Locked Down

by Jess Anastasi

  Pulling away—which resulted in a frustrated noise from Matt, followed by an adorable glare—Gabe yanked open the drawer of the nightstand. He’d seen a bottle of lube in the bathroom cabinet when he’d been searching for a washcloth earlier, but he didn’t want to leave Matt long enough to walk all the way across the hall to get it.

  A quick search left him almost triumphant. “I’ve got lube, but no condoms.”

  “There’s one in my wallet.” Matt nodded to where his phone, keys, and wallet were piled next to Gabe’s belongings on the dresser across the room.

  Gabe sat back, and Matt rolled off the bed to go retrieve the item in question. Gabe watched him cross the room, enjoying the sight of his lithe yet toned body, making him want to lick the guy all over. Again. Matt had certainly seemed to enjoy it when he’d done just that a few days ago.

  Matt, meanwhile, made a quick search through his wallet but then ended up swearing.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked in concern as Matt turned back to him with an apologetic expression.

  “It’s expired.” He gave a self-conscious laugh. “Guess that’s telling.”

  Gabe got off the bed and strode over to him, taking everything from his hands and dumping it all back on the dresser.

  “I don’t care and it doesn’t matter. I don’t even carry any these days, which probably makes me kind of stupid.”

  Sternness edged into Matt’s expression. “You’re not stupid, Gabe. All it tells me is you’re not out there trawling for random guys to hook up with.”

  He couldn’t help kissing the fierce little frown from Matt’s lips.

  “So where does that leave us?” Matt asked breathlessly when Gabe started kissing down his neck once again.

  Gabe gave a tight shrug. It left them without many options. “I guess we could just—”

  Matt caught his chin and brought his head up, a stubborn, heated light in his gaze. “I want you inside me, Gabe. Right here, right now.”

  His entire body flash-heated, then blasted past melting point at Matt’s words.

  “Are you sure?” His voice came out husky, just the idea of sliding into Matt with nothing between them setting him aflame. “I got tested after I found out my last boyfriend cheated on me. But I’ve never actually done that with anyone. Gone without—”

  “Gabe.” Matt cupped his jaw as he shifted closer. “For a start, anyone who is dumb enough to cheat on you is a total loser and not worth your time. Second, I get tested yearly even though I haven’t been with anyone for a long while—just part of my regular checkup. And third, I’ve never let anyone get away with not using a condom either. But I want to experience that with you. I trust you.”

  The wave of feeling that swept over Gabe at Matt’s unwavering faith in him was indescribable. “Christ, Matt, you’re killing me here.”

  Matt pressed into him and then started walking him backward toward the bed. “We both need this, and you know it.”

  He sure as hell wasn’t going to argue, not when Matt caught him in a blistering kiss that wiped out all higher reasoning before urging him down onto the mattress and then climbing on top of him. This time, Matt was all over him—hands and lips and tongue leaving no part of him untouched, winding him tighter and higher until his body became oversensitive and the lightest touch sparked sharply through his entire being.

  When Matt finally reached for the lube he’d discarded earlier when the search for a condom had distracted them both, he expected Matt to hand it to him. Instead he squeezed a generous amount on his own fingers. Gabe groaned as he realized Matt’s intent and almost forgot how to breathe as he watched Matt enjoying the hell out of stretching himself open.

  Gabe rolled his hips up, needing relief for his aching cock. Matt grinned down at him, teasing and assured, clearly knowing what he wanted, but drawing the torture out just a little longer. Frustrated, Gabe reached up and clamped a hand around the back of his neck.

  “Matt, if you don’t fuck me right now, I’m going to flip you over and then I won’t be responsible for whatever happens next.”

  Matt’s blue eyes became impossibly dark, all humor racing from his expression as he sunk down. Gabe reached between them to line himself up, expecting Matt to take him gradually. Except as soon as the tip of his cock breached the tight entrance, Matt shoved down hard, whole body shuddering as he groaned long and loud.

