Page 5 of Enemy Within
Jack’s gaze darted over Ethan’s face, searching. He frowned. “Did you get any sleep?”
“Some.”
“Liar.” Arching an eyebrow, Jack sat back but kept his hands under Ethan’s clothes and on his skin. “You should let me watch over you at night, too.”
“I’d rather do it. I have you close to me.” He patted his hip and his holstered weapon. “I have constant protection on you all night long. There’s no way anyone can get to you. Not without going through me.”
“Literally.” Jack smiled, but it faded fast. “I’ll drive during the day again. Rest, and let me watch over you.” He squeezed Ethan’s hip.
Ethan nodded, and the corners of his lips quirked up. This was new, this give-and-take of caretaking and watching out for each other. In DC, at the White House, there had been their jobs and their duties and the world to react to. They took care of slights and wounds inflicted by the press, their suits and ties a kind of armor against the world. Out in the wilderness, in the forest, they’d fallen into a different kind of caretaking. A sharing of two lives, each supporting the other’s existence. It was primal, in a way, how they had fused together. Half of his life was in Jack’s hands, and instead of feeling vulnerable, it was the most natural feeling in the world. “Deal.” He pressed a kiss to Jack’s lips.
A question hovered in the forefront of Ethan’s mind, weighing on his thoughts. Every morning, he felt the weight of his secret resting over his heart: two rings, made before the world fell apart around them. Some moments, asking Jack was on the tip of his tongue, ready to tumble from his lips with his next breath. He forced himself to swallow the words. Not yet. It wasn’t the right time. Not yet.
Jack leaned into Ethan, and his hands wound around Ethan’s back beneath his sweater. “At some point, we won’t be sleeping in this jeep anymore,” he whispered into their kiss. “We’ll have room to stretch out… share a sleeping bag…”
Smiling, Ethan pulled off his gloves and brought his hands up to Jack’s face, his thumbs caressing Jack’s cheeks. “We don’t need a sleeping bag…” One hand snaked around Jack’s neck, and the other dropped to his hip.
In a flash, he flipped Jack, laying him on his back across the bench seat. Jack wrapped his legs around Ethan’s waist as Ethan slid his hands through Jack’s blond strands.
Jack grabbed his shoulders and pulled Ethan closer, his legs holding Ethan in place. He captured Ethan’s lips, kissing greedily as his hips rocked upward. Even through the layers they wore, Ethan felt Jack’s hard cock pressing against his own.
“I want you,” Jack breathed. “I want you to make love to me.”
Ethan’s blood burned, searing through his body from his head to his toes, and part of him wanted to tilt Jack’s head back and ravage his throat, work his way down, unwrap him like a present until he found his cock. Suck him deep. Work him open with his tongue until Jack begged for more, and then sink his cock into Jack’s warm, tight body. Jesus, he wanted Jack. So much.
The springs on the jeep’s suspension squeaked with their rocking, and the tires groaned and crunched against the snow on the ground. In the distance, low chuckles sounded, and one catcall.
Deflating, Ethan dropped his forehead to Jack’s chest. He rode Jack’s heaving breaths and listened to his racing heartbeat. “I don’t want an audience when I make love to you again.”
Jack’s legs dropped, one falling over the back of the front seat, and the other squishing against the window. His hands stroked over Ethan’s back and tangled in his hair. “I don’t want to have to be quiet.”
“Jesus.” Ethan gripped Jack and surged against him, thrusting against his hard cock. “That’s not helping.”
Smiling, Jack rocked his hips up once and then scooted backward, propping himself up on his elbows as Ethan sat back and tried to straighten out his clothes. A prominent bulge strained the front of his cargo pants. He ached, painfully hard for Jack.
From the center of the camp, Scott called, “Coffee’s ready if you are!”
Rumbling laughter, deep and throaty, from nearly all the men.
Shaking his head, Jack started to pull himself together next to Ethan and fished out his balaclava from the pocket of his cargo pants. Outside of the jeep, he wore a full-face balaclava and, on their drive, he kept everything but his eyes covered. Ethan insisted, and Scott and Sergey both backed him up. The members of their convoy, of course, knew who Jack was, and just after Jack had shown up, Sergey had delivered a scathing speech in Russian to his people that had had even Ethan flinching, though he didn’t understand a word that had been said. But they were traveling through a war zone, parts of Russia that were contested in the coup, under attack from Moroshkin’s forces, and had been bombed by the United States and other nations, all trying to stop Moroshkin.
Who knew what was out there, orwhowas out there. Jack was, to the world, brain-dead in Bethesda Naval Hospital. A front-page picture of him alive in Russia would go over as well as a nuclear bomb.
“Scott came by?” Jack tucked his undershirt into his pants and took a moment to readjust. His cheeks were dusted crimson, a faint flush Ethan wanted to nibble.
“Yeah.” He tore his eyes away from Jack and fanned the bottom of his sweater, trying to cool his body.
“How’d the scouting go?”
“The route is clear for the morning. More abandoned villages. They found fuel and some supplies. Vasily is cooking eggs.” Ethan reached out and traced Jack’s spine through his sweater and jacket. “And you should talk to Sergey.”
Jack turned and stared at Ethan.
“I think Scott’s worried about him.” A tight, strained smile curved his lips. “And that’s saying something.” Scott’s trust in Sergey, and in their Russian allies, stretched from meal to meal. Day to day, hour by hour. If everything came apart, Scott would be the first to say “I knew it”.
“He hasn’t wanted to talk to me.” Swallowing, Jack leaned back with a sigh. His hands dropped to his lap, and he picked at the wool fibers of the balaclava. “He’s kept his distance since Volga. I’m not sure I’m the person he wants to see right now.”
Nodding slowly, Ethan frowned. Sergey’s harsh accusations, thrown at Jack at Volga air base, had been the last direct contact the two had. “After all this time, you think he’s pulling away because of…”
