“You sure about that?” he asked, eyebrows raised.
It was a joke. Cade knew it was a joke. It still caught him on the raw. He drew back. His fingers trailed over Marlow’s as he pulled away and shrugged.
“I am,” he said. “Although I couldn’t tell you why. Maybe I had a stroke last time I shifted.”
He could hear himself, and he sounded like an idiot. Like someone who hung out with Marlow’s Night Shift friend, Franklin, on forums that convinced them pissing on a tree at the end of the night was the key to a second date. It was a knee-jerk reaction—better to reject someone before they could reject you—and by the time he remembered he was over thirty these days, it was too late to take it back. He poured himself another shot of vodka instead.
“What’s your excuse for the day before that, then?” Marlow asked.
Yeah. Cade hadn’t thought of one for that.
His shoulders hit the door with a thud as Marlow shoved him back into it. It held for a second until the latch gave, and they stumbled into the bathroom.Okay, Cade thought as he hitched in a ragged breath and Marlow chewed hot, sharp kisses over his neck. Now he knew who got shoved up against the wall for any future fantasies.
Except there wouldn’t be any, Cade reminded himself. He twisted a hand in Marlow’s hair and pulled his head back to claim a vodka-spiced kiss from soft, eager lips.No more stupid crush after today. Just a normal, casual relationship between two people who didn’t like each other that much.
Marlow kicked the door shut and reached out blindly to lock it. He didn’t fumble, and Cade had the thin, bitter thought that this wasn’t the first time Marlow had dragged someone into the restroom. It cut through the haze of lust and infatuation like a squeeze of lemon through grease.
Then Marlow impatiently pulled Cade’s shirt out of his trousers and ran his hands up under it. He spread warm, callused fingers over Cade’s stomach and made a low, rough sound of pleasure in the back of his throat, and clarity gave up the ghost. Heat spread through Cade, prickly and tender under his skin, and he gave in to it.
This wasn’t the fantasy. That was a midnight fuck in the soft grass meadow behind his house, under the velvet dark of a moonless sky. No deadlines. Just Marlow sprawled under him and hours to enjoy it. It was a far cry from a cop-bar bathroom that stank of cheap booze and cheaper soap, with the dull background mutter of bickering cops as a soundtrack.
It didn’t matter. That was the difference between an adult and a teenager. Daydreams passed the time, but they didn’t beat reality. He had Marlow pressed against him, all that dry wit smothered under Cade’s mouth, and he wasn’t going to pass on that because they’d not get grass stains on their asses.
What he hoped were the last sticky dregs of his stupid crush marshaled themselves to whisper hopefully,not today.Cade distracted himself from that particular notion with interrupted messy kisses as he dragged Marlow’s TAC regulation T-shirt up over his head. He tossed it into the sink—better than the floor, he supposed—and hooked his fingers into the waistband of Marlow’s jeans to drag him in close again.
“Yousure about this?” he checked, his voice rusty in his throat. “I’m not exactly popular with your colleagues out there.”
Cade clenched his jaw a minute too late to shut himself up. His balls ached resentfully at the thought Marlow might realize this was a bad time, a bad place, or just a fucking bad idea. Even worse, he felt the clutch of sentiment in his chest at the possibility that Marlow would pick him over them. Or, even better, defend him.
Since when, he thought viciously at himself,had he needed anyone to defend him? From anything?He didn’t. He never had. Sure, it would be nice sometimes. That didn’t mean he needed it.
Marlow cupped Cade’s jaw in his hand and grazed a callused thumb across his lower lip. The slow caress made Cade swallow thickly as he tried not to visibly squirm. “I don’t usually ask them to join in,” he said. “But if you want me to put it to a vote…?”
“I always knew you had a smart mouth,” Cade grumbled. “Just because you didn’t run it, didn’t mean I couldn’t tell.”
“Sure,” Marlow drawled. “You spent, what, all of ten minutes thinking about me once a year. You know me inside and out.”
That was true, but it didn’t feel true. Not right then, with Marlow’s hand on his face and the taste of the null still in Cade’s mouth. Or maybe it wasn’t. Cade had—apparently—paid more attention to Marlow than he’d been ready to admit.
“You’d be surprised what I thought about you,” Cade said. He turned his head and pressed a kiss against Marlow’s wrist. The steady pulse fluttered against his lips as Marlow hissed softly at the contact. “What about you? What did you think about me?”
Another stupid question.
Cade grimaced at himself. He didn’t need to know what Marlow looked like when he lied. Or, worse,didn’tlie.
“Or maybe—” Cade lowered his head to bruise kisses over Marlow’s naked shoulder. His mouth grazed the edge of a scar, rough and raised under his lips, and it occurred to him that any mark he left on Marlow would linger past tonight. It could be there for days. Or longer. The thought made his balls clench, heavy and hot, and his voice catch roughly in his throat. “—we just shouldn’t talk anymore.”
Chapter Nine
MARLOW SNORTED ATthe flicker of self-awareness from the acerbic Cade.
“Thought or think?” he asked.
“It was a dumb question. Forget I opened—”
“Spectacular ass,” Marlow said.
Cade lifted his head to give Marlow a suspicious look out of wolf-amber eyes. Something went tight and wet in Marlow’s stomach at being the focus of that attention. People always made a fuss that his were grey, but they never struck him as anything special. It was just the absence of color. For him, it was Cade’s, whiskey shot through with bronze, that made his breath catch in his throat.
