rivers_bend

Adam, Max and Julian again in the next installment of Caught, the AU of Tiger Trap, which veers off at the point of Vigil. With thanks to tigertrapped for commas, comments and everything else.

Strong Adult rating ~3500 words.

Adam has a job for Max and his own ideas about how it should be done.


Max got up and pulled his jeans back on, looking at Julian sprawled on the bed, his fingers fumbling at the waistband of his own jeans down around his thighs, a smile on his face as he watched Max through his lashes. Now what. This should have been simple. Trouble was, he didn't know what should be simple. Fucking Julian, or getting information out of him. Either way, this, whatever it was that Adam expected… damn him. Maybe this was simple. Julian Tremont was supposed to be a one-off fuck. An irresistible arse and lips that begged to be licked in a situation where he needed fifteen minutes of not thinking about Kit or Sands or Dawson or that fucking clichéd red phone.

Adam had taught him the folly of going back for seconds. Things got complicated. Better when there was an agenda. As there had been with Gideon. Simple, if not always easy. Lust without the hunger. It was the hunger that got dangerous. He watched as Julian lifted his hips so he could get his jeans done up properly. Max could want that amazing arse, but he didn't need it. Nor did he need those lips that were parted just a little as Julian tilted his head back and licked at the corner of his mouth.

Wanting though, that was another thing. He could get Adam's information later. 'Come here,' he said, reaching for Julian's wrist to pull him up. Julian felt loose and hard at the same time under his hands as Max fitted their hips together and kissed where Julian's tongue had been licking.

Julian put his hands on Max's arse and pushed his thigh between Max's legs.

'Do you need to rush off home again?' Max said, 'Or are you going to stay and get that fuck as well?'

'Now?' Julian looked surprised, and rubbed his hip against Max.

Max thought of the clutch of Julian’s throat around him as he’d come. 'Not now.’ He rubbed the curve of his own hip against Julian, soft in his jeans. ‘Could you? Now?'

Julian moved his palm to the small of Max’s back. Teased his thumb over the junction of denim and skin. 'Not even when I was fifteen, I don’t think.’ He sucked Max’s lip into his mouth and ran his tongue over it before letting go to look at him again. ‘I need something to eat first. And maybe a shower.'

Max tried to remember the last time he’d had a shower after sex. Tom? No, the boy at Oxford in the flat with the pink tiles. Gideon always expected him to leave, and gropes in doorways didn’t lend themselves to showering afterwards. ‘I think that can be arranged. Do you want a shower while I find something to feed you?’ Julian looked at him, fighting a smile, and Max pushed him away in the direction of the door. ‘Bathroom’s across the landing.’

Where had this Julian come from? Max considered the man who’d stood shaking against the sink telling Max he’d never been fucked, and then thought again of that mouth; Julian was hardly inexperienced. Just because Adam Carter equated sex with a hard fuck, that didn’t mean Julian hadn’t had plenty to occupy him before Max whispered in his ear. He felt Adam’s fingers tight around his wrist and the brush of his thigh, broader than Julian’s, more assertive, and then pushed the images back, remembering that there weren’t any towels in the bathroom.

Listening to the sound of the water, not sure Julian would hear him, Max tapped on the door.

‘Come in.’

The window was open and the afternoon was warm so there was little steam to hide the stretch of Julian’s body as he lifted his arms to the shower’s spray. Max decided lunch could wait. He leaned against the sink, watching soap wind down Julian’s chest, over his hips, down his legs. When Julian opened his eyes and realised Max was watching him, he turned off the water. Wordlessly, Max held out the towel.

‘Thanks,’ Julian said, drying his face and hair before wrapping the towel around his hips. ‘Sorry, did you want..? Should I have left the water on?’

‘No, I just thought you’d need...’ He gestured towards the towel, wanting to lick the drips of water that were pooling above Julian’s clavicle, wondering if they’d taste of soap or Julian’s skin, then wondering when his libido had got so sentimental. ‘There’s cheese, I think, I could make sandwiches.’

‘Sounds good.’ Julian started rubbing at his hips and thighs with the towel.

‘I’ll leave you to get dressed. You remember where the kitchen is?’

‘Sure.’

The bread was going stale so Max decided to make cheese on toast. Julian came down as he was about to take it out from under the grill.

‘That smells delicious. I can’t think when I last had toasted cheese.’ Julian went to pull out a chair and then said, ‘Can I do anything?’

‘Just sit.’ Max transferred the toast to plates. ‘Do you want a drink?’

