In His Sights (Don't Tell) (5 page)

I laughed. His hands reached under me to cup my ass and pull me closer to him. My chuckle became a deep husky throb. “I thought you said we didn’t have time to mess around.”

He flipped me onto my stomach. “Changed my mind. There’s always time for an ass like this.”

The next thing I felt was his goatee coasting down the center of my spine and…
Oh fucking hell.
He rubbed it against the top of my ass while his hands pulled and pushed and lightly slapped my cheeks. His tongue flicked out, sending rapid flashes of fire from the very top of my crease straight down to my nuts.

I moaned loudly when suddenly his hand covered my mouth.

Stilling all movement, I cocked my head. Heavy boots and loud voices sounded outside in the street, heading in our direction. We heard a door slam, and a booming shout, “Clear!”

“Mark it. We can’t have these vermin camping out on our front steps.”

Oh fuck.
As silently as we could, Hawke and I quickly dressed in our clothes and boots. I moved faster than I ever had in any of my drills. Weapons were holstered and all evidence of our presence bundled into rucksacks as we hastened out the back entrance of the building as troopers burst into the front room we’d just inhabited.

We ran a couple of blocks before stopping. I felt like the air had been trapped inside my lungs for the past few minutes, and it wasn’t because of the run. It whooshed out now with the knowledge that we couldn’t linger. We had to separate.

A deep piercing pain sliced through me at the thought.

I touched Hawke’s cheek, and he brought his hand against mine, closing his eyes. A certain thickness filled my throat. I chewed on my lip to keep words at bay that shouldn’t be said, would be impossible to take back. That had no place between enemies.

He pulled my palm to his mouth, kissing it briefly. When he opened his eyes, they were as soft as his lips had been and I knew I’d never forget that look.

“I’ll contact you.” I rasped.

He nodded once, then backed away. I watched until he disappeared from sight. We’d almost been caught. A constant reminder that this—whatever the fuck this was—would be short-lived. Either that or we’d get ourselves killed.

And I knew I’d risk it again.

C
HAPTER
T
HREE

H
AWKE

Timmy was dead. We’d been striding along, taking a chance inside Alpha S-3 ransacking derelict buildings for supplies—food or ammo, whatever we could find. I carried the lumpy satchel while Timmy banged around inside an apartment, emptying cupboards. I heard him shout in delight, probably locating some black market food item made of rare chocolate. To say he had a sweet tooth was putting it mildly. The next thing I heard was a heavy slump, the kind a dead body made. Rushing into the place, I saw the bullet hole in the window first; Timmy sprawled at an awkward angle last.

In the days afterward, a somber weight pressed down on me. All I wanted to do was find Mayce, which was more than insane considering he did just this type of dirty work to keep the regime in power. He was a Corps soldier, the same as the trooper who had gunned down my young friend.

Worse than grief, I was consumed by guilt that lasted until I couldn’t see an end in sight. At the time Timmy had been killed I’d been thinking about Mayce and his goddamn tube of lube. The thought of pulling his toned ass open and slipping my tongue, my fingers, my cock inside of him consumed me. I’d been grinning at the memories of him. He was mocking and harsh and so very military in ways I’d never liked—macho and brash. On him it was downright sexy. He was funny, something I never expected. I’d been right about his sex appeal though. Holy hell, our little room could’ve been overrun by troopers and I think I still would’ve come down his throat.

I hadn’t been watching my back, let alone Timmy’s. Now he was gone.

I didn’t want Mayce to be gone too, no matter how goddamn ill fated our affair was, no matter that he was working for the wrong side. I couldn’t shake him. I’d missed a rendezvous the day after Timmy died. It couldn’t be helped. Arrangements had to be made, and I’d have hated myself even more spending time with Mayce instead of properly mourning.

Desperation drew me back to the building where he’d first overpowered me, the place I’d begun to think of as our lover’s nest. I almost let tears streak down my face, all the ones I’d been holding in for four days, when I rounded the corner and saw the structure. Demolished remains and rubble were all that was left. It dawned on me that was why the soldiers had been marking the buildings. To bomb them to dust.
Keepin’ the vermin from campin’ in their backyard. And the vermin is me.

