The Muscle

by Amy Lane

  There were a few still moments then, and Grace wondered if all his brain meth hamsters had died. He felt quiet in his head and quiet around him. It was so unusual, it was frightening.

  “Say something,” he demanded, and Hunter rubbed his cheek against Grace’s hair again, which was almost as good.

  “What did your parents say?”

  “They were glad I was okay,” Grace said. “I… I thought they’d at least come home, you know? But it was a bad time for my father.” He sighed. “It was always a bad time for my father to leave work. I think they were relieved when I moved into Josh’s house and they didn’t even have to pretend to care.”

  “I care,” Hunter told him gruffly. “I am glad you survived. I think it was awful that you were so sad you almost threw your life away.” He let out a little laugh. “And I maybe finally see how you and Josh work. You’re like Felix and Julia. You’re closer to being siblings than friends.”

  “Mm.” Grace let out a sigh. “Yeah. Josh. If we ever did the thing, we could end. I can’t have that happen.” And then he felt compelled to look up at Hunter, forced to offer what he was about to say like a sacrifice on the altar of his well-being. “I… I would maybe not do the thing with you again so we could keep doing this. I like this.”

  Hunter’s face—often so harshly defined when he was concentrating, softened. “It doesn’t have to be a choice, Dylan. That’s why you have lovers, if that’s the way you work. So you can have someone to do the thing with and someone to care about and do the comfort with.”

  Grace nodded. “Was that the way it was with you and”—oh, he couldn’t pretend he didn’t know Dead Boyfriend’s name—“Paulie?”

  Hunter gave a rusty chuckle. “That was rough,” he said. “But you have nothing to worry about with the memory of Paulie.”

  “Dead boyfriends can’t fuck up,” Grace said darkly, and while he was sure this didn’t reveal the best side of him, none of his sleeping hamsters were giving him any direction in this matter.

  “Paulie and I knew each other for six weeks,” Hunter said. “Which is, if you’re counting, about four weeks less than you and I have known each other, so go ahead and count away.”

  “So if I don’t, like, die tomorrow, I’m racking up boyfriend points,” Grace said, and Hunter almost crushed his bones with the next hug.

  “If you walked away—walked away—tomorrow, because we’re not saying die right here,” Hunter cautioned, “I would still be more emotionally invested in you, Grace. It was rough losing Paulie. He was a buddy and a coworker, and we had some sex and some good times. It was nice having a boyfriend I worked with. That didn’t happen often. And yeah, it hurt when he died. Part of that was that it was so horrific. I mean… blown up! Not a great way to go. But it’s been more than a year now, and I’ve been able to put some perspective on it.”

  “What’s that like?” Grace asked, feeling wretched. He still remembered his stupid laugh as the drug had slid into his veins. He’d been so grateful for Gabriel’s promises that this would make him feel like all was right with the world.

  “I didn’t love Paulie,” Hunter said, his voice sober. “I cared for him, yeah—but we were only having fun. That day… one minute we were fooling around, and the next our employer was ready to rabbit. The other two guards—Chancellor and Creighton—had disappeared. They were assholes anyway, and they’d been acting weird since we got a big delivery a few weeks before, and suddenly Pinter was like, ‘Gotta go, you guys drive,’ and the guard at the gate, who was sort of a sweet old retired police officer with a family, had been taken out. And when I saw the flames and felt the concussion and realized Paulie was dead, I… I was more angry about the death of the gate man. That wasn’t necessary. He could have been taken out without bloodshed. Me and Paulie, we knew the score, but not that guy. And it hurt, losing Paulie, but because I knew him. Not because I loved him. You and me, Grace—we’re different. Tonight, after you ran out, that was not fun. I’ve never had such a hard time keeping up with a briefing. I’ve never been distracted from my job. The job was always more important than whatever I had on my mind. Until I let you go tonight and had to hope you’d come back.”

  Grace half sat up. “Let me go?”

  “Yeah, dumbass. People pay me a lot of money to protect them. If I’d decided to lock you in Julia’s safe room with all her old clothes, believe me, you would have been trying on dresses right now, and probably looking fabulous.”

