Straight From the Heart

by Sam Burns

  Alex rolled his eyes, but the smile didn’t leave his face. “I’m not going to let either of us hurt you this morning, unless it’s me kicking you in the shin for being stubborn.”

  Sighing as though greatly put-out, Liam nodded. He turned his best puppy eyes on Alex. “No sex at all?”

  “You are unbelievable, you know that?”

  “In a good way?” he asked, trying to keep the innocent face on. “I’ll make you breakfast.”

  “Tempting as it is to accept your offer of pay for sex,” Alex said, giving Liam a look that said just how not tempted he was. “We both know what you have in your fridge right now, and the best you could do is toast and coffee.”

  That, Liam couldn’t argue.

  “Oh, don’t look so dejected.” Alex moved closer and gave him a soft kiss. “I would love to have sex with you. Have I mentioned that the sex we had was kind of awesome?”

  “Only kind of?” Apparently, it was Liam’s morning to pout. He felt like a teenager, and not in a good way, so he added, “Because I thought it was just plain old awesome.”

  Apparently Alex liked that. He leaned up to press his lips against Liam’s, pushing his tongue inside when Liam didn’t offer any resistance. It was forceful, demanding, and possessive. It was the kind of kiss that Liam usually avoided. Instead of backing off, though, he leaned down to give Alex better access.

  Alex took full advantage of the change in their position, running his hand up through Liam’s hair, gripping the back of his neck, and holding him close as he thoroughly dominated the kiss.

  Liam growled. He wanted in on this power play, dammit. He put his uninjured arm around Alex’s waist and turned their bodies, then pushed him up against the wall. He turned the kiss around as well, thrusting his tongue into Alex’s mouth.

  As though it had been what he wanted to begin with, Alex melted into the wall and let Liam continue his onslaught. His right hand, the one he’d had on Liam’s neck, slid down and twined with his left, pulling Liam even closer against him. He moaned into the kiss.

  Liam refused to pull away until he was completely out of breath, panting and continuing to hold Alex against the wall. He leaned back in, not to kiss, but to press their foreheads together. He smelled coffee on Alex’s breath and cringed inwardly at the thought of what his was like, but Alex didn’t seem put off in the least.

  “I have an idea,” Alex said after a minute of breathing heavily at each other.

  Liam grinned. “That’s always a good start. What kind of idea?”

  “Did I tell you that I’ve been doing a lot of, um, internet searches?” His cheeks reddened, and it gave Liam an idea of what kind of searches Alex was doing. “I was thinking that maybe, if you were lying down, and I kind of, um—” Alex paused again, tensing and looking at Liam for a moment before gathering his courage. “Rode you?”

  Liam’s eyes slipped shut, and it took effort not to grind his hips against Alex. He focused on breathing, and not tossing Alex over his shoulder and dragging him back to his bedroom like some kind of caveman throwback. When he had complete control of himself, he opened his eyes again. “You want to do that? You’re sure?”

  Alex nodded. “You didn’t expect me to be on top all the time, did you?”

  A shudder ran through Liam. “No. But I wasn’t going to push you. It’s not something you just jump into.”

  Keeping their foreheads together, Alex managed to roll his head to steal another kiss. “Forget that. I’m good at jumping.”

  After taking a moment to look at the clock—it was still hours before Alex needed to leave for his shift at Wilde’s—Liam nodded. “Let’s do it together, then. Jumping with you seems to work out pretty well for me.”

  Alex bit his lip, but smiled around it anyway. “You too.”

  They practically fell into the bedroom together in their haste to get to the bed. Alex raided the nightstand drawer for condoms and lube, tossing them on the edge of the bed and proceeding to strip himself at record speed, tossing clothes in random directions.

  Liam was only wearing a pair of boxers, but he was so distracted watching Alex strip that he almost managed to maim himself; he didn’t pull the band out far enough, and when he tried to slip them over his hips, they caught on his cock and pulled. Both of them laughed, Alex leaning on the bed and Liam burying his face in the pillow. It was as good a tension breaker as any, he supposed.

