“You ever think about that first week?” he asked with a fond smile.
“Some parts of it, yeah,” Zane said, edging up one shoulder as he spun the chair so he faced Ty, their knees bumping. “Usually when you’re being particularly frustrating.” He tipped his head to one side as his eyes raked Ty up and down. “Or particularly desirable.”
Ty leaned forward. “Those couple of days in that hotel room with you,” he said, voice low and intimate, “every time I looked at you I got butterflies. I couldn’t decide if it was a good feeling or if I hated you for it.”
Zane chuckled. “Oh, I was damn sure you hated me. And it was certainly reciprocated.”
“Did you really hate me?” Ty asked, not necessarily offended, but curious.
“To immense proportions,” Zane said with a nod, but then he rolled his eyes. “Didn’t last, though. You were….” He drew in a deep breath and held it as he considered his words. He ended up shrugging. “Hurricane Ty. Blew me away.”
Ty’s smile grew warmer, and he reached out to take Zane’s hand in his. “Sometimes I wish we could go back there and smack ourselves in the heads. But then I remind myself it wouldn’t have been the same.”
Zane squeezed his hand. “For me, there was no going back after you kissed me.”
Ty looked up from their joined hands and met Zane’s eyes. On his mini sabbatical he’d begun pondering what life might be like when neither of them worked at the FBI anymore; when they could walk down the street hand in hand and not care who saw; when they were no longer being shot at, blown up, or sent cross-country as errand boys. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask Zane if he thought they could be without their jobs and not go crazy.
But Ty knew he couldn’t do it. Not yet. He had been born and bred to be a spearpoint. Zane was the only kink in the plan he’d always had, but Ty found that he didn’t care. The moment Zane had kissed him, Ty had known he would throw that plan out the window.
Just remembering the terror and thrill of that moment made Ty’s stomach flutter. He couldn’t help himself—he reached out and slid his fingers along the back of Zane’s neck and pulled him closer, leaning in to kiss him. Zane sighed and relaxed into Ty’s arms as he rubbed his lips against Ty’s, then placed a tiny kiss at the corner of his mouth.
“Why can’t we just do one thing easy, huh?” Ty asked, frustrated by all the obstacles they seemed to deal with every day, the least of which was their own stunning inability to communicate with each other.
Zane raised his fingers to touch Ty’s cheek. “I don’t know,” he said, though it was with equal resignation. “Except this,” he whispered before kissing Ty again.
Ty hummed. “You have always been easy.”
“You haven’t,” Zane said, but he softened the words with a smile.
A noise from the bathroom drew Ty’s attention just long enough for him to miss the next intended kiss. He sighed and pressed his nose and mouth to Zane’s cheek. “I know I’m not easy,” he whispered. “I promise I’ll make it up to you.”
Zane shook his head. “I knew what I was getting when I realized I loved you. I don’t expect—don’t want you to change, no matter how crazy you make me sometimes.”
“I like you crazy,” Ty growled as he stood up. He leaned over Zane, propping his arms on the chair and forcing Zane to sit back as he straddled his lap and kissed him, long and hard. Zane hummed in approval and gripped his hips. He sighed when Ty straightened.
“Love you,” Zane whispered.
Ty patted Zane’s cheek. “That will never get old.”
Another, louder sound from the bathroom caused him to growl in annoyance, and he stood and stepped away from Zane. “I better go take up my post again.”
Zane nodded, letting his hands drag away from Ty’s hips. He stifled a yawn and turned back to the desk. Ty stood there for a moment longer, watching his lover in the garish light.
If there was one thing in the world Ty was willing to give up everything for, it was sitting right there in front of him.
Chapter 7
JULIAN was secured in the back of the sedan as Ty fiddled with the GPS on the dash. Ty had spent a solid half an hour devising the most evil ways he could come up with to make sure Julian couldn’t even get his hands together, much less pick any locks. They were waiting for Zane to finish checking them out, and Ty was keeping one eye on the two men in the back as he punched in the appropriate directions in the GPS.
