Slow Burn (MM) (11 page)

Zack sympathized with them.

Brody’s eyes fluttered closed, and he moaned as he sucked Zack in farther. Dark lashes against his olive skin. When he glanced back up, he nailed Zack with a look so deep, so intense, Zack felt
his
knees falter.

Enthusiasm and a driven purpose took the place of finesse and technique. He hadn’t the experience of Zack, but it was just as well. That piled on top of Brody’s fingers gripping the meat of his leg, urging him, wanting him, would’ve made Zack blow a fuse in the first three seconds. His gaze was at once glassy with pleasure and demanding in intent.

Zack had to lean forward and grab hold of Brody’s shoulder; his orgasm was already coming on so strong. The tips of his fingers brushed against something raised and smooth. A quick glance told him a scar of some kind. He hadn’t noticed it before. As he tried to look, Brody distracted him, his hand wrapped around Zack’s cock, now working him too.

“Shit, Brody,” he muttered.

Brody kept his gaze on Zack’s face, letting go and urging him in so deep he hit the back of Brody’s throat.

“Yeah. Shit, yeah…” Zack dug his fingers into the firm shoulder and came so hard he saw sparks. Brody never moved except to hold him tight as he rode wave after wave of his orgasm.

“Fuh-ucking hell.” Zack stumbled back after, sitting down hard on his bare ass.

Brody looked at him from his seat on the chair, holding his body so tight one might think his limbs were about to shoot off in four different directions.

Zack flopped back, rolling his head to the side to look over at him. “Go on without me!” He waved with intentional dramatic flair. “Save yourself. Leave me here. I’m useless to anyone now.”

Brody chuckled a bit, relaxing the slightest.

Good. That was the point.

“So that was…” Brody waited, shifted his weight, eyebrows cocked up.

Zack eased up to one elbow, body feeling twice its weight. “Was…?” He gave Brody a matching look.

“Okay?”

Zack sat straight up. “Okay?
Okay?
Dude! Are you asking or saying, because that was a helluva lot better than okay.”

Brody dropped his head, and Zack worried until he heard the laughter and saw his shoulders moving with a low chuckle. It warmed Zack to his toes.

“I was asking. Relax. Your shameless pride in your skill is warranted. It’s just…I don’t… I haven’t—”

“I know.” Zack scooted closer and pushed himself up to his knees in front of Brody. “You’re not one to bestow that gift on many. I get it.” He leaned forward and slid his hand around to the back of Brody’s head, tugging him forward. “And again I say that was a helluva lot better than okay.”

He kissed him, at first soft and gentle. It took about ten seconds for it to grow heated enough that Brody’s hands were on his arms, hauling him up and in.

Zack eased back. “If we start this again, you’re going to have to carry me from this chair because my legs will cease to function. And I don’t look it, but I’m heavy as hell.”

“You look it.”

“Hey!”

Brody smirked. “But I’d manage.”

He just bet Brody would. There was a lot more to the man than anyone would first guess, and hadn’t he always known? It was part of what drew Zack in. The complexity, the mystery, the hidden depths.

But damn, he didn’t need to lose himself in the pleasure of digging. It was one thing to admire Brody, lust after him and not hide it anymore, and get to sate that desire. That was it, though. There would be no give and take between them other than the physical. And Zack needed to remind himself of that. Repeatedly.

There’d be no,
So let me introduce you to my friends. Take you to a hospital event. Meet my mom. Meet your fam!

He was Brody’s dirty little secret, and he better not forget it. He wouldn’t, because he remembered exactly how it had felt with Marcus. When the only man he’d ever loved, the only one he’d gone so far as to entertain the cohabitation, long-time, maybe-forever notion with, ripped out his heart with two short sentences—it’d stunned him. Then he stomped on Zack’s heart by marrying his old sweetheart from high school. All of it was like being blindsided by a Mack truck.

“Hey.” Brody nudged him. “Did you already pass out on me?”

Zack tried shaking off the ghosts of the past.

“I’m getting engaged to Reena. Forget you ever knew me, because I have to forget you.”

Marcus was gone, and it’d taken years to recover.

“Postcoital narcolepsy. Just tired,” Zack lied. He was smarter now, and he wasn’t doing that again. Not with Brody. Not with anyone, ever. He’d enjoy this time, but he’d remember what it was. A secret fling. Fun and light.

