“No. No fucking way.”
“Will —”
“No. You are not taking a goddamned posting in Iraq.” Will didn’t care that diners at the next table were glancing their way. Iraq? And the way Taylor popped out with it like…ain’t no big deal. The hell it wasn’t.
He watched Taylor strive for patience. “Look, we both knew I was eventually going to be posted overseas.”
“Not to Iraq.”
“Oh for chrissake. Iraq is where they need people.”
“You said you’d resign if they tried to send you overseas.”
Taylor’s jaw dropped.
Will flushed. He knew he was being unreasonable but…Iraq? The highest casualties in the DSS were in Iraq. Will had been stationed in Iraq when he was in the marines. It was a goddamned hellhole, and he couldn’t bear to think of Taylor there.
Taylor had that dangerous glint in his eyes. He said with ominous patience, “When I said I’d resign, it was because I didn’t think we could survive a long-distance relationship, but since we’re in a long-distance relationship, what the fuck is my excuse for not taking a promotion?”
“What about us?”
“What about us?” There was no give in Taylor, no softening. Stone-faced, he said, “I’ll be there two years, which is about how long you’ll be here in Paris. Perfect timing, if you ask me.”
“Two years minimum. They’ll ask you stay on. You said it yourself; they need people there.”
“How about I get through the first two years before we worry about it? For all you know you’ll be here in Paris for however long I end up in Iraq.”
“I already said I’d turn down the extended tour of duty if you asked.”
“No, you didn’t. And I wouldn’t ask.”
That was the truth. As much as Taylor had not wanted Will to go, he’d had the strength of will, the discipline to resist asking him to stay. Will, on the other hand, had already misplayed his cards by ordering Taylor not to take a posting he probably didn’t want anyway, resulting in Taylor, well-known for being one of the world’s most stubborn sons of bitches, now being set on going.
“What about our house?”
Taylor was looking at him like Will was an idiot. “If you want me to keep the house, I’ll rent it out.”
“What about Riley?”
Taylor nearly strangled over that one. “Riley? Your dog? You want me to turn down a posting so I can babysit your dog for a couple of years?”
He was making it worse with every word out of his mouth, but Will couldn’t seem to stop himself. “You know what I mean. We have a life. We have a home.”
Taylor leaned back in his chair, calm again. “Maybe someday. But we also have jobs. And right now those jobs are in conflict with these other things.”
“Is this payback because I took the Paris posting?”
Mistake. What was new? He watched Taylor’s temper spike, although Taylor managed a comparatively restrained, “I’m going to forget you said that.”
Will shut up before he said something that had Taylor walking out of the restaurant. This was not at all how he had pictured their first night together. He’d wanted everything to be perfect for Taylor. Taylor deserved that, deserved to be spoiled after the way Cooper had been running him ragged for a year.
Will tried a different tack. “Listen, it’s not that I’m putting my career over yours.”
“No?”
“If this posting was anywhere else in the world, I’d be glad for you.” Come to think of it, no, he wouldn’t. He hated the idea of Taylor taking a posting anywhere — part of what made his own posting bearable was the thought of Taylor and the home they would eventually share and the life they would eventually build — but Iraq was definitely the worst. The idea of Taylor in Iraq terrified him. He’d lost too many friends in Iraq. Seen too many people he cared for crippled and maimed. “I was in Iraq.”
“In the marines. I know.”
“It’s not…healthy.”
Taylor’s lip curled. “No? I heard it was just like Paris only they like Americans better.”
“You’ve already been —” Will stopped as Taylor’s expression went glacial. “Think about how you’d feel,” he said instead.
“I wouldn’t be happy, but I wouldn’t assume that you’d be killed if I wasn’t there watching your back every second. Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“That’s not what I mean.” Although, yeah, it kind of was. Taylor was smart and strong and dauntingly efficient in a fight, but he lacked a normal sense of self-preservation. He just didn’t seem to understand how terrifyingly mortal he was.
Taylor said, “I still can’t figure out how my getting shot is somehow more traumatic for you than me.”
This time Will shut up for real.
They finished their meal, Will paid out half his life savings, and in silence they left the restaurant.
It was a short walk to the Métro station, a pleasant evening to be out, and they fell into step with the automatic ease of long partnership.
All along the cobblestone streets, the windows of fashionable cafés, galleries, and boutiques were ablaze with life and light. The elegant stone mansions of Place des Vosges — with their steeply slanted blue slate roofs and ornate facades — always seemed to Will to belong to another world, another time, as in fact they did. The square had been the center of aristocratic life in the seventeenth century.
