by Layla Reyne
“Your job.” She still had that left.
She snagged two shot glasses and filled each. “That too, once everything comes to light.”
Some part of Aidan felt sorry for her, for his best friend who’d lost nearly as much as him and had worked her ass off for that SAC’s chair, but his sympathy was buried under too much indignation to find a voice. He fell back instead on case details, on interrogation. Testing her claim that this flash drive was complete. “The lease wasn’t on it?”
“The first time I saw the lease was in Westley’s Eldridge files. I followed the lead and flew to Cuba to question Robert.”
“Without us.”
She slid a shot glass across the bar to him. “You were wrapping your other case.”
He threw the shot back, gasping out a “Bullshit” over the heat of the fiery tequila.
“He was my mentor. I needed to confront him.” She drained her shot like it was water. “And if I could also take down Renaud without putting anyone else I cared about in danger, then all the better.”
“We could have had your back.”
She poured them each another shot. “I failed to protect my brother. I didn’t want to fail again with you, Jamie and Danny.”
“Well, that fucking backfired.”
“Don’t I know it,” she parroted back at him. “And it was my mistake. Same as not telling you about Gabe. Don’t take those out on Jamie.”
“I don’t trust either one of you right now.”
Her trigger finger tapped the rim of her glass. “Is that what this is really about?”
Leaving his glass on the bar, Aidan shuffled over to the table and collapsed in a chair, fight rushing out of him. “I almost lost all of you. Again.”
She brought both glasses over and claimed the chair next to him, covering his shaking hand. “We’re fine, Jamie included. He’ll be out another week, then on desk duty. How about we reassess then?”
He withdrew his hand and downed his shot. “How about you find me another assignment. Solo.”
“You think that’s the best idea right now?”
“Jamie can continue to investigate Renaud, as he’s been doing all along. You work with him to identify Renaud’s ‘home’ and his next target.”
“You don’t want to be a part of that investigation?”
He snaked her untouched shot and threw it back. No gasp this time. Just the burning in his gut. Nothing new there. “I need a break,” he declared. “From all of it.”
Chapter Three
Standing in the cold drizzle, Jamie teetered on his crutches at the end of his front walk, waiting for the double-decker car carrier as it crept down his darkened street. It pulled to a screeching halt in front of his house, and Jamie cringed, sure he’d hear about it from his neighbors tomorrow morning, or rather later this morning.
The racket continued as the driver climbed out of the cab, slammed his door shut, and came around front with a clipboard. His deep voice boomed in the otherwise silent night. “Sorry I’m so late, Mr. Walker.”
“No worries,” Jamie said. Owing to the weather, the carrier’s six-to-eight p.m. arrival window had slipped to two a.m. He’d been awake anyway, his already irregular sleep patterns further decimated by pain meds and fiery nightmares.
“Just need you to sign for her.” The driver held the clipboard out to him. “Kept her covered the whole way. She’s a real beaut.”
Jamie mumbled a lukewarm “Thanks” and signed. He didn’t disagree with the man. By any car enthusiast’s standards, his mint condition ‘70 Chevelle SS was a beautiful piece of automotive machinery. Pearlescent black, white racing stripes, and chrome accents, with a rebuilt engine and refinished interior. He’d had some beautiful times in it too, the most recent the week before last in North Carolina. Jamie had welcomed Aidan’s weight atop him in the passenger seat as they’d gotten each other off. In the bliss that followed, they’d agreed to ship the Chevelle out to San Francisco, that it would be in the garage of the Bay Area house wherever they slept. Together. Never apart again.
It was Jamie’s first night home from the hospital. The Chevelle was here. Aidan was not.
Jamie had called, texted and emailed. No response, other than an auto-generated message when Aidan accessed the remote server and a call from their secretary to tell him Aidan took the week off. He’d been tempted this afternoon to go straight from the hospital to Aidan’s place. Rationally, he knew Aidan needed space and time to process the multitude of betrayals committed against him, but with each unreturned message and each passing hour of silence, Jamie grew increasingly worried that he wouldn’t have a partner to return to, much less Aidan in his bed ever again.
