XV.
It was day six of the bet and they were in Costa Verde. Mislov only had a small villa here and he'd squired some of his jet-set with him, so the Boros family was staying in a hotel again.
"Thank Christ," Weiss said, collapsing onto a monstrous pink couch in his and Sydney's room; double beds, Vaughn noticed with neutral interest. "Anyone want to order drinks?"
"Don't they have a mini-bar?" Sydney said, opening the door to the balcony and looking out over the water.
"Oh yeah. Looks like a maxi-bar."
Vaughn felt restless. Jack was just sitting down with his laptop to review agency bulletins for Europe and check in with Kendall--if there was anything of relevance, they'd all need to hear it. They hadn't done more than escort Jack's suitcases into the other suite and head immediately over to Sydney's.
No, he wasn't feeling restless, he realized. He was feeling horny. Studying Jack under lowered eyelids, he wondered when the man had gotten so fucking hot. Or why he hadn't noticed sooner. All this time that he'd been rattled by the man, had he really wanted to get in his pants? He didn't think so. Because there'd been Sydney, like a force of nature, commanding all his fascination. And he couldn't remember being hot for guys before now. He'd have noticed something like that, wouldn't he? How fucking repressed and oblivious did you have to be not to notice you might like men?
"Hey," Weiss said. Vaughn turned his head inquiringly. "I've been talking to you."
"Sorry."
"He asked if you believed in unicorns," Sydney confided, sitting down with a Coke from the maxi-mini-bar.
Weiss shook his head. "You're in la-la land, man." His voice lowered a little. "How're you holding up?"
"I'm good." He kept it light.
"Uh huh." Weiss was squinting, examining him. "You've been barefoot for almost a week, you know."
Vaughn frowned. "What's your point?"
"I'm just saying. It's got to be getting weird."
"I'm fine."
"You're fine, you're good. You're incredibly minimalist. Care to elaborate?"
Vaughn furrowed his brow deeper and skewed his lips quizzically. He knew how to put on the appropriate façade. "Not really." He could feel Jack listening and hoped he wouldn't inject himself into the conversation. It could only end badly. "There's nothing to say."
Sydney and Weiss exchanged one of their significance-laden glances. He could feel the beginning of a slow burn. Jesus. He was a grown man, and it wasn't like he was weeping in corners. It was like they were mistaking the sham for something real.
"Anything important on dispatch?" Sydney asked Jack, turning and tucking herself into the corner of her couch so that she could look at him. She'd taken off her shoes and was barefoot now, maybe in solidarity.
"A car-bomb attack in Iraq killed three American soldiers, and a Russian Air Force bus in North Ossetia was targeted by a suicide bomber. Seventeen people died."
"So, nothing," Weiss said in a jaded way.
"Nothing of relevance to us." Even toneless, Jack's voice still managed to carry a hint of disfavor for Weiss's assumed apathy.
"I'm going to get room service," Sydney said decisively, picking up a leather-bound menu she'd found earlier and flipping through it. "Something big. A steak."
"Steak." His pose of indifference falling away, Weiss sounded blissed on the very idea. "Yes."
Sydney smiled at Vaughn. "What do you want? They have salmon steak."
He gave her a smile back, a tense tripwire inside him relaxing at her easy, familiar tone. "Sure."
"And you don't even have to eat it out of Jack's hand," Weiss said.
Vaughn looked at him in disbelief, while Sydney's mouth shaped an "o" of dismay. From the table, Jack's head turned with the severe grace and intensity of a falcon and he pinned Weiss with a cold stare.
"Did that really need to be said?" Vaughn asked, maintaining an outward calm while his heart-rate spiked with adrenal temper.
"Maybe." Weiss's cheeks had reddened but his tone was as rock-steady as Vaughn's and his eyes were serious. As if he'd said something meaningful instead of getting a stupid jab in.
"You can be a dick, you know that?" Vaughn got up. "I'll be in the other suite. Don't order for me." He hated storming off like a prickly teenager, but it was preferable to sitting around trying to act sociable when he wanted to punch something.
"Vaughn!" Sydney called after him, but he left grimly, only to get to the other room and realize he had no keycard. He sighed and pressed his forehead to the door. In a minute there was a presence at his side; he looked up to see Jack, face set in typical steadfast calm, laptop under his arm. Vaughn's shoulders eased down a notch.
"I thought you'd be Sydney."
