Dirty Deeds

by HelenKay Dimon

  The fire had sparked between them hot and fast. Whatever this was it had a primal edge. Gaige was thirty. He’d enjoyed sex for the sake of sex many times. He’d had sex when he thought he was in love and had Seth all over his ass as a result. But with Alec he experienced this driving need to know more, to feel more.

  The sensation didn’t fit who he was now, and Alec had made it clear he had no interest in more than a few nights of release. The whole thing made no sense. But Gaige decided that was a question for another time.

  Gaige had no idea where that left them, but he wasn’t ready to give up the closeness, even if it wasn’t real.

  “Damn.” Alec managed to make the word last for three syllables.

  “My thoughts exactly.”

  “That might be my new favorite position.”

  Yeah, no kidding. “I’ll keep that in mind.” Before Alec could dismiss him or say anything guaranteed to piss him off, Gaige lifted himself up and started to get off the bed. “Need anything?”

  “You are not eating again.” Alec sounded stunned at the thought.

  Now that he mentioned it…But Gaige didn’t go far. He slipped into the bathroom, leaving the door open. He didn’t want to miss one minute of Alec’s post-sex sprawl. He had an arm tucked behind his head while the white sheet rode low on his thighs. His chest still glistened with a thin sheen of sweat, and he didn’t appear to be in any rush to clean up. Gaige found that level of comfort and being so sure in his sexual appeal pretty fucking sexy.

  They’d wrecked the bed. Pillows were tucked around Alec. One had landed on the floor. The comforter laid in a pile off one side of the mattress. They’d even managed to knock the corner of the painting above the bed, so that it now hung at a slight angle.

  Gaige stepped out of the bathroom and flicked off the light behind him. The lamp on the bedside table was on, and the security light in the backyard burned. “Normal people eat, Alec. There are these things called meals.”

  Nothing suggested Alec was listening. His gaze wandered over Gaige. Down his legs and back up again.

  “How do you eat all the time and look like that?” he asked.

  “Again, not all the time. Just on a normal schedule.” Not sure if he still was welcome on the mattress, Gaige took the risk and sat down. Stayed on the edge, giving Alec room if he needed it. “But to answer your question, when I haven’t been dragged off to a new country on Seth’s whim, I work out.”

  “No, I work out and my stomach doesn’t look like that.” Alec rubbed a hand over his trim waist.

  Gaige was pretty sure Alec was playing with him now. Did the guy own a fucking mirror? “Well, you do live in a country known for beer.”

  “Strangely enough, the beer belly isn’t really a thing here. The Alps are only an hour and a half away. I sneak off for a weekend now and then to ski, or I used to before work picked up. I also run.” Alec settled back into the pillows. “Your turn. How do you do it?”

  This didn’t strike Gaige as the right time for a tell-all, but it didn’t hurt to give some context. He could hint at his past. After Alec shared his story about his sister, opening up didn’t feel quite as wrong. “For most of my life I stuck with the pasty rarely-go-outside look.”

  Alec wiggled his eyebrows. “Sexy.”

  “More like guaranteed to get my ass kicked.” Gaige didn’t have to try real hard to call up those days. Having a somewhat disconnected father who believed bullying made a kid stronger didn’t help. “You would have loved the dark glasses that topped off the look.”

  “I totally would have.”

  Sure. “Oh, really?”

  “Men in glasses are fucking hot.”

  Alec never ceased to surprise him. “Not the ones I had. The lenses must have been an inch thick. I had corrective surgery a few years ago, but if you want a real turn-on I probably have a photo of me at twenty wearing them.”

  “I might take you up on that.”

  “The stomach muscles are newer. I had this boyfriend…” This was the part. This more than hinted at his current trouble. It potentially spilled it, soaking the floor with his guilt and anger.

  “Ah, yes. Impressing the boyfriend. Got it.”

