Whatever the Cost (48 page)

Jacen glances up as Liam who, wanting some privacy of his own, pulls Valery aside, farther into the living room as he explains more of the specifics about what’s going on with the investigation. Once the two of them are settled on the couch on the far end of the room, Jacen turns his attention back to Yasha.

“What do you want me to say?”

Looking plainly insulted by this, Yasha mimics, “What do I want you to say? I want you to be honest—with yourself, and Liam, and us. You know better than this. All this is is reflex, and habit. Burying this shit,” Yasha says severely, gesturing out at the world beyond the window, “instead of dealing with it isn’t going to do you or Liam any good. It’ll just fester and rot, and get you in even more trouble.”

“I am dealing with it.” Jacen points down at the bags brought from the hardware store on his instruction. “I’m being realistic. And it’s done. Yes, they found us. So what? It was only a matter of time. And they didn’t do anything to me that won’t heal. They’re locked up. It’s out of our hands now and Liam wasn’t hurt, that’s all that matters.”

“You matter,” Yasha counters.

Jacen rolls his eyes. He sees Yasha and Liam exchange a heavy glance with each other from across the apartment.

“They know where we live,” Jacen tells him, making sure his voice is lowered, though Liam knows as much anyway.

“Then maybe you shouldn’t be here.”

“And go where? This is our home now. I’m not giving up our home for these assholes. They’ve taken enough as it is.”

“So you’re not running?”

“I’m not running,” Jacen agrees.

Yasha nods with some satisfaction. “You picked a hell of a time to stop.”

“Yeah, well,” Jacen shrugs. “I have my reasons.”

A good part of the middle of the day is spent with Jacen and Yasha installing bars on the bedroom window, which leads out to the fire escape. After they’re finished with that, they put new, thick deadbolts on the inside of the bedroom door and on the apartment’s front door. In the meantime, Liam is able to talk to Valery, airing all of his fears and worries to her, including the ones he has hesitated voicing to Jacen just yet. They talk about every minute of the previous day, about The Company, and what it all means for Jacen and Liam’s future. They talk about Jacen. They talk about Joe Barbara. They talk about the surveillance photos that had been found with Della and her goons; photos taken of Liam and the apartment building. The two of them gather all four of their phones and install the app that Joe used to track Jacen, just in case, and so that they will always be able to find one another.

They order an early dinner. The cop brings it up to them. The four of them sit around the kitchen table and play a few quiet rounds of poker as they eat.

Before Liam knows it, Yasha and Valery are leaving. Only a few things have changed. Liam has gotten input on some of his concerns. Yasha and Valery have seen the state of their friends’ bodies and minds, and the apartment’s security has been slightly improved. Jacen has even called a reputable security company to come and install cameras on the outside of the building to give them further peace of mind. It doesn’t seem like enough. Danger lurks too closely.

Remembering how Jacen clung to him the night before, Liam anticipates it happening again, and it does. Jacen pulls him flush to his body, keeping him there with an arm and a leg, not letting go all night.

All week they sleep like that. Safe in their barricaded room, with the new bolts on the doors and bars on the thickly curtained window forbidding entry to anyone who might dare invade their sanctuary. Liam doesn’t press Jacen to talk or for any hasty decisions on their future. They try to patiently wait for answers in regard to Jacen’s abductors, but as things are being handled at a federal level, the information available to them is slow to come. All they know is that things have been very, very quiet. Even in L.A., Yasha and Valery don’t hear any rumblings or rumors at all about Jacen, Liam or Della. It’s like Della has vanished off the face of the Earth.

One week after Jacen is taken from the bistro by gun-wielding thugs, they get two pieces of news. The first comes from Clay, the second from the hospital. Clay, along with one of the federal agents, is able to tell them that charges have been officially filed against Della and her accomplices for conspiracy, prostitution, kidnapping and assault, as well as a laundry list of other offenses. Her lawyers are trying to work out a deal that would reduce her sentence in exchange for inside information on The Company. It appears she was working to track down Jacen and Liam, independently of the broader organization, in hopes of winning favor for recouping their investment in the two men. That’s why no one in L.A. has gotten the faintest inkling of what’s transpired, though that is soon to change. And given the United States government’s interest in bringing down The Company, a deal with Della is likely.

The other piece of news is in the form of word from Jacen’s doctors that all of his tests, his blood work and STD panels have come back clean. Jacen isn’t surprised, since he knows things didn’t really go far enough for there to be a valid concern, but he can see the huge relief the news stirs in Liam.

“I told you, I’m fine,” is all Jacen says.

But if Liam thought that the news didn’t affect Jacen at all, he learns otherwise that night. Like they have every night for seven days, they climb in bed together. Liam turns his back to Jacen, lying on his side, waiting for Jacen to move up close to him, shivering slightly at the intimate contact when he does. For a little while nothing happens, but Liam can sense Jacen’s alertness. It’s like an electric charge in the air around them. Sleep is a long way off. Staring into the dark, Liam waits to see what that alertness means, if Jacen is finally ready to talk about everything, or if something else is going on.

He doesn’t have to wait long.

First, Jacen pulls away an inch or two, which is odd in and of itself. His breathing becomes marginally heavier, but it’s almost too subtle a change for Liam to be sure. Then, almost reluctantly, Jacen presses close once more. And Liam can feel that he’s hard. The thick line of him nudges from behind.

Understanding blooms. It’s only because Liam knows his husband as well as he does that he notices the slight hesitancy when Jacen’s right hand rubs down and over the right side of Liam’s body. The caress skates over his hip and down around in front of his pelvis. He palms Liam’s cock through his boxers, squeezing lightly.

