Carter smiled. "I still got it."
Yeah, he did.
Tony was rusty. He had to sight along the barrel, and even then it took four shots before he got the bullet where he wanted it.
"Not bad," Carter said when Tony stopped firing.
"Not great."
Tony finished off the rest of the bullets in the gun, then ejected the spent magazine. If he'd been in a battle, he would have simply slapped home a fresh one. Now he took the time to snap bullets into the empty.
"If this goes down," Tony said, "how many guys you think we'll be up against?"
"One, if they think they're smarter than us. Two, tops."
That made sense. Enforcers like Carter usually worked alone. Sometimes, like when Luciano collected a favor, two guys went -- one to keep the mark in place, the other to work him over. This time, though, one of the marks was Carter. They might be tempted to send more than two, but that would draw attention.
"They think they're smarter than us?"
Carter shrugged. "They think they're badder than us. Don't know about smarter."
"Might be badder than me. Don't know about you."
Carter's chuckle lightened the mood. For a minute, Tony forgot how deadly serious the situation was.
He took aim and squeezed off a few more shots. He switched guns and did the whole thing over again. As he worked the guns, pulling the trigger started to feel less unnatural. Tony would never be as good as Carter, but maybe he'd be good enough.
Uncle Sid hadn't been good enough. He'd been ruthless as all fuck, but he'd grown complacent. He was comfortable with his place in the grand scheme of things. He'd forgotten there were other bosses hungry enough to try to take him down.
Nothing had been out of the ordinary the day Uncle Sid and the rest of his crew were ambushed. They'd gone to one of Uncle Sid's favorite restaurants, La Vecci's, just Sid and his son, Tony, Carter, and Sid's lieutenants. No wives, no girlfriends. Uncle Sid had business to talk about, and he paid the owner of La Vecci's well to make sure the man was never tempted to let the cops bug the joint. It was a safe place to talk.
But Sid miscalculated. He put too many of his men all in one place at one time. Everybody drank too much wine with dinner. Ate too many heavy meals of pasta, and afterward, everyone had eyelids too heavy to keep a decent lookout.
Tony hadn't known the men who stepped through the restaurant's front door. They'd opened fire before he got a good look at their faces. He wasn't even sure if there'd only been two who came in that way. Tony had been too busy trying to stay alive to count.
The fact that Tony walked out of there in one piece was due to Carter, not to anything Tony had done on his own. Instead of trying to take out the guys who'd come through the kitchen to catch Sid and his men in a cross fire, Tony had been shielded by a heavy wooden table Carter had overturned right before he got hit with a round in the shoulder.
Even shot, Carter took care of him. He got Tony out of that restaurant in one piece.
Someday Carter wasn't going to survive taking care of him. Tony didn't want to think about that.
Tony let the gun hang relaxed at his side. He wanted to practice firing when he didn't have time to aim, but for a moment he was enjoying the quiet of the forest and the lack of gunfire.
"Think we should split up for a while, make it hard for them?" Tony asked.
"Not a fucking chance." Carter picked up a shotgun, nestled the stock against his shoulder, and fired. This time one of the beer bottles exploded in a rain of powdered glass. "We don't even know they're coming." He shot again. A can went flying. "I ain't leaving you."
Tony didn't want him to. He wasn't sure if that was smart, but he wanted Carter at his side.
Always.
∗ ∗ ∗
They made love that night for a long time.
Tony would be the first to admit they weren't the most adventurous of lovers. Hell, until the demise of his uncle's organization, they hadn't been lovers at all. Only after they fled New Jersey had they acted on their long-smoldering attraction for each other. Tame described most of their love-making, and Tony was good with that. He knew Carter loved him, and he made sure Carter knew he was in it for the long haul.
"Look at you," Carter said as they both stripped down for their nightly bath. The house they lived in had a tub that fit the both of them, and they put it to good use, bathing together every night. "You did better today than you thought you would. Mister Dangerous."
Tony snorted. "Only if they come at us blindfolded."
