by R. G. Green
At least it was supposed to be. The clang of metal accompanied each step as Eric climbed to the second floor. The office that McKennon had identified as Victor’s center of operations was clearly evident, as it spanned most of the back wall. Still, only dim gray light made it through the crusty windows up here, and Eric had to pause to let his eyes adjust before it gave him enough visibility to move. There was nothing to trip over, though, the fabricated metal floor just as bare as the bay below. The only thing breaking the emptiness was the dark shape of the desk that was still present in the office, along with the chair that Victor had sat in when he ordered his crimes to commence. Why the technicians had left these and nothing else, Eric didn’t know, but that wasn’t his concern when he finally stepped into the dark shadows of the office. The wheels of the chair squeaked when Eric pulled it out, and leather groaned when Eric sat down.
The rest of the office was empty. No files, no boxes, no other furniture. The desk had no doubt been thoroughly searched and the drawers long since emptied. Every physical item related to Victor was gone, every secret compartment or hidden hole checked. Nothing had been missed.
Eric sighed as he tilted his head back, letting his eyes close as the chill air bounced off the metal walls.
The office was empty, but it wasn’t physical evidence he was after. If he was going to figure out what Victor was up to, he needed to put himself inside Victor’s head. Think like Victor thought, plan like Victor planned.
It was why he put himself in Victor’s place.
“I’m going to call it a day after this,” T.J. said over the digital reading of the particle counter positioned in front of him. The numbers were good, but he wasn’t sure how concerned he would have been at the moment had they not been. He continued without looking up. “Eric has the Jeep, so I’ll check out one of the trucks and drive it back tomorrow.” He didn’t need permission to do either, but speaking out loud eased the nervous tension still twisting in his stomach. He had tried to call Eric again, but Eric hadn’t answered.
Rosalie Newman only nodded from her place behind him, and both looked up sharply when the bulky figure of Mark Barnes stepped into the lab. A general supervisor with nearly thirty years at Perlman, he was the one in charge of this lab and the direct liaison between the lab and higher management. But Mark stopped only a few steps through the door, and T.J. felt the knot in his stomach tighten when the wrinkled, pale-blue eyes landed squarely on him.
“T.J., you have a call up front.” He paused long enough to set his jaw even tighter. “It’s a Captain Benjamin Carroll from the Breten City Police Department.”
Cold air may have been slipping beneath the leather of his jacket to chill his skin, but the heat in his groin was unmistakable as Eric stretched his legs in front of him. The creak of the chair was loud in the empty warehouse, and the roll of the wheels on the scuffed tile floor created a low hum as the chair was pushed back. Eric tilted his head against the seam of the leather as he slumped lower across the back of the chair, dragging his hands over his thighs, not quite touching the erection that pressed up against his jeans. He had come here to get closer to Victor, but the quiet stillness had somehow turned erotic, leading his thoughts, inevitably, to wander to T.J.
Envisioning T.J. in this position made him groan as his cock strained against his zipper, and the creak of the chair echoed off the walls as he imagined himself straddling his lover’s hips. The silent warehouse amplified the sounds of their imagined breathing as he pictured himself sinking onto T.J.’s cock, fucking himself on that solid heat in the cold emptiness of this office where Victor had set so many things into motion, where the year-long ordeal of catching him had ended, and where anyone who crept up the stairs would see them.
Sex in public places came with the danger of discovery, adding a level of excitement they both enjoyed in combination with the sheer carnal pleasure of sex itself. They had done it before, at least semipublicly, in places like the secluded cove in Key West, where they had made love in the wet sand as the ripples of waves washed over their skin. They did it in Vermont too, at a rest area on the way to a mountain resort and again at the resort itself, in the moonlight outside the lodge with the snow melting around them. They even did it in Breten City, in the alley behind the drug store with the lube they had just purchased, and in the trees along the trail around Orchard Park when the hour was late enough—or early enough—that it was absent of its usual delinquents. They had even done it once in an empty schoolyard, when a childish romp among the playground equipment had led to T.J. fucking him, long and slow, under the dome of the multi-colored jungle gym.
