by Layla Reyne
Lincoln laughed. “Yeah, I think so.”
“Hmm,” Carter said, hands gliding up Lincoln’s thighs. “I think I might love you too, then.”
Lincoln slid to the end of the chair and cradled Carter’s face, sweeping away the leftover tear tracks. “You’re a good man, Carter Warren. Or Jacob Farb? Either way, I would like the chance to get to know you better, to love you, to make you part of my family, if you’d like that.”
“I’d like that very much.” Carter laid his hands over Lincoln’s, fingers brushing Lincoln’s ring finger, missing the cool metal there. “And I think I might like Carter Polk best of all.”
“Good, because these things are heavy as fuck on this chain.” Lincoln’s eyes flickered down to the V-neck of his shirt.
Noticing the bullet chain there, Carter lowered a hand and notched a finger under it, dragging up the two braided rings.
“They need to go back on our fingers, where they belong.” Lincoln’s words, his lips, were warm against Carter’s temple. “Where we belong. I want you in my life, Carter Polk. Still. Always.”
Carter lifted his eyes to the honey-colored ones he wanted to wake up to every morning, had missed every day they’d been apart the past three months. “I want you in mine too, Professor Polk.” He closed his palm around the rings, warm from Lincoln’s body, and hauled Lincoln forward, out of the chair and onto his lap, needing to feel Lincoln’s body against his again.
Lincoln came without protest and looped his arms around Carter’s neck. “One condition.”
“Always the conditions.”
“Just one.” Lincoln rested his forehead against Carter’s. “Clean up after yourself.”
“I can do that, if you’ll play for me.”
“Whenever you want, baby,” he replied with a rock of his hips.
Carter gasped out a “Sing too.” And rocked back. “Your voice is amazing.”
Lincoln’s smile brushed Carter’s lips. “I actually got better with age. All that practice singing Elena to sleep.”
Carter froze, then put enough distance between them to look Lincoln in the eyes, to let him know that he understood and respected the place Elena held in Lincoln’s life. “When you’re ready, I’d like to meet her.”
Lincoln’s smile grew wider. “Good, because I told her we’d all have dinner together tomorrow. Or rather today, now. Trina’s coming too. They’ll embarrass us both, fair warning.”
“I can’t wait.”
* * *
Any lingering doubts Lincoln had about upsetting the balance of his family vanished at the eager smile that stretched across Carter’s face. He was telling the truth. He wanted to meet Elena, Trina, Gabby too eventually, and Lincoln was sure he’d fit in perfectly with them. Probably to Lincoln’s own disadvantage—the gang-up would be epic—and he couldn’t wait.
“Thank you,” Lincoln said, infusing all the appreciation and happiness he felt into those two words.
“God, you’re beautiful,” Carter whispered, the adoration and awe in his voice sending heat rushing to Lincoln’s cheeks. He didn’t bother to hide it, letting Carter see the emotions he stoked in him. And stoked higher as he skated a thumb over Lincoln’s cheek.
To the point of breaking.
Lincoln groaned and brought his mouth down on Carter’s, hard and desperate. Carter moaned in answer, needy to match, and drove a hand into Lincoln’s hair, angling his mouth for more. Lincoln gave him everything he had, likewise wanting everything he’d missed over the past three months, wanting everything ahead of them still. Including the arousal that was nudging the underside of his balls. He broke the kiss, reached behind him to push the chair out of the way, and tipped backward.
“I’m counting on that arm to be healed and to catch me before I splat on the floor.”
“It’s carpeted, and you are not exactly at splat distance.”
“Technicalities.”
Laughing, and kissing, they inclined backward, Carter bracing a hand on the floor and using the other to lower Lincoln onto his back. “There. Splat avoided.”
