As Eli’s breathing kicked up, Wade pushed the pants down and didn’t play with the boxer briefs. They had to go, too. Another time he’d torture them both by inching the waistband down and kissing each sliver of skin he revealed. Not now.
Wade slipped his palm over Eli’s cock. Squeezed before pumping his hand up and down. When Eli’s hips pitched forward, Wade flicked his tongue across the tip.
Eli slid his fingers through Wade’s hair. “I fucking missed you.”
The words hit Wade with full force. Eli didn’t talk about his needs or emotional things. Even admitting that small concession constituted a huge step forward. Wade almost closed his eyes in relief. But then Eli’s fingers started roaming. Slipped down Wade’s neck and under the collar of his shirt. Stroking his skin and lighting it on fire everywhere he touched.
This is what Wade wanted. Eli home and uninhibited. Eli naked. “Show me how much. How sorry you were to leave me alone.”
A second later Wade held only air. Eli stepped back and kicked off his shoes and the clothing puddled at his feet. Then he was back, pushing Wade to the mattress and climbing on top. Legs tangled and hands traveled in a slow, flirting speed over skin.
Naked, with a look of fierce determination on his face, Eli straddled Wade. He never broke eye contact as he undid Wade’s pants and slipped a hand inside those briefs. Eli’s palm closed. Covered Wade, touched him.
Need ratcheted up and energy pounded around them. Wade caught the familiar scent of Eli’s shampoo as his head dipped and his hair brushed over Wade’s chin. This intimacy, something so shocking from a man with Eli’s past, shook Wade. Gave him hope and touched off a craving deep inside him.
Wade lifted his hips to help Eli drag off the pants and underwear. Wade lost his ability to form sentences after that. Eli’s mouth closed over his erection, taking him in deep, to the base, in one long pull. The world tilted. Wade’s heart raced so fast that his breathing couldn’t catch up.
And that was just the start. He shoved pillows under his head so he could drink in his favorite view—Eli stretched out between his legs. The combination of mouth and hands on his cock wiped away the lonely hours. And when his hips started lifting off the bed to press even deeper into Eli’s hot mouth, Wade knew what he needed.
He reached his hand out to the side but couldn’t get a grip on the drawer pull. “Damn it.”
Eli chuckled and the husky rumble vibrated through Wade. This time he didn’t fool around. He threw some weight into the move. Slapped his hand, ignoring the sting of pain, and ripped the drawer open, stopping it just before it fell to the floor. Wade closed his hand around the condom and the lube and dropped them on the mattress.
But Eli was ahead of him. He dipped his finger into his mouth, making it nice and wet, before teasing the rim of Wade’s ass. Then he slipped the finger inside. Sensations bombarded Wade, and his breath hiccupped in his chest. Rough gasps escaped his throat as his whole body seized.
“God, Eli. Now.” Wade wanted Eli over him, inside of him. Anywhere their bodies could touch, Wade needed it to happen.
Eli pushed back and sat on his heels. With shaking hands, he skimmed his fingers along the inside of Wade’s thighs and down. As if Wade weighed nothing, Eli pressed his knees back. Opened his legs wide enough to fit his hips between.
In the flash of movement, Wade saw it. He had no idea when it’d happened, but Eli wore the condom. Wade watched as Eli’s cock disappeared inside him inch by inch. One long push of slow and sensual torture. So deep and full.
A thundering sound came into focus. Wade’s heartbeat hammered in his ears. His fingers curled into the comforter. Every muscle ached from the force of holding back. With Eli out of town, Wade had dreamed about this feeling of fullness, the friction as Eli’s body rubbed over his. Having it all now, he felt his control shatter. And when Eli wrapped his hand around Wade’s cock, pumping him as he moved inside him, Wade’s head nearly exploded from the pleasure.
The in and out. The press and retreat. Wade got lost in the steady rhythm. “Yes.”
Eli leaned forward until his body hovered over Wade’s. “Tighten for me, baby . . . there.” Eli’s head fell forward as his hand continued to pump. “Damn, that’s it.”
