Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
“ H ow’s it going, Sloan?”
Sloan looked at Dan, who had brought Chris to physio today. Sloan had the day off, so he’d driven Lance to yoga and stretching for his leg.
“Good. It’s good. I have a dog.” He knew Dan knew that. The guy adored Maynard, but he had to say it. “And Lance is really improving, both physically and mentally, and I’m so damn proud of him.”
“That’s awesome, man. Want to sit and wait with me?”
“Uh… sure.” He headed to the big cooler that held juice and water and Cokes. Sloan left three bucks in the box on top, then pulled out a Dr Pepper. “What do you want, man?”
“Sprite, please.”
“You got it.” He grabbed that too, carefully handing it to Dan so as not to fizz it up. Sprite always exploded when it opened.
“Thanks.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Hmm? Oh, yeah. Yeah, it’s good. I just wanted to see how you were doing with things. ”
Sloan blinked. Dan was a licensed therapist. He always had questions. “Like what?”
“Work, mainly.” Dan grinned a little. “I know, it’s a shocker. But I think Lance is doing great, so you must be great with him.”
“I am.” He sat across from Dan in the little lounge area. “I still don’t need a therapist.”
“Everyone needs a therapist.” Dan winked, but then he studied Sloan. “I hear you got shot at.”
The back of his neck prickled. “At. Not shot. The guy was a petty criminal, driven by drugs. Not a hardcore killer.”
“Not yet, at any rate. We’ll see how many times he ends up in jail.”
“Yeah.” That was depressing. “So…”
“So, how are you holding up to that?”
“I’m fine.” He’d had a few dreams, but they were always about Radar, not the close call. And it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the angst. “I mean, I did the mandatory session with the department shrink.”
“Uh-huh. Are you going back to the same job when you get back up to New Mexico?”
Sloan felt the ground slide right out from under his feet. Boom.
“What else would I do?”
“I don’t know, man. I’m just asking.” One of Dan’s dark eyebrows winged up.
“Has Lance said something?”
“Nope.” Dan sipped his Sprite once he’d let all the extra air out.
“Then what’s this about?”
“I just wonder if this is the best job for you now, if you’re going to be part of a couple. That’s all. I know the area you work in up there can be rough.”
“It can be anywhere.” He was trying not to get defensive, but damn. “Dan, I hadn’t really thought about it. I have a job waiting for me. And I’m not sure I’m good at anything else.”
Dan nodded easily. “Sure. It’s just that after seeing you with Maynard, you might think about dog training.”
He shrugged. “I loved working K-9 stuff, but I didn’t go into that part of police work because I couldn’t bear it if I lost another dog in the line of fire.”
“Of course.”
“So training them for other officers seems counterintuitive.”
“Sure.” Dan waved a hand. “But there are all sorts of other applications for what you can do.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “Like I said, I never even?—”
“Babe! You gonna come bubble?” Lance called.
He grinned at Dan. “Saved by the bell.”
“Yeah. I’m a nosy butthead. I wasn’t trying to upset you, Sloan, and I’m sorry if I overstepped.”
“Bullshit.”
Dan hooted. “Thanks for the Coke.”
“You’re welcome.” He drained his can, tossed it into the recycle bin, and then headed to the hot tub, stripping off his clothes. He had his swim trunks underneath.
Lance was looking relaxed, which was good because God knows he wasn’t feeling it. He slid into the hot bubbling water without a word and closed his eyes, trying hard not to think.
“You all right?” Lance asked, his head tilted.
“Yeah.” He shook his head. “I’m fine.”
“Cool. Okay.” He could tell that Lance didn’t believe him. The man had no poker face anymore. It would have been cool, except that they weren’t really playing cards anymore either.
He was going to have to look into that. Surely they had cards Lance could function with. They had to. He wasn’t sure that Lance was willing to play with Braille cards, but maybe. How the hell did he know?
“Do they have Braille cards?”
“Huh?” That head tilted the other way.
“Braille cards? The cards for blind people? I want to play fucking cards with you again.”
Lance’s eyebrows lowered, a crease forming between them. “Okay… are you pissed off at me?”
