Jumping at Shadows (21 page)

Eric brought his hands to his face, smelling himself on his skin as he rubbed his eyes with his palms. T.J. had been in those pictures too. T.J., with his charming smile that could be both teasing and sincere; his dark, expressive eyes that would shine with laughter or smolder with lust.

Eyes that had grown wary as Eric pursued his goal to nail Victor Kroger once and for all. Eric felt his stomach lurch as the cold horror finally swept over him. God, it was making terrifying sense.

T.J. had learned Eric was a cop—a detective—that first night at the pub, and Eric had learned that T.J. was a great lay within minutes after their first kiss. The knot in his stomach twisted as the bitter truth bit deep. T.J. might have made the first move, but in the end it was his own damned fault. He nearly doubled over as his stomach heaved, and the bile that burned his throat brought tears to his already stinging eyes.

It had only taken sex for T.J. to worm his way into Eric’s life, because Eric’s own raging sex drive had opened the door. It had led him to invite T.J. home night after night, led him to be vulnerable to the laughter, affection, and tenderness T.J. offered in and out of bed, and led him to believe the words when T.J. said “I love you.” It had allowed him to believe he had fallen in love with the dark-haired engineer he had met at the bar.

And it had led him into letting his guard down when it came to the details of his investigation into Victor Kroger. Eric choked as his stomach heaved again and bile spurted through his lips as a single hot tear scalded his cheek. Victor Kroger may have only been an issue for him personally during the last year, but he had been in operation for years before that. Information that the cops were being held at bay was as valuable to Victor as any talk of the cops closing in. Victor had never been in danger of going to jail, because Victor had engineered his own arrest. Getting his case thrown out of court was the perfect way to clean the slate and throw attention away from the secrecy of his operations. But fuck, he hadn’t done it alone.

“You kept playing it down, saying it’s nothing, telling me to let it go….”

A siren sounded in the distance.

“Fuck, T.J.,” Eric whispered, his breath harsh and ragged. “How long have you been working for Victor Kroger?”

Chapter Thirteen

E
RIC
arched his back with a quiet moan, tilting his head as he sought contact with the heated flesh hovering just above him. The tongue tracing the line of his jaw slipped lower with the new position, sliding over the knot of his Adam’s apple as it made a warm, wet trail up to his ear. T.J. lay balanced between his legs, not quite touching beyond an errant, feather-light brush of skin, with the heavy graze of his tongue setting Eric’s nerve endings on fire. Eric’s own hands rested heavily on T.J.’s shoulders, his thighs gently pressing against the still hips caught between them. He resisted the urge to pull T.J. more tightly against him, to give in to the lust and desire and the hungry demand of his body, even though the effort sent tremors through his limbs. He knew T.J. was as hard as he was, and the brief touches of cock against cock threatened to shatter his restraint at any moment. But T.J. continued to move with slow and infinite care, clearly determined to make this act of lovemaking last.

In the deepest part of Eric’s heart and soul, so was he.

Eric had seen the truck before he had even pulled into the driveway, and he didn’t have to see the logo on the doors to know that it belonged to Perlman Engineering. The knot in his stomach hardened as the Jeep crawled to a stop behind it, and thoughts of fleeing scattered briefly through his mind as he stared at the streaks of sludge smearing the white paint, wet and dripping, not yet refrozen in the bitter air. Fleeing rather than facing the man he had loved more than life itself. Fleeing instead of ending the life he had built with his husband, the life he had thought would last forever. But he knew that running away wouldn’t change the truth, and in the end he opened the door. The crunch of ice as he stepped onto the concrete sounded loud and hollow in the stillness of winter.

Warm breath touched Eric’s lips, followed by soft, full lips pressing a kiss against his own. Eric opened to them willingly, welcoming the gentle, probing tongue that followed and caressing it in turn with his own. Little by little, the weight of T.J.’s body began to settle more closely, and Eric’s arms tightened around him as the gentleness of the kiss slowly changed to something deeper. A slow caress of body against body began with the light nip of teeth.

