Packing Heat (9 page)

Gavin too deeply to let him ruin his life. Gavin was bisexual. He

liked women. He could get married and have the wife, the kids, the

picket fence. He didn’t have to deal with bigots and disappointing

his family when he had other options.

Brad stripped down once he got into his room. Though he

was usualy neat, the pain in his chest and the sting behind his eyes

had him tossing his clothes on the floor to be dealt with later. He

made a beeline toward the master bathroom, desperate to wash

away the sinking feeling of dread surrounding him.

He turned the water scalding, not knowing if he was punishing

himself or trying to burn away the memory of Gavin’s shock when

Brad had brushed off the budding relationship between them as

nothing more than a meaningless fuck. Though Gavin had recovered

quickly, for one brief moment Brad saw the pain in his beautiful

eyes, and it had nearly kiled him.

He dipped his head under the hot water, repeating the

mantra, it’s for the best.

Rather than hide from the past, Brad thought about his life to

remind himself why the pain was worth it. Standing under the

shower, he alowed a sea of memories to flash back at him. Every

snide comment, every coworker who’d treated him like some sort

of sexual predator for liking men. The meals alone. The whispers

behind his back.

Brad remembered his father kicking him out of the house

before he’d even graduated high school. Homeless and friendless,

he couldn’t even turn to his boyfriend, because Jake was closeted

and had actualy joined in on the ostracizing when his teammates on

the footbal team had found out. Rather than stand up for Brad, his

lover for over a year had opted to protect himself and hurt Brad in

the process.

That was the first and last time Brad considered himself in

love—until Gavin.

Recaling Jake and his cowardly cruelty, Brad did something

he hadn’t in a very long time. He stood in the shower crying for a

lonely, rejected teenager who’d lost everything, including the boy

he’d loved with every ounce of his being. The pain was vivid as if

it’d only happened yesterday, rather than over twenty years ago.

He had temporarily forgotten the viciousness of the real world

in the haven of their apartment, but those women had given Brad a

sharp reminder of what he was exposing Gavin to by trying to drag

him into an open relationship with a man. Gavin who was usualy

upbeat and easygoing, with a smile that always reached his eyes

despite the grim realities of his job. Brad would be damned if he’d

be the reason for the light in Gavin dimming.

Crying and broken, Brad had to admit to himself that he

dated closeted men because they’d never want more from him than

a quick fuck. They were safe in a way open men weren’t, and Brad

ended up with them over and over again. He might act angry over

their eventual rejection, but he wasn’t, not realy. He took comfort

in the routine. Their rejection was always expected, a sad replay of

bad behavior that had started in high school and never stopped.

Until now.

Gavin was wiling to wade into the shark-infested waters for

Brad without even thinking. If Brad didn’t feel torn up over having

to push him away, he’d have to accept that he was faling madly in

love with him.

He didn’t want to think about the apartment they stil shared.

He didn’t want to dwel on his heart that felt like it was being ripped

in two. Brad just wanted to go to bed and hide from reality until

some sleep hopefuly cleared his thinking and wiped away the

painful memories.

In the morning he could be strong and find a way to break up

his and Gavin’s tangled lives as amicably as possible. For now he

was alone and exposed, but it was okay because no one knew and

no one cared.

Brad turned off the water. He did a lackluster job of drying

himself off and crawled into bed naked. The sheets stuck to his stil-

wet skin, but he didn’t care. He puled the covers up and closed his

eyes.

* * * *

feeling the fury rather than hide from it. It throbbed through him,

vibrating like a drum of unfairness being beaten by an infuriated

Irishman. His entire being was pulsating with the rage over the

injustice of coming so close to happiness and then having to watch it

be snatched away over free bread and sodas.

He had taken a cool shower earlier, hoping to calm his

temper, but it hadn’t helped.

Now he was cold and angry, his hair stil dripping into his

eyes because he couldn’t be fucked to dry it properly. The more he

thought about it, the more certain he was that he hadn’t read the

signs wrong. Brad felt the same things Gavin did. He wanted more

than a few days of good sex. They shared an apartment, for

Christ’s sake. Fucking Gavin and then shoving him away made

absolutely no sense. Brad wasn’t young and rash. He had to have

known that giving into temptation would lead to either a relationship

or a real sticky breakup.

Gavin was usualy easygoing and laid-back, but when he truly

got pissed off—watch out!

He had an Irish temper just like the rest of his family, and

tonight Brad Archer had set him off like a firecracker on New

Year’s. He couldn’t decide if he wanted to go into the other

bedroom and kick the living shit out of the massive firefighter or tie

him down and force him to admit the truth.

Considering Brad’s size and Gavin’s profession, he got out of

bed opting for the latter. He could probably hold his own in a fight

against Brad, but he’d stil have to arrest himself once he calmed

down, and Brad did have a mean streak. Two heavyweights laying

into each other was a bad plan.

So domestic violence was a no-go.

But tying the stubborn asshole down until he came clean over

his sudden change of heart was an absolute must.

Gavin tucked his police-issue handcuffs into the back of his

sweatpants and took care to open his bedroom door quietly. He

realy wanted the element of surprise on his side, because Brad

wasn’t likely to go down easily. Gavin handcuffed the unwiling on a

regular basis, but he was one of those path-of-least-resistance guys.

He could likely get Brad pinned and cuffed, but he’d rather not

make it a bigger production than it needed to be.

