22. Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Two
Before the Friday shift, Taran met Liam in his room, staring bug-eyed at Liam in his “costume”. “You look so fucking sexy.”
Abs, of course, had complete control of his wardrobe for the weekend shows. He wore a pink crop top and skintight black jeans with a black choker around his throat. A touch of makeup around his eyes and a little pink lip gloss completed the outfit.
“I didn’t see you liking me in pink.”
“I like you in anything,” he said, then bit his lips together. He slowly moved his eyes up to meet Liam’s, and the paling of his skin was lovely. He hadn’t wanted to say it, to…admit it.
Liam took his hand and led him to the bed, and as they sat together, fingers threaded together while their hands lay on Liam’s thigh, Liam reasoned, “I’m…different, and it’s scaring the shit out of me. What you’re feeling, what I am, is scary for me. The last time I loved anyone, I was hurt so badly, I swore I’d never feel that again, and here I am, in this house with people that…I know they’re criminals, we’re criminals, but they’re good people. Just the way that Murphy wants to work with you guys to save other people’s kids like they were his own?”
Taran’s eyes were sparkling, partly because tears were welling. “You don’t think I see that? I’ve actually known them…well, known about them, for a long time now. They’re good people with good hearts. You fit right in, and as for you getting these feelings, don’t worry about it so much. Feel what you feel, and I’ll do the same. For my own job, it’s not like we can get married and move to a house with a white picket fence. What we have now might be it for as long as you feel like having me around.”
That was the thing. Although they’d known each other for such a short time, Liam knew he’d want Taran around for a long time. “You make sense. We’ll…do what we’re doing and worry about the rest later.”
Taran’s head leaned to one side as he slowly moved to Liam, touching his lips to Liam’s glossed lips, and letting Liam feel things he never thought he could feel.
Warmth, companionship, sweetness. He pulled away and whispered, “You have to reapply my makeup. Abs will kill you if it’s a mess.”
“I know I’m a highly trained federal officer of the law…but…he scares me a little.”
“Me too! The sweetest man possibly on the planet, but man, those are the ones to be afraid of.”
Taran reapplied the lip gloss and then sat back to admire his work. “I’m gonna be watching. You learn any new tricks?”
“I actually have, and I’m scared shitless I’ll mess up tonight.”
“You’re gonna be great.”
Cosmo lined up with the others behind the bar as the crowds swarmed in around nine that evening.
The first ten minutes alone, he made thirty drinks. It amazed him how fast he’d gotten at concocting drinks that were slammed down like water and more ordered.
The crowd was all cheerful, with tons of laughter all around the big room. While making the drinks and waiting for the shows to start, Liam kept one eye out for Taran, and it wasn’t long before he was ordering a Slippery Nipple.
“You know I have to look that up in the bartender’s bible, right?”
“Oh! I don’t want the drink Slippery Nipple. I want your tongue on my nipple while you’re fucking me,” he said in Liam’s ear as he leaned way over the bar. “You can give me a beer to drink.”
“Evil man,” Liam said, laughing as he turned to grab a glass so he could pour some beer into it for Taran. “Gonna stay a while?”
“Yeah, but not just for you. Heard from a reliable source someone else is coming here tonight that is concerning.”
Suddenly, his upbeat mood darkened. “Who?”
“Nothing for you to worry over right now. Do what you do and let me do what I do.”
Liam was not only suspicious, but worried. “Take care of that ass. I happen to like it.”
“No worries. You’ll be seeing plenty of my ass later.”
Goldie leaned over to tell him, “It’s time for a bar dance. Remember, practice.”
“Hips moving, right. Got it.”
When they all climbed on the bar, the crowd went insane with cheering, and from behind them, Murphy got the water nozzle and shot it over their heads, so they were dampened and the crowd was along with them.
Flirting with the crowd had been hard the first couple times, but if he imagined a sea of faces that all looked like Taran’s, it got much easier. Seeing the man himself didn’t hurt either. No matter what was going on, whenever Liam sought him out, Taran was watching him.
Starting at the end with Abs, they jumped down in order, and Liam was last. He landed and spun around to take a drink order and got three phone numbers shoved at him.
The work was incredibly hard, but he found himself having more fun the more he did the weekend shifts. They were rather like boosting a car; the adrenaline was pumping and his mind was super focused.
Their tricks hit perfectly, too. Abs winked at him before he threw the bottle and Liam caught it, flipped it over and poured the perfect double shot of whiskey.
Confident, he did a few spins and bottle-flips of his own, and Goldie squeezed his shoulder. “You look good, Cos!”
“Thanks.”
