24/7
by elfin
re-write, August 2006 to celebrate the release of the movie - still absolutely based on the original characters played by the original actors

Based on an idea by Gayle Fierce


Rico:

"You know, some people would say a Ferrari isn't big enough to sit with your size nines on the dashboard."

I'd watched with no little amusement as my partner had leaned back in his seat and pulled his legs up, putting one foot on the dash beside the steering wheel, crossing his ankles.

"They'd be wrong."

Obviously.  I chuckled to myself.  Sonny had been grousin' all night about the surveillance gig we'd landed courtesy of Orlando Vice and Tampa Bay Homicide, and although he hadn't exactly been takin' his unhappiness out on me, he hadn't been the world's best company either.  Not that there was any place else I had to be.  Or any place I'd have rather been, if I was bein' honest with myself; which, let's face it, I rarely was.

This assignment was one of those 'six degrees of Kevin Bacon' things.  Daniel Fagan - publisher of lavish gay porno monthly, Stiff, workin' legally out of Orlando for years - was constantly under the watchful eye of the Orlando PD.  So when Tampa Homicide pulled a body out of the bay a couple of months back and identified it as Jamie Montoya, Stiff centrefold for the previous January, Orlando had looked to Fagan in that 'graspin' at straws' kinda way cops tended to resort to when they've been chasin' someone so long they've forgotten why they started in the first place, in the hope that he'd had somethin' to do with it.  They'd raided his extremely luxurious and incredibly well protected house outside of Kissimmee and had found nothin'.  Nada, as Sonny had put it readin' the report he'd dug up when we'd become involved it this fiasco.  There wasn't even any evidence to prove Montoya hadn't fallen into the bay by accident - there were enough drugs in his bloodstream, according to the tox report, to make it worthy of a vice haul.

The investigation had reluctantly lost momentum when Fagan had started yellin' harassment, and the powers that be had told their men to back off.  Until, that was, three weeks later, when a body had been found hanging by a silk tie from a light fitting in an expensive apartment in Orlando.  This time they’d identified Carlo Santiago, Stiff centrefold for February.  And suddenly Tampa Bay Homicide had teamed up with Orlando Vice to prove once and for all that Daniel Fagan was a killer and should be put away for life.  All this came through in the monthly interdepartmental, cross-jurisdiction memo which is forty pages thick and which usually ends up as lavatory paper over at OCB.  Once Castillo's read it of course.

I know Sonny thought Orlando and Tampa were wrong.  He’d drawn the conclusion, late one night in a favourite bar of ours, that the police department' homophobes were running the show.  And that's really somethin' for Sonny to say, not being the most tolerant man I've ever known.

This apartment we were sittin' out in front of, at three am on a stormy Sunday night, belonged to Simon Marlo, Stiff centrefold for March who happened to live right here in Miami.  Lucky us.  We'd overheard the 'conversation' in Castillo's office one afternoon a couple of days before, when men in suits from Orlando had flown down to request Miami Dade co-operation in catching a killer.  Castillo had pointed out - loud enough for those of us listenin' at the closed door of his office to hear - that he, like Sonny, unsurprisingly, believed they were more interested in puttin' Fagan away than stoppin' more young gay men dying.  But cross-jurisdiction co-operation was high on the major's election campaign manifesto, so Sonny and I found ourselves numbing our butts outside a well-appointed apartment building on the edge of the city.

Sonny had been grouchin' all night that we were hardly likely to catch Fagan carryin' a corpse out of the front door.  There was some kind of party going on third floor - the floor that interested us - but there was no music, just voices and sounds carrying through the open windows, and we’d both been wondering about that.

"What's going on in there?" 

Gina had been by recently with refreshments - and Sonny was sucking on the straw in his root beer while I sipped at my steamin' black coffee. 

"I do not want to know."

I couldn't help but grin.  "Sorry, man, I forgot.  This stuff makes you queasy."  Couldn't help teasin' either.

Sonny almost choked on his drink in his hurry to protest, "I never used the word 'queasy'.  I just said it wasn't for me."

Turnin' in my seat to look at him, to watch his reaction, I asked straight out, "You're not the least bit... curious?"

"No."  Sonny cast a glance over at me, like I knew he would.  New information about someone he was sure he knew inside out.  "You saying... you are curious?"
   
I could read the interest in his voice but couldn't decide what had caught his attention.  For a long time, this had been a delicate subject as far as Crockett was concerned, and anythin' beyond joking around had been skatin' on thin ice.  Years back, Sonny had been all messed up over the death of an old friend of his - Mike Orgell - who'd got himself killed after coming out of the closet to the less-than-tolerant reactions of his peers, Sonny and a man called Evan Freed included.  When, just six months after we'd become partners, Evan had strolled back into Sonny's life, it had dredged it all back up and Sonny hadn’t known what to do or how to feel.  Course, talkin' it over with yours truly at an old gas station had helped.  Not our first heart to heart, but definitely one of the more intense nights of my life.

I sat for a few minutes, watchin' the entrance of the building and tryin' to ignore the heated jade stare drillin' into the side of my head.

Finally puttin' Sonny out of his misery, I nodded easily.  "Yeah, I guess I am to a point.  I’m not sayin' I want to leap into bed with some leather queen, but I had a look through some of Fagan's stuff Orlando Vice bought in.  Some of it's... hot."  It was really somethin' for me to admit to that, and I’d only ever have said it to Sonny, knowing' it wouldn't ever go further than the two of us and the Ferrari.

Truth was, I was more interested in Sonny bein' interested in the idea.

I could feel his eyes widenin', feel his expression changing.  "Hot?"  He sounded stunned at the word, probably because it was me who'd used it.  "And here was me thinking you're a straight-as-a-rod ladykiller."

I almost laughed.  "Hey, man, I'm not saying I'm interested in experimentin'.  I mean, I like to see pictures of all-female orgies but I don't want to be a part of one."

"Now I know you're winding me up."

I did laugh at that.  "Nah, man.  Too many women at once is not a good thing.  They could eat you alive, and still have room left for one another when you're dead in a corner."

Glancing over, I caught Sonny smiling.  "Yeah, how could a guy stand that?"

We sat in one of our comfortable silences for another half-hour, until the door of the building swung open and a couple of men came out; happy, holding hands, lookin' like the least likely murder suspects in all the world.  Neither of them were our man and we had to assume he was still inside.  I wondered how Sonny would react to a suggestion of going to find out. 

I felt him shift next to me and glanced at him in the semi-darkness.  "I feel like a voyeur."

"Just doing the job, Partner."

"Yeah, well....  The job's pushin' the limits on this one."  He picked up the car phone handset and dialled Castillo's direct line.  It rang out.  Crockett swore softly and replaced the receiver.  "Seems like the boss has gone to have some fun, leaving us to do the dirty tonight."

I thought about it, like I'd thought about it so many times before.  "I can't imagine what Castillo's idea of fun might be."

"Certainly nothing like that."  Sonny nodded at another two men leaving the party, their arms around one another and laughing at a shared joke.

I smacked him lightly on the arm but obviously I was going to have to work harder for whatever was on his mind. 

"You know, Sonny, we've often left places with our arms around one another."

"Hey!  That's different, man, and you know it.  We're partners.  We cover each other other's butts on the street, no where else."

I couldn’t help it.  I practically doubled over at the innuendo.  Between gulps of laughter and staggered breaths, I managed to glance at my partner's expression through the tears running over my cheeks.  "Sorry... Sonny....  That was...  You should have been a comedian, man."

I watched Crockett purse his lips and watch me - his lunatic partner - through cynical eyes until the radio crackled to life.  "Party's over, girls," Stan's cheery voice informed us.  "Lieutenant says you can go home."

"About time."  With one last withering look at me, Sonny keyed the engine and brought his car to life, pulling away from the curb without a backwards glance.

*

I knew that expression on Castillo’s face.  He was about to tell us somethin' that we definitely did not want to hear.

I watched him as he slowly assessed his assembled team, as if he was reassuring himself that whatever it was, we were okay.  We would be okay.  Finally he dropped the paperwork from his hands to the conference room table.  "Orlando Homicide wants our assistance in an undercover operation to bust Fagan."

There was a general chorus of groans. 

No one likes jumpin' at another department's command, never mind another jurisdiction.   "Undercover where?" Gina asked, sounding worried, obviously assuming she and Trudy would be going in.  I had no idea why.  Maybe she hadn't seen a copy of Stiff.

“There’s an anniversary party this weekend at Fagan's place outside Kissimmee.  Previous centrefolds, potential centrefolds, suppliers, dealers, friends.  Fagan likes to party.”

Indeed.

Sonny was starin' at him like he’d lost his mind.

"You aren't serious.  How do we get an invite?  We don't..." he waved his hand in the air, to the tuneful sniggers from the rest of the unit, "...quite fit the bill."

Castillo met Sonny's stare with one of his own.  I smiled with some sorta pride; Crockett was the only one of us who didn't wither under the Lieutenant’s infamous glare.

"It's an undercover.  You know the drill."

Sonny's mouth opened and closed.  "Me?"

"You and Rico.  You're the only ones who'll cut it." 
   
Cut it?  The room fell silent around us and I glanced at my partner - that weird, silent communication almost buzzing in the quiet.  What the hell does that mean?

Sonny sat slowly forward, palms flat on the tabletop and I just waited for the explosion, feelin' the sudden need to dive for cover.  "Undercover as what?"

"Potential centrefold, friends of friends, men who move in the same circles.  You're Fagan's type."

I couldn't quite believe what I was hearing.  "Sonny?  A centrefold for a gay magazine?"  I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.  I didn't dare look at my partner.

"I'm not asking you to follow through.  Go to the party, listen to the guests."

"But why us?"

"As I said, you're the only pair who could pull it off."

It was his use of the word 'pair' - it put an idea in my mind and suddenly what he was suggestin' clicked with a load of other stuff in my head.  As it turned out, at the same time as other things were clicking in Sonny's.

I could hear the incredulous disbelief in his voice as he squeaked, "You're asking the two of us to go to Fagan's party as a gay couple?"

Castillo wasn’t fazed.  "We need to know what happened to Montaya and Santiago.  Orlando Vice don’t have anyone who'd fit the bill.”

And we do?

"And we do?"  Sonny and I - that weird ESP again.

Despite the enormity of what we were being asked to pull off, I couldn't help but be amused at my partner's obvious discomfort.  Across the table, Stan and Sammy looked positively relieved, where as Gina and Trudy were trying and failing to hide their giggles.

"You're both professionals."  Castillo abruptly ended any discussion.  "Party starts Friday, you’ve got twenty four hours to get comfortable with it."

We all watched the boss leave the room, eyes wide, mouths open; a room full of goldfish.

Sonny turned to me, eyes slightly brighter than usual.  "He can't be serious."

I chuckled, tickled by the whole idea.  "I think he is, lover.”

I thought for a moment that he was going to hit me.

*

After takin' all the wise cracks we could cope with from our esteemed colleagues, Sonny and I headed out for the St. Vitus Dance.  There was no way out of this and we knew we’d have to make it look good.  Fagan, or whoever chose the centrefolds, had a thing for blondes.  If they were interested enough in Sonny, they wouldn't ask too many questions about what we were doing there.

Didn't take much of a leap to imagine him as a centrefold.  Blondes usually had blue eyes, his jewelled jade was unusual.  I hadn’t lied in the car the previous night.  I’d never been interested in other guys.  But I had, on occasions, let my mind wander where Sonny was concerned.  I'd always been focused on him, always found myself checkin' he and I were okay, were solid.  He's the most important person in the whole world to me.

When we first met, I admit, he rocked my world.  He's this incredible, passionate, driven man, someone I forged a tight partnership with in a matter of days.  Sometimes I can't believe how close we got and how fast. 

