Lanyon, Josh - Adrien English 04 - Death of a Pirate King (21 page)

I folded my arms, leaned against the entryway wall. “Yeah, I
guess I should have.”

He didn’t say anything and even a moment of silence was more
than I could take right then.

“But if you can’t trust a cop, who can you trust?” My heart
was thudding hard -- too hard probably -- but I didn’t feel angry as much as
excited. Like someone had reset a breaker and dormant systems were suddenly
coming back to life, lights blinking on, transmitters pulsing, receivers
crackling in anticipation. I added, “Anyway, I was pretty sure I didn’t have to
worry about you walking in on me unannounced -- and here you are, trumpets
blaring.”

It was like we had both newly completed one of those Berlitz
foreign language courses. Every comment was followed by a pause for
translation. It shouldn’t have been that hard because we’d been talking to each
other fine for about a week now.

“I…didn’t want to drag you downstairs to answer the door,” he
said. “You looked like hell the other night.”

And suddenly it was easy again.

“Still the same silver-tongued devil I remember so well,” I
said. “What happens next, we relive our greatest moments and you throw me
across the room?”

The flush in his face died away. He said quietly, “If you
think I’m not ashamed of that, you really don't know me.”

“That’s a safe assumption.” I turned and headed for the
kitchen. “You want a beer?” I sure as hell did.

He didn’t answer. I glanced back and he was just standing
there staring down the hallway as though he expected to see me lying on the
floor, as though he could hear the echo of smashing glass and our furious
voices.

I kept walking toward the kitchen. I didn’t want to relive
one minute of that memory. Or any of them, if I was wise.

“I…” I couldn’t catch the rest of it. His voice was
unexpectedly husky.

I cut across in falsetto, “Love means never having to say
you’re sorry.”

Something in his silence made me wish I’d shut up.

“Nice to know all the defense mechanisms still work,” he said
mildly at last.

“Better late than never.”

Another loaded silence.

I stopped and faced him. “
Shit
.
Sorry.”

I didn’t want to hear it. What was the point? What could he
tell me that I didn’t actually know?

But I waited. He didn’t say anything. And then just as my self-control
gave out and I was about to speak, he said flatly, “You’re going to find this
funny. I had no idea how much I would miss you.”

I swallowed hard. “Funny. Yeah.”

“I wanted to do the right thing. I wanted to have a real
marriage. I knew things would have to change between us. I just…didn’t expect
to lose everything. I didn’t intend to lose your friendship. Maybe that seems
pretty dense.”

On a scale of one to ten with ten being solid bone from the
eyes up? Yep, a ten.

I said, “You know what I think? I think you needed -- wanted
-- to make a complete break.” I was able to say it without emotion maybe
because I’d said it to him so many times in my imagination. “You hated yourself
for being queer. I think you probably hate me too. Or did -- when I was part of
what you hated about yourself.”

He was shaking his head. “You don’t know what you’re talking
about. You were the only part of it that ever made it seem…okay. Sane.”

It.
It?

“Which tells you how crazy we both were. And even if you had
wanted to stay friends -- which you didn’t, whatever you tell yourself now --
how the hell long do you think we would have lasted as platonic pals? How the
hell long did it take you to dig out the whips and chains? Or did you ever put
’em away? Maybe I don’t understand your idea of real marriage.”

He said angrily, “You’re such an expert on commitment?”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” My heart tripped
and started that goddamned staggering three-legged run. I ignored it.

“What we had together was about a lot more than fucking. We
had a friendship. For chrissake, you were the only person in the world I could
be honest with.”

“You weren’t any more honest with me than you were with
anyone else.” I had no idea what we were actually arguing about at this point,
but I was hoping to draw blood.

“Bullshit,” Jake snarled. “You’re the one trying to pretend
it was nothing more than sex --”

“You’ve been telling lies to other people for so long that
you’ve started telling them to yourself --” I had to stop to catch my breath.

The anger went from him just like that. “Are you okay?” he
asked.

“Fucking A. Jake, there’s no point…” I had to stop again.
“Let’s stick to talking murder.” I turned, rested my hand briefly on the wall.
“Get yourself a beer. I need to use the john.”