  Grace grunted. The safe room was the one place in the mansion he hadn’t been able to crack. Rooming with thieves and con men…. It figured they’d know how to keep him out.

  “She’s got those peignoir things,” he admitted, because he didn’t want to admit Hunter was right. “It’s like wearing a cloud.”

  “They’re very old-school,” Hunter agreed. “You’re conveniently ignoring the point.”

  Grace glared at the awakening hamsters in his head, and they all feigned sleep again. “You didn’t love Paulie,” he whispered. “Me—I’m more important to you?”

  He felt Hunter’s grunt of emotion deep in the center of his being. “Yeah, Dylan Li. You are. And it’s scary. It’s terrifying, because you don’t seem to have any regard for your own safety. Paulie was a professional at staying alive, and that didn’t work out so well for him. And you—you seem to be a professional at running out in the rain, and I’m afraid that won’t work so well for me, you understand?”

  “Then why did you come get me instead of Josh!” Once again, Grace fought to sit up, but this time, when Hunter fought to keep him right where he was, he collapsed, relieved—desperately relieved—to know that Hunter wasn’t going to let him go that easily.

  “Because you’re worth talking to about it. You’re worth the painful conversation. You’re worth the fight.”

  “But why?” Grace burst out. He didn’t wrestle to get up, but God, he needed an answer.

  “Why do I care about you? Jesus, Grace—you don’t ask for much, do you? ‘Hey, Hunter, track me down in the rain and then tell me how the heart works. Thank you so much, gotta go, bye!’”

  “I’m not leaving,” Grace muttered. “But I warn you, I got about a minute and a half before my insecurities kick into gear and I’m asking you where the ventilation vent is so I can plan a job.”

  “What would you steal?” Hunter asked, feathering fingers through his drying hair.

  Grace thought about it carefully. “This T-shirt. And these sweats maybe. And possibly your coffee maker, but maybe your adorable little silver sugar spoon from Spain.” He’d noticed it while doctoring his own coffee. It was a classic souvenir spoon, with the Spanish flag in enamel on the handle.

  Hunter grunted, but this time it was like he’d been hit, and he started frisking Grace as they lay there, all snuggly.

  “Hey—”

  Hunter’s hand closed over the thin, hard object at his hip bone. The sweats had rucked up, and the spoon was pretty easy to spot.

  “You can have the outfit,” Hunter murmured, extracting the spoon and setting it on the end table. “But if you take my sugar spoon, you’d better replace it with something else from a European country that will serve up sugar and won’t poison us. And that’s why I love you, Grace.”

  “Lo—”

  “Because you speak a rare and difficult language. I know why you took my secondary tactical pen. I know why you took my gum. I know why you keep stealing Julia’s earrings. Because you want a connection to us, and nobody taught you that a hug or a kiss or an ‘I love you’ can work just as well. Nobody taught you how to love, but you stole that knowledge out of the air. You are fully capable of giving your heart to people, baby. And I think you’ve already given yours to me.”

  Grace hummed. It wasn’t a happy sound. More one of resignation. “You quiet the hamsters in my head,” he admitted. “Don’t let me go.”

  Hunter’s arms tightened around his shoulders. “I won’t. I promise.”

  They stayed there listening
to the rain for a long time.

  GRACE WASN’T sure how long it had been—he admitted, he may have fallen asleep. But Hunter shook him gently, turned off the end table lamp, and led him to the bed.

  Grace peered around, his eyes easily adjusting in all the ambient light, and realized that nobody could actually look in the big window that all but wrapped around the entire apartment.

  “Do you wake up at ungodly in the morning?” he asked suspiciously as Hunter peeled off his preternaturally soft T-shirt.

  “No,” Hunter murmured, kissing the side of his neck. “The windows are treated glass. I’ve got a remote by the bed. They’re as good as blackout curtains.”

  Grace smiled, almost feeling like this was his own accomplishment. “You are a successful mercenary.”

  “Only when I don’t let my client die,” he said grimly before lowering his head to nibble on Grace’s earlobe.

