I listened to her perceptions of Niall and me from the last hour or so, and I was sobered. I knew I’d sometimes had those thoughts myself, over the past few months alone. The hatred, the anger, the aggression, the resentment. I knew how they felt, deep in the core of me. I’d put passion and sincerity into everything I said to Greg. But I also knew what an actor I was.
I’d never been happier that I could occasionally turn that dubious skill to my advantage.
“It was an act, Sheri,” I said, as gently as I could. “It was something we planned between us. Anything we could think of to unnerve Greg, to unbalance him. I wanted him to despise me, to think me no better than the shit he and his brother had heaped on them in their lives. So that’s what I showed him. I was a failure in my work, suspended from duty. Niall had nothing but contempt for me. He needed to see Niall and me as hostile. Then I could pretend an affinity with him while Niall was the bad guy. He could enjoy the fact we hated each other, rather than banding together against him.”
“The business with the radio?” she asked, in a small, rather sulky voice.
“Niall had it wired up so it shorted the live to the casing. I kept Greg preoccupied, and then Niall pretended we were going to receive an important message. It tempted Greg to touch it first. We knew he’d get a hell of a shock. I just needed him distracted, then we’d overpower him. Though it didn’t work quite as I hoped.”
“I got in the way,” she said.
There was growing distress in her eyes. She’d been through such a lot, and I reckoned she was underestimating the effects of shock. I heard a gasp from the group of people around the radio and was desperate to know what was happening. But Sheri’s hand was still on mine. I think she’d forgotten she put it there.
“No you didn’t,” I said firmly. “You hear me? You helped us. You had a go at him yourself, didn’t you? Hurt yourself, too, which I won’t forgive any of us for. Anyway, we’re friends, and I value that. We sorted him out between us. It’s all over now.”
“Not just with the Greg guy,” she said, her voice very low. “I meant I might have been in the way with Niall too. I’m sorry.”
I smiled. “Look, I think you and Phil will have a lot of fun together. I’m not exactly your dream guy, but I’ve never been that to anyone, so I wouldn’t know what to do to live up to it.”
“You are to him,” she said, and suddenly her face cleared. “To Niall. I mean, he’s a good actor like you, you know? You both had me fooled.” She blushed, embarrassed about it. “But when he wasn’t looking daggers at you, he had a really deep, strange look in his eyes.”
I thought it might have been the anticipation of “mission-mode” that she’d seen. But didn’t I know now that Niall was made up of a whole bunch of other feelings that I’d only scratched the surface of? I was hoping I’d have a good long time to burrow beneath that surface.
“You look stupid,” Sheri said, grinning broadly. “A right dork. If you could see your face… like you’re in love or something. Two guys, sheesh! What a fucking shame.”
“He’s everything to me,” I said. Quite suddenly, it was all very clear to me. “I want him. I need him. I’m not at my best without him. Shit, I’m nowhere near! I want him with me all the hours we can spare; I want to know he needs me in return. I want to come home to him, to know I can talk to him when I need to sort things out, and I can hold him when I need comfort. And I need to know I can do all the same stuff for him. I want to tell him how he makes me feel—that I feel warmer, and richer, and smarter, and sexier.” I grinned, partly in amazement at the strength of my feelings, partly because I’d finally owned up to them. “And you know what? He always made me feel that way, it was always running underneath all the shit and the tension. We just let the crap take over. Fucking shameful. And now he’s done it to me again over these last few days. Woken me up to how pathetic I’ve been, kicked my ass like no one else does, brought all the feelings back.”
The affection. The love. The passion.
The need to roll us both down on to some nearby surface and be fucked by him until my body’s so worn I don’t have the breath to beg or laugh or cry out with pleasure any more.
Sheri’s eyes were wide as she listened to me. I grinned again, suddenly just as embarrassed as she’d been. “I’ll tell you more about it one day.”
“Think you’d better tell him, not me,” she said sharply, but her eyes were sparkling. “Guess he knows already, though. Sheesh. I still say, what a waste.” She slipped quietly off the couch as a man walked over to me. It was Niall. He ran his hand through his hair like he was exhausted, which he probably was. But his face was creased with a triumphant smile. Behind him, I could see Phil and Judith doing high fives and Junk fighting off what looked like the urge to bear hug her. There were excited cries and calls out to the people outside the trailer. We had quite an audience tonight.
“It’s okay,” Niall said, knowing I’d know what he meant. Knowing I’d know he knew I knew—oh, whatever. “We disabled the switch nearest to Simon, and then the bomb unit guys arrived. They seemed to think it was a walk in the park for them to take it from there. They dismantled the whole thing. Simon’s free, and unhurt.”
“Brad?”
“He’s okay. His upper body took a bit of a beating from the initial explosion, but there’s nothing broken. He’s exhausted and a little in shock, so they’ve taken him to hospital. But apparently the both of them were demanding they were taken there together, and they were calling for Judith to authorize early discharge, so they sound like they’ll be back in circulation pretty quickly.” He smiled at me, and it had nothing to do with Simon or Brad or Joe or Judith. “They said thanks to us. To us both. Simon was understandably a bit emotional, but he kept babbling that we made a fine team.”
