“How’s work?”
He knew his father feared for him, but always let him know he was proud of his son being a cop. At least this time he could tell him something safe. Woody laughed. “We were undercover at the flower market. I may have been putting it on a little thick. The downside was that one of the team members didn’t approve.”
“His gaydar was buzzing?”
“Yeah, but I think he’s gay, too.”
“You think?”
For once, Mack had been speechless. When he thought no one was paying attention, though, his gaze had turned smoldering, lasciviously eating Woody’s body from top to bottom, with emphasis on the bottom. Woody cracked a smile. He’d enjoyed the inspection of his attributes more than he’d thought possible. Mack was all man, which was one of the things he liked most about him. “I have a strong suspicion. Only a gay can really recognize that look in a man’s eye.” And Mack hadn’t been all that subtle.
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“Do you have any interest in him?”
His dad was like any other parent when his kid showed even a hint of attraction to someone else. “He’s an arrogant son of a bitch who thinks I’m just a kid, and he may be in denial, to boot.”
“Take care, Wood. You know, a cop in denial of his sexuality can really hurt you. Personally and professionally.”
“Yeah, Dad, I know the type.”
“Is he married, to a woman I mean?”
“No, not that I’ve heard. I’m thinking of calling him to go out for a beer. He seems to have some hostility toward me for no reason. For the good of the team, I think we should hash it out. Plus I want to rattle his cage a little. See what’ll fall out.”
“Just be careful, son. And remember he’s human and can be hurt.
Don’t toy with his feelings.”
“Dad, you know I’m not a tease.”
“You’ve been through this kind of thing before. You want to fix people. For a cop, you have the tenderest heart I know of.” Woody didn’t tell his dad about all his romantic relationships, but he knew about the latest with Brad. He’d even met the guy. “I know how to handle guys like this without risking myself. But if anything happens on the job, I—we—need to implicitly trust each other.”
“You know I’ve always supported you. Your mother did, too. Just take care of yourself.”
“I will, Dad. How about you? Any cute chicks in your sights?” Two years ago, his forty-nine-year-old father had been widowed.
Charles snorted. “I don’t know about chicks, but your old man still has some life in him.”
“I’m glad to hear that. I want you to be happy again.”
“Same here for you, kid.”
“Oh, God, that’s what the SOB calls me.”
“Uh-oh. I see you have your work cut out for you with this guy.” I’ll Be Your Last
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With his youthful-looking face, Woody always had trouble with people thinking he was younger than he was. “I’ve got some facial hair now, so I don’t look quite so young as usual.”
“Hope I see it soon, then. Kid.”
He heard the amusement in his dad’s voice and didn’t even mind the “kid” if it came from him. “Okay, Dad. I’ll call you in a few days.
Love you.”
“You, too, son.”
“Give Mol and Evie kisses for me when you see them.”
“Will do. And be very careful out there.”
“You bet.” Woody hung up on that warning. Years ago, they’d watched reruns of the old TV show, Hill Street Blues, and his dad always used that iconic line when saying good-bye. He didn’t know how other gays handled life without a loving and supportive family.
Maybe Penchant didn’t have that kind of upbringing, which was why he was so difficult. Or maybe he was naturally an out-and-out bastard.
He checked his watch. They’d had an early start this morning, but it was only seven o’clock, not too late to call the bastard and see if he’d meet him for a beer. The sooner they could get their relationship— professional relationship—straightened out, the better.
For the team.
It was a big risk. On a personal level, he had to admit he had a major case of the hots for Mack Penchant. He’d liked the looks of other cops from time to time but never acted on his feelings. The glances he’d shared with Penchant had, at times, been hostile, but once in a while there’d been a look that curled his toes and made his cock twitch. Whether those feelings were returned remained to be seen. Maybe they’d never know. But they owed it to rest of the squad to try to get along.
* * * *
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Mack couldn’t have been more surprised at the call from the kid.
Surprised, shocked, and suspicious. He would have turned the invite down if Woody hadn’t said they should talk for the good of the team.
