror?”

“Constantly,” Seong-Jae muttered. “It is usually how you know who will die first.”

“What’s the latest you watched?”

“The Haunting of Hill House. On Netflix.” Seong-Jae grimaced. “It was terrible, and I do not recommend it. Do you like horror?”

“I don’t mind it,” Malcolm said slowly, after a long hesitation. “I can watch it to watch it with you. Like…if you want to go to the movies. On a date.”

Seong-Jae stilled. “You are serious about this?”

“Yes. I have…” Malcolm’s chest heaved on a slow, deep breath, but there was no hesitation, no doubt when he said, “I have feelings for you, Seong-Jae. I’m not sure what they are. It’s complicated and new and kind of snuck up on me and blindsided me to make me pay attention to it, but…it’s there.” Searching blue eyes captured him, held him, asked him so many things. “And…I’d like to figure them out, if you think you could feel anything for me.”

Too blunt. Malcolm always had to be so irritatingly blunt, enough to take Seong-Jae’s breath away and leave his heart stumbling.

And yet he remembered Gabrielle Leon-Khalaji, reminding him that as direct as Malcolm could be, it was often to indirectly deflect away from his true thoughts and feelings.

And Seong-Jae wondered what he was deflecting from, now.

Perhaps the same vividly bright, overwhelming emotion Seong-Jae refused to name, refused to look at directly—just as he refused to look at Malcolm directly, when it was too intense, made him feel too seen. He dropped his gaze to Malcolm’s chest and muttered, “…if I did not, I would not be here.”

“Then maybe…partners by day, dating by night?” And before Seong-Jae could even open his mouth, Malcolm laid one thick finger gently against his lips, silencing him. “Don’t. Don’t you dare point out that sometimes we have to work at night. I know you.”

Seong-Jae narrowed his eyes.

And promptly bit down on the tip of Malcolm’s finger.

Malcolm yelped, yanking back and shaking his hand with a burst of laughter. “Ow! What was that for?”

“You know what.” Huffing, Seong-Jae settled again…but held his tongue. He could not escape the enormity of what Malcolm was asking him—and his first instinct was to say no. With Sila haunting him…if Seong-Jae were to engage in a relationship with Malcolm, it might well create undue consequences. Chief among them that Seong-Jae did not know if he could protect Malcolm.

But he did not know if he could resist him, either.

Or how he would survive each day as Malcolm’s partner and nothing else, with this heady thread of emotion twisting between them and binding them up tighter and tighter until it became unbearable.

It was not possible for Sila to repeat tragedies of the past…was it? Seong-Jae was older now, more vigilant, better aware of Sila’s games. He had refused to allow himself to be baited thus far—the letters at the crime scenes, the music box, the promise hovering in the air that one way or another, Sila would try to break him.

Just him.

He simply had to be strong enough to keep Malcolm safe.

And he could be. He was not the boy he had once been, lonely and angry and easily led. He had broken free of Sila of his own will, and that will had held him up ever since. Wanting Malcolm would not make that will weak.

It would only give Seong-Jae more reason to fight to hold strong.

Yet…would Malcolm honestly, truly want him if he really knew Seong-Jae?

Fuck.

Fuck.

He might as well get this out of the way now, before either of them got their hopes up.

He sighed heavily, closing his eyes, before steeling himself to pull back from Malcolm, bracing his hands against the old wolf’s chest. “In some ways, you know me,” he said carefully. “In others, you do not know me at all.”

Malcolm’s brows knit as his arms fell back, confusion in the wrinkle of his brow. “Isn’t that part of what it’s about.”

“Perhaps.” Seong-Jae’s heart felt sick as he looked down at Malcolm. “If you are serious, there is something you should know about me.”

And before he could talk himself out of it, before he could second-guess himself, before he could tell himself to lie and bury this part of himself as if it did not exist, as if he could conceal that, too, from Malcolm forever…he disentangled himself from Malcolm’s body, from his bed, and slipped from the sheets to rise to his feet. His pants had ended up halfway across the apartment, dangling from the back of the couch, and he padded across the cool floorboards to fish his wallet from the back pocket.

