“Love that,” he gasped. “Love how that feels.” He was still hard in my hand. Morgan held me in place with his legs, humming while he rolled his hips. Cum leaked from around my softening cock. If I’d been ten years younger, I would have been pounding him again, working my cock until it was rock hard and stretching him to his limit, but my recovery time was a bit longer now.
I didn’t care, watching him was enough.
Morgan put his hand over mine. One at a time, he pulled open my fingers until I released his dick. It slapped it against his stomach, all swollen, angry, and weeping.
“Why did you hold back?” I didn’t realize just how much it hurt my ego, but the tone of my voice said everything I wasn’t willing to admit.
“Want you to suck me.” He sat up on his elbows. “Want just your mouth, Grant.”
I wasn’t quite sure what he meant until he pushed away any attempt to hold him. I wound up with my hands on the edge of the table so I could balance myself. Morgan gripped the back of my head and pushed me down. He didn’t cram himself to the back of my throat, just deep enough to take half his cock. I started to bob my head, but he pulled my hair.
“Be still.”
I did. Even though it made me feel useless, I stopped moving and stood there while Morgan watched me. Then slowly he began to move. First it was just a roll of his hips, then he pulled his feet up to the edge of the table and it became an all-out face-fucking.
Head back, one arm holding him up, the other hand buried in my hair, he held me in place. Even if I’d wanted to pull away, I couldn’t have. Not with the image of his glistening body weighing down my mind, the scent of musk and clean sweat in my nose, the taste of precum, the anticipation for more, and the animalistic sounds he made with every thrust.
I think I would have stayed there forever if he wanted me to, but once in control, the constant tension in Morgan’s body didn’t return, and he simply rode out the crash and ebb of pleasure until one final thrust had him shooting down the back of my throat.
I swallowed, but it wasn’t quick enough to keep the stream of cum from backing over my lips and making lines down his cock and leaving droplets in his golden hairs.
Morgan pulled me forward until we were nose to nose, chin to chin. He licked the cum from my lip. His dark gaze was on me and at the same time far, far away.
He didn’t resist when I molded my body to his and wrapped him in my arms. The heat of his flesh, the curve of his muscles, the strength in his body, nothing had ever felt so perfect in my life.
Morgan peppered my shoulder in kisses. “Gonna have to get a new table.”
My mind was still fifteen seconds behind. “What? Why?” We hadn’t damaged it.
“’Cause I’m never going to be able to keep a straight face if Aunt Jenny comes over for lunch.”
I laughed, but it died too quickly. Like I said, my thoughts lagged.
“What’s wrong?” Morgan tilted his head. A small tic pulled his shoulder and his hand went to his temple, but I caught it and kissed his palm. The involuntary pull fell slack and his fingers opened. I did it again.
“Grant?”
I pushed one hand behind his back, but when I reached for the other, he eluded my grasp.
“You want an encore, then we're gonna have to get the lube.” The warmth of his gaze didn’t match the sudden edge to his words. It was like seeing two men. One on the inside who wanted me, trusted me, then another on the outside who couldn’t lose control.
I took his hands again. “I won’t hurt you.” I brushed my lips against his. “I swear to you, Morgan, you can trust me. I’ll never hurt you.” His lips parted, and his breath huffed in and out.
“What makes you think I don’t trust you?” He pulled out of my grasp again, but I regained control before he got very far. His gaze slid away, and some of the color left his cheeks.
“I think you know why.” He really pulled then. I let him go because it was either that or leave bruises. Then he was off the table, grabbed his jeans off the floor, and headed toward the bathroom. Cum left a shiny streak across the back of one ass cheek and thigh.
“I gotta get ready for work.”
“I’m not him.” I don’t know why I said it.
Morgan froze in the doorway. The muscles in his shoulders bunched.
“And whatever it is he did, I won’t.”
His hand flexed on the doorknob. “I know you’re not Dillon. And I know you’re nothing like him.”