"Blindfolded, huh?" Carter stepped out of his shorts. He was half-hard already, his cock heavy and thick between his muscular thighs. "That has possibilities."
Carter had always been solidly muscular. Tony had never been turned on by guys in general, but Carter's body, with his smooth skin cut close to thick muscles, the cords and veins of his arms, his broad shoulders and narrow waist and hips -- just the sight of Carter naked never failed to make Tony so hard he ached. By the time he got out of his own clothes, his hard on could have cut steel.
Carter got in the tub first. Tony got in afterward, settling in the hot water with his back against Carter's chest, Carter's cock nudging the crack of his ass.
Nighttime baths were part of their routine. They showered in the morning, then put on the clothes they wore at the deli like they were putting on the public part of themselves. They didn't fuck in the mornings after they showered. That part of their day was for business.
In the evenings, the bath was their transition from the public Tony and Carter to the private couple. The men who could be vulnerable with each other, who didn't have to be tough guys ready to take on the world if it got in their way. Half the time they jerked each other off in the tub, too impatient to wait any longer, their hands slippery first with soap and then with come. Then they went to bed and fucked and slept in each other's arms.
Tonight, instead of soaping Tony's chest with the washcloth, Carter put the wet cloth over Tony's eyes.
"What the fuck?" Tony said.
He reached up to take the cloth away. Carter's hand on his wrist stopped him. "Leave it," Carter said. "I wanna try something."
Tony hesitated. He didn't like having his eyes covered. It reminded him too much of the times he knew his uncle's enforcers, the guys who had years on Carter and dozens more "enforcements" under their belts, shoved one of his uncle's enemies, blindfolded and hogtied, in the trunk of their car and took him for the last ride of his life. A few of them liked to wrap the guy's necktie around his eyes and set him walking down an alley, thinking he was free, then cap him twice in the head. For sport.
"You're gonna like it," Carter said.
Tony felt the rumble of Carter's deep voice in his own chest. This would be different. This was Carter. Carter wouldn't hurt him.
Tony let his hand fall back in the water.
"Just relax," Carter said. His steady breathing, the rise and fall of his chest beneath Tony's back, went a long way toward helping Tony finally release the tension he'd held all day.
"What do you have planned here?" Tony asked.
Carter's voice dropped half an octave. "Sit back and you'll find out."
They never put candles around the tub. Instead, they left the lights on over the vanity. The little light bulbs made the inside of Tony's eyelids glow a faint red. He felt better being able to see a little through the washcloth. He tried to tell himself that was stupid, but it made a difference.
Nothing happened for a while, just the steady rise and fall of Carter's chest, the slow drip from the bathtub faucet, the subtle creaks of the house settling in for the night. Tony was about to doze off when he felt Carter move.
He was ready for Carter to grab him beneath the water, but instead he felt the gentle touch of Carter's fingers on his forearms. Slow and soft, Carter ran his fingertips from Tony's wrists where they rested beneath the water all the way up to Tony's shoulders, then back down again.
Carter could be gentle for a
big man, which would have been surprising to the guys they knew in Jersey. Tony was used to it by now, but this... this was different. This touching made Tony's skin come alive, and not just the skin on his arms.
The way Tony was nestled up against Carter, the bath water came up to just below his nipples. Carter's movements made the water lap up against them in soft little waves, a lick of warmth followed by the cool kiss of air as Carter's fingers kept sensitizing Tony's skin.
Would he have felt as much, and as deeply, if he'd been able to see? Tony doubted it. His cock ached, and Tony knew he was hard as a rock again.
The next time Carter's fingertips skimmed up his arms, Carter kept going. Over the hard angle of Tony's shoulders, along his collarbone to the front of his neck, and on up beneath his chin, Carter's fingers spread their magic. Tony's need coalesced now in those wet nipples, spread down through him, dipped in at his bellybutton, ran like a live wire through his groin into his cock to settle heavily in his balls.
"You got a plan here?" he asked Carter, his voice rough.