In the bathroom I got my pills out of the cabinet, scooped
them down with a handful of water from the sink. Not a problem, I told myself.
I was a little late taking my meds and I shouldn’t have had the brandy. I
shouldn’t have let myself get so mad. I splashed more water on my face. Sat
down on the side of the tub and gave myself a few moments. Pneumonia takes a
while to get over. That’s all. I wasn’t seventeen anymore.

Jake was in the kitchen staring out the window over the sink.
Two bottles of beer sat on the counter. He turned at the sound of my footsteps.

“Are you okay?” he asked again, scanning my face.

“I’m fine. Why do people keep asking me that?”

He said dryly, “Maybe they need reassurance.”

“Maybe they should mind their own business.”

He raised his brows, watching in silence as I got a tumbler
out of the cupboard, poured myself a glass of water, and sat down at the table.

“I came to tell you the DA has given us the go-ahead to
arrest Nina Hawthorne.”

I swallowed a mouthful of water. “That seems premature. Do
you have enough to make it stick?” I asked.

“She had means, motive, and opportunity.”

“What motive did she have?”

“You should know that.”

Revenge for a dead child. It seemed kind of melodramatic this
afternoon.

“Have you figured out how she got the poison into Porter’s
glass?”

“Not yet.”

I studied his face. “And you’re not convinced she’s guilty.”

“I don’t know that she’s not guilty.”

That sounded as convoluted as the French justice system. “So
why --?”

He sighed. “Because the mayor’s office is demanding an
arrest, and the DA thinks we’ve got enough to move forward.”

“And arrest the wrong woman?”

“One of those two is up to her neck in it. It was either the
Hawthorne woman or Ally Beaton-Jones, and we haven’t been able to connect
Jones’s wife to digitoxin.”

“But it doesn’t make sense to rush into this, does it?
Especially if your gut instinct is telling you something else.”

“I can’t take my gut instinct to the DA,” he said. “Anyway,
it’s not my job to convict them. That’s why we have the courts. If Hawthorne
isn’t guilty --” He must have read my expression correctly, because he grimaced
and admitted, “And because it’s Alonzo’s case and I’ve already roadblocked his
first two lines of investigation.”

Me and Paul Kane.

“Ah.” I said. “And you don’t want him looking too closely at
why.”

His mouth tightened. “I didn’t want him wasting time and
taxpayer dollars, no.”

I smiled. “Right. And you didn’t want him looking too closely
at why you were so sure Paul Kane -- or I -- hadn’t committed murder.”

He gave me that long, dark look I remembered so well and then
turned his profile to me, staring out the window.

I tilted my head, considering him. “Do you honest to God not
see the compromises you’re having to make?”

“Adult life is a series of compromises, Adrien.”

“Yeah, only you’re negotiating with the Devil.”

Not looking at me, he growled, “Oh, go to hell.”

I raised my water in a toast. “Sure. I’ll follow the trail of
bread crumbs you’re scattering.”

He turned to face me again, and shook his head like he could
not understand why he was making the effort. Which made two of us.

“You came to me, Jake. And I’m wondering why. You didn’t have
to drop by in person to tell me Nina was going to be arrested. It’s not like
I’m really a colleague.”

Or a friend.

And weirdly, as though he had read my mind, he said, “I would
like us to be friends again.”

“Well, I knew that was coming,” I said, although I hadn’t.

He said stubbornly, as though arguing with me -- or maybe himself,
“I miss you. I miss talking with you. I miss -- laughing with you.”

“I am pretty damned adorable,” I said, “but as I recall we
weren’t doing a lot of talking, let alone laughing, at the end there.”

He said, “You know that I didn’t -- that I never wanted to
hurt you. You know --”

I cut in flippantly, “Kill me, yes. Hurt me, no.”

“Adrien.”

And it was my turn to have trouble meeting his eyes. I said
-- and it wasn’t easy -- “I don’t think I can, Jake. I don’t think it’s even
fair to ask.”

Silence.

He said finally, without inflection, “All right.”

And the funny thing was, that terse acceptance, the lack of
any emotion, was somehow harder to take than if he’d begged or bullied.

He drained his beer, set the bottle beside the untouched one
on the counter, and said without looking at me, “I guess I ought to get going.”

