Cut & Run (41 page)

“Well, damn,” he muttered. He scrunched his nose. Might as well take it off. It would just get wet and sticky and gooey and that was just gross.

He pulled the tape as fast as he could, pleasantly surprised when it didn’t take off too much skin. He turned on the water, poked at the side of the gouge again, and watched a thin stream of red trickle from the deepest cut of it.

“You know, I think that’s gonna hurt even more if I get it wet,” he muttered to himself. He grabbed a washcloth from the counter and climbed into the shower, holding the cloth over his upper arm.

“Need help?” Ty’s voice asked softly from the doorway.

Zane turned his chin to look through the clear shower curtain. Ty was a little wavy, but recognizable. “I forgot about the bandage,” Zane said. “I took it off so it wouldn’t get ... gloppy.”

“Gloppy,” Ty echoed with a nod, as if that made perfect sense. “Need help?” he repeated.

“Yes.”

Ty gave that a small smile and moved into the bathroom, pulling his Cut & Run | 249

buttoned shirt over his head and tossing it to the floor. He then slid out of his suit pants and briefs and left them on the ground as well before he stepped into the shower and gently pressed a hand to the rag over Zane’s arm.

Once Ty held the cloth, Zane turned his back to the water and leaned his head into the spray, wetting down, running one hand through it to soak his hair. He let the hot water pour over his face, groaning quietly as it sluiced down over his shoulders and body. Without warning, Ty stepped into him and pushed him hard against the shower wall, kissing him hungrily as the water cascaded over them both.

Zane’s groan didn’t abate as it came out over Ty’s lips. He wrapped his good arm around Ty and gave as good as he got; the sizzle popped inside him, just like every time before. He’d craved it. He’d tried the oblivion of alcohol and the high of drugs, but he’d not been able to find anything to match this. Ty’s touch was unique and irreplaceable. The idea stunned him, and he wavered a little, catching himself against the wall with one hand.

Ty murmured to him soothingly and pressed himself hard against Zane’s body with a growl. Zane lowered his chin to rub his cheek against Ty’s temple, flattening himself against the wall—practically out of the water—to keep Ty as close as possible. He shifted his hips, sliding his more-than-interested cock against Ty’s wet thigh. Ty murmured quietly and bit down on Zane’s lip, rocking his hips into Zane as his hands traveled down his wet body to slide around and grab his ass possessively. Gasping, Zane shifted into the rhythm of Ty’s hips so they ground against each other. A hoarse moan from his throat echoed around them before being drowned out by the falling water.

Ty pulled away with a gasping pant suddenly, and he put his hand on Zane’s chest and stepped back carefully in the shower stall. “You finish your shower,” he rasped breathlessly. “Then we’ll do this right,” he promised.

Reaching up to hold the cloth to his arm, Zane lifted glazed eyes to look at Ty as he dragged in breaths. He was flushed all over, both from the hot water and the attention.

Ty was obviously just as turned on as he was, chest heaving as he tried to regain his composure, and body on full alert as the water pounded down on him. “We may even eat first,” he added with a crooked smirk.

“Get out of the shower before I turn you around and fuck you right here,” Zane warned in a growl.

“Pushy,” Ty observed as he turned and stepped out of the shower, standing there for a moment to calm himself before he grabbed a thin robe and shrugged into it.

250 | Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux

Zane closed his eyes and turned to the side, pressing his heated cheek to the cool tile while the water started to soak into the rag he held over his arm. What was it about Ty that made him lose control? Inhaling sharply as his arm twinged painfully, he merely dropped the rag and turned around to grab the soap and clean up.

By the time he was done, Ty had retrieved the pizza from an unimpressed delivery boy who was apparently used to people answering the door while soaking wet and still in a robe, and he’d set a couple sodas out on the kitchen counter. As soon as he got out of the shower, Zane shook his jeans out and frowned at them. They were a mess. He just dropped them and wrapped the big towel around his waist. Wasn’t like he’d need clothes for that long.

He thumped down the steps to join Ty in the kitchen and groaned happily. “Pizza. Food of the gods.”

Ty just gave him a crooked smile and pushed the pizza box in front of him. It didn’t take long for them both to eat. Despite being hungry, they both wanted something else.

