Cut and Run 09 Crash & Burn (42 page)

“You didn’t, Ty.”

Ty swallowed hard, gazing into Zane’s eyes with a swirl of emotions Zane couldn’t begin to understand. “Just those couple of hours, thinking you were gone . . . and you went five years with that feeling.”

“Ty.”

“You’ll never know how strong you are, Zane,” Ty whispered vehemently. He brushed his fingers over Zane’s forehead, swiping a few stray curls aside. “You did something I would never have been able to do.”

Zane’s eyes darted over Ty’s face.

“You’re so much stronger than you could ever know.”

Zane’s hands tightened around Ty’s. “Thank you,” he finally managed. He squeezed Ty hard. “Let’s just agree never to find out if I can do it again, okay?”

Ty nodded earnestly, then schooled his features into something even more serious. “On a less romantic and life-affirming note, if we were at home, I’d already be fucking you by now. Just so you know.”

Zane snorted, trying to keep it low so they wouldn’t wake anyone. “So romantic,” he crooned. He spread his arms to his sides, inviting Ty to proceed. “But this is still awfully nice.”

Ty entwined his fingers with Zane’s again. “This will all be over soon. And then every morning can be like this.”

Zane smiled, trying to keep the concern at bay and almost succeeding. Ty rolled back again, bringing Zane with him until they both lay on their sides facing each other. He threw his leg over Zane’s hip and drew them flush together.

“I’ve been trying to figure out how to get out of the deal I made,” he said, his words measured, his brow creasing deeper.

Zane licked his lips, adjusting his head against the crook of Ty’s arm. “With the CIA?”

“With the devil.”

Zane scowled, his eyes on Ty’s.

“I don’t know how,” Ty whispered.

“Then don’t, Ty.”

Ty jerked his head back. “What?”

“Don’t get out of it,” Zane repeated. “We both know we missed it. Us. A gun and a badge and having each other’s backs.”

“Yeah, but . . .”

“CIA Special Agent Grady.” Zane smiled mischievously. “It fits you.”

“Zane.” Ty drew out his name.

“CIA Special Agent Garrett,” Zane added with another quirk of his lips. Ty had been trying to be retired for a whole year. He had failed miserably. This was Ty’s second chance, and Zane was willing to take it with him. “Yeah. I could get used to that.”

“A-are you saying you want to join the CIA?”

Zane exhaled loudly and rolled in Ty’s arms, putting his back to him. Ty tugged him close again. “They said the offer was open way back when we were dealing with Cross. I think it’s time we get back to what brought us together in the first place.”

Ty held his breath for a few seconds. “Murder?”

Zane thought of the rubble in Baltimore that had once been their future, and of the face of the man in Miami who’d tried to take Ty from him. “That too,” he growled.

Ty still seemed confused. He buried his face in Zane’s unruly curls. Zane snuggled close, fitting his ass in the curve of Ty’s groin.

Ty grunted. “If you’re trying to keep me from being turned on, this is not the best way to do it.”

“Why would I try to do that?”

Ty kissed the back of his shoulder, and Zane’s heart rate picked up. This was, bar none, his favorite position no matter which one of them topped. Being able to drag his hand up and down Ty’s hard body as he fucked him. Feeling his impressive muscles flexing as Ty moved. Every part of them touching and rubbing from the tip of his nose to the tips of his toes. Being forced to go slow because they were on their sides and there was little leverage to be found when Ty worked his way inside. The way he could turn his head in a desperate plea for a kiss over his shoulder . . . It never failed to do the trick.

Merely the thought of making love like this was getting Zane uncomfortably hard in record time, just like it always would. And Ty loved it just as much as he did.

Ty inhaled deeply. “You’re an evil, evil man.”

Zane shimmied his hips. “Consider this payback for disappearing on me and making me think you were dead.”

“That wasn’t my fault!” Ty hissed. “And hey, you did it to me too, so we should be even!”

Zane’s eyes fluttered as Ty touched the tip of his nose to Zane’s neck. He grumbled as he glanced over his shoulder, and Ty pushed onto his elbow to kiss him. His hand began to slide toward Zane’s hip, dragging against his muscles, and Zane hummed longingly into the kiss. He had fucked Ty last night, going hard as Ty wrapped around him, going until they were both sweating and panting and Ty was laid out and begging in the most debauched ways possible.

That didn’t mean they couldn’t do it again this morning, nice and slow this time.

Ty was hard against Zane’s ass by the time Zane tossed his leg over Ty’s knees, opening himself up a little more. Ty gasped.

“How long do you need?” Zane finally rumbled against his lips.

“Minutes,” Ty hissed. He was already shoving down his boxers in anticipation of the go-ahead. The head of his cock pushed at Zane’s ass.

Zane stretched and sucked in a breath to steady himself. “You’ve got ten.”

It only took two for Ty to accomplish everything Zane loved about being taken from behind. Ten minutes after his ten minutes were up, Ty was buried deep inside him, clutching at him, rocking into him, fucking him as they kissed over Zane’s shoulder, when someone knocked on the door.

Zane’s fingers dug into Ty’s hip so he wouldn’t move. “Yeah,” he called out, his voice remarkably normal for someone who was about to be caught in a very precarious position.

Ty dragged the heavy quilt up to their shoulders and buried his face against Zane’s neck, rotating his hips just enough to make Zane gasp.

The door creaked open and Owen poked his head in. “You guys up?”

“You could say that,” Ty answered wryly.

Zane tightened his muscles around Ty’s cock, and Ty grunted.

“Irish said to tell you we’re gearing up,” Owen told them. “Wheels up in half an hour.”

“We’ll be down,” Ty told him, somehow able to make it sound casual and sleepy.

