Long Time Gone (Hell or High Water ) (26 page)

“I didn’t say anything,” Prophet protested with a smirk, sitting back on his heels. “And you’re still hard.”

Tom sank to his knees and kissed Prophet, tasting himself, reaching between their bodies to pull down Prophet’s pants, just enough to get to his cock. He kept Prophet kneeling as he palmed the hot skin of his cock and stroked, swallowing his surprised groan.

He kept his mouth on Prophet’s, muffling the cursed protests that really weren’t protests at all. Jerked him harder until Prophet stiffened and shot between them, biting Tom’s lower lip in the process. Even after he released it, they stayed together like that, foreheads pressed together, lips touching, the sound of their ragged breaths filling Tom’s ears.

Prophet shivered slightly and said quietly, “Get them off, T.”

Tom wasted no time in ripping the cuffs off and throwing them aside. He rubbed Prophet’s wrists for a few seconds, before Prophet brought his arms around and hugged him.

He ran his hand through Prophet’s hair again, massaging the man’s scalp, the way he knew Prophet liked. As if in agreement, Prophet groaned, low in his throat, and closed his eyes.

With one hand running through his hair, Tom trailed the other to the back of Prophet’s neck to rub the knotted muscles as they made their firm return back to earth.

The trip away had been good while it lasted. He sighed and Prophet murmured, “We’ll figure this shit out, Tommy.”

“For the first time, I believe that.”

One minute, Prophet was in a drowsy sleep, the alcohol diluted by food and time, sex and sugar, and the next, he was staring up at his wrists.

They were tied together with rough rope, which was looped around a metal ceiling beam. He was half-balanced on a chair, his toes aching from trying to keep himself from hanging and putting pressure on his arms. His shoulder had nearly popped out when he’d fallen asleep.

He looked down and the room was the same room where he’d been sitting with Tommy. But Azar was there too, for just a second, before walking away with his weapon drawn.

“No. Fuck. No,” Prophet heard himself say, but his voice was nothing more than a hoarse whisper.

“I’m ready—just fucking do it!” John shouted and Prophet steeled himself, because he knew Azar hadn’t been bluffing when he’d threatened to kill John if Prophet didn’t tell him everything he knew about the man he’d killed, the man who knew how to build nuclear triggers. Two shots and Prophet kept staring straight ahead, refusing to give any of them the satisfaction of seeing his heart breaking.

He and John had been captured by Azar two days earlier. They’d tried to fight the terrorist’s men off, but there’d been too many of them. Even then, Prophet knew immediately that their classified mission had been compromised, that they’d been set up.

That there might be no way out.

But Prophet would keep pushing, because that’s what he did. It was the only way he knew how to operate. The most effective way to live. Because it got rid of the people in his life who couldn’t handle it, couldn’t handle him, and it gave him a chance to keep everyone at arm’s length until he figured out which group they fell into.

Tommy hadn’t been wrong about any of that.

Jesus Christ, you are so fucking broken.

He blinked, and he was in the house on the bayou again, standing by the kitchen sink, scared to turn around. Last he’d seen, Tom had still been sleeping.

Tom, who might eventually get to the same point Phil had.

“I didn’t get to that point,” John said. Prophet glanced to the right, where John sat on the counter.

Why
hadn’t
John?

Because John had been family, lover, teammate, best friend. Because, despite all of that, John had never let his guard down, no matter how much he’d pretended to let Prophet in.

John was great at pretending. But Prophet never pretended he was anything other than what he was. Because what was the point of being close to someone if they couldn’t know exactly who the fuck you really were?

“Incoming!” John called. “Take cover!”

Prophet blinked, and the desert loomed in front of him again. He moved back to cover Hal and . . .

“Hey, Proph, you all right?”

Tom’s voice was calm. Low. Like he wasn’t sure Prophet was all there or not and fuck—
fuck
—had Tom seen the whole damned thing? Fuck. Prophet should’ve know that as soon as he made himself vulnerable to Tommy, his own mind would start working overtime.

He turned and met Tom’s concerned expression. Thunder boomed over the house.

Thunder. Not explosions.

“At least you’re not completely crazy,” John told him, but Prophet refused to tear his gaze from Tom, because Tom was what was real. Because Tom was here for him in a way John never could’ve been. And as unfair as that was, he’d long ago gotten rid of any illusions where John was concerned.

He blinked again and he was kneeling next to the couch with an arm over Tom, holding him flat and protecting him from the incoming enemy fire.

Tom
, not Hal.

He eased up on his grip, allowing Tom to turn slightly. He put his forehead against Tom’s thigh and the man put a gentle hand on the back of Prophet’s neck.

“How often do these happen?”

“Way more since the last case,” he admitted. “You’re a heavy sleeper for someone who was in law enforcement.”

“Not as heavy a sleeper as you might think,” Tom said quietly.

Prophet’s eyes watered, and he blinked it away. Still couldn’t bring himself to look up when he said, “Sadiq killed Chris to taunt me. Sadiq hurt you to taunt me. All because of what happened on a mission ten years ago. Do you see why I wasn’t meant to have a partner?”

“You went through hell during that mission, Proph. I still don’t know exactly what happened, but I could see it when we were captured. You relived it then. I guess you’ve never stopped reliving it and I wanted to help—”

“You did.”

