A Matter Of Necessity Read online

  Shawn stirred and his eyes fluttered open. "Morning, beautiful."

  And how was he supposed to resist that? Ego had always been his weakness. "It's not quite time to get up yet."

  "Good. I like where I'm at." Even so he stretched, wincing just a bit.

  Trepidation spiked. "I didn't hurt you did I? I mean, I've never done that. To a man. It's a bit different with a woman. Angles and all and I..."

  "Alex." Shawn cut him off with at smile and a laugh. "I'm fine. Just a little sore. I don't do that very often. It's been years in fact. Muscles aren't used to that position."

  Alex let out the breath he'd been holding. "Good." A smile beyond his control stretched his lips. "Sore, huh?"

  "Yeah, sore." Shawn rolled his eyes. "Yes, you were good. Now stop fishing for compliments. I'm not feeding that ego any more than I already have." He eased up to kiss Alex. "Not just yet any way. I'd beg you to molest me again, but we have a meeting to set up with a buyer for our dear Mr. Ronnecker. That means a day spent finding safe places to meet and making phone calls over secure lines."

  Alex grimaced. "In other words, work."

  "Yep, mate." He rolled to turn off the alarm. "Time to save the Free World again." He sat up and reached for Alex. "But first a shower and breakfast. I'll spring for the breakfast if you let me scrub your chest."

  "Are you attempting to buy my affections?"

  "Yeah." Impish glee danced in bright blue eyes. "Isn't that what blokes do? Take the object of our affection out, buy them meals and things, and hope they like us enough to put out a bit?"

  Alex opened his mouth, realized he had absolutely no retort to that, and closed it again. He took the offered hand and pulled himself to the edge of the bed. "I'm not easy, Matthews."

  "Don't I know it! I've wanted that hard body of yours for years, and it took a gun to your head to make you give it up. Almost seems a shame to arrest Ronnecker. Of course, he is a psychotic, money-hungry terrorist who'll kill us both for the least thing, so on second thought, I'm not that grateful. Wanna go put him behind bars?"

  Alex shook his head. "Why not? You really are insane. You are aware of that, aren't you?"

  "Oh, yeah. But you love me anyway."

  Alex looked down at their clasped hands. Perhaps. And that could be a very large problem.

  Chapter 2

  * * *

  Ronnecker's smoky eyes burned when he looked at Alex. Pure hatred. Alex just grinned. He'd waited for this moment for over six months, dealing with the need as it grew with each day's passing. If not for Shawn's love and the very real, very deep closeness they'd shared for the past five months, he wouldn't have been able to make it without putting a bullet in the arms dealer's brain. But the false personas blended into the true ones, and he survived the humiliation of public sex by concentrating on the beauty of their private love-making. Months as Shawn's lover let him survive to see their efforts to fruition.

  "You have the right to have an attorney present. If you can't afford an attorney..." Alex could recite it all from memory, quite gleefully. Especially with three fully functional biological weapons secure behind him.

  "You lied! About everything! I thought you were like me." Poison tinted each of Ronnecker's words. "Where's your loyalty to your own people?"

  Shawn grinned over Ronnecker's shoulders as he tested that the cuffs were secure. "Looks like you can't trust anyone." He pushed the captured weapons dealer into an unmarked vehicle, slapping the roof twice to send it on its way. "Well, almost anyone." He held out a hand. "That was a fine take down, Special Agent Ware."

  Alex grinned and shook it before letting Shawn pull him into a hearty hug.

  "You can cut it out. The assignment's over." Special Agent David Andrews grinned as he wandered over to them. He looked down at the open crates with their deadly contents exposed and didn't see the light die in Shawn's eyes. "Nasty pieces of work. It's good to know these are off the market."

  His dark eyes glinted with the same anger they all felt at this sort of terrorism. Shorter by a good five inches than his towering teammates, he was still buff and handsome enough to border on pretty. The girls all seemed to think so anyway. A parade of them passed through his bedroom as regularly as old-time train schedules. But none of them stayed. David's marriage to the Bureau was too secure for any mere female to break up. "No more need for the touchie-feelie stuff."

