Out of Control (Black Dragons Inc. Book 1), page 4
But then two more guys were on him, and he took a hard blow to the upper arm from one and barely dodged being brained with a pipe by the fourth. He spun in a ninety-degree left turn to place his back against Drago’s as the last two guys arrived and circled around behind the fray, looking for an opening.
Spencer felt Drago moving so fast at his back he could hardly believe the speed with which the guy was lunging and retreating. Spencer jumped forward low and sliced a guy across one hip, narrowly missing the kid’s groin. The kid leaped back, and Spencer used the momentary opening to reach down and scoop up the length of pipe his first victim had dropped.
Brandishing the pipe in his left hand, he felt better. He’d practiced two-handed knife fighting for years, and pipe-and-knife was close enough in a pinch.
He lunged again, swinging out from his body with both weapons simultaneously. The guy on his left thought he would be clever and duck under the pipe, but he didn’t count on Spencer arcing it down hard midswing. He connected at full speed and full strength with the top of the kid’s skull. The youth dropped to the ground, at a minimum unconscious, but possibly dead.
The kid on the right got his wooden club up in time to catch Spencer’s knife, and unfortunately the steel blade bit into the softer wood and lodged. As he and the kid both yanked hard to separate their weapons, Spencer swung his left arm across his body and clocked this target in the right ear. It wasn’t a full-power swing, but it was enough to send the kid spinning back and away from him, club abandoned.
Spencer stepped on the end of the club and frantically yanked his knife free. He came up in a crouch, looking for more action.
He became aware that silence had fallen around them, broken only by the moans of the guys on the ground who were still conscious.
Ear-shot guy stumbled away from them as fast as he could, disappearing around the corner.
“That little shit’s gonna call the cops,” Drago announced in disgust. “We’ve got about five minutes to sanitize the scene.”
Spencer blinked. “Meaning what?”
Drago said casually, “Well, we could kill them all and hide the bodies.” He glanced up and must have caught Spencer’s look of horror, because he sighed. “Don’t get your panties in a wad, White Hat Boy. I’m not gonna kill anyone who’s not already dead. I think the one you clobbered over the head might be, though. You fractured his skull at a minimum.”
Spencer turned and started to kneel to check out the kid. Behind him Drago said, “Let’s just wipe down anything we touched for prints and make sure we don’t leave behind blood evidence. Did you get cut anywhere?”
Spencer did a quick health check. He’d been hit in a couple of places that were going to be tender as hell for a while, but that was it. Using the hem of his shirt, he wiped the blood from Gutted Guy off his face. “No cuts,” he reported.
“Me neither.” Drago was already squatting on the ground, using his jacket to wipe off the club he’d appropriated from someone.
Following his lead, Spencer wiped down the pipe he’d picked up. They kicked dirt over all their shoe prints and tiptoed out of the alley on the balls of their feet, sticking only to patches of gravel or big rocks where they wouldn’t leave usable prints. They paused at the entrance to the alley to don their jackets, which were wrinkled and a bit worse for wear but covered the blood stains on their shirts. Spencer noted that there was significantly more blood on Drago’s shirt than his.
“How many guys did you cut?” Spencer asked, low.
“All of mine. I want them to remember tonight and never try a stunt like this again.”
“Bloodthirsty much?”
“Unlike you, I’m out of the closet. This isn’t my first fuck-up-the-gay-guy adventure. Let’s see how bloodthirsty you are in a few years.”
That was the problem. He couldn’t afford to come out. He’d just finished Phase Three of BUD/S, for crying out loud. He’d wanted to be a SEAL for as long as he could remember. Now that he’d achieved his dream, he wasn’t about to rock that boat.
They hit the main street and turned left, walking casually, blending in with the evening crowd. They were three or four blocks beyond the alley when they heard the first sirens.
Drago laughed under his breath. “Welcome to the gay jungle, Spence.”
