I'll Be Your Last (9 page)

You’d probably better leave as fast as you came in. Neither one of us deserves to be tortured like this. What do you want from me, Mack?” Mack’s hands came up as if under arrest. His expression was full of indecision and disbelief. “I’m not looking for a partner.”

“Maybe I am,” Woody stated quietly but decisively. He crossed his arms over his chest, grabbing his elbows as a type of support.

Grief stricken, he realized that the joy he felt when he saw Mack holding the dildo had disappeared, had disappeared fast. All he knew was he didn’t intend to be used by any man, not even Mack Penchant.

Not even after that searingly hot night they’d had.

Woody turned away. He was tired and couldn’t face this problem man any longer.

Mack crossed the room, pressing his bare chest with its layers of muscle and crisp hair against Woody’s naked back. Cupping Woody’s pecs, he ground the heels of his hands against his nipples. “You know we want the same thing.”

Surrounded by all that male heat, Woody struggled with his composure. He truly did not want another one-off fuck. “I’m not sure you know what you want, Mack. All I know is that I can’t supply it.” Mack moved fast, spinning him around. He shuddered when Mack wrapped his hand around his nape, trapping him. Fierce blue eyes shone with clear intent. Mack’s mouth opened and claimed his, forcing his lips open, forcing a deep kiss. Their tongues slid off each other’s, battling for control. The kisses weren’t tender in any way, and Woody placed his hand on Mack’s chest in caution. He’d have given ten years of his life not to have groaned at the excruciatingly erotic mating when Mack turned desperate and vulnerable.

“You want me, too,” Mack stated in triumph, his kiss gentling, his other hand slipping down Woody’s chest to push the towel off his hips.

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Woody’s eyes shuttered when Mack grasped his penis and stroked from base to tip, but it was Mack’s hand on his neck controlling him, the fingertips digging into his skin.

“Come to bed,” Mack murmured.

Woody’s hands came up to grasp Mack’s wrists. If he didn’t stop him now, as much as he wished it was otherwise, as much as he wanted the man, he’d hate himself later. He needed Mack gone. Gone now.

“Get out,” Woody ground out. He glared menacingly at Mack, trying to cover his desire.

Mack stared at first, unbelieving, then challenging, and finally huffed out a breath. Grabbing his shirt and jacket, he was gone, the front door banging loudly.

Naked and shivering now that Mack’s heat was gone, Woody finally ordered himself to move, to do something. Tomorrow he’d ask for a transfer. He’d think of something to tell Fred about why he wanted out so soon after joining the team.

* * * *

Mack made his escape from Woody’s house as fast as he could.

Christ! What does the guy think he’ll get from me? You don’t want a
steady boyfriend and certainly not some kid. But shit, you have to
admit Woody’s really no kid.

He pulled over in a strip mall’s parking lot to think. The fear of getting close to someone went all the way back to when he was a kid himself. Mack had never known his father, and his alcoholic mother drank herself to death when he was seventeen. With one year left of high school, he followed her into booze, smoked pot, and had some scrapes with the law.

Since he was a big, husky, well-built guy even then, he was approached by a Marine recruiter. After he signed the papers, he was shocked when the recruiter gave him his first homosexual fuck.

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Confused and scared, he got through boot camp without another gay encounter and was sent to Africa on humanitarian missions.

Throughout his eight-year Marine career, he repressed any homosexual tendencies, carousing with the best of them, drinking and screwing women. No one would ever catch him with another man.

Men were his secret. He was well aware that his life had been spent, for the longest time, in denial. He’d always surrounded himself with men who wouldn’t tolerate gays. He took
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
to heart. Didn’t ask, didn’t tell, didn’t acknowledge. He fucked women, refusing to accept how unsatisfying it was. He refused to accept his need for a flat male chest, for muscular, hairy thighs, for the prickliness of a five o’clock shadow rubbing against his own cheek. Against his belly and thighs.

Much of his early life had been spent in the denial of how amazing it was to look down and see a male head at his groin and a big male mouth sucking his cock. When he couldn’t take it any longer, he drove miles away from the base to hunt for anonymous sex.

