Page 85 of Devil and the Deep Blue Fish

Jackson’s lips curved up into his first real smile since… well, since two nights ago before Henry had been shot. “Are you sure I didn’t seduce you, baby boy?”

Ellery grunted. “No, no, the blame for that one lays squarely on my shoulders.” He grew serious and moved Jackson’s hand from his eyes. “I mean it, though,” he said, making sure Jackson met his gaze. “No… no holding back. Not even when the world is tumbling about our ears. Not even when you suspect the worst. I need you to….” He squinted, watching as Jackson’s hectic color from their lovemaking faded, leaving the rusty blotches on his skin, tipping his eyelashes, smudging his mouth and his forehead, to show themselves.

“What?” Jackson asked, blinking like he was getting something out of his eyes.

Ellery closed his and rolled out of bed with a sigh. “I need you to go to the bathroom, take a shower, and let me dress your hand.”

“What in the—” Jackson actuallylookedat his hand, and his face washed red again as he saw the perfectly bite-sized ring of punctures on the bottom of his palm. “Well, that’s embarrassing,” he muttered, rolling out of bed and searching for his T-shirt.

“You’re not putting that on!” Ellery protested and then watched as Jackson wrapped his hand in it. “Oh. Okay. Wow. You… you had to workthathard at keeping quiet?”

Jackson gave him an unfriendly look. “Somebody,” he emphasized, “thought it would be a great idea to have angry sex while his mother was here.” He assumed an air of dignity that almost—but not quite—blanketed his shoulders. “I thought one of us should maybe uphold decorum.”

Ellery blinked at him, nonplussed. “Decorum?”

“Yes,” Jackson said, starting his grand exit to the bathroom.

“You’reour representative for decorum now?” Ellery stood with his hands on his hips, his cock still dripping with come, and felt his own dignity clapping over his naked body like armor.

“Yes,” Jackson said without any particular irony or remorse. “Prove me wrong.”

Ellery’s behavior of the last half hour played in a dynamic, steamy X-rated slideshow behind his eyes. And now that his fury had passed, and Jackson’s self-recriminating spiral had been halted, he realized that after living together for more than a year and a half,thishad been the first time they’d ever had sex when his mother was in the house.

That had been a mutual decision—their horror at the thought of doing something like they’d just done when Ellery’s mother might hear it had been considerable.

But it hadn’t been equal to Ellery’s belief that sending Jackson out today, to do the dangerous things he often ended up doing, without the emotional catharsis, without Ellery leaving a mark on his verysoul,would have been wrong.

Jackson had needed what they’d done, and so, apparently, had Ellery.

“Well, then,” Ellery said, sweeping past Jackson into the bathroom. “If you’re the one with the decorum, you can make sure you got all your blood off my back in the shower. I would hate for Mother to suspect we had sex in our own bedroom.”

“Yeah,” Jackson muttered. “That could really throw me off my game for the rest of the day.”

“Which would be a shame,” Ellery said, starting the water. “And we haven’t had breakfast yet. Hurry, hurry.” He added that last primly, and was rewarded with Jackson’s snort.

And then, in the chill of the bathroom, he was rewarded by Jackson’s long body sliding alongside his and Jackson’s arms wrapping around his waist.

Ellery tilted his head back against Jackson’s shoulder, and Jackson whispered, “Hey, Counselor.”

“Hey yourself, Detective.”

“Good job.”

Ellery gave him a demure glance from under his lashes, not able to meet his eyes at this angle, but then, not reallyneedingto meet them either. “Why, thank you. I’m rather pleased with it myself.”

Jackson chuckled and nuzzled his cheek, and a part of Ellery relaxed just a tad.

They were okay now. Jackson’s head was back where it should be: focused purely on getting their bad guy and making their case.

And Ellery was in his lover’s arms without any barriers, not even the fears that Jackson held on to in order to keep Ellery safe.

Together, he thought during that three-heartbeat break, being held and tended to by the man he loved more than life, together they could do anything.

Pond Skipping

“YOU WOOKchippew,” Cody said through a mouthful of homemade blueberry muffins.

After they’d gotten out of the shower, Ellery had gone on a cooking bender, making sure there was frittata for everybody, and because frittata didn’t travel well—or age well, and his mother was apparently stillverymuch asleep—he broke out the blueberry muffin mix and whipped up two dozen while Jackson scanned his morning email.

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