by Amy Lane
Jackson shifted again, losing another patch of hair, and tried to think of a reason not to comply. “You know, another couple of wears with these things and I’ll be almost completely waxed. It’s better than a kit.”
Ellery’s eyebrows hit his hairline. “Then, by all means, keep them on. There’s nothing I like more than a fully adult lover with the privates of a prepubescent boy.”
Jackson recoiled. “That’s horrible!”
“So is waxing by board shorts! If you don’t throw them away voluntarily, I’ll put them in the garbage disposal while you sleep!”
Jackson straightened up in indignation and then yelped. “Oh my God! Too late! I’m bald!”
“Just take them off!” Ellery commanded, and Jackson stood up and did just that.
They both went completely still as they realized he was naked in the backyard. Jackson felt Ellery’s eyes on him, heated, wanting, as the air grew thick around them. The flush started at his toes, and he took his discarded towel and wrapped it around his waist.
“Don’t say it,” he muttered.
“You still have a little hair left,” Ellery observed in a quiet voice.
Jackson’s flush grew worse. “You, uh, are welcome to do a detailed inspection anytime,” he mumbled, and then sat down in front of his salad again. The towel around his waist didn’t feel like any sort of barrier to the imagined intimacy of having Ellery’s hands on his skin.
“I’m going to take you up on that,” Ellery said calmly, but what Jackson heard was, “I’m going to take you apart.”
“After we look at the video from the apartment,” he mumbled, feeling virtuous.
“Maybe.”
Ellery sounded incredibly smug, and Jackson’s cock grew thick and fat against his thigh. He shifted in his seat again and caught Ellery’s eyes.
“Feeling… ambitious, Counselor?”
They’d made love a lot as they’d recovered, and Jackson kept waiting for the sex to pall. No bad guys chasing them? No pressing need to be glad they were alive? But it had simply gotten comfortable—not routine, not boring, but comfortable.
Jackson was comfortable knowing Ellery wanted him.
It was such an enormous thing that they’d discovered during the last five months of peace—Ellery wanted him. Ellery wanted him in their bed every night, whether they had sex or not. And now, as they both became acutely aware that Jackson was naked under his towel, Ellery wanted Jackson in a way both carnal and intimate.
Jackson took a bite of salad in self-defense.
Comfortable did not mean you took that sort of thing for granted. It didn’t mean you didn’t get nervous.
It meant that when they came together, the stakes were even higher.
Ellery didn’t want Jackson the sex god who had three lovers a week just to keep the monsters at bay.
Ellery wanted Jackson the vulnerable man who was beset by monsters almost nightly.
And that was the scariest person to be.
“Always,” Ellery said, taking a sip of wine. He smiled and licked his bottom lip. “Feeling a bit drafty under that towel?”
Jackson swallowed, and the slight crispness of the breeze off the river was suddenly unbearably suggestive. “No. Not at all. Sweating like a pig.”
Ellery’s low chuckle told him exactly what that meant. “You lie for shit, Detective.”
Jackson squirmed, and somehow the intimacy of Ellery knowing he was lying was even sexier than being naked under the towel. He took another bite of salad and chewed boldly.
“I’m supposed to be on the side of truth,” he bantered. He was fully aroused now, the skin of his stomach tingling with anticipation.
“You want the truth?” Ellery asked mildly.
“I can handle it.” Not really. In spite of the famous movie line, Jackson had been having trouble handling this truth since the two of them had gotten together last August—when Jackson had pretty much bullied Ellery into taking Kaden’s defense case.
“No, you can’t.” Ellery took a bite of his own salad and swallowed. “Not tonight.” He met Jackson’s eyes with a thoughtful gaze. “The truth is difficult. I want something easy for you right now.”
Jackson frowned, confused. “Wait, what about ‘Bare your soul, Jackson,’ or ‘Tell me all your troubles, Jackson’? What happened to that?”
“Jackson?” Ellery purred.
“Yes?”
“Are you hard under that towel?”
Jackson fought against banging his head against the table. “Oh God, I really am.”
