by Tinnean
“That’s true.” Actually, the results had been negative from the very first blood tests we’d ever had to have, back in the early nineties.
“I thought it might be time. If you agree?”
If I agree? I grinned at him. “As a matter of fact, if we hadn’t already ordered dinner, I’d be dragging you out of here right now.”
“Yes?” Goddamn, he looked like a kid who’d been given his fondest desire for Christmas. “We could always take it home.”
“Yeah. We could.” I looked around until I spotted Cesare, and then I waved him over.
“Is something wrong?”
“No, we need to leave. Can you have our meal boxed for us?”
“Yes, of course. Are… scusi… are you sure nothing is wrong?”
“Not a thing,” I told him as I pulled out my wallet and handed him a credit card.
Cesare looked from me to Quinn and back. I didn’t know what he saw, but abruptly his face lit up. “I will hurry, subito.”
~*~
WE GOT BACK to Aspen Reach in damned good time in spite of DC’s chronic traffic, and while Quinn found an empty shelf in the fridge for what was left of the antipasto and room on the door for the bottle of wine, I pulled open the warming drawer and put the shrimp scampi and angel hair pasta into it.
They would satisfy a couple of real appetites in an hour or two or three.
“So,” I said and turned to Quinn, only to find I was alone in the kitchen. “Babe?”
“In the bedroom,” he called.
I stripped off my suit jacket, tossed it over one of the chairs that was placed along the island, and walked—jogged—okay, raced was more like it—into the bedroom.
Quinn was humming that song we’d heard on the radio earlier. He bent over the bed, carefully folding the comforter and top sheet down to the footboard.
He was stark staring naked, and I couldn’t tear my gaze from the curves of his ass, which was covered by fair hair I knew was soft as down.
My mouth went dry, and my cock became rock hard, and while that seemed to be the general state of affairs whenever I was around Quinn, right then my cock was so hard it felt like my shorts were strangling it.
Quinn glanced over his shoulder and smiled when he saw me standing there. He came to me and cupped my cheek. “Thank you.”
I swallowed and rested my palm over the back of his hand. “For what?”
“For waiting for me.”
“What? How do you figure that?”
“You never let anyone get close to you, did you?”
Well, no, which was why all my stands had been of the one-night variety.
Until I met Quinn. Even then I’d tried to keep it purely physical. And it probably would have stayed that way if he hadn’t been kidnapped. I’d been willing to bust Quinn’s chops as much as I chose, but I’d be damned if I let anyone else mess with my spook.
I shrugged it aside. “I have you.” I loosened my tie and whipped it off over my head.
“Yes, you do.” He came to me and slid a hand around the back of my neck and caressed it. “You’re wearing too many clothes. Take them off.”
I ran a palm down his spine to curve around an ass cheek and cup it. “Your wish is my command,” I murmured in his ear. He shivered, and that pleased me.
“All right, enough of that.” He gave me a brief kiss, then stepped away and went to the nightstand. “You still have too many clothes on,” he said, glancing over his shoulder with a teasing grin.
He took the lube from the nightstand, as well as a handful of condoms. His eyes almost looked green as they met mine.
He tossed the condoms aside. Some of them landed on the floor, some of them in the wastebasket. His grin broadened, and he threw the lubricant to me.
“Quinn.”
“Yeah?”
“I want to see your eyes when we do this.” I stripped off the rest of my clothes, too impatient to toy with him.
“I’d like that.” He stretched out on the bed and crooked his finger, beckoning me to him.
I barely noticed. His cock was pointing straight toward the ceiling, the head flushed a deep red and a drop of precome beading at the tip.
He braced his feet on the bed and let his legs fall open, giving me a nice view of his cock and balls. The problem with that was the way his balls lay concealed his hole.
I popped the lid of the tube, squeezed out a dollop of lube onto my fingers, and let the warmth of my hand heat it up. Then I climbed on the bed between his legs, lowered my head to nose his balls out of the way, and took one in my mouth. It was slightly salty, the hairs rough on my tongue, but frankly, I preferred them to those damned artichoke hairs.
Quinn ran his fingers over my ears. That had never turned me on when anyone else had done it. He rocked gently, and his cock brushed against my cheek. “Mark.” He shuddered.
I hummed, knowing he would feel the vibration through the testicle I had in my mouth. I swapped it for the other one, hummed again, and he made a sound I’d never heard from him before.
“I’m… If you don’t… Mark!”
I knew what he wanted, and I was going to give it to him.
I stroked a lubed finger across and around his hole, then began pushing it in. He was hot inside, like velvet inside, and I knew if I didn’t distract myself from what we were about to do, I’d come too soon. I got more lube on my fingers and slid two more in. It was easy to find his prostate, and I rubbed it with my knuckle with each in and out thrust.
“Mark!”
I let the testicle slip from my mouth. “Shh, baby.” I withdrew my fingers and gave his cock a lick, then slicked up my own cock before lining it up with his hole. “I’m here. It’s okay.”