  But after climbing onto the bed and planting himself on his knees, Alex still looked a little nervous. He bit his lip again, his warm eyes meeting Liam’s. “I can totally do this,” he said. He was looking at Liam, but he seemed to be talking to himself. “And don’t tell me I don’t have to. I know that.”

  Liam knew when he wasn’t in charge anymore, and he kept his mouth shut. In most of his encounters with other men, he’d been put in charge because he was always the bigger one, the stronger one. It was strange being in a relationship where he wasn’t in control all the time. Strange, and kind of nice.

  Determination in his eyes, Alex grabbed the lube and smeared it liberally over his fingers. Then he motioned to the condom he’d pulled out. “You’re gonna need to put that on.”

  Mimicking what he’d watched Liam do the other night, Alex twisted his arm behind him and pressed inside. His eyes fluttered shut, and a breath rushed out of him. His whole body was taut and motionless for a long moment, as though someone had paused the video he was on. Then slowly, the tension drained, his shoulders slumped, and Liam saw his arm start moving, working his fingers in and out. He wished he was watching from another angle so he could actually see what Alex was doing.

  “Alex?” Liam asked when he realized he was just staring. “Are you okay?”

  It took a moment for Alex to open his eyes. He looked incredible, pupils dilated and lips parted, like something from one of the pornos he’d probably been watching. “S’weird. But, ah, um, good.”

  Liam had to curb the urge to jump on him. He waited, watching, and trying not to interfere. It had to be in Alex’s time. It didn’t hurt that just watching him was fucking hot, especially when it became apparent that he was enjoying himself. Alex’s slightly flagging erection came back full force, and he started making little whimpering sounds in his throat as he worked.

  In fact, Liam decided that if all he got to do that morning was watch Alex get himself off, he’d be kind of okay with that. He loved the way Alex threw himself into everything head first, sex included.

  After a few minutes, Alex seemed to remember that he wasn’t alone. He gave Liam a self-conscious grin. “Sorry. Got carried away.”

  “Never apologize for that,” Liam told him. “And, you know, do it as often as possible.”

  Moving across the bed on his knees, Alex braced his hands on the bed as he settled himself across Liam’s lap. He looked nervous again, so Liam ran a hand along his thigh reassuringly. Instead of responding to the words or the gesture, Alex reached back to hold Liam’s cock steady as he lowered himself onto it.

  After nearly thirty years of life, it still managed to be one of the hottest things he’d ever seen. Liam had seen porn where the actors moaned as loud as possible to show how much they were enjoying themselves. He’d met a guy or two in real life who had thought it was sexy, too. He’d never thought much about it. But the tiny sound Alex made when his ass hit Liam’s thighs, barely audible in the quiet room; that was the sexiest sound ever. A sharp intake of breath, a soft whimper that he choked off before it truly came out—those were the sounds of Alex being overwhelmed, and they were unbelievably sexy.

  They stared at each other for a breathless second before Alex braced his hands on Liam’s ribs and pushed himself up a few inches experimentally. He took control of the rhythm much more easily than he had the previous time, maybe because Liam wasn’t moving at all to distract him.

  Alex’s uncertainty had faded, replaced with a wide smile. “I could, um, I could get used to this.”

  “You could get used to this?” Liam asked. �
��I want to wake up to it every single day.” He only had a second to worry about how that might be taken before Alex’s laughter drained the concern away.

  Liam reached down to take Alex’s cock in hand, pumping it in time with the movement of their hips. The feeling seemed to spur Alex on, increasing the tempo of his thrusts.

  Alex let out a frustrated whimper. “Li-Liam. I’m gonna be that guy, huh? I’m not, I’ve got to—”

  “Go on,” he whispered, hardly wanting to breathe for fear of breaking the spell. “Wanna watch you come on me.”

  Just seconds after that, Alex’s back arched, and his head fell back. He made that sound again, that breathless choked-back sob, as his whole body tensed in orgasm. The combined sensations overcame Liam, and he followed Alex over the peak, driving his hips up and groaning out his own climax.

  They were both silent for a moment. Their eyes met, and Liam smiled. He had never smiled so much in the bedroom before; it had always been something serious and important. It still seemed important, but not at all serious.