He was right on that account.
Shit, it’s cold out. Mack reflexively jammed his knit cap farther down over his ears. The streetlight had burned out in front of the bar, but the snow falling lightly made the night seem less gloomy than it could have been. He hesitated on the sidewalk for a moment to watch the flakes. They were the big, fat ones, the kind that always looked so beautiful outside but had made life inside his childhood apartment feel more cold and damp than usual.
Shaking himself out of the unwanted reminder of his past, he pushed through the door to the bar and spotted the kid in the farthest booth back. His heart gave a little kick at the sight of the straight, soft-looking dark hair and the sexy goatee Woody’d grown in only a week. Pursing his lips, he shot down that bit of jealousy. The little fucker. It wasn’t the kid’s fault Mack couldn’t grow a decent beard.
When he tried, it looked scruffy and sickly, a look he couldn’t stand.
Mack did not want to be here. Not really. He supposed they should get some things straight, but being alone with him wouldn’t be a good thing. Woody couldn’t possibly know he was gay. Yeah, they’d shared some looks, but that didn’t have to mean anything.
Mack was an expert at keeping this part of himself a secret.
At least he thought he could. The other day in the locker room, he’d seen Woody without a shirt. His mouth literally watered at the memory of his sleek chest. Fuck it. The kid hasn’t seen me yet. I can get out of the bar, no harm no foul.
Why had Woody picked such a dingy old place to meet in?
Smoking was no longer allowed, but it would take eons before the smell completely dissipated. Old smoke, beer, and sweat. Ah, the lovely scents of joints like this. They reminded him of hunting down his mother in bars when he was in high school and then not being able to drag her out.
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At that moment, Mack’s mind almost made up to leave, Woody glanced toward the doorway, and their gazes locked. Mack didn’t realize he’d been holding his breath until Woody tentatively lifted a hand in greeting. Christ, he wanted the son of a bitch. He wanted to feel the man’s tall, broad frame covering his, wanted to feel that hard chest against his. He wanted to do things to that cock he’d imagined.
Shit.
Sliding into the booth, he nodded when the kid pointed to the label on his beer bottle. He watched him slip out and head to the bar for two more. Woody had a delicious ass but thankfully not still in what had to have been unbearably tight jeans. He wanted to chuckle but choked it back instead.
“You put on quite a show this morning.” 30
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Chapter Five
“What does that mean?”
“Disgusting.” Mack sneered.
Woody’s gaze narrowed.
Mack gritted his teeth and muttered, “Weren’t you uncomfortable in those jeans? They were so tight they had to be crushing your balls.”
“Yeah, I was.” Woody shrugged. “It was just part of the act.
What’s your problem with me, Mack?” Woody changed
the subject.
“If we’re going to work together, we have to get past this animosity.
Is it just because I’m younger?”
Mack took a deep guzzle of beer, tipping the bottle way up.
“Four years on the force might not seem like much to you, but I do have a lot of experience, especially in TAC,” Woody continued.
Mack’s head spun, not because of the alcohol, but because Woody’s gaze was so earnest. Damn, he looks cute and sexy. That baby face behind the dark beard didn’t fool anyone. He was still young, and Mack needed to know how young. “How old are you?” Woody blinked once slowly as if trying to stay patient.
“I’ve been working this job a lot longer than you have. I, none of us, can risk being hurt by an inexperienced cop,” Mack said.
Sitting back, Woody rubbed his shoulders against the wooden booth.“I’m twenty-six.”
Mack watched, his irritation climbing, breath catching in his throat as, mesmerized, he watched Woody’s fingers circle the small opening of the bottle. He could count the number of men on one hand who’d fucked his asshole. He was the fucker, not the fuckee. And the I’ll Be Your Last
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thought of Woody breaching the off-limits ring of his anus made him squirm. Damn, no! He’d never before wanted that with another man.
