Dead Silent

by Pandora Pine

  “You know what happens to bad boys don’t you?” Ronan rasped against Ten’s ear before tugging on the lobe with his teeth. “They don’t get to come.”

  Ten moaned, whether in excitement or in frustration, Ronan couldn’t tell.

  “What did you do that was so bad, hmm?” Ronan increased the force of his thrusts. The only way he was going to keep himself from coming was to keep talking. “You flirt with a chipmunk on that island of yours? Maybe have a secret rendezvous with a raccoon?”

  “Ronan, please!” Tennyson panted, lifting his chest off the counter.

  Not wanting to let up the act, Ronan pressed Ten’s chest back down. “Oh no, princess. You started this. You’re the one who said you were my bad boy.” What Ronan wasn’t telling Ten was that this little scenario was hot as fuck. Not just doing his lover up against the counter but this whole act with Ten playing the role of bad boy. “If my hands weren’t full right now, I’d spank your ass red.”

  “Yes, Ronan. That’s what I deserve.” Ten whimpered.

  “That’s right you do.” Ronan hitched his hips harder. He wasn’t going to last much longer like this, talking or not. “You’d better figure out a way to come, Ten.”

  “Harder, Daddy!” Ten shouted.

  That did it. Ronan bellowed his name and felt his cock jerk deep inside Tennyson’s body. His left hand dug in deeper to the tender flesh of Tennyson’s hip while his right hand pressed harder against his back. He was coming so hard and so fast that he was afraid he was going pass out. “God, fuck, Ten!”

  In the back of his mind, Ronan thought he could hear Tennyson crying out in concert with him. Right now, he was running on instinct. His hips kept bucking against Ten while his cock kept jerking.

  When Ronan was finally spent, he rested his head against Ten’s back. “Holy fucking shit, Ten!” Ronan said, his voice sounded hoarse in his own ears.

  “You’re telling me.” Tennyson laughed.

  “Shit, Ten. Did you come? I mean… I just…” Ronan pulled his softening cock out of Tennyson’s ass and turned him around. “It was just pure instinct after you called me Daddy.”

  Tennyson laughed harder.

  “What’s so funny? And where the hell did Daddy come from anyway?”

  Ten managed to point to the cabinet door.

  “Oh,” Ronan grinned when he saw Tennyson’s sticky release all over the honey-colored wood. That answered that question. “Seriously though, why did you call me Daddy?” He wasn’t going to tell Ten how fucking turned on it made him until Tennyson told him how he knew that’s exactly what would happen when he said it.

  “Psychic, remember?” Ten grabbed Ronan’s hand and pulled his lover close. “I missed you so much, Ronan. I don’t ever want to be away from you like that again.” He wrapped his arms around Ronan like he never wanted to let him go.

  Ronan seconded that motion. The Daddy question forgotten for the moment, he held on to Tennyson just as tightly.

  7

  Tennyson

  Tennyson barely slept a wink all night and it wasn’t because Ronan was insatiable. It was because he was guilty. Over the course of his thirty years on this planet, Ten hadn’t had a lot of experience with lying, but over the last forty-eight hours, he’d made up for lost time, and then some.

  Today was going to be the day though. Right after Ronan woke up, Tennyson was going to spill his guts and tell him everything. It had been on the tip of his tongue to tell him last night just before they’d fallen asleep, but then Ten had this crazy idea that maybe his gift would be back working this morning since he and Ronan had made love last night.

  Nope. That hadn’t been the case. Not that Ten hadn’t been reaching out with his sixth sense from the moment his eyes had popped open at 1:54am until this very second. His gift was still gone. As days passed, Tennyson was beginning to give up hope that it was ever coming back.

  When Ronan had woken up, ready to greet the day and get to work on the boring and super easy Owens case, Ten had chickened out yet again. He’d gone with the flow, hurrying to get ready for work, racing through a shower while Ronan made them breakfast sandwiches in the kitchen. Who the hell was this new Bobby Flay version of his man anyway?

  It seemed they’d both changed while Tennyson had been finding himself in the woods of Maine, but only one of them had changed for the better.

  “Are you ready to try to channel Harold Owens?” Ronan asked, once they were settled at his desk back at the precinct with their iced coffees.

