Page 71 of Out of Control

He really ought to be figuring out what their next moves were going to be now that they were on somebody’s radar. But instead he was lying here, his ass pleasantly sore, cuddled up against Spencer’s superhero body, snug as a bug in a rug.

This was exactly why Spencer had been so tense about the two of them getting involved again. He’d been right that resuming their personal relationship would be a tremendous distraction to both of them. But they were in the soup now. All that was left was to figure out how to actually work with the passion burning down the night around them.

He woke up with the same question on his mind, and still no answer. His watch said it was nearly 7:00 a.m. Paris time, but the windowless room was still pitch-black. Spencer stirred behind him, and he took a moment to relish the heat of Spencer’s body spooned against his.

Spencer sighed behind him. “We should probably get going, huh?”

“Yeah. Probably.”

Neither one of them moved. It was nice to know Spencer was as reluctant to break the spell of last night as he was.

“What’s first on the agenda today?”

“Fetching my emergency stash of money. Then finding someone who can get us into Khoury’s laptops. This afternoon I’ll make a call back to the States. See if I can find out who bugged my flat.”

“Can we work on getting weapons?” Spencer asked. “I confess I feel naked without a firearm close by.”

“You’ve got it. But we’ll need the cash for that.”

As tempted as Drago was to indulge in another leisurely session of lovemaking, or at least a hot good-morning kiss with Spencer, he refrained. He wasn’t going to scare off Spencer this time if he could help it. They’d had a huge breakthrough last night with getting Spencer to initiate sex; no sense ruining it now by demanding too much more, too fast. Drago clamped down on his lust for Spencer and told his morning woody in the sternest of terms to cool it. He thanked his lucky stars he’d been wearing tight jockey shorts last night when they fled his flat.

Since they only had the clothes on their backs and no food, they made short work of getting up and leaving their hidey-hole. A half hour later, they were exiting the Metro with the morning flow of commuters. Spencer was a couple of hundred feet away, providing overwatch while Drago approached a locker in the Gare du Nord train station. Quickly, he dialed in the combination and pulled out the rucksack inside. He slung it over his shoulder and headed back toward the Metro, confident Spencer would follow suit. He knew better than to look back for him.

Once the subway train pulled out of the station, he risked a glance around the car. No sign of Spencer. A momentary jolt of alarm startled him, but then he relaxed. Spencer was a big boy. He knew what to do.

Drago walked toward the back of the train car and took a seat where he could see into the next subway car. Sure enough, he spotted Spencer’s handsome face currently staring down at a newspaper. Did Spence even read French?

Watching idly, Drago smiled a little to see the women falling all over themselves to catch Spencer’s eye. For his part, Spencer was oblivious. Which was probably part of his charm with the women. In Drago’s own experience, women were typically a lot more interested in men who didn’t come on to them like big ol’ horndogs.Sorry, ladies. Spencer Newman doesn’t play for your team.Pride that Spencer had chosen him surged through him. Out of all the people on earth, male and female, who Spencer could have had, the guy’d chosenhim.

Spencer looked up just then, and their gazes met through the panes of glass and held for a warm, intimate moment. Spencer’s mouth curved up the slightest bit, and then he looked down at his newspaper again.

They rode the Metro across Paris to a mostly Algerian neighborhood. It was slightly more prosperous than the slum across town, but not by a whole lot.

“Why here?” Spencer murmured sotto voce as they walked along a dingy street lined with small, dingy stores. “It’s not as if our white selves blend in. At all.”

“Is it the kind of place you’d look for the two of us?”

“Fair point,” he conceded.

“Exactly,” Drago replied.

“Where are we going?”

“I’m looking for a store. A secondhand computer place, one that might refurbish and resell computers and laptops.”

“Ahh.”

“Speaking of which….” He spied the store in question and crossed the street to enter the cluttered storefront. The place couldn’t be more than twelve feet wide, but it was quite deep. It was crammed floor to ceiling with old computers, monitors, printers, cables, and other techie accessories from the past twenty years or more. A total cliché of a place.

“Can I help you?” a lean, middle-aged Algerian man wearing a white cap asked.

“I hope so,” Drago answered politely. “We just got these two laptop computers, but the person who gave them to us failed to mention they have security junk on them. We can’t get past the stupid encryption. I was hoping you could strip it off the machines so we could use them.”

“Did you steal them?” the man asked sharply.

“The owner died. These came to us after he passed.”

The Algerian studied him hard for a moment and then nodded. “You’re not lying.”

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