Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Witches Shoe ❯ Chapter 19
[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]
By: deathangel125 
Anime/Manga: Gundam Wing Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Action / Romance / Suspense | Type: Yaoi | Uploaded On: 07.25.2016 | Pages: 7 | Words: 4.9K | Visits: 188 | Status: Work In Progress
Anime/Manga: Gundam Wing Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Action / Romance / Suspense | Type: Yaoi | Uploaded On: 07.25.2016 | Pages: 7 | Words: 4.9K | Visits: 188 | Status: Work In Progress
Warnings and disclaimers in first section.
“What did you leave behind?”
Trowa in a pair of tight leather pants, a black tank top, a black leather duster, and a pair of heavily buckled boots was a sexy sight. The addition of the knife strapped to his thigh, a black choker, a small diamond earring and fingerless gloves was making it hard for me to concentrate. Putting us in a space barely big enough to stand crammed together while he looked like that should have been illegal. In some places, it might be. My choice of outfits for my lover may have been a bad idea; we kept rubbing against each other in a way that had me so hard it hurt and those damn pants weren’t helping matters at all. “What?”
“Focus, lover.”
“I am focusing, just on all the wrong things. You’ve got to stop moving like that, babe. I’m already wondering if it’s possible to get your clothes off in here.”
“I doubt it. There’s barely enough room for both of us to stand, let alone anything else.” He sounded amused, but out of breath. Maybe my restless motions were causing him to be a little uncomfortable, too. Served him right for making me want to combust.
A light tap on the panel above our heads had both of us freezing, breathing a sigh of relief when Betty’s voice floated down to us, muffled through the carpeting and metal above our heads. “Traffic’s backed up, boys. It’ll be at least an hour before we dock. You’ll be okay down there?”
“We’ll be fine. An hour isn’t so long, is it, Tro?”
His eyes were large, possibly wondering why I was wearing such a smile. His response was slow to come, seconds after Betty’s laughter faded away above us. “An hour isn’t very long, unless it’s impossible to move. What did you leave behind? You left something on the bed.”
“Diamond brooch. A small token of appreciation for helping us out. They could have sent us into a trap, you know. Some would have.”
“I’m not arguing. I just thought you would leave behind something bigger, worth more value. What are you doing?”
He must have been referring to the way I was working his pants open and tugging them down as far as I could, releasing his thick erection into my waiting hand. Yep, the moving around definitely had him excited, too. “Finding a way to pass the time. They volunteered to help; if I had left anything larger it would have been an insult. Damn, you’re huge.”
“There isn’t enough room,” he moaned quietly, slumping against the wall at his back and spreading his legs as wide as possible with his pants around his ankles. It was exactly the position I had wanted him in.
“There’s enough room for what I have in mind,” I told him as I fell to my knees, kicking the bag between my feet out of the way as much as I could.
“But there’s no way for me to…oh, dear god,” his hands were in my hair, clenching as I took him into my mouth and sucked him.
What we had done earlier had been good, better than good, but I had realized this was the last chance I had to taste him. I needed to taste him, wanted to have that flavor in my mouth that was like nothing else. Too bad that the taste and scent of him drove me out of my mind with desire, but I had a remedy for that, too. In seconds I had a hand wrapped around my erection, matching the motions I was making with my mouth.
Trowa was muffling his moans, but I could still hear him. His thighs were trembling with the effort not to thrust, likely afraid he’d hurt me. “Duo, I need more…damn it…I can’t take this,” he hissed abruptly, his hoarse tone sending shivers down my spine.
I let his cock fall from my mouth so I could run my tongue over his sac, heavy and tight. “Do what you need to do. You can’t break me, remember?”
As soon as he was in my mouth again, he was thrusting, his hands holding me still. He was cursing under his breath when he tensed, semen spilling to my mouth and hitting the back of my throat with such force I almost choked, swallowing on instinct as I came, coating my own hand.
Instead of standing, I took care to clean any traces of semen from him. When I finally stood, he pulled me into a kiss that was almost brutal, my bottom lip getting cut on one of his teeth. “Damn, I’m sorry,” he said before soothing the cut with his tongue, making me shake all the way to my shoes. It was that strange mixture of wildness and tenderness that made me want him all the damn time.
“Don’t be sorry, I’m not. I should have thought about something to clean up with…” he stopped my sentence by lifting my hand to his mouth, sucking each and every finger into his mouth before running his tongue over my palm. “Or you could do that.”
“It’s the first time I’ve gotten a chance to taste you.”
It was going to be the last chance he got, too. Couldn’t think about it that late in the game. “We still have time if you have questions.”
“I’ve got questions, but I don’t think I want to know the answers,” was his response as he tucked his cock, still partially hard, back into his pants and zipped up carefully, eyes burning into me in the dim lighting. “I guess you should tell me what to expect.”