“No. Yeah, maybe. Did you sic Dan on me?”
“Did I do what?”
He scowled. Why would Dan just jump in the middle of his shit like that if Lance hadn’t put him up to it? Because why else would Dan want to talk to him? “Did you sic Dan on me?”
Lance blinked, then blinked again. “I haven’t. I haven’t talked to him that you weren’t right there. I don’t live with them anymore, remember?”
“Yeah, you have a phone.” He didn’t need to be bullshitted.
“People keep reminding me about the damn phone. Like, I don’t know I have a phone.” Lance shook his head. “Seriously. I understand how a phone works. I know how to use the phone. I haven’t talked to Dan. Why are you mad at me?”
“Dan said maybe I should stop being a cop.”
“Oh, fuck him. You want to be a cop, be a cop.” Lance rolled his eyes. “Jesus Christ. Do you think that if I had a problem with you being a cop, I wouldn’t just come out and say it?”
Well, now he felt a little stupid. “It is a dangerous job.”
“Oh, because I don’t know anything about that.
God knows you and I have not been in dangerous jobs since the very moment that we met.
I’d like to remind you we got blown up by a bomb .
In wartime. Overseas. Last time I checked, not particularly gentle.
What is up with you?” Lance slapped the water.
“I’ve never asked you not to be a cop. I’ve never asked you to be anything, okay?
I don’t need you to take care of me. You are happy being a cop, be a fucking cop.
I don’t care. You honestly think I have the energy to worry about what you do for yourself as living?
I’m trying to figure out how to make one of my own. ”
He rolled his eyes too. Great, because now Lance was getting up a head of steam, and he couldn’t even be aggravated about it because it was his own fucking fault. Perfect. “I’m sorry, babe. Dan just stressed me out.”
“Thank you. I’ll tell him to leave you alone if you need me to.” Those lips were so tight they had to hurt.
“I don’t need you to tell Dan to leave me alone. I am a grown-up.” Jesus, Sloan! Shut up.
“Well, thank fuck for that.” Oh, somebody was pissed off at him now. Lance did not like his bubbling time interrupted by seriousness.
“Did I say I was sorry?”
“For which part? Accusing me of gossiping about you with Dan, for not knowing how to use the phone, or for not being able to play cards anymore?”
“Yes. For all of that. Although I am serious about the card thing. I think we should find out if you can play cards.”
“Of course I can play cards. It’s one of the things that Gus has been teaching me. It’s just really slow for me right now, so I’m afraid it would get frustrating, but I’m figuring it out. I’m playing a lot of solitaire during the day.”
“Cool. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” Lance frowned at him, seeming more hurt now than pissed.
“I wouldn’t talk to somebody else about you.
If I had a problem with what you did for a living, I’d tell you.
You’re the one who can do something about it or not, and I wouldn’t do that.
My choices got taken away from me. You think I would take yours? ”
Ouch.
Okay, Sloan was going to have to have a come-to-Jesus meeting with himself about this situation. He’d taken his surprise and shock and stress out on Lance—without warning, without reason, and in public. Not only that? This was supposed to be Lance’s reward for his hard work. He’d messed up.
“No. No, I got surprised, and I got fucked up about it, and I jumped down your throat because you’re safe. I’m sorry, babe. It was stupid. I’m an asshole, and I deserve to be beaten.”
Lance snorted softly and shook his head, reaching out for him under the water. “I’ll show you beaten.”
Okay. He took Lance’s hand and held on tight. Okay. Yeah, it was going to be all right.
“Thank you, babe. I just got caught totally flat-footed.”
“Yeah.” Lance looked as if he was trying to see, maybe trying to search for Dan. “Dan’s a VA-approved therapist, you know. He feels like it’s his God-given duty to mess with veterans.” That little smile was kissable.
“I get that. But I talked to the lady who works with the county. After the shooting, I mean.”
“I know. You were very frustrated with her.” Lance chuckled.
“Oh my God. She acted like I was five and a little slow.”
“Well…you were in the Army…”
He hooted, reaching over to tickle Lance, loving that he felt confident enough to do that, to be here and draw out that laughter.