  Let it go. That refrain repeated in Gaige’s head. He could end the story here and make some joke about food. He hadn’t shared details of his time with Jase with anyone. A few friends had asked about the breakup and Gaige delivered the usual it-didn’t-work excuse. Nothing about the lying or the espionage. How the hell did he even begin to tell that story? He assumed anyone who heard his side would secretly wonder if he had more knowledge of Jase’s actions than he owned up to. Even then he couldn’t talk about what happened because Seth ordered him not to.

  No, Gaige didn’t want to play show-and-tell. He needed the past to stay buried, but he could at least be honest about some pieces since Alec knew about Seth’s demands.

  “It’s not what you think. He got in trouble, got me in trouble.” Gaige glanced down at the sheet and realized he’d been twisting a wad of it in his hand. He forced his fingers to relax. “The muscles came with the boxing lessons and practice hours I logged at the shooting range.”

  Alec sat up straighter. His back came away from the headboard. “Someone tried to kick your ass?”

  That sounded mild since armed men had come for him at one point. “Succeeded the first time. I was unlucky enough to be home. The boyfriend wasn’t, so I became the message to him.”

  “Jesus.”

  Gaige shrugged, trying to pretend it didn’t matter when, really, everything Jase did back then shaped Gaige’s life now. “It only happened once. I learned.”

  Alec stared at him for a second without responding. Twice he opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it again. Finally, he spoke. “Sounds like the guy who threw me against the wall to avoid a collision with a car has some hidden skills.”

  “You should see me with a gun.”

  “Why exactly was this ex in so much trouble?”

  Unable to hold Alec’s stare, Gaige looked around again. The sense of wrongness smacked into him. Not from the topic. No, this was something else. An uneasy feeling washed through him. Something was off, really off. But he couldn’t place it. The room…Alec…“The yard.”

  Alec frowned at him. “What?”

  The light was off. The one in the back corner that Alec insisted stay on all the time for protection. It had blinked or burned out. The backyard was nothing but a sea of bleak darkness.

  Gaige started to jump up, but Alec grabbed his arm and dragged him back down to the mattress.

  “Get on the floor and stay low,” Alec said as he spun off his side of the bed.

  Still naked, he kneeled on the floor. The bottom drawer of the table next to the bed rattled. Gaige couldn’t see everything but he heard a clicking sound. The next second Alec had a gun in his hand and was loading it with precision.

  “What the hell?” Gaige looked around for a weapon but his gaze kept shifting back to Alec.

  “The alarm panel is dark.”

  Gaige looked at the white box on the wall. None of the lights were lit. He had no idea what that meant except that it was pretty fucking bad.

  “Cell?” Gaige had handed his over to Alec earlier and no longer had one on him.

  Alec lifted his off a charger on the nightstand and threw it across the mattress to Gaige. “Seven. Nine. One. Four.”

  The code. Gaige typed it as Alec said it. When he hit the buttons on the phone, he didn’t get anything. He looked at the screen and saw the “no signal” error then glanced at Alec again. “Nothing.”

  Without meeting his gaze, Alec nodded. “Probably using a signal blocker.”

  “Shit.”

  “We have two men coming up the sides of the yard.” Alec moved until his back leaned against the small patch of wall before the floor-to-ceiling windows started.

  Windows. All that glass. If anyone started firing, it would shatter and send thousands of shards raining do
wn on them.

  Gaige strained his eyes, trying to see the intruders. He could pick out movement in the black nothingness out there but couldn’t make out any shapes or people. “Do you have another gun?”

  “Upstairs.”

  “Not helpful.” Gaige thought about the phone and how he could use it to get an emergency signal out. But he had a better idea. While Alec had supposedly showered one of those first nights after they met, Gaige had taken that quick unguided tour of the place, which ended in a fight. Now that nosiness would pay off.

  He scrambled to his knees and crawled to Alec’s closet. The walk-in was bigger than Gaige’s first two apartments combined. He’d been fascinated when he first saw it.

  “Where are you going?” Alec asked in a harsh whisper.

  “The main alarm panel. I saw it the other night…yeah, you know when.”