He was nothin' like the guys I was used to workin' with.  He’d been doing undercover work ten years and his brain hadn’t fried yet.  It worried me at times, worried me that this man I’d just found was going to get himself killed, or worse, blow his own brains out one day because he’d pushed too far.

Turned out it was me who was gonna to be the loose canon of the partnership.  I took the worst risks to get what I wanted.  I’d never been like that before I’d met Sonny, but his influence, the intensity of his caring for me and the sheer heat of the city simply magnified the apparent madness that was inside me.  I’d already taken a huge risk coming down here to Miami to revenge my brother’s murder, I found Sonny, or he found me.

But something about how close we'd become made me push against it, to test his loyalty again and again, coming to a head when I went undercover in Bolton prison without tellin' him what I was doin'.  He went berserk trying to keep me out and berserk when he saw me afterwards.

And I knew that I’d have done the same had it been him.

After all the dangerous things we’d done for the job, this gig couldn't be worse, could it?

"Come on, Sonny," I sat atop the galley and tried to talk him down from his manic pacin' of the deck.  “It’s only me!”  He was upsettin' his alligator.

He stopped and stared at me.  “What do you mean, only you?  You’re my partner!  I’m not gonna go to some party with you and spend the weekend kissin’ and cuddlin’!”

He'd been like this since we'd left OCB.  Castillo had handed us a file - everything Orlando had on Fagan, everything on every death they were looking to link him with, everything on his empire and his publications - past and present.  It included photos of him with other men, surveillance and press photos, and if I'm being honest, everyone in those photographs looked happy and relaxed with him.  Orlando Vice hadn’t come up with any evidence that suggested Fagan was guilty of anything but questionable taste in pornography.

Montoya and Santiago might have been coincidences - they’d been centrefolds in the same gay magazine for consecutive months, but how significant was that?  Was there another connection?  I hoped that investigation had already been done.

Still, it was up to me to talk Sonny into this, because there was no way we were getting out of it and equally no way Sonny was going to make the first move.  “We can do this, Sonny.  We’re the best in the business.”  Strokin' his ego was usually the best way of talkin' him into doing something he didn’t want to do.  He'd know was I was doin', he's no chump, but he'd appreciate it at the same time.

"Okay.  So how?"

I stood up, crossing the deck, keeping my eyes on my partner.  He looked like a deer caught in the headlights of a 4x4.  "How hard can it be?  It's not like we never touche, right?"

"Riiiight."  Sonny obviously didn't like where this was going.  We touched all the time, all innocent in his eyes, I'm not so sure how it was in other's.

I held out my hand.  "Come here."

He eyed me suspiciously, not moving. 

I knew it would work.  I’d always thought, just to myself, that Sonny and I looked amazin' together.  I’ve seen photos of us and the contrast between us is pure art - ebony and ivory.

All I needed to do was get my highly-strung partner to drop some of his inhibitions.  Sonny was curious enough, I knew, I just had to point that curiosity in the right direction if we were going to pull this off.

I beckoned to him with the fingers of my out-stretched hand.  "Come on.  We have to do this."

Reluctantly, Sonny came to stand in front of me, leavin' about a foot between us.  We didn’t stand that far apart makin' drug deals.  Sonny’s one physical guy and I’d never minded.  I liked it - loved it.  But I knew like he did that this was different.

"So what now?"

I was makin' it up as I went along, but he probably knew that.  "Put your arms around me." 

Sonny actually did reach for me, almost on instinct I guess, but he stopped midway, embarrassed and laughin', shakin' his head.  "I can't do this, man."

I nodded slowly.  "Yes, you can.  How many times have you put your arms around me?"

That tilt of his head, warnin' me I was close to the thinner ice.  "That's different."

"How?" 

Sonny sighed.  My logic was flawless.  I knew he was flustered by me taking this so well but I wasn’t giving him an out.  He stepped up a little closer to me and put his hands hesitantly on my hips.  "Okay.  Now what?"

I shook my head, smilin' openly.  "Imagine this.  We've been going together for years," I pulled Sonny a little closer.  "You wake up next to me every mornin' and go to sleep with me every night."  I thought about the number of times that had been true and I could see Sonny thinkin' the very same thing. 

He was smiling despite himself.  "Yeah.  All those times I've fallen asleep next to you in the car on surveillance, or we've crashed our here or at your place.  Wakin' up in the mornin's to you being all awake, to the smell of fresh coffee." 

I was pleased.  We both had to relax into this if we were going to make it out alive.  "Imagine us out together at nights, for meals, to clubs, fishing...."  I moved closer, Sonny's wary gaze fixin' on my own.  "Now kiss me."

Crockett burst out laughin' - not quite the result I’d been hopin' for.  "Come on, man!  I can’t kiss you!"

At least it broke the tension. 

"You think they're gonna buy it if we just hold hands?"

Sonny frowned.  "I guess not."  Gettin' serious, he looked at me, chastised.  "So... you just want me... to kiss you?"  I nodded.  "With... tongues?"

I couldn’t help myself.  I hadn’t expected the question and I just burst out laughin'. 

I stepped back, hand over my mouth as it bubbled up from inside.  "I'm sorry,” I managed, gulping for air.

Sonny was watchin' me, amused as hell, shaking his head and grinnin'.  Me losin' it had done what me talkin' hadn't - he took over the lead.  "Okay, I can't believe we can't do this."  Comin' to stand in front of me again, he settled his hands back on my hips and held his head up.  I’m an inch taller than him and he had to look up slightly; I wondered if that bothered him.

God alone knows what Crockett's neighbours thought.  But I guessed Burnett was a strange one, with the alligator, the cars and the speedboat.  They’d probably just think that he and a friend were gettin' their kicks in all new ways.  Probably with the aid of drugs.

“Without tongues,” I told him firmly.

“Okay.” 

He leaned forward slightly, anglin' his head, and I mirrored him.  He hesitated once, and then our lips met tentatively.  We held the poise, like we were expecting lightenin' to strike or somethin'. 

When it didn’t, he did somethin' that I hadn’t expected him to do.  He parted his lips and touched mine with the tip of his tongue.

My turn to freak out.

I practically jumped a foot backwards.

And when I looked up at the expression on his face, I was amazed to see surprise and surprised to see hurt.

“Sorry!  God, Sonny… I… I just… you shocked me that's all.”

He frowned.  “I’m not dumb, Rico, I know what we’re gonna have to do to pass this off and so do you.  Was it… that bad?”

God, no.  Worse.  It was amazin'.  He was confusin' me with every minute that passed.  “No, it wasn’t that bad.”  I managed a smile as I stepped forward to close in on him again.  “I promise not to run this time.”

Smilin', Sonny slid his hands up my arms.  His intense look, his hot breath, hard body... I'd never been so aware of him in all the time I'd known him.  When he reached my shoulders, he closed the remaining gap and I met him, lips parted as my mouth touched his.

The first touch of the tips of our tongues was electric.

It was like kissin' a woman, only this was Sonny and I could feel the stubble on his chin against mine, makin' me acutely aware of him being a him.  Any other guy and I don’t think I could have done it.  But this was my partner - a man I cared more for than I had for anyone since Rafael’s death - and I love him, simple as that.

The kiss wasn’t much, but it was a start.  Neither of us pushed it any further than the tips of our tongues tasting one another blindly, but when Sonny pulled back he was smilin' and I couldn't help but smile back.

“See?  We’ll live.”

The phone surprised us, like we'd been caught doin' somethin' illegal, and Sonny leaned down to grab the handset from where it lay precariously on the galley’s roof, dangerously near to Elvis whose habit was to eat anything that wasn’t nailed down, and chew on everything that was.

“Hi, Lieutenant.”  He glanced at me, and I knew he was hopin' to god that this madness had all been called off.  By the change of his expression, I guessed it hadn't been.  “You have to be kiddin'?"  It was all he said, and when he ended the call, he looked like he was ready to feed his badge to Elvis. 

“What is it?”

“Apparently Fagan likes his centrefolds docile.”  He snorted.  “The Lieutenant said I should try to come across as a little less forceful than usual.”

Sonny as an subordinate.  Hard to imagine.  Not hard to imagine Castillo sayin' it to him though.

“He wants us in tomorrow to go through our covers.”

I chewed on my bottom lip for a while, until he finally put me put of my misery, coming to sit next to me, where I’d dropped to sit on the galley roof.  “So tell me how you want to play this.”

I shrugged, hopin' we were going to be okay.  We've been through some weird shit in our time but this was the strangest yet.  I had to play it my way.  “Think you can just let me lead?”

I wasn't expecting him to say yes, but he surprised me by smilin' and nodded.  “I think I can do that.”

“Sure?”

“Yeah.  Hey, I am house trained, you know!”

*

Sonny:

Guys like Fagan love to party.  It gives them a chance to throw their money around, show off their multi-million dollar houses and the women that kind of money attracts.  In Fagan’s case, of course, it’s the guys.  Men are no different.  Worse, even, I suspected.  Would I flash my dick for a million?  Sure.  Would I drop 'em and bend over?  Not in this life, or any other.

A friend of mine, Jake, had once told me that being gay wasn’t in the way you dressed or the walk you walked, it was in the thoughts you had.  To look at him, no one would ever have guessed he was gay.  He looked like a regular, straight guy.  Until you get an eyeful of him and his boyfriend.  He’d said to me, over a couple of beers one night, that I looked gay, but didn’t act it.  That other people were probably scared to say anything because I’d likely shoot them.  Too right.  And he knows me as Crockett, as the person I am, not the person I spend my life masquerading as.

He’s one of the few who really know me and I’m always grateful for those people.

His comment came back to me that afternoon as I tooled the Ferrari into the driveway of Fagan’s twenty million dollar Kissimmee mansion - all white-washed walls, balconies for every room, two wings set either side of a wide central tower, the whole place deeper than it was wide.  That he lived so close to Disney World surprised me.  All those tourists and all that noise.  But maybe this guy, who owned a couple of the clubs on Pleasure Island – Disney World for the over 21s – really did like all that stuff and wasn’t just in it for the money.

He stepped out to meet us as I killed the engine, leaving the car parked where I thought I’d be able to move it in a hurry.  Previous experience had taught me that a good runaway car was a necessity in a job like mine.  And I had one of the best that money could buy.  Not only that, but this whole gig had a strange vibe to it.

Fagan wasn’t a young man, but he’d obviously taken care of himself.  He looked good, dressed in a loose black shirt over expensive white linen pants.  He was slim, and that surprised me too because most of the dealer, pimps and scuzballs we work with indulge in the excesses of their chosen lifestyles.

He approached Rico first, and I assured myself it was simply because I’d parked with the passenger door closest to the house, and Rico was out of the car before me.  Nothin' to worry about.  I took a deep breath; no point in tyin' myself up in knots over a threat that for the moment at least was only in my head.

“Mr Cooper,” he shook my partner’s hand and I watched Tubbs become his character as if he’d just donned a mask.  “It’s an honour, I’ve heard only good things.”

The lines of communication that were Izzy Moreno had been in action.  That and the fake covers loaded and updated in the FBI mainframe.

“Likewise.”  Rico returned what looked like a firm handshake and in a second I realised that I had to get some serious presumptions and prejudices under control.  I wasn’t homophobic, despite what people might think, I’d just not met too many gay men that I liked - Jake excepted.

Rico accuses me of using prison gang rape as a threat when we’re trying to open up a potential informant or a perp.  He’s right, I do.  But only because that is the one thing that most guys are terrified of.

It was what I’d been terrified of when Rico stepped into Bolton prison undercover.  I was scared for him, because at the time he wasn’t being scared enough for himself.

I got out of the car and Fagan smiled at me, leaning over the gleamin' hood to shake my hand.

“Sonny Burnett.”  I knew that Rico was thinking the same thing as me in that single moment.  He’d used my first name, where as my partner had been greeted as a 'Mr'.  Still, nothin' to read into that, not really.  “A beautiful car you have here.”