Zipping my pants, I shrugged, “I don’t know what the hell we’re going to run into. Luckily, greed will win some loyalty…or the kind of loyalty we need for a little while.”
“Since there isn’t anything you can tell me…just, let me hold you for a little while, Duo…please.”
I moved into his arms instantly, closing my eyes and listening to the steady heartbeat in my ear and wished for different circumstances. We stood that way without speaking until I felt the ship shudder, announcing our arrival on the Shoe. I couldn’t say what I really wanted to say, but this was the last chance I was going to be able to tell him anything without the risk of someone overhearing us. “Trowa, I’m glad you came with me.”
“You don’t wish you had brought Heero along?” He was surprised by my admission; I could hear it in his voice. “He would have been less trouble.”
“Nah, I’m glad it was you.”
His mouth was at my ear, air warm against it as he sighed, “I’m glad you chose me to come and didn’t space me when you had the right to do so. Duo…do you regret anything?”
“I regret a lot of things in my life, but you aren’t one of them.”
When he tilted my head up I didn’t offer any resistance, pouring everything I felt, but couldn’t say into the kiss that lasted long after I felt the ship moving again, being towed toward the hangar where it would sit among a group of others waiting for their owners to be done with whatever business or pleasure they’d traveled to this desolate area of space for.
The ship was still when he finally released me from that kiss, placing his forehead against mine with another soft sigh. “The only regret I have is not finding you sooner. If we could have gotten to know each other before I signed on with the Preventers…maybe we could have…”
I understood what he was trying to say. His life and career with the agency had made it necessary for him to see things in terms of black and white, right or wrong, law and order. As a smuggler, I lived firmly in the grey areas, seeing some things as right when they are illegal and some legal things wrong. “Maybe we could have,” I agreed quietly as I activated the hatch above our heads.
His eyes followed me as I pulled myself up and took the bag from him, but once he was on the carpeted floor beside me with the hatch closed and concealed, his gaze was shuttered, blocking the emotions I knew were just under the surface. I took a moment to lament the loss of openness between us before pulling in my own emotions, shoving them in a mental box and slamming the lid down.
The time for personal problems, doubts, concerns, and what if’s were over. We had a job to do now, one where a friend’s life was depending on us to be successful. In that realm of action and reaction, there was no place to think of what could have been any longer.
It was time to hunt.
“Why should I help you?”
The first few times I heard that challenge it had been amusing. Why should someone help me, indeed? After two days of chasing dead ends and answering that question a dozen times, I was sick of hearing it, but I managed to pull a slip of paper from my pocket, holding it out to the man narrowing his eyes at me from behind the bar counter.
He read the message, brown eyes widening slightly. I didn’t turn around when I heard a crash behind me, likely a fight that had broken out between some of the patrons; I trusted Trowa to watch my back and I could feel him close. The man, Emile, had the same eyes as Esteban, to go along with the facial resemblance. “You’re looking for your little sister, you say? Don’t think you’d find her in a place like this, but she might be holed up in the Shine District. That’s where most of the hookers take their business.”
I heard the emphasis on certain words, although no one else was likely to notice. Willing to play along, I hissed at him, “Don’t talk about her like that. She isn’t that type.”
“That’s what most brothers say until they find their sisters with their legs in the air and a client between them. Listen, buddy, that’s the best place to look, but I feel sorry for you. Go to this address and tell Madame Kat that Emile sent you; she’ll let you take your pick of whores. Take these, too, on the house.”
I took the beers he set on the bar and snatched the paper he was holding up with a leer, “I don’t need that kind of help, but I might go take a look around. Do me a favor and keep an eye out for anyone that looks like me, okay? I’ll come back in a few days to see if she’s turned up if I can’t find her.”
“No problem, buddy. What did you say your name was?”
“Barton. Dan Barton,” I gave the name I usually used in situations like that, making note of the sudden stiffness behind me. I could practically feel the questions Trowa wanted to ask. “Thanks for the help.”
Trowa followed me to a table in the very back of the bar. It looked like most bars on Witches Shoe; dimly lit, grimy, and with a sticky layer of something covering the floor that made your feet stick for an instant. I sat with my back to the wall, not daring to lean against it, and Trowa sat at my side, close enough for our legs to touch from hip to knee. He sat in a way that hid me as I read the note the bartender had slipped to me. It wasn’t much, but enough to have me taking a deep breath as I turned the paper so Trowa could read it. He grunted in acknowledgment or confusion, his eyes immediately going around the building, scanning for danger.
The last couple of days had been hard on him. He didn’t show it, but he had been tense since we stepped foot on the Shoe and he got an up close and personal view of what chaos looked like. He hadn’t even been able to sleep more than two hours at a time, unable to relax in such a strange environment. I couldn’t imagine how he saw this place, from the perspective of authority. He probably thought the entire colony should be sanitized, wiped from the ‘verse, to keep innocents safe from what might leave here. On Earth, he would have been wading into the fight at the other side of the bar with the intention of breaking it up. Here, he could only sit with his hands clenched into fists as one man was viciously beaten by three others, unfair odds no matter how you looked at it.
