The Talented Mr. Rivers (8 page)

No way did he want any part of that bullshit relationship stuff.

Zach smiled and a dimple appeared on his cheek. “Hunter.”

“Okay.” Fisher stepped into Hunter's line of sight. “Are we done with the names and hellos?”

Seth laughed. “Damn, Fisher. You can't still be jealous. He's sleeping only a few feet away with another guy.”

Fisher shot Seth a look that promised pain before focusing on Hunter again. “How did you track us?”

“Not your concern.”

“Well, it kind of is.” Zach stood up and walked over to join the other men in the middle of the room. Stopped right next to Fisher. Close enough that their arms touched. “Just tell us and spare us having to comb through the building's security video and tap into private alarm systems and review every second before you showed up.”

Leave it to Zach to be practical. Hunter liked that about him. “Room by room.”

“Damn, man.” Seth whistled. “Of course. It was a simple deduction to go with above. If it helps, we have four apartments in this building.”

“Consider us all around you at all times,” Fisher said.

Hunter was more concerned about the team's work. He glanced around and saw the board with photos pinned to it, including one of him. Most of the computer screens were filled with running surveillance and another had lines of what looked like encrypted data.

Impressive but not necessary. Hunter understood how Fisher's team worked. They had an endless supply of resources, thanks to the CIA. He preferred to rely on his instincts.

“As you can see, I have Will under control, so you can…” When Zach winced and Seth shook his head, Hunter stopped and reassessed. They clearly knew something he didn't. Something sure to piss him off. “What happened?”

Seth glanced at Fisher and smiled. “You wanna tell him?”

“Please.”

The whole amusement and joking thing made Hunter want to pull his gun. “Someone speak before I start shooting.”

Before Fisher could say anything, Zach started talking. “Ed made contact.”

Not the answer Hunter had expected. “What?…When?”

“Just now. You came out the service entrance just as Ed dragged Will outside and into the street,” Zach said.

For a second the news wouldn't sink in. Hunter could hear it but he blocked it until it screamed in his head. Then he had to move. “Dragged him outside? Fuck me.”

Seth held up a hand. “It's fine. He's already back inside and headed for the apartment without Ed in tow.”

“See?” Zach flipped a laptop screen around to show Will unlocking the apartment. “He apparently saw you enter the code earlier and discovered how to get in and out of the apartment without trouble. Your guy is resourceful.”

Hunter broke away from the others and paced over to the kitchen area. The apartment setup mirrored the one downstairs but this one had files and equipment in every corner. Hunter wanted to smash it all. He didn't even understand why the rage overtook him or where it came from.

He settled for clamping his fingers around the edge of the kitchen counter. He started a countdown in his head. Repeated the ten numbers over and over, knowing he shouldn't care if Will insisted on putting himself in danger. His hands shook from the need to sweep an arm across the space in front of him and knock everything to the floor.

“Your boy ventured out and ended up grabbing some fresh air, whether he wanted to or not,” Fisher said.

Hunter wasn't in the mood for bullshit about age. “Don't call him that.”

“He's not yours?”

Hunter looked up. Pinned Fisher with a glare. “He's almost twenty-five, not a kid.”

“Well.” Seth turned a chair around and sat down. “You're thirty-four, right? That's a big age difference.”

Zach shrugged. “Not really.”

That seemed to break the tension. They all started moving then. Zach returned to his seat and Fisher hovered over his shoulder.

Energy still raced around the room but some of the snapping stiffness left Hunter's shoulders. He straightened up and walked back into the living area. He needed information and, like it or not, this group had it. “What happened with Ed?”

Seth shrugged. “We don't know.”

Hunter sat down at the table across from Zach and Fisher. “Excuse me?”

“They scrambled in the hall a bit, then went outside.” Zach moved his laptop again so that Hunter could see. Hit a few buttons and the video started running.

Hunter watched the entire scene, from the walking to the fight to the heated conversation. Saw but couldn't hear a word. Just mumbling over static. “You have video and microphones and God knows what else in the apartment I'm sleeping in but you didn't think to mic the hall?”

Fisher nodded. “This is a safe house. We don't own the damn building.”

“And we didn't know you planned to bring Will here or we would have fixed the audio in every hallway and corner to be ready. As it is, we've been updating while trying to keep out of sight.”

“But we do have cameras outside, so we caught most of the talk on video,” Zach said at the same time.

