New from Loose Id.
Special Agents Will and Taylor are relearning to trust each other - and their partnership - after a near fatal shooting a few months ago.
But their male bonding camping trip turns high-stakes chase, and Will is taken hostageRead More...
Special Agents for the Department of Diplomatic Security, Taylor MacAllister and Will Brandt have been partners and best friends for three years, but everything changed the night Taylor admitted the truth about his feelings for Will. And when Taylor was shot a few hours later, Will felt his reluctance to get involved was vindicated. For Will, the team and the friendship have to come first -- despite the fact that he hasn't failed to notice just how...hot Taylor is.
Taylor has been in love with his partner and best friend since they were first partnered. There isn't much he wouldn't do for Will -- but he doesn't know how much longer they can stay teamed feeling the way he does. Still, he agreed to a camping trip in the High Sierras -- despite the fact that he hates camping -- because Will wanted a chance to save their partnership. But the trip is a disaster from the first, and things rapidly go from bad to worse when they find a crashed plane and a couple of million dollars in stolen money.
With a trio of murderous robbers trailing them, Will and Taylor are on dangerous ground, fighting for their partnership, their passion...and their lives.
Excerpt:
They had instant black bean soup and the Mexican-style chicken for
dinner, and followed it up with the freeze dried ice cream and coffee.
"It's not bad," Taylor offered, breaking off a piece of ice cream and
popping it in his mouth.
Actually the ice cream wasn't that bad. It crunched when you put it
in your mouth, then dissolved immediately, but Will said, "What do
you know? You'll eat anything. If I didn't watch out you'd be eating
poison mushrooms or poison berries or poison oak."
Taylor grinned. It was true; he was a city boy through and through.
Will was the outdoors guy. He was the one who thought a week of
camping and hiking was what they needed to get back on track; Taylor
was humoring him by coming along on this trip. In fact, Will was
still a little surprised Taylor had agreed. Taylor's idea of vacation
time well-spent was on the water and in the sun: renting a house
boat — like they had last summer -- or deep sea fishing — which
Taylor had done on his own the year before.
"They never did arrest anyone in connection with that heist, did
they?" Taylor said thoughtfully, after a few more minutes of
companionable chewing.
"What heist?"
Taylor threw him an impatient look. "The robbery at the Black Wolf
Casino."
"Oh. Not that I heard. I wasn't really following it." Taylor had a
brain like a computer when it came to crimes and unsolved mysteries.
When Will wasn't working, which granted was rarely, the last thing he
wanted to do was think about crooks and crime — especially the ones
that had nothing to do with them.
But Taylor was shaking his head like Will was truly a lost cause, so
he volunteered, "There was something about the croupier, right? She
was questioned a couple of times."
"Yeah. Questioned but never charged." He shivered.
Will frowned. "You all right?"
"Jesus, will you give it a rest!" And just like that, Taylor was
unsmiling, stone-faced and hostile.
There was a short sharp silence. "Christ, you can be an unpleasant
bastard," Will said evenly, finally. He threw the last of his foil
wrapped ice cream in the fire, and the flames jumped, sparks shooting
up with bits of blackened foil.
Taylor said tersely, "You want a more pleasant bastard for a partner,
say the word."
The instant aggression caught Will off-guard. Where the hell had it
come from? "No, I don't want someone more pleasant," he said. "I
don't want a new partner."
Taylor stared at the fire. "Maybe I do," he said quietly.
Will stared at him. He felt like he'd been sucker-punched. Dopey and…
off-kilter.
"Why'd you say that?" he asked finally into the raw silence between
them.
He saw Taylor's throat move, saw him swallowing hard, and he
understood that although Taylor had spoken on impulse, he meant it —
and that he was absorbing that truth even as Will was.
"We're good together," Will said, not giving Taylor time to answer —
afraid that if Taylor put it into words they wouldn't be able to go
back from it. "We're…the best. Partners and friends."
He realized he was gripping his coffee cup so hard he was about to
break the plastic.
Taylor said, his voice low but steady, "Yeah. We are. But...it might
be better for both of us if we were re-teamed."
"Better for you, you mean?"
Taylor met his eyes. "Yeah. Better for me."
And now Will was getting angry. It took him a moment to recognize the
symptoms because he wasn't a guy who got mad easily or often — and
never at Taylor. Exasperated, maybe. Disapproving sometimes, yeah.
