Fish Out of Water (28 page)

Ellery nodded, aware that his brows were knit and he probably looked anxious or worried, but unable to change it.

“Seriously!” Jackson tried to smile. “What’s wrong?”

“Hurry back,” Ellery said, nodding. “I’m hungry.”

“Whatever.”

Jackson trotted off, and Ellery was left trying to adjust his thinking to the idea of mortality and Jackson Rivers being old and bitter friends.

JACKSON WAS
good to his word, and he took them to a bistro on J Street for food. Jackson was all for talking about the case, but Ellery was pretty much done with
that
subject.

“Well, what else do we have?” Jackson asked, frustrated.

“Place you most want to visit?” Ellery asked suddenly.

Jackson didn’t even falter. “Sri Lanka. India. It’s busy and amazing and rich and poor and just sort of a chaotic repository for human beings and their history. What about you?”

Like that, Ellery’s worries faded. He remembered all of his assumptions about growing up and falling in love, and how
his
person would have to want to travel, and have to want adventure, and have to be self-sufficient and able to deal with new situations and new people.

“Anywhere,” Ellery said, taking a bite of sausage and kraut. “I got to go to Germany and France in college, and I loved them, but Sri Lanka would be excellent too.”

Jackson’s rare untwisted grin made an appearance. “Yeah? You want to travel?”

“Oh yes. I mean, right now if I get a vacation it’s back to Boston to see family, but I understand that family obligations can go screw themselves if I manage a long-term committed relationship. My sister’s been using that to bait the hook for years.”

Jackson half laughed. “Bait the hook?”

“Yeah. I mean, I get that I’m gay, but I’m still expected to produce grandchildren. Eileen has produced the requisite two, and Mother is apparently insufferably in her business, so now it’s my turn. Getting to travel instead of going to see Mother during vacations is supposed to make that all better.”

Jackson narrowed his eyes playfully. “I hate to ask, but if you get to take family vacations
without
your mother, how is she going to enjoy the benefits of grandkids?”

Ellery wrinkled his nose. “Well, I understand that
Mother
does most of the traveling in that case. I didn’t say it was a perfect system.”

Jackson’s chuckle echoed off the artfully waxed concrete of the bistro’s floor and the bare boards of the interior. “I guess you work with what you have.”

“
Exactly
!” Ellery said, suddenly so excited about this new relationship that he wanted to sing it to the stars. “And when you’ve got as much to work with as we have, you enjoy your job.”

Jackson pulled up short and stared at him. “Oh my God. Stop drinking beer.”

“Water, Jackson. You took the order. Now hurry up and finish. We’ve got stuff to do tonight.” Ellery wasn’t talking about writing briefs, but Jackson’s no-nonsense nod told him that was what Jackson
thought
he was talking about.

Well, wasn’t
he
in for a surprise.

JACKSON DIDN’T
want to think about the Monday interview with Chisholm, and he didn’t want to think about how long Kaden and Rhonda were going to have to be in protective custody.

He didn’t want to think about Jade sleeping with his neighbor or the fact that the hamburger in the morgue was connected to the time
he
was almost the hamburger in the morgue.

And he didn’t want to think about Ellery and the challenge in his brown eyes whenever he looked at Jackson, and how he expected normal and Jackson could only offer himself, Jackson Rivers, bisexual freak of fucking nature.

He pulled up in front of his house and saw Jade’s car behind Mike’s truck, and Ellery’s car in the front of the driveway. With a growl, he parked the SUV in front of the lawn and looked at Ellery expectantly.

“So, uh, see you—”

“Get mad if you finish that sentence,” Ellery said smoothly. “Just keep your car here, and tomorrow I’ll go home and change clothes, do laundry, and let you think about how much you miss me. But not tonight.”

With that he hopped out, his briefcase in hand, and shut the door.

Jackson growled and banged his head on the steering wheel—and then turned the car off and followed him, clicking the alarm as he went. Ellery was waiting patiently at the door, and Jackson fumbled with his keys to let them in—and Billy Bob too, who was crouching in the bushes, growling and twitching his tail.

Unlike the day before, nobody had left their fingerprints on Jackson’s home while they’d been gone.

Jackson could still
smell
his and Ellery’s sex, and he was trying to process exactly how he felt about that when Ellery shut the door with a little unnecessary force and pinned Jackson to the wall with his slender body.

