Don't... 04 Backlash (8 page)

“
Jack,”
Gray said eventually, and the look in grey eyes saw Jack’s
tired
pull out of
swimming pool
look
as they fixed on Gray. “I remember Martin from the fallout over
Cutter,” he mumbled quietly. “You don’t. Not properly. So control?”
He buried a groan. “Don’t ever ask again for me to Dom you when you
run and hide from me in Martin. I’ll give you anything in this
fucked-up world that you want, but Martin? I can’t fucking stand
that bastard. Okay, kid? I’m here for
you
, when you’re ready, not him.”

The
ghosts played hard, and in the shower, Gray felt it again, that
gentle brush of lip against shoulder blade, a quieter
please
for control. For a moment he
gripped around the showerhead.

“Yeah. I know I
hurt you.” A touch drifted down to where water ran over Gray’s
lower abs. “You okay, mukka?”

Easing his grip
off the shower, Gray turned around and let his arms snake Jack’s
shoulders. Pulling him in close, he closed his eyes, ignoring how
he buried relief at hearing the familiar call of “mukka” now.

Jack had done
this once or twice a week since they’d been back, getting up in the
morning and coming into the shower with him. Always after Gray had
gotten in, after the sickness hit, but still always covering his
hip. Gray tightened his grip around Jack for a moment and eased
into a sad smile. “Morning, stunner,” he whispered in his ear
before kissing it.

Black hair
coiled around Jack’s face, almost hiding the look there in his eyes
as Jack glanced up. Concern battled heat, building with each time
Jack had come into the shower. The heat there was the look off the
late teen, a time when Gray had pulled up outside of Alan Shaw’s
house, the policeman Jack had put in hospital. It had been raining
then. Jack had just come out of a six-month trial with getting
Cutter sent down, and Gray had tried to sever the connection with
Jack, break away before he fell and cried out his own fall. But
he’d been met with this look: this need to fuck, to ask if they
were okay, only Jack hadn’t known how to voice it. It offered such
a dark beauty in those grey eyes, how they cried out to fuck, to
feel, to touch, to try and heal.... And as much as Gray wanted to
stop the fall back then, take away the hurt, he wanted to fuel it,
to make him understand how to ask, to fight, to fuck, let himself
be exhausted to the core, because in the aftermath...

Jack’s hand was
on his hip now, hiding the branding mark that he’d cut out, hiding
parts of himself despite the conflict of emotions. Gray eased out a
breath. Damage was on full display and all of Jack’s confidence
faltered with it, twisting Gray’s stomach and stirring more
sickness.

Kissing at
Jack’s neck, Gray eased his touch down, one hand tracing Jack’s
side, his hip. As he let his touch drift over the hand covering the
scar, Jack went to take a step back, his “No” crying his panic.
Gray breezed a caress at the back of Jack’s hand, his demand to be
allowed to touch.

It seemed to
come so naturally. Jack pulled his hand from underneath Gray’s, to
rest at his side. Full access given to his hip.

“No hiding from
me, Jack,” Gray mumbled quietly. “Please.” He brushed just above
the scar, and he caught Jack’s unsteady breath. The V that Vince
had branded into his skin was gone, cut away into a perfect square,
aligned perfectly with the contours of Jack’s fine body, as though
he’d inched it into pristine precision, then started picking at it
when he thought it kept moving and slipping out of place. Most was
healed, except for the top right hand corner. A hint that Jack had
left a bloodied kink in one corner of the photo so he could come
and rip it up, then inch it back into position when life got too
much. Vince’s denial of letting Jack go casual with his photo had
seen Jack tear at his own body, trying to order life by
straightening and bloodying his own wounds, like a dog made to ease
his own hurt by biting it away.

Gray stroked
over the scar tissue, then skated on water over the smooth, tanned
skin to trace the finer V of Jack’s abs. “Sorry, stunner,” said
Gray, leaning into the curve of Jack’s throat and kissing softly at
his collarbone. “So fucking sorry I wasn’t there for you and
Jan.”

Jack made sure
Gray found his gaze and came in for such a rough kiss. “I remember
the alley,” breathed Jack against his lips. “I remember getting
dragged to your interrogation cells, mukka. And I remember the
bastard... the electronic tagging that came after.” One kiss was
given, then two, three—the fourth offering a brief taste of tongue
against tongue, then every ounce of heat and need came in the final
fight to feel as Jack didn’t draw back for breath from the fifth
tonguing. “I remember everything about you, Gray. And knowing
that”—he pulled back slightly—“you ever apologise again for loving
me, I’ll fucking floor you for it. We clear?”