‘Water’s fine.’

Max set a plate in front of Julian and the other across the table. He remembered taking Kit rock-climbing and coming back to the house at Fowey, cutting slices of cheese while Kit sat at the table bandaging a gash on his finger, telling Max not to do the cheese so thick or it wouldn’t melt. Was it seeing Adam again - twice in a year now - or something about Julian? Max never let himself get nostalgic like this. Water. Two glasses.

‘How long have you worked for Wrexham?’ Max pushed one of the glasses across the table.

‘Four months. I’ve been with the GLS for about two years. I was working in the Home Office before I moved to the MoD.’ Julian took a bite of his lunch. ‘This is good. Thank you.’

‘How did you get into working for the Government to begin with?’

‘My first job when I qualified was with an international consortium, I worked in the legal department, supposedly doing contracts, second party agreements, that sort of thing, and I hated it. Half my time was spent taking minutes in board meetings.’

‘Sounds like good use of a Cambridge Law degree.’ Max had expected to have to ask more pointed questions to get to Julian’s time at MacIntyre. He hoped Julian wouldn’t change the subject as quickly as he’d veered towards it.

‘The CEO wanted someone who would write analysis of the votes, work with his personal lawyer. The pair of them made my skin crawl.’

‘How long did you work there?’ Max was eating, balancing interest in his food with interest in Julian’s words. In the six months since he’d told Adam to fuck off after the Sashwood affair, he may have lost track of the cars SIS was using to keep an eye on him, but the dance of information gathering was not one he’d forget.

‘Fourteen or fifteen months. It was – boring is what it was. Surely there’s something more interesting to talk about?’

‘Was the Home Office more interesting?’

‘I meant more interesting than my CV. Though I suppose yours is off the table. I’ve clearance, of course, but…’

‘I’m not sure my CV is any more interesting than yours.’

‘Kit told me about some of your assignments; nothing really, a bar in Morocco where your contact turned out to be a fifteen year old girl, and the time you kept him from being arrested – how is Kit? Have you seen him?’

Julian spoke of Kit as though they’d been friends. Max wasn’t surprised, not really, that Kit had turned to Julian, seen something in him that was different to the soldiers and the other men that came under Wrexham’s command; it wasn’t just that Julian was a lawyer. While it was unlikely that Kit had been impressed by Julian’s fuckable arse, he’d still have been drawn to him. ‘He’s fine. Angry with me.’ Why tell Julian that?

‘He’s not grateful? Everything you did…’

‘He’s still angry with me for leaving, after Sashwood.’

‘But surely-’

‘It doesn’t matter. Kit’s never been one to look at the whole picture. Only his part of it, and what suits him ought to suit everyone.’

‘I thought you and he… You’ve been friends for years, haven’t you?’

‘Sometimes.’ Max pushed his empty plate away. ‘Your CV was much more interesting.’

‘It wasn’t. But didn’t you say something about a fuck?’

Max smiled. ‘I think you said it first.’ If that’s what it took to keep him around and talking, Max was hardly going to say no.

--

Julian could feel the water glass cold in his hand and wished he could lift it to his cheeks. Subtle segue, very nice. It was the kind of thing he’d say in a club when it was getting late and it was time to go before the lights came up. Not what he’d imagined himself saying if he ever found himself sitting at Max’s kitchen table eating lunch. At least Max was smiling.

‘We can even use the bed this time if you’d like,’ Max said.

Julian felt his cheeks heat further as he remembered thinking how much better the fuck would have been with lube and without the sink. He couldn’t quite believe he was getting a second chance to find out.

Max stood and started clearing the plates away. They both jumped a little as a phone started ringing in Max’s pocket. Julian remembered seeing it on the hall table when he came in, Max must have picked it up when he came downstairs. Grimacing as he pulled it out, Max thumbed it on and said, ‘Lawrence.’

It was so similar to how Sir Charles, the CEO of MacIntyre, answered the phone that Julian was taken aback.

‘No,’ Max was saying. ‘I said- …Yes, it’s under control.’

Sir Charles Lawrence had a nephew. Julian had imagined he was young, Sir Charles controlled his trust, but the things he’d overheard actually made more sense if that nephew was someone Max’s age. Unusual for a trust to extend past 18, or 21 if someone were being conservative, but wresting control from a man like that wouldn’t be easy. Especially not if you had something he wanted, like a vote on the board. The coincidence would be extraordinary, but Lawrence wasn’t that common a name that Julian thought it completely unlikely.