“My savior.” Lincoln yanked Carter’s shirt off in thanks, wrestled out of his own, then hands on Carter’s impressively ripped flanks, drew Carter down on top of him. He hissed at the solid warmth pinning him to the floor, at the enticing friction of Carter’s thick, dark chest curls against his nipples. Torture and ecstasy at being skin to skin, at how much better it was than any of his fantasies. Than even their last, chaste night together in Apex. It was what they’d needed then; this was what they needed now.
Carter braced a forearm on either side of his head, sinking more fully against him, and purring.
“Did you forget which of us is the cat in this relationship?” Lincoln teased.
Carter threaded his fingers through Lincoln’s hair, and Lincoln nudged against the gentle touches, chasing after them. “Oh I remember,” Carter said. “And you are a gorgeous house cat, even when pissy. Which I promise you won’t be when I’m done with you tonight.”
Lincoln hooked his legs over his hips and rocked up against him. “You’re still insufferably cocky.”
Carter’s top teeth dug into his bottom lip, half grimace, half grin. He let a slow breath out, then slid his erection against Lincoln’s, teasing them both. “Well, if we’re being literal.”
Lincoln smiled wide, basking in their banter, the physical and verbal. “Future librarian.”
“I have a better demonstration in mind.” Carter lifted enough to work their zippers open, their erections free, and held them in his fist together, Carter’s hot, hard length trapped against his own. “Cocky would be me, taking our cocks in my hand...” He stroked them, once, twice, and Lincoln bowed off the floor. Hot breath, hot words next to his ear. “And promising to get you off in less than five minutes.”
Lincoln keened, riding the wild edge of desire. Hanging on as long as he could, hands tangled in Carter’s hair, as the cocky asshole nipped down the column of his throat, teased the divot at the base of his neck, then flattened his tongue over one then the other nipple. Taking the left one between his teeth, worrying it, as he increased the speed of his hand shuttling up and down their cocks, Carter’s hard length trapped against his own. Bringing Lincoln right to the edge, then sending him toppling over when he released the worried nipple to drop a tender kiss over his heart, next to their rings.
Carter’s trembling body drew him out of the post-coital haze. Laughter. “I think you made it to four, Professor.”
Using his hands still in Carter’s hair, Lincoln yanked him up, kissed him hard, and pushed off with his left foot, flipping their positions. He broke the kiss, smiling victorious. “I’ll get you off in three.”
It took a half minute to get them fully undressed, a minute to get the condom on Carter and work himself open, sitting astride Carter’s thigh, spreading the lube he’d brought around and in his hole, watching Carter’s flush grow deeper, his breath’s shorter, his cock harder. Another ninety seconds to sink onto Carter’s cock, to groan out the satisfaction with him, to lean forward and seal their lips, to press back into Carter’s hands that grabbed his ass, to ride him until he came with a shout that was sure to wake the neighbors.
Sweaty and spent, Lincoln fell forward, face in the crook of Carter’s neck. “Three, baby.”
“Maybe we’ll make it to ten next time.” Laughing, Carter rolled them onto their sides, his back to the fire, Lincoln against his front. After another minute of their contented purring, Carter drew back, his gaze drifting over Lincoln’s shoulder toward the kitchen. “Did I smell biscuits when I walked in?”
“Barry’s recipe.”
Green eyes shot back to his. “He gave it to you? Wait...” Aghast, he drew back farther. “You can bake?” Lincoln waggled his brows, and Carter laughed out loud. “Now who’s cocky?”
Lincoln trailed a line of kis
ses across his chest. “You’re going to have to get up and get them, though. I’m forty-two and just had sex on the floor. I need recovery time, and I don’t just mean my dick.”
Carter brushed the damp strands back off his forehead. “You are still the sexiest man I’ve ever seen.”
Lincoln stretched up and stole a kiss. “They’re good, better than Ginger’s, but not as good as Barry’s.”
“We can make monthly visits to Apex.”
That sounded delightful, for the time being. “Until Elena decides to go to school there, then we move with her.”
“You’ve thought about this?”
