I.N.E.T 5

by Brenda Cothern

  Gripping Randy’s cock and feeling the man against his as he thrust into his palm was almost enough to send Lita over the edge. Randy’s hot breath did just that and if his partner’s breath wouldn’t have done the trick, Randy stiffening and biting into his trapezoid would have. Hot wet heat covered his hand only a second before Lita arched up into the man above him and he felt their combined release soak in to his T-shirt covered abs.

  He smothered his groan against Randy’s neck and tried to ignore the twinge of pain caused by Randy fisting his hair. If he didn’t ignore the sensation, his cock would never go down. As much as that would normally be a good thing, Lita was able to recognize through his orgasmic high that this wasn’t a situation where staying hard for another round would be anything but good.

  Randy was a limp noodle and panted. Every breath he took was a combination of the homemade soap his mother used to make and the smell of his partner. He rested his forehead on Lita’s shoulder and fought the regrets his mind was broadcasting front and center in his brain. He wanted nothing more than to enjoy Lita’s callused grasp on both their still semi-hard cocks. If they were anywhere else but on a protection detail, Randy would push down into Lita’s slightly loose grip. He was more than sure he wasn’t the only one who was easily close to being ready for another round.

  They were on assignment, though. So, he lifted his hips back and slipped out of Lita’s hand before he lifted his head from his partner’s shoulder. He stood, still straddling Lita’s lap, and forced himself not to look down at Lita’s cock and the mess they’d made before he tucked himself away.

  He didn’t meet Lita’s gaze. Randy wasn’t embarrassed by what had transpired between them. No, he sure as hell wasn’t the slightest bit embarrassed. He just didn’t trust himself not to fall into his partner’s green-eyed gaze and tempt having the second round he wanted, but knew they couldn’t, shouldn’t, allow to happen.

  Lita didn’t stop Randy when the man retreated from their intimate connection. Instead, he just watched. His partner righted himself and started cleaning up the medical supply mess on the table. Lita put his damp cock back where it belonged, in his jeans, without turning his attention away from Randy. There wasn’t a hint of regret in the man’s body language, but Randy still hadn’t met his gaze. Lita didn’t know the Marine turned Marshal well enough to know if this was just the man’s normal behavior after a sexual encounter. He doubted it was, but would respect his partner’s obvious desire not to interact with him yet.

  Randy was throwing the medical trash in the kitchen trash bin when he saw Lita stand in his peripheral vision. He knew he should say something. However, everything he wanted to say was beyond inappropriate for the job they were supposed to be doing. Lita saved him from trying to think of something to say which didn’t involve blow jobs or wanting to be fucked.

  “I’ll take the bedroom.”

  Randy’s head shot up and he looked at Lita. There was no way in hell he was going to let his partner try to get some sleep in the cold bedroom. As far as he knew, Lita only grabbed a few hours of sleep on the couch in the cold living room. He’d at least caught some Z’s in the warm bedroom when they arrived that morning.

  “Take the couch,” Randy ordered and turned toward the basement door.

  He was down the stairs, flashlight in hand, before Lita had a chance to reply. Randy walked toward the back wall, moved two bins, and opened the third. He grabbed three military grade sleeping bags before he closed the bin. He didn’t bother to re-stack the bins he’d moved to their original location. He returned upstairs to find the common area of the house empty.

  Randy frowned. Lita could only be in the bathroom, which Randy highly doubted, or the bedroom. He stormed down the hall and found his partner lying on the bed. Lita wore his leather jacket and was curled under his mother’s dusty quilt. Randy’s frown didn’t disappear.

  “Get up, you idiot,” Randy growled and glared at Lita who only cracked an eye open to look at him.

  “I’m good,” Lita assured and closed his eye again.

  “Couch,” Randy ordered. “It’s warmer out there.”

  “And too damn small,” Lita pointed out without opening his eyes again.