‘I told you I’d ring you.’ Max turned his back on Julian, wrapping white-knuckled fingers around the edge of the counter. ‘I didn’t know either… You’re just going to have to trust me.’

Max hung up the phone. His face was dark when he turned around. ‘You’d better go,’ he said to Julian.

This was the Max who had threatened to shove his teeth down his throat, but with not a hint that the anger was a façade. ‘Okay,’ he said, wondering who had phoned and what they’d said.

‘Another time maybe, for the fuck I mean.’ Not exactly selling it, but Julian still felt a flash of hope.

‘Okay,’ he said again. ‘Thanks for lunch, and, well, thanks.’ He walked towards the front door, not waiting to see if Max was following him, just wanting to escape before he stopped to ask what the fuck was going on.

--

Max swore as he heard the front door shut behind Julian. Adam never knew where to draw the line, when to turn around and walk away, which had always been his trouble. If he’d left well enough alone, Max would have Julian upstairs now, writhing beneath him, lips parting for Max’s tongue, cock going hard under Max’s palm… instead, he’d left, face pinched closed, and it was going to be twice as hard to get him talking again.

One of the plates chipped against the base of a glass as Max shoved the dishes into the sink. ‘Stop,’ he said to himself, thinking, it’s not worth it. He’s not worth getting angry about. He wasn’t sure if he meant Adam or Julian.

He was putting the last of the dishes in the drying rack when a knock interrupted him. Adam’s heavy-handed presence. He wished briefly that he could just ignore the door. Better to let Adam in than have to deal with him and a broken lock, however.

‘What?’ he said, cursing his bare feet, a combat boot wedged under the door might actually keep Adam on the front steps.

‘Lover boy didn’t look very happy when he left. What did you say to him?’

‘How much did it cost to train me?’

‘What?’

‘You said I was a natural. Even at seventeen, that I was a natural at this. And then you spent thousands, hundreds of thousands, to train me, and still you’re checking up on me like I’m a new recruit.’

‘Let me in.’ Adam put a hand on the door.

‘We’ve been through this once today already.’

‘Let me in, kid.’

Max walked away, leaving the door, going to fix himself a drink. It felt like a parody of their meeting this morning. This time he wasn’t doing it without alcohol. He’d poured a healthy slug of vodka into a glass and was adding tonic when he felt Adam behind him. Without turning, he drank it down.

‘Fix me one too.’

‘Make your own,’ Max said, pouring himself another before going to sit in one of the wing-backed chairs.

Adam took his time, fixing his drink, turning the glass in his fingers, sipping it, watching Max, who did his best to ignore Adam’s presence.

‘You’ve been out of the game a while.’

Max looked at Adam, didn’t say anything.

‘This kid’s not Gideon Ware, to be strung along.’

‘Do you want to do this? I could introduce you. I’m not sure you’re his type, not that you’d let that bother you. Or why don’t I fuck him while you watch? You can interrogate him while I’ve got my cock in his arse.’

‘Kid-’

‘I’m not just going to wade in with both feet, scare him off, make him wonder what I’m after. He’s not some snitch brought in for questioning.’

‘Kid, you don’t-’

‘No. If you don’t think I know what I’m doing, get someone else. I didn’t ask for this assignment, I don’t need it, I don’t need you. Just fuck off.’

‘Come on.’ Adam was suddenly close enough to grab Max’s arm. He’d forgotten how fast Adam moved when he wanted something. In one motion he pulled Max up, took his glass and put it on the table, and pushed Max back against the side of the chair. ‘Stop fighting.’ His voice was a whisper against Max’s ear.

Max got his hands up between them, but Carter was immovable. He felt the familiar fingers close round his neck as the hand on his arm moved to his left hip. Adam was will and muscle, not giving an inch. Frustrated, angry, Max felt his hands fisting in Adam’s shirt, pulling him closer, and he bent his head, moving until his mouth was under Adam’s, kissing him.

He didn’t wait for the thrust of Adam’s tongue, sucked it into his mouth instead, pushed with his hipbones at the grip of Adam’s hand. The hand at his throat tightened and he tilted his head back, lengthening his neck, becoming what Adam wanted while he slid a hand up and into Adam’s hair. When he reached the curve of his crown, where his hair got long enough to grip, Max pulled, forcing Adam away from Max’s teeth biting at his lip.

‘You want to do this, you can suck me,’ he said, forcing Adam’s head back until the fingers on Max’s throat went slack.

‘The admiral’s boy not enough for you?’