Temporary.

Chapter Ten

Brody’s desk chair squeaked in protest as he leaned back as far as it would allow. The air-conditioning rattled the wall vent with its piss-poor effort to cool the room, and the wave of stifling heat that blasted the doorway with every entry and exit confirmed it was just another oppressively hot and humid day in Charleston.

Yet he’d give his left kidney to be trudging out in the heat instead of stuck in the damn office with his knee in its strap. Light duty was obviously code for the circle of hell designed especially for him.

He was back on the job now, so he should be happy with that. And at least his paperwork would be fucking perfect and he had access to his real case.

He stared at the white sea of his computer screen, seeing nothing. Instead he went over the Strangler case in his mind, hoping that something would magically pop up that he hadn’t already considered.

It was a decent enough distraction from the fact that he was still treated as an invalid, stuck behind a desk. It also stopped him thinking about Zack. Kind of.

Thinking about Zack within these walls was uncomfortable to say the least. Confusing, new, disturbing. It gave him a headache from the tug-of-war going on upstairs. Downstairs, there was absolutely no conflict. None. Zack was all kinds of his type and he wouldn’t bother denying it, but his mind couldn’t meld the man Brody enjoyed spending time with and getting naked with, to the Brody of Charleston’s Homicide Division.

Hell.

He wished he could shut down one part of himself, one way or the other. Either accept that he was into men and decide he didn’t care what that meant to anyone, including himself, his deceased father, or his closest friends.
Or
give it all up, forget men and that aspect of life, and live only for the job.

If anyone could do it, he could. Police work was essentially a bubble he’d lived in his entire life. Granddad was a cop. Dad was a cop. He joined the force liked his dad, worked his ass off as a uni, and quickly moved into Homicide. Being the son of the ex-captain, it was what was expected of him, and he always did exactly what was expected.

He almost had the ideal life. Except for the fact that his life ended when his shift did. He had no life outside the job—until now. Work alone was no longer enough.

“What’s up, Brody?” A detective from Vice passed his desk. “Good to see you back, man. Real good.” He shook Brody’s hand, and, with manly slaps on the back, the welcome was over.

Would he be so welcoming if he knew about last night? If he knew how much Brody enjoyed having Zack’s dick in his mouth. Having his down Zack’s throat.

It wasn’t anyone’s business, but if Brody came out, his private life would suddenly become everybody’s business. It’d be the biggest thing to hit the department, and he could kiss the camaraderie and any future here good-bye. He’d seen it happen before.

His dad had been everything and all Brody strived to be. Well-respected, stand-up guy, hardworking cop. Brody had worked his ass off to live up to his dad’s standards.

His expectations.

But he’d
expected
Brody to work his ass off. Expected him to be the best, to be proud of him. Brody remembered the way he’d looked at his retirement party. Dark eyes crinkled with fondness, blinking back the mist of saying good-bye to what had been a lifetime. His big forearms tightened as he held Brody.
“I’m proud of you, son. I can go, knowing you’re here. A Brody will always be here for our city.”

To think, his dad never knew what a bullshit facade it all really was.

Brody knew
what
he was, and he was
not
a man in his father’s book. Real men did not fuck other men. A lesson he’d learned a long time ago.

“He better hope he stays clean,”
one of the officers commented about a cop transferring out of the city. A cop whose personal life wasn’t so secret.

“I don’t know,”
another one said.
“If he likes taking it up the ass, prison might be the best place for him.”

His dad had laughed just as hard as the rest of them. Choice comments spilled out about men who were into other men. It wasn’t the first he’d heard it either. Sideways remarks about homos and faggots were in his home his entire life. Enough so that any feeling he had besides hard work, things his dad could be
proud
of, were shoved far, far away.

But that day, his dad’s laughter in the group was the only thing Brody had heard. He’d never been anything but a lie to his father, because the truth would’ve broken them.

There was no other way.

“Daaaamn, brother. Paperwork ain’t that fucking bad.” Lamont’s deep, taunting voice rose over the computer monitor.

Brody shook off the creeping strangulation of the past and looked up at his massive partner. “It
is
that fucking bad,” he said. “It’s always that fucking bad.”