  Randy paused in thought before replying. His partner had a point. Lita easily had five inches on his six foot two and if the couch felt too small for him than it had to feel tiny as hell to Lita. As it was, Lita’s feet would likely hang off the bed if he weren’t curled on his side. So, Randy silently conceded the point. He dropped two of the sleeping bags and unzipped the third.

  “At least put this between you and that cold ass mattress.”

  Lita opened his eyes to look at Randy. The man did have a point about the mattress. He was warm enough in his jacket, but even though his legs were covered by the quilt he could still feel the cold from the mattress seeping in through his jeans. So, without a word, Lita got out of the bed. He exchanged the quilt for the open sleeping bag Randy held. Once he spread it over the bed, Lita lay down again and held out his hand for the quilt.

  Randy dropped the quilt behind him and ignored Lita’s frown. He unzipped another sleeping bag and covered his partner.

  “The quilt would be fine,” Lita informed and tried not to grin at Randy mothering him.

  “Tough.” Randy smirked. “Night.”

  Randy picked up the last sleeping bag and quilt. He left the bedroom before Lita could say another word about the quilt. He walked down the hall and stopped in front of Burke’s practically closed door. Randy could feel the heat from the small heater seeping out into the hall. The room would be warm, but Randy knew from memory that without the door completely closed she would be feeling a cold draft from the hall.

  He toed opened the door. The room was just as dark as the bedroom where his partner was going to get some decent sleep. It wasn’t completely dark, though, since there was enough snow outside to provide some light. Burke was curled on her side as much as she could be with her hands suspended above her head and secured to the headboard.

  Lita had found an afghan in his footlocker and covered her. Still, Randy entered the room and spread the quilt over her. She didn’t budge, so Randy felt confident she was genuinely asleep. He left her door practically open when he returned to the hall. As much as he knew the room would be a lot warmer if he closed the door he wasn’t about to hamper their ability to hear if she tried anything.

  He stopped next to the couch and while unzipping the sleeping bag decided to keep his boots on. Randy laid half of the sleeping bag on the cushions of the couch before he lay down and covered himself with the other half. It didn’t take him long to fall asleep.

  ##~~##

  Something woke him. The sun had yet to rise and Randy had no idea how long he’d been asleep, but he was wide awake now. He listened and heard a board creek in the hall. Seamlessly, he rolled out of the sleeping bag to the floor at the same time he raised his weapon in the direction of the hall. The sound that originally woke him was likely made by Lita, but Randy wasn’t going to take a chance that Burke hadn’t figured out a way to get free. The damn woman had given them too many problems already for Randy to dismiss the possibility she may be attempting to escape from them again.

  “It’s just me,” Lita announced quietly.

  Lita heard the rustle of the neon sleeping bag more than he actually saw Randy move. He would bet his next paycheck his partner was pointing his gun at him. Randy’s sigh reached his ears. The only light came from the low flames of the propane heater and the brightness of the snow outside. It was enough for him to see Randy stand from the floor next to the couch.

  Randy lowered his gun and put it back in his holster before he looked at his watch. “It’s five thirty. What the hell are you doing up already?”

  Lita chuckled. “Early riser,” he informed as he walked to the kitchen and proceeded to make coffee.

  Randy grunted by way of reply and dragged a hand over his face. “You check on Burke?”

  “Y
eah. She’s still sleeping.”

  Randy didn’t bother to ask if Lita was sure the woman wasn’t faking. He was sure if Lita thought that could be the case he’d have said as much. Since they were both awake, Randy turned up the heater to take the chill out of the room before he headed to the bathroom. Business finished, Randy ducked into the bedroom to put on a clean set of clothes. Lita had coffee waiting for him by the time he returned to the living room.

  “Thanks.” Randy nodded at the cup of coffee. “Are you hungry? I can make breakfast,” he offered.

  Lita leaned against the counter and sipped his coffee. He could eat, but there was no reason for them to cook twice just to feed Burke when she awoke.

  “Might as well wait to cook until she is awake. No sense making a mess twice.”

  “Good point,” Randy agreed and walked over to the front window.