I nodded. I didn’t think I could get a word out if my life
had depended on it.

He walked out of the kitchen, and I rose and followed him to
the door. He took my key off his ring and handed it to me. “I’ll let you know
when Nina is formally arraigned.”

I nodded. I felt the warm brush of his fingers pushing the
key into mine all the way to my heart. I focused on the key because if I looked
up, I’d see what he was feeling. Worse, he’d see what I was feeling -- in a
minute what I was feeling was going to be spilling out of me, and it didn’t
make any sense. It had been over long ago; we had just finally got around to
saying good-bye, that was all.

Neither of us said a word. Neither of us moved a muscle.

Finally Jake said, huskily, “I lied. I didn’t come here to
tell you about Nina Hawthorne, and I didn’t come here to ask you to be friends
again.”

I raised my eyes. “I know,” I said.

Chapter Eighteen

His face stilled -- except for his eyes. Something blazed
back into life there, and I recognized it because I’d felt it when he’d walked
back into this room after a two-year absence.

I reached for him, and he wrapped his arms around me, and for
a minute it could have been a hug good-bye…or maybe hello…because then his
hands smoothed their way down my back, pulling me closer, closing on my hips,
drawing me against him, unashamed of his arousal. Naked honesty right there,
stretching the soft fabric of his jeans, poking against my groin.

And for once I had nothing to say. Jake’s mouth found mine,
his lips molding hot and soft to my own. His tongue tentatively tested the seal
of my lips; I parted them and he pushed inside. It was startlingly sweet and
achingly familiar, like finding harbor. Like I had been waiting decades for
this, traveling leagues, Odysseus sailing at long last into the blue crystal
waters of Ithaca -- and never considering the trouble ahead.

I lifted my lashes and met Jake’s tawny stare. Another switch
flipped, and with something like shock I felt my cock rising as I finally
turned back on. My breath caught on a half sob; relief made me a little giddy,
and I leaned against him, making fun of us both like his kisses were making me
swoon.

But I didn’t fool him. His arms wrapped around me and he said
softly, against my ear, “Okay?”

“Oh yeah,” I said, nodding into his shoulder. “You don’t
know.” I craned my head, seeking his mouth again, and he was right there,
opening to my kiss, welcoming me home.

He tasted dark and bittersweet, like my memories -- only more
intense. My heart pounded hard, blood drumming away in my ears, like spring’s
freshet after the ice began to break. I kissed him with all the hardness and
hunger in me -- let him feel it all: my anger and grief and frustration. When
we finally broke apart Jake didn't look shocked; he looked…predatory. Hot.
Ravenous. Forty days in the wilderness and -- well, not paradise at the end of
it -- maybe steak dinner with all the trimmings. His eyes glittered.

“Oh, baby,” he muttered, and I laughed unsteadily as his
hands slid beneath my T-shirt, shoving the thin cotton up to find bare skin.
And it felt wonderful, those big hard callused hands moving over me, stroking
and petting, relearning…

His dick was hard, rock hard through the Levi’s -- he had to
be in pain -- and I pressed closer, rubbing against him. Briefly, I wondered
how much of this was me wanting the past back, the remembrance of all that heat
and power -- tempered with the occasional tenderness -- because there were
safer and saner ways to relive old times. We weren’t either of us the same
people, and this…was…madness.

And yet we were kissing again. We were locked onto each other
as though we had just discovered this incredible thing you could do with two
mouths pressing close and moist against each other. And the taste of him…the
flavor of him… Horrifyingly, unbearably sweet -- sweet in the way crack must
feel hitting the bloodstream of an addict after years of staying clean.

As our kiss deepened, one of his big hands slid down and
palmed my ass, and I groaned, desperate for that closeness -- why the hell were
we wearing so many clothes on a hot summer night? I wrapped my arms around him,
and he moved right into them. He felt harder, leaner, fiercer than I remembered
-- all taut muscle and energy. He was smiling against my mouth, liking my
hunger, my demand.

Fleetingly I wondered what Paul Kane was like with him. What
Kate -- his wife -- was like. But I shunted those thoughts away, because I wasn’t
going to stop. Air raid sirens couldn’t have stopped me.