Cut & Run 05 - Armed & Dangerous (13 page)

J ULIAN was surprised when the two FBI agents left Cameron with him in the bathroom. But he knew what they were thinking, and on the surface it made sense. He tugged at the handcuffs and raised one hand toward Cameron.

His lover climbed into the bathtub next to him and slid their hands together, lacing their fingers. “Have you been stuck like this all night?”

“Well, I
was
sitting,” Julian answered, keeping his tone light. He slid the chain up the diagonal safety rail and spread his arms as wide as they would go, gesturing for Cameron to duck under. Cameron did, moving to stand in the circle of Julian’s arms and reaching up to slide his hands around Julian’s neck, tipping his head back to look up at him.

“Fine. Haven’t said a word to me, really. I was sleeping until I heard Ty yell at you.”
“He’s just overly excitable.” Julian kissed him. It was hard to pull him closer with the safety bar restraining his arms like it was. “Are you going to give me my lecture?”
“Do I need to?” Cameron asked, meeting his eyes.
Julian sighed and looked over at the door. “If we make it to DC, we’ll never see each other again anyway.” He looked into Cameron’s eyes. “They’re using threats to you to keep me under control. But if I’m reading them correctly, Grady won’t hurt either of us unless we force him, and he won’t let Garrett hurt you. Nothing is a bigger threat than what they’re delivering us to.”
“Will you tell mewhat’s going on?”
Julian hesitated. He had spent most of their time together trying to shield Cameron from the worst of it. But now they were being dragged across the country, possibly to their deaths. Cameron deserved to know.
“It’s the CIA, Cam.”
“CIA? I thought Ty and Zane were FBI.”
“I don’t know what they are. But it’s sure as hell not the FBI who wants to kill me.”
Cameron’s arms tightened around Julian’s neck. “I won’t let them take you away from me if I can do anything to stop it.”
“Just look intimidated and docile whenever they threaten you. Let them think it’s working.”
“I don’t have to act,” Cameron murmured as he laid his cheek against Julian’s chest. “They are intimidating.”
Julian snorted before he could stop himself. He cleared his throat to cover it. He leaned back and looked down at Cameron. “You’re not wearing anything sharp or pointy, by any chance, are you?”
Cameron frowned and let his arms slide down. “Sharp or pointy? I don’t think so.” He looked down at himself. He didn’t wear jewelry— the only jewelry Julian had ever seen him wear was the Warrior’s Cross pendant Julian had given him when they’d first met. But that necklace was long gone.
“Zippers? Shoelaces?” Julian asked as he looked down Cameron’s body. He wasn’t wearing shoes. And in reality, Julian couldn’t imagine that he could manage to pick the lock with a zipper pull. “Damn, that spring was so perfect,” he muttered in irritation.
“You about got yourself shot. Zane was up out of that bed with that gun so fast, it scared me.”
“I’m surprised he’s not accustomed to Grady shouting at random for no reason. They sleep with their weapons? That’s good to know. If one of them is going to try to kill me, it will be Garrett. But no worries,” he said as he pulled Cameron as close as he could. “We’ll get out of this.”
Cameron leaned against him again, tucking his head under Julian’s chin. “It’s a good thing you’re such a good liar.”
“I’m not certain whether that’s a compliment or an insult.”
“Me either,” Cameron said before tipping his head back again and kissing Julian’s chin.
Julian grinned. “I love you, you know.”
Cameron gave him a tremulous smile. “I know. I love you too.” He went up on tiptoe to kiss Julian fervently.
Julian had to bend to indulge in the kiss since he couldn’t pull Cameron closer. He smiled against Cameron’s lips. “We’ve never tried this with handcuffs,” he said in a suggestive, teasing voice.
Cameron laughed. “Interesting idea. You can’t pick me up, flip me over, or hold me down.” He opened his eyes, and they sparkled mischievously.
“That’s what you think.”
The arched eyebrow Cameron gave him in reply was a clear dare, and Cameron’s hands sliding down his chest to his belt buckle even more so.
Julian’s smile was predatory as he stepped closer and pushed Cameron against the shower wall. He gasped and looked down between them. “My belt!” he hissed.
“What?” Cameron asked, plucking at it.
“They left it on me,” Julian told him with a grin.
“So, that means I can put it in your mouth for you to bite on in a couple minutes?”
That got Julian’s attention, and he looked back up with a grin. “Do you care if we make noise and they know what we’re doing?”
A blush crept up Cameron’s cheeks. “It’s not going to make a difference in what they do with us, right?” His fingers manipulated Julian’s belt buckle as he looked up into Julian’s eyes.
“Probably not.”
“Is this really stupid?” Cameron licked his lips as he unbuttoned Julian’s pants.
“The only thing stupid in this room is sitting outside our door,” Julian said, raising his voice just enough.
“Blow me, Cross,” came Ty’s disembodied voice from outside the door.