  Alex leaned down and kissed him on the tip of the nose, then gently pulled off. He made a face. “Oh, that’s weird.”

  Liam laughed. “Yeah. Always is.”

  Sticking his tongue out at Liam, he rolled off the bed. “Happy now?”

  “Yeah,” Liam said. He really was.

  “Don’t go all languid and sleepy on me there, Casanova,” Alex said, but he still had the smile on his face. “You’re getting up and showering, remember? Non-sexy showering?”

  “If I have to.” Liam had actually forgotten about the graze until he rolled himself around to stand, and the skin pulled into an uncomfortable position. He stifled his wince, not wanting Alex to see it and worry.

  They did shower together, but it was actually an attempt to get clean and not a thinly veiled excuse for more sex. Liam would have loved more sex, but he was still tired. He’d had a stressful day.

  While Alex dressed, Liam threw out the remaining coffee in the pot, and set the machine brewing again. Then he put the bread he had in the toaster and pulled the butter out of the fridge. He made a mental note to stop at the nearby grocery store on the way home from his lunch with Casey. He needed pretty much everything, and if they were going to be spending more time in his apartment instead of at Wilde’s and out, they’d have to eat.

  Alex was dressed and refreshed when he came out, but his eyes were a bit bloodshot. Liam guiltily remembered that Alex hadn’t gotten much—any?—sleep the night before.

  “Maybe you should call in sick and get some sleep?” he asked, suspecting he already knew the answer.

  Alex just gave him a look that confirmed his suspicions. Skipping out on his responsibilities just wasn’t in Alex’s personality, even when there was a valid reason.

  “Okay, okay. But you’ll be here for dinner tonight? I’ll buy groceries. I can make you shepherd’s pie.” He scrunched up his face. “I know, that’s not real convincing. But it’s good, promise.”

  Alex chuckled as he poured himself a cup of coffee. “You forget I just finished my undergrad. I had money and all, but I was still eating trash. Fast food, frozen meals, ramen. Easy stuff. I’m never gonna complain about home cooked anything.”

  “Eating in it is, then,” Liam agreed. “And Wilde’s tomorrow night. I’ll buy you a drink after your set.”

  “You remembered?” Alex asked, looking shocked.

  Liam snorted at him. “Did you think I was going to forget about my first chance to see you and your band in action for real? I’ll be there.”

  Alex snatched the piece of toast from his hand and leaned in to kiss him. “I should give you more sex for being awesome.”

  “Sure, give it to me. It’s not like you get anything out of it.” Liam wound an arm around him. “But I’m never gonna say no, so that works out pretty well for you.”

  “That’s why you’re the best,” Alex agreed. He gave Liam another peck on the lips before turning to find his coat. “I wish I didn’t have to get to work, but I think it’s gonna be a busy day. They say it might snow later. Don’t know why that makes the place busy, but it does.”

  Ignoring his toast, Liam went to Alex where he was standing at the door, and returned the small kiss. “I’ll see you tonight. Around four?”

  Alex wrapped his gold scarf around his neck and tucked it under the lapels of his coat, then turned to Liam and nodded. “Yeah. That should give me enough time to get here, even if it snows.”

  “Just be careful if it does,” Liam said, checking the edges of the scarf as though they needed more attention. “Don’t want you to fall down and get hurt.”

  “I’ll be careful,” Alex said. Then his eyes locked on Liam’s arm, and he raised a brow at him. “But you be careful too.”

  “Promise.”

  And with that, Alex was gone.

  Liam wandered back into the kitchen and picked at his toast for a minute before giving up and throwing the rest away. Toast was barely appealing as breakfast even when he had great company. Alone, it just felt sad.

  A knock at the door grabbed his attention. Odd.

  He grabbed his robe from where he’d left it on the bathroom counter, and went to check who it was.

  Patty O’Hanrahan.

  His stomach turned. He opened the door anyway.

  Patty looked at him, seeming no more or less happy than he had the day before. “Need you at a meet tonight,” he said, without even bothering to explain why he’d come in person instead of calling. Not that it took a lot of work to figure out why; Patty didn’t want anyone to have proof he’d been in contact with Liam. It was dirty, and they both knew it.