“I still want to. You can’t be alone forever.”

“I can try.”

Tom shook his head. “It worked for like, four months before you tackled me and let me fuck you.”

“I thought you were an intruder,” Prophet pointed out as he lifted his head.

“You always let intruders fuck you?”

“Isn’t that a hot fantasy?”

Tom laughed a little, then sobered. “Can you talk about any of what causes the flashbacks?”

“No. Not any more than I’ve already told you.”

Tom sighed, obviously frustrated.

“Look, you already know enough to get you in trouble. In fact, you’re already in trouble with Sadiq.”

“I know what I just saw had nothing to do with Sadiq.”

“It had
everything
to do with him.”

“Christ, Prophet, we are so fucked up.” Tom slid to the floor next to him. “I can’t help you unless I know what your burden is. And I want to help you. Let me in, Proph.”

No one—
no one
—had ever said that to him. “Just saying that means more to me than you’ll ever know.”

Tom’s hand was still cupped around the back of his neck, rubbing slowly. “Then that’ll have to be enough for now.”

And, because Tom didn’t push, Prophet would let him in further than he should, further than he’d ever let anyone in . . .

As soon as they figured out Tom’s mess.

When Mick and Blue checked in via secured line a couple of hours later, they hadn’t found any trace of Etienne. Etienne’s parents had filed a missing person’s report, and the sheriff had found a small bloodstain in the grass behind his house, which was being tested to see if it matched Etienne’s blood type.

“And Tom Boudreaux is most definitely a person of interest,” Mick added.

Tom groaned and put his head on the table next to the phone. It was Prophet’s turn to rub the back of his neck, and damn, it felt good.

After Prophet’s flashback, they’d showered. Had sex. Showered again. And now, Prophet was decidedly sober and apparently ready to take on this case.

“Anything on Miles and Donny?” he asked Mick now.

“I ran that syringe you pulled from Miles’s house. It was ketamine. Same thing found in both Miles’s and Donny’s bloodstream. But man, it was a giant hit for both. Not the way an addict like Miles would normally take it, and based on reports, Donny wasn’t an addict at all. So even though the coroner’s reports for both aren’t ruling out suicide, they’re also not ruling out murder anymore.” Mick paused. “Look, we all know it was definitely murder.”

“And I’m the number one suspect,” Tom said, his head still down, voice muffled. “They’ll say that Miles and Donny were afraid I’d expose their secrets. They’ll twist around the AA rumors that Miles was going to spill and instead say they were nervous about what I’d say.”

“So what, you conjured up a hurricane and came to town just to kill him?”

Shit
. He lifted his head.

“What?” Prophet asked.

“I, ah . . . I told Etienne I was coming to town,” he said. “I’d made a tattoo appointment.”

“For when?”

“I made it before I went to Eritrea. It was supposed to be last month. But then shit came up and I didn’t ask for the time off and . . .”

“And Miles had the letter ready for you. Because he wanted to hand it to you in person—maybe he told Etienne that. Maybe he asked Etienne to bring you here for that, and that’s another reason Etienne wanted you to stay away.”

“And what, Miles told his AA group all that?” Tom asked.

“Things in confidential meetings depend on addicts staying sober enough to keep their mouths shut,” Prophet said gruffly, and Tom stored away the fact that this wasn’t the first time Prophet discussed addicts as if he had intimate knowledge of the subject.

Mick’s voice floated up from the phone. “Could Etienne be involved in this?”

Tom did not want to consider that. But he’d have to.

“Has Etienne ever run before?” Prophet asked.

“No, that was me.” He paused. “Etienne would get really caught up in his work—he liked quiet when he drew or painted. And if he couldn’t get it in his studio because we were there . . . who knows? But Proph, I can’t see him dropping out of sight just when all this was going down.”

“Sometimes that’s when people do. When Etienne talked to me while you were in jail, he seemed to know that the sheriff would come down hard on him too. Maybe the blood wasn’t his. Maybe he’s hiding until it’s safe to come out.”

Tom really hoped so. Another death on his conscience would be unthinkable, beyond the fact that Etienne was a good man. A great man. He’d done his share of tattoos for pure fun and profit, but most people didn’t know how much time he spent in hospitals, helping women who’d had breast reconstruction, who’d lost eyebrows to chemo. He helped amputees, decorating their stumps and their prosthetics so that way, when people stared, they’d really have something to stare at. “He’s got to be okay, Proph. He fucking saved me, more times than I could count when we were growing up.”

“Then he will be,” Prophet said simply. “He was as worried about you as you are about him. I don’t think he’d leave you. And he seems like the kind of guy who’d admit to what he’d done.”

“So we’re not looking at him for the killing?” Mick asked.

“We’re just looking
for
him,” Prophet clarified. “He’s got a kid he’s trying to get custody of.”

Mick was silent as Tom racked his brain, trying to think of where Etienne might’ve gone. They’d had several haunts when they were younger. But when they got old enough not to care that people knew they were together, they hadn’t needed them anymore.

“I’m sure the sheriff’s already been to Etienne’s house,” Tom said.

“So now we’ll go,” Prophet told him.

“We can’t leave here, remember?”

“We can’t—but Blue can be our eyes.”