“Hey, Mr. Walker,” the driver called, eyeing the boot-end of Jamie’s casted leg. “Want me to pull her in the garage for you?”
Jamie’s chest seized, the tightening almost unbearable. Words failing, he nodded and pressed the button on the garage door opener in his pocket.
The driver cranked the car and revved the V-8 engine. Jamie cringed again. He was definitely going to hear it from the neighbors. The driver backed the car off the carrier ramp, rolled it past his Grand Cherokee in the drive, and parked it in the garage. When the other man reappeared, he was smiling wide.
Jamie handed him back the clipboard. “Thank you.”
“Don’t look so sad, man,” the driver said. “Lady like that in your house, you won’t be disappointed for long.” He winked at his own joke, and Jamie reciprocated with a chuckle, feigning good manners despite his breaking heart. It wasn’t a woman, proverbial or real, he wanted in his house; he wanted the man he loved.
The noisy carrier lumbered away, and Jamie hobbled back inside. He hesitated in the foyer, palming the Chevelle’s keys. He could drive down to Aidan’s, park the car in his garage, and slide into his bed. Before he got that far, Aidan would probably either shoot him or toss him out. He didn’t see any scenario where Aidan invited him to stay.
Disheartened, Jamie locked up and maneuvered on his crutches into his ground floor master. He tossed the keys on the ebony dresser, propped his crutches in the corner, and limped around the room, getting ready for bed. He stripped down, put his gun in the top drawer of the bedside table, and slipped naked but for his cast between the cotton sheets. Before turning off the lamp, he checked his phone one last time and heaved a disappointed sigh.
He replayed Aidan’s last words to him.
“I can’t,” he’d said. “I can’t do this.”
Jamie ached to know whether “I can’t” meant losing him or forgiving him, whether “I can’t do this,” meant loving him or leaving him, because Jamie couldn’t stand the thought of losing Aidan. Not now. He wasn’t sure he’d survive the loss either. Their lives had become so entangled, so in sync. Until Aidan had found out about Project Angel. Jamie had finally given him the whole story, but the whole story was an ugly thing, delivered too little, too late. It had done nothing to temper Aidan’s anger.
Jamie wouldn’t blame Aidan if he never forgave him. It would likely put Jamie off love for good, but it was no worse than he deserved. Right now, though, he’d settle for just hearing from Aidan. He needed to know he was okay.
He was halfway through his list of worst-case scenarios when a scrape against the front door lock interrupted his morbid thoughts. He swiped his sweats off the floor and reached for his gun. The sound resolved. Not a scrape. A key inserted into the lock and the dead bolt flipped. Only two other people had a key to his place, and one of them—his best friend, Cam—was on a case in Chicago.
The door opened and closed.
A tumble and Gaelic curse followed.
Jamie’s breath caught, in relief and fear. He wanted to leap out of bed and greet Aidan at the door. He yearned to hold him in his arms, declare his love, and promise to never lie
again. But the cast on his right leg, from the knee down, limited any sudden movements. And after what Jamie had done, every step forward had to be Aidan’s.
Jamie dropped his sweats, stowed his gun back in the drawer, and scooted up against the headboard, waiting. It was the longest minute of his life and the hardest thing he’d ever done. Harder than coming out publicly. Harder than months of keeping things casual as he fell in love with Aidan. Harder than leaving his old life and first love behind eight years ago.
Because this was his new life, his home, his last love on the line.
Aidan shuffled carefully into the bedroom, avoiding any more hazards.
“I’m awake,” Jamie said softly, not wanting to spook him.
“Figured as much,” Aidan replied, voice scratchy. “Passed the car carrier on the exit ramp.” His Irish brogue was reined in, hardly detectable, and Jamie grieved the loss.
“I didn’t hear the Vanquish.” The roar of Aidan’s Aston Martin could be heard at least a block away, farther in the dead of night.
“Took an Uber.” Aidan approached, stepping through a patch of storm-muted moonlight. Even in the low light, Jamie could see his eyes were puffy and red; his hair was not. The auburn was gone, returned to blond.