And they had done it in the back of his truck in the parking lot outside Sparklers last summer. Eric’s zipper was already down by the time the memory of that drunken night returned, and he slipped a hand under the waistband of his underwear to stroke up his length, remembering the feel of T.J.’s hand doing the same. Alcohol had made them particularly daring that night, and the screech of the chair as he pushed his hips up mimicked the bounce of the truck when T.J. had finally shoved inside him. T.J. had loved that night as much as he had; it was why he had wanted to keep that picture of them, the one that had caught them just as they had been getting started….
The picture that Victor Kroger had taken.
Ice suddenly raced through his veins, stalling his arousal and bringing his hips to stillness. A sliver of terrifying realization began to uncoil inside him, with a cutting certainty that softened the cock under his fingers. It wasn’t possible, he told himself, though his disbelief was losing the war against fact as the pieces began to fall bitterly into place.
“Those pictures included you as well as me,” Eric whispered, though T.J. wasn’t there to hear him. “But they didn’t bother you at all. The man outside the window, the car casing our house. You kept telling me I was seeing things, that they weren’t real.”
Sudden memories flitted through his mind, from their first meeting at the Main Street Pub eight years ago when Eric had accidentally jostled him at the crowded bar, to their first kiss the following night, at the end of their first date. He remembered how gorgeous T.J. had looked in the bar, how that gorgeousness hadn’t faded in daylight or in the absence of alcohol. He remembered the excitement when they had decided to move in together before the summer was over, picking a small, cheap apartment downtown rather than either of the houses they were renting. He remembered the sheer joy when they had used the money they had saved to make a down payment on their house, and the thrill of rightness when they had closed on the house they would share just as their second winter together was ending.
And he remembered the warmth and tenderness on his lover’s face when T.J. had asked him to marry him, and the determination of his promise that even though it wouldn’t be legal, their marriage would be just as real. It had been the anniversary of their first meeting, one year to the day from when an accidental stumble had brought them together, and it was in the same place where it had begun, in front of the entire Pub crowd. With his heart in his eyes and every emotion he felt written on his face, T.J. had proposed on bended knee.
Eric brought his hands to his face, smelling himself on his skin as he rubbed his eyes with his palms. T.J. had been in those pictures too. T.J., with his charming smile that could be both teasing and sincere; his dark, expressive eyes that would shine with laughter or smolder with lust.
Eyes that had grown wary as Eric pursued his goal to nail Victor Kroger once and for all. Eric felt his stomach lurch as the cold horror finally swept over him. God, it was making terrifying sense.
T.J. had learned Eric was a cop—a detective—that first night at the pub, and Eric had learned that T.J. was a great lay within minutes after their first kiss. The knot in his stomach twisted as the bitter truth bit deep. T.J. might have made the first move, but in the end it was his own damned fault. He nearly doubled over as his stomach heaved, and the bile that burned his throat brought tears to his already stinging eyes.
&nb
sp; It had only taken sex for T.J. to worm his way into Eric’s life, because Eric’s own raging sex drive had opened the door. It had led him to invite T.J. home night after night, led him to be vulnerable to the laughter, affection, and tenderness T.J. offered in and out of bed, and led him to believe the words when T.J. said “I love you.” It had allowed him to believe he had fallen in love with the dark-haired engineer he had met at the bar.
And it had led him into letting his guard down when it came to the details of his investigation into Victor Kroger. Eric choked as his stomach heaved again and bile spurted through his lips as a single hot tear scalded his cheek. Victor Kroger may have only been an issue for him personally during the last year, but he had been in operation for years before that. Information that the cops were being held at bay was as valuable to Victor as any talk of the cops closing in. Victor had never been in danger of going to jail, because Victor had engineered his own arrest. Getting his case thrown out of court was the perfect way to clean the slate and throw attention away from the secrecy of his operations. But fuck, he hadn’t done it alone.
