Sev tried not to hover as Zeke talked to Laine on the phone, but with every grunt from Zeke’s lips, and the way the man’s shoulders were tensing up, his frown deepening, Sev found himself drawn closer, though he tried not to be obvious about it. Brendon didn’t even try to be subtle. He walked over to his partner and gestured to the phone, his face scrunched up as he tried to hear what Laine was saying. Zeke reached for Brendon and pulled him close, rubbing Brendon’s back as Zeke listened intently. Sev would have thought it sweet if he wasn’t certain that the news Laine was imparting was bad, as in deadly, dangerous bad. It was hard to think happy thoughts when there was a psycho after you—or your lover. Zeke grunted again, then held the phone out to Sev.
“Here. He wants to talk to you.” The twitch of Zeke’s lips warned Sev the man was planning on doing some eavesdropping of his own. Well, it wasn’t like they were going to have phone sex—not this time, anyway.
“Hey, Laine, are you okay?” Sev closed his eyes. God, he sounded like a wuss.
“Yeah, I just wanted to make sure everything was fine there.” Laine’s voice was a deep rumble that had Sev’s cock twitching despite the worry pressing down on him.
“And what else? What’s going on?”
“My former partner from Houston PD showed up. He thinks he knows who killed Conner, and why.”
Sev’s eyes popped open and he turned his back on the two men watching him. “You’re not going to try to find him, are you? You’re going to call for backup or whatever it is you do, right?”
A weary sigh drifted through the phone. “We don’t have any proof, Sev, just Rich’s gut feeling and some…things that have happened that seem like more than coincidences. Those aren’t things we can turn in as evidence.”
“What things have happened? What is it that you don’t want to tell me?”
“Sev, you don’t need to know the sick things this guy has been doing—”
Sev squeezed the phone so hard he was surprised it didn’t break. “You listen to me, Laine. I am not your little woman! I don’t need to be protected or coddled or any of that shit! If you think that son of a bitch is here, then you better tell me what’s going on, or I will walk out of this house and—” Sev jerked the phone away from his ear, smiling as he did so. Laine could roar like a damn lion all he wanted, and cuss until he was blue in the face, but Sev wasn’t giving, not on this. Zeke started to grab for the phone but Sev spun away and pointed a finger at him.
“You touch this phone before I’m done, and you will regret it, Zeke.” Sev kept his finger aimed at Zeke until he took two steps back, then he brought the phone back to his ear. “Are you done throwing a fit now? Ready to act like an adult?”
“Sev, I swear, if you don’t stop goading me…”
“What? You’ll yell some more? Keep it up and I’ll yell back, and then we’ll be in a hell of a mess, won’t we?”
Sev could hear Laine whispering to someone else, heard a muffled reply before Laine spoke to the other man again. Guess he had to get the okay from his partner to speak. The idea pissed Sev off.
“Did you get permission to speak?” Sev practically purred the question, feeling provoked and hurt that Laine didn’t trust him. Maybe he was the only one who felt like this was more between them, that this was it. The Big One. The Only One. Maybe he hadn’t seen what he’d thought he had in Laine’s eyes, felt it in his touch—
“I wasn’t getting permission, I was getting my ass chewed for being a—”
“Boneheaded dipshit.”
Sev could make out the words clearly. Laine’s former partner had a very sexy voice that carried well, and he enunciated the words with a dramatic flair that made Sev smile despite his pique.
“Yeah. That. What Rich said.” Laine’s amusement died as fast as it flared. “There have been four murders in Houston, gay men that Rich says resemble me enough that they could be related. He—and I agree—doesn’t think it’s a coincidence, and neither is the fact that one of the police officers I worked with in Houston, the first to arrive on the scene of Conner’s death, took emergency leave right after I called Rich.”
Sev felt like he’d swallowed dry ice, his body chilled and burning at the same time. “A cop? You think the killer is a cop?” He couldn’t say why that scared him so much more than if the guy were just some clerk or janitor, but it did. “Maybe he really did have a family emergency. Maybe his grandma died or—”
“Sev. No. It fits, okay? The guy used to watch me all the time, but I thought he was suspicious about my…me being gay. The fact that he took off after I called Rich fits, too, and when you add in all the times Conner’s sent my star into a spinning frenzy… He was trying to tell me all along.”