They walked on, not speaking, though their footsteps stayed in time as they passed the center park lined with rows of shaped chestnut trees where sleepy songbirds offered a final chorus in the face of encroaching shadows.
The curved teardrop lamps winked on, casting artful shadows across the splashing fountains and the large equestrian statue of Louis XIII that dated back to the 1800s. This was the second statue of Louis. The first statue had been destroyed during the Revolution.
That was part of what Will found fascinating about France. He’d never been a big history buff — that was more Taylor’s line — but you couldn’t be in France and not be conscious of its history. The past was everywhere. It echoed off the cobblestones and architecture. They didn’t tear down and rebuild here like they did in the States. The same old buildings changed hands over centuries — centuries — new paint, new furnishings, and another new start, another new beginning.
He’d wanted to share some of this with Taylor, the one guy he knew who would understand and appreciate all that Will was just discovering — hell, the executions of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette had taken place in the square right in front of the Hôtel de Crillon, which was next to the American Embassy. Incredible. But Taylor had been edgy and slightly remote since he’d stepped off the plane. He kept making those little distancing jokes when Will was trying to be serious.
Now, of course, he was angry. And rightly so. Will had handled things like a jackass. But couldn’t Taylor see it was because Will cared? How many times was Will supposed to calmly stand by while Taylor was beaten or shot or blown up? Taylor was a good agent, one of the best, but he wasn’t a soldier. He didn’t have a clue what Iraq was going to be like.
Such violence seemed unimaginable on this warm summer evening. Will watched children racing across the grass, their parents strolling more sedately behind.
A little girl shrieked, “Maman, vous ne pouvez pas m'attraper!”
Smiling, Will glanced at Taylor, but Taylor was staring straight ahead, frowning a little, his expression preoccupied as when he was trying to find a new angle on a difficult case.
No, not the evening Will had planned at all. He’d really screwed this up. He’d meant for this to be such a special birthday for Taylor, a real holiday — which God knew Taylor needed — and a chance to fortify their relationship.
He tried to think of something neutral to say.
“Can we…table this for now?” Taylor stopped walking. “I can feel lonely at home. I didn’t have to come six thousand miles to not talk to you.”
Will stared. Taylor’s jaw was clenched, his expression pugnacious, but his eyes gave him away. Grateful for the reprieve, Will pulled him into his arms, and Taylor hugged him right back in that fierce, bony embrace.
Will said, “The last thing I want to do is fight with you. I just…”
“I know.”
“I don’t know if you do, Taylor. I know it makes you mad when it seems like I’m… I just don’t want to lose you.”
“You won’t. I promise.” Taylor pulled away, as though self-conscious even though these were the streets of Paris and open displays of affection were hardly unheard of.
They shoved their hands into their pockets and walked, elbows and shoulders brushing, on toward the Métro.
Taylor asked lightly, “So what did you get me for my birthday?”
“You know that pony you always wanted? I hope you left plenty of room in your suitcase.”
Taylor chuckled, and Will smiled back. Everything was okay. They just needed a little time to regain their footing.
Everything was fine.
* * * * *
Back at the apartment Will told himself to go slowly, but Taylor’s body was so warm, so welcoming, he pushed right inside, Taylor taking him easily despite the fact that it had been so long.
An unhappy thought occurred to Will, but he dismissed it. If Taylor was fooling around, he’d say so. There was no one more direct than Taylor. Will remembered some of the late-night phone conversations they’d had where Taylor had described in colorful detail what he was doing to himself, the naughty toys he was using. Will had figured at least part of it was braggadocio or Taylor simply teasing him, but he should have known better than anyone that Taylor had a wild streak. Will’s comfortable assumption that the more exotic stuff was all safely in the past was apparently wrong — the real shock was that he found himself unbearably turned on by the idea of Taylor really wearing anal beads and butt plugs on his days off as he swore he had in preparation for this holiday.
Crazy, beautiful little freak.
Taylor arched back, and Will lifted his head to nuzzle Taylor’s chest, suckling on the tiny point of a flat masculine nipple. Taylor made a small, desperate sound, and Will smiled. Something about that, about having Will’s hot mouth on his nipples, made Taylor crazy. He could practically get off on that alone. Sexuality was such a weird thing.
Will smiled as he gently teethed the tiny point. Taylor’s man titties. One of his more endearing kinks. Taylor whimpered.
“Good?” Will murmured, feeling Taylor’s heartbeat thundering against his face. The best, if Taylor’s responses were anything to go by.