Lincoln bit back a smile. “Elena went with me to Apex, to help with the research. She liked it, and I realized how much I missed it. Almost as much as I missed you.”
“A lot, then?”
“So much so that I’m thinking about buying a house there.” One close to the lake, with a terrible HOA and nosy neighbors. Those he missed too.
“Oh, are you? Which house?” Carter’s knowing smile was so big, so full of love and contentment, of hope and excitement, that Lincoln loosed his own, unable to hold it in any longer, unable to deny the boundless happiness filling up his soul, all thanks to this brave, sexy, brilliant man in his arms.
He grinned at his future husband and gave him the truth, the family, the future they’d found, together. “Our house, of course.”
* * *
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Acknowledgments
Readers, thank you for taking this journey into deeper mystery waters with me. I enjoyed stretching my writerly wings, and I hope you enjoyed the case and Lincoln and Carter’s romance too. Special thanks to my scientist husband for always being on call for DNA questions, and to Jennifer for giving it a second scientific opinion. Thanks as well to my agent, Laura Bradford, and to Deb and the Carina team for hanging with me as this project evolved. Many thanks to Kristi for the story guidance, to Kim and Rachel for the beta feedback, to Susie, Tera, Erin, Allison, Lisa, Annabeth, Aimee, and Hailey for the moral support and cheerleading, and to the many sprint partners who helped me keep the words flowing. Finally, thank you, Lushes, for always being so supportive and for making me smile on the regular. Y’all are the best. Cheers!
About the Author
Layla Reyne is the author of Dine With Me and the Whiskey Verse, Fog City, and Changing Lanes series. A Carolina Tar Heel who now calls the San Francisco Bay Area home, Layla enjoys weaving her bicoastal experiences into her stories, along with adrenaline-fueled suspense and heart-pounding romance. You can find Layla online at www.laylareyne.com, and most often in her reader group on Facebook—Layla’s Lushes (bit.ly/LRLushes).
Now available from Carina Press and Layla Reyne.
Widower Aidan Talley refuses to love again. Enter handsome younger cyberagent Jameson Walker. As they investigate cybercrimes and his late husband’s murder, Aidan falls hard for Jamie, putting their jobs, lives and hearts on the line.
Read on for a preview of Single Malt, the first book in author Layla Reyne’s Agents Irish and Whiskey series.
Excerpt
Tonight was a top-shelf whiskey kind of night.
Cleared by the Bureau to return to work after an eight-month absence. Three-piece suit cleaned, pressed and ready for his first day back. New partner and new assignment waiting for him. Aidan didn’t know the identity of either yet, but that didn’t matter. He needed something—anything—besides alcohol and playgroups to dull the crushing survivor’s guilt.
Pushing aside half-empties in the kitchen cabinet he’d repurposed as a bar, he dug the Macallan 18 out of the back corner and set it on the granite countertop. He’d just grabbed a crystal tumbler out of the adjacent cabinet when the doorbell rang. He pulled out a second glass, not altogether surprised by his late-night visitor. He left the glasses and scotch on the dining room table and crossed the living area to his door.
Checking the peephole, he confirmed his visitor’s identity and swung the door open. “I wondered if you’d make the drive down tonight.”
Melissa Cruz breezed past him, tossed her oversized Fendi bag on the couch, and toed off her studded Valentino sandals. “Least I could do, seeing as starting tomorrow you’ll be making the drive up to San Francisco every day again.” The offspring of an African-American ballerina and a towering Cuban refugee-turned-restaurateur, his sister-in-law, and now boss, sashayed on model-long legs across the living room while pulling her thick fall of dark curls into a ponytail. Aidan had never met anyone as graceful, or as deadly.
“Please,” he said, closing the door behind her. “I know you’re just here to mooch my whiskey.”
“And you know I’d rather drink tequila.” She pulled the cork out of the tall, slender bottle of scotch and sniffed, wrinkling her nose. “Gabe never could break you of this nasty habit.”