A single steady push and I was buried balls-deep inside him. He shuddered and gasped. “Oh God, Mark, this is… I didn’t remember it—”
Yeah, he’d let his first lover fuck him bareback, back when they’d both been horny teens. I’d make for damn sure I wiped all memories of that fat French fuck from his mind and his body.
Usually once I was in him, I got down to the business of fucking him like he’d never been fucked, giving him an orgasm that blew his mind. Each time, all I wanted was to see to it that afterward he was spoiled for every other man on the planet.
The feeling now, though, was more intense than I’d expected. I’d never experienced anything like this. I’d enjoyed fucking, but only now did I realize it really was like making love while wearing a raincoat. I shuddered and flowed up over his torso, bracing my arms on either side of his body while my hips rocked back and forth, driving my cock into him.
If Quinn hadn’t become my lover, I’d have gone my entire life without feeling this, because I never would have had sex with anyone without using a condom.
Quinn ran his palms from my shoulders down my back to the curve of my ass and squeezed, digging his fingernails into the muscles. He gripped my waist with his knees, the way I’d seen him grip a saddle when he rode, and he arched up. It felt like I was plunging my cock into a furnace.
He gazed up into my eyes. “Beautiful hazel eyes,” he murmured.
“You sweet talker, you.”
He smiled, and then he surged up, driving me deeper into his body while his mouth took mine.
After that, it didn’t take much longer, which would have been an embarrassment if Quinn hadn’t poured himself all over my chest and his abdomen at the same time.
He dropped back onto the bed, and I followed him down.
“Next time, babe,” he murmured.
“Huh?” My orgasms with Quinn had always been powerful, but right then I thought my brains were about to pour out of my ears, and I couldn’t think straight.
“Now that we know what an amazing experience this is, we’ll pace ourselves and last longer next time.”
I hummed the tune we’d heard in the Jag. He was made for me. I was made for him. And maybe it was doing this without a condom, but I knew we’d be doing this for the res
t of our lives.
“Mark?”
“It’s a good thing tomorrow is Saturday and neither of us has anything planned.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. We’ll be doing this so much tonight we’ll be wiped out come morning.”
“Yes, I imagine we will.”
I softened and slipped out of him, but he had his arms wrapped around me and kept me firmly against him.
“Mark?”
“Hmm?”
“I love you.”
“I love you too, babe.”
“Um… Mark?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m hungry.”
I burst into laughter. “Y’know, you’ve got a point. Okay, let’s get cleaned up and go have dinner.”
Chapter 2: July 14, 2003
I
THIS HAD STARTED out as a really good day. It was the middle of July, so we weren’t into the dog days of summer yet. Portia and Novotny were coming home from the river cruise that had been Quinn’s gift to her for Mother’s Day. Quinn planned to pick them up at the airport, and once Portia and Novotny got themselves squared away, Quinn and I were going to take them out to dinner.
But then, in the early afternoon, just before I went down to the cafeteria for some lunch, things began to go downhill.
It started with the coded email I received from Pierre de Becque. Ostensibly it was to let me know how things were going at the antiterrorist organization formerly known as the Division—he had set up headquarters for this new edition of the Division in the suburbs of Paris, where no one was likely to come looking.
I worried my lower lip. Usually we’d use a webcam, but for some reason, he’d chosen not to this time.
I knew he was still recovering from the loss of Reuben, but I thought it was unusual that he didn’t mention the man who had been his lover for as long as I’d known him, if only to say how he was doing finding a replacement for the munitions specialist.
Instead, he wrote I feel you should know that Femme is now sharing living quarters with Homme.
I had to admit the thought of the Division’s premiere intelligence extraction operative and her second-in-command living in blissful domesticity surprised me a bit, but as long as she was happy…
I didn’t bother giving any thought to flying over and having a talk with Homme. Femme—Zhenshchina—could take care of herself.
I did consider sending them one of those coffeemakers that did just about everything but write home to Mother as a moving-in-together present. Femme would find it amusing; the Division was notorious for its vile coffee, which even I avoided when I visited—it could erode solid steel. Homme, though, would probably get that blank look on his face. I had a feeling that was something the Division taught its recruits.
The thought of Homme asking what was wrong with the coffee had me grinning, and I went back to the email.
Babineaux went to the Netherlands to infiltrate a computer company—
That was hinky to say the least, but he had autonomy over his department.
—and of course Giuliani accompanied him.
Huh? I frowned at the screen. Why of course? Giuliani was his bodyguard. That they were lovers was incidental.
When they returned they were wearing matching bands on the ring fingers of their left hands.
Now that made me grin. It was about time Babineaux made an honest man of Giuliani. Most people took one look at the computer geek and thought he’d fold at a harsh word, but actually he was one tough little son of a bitch who had no problem keeping Giuliani in line.
Maybe I’d send them a set of Calphalon pots. Babineaux was a lethal cook, but Giuliani at least could boil water without burning it.
I focused on the email again.
I wasn’t certain how you would feel about this, since they’re both men.
What the hell? Pete knew better than anyone I’d have no problem with it, considering we’d been fuck buddies up until last year. Once Quinn and I were together, I hadn’t touched another man. Or woman.
