Covert Affairs: Partnership : A Covert Affairs Romance (Book One)

by Valerie Vaughn

  “Alright there, sweetheart?”

  His entire body relaxed, leaning into the other man’s arm as he turned to face him. “Hello Arthur.”

  “Hello.” The fingers massaging small circles into his shoulder blade had him going boneless, turning further to press his face into the other man’s neck. “Long week, huh?”

  “A bit,” he sighed, content, indulging in Arthur’s earthy cologne as he nuzzled into his collarbone. The hand on his back stilled. “Don’t stop.”

  Arthur dropped his hand onto the smaller man’s waist, squeezing. “Never.”

  ---

  Arthur found himself with an armful of engineer for the rest of the evening, his beloved handler nursing a handful of glasses of whiskey throughout the night, apparently content to stay there and relax. Arthur wasn’t entirely sure what had changed, but he wasn’t going to risk asking just yet. The agent smiled softly, glancing down. Syler was conversing quietly with Maria, who was herself leaned up against Benson.

  Miranda caught his eye, raising her beer in a toast and chuckling at their two companions, both tipsily debating the merits of AI directed hacking. Daniel and Madeline dropped by at some point, bidding them an early new year before they set off. The former Special Agent Rosencroft glanced admiringly at his recently acquired watch and he grinned, absurdly pleased with the little lock pick his genius had bestowed upon him. If it didn’t require letting go of the man, he’d happily show it off.

  As midnight approached, Syler seemed to rouse himself, grinning at him as the timer hit one minute ‘til. Arthur stroked a hand down his back, perfectly content.

  “Mm, will you drive me home after this? I didn’t want to chance the parking.”

  “Of course, sweetheart.”

  Syler grinned, turning to Maria, who joined him in an enthusiastic countdown. Arthur wondered, briefly, if the inevitable New Years kiss between the two might finally clue the man in on their marital status and end the running departmental joke that he was blind even with glasses. He was so focused on watching for Syler’s reaction to Reyes’ leaning into her wife that he found himself totally unprepared for the lips that met his own.

  ‘Oh,’ he thought, pulling Syler closer. Well alright then.

  ---

  “Arthur, answer me very seriously now,” Syler began, blinking from his spot tucked under his arm. “Is that actually your car?”

  Arthur grinned shamelessly. “Meet Lucy.” Lucy, as it were, being his 1969 Boss 429 Mustang, the 2-door coupe painstakingly refinished to a gleaming black jade.

  “Oh my god,” he breathed, tone decidedly admiring. “That’s fucking beautiful.”

  “And she has a real engine too,” he proclaimed, chuffed.

  “How much did that cost you?”

  “About $50 at the scrapyard I pulled her out of twenty years ago. They had no idea what they had there. Rebuilt her myself.”

  “Dear god,” he continued, “that is incredibly attractive.”

  “Wanna take a ride?” He pushed him gently towards the passenger side, all too thrilled to introduce his sweetheart to his beloved girl. The sound Syler made was pleading. Apparently, even computer engineers could be hotrod fangirls.

  ---

  They pulled into the second bay of Syler’s assigned parking an hour later, Lucy tucking in neatly beside his Tesla, having taken a bit of a detour to the highway. His handler laughed breathlessly, leaning back in the hand-stitched cream leather seats. “Oh my god. I want one.”

  “Mm, thought you said there wasn’t enough room to put guns in something with an engine.”

  “I lied,” he hissed, stroking a hand reverently over the dash. Arthur grinned.

  “Come on, sweetheart. Let’s get you to bed.” He had to come to Syler’s side and open the door. The other man seemed unwilling to leave otherwise. “I’ll take you out in her another night, promise.”

  “I don’t suppose—” he began.

  “Under no circumstances are you ever allowed to drive her,” he stated, tone final. His handler stepped out, eyes pleading and mouth pressed into an impressive pout. His lower lip was even quivering. Arthur stood firm.

  “Had to try,” he conceded, trailing a hand over the hood as they headed for the elevator up to his floor. He curled right back into Arthur’s side once the carriage doors closed, head dropping onto his shoulder. He lived in the CIA owned complex, which was convenient and secure if entirely too close to the agency for Arthur’s liking. At least he didn’t have to worry about leaving Lucy in the parking garage. Operations installed the security system down there themselves.

