Bound for Keeps (Men of Honor) (3 page)

Definitely military.

He called Shane’s name a few times so he didn’t startle him, and Shane finally stopped, but he didn’t turn. He accepted Reed’s hand on his shoulder. And when Reed realized it wasn’t going to work, he picked him up over his shoulder and double-timed it back to the house.

Keith was waiting, opened the door and took Shane from him.

“Hey, it was well under twenty minutes,” Reed called as he stripped.

“Yeah, you made it by half a second,” Keith told him as he put Shane down on the chair and got his clothing off so he wouldn’t get the bed wet. By the time Reed got there, Keith had him tucked in and had the IV running.

“You warmed the blankets?” Reed asked.

“Shut up, Reed,” Keith warned.

“I know when to cut my losses,” Reed told him, buried his face against Keith’s chest as a form of thank-you, because he still had trouble saying the words after all these years.

Chapter Four

Cold. So goddamned cold. He shivered, despite the fact he had long johns on under his uniform and tried to concentrate instead on the task at hand.

You’re not back in Iraq with Kyle. You’re feverish. In the Catskills somewhere.

But the dream pulled him in, and he could see Kyle’s serious face as the older man placed a blanket over him and handed him a hot cup of bad coffee.

He was on the hard ground, unable to be moved. His ears were ringing.

Kyle. Staring down at him.

“You’re okay, brah. You’re going to be just fine.”

Shane couldn’t actually hear the words, thanks to the roadside bomb exploding so close to him. But he read Kyle’s lips and his eyes, because the man had always had such expressive eyes.

He put a hand up to Kyle’s cheek. Wanted to express,
yeah, I got you
, but Kyle’s eyes widened in surprise. It took Shane a few seconds to understand. Kyle’s mouth opened, and Shane wanted to sit up, especially when he saw Kyle’s face contort, a rictus of pain before his face went slack.

Shane tried to move, saw a figure move away, but not before he saw exactly who it was. But his attention pulled back to Kyle, who fell over to one side, on Shane’s legs. Shane, who couldn’t move himself. He screamed. At least he hoped he was, because he couldn’t hear his own voice.

He was so goddamned cold.

Reed checked on Shane, who was restless as hell. His eyelids fluttered and he groaned, thrashed in sleep. Reed adjusted the meds. He didn’t want to knock him out completely, because the fever was already doing a great job of that, but Shane was too agitated to let his body heal.

He hadn’t worked fast enough though, because Shane let out the most heartfelt scream Reed ever heard. It was like a plea, like…

“He’s mourning,” Keith said from the doorway when the screams died down suddenly, cut by the narcotics Reed pushed.

Reed rubbed the goose bumps on his arms away, noted that Keith had come all the way into the room—the first time in days—and held Shane’s hand.

“Think he’s dreaming of Kyle?” Reed asked finally.

“He’s seen combat,” Keith said grimly. “Could be reliving that.”

Reed wondered if he’d screamed like that. He must’ve, and more than once.

“Don’t go back there, Reed,” Keith said quietly. A command. An order, despite the softness, and Keith was very good at giving them. Reed met his eyes—deep and dark. The keeper of all Reed’s secrets—and God knew, there were a lot of them. “I swear to you, I will throw this kid out into the snow if this brings you back to that place.”

Keith would never do that, but he would separate Reed from Shane. “I can do this.”

“I know you can. But do you want to?”

Reed could drive Shane to the hospital. Could’ve done so two days ago when the storm broke and Keith went out to stock up on supplies before they were socked again. Their Christmas Ever dinner feast had lasted them for a good long time, even if they didn’t get to start it until well into Christmas Day.

“I need to,” was all Reed said. Keith continued to hold Shane’s hand until the boy totally calmed. He knew they’d both noted the light band of scars that circled each wrist all the way around.

“They’re about a year old,” Reed noted.

“He’s been held. Captured,” Keith said quietly. Reed rubbed his own wrist unconsciously under the thick leather bracelet of Bobby’s he always wore over it. His scars were older but otherwise the same. Deep. Ugly. Never going to heal.

Men like Reed never wanted to be held down. Sitting patiently wasn’t in his DNA. Not in Shane’s either.

