Dead Run (6 page)

That was part of what Will found fascinating about France. He’d never been a big history buff—that was more Taylor’s line—but you couldn’t be in France and not be conscious of its history. The past was everywhere. It echoed off the cobblestones and architecture. They didn’t tear down and rebuild here like they did in the States. The same old buildings changed hands over centuries—
centuries
—new paint, new furnishings, and another new start, another new beginning.

He’d wanted to share some of this with Taylor, the one guy he knew who would understand and appreciate all that Will was just discovering—hell, the executions of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette had taken place in the square right in front of the Hotel Crillon, which was next to the American Embassy. Incredible. But Taylor had been edgy and slightly remote since he’d stepped off the plane. He kept making those little distancing jokes when Will was trying to be serious.

Now, of course, he was angry. And rightly so. Will had handled things like a jackass. But couldn’t Taylor see it was because Will cared? How many times was Will supposed to calmly stand by while Taylor was beaten or shot or blown up? Taylor was a good agent, one of the best, but he wasn’t a soldier. He didn’t have a clue what Iraq was going to be like.

Such violence seemed unimaginable on this warm summer evening. Will watched children racing across the grass, their parents strolling more sedately behind.

A little girl shrieked, “
Maman, vous ne pouvez pas m'attraper
!”

Smiling, Will glanced at Taylor, but Taylor was staring straight ahead, frowning a little, his expression preoccupied as when he was trying to find a new angle on a difficult case.

No, not the evening Will had planned at all. He’d really screwed this up. He’d meant for this to be such a special birthday for Taylor, a real holiday—which God knew Taylor needed—and a chance to fortify their relationship.

He tried to think of something neutral to say.

“Can we…table this for now?” Taylor stopped walking. “I can feel lonely at home. I didn’t have to come six thousand miles to not talk to you.”

Will stared. Taylor’s jaw was clenched, his expression pugnacious, but his eyes gave him away. Grateful for the reprieve, Will pulled him into his arms, and Taylor hugged him right back in that fierce, bony embrace.

Will said, “The last thing I want to do is fight with you. I just…”

“I know.”

“I don’t know if you do, Taylor. I know it makes you mad when it seems like I’m… I just don’t want to lose you.”

“You won’t. I promise.” Taylor pulled away, as though self-conscious even though these were the streets of Paris and open displays of affection were hardly unheard of.

They shoved their hands into their pockets and walked, elbows and shoulders brushing, on toward the Métro.

Taylor asked lightly, “So what did you get me for my birthday?”

“You know that pony you always wanted? I hope you left plenty of room in your suitcase.”

Taylor chuckled, and Will smiled back. Everything was okay. They just needed a little time to regain their footing.

Everything was fine.

* * *

Back at the apartment Will told himself to go slowly, but Taylor’s body was so warm, so welcoming, he pushed right inside, Taylor taking him easily despite the fact that it had been so long.

An unhappy thought occurred to Will, but he dismissed it. If Taylor was fooling around, he’d say so. There was no one more direct than Taylor. Will remembered some of the late-night phone conversations they’d had where Taylor had described in colorful detail what he was doing to himself, the naughty toys he was using. Will had figured at least part of it was braggadocio or Taylor simply teasing him, but he should have known better than anyone that Taylor had a wild streak. Will’s comfortable assumption that the more exotic stuff was all safely in the past was apparently wrong—the real shock was that he found himself unbearably turned on by the idea of Taylor really wearing anal beads and butt plugs on his days off as he swore he had in preparation for this holiday.

Crazy, beautiful little freak.

Taylor arched back, and Will lifted his head to nuzzle Taylor’s chest, suckling on the tiny point of a flat masculine nipple. Taylor made a small, desperate sound, and Will smiled. Something about that, about having Will’s hot mouth on his nipples, made Taylor crazy. He could practically get off on that alone. Sexuality was such a weird thing.

Will smiled as he gently teethed the tiny point. Taylor’s man titties. One of his more endearing kinks. Taylor whimpered.

“Good?” Will murmured, feeling Taylor’s heartbeat thundering against his face. The best, if Taylor’s responses were anything to go by.

