Old Poison (Dangerous Ground 2) Read online

  Will had the smarts to correct quickly, although he was still blunt. “You’re acting jealous and insecure and irrational.”

  Taylor weighed his words, but he had gone this far, he might as well shoot his wad. Will apparently thought he was acting like a queen as it was. He said, “That’s because I’ve got more invested in this relationship than you. We both know the bottom line is I care more for you than you do for me.”

  Will’s profile could have been cut from stone. “I’m not even going to answer that.” He jammed the key into the ignition and turned it. The engine roared into life.

  * * * * *

  It was okay once they were back at Taylor’s. Taylor, apparently realizing he had gone too far, was low-key and nonconfrontational. They took turns in the shower, took turns squirting each other with disinfectant and taping on Band-Aids. Taking care of each other, that’s what it was about.

  Will’s shirt was torn, so he borrowed one of Taylor’s. It was too tight, which suited the general atmosphere pretty well.

  Not that it was that different from usual. They generally worked on the house or watched a game on TV and had a few beers, fucked, napped, caught up on the newspapers, maybe rented a movie. They would have talked or not as they felt like it. Their weekdays were action-packed enough; on the weekends they liked to unwind and rest. There was no one Will wanted to unwind and rest with more than Taylor.

  This was not turning out to be the most restful weekend they’d spent, but it wasn’t bad. They worked at sanding the built-in shelves and counters, the fireplace, the tapered columns that divided the living room from the dining room. It was slow going, because Taylor liked everything to be perfect, but one day it was going to be a very valuable property with the gleaming resanded hardwood floors and funky art tiles and big stone fireplace — all in walking distance of the beach. As they worked they recovered some of their usual harmony.

  When they finished in the front room, uncovering what appeared to be genuine oak beneath layers of navy, green, and finally white paint, they showered again and then ate their leftovers from the night before.

  A framed Japanese print of a samurai on horseback had been propped in the doorway for safekeeping while they worked in the front room. Looking at it, and seeking a neutral subject for dinnertime discourse, Will asked, “What was it like, being in Tokyo? You never talk about it.”

  Taylor, whose own attention had been on the bottle of Asian snake wine sitting on the kitchen counter, gave him a blank look. He raised a shoulder. “Nothing to tell.”

  Now that was odd. Taylor always had something to say. About everything. How could he possibly have spent two years in Japan and not have anything to recount. Nothing?

  “Did you like it?”

  “I liked the country, yeah.”

  He hadn’t liked the assignment. Interesting.

  “Well, I know you like the food. Is it true they have octopus pizza?”

  Taylor snorted, expertly wielded his chopsticks to take a bite of rice-crusted duck. Will considered the chopsticks. Taylor was…prone to enthusiasms.

  He had liked Japan. He collected Japanese weapons, watched Japanese movies, had a couple of Japanese art books and a couple of Japanese prints on the walls. Japan had been important to Taylor. But he never talked about it.

  Never.

  “Are there really over fifteen hundred earthquakes a year?”

  “They have a lot of earthquakes. A lot of volcanoes too.”

  “Is the sun really red?”

  Taylor smiled faintly. “They paint it that way.”

  “What about the gay samurai? Is that true?”

  Taylor’s face changed. He scowled, selecting another bite of duck. “What’s with all the questions, Brandt?”

  “I’m just making…just curious. It’s a part of your life I don’t know anything about.”

  “You don’t need to know anything about it.”

  That took Will a second to absorb. “Okay,” he said evenly.

  Taylor flicked him a look under his lashes. “Sorry.”

  Will nodded coolly. He was used to Taylor’s ratty temper — and more curious than ever now.

  Taylor sighed. “It wasn’t a great time for me, okay? I was twenty-four, it was my first overseas posting and I was homesick and lonely. Japan is…different.”

  As opposed to Afghanistan? Or Haiti? Taylor didn’t mind discussing either of those postings.