  “You were totally betrayed,” Grace said on a swift intake of breath, and Hunter paused, one big, rough, capable hand on either side of Grace’s slender waist, his tongue tracing the shell of Grace’s ear.

  “Betrayed?” His puff of breath went right in, tickling.

  Grace put his hands on Hunter’s muscular chest to steady himself. And to grope. “The two guys who disappeared. They didn’t just disappear—they set the bomb. You know that, right?” Ah! Pointy little nipples! Why had nobody told him they were so wonderful?

  Hunter blinked, pulling away to meet his eyes and frown. “Well, I always assumed—”

  “They obviously stole whatever your employer got when they made the pickup and sold it or snorted it or whatever. Then they set the bomb, killed the gate guy, and took off.” Grace pinched one of those pointy little nipples, and the way Hunter shuddered went straight to his groin. They were going to touch each other now. Grace wasn’t sure he could take that, their touching, when they’d said such personal things.

  It was terrifying.

  But Hunter didn’t stop. He slow-blinked and then ran his lips down Grace’s collarbone. “Or their bones could be out in the middle of the desert right now,” he said, nipping right under Grace’s Adam’s apple.

  Grace tilted his head back, his stomach shivering from the touch of Hunter’s lips and from the feeling of being shirtless and bare, very aware that Hunter wanted to touch him all over after making everything between them personal and intimate. “There would have been other play”—Oh God!—“ers!” Hunter licked his nipple and then nibbled, and Grace’s hamsters all squealed and fainted, and all he could do was cling to Hunter’s shoulders and try to stay on his feet.

  Hunter released his nipple with a pop and stood up to brush their lips together. “Okay, fine. You’re right. Grace, I want you so bad right now, I’ve got chills. Can we—”

  Grace kissed him, which he hadn’t been planning to do, but Hunter’s lean mouth was so close in the dark, and Grace wanted to drink him in.

  Hunter fed on him instead. The crash was loud enough to rock Grace’s world.

  He groaned and leaped lightly, wrapped his legs around Hunter’s waist and clung with his considerable strength, and Hunter cupped his ass to keep him there. The kiss went on and on, Grace barely aware of Hunter stripping the black cotton comforter off the bed and laying him down, mouths still meshed, bodies still straining together.

  Hunter pulled away, and Grace almost wept, and then he heard the sound that came out of his throat as Hunter stripped off his own T-shirt and sweats, and clamped his hand over his own mouth.

  “Grace, arch your hips,” Hunter told him, and Grace did, allowing his sweats to be stripped away, but he kept his hands over his mouth, looking at Hunter in mute agony.

  Hunter lay over Grace’s body, covering him, their skin skating together deliciously, and Grace moaned again.

  Hunter sighed and moved Grace’s hands, taking Grace’s mouth again, rutting up against him as Grace flailed, not sure whether to stroke Hunter’s shoulders or arms or stop the noises he was making or cover his eyes so he could go somewhere else. This was too immediate, too personal, and Grace couldn’t contain it, couldn’t make it stop. God, what was going to happen when Hunter thrust inside him? It was impossible!

  “I can’t,” he mumbled. “Gag me. Bind me. Something. It’s too big. In my chest. It’s too big.”

  “Sh….” Hunter slowed down, taking his mouth gently, slowly, easing up the pressure of his hips, of his groin. “You don’t need a gag or ropes or handcuffs. You’re going to feel it, baby, and if you get loud, you get loud. My floors are soundproofed, and there’s nobody next door. It’s okay. Make all the noise you want.”

  “But—”

  Hunter kissed him again, rolling slightly so he could palm Grace’s cock, stroking hard and slow. He wasn’t teasing—Grace knew what the touch would be, where it would be. He sighed and melted, enjoying the predictability of the arousal, the build, the emotional intensity lost for a moment in the pressure and the squeeze. And hard, and again, and hard, and again, and with every touch, Hunter built trust, because he wasn’t going to stop, and Grace could be comfortable that Hunter would take care of him, and Grace would be okay.

  Grace started to pant, pulling his feet up, splaying his knees. “I want,” he whispered, shaking with it.

