Chapter Nineteen Breaking Bad
Chapter nineteen
Breaking Bad
The alarm split the quiet, dragging Warren up out of the kind of sleep he rarely got anymore. Heavy. Unbroken. Too warm for a man who should’ve been on edge.
He reached over Jude to silence the shrill, his arm grazing soft curls, then rolled onto his back and rubbed his eyes.
Reality came back fast. Cold and sharp. Yesterday’s confessions weren’t some fever dream.
They’d happened. He’d let them happen. And now the day waited for him like an interrogation room.
Jude had a job to get to. Warren had two.
One, the cover he’d been building brick by brick: Mr Bailey, PE teacher, reliable, dependable.
And the other, the real one, where he’d have to call in last night, spin it carefully, and hope his voice didn’t betray how much of himself he’d already handed over. Patel was expecting his early check-in.
Mess didn’t begin to cover it.
But he’d sort it. He had to. For Jude’s sake as much as his own.
A rustle beside him, and Jude rolled over, squinting without his glasses.
Didn’t matter. He didn’t need to see Warren clearly to cut him open.
Those eyes searched him for answers Warren couldn’t afford to give.
Checking. Testing. Was this still real, or had Warren pulled a vanishing act in the night?
Warren forced a smile, reached up to stroke the curls away from Jude’s forehead. “God, you’re cute.”
The words slipped out before he could stop them. That was him talking. The real Warren. Not Bailey. Not the officer. Just a man who wanted someone to see him and still stay.
Jesus. He was so far gone he might as well slap the cuffs on himself.
Then Jude smiled, and dimples softened the scars life had etched into him, and those red cheeks…
Yeah. Worth the jail time. So he rolled back onto his side, closing the distance, and kissed him.
Quick. Testing. Making sure last night hadn’t been some glitch in his imagination.
Seeing if the spark still lived when daylight crept in and the job loomed.
Jude kissed him back. Light. Careful. And it scrambled Warren’s head in all the ways nothing else ever had. He should’ve felt panic. Been strategising the exit route, the report he’d file, the distance he had to keep.
Instead, all he could think was that he didn’t want to pull away.
Not yet. Maybe not ever.
The alarm shrilled again, and Warren refused to remove his mouth from Jude’s as he reached over him and slammed his hand down on it.
“Time for school.” Jude gave a tentative smile against Warren’s lips, as if he knew getting back to normality after last night would be another hurdle to overcome.
“Yeah.” Warren pushed upright. “How about you take a shower first. I’ll get coffee going. Then I’ll drive us both in.”
“You want the others to talk?”
“Surely teachers car share.”
Jude stood, stretching, and Warren’s gaze slipped before he could stop it.
That body—graceful, every line threaded with quiet strength—was a beauty he hadn’t braced himself for.
And when his T-shirt lifted, exposing a strip of skin and the dark curve of ink disappearing into his waistband, Warren’s chest tightened.
He couldn’t tell if he wanted to worship the sight, let himself fall for it…
or hate it for the past etched into Jude’s skin, for everything it dragged back with it.
All the things Jude should never have endured.
A man so undeserving of scars that deep.
“I’ve got spare clothes in my car,” Jude said, glancing back over his shoulder and catching Warren staring.
Heat slammed through him and Warren dragged his gaze up too fast, the spin of it leaving him unsteady. Every confession Jude had given him last night only fed the ache to keep him safe, to hold him close, to never let go.
Yet it was too much. Too fast.
“If you can grab them for me?” Jude ruffled his curls. “I’ll drive myself to work. Best not to stir suspicion just yet.”
“Yeah. Sure.” Warren cleared his throat. “I’ll get your bag. Bathroom’s opposite.”
“Thanks.”
Warren fled the room, pulse pounding, checking instinctively down the hall. Empty. Naomi hadn’t dropped by in the night. Good. He still had time to breathe, to plan his briefing, to figure out what the hell he was going to tell his handlers without handing them Jude on a plate.
Downstairs, he set the kettle boiling, thumbed open the burner phone drawer. Nothing. No calls. No demands. Relief mixed with dread. Silence could be worse than orders.
Floorboards creaked above. Then the low rush of the shower.
He spotted Jude’s keys on the table, grabbed them, and headed out to the car for his bag. When he returned, he dumped it on the bed and noticed the neat pile of towels folded on the chair. All of them. Still there.
“Bollocks.”
Jude wouldn’t have taken one.
