The Muscle Read online

  “I would hope he was dead,” Artur said without pity, “but you would carry that death on your soul because you have a good heart, so I won’t. I will only wish that he never returns and that you will look at this handsome boy who is kind to you, and give him the time of day.”

  “He’s, uh, he might be an assassin,” Grace said, not that this bothered him, but since Artur had been so honest, he felt compelled to say something.

  To his surprise, Artur shrugged. “Is he an honorable one?”

  Grace thought about it, thought about the way Hunter was kind to Stirling, gentle around Artur, and even smiled briefly at the people who’d brought them lunch. There was no gratuitous cruelty in Hunter.

  “I doubt,” Grace said slowly, “he has ever killed someone who didn’t really deserve it.”

  “Then that is fine,” Artur said, smiling. He patted Grace’s knee. “Be kind to him. I know you think you can care for yourself, but there’s no shame in letting someone else care for you when he means it.”

  But why would he mean it? What can I possibly offer him? Why should he care for me when the people who gave birth to me couldn’t? What if I’m bad for him? What if I’m too stupid to care for him back?

  All these questions and more pushed at his tongue, but he didn’t ask them. That would be too much like baring his soul, and who needed that bullshit anyway?

  At that moment, his earbud clicked, and Hunter’s voice sounded. During the course of the day, Julia and Molly had tracked their two errand boys to a tour-guide company that featured small plane rides out of the marina. They hadn’t taken one, but they had talked to one of the guides for a few moments before leaving the building. Josh had stayed on watch while Julia and Molly had returned to change, and Hunter had joined them. Hunter and Josh’s job tonight was to see if maybe the package had been stashed on board one of the airplanes or in the hangar itself and then to follow it to where it landed.

  “We found the package,” Hunter said. “It’s in a cargo plane headed for Seattle tomorrow. Josh and I are going to try to hop a ride with it. You all might want to book another night in the rooms if you can. Grace, Josh says you should go back with Artur.”

  “No!” Grace burst out unhappily. “You just want to leave me out of the fun. My feet are fine.”

  Hunter let out a long-suffering sigh. “It’s for his protection, you idiot. If we get busted tracking the package, someone might figure out that Artur gave up the game.”

  Grace let out a little huff of displeasure. “I’ll talk to him,” he said, wondering how much he’d have to beg to get Artur to stay in Vancouver for one more day. “You guys be careful.”

  “Enjoy the ballet,” Josh said—and because he was Josh and he loved drama and art and music, there wasn’t a trace of sarcasm in his voice.

  “Yeah!” Hunter added. “Let us know how it is. This dance troupe is supposed to be fantastic!”

  And Grace wanted to ask Hunter something stupid like “You follow the ballet!” because that hadn’t come out while they’d been together that day.

  “I will,” he said weakly. “Keep us posted. We’re almost at the restaurant. Be safe.”

  They signed off, and Grace looked to where Artur was regarding him with interest.

  “They’re following the thing to Seattle tonight,” Grace said, not wanting to plead or to impose. “They said Julia might want to reserve their rooms for another night.”

  Artur smiled gently. “Then I shall too. Have you ever been to Grouse Mountain or Capilano Park, my boy? It would be a shame to come to Vancouver and not see at least some of its attractions.”

  Grace knew what kind of smiles he had—secret smiles and pert smiles and snarky smiles. Very rarely did he let a smile take over his face to the point that his cheeks appled and his vision narrowed, but he couldn’t help it.

  “I would love to, Dance Master.”

  “Well, then,” Artur said softly. “I shall make the reservation tonight.”

  “That’s very kind,” Grace said, his smile still wide.

  “You and your friends came all the way out here to help me,” Artur told him. “It is honestly the least I could do.”

  DINNER WAS like the way rich people looked in the movies. Julia and Molly kept the banter sparkling, and all Artur and Grace had to do was listen to them, pour them wine, and laugh. They carpooled to the ballet, and everything else faded away.

  Grace was pulled into the movement, the story, the music, and even though it wasn’t his feet on the stage, his heart was there, flying without wings, and love and beauty were possible, and he was caught in the whirlwind of what could be.