When he did the hundred-dollar-shots, he had men lining up for them. He was a hit at the pub, and throughout the night, Taran was there, smiling at him from across the room, raising his mug, eyes shimmering in admiration and…affection.
No, they weren’t in love. He refused to even think it because love was a curse.
After, Taran told him to come to his place once dawn broke, so he and the others sat at the table, counting tips and phone numbers as usual. And, again, he won both games. “Forty-four numbers tonight and almost a grand in tips.”
“You suck,” Haze said. “New guy’s luck. I made seven in tips and only got fourteen numbers. I’m definitely old news around here.”
“If we’re forty and single, I’ll marry you,” Goldie offered, and Abs broke that up quickly. “Um, excuse me, Mr. Gold Rush, if we’re forty and you marry him over me, I’ll make him a widower.”
“Sorry, baby. I almost forgot.”
Hippy then offered, “If you stop leaving paint and brushes and art shit all over, I’ll marry you.”
“Gee, thanks!”
Eazy came in with breakfast burritos for the guys and sat close to Murphy while they all ate. “Even with the soundproofing, I heard commotion tonight. I can’t believe we still have such a crowd every weekend.”
“Even with the guys,” Murphy said, “Bar hoppers are always waiting for the next big thing. I figured that club a few blocks from here would slow us down, but not even a tick.”
Abs knocked on the table. “Don’t jinx us.”
“Sorry,” Murphy said, in deference to the superstitious Abs. “It’s all you guys, though. The way the folks look at you, like you’re big celebrities. And you are, really. For this part of the world, you are the stars of the show.”
Cosmo agreed with him. “It’s weird being a part of it, especially for someone who loved being invisible.”
“You better go be with your dude,” Haze reminded him. “It’s almost dawn.”
“See y’all back here for more of the same tomorrow?”
“I’ll keep Daiq in my room,” Abs said strongly. “You know, he’s going to end up being all mine soon.”
“My butt,” Mims said. “I like him too.”
Eazy laughed at them. “The kids would like a word about ownership of Daiq.”
As he left the pub, he felt strange. On the verge of tears he hadn’t shed for years, wanting, needing to shed them, but they’d been blocked by time and his deep desire to push his feelings away. Feelings…they weren’t good. They may be human, but they were the worst part of being human.
He caught a rideshare to see Taran and the moment Taran opened his door, Liam was in his arms, and he just held on, like letting go would kill him.
“What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
“Shut up. Just…just let me…”
Taran did, held him wordlessly, hands on his back, gently running his hands there, waiting for Liam to move, which didn’t happen for a long time.
Later, Taran would tell him he expected a lot of things to come after Liam finally moved. He expected Liam to fight against his blooming feelings, to rail against him, the men of the pub, to run.
What he hadn’t expected was what Liam did.
Liam pulled back enough to touch his lips to Taran’s and there, he whispered, “I don’t want this to end. Any of it. I’m losing my mind.”
“Come with me. Let’s sit.”
Taran had a bottle of wine and two glasses on the sofa, and the lights were low. He was planning a romantic interlude, which Liam might have fought against, if it were any other day.
He poured Liam a glass of white wine and some for himself. “Liam, I know the hell you’ve been through. You wore a shield around your heart for a long time. It took…it took an entire pub of people to crack it.”
“Yeah. And a damn cat everyone’s fighting over now.”
Taran smiled sweetly at him before taking a slow sip, setting the glass on the coffee table and then his words came out easily, cautiously. “The cat may have been the catalyst. It gave them a way to show you friendship without pushing you. They have gotten to show it to your cat. All those people so crazy about the cat? They’re just as crazy about you. It’s not like it’s hard.”
“I don’t see how it could be easy. I’m not the warm and fuzzy type.”
“You’re a little aloof, a little brutish, but you could be worse. You were in prison, yeah, but for murder or assault? No. It was for stealing cars.”
“I’ve assaulted people, Taran. I’m sure you know that.”
“When you were a kid, you got in a lot of kid fights. Never lost one, if I’ve read right.”
Taking a slug of the wine and pouring himself some more, Liam explained, “It’s still in me.”
“Yeah. I know. I can tell when you fuck me.”
Liam barked a laugh and sipped a little more wine. “Yeah, I guess I’m not warm and fuzzy in bed either.”
“I don’t mind. I like your style of sex. I like you, and I will not apologize for that just because you think no one would ever want to be around you. I like you in a lot of ways, Liam. I like how honest you are, except with yourself most of the time. I like you would defend someone you cared about to the death and I like that the worst parts of you just complement the best parts of you. You’re rare in this world, Liam, believe me.”
Rare wasn’t a way he’d describe himself, but he didn’t mind the label. “Well, how would you like to take my mind off all this and have a rare dick in your ass?”
