4-Bound By Danger (9 page)

And now he was thinking about love and Clint in the same breath, and fuck no, it was too soon.

“If you knew, then why did you get so upset?”

Jace paused, then said, “I knew Tomcat was gone, no matter what. And I didn’t know what that meant. Why it hurt so much. I didn’t know if I was a part of the pretend.”

“You weren’t—you’re not. For me, it wasn’t an ending—it was a beginning, although you know my job and the limits it puts on me.”

“What, exactly, does that mean?”

“For one thing, discretion.”

“So if the CIA comes calling…”

“They won’t. They shouldn’t. But I could get fucked for this involvement with you if something goes wrong.”

Jace got it—he was still in the MC. And involved with the Feds, and fuck, this could go bad if he let it. Which he wouldn’t. “So what, every time you’re in town, we get together?”

“It’s a start. I don’t think either of us is able to do anything more at the moment.”

Jace nodded, because he wasn’t.

Clint touched his shoulder. “Jace—”

“Don’t, okay? I’m angrier at myself.”

“Why?”

He stopped himself from saying
Because I fell for you like a girl.
“I just am, all right?”

There was a long pause, and then Clint admitted, “I’m pissed that I’m here, too, Jace.”

“What’s with you and the mind reading?”

“You don’t have a poker face. At least not with me. Look, not contacting you was really hard—I didn’t expect it to be. It shouldn’t have been. I never should’ve texted you, but I couldn’t help it. I played all of this badly.”

“So what do we do?”

Clint ran a hand through his hair. “Mind if I stay here with you until I get called?”

It could be hours or days. Jace hoped for the latter. “Yeah. Just don’t expect me to cook for you or anything.”

Clint rolled his eyes. “Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said as he moved to get up, searched for his pants.

“And once this time is up, then what?”

Clint turned from where he’d been rooting around on the floor, because he’d actually planned to do some cooking for Jace. “What do you want to happen?”

“You’re the one who came back to find me,” Jace pointed out. “You could’ve stayed dead and buried. I can’t believe you couldn’t find another lay without complications.”

Clint wanted to give a quick answer, about how Jace was in fact a hell of a lay, but a wiseass comment refused to fly from his usually quick-witted mouth.

Because Jace asked the question he’d refused to ask himself. Why
had
he come here? Jace would’ve gotten over him, gotten on with his work and his life—Clint was for sure nothing but a huge complication in Jace’s life.

Or is it the other way around?

Because Jace was probably the best kind of complication to have. “My job,” he started.

Jace cut him off. “Mine, too.”

“I can’t tell if that makes it better or worse,” Clint admitted.

“Maybe you should stay in bed until we figure it out.”

Clint dropped his clothes back to the floor and moved next to Jace again. “That’s not a half-bad idea.”

Chapter Ten

Sawyer slammed into the locker room and away from Rex’s yelling. He’d stayed behind to work on some maneuvers after most of the team went home, and now he wished he’d followed them. But the perfectionist in him wanted better—and Jace stayed with him—and so they’d worked until he was sweating and dizzy, until his arms felt like rubber, and still it wasn’t enough.

To top it off, Rex wasn’t finished chewing his ass out.

“Don’t you walk away from me,” he drawled, and dammit, the man didn’t have to yell to yell, his deep voice doing more damage to Sawyer than any kind of scream could.

Sawyer steeled himself and turned to see the big man with the shaved head and the dark eyes staring him down. “You already pointed out how I fucked up,
sir.
I told you it wouldn’t happen again.” And it hadn’t, the next twelve times Rex had made Sawyer repeat the maneuver. But that wasn’t going to satisfy the man at all.

Even Jace coming in behind Rex didn’t stop the berating, and finally, Rex left and Sawyer went into the shower and wondered if he’d ever please the one man he so desperately wanted to please.

“You all right?” Jace asked from the next shower stall.

“Great.”

“It wasn’t all your fuck-up—he was pissed that the team left.”

That was the truth—the entire team had screwed up and should’ve had the sense to stay and show their CO they were up to the extra challenge, but somehow, when that failed to happen, it was Sawyer’s fault. And the thing was, no one was more pissed about the fuck-up than Sawyer himself. He wanted to be the best, trained long and hard for it, and was probably harder on himself than Rex ever would be.

Hearing about Clint coming back from the dead was the only bright spot in the day—and it was nice to see his friend happy, albeit reserved. Jace told Sawyer he was planning on holding back because he didn’t want to go through more shit with Clint.

“You want to hang out tonight?” Jace asked.

“No, I want you to hang out with Clint,” Sawyer told him as he toweled off and dressed. Jace had told him about Clint’s return that morning, and hell, he’d never seen the guy so happy, but still slightly guarded. But from everything Jace mentioned, it sounded like things between the men were good.

Unlike things between him and Rex. “I’ll be all right.”

Jace paused. “Look, I think—”

“Forget it.”

“I don’t get what the problem is. I mean, you’re worried—I get that—but—”

“At first, I was scared—confused—yeah. But then I got some more information and it threw me.”

Jace waited patiently and Sawyer looked around before he said, “You know about Rex’s capture, right?”

“Everyone knows.”

“I heard from someone who knew him and his team back in the day. And I think that maybe he was involved with one of the guys who was killed on that mission.”

“Fuck,” Jace breathed.

“Yeah.” Sawyer shook his head. Competing with a ghost wasn’t something he was prepared to do. He’d had a ringside seat to that with his mother when she’d remarried. His stepfather was great, but there was nothing he could do that would ever make her forget her first love. Sawyer knew, because she told him so every opportunity she had toward the end of their relationship, when Sawyer was sixteen and the fighting had gotten so bad he’d moved out to his grandparents’ house.