The words, the sensations, the fucking, it all crashed in on Wade. His shoulders bent forward, lifting off the pillows. “I can’t wait.”
“Don’t, baby.” Eli sped up, his steady pumping faster now. “Come for me.”
Wade clenched his back teeth, trying to stave off the ending for just a few seconds, to draw out the pleasure washing through him. Then Eli pressed deeper as his hand tightened, and Wade broke. Sweat gathered on his forehead and his body almost jackknifed as the force of his orgasm ripped through him.
He came in Eli’s hand, on his own stomach, but barely felt the spurt as his body bucked and a tremble raced through him. He could hear Eli’s husky groan as his hips fell and his shoulders slumped. The muffled sound of satisfaction echoed in Wade’s ears. He knew Eli’s body as well as his own and knew he’d found his release. Truth was, they’d both lost it.
After a minute or two the shuddering stopped but the panting didn’t. Wade wrestled for control of his breathing and his brain but gave up when Eli fell in a heap on top of him. They’d both need a shower before they could venture outside the apartment again, and Wade didn’t care. Holding Eli again made any inconvenience of the slickness between their bodies worth it.
Eli turned his head and placed a soft kiss on Wade’s chest. “So much better than Skype.”
“No kidding.” Wade could not stop smiling. “Welcome home.”
Chapter Two
Eli relaxed into Wade’s side. After years on the road and living out of a duffel bag with a target on his back, Eli hated traveling for any reason. Now, though, mostly he hated being away from Wade . . . and that scared the shit out of Eli.
He’d dedicated most of his adult life to the Central Intelligence Agency. Busted his ass, survived the torture and more gunfights and explosions than he could count. He’d been good at his job because he didn’t have much to live for back then. Not that he had a death wish, because he didn’t, but he understood the risks of the job, accepted them and didn’t weep over the idea of dying young.
Then he met Wade. Towering with a large frame and military-short sandy-brown hair. Everything from his broad shoulders to his green eyes to that scruff over his chin appealed to Eli. And that deep, rough voice nearly did Eli in.
When his bosses at the CIA tagged him as a threat rather than an asset and kicked him out of the agency all those months ago—attempted to end him permanently—Eli ran. He’d landed on the steps of Holton Woods looking for Jarrett’s help. Eli found his second-in-command, Wade, instead. He provided medical care and promised no one would hunt him down inside the private club’s walls. For the first time ever, Eli had believed in someone he barely knew.
The attraction walloped him. Eli had screwed men and women on assignments. To him, sex was sex. Physical, hot, sometimes raunchy and never amounting to anything more than a release. He didn’t bother to define himself as gay or straight. Those were meaningless words. To him, thinking about his sexuality as an intrinsic part of who he was and what he wanted sounded like lovesick romance bullshit, and he wasn’t looking for that—ever. Sex amounted to one more weapon and he knew if he tried to pretty it up, it would lose its effectiveness. Its sharpness.
But then he met Wade and wanted something else. More than he ever dreamed possible.
The fucking had been unbelievable from the start. Good sex, no big deal. Then he screwed up. He got sucked in and it scared the shit out of him. In the heat of anger he lashed out. Claimed Wade meant nothing when he’d really come to mean everything, and Wade kicked him out. For some reason, and Eli still wasn’t clear why, Wade had let him back in.
That was three weeks ago. Eli had spent every minute of the time since trying not to fuck up again.
He stretched as he draped his
arm over Wade’s broad chest. “Do you have to get back downstairs?”
Wade did what he always did in this position: touched Eli. Ran fingers through his hair, then down to his shoulders and over his back. So shocking in its normalcy, so different from the life Eli had known, that the touch both calmed and inflamed him. Got him revved up for another round of sex even as he wanted to sink deeper against Wade and relax.
“In a few minutes.” Wade exhaled, sending a warm breath over the top of Eli’s head. “Though it would be interesting to force Becca to come up here and get me.”
That was enough to suck the simmering need out of Eli. “No, it wouldn’t.”
Wade’s fingers stilled. “She knows we’re having sex right now. I made it pretty clear that was my plan.”
