Ace in the Hole (15 page)

Sirens howled and grew louder as police, fire, and rescue units streamed to the scene. The square was littered with debris from the crash itself and the panicked flight of the partygoers, but everyone seemed out of range of any danger. They milled around the edges of the plaza looking dazed and disheveled. Christian spied a few bloodied people, but they all seemed alive and receiving first aid of one kind or another.

He probably ought to go looking for his grandmother, but she’d been at the farthest edge of the square from the disaster and moving away from the chaos the last time he saw her. Frankly, he was more worried about Stone’s safety. That guy’s heroic streak was a mile wide, after all, and tinged with a touch of self-destructive impulse.

He searched through the crowd until he spotted the familiar visage. Stone’s tuxedo coat was off, no doubt draped over someone’s shoulders, and at the moment he was bent down in concern over someone seated on the edge of a concrete planter box.

Christian sprinted for his side. He desperately needed to be close to Stone. Close enough where he could protect his lover if need be. To touch him to be sure he was really alive and unhurt. He reached Stone’s side and rasped, “Are you okay?” He was shocked at how hoarse his own voice was.

“Yeah. You?”

“I’m good.”

For an instant their stares met, naked relief raw in their gazes. It was all there in their eyes: the unspoken attraction that went way deeper than simple lust. Awareness that they could have a future together. That they’d come perilously close to losing it all just now. A promise to do something about it with this second chance they’d miraculously been given.

“Thanks for carrying out that pilot. We couldn’t have done it without you.”

Christian responded, “I dunno about that. You and Tucker seemed to have things pretty well in hand.”

“Time was the problem. We got him out twice as fast with you there to take him. That was the difference between us getting away from the copter before it caught fire and not.”

“I’m not the hero. You are.”

Stone looked around the square. “There were probably a bunch of heroes out here tonight.” As a fire truck careened into the plaza, then steered up a set of shallow steps and over next to the burning helicopter, he added, “And here come a few more heroes. We need to let them know the passenger and pilot are out of the craft already.”

“I’m on it,” Christian declared. He raced over to the nearest police officer and relayed the information with a request to radio the information to the firefighters immediately. It was taken care of and a brief thanks from the fire department relayed back to him. Indeed, as he looked on, the firefighters backed well away from the copter to spray it with water from a safer distance.

Tucker came up beside him. “We need to get Stone—Jack—out of here. The police are too busy to hold off the media, and reporters are going to be all over this place in a minute.”

Aww hell. The guy was totally right. “Let’s go, Travis.”

They ran over to Stone, who was comforting someone who seemed to be hyperventilating or maybe having an asthma attack. Christian and Tucker grabbed his elbows and bodily dragged him away from the scene. Christian paused long enough to tell a cop who looked like a supervisor that they were taking the senator back to his hotel, and then they were out of there.

The SUV wound past a phalanx of emergency response vehicles and then was clear. Tucker accelerated onto a highway, and Christian finally breathed. He closed his eyes in relief and eventually opened them to find Stone staring worriedly at him.

He smiled, or at least tried to, and Stone reached over to hold his hand. “No one was killed, and our side won the battle. It was a good night.”

Tucker responded soberly from the front seat, “Ooo-rah.”

The rest of the ride back to the hotel was silent. No surprise, the phone was already ringing when they walked in the door. Christian swore under his breath.

“Can I help?” Stone asked.

“Nope. You did your hero thing on the plaza. But this is the kind of crisis I excel at. I’ve got it.”

He spent the next hour repeating the same line over and over. “The senator is unharmed and prays for the safety of everyone else involved. He has no further comment at this time.”

“Why don’t you just record a message?” Stone finally muttered.

He rolled his eyes, wishing it were that easy. It was all about finding a calm yet concerned tone of voice that conveyed reassurance and empathy to everyone who called. Gradually the panic in the callers diminished as word got out of no fatalities and only the pilot suffering serious but not life-threatening, injuries. The news coverage was wildly inaccurate, and it would be morning before the television stations collected all the cell phone footage and put together a coherent view of what had happened.