  Afterward, as they walked to their hotel room, Julia on his arm and Molly talking to Artur about Tabby and how much they’d loved meeting her, Julia said softly, “You are uncharacteristically quiet.”

  Grace glanced at her. “Was it hard?” he asked. “Having me in the house during high school?”

  She frowned. “Not at all! Heavens, Grace. We were so happy Josh had a friend like you, someone who got him, who didn’t judge. Even before we knew that you knew about Danny, you were a delight. Why would you even ask?”

  Grace shook his head, his thoughts on Romeo from the ballet and how the dancer who’d portrayed him had gray eyes and his hair up in a short tail and looked like he could heft a caber with his dick alone.

  How, for his whole life, Grace had been hoping for someone with that sort of strength to hold him.

  “Just assessing my pain-in-the-ass factor,” he said, trying to make her smile. But she didn’t.

  “You were never a pain in the ass,” she said gravely. “You’ve always been a blessing in our house. Why would you worry about that now?”

  Grace shrugged. “Now you know I’m a thief.”

  She chuckled. “And now you know we’re con men.”

  “I always knew that,” he said, perhaps unwisely, because her eyes widened. “Josh told me everything.”

  “And yet,” she said, tapping pointedly on his arm with a nail tipped with ice-blue polish to match her dress, “even if you’ve ‘borrowed’ my jewelry, I know for fact that you’ve brought back every piece. You’ve never stolen the silver. We have several objets d’art just lying around the old trash pile, and you haven’t touched them. If you’re such a fantastic thief, why would that be?”

  Grace wrinkled his nose. “That would be rude,” he said, not having another word for it.

  “That would be dishonorable,” she corrected. “And that is not the young man who has all but lived in my house since he was fourteen.”

  Grace gave an embarrassed smile. “You’re very kind. You and Josh’s dad have been so kind to me. I… I don’t ever want to be unwelcome in your home.”

  “Then continue to be the young man we’ve come to love,” she said, and they all paused as they boarded the elevator.

  Grace heard the click of the coms in his ear. Hunter said, very quietly, “We’re boarding now. Think of me.”

  And even though Stirling, Molly, and Josh all heard that, Grace still felt warmed down to his toes.

  “Sure,” he said softly. “Fine. See you tomorrow.”

  Hunter’s low laughter rumbled in his belly. When Grace climbed into bed that night, the strains of Romeo and Juliet singing in his ears, he closed his eyes and dreamed of a handsome prince who thought he, Grace, was everything he’d ever needed in another human.

  When he awoke, Hunter was next to him, and his earbud lay on the nightstand next to Grace’s own.

  Letters Home

  HUNTER HAD drawn the blackout curtains before he slid in next to Grace, but Grace was apparently one of those rare animals who could sleep during a sunspot in a hurricane, so it possibly didn’t matter. After the muttering was over, he was out cold.

  Not so much Hunter.

  Hunter lay there, Grace’s body limp and unresisting next to his, the night replaying behind his eyes.

  The trip to Seattle was quick and dirty—Josh, for all his pret
ty-boy smoothness, could sit in a hollowed-out cargo plane, eyes alert, like a trained soldier. When the plane landed, they’d followed the item—per Stirling’s tracker—when it was given to a messenger and driven down the coast to a two-hundred-acre stretch of privately owned land, complete with its own beach. Josh had texted the coordinates to Stirling, and he’d started the search to find out who owned the land. Then they’d driven past the compound itself.

  And promptly given up the idea of having Josh steal the thing while Hunter worked backup.

  “Oh dear heavens,” Josh said, sounding as old-fashioned and sweet as his blessed mother. “We’d need an army and a week to plan.”

  Hunter’s scan revealed the place was bursting with sensors and electronics—and a simple glance showed them a fairly solid wall, complete with electric fencing at the top and guard towers overlooking the driveway. According to their tracker, the driveway was at least a mile long, and the electronic signatures of the house made those surrounding the property look like sewing thread.

  “It’s enough we know where it is,” Hunter said thoughtfully. “We need Danny and Felix to figure out what sorts of ripples these deliveries leave and Stirling to figure out who this belongs to. We can plan from there.”

