by Amy Lane
They’d spent half an hour in a tiny gas station where the client had claimed to have tracked the guy he’d been chasing, and had decided to leave the scumbag to hang in the wind.
For starters, he might not have been guilty of the crime he’d been accused of, but his alibi for not committing that crime was that he’d been running away from the consequences of another, worse crime he’d committed.
In addition, the guys at the garage had been guilty of nothing worse than sheltering a victim of the mob from the guys chasing him. Dragging them into the limelight to testify for someone who wasn’t the least bit sorry was not something Jackson wanted to do. And even if Ellery had been so inclined—it had been his vacation, after all—their witnesses all hated Ellery and really only talked to Jackson, so Ellery would have had to convince Jackson, and that wasn’t happening.
And the final thing that convinced the two of them to leave Ace and Sonny alone had been the thing neither of them had admitted out loud: together, left to themselves, Ace Atchison and Sonny Daye were invisible. Two combat vets who owned a garage and outfitted cars. They raced illegally sometimes, sure, but given how paranoid Sonny was about Ace’s health, Jackson was pretty sure that was only when they were really hard up for cash.
Desert dwellers. Rattlesnakes, perfectly content under their rock.
But if you poked the two guys with a stick, Jackson was pretty sure things would get bloody.
He’d asked Ellery to measure—truly measure—how necessary it would be to poke those guys with a stick, given that in trying to exonerate their client they’d come up with evidence for at least three other crimes, as well as reason to believe prison would be the safest place for the guy. It seemed all his cronies had been wiped out in some sort of violent territory dispute that he and his buddy had narrowly escaped. When Ellery pointed out that defending him in court would bring more attention from people who wanted to kill him, and that he didn’t have a thing to offer WitSec, the guy had agreed to plead guilty.
Ace and Sonny never had to know.
But when Sonny’s name had come up while investigating the origins of a serial killer in November, Jackson and Ellery had both known that someday they were going to have to go back to Victoriana with a very gentle, very quiet stick.
“Not now,” Jackson said, yawning behind his napkin. The one thing he really hated about travel was how tired you got while not doing anything. “Tomorrow—”
“How do you feel?” Ellery asked abruptly.
Shit.
“No more nausea!” Jackson said brightly, tearing into his sandwich again.
“And….”
“My headache is about ten percent what it was,” he replied, deflating a little. “But it’s still there.”
“Then tomorrow we enjoy a pricey hotel room,” Ellery told him, voice firm. “And you and I start doing research. I got Crystal a burner phone—we can call her for help. But let’s get our snakes in a row before we go poking them with sticks.”
Jackson yawned again and took another bite of his sandwich. “You want me to drive?”
Ellery shook his head. “No. There’s a Motel Six at the next exit. We can sleep there for a few hours and finish the trip tomorrow.”
“And then the good hotel,” Jackson confirmed suspiciously.
Ellery actually laughed, the lines around his mouth and forehead easing up. “Yes, you spoiled boy, we can sleep in the pricey hotel tomorrow.”
“Good,” Jackson said through his last bite of sandwich. He swallowed and started to lick his fingers methodically. “I think we need sex, and the beds in the shitty hotels will fuck up my back.”
That did it. Jackson saw his full smile, minus all the worry lines, and he got to feel like he’d done his job. Yeah, he was a fuckup who couldn’t seem to do the most basic things without taking a kill shot to the head. But Ellery, who had pretty much orchestrated their disappearance from Sacramento with a cell phone and some serious imagination, thought he was funny.
Jackson might just be worth keeping around.
THE STOP at the shitty hotel was utilitarian and necessary. Jackson offered to sleep in the other queen-sized bed so Ellery could get some real sleep, but Ellery shook his head.
“You’re not broken,” he mumbled, crawling into the bed in his boxers. “Come sleep with me so I can touch you. You’re not the only one who hates hospitals.”
Oh.
“Sure.”
Jackson gave the blanket on top of the empty bed a jerk and threw it over the one they were using, because he was cold for one, and because Ellery stole covers for another, and this way Ellery could steal all he wanted and Jackson would still have something to sleep under. Then he hit all the lights and the blackout curtains, made sure their phones were plugged in on the bed stand—both the burners and their regular phones—and joined Ellery.