  Syler guided him down the hall of the top floor, units reserved for executive and deputy staffers, coming to a door at the far end. He had a concealed palm reader under the number plate in lieu of a key. “I lose them otherwise,” he admitted sheepishly, pushing the door open and reaching back for Arthur’s hand.

  Now, if Arthur were being entirely honest, he’d admit he was cautiously optimistic that he was going to be invited in. Perhaps enthusiastically, maybe directly into the bedroom. So sue him, he was still halfway convinced this was all a very good dream and he wasn’t about to stop imagining possibilities on account of probabilities. He didn’t, in any universe, expect to be frozen in the doorway, paralyzed by the sheer chaos contained in those four walls.

  “Perrin, what the actual fuck happened in here?”

  Syler blinked slowly, still not entirely sober. “I did warn you that my office is really just an extension of my apartment, didn’t I?”

  “There are server banks in your cupboards!”

  “They’re well anchored to take the weight and I wasn’t using them for anything else,” he defended.

  “That,” Arthur replied, “is not normal.”

  “I’m not normal,” Syler stressed, turning to face him with a fortifying breath. “I’m just not. I’m a raging disaster, actually. My living room is a second shop with a couch, three workbenches, and no chairs. I’ve never actually eaten a meal at my kitchen table and the only reason none of it has encroached on my bedroom is because I dedicated the larger master suite to being my home office. So,” he finished weakly, “if you don’t want to come in, I get it.”

  Arthur swept his eyes from one end of the open floor apartment to the other, slowly taking in the scene. The kitchen cupboards were, indeed, open facing and entirely lined with server banks. Their branching wires ran along the top edge of the wall into the living room and disappeared into the hallway on the right, presumably leading to the bedrooms. Some of them were fiber optic, casting the space beyond the reach of the kitchen light in a faint green and blue glow. The center island had a breakfast bar with a laptop and a soldering iron, half-assembled earwigs scattered across the counter near a fruit bowl of hand tools.

  The living room beyond was a mess of half-finished prototypes and empty coffee mugs. A dangerously overfilled built-in bookshelf took up the entire far wall, its contents spilling onto the floor from the bottom most shelf. The lamp beside the couch looked like a steampunk inspired fever dream illustration brought to life with spare parts and the dining table housed academic journals arranged entirely by color. Finally, he noted, the Christmas tree he’d gifted Syler was tucked on the corner of the table, a space cleared for it to sit by the window.

  Syler was deflating by measures as he took in the room. His eyes softened as he reached out a hand to tuck a stray curl behind the other man’s ear. “I keep guns strapped to the underside of every table I own. Who am I to judge?”

  His handler gave him a hopeful smile, tugging him inside and shutting the door, leading him down the hall. As promised, the small bedroom was spared from the chaos of the rest of his home. He pressed a hand to the small of the shorter man’s back, reassuring, and was rewarded by Syler leaning into him, yawning into his shoulder.

  It was entirely too late to start anything and they really needed to talk first. Arthur breathed out slowly, encouraging the other man to do the same, his hand strokin
g through Syler’s hair as he sat him on the edge of the bed, helping him out of his sweater when another yawn overtook him, before bundling him under the covers. He was getting up to leave when a tugging at his wrist stopped him.

  “Stay,” he ordered, hazel eyes half-shut and head buried in his pillow, entirely too lovely to deny. Two hours into the first day of the new year, Arthur found himself drifting off with dark curls pressed to the underside of his jaw and lithe arms tucked around his waist, perfectly at home.

  Twenty-Five

  Syler came to slowly, just this side of too hot, his breath muggy where it hit skin, nuzzling deeper into the other man’s neck and brushing a hand across his chest, curling into him further before sighing, blinking his eyes open, all at once pleasantly wide awake. He drew a hand down his agent’s side, taking time to count each rib, before fitting it against his hip and squeezing gently, humming contentedly as a hand stroked up the center of his spine in turn. “Good morning,” he murmured.

  “Happy New Year, sweetheart.”