  Tennyson felt his stomach drop like he’d just gone down the tallest hill of a roller coaster. His perfectly prepared breakfast sandwich did a backflip in his stomach. “Yeah, let’s give it a try.” He made a big show of straightening his spine and closing his eyes. He slowly counted to one hundred and then, sighing heavily, opened his eyes. “He’s not here, Ronan. Like I said, it’s a long shot to contact someone from the other side when I don’t have a connection to them personally or don’t have an object that the spirit connects with.”

  “You need an object? I think I can help you there!” Ronan bounced out of his seat like a kangaroo and ran off before Ten could stop him.

  Jesus Christ, what the hell excuse was he going to use when Ronan came back with his object and Harold fucking Owens still wasn’t speaking to him from the great beyond. What the hell else could possibly go wrong?

  “Hey, Ten! Look who I found!” Captain Fitzgibbon’s way too chipper voice called from behind him.

  Pasting a fake smile on his face, Ten turned around to see the captain standing behind him with his arm around Greeley’s shoulder. “Hey guys!” Ten’s fake smile morphed into a genuine one. “It’s good to see you, Greeley. How’d you end up getting sprung from rehab?” From what Tennyson remembered, the teen still had about sixty days or so to go on his ninety-day stint at Hope by the Sea.

  “Court appearance for my adoption hearing. Can you believe this big lug is actually going to be my real dad?” Greeley looked up at Fitzgibbon like the captain hung the moon.

  “It’s pretty awesome, man.” What was also awesome was Greeley’s transformation. When Tennyson first met the teenager, he was strung out on meth and about twenty pounds underweight. Saying the teen was skin and bones was a gross understatement. His ratty clothes had hung off his gaunt frame and his face had looked skeletal. He’d survived his first encounter with the serial killer but the aftermath had been what had nearly killed him.

  “Here it is!” Ronan crowed triumphantly as he jogged back into the room. He was carrying a large document box sealed up with red evidence tape. Setting the box down on his desk he reached for scissors and opened them up before he started cutting the tape.

  “Uh, should he be using scissors by himself?” Greeley asked.

  Ronan snorted and looked up from the box. “He’s one of us already. You should be proud, cap. And yes, smarty pants, I’m fine using scissors by myself. It’s Ten who needs a note to use them.” Ronan rolled his eyes and pulled the top off the evidence box. He dove in, sorting through various tagged items, obviously looking for something specific. “Ah ha! Here it is.” He pulled out a manila envelope and handed it to Tennyson.

  “What’s this?” Tennyson flipped the envelope over, but couldn’t read the chicken-scratch handwriting on the evidence label.

  “Harold Owens’ wallet. From what I’ve read, all that mattered to him in life was money, so this should bring his soul to you like blood in the water to a shark.” Ronan sat down in his desk chair, crossing his arms over his chest. He wore an expectant look on his face.

  Ten sighed. He took his seat again and held the useless wallet in his useless hands. He knew nothing he tried was going to get Harold Owens’ spirit to talk to him. It was tiring faking his gift. He had no idea how charlatan psychics did this all day long. He needed a nap and it was barely 9am.

  Shutting his eyes, Tennyson started counting backward from one hundred, just like he’d done before. He couldn’t help wondering just how disappoi
nted on a scale of one to never wanting to speak to him again Ronan was going to be when Ten finally fessed up.

  “Jesus, Ten, you still awake? Did you get anything yet?”

  Ten’s dark eyes popped open. Ronan’s voice startled him and his heart started pounding. “Yes! And no!” He said a bit more harshly than he’d intended.

  “Okay, okay.” Ronan held both hands up. “Why don’t you try again?”

  “Why don’t you stop ordering me around. You’re not the boss of me!” Ten meant to yell that time.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Ronan asked quietly as he looked around the squad room.

  Ten knew his little tantrum was attracting attention. He didn’t give a fuck. Actually, at this point in time, he had exactly zero fucks left to give. “I lost my gift, Ronan.”

  “Oh, come on. Stop bullshiting me. If Harold Owens isn’t in the mood to chat, we’ll try again another time. Why don’t we have a look at the rest of the evidence in the box and see if you get any psychic impressions on that stuff?” Ronan turned from Ten to start digging through the box.