“Then why don’t you trust me?”
Morgan turned. I swore there were tears in his eyes, but when his hair slid out of the way, as me met my gaze, they were gone. “It’s just sex, Grant. It’s not like we’re married. Three years, remember? You know, to fill the space, because it’s better than crossword puzzles.”
I took a step, and he withdrew. I couldn’t be sure, but I don’t think he realized he did it.
“What if it’s not?”
Morgan laughed, but it fractured. “C’mon, Grant, when’s the last time a crossword puzzle made you growl like a rutting bull when you come?”
“I don’t…” Okay, I did make a lot of noise. Maybe not like a rutting bull. But honestly, I don’t think I’d ever heard one before. I took another step, and this time he held his ground. “Maybe I don’t want to be with you to fill the space anymore.”
“So you want to watch TV instead?” His gaze slid away and his wayward hand flicked thoughts.
“No. I want you. Next to me. Every night.”
Morgan dropped his jeans in the dirty laundry pile inside the bathroom door. Then he turned on the shower and tested the water for a lot longer than he needed to before he went to his room and came back with some clean clothes.
Again he stopped at the door. “I know you’ve got some things to do, but would you like to stay the night?”
“You know I would.”
“I was thinking about cooking dumplings.”
“Sounds perfect.”
He nodded once, then twice, before stepping into the cloud of steam and shutting himself inside.
**********
The skill saw screamed through another two by four. Even with earplugs, it left my head ringing. After you run one of those things for so long, there’s just no escaping the sound. It echoes in your bones and occupies any moment of silence in between daily noises.
No, the only way to get that irritating screech out of your head was to replace it with something louder and far more memorable. Morgan would be leaving Toolies around eight. He wanted to ride his bike home, but I was going to pick him up. If he complained, I’d make it up to him in any and every position possible.
I picked up my shirt from the railing and wiped my hands before carrying the stud inside. While rewiring an outlet, I discovered a soft spot in the wall. The soft spot turned into a patch, and the patch turned into an all-out nightmare. A lot of old home places are built on stone foundations. Not concrete block, not brick, I’m talking rock. The kind you dig up out of the garden and toss off to the side. Depending on the age of the house, sometimes that rock isn’t even held together with mortar, just stacked and glued with luck.
The Anderson house had a stacked rock foundation. Whoever had done it had been a master at fitting those rocks together. Whoever tried to do the repair job caused by time, erosion, someone backing his car into the corner of the house, had been an idiot. Instead of taking the time to shore up the spot and fit the stones together, they’d slapped some globs of mortar and tried to paste the rocks in place like macaroni on a kindergarten paper plate project.
And see, the thing about mortar is, it’s porous. It sucks up water like a sponge, and badly mixed mortar will not only suck up that water, it will crumble. The fact the floor wasn’t sagging was a miracle and a testament to the skill of the original builder. Unfortunately there had been enough rain over the years to soak the mortar until it hit the wood and the wood had done the rest, drinking up Mother Nature’s offering until the oak had blackened and
turned soft as a sponge.
What was left of the insulation had been tunneled into one of the nastiest black ant infestations I’d ever seen in my life. With a liberal amount of Borax and a new section of wall, I could convince them to move on. If it had been fire ants, I would have had to burn the place down and collect on the insurance.
It took me two days to rip out the wall, remove the window, shore up the floor and restack the stone. I had no illusions regarding my rock stacking skills, so I cheated and used concrete block to brace the spot and covered it up with the original stone.
I’d had to build up the foundation from under the house and despite long sleeves, coveralls, and a box of Borax, the few remaining ants had fought well.
With the last stud in place, I was ready to reinsulate the wall. Looking at the roll of pink fiberglass, I couldn’t help but wonder what would itch worse by morning.
I made a mental note to grab some calamine lotion on the way home.
