Chapter 13 WHERE THOUGHTS LEAD
As Gray stepped out of his Mercedes, a deep meow off the cat drew his look back to the fountain and how its lights lit up the darkness of home. From under the shelter of the concrete rim, the Maine came over and rubbed at his leg a moment later, and Gray lightly nudged her away with his knee. He wasn’t fooled. She tried to push his buttons, so he ignored her party tricks.
“He put you out, huh?” He caught Jack’s long-since cooled down Mercedes close by. Yeah, Gray knew he’d taken longer than needed to get back from retrieving the samples. “C’mon.” He locked up his own car after he took out his case. “Time to earn your keep, cat. Look after Jan and keep Jack pinned down long enough for us to talk Cutter to him, okay?” Head down, he glanced over to Light’s summerhouse, to the tent peg and how it marked the last place Martin had stood.
“When you do get in there,” he said gently, “make sure your bullying hold is long enough to give them all something to hold on to….”
Gray pushed on through to the kitchen, but only the soft hum of the fridge-freezer kept him company, and he glanced around for a moment before taking his case through to the Oval and locking it away. Back in the kitchen as the Maine stalked her food bowl, Gray headed over to the fridge and poured a glass of ice water. A slice of lemon encased in an ice cube slipped in next, he took a walk down the long hall to his reception area, ear turned for any sound beyond ice touching glass. Today had been such a long, long day.
How Jack’s work boots and leather jacket kept Jan’s long mac company by the door, Jack was definitely home as well, but the quiet surrounding the reception area and beyond was startling. Jan’s office sat two doors away from the Oval, and the light from under the rim called he was in there. After the trip to Thames House and ensuring all data was erased from their files, it touched seven thirty, and Gray had gotten no call off Jack that said Jan had heard about Jason or Chris’s accident. Shaun wouldn’t rush it with Monique, and he’d have Doctor Halliday reviewing the care plan, which was no doubt why Jack’s appointment with him had been cancelled this morning. Accident notifications also took time. But by now, Jack would usually be kitchen bound, even with ordering in and getting plates ready for dinner. Yet only the ticking of Ed’s old grandfather clock from down the hall spoke nothing was wrong with life’s routine.
Gray took a sip of his water, then slipped off his coat, easing it next to Jack’s and Jan’s on the coat stand. He snorted down at the old pair of Doc Marten’s and the trademark scuff at the left steel toecap. Only Jack could manage to scuff his way through steel. He really needed a new pair but getting him to change routine and comfort zones…? Yeah. That was a fight no one would win.
Flickering off the Flatscreen TV came from the lounge, and Gray tilted his head to how no sound came from the semi-darkness, just a hint of cigarettes smoke as he got a little closer.
Jan lived for disaster movies with full on surround sound. Jack wasn’t into movies, certainly never the silent variety, so seeing an old black and white of Der Himmel über Berlin had him tilting his head as he went in . The literal German translation was The Heaven Over Berlin, but the non-literal, Wings Of Desire, set the scene for the later modern adaption of City of Angels , and its iconic track “Iris” by the Goo Goo Dolls. Although Gray preferred Peter Gabriel’s “I Grieve” from the album. Der Himmel über Berlin was unique in itself: mirroring the angel’s life in black and white, how removed he was from human existence: taste, touch, love, fear, sadness, risk-taking, and all the colour that came with it, right until he took the fall for his trapeze artist. Then on screen, life exploded into colour for him, bringing the multi-modal dynamic of script, sound, cinematography, acting skills, and move from black and white to colour into one potent package.
It remained a classic for a reason.
No sound drifted through the living room, only the German subtitles adding to the silent-movie quality as shadow images flickered around the walls, and Gray tilted his head.
Now this… this was… different.
“ City of Angels didn’t do it justice,” Gray said softly, his look going to the settee, more what played out on there. “No subtle tease on the head and heart with the change in modes.”