“How do I know he’s over that? My grandmother used to say that you never forget your first love—that most people never get over it.”

Jace, who knew what Sawyer had grown up with, told him, “You don’t know if that’s his first love—or if that’s how he feels.”

No, that was true, but it wasn’t a pattern he wanted to repeat. “Thanks for listening. Go home and have fun, all right? I’ll work something out.”

Jace did so reluctantly and only when Sawyer urged him harder. Sawyer didn’t want anyone to have to sit around and deal with his moods, which was pretty damned ironic considering those roles were usually reversed.

He went home and stewed for a bit before deciding he needed to get out before the walls closed in on him. He got up the nerve to go where he’d been thinking about going for the past several months, although maybe it wasn’t nerve so much as plain, old-fashioned anger.

The club was close to base but on the other end of town from where he usually hung out, and supposedly very gay-military friendly. Maybe a little too much for Sawyer at this point—he hadn’t been expecting to be looked up and down as much as he was. He went to a corner of the bar where the sympathetic bartender poured him a beer and said, “It’s always hard when you’re new.”

Sawyer nodded and played with the bottle. He did a low-key survey of the room and wondered if there was anyone here who’d be surprised to see him.

Maybe he needed to get the edge off before he approached Rex. Going to the man as a total novice to all this wasn’t very appealing, he figured, and if he could get some experience, maybe he’d have the balls to talk to Rex about how he felt.

“How’s it going?” The man who slid into the seat next to him was a pilot from the Virginia base. “I’m Carter.”

“Sawyer.”

“I’ve seen you around. SEAL, right?”

“Yeah.”

“First time here?”

Sawyer nodded.

“Well, glad you came.” Carter’s lips twisted suggestively, and Sawyer wished he were attracted to the guy. But no, there was nothing.

Just then, an electric pull turned his head toward the back door of the bar, and his stomach tightened when he saw Rex there. If his CO noticed him, he didn’t act like it. No, he continued whatever he was doing, his hand casually on the back of a younger man’s neck as he talked to a small group of men.

He turned around and ran his own hand over the back of his neck, wishing he was the one standing in that guy’s place. Wondered how Rex’s hand would feel on him when it wasn’t during PT and involving yelling.

This had been a big goddamned mistake. Although, if he was honest with himself, he would’ve hoped to run into Rex, but that was a pipe dream. And in that dream, things would’ve gone well. Rex would’ve approached him and the walls would’ve fallen down and everything would’ve been so easy.

But nothing about this was.

He motioned for the bartender, suddenly intent on getting hammered and going home with Carter, as though the combination might make everything better, even though he knew it wouldn’t.

Rex knew Sawyer was there—spotted the back of the light brown head with the blond sun streaks the second Sawyer had walked in and nearly went over and dragged the boy out. But then he decided to see just what in the hell Sawyer was trying to pull.

Now Rex cornered him in the back hallway near the bathroom, which gave them a slight bit of privacy. Still, he kept his voice down and demanded, “What the hell are you doing here, Sawyer?”

“I didn’t realize I wasn’t allowed to come here,” Sawyer shot back. “I’ve got someone waiting for me.”

“Yeah, I saw Carter.” Rex wouldn’t let anything happen between the boy and the pilot if he had to hogtie Sawyer and take him out of here.

And lose your goddamned job.

“Don’t you go home with him.”

“Is that a direct order?”

Rex’s eyes narrowed. “Yes, it is.”

“What do you care?” Sawyer demanded. “Because if we’re talking don’t ask, don’t tell—”

“I thought you were straight,” Rex said, because he wanted to hear it from Sawyer that he wasn’t.

“I thought so, too,” Sawyer said, and looked like he wanted to take it back immediately. But it had been the truth that poured out of his mouth.

It was only then that Rex finally realized that Sawyer wasn’t trying to pull a fast one. For as brave a man as he was, he was terrified, and Rex nearly reached out to comfort him but stopped. Because Sawyer would hate the coddling more than anything. No, he needed to be pushed past his comfort level until he was so pissed that he’d make the first move.

And Rex knew just how to play that. “How are things with Jace?”

Sawyer eyed him with slight suspicion. “He’s all right.”

“Why isn’t he here with you?”

“He’s busy.”

“This isn’t you. You’re straight, so why are you coming here, letting men pick you up?”

“You think you’ve got all the answers,” the boy challenged him.

Rex stared at him for a long moment before asking, “What are the answers you want me to have, Sawyer?”

What are the answers you want me to have, Sawyer?

Rex’s voice was a slow, honeyed drawl. Sawyer had heard it a thousand times in his dreams, giving both commands and comfort. And now, he was a stone’s throw away, and Sawyer had consumed enough liquid courage to tell him exactly what he wanted.

But one look into Rex’s deep, dark eyes and all Sawyer could see was his career going up in smoke. Because if he misjudged this one, he’d never live it down professionally.

“Gotta go,” he muttered and pushed past Rex.

Sawyer had to get the hell out of there. Watching his CO stroll out of the bathroom and then talk easily with everyone
but
him was killing Sawyer—and he’d been in a shitty enough mood already.

Beyond that, by the time he got back to Carter, it was obvious that the SEAL CO had threatened the shit out of the pilot, because Carter was cordial but the friendliness had dried up.

He was already by the back door, and so he slid outside after telling Carter thanks for hanging out with him. It was freezing cold, mid-January, and the frigid air was sobering him up fast. The walk of a couple of miles would do him good, so he stuck his hands in his pockets, cut across and headed down the second alleyway toward the main street.

He stopped when he heard the footsteps. He wasn’t in the mood to fend off muggers or assholes who decided it was fun to pick a fight with a military guy.