But angry? Not with Taylor. Not even for getting himself shot like a
goddamned wet-behind-the-ears recruit. But that pricking flush
beneath his skin, that pounding in his temples, that rush of
adrenaline — that was anger. And it was all for Taylor.
Will threw his cup away and stood up — aware that Taylor tensed.
Which made him even madder — and Will was plenty mad already. "Oh, I
get it," he said. "This is payback. This is you getting your own
back — holding the partnership hostage to your hurt ego. This is all
because I won't sleep with you, isn't it? That's what it's really
about."
And Taylor said in that same infuriatingly even tone, "If that's what
you want to think, go ahead."
Right. Taylor: the guy who jumped first and thought second — if at
all — who couldn't stop shooting his mouth off if his life depended
on it — who thought three months equaled the love of a lifetime —
suddenly he was Mr. Cool and Reasonable. What a goddamn laugh. Mr.
Wounded Dignity sitting there staring at Will with those wide, bleak
eyes.
"What am I supposed to think?" Will asked, and it took effort to keep
his voice as level as Taylor's. "That you're in love? We both know
what this is about, and it ain't love, buddy boy. You just can't
handle the fact that anyone could turn you down."
"Fuck you," Taylor said, abandoning the cool and reasonable thing.
"My point exactly," Will shot back. "And you know what? Fine. If
that's what I have to do to hold this team together, fine. Let's
fuck. Let's get it out of the way once and for all. If that's your
price, then okay. I'm more than willing to take one for the team — or
am I supposed to do you? Whichever is fine by me because unlike you,
MacAllister, I —"
With an inarticulate sound, Taylor launched himself at Will, and
Will, unprepared, fell back over the log he'd been sitting on, head
ringing from Taylor's fist connecting with his jaw. This was rage,
not passion, although for one bewildered instant Will's body
processed the feel of Taylor's whip-thin muscular length landing on
top of his own body as a good thing — a very good thing.
This was followed by the very bad thing of Taylor trying to knee him
in the guts — which sent a new and more clear message to Will's mind
and body.
And there was nothing Will would have loved more than to let go and
pulverize Taylor, to take him apart, piece by piece, but he didn't
forget for an instant — even if Taylor did — how physically
vulnerable Taylor still was; so his effort went into keeping Taylor
from injuring himself — which was not easy to do wriggling and
rolling around on the uneven ground. Even at seventy five percent,
Taylor was a significant threat, and Will took a few hits before he
managed to wind his arms around the other man's torso, yanking him
into a sitting position facing Will, and immobilizing him in a
butterfly lock.
Taylor tried a couple of heaves, but he had tired fast. Will was the
better wrestler anyway, being taller, broader, and heavier. Taylor
relied on speed and surprise; he went in for all kinds of esoteric
martial arts, which was fine unless someone like Will got him on the
ground. Taylor was usually too smart to let that happen, which just
went to show how furious he was.
Will could feel that fury still shaking Taylor — locked in this ugly
parody of a lover's embrace. He shook with exhaustion too, breath
shuddering in his lungs as he panted into Will's shoulder. His wind
was shit these days, his heart banging frantically against Will's.
These marks of physical distress undermined Will's own anger,
reminding him how recently he had almost lost Taylor for good.
Taylor's moist breath against Will's ear was sending a confusingly
erotic message, his body hot and sweaty — but Christ he was thin.
Will could feel — could practically count — ribs, the hard links of
spine, the ridges of scapula in Taylor's fleshless back. And it
scared him; his hold changing instinctively from lock to hug.
"You crazy bastard," he muttered into Taylor's hair.
Taylor struggled again, and this time Will let him go. Taylor got up,
not looking at Will, not speaking, walking unsteadily, but with a
peculiar dignity, over to the tent.
Watching him, Will opened his mouth, then shut it. Why the hell would
he apologize? Taylor had jumped him. He watched, scowling, as Taylor
crawled inside the tent, rolled out his sleeping back onto the air
mattress Will had remembered to set up for him, pulled his boots off,
and climbed into the bag, pulling the flap over his head — like
something going back into its shell.
This is stupid, Will thought. We neither of us want this. But what he
said was, "Sweet dreams to you too."
Taylor said nothing.
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