“Huh?” Jack’s head came up off the arm of the settee, and he choked out a soft laugh, a “Fuck” before dropping his head back down and taking a long draw on his cigarette as he lay there. “Put some bloody sound behind those footsteps, Gray. You’re off the culler clock now. Christ.” A hand went to his chest. “Give me a fucking heart attack, why don’t you.”
Gray laughed softly before he took another sip of water and went over.
Garage coveralls gone, barefooted, black hair soft and shower-fresh, Jack lay with his head back, eyes closed up to the ceiling as the long draw on his cigarette lit up the flickering shadows sweeping his body. T-shirt distractedly pulled up, leaving his abs on display with a slight damp sheen to them, he’d long since opened the buttons to his jeans, exposing the fine down of pubic hair. Jeans sat low on his ass, exposing a half-moon of the tanned curves to the cushions and telling tales on how he’d been writhing and twisting, losing himself to… himself and the shadows dancing in the lounge.
Indecent, yet comfortable in his home setting. Ghosting the halls, yet claiming everything as his in the quiet of it.
And this… this was what Gray would pay the devil to have here each time he came home.
Jack went handsfree with the cigarette, taking it in his mouth and conducting his heavy breathing. As he drifted a hand from his heart down over his abs, heading for the gap in his jeans, Gray paused only for a moment to put his drink on the coffee table before he leaned in.
He stole Jack’s cigarette, taking a draw in on it, and Jack grinned up at him.
“Better on the head and tongue.”
“Hmm?” murmured Gray, looking down to where his hand stroked at the offer of tanned skin in the gap in his jeans.
“ Der Himmel über Berlin. Es ist besser für Kopf und Zunge …. The silence is just… better for the head and getting my tongue around pronunciation. No sound helps, forcing me to focus on sounding the translations out.”
Gray traced a touch over the light sheen of sweat coating Jack’s abs. A soft hiss came, a slight shift up off hips into the touch, and Jack instantly let his own hand run beneath the open buttons on his jeans, cupping his own cock.
“Hmm,” said Gray, picking up on how naturally Jack had said better for the head and tongue in German, not slipping on any of the translation. He found Jack, the look of heat in silver grey eyes so alive in the shadows. “Pre or post on the play?” A smile, a lot of darkness behind it with Gray because his head was still caught in brutality, the need to relieve it, and a few knife marks would look damn good across Jack’s ass. “Because I swore I told you no self-service.”
Jack kissed at his jaw… nipped at his throat. “You were here.” He tapped his head. “Always are, mukka.”
There was never a reply with any knife needed to that.
Gray slipped a hand down into Jack’s jeans, under his boxers, and he swiped his thumb over his cockhead.
Jack winced and sucked in a breath, so sensitive to touch, but still hard… heated. Yeah. He’d lost track on control but looked well into round two.
Taking a long draw on the cigarette, Gray went in for another rough kiss, sharing smoke, heat… need.
Just what the fuck were you thinking, Mart?
Gray pulled back, twisting his head away and withdrew his touch. “C’mon.” He eased Jack’s T-shirt down his abs, gently covering him up, but stroking through the material to all the dips and valleys to his abs that always reminded him of the wild terrain of home he’d been drawn back to. “We need to talk.”
“Talk?” Jack slipped the cigarette from Gray’s fingers, then took a draw on it before cocking a smile, his hand resting on top of Gray’s, keeping his touch there. “Not in the mood, mukka.”
Gray frowned and started to say something—but Jack suddenly shifted and controlled Gray’s fall to the floor before straddling him. It still knocked the wind from him and trapped him between settee and coffee table, with Jack ensuring the captivity, and Gray… not liking it.
It took him a moment to control his reactions, one moment pissed off and needing to shove the forced hold off, another worried the hell out of cigarette burns to Jack if he did.
Then something entirely different slammed into him, a mixture of all the wrong fight, heat, and need to control the moment with how the burn of the cigarette was thrown into the mix with Jack, how he took a long draw on it, his smile a little too cocky.