“Look at your phone,” Ellery mumbled, spooning him from behind.
“Why?”
“Because Jade sent you pictures while you were getting dressed in the hospital.”
“Hunh—”
“No, not hunh. Just nice. Look.”
Jackson grabbed his phone and switched it on, squinting from the glare.
Kaden, Anthony, AJ, Kaden’s wife, Rhonda, and his children, River and Diamond, were playing in the snow around Kaden’s house out near Truckee. River, at ten, sported an almost swoony smile as Anthony helped her across a frost-crusted bridge, and Diamond and AJ had managed the head—only—of a snowman in Kaden’s front yard.
Anthony was wearing new clothes—warm ones—and a stocking cap with the logo of the Sacramento Kings on it. AJ, for once, didn’t look distracted, or nervous, or like he should be somewhere else.
“Look at them,” Jackson murmured. “They had a good time.”
“Yeah. Like family,” Ellery said gently. It was true. Kaden and Rhonda’s complexions were both teakwood dark, and River and Diamond’s as well. AJ’s pale bronze and Anthony’s chapped pink cheeks in his lemon-sallow face didn’t match, but the looks on their faces as they played with Kaden’s kids were identical: belonging. They felt like they belonged there.
“I… I hope Anthony can keep the good time inside him.” Jackson wasn’t sure if he phrased that right. “AJ too. I… I mean, when they have to come back to Sacramento.”
“Who says they have to come back?” Ellery asked curiously. “Kaden’s mother took you in. Why wouldn’t Kaden and Rhonda want to do the same thing?”
Jackson swallowed hard. “Because I want too much for those boys to be happy,” he admitted. “I don’t even want to hope, because it’s not fair to ask them. They have to love them too.”
Ellery’s soft sigh into his neck seemed to ease the ache in his chest. “Someday it’ll be our turn,” he said softly. “Just in case you were wondering if you’d ever get to give back.”
“You’re assuming I’ll live that long,” Jackson grunted, thinking he was being funny. God, he’d gotten hurt a lot since he’d met Ellery.
“You’d fucking better,” Ellery snarled, turning over abruptly. Jackson missed the heat at his back. With a sigh and an excess of drama, he plugged his phone back in, rolled over, pummeling the pillow and settling in like an old dog before wrapping his arm around Ellery’s waist and yanking him into Jackson’s big spoon.
“Don’t be shitty,” Jackson muttered into his hair. “I was joking.”
“Leave me alone. I’m asleep.”
“You are not.”
“You’re bothering me.”
Jackson grunted. “You’ll still be alive,” he offered, conciliatorily. “You can have the family.”
“Jackson, it’s been a long, crappy day, after a long, crappy weekend, and we have a long, crappy two weeks ahead of us that, yes, neither of us might survive—”
“You’ll be fine,” Jackson reassured, cold in his groin at the thought that Ellery wouldn’t be.
“So will you.”
“I… it’s just easier for me to think of
a world without me than a world without you.”
“God, you suck.”
“Not in the last three days,” Jackson said with dignity. He’d thought it was one of his better lines, and he’d been sort of hoping for a better response.
“Do you think I don’t feel the same way about you?” Ellery asked in exasperation. “Jesus—I know the concussion was not your fault, but can’t you at least see that it hurts to imagine a life without you? It’s like those pictures on your phone. Sure, those boys are new to Kaden and Rhonda, but do you think they can be happy without the boys in their lives now that they’ve met?”
Jackson closed his eyes in the darkness and saw the happy smiles again. “No.”
“Then why can’t you believe I feel that way about you?” His voice ached with injury, and Jackson sighed.
“I’ve been telling you for months that I’m a bad bet,” he said, defeated.
“And I’ve been telling you for months that there’s no such thing as luck.” Yeah, Ellery said that, but he punctuated it with a kiss on the back of Jackson’s hands.
Jackson’s head, which was aching fiercely again, backed off a degree, and he melted into the pillow some more. “I’m lucky,” he mumbled. “You love me. Lucky me. Night, Counselor.”