“You kept playing it down, saying it’s nothing, telling me to let it go….”
A siren sounded in the distance.
“Fuck, T.J.,” Eric whispered, his breath harsh and ragged. “How long have you been working for Victor Kroger?”
Chapter Thirteen
Eric arched his back with a quiet moan, tilting his head as he sought contact with the heated flesh hovering just above him. The tongue tracing the line of his jaw slipped lower with the new position, sliding over the knot of his Adam’s apple as it made a warm, wet trail up to his ear. T.J. lay balanced between his legs, not quite touching beyond an errant, feather-light brush of skin, with the heavy graze of his tongue setting Eric’s nerve endings on fire. Eric’s own hands rested heavily on T.J.’s shoulders, his thighs gently pressing against the still hips caught between them. He resisted the urge to pull T.J. more tightly against him, to give in to the lust and desire and the hungry demand of his body, even though the effort sent tremors through his limbs. He knew T.J. was as hard as he was, and the brief touches of cock against cock threatened to shatter his restraint at any moment. But T.J. continued to move with slow and infinite care, clearly determined to make this act of lovemaking last.
In the deepest part of Eric’s heart and soul, so was he.
Eric had seen the truck before he had even pulled into the driveway, and he didn’t have to see the logo on the doors to know that it belonged to Perlman Engineering. The knot in his stomach hardened as the Jeep crawled to a stop behind it, and thoughts of fleeing scattered briefly through his mind as he stared at the streaks of sludge smearing the white paint, wet and dripping, not yet refrozen in the bitter air. Fleeing rather than facing the man he had loved more than life itself. Fleeing instead of ending the life he had built with his husband, the life he had thought would last forever. But he knew that running away wouldn’t change the truth, and in the end he opened the door. The crunch of ice as he stepped onto the concrete sounded loud and hollow in the stillness of winter.
Warm breath touched Eric’s lips, followed by soft, full lips pressing a kiss against his own. Eric opened to them willingly, welcoming the gentle, probing tongue that followed and caressing it in turn with his own. Little by little, the weight of T.J.’s body began to settle more closely, and Eric’s arms tightened around him as the gentleness of the kiss slowly changed to something deeper. A slow caress of body against body began with the light nip of teeth.
T.J. was in the kitchen, the receiver of the wall phone still in his hand, his fingers stopped in the act of dialing. He hadn’t been home long, and in fact still wore his own leather bomber over the worn, rust-colored sweatshirt proclaiming itself the property of the University of Minnesota. The surprise on his face turned to relief as the solid weight of the kitchen door closed, and then the relief turned to caution as he replaced the receiver on the cradle slowly. Eric said nothing, keeping his hand in his pocket as he leaned back against the door, fingering the cold grip of the 9mm, keeping his face neutral as he studied the man he had decided to make a life with.
The man who had sold him out to Victor Kroger.
Eric moaned in protest as the fingers that had stretched and prepared him slid free from his body, and then caught his breath when a shift of hands and hips brought the blunt, swollen head of T.J.’s cock to the edge of his opening. The shade on the window remained drawn, the bulb of the bedroom lamp unlit. The planes of T.J.’s face were cast in black and gray shadow, but the intensity of his eyes glittered as they caught what little light broke the darkness. An encouraging nudge of Eric’s thighs told T.J. he was ready, and the breath stilled in their lungs as T.J. pushed in.
“Eric, baby, where have you been? Are you all right?” T.J. asked after several moments of heavy silence.
The stillness was all but shattered with his words, and Eric felt the first crack in the carefully constructed armor he had tried to surround himself with. He took a slow, deep breath to shore up his courage, willing the blankness to remain on his face. T.J. didn’t miss the effort, and Eric saw his frown deepen to worry. Still, T.J. stopped after only a single hesitant step.