  The sun was starting to rise even though Randy really couldn’t see anything aside from snow. Everything outside the house was becoming easier to see even though the house was surrounded by trees. He knew from experience they wouldn’t actually see rays of sunlight until the sun was almost directly above them. Still, there was plenty of light to see that snow was still falling in big fluffy flakes. Randy sensed Lita coming to stand next to him, but didn’t turn to look at his partner.

  Lita looked out the window and repressed a groan. It was still snowing. Several inches covered the hood, halfway up the windshield, and the roof of the SUV. There must’ve been enough wind to cause a snowbank to form high enough to cover the bumper and lower half of the grill. At least, he hoped the snow was piled that high because of the wind and not actual snowfall.

  Granted, the weather was forecast for eighteen to twenty-four inches of snow, but Lita didn’t need a ruler to know there was more than two feet of snow in front of the SUV. Lita couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen snow and knew for sure he’d never seen this much. He was just about to comment when Randy said exactly what he’d been thinking.

  “Forecast fucked up.”

  Randy took a sip of his coffee as he eyed up the small porch. The porch was roughly two and a half feet off the ground and there was easily another few inches of snow above that. In fact, the snow was so high that the surface was smooth enough to give the illusion there wasn’t a porch let alone steps. The SUV looked like it was buried in the ground instead of snow.

  The amount of snow they’d already gotten and was still falling didn’t bother Randy at all. There was no way anyone was going to attack them and even Burke wasn’t stupid enough to attempt escape when there was over two feet of snow on the ground. Of course, it also meant they wouldn’t be going anywhere, either. However, Randy had faith some of it would melt before they had to leave in a week and a half to take Burke to D.C.

  “Looks like more than twenty-four inches,” Lita commented. “Wonder how much more we’ll get before it stops.”

  Randy glanced at Lita. “Only one way to find out.”

  Lita looked at Randy and raised a questioning brow. His partner didn’t elaborate before he turned and walked to the kitchen. Lita followed. He wasn’t really surprised when Randy opened the basement door.

  He hadn’t inspected the basement more than take a quick glance around from the base of the stairs. So, Lita followed his partner when Randy disappeared through the door. By the time Lita reached the bottom of the stairs, Randy had turned on a bare bulb light hanging from the ceiling. He’d only been able to make out a few box shaped shadows when he looked down into the basement the previous day. However, after receiving Hunt’s email, Lita was sure those boxes contained survival gear and/or food supplies, but Hunt’s Intel prepared him in no way for the sight which greeted him.

  “Holy shit,” Lita said before he could censor himself.

  Trunks, footlockers, bins, and crates appeared two and three deep and ceiling high on two walls. Floor to ceiling metal shelving units full of a shit ton of canned goods and even some MREs covered the remaining walls. Every assumption he’d made about preppers and the amount of supplies they would hoard flew right out the window. Lita’s original estimation of how long they could survive in the house based on what he was able to see before was way the hell off the mark.

  “Yeah,” Randy replied tonelessly and didn’t look at Lita as he made his way to one of the trunks.

  Randy was flooded with embarrassment. He never planned to return to any of the houses his crazy father set up in preparation for the end of the world. Randy tried to see all of the supplies through Lita’s eyes. He was sure his partner was not only cataloguing what all could be stored down here, but also the amount of money that would have been spent to stockpile this much shit. Thousands upon thousands had been spent on these supplies alone and this was just one of his father’s houses.

  He wasn’t sure when he became aware of the reality of how much his father had spent on his delusion the end of the world would occur in his lifetime happened. What he was sure of, though, was that his father spending all of his income on hoarding supplies explained why they seemed so poor when he was growing up. It explained why he didn’t get new clothes or shoes until they were more than too small. It explained why Christmas and birthday presents were only one and always related to something he could use to survive. Randy shoved the memories which threatened to surface down and forced himself to elaborate.