T.J. was in the kitchen, the receiver of the wall phone still in his hand, his fingers stopped in the act of dialing. He hadn’t been home long, and in fact still wore his own leather bomber over the worn, rust-colored sweatshirt proclaiming itself the property of the University of Minnesota. The surprise on his face turned to relief as the solid weight of the kitchen door closed, and then the relief turned to caution as he replaced the receiver on the cradle slowly. Eric said nothing, keeping his hand in his pocket as he leaned back against the door, fingering the cold grip of the 9mm, keeping his face neutral as he studied the man he had decided to make a life with.

The man who had sold him out to Victor Kroger.

Eric moaned in protest as the fingers that had stretched and prepared him slid free from his body, and then caught his breath when a shift of hands and hips brought the blunt, swollen head of T.J.’s cock to the edge of his opening. The shade on the window remained drawn, the bulb of the bedroom lamp unlit. The planes of T.J.’s face were cast in black and gray shadow, but the intensity of his eyes glittered as they caught what little light broke the darkness. An encouraging nudge of Eric’s thighs told T.J. he was ready, and the breath stilled in their lungs as T.J. pushed in.

“Eric, baby, where have you been? Are you all right?” T.J. asked after several moments of heavy silence.

The stillness was all but shattered with his words, and Eric felt the first crack in the carefully constructed armor he had tried to surround himself with. He took a slow, deep breath to shore up his courage, willing the blankness to remain on his face. T.J. didn’t miss the effort, and Eric saw his frown deepen to worry. Still, T.J. stopped after only a single hesitant step.

“Eric, what’s wrong?”

The crack in his armor deepened to his heart, and the pain of it breaking was almost physical. Forcing it into the dark corner of his mind, he glanced at the phone and back with barely a blink.

“Who were you calling?”

Eric let out a sigh of mixed relief and pleasure when T.J. finally came to rest, the penetration having been so slow it had become a sensual form of torture. The feel of it was almost too much, and he struggled to keep the burning hunger that had so often made their lovemaking frenetic at bay, to rein in his normal urgency to be taken hard and fast, and focus only on the feel of T.J. buried deeply and completely inside him. He knew he wouldn’t last long, that soon he would be fucking himself on T.J.’s cock, demanding with his voice and his body that T.J. give him everything, with no hesitation and no holding back. But not just yet, not right now. Right now he just wanted to feel T.J. against him and inside him, feel T.J., and nothing more.

Then all too soon, he felt the first shallow thrust of T.J.’s hips.

The frown on T.J.’s face slipped to confusion as he searched Eric’s flat, hazel eyes. “Captain Carroll,” he answered slowly. “He called the lab to see if I knew where you were, since you weren’t answering the phone here. Eric, what’s going on?”

Eric didn’t answer immediately, letting the silence settle as the words of the lie faded and vanished. He felt the sting in his eyes as he slowly shook his head.

“I’m suspended,” he answered expressionlessly, pushing from the door and moving slowly and deliberately to where T.J. stood. “The captain doesn’t have any reason to need to know where I am. Only you have a reason to know that.”

His breath was hot and moist as it hissed through his teeth, and his hands fisted in the muscles of T.J.’s shoulders and neck, in the dark, damp strands of his hair. T.J.’s hands were wedged under him, pulling him up to meet each snap of his hips, forcing himself deeper with each powerful thrust. T.J.’s panting breath was loud in Eric’s ear, and stubble scratched his cheek as Eric clung to him, curling around him as their bodies moved as one. The nightstand rattled as the mattress shifted against it, and the kicking of their feet had already bunched the comforter at the foot of the bed. Eric humped his own cock between their stomachs as he dragged T.J. against him, knowing this was exactly what he wanted… exactly what he
needed
….