And the threat of fire on skin, of Martin drawing a match down his abs back in a nightclub….
Fuck. Every ounce of wrong heat and confusion woke in Gray, filling his own cock and fuelling a side he wouldn’t risk around Jack, not fire. Ever. That stayed buried deep in the recess of his own darkest depravity. “Stunner—”
A dip of head came, a close of eye, hair almost covering Jack’s face, and for a moment it didn’t register, the shift of Gray’s jacket—the pull on his firearm.
Jesus Christ.
Gray caught Jack’s hold on the gun as the barrel went to Jack’s throat, and life stilled for one heart-stopping moment for them both.
Had he used the threat of fire to distract…?
Jack’s finger sat close to the trigger, and Gray controlled his own breathing, not making a move, heart caught somewhere between a graveyard he never wanted to tread and the loss of his mind to a hell he’d never come back from. “Stop it. Now.”
Breathing heavy, hard, Jack tilted his head back and ran the barrel of the gun down his own throat, jaw to collarbone, his hand covering Gray’s so control of the gun stayed his.
“Trust me, mukka….” Head dipping with the movement, Jack traced the gun down over his abs, only stopping when it rested in his lap, flat against the open clasp of his jeans. A frown came, so brief before he shifted his hand from underneath Gray’s, keeping his other on top and the pressure applied. Then he took the cigarette out of his mouth and stubbed it on the coffee table before quickly pulling his T-shirt off. A shift up, jeans came off his hips, and Gray sucked in a breath as the clasp to his own trousers was undone.
Gray was hard, no twisted soul wouldn’t be at gunplay: but fear ruled it, and that was a first.
Jack had hated guns for so many years, didn’t know how to use or stay safe around one, even a culler-issued modern firearm with a safety lever that blocked the firing pin hitting the cartridge primer. As he roughly took the full length of Gray’s cock, jerking the gun, Gray snarled, grabbing the back of his hair, keeping him so still in his own confusion, anger—and how he was turned on in all the same heated moment. Jack had lubed himself: the slide onto Gray had been so smooth yet choking and dangerous at the same time. It took Gray’s breath and common sense away, which was where all the danger lay, instantly flipping the switch into fuck or fight territory, where the need to fight Jack over anything should have remained a pure no-go landscape.
Jack stilled, not fighting the grip meant to calm, to force control. Then he came down, kissing at Gray’s lips before reaching up and easing the grip away. Giving a shake of head, saying control was his, he eased back and looked down.
A frown, he pressed the gun hard and flat against his own cock, Gray’s hold trapped beneath his, and Jack kept the pressure on as his cock rode the gun, in the same breath taking Gray in the heat with it all.
Despite what rode through his own body, Gray kept a focused hold on the gun, kept so bloody still.
Jack’s pace was long and deep: no hurried heat, just slow rides of cock and gun, taking the heat of one, the cold metal of the other to his cock. Despite how controlled he was, the strangeness hit them both fast.
Jack came hard, Gray hissing his a moment later with how his gun felt pressed into Jack’s cock, the straddled heat taking him.
“Fuck… fuck, mukka.” Doubling into Gray, his hand hitting palm flat on the floor and just managing to stop him crashing down on him, Jack choked a smile, a shaky laugh. “Jesus.”
Trying to catch up with the fast pace of hearts in the comedown and fear, Gray cupped Jack’s neck and pulled his head down to rest on his in order to ground him back in reality. As he did, he discretely withdrew his gun and rested it at his side, away from Jack. Then he sat up, taking Jack with him, and slipped a touch around him, not liking how it had all gone down.
Jack stayed straddled in his lap and a soft murmur came, followed by three gentle ghosts of kisses at his neck, then he rested in close, calming on the shared come down. Gray stroked at his bare back and rested in the curve of his neck.
“Where’d your head go to just, huh, stunner?” Gray never put sex into a box of firm dos and don’ts with Jack, not in their home. Jack could be as creative as he was spontaneous with ideas, but this…?
