"Go back to bed, Lee." Adam wasn't ready for deep conversation at ass o'clock in the morning. And the whole word why? What was that?
"I'm not going back to bed until you tell me," Lee said. His tone was so damn matter of fact; like telling him the truth wasn't going to rip his world apart. Adam considered the question. He wasn't ready to do this with Lee. They had a case to concentrate on.
"You've had over a year since you lost the right to know anything about me."
"Tell me why."
Adam pushed at the covers until he sat upright. Lee had one leg drawn up under him and his hands rested on his thighs. He looked relaxed but Adam couldn't see the expression on Lee's face let alone read the intent in his eyes.
"Why what?"
"Why did you do it? Why did you take a bribe to disrupt the chain of evidence in the Robertson case? If I understood it then maybe we could get past it; go back to being friends."
Adam knew this would happen eventually. Lee and him in an enclosed space would never equal calm. And friends? They were never just friends. "Funny," he huffed with a sarcastic laugh. "You never once asked me why." Adam leaned over and turned on the bedside light. If this was really going down then there needed to be a little light on the subject.
Lee rocked backward. "Shit Adam, I didn't know I had to." He shook his head. "I guess I imagined you would just tell me what was going on."
"And I never imagined I would have to explain. Maybe to the guys who paid my wages, but not to you. You saw those photos and from that moment you weren't able to even look at me let alone listen to me. I needed you to trust I was doing the right thing. Is that so hard to understand?"
"What? You wanted blind trust from me when all the evidence said you were screwing us over?"
Adam paused and considered what he was going to say. The day he had been called into the office, shown the photos and asked to explain himself had been the hardest and easiest of days. Pissed that he had been caught, and inwardly feeling screwed, it was the outside face that he showed to colleagues that was the easiest. His expression would show he didn't care he was being hauled over the coals. His face would show that it didn't matter Lee saw the images. "You stood there in that room, Lee, and you looked at me differently. After all those years of being your partner, your lover, you refused to think anything except the worst."
"I didn't know what to say. I was working the internal leak—you know that. We knew someone in that office was bad. Shit, Adam, I was in shock."
"You were in shock? I never thought for one minute I had internal affairs following my every footstep."
"I didn't know they were—"
"I'm supposed to believe that 'wonder-boy Myers' wasn't one hundred percent in the loop in his own fucking department?"
"I wasn't—"
"Think whatever you want Lee. It was obvious to even an idiot that the pictures, whoever took the damn things, weren't faked. When you looked at them you made a decision your head could live with."
"I didn't have a choice; I had a job to do." The frustration in Lee's voice was intense.
Adam leaned back against the pillows. This was possibly one of the most surreal experiences he had ever been part of. In every dream he had where Lee confronted him about those final days with the FBI Adam always played it cool. He had all the answers and he could cut Lee out of his life with nothing more than a fuck you. Lee hadn't believed him, believed in him, therefore he was dead to Adam. Thing is, this wasn't exactly going to plan.
"So tell me what the photos meant, tell me why I was wrong."
"I'm not ready to go back there." Adam couldn't keep the frustration from his voice. There was so much tension sparking off around them and not all of it good. Now was not the right time to be considering things long past.
"I loved you, Adam. You only had to explain, but you said nothing." Lee pushed a hand through his short blond hair in frustration and it stood up briefly before gravity took over on the silky locks.
Adam could remember how soft it was to the touch. How he loved to grasp Lee and twist his fingers in Lee's hair as they kissed. His dick filled at the thought. The sex had always been so damn good.
"You thought you loved me," he finally said. Just for something to say really; to break the silence. "I'm not having this conversation. You need to leave." You need to leave before I go against everything I think and drag you into the bed. He focused on remembering the day Lee had stood by and done nothing when accusations flew. That stilled the arousal in his body but not enough to completely erase it.
"So if I said sorry, if I said I wanted to listen? Can you make me see why I was wrong?" Lee offered gently.
Everything was there in front of Adam. Lee in his room, on his bed, the slim blond moving up toward the headboard as Adam decided what to say. There was such concentration in Lee's expression, coupled with expectation. It would be so easy to push the covers away and take what he wanted at this moment because he had been without for so long. Mesmerized, he leaned forward as Lee moved and they were so close. Adam could hear the rush of his blood, the need that was building up inside.
"Help me see why you broke the law." Lee said gently.
Adam reared back and threw the covers away from him coming up and out of bed in an instant. Just those few words were enough to snap him out of the cloud of need that had built in his head.
"Get out of my room," he snapped forcefully.
Lee stood in a flurry of movement and was right up in Adam's space. "I'm staying until you tell me why you did it."
Adam reached out and twisted his hand into Lee's T-shirt and pulled him closer until nothing more than a breath separated them. "Then you'll be here a long time." They stared at each other for what seemed like ages. Adam couldn't be sure who moved first, whether it was him desperate for touch, or Lee desperate to demand answers. The first touch of lips was hard and punishing and neither gave quarter.
This was easy. This violent taking and wanting was familiar and Adam was pushing Lee away and back to the bed. In a move eerily similar to the one in the office it was Lee who was facedown on the bed and Adam rutting against him. He didn't want to look Lee in the eye and Lee wasn't stopping him. He could have. He was strong enough.