Everyone in their small circle seemed to know and have a smart-ass comment every time he got Wade naked, which was all the time. For people who lived life on the edge and dealt in secrets, they sure were chatty when it came to one another’s private lives. Eli hadn’t quite adjusted to the idea of every person he knew crawling up in his business, but he tried to ignore the invasion and resulting twitchiness for Wade’s sake.
“I was thinking more about her temper and how she would take being your assistant and taking over while you have sex,” Eli said.
He and Becca had worked together on several operations, including the one that had them conducting surveillance on Jarrett under the guise that he was connected to a threat from a foreign national. That rogue operation was long over and the asshole point man of the team who lied and dragged them all into danger was dead, which left Eli and Becca able to lead normal lives. Whatever that meant.
For Eli, deciphering acceptable from unacceptable continued to be a struggle. Becca had adjusted better, but Eli had seen her take down men in Berlin and order around men twice her size in Morocco to get her way. She was not someone any smart man messed with and expected to win. Good thing she’d hooked up with a guy like Jarrett.
Wade stretched, moving higher on the pillows and taking Eli with him. “Did Bast fill you in about tomorrow morning? He was pretty cryptic about it with me.”
Since Eli had just spent two days at Sebastian Jameson’s side during some tough negotiations and endless fact-finding for a case, he wasn’t really in the mood to talk about his boss now. But he had no clue about any meeting, so he didn’t have a choice. “I know he’s about to go out of town with your baby sister on some planned getaway before she starts her MBA program.”
Wade frowned. “Don’t remind me.”
“Then you probably need to be more specific.”
“We have a meeting with Gabe MacIntosh.”
Talk about worlds colliding. Bast hired Eli after he’d been burned by the CIA and put on its kill list. Bast worked out a deal, because that’s what Bast did as a lawyer—negotiate impossible situations—and then rescued Eli from unemployment. More than a month into the job and Eli still couldn’t believe he had a position that required him to analyze data and strategies rather than shoot people.
But he knew Gabe. The mysterious former sniper. Quiet, determined and the owner and head of a security company so covert only a few people knew it existed. Eli knew because he’d used Gabe and his brothers more than once on CIA assignments. And that would be the problem with any meeting. Gabe’s brother Andy.
“Why didn’t Bast tell me?” Because then Eli could have made sure Bast kept Wade out of this . . . whatever this was.
“He texted me right before you walked in. He was in the middle of packing for vacation but said he’d leave a message on your phone.” Wade sat up and leaned against the headboard. “Either you didn’t check or he didn’t get to it yet.”
With the moment gone, Eli used the change in mood as a reason to get up. “Yeah, Bast was in a hurry to . . .” He threw his legs over the side of the bed and glanced back at Wade. “I should probably stop there.”
“Go home to my sister and do things I don’t want to know about?” Wade shook his head. “Yeah, let’s leave the details unsaid.”
“Bast is messed up for her. Like, crazy in love.” Wade knew that, but Eli liked to mention it now and then. He figured it was the only way, other than seeing the two of them together, that Wade would ever get used to the couple. And he needed to because Bast had made it clear he had no intention of losing Kyra.
“He better be,” Wade mumbled.
Eli took that comment as a good sign that Wade was nearing acceptance about the guy who likely would be his future brother-in-law. “You almost over your beat-up-the-guy-sleeping-with-your-sister thing?”
“I pretend they’re not having sex.” When Eli started to say something, Wade shook his head. “Yeah, let me live in denial. We need a shower anyway, and I’m in favor of anything that keeps you naked and gets you wet.”
Eli let him change the subject, but the alternate suggestion, no matter how tempting—and it sure as hell was—could lead to trouble. “Not a good idea.”
Wade’s eyebrow arched. “I thought it was one of my better ones.”
“You know if we do, the chance of me taking you against the tile wall is about a hundred percent.” Eli got hard just thinking about the possibility. They’d had sex in the shower so many times. He didn’t know who came up with the idea to build in one of those benches, but he was a huge fan.
Wade snorted. “I sure as hell hope so.”
