Single Malt

by Layla Reyne

  They kissed over his shoulder, hot, openmouthed, desperate, as they stumbled through the condo toward Walker’s bedroom. They made it as far as the dining room table when one of Walker’s roving hands dived inside his jeans and boxers, wrapped around his aching cock, and pulled it mercifully free. Skin caught against skin, but with one swipe across the tip, Walker had enough moisture to lessen the friction and glide smoothly, firmly, up and down. If Aidan had thought Walker’s hands on his upper body had been searing, stroking his cock was enough to make him lose his mind. Lost in sensation, Aidan’s head lolled from side to side on Walker’s shoulder. He rocked his hips, shoving his erection into Walker’s fist while grinding his ass against his groin.

  Knees going weak, he threw out a hand, clutching at one of the dining chairs for support. Walker shifted, brought his free hand down on top of his and their entwined hands skirted off the chair to the table, slipping on papers and files until they found purchase on glass. Curling over his back, Walker kissed a path down his spine as his other hand continued to work his cock. Entranced by the wicked ministrations of Walker’s lips and tongue, by the steady, tortuous rhythm of his strokes, Aidan considered letting Walker jerk him off right here, but there was another emptiness growing inside him, one that demanded to be filled. He straightened and looked at Walker over his shoulder, confessing his need on a groan. “I want you inside.”

  Walker’s eyes flashed and, for a second, Aidan thought Walker was going to take them to the floor right there. But then the haze cleared and he licked a path up the side of Aidan’s neck. “Stuff’s in my room.”

  Pants and boxers falling, Aidan stepped out of them, turned in Walker’s arms, and latched on to his mouth again, taking his turn at control and moving them where they needed to go. Walker gave way, stumbling backward as Aidan tore off his shirt and pushed him toward the bedroom. The door caught their fall, and Aidan used the opportunity to explore. He coasted his hands over that beautiful big chest he’d admired in the showers the other day, his lips and teeth following in their wake, taking extra time on the interlocking N and C inked on his left pectoral.

  Tattoos meant something. The Tar Heel logo was a symbol of Walker’s past, inked into the skin over his heart. Whatever he’d loved and lost back then made the man here today, and Aidan gave it the adoration it deserved before continuing to kiss and lick down Walker’s torso.

  Unbuttoning his pants, Aidan got a single hand in, one long stroke down his length, before Walker pushed them off the door, tagged his kit off the dresser, and tossed it and him on the bed. So much for directing this endeavor, but watching Walker kick out of his jeans and boxer briefs, seeing him stand at the side of the bed—strong, lean, fully erect, so very alive—and smiling, Aidan shivered with wicked anticipation.

  He arched his body. “Something funny?”

  Putting a knee to the bed, Walker spread his legs and trailed fingers up the insides of his thighs. “I have a plan for those freckles, but it’ll have to wait.” Before Aidan could contemplate what that meant, Walker bent at the waist and put his mouth on his cock.

  All rational thought fled. “Oh God,” Aidan moaned, eyes fluttering closed as his thighs tensed.

  Walker held them apart as he licked up and down Aidan’s length, stopping at the top each time to circle the sensitive tip with this tongue. Aidan wanted more but didn’t have the words or mental capacity to string together the request. Walker, though, as they had been for weeks, was operating on the same wavelength. He checked his teeth, breathed out a hot gust that caused Aidan to shiver, then took him fully into his mouth, sealing his lips tight around his cock and sucking it deep, squeezing the tip in the back of his throat. Aidan bucked and shouted, begging for more. Always obliging, Walker slid up and down, breathing deep, tonguing the underside of the head on each pass and adding his hand as the pace of Aidan’s thrusting hips increased.

  So lost in the trance of pleasure, Aidan was almost past the point of no return when the other emptiness reasserted itself, demanding to be quelled.

  “Stop,” he gasped, repeated, and when Walker didn’t let up, reached down and raked his nails across the other man’s skull. Aidan’s cock slipped from his lips with a pop.