I couldn’t help the smile of pride.  I love the Testarossa.  The Daytona Spyder had been a dream of a car, but my Snow White was a fantasy on wheels.

One of Fagan's cronies hanging around outside leaned in to the car and grabbed our bags before I locked her up, a habit I’d forced myself to adopt, and joined Rico followin' Fagan into the house.

“I insist that people call me Daniel,” our host informed us as we stepped into what I could only describe as a magnificent marble hallway.  The man knew how to live.  The house actually felt like a home, rather than just a base of operations like so many places we'd been to meet our marks.  “’Mr’ is so formal.”  He stopped and turned to face us.  “Craig will show you to your room,” he indicated the man who’d lifted our bags from the car.  “Make yourselves at home, the house is yours for the weekend.  There’s a spa and two pools out back, a full bar in the lounge and our chef will cook you anything you desire at anytime, day or night.”

We could hear quiet conversation drifting from beyond the archway that led through into a luxuriously decorated living room.

“Some of my friends arrived early,” he told us.  “Last night to be precise.  Gave Cal and I quite a surprise.”  The last sentence seemed to be for us only, as he leaned in to tell us.  I wondered who Cal was.  A boyfriend, perhaps?  Did gay men have boyfriends?  I should have done more research.

“When you’ve settled in, please feel free to join us.”

I smiled my most gracious, winning smile.  “Thank you.”  I liked him, I realised, but I couldn’t put my finger on why.

'Craig' showed us to our room, up this wide, sweepin' staircase from the entrance hall, along a light corridor until he threw open a pair of double doors on the right and revealed more of a suite than a room.

It was tastefully decorated, with floor-to-ceiling windows along the far wall that overlooked the grounds beside the house – I could see a couple of tennis courts and what might have been stables beyond.

Craig left us to settle and as he shut the door, I looked at my partner.  His attention was firmly fixated on the queen-sized mattress on the raised platform in the centre of the room.

It wasn’t like sleeping in the same bed would be a first.  We’d both crashed out on the St Vitus and in anonymous hotel rooms enough times on a bed half the size.  But something was different here and I knew it.

“It’s just in our minds, Sonny,” Rico murmured to me, readin' my thoughts without even turnin' to look at me.  Don't know how we do that, we just do.  “The bed’s big enough to lose each other in it.”

He was right.

But somethin' had been rattlin' around in the space where my brain usually resided since that kiss we’d shared on the boat.  When I thought of Rico, I thought of safety and trust, backup and unfailing friendship.  He was the one person I could be sure wouldn't ever let me down, wouldn't ever walk away from me.  There was somethin' incredibly attractive about that.

“Hey, you ok?”

I nodded.  “Yeah, I’m… I’m fine.”  He knew me better than to buy it, but he didn’t push for now.

On the right hand side of the room, opposite the bed, I pushed open the door to the bathroom and felt a smile creep over my face to see a shower big enough to party under - in the boat the shower doesn't have the world's best water pressure - a shower like this one was my idea of heaven.  There was a large tub on squat iron legs in front of the clear shower glass and a bidet next to the lavatory.

I’d never used one.  For some wierd reason I’d always wondered what it would feel like.

“Don’t go looking in too many cupboards, Partner,” Rico murmured behind me.

I turned, and stared.  He was standin' in the doorway of the bathroom holding the biggest, blackest dildo I’d ever seen, and I do work Vice, if you get my meanin'.

“Jeez, Rico!  What the….  Where the hell…?”

He chuckled.  “Next to the not-so-mini-bar.  There’s a wardrobe.  You have to see this for yourself.”

He wasn’t kidding.  The mini-bar was suggestive enough; along with the usual extensive choice of alcoholic refreshments there was fresh fruit and two cans of whipped cream.  But the wardrobe next to it would have made my friend Jake proud.

There was a selection of dildos in various shapes, sizes and colours.  Three types of whip, metal handcuffs, ball gags, studded leather collars, and things I didn't even want to consider uses for.

Under any other circumstances I’d have probably gotten back into the Ferrari and driven straight out of there.  But one thing stopped me.

On the otherwise bare, white dresser that ran along the wall next to this adult toy collection, there was a basket, similar to one my old Mom used to have on display in our living room that always had fresh fruit and nuts in it.  Only this one was filled with packets of condoms and small tubes of what my brain told me was lubrication.

The vanilla alongside the more adventurous.  For some reason it said to me, ‘whatever turns you on, do it’.  No pressure, nothin' was expected of me that was above and beyond.  Nothin' except for the kissin' and cuddlin' my partner bit, and since our experiment on the boat, that task was feelin' less and less like a chore, more like a treat.

As he closed the wardrobe door with a quiet click, I explained my theory to Rico.  Except the bit about the treat.


Rico:

I expected Sonny to flip.  I almost did when I first opened the black wooden door and came face to face with a dominatrix's closet.  So his taking everythin' so calmly threw me off-balance.  Not like this whole gig wasn't throwing me off-balance.

When he explained his theory about the basket of condoms on the dresser, I was quietly impressed.  Sonny isn't known for his logical thinkin' in these situations.  He's more a ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ kinda guy.

I was more than relieved.  At least I think I was.  If he'd have flipped he'd have had us both outta there faster than I could lay down a reasonable argument.  And outta there was somewhere a part of me really wanted to be. 

But he looked settled and relaxed, and admittedly that usually meant that things would go more smoothly.  When Sonny wound himself up tight, everyone around him tended to do the same without even knowin' it.  Me included.

We showered.  Separately.  Him first while I swept the room for bugs and hidden cameras.  Steve Duddy, an old acquaintance of Sonny's, Miami’s finest surveillance expert and someone the department had swapped jail time for assistance from, had given us this neat little device that swept a room from the bottom of a suitcase in silence in seconds and reported back both the location of any devices and their type along with their range.  If required, it could deactivate them too.

It reported the room as clean.

I'd just finished the sweep when Sonny stepped out of the bathroom wrapped in a thick, white towelling robe, hair in chaos, clean-shaven, smellin' of somethin' expensive.

Sometimes, he took my breath away. 

“Everything ok?” he asked and I nodded, knowin' what he was referring to.

“Everything’s clean.”

“Good.”  He smiled, obviously pleased.  “You need to try the shower.”

The shower was incredible.  I felt like I was I the midst of the most powerful massage of my life.  I stood under that pulsing cascade for what might have been hours.  The water stayed hot, the spray stayed hard, just the way I liked it.

Just the way my libido liked it too.

Wrapping my hand around my cock, I felt myself grow against my palm and fingers.  Dropping my head back into the waterfall, eyes closed, I jerked off slowly, lovin’ it.


Sonny:

What can I say?  I’m not a voyeur, never have been, never will be.

I dressed and fixed myself a drink.  For the longest time I stood at one of the windows looking out at the sky.  It was lead grey, as stormy as I’d ever seen it, givin' everything perfect definition and clarity.

Finally, having finished my double shot of Three Cocks bourbon (I had to wonder if they’d chosen that brand on purpose as some kind of innuendo) I turned back to the room.

I realised then that Rico was taking forever in the shower and I went in to hurry him up.  Not that I was too worried.  Chances were that Fagan would jump to the completely wrong reason for our delay, and that would help us no end.

I opened the bathroom door silently and stopped.

Not until that moment had I realised just how dark and beautiful my partner was.

I know it’s a strange thing, but I can appreciate beauty as well as anyone.  The quiet extractors in the bathroom had been designed to stop the place from steaming up, so I had a decent view of him standin' there behind the glass, water running in hard droplets over his sculptured body, along his dick as he brought himself off.

There was no rush to it like there usually was to my jerk-off sessions.  He was losing himself in it, enjoying the pleasure he could give himself, pleasure any man understood.

Just watchin' him was making me hard, and with a start I tore my eyes from him and closed the door again, leaving him to it.

I poured myself another large double and thought about football until my dick got the message.

But when I closed my eyes, I could see him as clearly as if I was still standin' there watchin' him.  That thing which had been rattlin' around inside my head was slowly formin' into an idea, one I couldn’t quite grasp yet but still that filled me with a warmth I didn’t recognise and an ease I didn’t understand.

Rico stepped out of the bathroom five minutes later and I didn’t say a word.  Instead, I finished my second drink and dropped back onto the huge bed, closin' my eyes and listenin' to him moving around, the sounds of him dressing, the smell of his aftershave, more familiar than my own I realised.  This was one strange version of domestic bliss, but lyin' there feelin' completely safe in his company, even in this house, I decided I'd take it.

He chose an Armani suit while I preferred, had always preferred, the more relaxed Versace look.  Finally dragged my lazy ass from the bed I brushed my usual ragout of hair into something akin to order, and with both of us looking like a million bucks, we went to join the party downstairs.

Finally, both of us looking like a million bucks, we went to join the party downstairs.



Rico:

Never in a million years did I think that Sonny would be able to pull off submissive.

The party had definitely increased in size by the time we joined it.  Men and men, women and women, vanilla and leather queens, and Fagan was working the room like a pro.

Despite the storm settling in outside, the patio doors at the far end of the enormous living room had been opened and people were already spilling out onto the covered patio.  Apparently, there was a pool party going on too, indoors rather than out.

I watched Sonny watchin' the crowd and couldn't help but think about his eyes on me.  My orgasm in the shower had been so much more intense with the knowledge that Sonny had seen me.

Vice cops don’t stay alive by not knowing when someone opens the door to the room they’re in, no matter how quietly it’s done or how safe they actually are.

He’d watched me for a long minute before closing the door again and knowing that had made me cum like a freight train.

I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d turned him on too.  It’s not like we’ve never seen each other naked.  We work more closely than most, and the boat isn’t big enough to provide too much privacy when we're both aboard.  It's just that we hadn’t taken any notice of one another before.  Not like that.

I’d never looked at him, he’d never – as far as I knew – looked at me, with any kind of sexual interest.

But somethin' had changed since the kiss on the boat two days ago.  Not that it had been anything passionate.  More virgin nerves - trial and error - than anythin' else.  But since then I’d been thinkin' about it, and I was pretty sure he had been too, just by the look in his eyes when he didn't think I was payin' attention.

I got us both a drink and found him talkin' to Fagan in a small group of strangers just outside.  For a moment, I stood and watched him, tryin' to see him in the same way others were seein' him.  As my boyfriend, my lover.

Sonny isn't exactly hard on the eyeballs.  Since he’d stopped smoking, stopped drinking so much when we were off duty (someone explain that one to me?), he was looking better than he’d looked in a long time and I found the word ‘gorgeous’ poppin' into my mind with increasin' regularity.

But to think of him as my lover was… odd.  I was a big fan of women.  I love women.  Women have soft bits in all the right places.  Women have wet, warm places to slide into.  My Sonny was probably a gay guy’s fantasy.  He wasn’t supposed to be mine.

Okay, so I was confused.  And getting more confused with every hour we spent in this place.  While I’d masturbated in the shower to vague thoughts of ladies with strong thighs and heavy breasts, I kept feelin' that weird somethin' that I’d felt on the boat when we’d kissed.

I glanced at Fagan as I approached the group with our drinks and found he was watching me with a smile.  I almost blushed to realise he’d seen me eyein' up Sonny.  It all added to our cover but I wasn't sure how Sonny would take it if our host decided to make a joke out of it. 

By the time we got out of here, I swore to myself, everything would be back to normal between us.


I was saying about Crockett and submissive?  You do not hear these two words in the same paragraph, never mind the same sentence.

But as I handed Sonny his drink – double Jack Daniels over ice – he gave me this dazzling smile then he did something that blew my mind.  And as he introduced me to our new friends, he leaned back into me, his left shoulder pressing into my right, his hip into mine, natural and relaxed like he knew his welcome, like we touched all the time.

