Deacon's Law

by RJ Scott

  “I didn’t know when to show this to you,” he murmured.

  Then he tapped at another line from Rafe’s picture, tracing it to a part of the board with his uncle’s name and those of both Felix and Chumo, the twin’s pictures near identical. When you knew them, you could see small differences, like Chumo was softer, Felix manic, Chumo smiled more, Felix was bitter. But in the end, the twins had an equal amount of evil in them, Felix’s had just been closer to the surface. Chumo was sly at times, allowing his brother to take the brunt of anything physical and collecting up any leftover crumbs of praise from their dad.

  Deacon tapped the picture of Arlo again. “Arlo Martinez. When he arrived in the US, he had nothing.”

  “I’ve heard this story before,” Rafe said. “Moved to LA, worked construction, made money that way.”

  “That’s half the story. Construction was a cover story for most of what he did, the gray areas, and in 2012 there were several arrests for embezzlement of city funds in the town he’d settled in – the mayor, his staff, giving themselves huge salaries at the expense of the town. But they never linked it to Arlo, even though it was he’d bankrolled some of the nastier things they were into. They wanted someone inside, and that was me; I was undercover for two years, working my way sideways. The end game was always taking down Arlo, working out his supply routes.”

  “Supply routes for drugs?”

  “Yeah, and worse. Human trafficking.”

  Rafe’s legs were like rubber; they wouldn’t hold him up. “What?”

  “We need to find Felix. Is there anything you can add to this board that might lead us to where he is?

  “Nothing.”

  He was lying. Well, half lying. He had no idea where Felix could be, but he did have things that could fill in gaps. But what was the point in sharing anything like that now? His dad’s secrets deserved to be left where they were.

  “I don’t know where he is.” He pulled back his shoulders. “But he found out where I was, and I need to go back there. To finish this.”

  Deacon nodded mutely. He didn’t look happy at the thought. Then he walked out of the room and left Rafe standing there, staring at the information wall.

  Alone, Rafe pressed his fingers to his lips and then to the picture of his parents together.

  Today, right here and now, he missed his dad and wished he’d known his mother.

  Chapter 10

  Deacon had to walk away. To hear Rafe say he had to finish things, to think it was a good idea to go home, where he could be seen and maybe hurt, didn’t sit well with Deacon at all.

  For a while he paced the hall at the bottom of the stairs, wishing Mac or Sam were there. But Sam was at work and Mac was off attempting to find Felix. So far, Felix was proving elusive, and Mac hadn’t found hide nor hair of the asshole. Still, at least with Mac out there working that angle, Deacon was here, able to look out for Rafe.

  He paced some more. Looking out for Rafe was a fucking joke. The man wouldn’t listen to him, so how was he supposed to keep him safe? Why wouldn’t Rafe simply agree that Deacon was the cop here – ex-cop – and that he knew what he was doing?

  And why had Rafe sat in that room and looked so damn guilty, as if he knew something he wasn’t telling?

  By the time Rafe came down the stairs, Deacon had worked himself up to a full head of steam, temper sparking inside him.

  “What’s the fucking point?” Deacon shouted at a startled Rafe, who stumbled on the last step and had to grip the wall so as not to end up on his ass. Somehow that made everything worse, because, fuck, now Deacon could add even more guilt to the growing pile he carried around with him.

  “What?” Rafe asked when he had his balance.

  “I should have just let Felix kill you back at the lake, then I wouldn’t be here trying to save your ass all over again. Do you realize how many people could have died if I hadn’t shot you, if for one minute your uncle had thought I was anything else but a gun for hire?”

  “Deacon—”

  “The next night, my team rescued twenty-three illegals, crammed in a van – women, kids – and it was after I passed on my intel.” He stepped closer to Rafe, and could see that his words were hitting home. “My intel, because I stayed in character. And that wasn’t the last of it. Within a month I had them all arrested, a total of fifty-six souls saved, not to mention cutting the drug supply that your uncle had going to local distributors and then on into fucking schools. Kids. Right? I saved them, but to do that I had to take you out of the picture without breaking character, and I didn’t want to – I wanted to yank you out of there, break my cover, and save you alone. Never mind the others. You made me do that.”

