Page 37 of Out of Control

He relaxed his left arm and let Drago drag it around as he drove them across Tel Aviv to a crappy motel that bore no resemblance to the gleaming seaside resorts from last night. Spencer checked them in, offering no explanation to the front desk manager about the handcuffs or his obvious facial injuries. Let the guy wonder what kink they practiced or which one of them was the criminal. It was no skin off his nose. And right now he was irritated enough not to care what Drago thought about it.

He unlocked their room with an old-fashioned metal key attached to a plastic paddle. They stepped inside, and it was stuffy and warm.

“Shall we dance over to the air-conditioner and turn that fucker on?” Drago murmured. “And by the way, I have to piss again, and you are going to have to help this time.”

Scowling, Spencer went with him to the air-conditioner and then into the bathroom. “I’m certain you can unzip your pants and pull out your dick left-handed. If not, feel free to pee in your pants.”

“When did you develop such a nasty streak?”

Did he have a nasty streak now? Spencer turned that over in his head as he waited for Drago to finish up and lent his left wrist to the process of Drago rezipping his jeans.

He much preferred to lead by example and encourage his men to give him their best voluntarily. He never had to take punitive action against any of his SEALs. They admired the hell out of him and he felt the same about them. A nasty streak wasn’t necessary to keep his team in line, nor would it have worked on them any more than it would work on Drago.

He scooted across the double bed to make room for Drago. They were both big men, and their shoulders brushed as they stretched out side by side. He turned off the lamp beside the bed as Drago turned on the television. Yellow light was replaced with a flickering blue glow.

Drago flipped through the channels, and Spencer mentally rolled his eyes. Dray was undoubtedly messing with the TV purely to piss him off. He just wanted to catch a few hours’ sleep and then get on with putting Drago on a plane back to Washington. He had no idea what came after that, but whatever it was, he was more than ready to get away from his ex and get on with his life.

Whatever his lifewas, next. In the rare quiet moments, like this one, he gave himself permission to wonder. He could go back to his SEAL team, finish out his twenty years, and retire quietly. He loved his guys like brothers… or sometimes unruly children. But either way, they were family.

Unfortunately they still didn’t fill the hole in his heart that craved a real family. A home to return to after a hard deployment. A spouse to greet him with open arms and welcoming love—

He cut off the yearning before it could get the best of him and depress the hell out of him.

He supposed he could think about doing what Drago suggested. Take some time off. Maybe actually pursue a serious relationship with someone. And yeah, in his fantasies, that someone often looked exactly like Drago Thorpe… but not as big an asshole. Sometimes he imagined himself and nice-Drago-clone settling down. Having a family.

While it might technically be legal for him to remain on the teams as a married gay man, he had no desire to do it. He wasn’t the type to be a groundbreaking, fire-breathing social justice warrior. Not like Drago was. He just wanted a quiet life. Some peace.

After this mess was sorted out.

Drago closed his eyes beside him, but damned if the man didn’t have the remote in his left hand, flung wide and well out of Spencer’s reach.

He tried to sleep too, but it flatly refused to come. While Drago snored lightly, Spencer ended up propping a couple pillows behind his head and watching TV—some sort of game show/variety show in Hebrew, a language he wasn’t conversant in. It involved lots of shouting and laughter, which faded into a meaningless soundtrack over which his thoughts raced.

He was more stung by Drago’s accusations than he liked to admit. Was he doing exactly what he’d accused Dray of? Was he prioritizing himself and his honor over Drago’s? Worse, was he running away from his guilt over the Grand Med disaster by refusing to even entertain the idea of going after Jabril Hamza?

Taking out Hamza did have strong appeal. The bastard had given all the world’s intelligence agencies the slip for a decade. It wasn’t that Spencer was personally interested in the accolades that bagging Hamza would land on him, because he was used to doing heroic work without recognition. In fact, he preferred it that way. But whoever brought Hamza in would be doing the whole world a huge favor. One thing Spencer knew about the man: Hamza would keep killing until someone killed him. Drago had that much right.

In his sleep, Drago turned on his side facing Spencer. Spencer gazed down idly at Dray’s face. For so long, he’d dreamed of that face. He’d dreamed of Drago in his bed, in his life. He’d dreamed of them together in some fantasy future, dreamed of a chance encounter where they reunited.

But never had he dreamed of arresting the guy, handcuffing Drago to him, and turning him over to the authorities to put into a jail cell for a very long time. But hey, Drago’d supposedly killed a man he wasn’t sanctioned to take out. Prison was probably the best place for him. Sure, Drago denied killing Fayez Khoury in that brothel, but the CIA was nothing if not thorough. If they were sure he’d pulled the trigger, he undoubtedly had. Heck, he’d seen the film of the guy fleeing the scene.

What happened to you, Dray?

Once upon a time, Drago had been committed to making the world a better, safer place. Where had he gone so badly off the rails? Beneath that gruff, give-no-damns exterior, he’d been fully as idealistic as Spencer. It was one of the main reasons they’d hit it off so well.

They’d been so young and sure of themselves back then. So certain they could conquer the world. That they were invincible. Until Jabril Hamza had taught them both otherwise.

Not many people sawHonestyas a word spelled with a capitalHorIntegrityas a word with a capitalI. But Drago did. Or at least he had ten years ago. Who was he now? How had he lost his way so completely?

Relaxed in sleep, his face looked as young as it had a decade ago, the creases and cares of his work fallen away. His face was square, his jaw a block of granite, his nose a bit crooked from an old break. His dark hair fell in tousled waves across his forehead tonight, and Spencer was tempted to reach over and run his fingers through it, pushing it back from his broad forehead. His mouth was generous, and even in sleep, it looked on the verge of breaking into a smile. Or maybe that was just Drago’s ebullient personality shining through.

Normally CIA officers were bland and boring, the kind of people who faded into the wall behind them, unremarkable, unnoticeable. Drago was none of the above. Which was probably why he got away with it. Nobody who met the man could possibly believe he was an undercover operative.

Drago might have kept tabs on Spencer over the years, but he’d kept tabs on Drago too. He was having a stellar career as a field operative. The agency sent him all over the world to deal with its toughest problems, and his record was flawless.

Except for that one glaring failure to identify what Hamza and his men had been planning.

It was as big a stain on Drago’s career as it had been on Spencer’s. Both of them had spent the years since doing their best to erase it, apparently.

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