  Walker settled back on his haunches, his gaze wandering, and Aidan’s body flushed under the heated stare, his cock standing at painful attention.

  “What do you want, Irish?” Walker ran his hands over Aidan’s hips and under his ass, lifting him into his lap and nestling his erection along Aidan’s crack.

  Walker knew exactly what he wanted, and fuck, the anticipation, the wanting, the end of the emptiness right there where he needed it most was killing him.

  Aidan pressed his hips down on Walker’s straining length, gliding back and forth, and Walker’s head fell back on a moan. His cock swelled in Aidan’s crack and it was barely a minute before he shifted Aidan’s hips off his cock and grabbed a condom and lube out of his kit. He rolled on the latex, poured a dollop of lube in his palm, and slicked up his fingers and erection.

  Aidan watched, groaning as Walker stroked himself, until he was silenced by Walker’s mouth kissing him deep and slick fingers sliding into his crease. Aidan tightened his arms around his neck. He wanted this too.

  “This what you need, baby?” Walker’s fingers teased Aidan’s clenched hole.

  Aidan shoved his ass back in answer.

  Smiling against his lips, Walker pressed in with a finger and pain chased away Aidan’s pleasure.

  “Relax,” Walker whispered, petting and teasing, before trying to push back in.

  Another flare of pain and Aidan tensed further. “It’s been a while,” he mumbled into Walker’s neck.

  Pulling back, Walker forced a meeting of eyes. “How long?”

  “Eight months, twenty-seven days, three hours, give or take a few.”

  Since his husband’s death. But he didn’t want to think of Gabe right now, of what he’d lost. He only wanted to think about the man in his arms, the life that had been saved, the emptiness he promised to fill.

  “Why don’t you top?” Walker suggested, and Aidan shook his head on the pillow.

  “No. I’m so tired of feeling empty. Please, Jamie, I need you inside. I need—”

  “Hush, Irish.” He pressed his lips to Aidan’s. “I understand. I’ll give you what you need.”

  Walker shifted them to their sides, pulling off the condom and gathering him into his arms again. They kissed, long, slow, and the comfort pouring out of Walker was palpable. His hands roamed slower, building the burn and coaxing. When he took Aidan in his hand again, his strokes mirrored the long, slow swipes of his tongue through Aidan’s mouth, devouring not in a frenzy but savoring every taste. Aidan’s hands clawed and wandered too, into his hair, down his torso, and over his ass before he threw a thigh over Walker’s hip to hold him close.

  Rutting together in a steady, sensuous rhythm, Walker grabbed the lube again, slicked up his fingers, and made another pass at his hole. This time, after the sensuous buildup and added lubrication, there was only a moment of discomfort before Aidan’s muscles gave way. Walker pressed a finger inside, caressing and searching, and pleasure took hold.

  “More,” Aidan begged. He arched his back and clasped their dicks in his hand, jerking them off together.

  Adding a second finger, Walker stroked and stretched until Aidan was writhing on the edge of release. Only then did Walker pull back and Aidan watched with panting breaths and heavy-lidded eyes as he ripped open a condom with his teeth and rolled it down his length.

  Pulling up his legs, Aidan spread himself and Walker ran his hands under his ass again, lifting and positioning. Then slowly, oh so slowly, he pushed past the weakened resistance and inside Aidan, inch by tortuous inch.

  At the halfway point, Aidan gasped at the impending, welcome fullness and Walker looked up from where h
e’d buried his face in his neck. “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” Aidan’s voice shook with the effort of staving off his orgasm, but the last thing he wanted Walker to do was stop. He curled up and claimed his mouth. “Keep going,” he breathed against Walker’s lips, arching his hips and leaving no option.

  “Hold tight,” Walker said with a grin before he thrust deep, causing them both to shout. Seated firm, Walker ran one hand up his side to his shoulder, holding them steady as they picked up speed. With his other hand, he held Aidan’s cock against his abs, their thrusts grinding it against the hair there and his ribbed abdomen, giving Aidan all the friction he needed.

