by TA Moore
“That’ll take a whole lot of ugly,” Morgan said.
“People like you don’t change,” Lo said. He rammed his shoulder into Morgan’s on the way past. “You don’t deserve the chance to try.”
He stalked away. Morgan turned to watch him go and then snorted to himself.
“Yeah, Lo, tell me something I don’t know,” he muttered.
He was a gutter rat. He always had been. His own parents had tossed him out like trash, and a dozen different foster families over the years had agreed with that judgment. And if Morgan were ever in danger of forgetting who he was, the universe was always happy to rub his nose right back in.
And so fucking what?
Call Morgan what you like, but he did what he wanted, when he wanted, with whomever he wanted. Meanwhile someone like Lo pissed his life away so they’d be somebody, and what did it get him? Flat feet and a wife who probably fucked the gardener just to feel alive.
Better to be a rat who knew the score than an idiot, and as far as Morgan could tell, those were the only two options.
He shoved open the heavy doors and stepped back out into the world. After three days in the air-conditioned chill of the police station, the midafternoon heat pushed down on him like a hand. He exhaled a lungful of stale air and closed his eyes for a second as he tilted his face up to the sun. The tension in his shoulders loosened, and the hot spike of frustrated anger that had screwed deeper into his brain with each minute he spent inside faded.
A bit.
“Our plane leaves in three hours. So if you want to bring anything with you, you’ll need to get it now.”
Morgan’s jaw tightened. That was short-lived. He rolled his head from one side to the other to crack his neck. Then he looked over at the rangy man with the salt-and-pepper beard who’d braced himself with one shoulder against a scrawny tree. Even if they hadn’t already talked, Morgan would have known what he was. It took more than faded jeans and a tight shirt to hide the stink of cop.
“Worried I’m going to skip town?”
Macintosh “Call me Mac” lifted his hand to lazily wave away a bug from his face. He stared at Morgan with cold gray eyes that seemed to know exactly what was in front of him.
“I figure you’ve thought about it,” he said. “Don’t. Boyd did you a good turn.”
“Didn’t ask him for anything.”
“No, you wouldn’t have to,” Mac said. He pushed himself off the tree and stepped forward. “I want to make something clear here before we get any further. If I bring you to my town and you hurt any of my people, you’ll wish Judge Gallen had slammed your ass in jail. Understand?”
“I don’t know what it is, Mac,” Morgan said as he walked across the grass. “But I don’t think you trust me.”
“I talked to Bennett. Lo. You’ve bounced in and out of trouble your whole life. Fights. Joyriding. Prostitution—”
Morgan spat on the ground. “Yeah, money only came up after I pulled the knife on him and the cops turned up.”
“Doesn’t sound fair,” Mac acknowledged. “Nothing to do about it now, though. I can’t go back and change it. What I can do is protect people who’ve gone through enough shit of their own, because we both know two things. What you are, and that you’re not Sammy Calloway.”
“DNA matches,” Morgan pointed out as he shoved his hands into his pockets. He didn’t know why; finally someone agreed with him. Maybe he was just sick of people who read a couple of files and thought they knew him, even if they were right. Or it was a knee-jerk reaction to be difficult.
“I know. Not the why or how of it, not yet, but I know,” Mac said. He scratched his jaw, fingers buried in the short beard that was cropped close to his face. He looked grim. “I figure there’s a seventy-five percent chance this will turn out to be a wild goose chase. A careless tech, a contaminated DNA sample, a payoff—”
Morgan snorted as he rocked back onto his heels. “In this fantasy of yours, I’m rich, huh?”
Mac ignored him. “But maybe I yank on this line, and somewhere a pervert yelps as the hook bites home. So change the habit of a lifetime, Morgan. Lie low, stay out of trouble, and don’t fuck anyone over. Do we understand each other?”
“Well enough,” Morgan said. He plucked his T-shirt away from his chest with one hand. It felt sticky with three days’ worth of sweat and anger. “I’ll need to change and get some clothes. How long do you expect this to take?”
Mac stared at him for a second and then laughed harshly under his breath as he started toward the parking lot behind the station.
