by Layla Reyne
Renaud didn’t move a muscle, barely breathing, as he kept his eyes locked on Mel. She glared back, the unsteady rise and fall of her chest the only sign of her distress.
“Mel, please,” Aidan urged.
Her eyes cut to Aidan, a split second, before they swung back to Renaud. She steadied her breathing, and Jamie could have sworn she was going to pull the trigger, but she backed off instead, head held high.
“Stand up, asshole.” She flicked the muzzle of her gun at Renaud.
He stood, straightening his shirt and running a hand under his nose. He swiped away the blood and lifted his head, smiling right at Aidan. Ruffled, but calculating, determined...satisfied.
Why satisfied? They’d stopped his hack. Foiled his plan.
“Talley, you always were too soft,” he said. “Just like your husband.”
A sinking feeling stole Jamie’s breath. What had they just said to Mel... Don’t let him take you away? But it wasn’t only Mel in jeopardy. They all were. Renaud, who’d lost his family, could take all of them away from theirs. He had nothing to lose. They had everything. Aidan, reaching the same conclusion, had already started inching back, reaching for Jamie’s hand.
Jamie caught Nic’s gaze and signaled for him to do the same. “Mel...”
“Figured it out, have you? Too late.” Renaud turned his evil grin on Mel. “And you should have shot me when you had the chance.” He pulled his other hand out of his pocket, opened his curled fingers, and revealed a triggered timer, ten seconds ticking down. “Did you really think any of us were getting out of this alive?”
Jamie hauled Aidan back, toward the door, practically yanking his arm out of its socket, as his partner reached with the other to drag Mel with them.
“Go, go, go!” Jamie screamed.
He had no idea if Renaud had wired the entire hangar or only the plane, but regardless, they needed to get clear of the fuel tanks. Jamie pushed Nic out the door, into a wide-eyed Cam waiting at the bottom of the steps.
“Bomb!” Jamie yelled. “Get away from the plane!”
Cam grabbed Nic and ran for the hangar doors, where flashing blue lights lit the tarmac outside.
Jamie hurried down the stairs, dragging Aidan by one hand, as Aidan tugged Mel by the other. Her heels pinged off the cement hangar floor, ticking like a clock as they ran for the exit.
But the clock only had five seconds left.
Five steps.
Pops behind him preceded a thunderous boom.
Heat slammed into Jamie’s back, light blinded his periphery, and a wave of energy threw him forward.
Apart from Aidan, breaking his lover’s hold on his hand. Cutting off his lifeline.
His world went back.
Chapter Fifteen
Aidan was damn tired of hospitals.
He’d seen the inside of too many lately. On the plus side, he knew exactly which forms to ask for to check himself out against medical advice. That tended to cut off the doctors’ and nurses’ long-winded explanations as to why he should stay overnight for observation. No use arguing with a seasoned expert, a lawyer no less, who asked for the exact paperwork by form number. Let him go, liability waived. Fine by Aidan. He wasn’t about to lie in bed, staring at stained ceiling tiles, when he had other places to be.
Other people who needed him.
He shuffled into Mel’s dimly lit room, the only source of light from blinking monitors and a floor lamp in the far corner. In its halo, Danny slept in a reclining chair, lanky limbs askew. He looked like hell—face drawn and pale, black hair in spiky disarray, clothes wrinkled and sooty from his mad dash into the hangar after the explosion. But as haggard as Danny looked, Aidan’s unconscious best friend looked worse.
Aidan’s insides hurt seeing Mel like this. With her long hair singed short by flames, her skin so leached of color it was closer to tan than its usual warm brown, her body covered with IV tubes and monitor wires. It was too reminiscent of seeing her brother, his husband, in the same state after the crash. Gabe had been brain-dead on impact, but they’d kept him on life support until his family arrived. Aidan had held his cold hand as they’d turned off the machines.
The lack of a ventilator and the steady beat of Mel’s heart on the monitor were comforting distinctions. Sneaking his hand through the maze of wires and tubes, he grasped hers, finding it reassuringly warm. Also a comfort. He felt for a pulse at her wrist. Steady, in time with the monitor. She’d pull through. Mel was strong. One of the strongest people Aidan knew.