“Eric, what’s wrong?”
The crack in his armor deepened to his heart, and the pain of it breaking was almost physical. Forcing it into the dark corner of his mind, he glanced at the phone and back with barely a blink.
“Who were you calling?”
Eric let out a sigh of mixed relief and pleasure when T.J. finally came to rest, the penetration having been so slow it had become a sensual form of torture. The feel of it was almost too much, and he struggled to keep the burning hunger that had so often made their lovemaking frenetic at bay, to rein in his normal urgency to be taken hard and fast, and focus only on the feel of T.J. buried deeply and completely inside him. He knew he wouldn’t last long, that soon he would be fucking himself on T.J.’s cock, demanding with his voice and his body that T.J. give him everything, with no hesitation and no holding back. But not just yet, not right now. Right now he just wanted to feel T.J. against him and inside him, feel T.J., and nothing more.
Then all too soon, he felt the first shallow thrust of T.J.’s hips.
The frown on T.J.’s face slipped to confusion as he searched Eric’s flat, hazel eyes. “Captain Carroll,” he answered slowly. “He called the lab to see if I knew where you were, since you weren’t answering the phone here. Eric, what’s going on?”
Eric didn’t answer immediately, letting the silence settle as the words of the lie faded and vanished. He felt the sting in his eyes as he slowly shook his head.
“I’m suspended,” he answered expressionlessly, pushing from the door and moving slowly and deliberately to where T.J. stood. “The captain doesn’t have any reason to need to know where I am. Only you have a reason to know that.”
His breath was hot and moist as it hissed through his teeth, and his hands fisted in the muscles of T.J.’s shoulders and neck, in the dark, damp strands of his hair. T.J.’s hands were wedged under him, pulling him up to meet each snap of his hips, forcing himself deeper with each powerful thrust. T.J.’s panting breath was loud in Eric’s ear, and stubble scratched his cheek as Eric clung to him, curling around him as their bodies moved as one. The nightstand rattled as the mattress shifted against it, and the kicking of their feet had already bunched the comforter at the foot of the bed. Eric humped his own cock between their stomachs as he dragged T.J. against him, knowing this was exactly what he wanted… exactly what he needed….
T.J. opened his mouth to say something more, but Eric closed in quickly, and he stopped the words as he caught T.J.’s lips in a deep, sensual kiss. Surprise lasted only an instant, and then Eric felt T.J. begin to respond. A touch of Eric’s tongue was enough to move T.J.’s hands to his hips. Fleece and leather shifted between them as Eric turned the kiss deep and obscene, and two denim-covered cocks swelled and hardened as they began to rock tog
ether. When Eric finally pulled back, he did so slowly, his eyes unreadable, his breath hot on T.J.’s lips.
“Fuck me,” Eric demanded quietly.
T.J. cried out without warning, his hips almost battering Eric with their thrusts, and his fingers dug into Eric’s flesh as cum burst from his cock. Eric forced his eyes open and his head back to watch the sheer ecstasy in T.J.’s face as the wave of his orgasm hit. That look and the pulsing cock inside him drove Eric to his own release, and although on his back, he rode T.J.’s body hungrily as he succumbed to his own shattering waves of orgasm.
It could have been moments or an eternity that passed before awareness crept back in, and exhaustion wrapped around him as the world came back into focus. He let his shaking muscles relax as he slowly released T.J.’s body, and he felt the weight of T.J.’s body collapsing over him, bringing their pounding hearts to beat together. He heard the murmur of contentment from T.J.’s lips a moment later as he shifted his weight to the side, drawing a gasp from Eric as his softening cock slid free. It was a gentle hand that pulled Eric’s head to his shoulder, and a tender set of lips that pressed a kiss into his hair. A second hand on his back stroked the heated flesh as it slid lightly down the length of his spine.