  Gabe could only gasp at the onslaught of sharp pleasure he hadn’t been expecting. He barely had his head around it when Matt lifted slightly and then bore down again, setting a hard and fast rhythm. He clamped his hands onto Matt’s ass, feeling the muscles contracting beneath his palms as he moved. Gabe dug his heels into the bed, giving himself more leverage to thrust up forcefully to meet Matt move for move.

  Matt’s blue eyes burned as he stared down at him, lower lip caught between his teeth, black hair tousled, a light flush on his cheeks. God, he was gorgeous.

  Gabe had been with his share of cute, sexy, or hot guys, but none of them measured up to Matt in that moment. None of them had made him feel like his chest was so full of bright, incredible emotion he could barely breathe.

  Oh fuck. It was too good. Too much. Too damned perfect. He wasn’t going to last. Even now he could feel his balls drawing up, could feel the detonation gathering heat and force.

  “Matt—” His mind couldn’t find the words, but then it didn’t matter, because Matt wrapped a fist around his own erection and Gabe was done for.

  He slammed his hips upward one last time, his blood turning to liquid mercury in his veins, brilliant and burning, the intense pleasure surging up, out, and over him indefinable and breathtaking.

  Matt moaned his name, falling forward to plant his free hand on the bed next to Gabe’s shoulder, bucking into his own fist as he came, covering Gabe’s chest and abs with his release. A sharp aftershock of pleasure shot through Gabe before he’d even finished coming down as muscles clamped around his still-throbbing cock.

  “God damn,” he breathed out as Matt dropped boneless onto his chest.

  He’d never come that hard in his life. Being inside Matt with nothing between them had been mind-blowing, and he was intensely glad he’d never done it with anyone else before now. The things he felt for Matt were unlike anything he’d experienced in the past. And once they were out of this damned town, he could go to San Francisco and get on with working out what it meant for him, for them both.

  He only prayed it meant the forever he was starting to hope for.

  But first he had a criminal to put away, an investigation to wrap up, and a new boyfriend to keep safe.

  Easy. He hoped.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  MATT LET Gabe drag him to the shower, but wasn’t exactly resisting. He still felt boneless after riding Gabe to that epic orgasm. He might have started out in control on top of Gabe, but Gabe had quickly taken over, gripping Matt’s ass hard enough to leave bruises and then dictating the depth and speed of every thrust after. It wasn’t the first time Matt had taken a guy in that position, but damned if he could remember any of them so thoroughly owning him like Gabe had.

  After all their other encounters being so damned incredible, he should have expected taking the last step would be just as amazing, if not more so. But he still hadn’t quite been prepared for exactly how every second with Gabe had seared into his soul until he couldn’t figure out where he ended and Gabe began.

  He could have quite happily spent the day dozing naked on top of Gabe, maybe gone for a repeat performance or two, but unfortunately the real world was determined to get in the way.

  Gabe’s phone had buzzed with messages from Yas—even though she was supposed to be resting after surgery, apparently she was still trying to work—the sheriff, Jake, and some other FBI agents who’d come to wrap up the case. The shit had really hit the fan since a federal agent had been shot.

  So, no. They couldn’t hide away in bed all day, no matter how much they both wanted to.

  After, howev
er….

  After, he was taking Gabe back home to San Francisco, going to show him the bakery and coffee shop, introduce him to Sammie and Krissy, probably even his mom and Aunt Katie. Then they could see and do all the kitschy tourist things and spend an entire week naked in bed together. He’d never wanted to do anything more in his life than all the mushy boyfriend stuff with Gabe.

  Gabe finished adjusting the water temperature and then pulled Matt into the shower stall, letting the door swing shut behind them. Even as Matt found himself taken in a drugging kiss, Gabe was spinning them around and pressing him into the wall. He shivered at the contrast of the warm water cascading over his front and the cold tiles at his back, but didn’t get a chance to dwell on it since Gabe found a bottle of body wash and proceeded to slick up every inch of his skin between intoxicating kisses.

  By the time they were both covered in suds and slipping against each another, Matt was just about ready to beg Gabe for some kind of relief—hands, mouth, whatever—he didn’t care as long as he got to go over the edge and take Gabe with him.