  Josh—who’d been driving—gave him an eyebrow arch. “Back to Vancouver? We could always fly back home from here.”

  Hunter grunted. “My favorite jacket’s back at the hotel,” he said.

  “Yeah, Hunter. That’s what you’re missing.”

  Hunter let out a breath. “We had a good day.” He wasn’t talking about him and Josh.

  Josh nodded. “Excellent. Away we go.”

  With that, he turned their rental around and got the hell out of Dodge before they ended up on someone’s Have You Seen This Mercenary? flyer for hanging out in one spot too long by the bad guy’s mansion.

  They had one more day in Vancouver—he’d heard Artur and Julia both making their reservations—and this time they didn’t have a job or an op.

  This time Hunter could grab Grace by the hand and take him someplace far away, with no earbuds, and they could play.

  Hunter wanted more kisses. There hadn’t been enough. It had been a victory to have Grace gentle under his touch, to have him grow calm enough to talk to Hunter quietly, like a human, keeping his heart and mind in the here and now and not on the next shiny thing around the corner.

  The day they’d spent shopping, talking, teasing had fired Hunter’s blood for more. The beautiful face, the tight body—that was sexy to look at, sexy to hold. But Grace’s unexpected conversation—that was sexy to know.

  Hunter paused for a moment when he got back to Grace’s room, watching Grace’s eyes—they moved rapidly under his lids; his dreams apparently skittered as quickly as his brain did—and his mouth. Hunter smiled at the thought and undressed to his skivvies before sliding into bed.

  Grace murmured in his sleep and rolled into Hunter’s arms, facing him and burying his nose against Hunter’s bare chest.

  “Tickles,” he said succinctly, and Hunter chuckled.

  “Real men have chest hair.”

  Grace nuzzled him. “I must be an unreal man. My chest is smooth.” He grabbed Hunter’s hand and placed it, palm down, on his smooth-skinned, sleek-muscled chest. “See?”

  Hunter let out a little sigh and kept rubbing. “Mm… yeah. I thought you were asleep.”

  “I could hear you thinking. It woke me up.” Grace wriggled his hips, setting them groin to groin, Hunter in his boxers, Grace in what felt like silk briefs.

  “That’s not what I think with, Grace,” Hunter murmured.

  “It’s not?” Grace replied pertly. “Because my blood has been there all day, and then you… wait. You don’t have a key. How did you break into my hotel room?”

  Hunter was going to roll his eyes, but Grace’s clever, nimble fingers brushed his nipple and he sucked in a breath instead.

  “No answer?” Grace teased. “You must be a thief.”

  Hunter arched his hips, aware that he was being seduced. “I’m the muscle,” he corrected. “You’re the thief. And apparently you want to steal my virtue.”

  Grace laughed at him, and Hunter decided the time to kiss him was right now.

  Ah!

  Warm, tasting a little like toothpaste and a little like sleep, Grace’s lips parted for him immediately. Hunter gave a sigh of satisfaction and dove in. Grace yielded, so sweet, his reciprocation like fire in Hunter’s blood.

  Hunter rolled them so he was on top and kissed down Grace’s jaw so he could nibble on Grace’s neck and earlobe and they could have themselves a sane conversation.

  “We’re doing this,” he rumbled.

  “Yeah, whatever, keep going.”

  Hunter pulled back enough to give him the stink eye. “So glad I have your permission,” he said. “I can tell you’re really into this!”

  “Shut up and kiss me!” And with that, Grace turned his head and took Hunter’s mouth, hard and begging, needy in a way that Hunter had never felt before.

  And Hunter desperately wanted to give him what he needed.

  He responded, dominating when Grace retreated, going back to his original plan of chewing on Grace’s neck and earlobes—delicately, of course—because the feeling of Grace’s body trembling could not be undercounted in its factor of arousal.

  “What is this?” Grace asked, but breathlessly. “Why is this working? I don’t under—ah God! Why?”

  Hunter chuckled into his ear and slid down his body, nibbling on his clavicle for a moment just because it jutted, bare and vulnerable, and he wanted it to feel attention too.