And if she didn’t, would he ever forgive himself for convincing her not to kill Renaud when she had the chance? Renaud was dead by his own hand, by the explosion. But if his death had been by Mel’s, the scene would have ended before she was hurled halfway across the hangar from the force of the blast.
Had Aidan taken her from them by convincing her not to remove herself?
A big, warm hand slid across his lower back and over his hip, dragging him back into a big, warm body. “Quit beating yourself up, Irish.”
“How’d you know?”
Jamie’s other hand skated up his back, over one shoulder, and pushed gently down. “These hitch up.” He trailed the hand along his collarbone and under his chin, lifting it. “This goes down.” Jamie wrapped both arms around him, hands splayed on his chest. “And your breathing gets shallow.”
Giving Jamie his weight, Aidan fell back against him, chuckling at how well his partner knew him.
“You made the right call,” Jamie mumbled against his temple. “She’ll make it.” He tightened his arms and held him close. “You shouldn’t be out of bed.”
“Neither should you,” Aidan replied. “How bad’s the leg?”
“No breaks. Compression cast underneath the brace. Hurts, but not enough to keep me away from you.” His blue eyes cut to Danny then back, before drawing Aidan in for a kiss.
Aidan breathed into it, settling into home and taking what peace he could being back in the arms of his lover. They were safe, and two of the other most important people to Aidan were also here and alive, if not completely well.
“Where’s Cam?” he asked when they came up for air, thinking of other people important to Jamie, to Aidan as well, more so every day.
Jamie folded him in his arms. “Organizing the search for Oscar.”
“Fucker,” Aidan cursed.
Before the explosion, Cam had deposited Torres and Renaud’s other two guards outside the hangar with a backup team. In the chaos after the blast, the wily former agent had disappeared. As soon as Mel was in the clear, as soon as he and Jamie got a few hours’ rest, they’d join the manhunt.
Someone cleared his throat behind them, and they turned their heads toward the door. Nic stood over the threshold, half in and half out of the room. Even though he’d had as little sleep as the rest of them, even though he’d been in the blast radius too, Nic looked as calm and polished as ever. It was a magic trick Aidan had never figured out about the prosecutor.
Jamie didn’t drop his arms from around him, but there was no tension in his partner’s frame. The hold wasn’t claiming so much a need for closeness Aidan shared. Since Nic didn’t seem fazed, Aidan didn’t step out of it either.
“We clear?” Aidan asked.
Nic stepped the rest of the way into room. “Between his testimony earlier—” he jutted his chin at Danny “—and Kevin’s and Lauren’s just now, Bowers is ready to clear you.”
“Me? What about Jamie?”
Nic grimaced. “Westley’s got the bruises to prove the assault.”
“And those are enough to press charges?” Danny asked.
Stepping out of Jamie’s arms, Aidan glanced over his shoulder at his brother. Danny stood and ran a hand through his unruly black hair. “You’re louder than you think right now.” Danny p
ointed at his ears, and Aidan couldn’t deny his were still ringing, certain registers dampened by the blast.
“I’m going to argue he was provoked,” Nic said, redirecting Aidan’s attention. “The Westley charge isn’t the problem.”
“Oscar sent another email, didn’t he?” Jamie said.
Nic nodded again. “About the illegal software and how it compromised the markets and the investigation.”
The leading edge of panic crawled up Aidan’s throat. “He didn’t do that, I—”
Jamie grabbed his flailing hand and squeezed it, cutting him off. “Do I have to go in tonight?” he asked Nic.
“I talked Bowers out of it. If you didn’t flee already, you’re not going to flee now. And according to Lauren, the kill switch is holding and Aurora trades are suspended. The market won’t crash further.”
“But the damage done...” Aidan said.
“Corporate lawyers and insurance will sort it out,” Danny said. “You two should go home. You’re both dead on your feet.”
“And you’re much better?” Aidan replied.
