That had been Piper’s mistake, after all.
“If you think this is such a bad idea,” Cade asked. “Why involve me at all? Just because I had resources—”
Marlow leaned over, took Cade’s face in both hands, and kissed him to shut him up. He caught a muttered something that slipped between their mouths, and then Cade leaned into it. His shoulders relaxed, and he sank back into the couch cushions. He curled one hand around Marlow’s thigh and idly stroked his thumb up the seam of his trousers in a lazy, distracting caress.
“Of course it’s a bad idea,” Marlow said as he tilted his head back. He was still close enough to feel Cade’s breath on his kiss-damp lips. “Until a month ago, the only time you’d spoken to me was to call me a heavy-handed, tongue-tied idiot—”
Cade winced. “That was you?”
“It was. I’m glad you’re here, but you’d be better off if you had just walked away.”
Something dark caught on Cade’s expression. It was his turn to pull away. “So what? Now you’ve worked out who killed Lyons, now you don’t need my help anymore?”
Marlow heaved an exasperated sigh. “Is the only way to stop you making up reasons to feel insulted to just keep your mouth busy?” he asked.
Cade tilted his head to pin Marlow with an intent stare. Something went tight and wet in Marlow’s stomach at being caught under that gaze. People always made a fuss that his eyes were gray-blue, but they never struck him as anything special. It was Cade’s—whiskey shot through with bronze—and the slow, sly warmth that flickered through them that made the breath catch in Marlow’s throat.
“I don’t know,” Cade said. “You could try?”
The bed was huge. Marlow hadn’t bothered to make it the night before; the sheets were still tangled up in a messy nest, and the pillows tossed onto the floor. He kicked them out of the way as he dragged Cade across the room, kisses snatched between the removal of items of clothing.
Marlow cursed under his breath, the huff of annoyance bitten off his lips by Cade as he fumbled with the buttons on his shirt. It wasn’t exactly a difficult job. The neat little mother-of-pearl buttons just seemed smaller and slippery, his fingers clumsy and impatient.
Finally he just pulled himself away from Cade and dragged the shirt up over his head. He got stuck for a second, the too-tight fabric caught over his shoulders, and then Cade grabbed the tails of it to help pull it off the rest of the way. It lost a few buttons somewhere in there, they hit the ground and skittered off under the furniture, but Marlow didn’t care.
He tossed the shirt aside and stepped back to give Cade—still mostly dressed—a slow up and down look.
“Your turn,” he said.
“You’ve already seen me naked,” Cade pointed out, even as he worked the buttons on his shirt free one after the other. “Don’t tell me it’s slipped your mind?”
“I’ve seenDie Hard,” Marlow said. “I’m still going to watch it again at Christmas.”
Cade looked amused. “I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or not,” he said. “It’s not—”
Marlow grabbed the loose collar of the partially shed shirt and pulled Cade down into a kiss. He had warned the man. The grumble died between their tongues, and Cade ran an appreciative hand up Marlow’s side, over taut muscle and slatted ribs. His thumb grazed over a thread of old scar tissue and found the hot, tender splash of purple bruised down his side. Fresh, livid marks blended in with the old faded stain from the last time he nearly died. The kiss stalled for a second as Cade gently traced the boundaries of the bruise with careful fingers.
“I always forget that your bruises last,” he said. “Do you ever heal up, one month to the next?”
Marlow reached up to cup Cade’s cheek, fine golden stubble prickly against his palm, and pulled him back down into the kiss.
“It’s been an eventful month,” he said before Cade claimed his mouth. “It’s not always this bad.”
That wasn’t a lie. It was a very carefully phrased truth, though. Marlow couldn’t remember the last time he’d not either had his knee strapped up or had to nurse scrapes and bruises. If his lip wasn’t split, then he’d wrenched his back. It was just the job. Most full moons Marlow didn’t have to worry about his own team trying to kill him, but he couldn’t remember the last time he’d finished a shift where he didn’t limp home.
That was just the job. Night Shift collected scars and popped painkillers—contraband, but the higher-ups turned a politely blind eye to usage—so they could pull their weight on the streets. Until they couldn’t anymore.
Marlow knew that. He accepted it. In his experience, though, it wasn’t much of a pickup line. People wanted to sleep with a badass, not feel sorry for someone with the knees of a sixty-year-old.
Well, one knee.
Marlow veered away from Cade’s mouth and kissed his way down his throat to the bony jut of his collarbone. He bit bruises into golden skin that tasted of salt and the flat metal tang of lust, although the marks would be gone by tomorrow. A fresh start every twenty-eight days.
Impatient hands pulled at waistbands and fumbled at buttons. Cade’s tongue clashed with Marlow’s, wet and slick and hungry, as they tumbled back onto the bed. The sheets smelled of the soap Marlow had borrowed and the faint, sharp smell of whiskey sweat.
Cade twisted his hand in Marlow’s hair and pulled his head back, the line of his throat tight and vulnerable as he swallowed. He took one last kiss from Marlow’s mouth, teeth sharp as he chewed along Marlow’s lower lip. Then he sat back, knees straddled across Marlow’s hips, and unfastened the last few buttons on his shirt. He stripped it off his shoulders, tanned skin pulled taut over long, heavy straps of muscle.
“Now, where had we gotten to when we left off last time?” he asked as he bent back down. Warm lips skimmed over Marlow’s throat as he murmured, “Remind me? Wasn’t it—”
