“Look. It may not be true in your tax bracket, but for us mortals here on the ground, there are consequences.”
“I thought you didn’t give a shit what people thought.”
“I don’t. Anyone who doesn’t like me or where I stick my dick can fuck right on off to hell, but I can’t—I don’t do crazy shit like that. I’m not risking what I’ve got for a little fun.”
“Little?” Though the rest of his face stayed motionless, Gavin raised his eyebrows. Then he spread his hands. “If anything happened, with the boat or your job, it would be taken care of. Monetary compensation goes a long way toward—”
“Fuck you.” The heat was gone, leaving nothing but cold ash in Jamie’s chest. The whole thing was nothing but a joke, a game. Jamie bet Gavin got a good laugh telling his friends about the hotheaded cop he was doing. “Sorry to screw with your plans for a tax deduction. Bet your accountant would love that line item. Hell, we’ll go back to my truck and drive somewhere quiet. I’ll blow you, and then it can be ‘for services rendered by civil servant.’ I’ll take the deduction in cash.”
In a blink, Jamie saw what anger really looked like on Gavin’s face. It wasn’t a lot different than his usual expression. But it was in his eyes, as cold as black ice, a pinprick of reflected light at the center of a darkness that was suddenly bigger than the open water around them. Jamie wanted that feeling gone in both of them. Wanted the heat back. The answering fire he got from Gavin in bed.
“You didn’t want my money earlier.” Gavin’s voice reminded Jamie of an animal cornered and wounded, ready to bite.
“I still don’t want it.”
“What was it you were demanding earlier? Right. To find out if I give a shit. Of course not. I have no feelings. Nothing to complain about. I can buy anything I want, so why should I care about anything.”
“I didn’t say that.” Jamie put both of his hands around the back of his own neck and squeezed out a little frustration. “I said…” He took a deep breath. “I said I liked spending time with you, and I wanted to know…” he looked up at Gavin, but the bastard didn’t throw Jamie a lifeline, “…if you liked being with me.”
“No.”
“Okay then. Glad we cleared that up. Now get off the goddamned boat so we can get the fuck out of here.”
“No you didn’t say that.” Gavin’s patronizing tone got right the hell on Jamie’s last nerve.
“What?” This was what happened when you dipped your wick in the same spot too many times. Things got messy. And confusing.
“You never said you liked spending time with me. All you asked is if you were boring me.”
Jamie tipped his head to look skyward, but there wasn’t any help coming from that direction either. “Must be entertaining the holy hell out of you right now.”
“Jamie.” There was something about the way Gavin said his name then, almost hoarse, drawn out and deeper than normal. Though two guys couldn’t be more different, Gavin saying his name like that reminded Jamie of the affectionate teasing in Colton’s Donny.
“You’re never boring,” Gavin went on, “and while I wouldn’t call this evening fun, I do like spending time with you. Even when your dick isn’t up my ass.”
That was better. At least Jamie didn’t feel so raked over the coals. Maybe Gavin was feeling a little crisped. “Okay. But we need to get ashore. Not even the precinct commander could screw around with his wife out here without landing in deep shit. Security cameras.”
“Oh.”
Only one word, but Jamie could hear something in Gavin’s voice.
“Could have been fun though,” Gavin added, “with the boat rocking, and us rocking.”
“Don’t you have a yacht or two lying around?” Jamie stepped back onto the dock and checked the lines.
“Oh, one or two at least.” It was easier to read Gavin’s sarcasm now. “But that wouldn’t be the same. No adventure.”
“No risk of me losing my job, you mean?”
Gavin walked down the dock to stand next to one of the Zodiacs. “Is that the one you pulled me into?”
“Your buddy on that one. You were on that one.” Jamie pointed at the Hurricane. “Why does it matter so much?”
“I was kind of out of it. Do you remember all the details of someone saving your life?” Gavin gestured toward the spot where Colton’s tattoo was, then tucked his hands in his pockets and waited.
“I don’t remember it at all. Just what I was told.”
“Which was?”