  Shawn's hold loosened, but he kept his arm over Alex's shoulder. Alex could almost feel the defiance in him, the refusal to accept that he had to go back to where he was. But that was what had to happen, wasn't it? They couldn't continue as they had now the sting was ended. They'd have to return to separate dwellings and separate beds. However much Alex regretted it, their affair had to end. He should step toward David, let that long arm fall away, give the first signal it was over and done.

  His feet wouldn't move.

  Instead he stood and accepted the congratulations of his team and his supervisor with Shawn's arm draped over him. And when they drove back alone to the Hoover Building, he didn't demur when Shawn's hand rested on his thigh for the entire trip. He didn't make a sound when that hand closed over his and held it so tightly it hurt.

  The familiar confines of the parking garage finally freed his tongue. "Shawn..."

  "I know! Alright? I know. I just...there has to be another way." He stared straight ahead, engine still running.

  "What other way? You move in with me and we live the suburban dream? You know it can't happen." The words tasted sour on the back of Alex's tongue.

  "Why? Other men live together. They make it work. Henderson down in Fingerprinting is gay."

  Alex nodded. "And so is Davidson in White Collar. But their partners aren't in their units. They aren't even in the Bureau. We work together. Do you want to break up the team?" Dark hair, longer than he wore it before the sting, moved as Shawn shook his head. "Neither do I. We both know we can't get the kind of assignments we crave with any other unit. So we go back to our old lives and we make it work." Alex couldn't pull his gaze from Shawn, even though the other agent refused to look at him.

  Shawn killed the engine. "So we what? Keep it on the down low and slip off for weekends in Vermont?" Bitter, so bitter Alex could taste it blending with the sour already on his tongue. He honestly hadn't considered that.

  "I suppose we could. I just never envisioned you as a proponent of clandestine love affairs."

  Shawn's head swung to face him. "I'm not. I leave things like that to you." He shoved the door open. "Fine. We'll do this your way. Over and done and back to where we were. It was fun fucking you, Special Agent Ware. Thank you for your time." He slammed the door and stalked off toward the elevators.

  Alex let his head drop back. Lovely. He swallowed against the tightness in the back of his throat and pulled himself from the car. He could only hope Shawn's memory wasn't as long as his ex-girlfriend Maddy's.

  * * * *

  Two weeks' worth of debriefing, reports, meetings with the U.S. Attorney General, and meetings with anyone else who seemed to think they had something to gain from the arrest of James Ronnecker left Alex aching and exhausted. He dropped into his chair and stared at his blotter, the pounding of a tension headache making it impossible to think.

  It would help if he could sleep. But that luxury had become a rare and precious commodity no one traded in. He reached for a file. He might as well try to work. There really wasn't anything else. Besides if he was buried in paperwork, he didn't have to look at Shawn.

  Regardless of how much he wanted to.

  He really needed to schedule another appointment with his therapist. Try to untangle the mess in his head. Maybe then he could get something as simple as a 302 report to make sense. He did several a day, but now it was just gobbledegook on a page. He couldn't completely stifle the groan as a new stab of pain invaded his head.

  "Rough night, Alex? Got a new girlfriend keeping you awake?" David sounded even more annoying when he was chipper.

&nbs
p; Alex's gaze shot straight to Shawn. "No. No, I don't." Pain faded from his former lover's eyes, and Alex sought refuge in his file again. "I just haven't been sleeping well." It was more a mumble than an answer.

  He had the vaguest awareness of David settling on the edge of his desk. "What's the matter, you have laryngitis again? You haven't said a full paragraph all week. Not that I'm complaining. We got used to the peace and quiet while you were undercover."

  "Good." It hurt too much to think up a suitable rejoinder. Besides, that would mean looking up. Looking up meant Shawn and he just couldn't face that too many times today.

  "Whoa. A single word sentence? Who are you and what did you do with Alex Ware?"

  Alex didn't need to look up to know David was grinning.

  "Leave him alone."

