Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Shaun?”
“Not now, Zenko.”
Shaun tried to walk past him, but Zenko’s hand shot out and snagged the back of his T-shirt, pulling him to a stop.
“Not so fast, Shaw.” The slight emphasis Zenko put on the shortened version of his name told Shaun exactly what was coming.
Wade fucking Sheridan, JSOC orders, and being commandeered for another mission weren’t enough shit for one day.
Zenko was still pissed about everything he’d learned since Syria. “We need to talk.”
“I said not fucking now, Zenko.” Shaun needed a few minutes to hit something before he tried to have a rational conversation with anyone. Preferably something that wouldn’t hit him back, because right now he was pissed enough to keep going until one of them ended up bleeding.
Except this was Zenko, and that complicated every fucking thing.
Shaun had no idea what the hell they were doing, or what Zenko even was to him now that the truck-driver cover was blown and Ghost Team was standing twenty feet away.
Boyfriend? Partner? Whatever the fuck came after being rescued by someone, sleeping with him, then sending your boss halfway across Syria because getting that same man back safely suddenly mattered more than getting yourself home?
Christ, he didn’t know. He barely knew how to have a fucking boyfriend anyway. How often did you feed one? Did you have to walk them?
Now you’re flipping from one topic to the other, dumbass. Focus.
Shaun ripped himself out of Zenko’s grip and stormed toward the stairs. He needed five fucking minutes before Noble commandeering his ass, Wade Sheridan, and whatever the hell was happening between him and Zenko all collided inside his head and something exploded.
Shaun shoved open his bedroom door and slammed it behind him.
Dammit, he was throwing a fucking hissy fit like a teenager, and knowing it didn’t seem to be doing a damn thing to stop him.
He grabbed the bottom of his T-shirt, yanked it free from his waistband, then ripped it over his head and tossed it in the general direction of the wash basket in the corner.
This was his room whenever his team used the Croatian safe house, his fucking space, and right now he needed five minutes alone in it before he lost his shit completely.
“God damn motherfucker.” He ripped open his belt, getting a ridiculous amount of satisfaction when the buckle slipped from his hand and flew across the room, landing with a solid thunk on the wooden floor next to the bed.
Why the fuck does this shit keep fucking happening to me?
All I fucking did was report the fucking plot I overheard.
Damn it.
He’d done his job, gotten grabbed for it, spent days chained up by terrorists, then finally made it back to his own team only to discover the man he’d reported the fucking plot to was involved, and Noble had already volun-told him for another mission.
“Shaun. What the fuck?”
His hand was already reaching toward the knife hidden under the mattress before his brain registered it was Zenko standing in the doorway.
He stopped himself and glared instead, taking in Zenko’s intense gaze fixed on him.
Of course he had fucking followed him. Apparently, asking for five minutes translated into ‘come chase my ass upstairs’ in whatever language the asshole spoke.
“You think you can come into my house and shout the fucking odds, Zenko?”
“What?”
“You think I’m an idiot who doesn’t know what he’s doing?”
“No…”
Shaun squeezed his fingers against his closed eyes. Even he wasn’t entirely sure whether he was arguing with Zenko anymore or carrying on the fight he hadn’t been allowed to finish downstairs.
“Just gimme a minute, for fuck’s sake.” He shook off the hand Zenko reached toward him and headed for the bathroom. Maybe a shower would help him cool the fuck off enough to separate one problem from another. “Just gimme a minute before I say or do something I’ll regret.”
“Bullshit.”
He stopped mid-step and slowly turned around. “What did you say?”
“This is bullshit, Shaun, and you know it.” Zenko didn’t seem to give a shit that he was yelling loud enough for everyone downstairs to hear every fucking word. “You could have fucking told me.”
There it was. The conversation he had known was coming from the second he’d seen Zenko standing outside with Rock and realized his cover was well and truly fucked. He circled one hand between them before pointing toward the stairs.
“This… us… my team? We’re fucking classified. When was I meant to tell you that officially I don’t fucking exist anymore?”
“So are fucking we.” Zenko crossed the remaining distance between them until he stood directly in front of him. “And I still fucking brought you home, and I fucking kept you.”
He stared at him.
Oh, you didn’t.
You didn’t fucking just tell me you kept me, did you?
“What the fuck am I, a fucking puppy?” The anger he’d been trying to get under control surged straight back to the surface.