His brother chuckled, the sound weak and tired. “No. But you got your bells rung worse. And I’m not leaving her. Paid out the nose for that privilege.”
“Bribed, you mean.”
“Tomayto, tomahto.” He wrapped a hand around Mel’s. Aidan was glad to see some of Danny’s good humor back, despite his distress.
“Go,” Nic said. “We’ll get the rest settled in the morning.”
“Thank you,” Aidan said. “For everything.”
It seemed a woefully inadequate token of gratitude for this man he’d done wrong. This man who’d breached their inner circle and become a valuable member of their team. Who’d been instrumental in saving them all. Who nodded in acknowledgment and disappeared down the hallway, a well-dressed, unflappable magician.
Aidan turned back to Danny. “You’ll keep us updated?”
“Of course.”
“Nothing to worry about,” Jamie said. “Pretty sure both God and the devil would be afraid to let her in. We’re stuck with her.”
Smiling, Aidan bent over and kissed Mel’s forehead, saying a silent prayer his partner was right. He stepped around the bed and hugged his brother. “Love you, baby bro.”
Danny’s arms closed tight around him, betraying his worry. “Love you too.”
In the hallway, Aidan grabbed Jamie by the trailing wrist, stopping his slow limp toward the exit. “About Bowers—”
“We’ll deal with it in the morning.” Jamie pulled Aidan into his arms, into another kiss that lingered until both of them were on the verge of falling asleep right there, in each other’s arms, leaned against the hallway wall. Jamie’s protesting leg brought them back to reality. “You want to stay at your place, so we’re close?” Jamie asked.
While Aidan’s house was only ten minutes from Stanford Hospital, that wasn’t the bed Aidan wanted to sleep in tonight. “I want to go home.”
“Let’s go, then.”
“No, Whiskey.” Hands flat on Jamie’s chest, over the ink and the pounding heart beneath, Aidan lifted his gaze to his partner’s. “Not to my place. I want to go to yours. I want to come home.”
“Baby.” Jamie’s eyes were so soft as to be almost unbearable. His kiss was not and thoughts of sleep faded with the rough, Southern drawl that floated over Aidan’s lips. “Let’s go home, then.”
* * *
Clothes hit the floor as soon as the front door slammed behind them. For once, Aidan didn’t care about the mess they left in the foyer. All he cared about was Jamie’s mouth on his, the life flowing between their lips, the weight of the threat that had loomed over them for months lifted off their shoulders.
Torres was still out there, a loose end Aidan didn’t like one bit, but without his boss, Torres seemed the sort to cut and run. Until Cam and the US Marshals caught him. Right now, the only loose ends Aidan concerned himself with were those of Jamie’s shirt as he yanked the tails free of his pants.
Jackets, shoes, belts hit the floor as they inched toward the bedroom, their way lit by the rising sun. Past the door, Jamie grunted, staggered, and Aidan remembered he did have something else to worry about.
“Shit, your leg.” He stepped back, apart, so as not to lean on him.
“Don’t care.” Jamie captured his lips and hauled him back in.
Offered everything he wanted, everything he’d missed so much, Aidan stopped worrying and set his mind to making love to his partner.
His partner who, a step ahead of him, grabbed the collar of his dress shirt and ripped it open. Aidan shuddered under the big hands running up and down his torso, under the tongue licking and teeth nipping his neck. Fuck, six weeks without this had been too long. He shrugged the rest of the way out of his shirt, as Jamie rolled his hips.
“Get me on that bed, Irish. I’ll forget all about my damn leg.”
Aidan summoned what little strength he had left and bore the bulk of Jamie’s weight as he spun them to the bed. Putting a knee down, he lowered Jamie onto the mattress and straddled his hips. Aidan stretched over the long length of his torso, kissing Jamie deep and reacquainting himself with every inch of his mouth, with his taste. Hands in his hair, Jamie held their lips pressed together, kissing him harder as he rocked their lower bodies together.
Aidan shook off the hold. “Nuh, uh-uh.” He went to work on Jamie’s shirt buttons. “We’re going slow. Six weeks since we’ve been together.” If they kept going the speed Jamie wanted, this whole thing would all be over in minutes. Aidan missed him, wanted him desperately, but he also wanted to savor the reunion.
