Chapter Seventeen Compromised Position #2
Jude curled his fingers around him, the first stroke drawing another guttural moan from Warren. Fierce. Controlled. Working him in long, fierce pulls drawing Warren’s breath right into Jude’s mouth.
“Fuck…” Warren panted into the kiss. “Fuck, Jude…”
Weren’t a warning. It was a plea for more.
Every nerve lit under Jude’s grip, the ache deepening with each stroke. Warren should’ve pulled back, should’ve found the line he was meant to hold, but instead his hand went to Jude’s waistband, tugging at the button until it gave.
Jude kept his rhythm with one hand while shoving his own trousers and underwear down with the other, baring himself to Warren’s reach.
Warren wanted to see him. Drink in every inch, but the dark held them, leaving him to map Jude’s heat and length with his palm.
Learning him by touch alone. He found him easily: hard, long, skin smooth and hot, the subtle throb in Warren’s palm making his pulse spike.
Jude was slick already, cock flexing under Warren’s grip, and Warren wanted every inch of it.
He matched Jude’s strokes, pull for pull, gliding his hand over him in the same frantic rhythm Jude used on him.
Every jerk, every squeeze answered in kind, the friction ratcheting higher until it was a closed circuit of need, feeding back into itself.
Warren tore his mouth from Jude’s long enough to drag in air, crushing his forehead against Jude’s, breath hot and ragged.
Every stroke was heat and friction, the wet slap of skin punctuating the muffled boom of the sea beyond.
It burned through every thought of how wrong this was.
Because how could it be wrong when it felt this fucking good?
Other ops, intimacy had been a tactic. A means to an end.
His body had gone through the motions because it had to.
But this… this was different. This was want.
Raw and unfiltered. He wanted Jude. And, fuck, the only thing left was to chase that edge and deal with the fallout later.
Because that edge was coming fast, and he wanted the crash as much as the climb.
Jude clamped a hand down hard on Warren’s thigh, holding him close, breath hitching with every upward pull. The car gave a faint, rhythmic rock beneath them, each movement sharper, more desperate. “Warren… fuck, Warren.”
Warren bit down on the groan that name ripped from him, swallowing it into another kiss, mouths messy, frantic.
Every nerve was wired to the slick heat in his hand, to the way Jude moved under him, to the faint stutter in that rhythm saying he was right on the edge.
Warren’s forearm burned with the effort, but he didn’t let up.
Couldn’t. Not with Jude’s hand locked tight around him, stroking as if to wring him dry.
He’d been tossed off before. Plenty. But never like this.
Never with this kind of heat, this desperation.
Out in the open, danger a heartbeat away, him blowing every rule he’d ever learned about protecting himself and the target.
And here he was, arse in the air, car door open, cock out, letting his target drag him under.
It was so fucking hot, Warren wondered if his sanity would survive it.
Jude tipped his head back, mouth parting on a sharp breath, jerking his hips into Warren’s fist. And that sight, even half-glimpsed in the dark, gutted him.
Pleasure coiled hot and tight at the base of his spine and his strokes on Jude grew erratic, tightening his fingers around him as slick heat spilled over his knuckles.
That was it. The trigger.
The pressure snapped, Warren’s body locking as he came hard, every pulse dragging another grunt from deep in his chest. He spilled between them, over Jude’s stomach, his hand still moving, milking the last of it while Jude’s release smeared warm over his fingers.
For a long moment, Warren breathed into Jude’s open mouth.
Rough, uneven pulls of air in the dark. The sea outside was loud enough to thrum in his ribs as he pressed his forehead to Jude’s temple, their bodies tangled, sweat and release making skin cling to skin.
Then he let go of Jude’s softening cock, caught his hand instead, laced their fingers, and slammed it into the upholstery behind Jude’s head.
He didn’t want to pull back. Didn’t want to think about the op, or what line he’d just bulldozed through. Nor how many violations he’d racked up in one night. All he wanted was the solid, living weight of Jude beneath him, his hand locked in his, and to hold on a little longer.
But inevitability broke them apart first. Jude’s voice, quiet but cutting through the dark. “How did you know where I was?”
