Chapter 25
They fought about it in the armory.
Not the clean, managed disagreement of professionals. A real fight, voices raised, old wounds open, an argument that only happens between people who matter enough to hurt.
"You're not going."
"You don't get to decide that."
"I'm your handler. "
"You're my boyfriend, Zain. Or whatever the hell we are. You don't get to use operational authority to keep me safe because you're scared."
The word hit like a slap. Scared. Zain's jaw locked. His hands, which had been organizing ammunition with practiced precision, went still.
"I'm not scared."
"You're terrified. You've been terrified since Levi. Since the gala. Since you realized I'm not going to sit in this safehouse and wait for you to come home."
"That's not…"
"It is. And I get it. I get why. But you can't protect me from the thing that already happened. I was in those cages, Zain. I know what's in those buildings better than anyone at this table. If you go in without me, people will die because you didn't have the information I have."
Zain's hands curled into fists at his sides. The armory was small, eight by ten, walls lined with weapons and tactical gear, the air sharp with gun oil. It was supposed to be a controlled space. A place of precision and order. Right now it felt like a cage of its own.
"I lost someone," Zain said. The words came out before he could stop them. "Before Lakefront. My partner. Rodriguez."
Seth went still.
"Not lost like, he didn't die. He betrayed me.
But before that, before I knew what he was, we went into a house in Brightmoor.
Suspected trafficking. Bad intel. There were eight men inside and two of us, and I watched Rodriguez take a bullet in the vest and go down, and for eleven seconds I thought he was dead. "
The number was specific because Zain had counted. Had counted every second of believing the one person who had his back was gone, and those eleven seconds had carved themselves into him like initials in wet concrete.
"Eleven seconds," Zain said. "And in those eleven seconds, every part of me that was a functioning human being just..
. stopped. I was a weapon. I cleared that room on autopilot, four men down in under a minute, and I didn't feel any of it.
Rodriguez got up, turned out the vest caught it clean, and he was fine.
And I looked at him and thought, I can't do this again. "
Seth's anger had drained. In its place was something quieter, what looked like understanding.
"That's why you keep people at arm's length," Seth said. Not a question.
"That's why I kept you at arm's length. And then you walked into my life covered in blood and bruises and started mouthing off, and arm's length stopped being far enough."
"Zain. "
"If something happens to you in that building, I will not be a functioning human being. I will be a weapon. And weapons don't save people, Seth. They destroy things."
Seth crossed the small room. Stood in front of him. Close enough to touch, not touching.
"Then don't be a weapon," Seth said. "Be the man who pulled me out of a cage.
The man who taught me how to throw a punch.
The man who held me after I killed someone and didn't let go until I stopped shaking.
" His voice was steady and his eyes were fierce and his hands, his damaged, capable, killing hands, came up to rest on Zain's chest. "I'm not Rodriguez.
I'm not going to betray you. And I'm not going to die in that building. "
"You can't promise that."
"No. But I can promise that if you try to leave me behind, I'll follow you anyway, and then we'll both be in danger because I won't have comms or backup." The corner of his mouth twitched. "So you can be scared with me, or you can be scared without me. Those are your options."
Zain looked at him. This impossible man who'd been half-dead on a warehouse floor a few weeks ago and was now standing in an armory full of weapons and telling Zain, with absolute certainty, that he'd march into hell uninvited if that's what it took.
"You're the most infuriating person I've ever met," Zain said.
"I know."
"And you're going to get us both killed."
"Probably."
"And I… " He stopped. Something massive was pressing against the inside of his chest, something with weight and warmth and the terrifying, undeniable quality of permanence.
He couldn't say it. Not yet. Maybe not for a long time.
But Seth's hands were on his chest and Seth's eyes were on his face and the truth of the thing filled the room like displaced air.
He kissed him instead.
Not gentle. Not rough. Something in between.
The kiss of a man who'd lost the argument and found something better in its place.
Seth made a sound against his mouth, surprise, relief, want, and then they were against the wall, Zain's hands in Seth's hair, Seth's hands pulling at his shirt, and the argument dissolved into the only language that had ever been honest between them.
"Armory," Seth gasped, pulling back. "Really?"
"You started it."
"You infuriated me."
"Mutual."