Gray damned his
own soul for running with the exchange of breath, for missing this,
and in that instant took Jack’s mouth just as hard, just as rough,
bodies so tightly pressed together that Jack’s hard-on dug into his
thigh with every slight grind of hip off them both.

Dangerous
ground, Gray knew that, and it would be so easy to fall, to push
Jack up against the wall, pin his hands above his head, fuck him
until he cried loud enough to stir life into Jan... but instead
Gray calmed, pulled out of the kiss. “Jack—”

“Gray. I miss
the fuck out of the way we touch, full on. Heat and chain.” A brush
of hand came at Gray’s jaw, followed by a soft nip of teeth on lip
that caught all of Gray’s attention. Then Jack looked down his
body, tracing the reaction of his own heat and running the back of
his hand down his own cock, just once. “Fuck. Talk to me, Gray....”
He shivered. “Talk to me about BDSM. About ways to get back to
touching your life, mukka. To touching you.”

Gray frowned.
Jack changed from that one stroke to a gentle grip down his cock,
and the frowned heat about him had Gray stroking at Jack’s side, to
calm, to cool him down. He had every look of needing to be fucked,
of missing being fucked in old ways, but—

“Have you
touched yourself yet?” he breathed against Jack’s ear, although he
knew the answer already.

Jack choked a
soft smile, a blush, and it hurt to see this awkwardness at such a
simple question. “I play.” His look said just that. “But it’s
alone, it’s... it’s... alone.”

“And Jan?” Jack
had found it hard, but Jan...? “Has he played alone yet?”

Jack shrugged,
and Gray caught the fall of his shoulders. “He...” Jack came in,
kissing at Gray’s shoulder, nibbling. “He shakes every time I go
near him. I don’t know if he’s wondering who’s touching him... me
or Martin.”

“Easy.” This
time Gray kissed at his neck, adding a harder bite. “And you think
you’re ready to talk about getting back into BDSM, stunner? You
think Jan’s ready to see you back in the BDSM lifestyle, knowing
that?” Gray had sworn not to interfere on Halliday’s psychological
evaluation of them both. Records and sessions were kept private, no
matter how deep the temptation. They all talked when they needed
to, not because they had to.

“He had no
question over coming back here to you, Gray,” breathed Jack, his
hand coming up Gray’s neck, his head tilting more, wanting the kiss
at his throat to turn into something... more. “I think he knows it
will happen eventually. And me... I’m so fucking tired of fighting
this heat. I need us; what we are to each other.”

Gray screwed
his eyes shut, controlling his breathing, but refusing to run with
Jack a little more even though his bite was almost hard enough to
mark Jack’s throat now.

Jack sighed,
body relaxing into the rougher touch. Maybe he was ready to talk,
to at least look at ways to coax mind and body into play,
but....

Jack had found
it hard just to come into the shower and be seen. The gap between
concept and the reality of what he wanted seemed so far apart, and
Gray still felt the cuts and bruises from the last time he’d tried
to put a pair of handcuffs on Jack. There were ways to calm and
care for a sub, to help lessen the width of the steps he wanted to
take, but....

Gray pulled
away a touch.

“You’re scared
too, mukka,” Jack breathed quietly again, and this time Gray felt a
hand slip between them. “I know what I’ve done.” Jack pressed his
cock flat against Gray’s hip and rode a few strokes. “You’re hiding
from me too.”

Now Gray eased
back for a different reason, watching every line on Jack’s face,
every change in emotion as Jack found solace in very old
habits.

Breathing was
heavy, Jack’s hips dipping, curving, his cock riding Gray’s hip and
leaving a wetness there of its own that had Gray wanting to cry out
and encourage. But he stayed back, kept quiet, and just let Jack
use him to chase away ghosts.

Then it came, a
slight drop of brow, almost lost under the mass of black wet hair
framing Jack’s face. Eyes were closed, screwed tight shut now,
calling out past fights and struggles, and Gray reached a hand
under Jack’s jaw, knowing this was where life became hard.

