As distractions went, it was weak. Jacobwasoff his game if he thought that would work.
“You ever see anyone getkilled?”
Jacob licked his lips, and his tongue followed the curve of his lower lip and skidded over the scab. “No,” he said. He gave a short, dry laugh. “My line of work, it’s more angry CEOs and sweating accountants. Ugly enough, I guess. They just… he was the one who tried to get away. I was scared. I just didn’t want to piss them off. He ran, and they shot him. That’s when I got the chance to run.”
“You weren’t scared. You were smart.”
“No. I was scared,” Jacob said.
Simon squeezed his shoulder. “So you were smartandscared. If you’d run first, you’d have been the one shot.”
“So?” Jacob asked. “Like you said, there’s two people that’ll miss me. Make it ‘mourn,’ and I’m probably down to three quarters of a person.”
If it had been an appeal for sympathy, Simon would have slapped it down. Jacob had made his own bed. But it wasn’t. It was a mixture of self-pity and self-loathing. Still indulgent, but in a weird way, it felt honest—real, sharp, and unlovely.
So Simon kissed him. He tangled his hand in Jacob’s hair so his knuckles pressed against the back of his skull and scraped his lips roughly over the bruise-swollen curve of Jacob’s mouth. It had to have hurt. He tasted the metal tang of blood on his tongue, but Jacob still kissed him back with wet eagerness.
Of course he did. He needed Simon on his side, didn’t he? Even more than he had when he used him to get to Syntech. That had just been money. This was his freedom, his life.
Simon’s cock thickened, lust twisted his balls until they ached, and he didn’t care if Jacob was using him. He would take it. He’d take whatever he could get. It was pathetic—he knew that—but it was private. As long as Jacob didn’t know, as long as Simon didn’t admit it, nothing would change.
He shifted position, braced his elbow on the mattress, and arched his back to leave space for Jacob’s battered ribs. Bruised fingers fumbled at his buttons, and Jacob spit a frustrated “fuck” between their lips and then gave up and just yanked the tails of Simon’s shirt out of his trousers. The linen rucked up around his forearms as Jacob ran rough palms up the hard curve of Simon’s ribs until they caught against the tight straps of the holster.
“Damn it. You’re so hot,” Jacob groaned and planted wet, rough kisses along Simon’s jaw. “I missed you.”
“Liar.”
“Notalways.”
It wasn’t good enough, was it? Simon pulled Jacob’s hands from under his shirt and pinned them to the mattress. His fingers wrapped easily around the wrists. Tendons pressed against his palms as Jacob strained against his grip and then relaxed back into the bed.
“Ow.”
“That was a lie,” Simon said.
He pressed his mouth against Jacob’s throat, tasted salt, and felt the stutter of his pulse. Instinct wanted him to bite down, to leave a mark, but Jacob had enough bruises. He loosened his fingers around Jacob’s wrists and dragged his palms along Jacob’s lean forearms as he slid down the bed. The dark bruises were hot under his lips, and even the pressure of his breath made Jacob wince.
“Why’d they work you over?” Simon asked.
“I wouldn’t give them the server,” Jacob said. “Professional ethics, rule number three.”
“Which is?”
“No play if you don’t pay.”
Simon sat back and splayed his hand over Jacob’s stomach. His fingers brushed the thin, tender skin that stretched over Jacob’s hip bones, just above the waistband of his jeans. “Does that apply to me?”
“This isn’t business,” Jacob said. He broke off, and his voice caught in a guttural curse as Simon worked the buttons of his fly free. His hips arched up off the bed, and the semihard curve of his cock was freed from the denim. “Fuck, Simon.”
His own cock was so hard it ached where it pressed against his trousers with a dull, eager throb. Simon shifted his weight to take some of the pressure off it and peeled Jacob’s jeans down his lean thighs. There were bruises there too—the imprint of a heel going purple against his hip and indistinct lines that barred his legs just above his knees.
Anger sliced hot through Simon. He should have taken the opportunity to do some serious damage to those thugs when he had the chance—more than a ruined knee and a couple of concussions.
“Still making friends everywhere you go,” he said as he gripped Jacob’s thighs and shifted them apart. Jacob’s balls hung in a vulnerable dip, and Jacob gasped as Simon cupped them in his hand and rubbed a finger along the tight thread of skin that stretched back to his ass. Jacob’s hands twisted in the washed-thin sheets, and his knuckles poked in sharp jabs under his skin. His cock hardened and curved up toward his stomach in taut reaction. Jacob threw his head back, with his eyes squeezed shut and his chin pointing at the ceiling, and groaned Simon’s name.
Simon squeezed his handful of balls just hard enough to make Jacob blink open and focus light blue eyes as he squirmed on the bed in a way that suggestedthislittle pain he didn’t mind.
Simon met his gaze. “You know, this doesn’t mean we’re okay. You’re still a liar and a thief.”