Finally, Zane got up from the stool, towel dipping precariously low on his hips, and took his empty drink can to the trash. Ty watched him as he finished his drink. Waiting.

One hunger fed, the greater one was almost overwhelming. Zane turned and walked back to Ty, took the can out of his hand and set it on the bar, and grabbed his chin. “I want you on that bed, under me,
now
.”

Ty’s body reacted instantly to the words. He licked his lips in anticipation and stood, pressing their bodies together. “Missed me, huh?” he wagered with a small smirk.

“Fuck,” Zane murmured, pulling Ty closer. “You’re worse than heroin.”

Ty stopped short and cocked his head at Zane. “Not sure that’s a compliment,” he muttered.

Zane tipped his head to the side and sighed, not able to meet Ty’s eyes. “I crave heroin.”

“Ah, Christ,” Ty groaned as he moved again and pushed away from Zane. He walked slowly to the sink counter, rubbing the back of his neck and grumbling to himself. “You know, you keep turning into a worse and worse idea.”

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Zane sighed and shifted to sit on the nearest stool again. He leaned his elbows against the counter. “You’re right,” he said, scrubbing at his face with one hand. “And another addiction is
just
the thing I need, let me tell you.”

Never mind that he feared this addiction was already rooted deep inside him.

Ty stood with his back to Zane, his hands flat on the sink top as he stared at the reflection of the overhead lights in the stainless steel. Being called an addiction was not sitting well with him, especially from an addict, and he began to worry about how Zane was seeing this arrangement. Ty lowered his head and frowned down at the drain. A lot of things occurred to him to ask of Zane at that point. The only thing Ty knew he could ask without making a damn fool of himself, though, was, “Are you using?”

Zane closed his eyes. “Only you,” was the best answer, the answer he wanted to give. But it wasn’t the
correct
answer, and he had no right to lie.

“Nothing hard core,” he finally admitted. It had been a self-destructive couple of months, when he first got to Miami. He wondered if Ty would care.

Ty straightened and turned to stare at Zane. “You back on the bottle?”

he asked neutrally.

Nothing other than a flat-out negative while steadily meeting Ty’s eyes would convince him otherwise, and Zane couldn’t do it. He shrugged a little. “Yeah.”

Ty looked away and shook his head, walking to the steps wordlessly and heading to the second floor. Zane sighed as he sat in the kitchen before slowly getting up to follow. Ty retrieved the pair of sweatpants he had been wearing before he was called in to Burns’ office, tossed his robe aside, and he was stepping into them when Zane topped the stairs.

“Well, then,” he said as soon as he heard Zane enter the room. “You won’t mind if I have a drink,” he said curtly as he brushed past Zane and headed downstairs for the kitchen again.

Zane sighed. That answered that question. “By all means,” he said, going to the bathroom to put his briefs and dirty jeans back on and taking another look at the rip in his arm. He sniffed at it and ventured back down the narrow stairs to face Ty, who had retrieved a bottle from the refrigerator and was standing at the kitchen counter, drinking it as he played the bottle top over his fingers like it was a poker chip.

Zane sat on the stool across from him, sliding a hand through his wet hair. “Now what?” he asked. It was a question that had many meanings.

“Want a drink?” Ty offered sarcastically.

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Narrowing his eyes, Zane shook his head sharply. “Only when I’m in for the night,” he muttered.

“Well, that makes it better,” Ty responded in the same sarcastic tone.

“We all know the
chicos
in Miami sleep like babies.”

Zane’s face went hard. “Why are you giving me shit over this if you don’t care?”

“Do I sound like a man who doesn’t care?” Ty asked, trying to keep the hostility out of his voice.

That brought Zane up short, and his sharp reply died in his throat. Ty sounded … upset? He certainly looked angry. After four months apart, he was angry because Zane had started drinking and popping again. He didn’t know what to say without going back into that dangerous emotional territory. “So you want me to leave off it again?” he asked, voice even.

Ty closed his eyes and snorted in exasperation as he lowered his head.

Rubbing his eyes and wincing, he shook his head and said, “That is sort of the idea of the whole being on the wagon thing.”

“And I obviously have so much respect for the whole being on the wagon thing,” Zane retorted, sliding off the stool and heading back upstairs to get his shirt. This wasn’t going to go well, and he saw no reason to stick around for more abuse. He’d made his decision at the time, and at the time it had made sense. The sound of Ty’s beer bottle crashing against the nearest wall followed his exit.