“Jesus Christ.” It did fit, all of it. Sev could feel it in his bones as surely as he felt that he and Laine fit. The comparison was too close to a bastardisation of what Sev knew was in his heart for Laine, and he pushed it away. “I see it. What are you going to do?”
“Matt—Deputy Nixon—is going to finish up the report from yesterday, then he’ll meet Rich and me at the scene from yesterday. We’re going to walk it, try to figure out exactly how McAlister managed to get away, then see where to go from there. We might not learn anything new, but it’ll be good for Rich to get a look at the crime scene. I also told Matt to fax a picture of McAlister over to Zeke so y’all would know what he looks like. I want you to study that picture until you’re sure you would know him no matter how he might try to disguise himself, okay?”
Sev had never been so afraid in his life, but he buried it, unwilling to add to Laine’s burdens. “I will, I promise. And tonight, when you get back, I’m going to—”
A strangled sound from across the room shut Sev up. Ears burning with the heat of his embarrassment, he found Brendon and Zeke both smirking at him. Brendon started making gestures, bringing his hand to his mouth repeatedly like he was—
“You’re going to what?” Laine’s voice was barely a whisper, but Sev had no desire to entertain Zeke, Brendon, or Rich. What he had to say was for Laine’s ears alone.
“I, ah, forgot I had an audience,” Sev admitted, smiling despite himself when Laine laughed. “I think one of said audience wants you to bring Rich—”
Brendon bobbed his head and held up three fingers. Sev looked at him with his best ‘what the hell’ expression.
“Matt. Tell him to bring Deputy Nixon, too,” Brendon clarified. Sev made a note not to ever play charades with the man—he sucked at nonverbal messages—well, except for the sexual ones.
“And Deputy Nixon. He wants to invite them over for dinner.” And then I’ll get you alone and tell you how I’m going to rock your world, baby. Sev’s dick was all for that idea, trying to fill up and embarrass him even more in front of Zeke and Brendon. Sev turned his back on the men again.
Laine’s laughter brought Sev’s shaft to attention. “That should be, uhm, entertaining, to say the least, but tell him I’ll bring them even if I have to cuff ‘em and drag ‘em in.”
“Entertaining?” Sev felt his forehead scrunch as he thought about what Laine meant. “Do they not get along or something?”
“Or something.” Laine laughed again and murmured something to Rich. “We’ll be there after we finish at my place and get Rich a room. You be careful, all right?”
The way Laine’s voice had went warm and low there at the end had Sev feeling like he’d drunk a bottle of champagne. Light and bubbly, and a little woozy as well.
“I will. You, too.” Sev disconnected the call and peered over his shoulder at Zeke and Brendon. He wasn’t going to turn around until his erection was under control. As hard as he was, that could take a while.
“Here.” Sev tossed the phone to Brendon and, in what he considered a very mature manner, ignored the laughter from the two men. “I think I’ll just go lay down for a while.”
Their laughter echoed down the hall as Sev headed to the guest room, tempting him to laugh at himself, too. Then he thought
of Laine, and the police officer who had stalked him, obsessed about him for years, and Sev discovered that he didn’t need to go wait for his hard-on to abate. It withered immediately as fear chased off his good mood.
* * * *
Once Rich had stowed his bags in the hotel room, Laine led the way to Zeke and Brendon’s, Rich behind him in his sporty little car—Laine had warned him that car might get beat to pieces, but Rich insisted on driving himself—and Matt pulling up the rear in his truck behind them both. He wasn’t surprised that they hadn’t found anything new today, other than what they thought was McAlister’s escape route. It could have been a deer trail. Tracking wasn’t one of Laine’s talents, and Rich and Matt didn’t fare any better at it, either. McAlister had either covered his tracks with a skill Laine lacked, or he’d taken a different path away from the house.
A conversation he’d had with Rich after Matt had left the office kept niggling at Laine’s brain. It was a little thing, and didn’t have anything to do with McAlister, but it puzzled Laine nonetheless. He’d wondered about something Rich had said and had finally worked up the nerve to ask him about it. Laine let the conversation replay in his mind, trying to nail just what was bothering him.