He’d sit at the bar waiting for another butch guy to come along. He wasn’t attracted to effeminate gays, but he didn’t know why a guy who looked like him turned him on. Didn’t know and didn’t want to.

He just knew it was tight, masculine ass he wanted to fuck.

Mack never let any man fuck
him
in the ass. They could suck his dick, even play with his pucker hole, but never, under any circumstances did he drop his guard, emotional or physical, enough to let any man’s cock enter his channel. Never again, anyway. He’d been too young and too stupid to stop the recruiter. Afterward, he’d wept in privacy, knowing he’d been turned on by the ramming he’d gotten.

But he vowed to do the ass fucking from then on.

He smacked the heel of his hand against the steering wheel, glad for the sharp pain radiating up his arm. It helped him shove down the memories.

* * * *

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It was almost the end of the shift. Woody, trying very hard to keep his mind off Mack’s visit to his house last night, hunkered over his computer to finish up a report. Over the sounds of phones ringing, cops yakking, and the occasional shout of a self-described innocent perp, Arne and Sam strode through the door bickering with each other. Must be the day for it. Except he didn’t think Arne and Sam wanted to fuck each other. Well, at least not that he knew of.

“Hey, where’s Mack? You guys want to get a beer?” Arne’s voice broke into his fantasies of rolling around on mussed sheets, lips and tongues locked in wet kisses. “Don’t know where he is,” Woody growled without looking up. A few minutes later, he hit
send
, signed off the computer, and headed for the locker room. He studied the contents of his locker, needing to chill out before the other guys asked what he was mad about.

Mack ambled into the locker room.

“Hey, Mack, want to get a beer?”

“Sure. I’m in.” He slammed his locker shut and moved to follow Sam and Arne. “Kane, you coming?” He tossed the question over his shoulder as if it didn’t make any difference to him one way or another.

Woody ground his teeth. But it would look odd if he turned down the beer, so, against his better judgment, he followed along like a sheep. One beer and out. The bar was crowded, but they were able to grab a booth at the back when the former occupants left. He wondered briefly if they were scared off. Oh, who the hell cared anyway? He was in a foul mood. Liquor probably wouldn’t help. One and out.

Woody made sure he didn’t sit next to Mack, but across the table from him was not a good plan, either. The knit cap was back on, hiding the man’s gloriously thick, silky hair.

A round of beers arrived at the table. Surreptitiously watching the other man, Woody picked at his bottle’s label, peeling it off in untidy bits but keeping them corralled in a little pile. Thoughts swirled
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Jane Leopold Quinn

around in his mind. He’d never been so discombobulated about another man. His eyes squeezed shut when a hot throb shot through his dick at the image of Mack sucking him off. Okay, he was
not
happy with his reactions. Woody hadn’t asked for this kind of angst.

He didn’t deserve it, didn’t want it. Wouldn’t stand for it!

For what felt like the hundredth time, he surveyed the bar just to keep from doing some eye lusting on Mack. The newcomer to the place made him stare.
Fuck. Brad?
Just then, Brad turned around and smiled at a man coming through the door behind him.
What the fuck?

He’s with another man? Oh, this is too much.
Woody ducked his head. Was Brad out now? Certainly not in a cop bar. His head lowered, he surveilled his former lover.
Perfect. After dumping me in
the movie theater, the jerk comes to a bar like this with another man.

They headed toward the bar, ordered drinks, then stood there popping peanuts and watching the TV screen. Woody wondered if the other man was that structural engineer in Brad’s office, the one he’d bitched about all the time. They didn’t seem to be acting like lovers, but then Brad was an expert in hiding that part of his life.

“Woody.” Sam knocked on the table in front of him to get his attention.

“Yeah?” He jerked his gaze away from Brad.

“I was asking if you were working Thanksgiving? Someone you know?”

“Huh?”

Sam nodded toward the two men at the bar.

Woody risked a quick glance at Mack, and his heart stopped. He couldn’t process the intensity of the look on Mack’s face. He had to get out of that booth. “No.”
Shit. Downplay, downplay.
“Gotta take a leak.” He nudged Arne’s shoulder to let him out.

