Making Promises (22 page)

“It is a horrible threat,” he said quietly. “And obviously an empty one, at this point. I am not a good man. I do not keep my promises. I probably cannot be faithful to one lover—I certainly have never tried, and I’ve never had anybody expect it of me. But I would not go out and fuck people for spite. Out of weakness, perhaps, but not to hurt you. But I will hurt you. Of that I have no doubt. Perhaps this should be our last date, yes?”

Shane was quiet long enough for Mikhail to lift his eyes and meet Shane’s patient, measuring look.

“No.”

“No?”

“Did I stutter? This casserole’s hot; can we go inside?” So he made it through dinner and through the movie, and Ylena seemed to like him. She ruffled his hair at the end of
Up
, chuckling quietly as he and Mikhail stayed seated through the credits, which told a story of their own.

“So,” Mikhail said when even the soundtrack was done, “what do you think? Does it replace
WALL•E
, or is it a tie?” Shane grinned at him. “I don’t know—I think I’ll have to watch a few more times to figure out which one I like best.”

“You are welcome to come here to see it again,” Ylena said with good humor, “but next time I think Mikhail should cook.” There had been something… off… about the taste of the chicken casserole. It was edible, but apparently the third time was
not
the charm.

“Yeah, really—what can you cook, Mikhail?”

Mikhail blushed. “Nothing Russian,” he mumbled. “No
borscht
or breaded cauliflower or fish soup. Mutti cooked until we came here, and then all I wanted was American food. Cheeseburger macaroni, lasagna, chili—I wanted nothing to do with Russian food, and Mutti was right there with me.”

“Yes I was,” Ylena said mildly, “and I still am. I’m sure your friend won’t mind whatever you wish to cook, yes?”

“Me?” Shane smiled, taking Ylena’s plate from her as he stood and stretched, “I never turn down free chow.” He patted his stomach good-naturedly, and Mikhail elbowed him sharply in the ribs.

“You are not fat.”

Shane rolled his eyes. “I’m not underfed, either.”

“So, Shane,” Ylena interrupted before the argument could escalate,

“how long have you lived in the area?”

Shane shrugged. “Eight months.” He had tried a transfer to another precinct in L.A. after he’d been okayed for work—he used to have to Making Promises

shower for an hour to get rid of the permafrost on his back from all the icy stares.

“You are a detective?” Ah, yes, here it came—the inevitable parental interrogation. Whether she admitted it or not, mothers had been grilling the romantic prospects of their baby boys since the beginning of time.

“I was going to be,” he admitted, “but then I got hurt, and after that I decided it was time to do my job somewhere else.”

“You got hurt?” Ylena was instantly concerned, but Mikhail made a little sound, too, and when Shane turned around to take the dishes from his hands, Mikhail’s ice-gray eyes were avid on his face for details.

“I got called to sort of a hairy situation, and backup didn’t arrive in quite enough time,” he said diplomatically.

“How long?” Mikhail asked. “How long before the stinking cowards showed up to get you?”

“Twenty-five minutes,” Shane muttered. “Do we have to talk about this again?” He sent Ylena a furtive glance, and Mikhail swallowed and made a bitter face before nodding.

“What made you leave your home?” Ylena prodded, taking in the byplay of the two of them. Shane blushed, even as he started running the water to do the dishes, but he answered with his characteristic honesty.

“Well, I got home from the hospital and my apartment had been vacant for a month, you know? And I realized there wasn’t a thing in there—or even on the planet—that would have missed me if I didn’t come back. So when I realized that nothing in L.A. was in any way good, I figured I’d make a new start, you know? Some place where I’d have people who would miss me.”

“Or six dogs and six cats,” Mikhail said, as though finally making the connection.

“Five cats,” Shane prompted gently, and in the kitchen, within full view of his mother, Mikhail touched his wrist above the dishwater. It was a gentle touch—comforting and familiar. Shane wanted to kiss him so badly right then his chest actually hurt, but Mikhail moved his fingers and began drying the dishes Shane had been putting in the rack.