T Y PRESSED his shoulders against the door to stretch his sore muscles, and he let his bare feet slide on the carpet until his legs were splayed in front of him. He sat there without any compunction about looking dejected in the dark.

Once he heard the unmistakable sounds coming from within the bathroom, he grunted in annoyance and rolled to his hands and knees to get off the floor.

“What the hell do they think this is, some stupidass romantic comedy?” he growled to Zane. He called through the door, “I have a gun and I like to use it!”

Zane looked up from the papers. The soft glow of the table lamp cast odd shadows, making his face appear gaunt. “Of me? How? Besides Cameron’s ‘tall, dark, and handsome’ line.”

Zane smiled and leaned back in his chair. “Much better than what you said about me back then.”
Ty moved closer and sat on the edge of the bed near Zane, looking at him with nothing but affection. He was close enough to smell Zane’s deodorant and the underlying scents of his shampoo and sweat, and combined with the trademark smells of a hotel room, it stirred all sorts of memories and emotions.
“You ever think about that first week?” he asked with a fond smile.
“Some parts of it, yeah,” Zane said, edging up one shoulder as he spun the chair so he faced Ty, their knees bumping. “Usually when you’re being particularly frustrating.” He tipped his head to one side as his eyes raked Ty up and down. “Or particularly desirable.”
Ty leaned forward. “Those couple of days in that hotel room with you,” he said, voice low and intimate, “every time I looked at you I got butterflies. I couldn’t decide if it was a good feeling or if I hated you for it.”
Zane chuckled. “Oh, I was damn sure you hated me. And it was certainly reciprocated.”
“Did you really hate me?” Ty asked, not necessarily offended, but curious.
“To immense proportions,” Zane said with a nod, but then he rolled his eyes. “Didn’t last, though. You were….” He drew in a deep breath and held it as he considered his words. He ended up shrugging. “Hurricane Ty. Blew me away.”
Ty’s smile grew warmer, and he reached out to take Zane’s hand in his. “Sometimes I wish we could go back there and smack ourselves in the heads. But then I remind myself it wouldn’t have been the same.”
Zane squeezed his hand. “For me, there was no going back after you kissed me.”
Ty looked up from their joined hands and met Zane’s eyes. On his mini sabbatical he’d begun pondering what life might be like when neither of them worked at the FBI anymore; when they could walk down the street hand in hand and not care who saw; when they were no longer being shot at, blown up, or sent cross-country as errand boys. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask Zane if he thought they could be without their jobs and not go crazy.
But Ty knew he couldn’t do it. Not yet. He had been born and bred to be a spearpoint. Zane was the only kink in the plan he’d always had, but Ty found that he didn’t care. The moment Zane had kissed him, Ty had known he would throw that plan out the window.
Just remembering the terror and thrill of that moment made Ty’s stomach flutter. He couldn’t help himself—he reached out and slid his fingers along the back of Zane’s neck and pulled him closer, leaning in to kiss him. Zane sighed and relaxed into Ty’s arms as he rubbed his lips against Ty’s, then placed a tiny kiss at the corner of his mouth.
“Why can’t we just do one thing easy, huh?” Ty asked, frustrated by all the obstacles they seemed to deal with every day, the least of which was their own stunning inability to communicate with each other.
Zane raised his fingers to touch Ty’s cheek. “I don’t know,” he said, though it was with equal resignation. “Except this,” he whispered before kissing Ty again.
Ty hummed. “You have always been easy.”
“You haven’t,” Zane said, but he softened the words with a smile.
A noise from the bathroom drew Ty’s attention just long enough for him to miss the next intended kiss. He sighed and pressed his nose and mouth to Zane’s cheek. “I know I’m not easy,” he whispered. “I promise I’ll make it up to you.”
Zane shook his head. “I knew what I was getting when I realized I loved you. I don’t expect—don’t
want
you to change, no matter how crazy you make me sometimes.”
“I like you crazy,” Ty growled as he stood up. He leaned over Zane, propping his arms on the chair and forcing Zane to sit back as he straddled his lap and kissed him, long and hard. Zane hummed in approval and gripped his hips. He sighed when Ty straightened.
“Love you,” Zane whispered.
Ty patted Zane’s cheek. “That will never get old.”
Another, louder sound from the bathroom caused him to growl in annoyance, and he stood and stepped away from Zane. “I better go take up my post again.”
Zane nodded, letting his hands drag away from Ty’s hips. He stifled a yawn and turned back to the desk. Ty stood there for a moment longer, watching his lover in the garish light.
If there was one thing in the world Ty was willing to give up everything for, it was sitting right there in front of him.

