Proven Guilty Boys in Blue 05 - (2 page)

Later that night, James was alone. His room-mate had gone out with his fiancée again, as had been his pattern for months. Usually, the guy didn’t even come home, so moving out made sense for all of them. Except that rent and association were expensive in this neighbourhood and his room-mate hadn’t paid up yet.

He flipped through the box of porn videos that weren’t making the move after the wedding, and settled on one with two guys and a girl. The bright lights and cheap clubmusic in the living room setting immediately put James on edge. He ignored it. Straight guys looked for opportunities to jack off to bad porn, right? Fake boobs in high-gloss, high-pitched gasps from behind frosted pouts and hair with a silicone sheen to it were the ‘it’ factor in actresses, it seemed.

James tried to get into it. The two guys were taking turns banging this chick who conveniently wore no panties. Her clothes were poorly made as they ripped off her body with little more than a predatory glance from the muscle jocks stalking her.

It got more interesting as the second guy looked on. His cock was stiff, sprouting from above small, tight testicles like an oiled missile. He took it in his hand and started jacking himself off with a series of
yeah, baby, take hims
that made James roll his eyes.

James picked up the remote and hit mute.
That’s better
. Without the distraction of poor scripting and worse acting, James watched the extra man. He told himself he was just pretending to be the guy, turned on by the couple having sex.

He matched the stroking, the motions, almost imagining that it was someone else’s hand on him. When he would have naturally sped up or fondled himself, he resisted the urge, mirroring the actor instead.

Unfortunately the actor was only keeping himself hard for the woman. He tugged back her head and shoved his cock into her mouth. In James’ mind, it was Powell. He closed his eyes, imagining that redhead going down on him. A thrill raced from his balls up his spine. It was because he was a twink, James told himself. It was because giving it to the twink and making him holler for getting exactly what he’d asked for appealed to James. Not because it was hot, but because it was a matter of power over the smaller man.

At least, that was what he was going with. But he didn’t want to think about it too closely. Whatever the reason, his dick felt like it was ready to explode. He cracked his eyes open, saw the other actor spilling his load. It hit the first man’s chest.

James shouted as cum shot into his jockeys, eyes locked on hard jizz-splattered abs. The phone rang. James yanked his hand from his pants. He held it up and away from himself as he scanned the room for a towel, anything to wipe it on. He opted for his shirt, rubbing it down the front as he reached his free hand towards the phone.

“Hello?” James asked, making sure to get the fabric wedged between his fingers. He brought his hand to his face and sniffed. He wrinkled his nose, and dropped the offensive palm to his thigh.

“Hi, is this James Runyon?”
“Yeah, who’s this?”
“Shawn Janis. My brother tells me that you’re looking for a room-mate. Can I stop by

on Saturday to see the place?”
“When are you thinking?”
James’ gaze snagged on the men in the porn movie. They were going for round two.

This time they’d caught her bending over the bathtub. He vaguely wondered what she had to do to get her ass that shiny. But the men dropped their towels and the screen filled with hard, tanned ass. One of the guys stood with his legs parted, his balls a shadow between his upper thighs.

James hit pause.
“I can be there at one tomorrow,” the voice on the other end told him.
“Yeah, sure,” he muttered, already feeling a rise in his shorts. He grinned and reached

Shawn climbed the front steps that Saturday with a set of nerves. The guy on the phone hadn’t sounded very friendly. In fact, he sounded annoyed that Shawn had called. His brother had explained that Runyon had a few rough edges, but he was basically a good guy.

The only thing that had struck Shawn about him, other than his rudeness, was the moment when Runyon’s voice had gone husky and said he was coming. For that one brief second before Runyon had hung up on him, Shawn had gone all tingly and warm.

A seductive baritone in his ear announcing he was coming was always welcome as far as Shawn was concerned. He only wished he were so lucky. According to Shawn’s brother, Runyon was painfully straight.

He was about to press the doorbell when the door swung open. The guy on the other side of the threshold was huge. Six feet four, maybe taller, Runyon might as well have been
Bunyan
. He was missing the flannel, the axe and the ox, otherwise he’d be a dead ringer for the giant hairy bear of a man with shaggy brown curls and a face that wore experience.