Continuing down the alley, I scanned the rooftops for any reflections from gun barrels or shadows shifting with movement. I hadn’t expected our hidey-hole to be blown-up. I hadn’t expected anything…least of all to see Mayce pacing back and forth at the far end of the passage when I lowered my sights.

He rushed to me. “Where the hell have you been?” he hissed.

“I—”

“Shut up.” He clamped a hand over my mouth. “I’ve been out of my mind with worry. Do you know what that feels like?” he whispered urgently. “But I can’t let it show because of who I am, who I fucking pretend to be. I can’t be
queer
and in love with a
Nomad
. It’d be bad enough if I was straight and had the hots for one of your women!”

He dropped his hand and his eyes widened, the feline-like irises slitting open. Maybe he just realized what he’d admitted, because for damn sure his words had me spinning on my heels.

“And fuck you, while we’re at it.” Pulling me into his embrace, he touched me all over. “Fuck you for making me feel this way.”

“Fuck you too.” I lowered my head to his shoulder, feeling him shake. “I missed you too.”

His arms cinched tighter and we clung together. The Revolution might be one street away, but for the moment there was no one and nothing else as relief swept over us.

“We can’t stay here.” His hands clasped my face. I could tell he was fighting not to kiss me as his breath ghosted across my lips.

“Do you trust me?”

A half smile played across his mouth. “Bit late to ask that now, isn’t it?”

“Follow me but keep your distance.”

“I’m pretty sure I know how to stay under the radar, Hawke.” His dry comment made me laugh. “Fuck knows I’ve been doing it long enough.”

I lead him to the outer walls where the rebels and Freelanders had opened a pass-through point.

“So this is how you get in and out.”

I smirked back at him. “I can trust
you
, right?” It was too late not to, considering what he’d said and how he’d reacted when I showed up.

He rolled his eyes and stepped outside after me. An instant rush of sweet air filled my nose after the cloying stench of gunpowder and acrid smoke. Mayce halted beside me, stilling in the fresh breeze. It was night. It was always the black of night when we found each other, easier to travel unchallenged after the curfew in the city where power outages and food shortages became more and more frequent.

“This isn’t a set-up, is it?”

“Thought you said you trusted me.”

He gave a slight snort.

I beckoned him to a small path that wound through the forest. Trees that were absent from inside Alpha created a lush silver canopy above us, their fallen leaves a hushed carpet below our boots. I half expected my corpsman to pull a gun when the first leaf brushed his cheek. Instead he looked around in awe, hands stretched to touch the feathery fronds of a fern.

“Have you been outside before?” I asked. We were far enough away from the searchlights and the barricades—the razor wire on top of imposing fortress walls that enclosed Alpha from the Wilderness—that I felt secure enough to grab his hand.

His fingers linked with mine but his face closed in. “Yes.”

“To kill
Nomads
.”

He tried to tug his hand free. I tightened my grip.

“You know what I am. There’s no use lying to you,” he said.

I didn’t know whether to hate him or…or if I should even like him. The decision wasn’t mine to make because my emotions were all over the map when it came to the tough military man who softened and smiled and had all but seduced me from my predetermined hate of his kind.

I lifted his hand, brushing his knuckles across my lips. “The question is, what are you going to become, Mayce?”

A field opened before us. My camp was one klick to the west, but I’d surveyed the land, always in need of solitude after battle. Grasses swayed in the moonlight, bringing to mind the sands of my commune where the crystal waters of the Gulf reached to shores unknown.

Mayce lifted his head, rays of the full moon caressing his skin in shining white streaks until he glowed. “I always forget how bright the stars can be out here.”

I took his pack from him. Laying out his blanket, I sat down cross-legged. “Nature sure is somethin’, ain’t she?”

Lowering beside me, he curled one arm around my shoulders. “I don’t get much chance to appreciate it.” His mouth pressed to my temple. The dark stubble on his jaw tickled across the side of my face. “Where are you from?”

“Shoals commune. I’ll have to go back soon, you know?”

He reared away from me. “What? Why?”

“You don’t really think we can go on like this, do you?”

“You’re fucking right I do.” Anger eclipsed his hard features. His hands balled by his sides.

“What happens when we win—or you win?”

