a team. We got exercise. Whatever.”
“This is different, and you know it,” Hunter said. He let out a sigh and made himself comfortable along Grace’s back again. “I don’t get to do these sorts of things with my boyfriends, you know.”
Augh! Guilt! “Why not?” Grace asked suspiciously.
“I’m a bodyguard, Grace. If I had girlfriends, they’d have to be tougher than I am, or I’d be putting them in danger. But I’ve got boyfriends, and if they’re not tougher than I am, that still puts them in danger. And if they are, I still can’t be seen in public with them. I won’t get any jobs because stupid people stereotype.”
Grace frowned. “But… but what if this doesn’t pan out? What if somebody sees you? What if… I don’t know, Felix and Danny split up again? What if Josh decides he wants to get laid and doesn’t want to help people anymore? What if—” Oh my God, oh my God, he couldn’t breathe! “—what if I ruin your life!”
He half expected Hunter to laugh him off, but he didn’t. Instead, he kept up that rocking motion, which, combined with the hot water, didn’t quite make Grace sleepy, but held him inside himself, with his feet on the ground.
“Grace, I don’t want to go back to mercenary gigs. If this doesn’t work, I’ll start a security agency or, I don’t know, teach history in an inner-city school or… hell, even coach football or something. I….”
Grace heard him swallow and almost wanted to shout, “Stop! No! I don’t want to hear this,” but then he remembered how he’d let this man tie him up the night before, and how he’d trusted Hunter to not leave him there, eyes bulging, cock flopping, while Hunter pissed off and had a beer or something.
This was the same thing, right?
The least Grace could do was listen, right?
“What?” he prompted, taking hold of the two hands clasped at his abdomen.
“My last boyfriend went up in flames,” he rasped. “Along with a car, a garage, and half a mansion with a coke-refining operation in the basement.”
Grace’s eyes were going to pop right out of his head. “Oh, dear Gordon,” he said.
“Well, Paulie and I didn’t know about the op in the basement.” Bitterness laced Hunter’s voice. “Nobody knew about that until the car blew up, and then the house went with it. And so did the client.” His voice hitched. “And so did….”
“Your boyfriend,” Grace muttered, feeling awful for him.
“Yeah.” Hunter blew out a breath that tickled the nape of Grace’s neck. “The forensics report said he was killed almost instantly—the concussion of the blast pretty much wrecked his internal organs. They needed dental records and DNA to ID him.” He shuddered, pulling Grace tighter. “I couldn’t.”
“Augh!” Grace turned in his arms. “That’s so horrible. I’m so sorry.” His mouth worked, and he choked back on what he wanted to say, trying to be good, trying to be the sort of person Hunter could trust with this revelation, trying to be—
“Spit it out,” Hunter said, leaning his forehead against Grace’s. “What are you trying to say?”
Grace closed his eyes and took in everything—warm, wet man; sexy, sexy afterglow; the warm water pounding his back from the vast water pipes of a very expensive hotel, and stopped trying to be someone besides Grace.
“Why?”
“Why did someone plant the bomb? Because our employer was a bad man who….” Hunter’s voice trailed off for a moment. “Who apparently got some information that was way above his paygrade about two weeks before the bombing.” He frowned for a moment, and Grace could see him making connections. Then, before Grace could ask what he was thinking, Hunter pulled his attention back to Grace. “But that’s not what you were asking, was it?”
“No,” Grace said, feeling like this whole conversation was above his paygrade. “I was asking why would you trust me with… with….” He rubbed Hunter’s wet chest and tried not to cling to the man when they were both slick and wet in the hotel shower. “With this? Why would you tell… tell me something this important! It’s like trusting… like trusting me in your house with your valuables when you just watched me crack someone’s safe. You know what kind of person I am—I’m irresponsible, goddammit! How am I supposed to take care of this! This hurts you, and I don’t know how to fix it!”
His brow was scrunched, his throat ached, and he wanted to turn into water and flow down the drain,