T.J. opened his mouth to say something more, but Eric closed in quickly, and he stopped the words as he caught T.J.’s lips in a deep, sensual kiss. Surprise lasted only an instant, and then Eric felt T.J. begin to respond. A touch of Eric’s tongue was enough to move T.J.’s hands to his hips. Fleece and leather shifted between them as Eric turned the kiss deep and obscene, and two denim-covered cocks swelled and hardened as they began to rock together. When Eric finally pulled back, he did so slowly, his eyes unreadable, his breath hot on T.J.’s lips.

“Fuck me,” Eric demanded quietly.

T.J. cried out without warning, his hips almost battering Eric with their thrusts, and his fingers dug into Eric’s flesh as cum burst from his cock. Eric forced his eyes open and his head back to watch the sheer ecstasy in T.J.’s face as the wave of his orgasm hit. That look and the pulsing cock inside him drove Eric to his own release, and although on his back, he rode T.J.’s body hungrily as he succumbed to his own shattering waves of orgasm.

It could have been moments or an eternity that passed before awareness crept back in, and exhaustion wrapped around him as the world came back into focus. He let his shaking muscles relax as he slowly released T.J.’s body, and he felt the weight of T.J.’s body collapsing over him, bringing their pounding hearts to beat together. He heard the murmur of contentment from T.J.’s lips a moment later as he shifted his weight to the side, drawing a gasp from Eric as his softening cock slid free. It was a gentle hand that pulled Eric’s head to his shoulder, and a tender set of lips that pressed a kiss into his hair. A second hand on his back stroked the heated flesh as it slid lightly down the length of his spine.

“Mmm, baby. I think we should do this more often,” T.J. murmured teasingly, drawing them closer despite the sweat and cum covering them both.

Normally those words would have led to nuzzles and lazy kisses, but now the sound of his voice was only a stark reminder of what was to come, and the bitterness of it made Eric pull back, away from the arms that wanted to hold him, away from the body he had so often burrowed against. Away from the man who had lied to him for so long.

He had gotten what he wanted, gotten those few moments of reprieve as T.J. made him forget everything in the world but the love and the life they had shared, but now it was over, and the hollowness in his stomach returned, every bit as sickening as it had been in that empty office inside the warehouse. T.J. followed him as he shifted away, but was prevented from gathering Eric back into his arms by the deliberate distance Eric put between them. Eric continued to move until he lay on his back, and T.J. stilled as the wariness returned. A tentative hand touched his stomach as Eric’s eyes bored into the ceiling above them.

“Eric?”

“You always were good in bed,” Eric said quietly, not looking away from the popcorn ceiling above him. “You always knew exactly how to fuck me, how to make me crazy, and alive, and….” He trailed off as his lips closed in a bitter line. His swallow was obvious, and he blinked twice before focusing again on the ceiling. “You could’ve kept me naked and on your cock forever if you’d wanted to.”

The wariness didn’t leave T.J.’s expression, but it softened as a gentle smile curled his lips, and his hand smoothed a caress through the cooling cum on Eric’s stomach. “Forever is what I had in mind, baby. Naked or not, on my cock or off it.” He reached for Eric again but was startled to stillness as Eric sat up with surprising suddenness. The warm hazel eyes were gone when Eric looked down at him, replaced by something cold and hard and completely alien.

“Eric?”

“Did Victor tell you to say that?”

“Did…
what
?” T.J.’s eyes widened in surprise, and he pushed himself up with a mixture of irritation, confusion, and flat-out incredulousness on his face. “Eric, what the fuck—”

But Eric was already moving, rolling to his feet with a grimace and taking himself out of reach as he bent to snatch his clothes from the floor. T.J. had risen to sit by the time he had his jeans in his hand, but he had not yet stood up from the bed. His expression was one of pure and stunned disbelief.

“Eric! What the hell are you talking about?”

“You heard me!” Eric snapped, shaking his jeans once before stepping into them. “God, I can’t believe I didn’t see it earlier! Of course those pictures didn’t bother you; you already knew about them,” he continued in disgust, leaving his jeans open as he bent for his sweatshirt. “The Lexus driving by the house, the man spying in the field—you knew they would be there, didn’t you? You probably told the fucker where to stand to get the best view.”