  “Oh, God.” Head thrown back, Aidan writhed and arched, holding him by the ass and the biceps. “Harder, Whiskey.”

  Aidan’s cock swelled as Walker thrust more roughly and increased the speed of his hand. “Now, Jamie, now,” he cried out.

  Walker drove powerfully, far enough that he nudged Aidan’s prostate, and Aidan’s world exploded, come spurting over his abs and through Walker’s fingers. The clenching of his ass around Walker’s dick was all it took to send the other man careening over the edge after him.

  Once he stopped shaking, Walker pulled out and flopped onto his back beside him. Aidan reached for a tissue from the box on the nightstand, handed it to Walker. He rolled off the condom, wrapped it and the previous one inside, and pitched the wad of paper and latex into the trashcan across the room.

  “Nice shot,” Aidan said.

  “I did win two national championships.” He snatched another tissue to clean up the mess on his stomach.

  Aidan rolled onto his side and brushed Walker’s hand and the tissue away. Grabbing him by the hip, he aligned them front-to-front, ignoring the mess, and threw his leg back over Walker’s hip. The warmth between their bodies, the scent of release, was intoxicating and he didn’t want to let it go just yet.

  “You’re already going to hurt.” Walker wrapped his arms around him, a smile in his voice. “You fall asleep like this, it’s going to make it worse.”

  “I don’t care,” he mumbled. “I need this too.”

  “All right, then. You know, that’s five times you’ve called me Jamie.”

  Aidan chuffed. “Of course you’re counting. And it’s six. You missed one.” He kissed the tattoo once more and snuggled down. He had no idea where they went from here. But for tonight, he wasn’t empty; he was holding life in his arms. Walker dropped a kiss in his hair and Aidan took a deep, contented breath of ocean and sex, of them, memorized it, and tucked it away so no matter what happened, he’d always have tonight.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Contrasting textures and temperatures nudged Aidan toward consciousness. Something cold and smooth rested on his hip, something warm and soft blanketed his back. He nuzzled into the heat and shifted away from the chill, chasing the blissful cocoon of sleep, until a hand covered his mouth and rocketed him awake.

  Before he could strike, a big, heavy arm looped over his torso and pressed the butt of a gun into his chest. The pistol registered as familiar, as did the muscled arm and Southern drawl in his ear.

  “Someone’s at the door.”

  Stilling, Aidan heard it—scrape, scrape, scrape—against the front lock. He rotated his head, eyeing Walker over his shoulder as he tapped two fingers against the gun. “Spare?”

  “In the closet safe. Take this one.” Walker handed over his gun and rolled off the rumpled bed the opposite direction.

  Aidan dove off his side, spotted a pair of jeans on the floor, and yanked them on. He stopped to listen again.

  Muffled voices, two at least, outside the front door.

  Flattening himself against the wall, he edged over to the bedroom door, gun held at the ready. Walker, in nothing but gray boxer briefs, appeared out of the closet, backup weapon in hand, and assumed a similar position against the opposite wall.

  The voices outside quieted and Aidan chanced a peek. A tall man stood on the other side of the glass door, an ominous figure in the early morning darkness. The stranger knelt and the lock-scraping resumed. Aidan motioned for Walker to follow. Crouched low, they scurried past the dining table and hid, weapons drawn, between the barstools under the dining bar.

  The lock on the front door gave with a loud click.

  Familiar with their surroundings, he and Walker had the advantage in the darkness. Aidan motioned for a takedown. When the intruders pushed through the door and came around the front of the bar, they sprang from their hiding place, Aidan in the lead.

  It took less than five seconds for him to wind up facedown on the floor, divested of his gun, with a knee to his back and his arms pinned behind him. The overhead lights flipped on and Aidan lifted his head. At the far end of the bar, scattered papers and files lay next to an open briefcase on the floor. Above the mess, Walker pressed a dark-haired, suited man against the wall, his weapon trained on the back of the intruder’s head.

  An intruder Aidan recognized all too well, even from his awkward angle.