  He knew he was being irrational. But hell, irrational felt good right about now.

  “I didn’t make you do anything—” Rafe began, but stopped when Deacon stepped right up into his space, hardly any room between them, so close Deacon could smell the shower gel Rafe had used that morning and see the ring of darker color in the green of his eyes.

  “Yes, you did. You should have listened to me, turned around and left—”

  Rafe stiffened. “He killed my dad—”

  “And he could have killed you!” Deacon shouted, and Rafe winced. Guilt and anger and need all collided in one perfect moment, and Deacon snapped.

  He hauled Rafe close, angled his head, and kissed him. Hard. With no finesse. It was all lips and heat and hard teeth and tongue, and it was the best taste of passion and fire he’d ever had, and at first, for a moment, Rafe was immobile, letting the kiss happen to him.

  Then it changed, and Rafe met Deacon for every kiss, the crutch crashing to the floor and Rafe linking his arms around Deacon’s neck, letting Deacon take the weight of him, and god, the weight of Rafe was perfect. Deacon stumbled back, taking Rafe with him and finding a wall, any goddamn wall, twisting so it was Rafe pinned there, careful of his operation site, and his hurt leg, and he was so hard. The kisses grew more desperate, not gentling one little bit. This wasn’t romance – this was life-affirming fire and temper, and Rafe groaned into the kisses, his hands leaving Deacon’s neck and sliding into a new position, grasping Deacon’s ass and grinding against him.

  I should stop. What am I doing?

  Deacon attempted to pull back, to give Rafe time to think, but Rafe cursed at him, his eyes closed and his grip hard. And Deacon could no more stop than he could cease breathing.

  He’d known Rafe would taste like this; he’d fantasized about having the man beneath him again. Fucking him, swallowing him whole…it was as if Rafe was under his skin and no amount of scratching the itch would ever get him out.

  Deacon pushed hard to back away a little, getting his hands on Rafe’s loose sweats and onto his hard cock, wrapping his fingers around it and kissing Rafe as if there was no tomorrow. Rafe broke the kiss, whimpered, and Deacon looked at his face, the concentration there, the absolute focus as he used Deacon’s hands to get off. When he came, Deacon was moments after him, just at the expression on Rafe’s face, the utter bliss, mouth open, eyes still screwed tight shut.

  When was the last time he’d come from kissing alone? Ever? He couldn’t remember.

  They leaned on each other, both breathing heavily, and some part of Deacon never wanted to let Rafe go.

  Only that wasn’t going to happen.

  Rafe shoved him, his eyes open, and there was something in them – regret, shame, fear? Hell if Deacon understood what he was looking at.

  “Rafe?”

  Rafe stumbled around him, and Deacon helped by picking up the fallen crutch and passing it to him. Then, when he thought Rafe might start a conversation, he simply turned and left.

  “We should talk,” Deacon said quietly, and Rafe stopped at the top of the stairs.

  “No,” he murmured, then left Deacon standing there, his pants wet with come and his head full of regrets. The first time should have been soft lights and music and wine and all that fancy shit that defined romance. It shou
ldn’t have been rough and hard up against a fucking wall when anyone could have walked past them.

  Deacon’s stomach fell, and he leaned back on the wall he’d just got off against.

  He was a mess; no wonder Rafe had walked away from him.

  Things weren’t any better when he went downstairs and found no sign of Rafe apart from a shut door to his room. For a second he imagined Rafe had gone, but security hadn’t been alerted to anything, so Deacon had to assume that Rafe was safely in there with his regrets and the shame of what they’d just done.

  Sam came through the front door, shrugging off his jacket and toeing off his boots, then padding into the kitchen, where Deacon had been watching him.

  “Hey,” he said, and went straight to the coffee machine. For a while he said nothing, then he turned to face Deacon. “What is it?” he asked a little fearfully. “Why aren’t you saying anything? You look odd. Is it Mac? Is he hurt?”