“Fifteen years, so far,” he said. “And counting. So pack spare socks.”
EIGHT HOURS later Morgan took one look at Mac’s spare room, with the fold-out couch and the empty shelves that lined the walls, and snorted.
“Fuck off,” he said. “I don’t sleep with cops.”
Mac glared at him. “And I don’t sleep with ex-cons. So we’re even. It’s just until I sort something else out.”
“Yeah? Well, sort it out tonight,” Morgan snapped. “Because I’m not staying here.”
“It’s here,” Mac said. “Or a bed in the cells. Your choice.”
And it should have been an easy one. The mattress was thin, but the pillows were fluffy, and the quilt was clean. Morgan had slept worse places. That was the problem. His spine itched from the nape of his neck to the small of his back at being in the room. The window was small and looked like it was painted shut, so no easy exit there. All Mac had to do was close the door, turn the lock, and Morgan would be back in jail—just a slightly nicer one.
Except there’d be no oversight. No halfhearted welfare check from the bored cop on duty. Just him, a locked door, and some old dick on the other side of it with the key.
Fuck that. He’d rather be back in jail.
“Cells, then,” he said flatly. “And good luck with keeping that quiet.”
Mac scowled at him. “You’re picky for a man with no options,” he said. “Did you forget I saw what your place looked like? One room with a shit lock and an ice chest in the corner. I won’t even be here most of the time. It’s this thing called a job.”
“Not fucking staying here,” Morgan repeated. He hitched his carryall up onto his shoulder and shot Mac a flat, determined look. “So sort something out.”
A muscle jumped in Mac’s cheek. He rubbed it with his thumb and breathed out through clenched teeth.
“There’s no room’s available in the Motel 6,” he said. “And the local B and Bs are booked up too. What do you want me to do?”
“Move to a town that’s got more than one hotel?” Morgan said. He felt a flicker of satisfaction when the muscle in Mac’s cheek jerked again under the tanned skin. “I don’t care where I sleep. As long as it’s not here.”
There was a taut pause. To his credit, Mac didn’t throw a punch, although Morgan was pretty sure that was one of the options. He liked his odds. The old guy looked like he had some muscle under that T-shirt, but Morgan had twenty years and half a foot on him.
“I’ll see if I can call in a chit and get someone to put you up until tomorrow,” Mac said. “But I’ll have a patrol car outside to make sure you stay put. Not optional.”
Morgan just smirked. He’d dodged enough cops on stakeouts over the years that he didn’t think that would slow him down if he did decide to run. It wasn’t like it was in films, with eagle-eyed cops alert for every unidentified fart. Unless someone had screwed up enough to get the feds involved, most stakeouts were just some bored cop in a hot car more worried about his next toilet break than he was about Morgan.
“Whatever helps you sleep until your 1:00 a.m. piss,” he said.
Mac snorted, pulled his phone out of his pocket, and stalked out into the hall to find a spare room. Left to himself, finally, Morgan dropped his carryall onto the floor and sat down on the edge of the bare mattress. The springs creaked under his weight, and the smell of Febreze squeezed out of the fabric.
It wasn’t do
ing him any favors being a dick. He knew that. This get-out-of-jail card was going to expire soon, and he needed Mac to drop his guard by then. Morgan didn’t intend to face the music for Lo’s nose, and he had nothing in Huntington. None of that meant Morgan was going to stop his jabs at Mac, whether it was a good idea or not.
His back had been up since this whole thing started, and then they got on the plane, and Morgan realized that Boyd wasn’t there. It was stupid, but it felt like he and Boyd were in the same boat somehow, both of them jerked around by some idiot tech’s forensic fail.
It was stupid to depend on anyone—Morgan had learned that lesson years ago—but he’d still feel better with Boyd there. If nothing else, the guy had the worst poker face Morgan had ever seen. Every emotion flashed across it like subtitles. So if Mac did intend to frame Morgan for something here, he’d at least get some warning.
And maybe Boyd was the hottest nerd Morgan had ever met, with his pretty whiskey eyes and sharp cheekbones. Not Morgan’s usual type, although to be fair, his “type” was mostly “there” and “up for it,” but never let it be said that he wouldn’t try something new. Besides, Boyd was fifteen grand in the hole already. The least Morgan could do was show the guy a little gratitude.
