Fish Out of Water (21 page)

“He was glad it was for a defense firm.” Jackson gave him a quick grin. “He said the people we knew in school were more likely to end up needing a defense attorney anyway, so I could still give some back.”

Ellery let out a pained laugh. “So? Have you seen any?”

Jackson shook his head. “From our neighborhood? They can’t afford our firm. But the partners have let us do some pro bono work that I’m really proud of.”

“The Getchell case,” Ellery remembered. Jackson had seen him in court.

“Yeah.” Jackson let out a breath and started to massage his neck as he sat down on the bed. “Well, grab your suit and your pj’s, Cramer. If you’re going to sleep in my guest room—”

Ellery sighed and toed off his shoes. Jackson’s suit was relatively stain-free, but he was still going to have it dry-cleaned just to be courteous, and it was still hot enough to crisp a man’s eyebrows outside. He turned his back as he undressed, from general habit more than anything else. “I told you,” he said, looking at Jackson in his closet mirror, “I’m spending the night in your bed.”

Jackson scowled. And got up and walked out of the room.

In bemusement, Ellery watched him go, wondering if maybe he was pushing too hard.

But Jackson could overpower him with a flick of the wrist. And right now, he hadn’t said no.

ELLERY CHANGED
into some walking shorts and a microfiber T-shirt, and they had dinner at a little brewpub on J Street. Jackson flirted with the tiny brunette waitress, a girl whose plainness was practically forgotten after her first smile. She helped him scrounge up some takeout for his ugly ferocious cat, whom she knew by name. Jackson left a generous tip, and as they were walking out of the pub, she said, “Jackson! You going to keep this one?”

Jackson cast a furtive look at Ellery under his brows. “This one’s sleeping on the couch,” he muttered.

The girl’s happy gurgle of laughter warmed Ellery’s heart. “Sure he is. I’ll take that as a maybe. See you both later!”

They stepped out into the early evening city swelter for the two-block walk to the parking lot. Ellery was careful to avoid the giant sidewalk cracks caused by the many
fruitless mulberry trees, but once he found his footing, he bumped Jackson’s shoulder purposefully.

“I take it she’s stayed at your house?”

“Yup.” He cast Ellery a sideways look. “You even going to ask?”

“The couch or your bed? No.”

“You don’t care?”

Ellery thought about it as they finished their walk. “Well, I
do
care,” he said after a five-minute pause during which neither of them spoke. “I mean, you’ve slept with half the city. It’s a lot to live up to. But it’s not going to matter.”

“Because you’re sleeping on the couch?”

“It’s cute how you keep bringing that up like it’s a real possibility. No.” He clicked the remote.

Jackson growled to himself and then swung into the car. Ellery waited for him to say something, using every instinct he’d honed in seven years as a practicing attorney to remain patient. Jackson wanted to say something—he
did—
but if Ellery prompted him now, he’d be shut tight forever more.
C’mon, Jackson… c’mon… opening up isn’t that hard. C’mon, buddy… five, four, three, two….

“Then why?” Jackson asked just as they made the turn to Elvas.

Ellery let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. “Why what?” God—he’d forgotten the question!

“Why won’t it matter?”

Oh! Suddenly Ellery’s uncertainty evaporated like their sweat as they’d been walking. “Because I’m going to be the only one you remember,” he said, voice hard. “And if you shake me off, everybody you fuck afterward is going to be a pale imitation.”

Jackson made a weak laughing sound, but Ellery paused at a stoplight and looked at him. He wasn’t really laughing at all. Instead he was staring out into space, brows knit, like he was trying to decide the truth of the words.

To Ellery, who was used to assessing people, their motives, what they would say or do next, this was a
very
good sign.

Mike wasn’t working outside, and his truck wasn’t parked out front either. Jackson grunted, nodding at the empty space. “He’s working at the station tonight. Jade texted me—she was glad to have him.”

Ellery thought about the older man, salty and blunt and terrifyingly capable. “Yeah, well, God help anyone who tries to fuck with him. He’d probably beat a bad cop into submission with a crescent wrench.”

That startled a guffaw out of Jackson, and he was laughing as he got to the front door—and then stopped.

His entire spine went rigid, and Ellery could see him quivering in anger.

“What?” he asked softly.

“Someone’s been here,” Jackson said, voice throaty with anger. “The door’s been jimmied, see? Scratch marks—fresh.”