  He said slowly, “Sure.” It was weird thinking of Taylor as homesick and lonely. But he’d been in the DSS ten years; safe to say he hadn’t started out a worldly, all-knowing sonofabitch. Will had taken a different career path. College, then the marines, then the DSS. So far he’d had one overseas posting — Afghanistan, though years after Taylor had been there. When he’d returned to the States, he’d been partnered with Taylor.

  He opened his mouth to ask, well, he wasn’t even sure what he was going to ask, but he never got the chance because Taylor rose abruptly, saying, “You feel like watching TV?”

  Not waiting for Will’s reply, he took his plate in the den and turned on the news; they generally avoided the news on the weekends. They got enough bad news about the world in their day jobs. Will listened to the blast of international bad news from down the hall.

  “What do you think?” Will asked Riley. Riley cocked his head, tongue lolling.

  “Me too,” Will said.

  * * * * *

  In bed that night it was complicated. And quiet.

  They were being too polite with each other, but better that than the alternative.

  By now they were comfortable enough that they knew where the other wanted to go without having to read a road map. Will wanted to fuck Taylor, but he was afraid it would be a mistake to ask that tonight. He’d said a couple of things he regretted earlier that day, implying that Taylor was behaving like a jealous teenager. Taylor was always very generous in the bedroom, and Will didn’t want to be viewed as taking advantage of that tonight.

  The fact was, he did enjoy topping more than bottoming. Not a big deal, just a personal preference. In particular he enjoyed topping Taylor. Having Taylor submit to him was the sweetest thing in the world because it was entirely voluntary. Taylor matched him strength for strength, so that willing capitulation seemed so tender, so generous, so loving.

  He wanted — needed — Taylor to offer, but Taylor didn’t. Neither did he ask for a repeat of the night before. Instead, they settled for some energetic rubbing and stroking. Friction. It’s a good thing. And it was good; it was a very enjoyable substitute for the real thing. The other thing. Through the net of his eyelashes Will watched Taylor’s mobile, exquisitely pained face; it never ceased to thrill and amaze him that it was Taylor on the other end of this. Taylor. Beautiful and intense in sex as he was with everything.

  Did Taylor honestly believe he had more invested in this relationship than Will? Because that was funny. Sometimes it scared Will how much he felt for Taylor. Nobody should need anyone that much.

  It wasn’t safe.

  Chapter Four

  “What do you think I should do with this?” Taylor asked, holding up the bottle of snake wine.

  It was Monday morning — and all too soon. They’d managed to fall back into sync on Sunday, and they’d spent the remainder of their weekend companionably working on stripping and sanding the last of the front room woodwork.

  Will studied the cobra weaving gently in the bottle as Taylor tilted it. “Mix it with orange juice?”

  “Funny.”

  “Probably chock-full of vitamin C and antioxidants.”

  “I’ll stick to my Flintstones Plus.”

  “You mentioned something about it being an aphrodisiac.”

  Taylor extended the bottle. “Feeling insecure?”

  “You complaining?”

  Taylor’s sexy mouth quirked. “No way.” He added thoughtfully, “I was thinking maybe I could call the bottling company and see if they can tell me who ordered it.”
/>   Will’s grin faded. “Are you worried about this?”

  “Nah.”

  But now Will was frowning, his investigatory instincts roused. “How much is something like this bottle worth?”

  Taylor bridled. “How would I know? It’s not like I hand these out every Christmas to friends and family.”

  “Take a guess. You prowl around Chinatown and places like that.”

  “I don’t know. Sixty bucks. A hundred bucks?”

  His hand hovered over the trash bin; then he set the bottle on the counter. “This probably qualifies as toxic waste.”

  * * * * *

  They left the house at the same time, Will opening the side door of the SUV for Riley to jump in. He was stopping by his house in Woodland Hills to drop the dog off and then heading down to San Diego. San Diego and David Bradley. Taylor was determined to be practical about that; he believed Will when Will said he hadn’t volunteered for the assignment with Bradley.

  Granted, Will hadn’t refused the assignment either. But Will never refused assignments.