  “Are you fucking deaf, O’Mara? I said I lost my gift!” Tennyson could feel the heat in his face, saw the spittle fly out of his mouth as he raged at Ronan.

  Ronan looked up from the box. The look on his face was a mix of anger and thinking Tennyson had lost his mind. “Dial it back, Nostradamus, and explain what you’re saying. I can’t read your mind.”

  “Ten, why don’t we go into my office?” Fitzgibbon offered in a near-whisper.

  “It’s all out in the open now! I wished my gift away and now it’s gone. God or fucking fate or karma listened to me and took it away. There are no more voices from spirits, no more psychic urges, no more lottery numbers in my head. No more knowing when Ronan wants to fuck me or kiss me or break the fuck up with me. It’s gone! All gone. I’m not special anymore. I’m just ordinary.” Ten sucked in a harsh breath. “Now my friends will kick me out of our partnership at the Magick shop. You sure as hell won’t want a useless, broken psychic consulting on cases. And you,” Tennyson turned back to Ronan, who was standing stone-still with his mouth hanging open, “aren’t going to want to date a liar.” Tennyson sagged, his knees giving out. At this point, he didn’t care if anyone caught him or if he slammed face first into Ronan’s desk. To be honest, he welcomed the blackness rushing up to meet him.

  8

  Ronan

  In all of his life, Ronan had never seen anything like Tennyson’s performance back in the squad room. Hell, it could have won an EGOT: Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Award, all in one go. He probably could have thrown in a gold fucking medal for the gracefulness of his swoon at the end. Thankfully, Greeley, with his swiftness of youth, had been fast enough to catch the fainting man before he’d hit the squad room floor.

  Now, Ronan was speeding toward Salem with a still passed out Tennyson in his backseat. Jesus Christ on the cross, what the hell had happened to Tennyson in Maine?

  Whatever strange story Ten had been shouting back at the precinct had made absolutely no sense at all. If Ronan hadn’t spent the entire night with him last night, he would have wondered if Ten had been drunk or high on some kind of drug. Not that Tennyson was the type to do that, but on the other hand, he’d never seen Ten act like that in the six months they’d known each other.

  Before he’d started the forty-minute drive north, Ronan had sent Carson a vague text about Ten being sick and needing them to meet him at Carson and Truman’s house. He knew Truman or their sitter would be at the house with the triplets, but Carson and Cole at the very least needed to be there. He prayed that they would be able to explain what the hell was going on.

  Was it really possible for Ten to wish his gift away and have it work? Was it really that simple? Ronan had no idea if it was possible, but he hoped to Christ Ten’s friends did.

  “Ronan?” Ten asked groggily from the backseat.

  “Yeah.” Ronan asked testily. He had no idea which Tennyson had just woken up, his normal, lovable boyfriend or the Wicked Witch of the West.

  “What happened?” Ten was holding on to his head with both hands.

  “You lost your fucking mind in the precinct.” Ronan’s voice sounded bitchy in his own ears.

  “Shit, that was real?” Ten sounded confused.

  “Real as a heart attack.” Ronan regretted his harsh tone, but there was nothing to be done for it now.

  “Are you dropping me off at Carson’s house?” Ten’s voice sounded small and scared.

  “Let’s just get there and we’ll talk, okay?”

  Ten didn’t answer. He turned his head to stare out the window.

  Great... Now he was the bad guy. Could this fucking day get any worse?

  Ronan pulled the Mustang into an empty parking space in front of Truman’s house and hopped out of the car. He hurried around to the passenger side to open the door and pulled the front seat forward to help Tennyson out. Ten didn’t look at him.

  Truman was waiting for them at the top of the stairs. Sadie was in his arms and wasn’t barking in her usual exuberant way. “Enter at your own risk. All three babies are sick.”

  Apparently, this day could get worse, Ronan thought viciously.

  Carson and Cole were waiting inside the darkened house where the three infants were sleeping in their swings.

  “What happened?” Carson asked as he pulled Tennyson into his arms.

  “Why don’t you all tell me, since I’m obviously the one behind the eight-ball here.” Ronan said quietly. He felt like he’d aged ten years since this morning.