“How’d you know?”
Rich had looked up at Laine’s question, seeming puzzled since it came out of nowhere.
“How’d I know…what?”
“You said you knew about me and Conner before he was murdered.” Laine had watched Rich’s cheeks darken, his gaze turning from Laine to stare off in the direction of a clump of scrub. Rich had tucked his hands into the pockets of his slacks and studied the ground, toeing a rock like a nervous kid before finally answering.
“I just did. I saw y’all out once, at a basketball game.” Rich had shook his head. “There wasn’t anything obvious, really, I just knew. And when Conner… Jesus, Laine, I’d have had to be blind to miss the pain in your eyes. I never heard a whisper of a rumor before then, but I knew.” Rich had turned, and Laine had wished he could read the man as well as Rich had read him. “I wish you had told me. You could have, you know.”
The conversation had seemed almost surreal, and it bothered Laine that he felt like he was missing something there. He thought about Rich’s expression, the look in his eyes and felt a flicker of guilt. Rich was trying to tell him something, and Laine wasn’t sure he wanted to hear it.
Or maybe he was letting his imagination run away with him. Laine mulled over it until he pulled into the bumpy drive leading to Zeke’s place. As soon as he saw Sev standing on the porch, sandwiched between the two bigger men, everything else faded into the background. He’d worried that he’d feel awkward with Rich and Matt being around his lover for the first time, worried that he might not be able to keep from reverting to the stoic, private man he had been.
Yet as soon as Laine saw Sev, he knew Sev was the most important thing in his life, and he wouldn’t be able to pretend otherwise, ever. The smile on his lover’s face was enough to do that, and the sweet look in his big, beautiful eyes had Laine’s heart filling to overflowing. Laine got out of his truck and hadn’t taken two steps before he had one sexy, hard man leaping at him, arms wrapped around his neck and lips pressed to Laine’s. Nothing had ever felt so perfect before, and Laine knew he’d fight with everything in him to keep this feeling and this man for the rest of his days.
* * * *
“That was…an experience.” Sev stood on the porch with Laine, Zeke and Brendon having gone back inside after Rich and Matt had left. Saying dinner was an experience was being polite. Rich and Matt had bickered and sniped at each other throughout their meal. Once, Sev had thought they would come to blows when Rich had made a comment about Matt tampering with reports, but Laine had calmly and authoritatively shut both men down. Sev had been sporting a decent hard-on ever since.
Laine’s gaze seemed to be riveted to the tail lights of the departing vehicles. “Yup. Those two remind me of a couple of tomcats thrown together in a pillowcase. Guess they just rub each other the wrong way.” Laine paused, one big hand massaging the small of Sev’s back. “I’ll admit, I was worried about how they’d handle seeing you, knowing…” He shrugged and chuckled softly. “Other than a few curious looks, Rich and Matt didn’t seem to care. Gives me hope that maybe me being gay won’t be so hard for everyone else to accept.”
“Mmm.” Sev was afraid it wouldn’t be that easy, but the two men had seemed happy for Laine more than anything else. “Maybe, though I suspect there will be some people who aren’t quite so open-minded.” Sev slid his hand around to the back of Laine’s belt and fingered the spot where Laine’s handcuffs had been dangling earlier. He’d had all day to plan, but now he had Laine alone, Sev couldn’t quell the fear that he might be overstepping his boundaries with this man. Or blowing those boundaries into a million pieces. He stepped in front of Laine and pressed up against him, writhing before he could stop himself. Laine’s attention shifted from the tail lights to Sev, arms wrapping around Sev’s lower back. His eyes dilated rapidly so that only a fine ring of silver showed as he focused on Sev.
“Do you trust me?” Sev breathed the words against Laine’s lips, the fingers of one hand still toying with the back of Laine’s belt. Laine stilled, his big body tensing as he looked down at Sev. A trickle of fear slithered up Sev’s spine—maybe he shouldn’t have asked. He might not like the answer. Don’t ask questions you might not want to hear the answer to, remember that in the future.
The edges of Laine’s lips tipped up and he nudged his cock against Sev’s belly. “Yes.”
