Zeke’s grip on his hair became tighter and tighter but what should have been painful only served to arouse him further. Since when had he been into hair pulling? He’d been missing out. He moved his hand down to graze feather-light touches over Zeke’s groin—buried under multiple layers of material—and his gaze bore into Zeke’s as he raised his eyebrows questioningly.
“I’m not…” began Zeke, flushing even redder, averting his gaze and biting his lip. “I’m not t-terribly experienced… not experienced at all actually, in this particular—”
Noah placed a finger over Zeke’s lips. He shot Zeke a smouldering smirk. “I’ve had it said I’m an excellent teacher.”
The look of desire on Zeke’s face took Noah’s breath away. Zeke began tugging at Noah’s combat suit, trying to find chinks in the armour to slip his hands into.
This is a terrible idea.
This is averyterrible idea.
With a series of well-practiced moves, Noah removed his own chest plate and made quick work of Zeke’s as well, then pulled out the springy material of their undershirts, still damp from the rain, from their trousers. Simultaneously, hands slid behind backs, stroking the skin they found there. Noah reached all the way to the nape of Zeke’s head, drawing him in close. He nuzzled his cheek for a moment before moving to kiss him again, his lips parting Zeke’s.
Noah’s fingers slid over the base of Zeke’s scalp, finding something there. Something hot and wet.
He froze.
Noah released Zeke so fast that he staggered forwards, confusion in his eyes. Noah held up his fingers to the light. Red liquid gleamed in the light.
He stared at Zeke in horror. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine,” said Zeke, but his voice trembled as he averted his eyes from the blood. “You said we’re safe in here, right?”
“I said we wererelativelysafe. We’re not safe enough for me to be throwing you against rusty metal surfaces. We need to blue tape it,now.”
Noah opened his medical kit before Zeke even had time to sit down on the bench. He thoroughly cleaned the wound—which was just a scratch, really—before smearing a generous amount of blocker all over his neck. Zeke gasped in pain, squeezing Noah’s leg tightly as Noah rubbed it in.
“Sorry.”
He completed the mission by taping over the cut with triple the amount of blue tape it needed.
“Stop apologising,” Zeke said, taking the hand Noah offered to help him up. He kept hold of it, stroking its back with his thumb. “You’ve just saved my life, again.”
A wicked smile crept over his lips, and Noah ached to kiss him again. But outside, the sound of the rain petered out to a slow trickle.
As if on cue, both of their wristbands spluttered to life, alerting them to incoming radio audio. “This is Barakat with Bianco. Radio signal is back up. Requesting rendezvous point, over,” came Habib’s strained voice.
“This is Forrest, requesting a status report from every officer, over.”
Ten minutes later, they were back in their suits, ready to leave the bus station. Noah delayed them by agonising over Zeke’s armour, making sure it was perfectly protecting every inch of him. Together, they heaved the fence panel away from the open doorway, and slipped back into the open world.
Therealworld.
The world where you couldn’t go around kissing whoever you liked with no consequences. Especially not members of a team you commanded.
But there was no turning back from this. He’d touched the sun, and remembered how good it felt. Now, he would rather burn than give up another chance at love.
As they walked along, side-by-side, he wasn’t sure what to say to Zeke, or where they should even go from here. “I’m sorry about yesterday,” he said at last. “I freaked out. I know it was a shit thing to do. I think a part of it was me trying to punish myself for kissing you by pushing you away.”
Zeke nudged into him. “You’re forgiven. I’m sure you can make it up to me.”
“So, when you said you weren’t ‘terribly experienced’ earlier, what did you mean exactly?” Noah asked, glad for the barrier of their helmets.
“I… I just meant that I haven’t slept with any guys before.”
A wave of possessiveness surged up inside Noah as he realised that Zeke’s inexperience didn’t bother him at all. But he put those thoughts into a deep vault inside his brain, locked it twice. He needed to focus. They needed to regroup with their scattered squad, and there was still a typeB to capture.
“Tango-Quebec-six-seven-nine-eight-seven-two,” Noah said, enunciating each word to bring up the mapping program.
