Dangerous Ground 2: Old Poison (2 page)

He did not want to fight with Taylor over this thing with Bradley. He especially did not want to fight with him tonight when he had been looking forward to this evening—this weekend—all day.

They needed this time together. It had been a rough couple of weeks with Will working late most nights and Taylor increasingly frustrated with desk duty. Taylor wasn't the most patient guy in the world at the best of times. And this had not been the best of times for him.

Will had planned on a long weekend of spoiling him rotten, starting with dinner at Taylor's favorite Japanese restaurant. But now…

So did he tell Taylor the bad news up front or did he wait till Taylor was properly fed and fucked?

Emmylou sang, “I'm riding a big blue ball, I never do dream I may fall…”

“What do you think?” he asked Riley.

Riley flicked his ears and stared out the window, panting softly.

Dangerous Ground: Old Poison

5

“You're no help,” Will grumbled.

* * * *

Will parked behind Taylor's silver Acura MDX in the narrow side driveway and got out of his own Toyota Land Cruiser. Evenings were damp this close to the beach. The air smelled of salt and old seaweed—corrupt yet invigorating.

He let Riley out of the passenger side of the SUV. Riley trotted down the driveway to the large, overgrown backyard, barking a warning to the neighborhood cats.

Will slid the gate shut. The house was an original Craftsman bungalow. It had been in terrible shape when Taylor bought it two years previously. Actually, it was still in terrible shape, but Taylor was renovating it, one room at a time, in his spare hours.

Will got his duffel bag of the backseat and the heavy, blue-and-gold-wrapped birthday present. He felt self-conscious about that present; he'd spent a lot of time and a fair amount of money on Taylor this year.

Hard to forget that Taylor nearly hadn't lived to see this birthday.

Speak of the devil. The side door opened, and Taylor came down the steps, an unguarded grin breaking the remote beauty of his face. There was a funny catch in Will's throat as he saw him alive and strong and smiling again.

“How was traffic?”

Will opened his mouth, but the next instant Taylor was in his arms, his mouth covering Will's in unaffected hunger. They were safe here. The cinder-block wall was high, and the bougainvillea draping over the edge of the roof neatly blocked out the view of this driveway from the street.

“Man, I missed you,” Taylor said when they surfaced for air.

“You saw me this morning.”

“For three minutes in front of Varga, Jabowitz, and Cooper. It's not the same.”

“No,” agreed Will, “it's not the same.” His gaze rested on Taylor's face; his heart seemed to swell with a quiet joy. “Happy birthday.”

“Thanks.” Taylor's smile widened. “Hey, I got your card.”

6

Josh Lanyon

“Oh.” Will was a little embarrassed about that card.
To My Sweetheart
or whatever it said.

Kind of over-the-top. He'd bought it on impulse. Taylor was smiling, though, and with no sign of mockery, so maybe it was okay.

“Is that for me?” Taylor asked as Will retrieved the tote bag and parcel he'd dropped when Taylor landed in his arms.

“Nah. I'm heading over to another party after I get done here.” Will shoved the blue-and-gold present into his hands. “Yes, it's for you.”

“Okay if I open it now?”

“You're the most impatient guy I ever met.” Will was amused, though.

“Hey, I waited three years for you,” Taylor threw over his shoulder, heading up the stairs into the house.

“Yeah, remind me again how you whiled away the hours in that lonely monastery as you waited?”

Taylor's chuckle drifted back.

Will heeled the side door shut and followed Taylor through the mud porch and into the kitchen.

This was one of the first rooms Taylor had renovated: a cozy breakfast nook with built-in window benches, gleaming mahogany cabinets and drawers with patinated copper fixtures, green granite counters, and gray-green slate floor. The numerous cabinets were well designed and well organized. The care and priority given the kitchen might have deceived someone into thinking cooking played a role in Taylor's life. In fact, the kitchen had been designed to please Will—the only person who had ever cooked a meal in that house.

There was a German chocolate cake on the table in the breakfast nook. Will's card was propped next to it with a couple of others:
To Our Son, To My Son, To My Brother, What is a
Brother? Happy Birthday, Uncle
. Greetings from the whole tribe. To the side of these was a wine bottle-shaped science experiment gone awry.