  Alex shivered at the Aussie's command and hunched further over the file. All he wanted was to get through the day and not make Shawn any more miserable than he already was. "Just let it go, David. Save it for later."

  "Oh, come on, Alex. It's just a little harmless fun. What bug crawled up your butt today?"

  "I said leave him alone."

  "What? Alex has been acting like the rest of us are too lowly to rate a good morning. I'm just trying to get him stop acting like he has a poker up his ass."

  Alex's desk shifted with the force of David landing against it when Shawn shoved him. "I said... Leave. Him. Alone."

  "Whoa!"

  Alex was up and moving even as David protested. "Shawn, let him go."

  "I'm going break his head if he doesn't shut up." The words grated from between clenched teeth.

  Alex forced Shawn's fists from David's lapel. "It's okay. I can handle it. It's alright."

  "You don't have to put up with his crap." Every line of Shawn's face and body begged David to fight with him.

  Alex pulled him away. "Cut it the hell out." He used pure brute force to drag Shawn down the hall to the library and slam the door closed behind them. Muscles only strained a little as he shoved the other agent against a wall of shelved tomes.

  "Are you really crazy? We aren't undercover any more. You aren't Shawn Wyatt, so you don't have to beat up everyone who disses me." Shawn took on David on his behalf! Fire raced through him. Shawn cared that much. Unbelievable. He stared into that angry, militant face for three long breaths before temptation overcame good sense. Lava settled in his midsection and he welded his mouth to Shawn's. An instant's hesitation and strong arms crushed him to a firm chest.

  "Alex!" Shawn's kisses were urgent, untamed things. "I miss you so much it feels like someone's kicked me in the stomach every time I look at you. I can't keep sitting across from you every day without touching you."

  Alex nodded, reveling in the taste of his lover. "I know. I can't think." Minty gum, coffee, Shawn...the taste he knew so well and craved so badly. Strong, hard sheets of muscle under his hands, thick silky hair between his fingers. Need throbbed low and heavy. An ornamental clock chimed faintly and he recalled he was in the library, not the bedroom of their abandoned loft. He pushed away, gasping, trying to calm his racing heart.

  "We can't do this in here." He panted and pressed his lips tight as if that would keep him from reaching for the other man. "I can't sleep. I can't do anything but think of missing you." He slammed his fist against the books and then shook it against the hurt.

  Shawn's hand closed over it, solid comfort in a burly grip. "Hey, I'm the one with anger management issues." He raised the sore knuckles to his lips. "You could have broken it."

  Dear Lord, it felt so good. "We have to talk."

  Shawn nodded. "But not here. I'll come by your place after work. We'll be alone. We can talk then."

  Alex shook his head. "We'll end up in bed."

  Shawn's grin lit the library and ignited trepidation in Alex's heart. "God I hope so."

  * * * *

  If sitting across from an angry Shawn Matthews had been nerve-wracking, sitting across from a happy one was doubly so. Especially when Alex wasn't sure he could give Shawn what he wanted. This wasn't a case of being able to switch to another unit so they could be a couple. That would work well for Terri and David if David ever managed to pull his head out of his ass and realize he could have the woman of his no doubt vanilla-tinted dreams if he'd just make a few concessions.

  Alex's relationship with Shawn required more than that. Far more. Talk of tolerance was one thing; real life was often something very different. He'd faced enough hazing for not being a stereotypical macho man when he was straight.

  When I was straight... What was he now? He really wasn't sure. Did men appeal to him? He glanced quickly around the room. David certainly didn't. But whether that had more to do with Alex's orientation, or the fact that David could be an obnoxious jerk who he'd dearly love to strangle, remained open for debate. Dear God, if David considered Alex effeminate for growing roses and enjoying poetry, what sort of hell would he face for admitting he had a sexual relationship with David's best guy friend.

  He glanced surreptitiously at his lover. The good Lord knew how much Shawn appealed in so many ways. It fed something inside Alex to know the other man saw beyond the façade and still wanted him with a depth of desire no other lover had ever come close to attaining. But however much he wanted to make Shawn happy, he wasn't sure he could deal with everything that went along with "coming out."