“Look, Niall….”
“I heard you,” he said, simply. The smile got softer. “I heard what you said. About what you want and what you need.”
“Shit.” I sighed. “That smile of yours. Does it for me every time.” We gazed at each other like grinning, inarticulate teenagers for a bit longer, but neither of us seemed to care. “So how soon can we have this place back to ourselves again? What I really need are some elephant-ass painkillers and some rest and some fucking privacy.”
“Never a truer word spoken,” he murmured. “But then you always did try to speak enough for us both.”
Guess he caught me unawares, because there were people moving through the room around us and I was half watching them. Whatever the reason, the next thing I knew was him leaning down and sliding a hand around my neck. Then, ignoring any of those other damned people, he kissed me full on the mouth.
It was nothing short of pure, perfect bliss. It was sweetness and sympathy and a rough, sexy sensuality, all rolled into one, deep kiss. I opened my lips and his tongue thrust hungrily inside me. I reached my good arm around his torso and pressed my mouth back against him, murmuring my pleasure. He tasted of tiredness and tension, but every damned flavor of Niall Sutherland was nectar to me. Maybe someone else around us grunted, maybe someone laughed nervously. Like I cared. This was all I wanted to do for at least the next three months of my life, and I wasn’t too sure whether I’d even bother to break off for food and some washing of my essentials.
And I heard the words, whispered into my mouth, for me alone. I love you.
I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
We broke at last, gasping for breath, shared saliva still glistening on our lips and our fingers curled into each other’s clothing, gripping us together like we didn’t want to be parted. And like I said—that was exactly what I wanted.
“Niall,” I panted, and watched the desire flicker in his dark pupils. “Whatever I said to that maniac earlier, I’d say that entitles you to have my ass any day of the week you care to choose.”
He smiled. He understood. And he wanted me too. Just as I was.
Judith cleared her throat in the background. “Time to go,” she sai
d. Junk and Phil were still whooping away until she caught their eye. They sobered up pretty quickly.
I glanced at my watch. 05:30. Good God.
Now wouldn’t you agree that all I needed was for all those other guys to hurry up and get the fuck out of my trailer?
Four weeks later
I ROLLED over slowly on the mattress and groaned. An elbow dug into my waist, and a stray fingernail scratched down my arm as I pulled it out from under the sleeping body beside me. Got to get a bigger bed. But then I thought the same thing every morning, these days. It was a large single, and let’s face it, the trailer didn’t really allow for king-size anything, but sharing it regularly with another person was far from comfortable.
But then, comfort can be way overrated, can’t it?
The sun was that special color of too-early bright, making my brow crease with complaint. My body ached, and it felt like I was dragging myself up from a really late night and some unusual physical exercise that utilized muscles that had been sleeping for far too long. I was squashed up on one side of the bed so that my foot hung down over the edge, and the pins and needles were just starting to aggravate me. My right leg was bent awkwardly under my left knee, cramping the muscles of my thigh.
I grinned.
Like I’d want things to be any different.
I slipped my legs over the side of the bed and shook my foot back to life. I stretched my arms up, feeling a couple of joints pop satisfactorily. We’d spent the previous day out on the trailer park, working with Junk and Phil and the others to finish up the repairs on the damaged homes. Things were almost back to normal on the site now. The only thing left to be fixed was my set of steps. I wasn’t sure I’d bother to change them now. They were a kind of memorial to the end of a scary time.
Niall stirred behind me and breathed out a half-snore.
I grinned again. The unusual physical activity wasn’t just to do with working around the site, of course.
I flexed my shoulders, feeling his steady breathing tickling my back.
“You do that one more time,” came his voice, muffled into the pillow, “and you can forget about breakfast for another hour.”
I licked my lips. Then I flexed my shoulders again. Breakfast was another overrated thing.
His hand curled around my bare waist and tugged. Hard. I tumbled back on to the bed, and the sheet slid carelessly to the floor. He rolled me on to my side and spooned up behind me. I could feel the whole line of his bare body up against mine. We liked to sleep naked. Actually, we liked to do all sorts of things naked.
“You said I could have your ass any day of the week,” he growled. “This is another day starting, right?”
“I’m not keeping a diary.” His cock rubbed a thick, damp, early-morning warmth against my thighs. “But twice already since we came to bed last night sounds kind of self-indulgent.”
“And three times sounds downright greedy.” His tongue slipped out and licked at my ear. I arched back against him, unable to do anything but respond. Unwilling, to be honest. “And that’s what I am… greedy. But not for breakfast.” He shifted carefully behind me, scooting down the bed. I imagined it was his turn for a foot or so to be hanging off the side. Then he started to lick his way down my spine, and I started to moan in earnest. My skin shuddered with each lapping stroke. I could feel his smile widening as my goose bumps sprang up against his lips.
When he got to my ass, he pushed my upper leg up, bending the knee and exposing me to his tongue… and his lips… and his hands, nestling around my painfully erect cock, slicking my own leaking pre-come around me and pumping almost lazily. Damned fine, strong hands….