The interrogation continued but in a friendly way, and by the time Ylena yawned and excused herself to the couch to rest, Shane had covered 128

his job on the tiny Levee Oaks police force, his property, his attachment to Deacon’s family, and his thoughts of the future. He’d answered all of the questions honestly except the last one, because he didn’t know mostly, but also because you didn’t want to tell your date’s mother that you were too weird to be a policeman. It sounded a little frightening, and he’d promised Mikhail he wouldn’t frighten her tonight.

“Well, I hope you return,” Ylena said before she retired. “I haven’t seen Mikhail wear his clubbing clothes in some time, and I am happier to see them on him when he is not clubbing.”

“Mutti….” Mikhail muttered, mortified, and Shane looked at the bright teal shirt and tight black pants that Mikhail had been wearing when Shane picked him up. It occurred to Shane that he had been dressed pretty nicely the week before, and he couldn’t stop grinning even as he picked up his jacket and asked Mikhail to walk him out.

“Wipe that insufferable look off your face,” Mikhail snapped. “For all you know, I plan to go out tonight when you’re gone.”

“Do you?” Shane asked, watching as Mikhail closed the door behind him. Neither of them made a move to go down the stairs. Instead, they just leaned against opposite walls in the corridor, as though settling down for a casual conversation.

Mikhail shook his head and then looked up hopefully. “You could always come with me.” His eyes opened prettily, and Shane felt like an asshole for shaking his head.

“I don’t dance, Mickey—I’d be like a two-ton weight around your neck, and where’s the fun in that?”

“You don’t dance?” Mikhail said it like he’d say, “You don’t breathe?” only with more horror.

Shane shrugged, feeling awkward. “I’m sorry—I’m a clumsy asshole. Is that a deal breaker?”

“No,” Mikhail muttered, then, “I mean, you’re not a clumsy asshole, and it’s not a deal breaker.” Then the pout left his sulky mouth, and he narrowed his eyes at Shane. “What was their excuse?” he asked, and to anybody else it would have sounded out of the blue, but Shane knew exactly what he was talking about.

“For not coming to back me up?” he asked, and Mikhail nodded.

“The message didn’t get through dispatch.”

“Did it?”

“Well, since I left a message at Internal Affairs before I got out of the car, we had a pretty good case that they were lying.” Shane didn’t want to remember that night, but at least Mikhail wasn’t threatening to fuck somebody else and run.

Of course now he was gasping like a fish, and that wasn’t much of an improvement.

“You knew?” he asked, outraged. “You
knew
you were being set up, and you went anyway? Why would you do that? Why wouldn’t anyone stop you? Didn’t you have a partner?”

Shane shrugged. “I didn’t say it was the smartest thing I’ve ever—”

“
Answer me
!” Mikhail shouted, and Shane shushed him frantically, looking over his shoulder as though he expected Ylena to throw open the door and accuse him of molesting her son.

“She’s asleep,” Mikhail snapped, “and our neighbor works nights, and the people downstairs are old and can’t hear for shit, so you might as well answer me. Why would you walk into that situation without backup or even a partner? You promise me…. God, you have no idea what it is you are promising me, and then you show you have no respect for your own life, and who do you think is going to keep that promise if you are dead?”

Shane held up both hands in surrender. “Okay. Okay. You want the truth about that night? Fine. I’ll give you the truth.” Oh fuck. This was so fucking embarrassing. “The truth is that my first boyfriend tried to cop a feel in the squad room and we got busted. And instead of saying something smooth and blowing it off like he did, I blushed and said something socially retarded, and the entire department knew about me, and Brandon, fuck his black Teflon heart, walked away without a scratch on his lily white reputation. So I knew it was coming. My entire career, the thing I’d wanted most in the world, was in fucking shambles, my love life had just crashed around my ears, and the guy who was supposed to be my partner—in all senses of the word, mind you—had just sacrificed me to the department to save his own skin. I walked into that ambush because it felt like the last stand of every cowboy movie or knight-in-shining-armor book I’d ever seen. For once I got to play the hero and not the clown, and that night, it was just worth dying for—is that so fucking hard to understand?”