Age had turned the oak of the outer wall planks into the consistency of concrete, so I’d been able to save all but a few. Now the sun broke through the small spaces in the slats, scattering irregular shapes on the dark floor. They lay there like puzzle pieces waiting to be snapped together, and I couldn’t help but wonder if I stared at them long enough, I’d eventually see the picture they made.
If there was a picture at all.
According to Morgan, the light held more than just pretty colors and patterns, it spoke. If his sculptures were anything close to what he saw when he watched the sun break through the trees, then I could only imagine what kind of music it made.
Maybe I could have imagined. I don’t know. I wasn’t sure if my mind could even stretch that far. Part of me really wanted to know what it was like, another part was terrified by the prospect.
Not because I feared what I’d see, I feared I’d never want to come back.
I didn’t even hear the car drive up. Like I said, the ring of a skill saw sticks with you for a while. The scent of Old Spice cologne drew my attention. Jeff stood at the front door in his suit, sunglasses in his front pocket, smirk—although subtle—on his face.
On any other man, Old Spice was Old Spice, but on Jeff, it morphed into a rich flavor saturating the air. It wasn’t because he wore a lot of it, honestly it only took a few drops, but there was just something about his body chemistry that transformed it into some sort of Spanish Fly.
At least it used to. According to my dick, it still did.
“Been busy?” Jeff ran a look over me from head to toe. Covered in dirt, Borax, sweat, and ant bites, I’m sure I was regular Kodak moment.
And my deodorant had long ago gone by the wayside, washed away by hours of sawing, hammering, and crawling around on my belly under the house.
“Are you ever going to stop?” I made myself busy picking up tools. The air stirred, and his shiny black shoes came into my periphery.
“Grant—”
“No.” I closed the toolbox.
“You haven’t even heard the question.”
“You’re a broken record, I don’t need to.” I stood, and suddenly he was too close. Only the toolbox kept space between us. And it wasn’t nearly enough.
“I was going to ask you how you did it.” For once, I had no idea what he was talking about. It must have shown on my face because he added. “The warehouse.”
Maybe it was his cologne, the heat of his body, or how he searched my face, pausing on my lips, sliding to my throat, then making no attempt to hide the slow drag down my chest to my groin, but my brain still skipped.
“It was empty,” he said.
Warehouse. Empty.
Then it hit me. Jeff brought his gaze back up and I could practically see what he was thinking about, and it had nothing to do with my warehouse near the old carpet mill where I’d stashed some of my most valuable personal items under lock, key, and concrete.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I said it so smoothly even I would have believed me.
But Jeff knew me way better than most. “We had that place under twenty-four hour surveillance. No one in, no one out, and it was empty.”
Empty.
Not just empty of the documents containing information on Rubio’s family but empty of everything.
I knew Rubio was good but… damn.
“You mean I’ve been robbed?” I pushed past Jeff and carried the toolbox into the kitchen. When I turned to go back for the rest of the tools on the porch, he blocked the way.
Once again, too close. He took a step, and I wound up with my back against the fridge. “Do you mind?”
“What’s wrong? You seem a little jumpy?” He exhaled a mint-flavored breath.
“No, I’ve just been informed my storage building was broken into and my belongings were taken. I probably should make a police report, I don’t suppose the FBI could do that for me, can they? I mean, since you’re already in town and you don’t have anything else better to do.”
Closer, head to toe, we were less than a hair apart. Jeff put a hand against the fridge on either side of my head. He was only slightly shorter than me, but he’d always been wider in the shoulders and he used that width to box me in.
“You definitely took the wrong career path,” Jeff said.
“Really?”
“Yeah. With the way you can make things disappear, you could have been a world-famous magician.”
“Maybe I’m not after fame.”
“Wealth.” He smirked. “Now I know you’re not going to tell me money doesn’t interest you.”
“What do you want?”
“What was in the warehouse?”