Jamie looked out at the bridge. “We were being dropped in Guatemala. High-altitude parachute drop. I’d done it before, but this was a little higher, and I guess there was something funky about it for me. I blacked out on the way down. All the safety stuff that was supposed to kick in didn’t. A guy in my platoon came over to rip out my bad chute and pull the backup. We got tangled. He had to cut me free, then carried my weight with his chute. We landed hard.”
“Did he die?”
Jamie looked over at Gavin and shook his head. “Fucked up his ankle.”
“But that tattoo, the wings and empty boots. I know what that means.”
Colton milking it, having Jamie wait on him, that laughing Donny boy echoing every few minutes. Then that stupid prick daring him up on top of the ruins. Which gave, his ankle or the old rocks? Didn’t matter.
“Three weeks later. He was screwing around somewhere he shouldn’t be. He fell, broke his neck.” Jamie bit off the words.
Gavin didn’t say anything, but stood next to him as they both looked at the bridge, the water knocking the boats against the dock.
They stood there watching the lights streak across the bridge until Jamie could hear his heart beating in time with the slap of waves.
Jamie took a deep breath of that familiar smell coming off the bay and wanted to fill his nose with the leather and evergreen of the man next to him instead.
As he turned, Gavin put a light hand on Jamie’s shoulder. “Do you have to work tomorrow?”
Jamie shook his head.
“Come home with me tonight.”
Chapter Twelve
The bed—no, the body next to Gavin—jerked violently. He knew where he was immediately. In his bed at the manor. Beside him, Jamie tensed again, started and grabbed on to Gavin’s upper arm, fingers digging into the bone.
Without a sound, Jamie was awake. He released Gavin’s arm and rolled to look up at the ceiling, his eyes glittering in the dark.
They’d never made it to Benjy’s. Jamie had been quiet—very quiet for him—on the drive out to the manor. Not a comment for the cars in the back drive, or on the walk up to Gavin’s room. No hi for Annabelle, though he did stop to pet her.
They didn’t talk much during sex, but it was eerily silent when Jamie ripped off Gavin’s shirt and pushed him back onto his bed, shoving his jeans and boxer briefs down before sucking Gavin in as if Gavin’s cock were the only thing keeping Jamie alive.
He’d definitely been paying attention to all the things Gavin liked because he would be happy to award a bonus for how fast Jamie was getting Gavin to the edge. Maybe it wasn’t technique. It was how focused Jamie was, how desperately he seemed to need this, need Gavin’s body under his hands and mouth, need Gavin. The intensity had Gavin primed to shoot as much as the dizzying thing Jamie was doing with his tongue and lips and hot, wet throat.
He was still shaking, coming down from that amazing high, when Jamie shoved him farther up on the bed and, naked, rocked himself off in the groove of Gavin’s thigh and hip.
The last communication Gavin remembered was pointing out the location of the bathroom.
The silence now was different. Not the hunger of before, but a watchfulness. An uncertainty. Even in the dark Gavin felt Jamie’s unblinking stare, his resolve to keep from sliding back into whatever had jerked him awake. Gavin knew if he put his hand on Jamie’s chest, his heartbeat would jump quick and hard. Gavin had thought he understood what Jamie wanted from him, thoug
ht Jamie’s constant digs were his clear warning to not expect more than this amazing connection they had in bed, but there’d been something different about him tonight. The invitation for a date was strange enough, but there’d been something more than a firm push away in Jamie’s bitterness about their relative incomes, a demand for something Gavin wished he knew how to give. For the first time in a long time, it had hurt, knowing he couldn’t live up to someone’s expectations—to Jamie’s expectations.
Jamie moved on the pillow then reached over toward the nightstand, a question in his eyes. Gavin nodded, relaxing as he realized this was something he did have to give.
He might not suffer from nightmares himself, but he had plenty of waking ones. Jolts of panic whenever his phone showed a call from Lily, the emptiness of wandering through a life that didn’t fit, the bleak realization that even that fall off the bridge hadn’t done anything to alter the monotony of the future.
There were two antidotes for that feeling, and since Jamie didn’t enjoy the chemical, pain-killing options, Gavin would be glad to supply the other. He was ready then when Jamie gently pushed Gavin onto his stomach, ready when the sounds of a condom and the cold swipe of lube meant Jamie was eager to take what Gavin could give.
