by Hank Edwards
He flopped onto his back and lifted his legs, holding them up with his hands behind his knees. Mark moved around so his own ass hovered over Pearce's face, then bent to continue his rimming. He felt Pearce's big hands push his ass cheeks apart and then the warm, wet touch of his tongue against the sensitive surface of his asshole.
When Mark finally moved off of Pearce, both of them were achingly hard and pre-cum drooled along their cocks. Mark grabbed the lube from the nightstand drawer, slicked himself and Pearce's anus. He slid inside, the heat of Pearce's muscles making him groan before he leaned down for a deep kiss.
"Fuck me," Pearce said when Mark pulled back. "Hard and deep."
Mark started with long, deep strokes that built to a steady pounding rhythm. Pearce gasped, grunted, and groaned encouragement. Just when he felt he was close, Mark slowed down and, reluctantly, pulled out.
"My turn," he said, and lay on his back next to Pearce.
"You're a fucking tease," Pearce grumbled, but got to his feet and picked up the lube.
Pearce knelt between Mark's legs, and a moment later, the swollen head of his cock pushed past his entrance and spread him open. Mark stroked himself and closed his eyes, losing himself to the steadily building orgasm as Pearce drove into him.
"Oh, God," Mark gasped. "I'm close."
"I want it inside me," Pearce said. "Don't come yet."
He pulled out and stood on the bed to straddle Mark's hips. He lowered himself onto Mark and started to bounce. The hot, slick clutch of Pearce's ass quickly tumbled Mark over the edge, and he gasped before he emptied himself inside Pearce. With a long kiss, Pearce slid off him. He returned to his previous position between Mark's legs and entered him again. He moved with long, sure strokes, that quickly brought him to climax, and Mark put a hand on Pearce's chest, directly over his heart as he watched his expression tighten and, finally, soften as he finished.
Remaining inside of him a little longer, Pearce leaned down for a kiss, looked him in the eye, and said, "I love you."
Mark shuddered awake and lay on his back, heart pounding as he stared up at the ceiling. It was still dark, and the sheets beneath and over him were damp with sweat. Pearce lay on his side with his back to him, breathing deeply and unaware Mark had awakened.
With careful movements, Mark got out of bed. They'd been drawing only the sheer curtains over the windows at night, which allowed the lights of the city to filter in and show his way to the bathroom. He closed the door, switched on the light, and blinked against the glare. Sitting on the toilet, Mark put his face in his hands and walked himself through the calming techniques he'd learned in therapy. You're safe, you're well, and they cannot harm you. His breathing and heart rate slowed, and moments later, he shivered as the sweat dried on his skin.
He stood before the mirror and stared at his reflection. Even without his glasses, he could see the shadowed and puffy skin beneath his eyes. The sight reminded him of the two brothers from the community center, and he wondered if either of them were still awake, faces illuminated by the glow of an electronic device as they lost themselves in gaming. That thought led him back to the case, which took him to Pearce, his confession about packing the gun in his bag, and then the sweaty round of sex.
Mark splashed water on his face as his mind ticked away, jumping from subject to subject. He could recall only vague images from the nightmare that had awakened him, but one moment stood out very clearly. Even though he'd been back on the boat about to be sold as a sex slave, Mark had looked up from the bunk to find Morgan standing beside him. With a cold, humorless smile, Morgan had shown Mark the length of red silk scarf he held, and then, with fast movements, wrapped it around his throat and tightened it.
A shudder traveled through him at the memory, and Mark rubbed his arms in an effort to warm up. His thoughts were a tangled mess, and he was pretty sure he'd never be able to get back to sleep. Nothing like combining his two biggest fears to keep sleep at bay.
The soft knock on the door nearly made him scream, and his heart pounded hard as adrenaline swamped his system.
"Mark?" Pearce asked through the door in a quiet voice. "You okay?"
Mark took a breath and let it out before he opened the door, trying to look as relaxed as possible. "Hi. Yeah, I'm okay. Just had to pee. I hope I didn't wake you."