  Gabe beat him to it, however, breaking the kiss to brush his mouth against Matt’s ear.

  “Want to know exactly how good it feels to come inside someone with no condom?” Gabe’s words weren’t much more than a breath coasting over his wet skin down his neck, leaving him shuddering all the way to his toes.

  Gabe didn’t give him a chance to answer—not that he could have. He was certain the blast of hot desire that’d surged through him had burned away his ability to speak. Especially as Gabe turned around and pressed his back into Matt’s front, leaving his erection slipping in all the body wash against the crease of Gabe’s ass.

  Oh God. Already he could imagine thrusting smooth and easy into Gabe’s body. Except a small bubble of insecurity rising within him kept Matt still.

  “I don’t have much experience. I might not be very good at it,” he confessed, glad he didn’t have to be looking into Gabe’s dark eyes when he admitted the words. “I’ve only done it a few times before.”

  Gabe brought an arm up to wrap around the back of his neck, giving him better leverage to grind against Matt’s erection until he couldn’t think straight.

  “You really think I see the downside to that?” Gabe asked, a hint of gentle amusement in his voice. “I don’t care how much experience you do or don’t have. I want you to feel what I felt when I was inside you. I want us to share that in a way I’ve never shared with anyone else.”

  “Are you saying—” His brain blanked for a moment, wanting to believe what he thought Gabe was saying, but not sure he was understanding since the feel of Gabe’s entire body flush against him had made more than a few of his brain cells misfire.

  “I’m saying I’ve only trusted one other person, one single time with myself this way and that was ten years ago. But I haven’t got a second thought about you, Matt, not a second thought about us. I’m aching to feel you inside me.”

  Any final arguments or insecurities he’d been holding on to collapsed in on themselves, leaving him defenseless, unable to do anything other than what Gabe wanted.

  “Turn around,” he murmured before trailing a string of kisses along Gabe’s muscled shoulder.

  With a few simple moves, they’d swapped positions, Gabe facing the wall with both hands braced against the tiles as Matt pressed into him from behind, rubbing slow and gentle against him, torturing them both.

  Gabe glanced over his shoulder as he handed Matt a bottle of lube that’d been secreted away between the shampoo and conditioner bottles. Maybe he should have felt weird about helping himself to Danny and Jake’s products, but it wasn’t like he or Gabe were going to go all the way to a store to get some now.

  Matt locked his attention on Gabe’s profile, watching carefully for signs of discomfort or reluctance as he slid his fingers into Gabe’s body, but there was nothing except pliant pleasure in his expression. Gabe shoved back impatiently, clearly wanting more, moans hinting at his yearning to be entirely filled, just like he’d said.

  After withdrawing his fingers, Matt took a moment to lather some more of the lube on his erection before shifting into position.

  A final blip of nervousness went through him as he breeched the impossibly tight, hot entrance, but when he reached up to cover Gabe’s hand where it was pressed against the tiles, Gabe linked their fingers, turning his head to hold Matt’s gaze as he slowly, inexorably slid home until he was buried to the hilt. For a moment Matt was suspended, the intensity between them as they stared at each another—joined as deeply and intimately as two people could be—stripping him back to the sweetest, rawest vulnerability he’d ever felt.

  Except then it wasn’t enough for either of them. Gabe used his hands braced on the wall to press back, even as Matt withdrew the smallest amount possible, only to shove forward again.

  Gabe had been right; the naked sensation of thrusting into him with nothing between them was a kind of rapture Matt had never dreamed possible. He released Gabe’s fingers, sliding one hand down to flatten his palm over Gabe’s abs as he built up a steady rhythm of rocking into him while he fisted Gabe’s erection with the other hand.

  As Matt stroked in counter time to each lunge of his hips, Gabe sunk more heavily against him, taking him impossibly deeper, driving him onward with a litany of groans and mumbled words, long lost to Spanish instead of English. He kept forgetting to ask Gabe if Spanish was his first language, but it didn’t really matter right then, only that hearing Gabe beg him with the lilting words he only half understood was sexy as hell.