Seth's hands found Zain's belt. Zain caught his wrists. Pinned them to the wall above his head, one-handed, and Seth grinned up at him, bright and reckless and completely unrepentant.
"You going to hold me here all night or are you going to do something about it?"
"I'm thinking."
"You're always thinking. That's the problem." Seth rolled his hips against Zain's. Deliberate. Filthy. The friction dragged a sound out of Zain that he'd never made in his life. "Stop thinking."
"You're impossible."
"You love it."
Zain kissed him again. Harder this time. His free hand slid under Seth's shirt, up the flat plane of his stomach, and Seth arched into the touch like a live wire grounding itself. Zain's thumb found his nipple. Pressed. Seth bit Zain's lower lip.
"Careful," Zain said against his mouth.
"Or what?"
"Or I'll put that mouth to better use."
Seth's eyes went dark. His breath came faster. "Promise?"
Zain let go of his wrists. Grabbed the front of Seth's shirt with both hands and walked him backward until his spine hit the steel weapons rack. Rifles shifted in their mounts. A handgun rattled on its shelf. Neither of them cared.
"On your knees," Seth said.
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me." Seth's voice was rough, his eyes bright with challenge and want. "You just spent twenty minutes telling me I can't go on the op. You owe me."
"That's not how that works."
"It's exactly how that works. On your knees, Zain. Or I walk out of here and tell Jack you lost the argument and the makeup sex."
Zain stared at him. This impossible, infuriating, magnetic man who had been half-dead on a warehouse floor a few weeks ago and was now ordering a trained killer to his knees in an armory full of loaded weapons.
He dropped.
The concrete was cold through his jeans. He didn't care. Seth's hands were in his hair immediately, fingers threading through, gripping, and the sound Seth made when Zain pressed his mouth to the front of his jeans, hot breath through denim, was worth every bruise his knees would carry tomorrow.
"Don't tease," Seth said. His voice had lost the bratty edge. What replaced it was raw. "Not right now. I need… after everything we just said… I need you to -"
Zain unbuttoned his jeans. Pulled the zipper down.
Seth was hard and straining against his boxers, a wet spot already darkening the fabric, and the sight of it, the evidence that the argument had turned Seth on as much as it had turned Zain on, sent a wave of heat through him that settled low and heavy in his gut.
He mouthed Seth through the cotton. Slow. Deliberate. Tasting him through the fabric.
"Zain." Seth's hips bucked. His fingers tightened in Zain's hair. "Stop fucking around."
"Say please."
"Absolutely not."
Zain pulled the waistband down. Seth's cock sprang free, flushed and hard and leaking, and Zain looked up at him, held his gaze, and licked a slow stripe from base to tip.
Seth's head fell back against the weapons rack. A rifle shifted. Something metallic clinked.
"If a gun falls on your head," Seth managed, "I'm not explaining it to Nate."
"Shut up, Seth."
"Make m -"
Zain took him in.
The word dissolved into a sound that was half moan, half prayer, and Seth's hands in his hair went from gripping to cradling to gripping again as Zain worked him with the focused, relentless attention that he brought to everything.
He knew Seth's body now. Knew the rhythm that made his thighs shake.
Knew the spot under the head that made his breath stutter.
Knew that when Seth went quiet, truly quiet, it meant he was close.
He wasn't quiet yet. He was narrating his own destruction in fragments.
"Your mouth - God, the way you - fuck, right there, don't stop - Zain, I can't - your fucking tongue -"
Zain hummed around him. Seth keened.
"That's cheating. That is absolutely - oh - that's cheating and you know it -"
Zain pulled off. Licked his lips. Looked up at Seth, whose face was flushed and wrecked and the most beautiful thing Zain had ever seen in a room full of weapons.
"You were saying?"
"I hate you."
"You don't."
"I really, really don't." Seth's thumb traced Zain's lower lip. His voice dropped. Tender beneath the wreckage. "Get back down there."
Zain took him again. Deeper this time. Relaxed his throat and swallowed, and Seth made a sound that probably carried through the armory door and down the hallway and into whatever room Jack was pretending not to listen from.
