Long Time Gone (Hell or High Water ) (7 page)

In a bathroom.

Dude, TMI.

I’m waiting for the opportunity . . .

Again, TMI.

To kill the man hunting me.

Prophet snorted
. Oh.

And that’s not TMI. What has this world come to?

A particularly loud burst of thunder shook the house.
Going to hell, man.

You’ve been drinking?

No. I’m trying to live through a hurricane.

Prophet could hear Cillian’s British accent in his head when the spook typed,
Just duck. And swim. You can swim, correct?

Little bit.

Here’s to reaching shore quickly.

Prophet was about to answer with something about Cillian sticking his head in the toilet when a creak stopped him.

The entire house had been fucking groaning all night, but that creak was different. It was the sound of a storm door opening.

He stilled. Put the phone down and reached for his KA-BAR simultaneously.

Something—someone—scratched at the back door. And since Della’s yard was completely enclosed by a nine-foot wrought iron fence with spiked tops, that was no mean feat.

What the hell kind of crazy-ass freak tries to break in during a hurricane?

He blinked and looked around, trying to reassure himself that this wasn’t a flashback, but everything looked normal. And flashbacks typically didn’t use the door.

He turned his focus back to the door and watched the top lock turn slowly. Someone was using a key. Or a lockpick.

He turned his gaze back around and saw nothing but kitchen and living room beyond that.

Definitely
not
a flashback.

He moved decisively to the door, jerked it open, and slammed hard against whoever was attempting to push in. His adrenaline surged when the person grabbed his forearms. Prophet pushed at the man’s shoulders as they both started to fall, thanks to the slippery steps. He landed on top of the guy on the grass. The rain pelted him with fine needles on the bare skin of his arms as they rolled together, grunting and fighting.

He got in a few good punches before a strong arm wound around his neck. He grabbed it as the other guy—because this was definitely a guy—attempted to flip him onto his stomach. Instead, Prophet bore down with his weight, then elbowed the intruder in the stomach. Freed momentarily, he turned and pinned the man underneath him, efficiently and effectively immobilizing the guy—

“Prophet?”

Tommy?
“Tom?” Prophet couldn’t see much, but he knew that drawl. Recognized the feel of the man’s hands as they touched Prophet’s cheeks, traced them with fingertips . . . Tom reading him like Braille. As the rain washed over them, the smell of grass and earth and floral spice filled the air. His skin tingled from the electrical currents carried on the storm, and his entire body was in a state of heightened awareness that was almost painful.

He wanted to ask what the hell Tom was doing here, why he’d risked everything—including his job at EE—to come here. Wanted to ask if Tom had somehow known he’d be here. But he didn’t.

And he also didn’t know how he even heard the man over the dull roar of the wind, but he did, heard Tom whisper, “Yes,” against his cheek in answer to his unasked questions and fuck, that could mean so many damned things.

Too many to give a shit about parsing, and in the wet, hot darkness, Prophet’s mouth found Tommy’s instead.

They both groaned into that first kiss. Four months and more of longing released in a frantic rush that started out fast and rolled into something more, faster than the gathering storm and threatening to do far more damage.

And Prophet didn’t give a damn, wasn’t able to stop himself from rutting against Tom, the friction of the fabric between them and Tommy’s hardness sending shockwaves through his system.

And he was finally alive again. Holding onto his lifeline in the flesh, knowing that it had almost been too late. If he hadn’t read those emails . . . Another day, another hour and he would’ve been buried so far underground he would never have seen daylight again.

He brushed that thought away for what was real right now—Tom’s hands in his hair, keeping him close. Tom’s thighs spread for him, heavy boots landing on his ass and locking around his lower back so the heels dug in, spurring him to rut harder. Tom, holding him in place from that submissive position. And Prophet was fucking Tom’s mouth with his tongue, the way he wanted to fuck Tom. The way he wanted Tommy to fuck him. Tom was matching him kiss for kiss as they alternated between wet and messy, ferocious to lingering, lip-biting to tongue-sucking.