One word, three letters, yet it held so much power and promise. Sev cupped the back of Laine’s neck with one hand and pulled him down for the kiss Sev needed more than his next breath. He licked Laine’s lips, slipping his tongue inside when Laine opened for him, just opened, handing over control of the kiss to Sev. A shudder shook them both as Sev’s tongue stroked over the roof of Laine’s mouth, then twined and slid against Laine’s. Sev explored every inch of his lover’s mouth, every tooth and hollow as he pressed into Laine. Laine’s arms tightened around him, lifting and holding him so close Sev could feel Laine’s heartbeat, the pulse of his cock. Sev gentled the kiss and nipped Laine’s lower lip before turning his head away just enough to speak.
“Let me?” Sev didn’t want to explain what he wanted, or why he needed Laine’s agreement without an explanation. He hoped, yet still was surprised when Laine didn’t hesitate.
“Yes.” There it was again, that one, small, powerful word. Sev pushed and Laine loosened his grip, allowing Sev to take one of his thick wrists and lead them both inside. He thought Zeke and Brendon might have said something as they walked by the living room, but Sev didn’t notice. Right now, he couldn’t think about anything other than Laine’s implicit trust and what, exactly, it could mean that Laine didn’t hesitate to hand over control to him.
Once they were in the guest room, Sev positioned Laine beside the bed then walked back to shut and lock their door. He turned and met Laine’s gaze, the need and trust in those dark eyes nearly knocking Sev on his butt. How could a look make him weak, yet fill him with a rush of power at the same time?
Sev tucked his hands in his back pockets and stood in the doorway, soaking in every detail of his lover. From the tips of his booted feet to the top of his thick dark hair, the man was pure perfection. Long, muscled legs, lean hips, tight, taut abs and chiseled chest—and broad, strong shoulders that could carry responsibilities too many other people would shirk.
By the time Sev had brought his gaze to the pulse pounding in his lover’s corded neck, his hands were itching to touch. He strode over to Laine and tugged on the hem of Laine’s T-shirt, humming his approval when Laine reached for the edge and pulled the shirt off, tossing it aside. Sev ran his hands over the expanse of bare skin, reveling in the hard muscles and light smattering of hair that tickled his palms. It seemed that everywhere he stroked was followed by a twitch of the flesh under his hands as Laine�
��s breaths became shaky.
Sev flicked his tongue over a taut nipple, grunting and pushing Laine’s hands away when he would have held Sev to him. Laine let his hands drop to his sides as Sev sucked the hard bud into his mouth, his teeth scraping over the tasty bit again and again. Sev licked his way to the other nipple, bringing a hand up to continue the sensual onslaught he’d begun on the first nipple. The shudder that ripped through Laine almost dislodged Sev from the nub of flesh he was tonguing, so he bit down, pinching the other nipple with his fingers, rolling it hard between his thumb and forefinger.
A raspy groan tore from Laine, his hips thrusting to grind against Sev in a display of need that filled him with a sense of power. That he could do this to his big, strong lover, could reduce him to a shuddering, moaning mass of need with a few touches, was a heady realization, threatening to demolish Sev’s plans in favor of finding immediate release.
And that would not do. Laine may very well trust him—Sev was almost certain he did—but Sev was smart enough to know that control was vital to Laine and not something he’d hand over with any sort of regularity. If he didn’t act on Laine’s capitulation now, he might not get another chance for a long while.
Sev stepped back, admiring the saliva-slicked nipples, so hard and dark from Sev’s attentions. He trailed a finger down the soft fuzz bisecting Laine’s abs, smiling when Laine sucked in a breath as though the slight touch carried an electrical current. When his finger brushed over the fastening at Laine’s waistband, Sev popped the button open, then shoved Laine back on the bed.
The big man went down without a fight, flopping fully onto his back with a bounce that sent the springs to squeaking. Sev knelt and removed Laine’s boots and socks, setting them off to the side. He let his fingers linger over one foot, then the other, tracing the high arch before cupping the heel and rubbing his cheek against Laine’s denim-clad calf. Sev had an urge to rub all over the man, which struck him as funny once he accepted that he wanted to leave his scent on his lover like some wild animal marking its territory.
When the Dead Speak Page 15