Chapter Five
DRAGO RESTED his forehead against the cool steel post, which made his raging headache feel a tiny bit better. He could use another bottle of water. A week in the desert had dehydrated the hell out of him, no matter how much water he’d sucked down out there.
He looked up quickly as Spencer came back into the front room, and bit back a groan as his head pounded from the abrupt movement. Still, he noted Spencer’s hips were as lean as ever. His gaze measured the sharp V of the lats bulging under Spencer’s arms and tapering to that hard, flat waist. All the guy lacked was a spandex suit and a cape to look like a cartoon comic hero.
“Did you get that American flag tattooed across your chest like I told you to?” he asked.
“Nah. I opted for an apple pie with the word Mom on it.”
“Lord save us from all-American boys like you,” he muttered.
“Since when did you get religion?” Spencer retorted.
“I’d swear my eternal loyalty to the Flying Spaghetti Monster if he’d take away this headache right now.”
A slow nod. “I could see you as a Pastafarian.”
He groaned as his entire skull clenched in a vise of pain.
“You okay?” Spencer asked, sounding reluctant. Poor guy was so good-boy-polite, he would probably hold the door for a bank robber. How he’d survived a decade in the violent world of the SEALs, Drago had no idea.
“Actually,” he sighed, “no, I’m not okay. I have a massive migraine, and I’m chained to a post in a city that’s probably about to be attacked.”
Spencer rummaged in one of the bags of gear stacked in the corner and emerged with another two-liter bottle of water and a small foil packet, which he ripped open. “Prescription-strength acetaminophen for the pain, and water for the dehydration that’s probably magnifying your headache.”
He watched Spencer cautiously approach within striking range, but he had no desire to fight the guy right now. Spence was perhaps the only person he’d ever worked with who could match him in a straight-up fight.
He remembered all too well how strong Spencer was. When they’d wrestled, in bed and out, it had been about fifty-fifty who won. It usually boiled down to who wanted to lose.
Nope. Spencer was definitely not a man to tangle with, especially when you were handcuffed and hampered by blinding pain.
“Open up,” Spencer ordered, placing two bitter-tasting pills on his tongue and holding out the water bottle.
He took it, clasped it in both hands, and awkwardly drank it all.
Spencer prudently retreated across the room, pulled out a map, and commenced studying it. Drago closed his eyes and waited for the painkillers to kick in. It took about ten minutes, but finally the worst of the jackhammers in his head chilled the fuck out.
“Okay. I’m vaguely human again,” he announced. “What’s the sitch?”
“The situation is that we need to bug out of here before whatever’s about to go down happens. I’m trying to figure out where I want to take you.”
“I’d head for Israel if you think you’re gonna need a lot of help to handle me. Uncle Sam can call in a favor from the Mossad. If you’re feeling good about your prospects for keeping me in custody and think I might cooperate, Amman has a big airport you can evac me out of. Or, if you’re feeling really froggy, you could give Beirut a try. But I probably have a crap-ton of shady contacts in a city like that and can call on them to jump your ass and bust me loose.”
Spencer looked up from the map and studied him closely. Surprised he wasn’t being a total prick, perhaps? Drago sighed. His default setting wasn’t usually extreme jackass. But Spencer’s general perfection and insanely good goodness brought out the worst in him. Seriously. How was it possible to be in Captain Perfect’s presence and not feel inadequate?
“Why would you help me?” Spencer asked suspiciously.
“Who says I am? Maybe I’m just messing with your head, or maybe I actually have more shady contacts in Israel and I’m trying to trick you into taking me there.”
“Have I ever told you the convoluted thinking of you spy types makes me a little crazy?”
He snorted. “It makes us crazy too. Or at least paranoid.”
Spencer stood up all at once and folded the map. He’d made a decision. But what?
The first order of business was to get unhooked from this post. Then he could work on an exit strategy to get away from Spencer and back to the more pressing business at hand: finding and killing the terrorist who’d gotten away from him twice now.