The crazy Southern cat really knew how to work.  He could fall into a role like no one else I’d ever worked with, always walking that fine line between living it, and becoming it.  It should have bothered me, I decided later, that I was startin' to have feelin's for a guy who could be anyone at anytime.  If I hadn't seen him at his lowest I might have worried I didn't know who he really was.  But Sonny - my Sonny - I had to believe I knew.  Because my hand sat on his hip like it belonged there as I greeted our new friends and it felt right.  Couldn't help wonder how good we looked at that moment either.

Jess and Christie had been together since university apparently, since the night they’d both decided to be full-time lesbians.  Jess told me that they were firm believers in the theory that everyone was bi-sexual, and that being straight was a conscious decision. 

At that moment, with Sonny practically snuggled into my side, I had to agree with them.

Colin and James were the straightest gay couple I’d ever met.  Colin was at least ten years older than James, and they’d obviously struggled to accept the seemingly monogamous relationship they were now sharing.  Did everyone question themselves at some point in their lives?

And then there was Cal.  He and Fagan were so ‘together’ it was almost frightening.  As yet Fagan hadn’t been able to take his hands off the other man, and Cal had the same problem.  He was about the same age as Fagan, in the same good shape and very obviously in love.

We were surrounded by gay couples and I couldn't remember the last time I'd felt so completely at ease.

“We’re going to Mannequin’s tonight,” Cal told us, “it’s one of Danny’s clubs on Pleasure Island. You should join us."

Fagan threw in his whole-hearted agreement.  They wanted us to go, so we’d go. 


Fagan caught me on my own a couple of hours later, just after Sonny had vanished with Colin in the direction of the bar.  Our small group had moved through the course of the afternoon, being sociable, but by then we had settled ourselves in the large, white leather couches arranged in a square at the front of the room by the bay window overlooking the winding driveway.

Fagan left the middle seat of the three seater and sat down in the opposite corner.  It would sandwich Sonny between us and I was surprised at the direction that took my suspicions in.

Leaning over, Fagan told me, “He would make a fabulous model.  Has he ever done anything like that?”

“Not that I know of,” I told him, making sure I kept the thrill of triumph out of my expression.  It seemed our trip up here wasn’t to be wasted after all.  Not that 'waste' was how I'd describe what had happened so far.  We had a job to do, it was just gettin' difficult to keep that in mind.  “He can be very shy.”  Right.  In the same way that sharks were.

Fagan shook his head.  “That’s no problem, I have an excellent photographer.  Maybe between us we could talk him into it?”

A coloured drink appeared under my nose and I took it before Sonny turned and dropped gracefully into the sofa, practically into my lap.  He was playing this part to the full, and he made a commendable attempt to blow my concentration to tiny pieces as he leaning into my side, his free hand wrapping around my leg, just above the knee.

Even if I hadn’t thought about it before, with his warm body so close, his trusted hands touching me, nothing in the world could have stopped me from thinking about it then.

He might have been simply playing the role, maybe even teasing me a little, seeing if he could get a rise out of me.  Literally.

But the alcohol in my system was keeping my libido mostly under control and my pants weren't too tight, so at least I wasn’t about to embarrass myself in public.  Or maybe that's the reaction every around me would have expected.  After all, a number of the guys we'd met that afternoon had looked at Sonny like he was on the menu.  Couldn't help but wonder what Sonny would do if he felt wood when he moved his arm.  Would he flip, get outta there pronto?  Or would he play, up the ante?

“Talk me into what?”  He wasn't aware of any of it.  It wasn’t his usual, suspicious, ‘no one's talkin’ me into nothing, Bud’ tone that he usually adopted in these situations.  This was a purr.  And I thought briefly about killing him myself when I realised that he was seducing Fagan!  One day, Sonny was going to get us both shot.

“I was telling your extremely possessive lover here,” I almost dropped my drink, “that you would make a stunning centrefold.”

I felt Sonny stiffen for a moment.  He knew like I knew that this was the bait being taken.  It had never been so easy.  Did I just say easy?

“Me?  No way,” but there was an underlying hint of interest in his voice that would keep Fagan hooked.  “I get shy around cameras.”

“What have you got to be shy about?  You’re stunning!  Isn’t he stunning, Rico?”

My turn to hesitate.  Sonny had turned his head away from our host to look at me.  Those sea-green eyes were sparkling with mischief.  He felt so comfortable undercover like this, it was beyond me sometimes.  He was waiting for an answer.

Summonin' my courage, I balanced my drink on the wide arm of the sofa and ran the backs of my fingers down Sonny’s cotton-clad arm, saying as I did so, “he’s absolutely stunning.”

It was so easy to make him blush.  And it just added to the illusion of shy innocence that he was somehow radiating.  Cal, who was perched on the other arm of the same sofa, one arm around Fagan’s shoulders, looked at me with the oddest expression, and for a moment I felt like I’d corrupted Sonny.  Mischievious bastard that he is, I couldn't believe the way he was playin' us all.

He’d turned back to Fagan and was reelin' him in with the ease of a lazy catch.

“I’ve never done any kind of modelling.”

“Very few of the men in my magazine ever have.  But the camera would worship you.”  I watched Fagan studying my partner’s face.  “It doesn’t have to be nude, if that’s what you’re worried about.  Although I’d bet you have the most magnificent cock.”

I had to bite my lip to stop the unexpected laughter that bubbled up inside of me.  I didn’t want to see the expression on Sonny’s face at that moment; I would have howled - he deserved everything he got as far as I was concerned. 


Sonny:

I couldn’t believe he’d said that!

I stared at him for a moment, feelin' Rico’s suppressed laughter in his trembling body where I was pressed close to him.  Then I laughed.  I bit my bottom lip and laughed, glancing away from Fagan to his boyfriend for a calculated second.  Cal was smiling at me with undisguised affection.  And it ocurred to me that they both wanted me.

It was very flattering.  And frankly terrifying.

"Er...."

Fagan’s face was apology incarnate.  “Sorry, Sonny, that was cruel.”  He leaned forward, lookin' at Rico sittin' behind me.  “How about your lover?  Is it true what they say about black men?”

Oh, yeah.  From what I’d seen in the shower, it was definitely true.

I didn’t meet Rico’s eyes for fear of losing it completely.  Instead I just nodded pointedly.

We played so fucking dangerously sometimes.  We were sitting in the lion’s den with the king of the pride and we were playin' at windin' each other up.

I was glad of the alcohol because against all odds, this was arousin' me.

No way was I posin' for anyone - that wasn't part of the deal.  We were supposed to find out what happened to the two guys who’d been whacked.  Best way to do that was to spend some time lettin' the bad guys get to know you, to trust you, and just to listen.

Luckily, Fagan’s attention was distracted for second by someone who’d just arrived, and I used the time to regain my equilibrium.

I didn't want to admit to myself how good Rico felt, just sittin' so close.  Bein' like this with someone I trust implicitly was a long-lost feelin' and I liked it.  I stole a glance at him, wantin' to make sure he was okay, and the next thing I knew his hand was curved around the side of my neck, his fingers stroking the hairs at the nape.

I took a breath a held it, swallowing against his palm, then I tilted my head and leaned into his touch.  There was something so intense in the way he was looking at me, I hoped to god we were gonna be okay.

Before whatever was about to happen could happen, Fagan broke the spell.

“Time to party, lovers,” he informed the group in general.  “The cars are here to take us to the island.”


Rico:

I wanted to give Fagan a huge kiss from the both of us.  What the hell was I about to do with Sonny?!

The lines between me and my cover were getting real fuzzy real fast.

Pleasure Island is a place for tourists.  There were about forty clubs, bars and restaurants on the island, which was connected to the mainland, just outside Disney World, by a flat wooden bridge.  Every night at midnight there was a street party like it was New Year's Eve - a tickertape parade.

Mannequin’s - just one of Fagan's clubs - was closed to the tourists that night.  Most of the people who’d been at Fagan’s house had joined us.  It was a classy place, good music, expensive champagne, state-of-the-art sound system.

We sat with the same group, although Colin and James spent most of the night on the dance floor, and  were replaced in spirit by another couple, a straight couple this time, just for variety.  I was vaguely surprised Fagan knew any.

Their names were Joy and Steven.  Steven was a banker who loved happened to have gay friends.  Joy was quiet, but obviously enjoyed the company of those close to them.

Definitely not the murdering types.  No one I’d met so far had fit the bill, not even Fagan.  After a while, you started to develop a sixth sense for these things.  Sonny’s sixth sense was well honed and I knew it had been quiet ever since we’d arrived in Kissimmee.

It was a party town, a tourist town.  Fagan and his friends were having fun.  They were rich - the world was their oyster.  What kind of publisher murdered his models anyway?

After half an hour, I excused myself and headed for the bathroom.  I took a wrong turn.

I’d never been into a ‘backroom’ of any club before in my whole life, although I’d been aware of them.  New York, Miami, these aren't innocent places.  It took a couple of seconds for my eyes to adjust to the darker lighting, but my ears had no such problems.

I could hear low groans of men, the slappin' of flesh against flesh.  There were three men close to the door.  One was in the middle, legs spread, arms up above his head, hands pressed against the wall for balance.  There was a guy behind him, fucking him, and as I stepped into the room I saw the third guy on his knees in front of the first, sucking him off.

I realised that for as far as I could see, there were couples, threesomes and orgies and they weren’t all guys.

Backing out slowly, I found the Gents.

At least the presence of the backroom meant that the toilets were relatively safe.  Relatively.  As I was trying to take a piss, I realised that there was a rhythmic knocking coming from the end cubicle, along with a couple of stifled cries not usually associated with sniffing coke.

Closing my eyes for one moment my fogged brain offered me up the idea of bringing Sonny in here, of turning him face to the wall of one of those cubicles and just burying myself in him.

It was momentary.  But in that moment, my body caught fire.


“You okay?”  Sonny’s traditional greeting to me when I came back from anywhere.  Five minutes in the jon or two weeks’ vacation in New York.  And it was so wonderfully normal that it settled me down a little, to my incredible relief.

“I’m fine.”  I smiled my patented 'all's well with the world' smile, but I don't think he bought it.

“Drink, Rico?”  I looked up at Cal, who, I realised then, had just vacated the seat I was sitting in.

“Sure,” I grinned, “something long and ice cold.”

Cal’s eyes widened along with his smile, and he nodded.  He’d obviously already taken Sonny’s order and I had to forcibly push aside the pang of jealousy I felt.  What the hell was I doin'?


Sonny:

I needed to piss.  I’d been drinkin' most of the afternoon, evening and night.  As I got up, Rico murmured to me, “make sure you don’t take a wrong turn.” 

All I could concentrate on was his breath on my ear and his hand on my arm.  We had to get a hold on ourselves or we were gonna do somethin' we'd both regret.

But thirty seconds later I found out what he was referrin' to.

If I’d been sober, it would have been too much.  As it was, my libido tried to run and hide.  But I didn’t.  I blended into the shadows as I walked through the long, narrow room.  A small group in one corner caught my eyes.  A woman was sandwiched between two guys, at the same time, the guy behind her was being fucked by a fourth - man or woman I couldn't tell, but it was a strap-on being used - bigger than any cock I'd ever seen. 


“They call it a daisy chain.”  I jumped at the voice in my ear and when I turned, I didn’t know whether or not to be relieved that it was Cal.

“I’ve never seen it done with a woman before,” I told him, for want of anythin' better to say.  Like 'how the hell does somethin' that big fit up there?' which I didn't think would be appropriate.

Cal stayed close behind me, but the only touch was of his breath on the back of my neck.  “No one would make you do anything you didn’t want to do, Sonny.”  I couldn't make up my mind if he was tryin' to reassure me or if he was comin' on to me.

