The Hardest Part #2
Liam opened his eyes and took in Josh’s expression. Of all their conversations on that ship, this was the first time Josh had said anything—anything—about the hurt the family schism had caused him.
“It does,” Liam said gruffly. “My da—my father wasn’t a bad man.
So much disappointment. Jobs he didn’t get, things he wanted for my mother, things he wanted for us.
It fell to shit, and he fell to drink. And people think, you know, you have to stop loving somebody when they disappoint you like that.
But the love stays, and the disappointment… .”
“Hurts worse,” Josh whispered. “Danny… he must have told me a thousand times that he left so he could heal, so he could be his best for me. And even though I know that’s true, the time he was gone—half my life—feels like he ripped it out of my heart.
I… I’m so glad to have him back. But it makes you…
careful,” he said at last. “It’s given me lots of things.
A sense of how to be fair to other people, because when you hurt them, it hurts everybody.
Forgiveness. People ask how I can be friends with Grace, but I know that he’s so hard on himself, he needs someone in his life who will forgive him for anything.
But… maybe that’s why I go for law enforcement.
” He smiled bitterly—too bitterly for somebody so young.
“Because I’m hoping somebody entrusted with public safety will know how to be careful with my heart. ”
And Liam had no choice. “I… I watched you grow up in Lightfinger’s pictures, you know.”
“Creepy,” Josh said, waggling his eyebrows. But they were so close right now, in breath and in heart, and Liam couldn’t make light of this.
“I thought, ‘If we ever meet, he’ll be like my little brother, or a nephew.’ I honestly thought that, until… until I caught you. And you were in my arms. And you… you weren’t anything like a little brother or a nephew.” His eyes burned. “And you were so sick…. I prayed, you know?”
“You never told me that,” Josh whispered.
“I said, ‘Please, God—I’ll give anything you want, just let him get better. Let us know what we can be.’ And you did. And then you pushed me away.”
It was Josh’s turn to close his eyes with pain.
“I’m careful,” he said again. “I couldn’t have stood it if you felt sorry for me.
I spent so much of that trip in that wretched berth, and my bright spot—besides the op that almost went to hell—was that you would come visit me.
I could trust you to watch out for my family when I couldn’t.
And I came to feel so much for you. I just…
I needed you to love me for who I am, not… not what illness made me.”
Liam brushed Josh’s lips with his own but didn’t deepen the kiss. He pulled back and said, “You… you’ve always been extraordinary.” He chuffed out a breath. “Do you have any idea how ordinary I am?”
Josh blinked owlishly at him. “To quote Grace, ‘Why are you talking stupid, Mr. Interpol Man?’”
And Liam felt this in his bones. “Do you know how I got the appointment to work Interpol?” he asked bitterly.
“You were awesome at your job as a detective inspector?” Josh hazarded, and Liam snorted.
“I was decent at my job as PC. A constable. It’s the beginning rank, if you didn’t know,” he said, and Josh stared at him, his eyes lit up in fascination.
“I did,” Josh said. “I did know, and I have no idea how a public constable got to be in Interpol. You weren’t even a detective?”
“I was aiming for it,” Liam said. “And there was a case—you might recognize it—where somebody was stealing art from people who hadn’t purchased it, or had stolen it from a museum and not returned it, and in the same go, rearranging the museums, putting odd returned bits in different places—”
“Oh my God,” Josh said in surprise. “Danny?”
“Oh yes. So I take this to my DI’s attention, and he sends me to the DCI liaison with the art division in Interpol.”
“This makes sense….”
Josh was still eyeing him like he knew where this was going, but Liam couldn’t help it. He kept blurting the entire stupid, sorry story out so Josh would know exactly what a fraud he was—nominally—in bed with.
He finished up with, “And so there I was, six months later, holding my broken heart in my hands with three giant promotions to show for it and… and…. God, I was so fucking embarrassed I took the first Interpol assignment out of fucking London I could find. Which was how I ended up….” He was stretched out on his stomach, his weight on his elbows so he couldn’t even flail his hands.
“In that terrible alleyway,” Josh said softly. “Where Tienne’s father died and Danny almost did the same.”
“Yes,” Liam said, some of his urgency fading. “So you see….”
“You,” Josh said softly. “I see you. You’re anything but incompetent, Liam. You’re compassionate, which not all rule-following law enforcement is, or my family wouldn’t be doing what it does.”
“I slept my way into my job,” Liam said, laughing a little with bitterness and embarrassment.