Lance scooted over to lean on him. They were alone today after all.
“I’m sorry, babe.”
Lance shook his head. “Sounds like Dan gave you something to think about. ”
“He did. Completely unexpected, though.” And he had no idea what, if anything, he was going to do with that bit of introspection.
Maybe nothing.
He was not going to hire Dan as a therapist, but that was beside the point.
“Wanna go home?” Lance asked.
“Wanna go to the truck?” He wanted to touch Lance now, but this was a shared hot tub, and that was nasty.
“I want to go home. Truck is just too much wrangling.”
“Picky, picky.” But that was okay. If they lost the mood, they could find it at home.
An hour later, they proved that to be wholly true. They’d dried off and dressed, headed home, unhooked Abby, and let the dogs out, then in.
And then they locked the mutts out of bedroom and came back together like clashing knights. He kissed Lance hard, wanting to touch him, taste him, to get anything but Lance out of his mind and not have to think too much, dammit.
God, he loved this man. He’d never stopped.
“I love you too, babe,” Lance told him. “I just had to let myself remember how.”
Sloan hadn’t realized he was talking out loud. But why not? Lance made him babble with need.
They tore off clothes, and Lance traced his face, fingers trailing over his forehead, smoothing out lines, then running over the bump of his nose where it had been broken when he was a kid. Then his lips and chin got a thorough exploration before Lance kissed him again.
Hard.
“Like what you see?” Sloan asked, knowing that Lance was looking at him via his fingers.
“Hell yes. Get in the bed.”
Sloan took Lance’s hand and helped him slide into bed, and they pressed together, skin on skin. They got to touching, and Sloan reveled in it, dammit. He could do this forever, no matter what his cock told him about how fast this was gonna go.
Lance nipped at his neck, fingers tracing a shrapnel scar on his ribs.
He grabbed that hand, pushing it over his belly. No thinking about scars and the past. This was about right now. Just them.
Lance seemed to get it, easing down his body, lips hot as a damn brand, and if his chin banged Sloan’s cock on the way, well, he wasn’t gonna complain.
Not when that wet heat surrounded him, Lance sucking like a Hoover. He closed his eyes, but then forced them open. He needed to see this, to see Lance take him in and love on him.
Lance moaned, and he stretched his mouth wide, but Sloan was watching and saw him wince a little as his scars pulled.
“Hey. Come here.” He tugged Lance up, so tickled his lover wanted to give him that, but this was about making them both feel good.
They could work up to more acrobatics, right?
Sloan got Lance up face-to-face and took a kiss, then brought their cocks together and wrapped his hand around them as best he could.
“Oh, damn.” Lance grunted, nodding, and added his hand to the mix, tugging and squeezing.
“Hell, yes.” This was fucking perfect. Not everything had to be about sweaty gymnastics. Sometimes being close and giving each other orgasms was amazing, and he needed to remember that. “You with me, honey?”
“God, babe. Of course I am.” Lance grinned at him, body undulating, all those muscles moving so much more smoothly now than a few months ago, hot as fire against him.
They rocked and thrust, words falling away into grunts and groans and pure rutting, the scent of them heated and musky and full-on, and Sloan’s cock was leaking, and he was about to come like a freight train.
“Sloan!” Lance’s shout rang around the room, and he could hear the dogs barking, and he was so close, teetering on the edge. So when Lance came all over them, so did he, his seed busting right out, his ass clenching and balls squeezing with the force of it.
“Holy Jesus, Lance,” he panted when he could get words out.
“Uh-huh. Better.”
And it was. Better. All the bullshit he’d pulled on Lance in the hot tub seemed further away, as if they’d slept on it already. But it was just that Lance was a damn fine man, and that Lance loved him more than he deserved.
“Shh.” Lance stroked his cheek. “I can hear you thinking. Just relax.”
“I can do that, honey.” He took one more kiss, then got up to get a washcloth to clean them up before letting the dogs in. “Nap?”
“Mmmhmm. Tired.” Lance sounded so sleepy now.
So Sloan crawled into bed with him and the beasts. He had a lot of thinking to do.
But he could do it later. This was too good to waste.