“Yeah?” Runyon asked, his brown eyes sweeping Shawn from head to toe. Shawn stuck out his hand. “Shawn Janis.”
Runyon eyed him sceptically, letting the hand stay out there by itself. “You don’t look

Shawn let his hand drop. He lifted a brow. “Stepbrothers. We grew up together but we have different parents.”
Runyon frowned. He had a white-knuckled death grip around the side of the door. Weirdly, it didn’t look like Runyon was going to let him in.
“I didn’t realise there was a demographic for renting here. Was I wrong to show up?”
Something switched in Runyon’s eyes. He left the door open and walked away, muttering about lawsuits and the District Attorney lackey. Awesome. Living here would be awesome, Shawn decided. Not that he had a choice. He began work on Monday, and he didn’t have time to look for something else.
Location and price were critical components since Shawn didn’t own a car. You didn’t need one in New York. Here, it might be a different story. This town house sat right on a bus line at the end of the second block. He couldn’t have picked better. If Runyon okayed him.
He followed Runyon inside, shutting the door behind him.
“So this is the place. Take a look around. Your room would be upstairs on the right. Mine’s on the left. We’d be sharing a walk-through bathroom on the top floor. This is the great room with living room, dining, kitchen and the deck out the back overlooking a neighbourhood park with walkways and barbeque pits. That door there,” he said, pointing to one beside the open pantry, “is the finished basement. It has a gym and the laundry room. There’s a laundry chute from the second floor to the basement if you get lazy.”
“Midwestern hospitality at its finest. At least it makes a New Yorker feel like home,” Shawn quipped.
He wandered the town home. The rooms were nice, and the one he’d be taking was clean. So was the second sink area in the bathroom. For all his hard edges, Runyon kept a clean home. Never would have guessed it from his demeanour.
He spared a look into the other suite, more out of curiosity than anything else. Dark masculine furniture dominated the room. An oversized sleigh bed held a monstrous kingsized mattress in the centre. The huge bedside tables were topped in marble and the dresser with tri-fold mirrors took up the wall across from the bed. A sliding glass door led out to a modest balcony, just as his room did.
He took the stairs down, looked over the rest of the property then sat down in the living room with Runyon.
“What are your terms?” Shawn asked, getting down to business.
Runyon shrugged. “Pay on time. Don’t piss me off. Clean up after yourself. Don’t touch my food, and if you have people over, respect my privacy. I don’t want to see your girlfriend’s naked ass on my table, and I don’t want to hear you fucking in the next room. The rest we can work out.”
“I need to move in right away. Is that going to be a problem?” Shawn asked, deliberately overlooking the reference to girlfriends. Runyon would find out about that soon enough.
“No. First month’s rent and deposit equal to a month’s rent up front and the key to the door is yours.”
Runyon barely made eye-contact.
For all that the offer stood open, Shawn didn’t want them to start off on bad terms. “Just so I know how things are, am I currently doing something to piss you off?”
Runyon looked at him then. Those warm brown eyes seemed to look through him, sending a zing of awareness straight to Shawn’s balls. Well, fuck. That couldn’t be a good sign.
“No,” Runyon said bluntly. “You’re just a bit of a surprise.”
“How so?”
“I was expecting a younger version of Janis.”
“Instead you got a taller, not-so-squared-off blond with more attitude than muscle. Yeah, I get that a lot,” Shawn admitted.
Runyon broke his first smile. It softened every hard angle and dropped a dimple square in his right cheek. The natural squinting of his eyes and the crinkle around the corners stole Shawn’s breath. He tried to cover with a cough.
“Something like that.”
“Good. So we’re all set then?” Shawn asked.
He’d learnt a long time ago that when it came to cops, you looked them in the eye, spoke firmly with confidence, and didn’t back down. Even if you were wrong. Unless of course you’d done something illegal. There were perks to having a brother on the force. You got a close look at the no-nonsense sex appeal of a man in uniform. Hubba hubba. And this time, old brother dear had delivered.
Shawn wrote out a check for first month’s rent and deposit, then handed it to his new room-mate.
“We’re set.” Runyon dug through his pocket and freed a key from his key loop. He held it out to Shawn. “Move in whenever you want.”
“My furniture doesn’t catch up to me until next week. I’ll sleep on the couch until it gets here.”
Runyon gave a curt nod, got up and wandered to the kitchen. Shawn shook his head. Yep, just like a cop. He figured you out, put you in a box and closed the lid when he was done with you.
Shawn got up too. “I’m going to pick up my suitcase and make a run to the store. You need anything?”
Runyon looked up briefly. “Nope.”
Off to a great start,
Shawn mused sarcastically.

The door shut behind Shawn. James listened for a car engine but didn’t hear one. When enough time had passed, he finally dropped his guard. Every alarm in James’ head had gone off, and for the first time since that moment in the woods when Liam had accused him of being gay, James was worried.

Shawn Janis
hadn’t
looked anything like his brother. He wasn’t five foot eight with thick dark hair and olive complexion. He didn’t look like he could grapple a perp around the waist and take him to the ground. He didn’t walk with a swagger, and he didn’t have the deep-set Italian eyes of his brother.

Shawn stretched to a lean and relaxed six feet. He had loose, but cropped blond hair with a slight strawberry tint to it. His eyes were almond-shaped and blue, crystal blue. He had the suggestion of freckles across his nose and cheekbones, like they’d been whitewashed on his pale skin. His lips weren’t tight like his brother’s, they were plump and mauve, but with a sculpted edge of refinement. His jaw swept into a squared angle and every feature was laid out in perfect symmetry.

