by Amy Lane
“If I was all that dangerous, don’t you think I could keep my skin intact?”
And for once Ellery laughed.
Where the Desert Meets the Sky
WHEN THEY got back to the hotel room, they left the lights off. Ellery had opened the blackout curtains, and what remained was a thin layer of gauze between them and the far horizon and just enough light to see by.
Just enough light to see Jackson lick his lips nervously as Ellery shut the door and then turned to take his mouth.
Jackson responded, and Ellery’s stomach fluttered like a virgin’s. This was a new kind of kissing for them, delicate, dancing, as though they were learning each other all over again.
The thing Jackson had done at the dinner table that night had been huge. Tremendous. Bigger than the ocean and the sky put together.
When he’d run out of the hotel room without eating, Ellery’s heart had dropped to his feet—God. Every time Jackson had a moment, in bed, eating dinner, just getting a peck on the cheek, when Ellery thought “This is it. We’re going to be okay because he’s okay,” something—usually something small, like a badly timed wisecrack or leftovers gone bad because nobody was eating them—would remind Ellery that sometimes broken didn’t heal.
But then… just when Ellery could see the horizon, the drop off the face of the planet for the two of them, Jackson would surprise him in the best of ways.
The nice restaurant, obviously chosen with Ellery in mind, had warmed him.
Jackson’s moment of laying his burdens down had inspired him.
Oh God! His taste as Ellery took his mouth—not just food and wine, but excitement, passion, joy! Ellery drank him in, felt his sinews and bones saturate with Jackson, until Jackson was the blood in his veins and the air in his lungs.
Ellery caught Jackson’s cheeks between his hands and steered him toward the bed, pulling the coverlet down with one hand while he was pushing Jackson down with the other.
“In a mood?” Jackson asked playfully. For a while—a short while—he’d insisted that he’d always topped. When they’d met, Ellery had been very content to bottom. But Ellery had never before had a relationship where the conflicts outside of the bedroom powered what went on in bed.
Now, as he knelt over Jackson and stripped off his sweatshirt and tee and then his jeans, he had to concede that was because never before had he had a man in his bed he’d loved so much that he couldn’t put him in a box. Jackson had never been in a “lover” box or a “work” box—not even when all they were was just coworkers.
Jackson had always been too big, too important, too dangerous to cage up in a flimsy label.
As he stretched out now, naked on the white sheets, Ellery paused for a moment to spread his hand possessively at the base of Jackson’s throat.
“Mine,” he said softly, because truly it was the only label that mattered.
“Yours,” Jackson responded, green eyes colorless in the pale light.
Ellery nodded. “Stay there,” he whispered. “Just… you know. Until I’m done.”
He stripped off his turtleneck and jeans, then kicked off his loafers and stood naked by Jackson’s bedside. Jackson paused him with his own show of possession, splaying his hand over Ellery’s abdomen because that’s where he could reach.
“Mine,” he said gruffly.
“Nobody else’s,” Ellery told him, sweetness aching in his throat. He laced their fingers together, like he had in the restaurant, and leaned forward to rejoin their kiss. Their naked bodies slid together silkenly, and the pleasant rasp of the hair on Jackson’s thighs and chest prickled along his skin.
There were no words then as the kiss continued, grew greater, hungrier. The kiss was the main thing. Ellery fumbled for the lube under the pillow and slid into Jackson’s ass with a smooth thrust, and Jackson, who used to fight possession until Ellery demanded he submit, simply welcomed Ellery into his body, so easy, so simply, it was like they belonged there, joined, for every breath, every moment of the day.
It was being apart that fought nature.
Orgasm started as a rumble in his belly, built to a roar in their ears, crested like a scream when Jackson spurted hotly between them, no hand on his cock to spur him on.
Ellery gasped, trembling and climaxing, welcoming Jackson’s arms and legs folding him into the haven of his embrace, the warm clutches of his body.
Ellery slid off him and rolled to the side, their sex staining the sheets, although neither of them made a move to clean it off.
