Page 45 of The Wild Charge

He sighed. “Gonna mark you down as ‘not fine,’ then.”

~*~

Tenny woke overwarm and with a mouthful of blond hair. He spat it out and cracked his eyes open to find that it was morning, soft light spilling between the gap in the blackout curtains. The air conditioner hummed away, but Reese lay boneless and snoring on top of him, face jammed in his throat, hand curling reflexively against his ribs.

He dimly remembered stripping down to his underwear in the hazy afterglow, and crawling beneath the covers. Reese had settled on him right away, touching hips to shoulders to toes, legs entangled. He’d been too tired and pleasantly buzzed on a post-coital high to insist that Reese roll away and give him some space – space he didn’t want, but felt compelled to insist on anyway, for propriety’s sake.

I don’t need anyone. I’m notneedy. This is just sex – it just feels good.

Lies that made his stomach hurt.

He trailed fingertips lightly down the knobby bumps of Reese’s spine. He fought like a wildcat, steel-strong and unforgiving, but at rest like this, vulnerable and bare, Tenny marveled at how fragile he felt; just baby-fine skin stretched over too much bone, muscles sleek and lean. Just a boy, now, and not a killer.

Reese shifted, knee hiking up higher over his hip, and breathed noisily against Tenny’s pulse point, but didn’t wake.

“I never wanted this,” he whispered to himself, and hated that a lump formed in his throat. “It wasn’t something I ever – and now – I don’t know if can hold onto it. I’m not built that way.”

Reese stirred again. “Hm? What?”

“Nothing. Go back to sleep.” When Tenny tried to extricate himself, Reese’s hand curved around his ribcage, fingertips digging in. “I’m going to see Fox. Go back to sleep,” he urged again.

Reese hummed something noncommittal, but rolled over and curled back up.

Tenny sat perched on the edge of the bed, marveling a moment, because people like them? They’d been trained to wake quickly and fully. It was eyes open, body up, ready for a threat. But here was Reese snuffling into the cool pillowcase and breathing deep again. A bite mark on his bare shoulder and a looseness to his limbs that shouldn’t have been possible in a killer trained to be a weapon, rather than a person.

Tenny’s eyes stung as he hastily snatched clothes out of his bag and tugged them on. He’d managed to compose himself by the time he slipped from the room, and knocked on Fox’s door.

Unlike him, Fox was not in sleepy lover mode. He answered the door dressed, with damp hair, already holding out a paper cup of coffee. “Sleep well?” he asked with a knowing smirk.

“Fuck you,” Tenny said, but without any heat. He accepted the coffee and stepped inside, inhaling fragrant steam and noting that Fox’s bed was made with military precision, bag packed and waiting at the foot of it.

A box of doughnuts sat on the café table, and he moved to sit down and help himself. He’d expected uniform rows of sugar glaze, but was met instead with a variety; he selected the maple-frosted and wondered if Fox had managed to glean that those were his favorite, or if it was a happy accident.

The man himself settled in across from him, scrolling on his phone. “I stayed up looking at files half the night. With a few exceptions, it all looks legit: order and shipping receipts, inventory lists, sponsors, applications for local bands. I’m sure there’s coded shit buried in there, but digital stuff’s not my area of expertise. We’ll pass it off on Ratchet, let Eden have a look, and see where to go from there.”

Tenny licked frosting off his thumb and grunted an assent.

“We’ll head back to Knoxville soon as you two get your shit together. Where’s Reese? He in the shower?”

Doughnut got stuck in his throat, and he took a long sip of coffee to clear it. “He’s still asleep,” he said, as casually as he could manage.

Which wasn’t that casual at all if the way Fox slowly lifted his head, and then his brows was any indication. “He’s stillasleep?”

Hot breath against his throat, warm skin pressed to his, chafing where the mess had dried. A hand against his ribs, and a hand squeezing his heart to pulp.

He sipped his coffee again. “That’s what I said, isn’t it? I’ll go wake him up in a second.”

Fox held his gaze a long moment, then shrugged and returned his attention to his phone. Disinterested. Unbothered.

Andthatbothered Tenny, a little, because, yes, he wasn’t behaving normally. He was being soft. And Fox should have been berating him for that, rather than letting it slide.

The sun crept higher, its light brightening across the carpet, and he imagined what it must look like in the room next door, pooling in the gaps between Reese’s rib bones; turning his skin to alabaster. His hand tightened on his cup, threatening to crumple it. Last night had been…Reese had been… been soeasy. Easy like all the stupid civilians, without any thought for his own wellbeing: willing, and pliant, andsoft, when Tenny pushed him down to the bed and rutted against him. He hadn’t resisted, hadn’t done anything but accept him, and what he wanted; if he’d been less impatient, if he’d bothered to dig through his bag, he’d had no doubts, in those frantic moments, that Reese would have let him inside, without even having to ask. The resultant headrush had been sharper than the friction, and he’d come fast and messy as a schoolboy.

He released his cup, and realized his breathing had become harsh and fast, scraping through open lips. Fox hadn’t responded, but the bastard had to know, had to hear him.

“How do you stand it?” he gritted out, too rattled to maintain his usual façade. When Fox cocked a brow, he added, “How do you stand…caring?” He spat the last word, hating it, hating himself.

(Hating how he didn’t hate feeling this way at all, but was terrified by it.)

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