  Ten said something to Carson too softly for Ronan to overhear. Carson nodded.

  “On Ten’s last day in Maine, he was trying to meditate and the voices of local spirits were just too much for him. He had a bit of a tantrum and told them to go away. Then he said he wished his gift would go away too.”

  Ronan sucked in a deep breath. He wasn’t expecting that part of the story to actually be real. In all honesty, he thought that was just Tennyson being dramatic. He nodded briefly at Carson.

  “He cried himself to sleep and when he woke up, he couldn’t hear any voices. His gift was actually gone. So, he got the first ferry off the island the next day and came straight here to us, thinking there was something we could do to help.”

  “You didn’t come to me?” Ronan knew he sounded like a dick. There was nothing he could have done to bring Ten’s gift back, but he could have supported him. He could have been there and held his hand.

  Carson shot Ronan a warning look. “There was nothing Cole or I could do to bring his gift back. We told him to give it time and to tell you what was going on. I’m guessing he didn’t listen to that advice.”

  Ronan shook his head. “He stopped by the precinct yesterday, seemed interested in working on a case with me. Fitzgibbon made me promise to work on cases for a while that won’t get anyone shot or kidnapped. I picked a case that would be simple enough to solve. All Ten would have to do is ask the victim who killed him, his wife or his daughter, and he seemed to indicate it wouldn’t be a problem.” Ronan sighed, realizing now that Ten had lied to him yesterday. “Then I made him shrimp last night and we made love. No wonder you kept telling me you were a bad boy...” Ronan trailed off, feeling anger rising in him.

  Carson opened his mouth as if he were going to say something, but shut his mouth just as quickly.

  “What happened today?” Truman asked gently.

  “I asked Ten to try to talk to this murder victim and when he told me he would need an object that belonged to the victim in order to channel him, I ran to the evidence room to get the box of his things. I handed Ten his wallet and Ten said he couldn’t read him. Long story short, I pushed Ten to try again and he lost his mind. Totally melted down in the middle of the squad room.”

  “It wasn’t my finest moment,” Ten said quietly, pulling his head up from Carson’s shoulder and wiping his tears away.

  “Then he passed out. Thank God Greel
ey caught him, otherwise we would have ended up at the ER instead of driving here,” Ronan finished. “So it’s true, Ten’s powers are gone?” What the hell did that mean for Tennyson’s future?

  “I’m choosing to say they’re just absent,” Carson said.

  “Absent?” Ronan narrowed his eyes. “What, like a kid missing a day of school?” That didn’t sound so bad, but Ronan got the feeling Carson wasn’t taking this whole situation as seriously as Tennyson was.

  Bertha chirped in her swing, her tiny arms started to shift out of her swaddle.

  Ronan was out of his seat faster than anyone else, plucking the baby out of her swing and cuddling her against her chest. “It’s okay, honey. Uncle Ronan’s got you.”

  Truman and Carson exchanged a smile, as if Ronan was confirming something they both already knew about his paternal instincts.

  “I don’t know, Ronan. None of us have ever dealt with anything like this before.” Carson shrugged his shoulders with a helpless look on his face.

  “Who would know?” Ronan asked with a lilt in his voice. Thank Christ for the baby in his arms because he was ready to go nuclear. Someone had to know how to treat Tennyson. Was there a doctor for psychics?

  Cole snorted and started to laugh. “No, Ronan. There are no doctors for psychics.”

  “Oh, so this is funny now. Some kind of joke, Cole. What if Ten can never work again? Huh? Do you know he’s scared to death that you’re going to fire him from the Magick shop and kick him out of your partnership?” Ronan looked angrily between the brothers. “Not to mention him thinking that Fitzgibbon and I are going to kick him off the Owens case and the Boston Police force.”

  “Well, aren’t you?” Ten asked.

  Ronan shot him a wounded look. “Are you kidding me? Do you really think we’re that shallow? That I’m that shallow that I’d fire you or stop loving you because your gift is on the blink? Christ, Ten!” He took a deep breath and looked down at the tiny baby in his arms. Bertha was wide awake now and reaching up toward his face with her hand. “You tell him, Bertha. He sure as sugar won’t listen to me.”