Reed let Shane’s wrist go after several long moments, and Shane immediately tucked it under the pillow, like he was trying to hide it. Or like he was used to sleeping with a gun under his pillow.

“Look how he sleeps,” Keith told Reed. Shane was on his stomach, one arm curled around the pillow, another stuck underneath his head and under the pillow and, if he’d had a weapon, Reed had no doubt Shane’s hand would be wrapped around his gun right now. A classic pose for CIA, FBI, detectives…not really a military move, though.

“If he’s been running from someone, that could explain it,” Reed said as he stared at the boy with a little frown on his face. “He looks so young when he’s sleeping.”

“Because he is young.” Keith turned to him. “At least you didn’t use the word ‘innocent’.”

“With a military man? Never.” He reached for Shane’s wrists, and the man restlessly moved but didn’t wake as Reed exposed them. Keith stared at him for a long minute before Reed nodded. Keith took the two pairs of padded, binding cuffs and hooked one wrist and one ankle each to their closest bedpost.

“It’s for his own good,” Keith told him quietly.

“I know.” But Reed’s voice was quieter than he’d meant it to be.

Keith pulled the covers up over Shane’s chest, put a hand on Reed’s shoulder for a second and then walked out.

Reed followed after several minutes. Found Keith at the desk by the computer, a large sandwich on a plate next to him.

“Want half?” Keith asked as Reed reached for it.

“Forgot to eat,” he mumbled around the food. Didn’t say anything else until he’d finished that half and then the other, realized that Keith had actually made the sandwich for him. Because if Keith had handed it to him and told him he needed to eat, Reed would’ve refused. In many ways, he was more of a stubborn bastard than Keith.

He sank into the chair next to his partner, put his feet on the desk and sighed. His back ached—neck too—and he knew he needed a nice, long run along with some weightlifting. And sex. They were way overdue on something more than a quick shower and blowjob.

“Shane’s ID isn’t fake,” Keith told him.

Reed’s feet came down, and he was looking at the intel on the computer that Keith was definitely not supposed to have. But no one told a Force Recon Marine no.

Not often, anyway.

“Whoever erased him has to be high up. Is he being trained?”

Sometimes the CIA pulled promising candidates straight from the military for deep undercover work off the grid. Shane could be more dangerous than either man realized, although both had considered it. That was also why, especially now, Houdini was semi-shackled to the bed.

They needed to keep their own safety tantamount. Reed could always count on Keith for that—he was the one who made Reed feel protected during a time when no one else—not even Bobby—could.

“I’ll dig a little more, but from what I can see, he was a good soldier. Being recommended for Ranger school, not Delta.” Being recommended for Delta was rare, but it did happen. Reed was a living, breathing example. Part Creek on his mother’s side, full Irish on his father’s, he had both the bluster and the quiet. He was from a family of medicine and battle—it was in him from birth. When the time came to choose, he’d decided to combine both instead. He was a medic in Delta, and when he was on medical leave from the team, he’d decided to stay in the Army and go to med school, since he rarely slept anyway.

“Was there a Kyle in his company?”

“No.” Keith sighed and pushed the keyboard away. “This is all Milsaps could give me.”

“And you can’t get anything else?”

“You’re the one with the Army connections.”

Reed grabbed his cell phone. iPhone. Whatever the hell it was. He never needed fancy—he just needed it to ring.

And it did. Prophet was on the other end. A good and dangerous man to know.

“Proph, it’s Reed.”

“Boy, you only call when you need a favor.”

“Ditto, asshole. And who the hell are you calling boy?”

Prophet hooted. “Hit me.”

Reed gave him the intel, and Prophet promised he’d have something within twenty-four hours. Reed heard bombs going off in the background and declined to ask where and what Proph was doing now.

“What’re we going to do until then?” Keith asked as he stretched his big body in the chair. He looked like a growly bear, abs like steel and a grip to match. And Reed wanted all of that, wanted to motion for Keith to come hang with him on the couch. The fire was going, the storm had picked up, and their patient was resting comfortably.

But something was holding Reed back, and he had no clue what it was.

Bullshit. You know—you just don’t want to deal with it.

