Page 129 of Everything That Kills Me
“Except you can’t just walk away. You won’t be allowed to. You know too much. Just like me. Try and step out of the game and they’ll appoint someone to replace you, then take your life to make sure you keep quiet.”
“They’d have to catch me first.”
“You and Zeph? Is that what you want for him?”
Jack didn’t reply. It wasn’t what he wanted but…
Thomas shrugged. “He’s your weakness.”
Jack stared at him a moment, then turned and headed for the stairs.
“He will break you,” Thomas said.
Jack carried on walking. Maybe that was what he wanted. For Zeph to break him, Zeph to be the reason he turned his life around, for Zeph to take a chance on him.
Zeph was already in bed. Jack stripped, used the bathroom, grabbed lube and climbed in beside him. “You awake?”
“Fast asleep.”
Jack pulled him sideways into a soft kiss, then rolled on top of him with Zeph pushed face down. He slid his hands up Zeph’s arms, wrapped his fingers around his wrists and held him still.Zeph might break him, but not in the way Thomas thought. Jack slid his mouth to Zeph’s neck, loving the way Zeph moaned and arched into him.
“Can you be quiet?” Jack asked.
“Of course I bloody can’t.”
Jack laughed into Zeph’s neck. “Press your face harder into the pillow.”
“And suffocate myself?”
“I’ll give you mouth to mouth.”
“In that case.”
Jack landed a flurry of kisses down his back. “Try not to scream.”
Zeph groaned into the pillow.
When they set off to buy a tree the next morning, Jack wondered how long it would take for Zeph to register their location.
“What the…?” Zeph gasped.
Less than a minute.
“We’re in Middleton? Your old house? What was all that about a blindfold then?”
“A joke.” Not quite.
“Right. I need to buy presents for Thomas and Django.”
“The local garden centre’s as good as anywhere. Unless you’re desperate to go into town.”
“No,” Zeph said quickly. “Not that I’m bothered if I bump into any of my family, but I’d rather I didn’t. What sort of thing would Thomas like?”
A 9mm Glock?A Gerber Sedulo knife?“A book.”
“Fiction? Non-fiction?”
“He likes trees as well as weather.”