He set a rhythm. Fast. Demanding. His hands gripping Seth's hips hard enough to bruise, holding him against the rack while his mouth worked him with an intensity that left no room for bratting, no room for defiance, no room for anything except the sensation and the connection and the trust that made all of it possible.
Seth's breathing went ragged. His fingers twisted in Zain's hair. His thighs trembled against Zain's shoulders.
"I'm close… Zain, I'm going to -"
Zain didn't pull off. Took him deeper. Swallowed around him.
"Fuck I'm… Zain…"
Seth came with Zain's name on his lips and his hands in Zain's hair and his whole body shuddering against the weapons rack, which rattled and clanked in a way that was neither tactical nor subtle.
Zain swallowed. All of it. Worked him through the aftershocks with slow, gentling strokes of his tongue until Seth's grip loosened and his breathing went from shattered to merely destroyed.
Zain sat back on his heels. Wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Looked up.
Seth was sliding down the weapons rack. His legs had given up the structural pretense. He landed on the concrete beside Zain, boneless, eyes glazed, a man who had been taken apart by his own demands and had no complaints about the result.
"Your turn," Seth said. His voice was wrecked.
"You don't have to."
"Shut up." Seth's hand was already on him, finding him hard and aching through his jeans, and the pressure of that palm made Zain's vision blur. "You just did that on your knees on a concrete floor. The least I can do is -"
He unzipped Zain. Got his hand inside. Wrapped around him.
Zain's forehead dropped against Seth's shoulder.
"Look at me," Seth said. Zain looked. Seth's eyes were bright, focused, sharp again, the post-nut haze burned away by intent. "I want to watch you."
Seth stroked him. Not teasing now. Direct, firm, the grip of a man who paid attention, who cataloged every response, who knew that Zain liked it tight at the base and faster near the end and that the thing that undid him fastest was eye contact during, the vulnerability of being watched while you fell apart.
"That's it," Seth murmured. "There you go. Let go for me."
"Seth -"
"I've got you. For once in your life, let someone else hold you up."
The words hit somewhere deeper than the hand on his cock. The place where the walls lived. The place where sabr had calcified into armor. Seth's free hand came up to Zain's jaw, held his face steady, made him keep looking.
"You're allowed to need this," Seth said. "You're allowed to need me."
Zain came. Hard, sudden, shaking, his face pressed into Seth's palm, his whole body clenching around a release that was more than physical. Seth worked him through it, steady, certain, watching him with an expression that was tender and fierce and completely without mercy.
After, they sat on the concrete floor of the armory, shoulder to shoulder, breathing hard, the room smelling like gun oil and sex and the particular aftermath of two people who had fought their way into something neither of them could name yet.
"Well," Seth said. "That was an argument."
"That was not an argument."
"It started as an argument."
"It started as me trying to protect you."
"And it ended with you on your knees. Funny how that works."
Zain huffed. The sound that served as his laugh. Seth leaned into him, and Zain's arm came around his shoulders, and they sat in the quiet of the armory and let the last of the adrenaline drain.
"I'm going on the op," Seth said.
"I know."
"And you're going to worry."
"I know that too."
"And afterward, we're doing this again. In a bed. Like adults."
"If Jack walks in…"
"Jack knows better."
"Does he?"
"He's survived six years working with you. The man has instincts."
They looked at each other. And laughed. Together, which was rare, which was new, which was the sound of two people discovering that the space between fear and surrender could hold joy.
They put themselves back together. Straightened clothes.
Checked for obvious evidence. There was obvious evidence.
Seth's hair was a disaster. Zain's knees were red from concrete.
They both smelled like they'd committed a crime against decency in a room full of firearms, which, technically, they had.
They didn't make it out of the armory for another ten minutes because Seth kissed him again at the door, slow and deep and tasting like a promise, and Zain let himself be kissed, let himself be held, let himself stand in a room full of weapons and feel, for the first time in longer than he could count, completely unarmed.
When they finally opened the door, Jack was leaning against the opposite wall with his arms crossed and an expression of long-suffering patience.
"You done?"
"Yes," Zain said.
"You both going on the op?"
"Yes."
"Good. Because Marcus already assumed you would, and the briefing started ten minutes ago." Jack pushed off the wall. "Also, the acoustic insulation in the armory is not as good as you think it is."
Seth turned red.
Zain didn't.