Either way he was absolutely fucking right.  I’d break their arms and legs if they did.  But I kept quiet about that and tried to relax.  A few long, hot seconds later Cal's hand was on my arm and he was turning me.  For a heart-stopping second I thought he was going to kiss me, back me up against the nearest free bit of wall and... but he said, “Come on, I don’t think you’re ready for this yet,” and led me back into the main club.

Once we were out of there, he headed off to the bar and I found the toilets. 

It isn't easy to pee with a semi-erect dick. 

This whole case had me turned around.  My libido hadn’t been overly predictable recently, but this was getting ridiculous.

It didn't help that Rico and I were playing with each other.  It was safer than playing with anyone else.  I just hoped we were strong enough to get through it unscathed.


Speaking of playin', as I was about to sit back down next to my partner, Rico grabbed my arm gently and pulled.

I lost my balance and ended up just where he obviously wanted me.  Right in his lap.

His arms went around my waist so naturally that I just went with it, turning slightly to slide one arm around his shoulders.  I'm not a heavy guy but I'm not a featherweight either.  Sooner or later, when the blood drained from his legs, he was gonna seriously regret that move.

But he was seriously surprising me too.  I’d never have imagined that we’d be capable of pulling something like this off.  I'd been worrying since Castillo had assigned us this gig, that we'd be too awkward with each other, too nervous to convinced anyone we were gay lovers.

Instead, we were starting to convince ourselves.


Rico:

It was five in the a.m. when we fell back into the same leather couch we’d left six hours before.  The sun was just risin' over the horizon.

Exhausted and drunk, Sonny was practically asleep the moment our butts hit the cushions, head on my shoulder, eyes closed.  Just as tired and nowhere even close to sober, I reached to stroke an errant strand of honey blond hair back from his face and minutes later caught myself just staring at him.

I’d had him on my lap in the club for just long enough for Cal to make the obvious ‘get a room’ comment.  Despite my legs being numb by the time I shooed him off, I missed the weight of him and the warmth of him against my belly, against my arm.  Against my treacherous cock.  Now I had him back in my arms, sleeping against me, and it was just perfect.

Fagan had dropped into the other corner of the sofa, his attention on his lover who was behind the bar fixing us all a last drink of the night.  Shots - doubles straight up.  Ironically.

Once he had a glass in his hand, our host settled further into the sofa and let his eyes rest on Sonny.  For a while, I watched him watching my partner.  When he glanced up at me, he smiled.

“Cal and I have been together for seven years.  In all that time, no other guy’s really interested me.”  Until now, I knew.  “Until now.”

No way he was gettin' his hands on Sonny.

“How long have you two been together?”

“Just over two years,” I recited the answer from the file that was memorised in my head.  Should have made it longer, closer to reality.

“Have you had anyone else since?”

This wasn’t in the file.  I shook my head.  Why the hell would I want anyone else when I had Sonny?  If I had Sonny.  Fraudian slip.

“Has he?”

“Not that I know of.”  I dropped my head to the back of the couch, not taking my eyes from Fagan as I put a resume into story form.  “When I met him, he didn’t know much about the scene.  I introduced him to a lot of things.”

Fagan's eyebrows rose and he reached across, took a couple of strands of Sonny's hair between his fingers, stroking lightly.  It was all I could do not to punch him.

His voice was quiet when he asked, “The first time you took him, was he scared?” 

Suddenly, the image from the club was back in my brain, the idea of burying inside my partner’s body, of being a part of him, so deep into him we were one person.

Fagan's voice overlaid itself on the picture in my head.  “Did you tell him over and over that it was okay?  That you weren't going to hurt him?”

I stared at our host, unable to speak, anger and arousing boiling my blood.

“Is he still as tight as he was then?  Or do you use butt plugs to loosen him?”

I tightened my arm around Sonny's waist, pulling him instinctively closer to me.  I didn’t want any of that.  Whatever my cock thought.  So why was the very suggestion such a turn on?

For the longest time, I just sat silently.  Then I forced a smiled.  “I should take him to bed.”

Fagan nodded, smiled back, and dropped his hand.


Sonny:

I had vague memories of Rico waking me and us making it up to our room.  After that, there was nothing until I woke up with a pounding headache and a full bladder made painful by the mere sound of heavy rain.

It was a couple of minutes before I realised it wasn't rain - sunshine was cutting in through the cracks in the black drapes and what I was hearing was actually the shower.

Then the details of the day before came flooding back in their entirety, as if my mind had to be sure I was awake before dropping the series of bombshells.  At least I was still wearing my underwear.

Groaning, regretting it, I carefully moved.  I had to pee.

This time, I made no secret of my being in the bathroom.  Rico smiled at me through the glass and turned his back, giving me at least the illusion of privacy.  Not that he hadn’t seen me take a piss before.

“You okay, partner?” he called over the water.

I didn't answer that.  Rico doesn't do hangovers.  I hate him for it.  “I don’t suppose there’s any Alka Seltzer around here?”  Flushing the toilet, I opened one of the cupboards and found every medicine known to man.  Picking out the packet I wanted, I left Rico to his shower.

By the time he’d finished, I was feeling a load better.

“You know, man,” he started as I padded into the bathroom to stand under that fierce water for an hour, “we should shower together.”

“Ha ha.”  It was the only conversation he was going to get until I’d had at least two cups of coffee.

It wasn’t until I’d been standing under the water for some time that I wondered if he’d been serious.


Rico:

I wanted to make sure that it was safe to venture downstairs this morning so I left Sonny to it and went in search of life.

Fagan and Cal were sitting in the conservatory off a second lounge that I hadn’t seen last night.  There was an amazing smell of freshly brewed coffee making its way throughout the house.  If nothin' else, that would coax Sonny from our room eventually.

“Rico!”  Fagan stood up as soon as he saw me, coming straight over to me with a stricken expression and until he spoke I thought something terrible had happened.  “Listen, Rico… last night, I was out of line.  Everything I said when we were back here… it was none of my business.  I was drunk and I’m sorry.”

I was frankly stunned.  “It’s… it’s fine, honestly.  No problem.”

“Thanks.  Next time, you should tell me to butt out, I get horny when I’ve had a skin full."  He patted my shoulder and left me to pour myself a large coffee from the pot standing proud in the centre of a laden breakfast table.  I wondered about taking the pot up to Sonny, but he’d be down soon enough, and after last night I needed some time to assess the situation, not to mention to sort out my own mixed up feelings.

I took one of the cushioned wicker chairs, resisting the temptation to close my eyes again, and sipped the strong black liquid, letting the room phase out for a short time.

Cal's strangled cry brought me straight back.  Both Fagan and I sat up - somehow I managed not to throw coffee over myself.

“Oh god… another one.  Danny….”  Cal handed the newspaper he’d been reading to his boyfriend and I watched Fagan’s face fall.

“What’s up?”  Not an unexpected question.

Fagan handed me the paper.  Second page, in the left-hand corner, was a picture of a young blond hair with the headline, “March Stiff is murdered.”

Someone had killed Simon Marlo, the guy whose house Sonny and I had been stakin' out only three nights back.

“He’s the third,” Fagan explained, sounding dumfounded rather than upset.  “January, February and March, someone’s whacking our centrefolds.”


I caught Sonny just as he was leaving the room.  Handing him a mug of steaming black coffee from the tray I was carrying, I pushed him gently back inside and closed the door.

“March is dead.”

He stared at me, sipping the coffee as if on autopilot.  “March who?”

“Simon Marlo?  March centrefold.”

“Fuck!”  Rolling his eyes, he paced across to the windows.  “Dammit!”  Sighing, I watched him as he let off steam.  I knew exactly what he was feeling and thinking at that moment.  “I don’t know what good we’re doing here, Rico.  Maybe we’re wasting our time.”

Strolling over to him, I shook my head.  “Not any longer.”

“What do you mean?”

“Guess who was April’s centrefold.”

Frowning, he finished off the first mug of coffee and thankfully swapped it for the second one on the tray, downing the shot of JackDaniels I’d brought up for him, knowing his preferred breakfast.  “Who?”

“Cal.”

He stopped pacing right in front of me, eyes widening.  “Okay, so we’re in the right place at the right time.  At last.”  But his grouching had no substance to it this time.  “Thanks for the drinks, Partner.”

“Pleasure.”

We walked along the thickly carpeted corridor until we came to the rails that surrounded the balcony overlooking the stairs and the hallway below.  We’d heard the doorbell as we left the room, and now there were voices.  Standing back, we both listened.

“Lieutenant Joe Madison,” the first voice introduced.

“Daniel Fagan.  What can do I do for you gentlemen?”

“Mr Fagan, we have reason to believe that a friend of yours, a Mr Calum Bridges listed at this address, may be in danger.”

Fagan’s laugh was joined by the slightly higher chuckle of Cal himself.  “And you’re here to protect him?  That’s just marvellous, Officers, but look around you.  I feel he’s safer here than with you, what do you think?”

The guy had a point.  The place was surrounded by silent, invisible men toting very large guns.

“I assure you, Lieutenant,” that was Cal, “security around here is more than adequate.  Danny’s bodyguards go where ever we go.”

“And,” Fagan added with a smile in his voice, “we think we may even have a couple of undercover cops in our midst.”

We froze.  I heard Sonny’s breath catch.  He couldn’t mean us.  No way had they made us.  Sonny and I had pulled off far more shaky covers than these in the past.  We’d been brilliant!  We’d been all over each other….

“Who knows?” Cal was saying, sounding totally nonchalant.  “And who cares?”  There was a smile in his voice.  “I’ll be absolutely fine, Lieutenant, but your concern is touching.  Thank you.”

A couple of seconds later, the door closed, and Sonny and I made our way down to the hall.

“Everything all right?” I asked, calm and casual.

“Everything’s fine.  In fact,” Cal hooked one arm around his lover’s waist, “we were thinking of going to Disney World and I wouldn't want this to change our plans.  Are you both up for a ride?”


Sonny:

I felt as if I was thirteen again!  Although if I'm being thirteen wasn't this much fun.

I’d never been to Disney World as a kid.  But I the rush of the rides made me feel like a teenager.

Men like Fagan never queued.  We walked into the park and a path mysteriously cleared in front of us, so that I barely noticed the tourists as I chatted with Cal.  Rico was up front with our host, but as we reached the entrance to Space Mountain, he hung back and let us catch up.

“You ever done this before?” he asked me, fascinated.

“Sure!”  But I wasn’t.  I hadn’t even thought about it on the way in, but now I was face to face with the reality, I felt nervous.  “Erm….”

“Sonny, Rico,” I smiled worriedly at Cal, and he grinned back.  “Don’t worry, it’s a walk in the park.”

“A very steep park,” I muttered, but I climbed into the car and Rico squeezed in beside me.

“If you’re scared,” he whispered, “hang on to me.”

Message received and understood.  If Fagan suspected we were cops, we needed to wipe that suspicion clear from his mind.

Cal glanced back from the seat in front of us and grinned, raising his eyebrows with menaces.  “Hang on.”

I hung on to the front bar for dear life as the car moved off.  We entered a dark tunnel, decorated with flashing lights and pulsing with bass music.  Thirty seconds later we were falling forward, and I was screaming as loud as my lungs would let me.

It was the most incredible rush!

Beside me, Rico was laughing, head thrown back into the torrent of air all around us.

Letting go of the bar as we climbed yet again, I went with it, leaving my stomach in mid-air as the car circled downwards in a tight twist.

I stopped thinking and just let myself enjoy, like I’d left all my life’s baggage on the ground just for a minute.

When we got off, my legs were jelly.  It seemed the most natural thing in the world to slide my arm around Rico’s waist, for him to do the same with me.  At that moment, I wondered why we’d been so worried about this. 

Rico and I were closer than I’d honestly known any partners to be.  The silent communication, the weird sixth sense thing we hand about each other.  The relationship was just a couple of steps off being a marriage.  A really good marriage.  After everything we’d been through together, touching and holding was easy.  Maybe... maybe sex would be too.