He took equal care with Brad’s bedroom door at the end of

the halway, knowing he made barely a sound as the knob turned

and he padded barefoot into Brad’s bedroom. Dark as it was, a

strip of moonlight iluminated Brad on the bed, curled into white

sheets, looking unusualy vulnerable. There was something in the

way the sheets were puled up high, one large hand clutching the

edge as if looking for security.

Gavin’s breath caught as he studied the hard edges to Brad’s

features, the way his jaw seemed locked and tense, the stiff line of

his broad shoulders under the sheets. It was almost as if Brad was

waiting for an attack, though it was obvious he was deeply asleep.

He hadn’t even stirred when Gavin opened the door. That in itself

was odd, considering Brad’s job forced him to come to ful

wakefulness on a dime.

Taking advantage of Brad when he was defenseless was

probably wrong, but Gavin remembered the way Brad brushed him

off at dinner, and decided he didn’t realy give a fuck. He jumped

on the bed when he could have just leaned over and handcuffed at

least one of Brad’s wrists to the wrought iron headboard, but it

turned out Gavin was feeling more aggressive than he gave himself

credit for.

Brad felt like he couldn’t breathe, as if the weight of the

world were crushing down on his chest. He fought the heaviness of

sleep, stil halfway trapped in nightmares where he was forced to

watch Gavin being ridiculed in front of al his friends and coworkers,

which was a thousand times worse than his usual dreams where

Brad was the sole target for the hate.

“Jesus! Your wrists are fucking huge.” Gavin’s voice filtered

through his fogged senses, and Brad fought against him, not realy

sure if it was dream Gavin or the real one. He lashed out, using his

free hand to shove at the weight on his chest. He took a breath of

unrestricted air when the weight lifted, though the moment was

short-lived. Gavin jumped back on him with a low growl. “You’re

going down, big man.”

Brad came fuly awake to the feeling of Gavin wrestling with

his right arm, pushing it back against the head of the bed. When the

sensation of cold metal cutting into his wrist hit him, he jerked his

arm instinctively away from the restriction. He nearly dislocated his

shoulders when he realized not one but both his wrists were now

handcuffed to the bed. Brad tilted his head back and stared at the

metal glinting in the moonlight.

“What the fuck?” he rasped, trying not to hyperventilate as he

moved his arms again. The scrape of the cuffs against wrought iron

sounded like nails on a chalkboard to Brad because it meant he was

trapped and decidedly out of control. “Unlock these.”

“No, I don’t think I wil.”

Brad lifted his head to look at Gavin, who was stil straddled

over Brad’s chest. His breathing was heavy, his light eyes narrowed

in a raw fury that was shocking enough to render Brad temporarily

speechless. He didn’t think Gavin was capable of getting that angry,

but he’d obviously been way off with that assessment.

“This is not my thing,” Brad said slowly, stil fighting to hide

his panic. “Realy, Gav, you need to unlock these handcuffs and get

the fuck off me. This is not my kink.”

“And you think I give a shit what your kink is?” Gavin lifted

his eyebrows mockingly. “You wanna get free, you’ve gotta fucking

earn it.”

Brad gritted his teeth, battling his temper and anxiety. The

war was lost before it realy started. He let out a low growl of fury

and grabbed the metal headboard, forcing the entire bed to move

with the power of his anger. “Unlock these fucking cuffs, Connoly!

Get them the fuck off me or I swear to God the second I get free

I’m gonna make you sorry you ever met me! Unlock ’em! You hear

me, you crazy Irish bastard; unlock the fucking cuffs!”

He jerked at the handcuffs, making the bed move once more,

his temper stil wild and untamed. He couldn’t get free, and he

couldn’t buck Gavin off him because of how high Gavin was sitting

on his chest. Al he could do was sit there and rage, shaking the

bed, cussing out Gavin, using every intimidation tactic he’d

perfected over the length of his solitary adulthood. Every hurt he

had puled to the forefront before he went to sleep suddenly

surfaced. The raw emotions made him feel vicious, and he let them

al spil out of him without an ounce of censorship. He caled Gavin

things that would make even a firefighter blush if his temper weren’t

boiling to the point of atomic explosion.

The bitch of it was, nothing Brad said fazed Gavin. No threat

hit its mark, and the more Brad raged, the less interested Gavin

seemed. Brad was in the process of describing what he planned to

do to him once he was free, including a vivid description of where

exactly he planned on shoving these handcuffs, when it occurred to

him that Gavin probably heard the ravings of crazed, handcuffed

lunatics on a daily basis and had become completely desensitized to

them.

Breathless and sweaty from the struggle, Brad finaly calmed

his raging down to the panicked panting of a trapped, wild animal.

He squeezed his eyes shut, horrified to be fighting actual tears.

“What’d you want?” he asked, hearing the quiver of

completely breaking down in his voice. “Just tel me what you want,

and I’l fucking do it because I don’t wanna be where I am right

now.”

“I wanna know why you decided to drop-kick me to the

curb without warning,” Gavin said simply. “’Cause I don’t believe

it’s what you realy want.”

“Cocky much?” Brad asked because he was stil furious.

“The sex was good. I’m not even gonna argue that, but I like my

own company. I’m not shopping for a boyfriend. That was never

what I wanted from you. A good lay’s not gonna have me ordering

monogrammed towels. I’m not that guy, not even close.”

Light eyes narrowed, and Gavin tilted his head, studying Brad

before he snapped, “I cal bulshit.”

“Wel, I can’t help you with that,” Brad said, feigning

indifference. “The fact is I’ve never had a real boyfriend, and it’s