He tried the knob gingerly and then unlocked it before giving Ellery an impatient look over his shoulder. “Really? We’re going to have sex on the porch?”

Ellery took a step back so their bodies were no longer touching and grimaced. “Not a plan.”

“Just wait here,” he muttered and pushed in. Ellery followed, because he was done taking orders that required more distance between them than necessary.

The house wasn’t trashed, but Ellery thought Jackson was definitely right. There was something wrong. The chill of the air-conditioning hit them with their first breath—and Ellery clearly remembered Jackson turning it off as they’d left.

“They cleaned up your table,” Ellery said, stating the obvious.

“Yeah. Okay. The coffee cups are in the sink and—” He looked at Ellery like this should have been obvious. “They went through the paperwork stacked on the table and probably tried to look at my computer files.” He chuckled lowly, sounding decidedly unfriendly.

“Encrypted?” Ellery asked.

“I had Crystal do the security. She worked for an identity-theft ring for a while when she was using—she could teach Homeland a thing or two.” Jackson’s grimness returned. “Fuck. Do you think they let the fucking cat out? Billy? Billy Bob? C’mon, you little fucker, let me know you’re here!”

He wandered off, calling more and more frantically for Billy Bob, and Ellery swallowed hard against the feeling of invasion. Someone had been here.
Here
.
Granted, Jackson’s house was pretty much Grand Central for one-night lovers, but still, there was something personal about it. The squeaky place on the tile, the pictures of the Cameron family, including a few of Jade and Jackson, on the hallway walls. The purple afghan over the back of the brown corduroy couch and the scrap quilt on the matching recliner—these were personal things. Whether they’d been made for Jackson or he’d picked them up at a consignment store, this was Jackson’s personal space in a way that Ellery’s house was not.

Ellery resented the fuck out of whoever had been there.

And it would hit him later—and hard—that he didn’t even think of calling the cops.

“Billy!” The relief throbbing in Jackson’s voice tore at Ellery’s chest a little. The cat. The cat was the one thing in his life that was his and his alone.

Jackson came into the kitchen holding an overly affectionate Billy Bob, and Ellery had time to admire, yet again, the animal’s truly battered appearance. But Billy Bob was repeatedly rubbing his whiskers against Jackson’s nose, so being battered and scarred apparently didn’t
mean he was incapable of love.

And Jackson was clearly his home.

“Did you see anything else?” Ellery asked, walking over to scratch the cat under the chin. Billy Bob accepted the gesture warily but didn’t growl—a definite win!

“Yeah. Someone went through the boxes in the guest room closet. Mostly pictures and yearbooks and stuff, but they’d sifted through it. There were blurry handprints in the dust. Gloves—you could tell.” Jackson shook his head, jaw clenched. “They were looking for something but—”

“Didn’t want you to know what it was,” Ellery said, nodding. “Yeah. And something paperwork related. I’ll bet you anything it was—”

“My file.” Jackson took a deep breath, and then another, until Billy Bob squirmed out of his arms because of the discomfort. Jackson closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose and shook, just trembled from the effort of controlling himself, from keeping it all together. His home—his sanctuary—and his brutal past, all of it, violated. He was so proud.

Ellery ached for him.

Carefully, knowing he was risking anything from a scathing comment to a crack in the jaw, he stepped into Jackson’s space and gently brushed his lips across a sweaty blond temple.

Jackson took a deep breath and let it out slowly, but didn’t back away.

Ellery put a hand on each shoulder and kissed his cheekbone.

And another slow, simmering breath, and this time—Ellery could swear to it in a court of law—Jackson leaned forward, just a hair, just a heartbeat closer, just a—

Ellery kissed the corner of his mouth, allowing his tongue to come out and trace the seam of his lips.

Jackson clasped his face in both hands, crashing his mouth on Ellery’s and plundering with irresistible force.

Ellery gasped and dropped his hands to Jackson’s hips as Jackson backed him up against the refrigerator, magnets and papers flying. He kissed—
devoured
—taking with a fierceness that should have frightened a sex-in-the-dark guy like Ellery Cramer.

It exhilarated him.

He returned the kiss, shoving his hands down the waistband of Jackson’s jeans, kneading his taut, muscled ass and grinding them together through their clothes. Jackson growled and ground back, hard and unmistakable.

