by Marie Harte
Whatever he did, he went hard—job, partying. Sex. It made sense that his sleep was no different.
He brushed some hair out of Con’s eyes, let his gaze wander from the sleeve to the scars that ran the length of his back and torso. Since he was on his side, sprawled out, Quinn got the best view. Cock and balls too, which he couldn’t resist running a palm over.
Even in sleep, Con responded. His cock rose to meet Quinn’s touch. Con shifted. Murmured something that sounded like Quinn’s name, followed by love.
Love.
That was a concept Quinn had left behind with Gerry. He broke the contact with Con’s cock quickly and walked away from the bed. From the corner of his eye, he saw Con settle onto his back, arm thrown over his head so the tat was hidden.
Fuck you, Gerry, Quinn thought viciously. You too, Scott, for doing this. Transparent asshole.
Took you long enough to see it, though, he could hear Scott chiding him. Because this couldn’t have been an accident on Scott’s part. No fucking way. Fate didn’t work that way.
Fate hadn’t been on his side before, right?
We had ten years, Quinn, he heard Gerry’s voice in his head. Some people get nothing and we had ten goddamned years. That’s a lifetime. When I go, you get a whole other lifetime, so don’t waste it. I’ll be so fucking pissed if you waste it.
Yeah, well, Quinn could be pissed too, and he wasn’t about to let go of it that easily either.
Was he using the Dom shit to keep Con at arm’s length? Most definitely. Did he plan on continuing down that road? Absolutely.
Chapter Nine
‡
CON’S THE GUY you want at your side in a battle of life and death, Scott had written. Or life in general.
And Quinn had seen that from the start—Con was certainly a mass of contradictions—tough but sweet. And things were more fun with Con. The sex was off the goddamned charts, but sex alone, without anything else, was usually good for a night or two.
Unless it was sex with someone you wanted to be with outside the bedroom. And somewhere along the way, it’d stopped being about close proximity and no choice and the road trip they’d been forced on, and it started being about goddamned fun.
Because Con continued to drag Quinn into all kinds of glorious trouble, reminding him that losing control is sometimes as much fun as taking it could be. He’d started to watch Con’s pool hustling technique—and subsequent fighting ability—with great interest.
“Just enjoy it,” Con said. “I can take care of the rest of it.”
And Con did. Quinn began to realize how exactly that happened. He’d begun to pay attention to how Con went in wherever they were going first, in order to survey the area for safety. He’d sit with his back to the wall. Most of the time, Quinn was sure Con didn’t even realize he was doing it—it was ingrained, more so from the military but no doubt those protective measures began early…and probably had something to do with Con’s hustling. That made it easier to forgive the constant military maneuvers.
And so, in a way, Con wasn’t only protecting him, but he was also babying him as well. Quinn had never had that. He’d always been the protector, and even though that was a role he reveled in, fuck, he really liked this. More than he’d ever thought he could.
There were also concerts along the way, because they realized how much they liked the same mix of classic rock and rap, which left both men cheering and dancing along with the crowds. After one particularly crazy AC/DC concert, Con was wearing devil horns by the end of the night—and he left them on while Quinn fucked him.
Con also taught Quinn how to play pool. Quinn knew the basics, but there was something really fucking hot about having Con—in a private room Con had rented for his purpose—lean all over him while also being intent on showing Quinn “the right way to do things.” He’d spent hours teaching Quinn to play.
And then Quinn had fucked him, quick and hard on the pool table. And then they’d gone back to the hotel and Quinn had taught him a few more things.
“Never going to forget that game,” Con muttered.
Quinn wouldn’t either. It was all give and take, and that got them all the way through the Midwest. They had five days and four nights left before they hit New York. And every day was just about exploring.
But there was something that Con did almost every afternoon that got Quinn to wondering. At first, he hadn’t thought much about it, because he’d just assumed Con needed his space. And Quinn would take the time to rest up and plan their nights in tune with Scott’s itinerary, lay out more of Con’s sleeve.