  He pressed his lips lightly to the underside of Arthur’s jaw, smiling as the hand trailing up his back came to rest in his hair, tugging gently, drawing him up. He shifted his weight, settling on top of the blond, left hand gliding up to cup his jaw, thumb rubbing absent circles into the faint stubble there, morning bright blue eyes looking up at him with unabashed adoration. He dropped a kiss on the other man’s mouth. “Very.”

  Arthur grinned up at him, hands settling on his hips, squeezing, and all at once the lazy morning shifted. Syler dropped onto his forearms, lips pressing insistently against the other man’s mouth, grinding his hips down. His agent flipped him, groaning, tanned hands coming up to cup his head, holding him firmly in place, an unrelenting weight bearing him down into the mattress.

  “Fuck,” he breathed out, hands immediately gripping onto his agent’s hips. Arthur nuzzled into his neck, once, before nipping down at the space just below his jaw. He trailed bites down, tongue laving back up soothingly, hips grinding in a slow roll. Syler threw his head back, neck stretched out appealingly. Arthur didn’t even try to resist laying another kiss on his exposed throat.

  “Fair warning,” he whined, cock already entirely hard as the older man went to work on his nipple, sucking attentively. “It’s been a while.”

  Arthur hummed, blowing on the flushed red skin. “Same.” He ground his hips into Syler’s thigh to punctuate his point, his length dragging gloriously against Syler’s inner thigh even through the thin material of their briefs. The younger man his his leg around the back of Arthur’s thighs, using the leverage to press up into his stomach, back arching, already desperate for the friction. His hands scrabbled for purchase on the blond’s shoulders, pulling him up. His arms were pinned above his head in an instant. “No,” his blue eyes danced, teasing, breath ruffling his partner’s curls. “Stay.”

  Syler glared and kissed him, all teeth. Arthur chuckled, returning to the lovely column of his neck. “You have a fascination with my throat,” he panted, straining up against the hands gripping onto his. The agent neatly swapped to a left handed grip, Syler’s wrists still trapped as he ran his right hand down his side, fingers teasing. He jumped, unamused.

  “Ticklish?”

  “I hate you.” Arthur kissed him quiet, mouth returning to its quest mapping his body. Syler managed to work a hand free, immediately tangling it into short blond hair, tugging, before giving up his grip to push down the other man’s pants. Arthur lifted his hips to slip them off in a well practiced move, mouth not breaking contact with Syler’s left hip bone, free hand sliding back to cup his ass and push his briefs aside. He pulled back, staring at his handler’s cock admiringly.

  “Oh, fucking get on with it.”

  “Mouthy,” his lips pressed closer to the base of Syler’s cock, “little,” a hand wrapping snugly around the shaft, “shit,” he breathed onto the tip, drawing back. Syler could have wept. “Condoms?”

  “Bedside drawer, you absolute asshole,” he panted. Arthur grinned, already reaching with his free hand. He tore at the wrapper with his teeth, slipping the rubber down Syler’s cock in short order and going right back to teasing him with his hand, pressure just enough to keep him on edge but not nearly enough to put him over.

  “Oh, fucking blow me or don’t, you unbelievable goddamned—” Syler let out a broken whine as Arthur swallowed him down, bobbing once, twice, then popping off.

  “Turnabout is fair play, Syler.” He mouthed at the skin of his inner thigh, scraping his teeth lightly upwards. Syler bucked up helplessly, held in place by the other man’s weight settled between his legs. “And you have been teasing me for months, you little brat.”

  Syler pressed the heel of his hand into the other man’s shoulder, shoving him back down. “Put your back into it, Dufault,” he gasped as Arthur swallowed him down. The blond hummed, cheeks hollowing as he sucked. “That’s it,” he whined, hips bucking upwards. “Faster.”

  Arthur chuckled, coming off him with a wet pop. “You’re so bossy.”

  “You like it,” he hissed back.

  “I do,” and he set back to work. Syler was arching back again in a few moments, entirely too close. It really had been ages. He reached down, tugging roughly on Arthur’s hair, trying to pull him off.

  “I’m not going to—fuck!” His hands fisted into the sheets, heels pressed into the mattress, spine arching up into Arthur’s mouth, balls gone tight and cock bursting without warning.