“What the hell is that?” Will peered more closely at the pickled contents of the wine bottle.

What it was, was a fucking
cobra
. The cobra stared back sightlessly at him, fangs bared.

Dangerous Ground: Old Poison

7

“It's my snake. I've been waiting all day to show it to you.” Taylor wiggled his eyebrows salaciously.

“Funny,” said Will, glancing at him. “Where did you get it?”

“It came in the mail.”

“Who sent it?”

Taylor shrugged.

“You don't know?”

“The card must have got lost.”

They both studied the bottle.

“What is the liquid?”

“Rice wine.”

“Is it poison?”

“It's not supposed to be. In fact, it's supposed to be a cure-all—and an aphrodisiac.”

“I bet bourbon works just as well, and you don't have that nasty cobra aftertaste.”

Taylor's smile was preoccupied. Will gave him a closer look.

“You don't have any idea who would have sent something like this?”

Taylor shook his head. Will laughed and threw an arm around his wide, bony shoulders.

“Spooked?”

“Nah.” But Taylor's brows were drawn together as he continued to gaze at the bottle.

“Weird, though, isn't it?”

“Yeah.”

Taylor had some weird friends. And weirder acquaintances. He had been in the DS longer than Will, signing on right out of college, and he'd been posted to Tokyo, Afghanistan, and briefly, Haiti. The next time he was posted overseas it would be as a regional security officer responsible for managing security operations for an embassy or for a number of diplomatic posts within an assigned area. That was one reason Will was hesitant to move in with him. Not a lot of point in setting up house when one or both of them could be stationed overseas within a year or so.

8

Josh Lanyon

Taylor didn't see it this way, of course. Taylor's idea was they should move in together immediately and they'd deal with the threat of a future separation when—if—it happened. He'd always had a tendency to leave tomorrow to take care of itself, but getting shot had cemented his determination to live every day as though it were his last.

Will understood that. He even agreed with it, in principle, but what happened to him when Taylor was posted overseas for three-or-so years? Things weren't as simple as Taylor liked to pretend.

He glanced at Taylor's profile. He was frowning, and Will did not want him frowning on his birthday.

“Hey,” he said softly. Taylor's head turned his way. “Want to open your present?”

“Sure.” Taylor started to pull the gold ribbon on the parcel he was carrying. Will put his hand over his.

“Your other present,” he said meaningfully, and Taylor started to laugh.

* * * *

Will stretched out on Taylor's wide bed in the cool, dark room that looked out onto the overgrown garden with the broken birdbath and the tumbledown garden shed, and he rested his face on his hands and spread his legs.

So gorgeous. So casually, unconsciously gorgeous. Wide shoulders, strong, lithe torso, long legs. There was a tiny velvet mole above his left butt cheek and, on his right shoulder, a small griffin tattoo that he'd acquired the night before he went into the Marine Corps. Will, his brother, Grant, and their three cousins all sported those griffin tattoos on their right shoulders.

Some kind of male-ritual, family-bonding thing.

Taylor had heard this from Will. He'd never met Will's family. Never met the brother or the cousins or Will's dad, who had been a sheriff in a small town in Oregon. Maybe one of these days.

He stroked a slow hand down the long, sleek line of Will's back, and Will shivered. Taylor bent his head and kissed Will right over the tiny velvet mole. Will shivered again.

Anticipation or something else?

Taylor enjoyed being fucked.

Dangerous Ground: Old Poison

9

In fact, he enjoyed it so much, it made him uneasy. He'd never told Will that, but Will probably knew. Will was scrupulous about keeping the scales perfectly balanced, because they always took turns. However, though that particular evening was Taylor's turn to be fucked, Will—in honor of Taylor's birthday—offered his own taut, tanned ass up for Taylor's pleasure.

And it
was
Taylor's pleasure. Doubly so because he sensed that Will didn't enjoy being fucked nearly as much as he did, and he was humbled to receive this gift. Taylor had never let anyone shove his cock in his ass besides Will; Will was more fair-minded and had probably taken turns with his other lovers.

Taylor didn't like thinking about Will's other lovers.