  “My dad wanted us to be prepared for the end of the world. He was obsessed it would happen before he died.” Lita didn’t say anything and Randy didn’t blame the guy. What could he say about his father’s craziness without being offensive, after all. “Don’t worry about thinking of something to say, I know how it sounds and I’m right there with you.”

  Lita had never been more thankful for Hunt’s Intel because God only knew what he might’ve said without being forewarned Randy’s father was a prepper. Still, he was sure it would have been along the lines Randy implied. It was clear the man was uncomfortable, if not outright embarrassed, over his father’s obsession and the proof of it by the ton of supplies which now surrounded them.

  “At least we won’t need to shovel out the SUV to get more food if we run out of what’s upstairs,” Lita said lightheartedly and smiled at Randy when the man looked over his shoulder in surprise.

  Randy snorted. “We wouldn’t need a store before we both hit fifty, if not older.”

  Randy returned Lita smile and was grateful his partner was taking everything in stride. He turned back to the trunks and removed one from a stack. After he placed it on the floor under the bare bulb shedding minimal light around the basement, he opened it. Inside were several radios. Some took batteries and some were hand-cranked. There were several handhelds and a few CBs along with the multitude of parts. All of it filled the trunk to the top. Everything was still in its packaging and waiting to be needed.

  He grabbed one of the hand-cranked radios before he realized he’d only selected it because his father had drilled into him the importance of not using batteries unless it was absolutely necessary. He mentally cursed and shook his head before dropping the radio box back into the trunk. He pulled out one of the ‘battery required’ radio boxes and handed it to Lita.

  “So, what are you making us for breakfast?” Lita asked after Randy closed the trunk and stood. He made sure his partner could hear the smile in his tone as he looked toward the shelving full of food. Randy’s incredulous look made Lita chuckle and he shrugged his shoulders.

  “Well, what are you in the mood for?”

  “Are you shitting me?”

  Lita had been expecting Randy to say anything aside from asking him what he wanted to eat as if they were sitting in an IHOP as opposed to looking at a shit ton of canned goods. He watched the man walk over to the shelves and start rooting around.

  “How about eggs, blueberry pancakes, and ham?”

  Randy looked over his shoulder. To say the look on Lita’s face was shocked would be an understatement. The man’s jaw was dropped open. Randy had the desi
re to walk over to him and use his finger tips to lift Lita’s chin to close his mouth. Instead, he just laughed and retrieved what he needed to make his suggested breakfast from the shelf. By the time he turned around, Lita’s mouth no longer hung open. Randy nodded toward the stairs and turned off the light before he followed his partner.

  Lita refilled their coffee cups and set Randy’s next to where he was setting down what he had gathered from the shelves. There were two vacuum sealed bags of powder. Lita guessed they were pancake mix and powdered eggs. He tried not to shudder at the thought of how the powdered eggs would likely taste. The other two packages were freeze-dried and labeled as ham and blueberries. He said nothing as he watched Randy retrieve a gallon of water from the pantry and bowls from the cabinet. His partner filled two of the bowls with water then dumped the package of blueberries in one and the ham in the other.

  “These should be ready in about an hour,” Randy informed him. He felt and ignored Lita watching his every move. Lita made him feel self-conscious even though Lita’s expression wasn’t judging him. Still, Randy didn’t look at him before he took several more sips of his coffee.

  It was more than clear to Lita Randy was uncomfortable. He was sure his partner expected him to say something. He didn’t and if he had it would have been along the lines of expressing how impressed he was with how the man knew all this shit. Hell, if Lita was handed a freeze-dried bag of anything he would’ve just tried to eat it. It never would’ve crossed his mind to rehydrate the food first.

  “Okay,” Lita replied and looked at his watch. “I’ll put batteries in this and we can see if we can’t get a weather update.”

  Lita squeezed behind him to get to the basement door. Randy wasn’t surprised Lita had noticed the batteries on the shelf inside the door. However, he was caught off guard when Lita paused and reached around him to set his coffee cup on the counter next to him. The slight brush of Lita’s arm along his and the man’s body against his back made visions of the previous night play before his eyes.