  The other man chased after his mouth, kissing him roughly, hand wrapping around his own cock as he ground down against him, jerking himself furiously. Not to be entirely outdone, Syler bucked him off, flipping the man and relishing in his stunned expression, replacing his hand with his own, pulling unrelentingly until he spilled moments later.

  Syler dropped onto his chest, panting into his neck. Arthur’s arms came up around him automatically. “Well, fuck me,” he stated, dazed.

  “We so didn’t get to that, Arthur.”

  “Next time.”

  Syler huffed. “Your optimism regarding my stamina is wildly misplaced.”

  They lapsed into silence, breathing slowing together, until the rapidly cooling mess between them risked becoming a nuisance. Arthur, invariably the more particular of them, reached blindly for his undershirt where it was discarded on the floor the night prior, wiping them both off. Syler pulled off the condom, tying it before tossing it in the waste bin beside the bed.

  Arthur pulled him back down, settling him in the crook of his arm and nuzzling affectionately at his forehead, hand carding through his rumpled curls. “We should probably talk about this.”

  “Yeah, probably.” The immediate problem was that he had no idea where to start. He tucked his head further into Arthur’s neck, self-proclaimed human disaster status on full display. He was, to put it mildly, not good at this.

  “What do you want here, Syler?” Arthur always was the braver of them.

  “You.”

  “Gonna need more than that to go on, sweetheart.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ve never been very good at relationships,” he murmured. He felt Arthur’s mouth stretch into a wide grin where it was pressed to his hair.

  “You do want a relationship with me though?” His tone was distinctly hopeful.

  “I thought that was a given.”

  “Historically?” he scoffed. “Not for me. I’m batting a zero game on that front.”

  Syler jerked his head up abruptly, stunned. “Are you honestly telling me you’ve never had someone?”

  “Fun fact, Syler,” he sighed, tone weighted down with something distinctly melancholy. “The rest of the service? Nothing like covert affairs. Remember when I told you it’s hard to find someone in this line of work? Try doing it in the regular military. Or rural Iowa. It’s not better.”

  “Iowa I can understand,” he began, measured, rubbing a reassuring circle into his agent’s hip. “South Dakota was the same place with different tornadoes.
I left for a reason. The rest I have no frame of reference for.”

  Arthur pressed a distracted kiss to his forehead, brow furrowed. “When you’re a high school sports all-star from a conservative flyover state, your options are more or less join the service, hope for a football scholarship, or stay there, marry a nice girl, have kids, and die. I turned eighteen right before 9/11. Everyone was perfectly proud to see me off to boot camp and it didn’t require explaining that I was breaking up with the local prom queen because I was deep enough in the closet to be halfway down Narnia fucking Lane.” He gave a self-deprecating laugh. “Yes, the Army in the era of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ was preferable to staying in Fuck All Nowhere, Iowa.”

  Syler gripped him tighter, suddenly aware that the seven year age gap between them meant Arthur had grown up in a very different world. “Were you ever out to anyone?”

  “Fuck no,” he breathed. Like a dam breaking, Syler thought. “I learned to walk the walk a long time ago, Syler. I know damn well people still don’t clock me as a gay man. I had every intention of doing my time, taking my GI Bill, and carving out a life in the open for myself. I just turned out to be a better fit for this life than any other one.”

  “Joining Delta?”

  “They were more willing to turn a blind eye to my indiscretions on account of me being very good at killing people, but even DADT getting repealed didn’t mean I felt safe going in for more than a one night stand. Besides,” he laughed, empty, an entire story in the space between, “who wants a soldier they can’t be seen with in public?”

  “Oh Arthur—”

  “Don’t,” he warned tersely. Syler froze. He sighed, mouth pressing an apology into his hair. “Sorry, I don’t do pity well. Never have.”

  The younger man smiled, wry. “You? Say it isn’t so.”

  “That’s my sweetheart,” he chuckled, relaxing. “Jeanette recruited me out of Delta almost eight years ago. One of the first things she asked once she saw my record was if I was ‘flexible’ about engaging potential partners in the field, presumably male. I’d already decided I was getting out if I had to hide any longer, so I just told her the truth. Do you know what she said?”