Page 46 of Out of Control

“If we want to set up surveillance on the brothel before the evening’s clientele starts arriving, we need to get rolling.”

Spencer stood up, obviously waiting for instructions.

“You can cut out the silent treatment. It’s childish.”

“I’m not giving you the silent treatment. This is your show and I’m waiting for you to take point.”

“God. You’re such a soldier.”

Spencer rolled his eyes, not bothering to respond to the obvious.

Drago led the way into the basement of the building, which was dungeon-like—dark and dank, stinking of the coal that had run the furnace until the fall of the Berlin Wall and the introduction of modern heating to this neighborhood. He fetched a key from its hiding place on one side of the dismal space and then headed for the other side.

“Watch your head,” Drago murmured as he worked his way toward the darkest corner of the cellar.

He ducked beneath old pipes and reached into the shadows, his hands disappearing into the darkness. He felt around and found the ancient padlock he was looking for. After unlocking it with the key, he put his back into shoving the cast iron door inward.

Spencer stepped up behind him to help push on the rusted door. Spencer’s breath brushed across the back of his neck, and the skin there tightened until the short hairs stood straight up. Shivers of delight rippled down his spine.

Lord, the effect that man had on him. Normally he considered himself the epitome of calm, cool, and collected. But when Spencer was close, all of that went to hell. Jittery, he muttered, “Together. One. Two. Three.”

On heave number three, the door gave way enough for them to slip past it. Now that the rust had broken free, he shoved it shut relatively easily, and total darkness fell around them.

Spencer’s disembodied voice murmured, “You should’ve told me to grab my NODs.”

“Don’t like being blind, huh? Duly noted.”

“I can work in the dark just fine.”

“I’ll bet you say that to all the boys.”

“I told you. There are no other boys.”

The implication hung thick in the darkness that he, and he alone, was the exception to Spencer’s rule of never allowing himself to have a relationship. That he alone had broken through Spencer’s fortress of solitude. That he alone had been worth taking a massive risk on.

Warmth flowed through him, and the darkness took on a magical quality, as if they’d been displaced from reality into a mystical realm of pure night and pure sensation.

Maybe that was why he reached out, approximating where Spencer stood from his voice. His hand found Spencer’s neck. When his fingertips touched skin, Spencer jolted, and the muscles and tendons corded in sudden tension.

“What are you doing?” Spencer squawked under his breath.

“Scared?”

“No!”

“You sure about that, Captain Courageous?”

“You just startled me. You didn’t scare me.”

He curled his fingers around the back of Spencer’s neck and used his thumb to caress the spot just behind Spencer’s ear. He took a step closer, bringing him close enough that if he took a deep breath, his chest would rub against Spencer’s. “Are you absolutely certain I don’t scare you just a little?” he murmured.

He didn’t see it coming, so it stunned him when Spencer’s hands abruptly cupped his face and pulled him forward.

Warm, firm lips were suddenly on his, and his mouth fell open in total shock. Spencer’s tongue invaded his mouth, and he dueled it with his own tongue, each of them jockeying for control of the kiss.

But then Spencer’s head tilted a bit. And his own head tilted a bit. The tongue wrestling morphed into something much more cooperative. Much hotter. A sexy slide of tongue on tongue. Stroking. Swirling. Sucking. Their mouths fit together perfectly, and they were kissing hungrily. Spencer tasted like peaches, and that was somehow exactly right, like in the old days. When everything between them had been in perfect sync.

He took that deep breath he’d contemplated earlier, and his chest rubbed against Spencer’s, which also turned out to be lifting and falling inordinately quickly. He leaned in. Spencer leaned in. Their bodies pressed into each other, and even the hard poke of Spencer’s belt buckle and the handgun under his left arm were just right.

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