“Your guy got pissed off.” Fisher gestured toward the laptop. “He can fight. We were impressed.”

Seth hit the space bar and the video froze. “Right, but we need to know if the plan worked.”

“Motherfucker.” Hunter almost tipped the table over. He settled for standing up again. “What plan?”

Seth made a show of blowing out a long breath before he started talking. “We made it easy for Ed to find you.”

“I told you no when you floated that before.” He didn't want a team or their strategy.

Will wasn't like them. He didn't come from their world or have their training. Yes, with his family he had unclean hands, but he shouldn't pay for that with his life. The thought of that screeched across Hunter's brain and had his head pounding.

“There was one problem with your order.” Seth's expression said he was not impressed. “I'm in charge and I never agreed with you.”

When Hunter started to talk, Zach reached over and grabbed his arm. “It's the best option, Hunter. We need to drag people out and end this before Pentasus gets back up and running again at pre-explosion levels.”

“That's where you come in. You get to go figure out why Ed is hanging around and if he knows where Peter is,” Seth said, making it clear he was the one running this operation.

“So, I'm just supposed to ask Will? Work it into conversation somehow?” Hunter reached down and wrapped his fingers around the top of the chair. As soon as he gripped it, he let it go again. The energy spinning around inside him had him on edge and half ready to jump out of his skin.

Seth didn't even try to hide his sigh of frustration. “Are you familiar with the concept of tact?”

“I'm assuming the BND had a basic course in intel collection,” Fisher said.

Enough of this shit
. Hunter pushed back from the table.

“When are you three leaving?” He was being sarcastic, but he did like the idea of them being gone.

Zach frowned. “The apartment?”

“Paris.”

“We leave when we finish this job.” Seth closed the laptop. “So, get moving.”

Will didn't move from his position at the window when the apartment alarm dinged and the door opened. He did nothing more than glance over his shoulder to make sure Hunter and not an intruder stood in the doorway.

One look led to another. His gaze trailed over the man he couldn't seem to ignore and had an even harder time trusting. Faded jeans highlighted Hunter's long legs. A gray T-shirt stretched across his chest. The tight bands of the short sleeves showed off those rock-hard biceps.

Memories from the night before tumbled through his mind. Grabbing on to those arms, trailing hands down that back while Hunter pressed with thrust after thrust. The deep breathing. The sweat that gathered in that hot dip at the base of his throat. Will remembered all of it.

“What have you been doing in here?” Hunter kicked the door shut and moved to the kitchen to put down the bags in his hands.

Will almost laughed. Funny how Hunter came in loaded down with supplies when he had been watching the street and never saw Hunter enter the building. He'd violated the window rule to watch. There might be a back entrance, but the steady flow of residents in and out seemed to come from the front. Everyone but Hunter, the man who clearly had something to hide.

Will turned with his back against the wall, leaning just to the side of the window. “Standing here.”

“Uh-huh.” Hunter abandoned the bags and stepped closer.

Everything had gotten so bound up and confused that Will couldn't tell what was real anymore. He'd pretended to be so many things in his life—tough to please his dad, studious to make his dead mother happy, a student to fit in, a practiced shot to keep up with Stacia and Peter. So many identities that were about other people and what they needed and expected.

Hunter was the one thing he'd taken for himself. The pleasure of abandonment he'd fantasized about long before they ever touched.

The rich guy and his bodyguard. There were probably all sorts of books written about that combination. To Will, all those hot, aching dreams provided a sanctuary. A place to escape to in his mind.

But now it was all too real. Hunter stood in front of him, flesh and blood. A mix of protection and the promise of wild sex. It had been easy, maybe too easy, to get comfortable with him. Drop his pants for him.

That was before.

Every word Ed had said replayed in Will's mind. If he was right, an unwanted battle with Peter loomed. Ed and this Gatt guy wanted him to take a side. Everyone had an agenda. Will wanted to believe Hunter didn't but that seemed less and less likely.

It wasn't even that Will hated Hunter for it. No, he understood the concept of every person he met expecting something from him. His whole life had worked that way, but for fuck's sake be honest about it.

He stared at Hunter and Hunter stared back. It took another minute before Will could break the silence enveloping the room. “We can't keep doing this.”

“Sex?”

Talk about being on two different wavelengths. “We can do that as much as you want.”

“Good to know.” Hunter's expression didn't change. “I thought I might have to bend you over the back of the chair and remind you how much you liked having me inside you.”