“Night, moron.”
Jackson chuckled before falling asleep.
ELLERY WOULDN’T let him drive the next day either, but they left at nine o’clock—after morning traffic and not quite in time for lunchtime traffic. They made it to San Diego in two and a half hours, and thank God for that.
Ellery checked them into the hotel, and they both went down to the pool to swim laps.
Something about the cool of the water, the way his muscles responded to the release from gravity, took away the last of the headache. They went back up to shower, Ellery going first so Jackson could look up a small garage in Victoriana.
It took him longer than it should have.
“What’s got your dick in a knot?” Ellery asked, wrapped in one of those plushy white hotel bathrobes and toweling his hair as he emerged. He liked to air dry under the bathrobes, and Jackson’s funk lightened up marginally.
“Do you have any idea what their business is named?”
Ellery’s eyes widened, and his lips parted slightly.
“Yup. I drew a big fat blank too. Wasn’t a sign anywhere. I had to call the goddamned chamber of commerce—the one in Barstow, because Victoriana is too damned small to have one of its own. Some poor woman had to look the thing up in an actual file—a paper file—so she could tell me they named the garage Sonny’s Place. Holy Jesus. Is that not the stupidest name for a garage ever? It sounds like a goddamned café.”
Ellery shook himself, like he was trying to shake off the whole idea of it. “Well, you know. It is sweet. I mean, as romantic gestures go, Ace had to be the one filing the paperwork. Maybe it’s what got Sonny to like him?”
Jackson just shook his head. “Like Sonny needed any encouragement. I mean, Sonny’s Garage? I looked up Sonny’s Garage. And Ace’s Garage. And Sonny and Ace’s Garage. Jesus—how those two guys keep a business alive in what amounts to an intersection in the middle of hell is beyond me.”
“But you did get a phone number,” Ellery said impatiently.
“Yeah. I’ll call when I get out of the shower. If I call right now I’ll rip someone’s face off.”
It took ten minutes for the hot water to massage Jackson’s irritation away, but by the time he emerged, wearing a towel around his waist after drying his hair with it, he came to a halt as he entered the room.
The room itself had that hallmark of good hotel rooms—a giant white cotton comforter over a king-sized bed. The walls were painted a sage green with cream trim, and with the light coming in from the big sliding glass door to the little patio, the effect was that of airy space—especially because they were on the twenty-fifth floor and all you could see beyond the patio was blue sky.
Ellery was sitting at his computer desk, one leg tucked under his bottom, his robe gaping around his chest and around his thighs. He’d combed his hair back but had neglected product, and it hung in his eyes, threatening to curl in the humidity—something Ellery’s sister teased him unmercifully about but Jackson had never personally seen.
Jackson was slugged hard in the gut with how innocent Ellery was.
Sure, he was a big bad defense attorney—and most of Sacramento thought he was a shark and an asshole, and he liked it that way.
But Jackson knew—knew Ellery hoped most of his clients were innocent even when he knew the odds against that. Knew Ellery was rooting for Anthony as hard as Jackson was, and probably for AJ too; he just never found words that weren’t awkward or dry.
And the skin peeking out from the gaps in the robe was just really, really delicious.
Jackson gave Ellery the warning of a warm hand on his shoulder. Ellery glanced up from the new-looking laptop and frowned. “You don’t even comb your hair, do you? Ever.”
And that was it. Jackson swiveled the office chair around so the back was to the desk and sank to his knees, parting the bottom of the robe until Ellery’s groin was completely exposed.
Ellery’s gasp sent shivers dancing down Jackson’s spine.
“Real-y?” Ellery squeaked, but then Jackson decided to play with him.
“No,” he breathed, the puff of wind dusting the fine hairs on the inside of Ellery’s thigh.
“No what?”
Jackson opened his mouth and pulled on the soft inside skin, laving with his tongue. He sucked lightly, teasingly, until Ellery’s fingers knotted in his unkempt hair and tugged.
“No what?” he insisted breathily. “No you don’t comb your hair, or no, we’re not real… oh God….”
