Episode 2
Ethan
Ethan looked at this Josh, so gorgeous, pretty, hard and needy. He was one of the easiest assignments he’d ever had. His bright blue eyes were heavy with lust, and then sooty black lashes swept Josh's face as he shut his eyes tight. Ethan didn’t kiss on jobs like this, ever, nor did any of his clients ever get to know his real name. But right now, seeing Josh’s lips parted in a moan, his name repeated over and over, it was all he could do not to bite down on Josh’s plump lower lip and then lick his way into that appealing open mouth. Groaning, he pulled himself back, he needed to get his head back in the game, and he wasn’t going to expose his vulnerability like that. He focused back on what he was doing, turning Josh into a pile of sobbing need in his arms.
"Wanna suck me?" Ethan asked, low and insistent. "Want me to force you to your knees, and make you suck me until I come all over your skin, rub it in… make you beg for me?"
Ethan felt Josh push at him and smirked, it had been a rhetorical question, but he understood the response. It was clear that Josh didn’t want to participate in conversation, he had said he just wanted to be fucked, and that is what Ethan intended to do. He shoved Josh, twisting his fingers over the head of his trick’s hard length again; using every clever move he knew, unrelenting, bending his head to bite a mark into the base of Josh’s neck, hearing the guy keen at the touch.
"When I am fucking you…" Ethan said, "you shout my name, you shout for me," he finished in broken sentences. A final twist of his hand was enough to send Josh hurtling into orgasm, success, as Josh arched and lost it hot and wet over Ethan’s hand. Ethan watched, struck with the flush of accomplishment as Josh bowed his head in completion. Ethan hadn't finished, his service always included two for one, and this was one ass he wanted to be in, needed to be in. Jeez, his job wasn’t often this much fun.
He maneuvered Josh to the bed, giving the guy no chance to back out, unaccountably hard at the view of pretty blue eyes and the instant capitulation. He manhandled Josh onto all fours, facing him sideways on the bed, all while checking the angles. He reached for more lube in the drawer where he had left it, condoms with a multitude of colored wrappers tumbling onto the bed. He knew Josh would still be relaxed from his orgasm. Josh’s harsh breathing made him sound as if he’d run a marathon, breath catching, and heaving, pleas for it not to stop.
Ethan wasn’t going to stop; he wasn’t going to hang around waiting for the guy to get cold feet. He needed this to be fucking done.
Using enough slick to ease his finger into Josh’s tight hole, a second catching on the first, he listened to the obscene slip-slide of wet on skin. Watched it clinically as it dripped to the covers below, wanting this prep to be fast, but for it to be done well enough to matter. He twisted and touched, drinking in the delicious sounds of Josh beneath him as Josh pushed back on the fingers in his ass. Ethan wiped his hands, then reached for a condom and sheathed his own hard dick, then he found the bundle of nerves inside Josh. His client was near sobbing his name as Ethan had asked him to.
"Ethan, Ethan, fuck, Ethan, Ethan."
It was enough to know that the client was aware of who it was who was taking him to places he had probably never been, enough to get Ethan off himself. Sending a prayer to the gods that guided anyone who sold their body for money, he entered Josh with little finesse. Pushing strong and deep into the heaving body beneath him, he gripped Josh's thighs as he rutted and marked the man who was paying Ethan to make him feel. He leaned back slightly to watch as he buried himself time after time inside Josh, his own orgasm building as Josh demanded, "More. Fuck you. More. Harder."
Ethan buried a hand in Josh's short brown hair, twisting his fingers in it, making sure to pull his head to the left with a hard tug, leaning over him and grabbing a bruising kiss. It was vital that Josh should get his money's worth, and Ethan was satisfied only when Josh had lost it again, without one touch to his hard dick. Then he allowed himself to come deep inside the dark tightness, coming harder than he had in a long time, profanities on his tongue as he bent low, feeling the pump and grind of his dick inside Josh.