“Personal items. If you get out a piece of paper, I’ll make you a list so I can turn it into the insurance company. I’m going to need a copy of the report of course. And my lawyer will want to see the search warrant. You did have a search warrant, right? If not, the insurance company might put you on the list of who to interview.”
“Insurance companies don’t interview people over stolen property.”
“Considering how much some of those paintings were worth, my agent is apt to get a court order colonoscopy for everyone on your team.”
“Anything else special in there you want to tell me about?”
“Why do you care?”
“I thought we’ve been over this.” Any closer and he was going to get dirt on his vanilla colored button-up. “I’m trying to help you.”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh, yeah, that’s right. From a would-be hit man, and Lorado’s wrath. C’mon, Jeff, you know as well as I do I have nothing he wants. We dealt in two different worlds.” Lorado: guns, drugs, and misery. Me? Things people liked to look at. Sometimes they drove it around, sometimes they hung it on their walls, sometimes they hid it in their wall safe. “You lied to try and scare me into telling you what you failed to get after four years of playing the part of Jeff Myers. Even standing over me while I arranged a shipment, you couldn’t find one illegal speed bump.”
“What about the job you did for Mr. Avner?”
Ah, my one almost slip-up. Jeff walked in on me while I was gluing the last of the wax-dipped coins to the foot of an antique school desk. “You mean the gold collection three SS officers dug out of his father’s floor safe before putting a bullet in the man’s head, then hauling Avner and his mother off to Ravensbrück. Yeah, I recall that one. I also recall the unwillingness of the so-called victim to file charges. Especially when he realized he’d have to prove how he acquired the coins.” The part of the collection belonging to Avner I’d returned gift-wrapped. The rest of the collection, taken from the unwilling seller, had been moved overseas to a collector with the understanding if the real owners ever showed up he was to hand them over. I’d reimburse him of course.
So far no one had come forward to claim a single coin out of the three million dollar collection. Even Avner hadn’t been able to turn up survivors.
It was probably the only deal I wished I could give
a refund on.
“I didn’t steal anything. I just returned a lost item to its rightful owner.”
“So you’re what? Robin Hood now?”
“No, Jeff. Not by a long shot.”
“What was in the warehouse?”
“I told you I’d make a list for my insurance.”
“There is nothing you’d put on an insurance claim important enough for you to risk moving it while under surveillance. The job was clean, and none of your usual associates were involved. But you had to have help, so who was it?”
I winked at him. “A magician never reveals his tricks.”
“Grant, the Associate Deputy Director wants me to bring you in. If you don’t cooperate, I won’t be able to keep them from doing it.”
“More threats, Jeff?” I tried to shove past him, but he knocked me back into the fridge hard enough to make the ancient metal casket rattle. His mouth hit mine and he sank his hands into my hair. For a split second, it was just like old times at the loft overlooking the docks. Jeff would walk in, shove aside whatever it was I had in my hands, and draw me in.
Half the time, I wouldn’t even bother with getting undressed, I’d just get his jeans out of the way and fuck him against the first available piece of furniture.
I yanked my mouth away and dodged another attempt. “No, Jeff.”
“No wires, I swear, it’s just me.” The desperation and hunger in his words left no room for a lie. And any doubt lingering in the back of my mind disintegrated when I met his gaze.
“Does your team know you’re here?”
“No.”
“Hines?”
He shook his head. “They gave me your case. It’s just me.” So even his former boss didn’t know he’d gone off the grid.
Jeff raked his teeth across my jaw and down my neck. Sweat and grime made tracks on his shirt. He shrugged out of his jacket and began pulling at his tie. It made enough space for me to escape. The memory of his body pressed to mine crawled over my skin. How many nights had I held him, kissed him, loved him?
But it wasn’t desire welling inside me. I can’t really give what I felt a name. Something like shame, but closer to remorse. The kind of loss you feel when someone you knew died. Not someone you were close to, but had known just enough to shave off a bit of your life and take it with them when they were gone.
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