  There was a better-than-average chance that Patty just wanted to lure him out to kill him because of the incident with the Russians. Liam knew more than O’Hanrahan wanted him to.

  Liam nodded acknowledgment, giving away nothing. “Where at?”

  “The old storage place. Down by the docks. Six.” O’Hanrahan looked toward stairs. “You’re really dating the mark?”

  Liam kept his face bored and placid, glancing down the hallway and shrugging noncommittally. “Tell me a better way to keep a constant eye on him.”

  He didn’t like minimizing Alex like that, but it was a lot better than letting Patty know how important he was. That would have been asking for trouble. He had a bad feeling that Patty knew anyway.

  “Got to be careful about getting attached,” Patty said. He looked miffed, like the thought of Liam not wanting Alex dead was a personal insult. “You never know when things will change suddenly.”

  A chill ran down his spine. “True,” he agreed. He couldn’t let it go, though. “But I doubt he’ll have much to do with the business.”

  Shrugging, Patty turned toward the stairs. “The old place. Tonight. Six. Don’t be late.”

  Liam sighed as he watched O’Hanrahan leave. He hoped that Casey advised against going to the meet. He could always get himself pulled, or just refuse to go. It wouldn’t even be hard.

  Still, he knew that if he didn’t go to the meet, they’d never know what the man was up to for sure. That, and they wouldn’t be able to prove that O’Hanrahan was responsible for the guns. It would be six months of investigation and undercover work, wasted.

  No. If someone was going to pull Liam off the job, it wouldn’t be himself.

  They were meeting at the Italian place, which always seemed funny to Liam, but he never commented for fear that Casey would take it the wrong way. He liked Italian just fine, but spent half of their lunches there trying to pretend he wasn’t imagining them in a mafia movie. He always thought they were cooler than the Irish anyway. Probably because he was Irish.

  He ordered his food and went to sit next to her, feeling more exposed than he usually did at their meets. It was probably his paranoia acting up because of the situation with O’Hanrahan. The man was going to drive Liam insane.

  Casey gave him an interrogation-room look as soon as he sat down.

>   “What?” he asked. He hated feeling defensive, but given his situation, it wasn’t a surprise, and it wasn’t going away any time soon. He had earned the look, and then some.

  One corner of her mouth twisted down, and she stared at him. “Something is obviously going on, Liam. You look like a teenage boy who’s just gotten caught with the Sheriff’s daughter on prom night.”

  “That sounds like it comes from personal experience,” he said, imagining the scene. “Was your father a cop?”

  She snorted. “I didn’t get caught, smartass. But seriously, what the hell is going on?”

  “You’re gonna kick my ass, basically.” He took a drink of his water, trying to act nonchalant. He was good at acting most of the time; it was a requirement for doing undercover work. He wasn’t so good at it with his partner. He wasn’t good at lying to people he liked, and he refused to feel bad for that.

  She took a swig of her bottled cola. “Wish I could have ordered wine. Okay, what the hell have you done?”

  “Let’s start with the easy part,” he told her, laying his fork on the plate. “There are six corpses and two SUVs unaccounted for somewhere in the city.”

  She almost spit out the soda. “That’s the easy part? Some kind of morbid game of hide and seek?” She glanced over at the menu, as though considering the wine after all. “Okay, we found a burned SUV with three bodies in it in Riverdale. No ID on the guys, but the car was purchased by a Miguel Calaveras.”

  “Yeah, okay, that was the Colombians, then. Calaveras was one of them, plus two goons. There were two Russians, too. I abandoned their car somewhere near a red line stop south of sixty-ninth. It’s probably got at least some blood in the driver’s seat, that’d be mine.”

  “This, Liam?” she asked, looking stunned. “This is the easy part?”

  “This, Case, is what we wanted.” He leaned in and lowered his voice as much as he could manage. “O’Hanrahan brought me in on a meet yesterday. Tried to remind me that I was his man and not Quinn’s. I’m pretty sure the Colombian sold him to the Russians, though, since he wasn’t too surprised when they showed up and started shooting. After they killed him, they went for O’Hanrahan. Said something about killing him because he was sticking his dirty Irish hands in the bratva pot.”