J ULIAN was secured in the back of the sedan as Ty fiddled with the GPS on the dash. Ty had spent a solid half an hour devising the most evil ways he could come up with to make sure Julian couldn’t even get his hands together, much less pick any locks. They were waiting for Zane to finish checking them out, and Ty was keeping one eye on the two men in the back as he punched in the appropriate directions in the GPS.

With every button he pushed, the GPS unit offered suggestions. He shook his head at the list of Washingtons that it offered, eyes scanning for the right one. Movement in the rearview mirror caught his attention as he found the appropriate Washington, and he glanced up as he pushed the button, narrowing his eyes at his prisoners.

“Didn’t you two get enough of that last night?” he asked in a low growl.
“I’m trying to restore blood flow to my fingers,” Julian said.
“I’ll restore your blood flow pretty damn quick if you try one more thing,” Ty said, voice low and serious.
Julian rolled his eyes and sighed, shifting his shoulder and wiggling his fingers, which were hanging in the air. One hand was cuffed to the handle above the door, the other to the floorboard, wound around his leg first so he had to lean forward. Cameron was restrained in similar fashion. They had to be uncomfortable as hell, but Ty wasn’t taking any chances.
He and Zane had discussed trying to head back to Chicago and find a flight, but a call in to Burns had informed them that a blizzard was heading their way and flights were being grounded left and right. They’d have better luck driving, and if they left right now they’d get ahead of the snowstorm and miss it entirely, even if they were having difficulties with their prisoners.
A few moments later, Zane joined them and Ty pulled out of the parking space.
“In point one miles, turn left on Willowcreek Road.”
Zane was still shivering from the cold as the GPS began giving instructions, even though the car was finally beginning to warm. They weren’t even out of the parking lot of the hotel yet and the GPS lady was bossing them around. The little arrow on the screen of the unit was pointing the wrong way, and they weren’t facing anything resembling Willowcreek Road.
“You’re going to have to do better than this, honey,” Ty told the little unit stuck to the dash.
“I should get my phone out,” Zane said as he settled in the passenger seat, newspaper on his lap, covered cup of coffee in hand. “Record you talking to it.”
“Talking to what, your phone?” Ty asked as he turned the car toward the exit to the parking lot.
“In point one miles, turn left on Willowcreek Road.”
“The GPS,” Zane said, gesturing toward it with his coffee cup.
“She’s more fun to listen to than you are. At least she knows what she’s talking about.”
“Ha ha.”
“I kind of dig her,” Ty said with a smirk.
“Yeah, well, the shine will wear off when all she does is bitch at you for seven hundred miles,” Zane said.
“And that’s different from you, how?”
When Zane turned to meet his eyes, Ty winked at him. Zane looked away, a smile forming.
“In point two miles, turn left on entrance ramp to Interstate 80/90, Indiana East-West Toll Road. In point one mile, stay left on Interstate 80/90 East, Indiana East-West Toll Road.”
“Loosen up, honey,” Ty said to it.
“Please stop talking to the inanimate object,” Julian said from the back seat.
“You can give that up,” Zane said as he opened the newspaper. He didn’t look at Ty, but he was still smirking. “He talks to his guns too.”
“That fits,” Julian said under his breath.
Ty snorted at them both but remained silent as he followed the directions the GPS gave him. He took the toll ticket as they went through the entrance, handing it to Zane as they got on the toll road. As the miles began to roll by, Ty couldn’t have been more relieved that he and Zane had managed to steal those few hours in Chicago. He wanted to reach out and touch his partner, rest his hand on Zane’s knee, brush his fingers against his shoulder, anything. He refrained, though, the professional side of him winning out.