Night two since Shawn had moved in, and James decided that maybe the guy wasn’t so much of a threat after all. They left at different hours of the day and came home at different hours of the night. Sure, James had tweaked his schedule and got to the office a little earlier than usual, but it kept him sane. The less time he spent with Shawn the better. The more control James had, the more he felt secure in his heterosexuality.

But it felt like a slim victory. His conscience taunted him that if he were really in control, would he need to run to the office? And if he had to think he was in control, didn’t that mean there was something he needed control of?

He trudged to his bedroom and shut the door behind him. There were more important things—more
worthy
things, he decided, that he should be thinking of.
He grabbed the television remote and turned on the news, keeping the volume low as he showered up from a long day. He managed to get out and shut the bathroom door without running into his room-mate. Shawn must’ve come home while James had stood under the water, because he could hear the man banging around in the kitchen.
With a sigh, James opened his fast-food bag and pulled out a burger. The smells coming from downstairs made his stomach rumble, even as he finished his first burger and dove in for the second one. He let his eyes glaze over as he watched the tube. The case he and Greg had been working on continued to plague them.
The evidence was all there, but the suspects didn’t seem to fit into the picture completely. Each one had something that negated him as the murderer. He thought again about the young woman who’d been killed and left in the back of the small diner after closing. Something was missing. There had to be
something
.
He chewed mindlessly. His burger tasted like cardboard, but he didn’t care. He got it all down and brushed his teeth before Shawn began his bedtime prep. He flipped out the lights and ignored the light tap on his bedroom door.
“James, you still up?”
“No.”
“Okay, then I didn’t tell you I brought home an apple pie to share, or a hot pot of decaffeinated coffee.”
“Yeah.”
James heard the man grunt with annoyance. He rolled over and tried not to listen to the sounds of Shawn getting ready for bed. When the light under the door no longer made the objects in his room visible, James relaxed and drifted off to sleep.
Around three in the morning, James woke with a start. “I need a pen,” he muttered as he threw back the covers and tore down the stairs with sudden insight into the case.
Fumbling near the phone for a notepad and pen, James pulled out a bar stool at the centre island. He roughly sketched out the crime scene, entrances and exits, as he and Greg had at the office. The smell of apples and cinnamon distracted him momentarily, and he got up to pour himself a cup of coffee. He kept staring at the diagram.
It was there, he
knew
it. Like awareness crawling at the base of his skull, the answer had been there the whole time. What
was
it?
Absently, he put his coffee in the microwave and warmed a piece of pie before he returned to the stool. He stared at it.
No shoes. She’d answered the back door without her shoes on. Why? Her co-workers said she often kicked them off while she went over the books. They knew that about her, so wouldn’t she have put them on if she’d been accepting a late shipment from a distributor? They’d been working off the theory that it had been a delivery person. Boxes had been stashed, unpacked, by the back door. The record showed she’d signed for them around eleven-thirty, thirty minutes before the end of her off-hours shift.
“What happened to you?” he whispered.
A grunt from the living room reminded him he wasn’t alone. James glanced down at himself, relieved to see he’d put boxers on before bed. He preferred to sleep in the nude, and it would have been an embarrassment to get caught naked in his kitchen, by the man he’d been avoiding.
James looked back at his paper. He circled the shoes in his diagram.
She knew the killer
. It was the only reason she’d open the back door of the diner without wearing them, and there’d been no forced entry despite the threat from one irate customer.
Satisfied that he had something to work on with Greg, he cleaned up his dishes and turned off the kitchen light. Unable to resist looking his fill at the blond angel in his home as he passed, James crept to the couch.
The glow of the stairwell lights kissed his hair and created dusky shadows where his lashes brushed the tops of his cheekbones. In sleep, Shawn’s lips relaxed into a sweeping cupid’s bow. He mumbled, rolled from side to back and dislodged the unzipped sleeping bag he’d used as a cover.
Shawn’s smooth, pale chest had nipples that matched the colour of his lips. The gentle cradle of his toned abdomen dipping between his hipbones would haunt James, he realised with pleasure-twisted dread.
Shawn’s body wasn’t hard. He wasn’t leanly packed either. If he hadn’t been toned, James might have thought him soft, but there wasn’t anything flabby or extraneous about Shawn’s build. It was neat, fit, firm and for fuck’s sake James wanted to touch it.
He’d managed not to. He hadn’t touched the man once. Not in greeting that first day, or to seal the deal in making him the new roomie. Not once. Still, James stretched out his hand and drew it over him an inch above Shawn’s body. A low hover was all he managed before snatching his hand away and forcing himself to go back to his bedroom.
James lay on his back. His aching cock strained for the ceiling through the slit in his boxers. He shoved his hands under the pillow beneath his head and willed his dick to empty. The whisper of air circulating from the fan above him felt torturous, yet he refused to touch himself to relieve the pressure.