Despite Jamie’s urgency, his entry didn’t hurt. The steady, solid press of him had all of Gavin’s nerves singing. After Jamie was in, he waited until Gavin relaxed and arched his back to meet Jamie the rest of the way. The warm sac of Jamie’s balls tingled against the stretched-thin skin below Gavin’s ass as they took a deep breath together. So full, so good and Gavin still wanted more.
Jamie shifted from side to side, making room for himself inside Gavin’s body, fitting them together in a way that made Gavin the one who wanted to rush now. Make it clear that his body was the only thing he could give so Jamie could stop trying to find something Gavin didn’t know how to offer.
He moved, tried to start the fuck, but Jamie used his thighs to pin Gavin’s down, making him wait, making him feel exactly what Jamie wanted him to and nothing more.
That was the only point where they touched. Jamie’s fists drove into the mattress on either side of Gavin’s ribs, chest far away from Gavin’s back. How could he feel Jamie pounding inside him everywhere when they hadn’t moved?
He wanted to say something. The kind of thing that would let Jamie know that not only was it past time for him to initiate the thrusting part of the activity, but that thrusting was all that was on Gavin’s mind.
For once, he couldn’t find those words, and with Jamie being such a control freak, Gavin couldn’t prove it with his body.
Jamie kept shifting around, tiny shocks of sensation, bursts of pleasure, but he still kept them waiting. Gavin started to think he could feel the throb of blood in Jamie’s cock, that Gavin’s heartbeat was trying to match it.
Gavin’s skin was thin everywhere when Jamie finally started to move. Thin and so sensitive that a drop of sweat landing on his back felt like a flash of hot wax, the slap of Jamie’s balls teased like a tongue, and the 3000-thread-count sheet brushing Gavin’s dick might as well have been as textured as terrycloth.
Jamie moved off Gavin’s thighs, letting him up onto his knees a little. Gavin dug in his fingers and fucked back into Jamie, hard, steady, glad to get this where it needed to be. Gavin could take care of himself as Jamie got closer. Right now he concentrated on meeting Jamie’s strokes.
Then Jamie scooped him up and sank back, leaving Gavin’s legs outside Jamie’s as they knelt upright, and however full Gavin thought he’d been before was nothing compared to how it felt now. Stretched and splayed open on Jamie’s dick, nothing but Jamie’s hold on him to keep him upright. Every muscle and bone seemed to be a thrust away from turning liquid, melting Gavin off Jamie’s lap and into a puddle on the mattress.
Gavin couldn’t figure out how this had gone from offering what Jamie needed to Gavin grabbing his dick, desperate to come now while he still had enough muscle coordination to do it. Jamie’s forehead pressed against Gavin’s shoulder blade, lips kissing and brushing the same small patch of skin until Gavin started to shake. Then Jamie began sucking a bite in that skin, and the loop of sensation between Gavin’s ass and his cock went into an overdrive that sent him smashing into an orgasm that hit him like a bullet train, a blur and rush of heat, a roar in his head and the perfect release of tension from his balls.
Gavin sagged, and Jamie let him gently settle back onto the mattress. Now it would be the way Gavin had thought it would from the start, Jamie fucking away the last remnants of whatever was in his head that scared him. Gavin wondered if he saw his friend fall again, or if there were other things as a rescue diver to fill his head with images that panicked him out of sleep.
Jamie moved his cock fast in Gavin’s ass, and it hurt now, but that felt a part of what he could give, compensation for whatever had been raked up in Jamie’s subconscious.
It wasn’t long before Jamie was gasping, his strokes tighter, body jerking, then stilling with a soft moan. But he had another surprise left. He wrapped his arms around Gavin and pulled them onto their sides. In a voice still rough and deep, Jamie muttered, “You. Sweet Jesus, it was you.”
Before Gavin could ask him what he meant, Jamie used Gavin’s hair to turn his head and expose his neck. After a brush of Jamie’s cheek and lips, he let go and rolled off the bed.