Zane seemed content as he read his paper and sipped at his coffee. Of course, Zane always seemed content. That was one of the things Ty loved about him. He was rock steady most of the time, dry and unflappable. A solid wall against which Ty’s changing moods battered. Traits that made the moments Zane lost his composure even more entertaining.
They stopped at a travel plaza roughly an hour after leaving the hotel in order to get breakfast. As Zane took care of whatever the hell it was Zane did in travel plazas, Ty sat in the driver’s seat, fidgeting. He wasn’t going to be driving the next leg, but it was easier to see the two men sitting in the back in the rearview mirror from that side of the car, and to react with his dominant right hand if they put up a fight.
He couldn’t get over the tension that had settled in his shoulders or the remnants of the Red Bull, and it was manifesting in a great deal of twitching, shifting, and drumming his fingers on the steering wheel.
“Intelligence operatives often pick food or travel areas as their cover, Cameron,” Julian said from the backseat, where he sat examining his neatly manicured nails as his hand hung above his head. “Restaurants, gas stations. Lots of people in and out to mask suspicious behavior. A place like this, it must make Agent Grady very nervous.”
“Try talking without making noise for a while,” Ty said, his eyes still on Zane, who had not turned back toward the window at all. “Are you okay?” Cameron asked him.
“I get fidgety if I sit too long,” Ty answered almost against his will. He’d found that no matter what Cameron asked him, he seemed physically incapable of lying to the guy.
Cameron nodded, looking almost like he felt sorry for Ty. “Aren’t you supposed to be able to, like, be still and hide? On… surveillance or something?”
“I don’t do that kind of thing anymore.” Ty looked at Cameron with one eyebrow raised and a slight smirk. “We have cameras for that.”
“Really,” Cameron said, heavy on the sarcasm. “So what does a federal agent do if he’s not watching other people?”
“We cause all kinds of trouble. Terrorize innocent civilians, arrest the wrong people, take advantage of government healthcare.”
Ty saw Julian put a finger to his own temple and pull the imaginary trigger.
Ty snorted and shook his head. Wouldn’t that save them all a lot of trouble? He began to shake his knee side to side, starting the sedan rocking. He heard Julian sigh from the back seat.
“I understand why you can’t sit still, Agent Grady.” He sounded almost as if he were offering a consolation prize.
“I kind of doubt that.” Mentally sparring with Julian Cross had long ago lost its luster.
“How long were you there?” Julian asked.
Ty’s movements slowed, then stilled as his breaths came harder. The hair on his arms rose as a chill went through him.
“You scream ‘prisoner of war’, Agent Grady,” Julian said, his voice low and almost sympathetic. “But you’re too young to have been captured in the Gulf. That means Special Forces, black ops. Navy SEAL?”
Ty swallowed hard, ashamed to see that his fingers gripping the steering wheel were turning white. “I was Force Recon.”
“The batshit insane ones. Of course, that makes sense.”
“What is that?” Cameron asked.
“Agent Grady was a Marine. Force Recon is their answer to the SEALs or Army Rangers.”
“That’s impressive,” Cameron said as his eyes cut toward Ty.
“It is indeed. Save for the fact that most Marines are slightly insane
before
they live through the hell of combat. Was it Afghanistan, then?”
Ty kept his eyes front and center, not looking in the mirror because he knew this man would be able to read him.
“Captured in Afghanistan, I’d wager. How long were you held?”
“I wasn’t.”
It was the same bullshit line Ty always gave when the subject came up. That operation was still classified. The answer, though, the answer only he, Nick O’Flaherty, and that weird little guy from Homeland Security knew, was twenty-three days, nine hours, and fiftyone minutes.
Ty glanced up to see Julian’s reflection. His dark eyes seemed sympathetic. Ty looked to Cameron in the mirror—the young man had gone pale with the implication. Even though Ty had denied it, they both knew what Julian had said was true. Ty nodded, not intending to discuss the matter any further.
Maybe now Julian Cross would realize that Ty knew something about trying to escape.