Everything else fell away but Tom. The wet, stinging downpour, the wind, the mud . . . the danger, all were merely physical barriers to overcome. The easy shit.

The fact that Tom was in his arms again meant they’d already dug into the hard shit.

He pulled back from the kissing to bite Tom’s neck. Tom hissed, bucked his pelvis up, and a low shudder ran through Prophet. And then he made the mistake of opening his eyes and realized he couldn’t see. The electricity had cut out, and it was too damned dark.

He could still feel Tom under him, but that wasn’t enough. He started to count to thirty, because that’s when the generator would kick on. Panic shook him harder than lust, panic leftover from earlier, Then Tom’s hand slid into his pants, along his bare ass, trailing a finger between his cheeks and pressing against the tightened muscles of his hole.

“Mine,” Tom growled against his ear and Prophet whimpered—fucking
whimpered
—as Tom kept his finger in place, more pressure than an attempt to gain entrance. He had to know Prophet was too goddamned tense for that, but that started to bleed away when Tom said, “Mine,” again.

“Yeah. Yours,” he agreed, blinked against the rain, seeing shadows as his eyesight adjusted, and just let himself feel Tom’s hands anchoring him.

It didn’t matter what happened in the morning, in an hour . . . even in ten minutes. It mattered that Tom was going to make him come in his pants, especially when Tom’s finger pushed inside of him and the lights flickered back on.

“Proph,” Tom moaned as Prophet dug in and writhed with zero control. Tommy gripped his shoulders tightly, pulling Prophet into him. Prophet buried his face against Tommy’s neck and knew what Tommy’s face would look like—almost angry that Prophet had gotten to him so easily.

God, he wanted to see that.

And you can.

He lifted his head and smiled. The wind swirled around them as thunder rumbled overhead. Branches creaked, houses screamed against their foundations, and rutting like animals in the mud with Tommy was the hottest thing Prophet could remember. Nothing else mattered, because nature’s wrath couldn’t compare to this.

As their frenzy grew, so did the storm, as if the hurricane built off their furious energy. Prophet would never look at a hurricane the same way again.

And then it was all touch and feelings and tongue and teeth, and then cum spilling inside his pants. His entire body tightened as the orgasm rode him like a bitch, refusing to let go until it wrung every last bit of fight out of him.

And Tommy held him so tightly as he shouted and came, Prophet knew he’d have marks. Wanted them. Because it would be proof that this actually happened.

“Fuck,” Tom muttered.

“Fuck,” Prophet breathed in agreement, his cheek pressed to Tom’s.

“If I’d known . . . would’ve shown up earlier.”

“Wouldn’t have worked earlier.”

They lay tumbled against one another, soaked by the storm and too worn out to move. Even when lightning flashed overhead, Prophet could only turn his head to see the sky and marvel how well the storm had both insinuated itself into and reflected what his life had become.

Finally, Tommy pushed at him, murmured something about the “wind picking up” and “getting inside” and somehow, they were up, off the grass, and moving.

He felt like he’d been caught by a flashbang—he could barely see, his ears rung, and walking was more like a stumble and drag between them, because they weighed each other down as they tried to help each other into the house. But neither let the other go, because they weren’t done. Just the opposite—they were so far from done, how he’d even considered it was laughable.

“Fucking pathetic,” he muttered as Tom pushed him against the nearest wall and slammed the door shut with a booted foot.

“Makes two of us,” Tom growled as he bent to unlace his boots and get them off, holding onto Prophet for support. And then he was yanking Prophet’s shirt over his head, letting it fall to the floor with a loud
thwack
, as Prophet reached forward to unbutton Tom’s jeans and work them down his hips.

Would’ve made more sense to each strip themselves, but neither of them had any goddamned semblance of sense. There were both soaked and filthy and more than halfway to feral.

“Do hurricanes make people high?” Prophet asked, barely able to drag his gaze away from Tom’s cock piercings. “Feel like I’m high.” He tossed Tom’s muddy shirt away. He caught sight of the thin leather bracelet still on Tom’s wrist and dragged his eyes up to Tom’s mismatched ones.