Sure, Morgan snorted at himself in disgust, I wanna fuck him for charity.
He leaned his elbows on his knees for a moment and picked at his nails as he listened to Mac argue with some B and B owner about a late-booked room. It didn’t sound like he was going to win.
Morgan pushed himself off the bed and went to lean against the door instead. He waited for Mac to growl and hang up, or be hung up on, in disgust.
“What about Boyd?” he said.
Mac flashed him a hard look. “What about him?”
“He got a couch?”
“No.” He turned back to his phone as he flipped through the contacts, thumb hovering over one or the other as he scowled.
“A floor?”
Mac looked up. “Not for you.”
“Him or the floor?”
“Both.”
“What? He’s not into guys?”
“He’s not into bad guys.”
Morgan remembered the flicker of awareness in Boyd’s eyes as he leaned in and the way his breath caught just a little behind his straight white teeth. Maybe Boyd didn’t know he was into bad guys, but he was. At least, Morgan thought smugly, this bad guy.
“Then you don’t need to worry,” Morgan said. He rolled his eyes when Mac just snorted at him. “What is he? An accountant? Schoolteacher? Not my type. I just want somewhere to crash for the night that doesn’t make my skin crawl. You want me to keep a low profile and stay around. Boyd already knows all about this DNA screwup, and he’s got fifteen thousand reasons to keep an eye on me.”
Mac looked dubious. “It’s a bad idea.”
“Boyd seems like a big boy. Why not let him make up his own mind?”
IT TURNED out Mac had told the truth. Boyd didn’t have a couch. He had two.
“I bought a new one,” Boyd explained sheepishly. He tugged at the plastic wrap that was still tightly taped around the overstuffed leather furniture. Old gray sweats hung low around his lean hips, and he’d answered the door halfway into a black T-shirt he’d obviously just pulled on. “I meant to drop the old one off at Goodwill, but, um… I never got around to it.”
Morgan had crashed on a few, but he’d never actually bought a couch, not unless you counted the three beers he paid one of his friends to help him drag a couch in off the curb one time. They abandoned that one with the house when they all got kicked out.
He guessed being a school teacher, or whatever, paid more than he thought.
“What’s wrong with the old one?” he asked as he dropped his carryall to the floor.
Boyd looked baffled for a second as he looked at the long, dark-red couch pushed against the wall. It was shiny on the arms and along the edges of the seat, but those were the only signs of wear.
“I don’t know. Nothing,” Boyd said. He shrugged. “The woman in the shop just gave a really good pitch.”
“Huh.”
Boyd bumped his knee against the arm of the old couch. “I’ll drag it out tomorrow,” he said absently. “Get you some more room in here.”
“No skin off my nose,” Morgan said. “I wasn’t planning to take the couch.”
Boyd looked up, bar-straight brows knit together in a confused frown. “I told Mac I don’t have a spare room, so—”
It was cute. Morgan could appreciate that, but he wasn’t going to waste any time on it. He pulled his T-shirt over his head and tossed it at Boyd’s head.
“I don’t mind sharing,” Morgan said. “Long as I can sleep nearest the window.”
Boyd fielded the T-shirt before it hit him in the face. He swallowed hard as his eyes flicked over Morgan’s shoulders and down to the flat, hard line of his stomach. The penny finally dropped, and for some reason, the nervous energy that had kept Boyd jittery since Mac left went with it. His shoulders relaxed, and he licked his lips.
“Yeah, okay,” he said.
Morgan chuckled low in his throat, part surprise and part satisfaction. He hadn’t expected it to be that easy, but he wasn’t going to complain about it. The stark want on Boyd’s face was too flattering. It was probably best to take advantage of it before Boyd had time to think about it too hard.
He crossed the space between them in two long steps, wrapped his hand around the back of Boyd’s neck, and pressed down on strung-tight tendons as he pulled Boyd into a rough, eager kiss. It was only when Boyd leaned into it, his hands on Morgan’s hips and his breath fast and toothpaste fresh as he opened his mouth, that Morgan registered the frantic energy under his own skin.
