4-Bound By Danger (7 page)

Kenny sounded worried, and Jace sighed. “We had a CO in common on a joint mission. And we were hanging out at the MC when I was fixing my bike. Haven’t seen him since the last party I was at—obviously.”

“I told him that. Man, I can’t believe Tomcat’s dead.”

“Yeah, me neither,” he echoed. “What’s the story?”

“Just what I told you—MC business. But Cools was concerned that maybe Tomcat let you in on shit that got him killed or something. He said that Tomcat never liked following the rules.”

Yeah, that made two of them. “I don’t know shit—Tomcat kept me shielded, just like Cools and the rest of them. Just tell Cools you got a damned job—I’ll call you later.” Jace hung up the phone and immediately called his FBI handler.

“I have to get Kenny out of town now,” he told his handler, an agent named Mike McCall. “He’s going to get himself in too deep.”

“I need more intel,” Mike told him. “We have a deal.”

“Fuck your deal. Get Kenny out—I gave you the warehouse. My ass is on the line in more ways than one here, man. You’ve got to give me some help before I can’t extract my cousin at all.”

“I’ll see what I can work out.”

Jace didn’t hold out much hope. Granted, he didn’t have all that much intel—and the sick part was, if Kenny took the job the Killers gave him, Jace could get all the intel he needed.

He paced the floor until he heard back that it was a no-go. Decided he’d have to do a little witness protection of his own at some point in the future, although he knew in his heart Kenny would refuse it.

Fuck.

When his phone rang again and he saw Kenny’s number, he knew the shit was about to hit the fan.

“Jace, I told them, but they insisted that I work with them. They said it’s time—that it would be an insult not to accept.”

In this case, insult not so subtly equaled death. “Kenny, you have to leave town.”

“I want to, but what the hell—where can I go? I’m part of the club.”

“I know. But if you get involved in the job—”

“I don’t have a way out. Look, you’ve tried to help me, and I’ve fucked up. I don’t want to get you in trouble.”

“You’re not, Kenny. You just have to keep trusting me.” Jace knew a couple of guys who ran black ops out of Omaha—they were always looking for someone innocuous to run errands, keep up the front. If he could put Kenny with them…

“I’ve got to go, Jace. One of the guys is picking me up in an hour and I’ve got to get ready.”

Jace hung up before he could say another word and sagged under the weight of his responsibility. He threw his phone across the room, wondering if the helpless feelings would ever fucking go away. He’d had too much of them from childhood, and now they were returning with an unexpected vengeance.

Jace put one foot in front of the other for the next couple of days. Went to base and worked himself out until he was too tired to do, feel and think about Tomcat, or Kenny and the fact that he’d gone on a goddamned drug run and was now in way over his head. He’d need to get Kenny a secure line or stop talking to him completely about getting out, because he was pretty sure the club was monitoring Kenny’s every move.

Tonight, being tired wasn’t working, wasn’t enough to keep him from pacing his room in frustration. He showered again, letting the hot water sluice over his tense muscles, but he didn’t even have the heart to jerk off. He bypassed the bed in favor of food and headed to the kitchen. He paused when he walked in that room because he swore something wasn’t exactly right and then figured he was just too close to being out of combat. He was always suspicious and jumpy for weeks when he came home, and shooting at a random cabinet wasn’t going to help him.

He leaned into the fridge and felt body heat behind him. Froze.

“I’ve died and risen before,” the voice whispered, and Jace elbowed Tomcat—a very much alive Tomcat—in the ribs and pushed away.

“Goddamn it.” He whirled around and stared at the man he’d been mourning. Deep down, he’d suspected as much but refused to let himself believe.

Dead or disappeared—either way, he’d assumed Tomcat was gone from his life forever. “You can’t just show up like this, you asshole.”

Tomcat shrugged unapologetically and Jace fought the urge to punch him as hard as he could. Tomcat didn’t say anything, and he looked like a completely different person and still completely hot.

His hair was shorter but still pulled back, eyes were green, not brown, and his skin was smooth-shaven and tanned.

If anyone passed him on the street, they might see a slight resemblance, but as far as undercover disguises went, Jace had to admit that the guy was good.

“What the fuck are you doing here, anyway?” Jace demanded. “You’re dead, remember? You’re blowing your cover again.”

“Thought you were okay with keeping my secret.”

“I thought I’d be included on the whole dead secret,” Jace shot back.

“You know what my job is. How else was I supposed to get away from them? And you know I couldn’t tell you.”

Jace’s eyes hardened. “Fuck you.”

“We had one weekend.”

“Yeah? Then what the hell are you doing here?” Jace challenged.

Tomcat pulled the cemetery pictures out of his pocket and slammed them to the table. Jace looked at them with a shrug of indifference, although he winced internally at how fucking pathetic he looked.

The rain hadn’t hid his tears well at all. “So I was mourning you.”

“I popped your cherry—that’s all.”

“Again, so why are you here if it was just a fuck to you?”

Tomcat paused. “That’s all it was to you, too. You’ll see. Give it some time.”

“Now you get to tell me how I feel? I might’ve been a virgin, but I’ve had relationships before,” Jace told him.

“We don’t have—”

“A relationship?” Jace finished for him. “Got it, loud and clear. Guess the texts were a figment of my imagination. Welcome back to the land of the living and get the hell out of my house.”

Tomcat didn’t say anything else except, “My name’s Clint.”

Jace blinked. “What?”

“My real name—Clint.”

Jace muttered something, ran his hand through his hair. “Great. Clint, get the fuck out.”

Clint wasn’t going anywhere, especially since it was the first time in years he’d actually been able to think of himself
as
Clint for any significant length of time and not Tomcat. Talking wasn’t going to solve this problem, and so he moved toward Jace even as the boy put his hands out to stop him. There was pain and anger and plenty of other things he didn’t want to see reflected in Jace’s eyes, and so he concentrated on getting Jace into his arms.