He waited inside for five breaths—that was all he ever allowed himself when an orgasm was wrenched from him with such intensity, just enough time to listen to the whimpers beneath him. There was an odd feeling in his chest, and he recognized it as regret, regret that he had to leave, and it seared him as he softened and eased out. He discarded the condom and pulled on his pants, catching sight of himself in the wall mirror, seeing the smeared kohl around his eyes, the sheen of sweat on his skin. He was debauched
"Time’s up," he ground out, grabbing at Josh's wallet and taking out the folded notes in there, dropping it to the bed. It was empty now of all but photos of a kid with tousled hair and a toothy grin. He didn’t meet the sapphire eyes, sleepy and sated, as his client watched him leave. This was Ethan's job, and he was damn good at it, he didn't suffer one moment of guilt or indecision. Not one moment.
Not even as cameras had recorded every profanity, every thrust, and every moan, of Josh Anderson's walk on the dark side, all for his ex-wife's lawyers to suggest he was an unfit father.
Ethan would be well paid for this. He had asked for twenty thousand for tonight, and hadn’t settled for one cent less, played his part well, got the evidence his boss needed. Josh had been very pretty, all Ivy League short hair, slim hips and thoughtful blue eyes, no hardship involved at all. Josh had been incendiary.
"Thank you," the words were almost whispered, but Ethan heard them as he walked away. Thank you? Who the hell thanked the person they paid to fuck them. He hadn’t gone halfway down the hall before something inside, something old and ingrained started to crack open, and just because of those two freaking words. He stopped. Checking his reflection in the dirty glass of the landing window, he saw more of the same, a man in his mid-twenties who had resolved this would be his last job, his last set-up. Ethan knew Josh was fighting for custody of his son, and leaving him was proving difficult.
Mission accomplished as usual, but he abruptly knew it wasn't the victory he wanted.
He shook his head. He was going to screw this entire thing up, it was a job, nothing more. He didn’t have to worry about consequences in situations like this—it was the end result he needed to think about. He shook off his unease and took the stairs three at a time, landing in the foyer with a final jump. The reception area, behind bars, was empty of the usual guy who took a hundred dollar cut for every client hookers brought here.
Ethan almost made it to the front door, but he stopped maybe three feet inside. He couldn’t make himself go out into the street. His head was telling him to go, and his not-often-listened-to heart telling him to go back to the room. The things he did, the things that made him the best at what he did, they told him to leave, to let his partner pick up the mess now. His heart though. Just seeing the picture of the boy he only knew as the one people were fighting over? That image started to chip away at his reserves. With that final thank you from the man he had fucked into the mattress, he was just finished. Cursing, he walked back up the stairs, this time slower, wondering what the hell he was going to say to the person he should never see again.
When he arrived at the door and pushed it open, it was to see Josh sitting on the side of the bed. His head in his hands, he was half-dressed, his posture one of total defeat. Josh looked up startled as Ethan moved past him into the room and crossed to the closet, his height meaning he could reach over the top and to the boxes that sat there, yanking down the top one and tossing it onto the bed.
"It was recorded," Ethan explained, standing with legs wide and steady in front of the bemused Josh, waiting for a reply.
The color drained from Josh’s face, his blue eyes bright against pale skin as he opened the box to reveal a neat little camcorder taped inside. Ethan watched as Josh picked at the duct tape, pulling the video camera free and holding it in shaking hands. It was obvious Josh had questions, but nothing was coming out, and he was just staring at the camera and then up to Ethan, his face a mask of shock.
"Take it." Ethan instructed, "Destroy it," he added, and then walked to the door, taking his leave of this whole sorry deal.
"Wait," he heard Josh call out after him, "Ethan…"
Ethan paused in his tactical retreat, turning on his heel, his face blank of the emotions that churned in his stomach, emotions foreign to him.
"You didn’t pay me to talk," he bit out, staying in character.
Josh quirked an eyebrow in confusion. "I didn’t pay you to hand me a camera that filmed us fucking either." He had a point. Ethan heard a thread of coolness in Josh, and he sighed. What was it about this man and his thank you that was causing Ethan to throw years of work out of the window? He wondered what to say, his usual confidence missing in this alien situation.
"They paid me to fuck you, film you, I got a conscience is all. That is all you need to know." Ethan offered, taking a step back towards the door. Josh just stared at him, and Ethan knew he wasn’t hiding his emotions as well as he had hoped, Josh wasn’t stupid, would see through anything he tried to say.