But one day, Quinn had to run out to the drugstore and he texted Con to see if he needed to pick him up anything.
Where are you?
When Quinn gave him the address, Con texted back, I’m right across the street. Meet you in a few.
Across the street? There was an apartment building, a video arcade…and a veterans hospital. Quinn took a seat on a bench by the drugstore and waited until Con appeared, leaving the facility. Con hadn’t made a big deal of it, and neither did Quinn, but later that night, he’d seen Con’s list, lying in the open, the way it probably had been all week.
Con wasn’t hiding it, but he wasn’t going to draw attention to it. Quinn learned immediately that it hadn’t been part of the agenda from Scott. Rather, it was a list of all the veterans hospitals in the areas where they’d be stopping. And so all those times Con was disappearing…yeah, he’d been visiting vets. Listening to their stories—sometimes the same stories, over and over, Con finally told him when Quinn finally decided to bring it up the following night.
“It’s a giant family, like I never had. I’ll always be connected to them. Accountable. I like that,” Con told him quietly. “I need that.”
And if Quinn looked back with hopes of tracing when everything changed between them, really and truly, he’d known it was that night. Because after Con’s admission, he’d led Con to the bed and there was no D/s talk, no bells or whistles.
That night, they both submitted…with Con’s hands trailing over Quinn’s ass. Quinn asked, “You want to fuck me?”
Con smiled. “Yeah. I’m sore enough.”
“You don’t need an excuse. Or rather, I don’t.”
“Yeah?” Con asked, but he wasn’t waiting to see if Quinn backtracked, took charge the way Quinn hoped he would.
Con manhandled him, put him on his belly, spread his legs and rimmed him. Quinn gripped the sheets, buried his face in the pillows as Con took him with his tongue and Christ, Quinn felt like a fucking virgin, even though he was nowhere close to being one.
He was always amazed, and a little in awe, when someone allowed themselves to submit to him. Because he knew how much strength that took.
He never understood it better than he did right that moment, when the urge to not be vulnerable gripped him tightly.
But somehow, Con’s grasp was even tighter, and so it took that worry away and replaced it with simple, hot pleasure. His hips bucked against the sheets, the friction too damned good and if Con didn’t hurry…
“Don’t you dare come yet,” Con told him, biting his ass hard just before he slapped it.
“Then stop trying to make me,” Quinn retorted, unable to hide the fact that he was panting.
Con’s finger slid inside him, but Quinn was impatient. “Come on—I don’t need that. I want you.”
Con must’ve sensed that Quinn’s impatience was mainly born from fear, because Quinn heard the click of the lube bottle, the snap of the condom and then Con was pushing inside him. Quinn raised his hips off the bed to meet him, to force Con’s cock inside him, faster and harder than Con was guiding himself.
And then Con stilled, grabbing Quinn’s hips to stop him. “Jesus, Quinn,” he muttered. “If I didn’t know, I’d think…” He stopped. “Please tell me…”
He glanced over his shoulder. “I’m not. It’s just infrequent. And it’s been a long time since I trusted anyone to top me.” He pushed
back as Con’s grip ceded. “Come on, go harder.”
“Bossy as fuck,” Con murmured, but before Quinn could say anything, Con was pounding him, just the way he’d asked. Each stroke nailed his gland, making Quinn cry out incoherently…although inside his mind, all he repeated, over and over, was Con’s name.
*
CON HATED RULES, had bucked against them from practically birth, when he’d come into the world impossibly earlier, bigger than predicted and miraculously okay for being the product of an unwed seventeen-year-old who’d never had a prenatal checkup. But the difference between rules in general and Quinn’s rules were that Quinn’s rules gave Con what he needed so badly. And that return on investment, that promise, had never been quite so fulfilled.
Because when Quinn told him what to do in bed, he listened. Because then he got exactly the right touch, or slap or bite, and Christ, it made his body rise off the mattress, arch up in pleasure.