And the little coin-sized medallion tucked down into one compartment, blue and black and gold with a diamond on one side and, inscribed above the same diamond on the other, just a simple XV.

Heart strangling in his throat and breaths struggling in his chest, he returned to the bedside; Malcolm watched him with intent curiosity, as Seong-Jae sank down on the edge of the bed and simply passed the medallion over to him.

And steeled himself for the disgust, the censure, the withdrawal, the sudden detachment and easy smiles and reasons why maybe this should just be something casual, then nothing at all, distance restored between them.

Malcolm took the medallion slowly; Seong-Jae could see the moment recognition clicked in his eyes, and yet still Malcolm asked softly, “…what is this…?”

“My fifteen-year medallion.” He did not know how he kept his voice steady, calm, when he was shaking inside. “My sponsor gave it to me while I was in L.A.”

Frowning thoughtfully, Malcolm turned the medallion over in his fingers, his gaze fixed on it and not on Seong-Jae. “What was it?”

Fuck. Fuck, this was hurting already, the careful neutrality of Malcolm’s responses. Seong-Jae looked away, fixing his gaze on the window, the condensation of frost beginning to build on the glass, turning the street lamps outside into prisms.

When the fuck had he started caring so much about the old wolf’s acceptance?

“Heroin,” he answered thickly. He hated even saying the word out loud, remembering the feeling of it in his body, like he was floating in a sea of liquid ice. “I started when I was sixteen. It started off as peer pressure, wanting to belong…” He shrugged stiffly. “It turned into worse.”

“That’s why you don’t drink.”

“It is. And why I avoid most stimulants.”

“Like caffeine.”

“Correct. That, and coffee is abhorrently foul.” Seong-Jae lowered his eyes, resting his elbows on his thighs and knotting his hands together. How bitterly amusing, to be sitting naked in Malcolm’s apartment while baring his soul naked, as well. “You worked narcotics. You would know as well as I do…some personalities are prone to addictive tendencies. I see that in myself. I know that in myself. If I am not careful I can become addicted to substances, habits…people.”

The allure of pale eyes, one green, one blue, watching him with such quiet possession as slim hands held him down, slid the needle in, sighed with him as he lifted out of his body and into the sky…

“So,” he finished grimly, “I attempt to practice discipline and moderation.”

Motion in his peripheral vision. The medallion, set down at his hip with almost reverent care, its gold edges gleaming in the dim illumination. “Is that how you quit? Discipline and moderation?”

“No. I quit because someone recognized I needed help, even when I denied it.”

Nothing. Malcolm said nothing, and Seong-Jae could not bring himself to look back at him, to try to process whatever he would find in those slate blue eyes, to deal with this at all. But the silence asked that he fill it; that he take this all the way through. If he was going to open a vein, he might as well bleed himself out, until his heart was dry.

As dry as his burning eyes, hot and stinging and yet he refused to shed another tear over the life he had fought to claim for himself.

“I was eighteen when one of my high school teachers recognized the signs,” he said. His own voice sounded toneless, distant, detaching himself from this until it belonged to someone else. “She was a former FBI behavioral analyst. Ms. Feng.” He still remembered standing next to her on the beach in L.A., just her presence grounding him when he had already felt his wheels spinning as Malcolm shook his world. “She quit because she could not handle the constant litany of death, pain, human despair, perversion…though she frequently said teaching hormonal, angry high school students was not much different. But she said she could not let me slip away, when she might actually be able to do something to save me.”

Malcolm was so silent at his back that he might as well not even be there—but Seong-Jae could feel him listening, processing, that warmth that even now Seong-Jae wanted to turn to for comfort, but he would not allow himself. He would control himself in this, too…if only so it would not hurt so much to be thrust away.