Fuck Noble, fuck Sheridan, and right now, fuck Zenko fucking Marks, too.
He didn’t give a shit that Zenko was bigger or stronger.
He was pissed, and the asshole had decided to walk straight into the middle of it, waving another fucking red flag. “Fucking kept me… did you?”
He fisted both hands in Zenko’s shirt, his fingers clenching so tightly his knuckles stood out white against his tanned skin. He spun them and slammed Zenko’s back into the bedroom wall hard enough to make the timber-framed house shake.
“You don’t get to fucking decide if you keep me or not.” The red haze threatening the edges of his vision had been building since downstairs, and with how Zenko kept pushing, there was little chance he’d be able to curtail it.
Zenko’s fingers closed around his wrists with bruising force, the calloused skin scraping against the tender spots where Shaun’s pulse hammered just beneath the surface.
It took everything he had to suppress the wince when the asshole pressed directly into the pressure points there, his thumbs digging in with pinpoint precision.
The bastard knew exactly where it would hurt the most, where the nerves clustered closest to the skin—SEAL fucking pressure-point training put to use in the worst possible way.
“Do you not see how you are acting?” Zenko’s voice dropped instead of rising to meet his anger, and that low, fucking controlled rumble scraped over Shaun’s nerves, making him shudder.
Somehow that pissed him off almost as much as the shouting had.
Zenko’s grip around his wrists eased slightly, just enough for blood to rush back into his fingers, the prickling heat of it making his hands throb.
“Tell me what happened in the briefing.”
“Later,” he snarled, twisting his wrists free from Zenko’s grip with a sharp jerk that sent a bolt of pain shooting up his forearms. The moment his hands were loose, he shoved Zenko away from him, his back hitting the wall, the impact rattling the door.
He could hear the wood groan under the force, a deep, protesting creak just shy of cracking, but he didn’t give a damn.
If the bastard wanted a fight, he’d get one, and Shaun was more than ready to give it to him raw and unfiltered.
Zenko’s eyes darkened as the tension between them crackled like live wires downed by a summer storm.
His pulse hammered against his ribs. “Just give me five fucking minutes to shower, asshole.” The heat radiating off Zenko’s body was almost suffocating.
“You don’t get to pin me down and demand I tell you shit when you understand the fucking meaning of classified just as much as I do,” he bit out, his voice rough with barely leashed fury.
Zenko’s muscles coiling like a predator about to strike should have been his warning to take a step back, but he was too busy trying to wrangle his temper under control that he didn’t see Zenko’s hand snap up until it fisted into his hair and wrenched his head back with a sharp tug.
The sting shot straight down his spine, and his scalp burned where Zenko held him tight. The sharp scent of his own sweat, weapons, and mission aftermath filled his nose as Zenko yanked him closer.
“You don’t get to blow me off when I ask a fucking question,” Zenko growled, his breath hot against Shaun’s lips, carrying the faintest trace of coffee and something darker, more primal. “Do you fucking hear me, asshole?”
“Fuck you.” He jerked forward, catching Zenko’s mouth in a brutal kiss, teeth clashing, tongues pushing in without finesse.
It was violent, and bruising. A kiss that left them both tasting blood.
The copper tasted sharp on his tongue, mingling with the salt of sweat and the lingering bitterness of Zenko’s last coffee.
Zenko’s lips were chapped and rough against his own, and Shaun bit down hard enough to draw another metallic tang into the mess of their mouths.
“No,” Zenko shoved him off, then reversed their positions in one hard spin, slamming him into the wall instead.
The impact knocked the air from his lungs in a sharp exhale, his shoulder blades hitting the drywall with a dull thud.
He didn’t even have time to recover before Zenko’s knee wedged between his thighs, pressing hard enough to wring a ragged sound from his throat, the pressure toeing the line between pain and something far more dangerous. “I believe it is me who will fuck you.”
Shaun clawed at Zenko’s belt, got it open with a rough jerk, and ignored the buckle scraping against his knuckles.
Then he shoved his hand down without hesitation, his fingers curling around the cock already thickening beneath fabric.
Zenko was half-hard, the weight of him heavy and insistent against his palm.
“We’ll see about that.” He didn’t bother with teasing. His grip tightened, pulling a choked hiss from Zenko’s throat, the sound vibrating against his own lips.