Drago said, “If you’ll pass me my cell phone, I’ll call a contact back at Langley and get a quick sitrep on what’s cooking out here.”
Spencer shrugged. “Doesn’t really matter what’s cooking. We need to get out, and there are only two decent roads out of this shithole. We can go east toward Iraq or west toward Amman and farther west to Israel. The only question now is if we’ll make it out before the feces meet the fan.”
When Spencer didn’t move immediately, he prodded, “What are you waiting for? Minutes could matter if one of the more violent militias is inbound.”
“I’m deciding whether or not to drug you again.”
“You mean trying to drug me.”
Spencer’s crystal blue eyes narrowed. “You wanna play it that way? Handcuffed to a post? I’m down for a fight. Knowing you, you’re probably way overdue for a good dose of whoop-ass.”
Thing was, Spencer wasn’t wrong. And to be honest, he looked significantly stronger than he’d been ten years ago too. Probably had improved his hand-to-hand fighting skills in that time. Which was hawt as hell. A thrill skittered down his spine at the idea of a lover who could actually physically dominate him.
Drago sighed and stood down. “I’ll pass on the fight for now. I’d also rather avoid the drugs if I have any say in the matter. If shit gets real out there, we’d both be better off if I’m awake and ambulatory. Not to mention I can, in fact, handle myself when it all goes to hell around me.”
Spencer smiled reluctantly, but the humor faded quickly. “I’m under orders to bring you in, Dray. I’m not letting you get away from me, and to that end, I will take whatever measures are necessary to keep you in my custody.”
They would see about that.
But even Drago knew that now was not the moment to attempt an escape. “Here’s the deal, boo. I’m no dummy. Besides whatever shitstorm is headed this way, this town has no resources to aid my escape, and I don’t relish fleeing into the desert on foot to get away from you. I’m gonna wait until we’re in a significantly bigger city to make a run for it.”
“Are you lying to me?” Spencer studied him hard, obviously looking for a tell.
“When have I ever lied to you? I’m the first to admit I can be a giant asshole and even that I can lie my head off when a job calls for it. But I’m not a liar in my personal life. My real life. At least, not to you.”
Spencer stared a moment more, and then his gaze fell away. “I have no evidence to contradict your statement. So for now, I’m going to take you at your word.”
“Fuck you too,” he responded without any heat.
“You wish,” Spencer muttered as he pulled a key out of his pocket.
Drago’s gaze snapped up, and they stared at each other in abrupt awareness. Too many emotions to catalogue all at once flashed through Spencer’s baby blues. Shock. Lust. Chagrin. Betrayal. Old, stale anger. More lust.
“Yeah,” he said quietly, “I still think about you too.”
Spencer swallowed hard but didn’t reply. His gaze slid away from Drago’s. Damn. He’d really been hoping Spencer had loosened up a little in the intervening decade. But apparently not. Disappointment made his next breath heavy in his chest. Without further comment, he held out his wrists.
Spencer stared at him for a long moment more. “Do you swear on your honor you won’t try to escape from me?”
“I do. Till death do us part.” Sudden butterflies jumped in Drago’s gut. What was up with that? He had no intention of ever settling down, let alone finding a nice boy and marrying him.
Spencer stepped forward and unlocked the handcuffs. “This doesn’t mean I trust you any further than I can throw you. It just means a truce until we get away from here.”
“Understood. And agreed. You have my word of honor on it.”
Their gazes met again, but this time hard and determined, two operatives in lockstep with each other. They would get out of here alive, and if that meant setting aside their mutual dislike and working together, so be it.
For now.
“This is a bad idea,” Spencer muttered. “I’m an idiot for trusting you, or at least for taking you at your word.”
“What choice did you have?” Drago asked reasonably. “You can’t very well run around in a war zone with an uncooperative prisoner in tow. Particularly one who can probably pop off those cuffs with impunity and stands a good chance of both kicking your ass and knowing how to make a successful escape.”