Josh’s grin was one of the sexiest things Liam had ever seen. “You,” he said with another one of those sensual boops, “are as bent as the rest of my family.”
He said it with a sort of predatory gleam in his eyes, and Liam swallowed, suddenly knowing what it was like to have Josh Salinger’s full and adult attention on him.
“What is it about my nose?” he asked, suddenly as shy as Josh had been in the beginning.
“Freckles,” Josh said immediately. “I told you I adore them.”
Liam hid his face on the pillow between them. “Those weeks on the damned ship, you said nothing about loving freckles.”
“More and more kept popping out,” Josh said, sounding like a baffled yet delighted child. “It was amazing. I was afraid you’d start covering your face completely in zinc oxide to scare them away.”
Liam glanced up and smiled. “That’s you,” he said, his voice gruff. “It’s your entire family, really, but you’re the one who makes me feel it right here.” He rubbed his chest through the sleep shirt he’d put on after they’d showered.
“Feel what?” Josh asked, and he cupped Liam’s face again, his thumb brushing Liam’s lips.
“Worthy,” Liam murmured.
“You are,” Josh confirmed, inching closer. “Did you tell me that story, the one about sleeping with your married boss, to make sure?”
“Sure of what?” Liam asked.
“Sure I wouldn’t reject you. That if I knew the worst thing about you and still wanted to be here, you could trust me?”
There was no lying here. “Yes,” Liam whispered.
“I’m still here,” Josh murmured, and moved closer, until their lips brushed, their breath mingled, and the air between them was full of the last year of unspoken promises.
Josh had promised to get better.
Liam had promised to be there when he did.
And now here they were, alone and—
This time as Josh’s mouth found his, Josh took the initiative, plundering with his tongue.
Josh’s injured shoulder was between them, so Liam pushed up on his own elbow, covering Josh’s body so Josh could use his uninjured arm to shove under his T-shirt, to palm his skin, to squeeze his shoulders, his biceps, then lower, lower—
“Ah!” Liam sighed, thrusting up against the bed, his cock hard, the kiss still raging between them.
Josh pulled back and grimaced. “Gah! Stupid shoulder,” he muttered, and Liam took over the kiss for a moment, kissing him until he was slack and pliant, which didn’t happen often with Josh Salinger, Liam was starting to realize.
Liam felt the urgency in his loins again and pulled back, noting Josh’s scowl.
“If you’re pulling away to go jerk off in the bathroom, so help me―”
Another hard kiss on that playful, swollen mouth, and Liam lifted his head and grinned. “Would you trust me? I was seduced by an older, more experienced man, you know. I’ve got tricks up my sleeve.”
And again that scowl, but this time Liam resisted it as he wiggled down the bed and thrust his own hands up under Josh’s T-shirt.
“There was no older, more experienced man,” Josh sighed, gasping as Liam’s thumbs, then his lips, found his nipples.
Dear Lord, they were delicious, and Liam tugged and pulled and nibbled on them until Josh’s fingers tangled in his curly hair and a surprisingly strong grip pulled him off.
“I am going to come from that,” he breathed.
“And that would be a shame, because after that kiss on the balcony tonight, I really want to see you naked.”
“Same,” Liam panted, kissing his way down a concave tummy. It was flat and soft now, but Liam knew Josh was working for muscle tone, eating protein when he could stomach it, dancing and running as much as his healing body would allow.
Liam was done waiting for a perfect body.
He didn’t care if there were love handles or he could count ribs (fuck, he could almost count ribs).
This young man was more than his body, more than his abilities.
His heart—that playful, exasperated warrior’s heart—had been the thing Liam remembered from that first night, catching Josh in his arms. Even illness hadn’t dimmed the fire in him, and now Liam wanted that fire for his own.
With some maneuvering, Liam tugged at the flannel sleep shorts and gazed at the sexy black briefs underneath. He glanced up Josh’s body and grinned, gaze flicking to the briefs.
“Prepared, are we?”
Josh rolled his eyes. “I wear thieves’ clothes a lot,” he said.
“And…?” Liam placed little kisses at the waistband of the tight briefs.
“And I hoped somebody would finally see my underwear,” Josh said on a breathy moan.
“But only me, right?” Liam cocked his head.
“You heard my body count,” Josh muttered.
“I’m not sure if any of those bodies hit the floor,” Liam prodded. Josh was hard already, leaking through his briefs, and Liam shivered as anticipation washed through him, followed by a sort of need he didn’t think he possessed.
“Not the way you’re thinking,” Josh admitted, thrusting his hips up. “I was waiting for the right older man to come along and seduce me.”