Jumping at Shadows (13 page)

“Don’t keep me waiting, baby,” T.J. called from the hall.

“I’ll be right there,” he called back but didn’t move immediately. It was broad daylight, and the shade blocked the view, but he needed to be sure. Instead of heading for the door, he moved to the window. With a cautious finger, he pulled the shade away from the edge.

The yard was crisp, white, and empty.

\

“
C
OME
on! Fuck me raw! That’s it! Harder!
Harder!
”

A low, feral grunt accompanied each brutal slap of flesh on flesh, and Eric didn’t need to see the image on the TV to know that the veritable bear on the film was pounding the ass of the young, nubile twink spread facedown and open before him. He and T.J. nearly mirrored their position, though they both preferred naked over the leather worn on the screen, and while the twink’s wrists were tied to the bedposts, Eric’s hands were clenched in the carpet. Eric couldn’t find the breath to articulate the words chanted by the twink, but he didn’t have to. His own cries were sharp and ragged as T.J. followed the commands perfectly, and the fingers of both T.J. and the bear dug into the tender skin of their hips as the smack of a cock being pounded home nearly kept time both on film and in their living room.

The coffee table had been moved to give them room, and the seat cushions they had spread on the floor shifted under the force of each thrust. Eric writhed as the fabric scraped his cock, and he forced the cushions harder against his chest to create friction over his nipples. As the orgasm he sought began to build, Eric stretched his neck to look up.

The bear on the screen arched and shouted at nearly the same moment T.J. did, and Eric watched the thick spurts of cum splatter over the twink’s back as the pulsing shaft inside him coated his walls with warm wetness. He jerked sharply as his own orgasm crashed over him, and he fought to keep his eyes open as he watched the twink’s mouth work in cries of pleasure that sounded very much like his own. Their bodies were in matched step as they humped the padding they lay on, both of their cocks shooting hot streams of cum in long, powerful bursts.

This was as close as he or T.J. would ever come to allowing others to join them for sex, and while the bear slid off his partner on the screen, T.J. pressed heavily into Eric’s back. Warm lips trailed over the back of his neck. Eric moaned softly at the tenderness of the moment, turning his head to bring the gentle lips to the sensitive skin behind his ear. T.J.’s hands slid along his sides as his tongue slipped out to lick, and Eric pushed himself from the cushions when the palms began to circle to his chest. The slide of roughened skin over his scraped nipples made him moan again, and he moved his hips to shift the spent cock still inside him, careful to let T.J. know that he did
not
want it pulled out. He opened his eyes to a sliver when the tongue began to trail along his hairline…

… and found himself facing the solid curtain shielding the window from the street.

The shade was long and blank, blocking any view from outside, but the tingling in his nerves started at the reminder of what was out there. First the Altima, and then the Lexus. The man outside their window. The man in the parking lot….

Teeth nipped his shoulder. Eric felt himself relaxing when a tongue circled the area of the bite.

“Are you ready for some food, baby?” T.J. whispered around the licks. “You haven’t eaten today, and though I’ll love you no matter what, I’d rather not have you skin and bones.”

“You say the sweetest things,” Eric told him teasingly, returning to the here and now by rolling under him so T.J.’s cock finally slipped free, and pulling him down for a kiss with the cooling wetness under his back. “We can have a late lunch or early dinner, then maybe take this discussion of ‘skin’ someplace else.” He added a suggestive press of his hips with the last words, with his knees lifting high enough to cradle T.J. between his thighs. “And maybe we can have a talk about bones too.”

T.J. nipped Eric’s lower lip. “You’re insatiable, baby. And the word is ‘boners’. Gotta learn to speak the language.” He nipped again when Eric threatened to laugh, and then pushed himself to his feet.

Cleanup was cursory before they left for the shower, and Eric let T.J. lead the way after the TV was flicked off, though he couldn’t help slowing as they passed the closed and locked front door. The curtains over the windows hadn’t moved, though the prickling of Eric’s nerves increased as he walked by them toward the hall. T.J. vanished in the shadows that led to their bedroom, but Eric gave in to his nerves long enough to backtrack and peer around the edge.

The street was cold, icy, and empty.

M
OONLIGHT
showed in a thin bright line around the edge of the shade, and the glass was silent now that the fall of ice had ceased once again. Eric slid off the bed as quietly as he was able, not wanting to wake T.J., who was still sleeping peacefully with the blankets bunched around his waist. His muscles protested the movement, his thighs still tight from gripping T.J.’s body and his ass still feeling the plunge of T.J.’s cock from the repeat of their afternoon performance just before bedtime. His knee, however, was finally beginning to feel the strain from his fall that morning, and even more so at this moment, when he was trying to move carefully and silently. The shaded window made the room even darker, and he was forced to use one outstretched hand to guide him to the wall. With a glance at T.J. to make sure he still slept, Eric pressed himself flat beside the window. Heart pounding, he raised one finger to the edge of the shade at eye height. A deep breath, and he pulled the shade back.

The yard was still cool and crisp. And empty.

Chapter Eight

“
W
HAT
are you looking at?”

T.J.’s voice startled him, and Eric whirled away from the shade-covered window to find his lover standing in the bathroom doorway, still gloriously naked, wiping his hands and mouth on a towel after brushing his teeth. Eric felt himself flush as he turned back to the window, and he knew T.J. was watching him as he peered around the shade again. The backyard was empty, all the way to the trees behind the field. No birds, no animals, no humans in the shadows. Still….

He felt the movement of air when T.J. passed around him, and the shade slid against his fingers when T.J. lifted the other side much more blatantly than Eric had been. It fell back into place a moment later.

