Cut and Run 7 - Touch and Geaux

three buttons, tucked it in haphazardly, just enough to get by, and gathered up the rest.
    Ty jerked his head toward the door and headed for it. They weren’t far from the house, but they would have to get a cab. He’d rather walk than deal with the photographers and their kidnapper van again.
    As soon as the door to the hotel room closed behind them, Ty looked up and down the hallway and then back at Zane with a grin.
    “Let’s get a room.”
    Zane laughed and shrugged. “Okay? You missing hotel bathrooms that much?”
    The memory of their first time together flashed through Ty’s mind, and he nodded. Zane must have seen the hunger streaking through Ty’s eyes, because he started hurrying Ty down the hall toward the bank of elevators. Ty grinned, not even worrying about the shoes he carried or the fact that they both looked like they’d already been at it in a janitor’s closet somewhere.
    Once in the elevator, everything hit the floor anyway, except for Ty, who hit the wall, pinned there by Zane’s firm body and demanding mouth. Ty could do nothing but moan and wrap his arms around Zane’s shoulders.
    If someone had told him this morning that a surprise FBI photo shoot would end up with them making out in a hotel elevator, Ty probably wouldn’t have been shocked. He found it funny, anyway.
    Zane pulled back for breath and set one palm flat on Ty’s chest, holding him in place while stepping backward. “Stay,” Zane ordered, pulling his hand away but still pointing at Ty.
    Ty nodded wordlessly, wide-eyed and unashamed. Zane did up his buttons, smoothed his sleeves, and shrugged into his jacket, somehow managing to look mostly put together, even if his face was flushed and his hair was still mussed from the shoot. He had just shoved his feet into his dress shoes when the elevator door pinged and opened. “I’ll be right back,” he said, looking Ty up and down deliberately before growling and striding out of the elevator.
    Even after all this time, the prospect of what Zane intended to do to him made Ty’s chest flutter.
    The phone in his jacket began to ring. “No, no, no!” He fished it out anyway, checking he caller ID. “No!”
    He looked up. Several people were backing away from the doors to find an alternate way up as he stood in the elevator shouting at his phone.
    “Grady,” he growled when he answered the call.
    “We’re ready here,” Dan McCoy said without further greeting.
    Ty sighed. “Yes sir.”
    He hung up just as Zane returned.
    “No,” Zane said when he saw the look on Ty’s face and the phone in his hand. “No! How urgent is it?”
    Ty shook his head. “It was Burns.”
    “Dammit, Grady!”

    Traffic was minimal as they made their way toward the Bureau office. Ty either wouldn’t or couldn’t fill Zane in on why they were needed, and he wouldn’t speculate as they walked together toward the elevators. Zane wasn’t surprised. Burns was pretty closed mouthed with everything he did. It was odd that they’d come here when Burns had called them. Burns worked in DC, not Baltimore. But nothing Richard Burns did was normal.
    Ty punched the button for their floor and then leaned against the elevator wall, watching Zane with sidelong glances. Zane gave him a small smile. Hopefully they’d be able to get back to that hotel suite before the night was over.
    The elevator lurched to a stop and the doors shivered open. Ty didn’t move. Zane stepped out of the elevator first. He looked over his shoulder at Ty, frowning.
    As soon as he turned, roughly three dozen coworkers and friends jumped out of their various hiding places amidst the desks and file cabinets and cubicle dividers, all of them yelling some version of “Surprise!”
    Zane’s hand went to his gun, but Ty grabbed his wrist before he could pull it. Everyone was laughing and blowing on noisemakers, and for a long moment Zane just didn’t understand what was going on. “What the hell? This is what the damn calendar thing was for?”
    Ty laughed and wrapped his arm around Zane’s shoulder. “Just an unfortunate necessity we managed to take advantage of. Happy twenty years with the Bureau, partner.”
    Zane groaned and rolled his eyes as people all around them started whistling and applauding. “The first eighteen were easy,” he said, deadpan, drawing laughter as he jabbed Ty in the ribs with an elbow.
    “But the last two were fun.”
    “Our definitions of ‘fun’ clearly vary.”
    “Whatever, Zane.