Woody’s lips moved. Mack knew he said something, but his attention was still on his throbbing hole and his suddenly fully erect cock. It’d hardened when he came in the door and saw the sweet-looking kid. Now it was dangerously full with longing, and there was nothing he could do about it. “What?” He felt like he was strangling.
“So what’s your real problem with me?” Jesus, when had he lost control of this conversation? Never had it, you dumb shit. Mack opened his mouth, then closed it with a snap.
“I’m not going to talk about this with you.” Living through his former partner’s shooting had been too painful.
“We have to if it’s going to impact our relationship.”
“We don’t have a—a relationship!” Mack half rose to leave the booth. Jesus H. Christ! A relationship. Through the haze of memories of past pain, an imagined vision of the two of them entwined in bed, kissing and touching each other’s dicks filled his mind. Get it together.
“Your partner…”
Mack sat back down with a thump. His eyes shifted from side to side, searching for a way out. “You don’t know—” But he must know something, or he couldn’t have brought it up. Just give the kid what he wants and get out of here. Panicked, he responded in a rusty, harsh voice, “Okay, here it is. I’m saying it just once and never again. Do you understand?” Narrowing his gaze, he tried to bore a hole through Woody in a mixture of agony for his former partner and himself, combined with lewd desires about the kid, acts he had no business wanting.
“We were ambushed.” Mack felt his face freeze into the most cold-blooded, do-not-ask expression he could muster. He didn’t want to talk about this, but if it got Woody off his back, he’d give him an abbreviated version of that day. The kid’s waiting gaze frightened him. He never opened himself up to anything this personal. Why he 32
Jane Leopold Quinn
was willing to do it now, with this guy, he wasn’t sure. Oh. Yeah. To shut him up.
Woody’s eyes softened, just a little. It wasn’t pity. The kid was young but still a cop. He would understand.
Mack tightened his jaw and, through clenched teeth, began.
“Serving a warrant. I motioned my partner, Mitch—” His voice caught on the name. “I pointed to the rear of the house thinking it would be safer.” Then his gaze was lost in the past, directed at the bottle of beer gripped tightly in his fist.
“Fuck it,” he snarled. “All it boils down to is that he stood right in front of the back door and took a round that nicked his spinal cord.”
“Nothing he could blame you for,” was Woody’s calm reply.
“But he did.” Mack made the mistake of glancing at Woody.
Those dark eyes, sparkling in the dim lights of the bar, offering—
offering what? Whatever it was, he didn’t want it. He’d been stupid enough to think he could work with another young guy, and look what had happened. “It was my responsibility to train him. My decision got him shot. Don’t look at me with pity.”
“I’m not,” Woody denied. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“Mitch didn’t see it that way.”
“He doesn’t any longer.”
“How do you know so much about this, kid?” Mack snapped.
“You been checking up on me?” His heart hurt. His stomach roiled with the familiar guilt. He couldn’t meet Woody’s eyes and turned his gaze toward the bar, at all the hazy, dim reflections in the mirror behind the display bottles.
“I asked Fred.”
“I don’t like you going behind my back.”
“I had to ask someone why you seemed so hostile toward me.
Fred gave me a very sketchy story. He said IAD cleared you, and that your partner doesn’t blame you any longer. He never should have in the first place.”
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“I should have watched out better for him.” Mack’s voice dropped to a tormented whisper.
“Mack, this job is dangerous. Every day is a risk. We have the public to feel responsible for.”
“Don’t give me any lectures. You wanted to know what happened, and now you do. So just drop it.” Mack couldn’t meet Woody’s eyes.
“Okay, but don’t mistrust me because of what happened with someone else. I can take care of myself. I don’t need a babysitter.”
“Yeah.”
“Mack, I can take care of myself,” Woody repeated. “I’m not a rookie like your partner.”
The next thing Mack knew was the heaviness of Woody’s hand around his wrist, the one still holding the bottle. He looked down.