I pushed that thought straight to the back of my mind and we walked alongside Cal and Fagan, chatting and laughing, heading for the log flume.  Again, whoever was clearing the path for us was invisible.  The tourists just parted and we wandered through, ignoring everyone but each other.

Stepping into the flume, Rico gallantly let me sit in the front.  He got in behind me, and sliding his arms around my waist, he pulled my back into him.  I wrapped my own arms over his and hung on, trying to look around us at the course the log would take.

Cal and Fagan – Daniel as he was quickly becoming to us – climbed in behind and the log rounded the corner to send us off on our three-minute journey.

The first drop was gentle enough.  The spray of water rising around us for a couple of feet, splashing but hardly soaking us.

Four drops later, I was wetter than I could ever remember being with my clothes on.


Rico:

It was complete madness!  But I hadn’t laughed so hard in a very long time, and I don’t think Sonny had either.

The four of us dripped around Disney World, sampling the rides.  After his initial apprehension on Space Mountain, Sonny threw himself into the entertainment as thoroughly as he threw himself into everything else.

After the flume we got onto the Pirates of the Caribbean ride without so much as a pause in our stride, all of us feeling like kids as the canons exploded around us and the animatronics played our their parts tirelessly.

We’d almost dried off by the time Daniel (it was difficult to keep calling him Fagan after spending the afternoon riding Disney rides) talked us into sitting in a large tyre and riding it down a long, winding water course, soaking ourselves once again.

It amused me to think of the cost of the clothes we were wrecking with this and the limo's expensive leather seats didn’t escape water-free either.

Once back at the mansion, Sonny and I padded upstairs to shower and change.

“One of more weirder afternoons spent undercover,” he called from the bathroom over the cascade of hot water.

Definitely.  But this had to be classed as one of weirder undercover cases we’d ever pulled, full stop.  Still, not the nightmare we’d expected it to be.

The water stopped running and less then a minute later Sonny wondered out with a towel wrapped around his waist, water dripping from his hair and chest.  His eyes were still dancing with enjoyment of the afternoon’s activities.

“Is it me,” he began, “or could last night and today have been from two separate worlds?”

“It ain’t you, Partner.”

Stepping around him, dropping my damp clothes to the tiled floor, I stepped into the shower.

What made me leave the glass doors open, I have no idea.  I was playing to him.

The most incredible thing about the afternoon had been Sonny’s sheer shining brilliance.  He’d simply come alive.  Suddenly I’d found myself seeing what was usually buried so deep inside my partner that no one ever saw it, not even me.  I loved that I knew him better than anyone else.  I loved that he was my Sonny, that he would open up to me and only me.  But this had been something new.  Whatever had been inside me, kicking around my mind since that kiss on the boat, it had suddenly blossomed. 

Through the water and the open bathroom door, I could see Sonny towelling himself dry before dropping naked into the centre of the massive bed.

Even from where I was standing I could see the glorious contrast between the white sheets and the deep tan of his skin.  I could see his damp hair, all messed up, his closed eyes, parted lips and sculptured chest.  His long arms stretched above his head.  We'd always been relaxed with one another, but this was different.  Since we'd arrived here, we'd each been pushing one another, taking it just that little bit further each time.

Taking the soap, I worked up a lather and covered myself in the white suds, racing the water which was washin' them from me.

When I looked up next, Sonny had shifted on to his side on the bed and was watching me steadily.

I could feel the heat in his gaze arc across the distance between us.  My throat went suddenly dry and my head light as all my blood rushed south.

What the hell were we doin'?  Did we even know what we were playin' with?

This chemistry between us, it’s always been there.  From the beginnin' we’ve had a symbiosis that even I know is very rare.  Not even Rafael and I shared the connection Sonny and I seem to have had since Day One.

Were we pushin' that connection to its limits?  Would it stretch to accommodate something this new? or would it snap?  Did we really want what we seemed to be silently promisin' one another?

I had to be honest with myself about it - somethin' inside me wanted it.  I was startin' to forget how it had felt to look at Sonny and not feel a smouldering need, a desire for somethin' I’d never had before.

Turning away, closing my eyes, I tried to will my cock into submission.  It had no scruples and no morals.  This could be the best thing to happen to us, or it could tear us apart.

When you’re on the street, you’re being backed up by colleagues, people you trust because you know they’re good, honest people and they’re your friends.

When you’re undercover, the only person you have is your partner.

Sonny may be a loose canon sometimes, but as a partner, as the one person my life depended on when I was under, he was solid.  I would never go under with anyone else.  And now I was thinkin' about doin' the nasty with him.

I remember, not too long ago, sitting talkin' to Joey Harden, DEA, in the hospital one night where he was recoverin' from a bullet wound.  He’d been undercover playing star witness to smoke out some FBI snitch, and had bonded tight with my partner.  Sonny’s like that, he’ll get real close, real quick.  And then usually he’ll get burned.

With Joey, it could have gone the bad way, but it didn’t.  The kid survived the bullet pumped into his back by the bastard we’d been after.  Sonny had worried himself sick for days.  That night I spent chatting with Joey, Sonny had been asleep in the chair in the corner of the room, dead to the world for fourteen hours.

Joey had asked me about us, how long we’d been partners, how relaxed we looked together.  Sonny had apparently said some things about me when they’d been out in the Keys - some real nice things.  I was touched when Joey told me, when he said how lucky Sonny was to have a partner he could trust without a doubt, without reservation.  Touched Sonny felt it enough to tell him about it, to talk about me.

Would us doing what we were thinkin' of doin' destroy that?  What were we thinkin' about doin' anyway?

It was madness!

So why did I want it so much?


Sonny:

As I watched Rico in the shower, ideas started to solidify in my brain.  I knew by then what it was like to have Rico’s arms around me, the strength and comfort in them.  I knew what his mouth tasted like, how it felt, how he felt.  I imagined what it would feel like to be able to bury myself in his arms at night, to sleep there.  I imagined what it would be to have the freedom to touch, to tell him everythin' I wanted to tell him.

Thinkin’ like that could be trouble.  Rico’s my partner, the one person in the entire world I can depend on, the one who’s always been there for me.  That’s why it was so damn tempting.  To have someone like Rico lovin' me, someone I knew would never, ever hurt me, never betray me, was like a dream just out of reach.

I guess he had the same thought, because after a time he turned away from me under the water, and I got up from the bed and dressed, tryin' not to think at all.


The first thin' you notice about the bad guys when you're undercover in their homes is that they're a sociable bunch.

In the admittedly not-so-short time that it took Rico and I to shower and change (a delay that only added to our cover, I can guess what Daniel and Cal assumed we were up to), around twenty new people had arrived and were milling around in the living room.  Florida's unusual weather patterns were in full swing that day and despite having cleared for our outing to Disney World, the skies had darkened once again.

Dinner was awaiting us in the form of a hot buffet and we were soon tucking in.  But the tension between Rico and I wouldn't be assuaged, and it was becoming less easy not to think about it with each minute that ticked by.

Every look we gave one another was loaded.  As we picked from the extensive selection of hot and cold food, he brushed against me, making it look and feel so outwardly natural it was difficult to comprehend the warmth I felt every time he did it.

As we stood talking to Jess - one half of the lesbian couple we'd met the previous day - I could feel his hand on the small of my back, fingers casually tracing patterns through my thin linen shirt.

Cal noticed too.  Leaning in between us, he smiled and murmured good-naturedly, "can you two not keep your hands off one another for ten seconds?"

Apparently not.  I didn't believe that he thought we were cops, not for a second.  It wasn't too much of a stretch to reason that Orlando Homicide, or even Vice, were running their own show and one of more of our guests were the law just like us.  Chances were we never find out, and the way we'd been actin' with each other I'd have been happy not to meet any of our fellow guests again.  As long as our butts were safe, we didn't really care.  Not that it wouldn't be something to yell at Lieutenant Joe Madison about once we got out of there.

“Sonny, Rico,” we turned from Jess to Daniel.  He was approaching us with another man, a newcomer.  This guy was sharp, albino-looking eyes taking us both in with a single glance.  “I’d like you to meet Gray, our photographer.”

We both shook his hand, easy and relaxed.  Nothing threatenin', nothin' to worry about.  It was so rare that we were this settled undercover.  After talking for a few minutes, I realised that he was sizing me up for the camera.  My resolution still stood, but the side of me that plays with guns and drives too fast was flattered.

Seems like everyone was strokin' my ego today.

I felt Rico close up against me, and realised to my absolute amazement that he was statin' his claim, markin' his territory.  I.e. me.  His arm snaked around my waist, possessive, eyes filled with somethin' odd - like Gray was a threat.  He was just the photographer!  Man....

I could see Daniel outta the corner of my eye, hiding a smile not-too-subtly behind his hand. 

Before I knew it, Gray was steppin' up to what he was obviously now seein' as a challenge and moved forward himself, closing the gap so it was me who had to stand his ground.

You' would make a fabulous ‘Stiff’ centrefold."

I almost laughed.  As far as chat-up lines went, it was the worst I’d heard in a long while.  I didn’t dare glance at Rico; I could just imagine the expression on his face and at least one part of if would be triumph.  Even if I was gay, he wouldn’t have had a worry in the world where that guy was concerned.

See how well I know my partner?  He stepped away with a small squeeze of my hip and moved off; the ultimate insult.  Gray wasn’t a threat to him and he was makin' it clear.

But my curiosity had been stoked.  And Gray – being the guy who’d apparently photographed all three of the victims whose deaths we were supposed to be investigating – was someone I wanted to talk to.

“I’m not photogenic,” I told him truthfully.

His eyes went wide.  “Whoever told you that was talking out of his backside,” he told me with absolute certainty.  “You’re beautiful, Sonny.  Your eyes are jewels, your skin’s like caramel, your hair is like silk.”

I was glad Rico was over talking to Colin and James, he’d have been bent-double by now, crying with laughter, just like I was inside.

“So… you’d see me… how?”

“Oh, Baby….  Any way you want.”

I couldn’t hide my smirk much longer.  “Come on, you have got to be kidding me?”

Beside us, Daniel was smiling now.  “Why don’t you see it, Sonny?” he asked me.  “Rico sees it.”

My stomach did a backwards somersault.  They could see that?  Rico was... lookin' at me like that?  “Rico’s biased.”

Daniel laughed softly.  “Understatement.  Rico worships the ground you walk on.”

The humour faded and I looked over at where my partner was laughing with the gorgeous Colin.  It was difficult to think of Rico in terms of anything but my partner - my best friend - the closest person to me in the whole damn world.  Although my dick seemed to be givin' it its best shot recently.  Rico was so much more than his looks and his clothes.  He was as familiar to me as his my own shadow.  Damn it, he was my shadow and I was his.

And right at that moment I wanted to crawl inside him and stay there forever.


Rico:

Gray had been eyein' up Sonny from the moment they shook hands, and his interest definitely was not strictly business.

But when he made that crack about Sonny being a ‘Stiff’ centrefold I had to walk away.  I almost cracked up and I knew Sonny was gonna laugh.  We’d have set one another off if I’d stayed around.

I spotted Colin and James a couple of feet away.  As we spoke, Sonny had my only slightly divided attention.

He was talkin' to Gray, probably thinkin' he was fishin' for information when what he'd actually be doin' was winding the slimeball up.  I heard Daniel say something I couldn't quite catch, Sonny looked up, straight at me.

For a single hard beat of my heart everything else vanished and all that existed was Sonny Crockett and Ricardo Tubbs.  In that moment I knew somethin' was going to happen between us and my whole body tensed like an over-taut guitar string.


Sonny:

“You two are so sweet - like you’ve only just fallen in love.”