  The system had redundant safeguards. Gaige guessed Alec had been told the system couldn’t go down. While that was never true, the higher-end models did have backups for the backups. Gaige counted on Alec to have paid for the best one available, which meant that he should be able to find a work-around.

  He shoved the shirts on the lower rack aside. He dropped down on his ass and tried to keep his body small. He didn’t have tools but he’d make it work. Running his finger over each circuit and switch, he studied the panel.

  “Whatever you’re going to do, do it fast,” Alec said.

  Gaige spared Alec a quick look. He was crouched down, holding a gun and not wearing a damn thing. If panic hadn’t been coursing through him, Gaige might have found the whole scene amusing. But there was nothing funny about this.

  Gaige found what he needed. A hookup to the backup generator. Of course Alec had one of those. The guy kept a gun next to his lube. He was prepared for anything. The intruders managed to bypass the generator outside or off-site. Gaige could fix that.

  He fumbled with the connecting wires. He only needed a second. Just long enough to get the system online and send an emergency signal, then it could shut down again. If the person on the other end at the alarm company was half awake, this should work.

  The wire cut into his fingertips but he kept working. He switched the circuits and reconnected the wires to run the power solely from the generator. He sparked a restart and a second later a red warning light flashed. He hit the emergency call button for the silent alarm and flicked the breaker for the outside lights.

  The backyard lit up and the two men froze. They were dressed in black and carrying guns Gaige knew would rip through glass and flesh without trouble.

  “Incoming!”

  Just as Alec shouted the warning, a man jumped onto the back patio. He aimed at the glass. His shoulder jerked as he fired. Gaige could hear the thuds and see indents on the glass where the bullets hit, but nothing else happened.

  Alec nodded. “Money well spent.”

  The second attacker fired. When that didn’t work, they changed strategy. One picked up a chair and threw it at the glass. Gaige had no idea how much the wall of windows could withstand, but every hit ended with a new indent in the glass. If one blow punctured it, they were dead.

  They shouted at each other outside. Gaige couldn’t make out the words but he thought it was English. Whatever it was, Alec started to stand up.

  “No!” Gaige shouted the word but Alec didn’t take his eyes off the men trying to breach his home.

  They looked at each other. One touched his ear. They were talking to someone. One nod and they split up. They ran for opposite sides of the yard and skimmed the fence line.

  “Damn it.” Alec slipped along the glass to the door. His hand hit the handle.

  Gaige felt the life rush right out of him. Images of Alec on the ground in a puddle of blood played in his head. Bile rushed up his throat as he jumped over the bed to get to Alec in time. “Alec, stop!”

  But it was too late. Alec had the door open. He fired to the right. The bang echoed in the quiet night but no one shot back. The attackers had disappeared and now police sirens wailed in the distance.

  The alarm worked. That’s all Gaige could think as he doubled over in relief. He gulped in huge breaths, trying to keep the bile from making an appearance. His hands shook and his heartbeat raced until he thought he might pass out.

  Alec swore as he stalked around the patio naked. When he turned and looked at Gaige, he stilled. He stepped back inside, the concern obvious in his frown. “Are you okay?”

  “No, you dumbass.”

  “The glass is bulletproof.” Alec looked like he was going to tuck his gun into the back of his pants, but he wasn’t wearing any. He blinked a few times, then grabbed his briefs—or Gaige’s briefs—off the floor. “That will teach Finn to tell me I’m paranoid.”

  Gaige wanted to strangle him. “You could have told me about the glass.”

  “Unfortunately, there’s only one way to test it and be sure.” Alec threw a T-shirt at Gaige. “You better get dressed. It looks like the entire police department is on the way, which means I’m hiding this.” He held up the gun.

  “Right.” Gaige managed to get his legs to move.

  “What exactly did you do to my alarm system?” Alec opened the drawer again. He unloaded the weapon and dropped it in the drawer after a second check.

  “You have your secrets, I have mine.”

  In two steps, Alec was in front of Gaige. He reached around and put a hand on the back of Gaige’s neck. Pulled him in and planted a firm kiss on his mouth.

  Gaige lost his breath but for a very different reason this time.