  Either way, this was good-bye, probably for what was going to be a long and stressful week. It was a five-hour drive to San Diego, and Will would be working late most nights, so it was unlikely they’d spend any real time together before next weekend.

  Taylor was determined not to be an asshole about it. He’d already been there and done that on Saturday.

  “Bye,” he said briskly, leaning in to kiss Will. “Talk to you later.”

  Will’s mouth was firm, his kiss a statement that everything was good and normal between them. Taylor turned away, going to his Acura and unlocking the door, sliding behind the wheel.

  He spotted a folded sheet of white paper beneath the wiper blades, and he leaned out, tugging it free.

  Japanese kanji. Precise black characters on a field of white.

  He stared at it for a long time.

  Vaguely, he was aware of Will getting back out of his vehicle, the scrape of boots on cement.

  “What’s up?”

  Taylor looked up blankly. How the hell did Will know there was a problem? He did, though.

  Without speaking he handed the folded sheet to Will.

  Will scanned it. “What do you make of it?”

  Taylor shook his head.

  “Do you know what it says?”

  Another shake. His oral Japanese wasn’t great; his written, even worse. He’d learned the necessary minimum to find his way around the city and work efficiently within the confines of the American embassy; that was about it.

  “Advertising flyer from the Red Dragon?” Will suggested.

  “We took your car.”

  Will considered this and shrugged.

  Well, he had a point. The alternative was too bizarre to consider. Taylor got out of the Acura, circled it, checking his vehicle to see if someone had backed into him or scratched his paint job on Friday while he’d been out shopping, and maybe he hadn’t noticed.

  Everything looked fine.

  Riley poked his nose out the window of Will’s Land Cruiser, snuffling at him.

  “Hey, Riley,” Taylor murmured absently. He returned to Will, who was watching him curiously. He retrieved the note from Will’s hand — Will letting go reluctantly.

  “Everything okay?” Will asked.

  “Of course.” Taylor opened the Acura door, climbed in, shoved the note into his glove compartment. In his rearview he watched Will walk back, get inside the navy blue Land Cruiser. Taylor pressed the automatic opener, and the security gate slid slowly open across the driveway.

  Will nodded to him in his rearview before putting his vehicle into gear. Taylor nodded back.

  It was weird, though. If that note hadn’t been there on Friday afternoon — and Taylor was pretty sure it hadn’t — someone had climbed over the gate and bypassed Will’s Land Cruiser to tuck this note on Taylor’s windshield.

  Why?

  * * * * *

  Denise Varga was small, dark, and bellicose. She had probably had to fight — and fight hard — be taken seriously in the mostly all-male world of international security, and it had left a sizable chip on the shoulder of her Anne Klein onyx suit. She made a point of never making the simple, courteous gestures of one coworker to another in case anyone mistook her for a woman. She charged out of doors first, letting them slam in her male coworkers’ faces, she never made or bought anyone coffee when she got her own, she interrupted and talked over and contradicted. It was hard working with her. It felt like penance.

  Taylor would have preferred to work on his own, but that idea was shot down instantly by Assistant Field Office Director Greg Cooper, who welcomed Taylor back to active duty and informed him he’d be working with Special Agent Varga until further notice.

  “Further notice?” Taylor had repeated woodenly.

  “We’ll see how it goes,” Cooper said, shuffling papers.

  Taylor was smart enough to nod and keep silent. If Cooper did suspect that Will and Taylor’s relationship had changed, and that that change might ultimately conflict with their loyalties to the DSS, any objection would hammer the last nail into the coffin of their partnership.

  He listened unemotionally to their briefing, let Varga do all the bitching about the fact they were being landed with a low-profile babysitting job. Varga was taking it personally, as she did pretty much everything. She didn’t actually accuse Cooper of sexism, but she wasn’t far from it. Taylor closed his eyes at one point, anticipating the explosion.

  When he opened them again, Cooper was watching him, and he had the impression the AD was trying to keep a straight face. Cooper wasn’t too bad a guy, even if he did play it — every play you could think of — strictly by the book. He heard Varga out unemotionally, was not swayed an iota, and sent them on their merry way.