Jesus, the kid has big hands. The jukebox had been on since he’d walked into the bar, and the song playing at that moment was “Need You Now.” Lady Antebellum really knew how to grab a guy by the guts and shake him. He couldn’t move, couldn’t remove his hand from Woody’s, couldn’t get any spit in his mouth to say one more word. At that moment, he wanted things he shouldn’t.
He froze. Shit. His hand. On me. What the hell is he doing?
Thoughts pinged madly around in his brain. His wrist, his forearm tingled, his face heated, sweat formed on his upper lip.
An unbearably painful desire forced him to look up. An electric charge flashed between them. There was an instinctive recognition of like sexualities. The possibility of hot, luscious sex, of lying replete with limbs entwined. All this in the seconds of silence.
God knew he was weary of hiding. He’d been doing it so long that sometimes he didn’t know who he was anymore. What if he just turned his hand over and met Woody’s, palm to palm? What if he allowed himself to accept what was being offered?
No! I don’t do that. I fuck and leave.
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But maybe this would be different. He slowly turned his hand to meet Woody’s. The kid’s lips parted, and he suddenly looked stunned, too.
Light-headed, Mack closed his eyes in the pleasure of touching palms. If he stayed, he’d want those lips on his, on his cock. He’d want too much, more than he should. God, the kid was a cop, too. No way could this happen. Yanking his hand away, Mack slid out of the booth so fast he shoved the table toward Woody.
“Well, I’m glad we have everything straightened out. See you in the squad room,” Mack muttered before bolting out of the bar. He hated the grief drowning him. It wasn’t worth it to get close to anyone. Hadn’t he learned that seventeen years ago before he left home?
Why now? What was it about Woody Kane that made him vulnerable now? He was just another man. A man he couldn’t be with. He should be used to that by now.
* * * *
Woody smiled sadly at Mack’s retreati
ng back. Well, now he was sure Mack was gay. But there was something else he knew. Mack was equally flustered and attracted. That made for one hell of a sexy mix.
He forgot about Brad. He forgot about the other guys in his past, forgot the lessons he’d learned from them about opening up his heart, getting it ripped to little pieces, and handed back to him.
He wanted Mack, wanted him with a white-hot, raunchy, wanton lust that curled his toes and filled his cock to an almost-painful hardness. The feeling was more intoxicating than ten alcoholic drinks.
Woody knew the minute Mack had become aware of “Need You Now.” Who had he been thinking of? Woody’d thought only of him.
His lips quirked at the promise of getting through that well-guarded barrier Mack put up. He was just the kind of man who’d repressed so much and would be a maniac when it finally exploded. And Woody I’ll Be Your Last
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wanted to be there when it did. He wanted to be the one to trigger the explosion.
His asshole pulsed at the potential of the unbearable pleasure of Mack’s penis penetrating slowly. Yeah, like he’d be slow. If it was Mack, Woody was more than ready for it. Woody swallowed back a groan. He knew Mack would call the shots and wouldn’t be a gentle lover. He was an intense guy, a tough guy. Woody’s body burned just thinking about the fierce power of Mack’s taking.
He dropped his head into his hand, ordering himself to get a grip.
Go home. Get some sleep. If you can after you worked yourself up to this. His legs actually quivered as they tried to carry him out of the bar. With a wry twist of his lips, a tight clench of his jaw, and a deep breath through his nose, he knew he’d have to masturbate, or there’d be no possible chance of sleep the rest of the night.
Closing his front door behind him, he headed for his bedroom and the table beside it. He didn’t need any light to find what he wanted.
What he needed. Stripping, he crawled onto the bed, lay on his back, and began his time-honored routine, lubed hand shafting himself and an equally, thickly lubed glass plug waiting in the wings. With thoughts of the sexy cop, he whimpered Mack’s name as he widened his thighs, lifted his knees, and used the plug to toy with his hole, priming it open, teasing himself in short, powerful thrusts. Squeezing his passage around it, he twisted the ridged glass to increase the intensity and imagined Mack’s cock thrusting in quick, hard, impatient bursts. That threatened to push him over the edge too quickly.
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