Jamie hung his head, grieving deeper, as part of him cracked open from the mounting losses. “You haven’t returned my messages.”
“No, I haven’t.” Sitting next to Jamie’s hip, Aidan picked up one foot, then the other. His voice and posture were flat and beat down, his jeans and undershirt wrinkled, but he was taking off his socks and shoes like he meant to stay.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Jamie ventured, unsure where Aidan’s head was at. He reached out a tentative hand, intending to trail his fingers down Aidan’s arm, free of bandages now, but Aidan recoiled. Jamie tried not to show how much it hurt. How much it scared him.
Aidan lifted his eyes. Sadness, hurt and weariness swirled in their autumn depths. “Jamie, I—”
“Jamie” was a good sign, but he was afraid of what came next.
It wasn’t words at all.
Aidan put one knee to the bed, swung the other over Jamie’s lap, and cupped his cheeks in his hands, drawing him in. It wasn’t the lip smashing, teeth clashing kiss Jamie was used to from Aidan. It was slow, devouring, and tinged with the unmistakable taste of goodbye.
Afraid ratcheted up to terrified.
“Baby,” he murmured against Aidan’s lips, the one word trembling.
“Shh, Whiskey.” Aidan pulled back enough to yank off his shirt, then started back in for another kiss. Jamie stopped him, holding his face slightly away and forcing his gaze.
Goodbye was in his eyes too.
Jamie shot past terrified to devastated. “No,” he breathed, barely a whisper.
Aidan shook off the hold and drove a hand into his hair, pulling Jamie in for another melancholy-laced kiss. So little light, so much darkness, and as Jamie ran his tongue along Aidan’s, the tang of tequila and whiskey.
Slow, like the kiss, Aidan’s hands began to rove, as if he were memorizing the texture of his hair, the scruff covering his jaw, the breadth and width of his shoulders. A cool palm flattened over his tattoo, over his heart. The touch was gentle, not the usual digging pressure of Aidan’s fingers.
Bidding farewell.
A whimper escaped Jamie’s lips. His heart was at war with itself. He needed to retreat, to beg and plead with Aidan to stay and give him another chance, but if his partner’s mind was made up, there’d be no changing it now. And if he tried, if he argued, he might not get this last kiss, this last chance to make love to the man who would forever carry his heart, wherever his life went.
Without him.
Conceding the inevitable and accepting the disaster of his own creation, Jamie admitted defeat and surrendered. Lifting his arms, he circled Aidan’s neck and tangled his hands in Aidan’s hair, deepening the kiss. Aidan sucked his tongue and rolled his hips. Fingers clutching the blond strands, Jamie canted back, their hardening cocks lining up and rubbing through denim and cotton. They kept up the rocking motion as Aidan continued to trace his body, hands warming as they teased Jamie’s nipples, traced each of his ribs, and skimmed up his sides and over his shoulders.
Each touch another goodbye. Another crack in Jamie’s center, as he embarked on a similar farewell tour. Hands slipping out of Aidan’s hair, he skated them down his neck and around his torso, fingertips caressing each vertebrae, each freckle, all the way down to the top of his jeans. Aidan shifted back, chasing the touch, and Jamie flattened his hands against skin, diving beneath Aidan’s waistband and palming his ass. He kneaded both cheeks, teasing Aidan’s crack with his fingertips, and Aidan, always so responsive, more so than any other lover Jamie had ever had, rocked harder, groaning into his mouth.
The friction on Jamie’s cock beneath the sheet was agonizing. A circumstance Aidan quickly rectified. Rising on his knees, Aidan tipped up Jamie’s chin so they could continue kissing while he shucked off his jeans and boxers and removed the sheet between them. He came back down with no barriers between them. Just hard, hot cocks bumping and grinding, as they panted into each other’s mouths.
“Aidan,” Jamie tried, if nothing more than to say “I love you” while he still could.
“Please don’t make this harder than it already is.”
Jamie stifled the “I love you,” the “I’m sorry,” the “Baby,” fighting for sound at the end of his tongue and drew his lover into another kiss.
