by SE Jakes
What Prophet was thinking was anyone’s guess.
“How long have you known I was here?” he asked finally, and Prophet froze.
He hadn’t known.
Fuck.
Tom didn’t hesitate to move forward. Prophet still hadn’t turned around. Tom pried the roller from his hand, put it down on the tray, and turned Prophet around.
His eyes were glassy, and he was probably headed down the dehydration route. Of all people, he had to have known he was pushing it.
Which is exactly why he was doing it. Keeping busy. Refusing to give himself time to think. Or to feel.
Tom shoved a glass of iced tea into his hand, and Prophet drank greedily. Tom got a towel from the kitchen, soaked it, and brought it over to Prophet. He started by wringing it out over Prophet’s head, then wiped down his face and neck.
“’M’ fine,” Prophet rasped.
“Yeah, as fine as I am.”
Prophet glanced up at him. “I’m supposed to order you the fuck out of the house if you show.”
“You can try.”
“You like taking care of me,” Prophet murmured, like he’d finally come to terms with it.
“Could say the same thing about you.” He paused. “Phil said he didn’t give you the choice. If he had . . .”
“I don’t think I would’ve been able to let you go,” Prophet admitted. “And I’m not the type to hold anyone against their will. Problem is, I’ve got a lot of past. It’s never really going to be over. And you were relieved that I walked away.”
“Yeah,” Tommy said hoarsely. “I didn’t want that, but fuck, Prophet . . . my luck . . .”
“Fuck that—has nothing to do with luck.”
“Guess we both ran.”
“I ran toward you,” Prophet said indignantly.
“Took you months.”
“I know,” Prophet said, his voice softer.
“Don’t do that again. It’s too late to pull any more of that shit,” Tom said fiercely and Prophet lifted his head to gaze at him.
Finally, he said, “What shit?”
“The ‘I don’t want a partner’ shit. You don’t have to work for EE, but that doesn’t matter. I’m helping you from now on. Got it?”
Prophet stared at him for a long moment. “So what, I’m stuck with you?”
“Looks like it.”
Prophet shook his head almost sadly, like he felt sorry for Tommy now. “Just don’t look under the tarp in the office and you’ll be fine.”
“Trust me, I have no interest in going near it. But I’m not letting you go. I mean it.”
“I know that.”
“Do you really believe it?”
“Yes.” He glanced over at the donuts Tom had brought. “You trying to seduce me with those?”
“Yes. Is it working?”
“Yeah.”
Prophet’s smile wasn’t big, but it was enough.
“Fucking love making you smile, Proph.” He stroked through the man’s wet hair. “Love the fact that you came here for me. Weren’t ordered to. You just came. For me.”
Prophet didn’t deny it. Ran his tongue over his lower lip before biting it, like he was trying to hold something back.
He straddled Prophet and tipped the man’s head up with a hand under his chin. “Been waiting for this.”
He kissed Prophet, and Prophet groaned against his mouth, hot and sweet. He curled his hand around the back of Prophet’s neck as he tongued the roof of Prophet’s mouth. It was slow and sensual, unrushed. Hot, wet, and sticky. When he pulled back, he held into Prophet’s lower lip between his teeth for just a second before letting it go. Prophet moaned softly, then noted, “You’ve got a lot of making up to do with Della. She’s really pissed at you.”
“You. Drive me. Crazy.”
Prophet gave a smile. “Short trip.”
Tom opened his mouth. Closed it. Then, resigned to his fate, leaned in and kissed the hell out of Prophet, letting Prophet’s mouth work its magic, until all he could think about, all he wanted, was reduced to the man he held.
The man who held onto him just as tightly. And after they’d exhausted themselves kissing, made lazy by the heat and the reunion, they were both content not to rush into ripping each other’s clothes off.
Finally, Tom pulled back. He was still holding one of Prophet’s hands, and now he turned it over and traced a few of the lines he found.
“What, you’re a fortune-teller now too?” Prophet teased.
“I’ve been to enough of them. It’s a rite of passage around here.”
“Do you know if they’re bullshitting you?”
“I like to think so, but I don’t know for sure.”
“The one I saw next to Etienne’s shop . . . she told me everything was great.”
“And it’s not.”
“Did anything great happen since I saw her?” Prophet demanded.
“This isn’t bad,” Tom reminded him. “I haven’t visited one for a long time. When I was thirteen, that same woman told me I’d end up with a man whose name began with E.” He stopped cold when he saw Prophet’s face. He’d schooled it quickly, but not quickly enough. “What?”
“Nothing. Just dizzy,” Prophet lied, and Tom let it go for the moment. “Did you know you were gay then?”
“Long before that, but I didn’t go around telling people. I was surprised the fortune-teller saw that. And I already knew Etienne, had a crush on him—and then, by the following year, he was the guy I thought I’d be with forever, like you do when you’re in love for the first time.” Prophet actually growled a little, and Tom couldn’t lie that a little jealousy on that end was completely satisfying. He was about to continue when something stopped him, and he stared at Prophet for a second before asking, “What’s your real name?”
Prophet stared back at him.
“Name,” Tom repeated.