Taylor nodded, without the breath to answer.

Will chuckled, licking and teasing until Taylor was squirming on top of him, his breathing deepening to gasps.

“Wait. I’m going to lose it.”

Will obligingly waited, relaxing back into the pillows and bedding. “Eleven months is too long.” He gave a little teasing rock of his hips, and Taylor cried out, shuddering.

“Damn it, Will.”

“Sorry.” He wasn’t, of course. It was beautiful to see Taylor like this, racked and helpless, beautiful to know he could do this to him. Sometimes all that sexual experience of Taylor’s was a little daunting. Comforting to know he did have a little control.

“I want it to last.”

Will nodded gravely, but his sense of humor was getting the better of him—that and the fact that he was enjoying his moment of power. Anyway, it was asking a lot to expect him to hold motionless for long while he was buried to his balls in Taylor’s taut, perfect ass.

“Anytime, MacAllister.”

“Will you just—” Taylor moaned as Will hefted his hips, his thighs rubbing against damp skin and soft hair and that stretched and molten center of heat.

Now
that
had been a mistake because it just felt too good to stop, especially when Taylor pushed instinctively back. Will’s tenuous control unraveled, and he began to thrust, hard and fast, pounding into Taylor. He could hear Taylor’s soft cries as from a great distance, and the naked, helpless sounds goaded him on. There was no one who could strip control from him like Taylor—even when Taylor was the one with his legs spread and his ass split like a peach ripe for plundering.

This was probably more like a rutting heat than making love, but sometimes that was the thing you needed. Something plain and uncomplicated.

He rose up and bit Taylor’s shoulder because he couldn’t help himself, and Taylor made one of those acquiescent noises. Those wordless sounds really got to Will, melted away the remnants of his control—the
shreds
of his control more like it. He thrust again and again, his body responding to those subtle, knowing movements from Taylor, and then Taylor was coming, uncorked and shooting white foam like a shaken bottle of champagne. His climax set off a chain reaction in Will, and Will pumped it right into him, wanting Taylor wet and soaked with his spunk. Primitive stuff, probably, but Taylor never seemed to mind.

Spent with his own coming, he slumped on Will’s chest. Will wrapped an arm around him and finished his own performance with a final twitchy spurt or two.

Taylor’s back rose and fell more slowly. He expelled a long, long, contented sigh. Will kissed his damp face.

“Crazy,” Taylor muttered.

“Look who’s talking.” Will kissed him again.

His cock softened and he withdrew, gathering Taylor closer still. The moonlight streaming through the sheer draperies revealed Taylor smiling, boneless and peaceful in Will's embrace. The most dangerous man Will knew rested sweetly in his arms, trusting him with his love as he trusted Will to guard his life. It was beyond precious. Life, love, was made up of fragile moments like these. Fragile as Paris moonlight.

* * *

Will woke to the scent of fresh coffee and the jangle of the telephone.

The phone stopped as sharply as it had started, and he heard Taylor’s quiet voice downstairs.

For a few seconds Will gave in to the simple pleasure of that. Of just…that. Taylor in the next room answering his phone.

Yeah, it was the simple things. Will smiled wryly at himself. Apparently he was one of them. But after the horrific dreams he’d had the night before—dreams of Taylor dead or dying, where in the best-case scenario he had only been missing a couple of limbs—the normalcy felt blessed. Not that Will considered himself religious, but he knew about counting your blessings.

Taylor’s voice stopped and the TV went on, the sound drifting up the staircase. Will could hear the excited voice of a newscaster.

“
Le potentiel pour le désastre est énorme
…”

What the hell?

Will was groping for underwear or pajama bottoms or bathrobe or
any
damned thing when Taylor appeared in the bedroom doorway. He wore jeans and nothing else. His hair was damp from the shower and curling slightly at the back of his neck. His eyes were as green as Paris in the springtime.

“You better come downstairs and take a look at this, Brandt.”

“What’s going on?”

Taylor didn’t answer, already on his way back down to the ground floor. Will found his jeans, yanked them on, and ran downstairs.