Aidan took their cocks together in hand, and Jamie’s hips shot off the bed. Aidan’s grip, his stroke, was slow and steady, savoring like his kiss, and Jamie was strung out in no time, teetering on the edge of orgasm. Just as he was about to beg, Aidan released them and rose on his knees again.
Jamie’s eyes sprung open and he clutched at Aidan’s shoulder. “Don’t go, please.”
Aidan pried his fingers loose and brought Jamie’s palm to his lips. “Not going anywhere yet.”
Meaning he was going to leave when this was over.
Meaning Jamie had to draw this out as long as he could.
Aidan lowered his hand, keeping it held in his, as he leaned to the side with the other and withdrew a bottle from the drawer. When he sat back astride him, Aidan turned Jamie’s palm over and drizzled lube in the center of it. “Slick up.”
Jamie grew harder at the thought of gliding inside Aidan. He grew harder still watching Aidan lube his own fingers and reach behind to prepare himself. Needing to rein himself in, his goal of making this last evaporating at the erotic sight, Jamie arched his neck and stared up at the ceiling.
Aidan’s lips hit his throat, sucking hard enough to leave a bruise. He kissed and licked a lazy path up to his ear. “Ready for you.”
Lips sealed in another heated kiss, Aidan bowed his back enough for Jamie to line up and push inside. Aidan keened and Jamie huffed out an “Oh, fuck,” against his lips. Casted leg straight, he bent the other, foot to the bed, to gain some leverage and power up. Two rolling thrusts, two tortuous glides up and down, and they found their rhythm. Slower, more sensual, than they’d ever made love before. At this torturous rate, there’d be no heart left for Aidan to take with him, having already shattered it into a million pieces during this final tender parting.
Aidan skirted his mouth along Jamie’s cheek, his jaw, to the spot behind his ear, and buried his face there. Hand tangled in Aidan’s hair, Jamie felt the wetness on his neck, just as twin tears escaped his own eyes.
They continued their slow and steady rock to the edge, and when Jamie grasped Aidan’s cock and pumped him in rhythm, it swiftly swelled to bursting in his hand. Aidan cried out his release, his ass clenching around Jamie’s cock. The tight, perfect hold, inside and out, carried Jamie to his finish a handful of flailing thrusts later.
Aidan collapsed against Jamie’s chest, face still buried in the crook of his neck, and Jamie, after wiping his hand off on the sheet, wrapped both arms around him. He curled his good leg around the backs of Aidan’s thighs, caging him in, desperately clinging to Aidan and the little time he had left with him.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, needing to echo his contrition. Aidan tensed in his arms, as if to fight his way free, but Jamie held tight. He needed to get this out. “I should have told you what I learned months ago and kept you informed each step of the way, but I wanted the whole story first. Gabe loved you. Speaking as someone who loves you too, I didn’t think he would betray you without a good reason. I thought if I could tell you why, you wouldn’t blame yourself or Gabe, if it wasn’t warranted.”
The tension in Aidan’s frame ebbed. He laid his head on Jamie’s shoulder, mournful eyes staring up at him. “Break my heart once instead of a million little times?”
“Something like that.” Jamie’s gaze drifted out to the moonlit patio, the rain having finally stopped. “In retrospect, maybe the little breaks would have hurt less.”
“Maybe, maybe not, but I can’t say I haven’t made the same call. I didn’t tell Danny what was going on, because like you, I wanted to give him the whole story.” Aidan righted his gaze with a hand on his cheek, demanding his attention. “But Danny’s different. He’s a civilian. With you...” Aidan’s hand fell away and Jamie held his breath. “I have to protect you, not only because you’re my partner, but because I’m in love with you.”
Jamie’s heart lurched against his ribs. He was sure Aidan could feel it. “Still?” he asked.
“I can’t just turn it off, no matter how angry I am. The knife in my back hurt, but the hole in my chest that opened up when I thought you’d been kidnapped, when I thought you’d left me for Derrick, when you almost died in that fire at Robert’s compound, hurt a hell of a lot worse.”
“Then why are you leaving?”
“Caught that, did you?”