“Uh, Ellery?” The painted wall felt cool along his cheek, but Ellery’s body was throwing off heat, and his erection pushed solidly against Jackson’s backside.

Ellery’s response was a long, slow lick on the shell of Jackson’s ear. “I dare you,” he whispered. “Say it. Tell me to go one more time. Tell me this won’t work, or you’re too damaged, or you don’t want me.” Ellery ground up against him harder, and the pit of Jackson’s stomach, and his groin, and his thighs, and, heaven help him, his
asshole
, all gave a giant throb of arousal. “Say it,” Ellery ordered, shoving his hands under Jackson’s shirt.

“I… oh God.” Wicked, angry fingers pinched his nipples, soft, and then hard, and then soft again. Ellery’s lips moved from grazing his ear to the side of his neck, and Jackson tilted his head to give him access. Oh Lord, Ellery’s touch, his body, his voice—all of it combined to
own
Jackson, to control him with his own insatiable need.

“Say it,” whispered Ellery against his shoulder. He moved a hand to yank at Jackson’s polo shirt, and his tongue stroked a line along fabric and skin. “Tell me you don’t want me. You don’t want this.
Say it
!” He bit
hard
at the join of neck and shoulder, and Jackson humped up against his own goddamned wall, whimpering with desire.

“Please,” he whispered.

Ellery reached up and grabbed his hair, pulling his head back and arching his body, ass out. “Please what?” he taunted, running his hand down Jackson’s spine and along his ribs. “‘Please leave, Ellery’? ‘Go do your laundry and forget about me, Ellery’? Please
what
?” He punctuated that last with a fumbling hand at Jackson’s belt, and Jackson’s knees actually went weak. Ellery was going to take him
here
? Against the wall in his hallway?
Here
?

“Please….” He was looking up at the ceiling—he should have been begging God for the strength to say no. Instead he was bending his knees, adjusting his stance, pushing back against Ellery’s groin, because Ellery’s cock was in there, behind his belt and his slacks and his boxers, and so help him, Jackson wanted it.

With a jangle, Ellery pulled Jackson’s jeans down, leaving his ass exposed and sticking out. He kissed a gentle line down his back through his shirt, between his shoulder blades, down the tender indentation at the waist, and then, oh Lord, down his crease.

Before Jackson could even groan, Ellery had parted his asscheeks and licked a solid line from his balls to his taint, crouched behind Jackson like a beggar.

Jackson buried his face against the meat of his arm and howled, and Ellery
really
went to work on that rim job. Oh God, his tongue, aggressive and knowing, licked, tasted, penetrated, and Jackson could only gasp.

“Ellery, oh God—”

“Have you figured it out yet?” Ellery asked, reaching between Jackson’s thighs to fondle his balls. He tugged gently as Jackson shuddered, and then he gave Jackson’s aching cock one hard, merciless stroke. “What you’re asking for?”

“Ellery… please….” Jackson’s voice sounded weak in his own ears, and he almost hated himself for how much he loved this,
craved
it, wanted this possession and this hard, brutal fuck.

“Please?” Ellery mocked, standing up. Loudly he slapped his hands on either side of Jackson’s hands while he ground his still-clothed body against Jackson’s ass. “I’ll tell you what. You stand here and think about what you want, and I’m going to go get what you really fucking need.”

And then he was gone, shedding clothes and shoes down the hall as he went, and Jackson was left face against the wall, ass out and dripping with spit, while he wondered what was keeping him there. All he had to do was pull his hands away and go down the hall, ravage Ellery’s mouth in a kiss before he took him, spread him, and fucked him, just thrust and pounded and—

Oh God. He was humping his own goddamned wall and Ellery was already back in the doorway, naked, his cock rampant and engorged, bobbing in front of him, covered in a condom and lube.

This time when Ellery shoved up against Jackson’s ass, his cock slid between Jackson’s cheeks and nudged his wet, stretched hole.

Jackson whimpered.

“Jackson,” Ellery graveled in his ear. “Have you thought about what you want?”

And Jackson only had room in him for honesty.

“You,” he whispered, greedy. “You inside me. That’s what I want. Please.”

Ellery fumbled between his cheeks for a moment, and then he thrust inside.

