enemies of the state (43 page)

Ethan grabbed the couch cushions and cursed. His thighs strained. Jack kept grinning, even as he wrapped his lips around the head of Ethan’s cock and sucked him down.

Later, Ethan was barely conscious, clinging to the couch cushions with his pants around his knees, and Jack was licking his lips with a wicked smile on his face. “Not bad for my first time,” Jack whispered, huskily. “Guess the banana practice paid off.” He winked as Ethan groaned, burying his face in a mangled throw pillow.

* * * * *

A suspiciously plain brown bag appeared on their bed the next evening. Jack tried to sweep it away, tucking it into the drawer on the nightstand on his side of the bed.

Ethan wrapped his arms around Jack’s waist and kissed his neck. “What’s that?”

Caught, Jack tugged open the drawer.

A box of condoms and a tube of lube, brand new, stared up at Ethan.

“Do you know how hard it is to buy condoms and lube when you’re the President of the United States?”

“Oh God.” Ethan had spent the day at his condo, packing and sorting his belongings into two piles—stuff for Iowa and stuff for storage. He wasn’t planning on taking much. Iowa wasn’t going to be permanent.

He hadn’t been with Jack at all that day. Hadn’t been by his side.

And Jack, when he was up to something, was a creative one.

“Please don’t tell me you actually bought condoms and lube yourself.” He could see the headlines now. The press, already camped outside his condo and the White House, would triple.

Jack tried to keep a straight face, but failed. “Welby got it for me.”

A thousand times worse. Ethan groaned, burying his face in Jack’s neck. “Welby?” Welby had been the stick in the mud who had started their friendship, so many months ago. “You had Welby buy you sex supplies? Jesus, I can never look him in the eye again.”

“He’s actually a pretty good guy.” Jack spun in Ethan’s hold, wrapping his arms around Ethan’s neck. “It was on the way back from the hospital.” Jack waved his sling-free arm, grinning. “We grabbed hot wings after. Ate them in the SUV and people-watched the tourists outside the White House. It was hilarious.”

Ethan chuckled. That was Jack, hiding from the spotlight instead of living inside it.

“He must have smuggled the bag up here when we got back.” Jack nudged the drawer closed with his knee.

Ethan stopped him. “Would you like to put them to use?”

He saw Jack’s pulse speed up, pounding in his neck. His breaths came faster, hotter, and his eyes burned. “If you’re su—”

“I’m sure.” Ethan smiled.

Then it was hot kisses and slow stripping, and hands stroking over skin. Jack sucked Ethan hard, until Ethan pulled him off, trembling. He lay back on the bed and beckoned Jack to him, sighing as the warmth of Jack’s naked skin stroked across his. Another long kiss, and shared breaths.

Jack knelt above Ethan, his cock rock hard and leaking. “You’re so beautiful, Ethan,” he whispered. “How am I the lucky man that you fell for?”

Ethan didn’t have an answer for that. Instead, he tugged Jack down again, another kiss, and their bodies slid together, hands tangled overhead, legs entwined, hips rolling. Ethan’s fingers ran down Jack’s back, over the contours of his muscles and the ridges of his spine. Jack shivered above him, pressing kisses to his neck and his chest.

Finally, Ethan wrapped his legs around Jack’s waist and rolled his hips up, catching Jack’s cock in the cleft of his ass.

“I want you to make love to me,” Ethan breathed.

He wanted Jack inside him. The yearning almost surprised him. But taking Jack inside him was more than just sex, more than just the next step in their growing relationship. It was Jack’s love for him, and his love for Jack, made manifest. It was holding Jack inside him, feeling him in a place where he could almost touch Ethan’s soul. And Jack wanted to be inside Ethan—wanted to make love to him, to bring him to that place of ecstasy—and if there was any deeper symbol of devotion and love, then Ethan didn’t know what that would look like. He’d spent decades pounding out meaningless sex and seeking out men who, like him, just wanted the physical release. But now, with so many layers of love and desire tangled within this moment, the act was suddenly so much more than just a release.

Jack seemed to sense the change as well. His hands shook as he reached for the condoms and the lube. He had to breathe deeply before he sheathed himself, and he took ten times longer than Ethan ever had—ever—with the prep.

“I did some reading,” Jack grunted, when Ethan urged him to hurry up. More of his damn research that drove Ethan over the edge. “The last thing I want is to hurt you. And…I read up on what this means, too. You know, you doing this. Bottoming, when you’re normally a top.”