Owen nodded and shut the door behind him, and Zane almost immediately began to snicker. Ty rolled him until he had him squished into the mattress, and Zane was still laughing when Ty found his rhythm again.

Zane clomped down the steps. He’d settled for one of his knives in his boot, his sheaths on his wrists, and his gun and a backup under a very light canvas jacket. He’d pretty much stuffed weapons everywhere they could be stuffed, actually.

Ty shuffled after him, dragging his feet and buttoning up his shirt.

“My shades are toast, man,” Ty said as he held the brown aviators up and examined them critically.

“You shouldn’t have sat on them,” Zane said, distracted by the heavenly smell of sizzling bacon and fresh bread wafting through the house.

“Well, I didn’t mean to. These things lasted me three freaking years, and
one day
in Texas and they’re all, ‘I give up.’” He waved his hands through the air.

Zane chuckled. He stopped at the doorway to the kitchen and motioned for Ty to go ahead.

Ty stepped past him, glancing up at him with a small smile as he slid his broken sunglasses onto his face. “I expect more fortitude out of my inanimate objects than that.”

Zane raised an eyebrow. “I am not inanimate.”

“Sometimes you’re not.”

“You boys come get breakfast,” Mara said. They’d sent all the ranch staff home for the week to keep them out of danger, and Mara had made herself at home in the gourmet kitchen.

“Yes, ma’am,” Ty answered without taking his eyes off Zane. He winked. “Come on, Lone Star.”

Zane followed, buoyed by Ty’s good humor. If this was their last bit of peace, then he would be content. Mara had laid out a full breakfast, and she was still standing at the stove.

Beverly was sitting in the breakfast nook with a cup of coffee. She gave them both a stiff, almost nervous smile. “Good morning, boys,” she offered.

They both responded in kind. Was this what a normal family felt like?

Ty took his sunglasses off again, gently bending the rims, trying to tweak them back into shape.

“What’d those cost you, Ty?” Zane asked him. “Ten bucks? Fifteen?”

Ty glanced up at him distractedly before going back to it. He had his tongue out of his mouth, tip between his teeth, and his brow was furrowed. Zane smirked, watching him surreptitiously. Ty slid them on one last time to test his work and gave Zane a triumphant grin.

Zane offered him a sarcastic thumbs-up. He sat with a jar of
picante
sauce and pulled the bowl of scrambled eggs to him, then tried to twist the top off the jar with his hurt hand.

Ty watched in abject horror, not saying anything.

“It’s good!” Zane told him, still trying to get the top off.

“Zane,” Ty grunted with a shake of his head. He gestured for the jar.

Zane frowned, but extended his arm. Ty reached across the table and gripped the lid of the jar with his left hand, twisting hard as Zane held the bottom. The lid popped off with a wet sucking sound.

Ty held up the lid, gave it a sniff and a grimace, then set it down on the table.

Zane rolled his eyes and grabbed up his spoon. “Thanks.”

Ty pointed his fork at Zane as he chewed. “Teamwork.”

Zane winked and started back on his
picante
sauce and eggs.

“The other boys been in yet?” Ty asked through a mouthful of breakfast.

“They probably went back to sleep,” Zane muttered. “Assholes.”

“Love you too, Garrett,” Nick said as he entered the kitchen, the others trailing in after him. He flopped a legal pad on the kitchen table between Ty and Zane. “Those are your times. Don’t miss your flight.”

Ty picked the pad up and scowled at it. “You boys did a lot of planning after I left you last night, Gunny.”

Nick shrugged, a smirk on his lips. “That’s what the gunny does.”

“We get in an hour before you do so we don’t have all the balls in one basket,” Owen told them as he stole a spoonful of Ty’s eggs.

“Balls?” Zane asked.

Owen held up Ty’s spoon. “Eggs.”

The others were moving through the kitchen, loading up on what appeared to be a mobile breakfast. Their bags were sitting in the foyer. They were preparing to leave.

Owen continued to speak as he chewed. “We’ll meet at Cross’s safe house. Anything goes tits up, it’s every man for himself.”

Zane nodded, committing the information on the legal pad to memory.

Ty stood, giving each man a hug. Even Liam received one, and he looked both surprised and suspicious when Ty let him go. Zane had to take a bite of toast to hide his smile. Ty held Nick tightly, saying something in his ear. He patted Nick’s cheek, smiling as Nick nodded. “I’ll see you on the other side, brother.”

Nick held up his hand, and Ty grasped it. “Not if I see you first,” Nick murmured, and then Sidewinder melted out of the kitchen, leaving a stillness behind that enveloped those remaining.

Zane gave his mother and Mara both a reassuring smile. Beverly stood suddenly, hurrying across the large kitchen toward Zane. Her eyes glistened as she reached both hands out to him, and Zane stood in shock to take her in his arms.

She clung to him, frail and trembling. “You come back from this, Zane,” she hissed against his chest. “Then we’ll tend to that wedding you boys promised us.”

“I’m not freaking out.
You’re
freaking out. Shut up.” Liam was, though, and they all knew it.

Nick rolled his eyes and banged his head against the back of the freezer.

He would have thought that waking up on a horse ranch in Texas and getting stuck in a restaurant freezer in Miami by late afternoon would be a long story, but it turned out that it was very short.

The NIA had been waiting for Liam when they’d landed in Miami. Apparently, Preston’s CIA-created ID hadn’t been quite as foolproof as they’d expected.

They’d been bagged, tagged, and transported to this building with hoods over their faces. Nick knew it was a restaurant from the sounds and smells alone.

And good
God
he hoped the slabs of meat hanging in here with them were beef and pork.