Torch (Unbreakable Bonds 3)

“You’ve been on my couch and I’ve fucked there, too.” Snow smirked and pointed. “You’ve leaned on that wall. Wonder why there isn’t any art on it? There are no sacred spots in this house.”

“You have a one-track mind, Doc.” He rolled onto his side and propped his head on his hand. “Is it still that good with Jude?”

“It’s fucking mind-blowing. I can’t get enough of him and don’t see that ever changing.”

“It’s love then. One hundred percent love.”

Snow nodded, blue eyes locked with Rowe’s. “What I feel for Jude humbles me. He just…he shines light into all my dark corners. I’m the luckiest man on the face of the earth.” As if he realized how uncharacteristically romantic he was being, he shuddered. Then he hiccoughed and tilted the bottle of tequila, eyeing the tiny bit left at the bottom. “But tomorrow, we’re both gonna feel really, really fucking far from lucky.”

“Arm wrestle for the last shot?”

“Nah. It’s yours. I’d have to move and Sergeant is all comfortable.”

Rowe dropped his head, groaning again. “I don’t know if I like this new domesticated Snow.”

“Hey, I’ve seen you brush your dog’s teeth, so you have no room to talk.” His face suddenly twisted in dismay. “Do people brush cat teeth?” He looked down at Sergeant. “Do they make brushes that small?”

He pictured Snow holding a tiny toothbrush and the resulting horrified expression of the tiny animal on his chest and lost it again.

Snow did, too. In fact, his laugh hit at the same time as a hiccough, which made him sort of giggle instead. It was the most undignified, unmanly sound he’d ever heard come from the surgeon. Rowe snorted, met Snow’s gaze and they both cracked up. The kitten, disturbed by all Snow’s shaking, jumped from his chest and pattered off. When its mews actually penetrated their laughter, he lifted his head and spotted Jude grinning in the doorway. He wore his black uniform and it matched the tousled mess of his hair and the close beard he’d been wearing that made him look kind of rakish. Yeah, rakish was the right word coming to his inebriated mind. He squinted at Jude’s arms. They were nice and big like Noah’s. Jude held the kitten close as he shook his head at them. “Tequila, General? Remember what we tried doing the last time you drank that?”

Choking, Snow slowly rolled onto his stomach on the rug and grinned up at Jude with the most sex-filled smile Rowe had ever seen.

Jude’s eyes narrowed and he set the cat down and came toward them. When he dropped to his knees in front of Snow, Rowe thought maybe he’d have to hurry up and leave. He reached out, groping along the coffee table for his keys.

A hand shoved his off and he blinked at a blurry Jude.

“Like we’d let you drive like this, you dumb shit. Take one of the guest rooms; there are two.” He looked back down and ran his finger over Snow’s top lip. “In fact, you’d better take the one farthest from ours.”Chapter 18The house was too quiet when Rowe walked in late the next morning. The dogs still rushed to see him, but there was an underlying anxiety to their greeting, as if they waiting for reassurance that everything was going to be okay. They were such sensitive creatures. But the heavy stillness made it hard for him to breathe.

Noah was there. The rental was in the driveway and the alarm was turned off. But there was no murmur of the television or thumping beat of music pouring out of one of the other rooms. No strumming of his guitar. No bangs or clangs or stomps of Noah moving around the house.

He’d gotten used to all of Noah’s noises. The man sang in the shower and he cursed when he was in the kitchen. He talked to the dogs when they followed him from room to room. When he walked down the hall to the guest bedroom, he always hit that one spot in the floor that creaked, as if he felt the need to warn Rowe that he was moving through the house.

They’d lived together a few times while in the Army and Rowe had forgotten that he could always feel when Noah was moving around the same space as him, even when he was making no noise at all. And Noah was there in the house now…but it felt all wrong. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the kind of wrong that he could so easily settle with a gun cradled between two hands. He’d fucked up in a big way and a night facing some hard truths with Snow had left Rowe a little surprised that Noah was still there. Any sane man would have said “fuck you” and been on the next plane out of Cincinnati.