“Ah!” Lamont waved him off and plopped what had to be a two-ton brown grocery sack on his desk. “That’s because you can’t type and it takes you all damn day, sitting there, huntin’ and peckin’. Now move this shit out of the way.” He nodded to the files and papers all over the end of Brody’s desk.

“What’s in the bag?” It hit the metal desk sounding heavy enough to contain a DB, but smelled like heaven…so he was going to guess it was Felicia’s home cooking. He leaned in to take a bigger whiff.

“Man, get back.” Lamont shoved him and moved the rest of the binders out of the way. “Felicia felt sorry for you not being out with me, and she said I should feed you so you’ll get better. You’re welcome.”

Brody didn’t wait for any other prompting. He dove right into the grocery bag and began hauling out Tupperware containers. Felicia’s cooking was legendary.

Lamont jerked the bag away halfway through. “You need to fucking chill and let me get a plate before you start gnawing chicken with nothing but your bare hands. Hang on.” He went in search of plates from the break room, and Brody did exactly as Lamont predicted.

He grabbed a breast of fried chicken that sat on top of the rest and sank his teeth into it without so much as a napkin nearby. Crispy outside, bursting with tender juicy goodness inside. He could star in the commercial if Felicia ever caved and finally opened a restaurant.

“Holy shit, that’s good,” he mumbled over a mouthful.

“Barn,” Lamont scoffed as he pulled the chair around from his desk and set up two plates. “You were raised in a damn barn. Pass the chicken.” He proceeded to load his plate with something from all of Felicia’s delicacies until it looked like a damn photo spread from
Southern Living.

Brody was licking his fingers from finishing the chicken before he ever even got to the plate business. Black-eyed peas, greens, macaroni and cheese, and corn bread. He was going to be in a food coma by the time lunch was over.

“I love your wife,” Brody mumbled over his mac and cheese.

“As you should. But you can’t have her.” Lamont ate his black-eyed peas with the grace of an English aristocrat.

Brody already had a grease stain on his tie.

“What smells so good?” Griggs, another homicide detective, asked as he passed by.

“None-ya,” Lamont barked.

Griggs flipped them both the bird and kept walking.

“If that motherfucker says one more thing about black people liking fried chicken, I’m whipping his ass and blaming you.” Lamont wiped at his mouth. “I can’t believe I gotta be his partner till you get back. Please hurry the fuck up, or
I
will commit homicide.”

Brody laughed so hard he almost choked on a pea. “Damn, I’ve missed you. And it’s not about black people,” he said, reaching for more chicken. “It’s Southerners. Griggs is from Ohio. He doesn’t know shit. You should ignore him, but if you kick his ass, I have your back. Is that…?” Brody leaned up out of his chair, spying one last pink container left in the bag.

Lamont was already jerking the bag away.

“Is that dessert?” Brody grabbed for it. “Don’t even play. Is that peach cobbler?”

“Maybe.”

He sat down with a happy sigh. It was absolutely peach cobbler, and he wasn’t going to be able to move in about ten more minutes. “I needed this,” Brody confessed. He was fully aware that with Lamont,
almost
every wall came down. He could be himself a bit.

Breathe.

“Why, are you that hungry?” Lamont poured himself some more tea.

“No, jackass. This.” He pointed back and forth between them. “And this.” He pointed to the room. “Even fucking Griggs. I was gone too long. It messes with your mind. Vacation is one thing, but…” He shook his head and had another bite.

“I know. More than a week, and you start twitching like a junkie. When I was out with the baby…damn. Felicia was begging me to go back to work. All,
I love you baby, but you’re getting on my damn nerves. Bye!”

Their mutual laughter filled the office at his impersonation of his wife. He could sound just like her.

“When are you back on active?” Lamont asked.

“Sooner the better. I don’t do any testing for a few more weeks. Until then, this is my job.”

“You’ll end up with a gut if we eat like this all the time and you riding a desk.”

“Nah.” He wouldn’t. Not if he or Zack had anything to say about it. “I’m still working out. Plan to pass PT with better numbers than ever.”

“Than when you were a fresh-faced rookie? Ha!” Lamont smacked the desk, making the Tupperware jump.

“I will.”