Spencer scowled at him. He didn’t like to have the obvious pointed out, huh? Tough shit. Drago didn’t owe Spencer squat. That, and he took a certain perverse pleasure in throwing the man off-balance.
“Let’s get out of here,” Spencer growled.
“Lemme help you with the gear. Thanks for fetching mine, by the way.”
Spencer shrugged under his beige SEAL operator’s shirt, a ripple of muscles so pretty it made Drago’s dick stir with interest, even though he still felt like the crusty smashed dog shit a person would scrape off the bottom of a shoe.
Spencer hefted three of the five big duffel bags with breathtaking ease. Whoa. Good call not to pick a fight with the guy until he was at 100 percent himself. “I figured you might have classified CIA tech with you, and I couldn’t very well let that fall into the hands of the local warlords or ISIS.”
It was his turn to shrug. “Same diff. The local warlords are ISIS.”
“All the more reason for us to get the hell out of here.”
“Lead on, Captain Sunshine.”
Spencer gifted him with an eye roll worthy of a teenage girl.
They were just tossing the bags in the back of the Land Rover when they heard it: a slow-building whistle that started distant and grew into a scream so loud, it drove a guy to the ground whether he willed it or not.
“Take cover!” Spencer yelled, diving at Drago, laying full out in midair.
Spencer slammed into him like a freaking linebacker, driving him backward and flattening him on his back beside the back wall of the restaurant. He grunted as Spencer’s full body weight landed on him, crushing the breath out of him.
Ka-BOOM!
Mamma mia, that was close. No more than a block away.
“Russian air-to-surface missile,” Spencer bit out in his ear.
He could tell that just from the sound of it? He didn’t want to know how Spencer had picked up that grim little skill. “Get off me.”
Spencer stared down at him, and abruptly everything came rushing back. The long, steamy nights in Beirut. Spencer’s introduction to sex, Drago’s introduction to no-kidding, head-over-heels infatuation. They’d done things with each other, said things to each other, that he’d never done or said with another living soul, not before or since. And here they were, belly to belly, dick to dick, face to face.
Like before, their hard bodies softened when they came into contact, molding and fitting to each other, a delicious tangle of legs and arms.
Awareness streaked through Spencer’s gaze as well—a rapid widening of his pupils, black overtaking the blue of his irises. And then heat flared in that mesmerizing gaze. Possessiveness. Desire.
Drago’s breath caught in his throat, and suddenly he remembered exactly why Spencer Newman was a fever he’d never entirely cleared from his system.
Having all that concentrated attention focused on him, like he was the only man in the world for Spencer Newman, had been intoxicating. Knowing he was the only man ever to fully possess Spencer’s body—and maybe even his heart—had been… humbling. It wasn’t a sensation he’d experienced much in his life. He’d always been the hot piece of ass who other men chased.
But feeling, for a change, like the one reaching… feeling as if he’d found a man who could match him in every way and surpass him in several… it had made Spencer’s returned interest all the sweeter.
He’d loved being pushed to earn Spencer’s respect, to be more, to reach for the best parts buried inside himself and bring them out. No doubt about it, Spencer had made him a better man.
Spencer rolled off of him as debris began to rain down, sounding like hail pelting the tin roof of the restaurant. A finer layer of dust began to settle more slowly, and he and Spencer both coughed as they threw their arms across their mouths and noses. It tasted like concrete, acrid and alkaline.
Another whistle became audible as they ran for the Land Rover and leaped inside. Spencer pulsed the windshield wipers to shove away the dust obscuring the front window, but it only smeared the fine beige powder. Swearing, he jumped out and used his sleeve to wipe off the driver’s half of the windshield.
Boom.
This explosion was more distant, about a quarter mile away. Drago couldn’t tell what make and model the missile was, but he damned well could estimate distance to the impact point within a few dozen yards.
“Shit. The gate,” Spencer muttered.
“I’ll get it,” Drago offered.