As if Will needed that thought in his head right now. “I'm talking about playing house.”

Hunter frowned. “I have no idea what to say to that.”

“This thing where you go out and I wait around at home for you to come back.” Will crossed his arms in front of him. Tried to look like the conversation barely mattered even though his heartbeat thundered in his ears and the need to yell screamed inside him. “It's ridiculous, like we're trying to act in someone's version of normal when nothing that's happening right now is normal.”

“I agree about that last part.”

He wasn't getting through. Will could see that. Hunter's questioning expression, the lightness in his tone as if he barely took the conversation seriously. He'd bet Hunter was running a countdown in his head until they could stop talking and get back to what they were really good at—getting each other off.

In a way that sounded good. Will let the thought bounce around in his head, trying to get it to settle in and be enough. For some reason it wouldn't stick. He saw Hunter, all man-is-an-island and fierce, almost brutal at times, and he wanted to dig beneath the surface. To understand the pieces of him that were unrelated to what he could do with his hands and that perfect mouth.

But breaking through might just be harder than getting away from his screwed-up family. Will wasn't even sure why he needed more with Hunter. Why he wanted to connect.

When had everything gotten so messed up?

Will let his arms drop to his sides again. “I'm dead.”

After a beat of silence, Hunter started moving again. He walked across the small space…more like stalked. Never broke eye contact. Never said a word until he stopped right in front of Will. Just inches away. “Clearly not.”

“You know what I'm talking about.” The world thought he was dead and almost every part of him wanted to grab on to that idea and disappear. But there was this other piece. The unfinished business with Peter and Pentasus. Up until a few minutes ago he'd hoped that was over, but apparently not.

The smile tugging on the corner of Hunter's mouth suggested his mind had wandered down a different path. He put a hand on the wall by Will's head. “What do you think we should be doing right now?”

Will couldn't be swayed at the moment. He closed his eyes and willed his body to ignore the smell of soap on Hunter's skin. To not see those intense blue eyes that lured him in every single time.

“We could try honesty.” Not his strong suit, but Will was at least willing to try it.

“That sounds suspiciously like us trying to act out someone else's view of normal.”

Interesting that Hunter didn't think the concept of honesty fit into his own life. Probably not surprising, but Will still wished his brain would get the message and let him back away. For the sake of self-preservation, if nothing else.

“You could start with dropping the fake American accent.” Will wanted to hear the real Hunter. The slight halt to his speech pattern. He'd picked up a little before, in those few seconds before Hunter fell back on the fake accent that he did well enough to fool Stacia and anyone else who'd ever heard it.

“Fine.”

There it was. The German accent. When Hunter used it his face changed. Suddenly everything about him fit together.

“Who are you really?” Not that Will expected truth, but he wanted to see how much hedging he'd get. How close to the mark Ed might be in his analysis of who Hunter really was.

Hunter's palm slid against the wall as he dropped his arm and stood up straight again. “Someone hired by your family.”

Not even a subtle hedge. “Give me a real answer.”

“An admittedly disgruntled employee.”

Will blew out a long breath. “Hunter, come on.”

“I was hired to do a job, Will. But then I got sucked into the real Rivers family business. Saw what your family really did for a living.” Hunter shifted his weight around. For a guy who could stand still and stare into space for hours, his moves turned jerky and uneven. “I planned to leave.”

“Why didn't you?”

“You.”

“Tell me what that means.” Because it sounded like the first real thing Hunter had ever said, and that made Will want to know more. Anxiety revved inside him with the need to know.

“Before you got home, I'd seen the pictures of you. Your siblings said how smart you were. That you were different. That you had a different mother and how you'd been shielded from the harsher side of life.” Hunter took a step back and ran a hand through his hair. Looked distracted, his movements jerky. “Once I knew you were returning I decided to stay and see for myself. Watch you.”

Every word sounded like it had been ripped out of Hunter. Will understood because words clogged his own throat. He managed to kick a few out. “Why go to the trouble?”

“At first I just needed to know how deep your family's toxicity ran. If your siblings really knew you at all.” Hunter stopped. “See, I couldn't believe you were innocent. The word didn't fit your family. Not with the things they did.”

“The way they kill without mercy or guilt.” And Will had only witnessed a fraction, the barest amount. He'd tried to block the rest but failed.

Hunter nodded. A few times he looked ready to say more but then he would clamp his mouth shut again. Finally, after minutes ticked by, he finished. “Then I stayed to protect you. I was your bodyguard, remember?”