Warren snatched one up and rushed back down the hall, knocking lightly at the bathroom door. “Jude?”
No reply.
He knocked again. Louder. Nothing.
So he cracked open the door, meaning only to drop the towel inside.
Just leave it, walk away. But his body locked solid when he saw Jude through the steamed glass.
He stood with his back turned, head bowed beneath the spray and water coursing over him, over pale skin and down the sharp line of his spine, collecting in the ink low on his back before sliding lower still, disappearing between the perfect cut of muscle and bone.
Warren’s throat went dry.
Heat surged low and fierce, a hunger he shouldn’t feel. Not now, not here.
He should turn around. Close the door. Walk away. Instead, he stood, transfixed, watching water map the places he’d only imagined. Desire burned through his restraint, tangling with guilt until his chest ached with the weight of it.
Jesus Christ, he was in trouble.
Because he wanted Jude. Wanted him in ways that tore holes through cover stories, protocol, and years of hard-won discipline. And the worst part, the part that scared him more than anything, was how, despite all that, he couldn’t look away.
Jude lifted his head, and their eyes locked through the haze. Warren’s pulse hammered, a primal beat drowning out every reason he had to walk away. And Jude…slid the shower door open, leaving it wide.
An unspoken invitation.
Warren should’ve walked away. He knew that. Every instinct screamed to turn, to shut the door, to salvage the tattered remains of his self-control.
But Jude stood there like temptation come to life.
And Warren was lost.
He stripped fast, careless, and stepped inside, steam curling around him as he eased forward, chest meeting the line of Jude’s back.
His body fit to Jude’s as though it had always belonged there.
Black on white. Yin on yang. His cock thickened, sliding into the deep curve of Jude’s arse, hunger gnawing the hard streams of his restraint.
And Jude must have felt all this heady rush too because he reached back, dragging his palm along Warren’s thigh, igniting him and burning through the last shred of control.
Instinctively, Warren bent low, softening his lips to the hollow between Jude’s shoulders before fastening hard and tasting the rush of water as it spilled into his mouth.
The taste of skin and steam and salt had him dizzy.
Then Jude tipped his head back on Warren’s shoulder, baring his throat, parting his lips in a soundless plea, yielding to him.
Warren stopped fighting it.
He reached around, wrapped his hand firmly around Jude’s cock, stroking in ruthless pulls as he moved his mouth to Jude’s neck, sucking hard enough to bruise. The weight of him filled his palm, hot and urgent, every pulse of need shooting straight through Warren’s gut.
Heady. Greedy. Intoxicating.
“Fuck, you feel good in my hand,” Warren rasped into his ear, voice unrecognisable, torn raw by want.
The reply Jude gave him was soft, broken whimpers and it pushed Warren to hear more, every moan a hit of something he hadn’t known he was starving for.
He wanted him undone. Needed him undone.
To hear what Jude sounded like when he fell apart with nothing left to hide.
So he tightened his grip, relentlessly stroking him, dragging him higher and higher until Jude bucked helplessly into his fist.
“C’mon, baby,” he breathed into his ear. “Fall apart for me.”
Jude moaned from deep within his throat, sliding his hand under Warren’s locs, and gripped the nape of his neck, pulling him closer.
Possessive. Needy. And those sounds…those groans, those gasping moans and ragged pants, had Warren gluttonous, devouring every second, desperate to take Jude further, to claim every last noise he had left in him.
“Fuck…Warren…” Then Jude shattered.
Release spilled hot into Warren’s fist as Jude writhed back into him, every groan and gasp echoing off the glass, until he sagged boneless in Warren’s arms, wrung dry.
Warren held him, chest heaving, pressing kisses to his back, drunk on the feel of him broken open. He should have been satisfied. Should have stopped. But his own cock throbbed, painful with the need he couldn’t mask. Nor did he want to ask.
He didn’t have to.
Jude spun, sank to his knees on the slick tile, water running over his spent body as he looked up at Warren with eyes dark and glassy.
“Jude…” Warren’s breath faltered and he braced his palm on the cubicle wall as Jude closed his fingers around him. His cock jerked, greedy, aching, and then Jude sealed his mouth over him.
A groan ripped from Warren’s chest, and he tipped his head back to bang on the glass. The world shrank to nothing but the molten drag of Jude’s lips down his length, the slick suction pulling him deeper, the sinful swirl of Jude’s tongue.
“Christ, Jude…fuck…” His words fractured into a moan as pleasure coiled tight, fast, unstoppable.