“There go those orders again.”
“You said it makes you hard.”
“No, mine make you hard,” Prophet corrected, his mouth quirked slightly to the side, like he was holding back a smile. And failing. “Name’s not a big secret.”
“Then why can’t I find it on any EE paperwork?”
“Why were you searching through my stuff?” Prophet demanded.
“For the record, I couldn’t find a single trace of your personal files in EE’s offices.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“You haven’t answered mine either.”
“Fine,” Prophet huffed. “My name’s not anywhere for security purposes. When I was in the military and the CIA, I got banned in some countries under my official passport name.”
“How many people know your actual first name?”
“It’s not a secret.”
Tom glared at him. “Then who calls you by it?”
“No one.”
“Does anyone know it?”
“My mother, I think.”
“Proph, seriously?”
“What’s it going to change? If it doesn’t start with E, what’s it going to change?”
“Absolutely nothing,” Tom told him.
“It’s Connor,” he said, and Tom grabbed him and kissed him. Because it didn’t fucking matter. All that mattered was that Prophet was here with him.
As if in agreement, Prophet kissed him back hard, then tugged Tom’s lower lip with his teeth, sucked it hard, and dragged it away before sliding his tongue along Tom’s.
“You can really get off on just kissing, can’t you?” Tom murmured when he pulled back.
“Oh yeah.” Prophet ran a thumb along his bottom lip, brushed knuckles over his cheek, and suddenly, just like that, he knew Prophet was lying.
He pushed off Prophet’s lap and stared at him. He fisted his hands to stop them from shaking.
Prophet pulled his wallet out. He handed Tom an ID card, and Tom shook his head. “I can’t find a single instance of your first name anywhere and the entire time it’s been o
n your driver’s license?”
“You’re all so busy digging, you forget the obvious.” Prophet still held out the license to him, and Tom still refused to take it. “You wanted to know, babe. Not the time to freak out about it. Especially when your voodoo shit turns out to be right.”
“Fuck,” Tom whispered, finally grabbed the card. He stared at it through a sudden haze of tears even as he muttered, “Son of a bitch.”
You’ll end up with a man whose name starts with E. And he’ll rip through your life like a tornado. Then again, a tornado can handle a volcano.
Prophet’s real name was Elijah. Elijah Drews.
His own fucking personal tornado.
Tom blinked. “Yeah, so Prophet works.”
“That’s only part of where it came from.”
“What’s the other half?”
Prophet’s smile lit his face. “Maybe I’ll tell you after you fuck me.”
Tom’s breath caught. “Fair enough.”
The police department unexpectedly cleared Tom and Prophet to leave the state twenty-four hours later. Just in time for a message for Tom from Phil himself, demanding his presence in EE’s offices first thing the following morning.
In sixteen hours.
“We’ll make it,” Prophet told him.
“I’m gonna need Dramamine,” Tom grumbled. But true to his word, Prophet pulled into the EE lot four minutes before Tom’s scheduled meeting with Phil. They’d barely stopped, they looked like hell, smelled like fast food, and Tom was changing his shirt on the walk into the building.
They hadn’t really discussed anything about this on the ride. They’d listened to music, talked about movies and other things unrelated to killing and shooting, and now Tom realized he was nervous. And it wasn’t about what Phil would tell him. It was because he and Prophet were back where they started . . . at EE.
It’s different now, he told himself firmly. And he forced himself to believe it, because Prophet did.
If Prophet didn’t, they wouldn’t have made this drive together.
“What do you think the New Orleans police told Phil?” he asked Prophet now, stopping him from opening the doors to the main floor.
“Whatever he did, he owes someone there now,” Prophet noted. “And there’s going to be a hell of a lot of paperwork. But hey, we didn’t do anything totally illegal.”
“Very comforting.”
“Yeah?”
“No.”
Prophet shrugged, stuck his hands in his jeans pockets. Tom knew he didn’t want to go inside, but he refused to let Tom go in alone.
Now, Prophet opened the door and walked in behind Tom, and the busy office seemed to come to a complete standstill.
“Uh-oh,” Prophet sing-songed under his breath.
“Incoming,” Cope mouthed as he passed them, and Tom swore the ground rumbled under his feet. He looked up to see Phil marching out of his office, his posture Marine rigid. The hallways cleared in seconds as everyone took cover.
Everyone except for Tom.
“You are in so much goddamned trouble,” Phil started as he got close. But before he could take the final steps closing the distance between them, Prophet stepped in between them.
Like a goddamned human shield.
His back was to Tom and the tension was palpable—thick and uncomfortable. Tom wanted to pull Prophet from the line of fire. But he didn’t.
“Leave him alone.” Prophet’s words were calm, but his stance wasn’t.
“You don’t tell me what to do,” Phil said, his voice and stance equal to Prophet’s. Which was really fucking dangerous.
“You don’t tell me either,” Prophet told him. “And this one isn’t his fault.”
“Let me guess, it’s yours.”
“No, it’s not his.” Tom stepped out from behind Prophet to stand next to him.