“Because as soon as you’re done with your dinner, I’m going to take you inside and ride that thing like a show pony. Do you have a problem with that?”
Jackson shoved the last bite of salad into his mouth and shook his head. “Nu-nuh!” He chewed and swallowed—twice—and washed everything down with a gulp of water, then stood and turned for the sliding glass door to the kitchen.
Ellery caught him before he could open it, pressing his body up against the glass and mouthing the back of his neck. “Maybe I’ll just ride you here,” he whispered, running his hands along Jackson’s backside, his thighs, outlined under the towel.
“People can see,” Jackson goaded. Ellery thrust up against him, neither of them naked, both of them exposed.
“Only if they look,” he murmured.
But Jackson had an ace up his, erm, sleeve. “You’re loud, Ellery,” he almost sang. “Really loud. Especially when I’m inside you and you’re losing your mind.”
Ellery rutted up against his backside again, and Jackson shuddered. It wasn’t always Jackson inside Ellery. Sometimes it was Ellery inside Jackson, and Jackson had learned to love that, crave it, especially when his head was a mess and having Ellery force him to be in the present, in their bed together, was exactly what he needed.
“You’re louder,” Ellery whispered. “Go inside and make yourself ready. I want to hear you scream.”
Jackson almost melted against the door. Oh yes. This was one of those times. This was exactly what Jackson needed—to be owned. To be taken. To be possessed and cared for.
But he never went that way easy. “Make myself ready can mean a lot of things,” he taunted. “I grease one thing, it means that. I grease the other—”
“It means I fuck you raw,” Ellery growled, and even though he wouldn’t do it, even though Ellery was meticulous about never taking more than Jackson could give, the threat of it, that he would want Jackson that much, was enough to make Jackson’s knees go weak.
“You can try.” He pushed back enough to slide the door open and then ran inside, clutching his towel around his waist as he ran. When he got to their bedroom—bed neatly made up—he pulled down the comforter, dropped his towel and his T-shirt, and scrambled underneath.
Ellery was outside, probably moving the dishes to the sink, and the thought of what Jackson was supposed to do in here sent pulses of desire down his spine, straight to his balls.
He took his equipment in hand for a moment, teasing it with light touches before he rolled to the nightstand for lubricant.
He paused in the act of dumping some on his fingers.
What Ellery was asking him to do would render him totally vulnerable. He’d done it before for Ellery—no regrets—but as a spasm of want washed over him, making him helpless, he remembered for the umpteenth time how hard he’d worked to be strong enough to face his monsters on his own.
Then he purposefully reminded himself that he didn’t have to do that anymore. Very deliberately he rolled to his side and teased his crease, the slick gathering in his entrance as his overheated body shuddered. Tease tease tease—thrust!
One finger inside was really all he needed to prep himself, but he shuddered again because it felt good, because he was naked and finger-fucking himself and the rawness of the moment was annihilating him at the knees.
He heard Ellery’s step in the bedroom and a choked sound of want.
“I need to see,” Ellery demanded
hoarsely. Jackson looked at him, eyes hooded, fingers working.
“Come look.”
Ellery’s linen rich-guy’s summer sweats fluttered to the ground, and Jackson realized he hadn’t had any underwear on while they’d been outside.
The thought made him groan.
“Don’t you dare come,” Ellery snarled. He ripped away the comforter, and Jackson tilted back his head, brazen and exposed as Ellery rolled him to his stomach and pulled his hand away.
Jackson had no more pride. He pulled his knees up to his chest and held himself still, shuddering, while Ellery positioned himself.
For a moment, the game disappeared. “You’re ready, right?” Ellery asked, totally serious. All Jackson had to do—all he ever had to do—was say no.
“Please,” he begged, arching his back, making his ass available.
Ellery thrust in, and they both cried out, because God, this was glorious. “Good?” Ellery demanded hoarsely.
“Don’t stop now, Counselor, you’ve almost got me convinced.”
“Ha!” Ellery slammed into him, hard, fast, powerfully, and Jackson thrust his ass back, amping up the intensity, throwing them both from zero to brutal climax in a couple of strokes.