"The sheets are damp," Pearce said. "Another bad dream?"
Busted again. Mark figured it was easier to be honest and nodded. "Yeah." He told Pearce about his dream.
"Jesus," Pearce said, and pulled him into a hug.
Pearce's body was warm and strong, and Mark closed his eyes and let the feeling of safety and comfort wash over him. They stood that way for a long time before Pearce led him back to bed where he pulled Mark closer to his own side and away from the spot still damp with sweat.
"Go back to sleep," Pearce whispered, sliding an arm over his chest. "I've got you."
Mark took a deep breath and let it out. He squinted to see the clock on the nightstand and said through a yawn, "Happy Halloween."
Pearce pressed his semi-erection against Mark's ass. "Trick or treat."
They both chuckled, and surprisingly, Mark felt himself slipping toward sleep again. Before he went under, the faces of the men Morgan had murdered flashed through his mind and he noticed something different this time and wondered if Pearce had noticed it, too. Before he could say anything, however, he was out and slept soundly through the rest of the night.
27
Pearce watched Jake's every move. Since his conversation with Mark about Jake and the possibility he might be involved with Morgan, Pearce had been unable to focus on most anything except watching him and trying to catch him in the act of sabotaging the case.
"You all right?" Jake asked as he looked up and caught Pearce staring.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Pearce replied and forced himself to look back at the notes Jake had typed up from their interviews at the community center the day before. Everything appeared to be in order, and Pearce still had to type up his own notes. "You find anything?"
"Other than my lack of interest in being in the office on a Sunday, and Halloween to boot?" Jake asked. "No. Unless you took different notes than I did yesterday. Did you write down anything that would solve the case?"
Pearce managed a grin and shook his head. "Can't say that I did."
"You and Mark hit any bars last night?" Jake asked.
"No, we just went back to the hotel."
"Oh yeah?" Jake grinned and waggled his eyebrows.
Pearce smirked. "Oh yeah. Wanna hear the details?"
Jake waved his offer away. "No thanks. I don't want to start my Sunday off with being traumatized by my partner's elaborate gay sex-capades."
Pearce's phone buzzed, and he checked the display. It was a text from Izzie back in DC, responding to the message he'd sent her earlier that morning asking if she was going to the office: I'm in the office now, what do you need? How's the case?
"That Mark?" Jake asked.
"Um, yeah," Pearce said. "I'll be right back."
"No phone sex during overtime," Jake called after him as Pearce left the small conference room. "And if you go to the coffee shop I want a coffee."
Pearce sent Izzie a text as he waited for the elevator: Call you in a few minutes. Need a favor.
The street was empty of pedestrians and traffic that early on a Sunday morning, and Pearce placed the call as he walked to Motor City Grinders.
"Hey there," Izzie said, answering on the first ring.
Pearce pictured her sitting at her desk, most likely wearing jeans and a long-sleeved Henley with her shoulder-length dark hair pulled back into a ponytail.
"Hey, what takes you into the office on a Sunday?" Pearce asked.
"Oh, some new asshole to track down," Izzie replied. "You know how it is." She softened her voice to ask, "How's the case? How are you?"
Pearce gave her a quick overview and ended it with the news that Mark had arrived earlier in the wee
k.
"What?" Izzie practically shouted. "He drove there?"
"He did."
"Why?"
"He saw me on some news clip, said I looked pretty bad," Pearce replied.
"He lives with you," Izzie said. "He should know how bad you usually look."
"Nice."
"Figured you could use some cheering up," she said. "So how is he? How are the two of you?"
"He's doing really well, actually. I think it was an important step for him."
"But…?"
Pearce grunted. "But this is an intense investigation and it's a bit of a distraction."
"That's it?"
"No, that's not it, but it's enough."
"Got it. So, what's this favor you need?"
Pearce stopped outside the door of Motor City Grinders and looked up and down the sidewalk. "I need you to check some things out for me."
"Okay," she said, drawing the word out. "This is something you can't check from there? Does the Detroit office share one computer or something?"