Taylor nodded, without the breath to answer.
Will chuckled, licking and teasing until Taylor was squirming on top of him, his breathing deepening to gasps.
“Wait. I’m going to lose it.”
Will obligingly waited, relaxing back into the pillows and bedding. “Eleven months is too long.” He gave a little teasing rock of his hips, and Taylor cried out, shuddering.
“Damn it, Will.”
“Sorry.” He wasn’t, of course. It was beautiful to see Taylor like this, racked and helpless, beautiful to know he could do this to him. Sometimes all that sexual experience of Taylor’s was a little daunting. Comforting to know he did have a little control.
“I want it to last.”
Will nodded gravely, but his sense of humor was getting the better of him — that and the fact that he was enjoying his moment of power. Anyway, it was asking a lot to expect him to hold motionless for long while he was buried to his balls in Taylor’s taut, perfect ass.
“Anytime, MacAllister.”
“Will you just —” Taylor moaned as Will hefted his hips, his thighs rubbing against damp skin and soft hair and that stretched and molten center of heat.
Now that had been a mistake because it just felt too good to stop, especially when Taylor pushed instinctively back. Will’s tenuous control unraveled, and he began to thrust, hard and fast, pounding into Taylor. He could hear Taylor’s soft cries as from a great distance, and the naked, helpless sounds goaded him on. There was no one who could strip control from him like Taylor — even when Taylor was the one with his legs spread and his ass split like a peach ripe for plundering.
This was probably more like a rutting heat than making love, but sometimes that was the thing you needed. Something plain and uncomplicated.
He rose up and bit Taylor’s shoulder because he couldn’t help himself, and Taylor made one of those acquiescent noises. Those wordless sounds really got to Will, melted away the remnants of his control — the shreds of his control more like it. He thrust again and again, his body responding to those subtle, knowing movements from Taylor, and then Taylor was coming, uncorked and shooting white foam like a shaken bottle of champagne. His climax set off a chain reaction in Will, and Will pumped it right into him, wanting Taylor wet and soaked with his spunk. Primitive stuff, probably, but Taylor never seemed to mind.
Spent with his own coming, he slumped on Will’s chest. Will wrapped an arm around him and finished his own performance with a final twitchy spurt or two.
Taylor’s back rose and fell more slowly. He expelled a long, long, contented sigh. Will kissed his damp face.
“Crazy,” Taylor muttered.
“Look who’s talking.” Will kissed him again.
His cock softened and he withdrew, gathering Taylor closer still. The moonlight streaming through the sheer draperies revealed Taylor smiling, boneless and peaceful in Will's embrace. The most dangerous man Will knew rested sweetly in his arms, trusting him with his love as he trusted Will to guard his life. It was beyond precious. Life, love, was made up of fragile moments like these. Fragile as Paris moonlight.
* * * * *
Will woke to the scent of fresh coffee and the jangle of the telephone.
The phone stopped as sharply as it had started, and he heard Taylor’s quiet voice downstairs.
For a few seconds Will gave in to the simple pleasure of that. Of just…that. Taylor in the next room answering his phone.
Yeah, it was the simple things. Will smiled wryly at himself. Apparently he was one of them. But after the horrific dreams he’d had the night before — dreams of Taylor dead or dying, where in the best-case scenario he had only been missing a couple of limbs — the normalcy felt blessed. Not that Will considered himself religious, but he knew about counting your blessings.
Taylor’s voice stopped and the TV went on, the sound drifting up the staircase. Will could hear the excited voice of a newscaster.
“Le potentiel pour le désastre est énorme…”
What the hell?
Will was groping for underwear or pajama bottoms or bathrobe or any damned thing when Taylor appeared in the bedroom doorway. He wore jeans and nothing else. His hair was a little longer than he usually wore it. It curled slightly at the back of his neck. His eyes were as green as Paris in the springtime.
“You better come downstairs and take a look at this, Brandt.”
“What’s going on?”
Taylor didn’t answer, already on his way back down to the ground floor. Will found his jeans, yanked them on, and ran downstairs.
Taylor was perched on the arm of the sofa, scowling at the television set. Will stared at the TV. A female reporter in a white trench coat was speaking rapidly into her microphone as she turned from the camera to point. The Eiffel Tower stood in the background.
His written French was not great, but after a year of immersion, Will could make out the simple ribbon of information at the bottom of the screen. Eiffel Tower evacuated in bomb scare.
Taylor’s grim voice confirmed his own thought. “We’ve got trouble.”