For a few breathless moments, there was the sound of their flesh slapping together, Ellery’s grunts as he fucked, Jackson’s low moans as arousal twisted a hard knot of want in his stomach.
Then Ellery did the unthinkable.
He slowed it all down.
Jackson bit the palm of his hand in an effort not to beg.
“What?” Ellery baited, sliding out at a snail’s pace. “There was something you wanted?”
Augh! The bell of his cock was right there! At Jackson’s stretching point! Jackson’s arms shook underneath him and sweat broke out along his spine.
“Not a thing,” he groaned. “All good here!”
“God, you’re stubborn.” Ellery paused interminably, Jackson as stretched as he could possibly get, and then rocked forward. Slowly. So slowly. Stopping an inch or two before the very bottom.
Staying there.
A whine escaped Jackson’s throat, and sweat stung his eyes. His arms gave and he was mashed facedown against the sheets, helpless, his plundered ass in the air. “About what?” he almost wept.
Ellery started to pull out again, slow. Slow. Slow. The thought flashed through Jackson’s brain that Ellery needed his surrender as much as Jackson needed Ellery’s when it was his turn, but not… yet….
Ellery paused again at his widest place, and Jackson’s entire body began to shake uncontrollably.
“Comfy?” he gasped.
“No,” Ellery admitted. “I want to fuck you so hard my cock blurs. What’s it gonna take?”
“Go!” Jackson shouted, and oh God, Ellery gave it to him hard and fast and without mercy, huge, swollen in Jackson’s ass, his fingers gripping Jackson’s hips hard enough to leave bruises. Oh Jesus, oh God, oh hell. “Oh fuck, I’m gonna come!” Jackson screamed it, not caring who heard, not caring what they thought, because his entire body was rocketing toward white light, toward orgasm, toward peace.
Ellery beat him to it, giving a surprised little “Oh?” as he came. Jackson could feel him—he shot hard, pouring everything he had into Jackson’s body. It felt hot, boiling, searing, steaming its way through Jackson, branding him as irrevocably on the inside as he was on the outside.
As Ellery collapsed across his back and Jackson’s legs went out from underneath him, he had a moment to admit that he was happy that way, Ellery permeating his flesh, his soul, his heart.
They took a moment, panting, their hearts thundering in their ears.
“Am I squashing you?” Ellery asked finally.
“Yes. Don’t care. Squash away.”
Ellery’s breath brushed Jackson’s ear when he chuckled. “So, swim or shower to wash off?”
“Shower. I feel round two coming on.”
“You on top?” Ellery sounded very excited about this, and Jackson gave a lazy smile.
“’Course.”
“Don’t say of course when my dick is still in your ass!” He got indignant and pushed up on Jackson’s shoulders and fell out in a gush. Jackson guffawed, rolling over and pinning Ellery to the bed.
“Not anymore,” he teased and then kissed Ellery, hard, openly carnal, enjoying the way Ellery went boneless and pliant underneath him. Ellery could top when he felt like Jackson needed it, but sometimes Jackson’s persnickety little control freak really just loved to turn the reins over to somebody else.
Ellery moaned and wrapped his legs around Jackson’s hips, grinding their cocks together. Jackson began to swell again, but they had time. He immersed himself in the kiss, learning Ellery’s taste and texture again, because every day was brand-new.
“Mmm….” Again and again, a slow build grew, with time off for Jackson to nuzzle Ellery’s neck, nibble on his ear, lick his lightly defined chest.
He wiggled a little so he could take Ellery’s nipple into his mouth, and Ellery arched up into his body, gasping as Jackson teased with his teeth.
“Yeah?” Ellery asked, as they rocked against each other, steering toward round two in earnest.
“Oh ye—shit, who’s that?”
They both heard it. Jackson’s phone—which he’d left on the charger when he’d gone swimming—was suddenly buzzing urgently. It wasn’t Jade’s ringtone or her brother’s or any of the other people he’d programmed special ringtones, and he grimaced unhappily at Ellery, who was blinking hard, trying to think. Probably, like Jackson, all his blood was bringing oxygen to an entirely different head.