"She started to follow." He hesitated. "I stopped her. If you'd rather--"
"God, no."
Inside, Vaughn crossed the room, feeling nervous, feeling like an idiot. He went to the balcony and looked out, mirroring Sydney's earlier pose, viewing the same slice of seascape. He didn't know what the hell he wanted or what the hell he was doing, but he thought he might have to get out, run through the city, even if he risked being seen, because he was going stir-crazy, out of his seething fucking mind. Just as he was about to turn and make a plea for furlough, he felt a hand slide down his spine and come to rest in the small of his back. That was all it took. His dick flushed with need and his breath caught roughly and his eyes prickled. Jack slid into place behind him and kissed the edge of his hairline just behind his ear and brushed his face there if taking Vaughn's scent in.
"Oh fuck," Vaughn said softly, relaxing against Jack. "Please." He couldn't help moving when Jack slid both arms around him, up under his shirt, up to his chest. His palms were cool and Vaughn's nipples hardened. "Jesus, I love your hands," he said, the words heartfelt and ragged.
Jack drew in an audible breath and pushed a hand back down the center of Vaughn's body, across his abs, fingers moving to arrow flat under the hem of his jeans. "What do you need?" he asked in a low voice, the question an implicit offer to do whatever Vaughn asked for.
"Fuck me."
When they were naked on the bed, the huge fancy and thankfully not pink bed, he lay back and ran the sole of a foot across Jack's thighs, until it occurred to him that might not be a good idea. "Sorry. My feet must be dirty," he said.
"Don't worry." Jack made it sound as if he couldn't care less, and he probably didn't. How many missions had he roughed it, getting his hands dirty in every literal and metaphorical way possible? He wasn't dainty.
Jack rubbed the foot, then the other, then nudged himself between Vaughn's legs. Vaughn let his body fall open into a welcoming wishbone and closed his eyes, not yet used to making a display of himself. Jack touched him everywhere until Vaughn was gasping and pushing up to meet him. Jack's fingers skimmed along his dick, then he curled his hand around Vaughn's balls and thumbed them with circling motions. For a minute Vaughn couldn't make a sound, could barely pull air into his lungs. Dazed, he lay there as Jack worked his hand lower, pushing slick fingers across the strip of skin behind his balls and then inside him. He climaxed before he wanted to in a delirious ascending rush as Jack's knuckles grazed and rubbed into the tightness of his body.
"Don't stop," he said, clenching down on Jack's fingers to hold them in place.
Now that he'd learned what it felt like to be fucked he couldn't believe he'd spent thirty-five years on the planet without doing it before. Why didn't women clue guys in? It was incredibly unfair. He urged Jack up against him and inside, smiling at his vehement expression, the way his lips parted to draw in erratic little breaths. He looked drugged and not a little bit murderous. Within just a few minutes, Vaughn was getting hard again.
"Are you sure you're not eighteen?" Jack asked in an incredulous tone between breaths, helping Vaughn along with skillful strokes of his hand.
"I have a short refractory period, okay?"
Jack's breaths were coming more quickly. "Your name--must be legend--on bathroom walls--throughout the world."
Vaughn was startled into laughter, which did interesting things to various muscle groups. "Oh god, that's good," he groaned a moment later as Jack pushed deeper into him and found a new angle. "Oh god. How do you know to do that?"
"Instinct."
"Fucking brilliant." His ability to speak in a focused way was waning, and he was making mostly helpless, panting sounds, louder cries synched with every twist of Jack's hips.
"My god, you're noisy," Jack gasped out, eyes falling shut.
"Oh fuck!" Vaughn arched and came again, locking his hand around Jack's jerking grip, desperate for just the right finish. His belly was spattered with come as Jack gave a little cry and spasmed against him.
When they'd come down from the high, Vaughn rubbed a hand across his sweaty forehead. "Oh fuck," he managed to say. "How much noise did we make?"
"We?" Jack echoed, eyes closed, body motionless in indolence, voice mellow. "I think you whimpered enough for both of us."
"I don't whimper."
"Hmm."
"I don't whimper!" Vaughn rolled over on his belly, head sideways as he smiled into the pillow. After a long pause he said, "You make noises like a goat."
"I am a goat. An old one."
"Jesus, I need to make sure you get laid every day. Your psych evals would climb twenty points."
"Hmm." The lilt was higher, and contemplative, and Vaughn thought about what he'd said and fell asleep gradually, still thinking about it.