by Rhys Ford
“This is my damned case, Kane,” he ground out, stepping back from the counter to face his brother. “I can handle this.”
“And you’re still on it.” He knew what Riley was feeling. His partner, Sanchez, offered to do the deed, but Kane decided he should step up, especially since he was yanking the rug out from under his baby brother. “Kel and I are primary, and you’re with us.”
“I just talked to Brownie an hour ago. He said he had the stomach flu and was coming in.” Riley gnawed on his denial, spitting out pieces of it at Kane.
“His flu turned out to be his appendix. You can go visit him at the hospital later on.” Kane tried to look apologetic, but Riley was too pissed off for sympathy. “Come on. You’re junior and this is a huge fucking mess. Captain thought that it would be best if we took it. That’s how things work, Riley. You know that.”
“Just because I know it, doesn’t mean I have to like it.” His spitting anger lessened, but Kane knew it simmered just below the surface. “You know what this feels like? Like when someone we didn’t expect shows up at Thanksgiving and I get shoved back down to the kiddie table. That’s what this fucking feels like. I’m going to take a walk. Maybe grab some coffee. Don’t expect me to fucking bring you any, asshole.”
Riley slid past Sanchez on his way out, brushing against the lean Hispanic inspector without saying a word. Kel raised his eyebrows at his partner, and Kane merely shook his head, warning Kel against saying anything. Shrugging, the man strolled in, working the air out of his latex gloves with a flex of his fingers.
“Baby bro’s a bit ticked off, eh?” Sanchez grinned foolishly at the blonde examiner. “God, she’s hot. I love a woman who knows her shit.”
Kane glanced over at the woman who was elbow deep in blood and offal, then wrinkled his nose at his partner. “You are a sick fuck, Kel.”
“I was being serious. Woman’s got some mad smarts. Intelligence is the new nose job, didn’t you know?” Kel tapped at the tablet he’d brought in from their vehicle. “Your brother’s got some brains too. He spotted a bunch of envelopes with the vic’s name on them. Turns out they’re rental payment slips for the property. All the money’s gone….”
“Of course,” Kane drawled.
“Yeah, of course.” Kel shot him a grin. “But your baby brother noticed a couple of them had been taped closed, and whoever opened them, plucked up the tape instead of tearing the envelopes.”
“Chances are, all that’s going to show us is who taped them closed in the first place. So what?”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought too, but hey, you remember what it’s like pulling your first case.” Sanchez poked at Kane’s ribs. “You want to find that one thing that blows everything wide open. So you dust everything, image everything, and then beg, borrow, and steal anyone’s time to do your labs or processing.”
“Oh God, were we ever that young?” Kane rolled his eyes, remember all too well the first time he’d signed his name as primary. “So I guess this is important how?”
“Because your baby brother—”
“Inspector Riley Morgan,” Kane reminded him. “I feel bad enough pissing in his mouth on this one. Let’s at least give him rank, Sanchez.”
“Okay, Inspector Morgan… which is like half of the damned force… pushed the guys down at the lab to run the initial discovery for him. Called in favors, blah blah blah.” He turned the tablet and showed Kane the initial fingerprint rundown the lab sent over for Riley to review. “But you’re not going to fucking believe whose print is on one of those envelopes.”
Chapter 9
You say you’re done with me
But every time I turn around
I see your shadow
Keeping us forever bound
I can feel you near
Haunting a few steps behind
A ghost I cannot shake
A nightmare I cannot find
—Forever Bound
THE man felt right under him. Their legs tangled and his skin hot from Sionn’s hands, Damien fit perfectly into the hollows of his body, hips writhing against his and fingers exploring places left untouched for too long. Even the taste of him was perfect, a hint of icy cool, coffee, and wild.
It was wrong. Sionn knew it. Damien would slip out from between his fingers, an ivory-skinned dream caught only for a moment of craziness.
They hadn’t had enough time to do much more than skim the surface of who they were, but Sionn knew he’d lose Damien, no matter how hard he tried to hold onto him or promised to keep him safe. There was something untamed about the man, and Sionn tried to tell his heart not to get too attached.