“Me,” he said
quietly as grey eyes flickered open. “You stay with me, stunner.”
Gray pulled him in by the gentle touch on his jaw and kissed him
deep.

Gray took
control of Jack’s touch on his cock, playing one slow and long
stroke down his shaft as he covered Jack’s hand. Feeling the
thickness and heat through Jack, Gray’s body reacted, his cock
crying out its own need. Ignoring it should have been second
nature, but damn his soul, he’d missed this, this way of Jack’s, to
find and take comfort through innocent play of his body up against
Gray’s. And feeling that slip of hard cock against his hip brought
back a familiarity all of its own that Gray wanted to wrap his soul
around and claim back. From the cries in Jack’s sleep, Vince had
asked him to do this at some point, taking away all of Jack’s peace
and twisting the most basic innocence behind self-exploration under
a Master’s careful eye. And it must have been what broke Jack all
those months ago back in Gray’s bedroom.

“C’mon,
stunner,” Gray breathed before going in for another, deeper kiss.
His breathing matching Jack’s despite having no touch on his own
cock, Gray took Jack’s shaft harder, faster, feeling every tension,
every build of release as Jack ground his body in so close, hips
now riding the touch as much as the touch rode Jack. “Fucking
c’mon, cariad,” he whispered, the Welsh running off his tongue in
the heat of the moment.

“Fuck.” Jack
came so quickly, burying a cry in Gray’s shoulder in a bite that
would bore into bone, let alone draw blood. Gray instinctively
grabbed a hold around Jack, one hand seeking his ass, the rough
grip there encouraging Jack to ride the last few ounces of come out
of him, the other threatening roughness down his back.

“Fuck,”
breathed Jack again, gripping at Gray’s ass and pulling Gray off
the wall, his cock rubbing hard into Gray’s. “Fuck...”

There was a
moment where Gray felt Jack shift, move to kiss his way down Gray’s
chest, repay the first touch, but Gray stopped him with that hold
under his jaw, keeping him on his feet, then went in for a long
kiss.

He wanted this.
The taste of his lips, nothing more. There was a time and a place
for sex. This wasn’t it.

Jack sighed,
easing a nip at Gray’s lip, then traced a run of slow kisses along
Gray’s jaw and nuzzled back into the curve if his throat. Jack
cuddled in close as his heart started to slow. Gray could feel it,
that pounding chasing a normal beat, chasing calm, and Gray stroked
gently at Jack’s ass, happy to stay there as he found it. This...
the hold in the aftermath, this was what life was all about.

“Where did you
go?” Jack stopped the playful kisses on the curve of Gray’s throat,
now holding on for life. “Those five months away... where the fuck
were you?”

Gray let his
fingertips skate over toned skin. “Too far from here,” he mumbled
quietly. “Too fucking far from here, stunner.”

A hand eased
off Gray’s ass to come between them and stroke distractedly at
Gray’s stomach. Jack nipped, occasionally licking at the moisture
on Gray’s throat, then he pulled back slightly and ran a hand over
the stubble making its presence known on Gray’s chin.

“Keep it,” he
said quietly.

Gray frowned as
grey eyes searched his. Heat was still there in his cheeks and Jack
offered such a soft smile.

“Fucking
gorgeous on you, mukka.”

A kiss brushed
Gray’s lips, then Jack eased the door open. He stopped for a moment
and glanced back. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Fine now,
stunner.”

Jack nodded.
“Then we’ll talk, yeah? Maybe about looking at ways to get things
back to normal in the bedroom, if only that? All three of us?”

Gray offered a
smile, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Small steps—”

“Yeah,”
finished Jack. “Time. I know, mukka.” His gaze saddened. “We all
need it. Hm... who was on the phone?”

“Hm?”

“Just.” Jack
thumbed back to Gray’s mobile.

“Work,” said
Gray.

After a brief
glance back, Jack nodded. “You... you just stay safe, okay?” Then
he was gone.

Giving a rub at
his jaw, Gray looked over at his shaving kit, then his phone. An
investigation into Ryan Keal from the SSTP was something he didn’t
need. Not today. He rubbed at his head as he got out of the
shower.

After the usual
security checks and body search needed to get into MI5 Headquarters
at Thames House, Gray slipped his jacket back on and made his way
up to his office, offering the occasional smile that seemed to have
more people frowning at him and offering a slight nod, but nothing
more.