And then Jack’s fingers stroked just the right spot, and Ethan didn’t care how long he was taking.

“There’s nothing normal about us,” Ethan finally breathed. His fingers tangled with Jack’s free hand. “I’m doing this because I want to. I want you.” He sighed, arching his back. His thoughts, once so profound, fled. “Jack, now!”

There was pushing, stretching, and Ethan hovered on the edge of pain and pleasure. He tried to remember to breathe, but the look in Jack’s eyes made his lungs sear. Pressure filled him until he gasped, his world wavering on the edges of his vision, but then Jack was kissing his eyelids and his forehead, his cheeks and his neck, and babbling about how beautiful Ethan was, and how much he loved him. Every sense snapped, a rubber band ricochet, into perfect clarity. He cried out, his fingers finding the headboard behind them and squeezing tight.

They rocked together, finding a slow, rolling rhythm. Ethan’s legs spread wide, and Jack’s thighs kept him held back. He was held open, more than he’d ever been before. Lying back, his ass propped up on a pillow, and his legs splayed, Ethan offered himself up to Jack, an offering of pure love.

Or was it Jack offering himself to Ethan, worshipping his body, every breath and every movement all meant for Ethan’s pleasure, and all because of Jack’s love for him?

Deep thrusts made Ethan see stars and had him gasping for breath. Jack had to stop more than once, squeezing his eyes closed and panting, trying to hold back.

Kisses stretched on. Jack’s hands tangled with Ethan’s on the pillow beside Ethan’s head. He gasped when Jack angled just so, deep rolls and long strokes that filled him completely. His hard cock wept against their bellies, sandwiched between their bodies, and he hovered on the edge of orgasm, his toes curling as spots danced in front of his eyes.

Jack’s thighs flexed, pushing him impossibly deeper. Ethan reached for Jack, cupping his cheeks, and chanted Jack’s name, a mantra he repeated as stars blazed in his eyes. Jack’s cock seemed to harden further, and they bounded on the mattress, springs squawking and the frame creaking. Jack stared down at Ethan, his eyes blazing, burning, and whispered, “I love you,” over and over.

He never wanted this to stop. He wanted more, God, so much more. He wanted everything, absolutely everything with Jack, especially this perfect lovemaking. He gasped again, struggling to breathe, and held on to Jack, seeing only his face, hearing only his voice, and feeling only his touch as Jack remade Ethan’s world with love.

Jack groaned, plunging his cock deep into Ethan, and shuddered. His whole body shook, and Ethan felt his cock jerk deep within, again and again. He watched Jack come apart, his eyes blown wide, gazing at Ethan like he was the answer to Jack’s whole life.

Hot bliss lanced through Ethan, burning every nerve, pushing him past every place he’d ever been before. He thrashed, trying to chase the electric zing buried deep inside him. His balls clenched, and then he was coming, bucking against Jack, howling his name and spilling come across his stomach with his cock untouched. Never before, never had that happened before. He gasped, his eyes swimming, and he grabbed on to Jack, trying to cling to reality.

When Ethan could see again, he rained kisses on Jack’s face and stroked his back. Wrapped his legs around Jack’s waist and tried to hold on to the feeling of Jack inside him.

That had been something more than sex, more than even lovemaking. Jack had touched something deep within Ethan, something he’d never before touched, or had even known existed. It wasn’t physical. It was something more, something deeper. Something that felt like perfection.

* * * * *

The next morning, Ethan was up before Jack, and he slipped into the kitchen in his boxers. He was sore, but the memory made him smile, and he hummed as he whipped up an omelet and a plate of pancakes. He swiped a rose from one of the vases in the hall, and holding it in his mouth, he headed back to the bedroom.

Jack woke to find a tray of pancakes and eggs beside him in bed, and Ethan leaning over him, a rose between his teeth and a grin on his face. Jack laughed, and as they ate in bed, Ethan’s eyes traced Jack’s spiky bed head and his salt-and-pepper hair, and the kiss bruise he’d left on his chest from two nights before.

Jack had it all backward. How had he ended up the lucky one, with Jack falling in love with him?

* * * * *

Des Moines was a disaster, from the very beginning.

“I don’t want you here,” Shepherd, the Special Agent in Charge, said to Ethan as soon as he sat down. “But Headquarters insisted. So, you’re here. You will run investigations, just like everyone else, and you’ll pull details as required for protectees who visit the area. It’s quiet most of the year, but we get a lot of activity when midterms and general elections happen.”