His heart had no intention of listening.
“God, please… if you’re a benevolent God”—Sionn’s Gaelic hummed in the hollow of Damien’s throat, leaving a trail of kisses—“help me make this last. Please.”
Sionn was pretty sure if he tried hard enough and focused on it, he could hear God laughing his ass off somewhere above them.
“Tell me you’ve got some stuff,” Damien muttered, arching his back when Sionn’s teeth found his collarbone. “Dude, seriously, I’m about to pop.”
He didn’t want to rush it. Not if there wasn’t a guarantee that the man he held would be back in his bed. Damien’s wicked mouth begged to be kissed, and Sionn was more than willing to do just that, if only to shush the guitarist’s needy mewling. Hearing his name in Damien’s rolling growl was driving him insane, and his cock thickened painfully when he thought about plunging into the man’s body.
“We’ll take our time, Damie.” Sionn toyed with the man’s nipple, flicking its tip with his nails. It pearled, hard and flushed as pink as Damien’s nibble-plumped mouth. His skin tasted of rain, and it prickled where Sionn left it wet and slick. “It’s been a long time for me too.”
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d held a man. Not since before Vienna. He could barely look at his life before then without thinking of that single moment of blood and regret.
Something shifted inside of him, something as wanting as Damien’s fiery lust and long, hot body. Sionn longed to erase that Viennese nightmare. Mute it. Drown it in the quench of Damien’s tightness until he came back up, molten from the need of the man. He would lose himself for a few hours, bathe in Damien’s need and come out of it, cleansed.
If only Sionn wasn’t certain he was going to lose a part of himself to Damien in the process.
“Fuck it.” He dipped in for another taste, reveling in the sweetness of the man’s hot mouth. “I’d rather be lost in you.”
The soft light from the windows moved slowly through the room, a storm’s rolling clouds throwing shadows through the curtains. The play of dark and luminosity snagged at the curves and planes of Damien’s outstretched body, pouring handfuls of black and gold over his pale skin. Sionn sat up, rested his weight on his knees, and slid off the sweats Damien had been wearing.
Sionn tried not to focus solely on the slender cock lying on the man’s thigh or the black down it nested in. He certainly didn’t want to think about the stretch of flushed pink sac beneath Damien’s sex or the flash of plum-dark taint below them. If he did, he was sure to lose himself, like he was a schoolboy at his first peek at a naughty picture.
He was hard from the wanting, and the man’s cock stirred, alive and promising, but it would have to wait.
“Let me take a good look at you, Damie boy.” Sionn couldn’t chase away the Gaelic thickening his tongue any more than he could have wished the blood to stop rushing to his dick. “Sit up for me and let me look at how beautiful you are.”
Damien peered up at him through a mass of damp black hair, then nodded. He moved slowly, carefully, as if his limbs were new, and Sionn reached for him and slid him over to the middle of the mattress.
“God above, Damie,” Sionn whispered. “You are so… fucking damned beautiful.”
Goose bumps raked up over Damie’s inked back, and Sionn crouched over him, rubbing at the man’s shou
lders. He laughed and leaned into the warmth of Sionn’s body, shivering slightly, but he sat still, letting Sionn’s hands roam over him.
The ravages of the accident and months spent scraping by were plain on Damien’s lean body. Naked and in the murmur of light creeping into the room, every scar and discoloration on the man stood out vividly, slashes of pink or healed-over beige on ivory skin. Thinner scars ran up from his belly and around to his back, crisscrossing over his rib cage, and Sionn no longer wondered how he’d gotten them. Similar old marbling scored Damien’s thighs, wrapping around his muscles in slender lines. They were all markers of a man’s hatred for his son, and Damien Mitchell wore them with pride.
The patchwork was subtle, the marks of a life Sionn knew practically nothing about. Still, everything about Damien hummed with a sensuality Sionn couldn’t believe he’d missed before. Battle worn, Damien exuded an unbreakable confidence, battered by a storm he could not hide from but supple enough to bend to its strong winds.