Daniel’s amused comment pulled my attention back to the here and now.  I smiled.  Only just fallen in love?  That was about right.  I’d loved Rico for a long time, probably since the night he dumped Michelle and went with me to the gas station so I could explain about Evan and Orgell.

I hadn’t been in love with him until that moment, standin' in Daniel Fagan's living room, when everythin' got redefined.

I turned back to Daniel and Gray, lyin' smoothly.  “It’s always been like this between us.” 

Gray smirked, but Daniel threw his head back and laughed.  “God, I love you two!  It’s like a fairytale!  I thought Cal and I were bad but you two… I could almost believe you’ll be faithful to one another.”

“I thought you two were monogamous,” I stated, trying not to sound naïve.  Were gay men monogamous?  Did they marry?  I knew squat about it, and not for the first time that weekend I wished I’d done more research over and above findin' out what it felt like to kiss my partner.

“As monogamous as we get, Sonny.”  He shrugged.  “We digress now and again, nothing serious.”  He smiled at me kindly.  “Haven’t had that many long-term relationships, have you?”

I shook my head.  It was the truth – none, in fact, with other guys.

Reaching out, he stopped short of touching my cheek.  “You’re perfect, you know that?  I wish you’d let Gray photograph you, even if you keep your clothes on and we never publish a single shot.”

I frowned.  “Then what would be the point?”

“I would absolutely love to have you in my private collection.”

Three days ago I’d have bolted from this kind of attention.  But my ego was so inflated I was never gonna get it out the front door, and with Rico close by I felt safe, secure.  Confident in my sexuality - whatever that was turnin' out to be.  It was a little bit late in the day to find out I fancied guys.  Okay, a guy.  But Rico wasn't just anyone.

Cal rescued me, appearin' next to me and puttin' a glass of champagne into my hand.  “Would you two leave him alone?  He’s had enough of your doting.  He doesn’t want to do the photos, accept it, move on!”

Gray skulked off - and I thought maybe there was some uncomfortable history between he and Cal.  Daniel shrugged, smiled, and followed him.  I smiled at my saviour gratefully.  “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.  I think Rico’s concerned.”

Glancing again at my partner I met his laser-beam stare.  Looking back at Cal, leading him with my apparently sea-green eyes, we moved to join them.  As we got close, I slid my arm around Rico's waist, meaning to tease.  It felt natural, and more than that, it felt good.

He turned his head, eyes full of concern for li'le ol' me.  Come on, Rico, guys with guns I can take, photographers with intent I can't?  Give me a little credit.  All in my expression when I met his gaze, and in silent response he put one arm around me and pulled me against his hip.

It felt better than good.  It felt terrific.  My mouth opened, although god knows what I was gonna say because my brain had stopped all higher functions and was focused solely on Rico as he leaned towards me and his lips touched mine.


Rico:

I didn’t mean to kiss him.  I’d been worried about him a little, surrounded by gay guys all telling him how gorgeous he was.  He’d usually freak under that kind of attention.

But he just sauntered over to me, Cal in tow, hooked his arm around me cool as a cucumber....  I had to kiss him.  I had to break some of this tension between us before it blew and took us both with it.

We both froze, lips pressed gently together.  He didn’t make any effort to break the contact, and unable to resist, I pushed the tip of my tongue out to touch the outline of his mouth.

I felt him shudder beneath me, and my whole body reacted like a loaded gun.

I moved to grab him, wanting nothing but to tangle my fingers in his hair, get his mouth wide open under mine and plunder it, get him naked beneath me.  I felt like my skin was on fire and he was the only thing that would douse the flames.

Whatever it was that stopped me, I was eternally glad of it.  Something made me back off, loosen my arm at his waist, let him back away from him a step - but no more because he looked like I'd slapped him across the face and I didn't want him thinkin' for a second that I'd changed my mind.

And I heard Sonny whimper, so quiet no one else could have caught it.  It was a sound that would stay with me for the rest of my life.  A sound that stroked my nerves and stoked the arousal burning inside of me.  In the darkest part of my soul, I wanted to hurt him just to hear the sound again.

He was starin’ at me with this wild look in his eyes and I realised he was hurtin’ already.  We’d been teasing each other for too long and now he'd realised the only thing left to us was to give up, give in, and screw each other senseless.

I don't know if I was relieved or not when Cal - standing behind Sonny's shoulders - threw both hands up and told us to quit it or we'd set the sprinkler system off.


Sonny:

We were losin' it big time.  I needed to put some distance between us, just for a couple of minutes, just to cool down.  Cal, Colin and James had just seen a kiss, nothin' unusual, nothin' surprisin'.  I knew better.  We weren't a couple - we weren't even gay - bi - whatever!  We were partners, closer than any married couple I've ever known, but that wasn't the point.

When Colin picked up the conversation he'd been havin' with Rico, I excused myself and ducked out, Cal following like I'd somehow known he would.

"Eventually they'll stop askin'," he said obliquely as we reached the edge of the outdoor swimming pool.  It was a moment before I pegged he wasn't talkin' about Rico.

"The photographs," I clarified, just to be sure, and Cal nodded.  Stretching out one bare foot, I stirred up the clean, sapphire water with my toes, still distracted by the taste of my partner lingering on my lips.  "You were April, right?"

"You remember me!  I'm honoured.  Now I can imagine you and Rico gettin' off on me, turn-about's fair play and all that."

I think I blushed.

"Danny wasn't sure about it," he said, voice goin' all serious.  "He wanted to see the pictures but didn't want anyone else to."

"He still published them."

"Yeah.  In the end he got off on the idea of his readers jerking off over my photo when he gets to fuck the real thing."

I turned, looked at him, tryin' to work him out.  "You don't mind?"

Cal laughed gently.  "If I'd have minded I wouldn't have posed in the first place.  I like porn - if I didn't I wouldn't be with Danny.  Porn stops people from going insane when they can't have the real thing.  Porn lets us learn about who we are without the humiliation of anyone else sharing our mistakes."

For some reason it reminded me of that old joke - 'Why is porn better than a woman?  Because porn doesn't mind if you have lots of it at once.'

I could feel his eyes on me.  "Are you considering modelling for Danny?"

Thinkin' it might open a couple more doors - or mouths - if they thought I was, I shrugged non-commitally.  "Maybe."  Looking directly at him I smiled my best, winning smile.  "Don't tell your boyfriend, I'll never hear the end of it and I'm not sure at the moment."

Cal moved closer, but not uncomfortably close.  I liked him, I really did.  "What's stopping you?"

"I've never done anything like it before."

"You'd never been fucked before your first partner put his dick up your ass."  Touche.  It didn't sound as crude as it could have done coming from Cal.  My first partner never got anywhere near my ass and neither had my current one.  Yet. 

And that stopped me in my tracks... was that something in Rico's mind?  Did he want to go that far?

"Sorry."  He obviously thought he'd gone too far and I shook my head with a chuckle.

"Nah, man.  Don't be.  Just... sparked a memory."  I lied smoothly.

"Good one, I hope."

His concern was touching, seriously.

"Oh yeah."

"Danny would love it if you'd do a photo shoot."

"I'm sure he would."  I glanced at Cal.  "I don't like his photographer."

"Gray?  Me neither, he makes my skin crawl."

"But you still stripped naked and posed for him."

Cal shook his head.  "Not for Gray."


Rico:

I heard my name behind me as I headed out to find Sonny, and stopped to let Daniel catch up.  We'd been talking for ten minutes along with Colin and James - whatever it was he wanted to say to me alone.

"I wanted to warn you, just in case.  We think we've got two undercover Orlando cops in our midst."  I stared at him - hoping he'd take it as amazement and not the first pulse of the 'fight or flight' adrenaline rush that usually accompanies the words.  "We're not sure what they're investigating but we're making sure people are aware, in case it's them."

I'm an expert at hiding emotion - relief being one of them, right up there along with terror and amusement.

"I don't know what - if anything - you and Sonny are into...."

"Nothin' heavy."  Burnett came to mind and I added, "Once, a while back, but not any more."

Daniel smiled, looking as relieved as I felt.  "Good.  Because the thought of either of you in prison...."  He feigned a shudder and I knew he wasn't thinkin' about me at all.


I told Sonny about the conversation when we went back up to the room around six thirty to chill out for a couple of hours.  We lay on the bed - his feet next to my head on the pillows - and at some point his hand found mine on the sheets between us and our fingers tangled lazily as we dozed, both lost in our thoughts.

I was half-listening to the conversation drifting up through the open patio doors out onto the balcony.  More people were arriving for the evening's festivities but I wasn't feeling any compunction to move until the live jazz band started up in the garden.

I love live jazz.

But Sonny was the first one up, and I watched him unashamedly as he stripped and went for a quick shower, emerging after just a couple of minutes, drippin' with water, semi-erect, towel over his head as he rubbed his hair dry.

Suddenly i could see him as a centrefold - just like he looked then, the water drops running over his flawless tan, body all hard lines and smooth curves, dick promising more if someone was nice to it....

Closing my eyes I rolled on to my back, flung one arm over my face and groaned.

"You okay, man?"  He actually sounded concerned. 

I had to laugh.  "Christ, Sonny...."  Lifting my arm I turned my head back to face him.  "You'd tempt the Pope."

To give him credit, he did at least look apologetic.  "Ain't like we've drip-dried in one another's presence before, Partner."

"Ain't like I've ever spent the weekend with my arms around you and my tongue down your throat either, Partner."

Okay, slight exaggeration I'll admit, but it made my point graphically enough.  Better still, it made him blush.

I forced myself off the bed, doing nothing to hide my own physical reaction to him, but not daring to go near him just in case my hand slipped and my fingers touched - however briefly - hot, bare flesh.  If that happened I might do something we'd both regret.  There was still a chance that despite all the playacting he still didn't want what naturally followed all the cuddlin' we'd been doin'.

As I sauntered passed, heading for the bathroom, his palm brushed my bare shoulder and the touch shot straight to my cock.  Glancing at him I saw the heat in his eyes even as he said,

"That could be construed as a lethal weapon partner."

His mouth turned up into a grin and I mirrored it, feeling a break in tension I hadn't been aware of.  Making the mistake of turning his back on me, I couldn't resist.  My palm slapped his firm white backside and I sprinted for the bathroom.

"Son of a -"  But he didn't come after me.  If he had done, I don't think we'd have made it to the party that night.


Sonny:

We were doin' a great job of windin' each other up so tight sooner or later something was gonna break.

I could only hope we'd be okay, cos we were long past stoppin' it.

Rico dressed in sea-green silk over smooth grey pants.  My fine partner.  I'd always thought - graceful, beautiful in a dark, deadly kinda way.

I wanted to match him - sophistication for sophistication - so I found an off-white silk shirt and loose black pants, soft to the touch and just tight enough to hug what was then an almost permanent hard-on.

I was inexplicably pleased at the way he stared at me, the way the tip of his tongue touched his lips, like he did when he saw somethin' he liked.  We were playin' with fire - stokin' the flames - not carin' now how badly we got burnt.


"Jesus Christ, Rico!  How do you keep your hands off him?"

Cal's comment, rising as it did when we stepped into the crowd out in the garden, attracted some attention and Daniel's -- response, "he doesn't!" brought forth a few wolf-whistles.  I think I was blushin' by the time we reached the bar.

Just breathin' I could taste the cannabis in the air.

A five-piece jazz band was swingin' on a small, covered stage close to the pool.  Rico loves jazz.  For his birthday last year I took him to this jazz club in south Miami, a place I'd known for years but had never taken anyone to.  My place, where I went to unwind when things got really bad.  Our place from that night.  I know how much it had meant to him, me takin' him there.

Daniel found us near to the band, a young blond following in his wake who he introduced to us as, "Mike Swan, Mr May."