“I don’t want to talk about the Revolution. We don’t have enough time for that.” His jaw clenched and released. A furious thrum pulsed in his throat.

I inhaled shakily. “Timmy died a few days ago.”

“Oh god, Hawke.” He leaned forward, pressing the heels of his palms to his eyes. “That kid, the boy the night we—”

“Yeah.”

Jumping to his feet, Mayce slammed his fist to his thigh. “I could’ve done it. I could’ve killed him.”

“What? No!” Joining him, I reached for him. He shook me off, his expression closed. Pain, hate, and shame locked away. “Did you shoot Timmy?”

He wouldn’t look at me. “No.”

“Would you have? Were you going to?” Gripping his neck, I made him meet my gaze.

“I don’t know!” Mayce turned to me, ripping my shirt over my head, fury turning to fraught need. His mouth moved down my chest, the flat of his tongue sending vibrations through my skin to my hardening cock. “Fuck this war and everything about it but you.”

He dropped me to the blanket. The air was sweet and warm, soft and sultry. Mayce attacked me; hard, needy, frantic. His aggression sparked mine, and we rolled over each other, ridding clothes, crying out into the night that swallowed our throaty yells. For once we could be as loud as we wanted and maybe as long as we wanted.

He was maddeningly arousing, using his hands and mouth—that hot mouth—moaning against me as he went straight for my cock. So entirely passionate, he overwhelmed my ability to think. The long slurps and tight suction, his hand twisting, brought me to the brink of ecstasy over and over again.

His sinister sneer was back, and it made him even more tantalizing. Rolling his pink torturous tongue out, Mayce licked like a tomcat over the tip of my cock. He swept up each welling drop of clear liquid.

“Suck me like that one more time, and I’m gonna come all over your face.”

Stroking my shaft, he leaned over me. “Don’t. Don’t come yet. Do it in me.”

“You’ve never—”

“I know. I want you to be my first.” He turned over beside me, propped up on his hands and knees.

“Not like this, Mayce. I don’t want your back turned.” When he slid around, I splayed his arms at his sides and his strong thighs apart. “I want to see you. I want you forever.”

The bright-hued, synthetic tats curling from his biceps to shoulders called to me first. The green mamba snaking around the hard muscle of his right arm and the vibrant patterns permanently dyed onto his skin were probably the only colors allowed in his gray world. They were to be cherished. I outlined the gem-green serpent with my tongue, then sucked hard, leaving a mark. Goose bumps erupted on his moistened flesh. I blew across it, laughing when he shook beneath me.

“Sensitive?”

His neck craned to the left as I teased the underside of his jaw. “Never like this before.” His hands clawed down my back as I bit my way along his throat.

I licked down his streamlined torso to his hiked-up legs. I smiled as his muscles jumped, moaned when he spread wider for me, exposing himself to me. Oh, he was so open. I laved his beautiful balls, each rosy orb distending within my mouth while he writhed on the blanket.

“You need my cock in here?” I pressed against the untried crinkle of flesh.

“Yes,” he groaned.

“Only mine.” Licking my thumb, I put slight pressure on his hole.

“Fuck yes.”

There was no haste as I mouthed the sleek line down his crease to the starred opening waiting for me. One lick across, another sideways, and his knees locked around my head. I used my palms to open him wide, wider. My tongue made him wetter. Color rose on his face and with it, his pleas. I ignored everything but the sexy feast before my eyes. I lapped him, tapped my finger against him. I clasped his firm cheeks around my face, making sure my goatee burnished every glossy part of him. I dipped my tongue inside, his clenching passage pulling me deeper. I groaned, tongue fucking Mayce until he was oblivious to the way he grabbed my hair and mashed me against him.

I hooked a finger inside him and pulled. His body made of total muscle, every sinew flexed. My finger wriggled. I scrambled for lube. Spit for my man wouldn’t do because I wanted to shove my whole hand up him, push my entire heart inside of him. But not tonight. Tonight Mayce was gonna get fucked good.

Drizzling slick liquid over his trench and onto my fingers, I slid in to my knuckle. I hit his gland by sheer luck, laughing when his pelvis shot skyward.

“Now.” He scooted against me, trapping my shaft in the hot clasp of his fist.