“Henry?” Ellery mumbled as Jackson rolled over to grab his phone. “No, ’cause he would have called me or Galen—”
“Rivers,” Jackson said crisply, and the voice on the other end was panicky and tearful—and a little familiar.
“Jackson, this is Reg. You remember me? I just didn’t want to call the cops because last time we called the cops, Bobby went to jail. But there’s a guy here, and Bobby’s sitting on him, and… could you help? ’Cause you’re helping Henry, and this is about Henry, and the guy just broke in and started hitting, and he told me to change what I’d said about the video. I don’t know anything about the video but he said I had to change my words and—”
“Reg, calm down,” Jackson soothed. He was already standing up and scrambling for a clean pair of underwear and cargo shorts. He put them on one-handed as he talked. “What’s your address? Tell me and I’ll be there as soon as possible!”
“You sure? ’Cause I… I can call Galen, but Bobby’s got the guy tied up and is sitting on him, and I don’t know what Galen would do, and—”
“We’ll be there,” Jackson said firmly. “But call John anyway and tell him we’re coming. Now, where are you?”
Reg gave him an address in Carmichael, maybe twenty minutes away at this time of night, and Jackson signed off, grabbing the T-shirt he’d worn at dinner off the floor.
When he looked around for Ellery, he was surprised to find him pulling on his clothes from that afternoon—and not the slinky linen things from that evening.
“You’re coming with me?” he said, not sure he liked this idea.
“Yes. You expected me not to?”
“Well, just, there’s a porn star sitting on a housebreaker in Carmichael, and I’m not sure what you’ll do there.”
“Obviously I’ll keep the porn star out of jail if we need to call the police,” Ellery said, as though that was a foregone conclusion. “I’ll just add it to Galen’s bill. His deposit on this case was very generous.”
“Okay….” Jackson bit his lip. “I’m not sure if I like you coming out to calls with me,” he said, but he was striding through the house like he knew there was no choice. He hit the living room to grab his keys from the bowl on the table and was confronted by two very indignant crossed blue eyes.
“Aw, buddy,” he said, stroking Billy Bob’s whiskers back. “I’m sorr
y. I know. You were expecting the noise to die down so you could go in for the snuggle. We’ll be back soon, I promise.”
Billy Bob bit his thumb, then licked it and told him it wasn’t a problem. Jackson took the moment to look at Ellery.
“Did you hear me?” he asked.
Ellery pretended to be searching the cosmos for answers. “Well yes, but I didn’t really think you expected me to respond.”
Jackson chuffed out a breath and shifted his feet. “You… I mean, last time we went out together, it….” He swallowed, not wanting to say it, too superstitious even to think it.
Ellery managed to look bored. “Remember the first time I saw you shot?”
Jackson shifted from foot to foot again. “My kitchen?”
Ellery nodded, as though extravagantly praising an unruly child. “Yes. Very good. And the second time you ended up in the hospital on my watch—remember that?”
Jackson bit his lip. “It was a bunch of things, really….” A killing fever, stab wounds, exhaustion, an infection….
“Mm. Then there was the planter that fell on your head.”
“That was not my fault.”
“Mm. And then I was shot. And then you were scalpeled—in the hospital.” Ellery glared at him.
“I was saving your life!” Jackson protested.
“I didn’t say you weren’t! But what about those stitches across your knuckles? Nobody will tell me how you got those!”
Jackson swallowed, not sure how this argument had blown up over his concern. “Those were… necessary,” he said with dignity. Even though they hadn’t been.
Ellery moved toe to toe with him and took his hand, the left one, the one he’d injured throwing a punch to a mirror, because seeing Ellery shot, praying for his life, was the worst moment of his life.
Gently, he pulled Jackson’s knuckles to his lips. “Let’s go help our client, Jackson,” he said throatily. “We can get hurt anywhere we go—you in particular have a talent for it. But us, together, is like the business. It only works if it’s us, together. Okay?”
Jackson had so much more to say. So much more to argue. But Reg—Reg who seemed to need protection, Reg who didn’t like pain—had been in tears because some random stranger had broken into his house and told him to change his words.