Aidan pressed the heel of his hand to his stinging chest and swallowed hard, struggling for words. “Mel,” he managed hoarsely.
“You ready for tomorrow?” she asked, obligingly changing the subject. She poured two fingers’ worth into each tumbler and held one out to him.
Taking the glass, he fell into the chair across the round wooden table from her. “I don’t know, boss lady, am I?”
Mel had been promoted to Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s San Francisco field office two months ago. A well-deserved promotion to a position she’d been gunning for since Academy.
“Your medical and psych evaluations say so, but Dios sabe, you’re smart enough to fool just about anyone.”
He took a swig of his drink, eyeing her over the rim of the glass. “Except you.”
“Except me.” She pinned him with her dark brown eyes, full of sympathy and concern. “I hurt too, Aidan, same as you.”
He drowned his rebuttal in another swallow of scotch. He loved Mel like a sister, and he didn’t doubt her pain, but no way was it the same kind of agony he suffered every day. From the hole in his chest where his world used to be, to the pins in his arm that, with every move, reminded him of all he’d lost. She’d lost her brother and a colleague, but Gabe had been his husband, and Tom Crane, his FBI partner for fifteen years.
“If you’re not ready, you don’t have to come back yet,” Mel said. “Or at all for that matter. Between your trust fund and the inheritance from Gabe, you’re set.”
Aidan tossed back the rest of his whiskey, letting the burn slide down this throat and fill his hollow chest with fleeting warmth. As much as he’d enjoyed spending extra time with his niece and goddaughter, Katie, he’d finished his physical therapy, passed his psych evals, and was eager for the distraction of work. At forty-two, he still had plenty of agent years left in him.
“What’ve you got for me, SAC Cruz?” he asked, making his stance on work clear.
Mel emptied her drink and turned the glass over on the table. “You’re off undercover work and long-term assignments. I want to keep an eye on you awhile longer.”
“No argument here.”
Gabe, an investment banker who’d worked all hours, hadn’t minded his interminable absences. Now, though, with his family still tender after losing Gabe and almost losing him, Aidan didn’t intend to disappear for weeks on end in the barrios chasing drug dealers or in grimy mob bars working over informants.
“Good.” She tapped her manicured trigger finger against her glass, a tell that meant she was holding something back.
“What else?”
&nbs
p; “I don’t think it was an accident.”
The same words he’d ranted for a month after waking from his two-week coma, only his allegations had been born out of shock and denial. He couldn’t cope after learning his husband and partner were dead. Eight months removed from that terrible night, he’d progressed past pain and guilt-induced conspiracy theories, past angry finger-pointing at incompetent local detectives, to accept they’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time. That he hadn’t swerved fast enough out of the way of an oncoming SUV.
The entire time, Mel hadn’t spoken a word to him about the accident and now she was saying his grief-crazed notions had been right?
“What the hell?” He slammed back from the table, toppling his chair and surging to his feet. He kicked the chair out of the way and paced the narrow strip of hardwood floor between the table and wine racks. “Why are you telling me this now and not eight months ago? I drove myself crazy for weeks, thinking I’d missed some clue or that I should be out there catching the assholes responsible for their deaths. And fuck if I wasn’t right.”
She let him burn out his anger raging and pacing. Once he’d gathered himself, righted his chair, and sat back down, she rose and went to her bag on the couch. Returning with a small black flash drive and a red-striped restricted personnel file, she pushed the former across the table to him first. “This arrived for me on the day of my promotion.”
He picked it up and turned it over in his hand. It was a generic model, something anyone could buy at any office supply store. “What’s on it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“The files are encrypted. It was delivered to my home, no return address. I tried opening it on my personal computer, but I can’t get past the file directory.”
“You didn’t have our guys try to crack it?”
“Given the circumstances of its delivery and the attention I received with the promotion, I didn’t want to risk it.”