It’s Jacen asking permission. And there isn’t a shred of doubt in Liam’s mind of what his answer is. He responds with an act of his own, spreading his legs, opening them and planting his right foot on the bed, giving Jacen room. Liam inhales sharply and Jacen groans softly, the sound of it vibrating into Liam’s body as Jacen slips his hand inside the boxers. He fondles and then gets impatient, pushing the underwear down and out of the way.

The need and quietly dark determination exuding from Jacen lights Liam up. His nerves tune in to each touch, his senses sharpen with anticipation. When Jacen gets the underwear past Liam’s hips, Liam moves to help by kicking them off, but no sooner does he do so than he feels two of Jacen’s fingers questing between his legs, finding and gently touching the center of his interest. Once contact has been made, Jacen exhales heavily with relief. He draws up onto an elbow to get more leverage to move. Skin pebbling with goosebumps, heart beating quickly, Liam decides. He starts to roll onto his stomach, ready to get his knees under him, but Jacen grunts in negation and turns him the other way, onto his back. Moving quickly, seeing Liam’s nerves catching up with him and determined to beat them, Jacen lunges for a bottle of lube on the nightstand and gets in position, taking each of Liam’s legs and guiding them up over his shoulders. Face-to-face, with Liam naked, and only a thin pair of boxers clothing him, Jacen bears down on him, pressing Liam’s legs back toward his shoulders. A curtain of dark hair falls in Jacen’s face, masking his predatory expression as he gets his fingers wet with lubricant and smears the fluid over Liam’s clenched opening. Arching slightly at the touch as well as how helpless the position makes him feel, Liam holds his breath and closes his eyes.

Jacen’s hair brushes Liam’s cheek like a tickle of silk. Warm lips drag over Liam’s jaw. The fingers trace, circling, rubbing around and then they enter him, slowly. Exhaling shakily through his nose, Liam tries to be quiet but when the fingers start to pump, going deeper, spreading apart, twisting, he can’t. Lips parting around a moan, he flushes with heat of his own and begins to get hard.

He’s been holding his thighs, just to have something to anchor himself to, so when Jacen says thickly, “Arms above your head. Keep ’em up there. Relax,” Liam grunts, wriggling on the probing digits, but he complies.

“Jacen....”

“Look at me.”

With effort, Liam opens his eyes. Jacen flips his hair back out of his face to clear his view. He withdraws his hand from Liam most of the way and immediately presses a third finger inside, deeply, adding to the stretch. The reaction paints across Liam’s face, and Jacen feels it in the tension of Liam’s thighs pressed against him, in the clench of his inner muscles. Holding his gaze, Jacen thrusts again, filling him up. Liam swallows a whine and almost turns his face away, but just manages to catch himself.

“I love you,” Jacen tells him, scissoring his fingers apart, getting his lover ready for him. He’s been looking for any of that old mistrust, that old hurt that had kept them apart for so long. It’s not there though. The only things he can see behind Liam’s expression are vulnerability and ordinary nervousness. Those are easy enough to understand. Liam has only bottomed for Jacen the one time in how many months, and besides that, he’s still not become used to the feeling of someone else prepping him for sex. The prod and wriggle of strange fingers inside his body is foreign to him, and probably the most self-consciousness-inducing part of intimacy for him.

Liam’s fingers curl and tense where they rest on the pillow his head rests upon. Jacen presses down on him, trapping him on the bed, pumping faster into him, making quick work of it without being rough. The tension doesn’t leave Liam’s body, but his breathing gets rougher. Lust blackens his eyes. Jacen dips in for a kiss and when his tongue enters the wet heat of Liam’s mouth, Liam moans freely, giving into it. The kiss goes deeper, as Jacen sucks on Liam’s lips, then opens him wide, licking back over his tongue, taking it all. Liam is so distracted, focusing only on kissing Jacen back, that he doesn’t notice when Jacen pulls his fingers free so that he can get his boxers out of the way. He only surfaces when, a moment later, the fat, bulbous head of Jacen’s cock is pressing demandingly at him and Jacen surges back down on him, folding Liam in half as he rocks down, entering him with an easy push.

Liam makes a small, desperate noise that Jacen devours with a growl, not relinquishing Liam’s mouth, using it for all it’s worth and kissing him dizzy. Once he’s nestled safely inside his captive, Jacen’s hand comes away from where it had been steadying his cock, and instead grabs Liam’s thighs, both of his huge hands wrapping them as he rocks, working his way farther inside the snug vessel of Liam’s body.

A slick sheen of sweat has broken out over Liam’s skin. Jacen caresses through it. Then they are joined completely and Liam can’t catch his breath. Jacen breaks the kiss and pauses his movements, letting him adjust. He even sits back on his heels a little to give Liam room to get air. Gasping and grunting, Liam’s eyes close, feeling keenly observed and intimately possessed. He waits for Jacen to move and fuck and when he doesn’t, Liam reaches between their bodies and down. He’s fully erect and throbbing, needing relief. But before he can do much Jacen takes his hand and guides it back up above his head, lacing their fingers together and keeping him pinned. Liam curses and tests his range of movement, pressing down slightly onto the thick column impaling him, pulling futilely at his trapped arms. Breathing raggedly, Jacen watches the whole thing. He sees Liam pretend to fight, just as he sees his dick pulse pre-come when Jacen doesn’t let go.

Itching to touch, Jacen guides Liam’s hands up to the bars of the headboard, not letting go until he’s grasping them. Then he caresses down each arm to Liam’s chest, quickly finding the stiffened nubs of his pierced nipples. Pinching down on them and tugging gently, he moves at last, drawing back a few inches and pressing back in. It makes Liam moan, so he does it again, riding him at a smooth, unhurried pace, twisting his nipples until he’s so worked up that he’s fucking himself down on Jacen’s every push, his dick an angry red as it bobs between them.