“There’s the guy I know.”
Taran was taken right on the couch, and Liam was taking off his clothes so fast, he knocked over his empty wine glass, breaking it and not caring for a second.
Taran’s face and chest were bright red, so flushed with lust as he was, and his blue eyes almost glowed from the same. He pulled Liam down, so they were bare chest to bare chest, kissing sloppily, all while Liam was trying to unbutton his tight jeans.
Taran solved that problem by somehow flipping them, so he was on top and had Liam’s pants undone quickly, pulling them down with effort and then grabbing Liam’s dick and plunging his mouth on it like a vacuum cleaning up spilled birdseed.
Liam was laughing, groaning, and resting both hands behind his head to enjoy the takeover of his dick. Taran was a determined man, that was sure, and that extended to dick sucking.
Usually, they were in too big a hurry to get to the main event to have much thought of foreplay. The few times they’d played some, they’d both enjoyed it, but still, fucking was the best part of all of it.
Taran’s cheeks concaved, his eyes staring cheekily at Liam was hot, and it effectively moved all other thoughts from Liam’s head. He had a pretty good idea that was the plan all along. Get Liam nice and comfortable, take his mind off his worries, and let him do what he did best.
After a few minutes of that heavenly blow job, Liam took back control and pushed Taran’s head away roughly, moving until he was kneeling on the couch, staring down at Taran in a menacing way.
The shiver that went through Taran was visible, like a rope bridge that rocked in a breeze. How had he ever thought he could be undercover when every thought in his head was easily read on his beautiful face, Liam would never understand. “I’m gonna need in your ass, and I’m not gonna be nice about it.”
“When have you ever been nice about it?”
Liam’s hand went around Taran’s throat and squeezed enough to get his message across clearly. “Didn’t ask for your mouth.”
The way he writhed in that moment told Liam more about the man than Taran would probably want anyone to know. He liked being dominated, liked a man to take charge of him in any and all ways.
The tryst in the nasty restroom their first time had likely been Taran’s very wet dreams coming true. When Liam finally pushed inside him, after a fumbling mess of Taran getting his clothes off him, Taran’s entire being went into a blissful peace that only someone who liked it roughly could attain.
Oh, his jaw clenched, and his muscles did as well, but his face, that was slack, and his lips were twisted into a grin that was almost comical.
Liam started as roughly as he usually did, watching the contortions of the man beneath him, watching his head moving on the cushion of the couch like he was trying to dig through the fabric.
Hands clutched, nails scratched, noises permeated the room as Liam took full advantage of the man’s hole, the man’s lust for a rough pounding. When Taran slapped at his chest, Liam just fucked harder. It was the kind of fucking that meant one wrong move would bend his dick in half, and cease the night's festivities.
Even that thought didn’t make him slow.
“Liam! Liam, gonna come! It’s too…it’s too much!”
“Tough shit, Special Agent,” he growled in the man’s ear, stopping his progress only for that short time before starting again and watching Taran fighting with himself.
Taran tried to move his hand down to his dick, but Liam viciously slapped it away and kept pounding, needing the man to come without his cock being touched in the least.
Flashes of thoughts tried to push into his mind, nasty thoughts of taking the man in public, right in front of the cop shop, where everyone with a badge could see a lawman being fucked hard by a criminal.
For everyone to see that he owned the man, owned his ass, and what’s more, lived to be inside him.
When he shot his load, filling the condom, Taran was jelly. He lay on his couch, a little slit leaking from the corner of his mouth. “What’s wrong, baby?”
“You killed me. Don’t you know how serious an offense it is to damage a federal agent?”
“Throw me in jail.”
Taran laughed and came up, wrapped his legs around Liam’s waist and pulled him to sit back against him. “Okay. Taran jail, where you just stay here with me, safe, forever.”
“That might be fun for a few weeks, but I’d get on your nerves, eventually.”
“Probably true. But it’s nice to think about.”
Forever wasn’t in the cards for him. He doubted anyone would want him forever, but he was right. It was nice to think about. “You coming to the show?”
“Can’t this time. I have to actually work on other cases now and then. I’ll see you Tuesday?”
“Tuesday…is…”
“When you’re stealing the Bentley, I got it, but still, you won’t be doing it all day, right?”
“No. Guess I’ll have all that adrenaline to fuel one hell of a fuck.”
“Good. Now, let’s get some sleep.”
He thought about leaving, but knew Daiq was already in good hands, so he might stay. Waking up to see Taran was…very nice.
“Fine, but you’re bringing me coffee in the morning.”
“Brute.”
“Yep. I sure am.”