Tom had seen him note the bracelet. The man’s gaze dared him to say something about it, and when Prophet didn’t, Tom said, “It’s the heat. Makes people crazy.”

“Jesus.” He ran his hands over Tom’s naked body, feeling for the nipple bars and leaving wet, muddied tracks on his chest. Running fingertips over where the tattoos were, because he’d taken to doing that in his mind over the past months. Instead of counting sheep, he’d catalogued Tom’s tattoos.

He realized with a start that Tom was checking him over too, feeling the barely healed scar on his shoulder, lingering on the bullet-hole-sized scar Prophet had gotten on their first—and only—case together.

Tom smiled against Prophet’s mouth, no doubt reading him again with that voodoo shit. He’d been able to from the start, and that probably pissed Prophet off the most. Because he might’ve actually missed that voodoo shit. During their time apart, he’d forced himself—viciously—not to think about Tom. Barely slept in order to control his dreams, kept himself too busy and in too much danger to worry about much more than basic survival, in the hopes that everything Tommy would burn out and not fade away.

It was backfiring now, though, because every muscle and fiber of his being was intent on licking, sucking, touching, inhaling Tom like a starving man at a buffet. He couldn’t stop. He would’ve been embarrassed to be so goddamned needy, submitting to the man’s intrusive touches, if Tom hadn’t been exactly the same.

“What the hell did you do to me, T?”

Hadn’t realized he’d asked Tom outright until he heard, “Same thing you did to me.” Like Tommy had imprinted on Prophet.

Prophet could fuck his way through a million men—and some weeks during the past four months it felt like he’d tried—and he’d never come anywhere close to feeling like this. “Like a fucking spell.”

“Like I’d do this to myself on purpose,” Tom shot back, before biting and sucking on Prophet’s nipple.

Prophet hissed and threaded then tightened a grip on Tom’s hair in the hopes the man would do it again. Tom didn’t care about his transparency and obliged Prophet over and over, staring up at him the entire time he abused Prophet’s nipple, concentrating on the one with his mouth and pressing the other hard between finger and thumb.

Needing someone this much couldn’t be fucking normal.

Finally, Tom pulled back, grabbed for his jeans and, when he straightened, held up a condom. Then he pushed himself against Prophet, their cocks and balls rubbing together, chest and thighs sliding together, a perfect fit. Prophet braced himself as best he could, prepared to let Tom take him there and hang on for dear life, and at the same time, knowing Tom wouldn’t let him fall.

The man had always been physically strong, but months of merc work had hardened his body more. Prophet recognized the honed muscles that came with target practice, walking miles in the heat, fighting against an invisible enemy to be ready for when it became real.

Tom’s hands stroked his shoulders and biceps, every touch firm and sure, a reassurance that Prophet was actually there, and that he was fine.

Physically. Neither of them was fine on the other front.

The wind whipped the house, battered the windows and doors like it wanted in and wouldn’t take no for an answer. Tom was that storm, demanding Prophet open to him, insisting on it. Grabbing one of Prophet’s legs, balancing it against his hip so his fingers could open him. All he could do, all he wanted to do, was give in.

He found no reason not to.

He heard the rip of the condom wrapper, watched Tom roll it on carefully over the piercings. “Don’t have lube,” Tom told him. “I haven’t needed any.”

Prophet processed that for a second, then said, “I don’t need it.”

“Okay, Proph. I’ll go slow.”

Prophet wanted to tell him not to bother, but the look in Tom’s eyes made his breath catch in his throat. Tom put two fingers together and pushed them against Prophet’s mouth. “Suck them, Proph.”

Prophet did, as Tom watched and groaned. Prophet did the same when Tom took his fingers out and mixed the saliva with the slick of pre-cum from Prophet’s cock. And then Tom leaned in, slid his fingers back along Prophet’s ass, then urged, “Come on, Proph . . . that’s it. Let me in,” as his finger slid inside.

Prophet nodded, closed his eyes, and willed himself to relax at this new assault on his system. Part of him was already floating, flying, but another was listening to the sound of warning bells.

He ignored them, let Tom back in, because he knew he really had no other choice.