Ellery’s hands shook as he took advantage of ease in the fit and shoved the jeans down Jackson’s thighs. Jackson grunted in surprise and then plummeted back into the kiss some more, leaving Ellery to play. He kept one hand kneading a taut asscheek, fingers slipping closer and closer to Jackson’s crease.

With the other he gripped Jackson’s cock without apology, squeezing and trying hard to stroke in the limited space between them. He skated the edge of his thumb around the cockhead, sliding in the slit, and Jackson ripped his mouth away.

“My bedroom,” he ordered. “Condoms. Lube. Now.”

Ellery dropped to his knees instead. He wanted time to admire, to tease and torment, but this was not that time. He opened his mouth and engulfed, lips stretched, throat abused, and he was barely halfway down. He wrapped his fist around the bottom of Jackson’s cock to make up the difference, and Jackson’s hands slapped the refrigerator above them. Ellery pulled back for a moment without letting go and realized that Jackson was supporting his weight against his arms and that there was a definite tremble to his knees.

Ellery dove forward again, swallowing, tasting soap and sweat and man. Jackson let out a gasp, and he tasted bitter salt, and that was good too.

He craved more, shoving his head farther, swallowing, wanting
everything
, wanting his mouth full of come, overflowing, wanting it down his throat and down his face and neck. He wanted Jackson on his skin.

Jackson knotted his fingers in Ellery’s hair, pulling him back. Ellery went reluctantly and looked up at him, eyes narrowed as he licked the spit from around his lips in blatant invitation.

“Bed,” Jackson repeated. “Condoms. Lube.
Now
.”

“Sure,” Ellery told him and then went down one more time, pulling back before Jackson could haul him up by the armpits. Jackson gave him a hand up and kissed him again, back against the refrigerator. Ellery pushed him, and he whirled, walking Ellery backward as they bumped against the table, the doorway, the walls, kissing, grabbing, biting each other’s lips and yanking at each other’s clothes in their tumble down the hall.

Ellery lost himself for a moment, Jackson’s hands everywhere: stomach, flank, thighs, backside, neck, chest—nipples, oh dear God, his nipples! He regained control naked on the stripped bed as an equally naked Jackson rifled through the bedstand for the jumbo box of rubbers and giant bottle of lubricant.

“Could you
be
any more seventies porn star,” Ellery snarked, breathless.

Jackson pinned him with a glare as he sheathed up. “Yeah—my sheets are fuckin’ clean.”

Ellery glared back, aware that Jackson had taken the issue of who topped into his own well-filled hand.

“Spread ’em,” Jackson growled.

Ellery did, thinking this was wrong. He could feel it. Not the sex—his blood pounded fiercely inside his skin, stretching it, threatening to explode outward unless he got some relief from the terrible pressure. The sex was inevitable, necessary,
cataclysmic—
but how….

Jackson needed. He needed.

“Condom.” He held out a hand, thinking Jackson would assume he was just too fastidious, or even positive, but not caring.

Jackson threw one at him without question, and Ellery slicked it on before his hands shook too hard. Then he lifted his thighs, holding them with his arms, baring himself wantonly—even comically so—but making his asshole target zero in Jackson’s mission to lose himself.

He was prepared for pain, for roughness, impatience.

He was
not
prepared for Jackson’s gentle touch on his thighs, his palms warming, massaging, loosening. Jackson moved closer, supporting Ellery’s legs against his torso, and kissed the insides of his knees, smoothed his hands up Ellery’s stomach, and tickled the crown of his sheathed cock.

Ellery groaned and tilted his head back, forcing himself to relax and not to scream, begging under Jackson’s gentleness, the reverence this rough man was showing his body.

Jackson dropped his thighs and settled between them, kissing his way up the planes of Ellery’s abdomen, underneath his pecs, then between them. When he got to Ellery’s throat, Ellery’s eyes were squeezed shut, and every brush of Jackson’s lips roared through him like sound.

Jackson traced a slow line from Ellery’s chin to his ear and then whispered, “Please tell me you like it. Tell me you’re begging to be fucked.”

“Augh!” Truth was, Ellery loved a good fucking—he just hadn’t really gotten one yet. But something told him he wasn’t supposed to just yield and close his eyes and be made love to like a
gift
. He’d gotten plenty of gifts in his life—he was tired of
gifts
. He wanted to fucking
give
, and give to this man, but Jackson was in control right now, and Ellery wouldn’t take that from him for the world.