In under a week, his whole life had fallen to pieces. His job at the garage—two-thirds car theft and one-third oil changes—would already be filled by some stupid kid rendered bulletproof by no fear of a juvie record. His room was good till the end of the week, but then someone else would move in their stuff and drink the beers he’d left in the icebox. And once this weird little interlude wrapped up, he was looking at a year in jail because he had—like always—lost his fucking temper and done something stupid.
It was chaotic. It was pathetic.
Morgan tightened his grip on the scruff of Boyd’s neck and chewed his mark eagerly over the firm curve of his lips. He needed this, the surrender of Boyd’s mouth to Morgan’s teeth and tongue, the willing response of his body to this abrupt seduction.
He needed to be in control of something. Usually he’d throw a punch and start a fight so he could be the one who made it worse, but this would do.
“I wanna fuck you,” he muttered against Boyd’s lips.
“Yeah, I got that,” Boyd said raggedly. He pulled back, glasses smudged and lips flushed and tender, and shrugged. “Okay.”
Morgan hesitated for a second, torn between how much he wanted Boyd and a flicker of something he supposed might be guilt. Although he didn’t know what the fuck for. He hadn’t asked Boyd for anything, just made an offer that Boyd had taken him up on.
“I don’t wanna—”
Boyd gave him a shove. It caught Morgan off guard, and he stumbled. The edge of the couch caught him behind the knees, and he fell backward with a thump. He ended up sprawled over the leather cushions, one arm slung over the back and legs stretched in front of him. He stared up at Boyd.
Under the heady daze of lust, his temper flicked like a sparked lighter. He didn’t like being pushed around—not by cops, not by foster parents, not by anyone. He clenched his jaw against the harsh taste of it in the back of his mind, and then Boyd took his glasses off and grinned smugly at him.
It was the first time he’d seen Boyd smile. The few days they’d known each other, Boyd’s expression had held steady somewhere between solemn and cautious. He looked like an idiot, completely unaware he’d been a wrong word away from a punch, and so happy it made Morgan’s chest hurt with the need to ha
ve him.
The last time he’d wanted something this much, it was a black ’67 Impala, and he’d spent his seventeenth birthday in jail for it.
It was worth it.
The corner of Morgan’s mouth tugged upward in a slow, wry smile as he let his head fall back against the cushions. He reached out and grabbed Boyd’s wrist to pull him down onto the couch with him, long legs straddled over Morgan’s thighs.
“Okay,” he agreed, a low rasp of need in his voice.
Chapter Five
BOYD SPENT 90 percent of his life conscientiously making good decisions despite everything modeled to him by his dad and the erratic urges of Boyd’s own brain chemistry. It was the least he could do because he was the one who got to live.
But sometimes it felt like he just crammed all of his bad ideas into 10 percent of his time. He wasn’t really any more responsible. He just managed the time more efficiently.
Like this. Boyd crushed his mouth against Morgan’s and chased a groan between their mouths. He ran his hands over Morgan’s broad shoulders, all heavy muscle and thick bone, and down the taut lines of his arms. God, he was beautiful. He was hard lines and tawny skin, nothing soft anywhere on him.
Boyd’s balls felt heavy and too tight, the bite of hunger jagged in his cock and spreading out to a dull ache in the pit of his stomach and the backs of his thighs. Arousal prickled under his skin, spread under the rough skin and long fingers of Morgan’s hands as he gripped Boyd’s ass or slid them up under his T-shirt. The breath in Boyd’s throat was ragged and tasted like sweat, salt, and Morgan.
This was definitely 100 percent a bad decision, not that the knowledge made any difference.
It never did.
Boyd trailed a kiss down Morgan’s throat, the gilt stubble fine and soft under his lips, and scraped his teeth over the hard jut of his collarbone. It was crooked, bone mended in a hard lump halfway along, but Morgan didn’t flinch under Boyd’s mouth.
“How long’s it been since someone fucked you?” Morgan asked against Boyd’s ear, the flick of his tongue wet between the words.