“My parents still do not know that the summer they thought I was away at a special camp for particularly bright students…I was in rehab,” he continued. “Feng put me in touch with a social worker, who helped me find programs where I could make up the failed credits I needed to enter university. She pushed me into Narcotics Anonymous, and pressed me to confide in a sponsor. I spent most of university fighting withdrawals by glaring at criminal psychology textbooks.” He smiled faintly, humorlessly, and unlaced his fingers to pick up the medallion, letting its familiar weight ground him as he played it over his fingers, watching its gleam. “She is even the one who urged me to pursue the FBI. She said I would be better off using my intelligence and all of that anger to uphold the law, rather than finding ways around it. That I could…”

Fuck—his throat was closing, knotting, and he would not, he would not give into this, he would not lose his shit in front of Malcolm as if he was ashamed of what he had fought through. He was in control of this; it was not in control of him. He took several quick, shallow breaths, until that thick feeling in his throat loosened and his eyes no longer felt like they would water at the slightest provocation.

“That I could make a real difference,” he finished more steadily. “She even pulled the strings with former contacts so that my sealed juvenile records would not hold as much weight in my employment eligibility, considering I have lost count of the number of times I was arrested for disorderly behavior.” He stopped the medallion’s rolling play across his knuckles, catching it in his palm and clasping it tight, knuckles straining. “It has been fifteen years…but what I did to myself then changed me forever, Malcolm. And I would be lying if I said that I did not live with the craving every day, and it is an inescapable part of me.”

Behind him the mattress shifted, dipping, sheets hissing as Malcolm moved. “And so you shut yourself away, is that it?” Malcolm asked softly. “Because if you relax your discipline in any one thing…you might just lose control of the craving.”

“Yes.” Seong-Jae stared glassily across the apartment, not truly seeing it. “Exactly so.”

He felt Malcolm’s weight moving again, changing the gravity of the bed, and he just waited for Malcolm to get up, open the door, tell him to get out. It would not be the first time—one of the many reasons he had stopped dating. Too many thought there was no such thing as a recovered addict, and the moment they turned their backs he would steal their valuables and sell them for his next high.

But instead that warm bulk pressed against his back—enveloping him, shielding him, Malcolm’s arms wrapping so tight around him, as if Malcolm could sense how raw and exposed Seong-Jae felt without his defenses and had decided to make a protective wall of himself to shelter all of Seong-Jae’s raw places. Seong-Jae’s breaths caught, his chest so tight, and he held so perfectly still, paralyzed with confusion, as Malcolm whispered his name, raw with emotion.

“Seong-Jae.”

Tentatively, Seong-Jae reached up to brush his fingertips to Malcolm’s forearm. He did not dare feel hope, and yet… “A-ah…?”

“If you thought I would reject that part of you…” Malcolm’s hold tightened, and he rested his brow to the back of Seong-Jae’s neck, warm breaths and tangled hair slithering over his skin, down his spine. “No. I won’t. I may not have the experience to understand…but if you feel yourself slipping, if you need something to hold on to…” He made a rough, choking sound in the back of his throat, one Seong-Jae barely held back from echoing. “Hold on to me. It’s okay.”

Seong-Jae held tremblingly still, his lips trying to twist into what he would not let become something so emotional as a sob, and yet his entire body felt as though it was wringing up and attempting to squeeze out the wetness burning in his eyes. He swallowed, curling his hand against Malcolm’s forearm.

“Malcolm…”

“I’m your partner,” Malcolm whispered fervently. “I want to be more than that to you, but…” He clutched at Seong-Jae so hard, is if he could anchor him enough to keep him from tumbling down into the dark that waited in the back of his mind, always. “I’m your partner. I won’t let you fall.”

Fucking…this…this overly noble, mule-headed man. Seong-Jae did not know how Malcolm had room for such pure raw depth of feeling, when trying to carry so much around inside Seong-Jae threatened to break him every day. He could not stand it. He could not hold it inside, and so he did the only thing he could:

He gave it back.

And “Malcolm,” he breathed, as he twisted in the old wolf’s arms, twined his arms around his neck, and kissed him.