  Deacon wasn’t following anything there, and then he put two and two together. He was lost in his own headspace and probably had an expression like death. “No, Mac is fine.”

  Sam wasn’t backing down. “Then what’s wrong?” he asked suspiciously. “You look like shit.”

  “Thanks for that,” Deacon deadpanned, then looked down at himself, hoping to hell there wasn’t some wet patch right there for Sam to see. Thankfully, his shirt was untucked and covering anything that needed to be hidden away. Then he looked up, and Sam’s eyes were narrowed.

  “What. The. Hell. Happened?” Sam asked insistently.

  Deacon knew he could handle this one of two ways. The first option was to lie, the second was to lay the whole sorry mess he’d just made on someone who was sleeping with his best friend. Neither option sat well with him.

  “Rafe and I had a thing,” he explained, and hoped that was enough.

  Sam sighed and turned back to the coffee. “You two are like a walking mess of UST.”

  “What?”

  “Unresolved sexual tension,” Sam explained.

  “I know what UST is, but what do you mean?”

  “He stares at you when you’re not looking as if he wants to know what’s going on inside you, as if he wants to devour you whole.”

  Jeez, talk about fanciful. “That’s probably the drugs and the pain,” Deacon said, and took a mug from the cupboard, waiting patiently for his turn at the machine.

  “Whatever. It doesn’t help that you look at him the same way. Just how far did you take things when you were undercover?”

  Deacon didn’t know if that was any business of Sam’s – what happened on an undercover assignment stayed there – but this wasn’t his home, it was Sam’s, and Sam was Mac’s partner, and by extension Deacon should be able to trust him.

  “I tried to stay away,” he said softly, and took his coffee to the table, sitting as usual facing the door.

  Sam stayed where he was, leaning against the counter, nursing his coffee, and not for the first time Deacon noticed that Sam looked tired. Two nights in a row he’d found Sam in the main living room, sitting on the sofa, watching infomercials. He missed Mac, worried about him when he wasn’t there, couldn’t sleep.

  “But you couldn’t – stay away, I mean.”

  “He went into that place thinking both his mom and dad had been killed by his uncle. He willingly put himself inside that part of his family to try to find evidence to prove what his uncle had done. He was so brave, but I didn’t want him there.”

  “Don’t start with the civilian thing. I hear that from Mac and it pisses me off.”

  “What?”

  “You’re going to start some crap about how Rafe is a civilian and should leave all the heroics to the big bad ‘special forces’ guy.” Sam air quoted the words with his free hand.

  “Not special forces, I’m a cop,” Deacon began. “Was a cop,” he corrected. That title wasn’t his anymore, not for two months now.

  “Cops, marines, SEALs…you’re all the same, all with huge hero complexes. Which, yeah, it’s a good thing because it keeps people safe. I get that. But it also means you have this thing about everyone else needing to be looked after. Rafe can be brave and a hero in his own right. He didn’t put himself in harm’s way to get killed; he did it to find closure for his dad.”

  Deacon stared at Sam, thinking on his feet for some argument that would prove Rafe should stay in his room, all safe, preferably wrapped in blankets and heavily sedated until this was all over. He had nothing. So he sighed, then smiled wryly.

  “I bet Mac hates it when you use logic on him.”

  Sam grinned widely and saluted Deacon with his mug. “Every damn time.”

  Deacon’s stomach rumbled, reminding him he’d skipped breakfast and was well on the way to passing lunch, and he opened and shut cupboard doors and the fridge, finally piling up the makings of bacon sandwiches, nectar of the gods. Sam excused himself, said he’d eaten, so it was just Deacon and Rafe. Armed with coffee and sandwiches, he hovered outside Rafe’s door, then tapped it with his foot.

  “Lunch?” he called through.

  “Go away,” Rafe said, very clearly and firmly.