Jackson howled, biting a bruise on his bicep and still thrusting back against the stretch and the ache and the burn.

“Oh… oh…
yes
!” Ellery had him by the hair again, and the sting of Jackson’s strands caught in that long-fingered fist kept him arched and needy and unable to move. Ellery shoved his cock all the way to the root, and Jackson craved him, needed movement, and all he could do was suck in his stomach and wiggle his ass and plead for more in breathless pants.

“Please…,” he begged. “Please…. God, Ellery, fuck me. I need you. I need you so bad.”

Ellery pulled back and rocked forward, grunting in pleasure, and Jackson wanted to weep with it. He was helpless, pinned against the wall by his own choice, forced to take Ellery’s cock, his caresses, his pleasure, and he wanted it, wanted more, wanted to be fucked until his ass bruised, wanted to be owned.

Ellery didn’t disappoint him.

“Fucking try to blow me off,” he muttered, throwing his hips forward. “Send me away… you
need
me!”

“I need you,” Jackson half sobbed.

“You fucking need me!”

“I need you!” he shouted. “I fucking need you!”

“You wanted me to leave!”

Oh God. “Please don’t leave,” Jackson begged. “Please… just fuck me… fuck me… fuck me… and fucking stay….”

“Oh God yes!” Ellery’s voice broke then, and apparently so did his control, because his thrusts grew frantic, frenzied, and he pulled one of Jackson’s hands from the wall, leaving Jackson mashed up, hardly able to breathe. Ellery shoved the hand toward Jackson’s own prick and muttered, “Stroke it. C’mon, Jackson, come. I need to feel you come. I need to know you want it. Want me.”

Augh!
Yes
! Jackson wrapped his fingers around his cock and took advantage of the fact that Ellery had let go of his hair and he could move. He dropped his head and thrust out his ass and stroked himself, squeezing and jacking as fast as he could.

“I want you!” he moaned. “Oh God, don’t stop moving. Want you! Just you! C’mon, Ellery,
fuck me
!”

Wham, wham, wham!
Every hard stroke sent Jackson against the wall with enough force to rattle the pictures in their frames, and Jackson’s frantic jerking off became one hard squeeze. Then Ellery bit him again, hard—hard enough to bruise the back of his neck—and the pain, that did it, sent him over, hot, silky, spurting over his own hand as Ellery screamed loud enough to ring in his ear and rutted inside Jackson’s ass, twitching as he filled the condom.

Jackson could feel the heat against his insides, and for the first time in his life, he wished for a clear test, wished they could get rid of the rubber and he could feel Ellery’s spend boiling inside him.

For a moment both of them were tense with the rictus of orgasm, and then Ellery sagged against him. “Bedroom,” he whispered. “Now.”

Jackson, ever fastidious, tried. “I should wash the—”

“Now, Jackson. I need you to kiss me and tell me that was okay.”

Jackson didn’t want to lose Ellery’s cock in his body, but he did turn just enough to catch his lips in an awkward kiss. “That was okay,” he whispered. “Thank you. That was more than okay. That was….”

“What you needed,” Ellery murmured, sounding comforted.

“Yeah.”

They stumbled to the bedroom, picking up clothes and shoes as they went. Ellery dropped his bundle right inside the door, next to the hamper, and Jackson thought,
Fuck it!
and just added them all. They’d do laundry in the morning. It was obvious Ellery wanted to stay, and Jackson—Jackson ached. From the backs of his thighs to his stretched asshole to his heart.

He’d worked for so long not to get attached, secure in the knowledge that being attached meant having your heart ripped out. Jade and Kaden and Rhonda were his home. They were the only ones who had never betrayed him or left him. He didn’t have to worry what he said in front of them, and they knew all his secrets. For nearly twenty years, that had been his touchstone. Even before the working undercover—and Patrick Hanover—no relationship had ever been as important as the family he’d clung to when nobody else gave a shit.

But now someone else gave a shit.

Jackson wasn’t entirely sure what to do with that. He’d tried to get rid of Ellery, but that thing they’d just done—that had all the earmarks of someone
not
ready to leave. That thing—that was
real.
That was a priority relationship sort of real.

How was he supposed to manage that?

He picked up the extra clothes from the floor and then turned reluctantly toward where Ellery was stretched out on the bed.