With every button he pushed, the GPS unit offered suggestions. He shook his head at the list of Washingtons that it offered, eyes scanning for the right one. Movement in the rearview mirror caught his attention as he found the appropriate Washington, and he glanced up as he pushed the button, narrowing his eyes at his prisoners.
“Didn’t you two get enough of that last night?” he asked in a low growl.
“I’m trying to restore blood flow to my fingers,” Julian said.
“I’ll restore your blood flow pretty damn quick if you try one more thing,” Ty said, voice low and serious.
Julian rolled his eyes and sighed, shifting his shoulder and wiggling his fingers, which were hanging in the air. One hand was cuffed to the handle above the door, the other to the floorboard, wound around his leg first so he had to lean forward. Cameron was restrained in similar fashion. They had to be uncomfortable as hell, but Ty wasn’t taking any chances.
He and Zane had discussed trying to head back to Chicago and find a flight, but a call in to Burns had informed them that a blizzard was heading their way and flights were being grounded left and right. They’d have better luck driving, and if they left right now they’d get ahead of the snowstorm and miss it entirely, even if they were having difficulties with their prisoners.
A few moments later, Zane joined them and Ty pulled out of the parking space.
“In point one miles, turn left on Willowcreek Road.”
Zane was still shivering from the cold as the GPS began giving instructions, even though the car was finally beginning to warm. They weren’t even out of the parking lot of the hotel yet and the GPS lady was bossing them around. The little arrow on the screen of the unit was pointing the wrong way, and they weren’t facing anything resembling Willowcreek Road.
“You’re going to have to do better than this, honey,” Ty told the little unit stuck to the dash.
“I should get my phone out,” Zane said as he settled in the passenger seat, newspaper on his lap, covered cup of coffee in hand. “Record you talking to it.”
“Talking to what, your phone?” Ty asked as he turned the car toward the exit to the parking lot.
“In point one miles, turn left on Willowcreek Road.”
“The GPS,” Zane said, gesturing toward it with his coffee cup.
“She’s more fun to listen to than you are. At least she knows what she’s talking about.”
“Ha ha.”
“I kind of dig her,” Ty said with a smirk.
“Yeah, well, the shine will wear off when all she does is bitch at you for seven hundred miles,” Zane said.
“And that’s different from you, how?”
When Zane turned to meet his eyes, Ty winked at him. Zane looked away, a smile forming.
“In point two miles, turn left on entrance ramp to Interstate 80/90, Indiana East-West Toll Road. In point one mile, stay left on Interstate 80/90 East, Indiana East-West Toll Road.”
“Loosen up, honey,” Ty said to it.
“Please stop talking to the inanimate object,” Julian said from the back seat.
“You can give that up,” Zane said as he opened the newspaper. He didn’t look at Ty, but he was still smirking. “He talks to his guns too.”
“That fits,” Julian said under his breath.
Ty snorted at them both but remained silent as he followed the directions the GPS gave him. He took the toll ticket as they went through the entrance, handing it to Zane as they got on the toll road. As the miles began to roll by, Ty couldn’t have been more relieved that he and Zane had managed to steal those few hours in Chicago. He wanted to reach out and touch his partner, rest his hand on Zane’s knee, brush his fingers against his shoulder, anything. He refrained, though, the professional side of him winning out.
Zane seemed content as he read his paper and sipped at his coffee. Of course, Zane always seemed content. That was one of the things Ty loved about him. He was rock steady most of the time, dry and unflappable. A solid wall against which Ty’s changing moods battered. Traits that made the moments Zane lost his composure even more entertaining.
They stopped at a travel plaza roughly an hour after leaving the hotel in order to get breakfast. As Zane took care of whatever the hell it was Zane did in travel plazas, Ty sat in the driver’s seat, fidgeting. He wasn’t going to be driving the next leg, but it was easier to see the two men sitting in the back in the rearview mirror from that side of the car, and to react with his dominant right hand if they put up a fight.