“Well, look at that—I finally get you two assholes to work together, but it’s against me and my rules.” Phil grimaced, then turned to Prophet. “Are you here to ask if you can come back to work?”
Tom held his breath, but Prophet looked Phil in the eye and said, “No,” without a trace of rancor or regret.
That startled Phil, but Tom wasn’t sure if the head of EE had shown it in his expression, or if Tom just knew. Either way, Phil shook it off quickly and said, “Then wait here, because Tom doesn’t need a bodyguard. Tom, my office, now.”
Tom was surprised that Prophet simply nodded and let him go, but he was glad. He didn’t need any further tension between Phil and Prophet clouding what he needed to do.
He followed Phil down the hall and into his office. Phil shut the door and motioned for him to sit and he did. Faced Phil across the desk. Waited.
“I know why you disobeyed a direct order,” Phil said finally.
“I know why you gave me one. You knew I wouldn’t listen. You knew it, and you did it anyway.” Phil didn’t deny it. “You do that a lot.”
“Not to you.”
Tom blew out a frustrated breath. “If you like it when we don’t follow the rules—”
“I like operatives who can think outside the box. I don’t need people blindly following my orders, Tom.”
“You need to stop fucking with him.” Phil stared him down, but Tom wouldn’t buckle. Not on this. “You want me to work here, I’ll work here. But you need to stop fucking with Prophet.”
“You’re good for him.”
“So were you.”
Phil’s expression tightened. “I know you want to help him with whatever shit he’s got going on. I don’t want to know about it. I can’t. Just go with him. And then bring him back to me, Tom.”
“And what’s he going to think I’m doing if I suddenly have time off from EE to help him?”
Phil pointed to the monstrous pile of folders on the corner of the desk, an evil glint in his eye. “Paperwork. From running roughshod around little things called laws. And bringing two other operatives in on the job. Who, by the way, are still denying everything.”
“That wasn’t all my fault.”
“No, but I’m guessing you’ll take all the blame for your partner, now won’t you?”
Yeah, he would. And Phil had known it before they’d walked back in here. “Yes, sir.”
“Fuck the ‘sir’ shit. And one more thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Your boxes and your Harley are here.”
“Why?”
“You were evicted.”
“For what?”
“They were suspicious that you were never there,” Phil said. “You’re welcome to stay in one of the upstairs rooms until you find time to look for another place.”
When he walked out, he noted Prophet’s office—his and Prophet’s—was exactly the way Prophet had left it.
Prophet was sitting in the office chair by the door, where Tom had left him. Except he had two boxes of pencils and a giant bag of red Twizzlers.
“Did you raid the supply closet?”
“Natasha gave them to me. Apparently, they tend to miss people who do shit like fuck with the office supplies.” A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
They walked out to Prophet’s truck together, and once they were on the road, Prophet asked, “Well?”
“I got evicted.”
“No shit?” Prophet asked. “Where’s your stuff?”
“Upstairs in EE’s living quarters.”
Prophet turned and started driving back. Tom didn’t question that, just continued, “He wants me to stay at EE.”
“Work with him, T. Someone needs to keep an eye on the place.”
“And what’re you going to do?”
“What I need to so we can both stay safe.”
“Now you get romantic.”
“That’s romantic?” Prophet asked. “Maybe I’m better at it than I thought.”
“He’s kept your office the exact same way. Looks like no one’s been allowed to touch it.”
“Great. Li
ke I’m dead and it’s my memorial.”
Tom sighed. “It’s not like that.”
“Like I’ve retired.”
“Like that’ll ever happen.” He paused. “Just do me a favor? I’ve been telling you this from the start, but get your eyes checked.”
“I get regular physicals.”
“Okay, but . . .” He stopped, shook his head. “Enough. Let’s go celebrate.”
“The fact that you were evicted?”
“I wasn’t evicted as much as let out of my lease. She thought there’d always be someone there to do stuff like mow the lawn.”
“You were like her houseboy.”
“Shut up.”
“I could use one.”
“A houseboy?”
“Yeah. You’d fit the job well.”
“What’s the pay like?”
“Negotiable. Like always.” Prophet turned to stare at him once he’d pulled back into the EE lot. “You know this isn’t going to be easy, going forward.”
Tom didn’t know if he was talking about them, or the shit with Sadiq, or the fact that Prophet would be working black op jobs, or all of the above. But if and when Prophet went looking for Sadiq, Tom had to follow. He had orders.
And he would’ve done it without them.
Get ready for Mal and Cillian’s adventures!
Coming to Riptide Publishing
January 13, 2014!
These books are such a labor of love, and they’re not created in a vacuum, so, as always, I have many people to thank.
For Sarah Frantz, the most gifted editor I know. For Rachel Haimowitz for all the opportunities she’s given me. For L.C. Chase and the gorgeous covers and layouts. For everyone at Riptide for making my publishing experience insanely wonderful.
Thanks to Nerine Dorman for the Afrikaans translation. And to SC, MN, and JD for their many stories and insights.
As always, thanks to the readers who hang out with me on Tumbler, Facebook, Ask SEJ, and Twitter too. You guys are so awesome—thanks for taking this journey with me, and for loving these guys as much as I do.