Unlike the first time Mikhail had slapped him, he wasn’t expecting this one to crack across his cheek. Damn, the guy moved fucking fast, but not so fast that Shane wasn’t able to catch his wrist before his palm cracked across Shane’s cheek again.

“What was that for?” he growled, shouldering Mikhail back against the opposite wall.

“Yes, it’s hard to understand,” Mikhail growled back. “You have this… this magnificent heart, and you just… try to throw it away. How could you do it?”

“I don’t know, Mikhail,” Shane muttered, not wanting him to feel bad—not for Shane. Not when Shane’s life was so good right now. Not when he was so close to happy. “You’ve been trying throw me away since we met.” Shane sighed, and the fight went out of both their bodies. “At least now you know there’s worse things than being cheated on, right?”

“You deserve better,” Mikhail murmured, and suddenly they weren’t confrontational at all. They were in their own world. All of Shane’s body heat made a little cocoon in the cold stucco hallway, and Mikhail must have been cold, because he shivered into Shane’s shoulders without even trying.

“That’s why I’m reaching for you,” Shane whispered, nuzzling Mikhail’s temple around the tight blonde curls.

“I mean you deserve better than—”

Shane kissed him. It had worked in the past and it didn’t fail him now. Mikhail opened his mouth generously, and that was a first, and Shane fell into that sulky mouth like a bird falls into the sky.

His mouth was warm and wet and welcoming, and when Shane pulled back to change the angle of the kiss, Mikhail matched him, tilted his head perfectly, and Shane went in to kiss him again, and again, until Mikhail broke away to pant desperately in the hollow of Shane’s shoulder.

Shane didn’t leave him like that. He moved his lips to Mikhail’s ear and around the shell of the outside and to his neck, liking the little whimper and moan that Mikhail made as Shane brushed his teeth down the tender skin of the other man’s carotid. Mikhail stood there, quivering, as Shane brushed the button of his shirt open and bent, lips to skin, and planted little kisses along his collarbone, ending at the joining of neck and shoulder and closing his teeth very gently on Mikhail’s pulse. The sound of Mikhail’s Making Promises

breath catching in his throat was one of the most erotic sounds Shane had ever heard, and when the other man raised his hands to Shane’s shoulders, they were shaking.

Abruptly—
very
abruptly—Mikhail’s hands went to Shane’s belt buckle, and he tried to sink to his knees, right there in the hallway.

Shane pulled him up by the armpits and kissed him again, holding him still with a big hand splayed across Mikhail’s chest, near his throat.

When the kiss was done, Mikhail tried to pull away again, and Shane whispered, “You’re not doing that here.”

“Why not?” Mikhail asked stubbornly, resisting. Shane got tired of fighting with him—Shane was bigger and stronger but that didn’t mean it wasn’t a struggle—and manhandled him until Mikhail was facing the corner of the hallway, one hand up on either wall, panting as Shane locked his hands against Mikhail’s chest and plastered his body—raging hard-on and all—against Mikhail’s back. Mikhail pushed backward, rubbing his ass against Shane’s groin, and Shane groaned into his neck and bit down hard enough to warn.

“
Stop that
!”

“Why?” Mikhail gritted, doing it again, and Shane, in frustration, pulled Mikhail’s shirt up and splayed his hand across the tender skin of a muscle-corded stomach. Mikhail whimpered again—a damned sexy sound—and Shane undid the fly of his black jeans to reach inside.

Mikhail’s cock was long and not too thick, the smooth skin of it feeling so right in Shane’s palm. Mikhail stopped grinding backward and started arching into Shane’s hand, and he leaned his head to his arm so he could groan, loudly and passionately, into his own shoulder.

Shane took his other hand—the one not starting a blind stroke over the iron in Mickey’s pants—and splayed it against Mikhail’s throat, and Mikhail groaned again. He seemed to like that. He liked being manhandled and overpowered. He arched into Shane’s hand again, and Shane felt how much.

“This is good,” Mikhail panted. “But why am I not sucking you off?”

“Because.” Shane released his shaft and moved his hand down under Mikhail’s briefs—he just wanted to feel, that was all. He cupped heavy testicles—just for a moment, because they were tender and the position 132