  He knew what it would be like. He'd seen it happen--assignments given to someone else, promotions that just seemed to slip away, suspicion from fellow agents and support people. And that was discounting the more juvenile jokes and comments. The sacred halls of the Hoover Building were far from prejudice free.

  In a flash of brutal honesty, he admitted the career was all he had and all he'd likely be able to retain. At some point, Shawn would fall for some pretty and accomplished woman and settle down to raise adorably rowdy children. And at that point Alex would be left alone, his professional life all that remained and it a field of cratered ruin. And Shawn would have an affair to live down.

  No, he couldn't do that to himself, and he couldn't do it to Shawn. His initial decision was still the correct one. For both of them.

  He scrambled about on his desk for a pen and scribbled a note.

  It's best we not meet tonight. I was wrong today. Nothing's changed.

  He didn't bother to sign it, Shawn would know. He folded it and dropped it on Shawn's desk before he headed for Mark's office.

  * * * *

  Mark had half risen form his desk when Alex knocked and walked in. "I was just going to get you. I need to talk to you."

  Alex closed the door behind him and sank into a chair before the unit supervisor's desk. The African-American might be the one person he'd feel comfortable relating his secret to. But then Mark would feel duty-bound to do something about it. And the Bureau didn't approve of agent/agent involvement, not in the same unit. Better keep his problems to himself and not complicate the big black man's life.

  "If it's about that scuffle with David earlier, it was nothing. Shawn's still adjusting to being back. That's all. When we were undercover, it was expected he pound on anyone who even looked at me askance. He's gotten in the habit of being an overly protective...boyfriend."

  "I know." Mark nodded and settled back into his chair. It creaked a bit. Mark's six-foot-one frame was packed with solid muscle. That bulk, his piercing deep brown eyes, and a pugnacious chin terrified suspects. Rightly so, Mark could be a very physical opponent. He could also be the kindest and most understanding man on the face of the planet. "I've been in deep and I know how hard it is to just pick up your life like nothing happened."

  "You can't." Alex never doubted Mark's understanding or perception, and he'd come to the conclusion over the last week and a half that regardless of what had happened with Shawn, his life was altered forever. Six months as Alex Stevens had taken care of that.

  "No, you can't, but the people around you don't necessarily understand that. Regardless of how well brief
ed they've been."

  "And that's why I'm asking for a transfer. As soon as possible." He said the words. Hard and choking as they were, he said them.

  Mark went very still. "This is about Shawn, isn't it?"

  Alex's attention shot from his contemplation of Mark's name plate to his supervisor. "What? No, I just..."

  Mark help up his hand, quelling the panic. "That's part of what I wanted to talk to you about." He tapped a CD lying on his desk. "We've been going through every piece of evidence, making sure we have an air-tight, no-escape-clause case against James Ronnecker. That's included all surveillance data. As you know, before we sent you under, we knew his club of choice was L'Cage. That's how we set up your initial meeting."

  Alex made a face, indicating he knew that and found it insufferably boring. But Mark continued. "So we packed the place with cameras and mics. For the entire duration of the investigation."

  The panic returned, clenching Alex's chest. He couldn't say anything, his tongue glued to the roof of his dry mouth.

  "We've been going through it. The sound quality is horrible, but we thought Terri could bump up the quality on the video. She's very good at that sort of thing. These days, tech rules, as she says."

  Troops of ants crawled through Alex's stomach. "So you know that Shawn... That I... That is, we were..." He gave up. "You know."

  "Yeah."

  Alex squeezed his eyes tightly closed.

  "I know you both did what you had to in order to survive and complete your mission successfully. I know you literally saved millions of innocent lives and averted a national tragedy. I know you deserve the commendation I've already requested for you both."

  Alex nodded brokenly. It sounded noble when Mark expressed it in such a way. But would he feel the same if the knew the public displays of affection were the least examples of the intimacies he'd shared with Shawn? Probably not.

  "And Terri saw that as well?"

  Mark's affirmative brought on a wave of nausea.