“I’ve got to work out,” Reed muttered, pushed out of the room, feeling Keith’s eyes on him. And as much as he wanted the man to follow, he prayed harder that he stayed away.

Keith would give Reed the wide berth he needed—for now. But not for longer than the next twenty-four hours, because that’s when the real trouble would begin.

He wasn’t Bobby—Reed had never expected him to be. But Keith and Bobby were both kids of the streets, dumped into foster-care systems that beat them up and spit them out. They were both angry, chip-on-their-shoulder men who understood exactly what they needed.

Reed’s desires were slightly more mercurial. When he’d come into their lives, they’d treated him with kid gloves. At first. It was only after Reed’s first tantrum of sorts that they both realized that Reed needed the kind of handling Keith and Bobby could give him—and both men had been only too happy to show him so.

Now, Keith heard the click of weights moving up and down. Reed was spinning, grinding his gears, and Keith would stay up tonight and watch for any nightmares that might follow.

He could still hear Shane’s screams in his ears. Only men who’d been through hell yelled like that, and only when their defenses were completely down. It was why most of the former military men Keith knew rarely slept, and when they did, they slept alone.

He hadn’t slept alone for long stretches of time in years, and he was grateful for it. Heard the clink of the weights grow faster and pictured Reed’s taut, sweaty body as he worked off some steam.

He had some other ideas about working things off, but he’d wait until the man came to bed. And while he had some time before that happened, he went into the steam shower, a place crowded with memories, all good, and he sat in the heat for a while and let himself reflect. At times like this, he always thought back to his first time with Bobby.

He’d known the man since he’d enlisted at seventeen, but nothing happened until Keith turned twenty-one. Bobby was twelve years older, a celebrated Force Recon Marine who’d been called in to train new recruits and pick the best of the bunch. At the time, the special forces branches were all growing and they’d needed to handpick men rather than waiting for the men to come to them.

Keith had been one of the lucky ones chosen, hadn’t known much about Force Recon before Bobby took him aside and explained what the elite force was all about. He’d stared at the broad man with nearly white-blond hair, buzz cut into a high and tight, and, if he looked back now, he’d admit that he’d fallen in love. At the time, he’d told himself he’d fallen in love with the idea of being a Force Recon Marine. For Bobby, Keith applied himself harder than he ever had in his life. He was built for all the punishment and camaraderie the Marines had to offer, reveled in it, grew the hell up, and fast. Learned to be a man instead of the street punk he’d been in very real danger of becoming.

It took a year before he was through the basics of Force Recon training, but he’d passed the most important tests. He’d also managed to drive Bobby fucking nuts, and he hadn’t really been sure why at the time.

Okay, yeah, he’d been kind of sure, because he’d wanted to be with the man for years. Bobby had an open-door policy, widely rumored, that had men showing up to his door at midnight on Saturdays. If the porch light was on, it was first come, first served.

No one would ever admit to being there, but Keith had a feeling more than a few guys he’d known had. He’d never gotten up the balls to do so, probably because he was afraid Bobby would tell him he was too big a pain in the ass and turn him away.

But he wasn’t thinking about any of that the night he’d learned he’d be continuing on with the training. That night had been for celebrating. Letting his guard down, for the first time in what felt like forever. He recalled dancing. On tables. Cheering. A lot of bluster from a lot of Marines. And then he was dragged out of the back of the club by Bobby. Stood face to face with the man who outranked him and whose service he would be under for the next who knew how many years, and remembered how much he’d mouthed off to him lately.

He could, unfortunately, do nothing but laugh at that moment, barely remember his own name. And he’d been far too drunk to adequately defend himself, especially since Bobby bound and gagged him efficiently and threw him in the back of his SUV. When they got to Bobby’s house, he dragged Keith inside and bound his arms behind him and to a chair, with rope around his chest as well. The bonds were so tight he couldn’t move his upper body, and he didn’t dare move his legs, or he knew they’d be tied before he could protest. He’d take his freedom in small doses.

And then, Bobby took the gag out of his mouth. Keith coughed. Bobby gave him water and Keith drank it down, wondering if this was all part of some bizarre Force Recon initiation. Because, according to the notice he’d received, he’d passed muster, been accepted.