He ran financial investigations and tracked down counterfeiters. Made one or two friendly acquaintances with the local cops, but in the Secret Service, Ethan was the office pariah. No one befriended him. Barely anyone spoke to him. He didn’t seek out any friends either and spent his evenings trying to set up his tiny apartment—hang suits, hang pictures of him and Jack, and fill the cupboards with food—and Skype with Jack.

Fridays at four PM, he was on the way to the airport, and he was at the White House by 9:30 PM. He took the latest flight back, the 11:30 PM departure, but it was always terrible. The flights home were miserable, and an ache grew in his chest with each return to Des Moines.

When midterm season began, things took a turn for the worse.

Jack campaigned in Iowa for his party, and in Chicago, Kansas City, and Oklahoma City. The agents from Des Moines were sent to help fill in the detail, backing up the agents from DC with locals. It was a standard procedure, one Ethan had employed on every trip Jack took.

“You all will be rotating with the presidential detail,” Shepherd said during a briefing. “Everyone will be expected to work a weekend and an evening shift.” He glanced at Ethan. “Well, except for the boyfriend,” he said with a snort. “We have to provide protection for him when he’s with the president.”

Everyone edged a little further away.

Jack stayed over at Ethan’s apartment after a week of campaign stops in the Midwest. Daniels, Collard, Welby, and Inada came over for the evening, eating takeout Thai from cartons and catching up. They headed out around eleven, and Jack and Ethan turned in much later.

Ethan couldn’t sleep, though, thinking about his entire office standing watch outside his apartment while he and Jack had sex until the wee hours of the morning.

He paid for it on Monday. He was reassigned to the cold cases, the excruciating stack of files that had run into a dead end.

Jack called him out on his mood on Skype that night. “What’s wrong, babe?”

Ethan shook his head. “It’s just hard being away from you. And from the guys.” He missed his friends. He missed DC. He missed Jack most of all. Waking up in his arms, falling asleep breathing in his scent, his nose buried in his hair and his neck. Teasing each other about the ridiculousness in the West Wing. The inside jokes they used to share.

“It’s only for two more years. I’ll come out there. I’ll move to Des Moines. There’s got to be something I can do there.” Jack grinned. “I could learn to farm.”

Ethan wasn’t in the mood to be cheered up. “Jack… You need to stop saying that. You deserve more than one term. You need to run for reelection.”

Jack sighed. “And you need to stop thinking that you’re somehow less important than this presidency. You’re not. You’re my life, Ethan. Not this job. This is
just
a job.”

“You’re better at the job than most. I want to see you succeed.”

“And I want to see you happy.” Jack pressed his lips together. “What can I do, Ethan?”

“We knew this would happen,” Ethan grumbled. He stared at the empty walls in his tiny apartment, at the three photos he’d tacked on the fridge. At the cartons of Thai food in his trash. “There’s nothing we can do. I’m in exile.”

Jack was quiet for a long moment as Ethan stared down at his carpet.

“You know,” Jack finally said. “There is a position here that is open to you. The White House needs a First Gentleman.”

Ethan finally looked up. He was blinking fast, though, and he looked away from Jack’s gaze. “I don’t want to be a freeloader,” he grunted.

“It’s important work.” Jack tried for humor. “How are you with doilies and table settings? ’Cause they’re getting on me about picking out my official State China patterns, and it all looks the same to me.”

Ethan chuckled once. “I’m actually a pretty shit decorator.” He gestured to his empty apartment behind him. Even the computer was on a card table, and the monitor doubled as his TV. “I don’t fit the stereotype.”

Jack stayed quiet.

“I wanted to do good,” Ethan finally whispered. “I wanted to make a difference. I wanted to be part of something great, something important. I still do.”

“You have, my God, you have, Ethan. You’ve saved the world. You saved my life. Those aren’t small things.” Jack smiled. “And I like to think that you are a part of something great.
We
are something great.”

Ethan nodded. “Yeah.” It was getting late. Ethan yawned. He hadn’t slept that weekend, not with Jack in town. “Talk to you tomorrow?”

Jack nodded. “Don’t forget to send me your flight information for Wednesday. The guys will pick you up at Dulles. I’ll have your tux ready here.” It was the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner, and Jack had asked Ethan to accompany him. Shepherd hadn’t liked signing the leave request, but he didn’t say anything snide about it.