“I’m not kidding,” Jace told him through gritted teeth as he moved out of reach. “Don’t turn this into a goddamned fight.”

But it already was.

He’d told himself he was only coming here to stop Jace from being upset and then he’d walk away. The second he saw the boy in person, he knew he’d been lying to himself.

Jace might’ve been younger and just as strong, but Clint had been at this game a lot longer. He let Jace fight against him while he used his hands to get at what he wanted.

When Clint touched him through his sweats, Jace froze and then moved to punch Clint. He avoided it and worked on pure adrenaline to get Jace pushed against the counter and subdued enough to yank his sweats down and palm his dick, because Jace could give him a run for his money in a true fight.

God, the boy looked so good—blond and tan, his blue eyes glowing against the golden hue—and even though Clint couldn’t ignore the hurt in them, he knew he could fix it. Had to.

“Let me go,” Jace bit out, but he’d stopped struggling, just stood still and silent except for the rough breaths that broke through. “Please…stop.”

A plea, but he didn’t really want Clint to do that. The Dom in him had been trained to know the subtle difference between a true request to stop and one like this, where Jace didn’t want to cave this easily. Telling Clint to stop was his way of lying to himself that he was overpowered, and that was the only reason he was staying still and allowing the hand job.

Clint could deal with that. “I’m not stopping, baby.”

“I’m not your baby.”

“Right—you’re my sweet little virgin,” he said, and Jace choked back a whimper at the reminder and his cock grew harder, precome leaking, color rising in his face. Clint stroked the hard shaft, refusing to take his eyes from Jace’s, needing to see the change from cold to hot desire.

It took several moments, but finally he got what he wanted. Jace’s mouth parted slightly, his eyes glazed and his hips rocked to Clint’s rhythm.

“You missed this.”

“You missed this,” Jace whispered back, his voice raw, and Clint had no choice but to nod his agreement. Jace relented further at that, so much so that Clint was able to let go of his grip on the boy’s shoulder and sink to his knees to take Jace’s cock into his mouth. But first he tongued the tip, sucking in the white pearl of precome as the boy moaned his appreciation.

Jace tasted so damned good. Clint had definitely missed this, missed the kid, which was what bothered Clint the most of all this.

He’d missed
Jace
. Fuck.

He shoved the sweats all the way down, got one foot out completely. He felt Jace’s tentative fingers in his hair as he licked the underside of Jace’s cock, shoved the boy’s legs open further with an impatience he hadn’t realized was there. One hand fondled the boy’s heavy balls as he took Jace’s dick into his mouth, deep-throating it.

When he heard Jace murmur, “
Clint
”, he knew he just might be forgiven.

Chapter Eight

When Clint had moved in on him like a predator, Jace told himself he should get out of the way or punch the big man—anything to stop Clint from getting too close again. And he was way too close, but Jace had been unable to stop him.

He wanted to lie to himself and say that Clint overpowered him completely, but he couldn’t. So he’d let Clint sink to his knees one last time, because the bastard owed him. And it was good—probably better than he’d remembered.

As Clint’s mouth worked him, tongue and a light scrape of teeth—just enough to make Jace jolt with pleasure—Jace knew this man could easily get him back into bed. Maybe he was the biggest fucking fool alive for admitting that to himself, but he wasn’t letting Tomcat know that. Then again, his body had already betrayed him big-time.

Clint. Not Tomcat. It was like he’d lost one man while another came back to claim him. So who’d been fucking him that weekend? And why did it matter so much?

Now, his body moved against Clint’s mouth shamelessly. Uncontrollably. He gripped Clint’s hair, unable to break the stare Clint locked him into as he came hard and his knees sagged under the fierce orgasm.

Clint pulled him in, nuzzled his cheek while he tried to get his body under control again. But the close proximity to the big man simply got him hard again.

Clint noticed immediately. “You’re not scared anymore.”

“You got me over that pretty fast.” His eyes met Clint’s, a demand for answers, an acknowledgement. Something.

The sex was supposed to be the apology—Jace got that, allowed it at first. Now he wanted more.

Clint brushed a hand over Jace’s hair, which was always shaggy and falling in his eyes these days. “Is this long for a mission?”

“Yeah.”

“I like it.”

“I didn’t do it for you.” Jace pulled away, and Clint yanked him back roughly.

“I know you’re pissed.”

“And you’re going to make it up to me with sex?” Jace asked.

“Can’t think of a better way,” Clint said mildly. He buried his fingers in the thick strands, tugging Jace’s face closer, and this time Jace moved in faster and took control of the kiss. His tongue teased Clint’s, and he grabbed the back of the man’s neck to deepen the kisses.

When Jace pulled away, he was pleased to see that Clint was finally showing signs of losing control. “What do you want from me, Clint? Do you want me to tell you that it’s all good—that you’re forgiven? Because you still haven’t told me why you’re here.”

Jace’s eyes bored into him. The boy was going to make him say the words, and Clint couldn’t blame him. Hell, even if Jace wasn’t going to make him say them, Clint owed him.

Seeing the pictures of Jace visiting his fake grave in the rain nearly killed him. Stopping the texts had been one thing, but he’d figured he’d be the only one hurting. Figured Jace could—and would—easily move on.

He hadn’t told Jace about the plan, so although Jace had suspected what had really happened, Clint knew he was still freaked as hell. And pissed, although he’d tried really hard not to show it. And Clint went along with that, because if the kid wanted to pretend not to have feelings, who was he to argue?

He’d lived under that MO for years. But the tears running down Jace’s cheeks were clearly visible in the pictures, and that was enough to break Clint’s heart. “Like I said, I couldn’t tell you anything.”