Their breath didn’t seem to be calming down.
“Ellery?”
“Yeah?”
“Love you.”
“I love you too.”
“We’ve got the rest of the night, right?”
“To have sex? Because I think I’m done for the day.”
Jackson chuckled and rolled to his side so he could kiss Ellery’s shoulder. Ellery shuddered with the kiss and wondered hazily if maybe round three couldn’t be arranged.
“Not sex. To be free.”
Ellery had to blink hard before he understood what Jackson was saying. He’d given himself permission, just for tonight, to be free of his burdens, of his hard choices, of his pain.
Part of Ellery wanted to just scream at him, “You are always free!”
But Ellery had seen the moments in Jackson’s life that made up the iron bars of his cage, and that wasn’t fair. Nobody with Jackson’s damage could be free all the time.
“As long as you can see the sky,” Ellery said softly. “We’ll say you’re free.”
“Mm….”
Jackson kissed his shoulder again and then blessedly, blessedly fell asleep.
ELLERY WOKE up in the morning, sitting up in bed with a gasp of panic, like his sister said she used to when her children slept through the night.
The shower was running and the space next to him still warm from Jackson’s body, and it took him a minute to figure out what was wrong.
Nothing.
Jackson had slept through the night.
For the first time in months, he’d slept completely through the night without so much as a twitch or a whimper to indicate the horrors of his subconscious had slithered up to haunt him. Ellery took a deep breath and blinked, the freshness of his own mind telling him how hard it had been on him to be the calming hand and soothing voice that called Jackson back to reality.
Jackson used to sleep with any willing body when he was afraid the nightmares would come. Ellery had become the one body either of them was willing to let do the job. It was a fair trade—sleep for exclusivity—but God, it was nice to get some sleep.
Ellery flopped back into bed on a happy yawn and grabbed his phone. The first thing he saw was a text message from Arizona.
Felt out Lacey’s secretary to see if he’d been in town. Call ASAP. Apparently the text had been what woke him up, so he hit Call without even getting out of bed.
“Ellery, where are you?” Arizona, fiftyish, buzz-cut iron-gray hair, sounded exactly as no-bullshit on the phone as she looked in real life wearing one of her white pantsuits. Right now Ellery had to fight the urge to get out of bed and put on a shirt.
“Out of town,” he said cagily. “Why do you need to know?”
Arizona swallowed. “Stay there,” she said shortly. “Your guy went back to his base on Monday, and your office dumped a fuckton of witnesses on my desk that says the girl couldn’t have done it. She’s off the hook completely and still in protective custody until this wraps up, but….” Arizona hissed like she was trying to keep her voice down and her profile low so somebody else didn’t see her. “Seriously,” she murmured. “Don’t tell me where you are, but you need to know—if your guy’s the bastard you think he is, he is gunning for you. I never mentioned your name, but the secretary told me—and I quote, ‘Any evidence Mr. Cramer brings up in the matter can be brought into question at any time. He needs to be present to press charges—’”
“That’s not true!”
Ellery protested, because basic law! The DA pressed charges; the defense attorney defended the client from them.
“I know! Do you think I don’t know that? It wasn’t that she got it wrong, dumbass, it was the ‘present’ that’s the problem. She was reading a message—verbatim. Somebody wanted you to know that you might not be present to act as a witness!”
Ellery swallowed hard. “Oh,” he said, heart thundering in his chest. Oh Jesus. Jackson was actually singing in the shower, God help them both. Granted, it was “The Hanging Tree” from that sci-fi movie franchise that sent shivers up Ellery’s spine, but still. Singing.
He had a really beautiful voice. Ellery thought wistfully of hearing Jackson sing in temple someday, and then he swallowed.
A threat to Ellery’s life would stop the singing right quick.
“Does he know I’m not in Sacramento?” Ellery asked, and then, “Goddammit motherfucking son of a cocksucking whore!”
There was a stunned silence on the other end. “Uhm….”
