JACK WASN’T worried when he logged on to Alex Sutherland’s secret Twitter account and found messages from both Robert and Amanda. After all, he’d been contacting them on and off, pretending to be Alex, just in case this was how the family had been traced previously.
The messages had been pretty bland to date, and he’d used their code to let them know “Alex” had relocated and was fine. The new messages were more problematic.
“Robert and Amanda want to meet up.”
Sean looked up from the newspaper he’d been scanning, and Clare sat down at the breakfast table and inclined her head.
“Same place?” she asked.
“Yeah. The Days Inn out on the interstate.”
“Send a message back,” Sean ordered. “Say you’ll meet them Thursday on your day off. That should give us enough time for recon and to put our own people in place.”
“Yes, sir,” Jack replied.
“Leo’s coming over tonight, right? We’ll make some plans. I want him on backup with this one.”
JACK HAD pulled kitchen duty and was busy chopping vegetables when Leo turned up at the house later in the day.
“Grab a knife,” Jack said, nodding toward a bunch of carrots.
Leo grinned and picked up a knife, and a minute later he was scraping and dicing and adding to the pan full of vegetables Jack was preparing.
“Sean and Clare still at work?” Leo asked.
“Yep. Back in thirty.”
“Plenty of time,” Leo breathed.
He dropped his knife and walked around the table and began nuzzling the back of Jack’s neck, his hard body pressed up against Jack, his hands sliding around to pop the top button of Jack’s jeans and slip a hand inside.
“Fuck,” Jack gasped.
“Exactly,” Leo whispered.
Jack laughed and turned around in the shelter of Leo’s arms. “You want dinner tonight or not?”
“Later,” Leo murmured. He reached out to grab a handful of Jack’s shirt and pull him forward, and then his mouth found Jack’s in a soft kiss. Leo’s fingers stroked the length of Jack’s hardness, and he tipped his head back. “Yeah, dinner can wait. Follow me.”
He tugged at Jack’s hand and led the way upstairs and into the bedroom, kicking the door closed behind him as he pushed Jack up against the wall and continued to ravage his mouth. They pulled at each other’s clothing, breaking the kiss only when they had to, until Jack felt nothing but smooth, hot skin pressing up against him.
Leo’s talented fingers were already doing incredible things, and Jack gasped as he was caressed and coaxed to the edge of climax. They had barely tumbled onto the bed before Jack was arching his back and the warm splash of his release was coating his stomach. He sped up his own stroking rhythm, swallowing Leo’s groans as he followed Jack quickly into a satisfied collapse.
Leo sighed gustily and stretched, winding his arms around Jack to pull him closer. “Wish I could sleep over sometime,” he said dreamily.
Jack laughed. “No way I’m doing that with Sean in the next room.”
Leo levered himself up onto his elbow and smiled down. He traced a finger lightly across Jack’s chest.
“How do you think regular kids make out?” he teased. “They have to do it under the noses of their parents, you know.”
“Their parents aren’t operatives trained to hear a pin drop,” Jack reasoned. “I swear Sean knows when I turn around on this bed.” He shuddered. “The idea of him knowing we’re doing… that!”
Leo snorted. “He knows we’re sleeping together.”
“He doesn’t have to hear it,” Jack said firmly.
“Anybody ever told you you’re a prude?”
Jack lifted his head and kissed Leo’s cheek. “Yeah. You.”
Leo grinned and then flopped back down beside Jack. From out of nowhere, a thought slid into Jack’s brain.
“Have you ever brought anybody back to Martin’s?”
“Sure,” Leo replied, though there was hesitation in the word. Jack guessed he didn’t want to have this conversation, but something perverse pushed at him.
“Old boyfriends?”
“Uh-huh.” There was a moment’s silence, and then Leo added, “And girlfriends.”
Despite himself, Jack stiffened. Leo sighed and raised his head. When he saw the look Jack couldn’t mask, he pulled himself into a sitting position.
“I already told you,” he said quietly. “There were others before you. I’ve never lied about that.”
“I presumed they were boys,” Jack said.
“You presumed wrong.”
The silence that fell again lengthened as Jack weighed this new information. He wanted to ask Leo how many people he had slept with, but he wasn’t sure he was ready to hear the answer. Worse still, he wasn’t certain Leo would tell him, even if he asked.
“We’ve been over this, Jack,” Leo said patiently. “I’m almost eighteen years old. I haven’t lived the same kind of life as you. I’ve been on assignments that lasted for months. I’ve been embedded in the prep phase of missions for weeks on end with nothing to do but pretend to be a regular high school kid. Having relationships, getting their hearts broken, it’s what they do. It’s what all teenagers do.”