“There’s no one there, baby,” T.J. told him plainly, and his hands preceded his body as he moved behind Eric, wrapping the towel around Eric’s cock rather than tossing it into the corner for the weekend’s laundry. Warm lips brushed the skin at the back of his neck as he began a slow stroke through the terrycloth. “Just you and me, and a half hour to go before we have to go out into the cold, bitter world. Then we’re back to sneaking around the clock.” Two days was apparently the most leeway T.J. was going to be given from his job, as a phone call last night confirmed that he was expected at Perlman on time this morning, and he would be working on Saturday as well.

The press of naked flesh against his back and the unmistakable feel of a swollen cock sliding between his ass cheeks was usually all the convincing Eric needed, but he didn’t usually have known criminals threatening his personal life as well as his professional one.

“I really want to go check out the backyard before we leave,” he said slowly, dislodging T.J.’s lips from his neck as he looked over his shoulder. “It may be a little bit paranoid, but I’d feel better knowing for sure that there is no one out there.”

T.J.’s frown wasn’t all that unexpected, and an arm reached out to pull the shade back so that they both had a clear view of the empty yard.

“There’s no one there, baby. See?”

Eric did, but the uneasy feeling wouldn’t abate. “It’ll just take a few minutes. There and back, that’s all.” He ground his ass into T.J.’s groin meaningfully as his voice dropped low. “I’ll make sure I make it up to you when I get back.”

T.J. sighed, then landed a quick kiss to his cheek before letting him go. “I’m not sure we’ll have enough time for you to make it up to me fully this morning, baby, but tonight might be a different story. Just don’t stay out there too long, got it?”

Eric smiled gratefully—and a little guiltily—as he turned in to T.J.’s body, dropping a hand to cup his lover’s balls, then stroking his palm up the length of his cock. “Save this for me, all right?” He gave him a kiss on the lips, then let him go, bending to retrieve his clothes from the floor as T.J. stepped back to give him room. T.J. was digging in the dresser for underwear by the time Eric had pulled on sweats and a sweatshirt.

The yard was still and quiet as he crossed the space to the back gate, his steps crunching through the brittle crust covering the ground. The ice on the hinges cracked loudly as he swung the gate open, and once on the other side of the fence, he suddenly felt open and vulnerable. The tingling of his nerves gave him the feeling of being watched, and as much as he would have liked to attribute that to T.J. watching from the window, he wasn’t about to let himself dismiss it that easily.

The field wasn’t deep, and the trees were little more than two parallel lines separated by a narrow, icy creek. On the other side would be the identical field and backyard of their neighbors. With winter having killed most of the vegetation, Eric could see the lighted windows of their neighbor’s house through the space between the trunks. Nobody was moving inside that he could see, and after only a glance he kept his eyes on the ground as he walked slowly along the creek. The water was shallow enough that he wasn’t worried about breaking through the ice if he happened to step on it.

Cold air bit into the exposed skin of his hands and face and seeped in under the collar of his leather bomber jacket. Branches creaked above him from the weight of the ice coating them all the way to their tips, and the pale light of a winter dawn made the world around him seem eerie and surreal. His steps crunched surprisingly loudly in the stillness, but not even the print of an animal broke the crusty surface of the ice. At least nothing he recognized as a print. He had to be missing something. He had seen someone out here once, and there had to be evidence of it somewhere. He just couldn’t see where.

And he couldn’t stay out here much longer. T.J. was waiting for him, and after putting him off already that morning, Eric didn’t want to let him leave without at least a thorough kiss goodbye. Letting out his breath in resignation, he turned back to the house…

… and finally caught a glimpse of what he was looking for in the crunchy mud. It was right near the edge of the water, a depression sinking lower than the frozen surface around it, in a shape that had refrozen to preserve what was very clearly a footprint. And it wasn’t his own.

He whipped his head around to scan the trees, squinting into the shadows. It had been days since he had seen the man, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t been here after that, or that he wasn’t here now. Eric’s breath clouded in long moments of silence, but at last he admitted that he saw no sign of life save for his own. He looked back at the print in the mud.

Whoever it had been was long gone, but the evidence that he was real was frozen in the mud at his feet.

His heart beat against his ribs as his steps turned back to the house, and he was nearly running by the time he reached the gate. The Nikon D300S they had splurged on when they had vacationed in the Florida Keys last year lay hidden in their closet, and the high-definition pictures it was capable of taking would ensure that the pictures of the print would be clear. A mold of it would be better, but he didn’t have the materials for that, and the crime techs wouldn’t come unless they were certain of a crime. A picture would have to be enough.

He let out his breath as the warm air of the kitchen surrounded him as he hurried through the door. If stalking was the worst crime they could pin on Victor Kroger to get him off the street, he would take it.

T
HE
camera lay securely in the passenger seat beside him, sealed in its zippered leather case, with the cable used for downloading wrapped around it. T.J. had only been cautiously impressed by the pictures of the footprint, and he had warned him not to get too optimistic about using it to confirm his case of stalking. But what Eric saw in the high-resolution images was proof, and he was going to use it.

Traffic was light despite the roads having been cleared, something for which Eric was grateful even if he couldn’t reach the posted speed limit safely because of the patches of ice that remained. His truck could handle it, but he wasn’t about to risk an accident by pushing his luck. Headlights close behind him showed that not everyone was as careful on the road as he was, and he hissed out another curse at the idiot who seemed intent on tailgating. With the car that close to his bumper, he just had to hope that the asshole had antilock brakes when Eric slowed for his turn.