“I didn’t use the burner phone,” Ellery said softly. “I, uh… fuck.” He fought the temptation to clunk himself in the head with the offending cell phone. “Is there anything else?”
“Yeah. She also read—like an automaton, I’m serious—that ‘Ellery’s associate, Mr. Rivers, has experienced too much adversity of late to be a reliable resource in this matter.’”
Ellery almost dropped the phone. “Uhm….”
“Was he talking about November?” she asked, and Ellery wanted to laugh until he cried.
“Jesus, Arizona, do you not read anything we send to you? Did you look at the Cedric Evander transcript?”
“You know, that’s weird. I got two of them—one signed by William MacPherson, who was apparently actually on scene, and one signed by Greaves, who was the guy who signed off on the Janie Isaacson incident—”
“He wasn’t assigned to that one either,” Ellery told her. “Another cop—Ty Spooner, I think, his name is in my notes—but call McPherson. Call him as soon as we hang up and double-check. Because McPherson was there at the Cedric Evander shooting, and he can tell you what she was talking about, and after you’re done crapping a bag of ice, get back to me.”
“What are you going to be doing?” she asked.
“Switching locations,” Ellery said sourly. “And probably trading in my phone.”
And telling Jackson. And not hearing him sing again for another four months.
“Understood.” Arizona let out a sound of frustration. “Ellery, I’ve got a meeting with the state’s attorney in an hour—is there anything I need to know?”
Ellery closed his eyes. “Five bugs, Arizona. Two in my office, one in my kitchen, one in my living room, and one in my bedroom. Our bedroom. Contact Crystal at our firm—she’s got the equipment to sweep the office. All of it. Contact Carlyle Langdon and ask if she can assist you.”
“Jesus,” Arizona breathed. Then, proving once and for all why her and Ellery’s friendship had persisted in spite of working on different sides of the bench for the last six years, “I hope you and Rivers had so much sex their ears exploded.”
Ellery’s chuckle was as evil as he could make it. “God, I hope so.”
“Take care of yourself. Contact me when you can.”
“Will do.”
And she signed off.
Ellery stood and contemplated throwing the phone against the wall and then remembered he was the grown-up in this situation. He stood and stretched, his mind working furiously.
He needed a new cell phone.
They needed a new hotel.
Jackson needed to go to Barstow.
He needed to not freak Jackson out.
Okay, first things first.
He picked up his burner phone and texted Crystal, asking her to make reservations in another nice hotel with her credit card—or to ask someone else to do it for her.
Then he stripped down and stepped into the shower with Jackson, who was still singing at the top of his lungs. Ellery slid his hands around Jackson’s hips and rested his chin on his shoulder. Jackson clasped his hands at his waist and hmmed.
“What’s up, Counselor?”
And Ellery couldn’t do it. Not right then. Over coffee and breakfast later, perhaps. But God—he’d slept through the night. He’d laid down his burdens.
Later. I’ll tell him later.
Ellery tugged on Jackson’s hip so he’d turn and then kissed him, and Jackson kissed him back. They didn’t actually have sex in the shower—they necked mostly, soaped their hair, made small jokes. They made love afterward, tucked under the covers to escape the chill of the water drying on their skin.
Before they went to breakfast—and before Ellery came clean about the phone and the need to change hotels and the bad things Arizona had told him—he made Jackson pose for a selfie. Ellery used the burner phone and studied the picture of the two of them, Jackson’s face tucked shyly against Ellery’s shoulder, hair a tousled disaster from their morning, and a small smile playing with the corner of his mouth.
Ellery emailed it to his account and texted it to Jackson and then, after a little bit of thought because it was potentially squidgy, to Jade.
For Jade, he captioned it with Don’t freak out—I just wanted you to see him happy.
She responded Thanks. It’s just good to see.
Before Jackson had stormed into his life that August, demanding Ellery’s help for Kaden, Ellery had assumed he’d win every battle. He fought in the courtroom, and he was damned good at what he did.
