Cut & Run (50 page)

“What are you afraid of?” he asked after nearly a minute of silence.

That silence extended as Zane struggled with what to say. “Not being there,” he finally murmured.

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Ty turned his head slightly to look back over his shoulder. “Not being where?” he asked in confusion.

Zane looked haunted. “I wasn’t there when Becky was killed. I wasn’t there when my first partner went stupid and drove home drunk. And I lost them both.”

“Yeah?” Ty responded unsympathetically. “I
was
there when my partner was shot and killed,” he said quietly. “I even took the bullet just like he did,” he said as he pointed to the spot low on his abdomen where a scar told the story of a through and through. “Still didn’t do him a damn bit of good. Just ’cause you’re there, doesn’t mean it’s any less tragic.”

Zane closed his eyes and shrugged a little. “If I’d been there, I might have been able to do something. But I wasn’t, and I lost them.”

“And if you’d
been there
,” Ty said softly, “I would have lost you.”

Zane slowly opened his eyes to look at Ty’s back as his breath caught. “I’m not letting you walk away again,” he said to him thickly without thinking about it first.

Ty gave a lopsided shrug and then nodded, not turning to look back at Zane. “It’s debatable, who walked away,” he said softly.

Zane drew in a deep breath, held it, and let it out slowly. “We ...

couldn’t have done this then. We didn’t know....”

Ty nodded thoughtfully as he finally turned to look Zane over, but the look on his face clearly said that he might disagree.

“How?” Zane asked, tilting his head to one side.

“How what, Chief?” Ty asked softly.

“How would it have worked?”

Ty pursed his lips and shrugged again. “Same way it is now, I guess,”

he answered, displaying the sort of nonchalance with which the Ty of old had always handled emotional situations. “Except without the drinking and drugs and copious amounts of anonymous sex, I’d imagine,” he added with a cock of his head.

Zane’s lips twitched. “Anonymous sex? I thought you knew all those women.”

“Well, I did after a few minutes,” Ty pointed out with a hint of a blush.

A smile broke free. “You did better than I did, then,” the other man Cut & Run | 305

muttered, though he wasn’t at all self-conscious about it.

“I don’t wanna know,” Ty said immediately, closing his eyes and shaking his head.

Zane chuckled and swiped playfully at Ty’s arm. “Come here,” he said again. “We can sleep until Henninger calls.”

“You sleep, I’ll wake you up during the middle of a dream,” Ty promised crankily.

“You were having a
bad
dream!” Zane insisted.

“You know what I ain’t afraid of?” Ty asked. “Bad dreams!” He swatted at Zane’s grasping hand and then began crawling toward him slowly.

“Dreams mean I’m sleeping, and sleeping means I ain’t laying awake trying to get to sleep. Understand?” he asked as he got right in Zane’s face and brushed his nose against Zane’s.

“I understand,” Zane repeated dutifully, rubbing the tip of his nose against Ty’s before lifting just enough to press a soft kiss against his lips.

“First night I slept without passing out drunk in four months was that night at your place,” he said, his voice barely audible.

Ty closed his eyes and sighed quietly, deflating a little just before he clambered to the side and flopped down beside Zane.

Zane knew Ty didn’t want to hear it. But he’d said it to him anyway; the closest he could come to communicating how much he felt he needed his partner. He shifted and lay along Ty’s side, letting his eyes close while he just focused on feeling him close.

Ty’s arm snaked around him, pulling him closer. “After this case is over,” he said quietly as he stared up at the ceiling and idly twirled a lock of Zane’s hair, “promise me you’ll get help.”

Zane inhaled and exhaled slowly. “I promise,” he whispered.

Ty merely nodded his head almost indiscernibly and continued to play with Zane’s hair. “So, what exactly was the point of waking me up and picking a fight?” he asked finally.

“Hmmm?” Zane grunted. He knew full well what Ty was asking about. For now, Zane was just pleased to have the cranky, gruff Ty back. He could relate to him. This Ty didn’t scare him and make him feel incredible, baffling emotions he’d tried to shut away.

Ty rolled his eyes and shook his head again. “Asshole,” he accused almost fondly. He was unable to stay quiet for long. “I mean,” he said 306 | Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux

pointedly, “I know why I poke you. But where’s the fun in poking me? Why start arguments just for the sake of fighting?” he demanded.