And then after the amazing bouts of sex, there was the ongoing tattooing. Quinn was taking it slow. Outlining it perfectly. Tattooing small areas at a time and watching them heal.
Quinn would leave his indelible mark…and then?
Then he’d let Con walk away.
Not like you can stay. You’ve got orders.
One more set of orders, and then a decision whether or not he stayed in or left. Not that the Army would make it that easy—not at all. In the past twenty-four hours, he’d gotten a few hints into what his rapidly upcoming deployment would entail. Nothing unexpected, all of it difficult, and right after seeing Scott, Con would begin to put distance between himself and the civilians around him. It was something he did instinctually. It was necessary for his survival, that turning off of everything but his focus on the mission.
It was the only way he’d make it through. But he’d pushed that aside for now in favor of watching the new tattooing show that Quinn had a guest-starring role in.
Quinn’d gotten a call about half an hour earlier, had spoken sharply to someone on the other end of the phone before saying resignedly, “Yeah, fine, I’ll watch it and think about it.” He’d switched on the TV and told Con, “I’m on this show. My boss wants me to watch it.”
“Why’s that?”
“The producers want to give me my own show.”
He’d said this so matter-of-factly that Con was really stunned. Especially because the camera loved Quinn—and so did all the customers it seemed, man or woman. They were all flirting with him, and he was that perfect blend of approachable and cocky on-screen. Never mind that the ink he did was first rate.
So what the hell was all Quinn’s supposed disinterest about? “So you’ve really got no interest in this kind of thing?”
“Nah. I move around from shop to shop lately, so I can keep up with the new techniques. I don’t want to be tied down like that. And they want to showcase my life as a Dom and obviously that’s not something I want to happen. It’s not like that—not what they’re thinking about, anyway.”
“Have you tried to negotiate with them?”
“No.”
This shit was so unlike Quinn that Con found it startling. He’d been Googling Quinn’s name as they talked. Quinn had mentioned the show offhand in his letters to Scott once, but Con hadn’t realized how popular Quinn was in those circles. How getting a show like that could put him on the map.
Hell, not everyone wanted celebrity—Con got that. But to pass up an opportunity to learn new techniques? It sounded more like avoidance to Con…and he was damned well versed in avoidance.
“Say what you want to, Con.” Quinn’s voice sounded cold. Angry.
What the fuck? If Quinn wanted angry back, Con could certainly give it to him. “You’ve never settled down. Every time you’re in a new shop and gain any notoriety, any hint of fame, you sabotage it instead of embracing it.”
Quinn’s brows rose. “You’re accusing me of not staying in one place?”
“That’s not what—”
“All I want to do is get back to California, where I live. You’re a fucking transient—one step up from a fucking hustler,” Quinn accused. Con blinked, silent now, his words caught in his throat. “Think about that before accusing me of not settling down.”
“Right. Okay. Sorry.” He got up, grabbed his wallet and his boots and walked out of the room. He put his boots on in the hall, not expecting Quinn to come after him. Not wanting him to, either.
Chapter Ten
‡
CON CAME BACK with a red mark on his cheek that would probably bruise a little, and his knuckles were a little scraped…and the worst, the usual high he had when he finished hustling was nowhere to be found in his expression. His eyes were dead and angry, and he’d been drinking a little, but not enough to be stumbling drunk.
Just enough to be Novocain. That’s what Quinn had called it after Gerry’s death.
Whatever the fuck he’d said, he’d cut Con deeply…but he’d been too wrapped up in his own pain, too far gone into lashing out to see it.
“Con,” he finally said quietly, when Con refused to look at him while he’d emptied his pockets on the dresser in the second bedroom. They’d been staying in the same room since night number two, so to see him cordon himself off like that stung. “Con, come on.”
Con finally whipped around, annoyed as hell. “What?”
“I was waiting up for you.”
“Want a medal?” Con stripped, deliberately ignoring Quinn while doing so, and headed for the shower.
Quinn stood, took a few steps to follow him. “Were you hustling tonight?”