The last time they’d made love it had been goodbye; this time was the beginning of forever.
Jamie slid his hands up Aidan’s thighs, under the edge of his boxers. “The other night in the office...”
“Was me with my finger in the fucking damn.” Last button undone, Aidan spread the shirt wide, exposing Jamie’s ripped chest, marred with darkening bruises. Bending, Aidan kissed each blow Jamie had taken for him, then licked a path back up to his nipples—swirling, teasing, tasting—before sinking his teeth into the ink of the tattoo—claiming.
Jamie arched off the bed, groaning, and with the clover cufflinks holding his sleeves in place, he looked like an angel.
Fitting.
Aidan had lost his first angel, his husband, only to find another who helped him solve Gabe’s murder and come to terms with the loss. Helped him move on.
His second chance at heaven. At love.
“I’m sorry,” Jamie whispered.
Aidan nibbled his way up his stubbled jaw. “For what?”
“Because of what I did...” He shuttered his eyes, inhaled a shaky breath, and Aidan waited, fingers trailing over his handsome face. “Because I kept the truth from you, I didn’t have your back and you were taken. I put you in that position.”
Aidan added a bit of pressure behind his touch, enough to force Jamie to open his eyes. The blue beneath was glassy and tormented—guilt and desire waging a war he couldn’t hide. Gazes locked, Aidan leaned forward, nose to nose. “You rescued me, Jameson Walker. Today, seven months ago, and so many days in between.”
“But I—”
He put a thumb over Jamie’s kiss-swollen lips. “Will you ever lie to me again?”
“No,” he mumbled against the finger. “Never again.”
“That’s all the apology I need.” Aidan captured one of Jamie’s hands, tangled their fingers, and brought their woven knuckles to his lips. “Partners, Whiskey, always.”
Jamie smiled as he repeated the vow back to him. “Partners, Irish, always.”
“Now, can I get back to what I was doing?”
In answer, Jamie rolled his hips, grinding their rigid cocks together.
>
“Good answer.” Aidan slid to the side and helped Jamie free of his pants, boxers and braces. He caressed Jamie’s calf and the back of his slightly swollen knee. “You sure this isn’t bothering you?”
Jamie’s cock jerked in response. “Gotta a bigger problem.”
Smirking, Aidan ran his fingers over the impressive length. “Oh, baby, this isn’t a problem at all.”
“Christ, Talley.” Jamie moaned, hips snapping, cock chasing his retreating hand.
Aidan replaced it with his mouth, letting his lips and hot breath linger. He inhaled deep, loving the scent that was so essentially Jamie, second only to that spot behind his ear that was Aidan’s favorite. Aidan wanted to taste it all. Had they ever just enjoyed each other, with nothing hanging over their heads? He’d love to tease and savor Jamie all night long but his own cock was painfully hard. And after the past week, lust and adrenaline would soon hit the wall of exhaustion. Tonight, their needs were immediate.
They had tomorrow for more.
They had the rest of their lives for everything.
Aidan took his phone out of his pocket, put it on the table, and shucked out of his pants and boxers while Jamie reached for the lube in the bedside table. Taking the bottle, Aidan squeezed a generous amount into his palm, straddled his partner once more, and rammed their cocks together in his primed fist.
“Holy fuck.” Jamie groaned, matching the pace set by Aidan’s pumping hips and fist. “Baby, I can’t last if you keep doing that. Want you inside.”
When Jamie began wrestling with his shirt, Aidan released them and pinned both his wrists to the bed. “Don’t. Leave it on. I like the angelic look on you.”
Jamie wrapped a leg over his hip and thrust, rutting their slick cocks against each other. “Mighty naughty for an angel.”
Aidan coasted is hand over Jamie’s raised hip and palmed that perfectly firm ass. He skated his fingers down Jamie’s crease, around his rim, and pushed inside.
“Fuck,” Jamie cursed, head thrown back on the pillow.