Knowing no one would pay any attention to the gesture and not giving a damn if someone did see, I put a hand on his thigh and squeezed, “Breathe and stop staring. You’re drawing attention,” I told him in a whisper, the beer held in front of my mouth to keep anyone from seeing what I was saying.
His muscle clenched a fraction more under my hand before he pinned me with an intense and unreadable gaze, “Any luck finding your sister, Dan?”
I didn’t know why I had chosen his last name to use as an alias, but I’d been using it for years and didn’t plan to change it. “Maybe, but we have some time to kill before we have to head to Shine.”
Even the warning in the note the bartender gave me couldn’t stop the smile when his eyes flashed something I was already very familiar with. “What do we do until we go there?” his hand was already on the back of my neck, leaning toward me slightly.
He wasn’t trying to seduce me in spite of the flash of lust I had seen in his eyes. He was using this as a cover for some reason. “You have some ideas, lover?” I practically purred as my hand left his thigh to move up and over his groin, pausing for a moment on the obvious bulge before letting my fingers slide under his coat and out of view.
Lips tickled my ear as he got even closer, “I might have an idea or three,” he whispered. Turning his face into my hair, his voice was quieter, “Three men, ten o’clock, all wearing suits. They’ve been following us.”
Tilting my head slightly to give him access to my neck, I looked in the direction he’d indicated through narrowed eyes. Anyone watching us would have assumed I had closed my eyes from pleasure and if we weren’t in such a serious position, that was why I would have looked the way I did; Trowa had a very talented tongue and had a way of using his teeth on me that sent heat right to my cock even while we were in danger. “How long will that take?” I was actually asking how long we had been followed.
“At least two hours, possibly three if I want to do everything right and take my time.”
The prospect of being followed normally wouldn’t have bothered me, especially considering where we were. If someone thought you were a target while you were on the Shoe, you would be attacked in hopes that they can take what you might have had. In this case, however, it made me more uneasy than I had already been feeling.
Being attacked while being there wasn’t an unusual occurrence, but I had never been directly targeted…not even once in the years I had gone there on business. In the two days since our arrival, Trowa and I had been attacked on three separate occasions, with the majority of the attacks focused on my lover. The worst of his injuries was a large gash on his forearm that he had acquired when a man surged from a crowd of people, aiming right at Trowa.
I didn’t understand what was going on. Even if some people knew what we were doing there, the attacks should have been aimed at me, not at my partner. Trowa had done an amazing job of acting like another smuggler would, aloof and distant while his eyes searched every face for a possible mark; only I should’ve known that he was actually studying those faces in hopes of finding some of the men that would have worked for Allbright. I was starting to think he was in a lot more danger there than I had believed he would be, just not for the reasons I had believed he would be in danger.
I trusted him to watch my back while I had been asking questions, although I wasn’t happy about leaving him open to possible danger. It was a necessity that was unavoidable; some of my contacts and informants had been more close-lipped than usual, another aberration that had me worried. Because of the danger that had been dogging our steps, we used Esteban’s contacts sparingly, afraid of putting them in the proverbial bull’s-eye. I had promised Esteban that his people wouldn’t be harmed and I didn’t intend to drag them into this.
Still, I didn’t like Trowa being there. The situation was more dangerous than I could have predicted and I couldn’t bear the thought of him getting hurt. I had been trying to think of a way to get him to safety while keeping my eyes open for more threats to him. Thinking about that was made almost impossible with Trowa nibbling on my neck like I was the best snack he’d ever tasted.
It was gonna suck to go back to working on my own again. It had been nice to be able to pay attention to one thing without having to worry about someone sticking a knife in my back. It was only a little surprising to find that we worked well together, able to understand silent signals we gave each other with a quick touch or a simple look. I had never needed or wanted a partner before, but working with him had been…nice. Damn him for making me see how much easier some aspects of my life would have been if I would be able to count on his help in the future.
He was having a little too much fun, teeth going from my neck to my earlobe, applying firm pressure in between flicks of his tongue. Thank god the sense of danger was keeping me from thinking about how damn hard I was or how constrictive those pants were.
To keep our audience from being suspicious and to pay Trowa back a little for the delicious torment, I turned toward him so I was sitting sideways in my seat. With my eyes on his I slid one leg across his lap, smirking when he bit his bottom lip as I rubbed across the erection straining his pants. Trusting him to keep an eye on the three men, I placed my mouth on his neck, applying suction while I ran hands up his sides, getting a thrill when I traced the shape of the gun and blade he had hidden under his coat. Who knew I would’ve found an armed man, a heavily armed man, so damn hot? “We could go somewhere there’s a bit more privacy and see if you can last two hours.”