  In the car — Varga’s car, which Varga insisted on driving — she announced, “I know you don’t want to work with me, MacAllister. For the record, I don’t want to work with you either.”

  “Who do you want to work with?” Taylor asked out of curiosity. That seemed to take Varga by surprise.

  She said shortly, “I’d prefer to work alone.”

  Taylor nodded politely and settled in for what was sure to be a long, long week.

  They had been assigned to protect Madame Sabine Kasambala, the very young and very lovely wife of a cabinet minister of the African island nation of Comoros. Comoros had about as screwed up a political situation as could be imagined, and it seemed to have revolutions about every fifteen minutes as far as Taylor could make out. Death threats were routine, even de rigueur, and Madame was far less interested in arrangements for her safety than possible diplomatic discounts the DS might be able to arrange for her with Beverly Hills boutiques.

  Varga’s stony professionalism scored zero points with their charge, and it was left to Taylor to try and charm Madame into cooperating. He was not particularly good at working the charm; that was generally Will’s forte. In fact, Taylor had the uncomfortable feeling that one reason he didn’t like Varga was she reminded him a little too much of himself.

  He did his best, though, and by eleven o’clock they were trotting Madame in and out of the famous shops along Rodeo Drive, a three-block obstacle course of palm trees, lampposts, flower urns, expensive cars, and self-absorbed people.

  * * * * *

  In or out of uniform, Lieutenant Commander David Bradley was a big, handsome bear of a man. He did look exceptionally handsome in his naval uniform. He had a silky dark beard, warm brown eyes, and a sexy growl of a voice.

  “Good to see you, Will,” he said when Will was shown into his office at Naval Base San Diego just before lunch on Monday morning.

  They shook hands, and Bradley’s grip lingered just a fraction of a second longer than strictly necessary. His smile was white in his tanned face, his gaze friendly if rueful.

  “It’s great to see you, David,” Will said. He meant it. He was grateful that Bradley wasn’t being diffic
ult about the awkward way things had ended between them. It wouldn’t have been unreasonable if he’d held maybe a bit of a grudge.

  Will had broken their budding relationship off at the stem after Taylor had been shot. As much as he liked Bradley — and Will liked him very much — he had been guilt stricken at the knowledge that one reason Taylor had been shot had almost certainly been because he was distracted and upset over Will’s relationship with the other man.

  The idea of ever doing anything to upset Taylor again had been unthinkable in those first few days when his life had been hanging by a thread. Then later Will had been preoccupied with hunting down the men (boys, as it turned out) who had shot his partner — and keeping up the spirits of that same partner while he was stuck in the hospital.

  So he’d called Bradley and apologetically told him he just wasn’t at a place in his life where he could focus on a relationship, blaming the pressures of work and a sidelined partner. Bradley had been understanding, accepting Will’s decision with maturity and dignity. It had been excruciating, because Will really had thought he and Bradley might have something together. But by then Taylor was recovering, and Will’s attention and focus were on getting his partner back.

  He had wanted Taylor back with a ferocity that surprised even himself. To this day the depth and power of his feelings for Taylor took him aback.

  But seeing Bradley again, he couldn’t help thinking what an easy natural match they would have been. He and Bradley were a lot alike.

  “How’ve you been?” Bradley asked as they took chairs on either side of his well-organized desk.

  “Very good,” Will said. “You?”

  He was disconcerted at the way Bradley was smiling at him. There seemed to be such a wealth of liking and understanding there.

  “Good. Great. Busy time for us right now.” There was a twinkle in Bradley’s eyes as he added, “I never did get around to camping on Catalina.”

  Will’s face felt warm. He and Bradley had planned a camping trip at Black Jack campground on Santa Catalina Island. Unlike Taylor, Bradley loved camping as much as Will, and they’d had nearly as good a time planning their trip to the pines and eucalyptus trees of Mt. Orizaba as they would have had making that trip.