"What, you don't like this so far?" Carter nuzzled up against the side of Tony's neck. "'Cause from where I sit, it looks like you like this a whole lot."
Tony shifted in the tub, trying to find some sort of release for his aching cock. "I got fuckin' blue balls is how much I like this so far."
"I'm not gonna touch you. Not there. But you're still gonna come for me, just from me touching you like this."
Tony almost groaned. "Wait 'til it's my turn. You're gonna get what's coming to you, I get my hands on you."
"I'm counting on it."
Carter's fingertips started their way back down, over Tony's collarbone, around the hard angle of his shoulder, over the lean muscles of his arms, down below the water to his wrists.
Carter was enjoying this a hell of a lot, if the dig of his cock at Tony's backside was any indication. How Carter was managing to hold himself still, Tony didn't know, but except for the slow sweep of his hands up and down Tony's arms, Carter didn't move.
Exactly how long was he going to keep doing this?
Tony got his answer sooner than he expected. On the next upward sweep of his hands, Carter abruptly leaned forward. His teeth nipped down on Tony's earlobe the same time one of his hands pinched down on Tony's nipple. Carter wrapped his other arm around Tony's waist and thrust up, his cock sliding in the crack of Tony's ass.
Water splashed, and Tony yelled even as his balls contracted at the sudden jolt that ran from his ear to his chest right down to his cock. He came, and he came hard, grunting and shuddering in Carter's grasp, and the washcloth slipped off his face.
Tony squeezed his eyes shut tight against the sudden light, too intent on trying to make this feeling, this exquisite feeling, last as long as possible. Behind him, Carter groaned, long and low. He pumped himself twice against Tony, and Tony knew he wasn't the only one who'd come without a hand on his cock.
Afterward, they lay boneless against each other in the cooling bath. Tony finally opened his eyes. He lifted his hands out of the water, not surprised that the skin on his fingers had pruned up.
"Where the hell did you learn that?" he asked in a low, satisfied voice.
It took Carter a moment to answer. "I just got inspired," he finally said. "Thought I'd try something new."
Something new? "What, you didn't know you could make me come like that?"
Carter chuckled. "I did, though, didn't I?"
Tony wasn't the only one who was satisfied.
"I'm never gonna live this down, am I?" Tony said. "You, making me do that without even touching me."
"Oh, I touched you. Not on your cock, but I touched you." Carter's lips brushed the back of Tony's neck. "You have no idea how much I wanted to."
"Yeah?"
"Let me get you in bed, and I'll show you how much."
That, Tony thought, sounded like the best plan of all.
Chapter Three
Nothing happened for a week. Tony was beginning to think that maybe they'd over-reacted. Just because the guy from Jersey worked for Luciano didn't mean he and Carter were next on the hit list. Small town Idaho might be out of the way enough that Luciano figured they were no threat.
Then Bess disappeared.
"You guys haven't happened to see her, have you?"
The question came from Norman, the owner of the town's lone sporting goods shop. On their first day in town, Tony and Carter had stopped a robbery from going down in Norman's store. The robbers hadn't been wearing masks. Norman knew as well as Tony and Carter did what that meant, and he'd done more than say thanks. He'd become their friend.
Norman was sixty if he was a day. He didn't care that Tony and Carter were a couple, and if anybody voiced their opinion about how two men shouldn't be together, Norman would tell them to mind their own damn business. He'd been the deli's first customer, and he'd been their best customer ever since.
Bess was only a couple years younger than Norman. She ran a bed and breakfast on Main Street, along with the fancy restaurant that took up the B & B's first floor. Norman called Bess his "good friend", but everybody in town knew Bess was Norman's girl.
After they stopped the robbery at his store, Norman had arranged for Tony and Carter to stay in the best suite at the B & B for a few days. Tony and Carter had celebrated their first Christmas as a couple in that suite, complete with a real Christmas tree and Carter's homemade lasagna giving the place the smell of back home.