‘Do you want it or not? I’ll fuck your throat or you can fuck off and leave me alone.’

‘You don’t want me to fuck you?’ Adam was grinding his cock into Max’s groin, pressing his skull back into Max’s palm, no sign of getting on his knees.

‘No then? Fuck off.’ Max shoved at Adam and slipped away.

‘Ah, kid, you don’t mean that.’ Adam reached out and pulled him back with an arm around his waist, a hand on his cock. Max was as hard as he'd ever been with Adam, helpless against the touch of those fingers. ‘I knew you didn’t mean it. Gimme this.’ He had his fingers down Max’s waistband, stroking him and undoing buttons at once. Max could feel Carter hard against the curve of his arse and knew if he didn’t turn around now Adam would be fucking him, pushing him forward against the table or the granite top of the drinks cabinet, bruising him. He got his elbow back into Adam’s ribs, loosened Adam’s grip on him, turned and pushed Adam back and down.

‘I said you could suck me.’

Adam got on his knees then, looking up at Max with eyes shot almost completely black. His fingers pushed aside Max’s jeans and his thumbs found the tender points inside his hipbones, dug at them, bruising. Max refused to give, didn’t murmur a protest, just thrust towards Adam’s face, thrust harder against the pain of those thumbs, said again, ‘Suck me.’

Adam opened his mouth and licked, flat heat against Max’s shaft, eyes never leaving Max’s face. Max pushed again, legs cramping with the pressure in his groin, reaching a hand to steady himself against the chair as Adam sucked. His other hand moved to the back of Adam’s head, tilting it to the thrust of his hips.

Adam gave up then, moving his hands to grip Max’s arse, encouraging him forwards into the clutch of his throat. Fucking into his mouth, Max didn't care if Adam could breathe, didn't let him use his tongue, just rocked under Adam’s palms. He thrust deeper and then pulled almost all the way out, watched Adam’s eyes tear as he fucked back in, felt the scrape of teeth as he changed angles, thinking of the times Adam had used his mouth like this, had shoved him towards Glen. When Adam’s fingers started pulling at him, Max held his head hard and fucked deep, not moving, just feeling the panicked flutter of Adam’s throat around him as he tried to fight, tried to breathe.

Max pulled back and came in Adam’s mouth, wanting Adam to taste him.

‘Fuck,’ Adam panted, pushing Max away, ‘if that’s how you’re treating the admiral’s kid, no wonder he walked out of here the way he did.’ He rested his hand on the chair for a moment and then pushed himself to standing.

Max thought of the practiced swallowing of Julian’s throat around his cock, Julian giving him head, nothing at all like this. All the times he’d been on his knees for Adam, trying to give him something, but Adam always managed to take more than whatever that was. Too much to think about now.

‘You got what you wanted, now get out of here.’

‘I don’t think so. I always took care of you, didn’t I?’ Adam took Max’s hand and pressed it against his cock.

Max palmed Adam through his trousers, waiting for the catch, but Adam just undid his zipper and pushed Max’s hand inside.

'I always knew you liked it rough, kid.'

Max didn't answer, just gripped Adam harder, working his wrist.

'Is that the trouble with Tremont? He looks like a nice boy, does he not know how to play with someone like you?' Adam's voice was rough from the battering his throat had taken, and his breathing was ragged.

'I know how to play him,' Max said. Adam was gripping his shoulder now, holding himself upright. 'That's all you get to worry about.'

'I worry about you - fuck, yes -' Max moved his thumb again over the head of Adam's cock, '- about you getting what you need.'

'Like you made sure I got it from Tom? From Gideon? If you were that worried, you knew where I was.'

'You know I -' Adam jerked Max forwards by his shoulder and kissed him, biting at his mouth as he came.

Max was sucking the blood from his lower lip when Adam took his wrist and held Max's hand up. 'D’you want it?' he asked, meaning, Max assumed, the come slicking his fingers and palm. He just looked at Adam and tried to pull his hand away, but Adam brought it to his own mouth, licked the flat of his hand and sucked his fingers. With a final bite to the base of Max's thumb, Adam released his wrist and zipped himself back into his jeans.

'Aren't you going to thank me?' he said.

Max reached around Adam to get his drink from the table.

'You'll ring when you find out what the kid knows.'

'I'll ring. Shall I see you out this time?' Max walked towards the door, waiting for Adam to follow.

'I'll see ya, kid.'

Max shut the door on Adam's retreating back and wondered if Julian was going to turn up again, just to put the finish on his day.

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