“Hmm?” Jack pulled back, but only enough to kiss and nip at Gray’s ear. “The trapeze.”
Gray twisted to look at him and caught the slight film of sweat dampening his cheeks and forehead.
“ Der Himmel über Berlin ,” breathed Jack. “The trapeze artists he falls for. More the precise moment after she left the board to just before she caught the bar…” Such a long stroke came at Gray’s jaw. “All safety nets removed with the moment’s freefall, not knowing if she’ll find safe holding or fall to the wayside.”
Jack eased back, an arm loosely around Gray’s throat, breathing a little heavy. “I see why he fell from grace for the chick and all her balls.” A wince. “Quite literally fell for her from heaven to, well… here.”
Gray moved damp hair from Jack’s eyes, and he offered a soft smile. “He fell from grace for her .” The start of a bruise touched Jacks shoulder, and Gray ran a gentle thumb along it. “It wasn’t just for one moment in time.”
“My ying to your yang.” Jack stroked distractedly at the back of Gray’s neck. “He loved her for that moment, in that moment, because of that moment. That moment and all the other single ones after that make up your for all of her .”
Gray smiled softly, then kissed at Jack’s jaw, maybe understanding his heated reaction. Maybe. “Yeah. Yeah it is.” Then he kissed at the bruise he’d seen. “How’d you get this?” He hadn’t caught it on the coffee table on his way down. That still sat in place.
Jack frowned and looked at his shoulder. “Hm, must have been pit-searching for my goddamn phone… should have sent Sam to get it out.” A smile, but there was something behind it. “You just jealous it’s not one of yours?”
Gray weighed that up, offered a smile. “Maybe.” And he meant that one.
A meow came from back by the entranceway, and strangely enough, the Maine didn’t come in and try to claim Jack, just sat there with a You finished with my bed now look. “Bloody animals,” murmured Gray.
“She just knows how to push your buttons…” Jack winced. “And mine.”
And then some. Gray swore she smirked over.
“Talk?”
“Hm?” Gray found Jack again as Jack flicked a warning look the cat’s way, no doubt against being body-slammed to the floor, but he carried tension in the stiffness to his shoulders now too.
“You ready to tell Jan about Monique’s car?” he said eventually, and he looked so sad.
Gray eased back, not sure why he avoided looking at Jack as he picked up his gun. “Yeah,” he added quietly. “About that too.”
Jack gave a long sigh. “I gave him some stress release as well to prep him for this talk. Hence my… heat as I didn’t let him touch me. He’s just cleaning up.”
Gray cocked a brow.
Jack shrugged boyishly. “Lad needs holding in all manner of ways. I just gave him a choice: blowjob or iced dildo.” A shy smile. “And we’re talking this big on the dildo.” He measured the distance from the floor, starting small, then ending up in over his head: more exhaust-pipe size and no doubt the scene from The Mask and where the exhaust was… put to rest.
Gray choked a smile. Way to go, Jack.
“Yeah, me and going overboard with portions, right?”
Was it just down to portions? There seemed some guilt there too, no doubt over missing the call, but work… it got in the way at the worst of times.
Jack got to his feet and helped Gray to his before slipping his jeans over his ass. No rush to shower… no rush to get Gray off his skin…. “You think he’ll be okay with the news on Chris and Ben? We’re used to messing with cunts like that, but him…?” Yeah, that’s why Jan had needed holding in Jack’s eyes. Always would be.
Gray frowned as he tucked his shirt in. “I need a talk with you as well, stunner.”
Jack stilled, then flicked him a look as he picked up the cigarette butt. He tugged his cigarette packet out of his back pocket a moment later, slipped the used in there, then tugged out a lighter and lit up a fresh one. He did that more and more around Gray lately, picking up on an old habit over not leaving DNA and brand names of cigarettes in ashtrays. Letting out the smoke, Jack turned his head a little away from Gray so Gray was also no longer caught in the poisoned stream.
