Page 22 of Constantly Cotton
And then Jason did something unforgivable. He wrapped his arms around Cotton and hugged him. “No, no. You’re not fragile,” he murmured. “But you’ve had a rough week. I mean, I’ve had a rough week, but I’ve been unconscious for a lot of it. You’ve had a rough week, and you’ve been conscious for both of us.”
Cotton gave half a laugh against his bare neck. Oh, this wasn’t fair. He was in basketball shorts and a tank in deference to the late August heat, and Jason wasin his boxers, and here he was, being held by the most interesting, mostdesirableman he’d possibly met in his entire life, and he was pretty sure sex was off-limits.
Wait. Sexwasoff-limits.
Jason was recovering, and Cotton was his caregiver, and that wasn’t consensual, was it? This was pure comfort.
And with that tiny change of perspective, Cotton relaxed into the hug, letting the warmth, the kindness, and even the emotional strength seep into his body, making him relaxed and comforted as he’d never been by a sex partner.
He was safe here. He wassafehere. He hadn’t been safe since he was seventeen, and he wassafehere, in Jason Constance’s arms.
“You doing better?” Jason asked, voice gravelly.
“Yeah.” Wow. Cotton wasn’t short—five-ten, so not super tall, but not tiny. And he wasn’t decked. Muscular, but his build was slender, so keeping bulk was almost impossible. But even sick, even thin, Jason was taller than he was, and his arms were longer and more powerful. This was a body that wouldn’t let him down, Cotton thought muzzily, and while this moment, this hug, wasn’t meant to be sexual, Cotton felt a tiny spark of awareness travel under his skin that told him someday, when Jason was at 100 percent and Cotton wasn’t a bumbling mess, it could be.
“Thanks,” Cotton mumbled, and he felt a little bit of heaviness in Jason’s limbs that said he probably needed to be the one leaning against the counter. “Here.” With a smile, he turned them and backed away, and Jason grimaced, embarrassed.
“Hey, I actually made it to the john myself today. Twice!”
“Well done,” Cotton told him, laughing. Very carefully he stepped back and started picking up pieces of the mug from the sink.
“So who gave it to you?” Jason asked. “You said it was a gift.”
It had been the dumbest thing—a unicorn on a yellow mug that said Back Off, Sugar-tits, I’m a Force of Nature! But….
“Dex. He’s John’s second-in-command. He… well, he tries to make sure everybody gets presents at Christmas. It’s… a lot of us don’t have families anymore, so it’s sort of his thing. He sends out birthday cards and gives Christmas presents. It’s like John does the dad things—food, shelter, health and dental, and Dex does the… you know.”
“Mom things,” Jason said, nodding. “Gotcha. So what do you mean no fami—what’s that?”
Cotton heard it then. Shouting from the lawn down at the bottom of the stairs from their apartment and then pounding up the stairs and the unmistakable sounds of violence.
Oh God. Trouble was echoing up the stairway, banging on the metal rail, and he was barely dressed and Jason wasright therein its way.
With a desperate lunge he threw himself at the knife block and pulled the chef’s knife out exactly when the door splintered open and a pale pink fireplug charged into the room.
White, squat, all malevolent muscle, the bald man in the dark suit paused for a moment, panting, while Cotton stood in front of Jason and raised the chef’s knife, wishing that just once in his entire life he’d ever held a weapon.
Their assailant glanced around the room. His gaze zeroed in on Cotton, and he raised his arm, an ugly-looking gun in his grip.
There was more pounding on the stairs, and a knife—smaller and deadlier and shaped more like an arrow—flew through the doorway and embedded itself in the killer’s gun arm. His weapon-hand fell, and the assailant grunted, scowled at whoever was in the doorway, and switched the gun into his other hand.
Cotton stared at the chef’s knife, and without knowing what he was going to do next, he pulled his arm back to throw it.
It bounced off the attacker’s nose, leaving a long slash of blood and possibly hitting his eye. The man swore in a language Cotton didn’t know, and he was repositioning the gun again when three shots echoed in the stairwell. The first hit him in the arm, and as he was turning to face the new threat, the next two hit him in the chest. He toppled over backward, colorless eyes staring up, mouth open as his last breath failed to come.
“Oh fuck,” Cotton breathed, staring at the dead man. “Fuck. Jason. Jason, there’s adead man on our carpet!”
“Jason?”
Cotton looked up to the doorway, where a soldier stood. He walked to the dead guy and kicked the gun out of his reach before holstering his own weapon and glancing around the apartment.
“Jason?”
Cotton felt two hands on his shoulders, gentle and firm, pushing him to the side. “Lee?”
The soldier—handsome, round-faced, and square-jawed, with skin a dark-walnut color, and brown eyes that were soft in color but hard in expression—gave a tight smile in relief.
“Sir! Damn. That asshole broke ranks and charged the steps. I swear we didn’t see where he was coming from.”