Glad that Brad hadn’t seemed to notice him, he headed for the back hallway to the johns. Inside, he leaned back on the door and took a deep breath of the fetid men’s-room air. Patting his thighs, he muttered, “Cool it. He hasn’t seen you.” But he wasn’t an investigator
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for nothing. He wanted to know who Brad was with and what their relationship was. And why the hell he was in this bar when everyone knew it was a cop bar. “None of your concern,” he muttered under his breath.

After taking care of business, Woody swept open the men’s room door and came face-to-face with Brad.
Fuck.
He was leaning on the wall and obviously waiting.

“Brad.” He made his voice as disinterested as he could.

“Hi, Woody.”

Woody wondered why he’d ever thought Brad was the one. Yeah, he was good-looking, but he didn’t look like…
Oh, fuck. Don’t start
measuring every guy by the great and wonderful Mack Penchant.

“Well, have a good evening. See ya.”

“Wood, wait a minute.”

Aiming for composure, Woody sucked in a quick breath. Wrong thing to do. Even over the usual bar smells, Brad’s cologne was unmistakable. He did not want to remember any of that. “Listen, Brad, we have nothing to say to each other.”

“I’m sorry for the way things turned out,” Brad replied.

“It is what it is. Now get back to your friend.”

“We’re dating.”

“And you came into a cop bar? Are you nuts?” It was all Woody could do to keep his cool and not smash his fist into Brad’s face for the hurt he caused. Dropping him in public, he then had the fucking nerve to come in here with another man.

“I said I was sorry, Woody.”

“Well, that’s fine, Brad. Good luck with—with that.” He waved his hand back out toward the bar. Then, as he turned to leave, who should be skulking at the entry to the back hallway, but…
Christ!

From bad to worse.

Time to go.
He pushed his way past Mack, waved to Sam and Arne, and slammed out the front door. They would probably think his abrupt departure odd, but he didn’t care.

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Jane Leopold Quinn

And to double hell with Mack Penchant. His luck with men sucked. Penchant was a no-go. Brad had betrayed him and now wanted to talk to him like everything was okay. Woody stalked down the sidewalk back to the station parking lot and his car, hoping anger would carry him all the way home. It was better than pain.

* * * *

Well, fuck.
Had Woody been arguing with that doofus-looking guy, the guy watching him leave the bar with an expression of longing on his face? Did they have a thing going? Or was it over, since the doof came in with another guy?
You idiot. Why wouldn’t Woody have
past lovers? He’s got it all. He’s the nicest guy you’d ever want in
your bed. Hottest, too. Damn.
He checked his watch. Was it too late to drive to Indiana and find someone to do? After being this close to him, could he fuck someone other than Woody? He shivered. Maybe he could pretend a stranger
was
Woody.

Watching Woody leave the bar alone stirred up his insides, flipped his stomach, made his balls ache. He wasn’t sure why. Being alone was his own emotional default. What was the man doing to him?

Back at the table, he said, “I gotta get some sleep, guys. See you tomorrow.” Shutting himself inside his car, he started the engine to get some heat going and then leaned back on the headrest, recollections filling his mind. They seemed fated to work together.

All he could see was how much he wanted to be with Woody. He couldn’t, though. He’d fail at a relationship. He’d never had one. He didn’t know how to. He’d single-mindedly pursued one-night hookups all his adult life. Now he was thirty-five. Did he want to be an old queen still prowling the bars? He snorted, knowing he was a bit too rough-looking to be a queen.

He headed for home and his only relationship. The minute he walked through the door, Kiki jumped around his legs as usual. “Hey, girl, glad to see you, too.” Mack ruffled the fur around her neck, gave
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her a good belly scratching, then set about getting dog food from the cupboard, pouring it into the bowl, and refreshing the water dish. In the kitchen doorway, he leaned against the opening and surveyed his close-to-barren living room.
Shit.
The kid had furniture, pictures on the walls, personal tchotchkes. He probably talked to his neighbors on warm summer evenings and helped shovel snow in the winter. He bet Woody’d always had everything that had been missing from his own life.

And Mack found himself wanting these things. “Should I do it, Kiki? Should I?” Why was he asking the dog? She’d probably love to have another human to cavort with. Mack shuddered. Isn’t that what normal people wanted, too?