Gavin tried to stay awake, but not even the gluey sensation of come drying on his chest was a deterrent to the strong tug of sleep.
Jamie spent a few minutes hanging on to the funky copper bowl that made up the sink in Gavin’s bathroom. Staring at the haggard face in the mirror, Jamie reminded himself that whatever sick feeling that dream had left him with, it wasn’t real. None of it. He hadn’t been next to Colton on the ruins. Hadn’t missed a chance to grab him. And 110 percent reality was that Gavin was never there. His neck wasn’t the one that snapped. He’d never looked at Jamie with hurt surprise as he failed to stop him from going over.
There was no regular-looking faucet handle, but Jamie jabbed at buttons until what he thought was a soap dish had water spill over it into the bowl. Pretty, but pointless. He splashed the lukewarm water on his face, then dried off on a fluffy towel.
For once, he hoped Gavin would ignore something Jamie had said. The guy probably thought Jamie was some kind of headcase, freaking out over a dream, muttering strange stuff in the middle of sex.
The shower setup didn’t look as cool as the one in the beach house, but there was still the overhead nozzle plus one on each side. Jamie could kill some time in there, waiting for Gavin to fall back asleep and skip the questions-Jamie-didn’t-have-a-fucking-clue-how-to-answer awkwardness. Except Jamie wasn’t quite pathetic enough for that. He went back out to find the guy tucked in a ball on his side, as if even in sleep he was pulling that disappearing act. Jamie climbed in and ignored the wide-open space on his side of the bed in favor of wrapping himself around Gavin. If another one of those dreams hit, Jamie would already have Gavin wrapped up tight.
But the rest of the night slipped by without a hitch, and Jamie woke up to find himself still hanging on in a cross-chest carry like he’d tow Gavin back to shore. The showers were definitely a perk, but Jamie couldn’t see what the point of being rich was if you couldn’t get people to bring you food and coffee in bed.
He told Gavin that when he blinked his eyes open and stretched back against Jamie’s chest.
“What time is it?” Gavin asked.
“Almost nine.”
“We can get something if we hurry.” Gavin rolled away and got to his feet.
“Wait.” Jamie crawled out on the same side. “Not only do you not have people to bring you stuff, you have a schedule of when you can eat?”
“Breakfast is usually served buffet-style from 7-9, dinner’s at 6:30.” Gavin turned from opening a drawer to slide into a plaid pair of boxer briefs. “It’s not as if the kitchen is off-limits, but we have to respect the cook’s tim
e.”
Jamie had a feeling Gavin was quoting his father. There was something rote about it, the way you said stuff that you didn’t really buy but had drilled into your head anyway.
Jamie was bummed to miss his shot to eat at one of those long tables loaded with crystal and silver, but as he buttoned up his jeans he offered, “We can grab something if you want on the way back to get your car. There’s a good Greek diner on Kane Street.”
Gavin looked over his shoulder. “If you’re in a hurry, we can— I was going to call down and ask them not to clear.”
“Here’s fine.” Jamie lifted his holster off the chair where he’d hung it last night. Gavin sat on the bed and watched him dress, then came over before Jamie pulled his leather jacket on.
Gavin put his hand over the straps holding the gun to Jamie’s side, then down over the piece itself. “We’ve always—at your house—I never really thought about it.”
Jamie wasn’t going to claim Gavin was easy to read all of a sudden, but right now there was an intensity in the way he was looking at Jamie that wasn’t completely about sex.
“Does it turn you on or off?” Jamie asked.
“A little of both. I’ve fired a sport rifle—not at anything alive.”
A firearm had been part of Jamie’s life for twenty-two years. First his M16, now his Glock. He hoped he never had to take a shot at something alive.
The table was long, and there was a lot of shining stuff, but it didn’t seem to have much of an effect on plain old scrambled eggs, bacon, toast and orange juice. The juice was fresh, though, and there were little things like breakfast pizzas with an egg, crabmeat and some buttery sauce on English muffins.
“Those are Lily’s favorite,” Gavin said as Jamie used the tongs to pull one out of the warmer.
Jamie had seen less food at a Shoney’s. “How many people live here?” No shortage of places to sit at the long table.
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