With Damien’s back bared before him, he could now see the subtle stamp of scars under the kirin, a lifetime of pain drowned beneath ink and determination. There were some points where Sionn could believe Damie’s father had cut down nearly to the bone, deep wells of thickened skin forming unforgiving channels beneath the tattoo. The artist who’d done the work was skilled at his craft, tucking away the accordion folds of flesh into vibrant, deep colors, masking them into the design.
Sionn kissed Damien’s hands, inspecting the complex construct of bone and skin he’d heard create music out of steel and wood. Two fingers on his right hand were bent inward at the second joint, marring the graceful lines, and his nails were bitten off short, their ragged edges speckled with gray threads from Sionn’s cotton pants.
“I must have been blind not to see you, Damien.” Sionn drank his fill, mindful of the man’s cooling body, but he needed to simply look at the shattered angel who’d fallen into his life.
“You’ve got way too much fucking clothes on, Irish,” Damien murmured, tugging at Sionn’s waistband. “How about if we get this show on the road so I can start begging for an encore?”
“You’re asking a lot of me there. Let’s see how it does on the first go-around before we even think about seconds, you greedy idjit.”
If anyone could be accused of greed, it would have to be him, Sionn thought. With the front door locked and the shades drawn, they could hide away from the world for at least a week. Maybe more if he ordered in food instead of cooking. Either way, it was a tempting proposition.
If he weren’t so sure his family would hunt him down with torches and pitchforks if he missed going to the dinner he’d promised them.
A quick glance at the clock and some fast math later, they had hours left before they had to drag themselves out.
“Hope to goddamn hell those rubbers I’ve got are still good.” Sionn tried to remember when he’d bought them. “What the fuck is the shelf life on those?”
“It’s like five years.” Damien pulled down Sionn’s pants and caught them on his folded knees. “Tell me you’ve fucked somebody at least once since then. I’m fine if I have to break you back into things. Might take us a few tries, but, dude, I’m totally willing to put in the time.”
“Not here. You’re the first guy I’ve had in my place,” he growled, pushing Damien’s hand away from his cock. “Hold on there, Damie boy. Let me see what I’ve got.”
The nightstand held little, and it should have been simple enough to grab the paper bag printed with a local drugstore’s logo, but he had to move his gun case to get to it. The shuffle of metal perked Damien’s attention, and the man leaned over Sionn’s shoulder to peer into the open drawer.
“You got any naughty toys….” He trailed off when he spotted the black box. “Is that a gun?”
“Yeah. I was a bodyguard, remember? It was a part of my job.” Sionn closed the drawer quickly, tossing the bag onto the bed. With his dick hanging out, its foreskin peeled back around its head, Sionn didn’t think it was a good time to talk about what he’d done, but Damien’s frown boded ill. Cocking his head at the man, he gave Damie a measuring look. “You okay with it?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” Damien kissed him, sliding his skillful tongue over Sionn’s lips. “I just want to make sure you’re good. I know it was rough.”
Damien’s hand was on his thigh, rubbing at the healed-over scar there. The man’s gaze searched his face, raw with need but tempered with a compassion that hurt when Sionn realized it was for him.
“I’ll be okay,” Sionn heard himself promise. The darkness lurking at the edges of his mind sank its fangs into his thoughts, and he shoved it away, wanting only to focus on the man in his bed and not the blood he’d gotten on his hands. He did a quick check of the bag’s contents and tossed a bottle of raspberry-flavored lube and a couple of foils on the bed. “Wrappers are good. We’ve got three years left on them, so I’ll be fine.”
“Good.” If he’d thought Damien’s smile was sinful before, Sionn was introduced to an entirely different level of lust when the man’s skillful fingers began to stroke at his dick. Playing with the edges of Sionn’s foreskin, Damien tugged light enough to send a shockwave of sensations through him. “I really want to see how this tastes.”
“You should—” Sionn held out a wrapper, crinkling its edge beneath Damien’s nose. “You can’t trust—”
“You’re a fucking Boy Scout, Irish,” Damien sighed but took the condom. “Next time, we’ll stop someplace and bleed on a stick so I can get my mouth around that for real. I have never wanted to taste someone like I want to taste you.”
Next time.
