Cut and Run 5 - Armed and Dangerous

him by the back of his neck, helping him into the car with a not so gentle shove after Cameron scooted back inside. He banged the man’s head on the top of the door, muttering a careless apology as he shoved him inside and slammed the door behind him.
    He looked over the top of the sedan at Zane. “You okay?”
    Zane’s jerky movements as he holstered his gun spoke volumes. He took a breath and twitched. “Yeah,” he said after a long moment, though Ty knew it was partially a lie. “You?”
    “Burned my nipples,” Ty said, not able to say it without smiling.
    Zane gave him a whisper of a smile, and the tension in his jaw and shoulders relaxed. “Open the trunk. I’ve got something that might help that.”
    Ty looked at him dubiously, wondering what Zane might have bought at a Walgreens that would help burned nipples—and why—but he decided not to ask. “Let’s stop for the night, okay? Just stop and regroup, figure out a better way to keep Cross tied down. We’ll tackle this shit in the morning.”
    “What about Burns?”
    “Priority in this mission was low profile, not speed. He made that very clear. I think it’s a good call to stop.”
    Zane nodded, and Ty leaned into the car to pop the trunk like he’d been asked. He looked over the seat at the two men in the back. “A for effort,” he told them. Cameron looked a little pale, so maybe now he knew they meant business. To this point he’d been treating them like they might be just as cute and cuddly as the hired killer he called his lover.
    Julian met Ty’s eyes, but he didn’t show a hint of emotion or an inkling of what he was thinking. The guy made the hairs on the back of Ty’s neck stand up, and he found himself putting his hand on his gun without first being aware he was doing it.
    Zane dug around in the plastic bags in the trunk for a minute, then walked around the car toward Ty. He had a small plastic package in one hand and a wad of brown cloth in the other.
    “What’s all this?” Ty asked as he straightened. He reached out to run a hand down Zane’s arm, not caring that he shouldn’t when they were working. Before this morning, he hadn’t seen his lover in days, had barely touched him in a week, and he knew fishtailing in the car had to have set Zane’s teeth on edge. Echoes of a nasty crash that had almost killed them both would do that.
    Plus, Ty didn’t care if the criminals knew he and Zane were an item. It was one thing to stay hands-off for a seven-hour flight. Entirely another for a two-day drive. He was tired of being so careful that it looked like he didn’t care.
    Zane offered him a more natural smile as he held up the plastic package. “Wet wipes.” He then shook out the brown fabric. It was a T-shirt, and on the front it displayed a picture of a blue robot with yellow eyes and the words “Overkill is one of my many modes.”
    Ty laughed and took the shirt and the wipes. “Thanks, Zane.”
    “It sounded like you,” Zane said before taking back the wet wipes to open the package so Ty could use them.
    Ty watched him with a growing sense of calm. Just having Zane here with him was enough to keep him sane.
    After pulling open the package, Zane glanced up at him. “All right, Grady. Strip down or you’ll be sticky and miserable, and then we’ll all be miserable.”
    Ty muttered at him but pulled his wet jeans off, right there on the side of the road. Several cars passing by honked at them, but this didn’t even register on the scale as far as Ty’s embarrassing life moments went. He put the T-shirt on, and they used his other shirt to pat down the front seat. Then they tossed his wet clothing into the trunk, where the smell of the spilled coffee wouldn’t make him want to kill things. He changed into a pair of dirty jeans from the small bag he’d been carrying with him and slid back into the driver’s seat.
    He sat in the silence of the car and looked into the rearview mirror. “Next time he won’t be aiming at you,” he told Julian.
    Cameron’s eyes widened as he looked from Ty to Zane, but Zane was looking out the windshield rather than back at them and offered no comment.
    “Understood, Agent Grady,” Julian said. He didn’t seem put out that his attempt had failed, nor did he seem upset with the overt threat to his lover. That bothered Ty more than he liked to admit, and the simple fact that Julian Cross made him nervous also made him angry.
    And he wanted to know how the hell Julian had