Except the ones who’ve been locked up in the Center like prisoners. The words went unsaid, but they hung in the air, an unarguable fact.
Jack tried to turn his head away, but Leo reached down and held him in place. “None of that has anything to do with us.”
“Were any of them serious?” Jack blurted.
“Yes,” Leo said simply.
Jack pulled in a breath and exhaled slowly. He’d asked. Leo had answered. He couldn’t hold it against Leo that he’d had more experience, nor that some of it had been real and meaningful.
“We should get up,” he said. “They’ll be back soon.”
He rolled off the bed and walked into his small bathroom, picking up a damp washcloth and dragging it across his stomach to wipe away the evidence of lovemaking. He didn’t know whether he felt better or worse that Leo had told him the unvarnished truth.
He was still considering it when Leo walked into the bathroom, moving up close to slide his arms around Jack’s waist and drop a kiss onto his shoulder. “I’m sorry if that hurts you,” he said. He lifted his head, and their eyes met in the mirror, Leo’s expression unguarded and just a little tense.
“Hey. It’s not your fault I’m so green,” Jack said.
“It’s why I wanted to wait,” Leo said gently. “I wanted you to be sure you knew what you were doing.”
Jack turned around and grabbed Leo’s arms. “I know what I want,” he said fiercely. “You. It’s only ever been you.”
Leo smiled sadly. “That’s the problem, isn’t it?” He took the washcloth out of Jack’s hand and swiped it down his own chest and stomach. “Come on,” he said. “We still have to get dinner ready.”
They dressed quickly and walked downstairs, and they were just putting a casserole into the oven when the door opened and Sean and Clare walked in. Sean raised an eyebrow, probably unconvinced by the innocent scene.
“Give us ten minutes to change and wash up,” he said. “We need to go over some details before you meet Robert and Amanda.”
The two of them disappeared upstairs, and Jack helped Leo set the table. Just as they finished, he yanked Leo close and cupped his face between steady hands.
“It’s you. I want you. Not because I don’t know any better. Because you’re the only person I’ve felt this for.”
He pressed his lips to Leo’s, holding the kiss even when he heard Sean’s door open overhead and then his footsteps on the stairs. Leo tried to pull away, but Jack held fast, only letting Leo go when Sean was standing in the room.
Jack looked into his handler’s face defiantly, ready for whatever he had to say, relieved and amazed when all Sean said was, “So, what’s for dinner?”
SEAN DANGLED the car keys over Jack’s hand, but he didn’t seem quite ready to let them drop.
“Are you sure you have the plan straight? Because there’s a good chance this is how the Ryan brothers traced Alex’s family the last two times.”
Jack thought he’d stopped the eye roll in time, but as Sean’s hand flashed out to cuff the back of his head, he realized he hadn’t quite managed it.
“Sean, I’ve got it,” he whined.
He didn’t think it would help his case to point out that he had been the one to figure out Alex had gone rogue, and that he had been the one to put all the pieces together and make the right connections. “I’m totally on it.”
“I want it all absolutely by the book,” Sean said sternly. “Not a mile over the speed limit, not a single deviation from the planned route, not a conversation that hasn’t been rehearsed. Do you understand?”
“Yes!” It wasn’t as though he planned a fun-filled afternoon of hookers, drugs, and booze, Jack thought sourly. He was meeting two teens who would probably be so freaked to see him instead of Alex Sutherland that they’d barely be able to string two words together.
“Leo will meet you at the motel,” Sean said. He paused for a moment, and Jack looked up, realizing he’d just tuned Sean out after what felt like the hundredth repetition of the same sentence. Sean didn’t look too pleased. “Do you want to sit this one out?” he said menacingly.
“No, sir,” Jack said quickly.
“Because your participation isn’t a foregone conclusion.”
Jack didn’t see how that could be true, given he was the one posing as the target, but he kept that observation to himself.
Sean eyed him in silence, and Jack hung his head, trying to look contrite. “Okay, then,” Sean said eventually. This time he let go of the keys, and they dropped into Jack’s outstretched palm.
“Straight there, meet the kids, straight back home.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Eyes open, but absolutely do not engage if you spot a tail.”
“Sir.”
“Drive home, park the car, walk inside.”
“Got it.”
“Go!”
Jack didn’t wait to be told twice. He walked outside and closed the door firmly behind him, sighing in relief to be out from under Sean’s relentless scrutiny. They had gone over this so many times his head hurt.