"No, smartass, but I don't want someone here to know about it," Pearce said. "And I can't get away from him long enough to really do this. I need someone I trust to look into this for me."
"Well, I'm honored," Izzie said. "Tell me what you're looking for."
"I need to know if it's at all possible that this guy I'm partnered with worked with Robert Morgan at some point in the past. Either here in Detroit or at another field office."
"Are you kidding me?" Izzie asked, lowering her voice though Pearce was pretty sure no one else was in the office with her.
"Just need to check on it," Pearce replied.
"You think he's passing Morgan information on the case?" Izzie asked.
"That, or he's deliberately leading us off into dead ends."
A short silence followed, and in it, Pearce could feel Izzie's anger growing.
"Don't let that Italian heritage temper get the best of you," Pearce said.
"Yeah, yeah," she grumbled. "Okay, give me some specific information."
Pearce gave her Jake's name and the dates he could recall Morgan having worked in the Detroit office, though he knew she could find all that out in the system.
"Okay, I'll look this up now and send you a text, will that work?" Izzie asked.
"Perfect," Pearce replied. "The sooner the better."
"I'm on it right now. You be careful."
"Hey, it's me."
"Exactly."
Pearce chuckled as he hung up and, feeling better than he had in a couple of days, stepped inside Motor City Grinders. He didn't hear back from Izzie by the time the coffees were ready, so he milled around the coffee shop a few minutes until he finally gave up and headed back to the Bureau. As he rode the elevator up, his phone buzzed in his pocket, but he couldn't retrieve it because he had a coffee in each hand. When the doors opened, he stepped out and set the coffees on a nearby empty desk—silently cursing the lucky agent not sitting in the cube on a Sunday, and Halloween to boot—then pulled out his phone. It was from Mark, not Izzie, and it made him smile.
Trick or treat. I'm passing out all-day suckers, want one? He'd included a long line of eggplants.
Before Pearce could respond to Mark's text, a message from Izzie came in.
What you're wondering is possible. Both subjects were in the same place at the same time for approximately two years.
Pearce cursed and stood staring down the long hallway toward the office where they worked. He clenched his jaw as he considered the possibility that Jake was working with Morgan, trying to put it all together and find one piece of evidence he could take to Bata to prove his case. All he had was circumstantial evidence, nothing definitive. He thought about how comfortable Jake acted when they'd first gone around to the bars and wondered if that was because Jake had been out a lot, picking up men to take back to Morgan.
"There you are."
Jake's voice startled Pearce out of his contemplation, and his expression must have given away a bit of what he'd been thinking because Jake stopped a few feet away and frowned.
"You okay?" Jake asked.
"Yeah, of course," Pearce shot back. "Why?"
"Just have a really serious look on your face," Jake replied. "Like you're pissed off at the world."
"No, just Robert Morgan," Pearce said, watching Jake from the corner of his eye.
Jake nodded and walked up to stand before him. "Yeah, I understand. Every now and then it gets to me, too. Is that my coffee?"
"Yeah, this one is." Pearce handed it over and followed Jake back to the conference room. "How long have you been in this office again?"
"Three years in Detroit. I did a year out in Montana working side by side with ATF. Big Sky country is not a lie."
"So you were working here when Morgan was an agent in this office," Pearce said.
Jake looked up at him. "Yeah, I was. But I never worked with him."
Pearce nodded and looked down at a case file. He tried to focus on the notes entered by a Detroit police detective months ago as possibilities and connections ricocheted through his brain. His phone buzzed, and he checked it. Another text from Izzie.
Don't do anything rash or stupid. And, yes, I know who I'm texting. It doesn't mean anything for certain.
She knew him too well.
Before he could reply to Izzie, his phone buzzed again with a message from Mark.
I know you're busy, no need to respond. Had a good night with you. Love you.
Apparently, Mark knew him pretty well, too.