“You doubt my abilities to last two hours?” he had sounded like he really wanted to prove he could do it. Hell, I would have liked for him to prove it.
“Not your abilities, but maybe your stamina.” The discussion was not helping calm my body at all. “You up to it?”
“You have somewhere in mind?” One of his hands was holding my leg in place, likely to keep me from rubbing against him. The other was under my coat and shirt, worrying my nipple between his thumb and forefinger before scraping nails over it, making me clench my teeth.
At the rate we were going, his teasing torture was gonna have me making a mess in my pants before we could leave the damn bar, men following us or not. “There’s a hotel just inside the Shine district we can get a room at for a few hours. We could use some downtime.”
“Aren’t you worried about your sister?”
“She got herself into this mess; she can wait a little longer. I, on the other hand, don’t intend to keep waiting.”
He pulled away, leaning back and dislodging my lips from his skin. “We should finish our drinks. The bartender was nice enough to offer them, after all.”
“Stale beer isn’t on the list of things I want to have in my mouth right now.” Unbidden, I remembered his taste, shuddering at the thought. “I’d rather put that stamina to the test, lover.”
His eyes were half-closed, giving the impression that he was focused only on me. Being as close as I was, I could see how alert they really were, moving from me to the men that likely still watched us. If I hadn’t been able to feel the pulse of his cock through his pants, he’d have had me convinced he wasn’t excited at all. “By all means, lead me to this hotel. I’m…eager to prove I can take two hours over you or more.”
I could have gotten up by standing, removing my leg before doing so, but I needed to feel a bit more than I had been. Don’t think I’m strange, because the adrenalin was flowing through me at the idea of an upcoming confrontation. It’s a natural reaction to be turned on at moments like those, caused by the sudden influx of endorphins. It doesn’t hurt that he was damn good at teasing me.
His full attention was suddenly on me when I slid fully into his lap, our erections meeting through the boundary of leather. Pushing my hips forward, I groaned as he pushed back into me, hands on my hips to pull us snugly together. “Fuck,” was his comment, hissed through clenched teeth.
“That’s the plan, isn’t it?” After one last push I got up before I forgot what we were supposed to be doing. “Let’s go before I decide I don’t care about people watching us.”
Trowa’s expression promised retribution at the statement. “The table is the perfect height,” he stated suddenly, grabbing me before I could get more than a step away and pushing me against said piece of furniture. “I can see you already, your legs spread wide as I fuck you.”
If I hadn’t been turned on already, that growled imagery would have made me so hot I would have been in fear of exploding. Actually, it had already been a concern. I didn’t try to bother hiding the way my body was trembling, gasping as he growled slightly as the movement. “Damn it, I want you inside me.”
“We need to go…now.” Grabbing my hand, he pulled me away from the table, absently tossing some credits on the table that would probably disappear into the pocket of whatever patron got to it first. He was plastered to my back like a piece of Velcro as we vacated the bar, several people watching us with smirks. Clearly, our little show had been observed by more than the men following us. There were even some catcalls and words of encouragement and advice as I shoved open the door.
Less than twenty feet from the door, I was roughly pushed against the wall of another building, a strong thigh parting my legs and pressing against my cock. I could barely keep my thoughts focused as Trowa’s mouth found my neck, one hand yanking my shirt and coat aside to expose the part of my shoulder where he made the marks with his teeth. Realizing we were in the perfect position to watch the bar entrance, I forced my eyes to stay open, though they wanted to close. “Babe, you’re killing me.”
“You deserve it after that little move you pulled in there. Son of a bitch…you taste like heaven. Have they come out yet?”
Luckily, I was watching while working my hand between our bodies to stroke him. I’ll be damned if I was the only one that was going to come all over myself. “Not yet…there they are. They just spotted us, but they don’t seem inclined to come over.”
“If they aren’t coming this way, we need to move.”
“You think this area is too crowded?” He may have had a point; there were a lot of people around, moving from one bar to another in an attempt to get drunk enough to forget any problems they might have had.
“We need to move because I’m almost to the point of yanking your pants down and screwing you in view of everyone here. I’ve been having a hard time not touching you and now…it’s harder to stop touching you.”
“I don’t want you to stop, damn it.”
He must’ve heard something in my voice that revealed how desperate I was quickly becoming because he moved his hands to my hips and gripped, taking a deep breath. “Where are we going?”
He was trying to calm down, making a conscious attempt to cool his blood. Wish I had that type of control. I pulled my hands from him and shoved them in the pockets of my coat, glancing out the corner of my eye to make sure our followers were still in place. They were and were watching us in a way I assumed was supposed to be subtle; too bad they stood out like they were wearing neon signs in their suits, everyone else dressed like me and Trowa or wearing clothing better suited to rags. “Come on. I’ll tell you while we walk.”