A reporter somehow managed to get past the hotel’s security staff and knocked on the suite door, but Tucker unleashed a hardcore Marine ass chewing on the guy and chased him all the way back to the elevator. Christian thought he heard the elevator door close before Tucker quit barking like a pissed-off elephant seal.

A glaring but grinning Tucker returned to the suite and snatched up a phone to give the hotel security staff a chippy piece of his mind about their effectiveness at protecting hotel guests. The worst of his outburst over, Tucker rang up room service and ordered a tray of snacks and sandwiches to be sent up to the suite, pronto.

Then the ex-Marine announced, “I’m getting a chair and parking in front of the damned door of the suite for the rest of the night. And neither of you are going anywhere. Understood?”

Stone and Christian exchanged amused glances. “Yes, sir!” Christian replied briskly.

Tucker nodded in satisfaction and replied more calmly, “Holler if you need me for anything.”

Christian nodded his thanks at the man, who really was a boon to have around in a crisis.

After about two hours of frenzied phone calls, e-mails, and texts, the evening news cycle passed and the media blitzkrieg aimed at Senator Lacey stopped. The suite abruptly went quiet, and Christian and Stone were truly alone at last. Their gazes met.

“You okay, Christian?”

“I will be.”

“Combat stress takes some getting used to.”

“No, thanks. I don’t need scenes like that mess in the plaza to become a common occurrence in my life.”

“They do get old. But that wasn’t nearly as bad as combat gets. No one had any body parts blown off, and nobody died in my arms. Like I said before—it was a good night.”

Stone’s words conjured up all of Christian’s fear for Stone’s life from earlier. A shudder passed through his entire body. He moved toward Stone slowly, his legs feeling a hundred years old all of a sudden. “My first thought when the helicopter started to come down was of you. I was terrified for your safety. And I was scared shitless that you might die before we got to figure out what’s going on between us.”

“What is going on between us?” Stone asked seriously.

“It’s more than I’ve wanted to admit is going on, that’s for damn sure.”

That drew a short laugh of commiseration out of Stone.

By mutual unspoken consent, they moved into the bedroom. Christian wrapped his arms around Stone and hung on for a long time, absorbing the strength of Stone’s embrace. Eventually the shock and relief wore off, leaving just the two of them behind.

Stone muttered, “When I heard that firework blow so close, I thought someone had shot me. And my first thought was how pissed off I was that I was going to die without ever telling you how goddamn crazy about you I am.”

Christian’s entire being froze. Stone felt the same way about him? Something opened up around him, not exactly unicorns farting hearts and rainbows, but
possibility
. Hope. In his entire life, he’d never seriously believed he might find a man like Stone, who was his equal in intelligence, focus, and drive, and who actually might be able and willing to love him back.

By being gay, the dating pool was already vastly reduced in size, and then his impossibly high personal standards eliminated most of the rest. As if that weren’t bad enough, within that tiny pool of possible life mates, one would have to exist who would put up with his OCD tendencies, his high-powered job, his high-stress life, his need to control his world but also his need to relinquish that control in the bedroom, his sarcasm, his arrogance, and all his other many imperfections. And then to top all that off, he would have to actually
find
that person.

Had lightning truly struck?

Stone was kissing him, and all of a sudden he was kissing Stone back passionately, desperately. The adrenaline rushing through his blood turned to molten desire in an instant, and insatiable need to have this man and have him right now drove him half-mad. Stone seemed to be similarly affected, and they tore each other’s clothes off, wool and Kevlar, silk, starched cotton and spandex pooling on the floor around them.

And then it was just the two of them, chest to chest, belly to belly, heart to heart. Their lovemaking was frantic at first, but then, as their bodies joined and became one, they slowed, savoring this moment, languidly exploring the boundaries of pleasure with each other. Stone seemed to understand that tonight Christian needed to be made love to tenderly, in the same way Christian instinctively knew that tonight Stone needed the human connection with him more than he needed to breathe. Face-to-face, they stared into each other’s eyes as their pleasure grew and grew, and then grew some more.