  Then he moved to a nipple, dark brown in the gold skin, and sucked, gently at first and then harder when Grace cried out and tangled his fingers in Hunter’s long hair.

  “Sexy,” he muttered. “Why is it… oh, wow! That’s—okay, do the other one. Wait! Stay there!”

  Hunter pulled hard, making Grace cry out again, which was great because his chatter was distracting. Propping himself on one elbow, he said, “Am I going to have to tie you up and gag you to get anything done?”

  Grace’s hips arched off the bed, and his cock, straining against silk briefs, bounced in the confines of the fabric. He let out a sound—not a word, but a sound—and it was a definite plea.

  “Really?” Hunter asked, surprised. If anything, he would have thought someone like Grace, with his strong sense of independence, would chafe at the idea. But apparently… wow.

  “I can’t stop wiggling,” Grace confessed. “And I’m going to wake Artur! That would be embarrassing.”

  Hunter peered at that pretty planed-and-angled face for a moment, saw Dylan Li’s eyes slide sideways, and called bullshit.

  “And you want me to tie you down and gag you because it turns you on!”

  Grace turned his golden gaze on Hunter, face naked of pretense, and nodded. “It would be really good to not fuck this up with my mouth,” he said, absolutely straight-faced.

  Hunter squeezed his eyes shut and opened them. “And here I was hoping your mouth would be on my cock at some point in time, but, well, another day.”

  “Wait!” The look on Grace’s face would have been comical if Hunter’s erection hadn’t been threatening the seams of his shorts and his sanity. “Can I suck you off now and then—”

  Hunter hurled himself out of bed to stand next to Grace, shoved his boxers down and let his cock flop out before Grace could say one more thing.

  Grace opened his mouth obediently and sucked Hunter in, and Hunter let him, tangling his fingers in the glossy hair and rocking his hips.

  “I’m gonna get my rope,” he muttered, “and I’m gonna tie your hands, and I’m gonna gag ya, and I’m gonna fuck ya until you scream, and then I’m gonna suck ya, and you’re gonna come, and just once, just fuckin’ once, you are gonna stop talking long enough for me to take care of you!”

  Grace nodded while he kept up delirious pressure with his mouth and an e
xpert rhythm with his hands, and Hunter wasn’t sure if he’d been had or if he’d gotten a blowjob out of self-defense. But it didn’t matter. Grace’s eyes were rolling back in his head, and his hips were writhing on the bed even as he kept that steady, perfect sucking and stroking, using his tongue at the end of every move.

  “Dammit, Grace!” Hunter moaned, lost in the act, lost in the moment, about to come and unable to stop himself. “After this, I will tie you up and gag you just so I can make love to you!”

  Grace made a panicked sound and sucked harder, and Hunter gave up and came.

  Grace kept sucking, and Hunter palmed the back of his head, driving down his throat, half angry at himself for letting Grace get the best of him. As Hunter spasmed, Grace let out a high-pitched whine around his cock, and Hunter opened his eyes and watched as that lithe body arched off the bed, the front of his briefs growing wet and blotchy as he came too.

  Hunter pulled out of his mouth then with a sigh and dropped to his knees in front of the bed, pulling Grace forward so he could kiss him, hard, before he swallowed completely.

  Grace acquiesced, going limp, allowing Hunter to ravage his mouth with his tongue the way he’d ravaged it with his cock, and Hunter wanted to cry.

  This—this—was what it was like to care for someone damaged. He got it now: Why Josh would be so worried. Why Grace would just accept that Hunter would use him. That they’d get it over with and be okay.

  This was important to Hunter—it was everything he hadn’t been able to feel, hadn’t been able to do, for a year now, since Paulie, and it mattered. And he was pretty sure it mattered to Grace, because he didn’t think anybody who’d had Grace’s body had cared for his heart the way Hunter wanted to.

  But Grace didn’t know that.

  He sighed, relaxing into the kiss some more, and was relieved when Grace went pliant, then got into it, kissed him back and more. Hunter’s arousal returned, his cock growing fat and stiff, and he pulled away.