“And I got bagels.” I sighed in mock sorrow. He laughed softly and continued pumping. At the same time, his tongue licked slowly and languorously up and down between my buttocks, the sticky saliva dribbling down the inside of my thigh. He lapped a trail down to the irresistibly sensitive patch behind my balls, and then sucked one into his warm mouth, savoring it there for a while.
I was almost sobbing by now. “Fuck the bagels, Niall. No, wait, fuck me.”
His answering sigh made my balls shift and wrinkle against his chin and my cock jump in his palm. “Shut up, Tanner.”
I did. Remember, it’s not often I do what I’m told without any say in the matter.
His hands released my cock, leaving it quivering just this side of total agony, and they returned to my ass, prizing my buttocks apart, stroking the flesh with his thumbs. His tongue flicked its strong tip at my entrance, softening it, lubricating it, stimulating the nerve endings around it. I was panting now. I could feel myself relaxing and contracting with his caress, the puckered skin peeling open, shamelessly anticipating more than such a teasing touch.
I bit my lip because my begging was getting far too common, however much he claimed it turned him on.
He tugged at my hips and brought me up on to my hands and knees, then wriggled himself into position behind me. He let go of me for a moment to stroke some lube along his cock, and nudged it eagerly between my cheeks. I dropped my head to the mattress. Maybe I was sore from a lively night already passed; maybe I felt well and truly used. But I was just as eager. My legs spread further apart and I reached for my own swollen cock to cajole it to another aching, spurting climax.
Like I said—comfort is overrated. At least in comparison to the joy of Niall’s body lying over my arched back, his hot breath grunting into my neck, and his hand tangling into my sleep-tousled hair, gripping me close to him as his cock slides into my ass.
Breakfast was looking even further away.
WE HAD an early lunch surrounded by neat piles of Niall’s paperwork. Things had been pretty quiet since that night Greg was caught, and we’d both been allowed some vacation time. Lots of it, really, if you considered the usual statutory allowance for the Team. Either Niall felt more guilty than I did, or he had a stronger sense of commitment to his work. Whatever the reason, he’d offered to carry on with some research work he’d started a few months ago and asked for the files to be sent over.
I’d sort of helped him, on and off. And then I took a call from Judith one afternoon and agreed to do some correspondence training for a few guys who were looking to take on a role like my own. Guess I was feeling my own sense of commitment stirring out of its laziness.
We were both reinstated, both back on the payroll. Niall had bought a new couch for the trailer to celebrate. I’d bought us some outrageous new sex toys, including something with a remote control that was fun to play with when I was in the kitchen and he was languishing in bed, indulging himself.
He didn’t complain.
Judith had also taken leave and was rethinking the Project Team. She’d come over to meet us yesterday to tell us she was suspending operations for a while. It had been a difficult conversation.
“The Team was seriously compromised,” she said. She looked very worn. Her confrontation with the powers above her couldn’t have been easy. But as she continued to speak, I thought I detected a relaxation in her manner. Maybe it had been a huge burden for her all this time.
“We should never have fallen prey to Greg. He played to our weaknesses and highlighted our vulnerabilities. From what you told me, he had some of the issues right. Maybe we were too arrogant.”
“We did damned good work,” I murmured.
“And we never suspected attack from within,” Niall protested.
“Then at the very least, we were appallingly naïve. The Team will be suspended for the time being. I’d like you both to stay on with the Department, of course, and you can be deployed on other work. Then we’ll review the situation in six months. Will you consider that?”
Niall looked at me, and we both turned back to her. He answered for us both. “We will, of course.”
“But you will promise to review the Team?” I sounded quite vehement. “You can’t deny the success we’ve had so far just because of one guy’s grievance.”
She smiled back a
t me then. “You and Niall have both suffered a great deal because of that one irrational young man. So have the others. I’m not sure that I can face risking that again.”
I grimaced. “But the Team has been one of the best things in my life, boss. Doesn’t that count for anything?”
She stared at me and sighed. Her smile was slow and her expression grateful. “Yes it does, Tanner. Joe will join me in the review, and maybe together we’ll make something stronger and safer next time.” When she went to leave us at the door, she shook our hands, then dropped them and hugged us instead. It was all kind of emotional, but I rather enjoyed it.
She went down my shaky steps with her minder keeping fairly innocuously to the side. I saw Junk standing outside his own trailer with a beaming smile on his face that wasn’t for us. I was embarrassingly pleased to see Judith go over to speak to him before she left.
WE’D TALKED about Judith’s visit at the time, but tonight I returned to it, as we lay together on the new, vastly more comfortable couch. We were listening to some traditional jazz on the new sound system that Niall had asked Phil to make up for me. The speakers were unbelievably clear and were reproduced in every corner of the trailer; the controls needed nothing more than a nudge to balance the sound beautifully. Niall even had it fixed up like I used to have it in my apartment, turning itself on as soon as we came in from outside.
Dreamspinner Press Year Four Greatest Hits Page 99
