home from base a couple of hours earlier, was now quietly watching Clint pack up.
“I’m sure you’re headed out soon, too,” Clint said finally, and handed Jace a phone number.
“What’s this?”
“A service. For both of us. Call in, leave a message and I’ll get back to you no matter where I am or what phone I’m using. Same to you.”
Jace nodded. “I like that.”
“Good.” He ran a thumb across the boy’s bottom lip. “I can’t promise you more than this, because—”
“This is good enough for right now,” Jace assured him.
“Good.”
At this point, they both knew it was all they could have. Their jobs took them to dangerous places they couldn’t tell anyone about, and neither man was ready to give that up and settle down. At least that’s what Clint told himself Jace was thinking, because he was perilously close to thinking that maybe, just maybe, he could have some kind of life outside of the CIA—and he’d always known that just wasn’t possible.
Chapter Twelve
Jace called Kenny to meet him for a quick bite to eat in order to fill the hours until night training, when he realized he’d been aching since Clint left.
He’d been doing his job, dealing with Kenny, pretending everything was business as usual while inside he felt like something was missing.
And someone was. Clint had only been gone a week, but it felt like far longer, despite the texts and the call he’d managed.
It had been so much easier when Jace believed it would be all about getting his sexual appetites slaked, when fucking and being held by Clint was all Jace thought he needed. When he hadn’t imagined anything beyond the physical, of course, since that need had been the greatest. Or at least he’d thought it had been. He was all kinds of turned around now.
And even then, Jace had been fooling himself, because he knew he’d want more. But in order to get more, he’d have to share bits of himself. And he’d been guarded as anything for as long as he could remember.
Changing wasn’t going to happen soon—or easily. He couldn’t get pissed at Clint for not sharing much when he was holding back everything, too, and not just the Fed stuff, which wasn’t technically his fault. No, his background, his needs beyond the sexual—all of that was held tightly inside, partly because every time they saw each other, it took a little while to right their footing. Sex helped and was always the most immediate need, but it was like getting to know Clint all over again, and vice versa. Their missions changed them, sometimes in imperceptible ways, and there was no SOP for this relationship. No rulebook.
“Hey, cuz—you look good. Happy, for a change,” Kenny noted, and Jace realized that yeah, it had been a long time since he’d been happy.
“Work’s been good,” was how he answered, avoiding anything personal, because even though they were family, they’d never done personal. Sure, Kenny could talk for hours about the women he banged—his term, not Jace’s—because he wore the leather vest, and Jace bit his tongue instead of telling him to get checked out at the free clinic.
He listened to Kenny talk about women and the club in general, hoping to glean anything he could. Kenny told Jace a couple of months ago that Cools had taken him aside and warned him not to say anything to Jace about any of the discussions held about the club’s activities.
For your cousin’s safety , Cools had emphasized, and Kenny was now worried about everything he said to Jace about the MC. Granted, he still let shit slip, especially about his new job with them, and Jace carefully committed the dates to memory. The new job involved gun-running out of the new warehouse set up after the CIA had raided the first one. Jace had a strong suspicion the CIA had set this up purposely to lure the Killers and the Colombians right into their waiting hands, but he refused to say anything to the Feds about that, because it felt like a betrayal
“I’m sure you’re headed out soon, too,” Clint said finally, and handed Jace a phone number.
“What’s this?”
“A service. For both of us. Call in, leave a message and I’ll get back to you no matter where I am or what phone I’m using. Same to you.”
Jace nodded. “I like that.”
“Good.” He ran a thumb across the boy’s bottom lip. “I can’t promise you more than this, because—”
“This is good enough for right now,” Jace assured him.
“Good.”
At this point, they both knew it was all they could have. Their jobs took them to dangerous places they couldn’t tell anyone about, and neither man was ready to give that up and settle down. At least that’s what Clint told himself Jace was thinking, because he was perilously close to thinking that maybe, just maybe, he could have some kind of life outside of the CIA—and he’d always known that just wasn’t possible.
Chapter Twelve
Jace called Kenny to meet him for a quick bite to eat in order to fill the hours until night training, when he realized he’d been aching since Clint left.
He’d been doing his job, dealing with Kenny, pretending everything was business as usual while inside he felt like something was missing.
And someone was. Clint had only been gone a week, but it felt like far longer, despite the texts and the call he’d managed.
It had been so much easier when Jace believed it would be all about getting his sexual appetites slaked, when fucking and being held by Clint was all Jace thought he needed. When he hadn’t imagined anything beyond the physical, of course, since that need had been the greatest. Or at least he’d thought it had been. He was all kinds of turned around now.
And even then, Jace had been fooling himself, because he knew he’d want more. But in order to get more, he’d have to share bits of himself. And he’d been guarded as anything for as long as he could remember.
Changing wasn’t going to happen soon—or easily. He couldn’t get pissed at Clint for not sharing much when he was holding back everything, too, and not just the Fed stuff, which wasn’t technically his fault. No, his background, his needs beyond the sexual—all of that was held tightly inside, partly because every time they saw each other, it took a little while to right their footing. Sex helped and was always the most immediate need, but it was like getting to know Clint all over again, and vice versa. Their missions changed them, sometimes in imperceptible ways, and there was no SOP for this relationship. No rulebook.
“Hey, cuz—you look good. Happy, for a change,” Kenny noted, and Jace realized that yeah, it had been a long time since he’d been happy.
“Work’s been good,” was how he answered, avoiding anything personal, because even though they were family, they’d never done personal. Sure, Kenny could talk for hours about the women he banged—his term, not Jace’s—because he wore the leather vest, and Jace bit his tongue instead of telling him to get checked out at the free clinic.
He listened to Kenny talk about women and the club in general, hoping to glean anything he could. Kenny told Jace a couple of months ago that Cools had taken him aside and warned him not to say anything to Jace about any of the discussions held about the club’s activities.
For your cousin’s safety , Cools had emphasized, and Kenny was now worried about everything he said to Jace about the MC. Granted, he still let shit slip, especially about his new job with them, and Jace carefully committed the dates to memory. The new job involved gun-running out of the new warehouse set up after the CIA had raided the first one. Jace had a strong suspicion the CIA had set this up purposely to lure the Killers and the Colombians right into their waiting hands, but he refused to say anything to the Feds about that, because it felt like a betrayal
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