Without prompting, his arm slid around my shoulders, keeping me snug against his side. I put an arm under his coat, hooking my fingers on the waistband of his pants just below where his pistol sits. Good grief, his skin was hot. We walked like that, skirting around clusters of people or the occasional drunk that had passed out on the street, not so we could continue touching, though that was a nifty side benefit, but so we could stay close enough to talk without being overheard.
“What did you leave behind?”
Trowa in a pair of tight leather pants, a black tank top, a black leather duster, and a pair of heavily buckled boots was a sexy sight. The addition of the knife strapped to his thigh, a black choker, a small diamond earring and fingerless gloves was making it hard for me to concentrate. Putting us in a space barely big enough to stand crammed together while he looked like that should have been illegal. In some places, it might be. My choice of outfits for my lover may have been a bad idea; we kept rubbing against each other in a way that had me so hard it hurt and those damn pants weren’t helping matters at all. “What?”
“Focus, lover.”
“I am focusing, just on all the wrong things. You’ve got to stop moving like that, babe. I’m already wondering if it’s possible to get your clothes off in here.”
“I doubt it. There’s barely enough room for both of us to stand, let alone anything else.” He sounded amused, but out of breath. Maybe my restless motions were causing him to be a little uncomfortable, too. Served him right for making me want to combust.
A light tap on the panel above our heads had both of us freezing, breathing a sigh of relief when Betty’s voice floated down to us, muffled through the carpeting and metal above our heads. “Traffic’s backed up, boys. It’ll be at least an hour before we dock. You’ll be okay down there?”
“We’ll be fine. An hour isn’t so long, is it, Tro?”
His eyes were large, possibly wondering why I was wearing such a smile. His response was slow to come, seconds after Betty’s laughter faded away above us. “An hour isn’t very long, unless it’s impossible to move. What did you leave behind? You left something on the bed.”
“Diamond brooch. A small token of appreciation for helping us out. They could have sent us into a trap, you know. Some would have.”
“I’m not arguing. I just thought you would leave behind something bigger, worth more value. What are you doing?”
He must have been referring to the way I was working his pants open and tugging them down as far as I could, releasing his thick erection into my waiting hand. Yep, the moving around definitely had him excited, too. “Finding a way to pass the time. They volunteered to help; if I had left anything larger it would have been an insult. Damn, you’re huge.”
“There isn’t enough room,” he moaned quietly, slumping against the wall at his back and spreading his legs as wide as possible with his pants around his ankles. It was exactly the position I had wanted him in.
“There’s enough room for what I have in mind,” I told him as I fell to my knees, kicking the bag between my feet out of the way as much as I could.
“But there’s no way for me to…oh, dear god,” his hands were in my hair, clenching as I took him into my mouth and sucked him.
What we had done earlier had been good, better than good, but I had realized this was the last chance I had to taste him. I needed to taste him, wanted to have that flavor in my mouth that was like nothing else. Too bad that the taste and scent of him drove me out of my mind with desire, but I had a remedy for that, too. In seconds I had a hand wrapped around my erection, matching the motions I was making with my mouth.
Trowa was muffling his moans, but I could still hear him. His thighs were trembling with the effort not to thrust, likely afraid he’d hurt me. “Duo, I need more…damn it…I can’t take this,” he hissed abruptly, his hoarse tone sending shivers down my spine.
I let his cock fall from my mouth so I could run my tongue over his sac, heavy and tight. “Do what you need to do. You can’t break me, remember?”
As soon as he was in my mouth again, he was thrusting, his hands holding me still. He was cursing under his breath when he tensed, semen spilling to my mouth and hitting the back of my throat with such force I almost choked, swallowing on instinct as I came, coating my own hand.
Instead of standing, I took care to clean any traces of semen from him. When I finally stood, he pulled me into a kiss that was almost brutal, my bottom lip getting cut on one of his teeth. “Damn, I’m sorry,” he said before soothing the cut with his tongue, making me shake all the way to my shoes. It was that strange mixture of wildness and tenderness that made me want him all the damn time.
“Don’t be sorry, I’m not. I should have thought about something to clean up with…” he stopped my sentence by lifting my hand to his mouth, sucking each and every finger into his mouth before running his tongue over my palm. “Or you could do that.”
“It’s the first time I’ve gotten a chance to taste you.”
It was going to be the last chance he got, too. Couldn’t think about it that late in the game. “We still have time if you have questions.”
“I’ve got questions, but I don’t think I want to know the answers,” was his response as he tucked his cock, still partially hard, back into his pants and zipped up carefully, eyes burning into me in the dim lighting. “I guess you should tell me what to expect.”
Zipping my pants, I shrugged, “I don’t know what the hell we’re going to run into. Luckily, greed will win some loyalty…or the kind of loyalty we need for a little while.”
“Since there isn’t anything you can tell me…just, let me hold you for a little while, Duo…please.”