Zane stopped midway up the stairs and turned to look down at Ty as the man stood in the middle of the kitchen. “What the fuck is your problem?”

“You don’t even care, do you?” Ty asked heatedly as the wall dripped and fizzed with Hard Lemonade. “You didn’t give a damn if you were killed down there.”

Zane leaned his shoulder against the wall, tipping his head back to glare at the ceiling. What did you say to a question like that? The truth? “Why should I give a damn? I got the job done, and no one I worked with was hurt.”

Ty glared at him for a moment before lowering his head once more and placing his hands flat on the countertop to calm himself. “All right, then,”

he finally said in a soft voice.

Anger flared again in Zane, and he wasn’t of any mind to repress it.

“So now you’re going to sit in judgment over four months of my life with no explanation? Fuck you, Grady.” He stalked up the steps and into the Cut & Run | 253

bathroom. For a long moment there he’d almost been convinced Ty
did
care.

“You told me,” Ty called after him angrily, coming up the steps behind him, “how long it had been since someone gave a damn about you!

You make it fucking impossible to do it!” he shouted as he rounded on the bathroom door.

Zane froze, hands on the sink as he looked at the hurt that surfaced in his eyes and crossed his face despite his effort to swallow it down. After a tense silence he felt Ty standing nearby, and he said hoarsely, “Add four more months to the tally.”

“You going for a record?” Ty asked heatedly. “Because I don’t give a flying fuck about the people you were working with in fucking Florida.”

“What are you saying, Ty? ’Cause I’ve changed my mind about four times about what I
think
you’re saying,” Zane snapped back before turning on him. “I didn’t give a shit about anybody for five years, and then when I did, I didn’t do a damn thing about it slipping away.”

“I’m saying,” Ty answered in a slow, stubborn tone, “that I would be hurt if something happened to you.”

Zane’s anger wilted, and he just looked at Ty while he stood there and ached inside. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

Ty had nothing to say to that. He sighed heavily and shook his head.

“Is this going to interfere with what we have to do?” he asked resignedly after a long moment of tense silence.

“I’ll stop with the drinking,” Zane finally promised after a long pause, turning to pick his shirt up off the floor.

“And your other … addictions?” Ty asked slowly.

Zane tilted his head, trying to stretch some of the tension out of his neck before looking back to Ty. “I’ll get it under control,” he murmured, settling his dark eyes on Ty’s body appraisingly.

Ty shivered slightly in the cool air of his bedroom, and he looked away toward the window and the small balcony. “You staying here tonight?”

he finally asked in a beaten voice.

Looking up at himself in the mirror, Zane knew what his reply had to be, as much as he didn’t want it to be. “No. I’ll go on ahead and find somewhere for us to work,” he said quietly. It would not be a good idea for him to stay so close to Ty. It was far, far too tempting, and he knew he’d never be able to resist.

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Ty sighed and rolled his head back and forth. “How ’bout this, then?”

he said in exasperation. “I would like for you to stay,” he told Zane slowly.

Zane sighed and turned to walk over to Ty, sliding his arms around his waist and leaning to press their foreheads together abruptly. Ty had asked; Zane would go for broke. “So,” he murmured. “Is this one addiction I can indulge?”

Ty’s eyes closed as soon as they made contact, and he turned his head to the side and sighed softly as he slid his arms around Zane. “At least it’s not one that’ll kill you,” he answered flatly.

Zane’s mouth tipped up at the corners. He wasn’t too sure he’d say that. “I’ll stay,” he murmured.

Ty just nodded in response, not moving from the tentative embrace.

He rested his chin on Zane’s shoulder and exhaled slowly. Zane squeezed his arms tentatively. “Never a dull moment,” he muttered. They’d been flash and bang from the first moment they’d met.

“Yeah, well, if you weren’t such a dick…,” Ty murmured with a small smile.

Zane snickered. “Works out well since you’re an asshole.”

“We’re gonna have to talk about these puns.” Ty groaned as he pulled away and shuffled slowly for the bed. Neither man was thinking of sex any longer. It was obvious from the slump of Ty’s shoulders that he had exhausted what energy he had left on being pissed off.