Jackson pulled back while he was talking and spat on Ellery’s gloriously pink, sparkling clean hole, and then went back to his tender inner thigh. Very carefully, he used a single finger to tease Ellery’s rim.
Ellery’s thighs began to shake. He pulled them up wantonly, resting his feet on Jackson’s shoulders, and Jackson continued to torment.
He moved from inner thigh to the join between leg and groin, knowing it would be clean and sweet. Ellery let out a gasp, still shaking, and yanked authoritatively on Jackson’s hair.
Jackson ignored him.
“Don’t be an asshole,” Ellery breathed, and as a reward, Jackson moved his fingertip just enough to push against his pucker—and left it there. Ellery squirmed, and the chair rocked dangerously. Jackson paused what he was doing and looked Ellery in the eye, waiting.
Ellery’s eyes narrowed mutinously. “So help me, Jackson, I will throw you against the wall and fuck you dry,” he threatened. “I’ll fuck you till you come and then fuck you through it, until you beg, screaming for my jizz in your ass. Dammit….” Jackson stared at him levelly and twitched his finger just enough to tickle. Ellery’s cock stuck out stiffly from his body by this time, drooling and shiny, bright red.
Ellery’s arms were propped back on the armrests, the better to catch the chair on the desk if he needed to. With a snarl he moved his hand from Jackson’s hair to his own cock, and Jackson caught it, midair, and laced fingers.
Jackson knew Ellery was stuck then, legs spread wantonly, Jackson between his thighs. If he moved his other arm, the chair would rock and he’d probably fall. If he didn’t, Jackson had full permission to toy with his toy box until Ellery screamed.
“Nungh!” Ellery moved his hand back to Jackson’s hair and pushed down. As a reward Jackson licked a fine line right between his balls, digging the tip of his tongue into the base of his cock right when he thrust a teeny bit more with the tip of his finger.
Ellery started issuing more threats. “So help me, Jackson, I will tie you to this fucking bed, and I will fuck your ass with a vibrator while you watch me jerk off. You’ll never come, just watch me spill over my hands, watch me lick my fingers dry, and you’ll be stuck, shaking, and I’ll be unmerci—ful?”
/> Very carefully, Jackson grazed the bell of his cock with gentle teeth while he thrust in to the first knuckle. Then, like a cat, he lapped a circle around the head, using the slightest pressure from one tooth on the frenulum while breathing on his wet cockhead.
Ellery let out a whine. Jackson kept his mouth over Ellery’s cock, letting his tongue or his teeth or his lips brush up against it, seemingly at random, while Ellery let go of his head and bit the palm of his free hand, stifling a scream.
He shook all over—but didn’t come.
Jackson arched an eyebrow and stared him down.
“You. Inside me,” Ellery ordered. “Or me inside you. No power blow jobs this time.”
Jackson responded by thrusting his finger in fully and licking long and lazily across Ellery’s cockhead. Ellery shook some more, because Jackson’s message was clear.
He could do this all day, and he’d definitely enjoy himself doing it.
“Not… gonna… work…,” Ellery panted.
Jackson narrowed his eyes, jerking his head back. “Is that a challenge?”
Ellery made to lower his feet, but Jackson shoved forward and took him completely into his mouth, closing over his cock like a cave until he relented. He pulled back and glared at him.
“No seduction,” Ellery panted. “All of you. Goddammit, I need all of you.”
Jackson lowered his head and added another finger, twisting them hard while he swallowed.
“Ahhh….” Ellery breathed out, hard, body going limp while his cock stayed thick and throbbing. God, he was fighting hard.
“You think we’re just going to do this once?” Jackson asked, letting his breath torment the damp end of Ellery’s cock. “This is a teaser.”
Ellery grabbed his hair again, hauling his head back, thighs still spread, Jackson’s fingers in his ass. “The hospital, Jackson. And bugs in our fucking house. If you’re not going to fuck me until I scream, I need to do the same to you.”
Nungh. The last time they’d done this in a hotel room after Ellery had been scared, he’d dominated Jackson practically through the floorboards. Jackson couldn’t pretend it hadn’t felt good—or that he hadn’t needed to turn his fate over to Ellery’s capable hands, just once.