Zane opened his eyes. He considered teasing, but thought it might be bordering on cruel at this point. “You’re more yourself now than you’ve been since I saw you again,” he said seriously.

Ty blinked up at the ceiling. “What the hell?” he finally asked.

Raising an eyebrow, Zane raised his head and rested his chin on Ty’s chest as he looked up at him. He didn’t answer, though.

Ty narrowed his eyes again and sighed heavily. “You’re trying to drive me crazy, aren’t you?” he finally asked.

“Depends, I guess,” Zane said. “If it helps you shake off that damn conditioning, I’ll do whatever I have to.”

Ty cocked his head and frowned. “Conditioning,” he muttered.

“ ‘Proper behavior’?” Zane said, sounding like he was parroting from a doctor. “All those things the shrink told you were the right things to do when you actually felt emotions?”

Ty’s eyes narrowed even further and he growled softly in the back of his throat.

Zane considered carefully what to say. “There’s a piece of you missing. Or that you’ve buried. One that I think we’re going to need for this case.”

Ty was silent as he pushed Zane off him and sat up, leaning against the headboard and staring at his partner expectantly.

“Don’t you think so?” Zane asked evenly, watching Ty intently.

“So you’re trying to egg me on,” Ty responded without answering.

“Make me cranky and somehow use me to solve an unsolvable case. What the hell are you, Zane, a Little Rascal?”

Zane’s eyes flashed with a little temper before calming, and he sat up to look over at the other man. “It’s your passion that’s missing, Ty. You want to solve the case. You desperately want to catch a break on it. But that drive you had … I just don’t see it. I mean, for Christ’s sake, you figured out the pattern the guy follows! That drove you insane when we were here before, but now you don’t even seem to give a damn!”

Ty leaned forward and his nostrils flared angrily. “Maybe there’s a lot of shit you miss with your head so far up your ass,” he snarled.

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Zane just smiled, watching Ty with something that looked like pleasure mixed with hunger and a tinge of amusement.

Ty stopped short when he saw the reaction, sitting back against the headboard suspiciously. “Don’t look at me like that,” he muttered.

“Why not?” Zane asked.

“Because,” Ty huffed as he rolled off the bed and began to pace restlessly.

Zane shook his head slowly, still watching him. “Come back here,”

he tried, though he didn’t move from his sitting position on the end of the bed.

Ty shot him a dirty look and stopped pacing. He crossed his arms defiantly and pursed his lips to see what Zane would do. But the other man just waited for a moment, then patted his thigh and raised an eyebrow.

Ty snorted and looked at him incredulously. “Go fuck yourself,” he advised.

“I’d rather fuck you,” Zane drawled. Ty merely snorted stubbornly and turned to continue his pacing. Zane grinned and sprawled back on the bed. “Well, whenever,” he added, tipping his head back against the headboard to look at the ceiling.

“So is the fucking a part of your little plan, too?” Ty asked suddenly.

Zane brought his chin down and focused on Ty. “I want to fuck you, regardless,” he said. “You have any idea how far you’ve gotten under my skin?”

Again, the hairs on Ty’s arms rose and his chest tightened slightly. He shook his head wordlessly and scowled.

“Goddammit, Ty. I get a hard-on just looking at you,” Zane snapped.

“Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed.”

Ty took an involuntary step back and blinked at Zane stupidly. “I didn’t,” he insisted and shook his head as he finally looked away.

Zane cocked his head. “Does that bother you?” he asked, voice revealing his surprise.

“No,” Ty answered defensively. “I just didn’t ... realize....”

“Didn’t realize what?” Zane asked softly, sitting up to lean his elbows on his knees.

Ty was slowly regaining his balance, and as he did so he smiled slowly. “That you were so easy,” he answered with a smirk.

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Zane chuckled and leaned back again. “Blame the hookers.”

Ty grew serious once more and took a step closer. “Is it the same?” he asked softly.

The smile on Zane’s face dimmed. “Not even remotely close to you.”

Ty stopped as Zane spoke and then took another step closer. “Do
you
have any idea,” he said in a low voice, “how far you’ve gotten under
my
skin?”

Zane stilled completely. “No,” he said honestly, voice low.