  “What was that for?” Gaige asked when they broke apart. He really didn’t give a shit but wanted to see what Alec would say.

  “I’m not sure except I wanted to.” Alec’s hand lingered on Gaige’s neck for another second.

  “Good.”

  Chapter 17

  Thirty minutes later Gaige and Alec were dressed in jeans and T-shirts. Police walked the backyard, which Alec had flooded with light. They searched for clues he knew they would never find. That hit had been professional. Alec employed an entire team of former special ops warriors to work for him. He recognized the type.

  While the police searched, Gaige sat at the breakfast bar spinning a water bottle between his palms. He’d graduated from peeling off the label, but Alec wasn’t convinced the sound of crinkling plastic was a step up.

  He thought about taking the bottle, but he understood Gaige needed to keep his hands busy. He had that just-tossed-on-clothes look and ruffled hair. He’d given the police the no-big-deal shrug more than once during the brief time he’d talked with them.

  To Alec, the too-casual affect wasn’t convincing, but then he knew exactly how Gaige felt right now. They didn’t trade stories. Didn’t have to. They both lied and played up some theory about intruders. But adrenaline still shot through Alec like a pinball. He doubted he’d get much sleep tonight…or anytime soon.

  Someone had violated his home. This was his sanctuary, the one place he could turn to for relaxation. Here he didn’t have to be the boss or the brother who handled things or even the guy with the reputation for not taking shit. Here, he could just be Alec, and now someone had threatened that.

  “Hey. Everything okay in here?” Tony asked as he broke away from the backyard search and entered the house through the back door.

  He had been the first one to show up tonight. He made it there right after the police did, which meant he broke speed limits and a few other traffic laws to get there.

  Alec nodded. “You were close by.”

  “You sent the emergency code, and I came running.” Tony shot him a knowing look. “That’s what I do.”

  “True.” Alec didn’t say more because he’d likely mention Tony’s paycheck and he sensed that was the wrong answer.

  The entire night had blown up. Men with guns. The alarm. Worrying about Gaige. Alec did what he’d learned to do—he reached out to Tony. Years, or even months ago, he would have handled
the mess on his own and told Tony about it in the morning. That’s what he did, he resolved things. But with some help from his brothers and a shitty family history, he’d been trying to learn a new way.

  This time it backfired on Tony, and Alec had to take responsibility for that. “But I’m sorry.”

  Tony shrugged. “I’m fine but maybe tell Caroline the next time you see her.”

  “Shit.” That meant it happened again. Alec and a work emergency destroyed a date. Much more of this and she would probably talk to Tony about quitting. Alec could not afford that. There were other qualified people but he actually liked Tony, and he didn’t want to lose the few friends he had.

  “We’re going to be married with six kids before we’re able to celebrate this anniversary.”

  Despite Tony’s smile, that didn’t sound good. Even Alec was smart enough to see that. “Tell her I’ll make it up to her.”

  “She’s not actually talking to me right now.” Tony walked up to the breakfast bar and stopped beside Gaige. “You okay?”

  Gaige spun the water bottle, making the bottom edges smack against the countertop. “I’ve had better nights.”

  If he didn’t stop playing with the water bottle soon, Alec thought he might actually lose his mind. The guy needed to pick a new nervous tic.

  Alec glanced at Tony. “Where’s Finn?”

  “Handling the police and neighbors out front. He clearly inherited all the tact in the family.”

  Alec couldn’t argue with that. “That’s why I don’t bother with that skill.”

  Gaige finally looked up. “Really? That’s why?”

  “I’m happy you asked before I could.” With a laugh and a slap on Gaige’s shoulder, Tony started for the front door. “I’ll be back.”

  Police still convened just a few feet away but Alec welcomed some form of alone time with Gaige. The frenzy of nonstop activity tonight made it tough to even breathe. They’d been questioned—short and to the point. He’d described what he could see of the attackers and their weapons. Gaige had walked one officer through the alarm system override. It had all been necessary but didn’t do anything to ease the kicking in Alec’s gut.