He took his time preparing, squirting the exotic oil he'd purchased—ginger, jasmine, rose, black pepper, sandalwood, and ylang-ylang in a slick, silvery liquid that warmed his fingers. A sweet scent like spicy flowers.

“What's that?” Will asked, glancing over his shoulder.

“Passion oil. You'll like it.”

Will resettled his chin on his folded arms. “You're into some strange shit, MacAllister.”

True enough. He'd done some wild things when he was younger. Will didn't know the half of it. But in other ways he'd been very conservative. In fact, the first time he'd let Will fuck him, something had seemed to snap in his brain; made him fear he was having some kind of psychotic break. Alerted him to the fact that he probably had one or two sexual hang-ups after all. Before Will, it was unthinkable that he'd let anyone take him. Occasionally one of his lovers would ask to fuck him, and if they pushed it, that was usually Taylor's cue to end the relationship. His relationships never lasted long anyway.

Will was the exception. In every way. Though Taylor had always tried to be an inventive and skilled lover, he took special pains that everything be good for Will.

He slipped his fingers down the crevice between Will's butt cheeks, seeking the tight pink bud of his anus.
Splitting the peach
: that's what the Chinese Taoists called this. Such romantic terms for everything:
blowing the flute
and
clouds and rain
and
jade stalk
. Funny stuff but…maybe sort of nice, too.

Ever so delicately he circled Will's opening, then slipped the tip of one oily finger inside, careful and slow.

10

Josh Lanyon

Will held very still, goose bumps rising over his smooth, tanned skin.

Taylor pushed inside, closing his eyes at the dark felt grip around his finger. His heart pounded hard, his own cock lifted—
arisen
,
angry
, those old Chinese would have said, but Taylor was anything but angry. Happy, excited…he stroked and pressed…satiny inside and satiny out.

“Does that feel good?” he murmured.

“Sure.” Will sounded a little winded.

Taylor silently cued Will to move onto his knees; even here they communicated silently, deftly. He guided his cock, already pearling and damp, and pushed slowly, inch by inch, into Will. “Are you—”

“Go,” Will jerked out. “Do it.”

Was Will loving it or just wanting it over with? Taylor was never quite sure, but he couldn't stop himself at this point. Will was pushing back against him, rocking into him. Taylor thrust back, and they settled into a quick, efficient rhythm.

Oh yes. More. More of this. Harder. Deeper. Faster. Taylor's eyes shut tight. Just feeling, feeling that gorgeous drag on the thick, pulsing shaft of his cock, feeling the heat and snug darkness, feeling everything.

Will grunted as Taylor changed angle, tried to hit the sweet spot just right.

“Good, Will?” gasped Taylor.

“Yeah. Good.”

So
good—but it was good all the ways they did it. And they had done it nearly every conceivable way. At least all the ways that Taylor figured wouldn't shock or dismay Will. Very much a meat-and-potatoes man, Will.

Will's harsh breaths were coming in counterpoint to his own. The rich, rolling sweetness tingled through Taylor, and he cried out as Will's body seemed to spasm around his own and he began to come in hard, hot jets
clouds and rain, firing the cannon, surrender, and die…

Dangerous Ground: Old Poison

11

Chapter Two

“Something on your mind?” Taylor asked as they were leaving for dinner.

“Who me?”

“Nah. The monster in your pants. Yeah, you. You seem kind of quiet tonight.”

“Nope.” But Will made an effort to snap out of his reflections.

They chatted about Will's case as they drove over to the restaurant. Taylor didn't ask about Monday, didn't mention it, so Will didn't have to evade or lie; he wouldn't have been able to lie, anyway. Even if he had a hope of getting away with it.

Which he didn't. He glanced at Taylor's profile and smiled inwardly.

To look at Taylor MacAllister, you would never think he was a dangerous man.

Correction. If you knew enough to recognize that easy, sure-footed way Taylor moved, the confidence with which he carried himself, the cool, direct way he met your eyes, you'd recognize that here was a guy who could handle himself in any situation. But that required being someone of experience yourself, someone who wasn't fooled by the fact that Taylor looked deceptively slender and graceful—almost pretty. The truth was, he was all wiry muscle and bones harder than unalloyed titanium. He was tough and relentless and utterly fearless.