He was too much like his old man, always knowing a… talk never did bring good news on most fronts. He looked ill at ease and on edge as he nodded and turned to head the Maine’s way. He seemed to be expecting a… talk. “Listen, I—”
Jan came on through, a hand running through his hair, and it stopped whatever Jack was saying.
“Brennan.” Jan paused in the doorway, looked back the way he’d come, shrugged. “I’ve… he called. Just.”
Frowning, Jack headed over. “You okay, soft lad?”
He looked… disturbed, but no tears came, and fuck. This was the touch Gray didn’t ever want on Jan, because the look of hurt had changed over the years, took longer to spill. Jan had toughened up when he shouldn’t have needed to.
“Chris…” Jan frowned. “He’s in hospital after an RTA. But Monique… Jason, her brother… he died. He was murdered along with his wife and kid.”
Murdered…. At least that confirmed Monique had also been told a third party was involved. Monique hadn’t had to face murder/suicide accusations. It wouldn’t ease her hurt, but it would focus blame in the right ways, away from family.
Jack fell quiet, then an arm slipped Jan’s neck and pulled him in before worry in Jack’s look came Gray’s way. “Fuck.”
“Yeah…. Fuck.” Jan slipped a hold around Jack and buried his head in his shoulder. Gray knew what this echoed when it came to Rob and his kid, how Jan had lost his ex-lover. “Christ. She was just saying at dinner how she hadn’t heard from him,” added Jan.
Gray went and poured him a whiskey, then took it over. “Here.”
Jan looked his way, and the blankness still hit Gray hard. Death and murder seemed too normal a shore for Jan to walk.
Jan took the drink, then—“Christ. Monique’s breakdown.” He looked sharply at Gray, at Jack…. “Do you think they’re connected?”
Jack stiffened, and Gray rubbed at his arm. “Go on, go on through to the kitchen. We’ll talk there, okay?” said Gray. Jan turned away, and Jack went with him as Gray went over to pour a set of drinks for all three of them.
But as he picked them up, four rings came through on his phone, then cut into silence.
Gray tilted his ear towards it, his look on the fireplace.
Eventually he put the drinks down and took out the phone and thumbed through to a message that came through.
The number was unknown, but the location that mentioned a time to be there, the images he was sent?
Jaw tightening, Gray took the drinks on through to the kitchen, and Jack eased back in his seat when he only saw two drinks.
“We’re losing you again, huh?” That came off Jan. “They’re finally calling you to heel?”
They’d both no doubt caught the four rings on the phone.
Gray flicked a look at Jack. “Tell him about the breakdown. Look after him.” Then he was with Jan. “I’ll be back in a few hours. We’ll talk about anything else then.” He couldn’t risk not being here for Jack when it came to talk on Cutter… kids, and his look warned Jan not to say anything either. “But I’m going to need you to stay away from Monique—”
“Wait… what ? Now of all times, and….” Jan eased to his feet. “Hang on. Back in the car, when Monique got a call off Brennan… you, you said I should go in with her. That she’d need it. You knew about Jase—” His eyes startled. “Is that what your Nottingham business was in Wales? Shaun sent you there?”
Yeah. Kid was too damn sharp. “We’ll talk when I get back,” he said to Jan. “But you need to stay clear of Monique, okay? Repeat nothing you’re told.”
Jan paled. With Gray being called in, he would know it would be at culler level, with the potential of a fast-lane psychopath behind it all.
“She’ll get protection, right? Monique?”
Gray nodded. “Shaun will have requested she stay at the MC, which puts her close to Raif and security there. Raif’s on standby to head surveillance with her and Andrea, and will be until this is sorted. But I need to go and handle this,” he said as he put the drinks on the table.
“We’re good,” Jack said up to him. “I’m here for Jan. You go. Don’t worry about protection.”
Gray kissed at his cheek. Jan’s.
He’d known he’d face the Monarchy eventually.
He just hadn’t expected it to be the personal location he’d received a few moments ago.