Taylor was perched on the arm of the sofa, scowling at the television set. Will stared at the TV. A female reporter in a white trench coat was speaking rapidly into her microphone as she turned from the camera to point. The Eiffel Tower stood in the background.

His written French was not great, but after a year of immersion, Will could make out the simple ribbon of information at the bottom of the screen.
Eiffel Tower evacuated in bomb scare.

Taylor’s grim voice confirmed his own thought. “We’ve got trouble.”

Chapter Five

“What the hell?” Will wiped his eyes and peered blearily at the TV screen.

“You’re being recalled to duty.” Taylor handed him a cup of coffee. “And so am I.”

Will looked up sharply. “You’re flying back to the States?”

Taylor shook his head. “I’ve been requisitioned by your RSO. Someone notified the media who then notified the police that a bomb had been planted in the Eiffel Tower.”

“So? It’s not the first time that’s happened. Why would we be recalled to duty?” Will took a noisy sip of coffee before adding, “Especially you.”

“Because of the group claiming responsibility.”

“Which is?”

“Finistère.”

Will looked blank.

“Finistère,” Taylor repeated.

“Gesundheit.”

Taylor swallowed his impatience. Nice to know Will hung on his every word. “The violent offshoot of the FLB.”

“The FLB?”

“Jesus, Will. Were you so busy enjoying your boys’ night out with Bradley you didn’t pay attention to a damn thing I said?”

Will lowered his coffee cup so fast some of the liquid splashed onto the pale hook rug. “What the hell are you yelling at me for? And what the hell does
that
mean?
Boys’ night out
? If you think something happened, why don’t you ask?”

Given how fast Will shot back, he must have been waiting for the question. The truth was, Taylor didn’t have to ask. He knew damn well Will wouldn’t fool around—and if he did, he’d have relieved his guilty conscience within twenty minutes of Taylor’s plane touching down. Will wouldn’t fool around. He wasn’t built like that. Which didn’t mean that Taylor didn’t find the idea of Will and David Bradley sitting around till the wee hours, smoking cigars and drinking brandy—or doing whatever the fuck it was they did—annoying as hell. But he hadn’t intended to admit it.

So he sidestepped. “The Front de libération de la Bretagne.”

“I know what the FLB is,” Will snapped back. He might even have been telling the truth. He looked irritated enough. “That wasn’t an actual question. Or if it was, the question was, are you shitting me? Why the hell would the Breton Liberation Front resurface now?”

Taylor opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Will added, “Nothing happened with David.”

I know that
. At least that was what Taylor intended to say. But somehow the words that came out were “Not because he didn’t want it to.”

Will’s face tightened. “What am I supposed to say to that?
Nothing. Happened
. Nothing will ever happen. It doesn’t matter what he wants. You and I are together.”

Why had he started this? Why had he let those stupid, stupid words fly out of his big, flapping mouth? Now that he’d gone this far, he didn’t know how to stop. Taylor said curtly, “What do you want?”

“What do you mean, what do
I
want? I just said—”

Knowing he was being a fool, knowing he was being unfair, hot-faced but stubborn, Taylor persisted. He just couldn’t seem to stop even though all his instincts were telling him to shut the hell up. “You said it didn’t matter what David wanted because we’re together. You didn’t say what
you
wanted.”

Will stared at him with utter disbelief. “Am I really supposed to answer that? What do you think I want? I want you.” He added bitterly, “Who
wouldn’t
want you? Seeing you’re so sweet-tempered and understanding.”

Taylor turned sharply and went to look out the window at butterflies dancing over the garden. He could feel Will’s fierce gaze boring a hole between his shoulder blades. He reached absently to squeeze the back of his neck; the muscles were rigid with tension. He needed to apologize, but more importantly he needed to explain why he was being such a jerk. The problem was, Taylor wasn’t sure he could explain. The problem was him, not Will. He knew that. They both knew that.

He was still trying to think what to say when Will said neutrally, “So I guess this proves that you really did see Yanni or whatever his name is at LAX?”

Relieved, Taylor turned. “It would be one hell of a coincidence that he just happened to be trying to get on a plane for Paris the same week his old gang suddenly reemerges and decides to blow up the Eiffel Tower.”