The thought of Damien’s pout wrapped around his bare cock thrilled him. Even as the stretch of latex numbed the skin on his dick, he ached to feel the roughness of Damie’s tongue on him with nothing to separate them but spit and occasionally air. A next time was too much to hope for. As much of a soap-bubble promise as anything could be.
But it was good to dream.
He let Damien move him until he was against the headboard, his knees up and spread apart. The air was a cool touch on the inside of his thighs, and it licked at his crease, tickling lightly at the warmth of his body. The bed dipped when the black-haired guitarist knelt between his legs. When Damien slipped his hand down to grip his length, Sionn leaned back and inhaled sharply at the first touch of hot tongue lapping at his captured dick.
He was thick enough to strain Damien’s lower lip, and he hissed when Damie pulled away and he suddenly felt a sharp rub at the root of his sac. Damien wrestled a bit of skin from the soft, pillowy heaviness between his teeth, the gentle tugging a tingle of starbursts along Sionn’s sensitive balls. With his thumb and middle finger firmly clamped on Sionn’s base, Damien let go, then lowered his mouth and took Sionn to places he didn’t know existed.
Damien’s lips pulled at him, closing on his length. The man took all of him in, slowly working down Sionn’s cock until he thought he’d go mad. Sionn carded his fingers through the man’s mane, pulling Damie’s soft hair between his fingers, and he threaded through the black, reaching down with his other hand to caress the splashes of ink on Damie’s spine. The tug and pull grew faster, a hot sleeve of wet suction he could feel even through the latex, and then a whisper of a finger along his opening nearly undid him.
“Fucking hell,” Sionn growled, yanking the man up. “Turn over. I’ve got to be in you, love. I can’t take this anymore.”
The bed creaked loudly, its springs protesting Damien’s rapidly shifting weight. He was quiet, panting as he glanced back over his shoulder, his blue eyes hooded and deep-black with arousal. Balancing on his elbows, he faced the foot of the bed, moving his knees apart to tilt his ass up for Sionn’s appreciation.
It was a sight he could grow used to. Wanton and vulnerable at the same time, the musician crouched there, open and desirable, the very essence of a sensual experience Sionn wanted to bury himself in. The pucker of Damien’s ass
flexed, instinctive and inviting, and Sionn blew a kiss into the shadowy cleft, watching the skin purl in response.
Sionn slapped the man’s ripe cheek and left a pink mark on Damie’s pale skin, then cracked open the lube bottle and dribbled a line of it down Damien’s crease. He hissed at the cold, grumbling at it until Sionn bent forward and bit down on his ass, dimpling the skin with his teeth. The hiss turned into a growl, then a gasp, when Sionn’s fingers caught up the dripping lube and spread it around Damien’s opening, working at the edges of his entrance.
“Fuck. God, I forgot how good that fucking feels.” Damien bent his head forward, his hair falling around his face. “Sionn… Irish… come on, man. Just give me—”
“You are the most impatient—” He lost his control as Damie slid back, piercing himself on Sionn’s finger. Already swallowed up past the first joint, Sionn pushed farther in, working as much of the lube into his lover as he could. Damie gyrated around his intrusion, a foul stream of begging and cajoling coming from his hidden pretty mouth.
Leaning over, he poised the head of his cock at the edge of Damien’s furrow, seating his gloved tip into the man’s moist heat. Gripping Damien’s hips, Sionn ran his tongue over the ridge of Damie’s ear and nipped at the crinkled fold with his teeth.
“Hold on, Damie love,” he whispered, suckling the spot he’d bitten. “Let’s see how close we can fly to heaven.”
FUCK, the guy was huge. Damien knew how big Sionn was. He’d had the man in his mouth, for God’s sake, but even the blunt edge of him poised at the lip of his body burned.
And he wanted more.
There were too many things swimming around in his head. People—memories—emotions. He needed to find something to hold onto. Something solid and comforting. A something like the Irish-accented, silver-eyed man who brought him coffee in the morning hours before the sidewalk filled with people and who hid a soft heart behind a gruff daily Dread Pirate Roberts ritual of reminding Damie he’d have to move on one day.