He couldn’t get over the tension that had settled in his shoulders or the remnants of the Red Bull, and it was manifesting in a great deal of twitching, shifting, and drumming his fingers on the steering wheel.
“Intelligence operatives often pick food or travel areas as their cover, Cameron,” Julian said from the backseat, where he sat examining his neatly manicured nails as his hand hung above his head. “Restaurants, gas stations. Lots of people in and out to mask suspicious behavior. A place like this, it must make Agent Grady very nervous.”
“Try talking without making noise for a while,” Ty said, his eyes still on Zane, who had not turned back toward the window at all.
“Are you okay?” Cameron asked him.
“I get fidgety if I sit too long,” Ty answered almost against his will. He’d found that no matter what Cameron asked him, he seemed physically incapable of lying to the guy.
Cameron nodded, looking almost like he felt sorry for Ty. “Aren’t you supposed to be able to, like, be still and hide? On… surveillance or something?”
“I don’t do that kind of thing anymore.” Ty looked at Cameron with one eyebrow raised and a slight smirk. “We have cameras for that.”
“Really,” Cameron said, heavy on the sarcasm. “So what does a federal agent do if he’s not watching other people?”
“We cause all kinds of trouble. Terrorize innocent civilians, arrest the wrong people, take advantage of government healthcare.”
Ty saw Julian put a finger to his own temple and pull the imaginary trigger.
Ty snorted and shook his head. Wouldn’t that save them all a lot of trouble? He began to shake his knee side to side, starting the sedan rocking. He heard Julian sigh from the back seat.
“I understand why you can’t sit still, Agent Grady.” He sounded almost as if he were offering a consolation prize.
“I kind of doubt that.” Mentally sparring with Julian Cross had long ago lost its luster.
“How long were you there?” Julian asked.
Ty’s movements slowed, then stilled as his breaths came harder. The hair on his arms rose as a chill went through him.
“You scream ‘prisoner of war’, Agent Grady,” Julian said, his voice low and almost sympathetic. “But you’re too young to have been captured in the Gulf. That means Special Forces, black ops. Navy SEAL?”
Ty swallowed hard, ashamed to see that his fingers gripping the steering wheel were turning white. “I was Force Recon.”
“The batshit insane ones. Of course, that makes sense.”
“What is that?” Cameron asked.
“Agent Grady was a Marine. Force Recon is their answer to the SEALs or Army Rangers.”
“That’s impressive,” Cameron said as his eyes cut toward Ty.
“It is indeed. Save for the fact that most Marines are slightly insane before they live through the hell of combat. Was it Afghanistan, then?”
Ty kept his eyes front and center, not looking in the mirror because he knew this man would be able to read him.
“Captured in Afghanistan, I’d wager. How long were you held?”
“I wasn’t.”
It was the same bullshit line Ty always gave when the subject came up. That operation was still classified. The answer, though, the answer only he, Nick O’Flaherty, and that weird little guy from Homeland Security knew, was twenty-three days, nine hours, and fifty-one minutes.
Ty glanced up to see Julian’s reflection. His dark eyes seemed sympathetic. Ty looked to Cameron in the mirror—the young man had gone pale with the implication. Even though Ty had denied it, they both knew what Julian had said was true. Ty nodded, not intending to discuss the matter any further.
Maybe now Julian Cross would realize that Ty knew something about trying to escape.
“I’M DRIVING. I get to choose the music.”
“No,” Ty said as he continued to flip through the radio, searching for a station.
Cameron raised a brow as Zane smacked Ty’s fingers and then hit the preset button, returning the radio to the classic rock station.
“Dude!” Ty said as he pushed the button next to it and turned the dial to find the station he’d just had it on. “Pay attention to the road.”
Zane hit the first button again. “Sit back, copilot. You had sports talk all morning.” He sounded calm, though Cameron couldn’t see how he maintained it. Dealing with Ty on a regular basis had to be grounds for anger management classes. Or homicidal tendencies. Maybe that was what was wrong with Zane.