Ash’s fingers brushed the knot of his tie, unspooling it with a thief’s precision. Slade didn’t stop him. Ash tugged the silk free, letting it slip between his fingers before dropping it aside. The suit jacket followed, peeled from those mountain-wide shoulders and shrugged off, revealing the gun holster strapped across a torso built to break walls.Damn. No wonder he walked like he owned the pavement.
Ash’s gaze lingered on the black leather snug over crisp white cotton and elastic suspenders, a glint of cold steel riding below one muscled arm. “So tense,” he murmured. His breath came soft as a breeze. “Rough day at the office?”
“Something like that,” Slade muttered, voice gravel and smoke.
He leaned in, bare chest grazing fabric, fingers trailing along the strap, teasing toward the holster like he meant to disarm more than just his iron.
That’s when Slade moved, quick as a bullet, catching his wrist in a grip that saidnowithout a word. Not hard, not angry. Simply final. A quiet line in the sand. That part of him wasn’t up for touching.
Ash backed off with a lopsided grin. “Easy, tough guy. Your gat is not the weapon I want.” He let the words hang, dripping mischief, before he ground down again, firmer this time, a slow drag of hips against hips. He felt Slade twitch beneath him. The man’s erection pulsed like a heartbeat under his body, and Ash felt the answering heat rise in himself. This wasn’t a performance anymore. It hadn’t been since he laid a hand on him. “Loosen up,” he whispered, lips ghosting the shell of Slade’s ear. “You might enjoy yourself.”
“You’re playing with fire, kid.”
Ash’s hair fell forward, brushing Rick’s temple. He smiled against his cheek. “Iamthe fire. And you—” he rocked his hips again, slow and punishing— “you’re the ice. I wonder if I could melt you, just a tiny bit.” His fingers found Slade’s suspenders, slipping beneath the straps and giving them a playful tug, enough to make the man flinch. Snap—he let them fly back, the elastic biting into Rick’s chest.
Slade’s breath hissed through his teeth, and his hands shot to Ash’s ass, rough and hungry, gripping him like a man starved. It was against the rules, sure. But Ash didn’t stop him.
“You’re gonna get yourself in trouble,” Ash murmured, voice pitched low, breath brushing Slade’s lips.
“I’m already in it.”
Their faces hovered inches apart. The air between them sizzled. Rick’s eyes burned into his—gray smoke and storm clouds—while Ash felt his own desire roil and surge, blooming hot in his belly. He wanted to kiss him. God help him, hewanted. He popped the top two buttons of Slade’s shirt, thenanother, baring chest hair and heat. Hips working steadily, he dragged his nails down, slow and teasing.
Slade broke the hypnotic silence. “Marvin Hayes is dead.”
Ash didn’t stop moving, his ass sliding over Slade’s hard-on. “Who?”
“The officer who guarded you,” Slade said. “Shot himself last night.”
Ash blinked, the lust-slick daze clearing. “Tragic,” he said coolly, sitting upright again, hands stilled on Slade’s chest. “You think that’s on me?”
“Iknowit was you. What did you say to him?” Slade’s tone was even, but his eyes searched Ash’s face for a crack.
Ash tilted his head. “I only told him to take a good look at the mirror. Guess he didn’t like the view.”
Slade’s expression darkened; anger, yes, but it was something deeper than that. Something personal.
“He was dirty,” Ash added, voice soft but flat. “Don’t tell me you didn’t smell it.”
“Maybe,” Slade said. “But that doesn’t mean he deserved to die.”
Ash leaned in, close enough for Rick’s eyes to flutter half-shut, lids heavy with the reflex of a kiss that never came. A trace of musk rose from his skin—smoke, leather, and tension. Ash’s lips hovered a breath away from his, not quite touching, but near enough to haunt. “Why don’t you give that copper’s brain of yours a rest?” he whispered, the words silk-soft, coaxing. “Every time you look at me, I can see it mulling over its slogans.‘Once a crook, always a crook. Once a tramp, always a tramp.’” His ass rolled over Slade’s erection with lazy precision, grinding enough to draw breath from deeper in his chest. “Just let go. Stop resisting.”
Slade’s hands tightened on Ash’s hips like he was holding onto the last rung of something crumbling. His jaw flexed. “You enjoy making fun of me, don’t you?”
Ash smirked, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “No, Detective. I’m making fun of myself. I’m pretending I’m a nice, unspoiled sap whose heart is full of rainbows and unicorns.” He leaned in again, this time dragging his lips along Slade’s jaw. “Couldn’t we live inside a dream, if only for a night?”
Slade didn’t move. His pupils were blown wide, black swallowing color. But his voice, when it came, was hard and steady. “Dreams are nice. But they aren’t real.”
Ash stilled, straddling him. One hand rose, slow and unhurried, to trace the edge of Rick’s collar, thumb brushing the pulse beneath it. “You think you’ve got me all figured out, do you?”
“I don’t need to figure you out,” Slade said. “I just need the truth.”
Ash recoiled, the motion small but final. He pulled back, spine straightening, gaze cooling as if a pane of glass had slid between them. “Thought this was a lap dance,” he said, words feather-light, brittle. “Not an interrogation.”
Slade stared up at him, flushed and furious, his arousal tenting his slacks, his face carved from shadow and lust. The moment should’ve cracked—but it held, a breath caught between heartbeats, heavy with what almost happened. And for one suspended second, they sat like that, two men on the verge of ruin, undone by nothing but the nearness of flesh and the gravity of the line they had almost crossed. Yet the spell had been broken, punctured like a needle to silk.
Ash rolled off him like a sigh and stood. His skin still burned where their bodies had touched, but his face was all cool indifference. He reached into his jacket, pulled out the phone, and tossed it into Slade’s lap, the photo of Jimmy and Noralighting the screen. “Here’s what your John Doe used to look like. Back when he still had a face. His full name is James Cole. 422 Holloway Street, in case you want to ransack the place.” He hesitated, voice wavering. “Don’t bother looking for the girl. She’s gone.”