  Face turning toward him, Danny widened his coal-black eyes, and his booming laugh filled the room. “Bro, you got taken down by a girl. Hard.”

  “Says the man pressed against a wall with a gun to his head.”

  “Yeah, but Jamie’s a lot bigger than her.”

  “Her” was the sole focus of Walker’s anxious gaze. He lowered his gun and backed away from Danny. The bruises on his sternum and temple and the bite mark on his tattoo were vivid on his blanched skin. “Ma’am.”

  Aidan didn’t need to look over his shoulder to know who the “Ma’am” was pinning him to the floor. Only one woman could take him down that fast and that hard, as Danny so aptly put it.

  “You want to get your knee out of my back, Mel? I’ve got enough bruises as it is.”

  Snickering, she removed her knee and hauled him up, hands still clutched behind his back. His left arm ached and the rest of his body protested yesterday’s activities.

  All of them.

  “You gonna perp walk me to my room?” he asked.

  “I might need to. In case you get tangled up in Walker’s jeans.”

  He didn’t need to look down to know what she saw. Too-long denim bunched beneath his feet, the frayed ends tickling his toes.

  Danny whistled low. “Busted.”

  Walker’s insta-blush tanked any chance of denial. “I’m gonna go get dressed.” He avoided eye contact with everyone and cut through the kitchen and into his room.

  Once the door shut, Mel spun Aidan to face her. She was impeccably dressed, as always. Not a wrinkle in her designer pantsuit, not a curl out of place, despite a late-night flight and textbook takedown. She grasped his chin and tilted his face side to side, inspecting yesterday’s damage. “You want to explain?”

  The injuries or the fact that he was wearing Walker’s clothes? Neither was a question he intended to answer before coffee and pain pills. He needn’t have bothered though, answering or holding his tongue. Releasing his chin, Mel stepped aside and swept the room with her assessing gaze. The answers were apparent everywhere. Melted ice packs in the sink, two bottles of pain pills on the bar, balcony doors open, abandoned mugs of tea and phone on the railing, a trail of clothes littering the path to Walker’s room.

  Her dark eyes, identical to Gabe’s, swung back to him, and the guilt he’d put out of his mind the past six hours rushed back in, closing off his throat, strangling his words, and heating his face. Her stern expression softened. “I didn’t see anything.”

  What didn’t she see, or rather, chose not to see? His betrayal of her brother, his husband? Or his and Walker’s blatant disregard for Bureau policy?

  She click-clacked on mile-high heels into the kitchen, making a beeline for the coffeemaker. “Go get changed. I want a full debrief.”

 
Grateful for the reprieve, Aidan shuffled to his room, picking up scattered clothes on his way. He’d almost made a clean getaway when Danny stuck an arm in the bedroom door.

  “Not so fast.” He followed him inside and closed the door behind them. “Mel might have let you off the hook, but I’m not.”

  “Why the hell were you picking the lock to your own condo?” Aidan deflected. He grabbed a clean pair of boxers and jeans from his suitcase and headed for the bathroom. “And why the hell are you even here?”

  “I forgot my key.”

  “You didn’t think to knock? Or ask the concierge to let you in?” Aidan grabbed a washcloth, ran warm water over it, and wiped down his stomach, wincing as hairs came unstuck from his skin.

  “Where’s the fun in that? And I didn’t know you were here. We thought you were still at the hospital. I suggested we get you and Jamie a change of clothes before heading over. Should’ve known you’d check yourself out against medical advice.”

  “The hospital called you?” Aidan inspected the rest of yesterday’s damage, gently prodding the bruises on his head, chest and side.

  “No, Mom called me, after you talked to her and Katie last night. I already had the jet ready. I was planning to personally deliver those cargo manifests.”

  Aidan brushed his teeth and spat, then, after rinsing the washcloth out, wiped it over his mouth and face. “I told you to stay out of this.”

  “When did that ever work?”

  Never. Aidan didn’t know why he expected it would this time. He’d been the one to train Danny as the perfect accomplice. By age ten, his little brother’s lock-picking skills far exceeded his own.