I moved into his arms instantly, closing my eyes and listening to the steady heartbeat in my ear and wished for different circumstances. We stood that way without speaking until I felt the ship shudder, announcing our arrival on the Shoe. I couldn’t say what I really wanted to say, but this was the last chance I was going to be able to tell him anything without the risk of someone overhearing us. “Trowa, I’m glad you came with me.”
“You don’t wish you had brought Heero along?” He was surprised by my admission; I could hear it in his voice. “He would have been less trouble.”
“Nah, I’m glad it was you.”
His mouth was at my ear, air warm against it as he sighed, “I’m glad you chose me to come and didn’t space me when you had the right to do so. Duo…do you regret anything?”
“I regret a lot of things in my life, but you aren’t one of them.”
When he tilted my head up I didn’t offer any resistance, pouring everything I felt, but couldn’t say into the kiss that lasted long after I felt the ship moving again, being towed toward the hangar where it would sit among a group of others waiting for their owners to be done with whatever business or pleasure they’d traveled to this desolate area of space for.
The ship was still when he finally released me from that kiss, placing his forehead against mine with another soft sigh. “The only regret I have is not finding you sooner. If we could have gotten to know each other before I signed on with the Preventers…maybe we could have…”
I understood what he was trying to say. His life and career with the agency had made it necessary for him to see things in terms of black and white, right or wrong, law and order. As a smuggler, I lived firmly in the grey areas, seeing some things as right when they are illegal and some legal things wrong. “Maybe we could have,” I agreed quietly as I activated the hatch above our heads.
His eyes followed me as I pulled myself up and took the bag from him, but once he was on the carpeted floor beside me with the hatch closed and concealed, his gaze was shuttered, blocking the emotions I knew were just under the surface. I took a moment to lament the loss of openness between us before pulling in my own emotions, shoving them in a mental box and slamming the lid down.
The time for personal problems, doubts, concerns, and what if’s were over. We had a job to do now, one where a friend’s life was depending on us to be successful. In that realm of action and reaction, there was no place to think of what could have been any longer.
It was time to hunt.
“Why should I help you?”
The first few times I heard that challenge it had been amusing. Why should someone help me, indeed? After two days of chasing dead ends and answering that question a dozen times, I was sick of hearing it, but I managed to pull a slip of paper from my pocket, holding it out to the man narrowing his eyes at me from behind the bar counter.
He read the message, brown eyes widening slightly. I didn’t turn around when I heard a crash behind me, likely a fight that had broken out between some of the patrons; I trusted Trowa to watch my back and I could feel him close. The man, Emile, had the same eyes as Esteban, to go along with the facial resemblance. “You’re looking for your little sister, you say? Don’t think you’d find her in a place like this, but she might be holed up in the Shine District. That’s where most of the hookers take their business.”
I heard the emphasis on certain words, although no one else was likely to notice. Willing to play along, I hissed at him, “Don’t talk about her like that. She isn’t that type.”
“That’s what most brothers say until they find their sisters with their legs in the air and a client between them. Listen, buddy, that’s the best place to look, but I feel sorry for you. Go to this address and tell Madame Kat that Emile sent you; she’ll let you take your pick of whores. Take these, too, on the house.”
I took the beers he set on the bar and snatched the paper he was holding up with a leer, “I don’t need that kind of help, but I might go take a look around. Do me a favor and keep an eye out for anyone that looks like me, okay? I’ll come back in a few days to see if she’s turned up if I can’t find her.”
“No problem, buddy. What did you say your name was?”
“Barton. Dan Barton,” I gave the name I usually used in situations like that, making note of the sudden stiffness behind me. I could practically feel the questions Trowa wanted to ask. “Thanks for the help.”
Trowa followed me to a table in the very back of the bar. It looked like most bars on Witches Shoe; dimly lit, grimy, and with a sticky layer of something covering the floor that made your feet stick for an instant. I sat with my back to the wall, not daring to lean against it, and Trowa sat at my side, close enough for our legs to touch from hip to knee. He sat in a way that hid me as I read the note the bartender had slipped to me. It wasn’t much, but enough to have me taking a deep breath as I turned the paper so Trowa could read it. He grunted in acknowledgment or confusion, his eyes immediately going around the building, scanning for danger.
The last couple of days had been hard on him. He didn’t show it, but he had been tense since we stepped foot on the Shoe and he got an up close and personal view of what chaos looked like. He hadn’t even been able to sleep more than two hours at a time, unable to relax in such a strange environment. I couldn’t imagine how he saw this place, from the perspective of authority. He probably thought the entire colony should be sanitized, wiped from the ‘verse, to keep innocents safe from what might leave here. On Earth, he would have been wading into the fight at the other side of the bar with the intention of breaking it up. Here, he could only sit with his hands clenched into fists as one man was viciously beaten by three others, unfair odds no matter how you looked at it.