"Who paid you?" Josh asked.
"Anonymous," Ethan responded. "Something about a custody battle."
Josh shook his head. He had the weight of the world settling on him, and he seemed exhausted.
"I want full custody of my son. He’s nearly ten, with his mother most of the time, he’s…I see him holidays…odd weekends…" Ethan nodded at Josh’s words, acknowledging he knew that much. "He needs me…he…shit…last time…I saw bruises." He stopped talking, fear flashing in his eyes that he had maybe said too much, and instead Ethan watched as Josh focused on the camera. "So they film this? Her husband-to-be? Her lawyers? And they do what with it? Blackmail me into backing off?"
Ethan shrugged, Josh was getting too close to the center of this with his observations. "It’s what they usually do."
"They?"
"Lawyers and shit."
Josh appeared defeated. Then he pulled something from inside him. A determination to fight and to not let this go.
"They pay you well?" Josh asked.
"They do. I quit though." Ethan stood his ground even as Josh took a step towards him, anger in his stance, calm, his chest bare, each muscle defined more than he would’ve expected from an accountant. "You were my last job," Ethan added, gesturing towards Josh.
"Hence the sudden conscience?" Josh asked.
Ethan winced; there was nothing but derision in Josh’s voice as the older man withdrew his hands from his pockets and curled them into fists at his side.
"No," Ethan shook his head, and one side of his mouth lifted in a kind of twisted amusement. "Fuck knows what caused that one." Although if he were to list the reasons, he imagined a pretty face and blue eyes would be somewhere at the top of that list. He shifted to one side as Josh reached past him and pushed the door shut, stiffening as he expected the first punch. Instead, Josh moved back to the bed, turning his back to Ethan and sighing, dropping his shoulders. Ethan wasn’t stupid either; because of him, Josh could have lost his son to his ex-wife and her politician husband on a more or less permanent basis. Josh had every right to be pissed, furious, disgusted, but Ethan assumed that he must still be riding the high of orgasm because he just seemed exhausted. Ethan wondered what Josh saw in his face. Did he see the sadness and regret that Ethan was feeling at what he had had to do?
"Why did I do it?" he murmured. Ethan wasn’t sure Josh was talking to him. "Why, after all these years did I give in to what I really want? The night before the final hearing for God's sake?"
"I don’t know—" Ethan shrugged. Hell. He didn’t know what the hell was going on with any of this.
It shocked Ethan when Josh sighed, turned to face him and then extended his hand. "Josh Anderson."
Ethan hesitated; the decision he had to make was a little less simple than just handing over his name. To do that meant blowing a year of work, but there was something about Josh. Not even for his job could he go through with this. He was sick of being the one used to destroy lives. There was the love for his son in the words Josh had used that screamed vulnerable and defeated.
Whether Ethan liked it or not his cover was blown. Ethan had gotten this far but could he go through with what he had been assigned to do? He was not going to sacrifice Josh on an altar of netting a clutch of crooked lawyers, albeit drug dealing crooked lawyers. The DA was pushing for a conviction for the drugs, the blackmail, but the icing on the cake was the very asshole that Josh was fighting against for custody. The politician who was marrying Josh’s ex-wife. The same person who plotted to take Josh’s son, the one who was allegedly responsible for so many unsolved murders and for child abduction, that Ethan had been called in as a last resort for this skin job.
And hadn't he done well?
What happened in this room was supposed to be the turning point of the case. It was an 'in' and a way for Ethan to prove himself to the bastard Josh was losing his son to. If Ethan could show he was a reliable person to use in these blackmailing situations then he could work his way inside the organization.
What the fuck am I doing? What I’m doing will destroy Josh, and leave Josh's son in the hands of a sadistic criminal.
I am so screwed. I can't do this to him. I can’t do this anymore.
There must be some other way to do this. If he could get Josh to play along? Would Josh believe a word Ethan said?
Ethan took Josh’s hand, cursing that he had no ID on him to back up what he was going to say.
"Masters." He paused. He was well aware he was fucking up five months of his surveillance and undercover work with this one sentence.
"Special Agent Ethan Masters. FBI."
THE END
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