Ty moved closer and stood at the side of bed in front of Zane. “You should,” he murmured as he reached out and ran his fingers through Zane’s hair.

Zane’s dark eyes focused on him. “How? You don’t believe the same of me.”

“I don’t?” Ty asked softly.

Gaze going soft, Zane reached up to touch Ty’s hand, though he didn’t interfere with its movement. “I don’t know,” he whispered.

Ty sighed softly and bent over, dropping his hands to lean on Zane’s thighs. He slid them up to rest against Zane’s hips and he knelt there, looking up at him. “The girl who called that morning at my place,” he said suddenly.

“She was so upset because I fucked her, then spent the rest of the night on the balcony with a beer and a really fucking rare cigar. Thinking about you.”

Zane could feel his heart pounding in the quiet. He wondered if Ty could hear it. He moved his hands to rest on Ty’s forearms. “Thinking about what?” he asked quietly. “Where I was?”

“And who and what you were doing,” Ty answered with a slow nod.

“What we had done, what we should have done….”

“I should have….” Zane stopped and shook his head. “I thought about you,” he admitted.

“You should have what?” Ty pressed softly.

Zane sighed and closed his eyes. “I should have stayed,” he breathed.

“I just didn’t know how.”

Ty watched him closely, frowning. “You couldn’t have stayed,” he finally responded.

“I know,” Zane answered. “Doesn’t mean I didn’t think about it.”

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Ty remained on his knees, frowning at Zane without anything to say.

He pulled Zane’s hand toward him and kissed the inside of his wrist impulsively. Zane’s pulse was racing, and Ty could feel it jumping under his lips. “Why are you nervous?” he whispered in confusion.

Taking a deep breath, Zane let out his greatest fear. “What if something happens to you?” It was out of left field, for sure. But it was eating at him from the inside.

Ty raised his head slightly, looking at Zane seriously as he released him. He slowly eased himself up to sit cross-legged beside the bed and rested his elbows on his knees. This all went back to Zane’s wife, he realized. It was a pretty common reaction when someone lost a person they loved; to close off and try to refuse to care or let anyone close. The bitch of it was that there was no way to guard against losing again and again.

“I can’t promise that nothing will,” he finally answered with a shrug.

Zane nodded. “I know,” he said in a pained voice. “But I still want you.”

“So what’s the problem?” Ty asked gently.

Zane raised one shoulder in a confused shrug. “You said it: we get along best when we’re fucking. How do we make that work?”

“Not everything needs to be planned, Zane,” Ty answered with a tinge of frustration. “Not everything needs a why or how.”

“So we just see how it goes?” Zane asked. Ty answered with a nod and smiled. Zane smiled slightly in return, the vise that had been around his chest finally eased. “I’ll try.”

Ty reached out and patted his knee almost delicately and then hefted himself off the floor.

Zane’s hands almost itched with the need to touch Ty again, but he curled them into fists and cursed his nerves. See how it goes. Well, it wasn’t going anywhere right this moment. He clambered off the bed and walked over to his jacket, poking through the pockets for his cigarettes. Ty was watching him silently, a crooked smirk curling his lips.

Zane turned around. When he saw Ty watching, he didn’t move; he just stood there with his cigarettes in one hand and lighter in the other.

“Those things’ll kill you,” Ty advised in amusement.

Looking at Ty ruefully, Zane shook his head and flipped him off as he walked to the door. “Leave me at least one of my vices?” he requested.

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Ty sighed and watched him as he reached the door. “The pills are in my bag,” he offered quietly.

Stopping at the door, Zane looked back over his shoulder at Ty. Yeah, he wanted the damn pills. Just a single thought and he was dying for them, for the artificial high and confidence he got from them. Having them around was like a burr stuck in his shirt, scraping his skin raw. He turned around. “Give them over, please,” he requested quietly.

Ty waited for a moment and then walked over to the bag to rummage through and find the tin. He held it up and rattled it, then tossed it to Zane without a word. Zane caught the tin deftly and looked down at it for a long moment. Then he moved, walking past Ty and into the bathroom, where he worked to pry the tin open. Ty lowered his head, listening intently and hoping to hear the flush of the toilet instead of the running of the water to fill a glass.

Zane stared down at the little pink pills. How big a deal was this?