Knowing no one would pay any attention to the gesture and not giving a damn if someone did see, I put a hand on his thigh and squeezed, “Breathe and stop staring. You’re drawing attention,” I told him in a whisper, the beer held in front of my mouth to keep anyone from seeing what I was saying.
His muscle clenched a fraction more under my hand before he pinned me with an intense and unreadable gaze, “Any luck finding your sister, Dan?”
I didn’t know why I had chosen his last name to use as an alias, but I’d been using it for years and didn’t plan to change it. “Maybe, but we have some time to kill before we have to head to Shine.”
Even the warning in the note the bartender gave me couldn’t stop the smile when his eyes flashed something I was already very familiar with. “What do we do until we go there?” his hand was already on the back of my neck, leaning toward me slightly.
He wasn’t trying to seduce me in spite of the flash of lust I had seen in his eyes. He was using this as a cover for some reason. “You have some ideas, lover?” I practically purred as my hand left his thigh to move up and over his groin, pausing for a moment on the obvious bulge before letting my fingers slide under his coat and out of view.
Lips tickled my ear as he got even closer, “I might have an idea or three,” he whispered. Turning his face into my hair, his voice was quieter, “Three men, ten o’clock, all wearing suits. They’ve been following us.”
Tilting my head slightly to give him access to my neck, I looked in the direction he’d indicated through narrowed eyes. Anyone watching us would have assumed I had closed my eyes from pleasure and if we weren’t in such a serious position, that was why I would have looked the way I did; Trowa had a very talented tongue and had a way of using his teeth on me that sent heat right to my cock even while we were in danger. “How long will that take?” I was actually asking how long we had been followed.
“At least two hours, possibly three if I want to do everything right and take my time.”
The prospect of being followed normally wouldn’t have bothered me, especially considering where we were. If someone thought you were a target while you were on the Shoe, you would be attacked in hopes that they can take what you might have had. In this case, however, it made me more uneasy than I had already been feeling.
Being attacked while being there wasn’t an unusual occurrence, but I had never been directly targeted…not even once in the years I had gone there on business. In the two days since our arrival, Trowa and I had been attacked on three separate occasions, with the majority of the attacks focused on my lover. The worst of his injuries was a large gash on his forearm that he had acquired when a man surged from a crowd of people, aiming right at Trowa.
I didn’t understand what was going on. Even if some people knew what we were doing there, the attacks should have been aimed at me, not at my partner. Trowa had done an amazing job of acting like another smuggler would, aloof and distant while his eyes searched every face for a possible mark; only I should’ve known that he was actually studying those faces in hopes of finding some of the men that would have worked for Allbright. I was starting to think he was in a lot more danger there than I had believed he would be, just not for the reasons I had believed he would be in danger.
I trusted him to watch my back while I had been asking questions, although I wasn’t happy about leaving him open to possible danger. It was a necessity that was unavoidable; some of my contacts and informants had been more close-lipped than usual, another aberration that had me worried. Because of the danger that had been dogging our steps, we used Esteban’s contacts sparingly, afraid of putting them in the proverbial bull’s-eye. I had promised Esteban that his people wouldn’t be harmed and I didn’t intend to drag them into this.
Still, I didn’t like Trowa being there. The situation was more dangerous than I could have predicted and I couldn’t bear the thought of him getting hurt. I had been trying to think of a way to get him to safety while keeping my eyes open for more threats to him. Thinking about that was made almost impossible with Trowa nibbling on my neck like I was the best snack he’d ever tasted.
It was gonna suck to go back to working on my own again. It had been nice to be able to pay attention to one thing without having to worry about someone sticking a knife in my back. It was only a little surprising to find that we worked well together, able to understand silent signals we gave each other with a quick touch or a simple look. I had never needed or wanted a partner before, but working with him had been…nice. Damn him for making me see how much easier some aspects of my life would have been if I would be able to count on his help in the future.
He was having a little too much fun, teeth going from my neck to my earlobe, applying firm pressure in between flicks of his tongue. Thank god the sense of danger was keeping me from thinking about how damn hard I was or how constrictive those pants were.
To keep our audience from being suspicious and to pay Trowa back a little for the delicious torment, I turned toward him so I was sitting sideways in my seat. With my eyes on his I slid one leg across his lap, smirking when he bit his bottom lip as I rubbed across the erection straining his pants. Trusting him to keep an eye on the three men, I placed my mouth on his neck, applying suction while I ran hands up his sides, getting a thrill when I traced the shape of the gun and blade he had hidden under his coat. Who knew I would’ve found an armed man, a heavily armed man, so damn hot? “We could go somewhere there’s a bit more privacy and see if you can last two hours.”
“You doubt my abilities to last two hours?” he had sounded like he really wanted to prove he could do it. Hell, I would have liked for him to prove it.
“Not your abilities, but maybe your stamina.” The discussion was not helping calm my body at all. “You up to it?”
