Chapter Nine
THE NEXTday, bad decisions tasted like salt, pennies, and drunken noodles from the Thai restaurant down the road. Tag groaned and rolled away from the insistent bar of light that had infiltrated through the curtains. The movement made Bass grumble sleepily and drag him back, a heavily inked arm wrapped around Tag’s stomach and a knee tucked up between his thighs.
It turned out Bass snuggled in his sleep. He’d started the night starfished arrogantly on his—on the other—side of the bed, but in the night had moved over to sprawl on Tag instead. The first few times Tag had pushed him off, rolled him over, or swapped sides with him. It always ended up with Bass curled up around him again, his solid, warm body pressed against the line of Tag’s back or draped over his chest. Twice in the night, Tag had stirred to some noise outside or upstairs and found Bass’s hand cupped possessively around his cock.
In the end Tag gave up to a night spent tangled with Bass, tied together with the twisted, cheap white sheet. He slept better than he expected, but now it was morning.
That meant it was time to go.
He lifted Bass’s arm from where it draped over his stomach, the fresh tattoo under his fingers, and passed it back.
“We made a deal,” he said. “Time to go, Bass.”
Bass groaned, stretched out on the bed—all muscle and inked, tanned skin—and scrubbed his hand over his face. He yawned and scratched at his short sweat-matted curls.
“Wha’ time’s it?”
“Five.”
Bass peeled open one eye and squinted at Tag. “Fuck off,” he said and rolled over with an impatient hitch to the sheet to drag it up over his hip. “Five my ass. That’s not morning.”
“My shift starts at seven,” Tag said as he untangled his legs from the sheets. Last night had left his thighs and shoulders stiff and a dully pleasant ache in his ass. Despite a halfhearted wipe-down last night, he still had patches of come dried onto his stomach and in the crease of his thighs. “I need a shower and breakfast and—fuck—to work out how to get my car back if it hasn’t been towed already.”
“Fuck ’em,” Bass mumbled into his pillow. “Stay in bed. Get a new job. I’ll sort the car out.”
Tag was tempted. That all sounded good. He loved his job, but…. Bass was naked and warm in the sweaty nest they’d made of his bed. The firm curve of his ass, tanned the same shade as the rest of him, was barely covered by the draped corner of the sheet. If Tag knew he’d get a macroreplantation of a severed limb today, it would be an easy choice, but if the best surgery was going to be a lanced boil? Why not just stay in bed? He could pretend the morning had never come and that he didn’t have to be a responsible adult andnotburn his life down.
Except the boil still needed to be lanced, and there was always a chance someone would cut their finger off. And even if he put it off until tomorrow, Bass was still a bad decision.
Fuck sake, Tag had fucked him on the back of a bike in a public street last night. There was no part of that sentence that was a good idea. Fuck, bike, public, and last night—all bad ideas on their own and probably criminal when stacked on top of each other.
Even if the memory—the bike’s growl against his cock as it vibrated through the bones of his pelvis, and the cool air on his skin as Bass’s heat pressed against his thighs and filled his ass—still made Tag’s well-drained balls tighten with a feathery quiver of pleasure.
He pushed that thought down, grabbed the wrinkled white T-shirt from where it had landed on the dresser, and tossed it at Bass’s head. It lay there for a moment, and then Bass dragged it off and propped himself up on one elbow to look at Tag.
“You seriously want me to get up?” he asked.
“I want you to get out,” Tag said. “If you want to sleep in until morning starts for you, just lock the door on your way out. And then don’t come back. You owe me that, remember?”
He stepped over Bass’s discarded jeans, tangled in a knot with Tag’s on the floor, and headed toward the bathroom. His shift really did start soon, and his colleagues would probably appreciate it if he didn’t turn up with the stink of sex and last night still sweated out of his pores.
“You trust me to stay here on my own?”
Tag glanced over his shoulder at Bass, propped against the white metal frame of the bed with one knee cocked under the sheet.
“If you’re going to rob me, you can just come back with your biker friends later,” Tag said. “This way at least you won’t have to kick the door in.”
The rough rub of Bass’s amused chuckle followed him into the shower. So, five minutes later, did Bass. Water dripped off the ends of his curls and ran down his shoulders as he pushed Tag back against the cold tiles.
“I still don’t think it’s morning,” he said. “So we can talk about me leaving… later. You can get me breakfast.”
Tag snorted. “What? Don’t tell me that crime really doesn’t pay.”
It sounded like he meant it, but he always talked a good game. He just wasn’t great at follow-through, which was why he slid his hands around to grip Bass’s firm, wet ass, and his freshly-soaped cock stirred between his legs.
“Maybe I’m frugal,” Bass said. “Saving for the future.”
“Or cheap.”