  Gabe suddenly jerked hard in his hold, entire body convulsing in one long shudder. Matt’s breath caught in his chest, and if that alone hadn’t already tripped him right over the edge, the feel of Gabe’s release in his hand would have. He shoved forward, pinning Gabe against the wall as he emptied himself deep into Gabe’s body—right where he belonged.

  Matt released a sighing breath as he slumped against Gabe, who was holding them both up against the wall.

  “You okay?” he murmured, pressing a kiss into Gabe’s shoulder, the only place he could reach without moving. Right then, he doubted his legs would hold him up if he tried to take so much as a step.

  “Depends on your definition of okay,” Gabe replied, voice soft and warm. “I’m definitely okay with the fact you pretty much just fucked me senseless and I probably won’t be able to walk straight all day.”

  Matt pushed back, smoothing his hands over Gabe’s back, washing away the last of the lingering suds, a hint of worry trickling through him.

  “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

  Gabe turned in the small space to face him, dark gaze hooded and all too satisfied. “Not even a little. And as much as I want to crawl back into bed with you, I really need to get to the sheriff’s station. I want to be the first one through the door as soon as the warrant to search Ferguson’s house comes through.”

  “Where are you going to stash me today?” He sent Gabe a quick smile, though he wasn’t really joking. Did he get to spend another day hanging around the station, brooding over his failed attempts to help Thomas? And debating just how far he should take Gabe’s offer of help if his cousin had left town and disappeared again?

  “That’s up to you.” Gabe shifted over to finish rinsing under the water. “You can come to the station with me. Or, since no one knows Jake and Danny asked us over last night, you’d probably be safe enough here for a few hours.”

  Matt nodded as Gabe leaned over to kiss him and then got out of the shower. He wasn’t sure which was the better option; both were likely to be boring. Though at least he wouldn’t be alone if he hung out at the station again.

  Left alone under the steaming spray, Matt found himself at a loose end. His entire purpose for coming to Everness had up and left for all he knew, and his luggage was stuck in the middle of a crime scene. And even though Gabe had said he’d be safe enough at Jake and Danny’s house for the day, the memory of getting those
pamphlets and his rental being vandalized, not to mention the damned motel room getting shot up, it all left him feeling extremely unsettled. Truthfully, he didn’t relish the idea of being alone in someone else’s house in a strange town. Which made his decision for him.

  He turned off the shower, grabbed a towel, and then went in search of Gabe, who had just finished dressing in the bedroom, clad in a tight pair of dark denim jeans and a plain black T-shirt. He’d seen Gabe in dress pants, cargos, and even sweats. But the way those jeans clung to him…. Matt had absolutely no idea how he was supposed to have a single logical thought all day at the sight of Gabe’s ass in those jeans.

  “Danny and Jake left us some clothes to borrow.” Gabe indicated the pile of neatly folded garments on the dresser. “You should be able to find something that’ll do until we can get our luggage from the motel.”

  He went over and sorted through the clothes, finding a pair of jeans that were just a touch too big, but as Gabe had said, would do until his own luggage was released by the FBI. He didn’t bother paying much attention to the white T-shirt he picked out and quickly dressed while Gabe was putting on his shoes.

  Just as he yanked the tee over his head, his phone buzzed on the dresser. Gabe was closer and picked it up for him, frowning at the screen.

  “Text from an unknown number.” Gabe crossed the room and handed it to him.

  “Thomas will be at the diner, 10:00 a.m. Last chance to see him,” he read, the unsettled churning in his gut getting worse. “What the hell does that mean?”

  Gabe gave a tight shrug, and Matt could practically see his mind working behind his expressive dark eyes.

  “Could be Thomas hasn’t left town yet and someone decided to help the two of you patch things up. Or your cousin could just be messing with you. If I’m being overcautious, it could even be some kind of trap. Though, it seems unlikely given the very public setting.” The taut expression on Gabe’s face told him the FBI analyst in him didn’t like this situation.