But then he’d seen what happened when the battle wasn’t neat, wasn’t pretty, wasn’t between people in suits with measured words as their weapons. He’d seen too damned much of Jackson’s blood, both the figurative and the very red and real.
He knew now that every win was a big win. Any battle he fought had to mean something. And that a smile on camera from the man he loved was the one victory he absolutely could not live without.
Lone and Freaked-Out Fish
JACKSON TRIED to control his breathing. “He threatened us.”
Ellery nodded slowly, sort of like Jackson was a bomb. Well, he might be. “Through two other people, yes. It was a very direct threat.”
“And you called her back on your cell.”
“Yes. Yes, I did that, and it was a bad move.”
“And that’s why we packed.”
“Yes, Jackson. That’s why we packed. I’m sorry. I was dumb and not thinking right, and I really should be smacked upside the head—”
“Shut up,” Jackson muttered, annoyed. “It’s a mistake anybody could make. Man, we’re not trained to be spies. I’m surprised I wasn’t the one who did it while I was walking the block last night. No, don’t shit your pants about who did it, shit your pants about fucking up the meeting with Ace, because if you think I’m just driving off and leaving you in a hotel lobby, you’ve got another thing coming.”
“The hotel lobby thing is not a problem—”
“Oh yes it is,” Jackson snapped. Dammit. Jackson should have known—nothing as good as the night before came without a price. Well, his price for getting a decent night’s sleep and singing in the shower was apparently dragging Ellery to Walmart in Barstow. “For one thing, you can get a new phone, preferably a different brand with a different number and a different plan, maybe under your mother’s name. While you’re doing that, I’ll meet with Ace—”
“But what if he spots me?”
Jackson gave him a level look. “He’ll know you’re there before he even shows up at the meet. You don’t spring surprises on a rattlesnake, Ellery. That’s a good way to get bit.”
Ellery sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. He’d slicked it back with product again after they got out of bed, and Jackson missed the rumpled look, and even the frizz it had in the humidity. Jackson was going to miss a lot of things about that morning and the night before until they got back home.
But somewhere in his chest was a
tiny ember of hope that they would get back home. That he could have other nights when he let Ellery take his weight.
When he could let himself—let them—be happy.
It was almost a foreign concept, that happiness. Jackson hadn’t been sure it existed, really.
Until the night before, when he’d been too tired not to believe.
“You sure he’ll still show up?” Ellery asked on a sigh.
“I’m, uh… hope… uh… fifty-fifty,” Jackson told him. He didn’t do things any way but honest.
“I wouldn’t take those odds,” Ellery said glumly. “Those people in Victoriana really hate me.”
Jackson really didn’t do things any way but honest—which was why he didn’t argue. Instead he stood and squeezed Ellery’s shoulder. “You settle up with the hotel. Meet me back in the lobby with our shit. Ready?”
“Break,” Ellery said with a game smile.
Jackson winked and pretended optimism, which wasn’t really an out-and-out lie. “Hey—maybe we’ll catch him on a good day, you think?”
HE WAS sort of half right.
“Well, shit,” Ace muttered after Jackson told him. “That lawyer guy?”
“Yeah, Ace. I’m sorry. He needs a new phone, and I just don’t… you know.”
“Trust the fuckin’ gods not to do something stupid and shitty while you’re gone?” Ace snarled over the phone.
Jackson shrugged, even though Ace couldn’t see him tucked in an alcove of the hotel lobby. The wallpaper above the moldings was a textured red. Jackson liked it and thought wistfully that he could have stayed there a full week.
“That exactly,” he said to Ace. “In fact, I can’t think of a better way to phrase it.”
Ace chuckled without mirth. “Yeah—well, that’s why Sonny’s gonna be there. I was, like, ‘Leave him safe in Victoriana with Ernie’ or ‘Leave him in Victoriana where he’s easy to pick off without me.’ Only one place I got control, you know?”
He wondered who Ernie was, but he wasn’t going to break their rapport by being curious now. “You know, Ace, it’s almost like we could be friends.”