Warren held his gaze, refusing to shift or let go. This was a crossroads, and whichever way he went, he was fucked. “I followed you.”
“Why?”
“Because I knew something was off.”
“And you’re some kind of vigilante hero of the night?”
“Something like that.”
Jude looked away, but he didn’t push him off. Maybe he was struggling for air under Warren’s weight, but he stayed put, as if the closeness and the pressure was the safest place he’d ever been.
And that… that did something to Warren. Hit a part of him that had nothing to do with the UC brief and everything to do with why he’d joined the job in the first place.
To protect. To stop the bastards who thought they were untouchable.
To put them away for good. The fact he’d probably tanked his best shot at doing exactly that barely even registered.
Eventually, he slid his hand free and shifted off him, crossing to the other side of the car.
Jude sat up, dragging his trousers and underwear into place, then leaned against the opposite door, fishing in the footwell until he found his glasses.
When he pushed them on, the first thing he did was stare straight at Warren.
Warren stared back as Jude zipped up and Warren tucked himself back into his shorts.
It was part survival, part shock as to why Jude wasn’t saying anything.
The less Jude said, the less Warren could dig.
Or pry into why he was out here, even though Warren already knew more than he should.
But it was still uncharacteristically overwhelming how Warren wanted Jude to reach for him.
His superiors would scream “power imbalance” before they threw the book at him, but right now Warren didn’t feel powerful at all.
He felt helpless.
How the hell had this man managed to strip away every rule, every instinct, every safeguard Warren had built over years undercover and make him want to break them?
What was one more?
“If you’ve got nowhere to go,” Warren said, “come back to mine.”
Jude looked away, catching his lower lip with his teeth.
“I get the view here’s decent,” Warren said, coaxing him back. “But I’ve got a bed and clean sheets. Sofa if you want it. Whatever you need. But I’m not leaving you out here.”
Jude hesitated, weighing him up. Then gave a small nod.
“Leave your car. Come in mine.”
Jude shook his head. “I need the car. For the morning.”
“I can drive you into work.”
“I need my car.”
“Alright.” Warren scrubbed a hand down his face. “You want to know you’ve got a way out. That you can reach the sea if you need to. I get it.”
Jude cocked his head as if realising what Warren had referred to.
The prisoners in the keep. But Warren ran the logistics in his head, preoccupied with what had to happen next.
Letting Jude follow in his own car left him open.
Anyone tailing him could peel him off before they made it back.
If Reid was on him, or one of Radley’s errand boys, they’d never get as far as the safe house.
But Warren had already done the sweep. If Reid had eyes here tonight, Warren wouldn’t still be standing in the cold making offers.
He’d have a blade in his ribs, maybe a boot to his head, the car already lifted.
And the fact he hadn’t thought about that before climbing into Jude’s car and shoving his hand down Jude’s pants told him exactly how compromised he was.
“Fine,” Warren said at last. “You follow me. Keep your distance, but close enough I can see your lights.”
Jude gave the barest nod, as if agreeing to something still not sitting right with him.
Warren stepped out the car, letting Jude climb into the driver’s seat.
He waited until Jude started the engine, headlights washing across the lay-by, before heading for his MG.
Once behind the wheel, he keyed the engine but kept the lights off for a beat, scanning the mirrors, the treeline, the road behind.
Still clean. No shadow cars, no loiterers.
Then he switched the beams on and eased out, checking Jude’s reflection in the rear-view. Two car lengths back, not crowding him.
Every few seconds, Warren drifted his gaze from the road to that set of headlights.
The urge to cut the distance, to pull him over and shove him into the passenger seat, sat hot in his chest. To keep him, where Warren could control the variables.
But control was already gone. He’d given it up in the back seat of Jude’s car, and no amount of UC training could make him believe otherwise.
The route back was instinctive. Round the industrial estate, cut through the quieter residential streets, then the back road bringing them to the house.
He pulled up to the kerb, lights still on until Jude rolled in behind him.
Then he killed the engine. Sat there for a second with his hand on the keys, the weight of what he was about to do pressing against the back of his skull.
One more compromise.
He stepped out, the night air biting, and waited until Jude joined him on the pavement. “Let’s get inside.”