He climbed into the car and settled behind the wheel, his pulse racing when he inserted the key and turned over the engine. He didn’t let himself truly believe it was happening until he slid the car out of the driveway and made a right turn, heading toward the highway. Then he turned on the radio, cranked the volume, and gave a loud whoop of sheer joy.
Though he had been driving since he turned thirteen and had taken several advanced courses, Jack rarely drove without one of the Center’s senior agents in the car beside him. He kept carefully within the speed limit, ignoring the way his foot itched to push the accelerator harder. He couldn’t imagine what Sean would say if he got picked up by the cops on his first ever long-distance solo drive, especially when they discovered he was packing a weapon. The only thing that could make this road trip even more perfect was if Leo had been allowed to accompany him.
Sean had vetoed that, even though they were both working the assignment and would end up in the same place. He was worried that if Jack were followed, it would look weird for Leo to be riding along with him. Jack didn’t think taking a new friend along to meet an old one was totally out of character for Alex Sutherland, but he didn’t argue when Sean adamantly refused.
Every part of the assignment had been meticulously planned, right down to what Jack was allowed to tell Robert and Amanda about the situation. Jack had actually been surprised that Sean was willing to reveal anything at all.
“We’ve run a preliminary check on them and their families,” Sean said. “There’s nothing to indicate they might be doing anything to compromise the Sutherland family.”
It made sense, though Jack had never known the Center to tell anybody anything it didn’t feel they needed to know. Disclosure was not a high priority, and Jack always felt everything he learned was only grudgingly shared.
Two hours later Jack pulled into the parking lot of the Days Inn and made his way to the tiny, overheated office at the end of a row of doors. The regular clerk had been thoroughly vetted, and then encouraged to take a paid day off so the Center could put its own people in place. When Jack walked in, Leo peered at him over the top of his glasses.
“Aren’t you a little young to be hanging out in a seedy place like this, son?” he said, faking gravity.
Jack scowled, briefly considered flipping Leo off, and then decided to ignore him.
“Robert’s message said he’d be registering under the name of Farnsworth.”
“A Futurama fan!” Leo exclaimed.
Leo had been teaching Jack what was currently considered cool, spending hours showing him movies and TV shows, lending him video games and graphic novels, and giving him tips on what clothes to wear. It was one of the drawbacks of being sequestered behind the Center’s formidable walls––having to read about life instead of actually living it. When in the field, he was never quite sure he knew the latest slang, the current fads, all the things that were now instead of then. Jack was pleased he actually knew this reference.
Leo flicked through a tattered book on the desk in front of him and then nodded. “Mr. and Mrs. Farnsworth. Room 102. You ready?”
“Affirmative,” Jack said.
Leo opened the drawer of the desk he was sitting behind, rummaged inside, and pulled out a key card before joining Jack at the door.
“How many of the rooms are ours?” Jack asked.
“Two of them,” Leo replied. “Either side of Robert and Amanda.”
“And the others?”
“Two other rooms are rented. One’s a trucker. He’s been coming here regular as clockwork for close to two years. The other rolled up this morning. Caucasian male. No previous stays here, at least not under the name he used this morning.”
Jack turned his head. “You think he might be connected?”
Leo shrugged. “Not sure. I sent his details through to Martin. He’s running the guy through the Center’s system. Martin will text me if he finds anything. In the meantime….” He jerked his head toward the row of units, and Jack stepped out of the office with Leo close on his heels.
They walked quickly down the concrete path that ran the length of the building until they came to room 102. The blinds in the room to the right twitched slightly, and Jack saw a vague shadow moving behind them. He was grateful that room housed a Center operative, watching his back.
Leo stepped to the side so he wouldn’t immediately be seen by whoever opened the door to room 102. Jack knocked loudly, hearing muffled voices inside and then the sound of a bolt being pulled back. The door opened a sliver, and two dark eyes peered out.
“What do you want, man?”
It was Robert Chase, looking nervous, his gaze darting over Jack’s shoulder as though searching for somebody else.
“Alex sent me,” Jack said.
Robert recoiled, taking a step backward, and Jack took the opportunity to push the door hard and force it open.
“What the fuck—”
Robert looked totally confused as Jack barged in, confusion turning to fear when Leo slid silently into the room behind him.
“Who the hell are you?”
Jack pushed Robert farther into the room as Amanda Gordon stepped out of the bathroom, her mouth all but hanging open in shock. Behind him, Leo shut the door quietly and leaned up against it.
Robert scrabbled at the waistband of his jeans. “Who the hell are you?” he repeated, only this time he was pointing a gun.