Ever since the guy from Jersey had ordered a meatball sub and left behind a side of unwanted complications, Carter had taken to propping open the door between the kitchen and the front counter so he could keep an eye on Tony. Operating the deli that way wouldn't stand up to a health inspection, but Tony knew he couldn't talk Carter out of it, so he didn't try. When Norman asked about Bess, Carter couldn't help but overhear.
He came out behind the counter wiping soapy water off his thick arms. "She missing?" Carter's voice was low like it always was when he got down to business.
"I don't know." Norman's eyes were faded blue, large and worried behind thick glasses. He was thin and wiry, but no one in their right mind would ever call Norman old. "I went over to her place for coffee, like I always do in the mornings, but she wasn't home. She's not at the B & B, either. She'd call me if she was going somewhere. We got in the habit of calling each other ever since..."
Norman trailed off, but Tony knew what he meant. Bess had told him once that they knew how close they'd come to losing each other when the kids tried to rob Norman's store.
Tony and Carter exchanged a look.
This wasn't Jersey. People didn't just go missing here. People got drunk on the weekends, went out hunting and maybe shot themselves in the foot. There was some vandalism, like the rock that had been thrown through one of the deli's plate glass windows that spring, but gangs didn't roam the streets, cops weren't on the take, and old ladies didn't up and disappear from their houses.
"You seen anybody new in town?" Tony asked. "Somebody who doesn't look like a tourist?"
Norman blinked a few times. "New? What do you mean?"
"Somebody like us?" Carter asked.
Norman almost said "gay" -- Tony could see it on the tip of his tongue -- but then he got it. Tony always had a feeling Norman knew what kind of background he and Carter had, but Norman had never said anything about it. Now Tony knew.
Norman knew they were wiseguys. Correction -- former wiseguys. He just didn't care.
"Hard to tell," Norman said. "Summer months, lots of people in and out all the time."
That was part of the problem. Anybody who showed up from Jersey would have the perfect cover. All they had to do was act like any other tourist. Pretend to be here for the scenery, to go fishing on the lake, or even say they were just passing through on their way up to Canada. If the guys Luciano sent were smart, they could blend in.
The thing with Bess could be unrelated. Enforcers didn't go around kidnapping innocent old la
dies. What would be the point? To draw the two of them into some candyass search for her, get them off by themselves so they'd make an easy target? Luciano's guys would have to kill Bess, too, and probably Norman because no way would Norman stay out of it even if Tony asked. That made it messy. Messy drew the wrong kind of attention from the local cops.
Tony thought it over. It would take a lot of time and effort to find out Bess had any connection to them, even with Norman hanging out at the deli a couple times a week. An enforcer wouldn't risk something like that, not when he already knew where to find the two of them. No, an enforcer would come at them when they were alone. Brace them in their house when they were sleeping, catch them on the way to the van. No enforcer worth his salt would come at them sideways like this, but Tony didn't like the coincidence.
Little old ladies didn't go missing for no good reason.
That meant whoever was here from Jersey was an amateur. Fucking Luciano had hired an amateur to take them out, and he'd been here long enough to latch onto their connection to Bess.
"You better call Clifford," Tony said.
Clifford Sewell was the local sheriff. He didn't like Tony, and he especially didn't like Carter, but beyond the occasional visit to the deli just to let them know he was keeping an eye on them, Clifford had left the two of them alone.
Some of the color left Norman's face. "You think something's happened to her?"
"Better just to call him," Carter said, his voice low and serious. He exchanged a look with Tony. It said they'd be looking for Bess whether or not Clifford Sewell got involved.
∗ ∗ ∗
Tony kept the deli open the rest of the day with the help of Julie, their part-time summer counter girl, while Carter went out to do what Carter did best.
Thanks to the over-abundance of food already in the case, Tony had more than enough food to last the day, even with an influx of teenagers who showed up around three. He finally ran out of baked ziti about the time Carter came back, looking grim.
Wiseguys: Blast From the Past Page 2