They always had roles. Adam was physically bigger, would always be able to lift and push and hold Lee, and normally Lee was happy to be manhandled. Only this time he was a spitting, hissing, writhing mass of demanding need under Adam's hands. Adam wanted to push and feel and hold but it was a battle to touch. A desperate need to learn each other after nothing for so long; to force each other to the limit. Adam had Lee trapped beneath him, his legs stilled by Adam's hold and the only connection was Adam's dick in the crease of Lee's cotton covered ass. Adam gripped Lee's hair, turned his head, and stole a brutal tasting battling kiss. Lee swore in the kiss, but there was no heat. It was a plea for more.
Adam pulled back, releasing his hold just enough to push Lee's T-shirt up to his neck and pull his boxers down enough to expose the curve of his ass and the promise between. Adam tugged his own shorts down until the hardness of him was against Lee. They had no lube, no condoms, nothing and Adam wasn't going to push inside. Instead he set a punishing pace in the groove of Lee's ass cheeks. Selfishly he wasn't interested in getting Lee off, he just needed to mark this man. He kissed a trail of gentle touches across Lee's broad shoulders and was aware of Lee moving with his hand around his dick. He was whimpering under him, pleading, and Adam was pushed over the edge, coming in heaving strips over Lee's ass and back. He immediately pulled away and Lee rolled over onto his back.
Lee's dick was still hard, his hand stripping the length frantically, his eyes half shut and then with a cry of completion he came over his hand and stomach.
"Fuck you, Adam," Lee immediately snapped as he pulled his T-shirt over his head and used it to wipe himself down.
"It's what you wanted. It's all you ever wanted from me."
Lee didn't rise to the taunt. Instead he focused on the case they had been discussing. "Why did the lawyer give the evidence to you? Why didn't he come to me. Or hell, anyone else on the damn case?"
Adam winced inwardly. Sex hadn't stopped Lee's anger, if anything the temper in his lover was just turning up in heat.
Lee stood and distanced himself from the bed immediately. Adam couldn't meet his gaze. His marks were around Lee's neck, red blooms of need that recalled the path of passion. They never had trouble getting off. "For God's sake," Lee shouted angrily. "Tell me."
Adam bowed his head. Why wasn't he telling Lee? What was stopping him? When it had all happened, the betrayal of losing Lee's complete and utter acceptance was a knife to his belly. Was that stopping him from being rational? Before he knew it every single thing he was keeping from Lee began to bubble to the surface.
"You remember our last case together, the Robertsons and the crooked lawyer and the whole DA fallout." The very lawyer that was photographed handing the parcel to Adam. The parcel that disappeared.
"I can't forget it." Lee snapped, anger still in his voice.
"The lawyer contacted me off the record, just me, promised he had something for me but that I couldn't tell anyone else."
"So you listened to a lawyer for the other freaking side? You didn't book that meeting in, or tell me. Why?"
"I couldn't." Lee shook his head and anger spiked inside Adam. Who was Lee to stand there and judge Adam for what he had done? "We had spent weeks on that damn case, I was willing to take anything that could break it. The lawyer said he had an account by a witness to the case. The witness gave it to his lawyer and said it was his only protection against losing his life. Ironic really as the witness was shot the next morning which invalidated the whole sorry thing." Adam was lost in memories; as if he was there in that alley way taking the envelope with the contents that would change his life.
"So I ask you again. Why did the lawyer give it to you?"
"He said I was the only one he could get anywhere close to trusting. He was scared and he needed protection and he said the FBI had betrayed him." There was that word again. Betrayed. Adam was seeing that word a lot in his head. "The guy was convinced I would know what to do and what was right."
"What was right was sharing the information with your team," Lee said hotly. "Your work partner, fuck, your life partner. It looked like it was a payoff in all the photos."
"It wasn't a payoff. I destroyed what I was given."
"Did you read what you were given? What did it say?"
"The lawyer was right. It was notes about an FBI leak that connected straight to the DA's office. Dates, names, observations, the complete story. Well, the complete fabrication of a story."
"The leak? Our internal leak?"
"No. The lawyer had told me what was in it, but I didn't believe it. I was convinced it was all lies, even after I had read it. It meant nothing."
"How do you know that? What made you think it wasn't about the person that internally has us chasing our tails?"
"Because it named names, Lee. And I knew they were wrong."
Lee sat back on the bed as he visibly deflated. "How can you sit here and tell me the transcript named names about a leak in the freaking FBI and yet you didn't book the evidence in?"
"I couldn't do it."
"Why?" Lee sounded so confused. And damn it, there was that why again. Lee wasn't going to leave this room without accepting Adam had a reason. He gazed straight into Lee's eyes. What he was going to say wasn't easy to hear. Finally he couldn't not say it.
"Because the person named in the account was you."
Lee stood immediately with denial cut deep in his face. "My name? I wasn't—"
"See, Lee," Adam said tiredly, "I destroyed it because I knew it was lies. I didn't even think about it. And you know why I didn't believe it?"
"Why?"
"Because I loved you and I trusted you and I never believed for one minute you could betray the Bureau or betray me."