Page 84 of Devil and the Deep Blue Fish

“It’s so awful,” Jackson gasped as Ellery struggled out of his own shirt. Jackson helped him by grabbing the lapels of his pajama top and ripping it open, scattering buttons everywhere.

“I know it’s awful,” Ellery said, rubbing his hands along Jackson’s bare torso. “Baby, it’shorrible.Youneeded me.”

Jackson closed his eyes and pulled Ellery against him so they were skin to skin. “Oh God, I did,” he whispered. “All yesterday. I needed you so badly. But we had to keep going—you know that—wehadto keep going.”

Ellery kissed him, hard, angry, because he wasright.They’dhadto keep going—someone they loved had beenhurt, and the stakes were so fucking high, and they’dhadto keep going, but the cost….

Ellery wouldn’t think about Jackson’s screams, hiswhimpersin bed the night before, or the sobs that had wracked him until he’d fallen abruptly asleep. He wouldn’t think about the nagging ache in his chest and the way his head pounded as he’d tried to battle thewrongnessof their day.

Right now, in this instant, he didn’t want to think at all.

The kiss ignited, their hands everywhere, their need for each other insatiable.

Jackson needed him. Ellery needed Jackson to be okay.

Ellery turned him, maneuvered him, kissed their way to the bed. The rest of their clothes were pushed and wiggled out of, and then they were bare skin to bare skin, Ellery’s body covering Jackson’s on the still-rumpled sheets.

Ellery could smell his sleep and despair and his quiet on the sheets, and the heat and vitality and living, pulsing physical desperation in the man underneath him.

He wanted to devour it all.

He kissed his way down Jackson’s scarred chest, stopping just long enough to suck hard on each nipple. He paused around his soft-skinned, lightly furred stomach to command, “Grab the lube.” He felt Jackson reaching under their pillow as he wrapped his lips around Jackson’s cock.

“Oh God,” Jackson whispered, his hips arching. “Jesus, Ellery—”

But Ellery was beyond pleas. Hecouldn’tkeep Jackson safe on the street as he did his job. Hecouldn’tprotect him from whatever hells his past had buried in his heart and scarred psyche. His whole life he’d been led to believe that with reason and hard work he could change the world, but he couldn’t change Jackson’s pain.

This,owning him heart and soul, being the man whoknewhis demons, who helped Jackson Rivers arm himself against darkness—thiswas how he controlled his universe.Thiswas how he changed the world. By protecting this one man, by keeping him safe and keeping him sane and letting him know he was loved.

Jackson made a soft sound as his hips stuttered, and Ellery kept sucking, pulling his cockhead into the back of his throat and swallowing. Jackson beat at the mattress with one hand while fumbling the lube into the hand Ellerywasn’tusing to squeeze and stroke his cock.

Ellery took the lube and paused when Jackson made that sound again, that soft sound of surrender. He tasted the sweetness of precome and squeezed Jackson’s base before lowering his head and swallowing again. The next sound Jackson made was muffled, and as Jackson spurted in his mouth and came, Ellery knew he was screaming orgasm into his cupped palm.

Ellery swallowed, his own arousal amping up with every swallow, with every grunt. He whined around Jackson’s pumping cock as he sought to get a handle on himself before he spent his climax in the sheets.

With one hand he snicked the lube tube and squeezed some onto his fingers. As Jackson pushed his feet against the bed and thrust his hips up, Ellery parted his buttocks and thrust his slick fingers into Jackson’s pucker.

Jackson groaned, the sound still muffled, and Ellery clicked the tube shut and shoved his body up, positioning himself and thrusting inside, letting out a grunt of his own, not bothering to muffle his sounds.

Yes, there was somebody in the house, andHe.Didn’t.Care.

Almost violently he knocked Jackson’s hand away from his mouth and kissed him to muffle their noises. Jackson’s hands gripped his shoulders, slick and dripping with sweat, and Ellery fucked him savagely in short, powerful strokes, wanting to claim him, to heal him, to soothe him from the inside out.

Jackson groaned into his mouth and raised his legs to wrap around Ellery’s hips, and that was it. That’s all Ellery needed. Keeping their mouths fused together, he thrust one more time, a short charge of dynamite, and came.

Between them, he felt Jackson’s hot spend coating their stomachs and thighs as Ellery fucked him through a second orgasm—or a continuation of the first.

Ellery didn’t know, couldn’t keep score. He let out a small groan before collapsing on top of Jackson, knowing his lover, hismate,could bear his weight.

The roaring of his own blood in his ears receded, and the sound of their panting, the smell of their sex, filled his senses, and he rested his head on Jackson’s collarbone, welcoming Jackson’s palms on his sweaty shoulders.

“Soundproof?” Jackson asked hopefully into the silence.

“Yes,” Ellery said. He remembered his mother being very excited about the gift from her husband. “She’ll probably listen to briefs or a book or something while she goes to sleep.”

Jackson nodded and covered his eyes with his hand. “I have no idea why I let that happen.”

“Let?” Ellery was affronted. He pushed himself up, still inside Jackson’s body, and thrust a little. “I hate to tell you, buddy, but that was consensual.”

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