  Fuck that shit. Using his elbow, he pushed the handle and eased his way in, sloshing coffee on his hand and holding back the curse. He expected to see Rafe under his quilt in darkness, but the room was filled with light, the drapes pulled, clothes neatly piled on the bed, and Rafe in nothing but a towel, with wet hair.

  “You showered,” Deacon observed, just for something to say.

  Rafe nodded. “I felt dirty,” he murmured.

  The weight of the admission pushed Deacon into the ground, but he didn’t let it show. Carefully, he placed the sandwiches and coffee on a side cabinet and left the room, closing the door behind him, feeling nauseated. Guilt ate at him. He was the one who’d forced himself on Rafe, not given him the chance to say no. He’d clearly misread all the signals he thought he’d felt and seen. Maybe Rafe hadn’t been holding tight. Maybe it had been something completely different.

  He walked straight past the kitchen, ignoring his lunch and stalking out into the garden to get some fresh air.

  Him.

  He’d been the one to start all that shit against the wall.

  And he was the one who’d made Rafe feel dirty.

  Chapter 11

  Rafe ate the sandwich and drank the coffee, got dressed and sat on his bed. He had the feeling that he’d somehow fucked up. Seen the light go out of Deacon’s eyes, replaced by hurt and guilt as he’d spoken.

  “I felt dirty,” he said to his room. “Who even says shit like that?”

  He just knew that if he hadn’t said something, he would have dropped his towel and climbed all over Deacon, because, shit, he’d never come so hard or so fast in his life. His entire life. Not even the first time at fifteen, which had been more awkward fumbling than mind-blowing sex.

  The expression on Deacon’s face; he’d looked shocked, guilty, and then he’d left. Just walked out.

  “Dirty,” Rafe muttered, and buried his face in his hands. Suddenly, climbing out of the window and limping away from there seemed like a perfectly valid reaction to what had just happened. He owed Deacon something right now – an apology, or an explanation, or something. Deacon seemed to carry around the weight of the world on his shoulders, and now the shock was subsiding over seeing the man again, maybe Rafe could get some perspective.

  “I can go out there and tell him that I’m okay with him shooting me, and that I’d like to kiss him again. And that I want to go home now.”

  If he expected the room to answer back, then it wasn’t happening.

  He closed his eyes and wanted to focus on being pushed against the wall and made to feel, but all he could see was the blackness of the water as it closed over his head. All he could imagine was the pain and the certainty that he was dead. Life was supposed to flash before your eyes; he didn’t recall anything like that, just the blind terror of dying.

  Would he ever
forget that, split it away from Deacon?

  Had he begun to do that already?

  Determined, he crossed to his door and threw it open. Deacon was standing on the other side of it, his fist raised to knock.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  They spoke at once, but Rafe had to get in first. Had to explain.

  “I didn’t mean you made me feel dirty. I just meant that I wanted a shower, that I felt grungy— Shit, no, not because of you or what we did. Fuck, that was hot, and I want to do it again, but I want to go home, and I want to be better, and I want this to be over.”

  He stopped and waited for Deacon to say something, anything at all, and watched the expressions play on his face. He went from contrite, or at least that was what Rafe thought it was, to a frown, then right to a smile.

  “I’ll get you home,” he said. “Saturday, as we agreed.”

  Rafe knew he was playing for time in the hope that Mac would find Felix, but why would Felix even stay around Rafe’s new home? Surely he would have chalked Rafe up as a loss and made a run for it. Preferably to another continent.

  “Okay.”

  “I am sorry, though,” Deacon continued, “about what happened just now.”

  Rafe’s chest tightened and shame began to build inside him. Here was Deacon, standing there apologizing for something that Rafe had thought so absolutely perfect.

  “It’s okay,” he said, just for something to say and to let Deacon off the hook.

  Deacon stepped into the room, Rafe moving back a little, then Deacon closed the door behind him.

  “Come here,” he begged.

  Rafe was pulled closer by some invisible cord, the shame leaving him and the tension between him and Deacon crisp and clear. When they were so close they were touching, Deacon cradled Rafe’s face and guided him to look up at him.