“We have to acknowledge that we’re fighting a man who has bested us for years. We’ve got his trail, and we just have to keep going.” Smiling, Jack held out his hand for Cooper. “Well done, Lieutenant.”
Cooper shook his hand, and then Jack shook the hands of the rest of his team, thanking them for their hard work. A C-38 readied for takeoff on the runway, and Ethan told the team he’d arranged for a night flight back to Tampa so they could sleep at home. Smiles and muted cheers rose, as the guys jogged to the plane. Jack and Ethan watched it take off, disappearing into the night sky.
* * *
They headed backto the White House, silent in the SUV, watching the city lights play over the blacktop. Daniels kept peeking at them in the rearview mirror, a soft frown on his face.
Jack took Ethan’s hand as they climbed up to the Residence. He kissed Ethan in their bedroom, slowly.
“You all right?” Ethan’s hands stroked up Jack’s sides and down his back.
“A lot on my mind.” Jack smiled. “I’m good now.”
Ethan’s hands slid up Jack’s sides again, this time burying in his hair before he tugged Jack down for a long kiss.
“Mm.” Jack hummed as he pulled back, smiling before he opened his eyes. “I’m going to hop in the shower. Wash the day off me.”
“I’ll be here.” Ethan smiled and watched Jack go, holding his hand until their fingers slipped apart. He turned on his laptop and sat at their desk, frowning as he clicked through analyses and raw intelligence briefs. The shower started in the background, humming away. He lost track of time, buried in the reports, and didn’t hear the shower turn off or Jack pad back into the bedroom.
“Ethan?”
Starting, he turned in his chair.
Jack kneeled on the bed, slowly stroking himself. His burning eyes locked on to Ethan’s. “I want you to make love to me, Ethan.”
Time stopped.
He couldn’t breathe. All the air had vanished, sucked out of the world with Jack’s words. His skin burst into flames, lines of fire tracing over his body and curling in his belly. He tried to swallow and couldn’t. His heart was suddenly too big, taking up too much of his chest, ready to explode out of him with the slightest touch or movement.
“Jack,” he breathed. “Are you sure?”
Jack smiled. “I’m sure,” he whispered. “I want you to make love to me. I’m ready.”
Everything else was forgotten: the intelligence, the reports, the briefs. He rose, walking toward Jack like a man swept up in a current, racing toward the inevitable plunge into the unknown. At his sides, his hands trembled, a lifetime’s worth of practice suddenly vanishing as he forgot how to caress a lover. No, not just a lover. The love of his life, the man who meant everything to him.
He hesitated at the edge of the bed. How would they even begin? He’d imagined the moment too many times, dreamed of this day, but now, his plans, his seduction, fled. Jack was on his knees, watching him with hooded eyes, his body bathed in soft light and carved from the deepest of Ethan’s temptations.
Jack reached out first, tugging on Ethan’s pants. A flick of Jack’s wrist, and he had Ethan’s suit pants undone and falling to the floor. Ethan’s cock rose, already achingly hard just from the moment, the anticipation of being with Jack. He shivered as Jack leaned in, his fingertips tickling over his thighs. Jack’s hand closed around his shaft. He leaned close. “Ethan,” he breathed, before sucking Ethan down, his lips flush against his skin, nose buried in his short fur. He sucked slowly, his tongue laving at the base of Ethan’s cock before he pulled off and pressed his lips to Ethan’s heavy balls.
Ethan pulled back, shivering. “Too much. If you want me inside you, that’s too much right now.”
Jack scooted back, a coy gleam to his eyes. Ethan pounced, tumbling Jack back to the bed, and stretched out over his body. Jack hummed, his arms and legs folding around Ethan, enveloping him in a perfect embrace. Ethan caressed Jack’s face as they kissed, lips merging, tongues sliding against one another.
Ethan breathed in Jack’s skin at his shoulder, at the curve of his neck, behind his ear. Tasted his lips again and again. His hands traced patterns over Jack’s ribs, following tracks he knew by heart. He painted passion with his touch, breathed love with his lingering kisses, leaving Jack breathless and moaning.
Slowly, Ethan started down his body, trailing kisses over his collarbone. Down his chest. He followed Jack’s light trail down past his quivering stomach, over his hipbones. Down, all the way to his legs, where he sucked a kiss bruise at the fold of Jack’s thigh until Jack squirmed and sighed and ran his fingers through Ethan’s hair.
Jack’s cock quivered, rock-hard and swollen, but he only pressed a faint kiss to the tip and moved on, dropping down, past Jack’s balls, until he had Jack’s thighs spread wide and his puckered asshole tilted up.
Jack moaned, and his hands slid through Ethan’s hair again, fingers scraping up the back of his neck.
He stayed down, opening Jack with his tongue, diving as deep as he could go as Jack moaned and arched his back. He nibbled and sucked on Jack’s edges, hummed as he dove deep, and laved against him until Jack was wet with his spit. Jack trembled beneath him, his legs shaking, loosening as Ethan kept on.
He tried to hold back from humping the mattress, but he was already imagining being inside Jack.
“Ethan,” Jack breathed, his fingers tangling in Ethan’s short hair. “Ethan, please. Make love to me.”
Fire and ice raced through him, disparate rushes consuming his soul at Jack’s words. He lowered Jack’s legs and crawled up his body, dropping kisses to his heaving belly, his ribs, and his flushed neck. Jack groaned into an open-mouthed kiss, and his eyes flew open as Ethan sucked his tongue into his own mouth.