His craving for Stone knew no boundaries. He hung on with all his strength and rode the wave of building ecstasy, reveling in the almost lost look that came over Stone’s face as he gave himself over completely to this magical thing between them. Christian knew the feeling. This was new territory for him as well. He was unused to the silence inside his mind. Absent was the usual sarcastic little voice telling him he was a fake and not worthy of this man.

Something was different about how Stone was touching him tonight. Sure, the usual intensity and physicality were there, but Stone took his time, was more thoughtful, seemed intent on showing Christian how much he appreciated him. It was… respectful. And it was mesmerizing as hell. They met tonight as adults, sharing a mutual expression of caring for each other. It was tender within the collision of big, strong bodies. Emotional within the panted exclamations of pleasure. Loving within the lust.

A great yawning space opened up within him, and then Stone was there, filling every last corner of it with his humor and honor and determination, and all the other qualities that made Stone so very special. He absorbed them all into his soul, and in return gave all of himself back.

And then the sheer sexual sensory overload of the moment took over, ripping away all thought, leaving him raw and exposed and hungry. Pounding lust drove him up into Stone, against the hard, immovable wall of his lover.

It was all about straining muscles, sweat-slicked skin, bodies slapping together, groaning pleasure, and then a grinding rush toward release. The explosion, when it overtook them, was epic. They shouted into the pillows as their bodies convulsed in paroxysms of bliss that rocked Christian to the core. His world actually shifted on its axis a little, making room for the possibility of blinding pleasure that left him emptied to the bottom of his soul and refilled to the brim with Stone’s. He collapsed against the pillows.

Mind. Blown.

Stone panted beside him. They were silent for a change. But then words would do paltry justice to what they’d just shared between them. Stone touched his forearm, sliding his fingers down it to grasp his hand. He managed a reassuring squeeze in response to the unspoken question.

They stayed like that a long time, lost in the feelings, without words, just being with each other. Gradually the tension and stress of the evening’s crisis drained, and where it all had been, only the two of them remained. Whole. Unbroken. Together.

STONE
woke abruptly, startled awake by Christian mumbling in his sleep and tossing in the throes of what sounded like a nightmare. He put a comforting hand on Christian’s shoulder, and Christian settled immediately at Stone’s touch, moving on to something less disturbing in his dream.

Stone was still blown away by the sex they’d shared earlier. He’d never felt anything like that. It… moved him. As in, emotionally. Hell, as they’d lain together in the afterglow, he’d actually teared up a little. The grizzled combat warrior had been overcome by the beauty and generosity Christian shared with him. Since when was
he
Mr. Sensitivity?

Wide awake, he looked at the bedside clock. Another hour till sunrise. Time enough to sneak out for a run on the beach, which he desperately needed. Not only did he still feel residual adrenaline from last night coursing through his veins in need of release, but he badly needed to get his head together.

He slipped out from under the covers with all the stealth of his special forces training and silently collected running shorts, T-shirt, and running shoes. He dressed in the living room and then eased past Tucker, dozing in the chair outside the suite. The elevator bell would wake the security guard, so he opted for the fire escape. He jogged down a few floors, then ducked into a hallway to catch an elevator the rest of the way down.

Free. For the first time since he’d started this circus of a job, he could disengage, stretch his legs, and clear his head. Except as he finished stretching and took off running down the beach, thoughts of Christian would not let go of him. He remembered the stricken look in Christian’s eyes as he’d talked about his fear of losing Stone, his determination and courage as he’d hauled that pilot away from the burning helicopter, his openness and honesty in bed last night, everything he couldn’t get enough of about the man. He was… perfect.

Stone’s stride lengthened as his muscles warmed up and the kinks of vigorous sex worked out. He reveled in his deep breathing, in the blood surging through his veins, in the glorious sensation of being alive.