Disappointment flooded through Will. The protector bullshit again. If he let Hunter go down this road, they'd circle back to another who's-in-charge argument. “That's not what I'm asking, and I think you know it.”

“Don't be dumb. You know why I stayed.” Hunter's voice dropped lower. Deeper with a touch of anger. Maybe regret.

Fuck that.
Will was done being the dirty little secret. “Say it.”

Hunter didn't blink. “I wanted you. You with that perfect fucking face. I saw you and thought maybe you didn't know what they were doing. Maybe…”

“What?” The air pounded the insides of Will's lungs until the thumping sound echoed in his ears.

“Maybe you were different and the possibility made it so that I couldn't look away. You started off as an experiment of sorts but I listened to you talk about school and the summers with the house-building. Even when you're talking about mundane shit like U.S. football versus European football, or insisting that tea tastes like something other than hot water, I want to listen.” Hunter swore under his breath and he stared at the floor. When his head lifted again a new starkness seemed to hold him in its grip. “You happy?”

Having waited to hear something—anything—like that, he was. Will didn't even feel bad that saying the words probably cost Hunter something. No, he wanted more. “I didn't even know you were listening. Half the time I would talk and you'd stand there and—”

“I remember every fucking word. Even when I only heard your side of the conversation with friends on the phone, I took it in.”

Those calls out had become less and less frequent. Will had meant to create this space between his family and his life and not put anyone else in danger. But what he'd ended up doing was separating himself, walling off his life before from his life now.

Without even planning it, Hunter had become the one he talked to. They'd been lopsided conversations since Hunter rarely gave any hint about anything personal, but during those two months Will had felt more and more comfortable talking about his life away from the family. He'd shared stories about living on his own.

“How did you know I was gay?” They'd seemed to read each other on that point right from the start.

“Peter suspected it.” Hunter shook his head as he shifted around and his sneakers squeaked against the hardwood floor. “Then I saw you.”

“You're saying you could tell by looking at me?” For some reason the thought of that made Will smile. That was offensive on one level, or would be if anyone other than a gay man uttered the words. He didn't wear a damn sign, after all.

“I saw you checking out my ass. Staring too long at my face. It went past curiosity and there was nothing straight about the looks I was getting from you.”

Will couldn't deny any of that. He'd come home and met him at the gun range. The next morning he walked into the oversized family room and saw Hunter standing there, all hot and blond and serious. To the extent he had a type, Will knew that Hunter didn't match the profile. He'd always gone for the classmate, runner, looking-for-fun type. Someone with a lighter personality. A person who didn't know about killing.

Then Hunter came along and all of a sudden Will craved difficult. He relished the challenge. Liked the game where they circled and watched each other, building the anticipation. Like to tempt him by saying certain things. Got so desperate that by the end he was walking around half naked in front of him.

“So, you stayed hoping we'd have sex.” It wasn't an accusation. Will had wanted that, too. Hot, unguarded, and demanding. Not lingering kisses or fumbling in the dark. A guy who liked it hard and rough. Purely physical.

But no one had prepared him for the knock to his senses that came with actually being with Hunter. For the emotional roller coaster of wanting to punch the guy one minute and strip his clothes off the next. The way they came together was raw and left Will feeling unsteady. For the first time in his life he welcomed the wild ride.

“I'm not going to lie. I wanted to fuck you. Still do. All the time.” Hunter's gaze roamed over Will as he talked.

Will could feel the heat radiating off Hunter. Every inch of his skin sprang to life under Hunter's scrutiny. “Even with who my family is?”

“To the outside world you're a rich playboy. Kind of nerdy hot. A bit mysterious.”

Okay…well…
“Nerdy hot?”

“The glasses are a huge turn-on.” Something in Hunter's face softened as he spoke. The harsh lines at the corners of his mouth eased. “You should wear them all the time.”

He only had them on now because he didn't have a choice. “My contacts were bugging me.”

Other people might like to wear glasses as a fashion statement. Will wore them to actually see and had for as long as he could remember. The first pair way back in first grade had a patch over one eye. His father wouldn't let him leave the house with them on. Called them an embarrassment. Blamed his mother for tainting the gene pool with bad vision.

“Do you need these to see?” Hunter closed in again. His fingers went to the sides of Will's glasses but he didn't pull them off.

“I can make you out just fine.”