“You have somewhere in mind?” One of his hands was holding my leg in place, likely to keep me from rubbing against him. The other was under my coat and shirt, worrying my nipple between his thumb and forefinger before scraping nails over it, making me clench my teeth.
At the rate we were going, his teasing torture was gonna have me making a mess in my pants before we could leave the damn bar, men following us or not. “There’s a hotel just inside the Shine district we can get a room at for a few hours. We could use some downtime.”
“Aren’t you worried about your sister?”
“She got herself into this mess; she can wait a little longer. I, on the other hand, don’t intend to keep waiting.”
He pulled away, leaning back and dislodging my lips from his skin. “We should finish our drinks. The bartender was nice enough to offer them, after all.”
“Stale beer isn’t on the list of things I want to have in my mouth right now.” Unbidden, I remembered his taste, shuddering at the thought. “I’d rather put that stamina to the test, lover.”
His eyes were half-closed, giving the impression that he was focused only on me. Being as close as I was, I could see how alert they really were, moving from me to the men that likely still watched us. If I hadn’t been able to feel the pulse of his cock through his pants, he’d have had me convinced he wasn’t excited at all. “By all means, lead me to this hotel. I’m…eager to prove I can take two hours over you or more.”
I could have gotten up by standing, removing my leg before doing so, but I needed to feel a bit more than I had been. Don’t think I’m strange, because the adrenalin was flowing through me at the idea of an upcoming confrontation. It’s a natural reaction to be turned on at moments like those, caused by the sudden influx of endorphins. It doesn’t hurt that he was damn good at teasing me.
His full attention was suddenly on me when I slid fully into his lap, our erections meeting through the boundary of leather. Pushing my hips forward, I groaned as he pushed back into me, hands on my hips to pull us snugly together. “Fuck,” was his comment, hissed through clenched teeth.
“That’s the plan, isn’t it?” After one last push I got up before I forgot what we were supposed to be doing. “Let’s go before I decide I don’t care about people watching us.”
Trowa’s expression promised retribution at the statement. “The table is the perfect height,” he stated suddenly, grabbing me before I could get more than a step away and pushing me against said piece of furniture. “I can see you already, your legs spread wide as I fuck you.”
If I hadn’t been turned on already, that growled imagery would have made me so hot I would have been in fear of exploding. Actually, it had already been a concern. I didn’t try to bother hiding the way my body was trembling, gasping as he growled slightly as the movement. “Damn it, I want you inside me.”
“We need to go…now.” Grabbing my hand, he pulled me away from the table, absently tossing some credits on the table that would probably disappear into the pocket of whatever patron got to it first. He was plastered to my back like a piece of Velcro as we vacated the bar, several people watching us with smirks. Clearly, our little show had been observed by more than the men following us. There were even some catcalls and words of encouragement and advice as I shoved open the door.
Less than twenty feet from the door, I was roughly pushed against the wall of another building, a strong thigh parting my legs and pressing against my cock. I could barely keep my thoughts focused as Trowa’s mouth found my neck, one hand yanking my shirt and coat aside to expose the part of my shoulder where he made the marks with his teeth. Realizing we were in the perfect position to watch the bar entrance, I forced my eyes to stay open, though they wanted to close. “Babe, you’re killing me.”
“You deserve it after that little move you pulled in there. Son of a bitch…you taste like heaven. Have they come out yet?”
Luckily, I was watching while working my hand between our bodies to stroke him. I’ll be damned if I was the only one that was going to come all over myself. “Not yet…there they are. They just spotted us, but they don’t seem inclined to come over.”
“If they aren’t coming this way, we need to move.”
“You think this area is too crowded?” He may have had a point; there were a lot of people around, moving from one bar to another in an attempt to get drunk enough to forget any problems they might have had.
“We need to move because I’m almost to the point of yanking your pants down and screwing you in view of everyone here. I’ve been having a hard time not touching you and now…it’s harder to stop touching you.”
“I don’t want you to stop, damn it.”
He must’ve heard something in my voice that revealed how desperate I was quickly becoming because he moved his hands to my hips and gripped, taking a deep breath. “Where are we going?”
He was trying to calm down, making a conscious attempt to cool his blood. Wish I had that type of control. I pulled my hands from him and shoved them in the pockets of my coat, glancing out the corner of my eye to make sure our followers were still in place. They were and were watching us in a way I assumed was supposed to be subtle; too bad they stood out like they were wearing neon signs in their suits, everyone else dressed like me and Trowa or wearing clothing better suited to rags. “Come on. I’ll tell you while we walk.”
Without prompting, his arm slid around my shoulders, keeping me snug against his side. I put an arm under his coat, hooking my fingers on the waistband of his pants just below where his pistol sits. Good grief, his skin was hot. We walked like that, skirting around clusters of people or the occasional drunk that had passed out on the street, not so we could continue touching, though that was a nifty side benefit, but so we could stay close enough to talk without being overheard.