  “Then come, Dylan,” Hunter whispered back. “I’m going to fuck you, whether you come now or come later. You don’t lose anything. You won’t miss out. Come if your body feels good. I’m here.”

  And Grace couldn’t help it. He came apart, crying out shrilly, body arching, all synapses firing on full. Hunter shifted down as he erupted, catching his eruption in a hot mouth, and Grace moaned at the eroticism of it. When Hunter moved up, his mouth glazed, to kiss Grace again, Grace tasted himself in Hunter’s mouth and realized that, without a doubt, this man knew him. The things Grace so hated about himself, that made him so very sure that no man would ever love him, Hunter understood.

  Grace sucked on his tongue frantically, feeling the build of arousal once more.

  Hunter kept kissing, scooting them until Grace’s head was on the pillow and his knees were splayed again. With a reach and a heave, Hunter pulled lube and condoms out of the drawer, and Grace thought about that promise Hunter had made, of the two of them, bare skin to bare skin, and suddenly wanted that, wanted it more than words.

  But not now. His impulses were all nodding in agreement about this one. It wasn’t even about being virus-free—Josh had drilled safety into Grace’s thick head since they’d started talking about getting laid. It was about letting Hunter know he was serious, that he could do this, he could be a considerate lover who made sure what they were doing was safe and okay.

  Hunter slid his condom on and slicked himself up, and then carefully, as if Grace were a virgin, he fingered his opening.

  Grace’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he saw stars. His hands splayed out, and he practically came off the bed. “Oh God! Why? Why? Why is that so much better right now?”

  Hunter gave a gruff chuckle and slid another finger in. “’Cause you love me.”

  Seriously. This was intense. This was terrifying. Why would anybody do this to themselves—

  “Oh God!” Hunter spread his fingers again, and again, and the fairy kisses on Grace’s ass were suddenly very adult, very male stretching feelings, and Grace was launching into outer space.

  “God, Hunter—now! Now! I need you inside me now because—augh, yes!”

  He’d done this before. They’d done this before. Why was it…? Oh God. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t! He pushed against Hunter’s shoulders and chanted, “Please, please, please, more. More. Don’t stop. Oh God.” And his own voice was the biggest surprise of the whole thing.

  Hunter kept thrusting, finally seating himself, hard, and Grace lay there, arms and legs wrapped around Hunter so tight he probably couldn’t move, and hummed.

  A drop of sweat slid off Hunter’s forehead and hit him in the cheek.

  “Grace?” he said, a desp
erate pitch to his voice. “Baby?”

  “You need to fuck me,” Grace said, nodding. “Good. You do that. I’ll lie here and scream.”

  Hunter’s chuckle had the edge of hysteria to it. “Sounds like a plan. But first, baby, you’ve got to let go of me. I can’t move.”

  Oh. Oh shit. Grace was starting to shake—the fullness of his ass, the height of his arousal, and he couldn’t stop trembling. He closed his eyes and willed all his hamsters to move in the same direction. Slowly, he uncrossed his ankles and placed his feet on either side of Hunter’s thighs on the bed, then unwrapped his arms, digging his fingers into Hunter’s ginormous biceps instead.

  “You can go now?” he squeaked. “I think you should—oh yes. Oh yes. Oh fuck yes!”

  And Hunter began to fuck in earnest, his cock drilling into Grace’s ass, his hips rocking faster and faster.

  Grace was making sounds, loud sounds, without words. He begged, he pleaded, he needed, and Hunter kept fucking him, didn’t let him down. His head was thrown back, his teeth bared, the cords in his neck tight and hard, like this thing they were doing consumed every last fiber of Hunter Rutledge’s being. Grace couldn’t bear it. He had to close his eyes, had to hope that when orgasm pounded him, then receded from him, like a monster wave or an alien invasion, he could find himself when the come washed away.

  “Grace!” Hunter begged. “Grace, I need you to—”

  He hit Grace’s sweet spot, and Grace screamed. Loud and heedless and painful. His climax hit him like a freight train.

  Hunter groaned, burying his face against Grace’s neck while he rutted, his own climax taking him over, making their sex, for this moment, about him.