Con turned, marched back and went to slam Quinn against the wall. Quinn was fast, though, and he pushed Con away. But Con came back at him, and in that moment he realized just how deadly Con actually was.
Quinn went still as the anger snapped in Con’s eyes, remained pinned hard between him and the wall compliantly, with Con’s arm across his throat. Not hard, but enough for Quinn to know that the truth of Con’s submission had been absolute. Nothing Quinn could’ve put him in could have truly held him down, and it never would’ve.
Finally, Con spoke, his words clipped, calm and eerily deadening. “Yes, Quinn. I was hustling tonight. I fought too. Last time I looked at Scott’s itinerary, we didn’t have to do everything together. So you do your thing and I’ll live my transient life.”
“Guess I hit a nerve.”
“Yeah, guess you did,” Con agreed.
“Why?”
Con, predictably, pushed off him, slamming into the bathroom. Quinn heard the shower running, and when Con came back out, wrapped in a towel, Quinn said, “I can’t stay in one place. Because I don’t want to settle in again and get complacent. I did that and I got hurt. That’s all I want to say about it.”
Con nodded, ran the second towel he carried over his hair until it went from dripping to damp.
Quinn’d known Con had been avoiding any discussion of his life before the military—and truthfully, he’d damn well known something was behind the hustling, but he’d never asked.
Why?
Because knowing too much is how it starts. That’s what stops you from being transient and starts you putting down roots.
Ah, fuck. He wanted to bury his head in his hands, or at least knock it against the table to offset his stupidity. But he stopped himself, because that’s not what Con needed. “Let me put more ink on you.”
Con’s jaw tightened. Shrugged like it didn’t matter one way or the other, but fuck, it mattered so much. Quinn wasn’t shocked at the compliance, but he suspected that Con was. Still, the man lay on the bed, facing the TV, which blared loudly while Quinn’s needle buzzed over his skin.
Halfway through, Quinn simply stared. “I didn’t mean…” He took a breath and started over. “I know the military necessitates a transient life, okay? I don’t want to take out my family shit on you.”
Con was just lying there under the buzz of the gun, pretending he didn’t hear or that it didn’t regis
ter. Quinn had to just believe it had.
It wasn’t until he’d finished for the night, wiped Con’s skin down with antibiotic gel and wrapped the arm for the next couple of hours to catch the weeping that Con turned off the TV and said, “It’s not the military. That’s actually been the most stable thing in my life. The hustling? I grew up traveling the country with my dad—that’s what we did. Rarely stayed in the same place more than a couple of days. We used to have maps, to make sure we didn’t hit the same town twice. We worked the country in circles.”
The tension radiated off Con as he spoke.
“Ah, Con. Shit.”
“Don’t, okay? I can handle anything but pity. Especially from you.” Con faced him for the first time since they’d fought.
Quinn brushed some hair from Con’s eyes. “When I fuck up, I own it.”
“Guess we’re both a couple of fuck-ups,” Con said quietly.
Quinn ran a hand down Con’s chest, trailed it lower and cupped Con’s cock when he got no argument. He got an invite, Con spreading his legs.
For days, he’d been riding Con about the hustling. But traveling the country like this had to be bringing back memories for Con. Did Scott know about this? Did he do it purposely?
Because obviously Con tended to spiral in situations like this. Hustling was what he knew, his coping mechanism. For a long time, according to him, it was all he had and he was good at it. Scott knew about his past, he explained, but not to the extent Con had just told Quinn.
“Scott would never do this to you purposely,” Quinn said carefully.
“No, definitely not,” Con agreed.
Now that he knew Con’s childhood consisted of nothing remotely resembling a childhood at all, Quinn didn’t doubt that Con had suffered abuse, both physical and emotional. Coupled with the nomadic living situation and being forced to hustle pool for survival with a father who looked at Con as a meal ticket rather than a son, Quinn felt a righteous anger…and more protective of Con than ever. “You fought tonight.”