We’re still looking for Kiska.
I blinked. That came out of left field, even though it did make sense. The bitch had pretty much caused the collapse of the original Division.
If you have some free time, would you consider flying to Paris? As little as I like to admit it, I could use a hand, especially from someone as skilled as you.
That was odd. Under Robert Lynx, the previous head of the organization, no outside help would ever be requested.
What was odder was this email, full of gossip. And yet it was encoded.
My intercom buzzed. “Yeah?”
“Mr. Wallace would like you in his office,” Ms. Parker, my very pregnant secretary, announced. Thank God she’d gotten past the weepy stage. It was disconcerting to see my unflappable secretary crying at the drop of a hat. Frankly, I was relieved she only had two or so months to go.
“Thanks. Let him know I’ll be right up.” Lunch would have to wait. I forwarded the email to Matheson with a message telling him to look into the ISP address, then printed out a copy.
Either Pete was no longer playing with a full deck, or something was going on that shouldn’t be.
I’d mention it to The Boss and see what he thought. He’d probably want to bring Stanley into it. As Director of Foreign Affairs, that was more his responsibility than mine.
Unless I could persuade The Boss to let me return to the field long enough to check it out.
I put on my suit jacket, took the copy of the email, and headed for the tenth floor.
~*~
MS. DIBLASI DIDN’T even bother giving me one of her looks. She just pointed toward The Boss’s door and returned to thumbing through the newspaper on her desk.
“What is it, Trevor?” I asked as I made myself comfortable in the chair across from his desk. He looked stressed. I’d bring up the thing with de Becque later. Or maybe I’d bring it up after I dealt with it myself.
“We’ve got a bunch of old men running my departments,” he growled.
I kept my mouth shut. He was actually the oldest man on the WBIS’s roster, something I found comforting. I’d be working for the WBIS for the next forty or fifty years.
“I’d like your input on what I plan to do.”
“Of course.”
We were in the middle of what could turn out to be a bloodbath—God, I was so looking forward to that—when Portia called and asked me to read a certain column in that day’s Washington Post.
The Boss didn’t have a copy, but his secretary did. She brought it to him, and there it was, big as life and twice as despicable: a couple of senior officials in the administration had outed a covert CIA operative as payback for something her husband had said—a reason why it didn’t pay to get married. As a result, all her assets had been outed as well, and nothing was going to be done to get them out of harm’s way.
This wasn’t Quinn’s department, these weren’t his people, but knowing Quinn, this was going to hit him hard.
I slapped the paper down on The Boss’s desk. “I hope you’re not planning on going anywhere this afternoon, Trevor.”
He glanced down at the paper, then met my gaze, his own cold and stony. “Go do whatever it is you have to. We’ll manage.”
“Thank you.”
I arrived at Langley in time to find Quinn had resigned. DB Cooper and Janet Watson, his personal assistant, helped me pack up his things and bring them down to the Dodge.
I’d always thought the CIA didn’t deserve Quinn, but his family had worked for the Company since it had been founded. And fuck it, he’d liked working there—until recently. He’d become restless and dissatisfied to the point he’d told me he was considering walking away.
For them to do this, though…
Quinn was in no shape to get behind the wheel, so Cooper volunteered to drive Quinn’s Jag back to his town house. We’d go pick it up once Quinn had a chance to decompress.
Meanwhile, Portia was worried and wanted him home.
It never failed to astound me what an amazing woman she was. My own old lady—I hadn’t had much contact with her from the time Bob Greenley got me out of Fall River and into the La Salle Military Academy on Long Island. She’d had no idea what I did and wouldn’t have cared even if she had, preferring to spend her days and nights enveloped in a haze of alcohol.
Fuck it, she was gone, and I had other things I needed to take care of, the most important of those being Quinn.
As I drove toward VA-267 on the way to Portia’s home in Great Falls, I gave him a quick glance. I’d made him laugh with the story of how I’d go through the CIA gathering intel without anyone being the wiser, but now he looked exhausted. I was pretty sure it was more emotional than physical. Either way, I’d be damned if I let the CIA get to him. I flipped up the blinker, got off the toll road, and reversed direction.
“Mark?”
“I’m taking you home for a little while. You can take a shower and change into something more comfortable.”
“You’re taking care of me again.”
“Yeah, so?”
“How many times is that now?”
“You want to keep count?”
“No, I don’t—”
“There’s a pad and pen in the console. Take ’em out and make a list. But do me a favor and include all the times you saved me.”
“You’re a pain in the ass.”
“Just remember I’m your pain in the ass.”
He scowled at me. “I didn’t—”
“Sure you did. Make sure you include saving my life in Paris. That’s a biggie.”
“Yes, it is.”
I glanced at him to see how he took that. He didn’t open the console, and he was smiling. It was small, and it looked tired, but it was a goddamned smile.
It took longer than I’d hoped to get back to Aspen Reach—no matter what the time of day, traffic never let up—but finally we were driving through the security gates of my complex. I parked the Dodge in the guest spot I’d been allotted. It would be easier than garaging it and then taking it out again later.