Eli wasn’t really a reach-out-and-touch kind of guy, but he did it anyway. Slipped his fingers over Wade’s and rubbed his thumb over the back of his hand. “You need to get back to work and I have to go home.”
With that, all the energy zipping around the room vanished. Wade stiffened and his expression went blank, as if Eli had suggested he’d never come back again, and he certainly hadn’t meant that.
“You’re not staying tonight?” Wade’s shoulders fell as he moved his hand away and put it on his lap.
All of the earlier signs of excitement at seeing Eli come back and getting him upstairs disappeared. Even Wade’s voice changed, grew scratchier as the emotion faded away. Never mind that they’d actually been over this difficult topic several times since getting back together.
The condo, this bedroom, was the scene of their earlier nasty breakup. Wade had actually thrown Eli’s clothes in a bag and ushered him out of the condo, then out of the building completely. Every terrible memory of what happened between them before, how it ended and the things they said to each other, played out on an endless loop, starring this room. He could forget about it for short periods of time, but being in it for longer periods made Eli twitchy.
He skipped over all of that and went for the most obvious reason to head out. “You want me to hang around up here waiting for you to get off work hours from now?”
Wade shrugged. “Actually, yes.”
“Not really my style.” Sitting around downstairs, watching Wade work, would not be a hardship, but Eli knew that wasn’t really what they were talking about here. This wasn’t about how to keep from being bored for a few hours.
“You ever going to sleep over again? Not just for sex but to stay until morning.” Wade’s voice rose in volume with every word.
Eli started to stand up, but the mix of that tone and that question stopped him. He sat back down on the edge of the bed. “Wade, listen to me.”
“It’s punishment, right? Just fucking say it.” Wade wiped a hand through his short hair as he let out a long breath. “You want me to pay for not giving you a chance back then. For getting angry and kicking you out.”
They kept opening this wound. Letting it fester. It was the thing they could not put behind them. Eli knew he couldn’t. Not yet.
With his palms flat against the mattress on either side of Wade’s thighs, Eli leaned in. “Don’t do this.”
“It’s a simple fucking question.”
He needed to defuse the situation, but Wade didn’t seem ready to get there. That left Eli with a few choices—ignore, unload or try to exp
lain. Instinctively he leaned toward the first two but went with the last one. “Your place reminds me of some shitty times.”
“They didn’t bother you a second ago.”
Clearly Wade wanted a fight. Eli grabbed on to his patience, desperate not to engage, even though a harsh slap of words waited right there on his tongue. “Because when I’m inside you all I can think of is being inside you. But then you go to sleep or back downstairs to work and I’m here thinking and—” He broke off, not ready to admit that the idea of losing Wade had become so vile, so shattering, that it made Eli physically sick. “Just give me some time.”
“How much?”
Before he could grab on to it again, Eli’s control slipped. “How the hell should I know?”
Wade threw back the covers and stood up. “Fine.” He walked over to the bathroom. More like stomped.
Eli wasn’t in the mood for any of it. He didn’t want a scene. Not tonight. Not after he’d been so excited to see Wade again. “That’s annoying.”
“I answered you.” Wade turned around and faced Eli. “Hell, I gave you the answer you wanted.”
“I swear sometimes I think we should stick to sex and skip talking.” Eli regretted it the minute he said it. He blamed Wade for standing there tall and hot and completely naked. Something about seeing all that skin had Eli’s brain misfiring.
And from the thin line of Wade’s mouth, he wasn’t happy with the comment either. “Excuse me?”
Fuck me. “Forget I said it.”
“I doubt that.”
“I’m tired. All I wanted tonight was to get to you.” Eli needed Wade all the time now. He thought about him during the day, missed him at night when they stayed in their respective homes. Got excited at the thought of seeing him at the end of every workday. It was pretty damn embarrassing. “I really don’t want to fight.”
All of the anger rushed out of Wade in a whoosh. The tension left his shoulders and he unclenched his jaw. Eli waited. Didn’t move from his seat on the edge of the bed as Wade stepped around the end of the mattress and came over. Stopped right between Eli’s legs and used his fingertips to lift Eli’s head.
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