He tapped out a quick note to Mark: Definitely interested in the treat you're offering. Lots going on now. Talk later. Then he replied to Izzie with, Thanks for the info. Playing it cool. Really. Go home and pass out candy.
"Is that Mark?" Jake wondered. "Sending you pictures of his Halloween costume?"
Pearce couldn't hold back a grin. "Something like that."
Jake stood up, stretched, then clapped his hands. "Okay, so let's go through our notes from the interviews yesterday and see if we got anything new. Sound good?"
Pearce nodded and opened his notebook. Jake opened his own notebook but stayed on his feet to pace. They discussed each of the kids they'd interviewed and touched on a few points of interest in their statements and responses, but nothing of importance came to light.
"What about those two brothers?" Pearce asked, flipping pages in his notebook. "The Grady kids?"
"Yeah, Hunter's the youngest and Kent is the oldest," Jake said. "The one with the edge to him."
"Did you think it was weird that they came alone?" Pearce asked.
"Kent's old enough to act as his brother's guardian," Jake said. "I've seen it before."
"Yeah?" Pearce looked at Jake and wondered if this discussion of their interviews the day before was all just a waste of time. Was Jake just toying with him now? Enjoying the fact that he was wasting Pearce's time?
"Yeah. Both of them looked like they need to just unplug from gaming for a few months to get some semblance of normalcy, but other than that nothing stood out."
Pearce got up and approached the board to look at the pictures and details of each victim. "We're missing something, I know it."
"Yeah, the whereabouts of the killer whose name we already know," Jake said. "We've had his face and name out all over the news for days now and got nothing back."
"A lot of false leads," Pearce said.
"We're so desperate we're considering false leads a win?"
"Good point." Pearce continued to look at the board. Something had to be there to give them the thread they needed to pull it all apart. It was hanging there, just out of his sight, he could feel it, and it was making him crazy.
As was the possibility that his partner could be in on it.
"What are you thinking?" Jake asked.
That you could be fucking with me, Pearce thought, then said, "That we're missing something simple but important."
Jake nodded. "All right then. Let's go b
ack to the beginning."
Pearce sighed but nodded back. "Okay, let's do it."
Hours later, Pearce opened the hotel room door to find Mark sprawled out on the bed fast asleep. He wore white briefs and a White Stripes concert T-shirt. The sight of him lying there with a book beside him and his glasses askew, looking more relaxed and peaceful than he had in months, helped Pearce relax a bit after the tension of his day with Jake.
Pearce softly closed the door behind him, kicked off his shoes, shucked his jeans, and peeled off his shirt in the entryway. He stepped into the bathroom and eased the door shut behind him. Although finding Mark sleeping so peacefully had relaxed him somewhat, his suspicions and concerns about Jake rattled through his mind as he showered. He still hadn't figured out a good and true way of finding out for sure if Jake was working with Morgan. Other than catching him in the act, or catching Morgan and getting him to turn over Jake in some kind of plea deal, Pearce was stuck.
After the shower he dried off and, with a towel around his waist, stepped out of bathroom to find Mark sitting up in bed.
"Hey, I hope I didn't wake you," Pearce said.
Mark smiled and stretched his arms overhead. "It's okay. I'm glad you're back."
"Good. So what do you want to do tonight? Go through the hotel and knock on doors and shout 'Trick or Treat'?"
Mark chuckled. "That would be fun. But I was thinking we could go back to the Bone Yard for a bit if you wanted. Calvin's deejaying again tonight, and I'd like to see all the costumes."
"Think you're up for it?" Pearce asked as he sat on the edge of the bed near Mark.
"Yeah, I do. I'd like to try."
"All right, but the first nervous twitch I see, I'm getting you out of there."
Mark blinked his eyes rapidly. "My protector."
"It's a full-time job, with the trouble you get up to."
"Well, hopefully the pluses outweigh the minuses."
Pearce screwed up his face in overexaggerated contemplation. Mark smacked him on the chest and pinched his nipple hard.
"Ow!" Pearce exclaimed with a laugh. "Easy on the nipples."