The thought occurred, as I shook his hand, that he was a potential victim in the centrefolds line up if we didn't catch our killer - and we weren't exactly makin' any positive leads in that direction.  But Cal was next in line if the monthly order was being followed, and we were in the right place to protect him, as Rico had pointed out.

Mr "Call me Swan" was a nice enough kid.  No more than twenty but genuine, a little nervous and I wondered how he'd found the nerve to strip and pose for the slimeball Gray.

My partner was obviously wondering the same thing, because he asked straight out.

Swan graced us with the same smile I'd bet he used on the shoot, and told us without embarrassment,

"I'm far more comfortable in front of a camera than I am around people.  Cameras don't make a move on you, they just watch.  I like to be watched."

I couldn't stop my eyebrows from rising, couldn't stop the flush of embarrassment either; the shower in our room was providing plenty of opportunity for voyeurism and although nothin' in the past had stopped me admirin' a beautiful woman, to be lookin' at Rico in the same way, with the same thoughts, was startin' to feel way too natural.  More than that, it felt good, felt honest.  Felt right.

I felt Rico's hand at the small of my back and leaned into it instinctively - like this steppin' up of the physical between us was just another form of that weird silent communication we have goin'.  I realised I'd zoned out for a moment; his thumb strokin' me through my shirt was a question and I glanced at him.

"Sorry - miles away."

It was a lie.  I was right there, more focused than I'd been in years.  Just not on the job.  On him - like my awareness was tuned in to him in a way it hadn't been before.

"Sure you're okay?"

I was starin' at his mouth!  Oh, man... my whole body was reactin' to him, to his nearness, his touch, his presence there next to me.  It can't have just been the dope in the air, this was something that wasn't going to be put off much longer.

I heard my name through the fog in my arousal-addled brain and saw Cal wavin' me over to him.  Any excuse to excuse myself.  I stepped away from Rico's hand, instantly bereft of his hot touch, and smiled my apology at Swan who was still standin' there, probably wonderin' what strange ESP was happen' between me and my partner.

Inexplicable.

I left it to Rico and headed for where Cal was waitin' for me.


Rico:

I was so hard it hurt.  A single, part-friendly, part-teasin' touch wasn't cuttin' it with my libedo any longer.  It wanted more, wanted everythin'.

I watched Sonny's back, watched the almost translucent silk flow around him, not too tight, not too loose, the light through the material outlining him - muscled, toned, defined.  Achingly beautiful and incredibly sensual.  Whatever my cock was thinkin', I didn't just want one-night and I knew it well.  I wanted permanent, monogamous, forever.  I wanted things I'd never wanted before in all my life.  Not domesticity but trust, faith, safety, familiarity.  I wanted to go to sleep with him and wake up next to him.

I was in love in him.

It wasn't the revelation it might have been, had we not spent the last thirty-six hours all over each other.  But even then... Sonny's always been someone special, my best friend, my partner.  More.  People we know - people we work with - say those things about each other and I know they don't feel what I've felt for Sonny from days after we met.

I looked at the back of his head as he laughed at something Cal had said.  I wanted my fingers in his hair, my mouth on his skin, his body naked and movin' against mine.

I was lost in him, just watchin' him, as a woman's voice joined the jazz musicians, changing the tone from exclusive background to somethin' more intimate.  She reminded me of the singer at the club Sonny took me to on my birthday.  That was one special night, and looking back on it maybe there were hints of this even then.  Maybe there'd been hints of it throughout our partnership.

Swan, I realised, had vanished.  No big loss.  I finished my drink in one swallow - liquid burning down my throat - and approached Sonny, siddlin' up behind him, catching Cal's smilin' eyes over his shoulder and slidin' my arms around his waist, heart in my throat, butterflies in my belly.

His hand settled over my wrist - no big thing, we'd been doin' this all weekend more or less - so I took it one step further, wantin' this to be somethin' new.  Licking my lips I touched them to the top of his spine between the ends of his hair and the collar of his shirt, sitting low on his back.  I felt him tense just slightly, heard the soft sound - between a hum and a groan - and kissed him there again, dropping a series of light touches across his nape.  He tasted clean and hot, a hint of salty sweat and that elusive ingredient that made him him.

Sonny turned, and lifting my head I watched Cal retreating, eyes still on us and filled with a hunger I not only understood but shared. 

Green eyes held mine, still in the circle of my arms, his hooking over my shoulders, linking around my neck; I could feel the cold of his glass against the top of my back, condensation soaking through my shirt. 

"Rico -" 

I knew I was lookin' into the face of Sonny Crockett and for the moment it was just the two of us; no covers, no lies. 

"- are we sure about this?"

Trust like I've never known from anyone before.  True faith in me that my opinion, my decision, would be the right one for both of us.  I tried to make it with my heart and not my cock.

"Yeah, Sonny.  We're sure."

Standing so close, just an inch apart, his smilin' mouth was irresistible.  He moved his head to one side, leaning towards me like he had when we first tried this on the St Vitus Dance and this time neither of us laughed, humour the furthest thing from our minds as our mouths met no longer tentative but unfailingly certain.


Leaving the party, we headed upstairs, not caring what our hosts thought although they were probably jumping to the right conclusion.  Until we were inside our room with the door closed and locked, we didn’t touch, we didn't even speak.

Then, in one fluid, graceful movement, he turned and wrapped himself around me, his mouth effortlessly finding mine, his hands feelin' like they were everywhere at once, strokin' me, yankin' my shirt from the back of my pants to finally touch skin to skin. 

His tongue battled with mine, determined, powerful and ultimately so fucking sexy.

He was on fire; I could feel the flames engulfing me as he pushed and my back collided with the door givin' me somethin' to lean on.

I got the buttons of his shirt undone, co-ordinated movement as difficult as it had ever been with the hard outline of his erection rubbin' up against my trapped, throbbing cock, but he gently grabbed both wrists, pushing them slowly behind me, wrapping long fingers around them at the small of my back.

“Sonny,” I gasped his name as he broke the kiss, wanting to hear it as much as I needed to say it, to anchor us both, knowin' what he was tryin' to do but not understandin' it.

He pulled back a little, and whatever I expected to see in his expression, it wasn’t what was there.  His eyes were shining with love - a love so real, like it was consuming him.  "Oh, man...."  I couldn't find the words.  Sonny Crockett was all heat and passion.  To be the focus of that was more than I’d ever known.  He knew, I realised, that he couldn't hold me in place if I didn't want me to.  He needed me to co-operate.

“You trust me, Rico?”

He didn't honestly have to ask.  “With my life.”

“Then let me, just for now.”

I nodded my consent, desperate just to have his mouth back on mine, his hands all over me.

Releasin' my wrists, trustin' me to keep them behind my back as he unfastened my shirt and pushed it open, off my shoulders, trappin' my arms more effectively.  He leaned in and kissed me, tongue caressing my lips in long, wet licks before sliding inside. 

I sucked on him gently, pressing as much of me against him as I could, needing to feel him along every inch of me.  My fingers curled, fingernails biting into my palms as I imagined how he was going to be - the textures of him, silk and steel.

His mouth left mine, moved to my throat and I moved my head to one side, silently guidin' him to that spot just... there... ahhh... between the curve of my jaw and the line of my throat, up behind the earlobe.  The hard tip of his tongue caressed me and my whole body shuddered.  I couldn't stop the long moan like I couldn't stop the inevitable surge of strength against him pining me in place, hands trapped between my back and the door, Sonny's weight holding me there.

“Please, Rico,” I could feel his lips shift against my skin, hot, wet, words spoken onto me like flowing sketches.  “Let me, just for now.”

“Want to touch you,” I gasped, “need to touch you... Sonny....”

Sliding his hands to my chest he draw his fingernails lightly through the tight, dark curls there, thumbs teasing pebble- hard nipples, pinching them tight and quick before stroking gently as at the same time his teeth grazed across my throat, biting an earlobe, tongue following the curve of the shell, drivin' me nuts.

I had to touch him.  Wrapping one leg up around his, I thrust once against him and started to struggle in earnest.

He released me and immediately I went for skin against my hands.  I almost tore the shirt from his body, leavin' him with no choice but to take his hands off me to shrug the silk to the floor.  Spreading my fingers, I ran my hands up his luxurious body, fingers mapping him, eyes takin' in every detail until his mouth found mine again and he moaned, the vibrations against my tougue making my whole body respond in kind.

Unwinding my leg, pushing away from the door, I moved us with no resistance until his ankles hit the edge of the wooden platform and he stepped up, leading me then to the bed.


Sonny:

My partner, the most beautiful, graceful, sensual being I've ever met.

We devoured each other. 

I sat down on the bed before slowly lying back, and he crawled over me.  Wrapping arms around one another we kissed, lips and tongues moving restlessly, hands all over one another.

I could feel him, rock hard and heavy through his pants and mine, and as nervous about releasing the monster I knew was in there I wanted to hold him, weight him against my palm, smell him and god help me, taste him.

"Rico...."  How the hell I said it I don't know, but the words came out almost of their own free will.  "Want to touch you."

He knew what I meant like I'd known he would.  Rollin' off me he unfastened and unzipped - pushin' his pants and briefs over his hips and down those long legs until they were on the floor and I could look - really look.  He was bigger than me, length and girth, not that I cared at that moment when my own dick felt like it might explode.  I reached between us to touch him, but he stopped me, pushed my hands away and took my own pants and underwear off me.

His fingers ghosted along the underside of my aching dick, that first touch almost enough to set me off.  I bounced against his hand and he giggled in that way he has, wrappin' his whole hand around me before I could form words.  I managed a sound - somethin' loud and gutteral, orderin' enough synapses in my brain to enable me to return the favour.  My thumb barely met my fingers as I grasped him and a thought regarding other parts of my body sent a shiver reflex down my spine.

He started to stroke me - his fist just tight enough, the movement of his fingers hittin' all the right places.  Waves of the good stuff started rolling through me, again and again, and I was ridin' every one so when he stopped I yelled something brightly obscene into the room, putting a wicked smile on his face.

He moved, spreadin' my legs with his knees, worryin' me for a second until he caught my obviously uncertain expression and smiled.  "Don't think either of us are ready for that yet, Partner."

Cool.  He had that right.  I settled back, shoulders against the snow white, daily-changed sheets, hand on his bunched thigh as he knelt between my legs and took me back in his hand, using his other one to lift my balls, to knead them gently.  Then as he tightened his grip and began to slowly pump me, he started to rub that long, smooth run between my balls and my ass, thumb pressing against something amazin' inside, setting sparkles off behind my eyeballs as my body wound itself up tighter and tighter.

When it finally released I came all over his hand, the sensation exquisite, almost painful at first, then glorious, gorgeous... and his hand continued to move, drawing every drop from my pulsing balls, giving me shivers of pleasure with every down stroke, shudders of something deeper than orgasm.  I felt tears being squeezed from my eyes at the sheer intensity of it and at that moment he stopped, just held my limp organ for a second before raising his hand to his mouth and deliberately licking my seed from his skin, tongue lapping at it.

Impossibly, the very sight of him set me alight again.

I reared up, grabbed him around the neck, kissed him hard - tasting what I realised was me in his mouth.

“Your turn.  Come for me.  I want to hear you come with my name on your lips.”

I got him on his back, then I don't know what possessed me, but I shifted down the big bed, settled between his dark thighs and wrapped my lips around the crown of his black dick.  His whole body tensed, pulled tight as an E string, this low groan escapin' like trapped air.  It was good for him, I knew that.  But I didn't know how far I could go.  He tasted bitter-sweet, salt and nutmeg, not unpleasant.  And his reaction to, oh man... I could live for the sounds he was making.  Could live for him.  Experimentally, I took more of him into my mouth, sliding him over my tongue, covering teeth with lips, opening to accommodate him.

His hands were clawed into the sheets and I knew from personal experience how badly he wanted to get his fingers in my hair and push me down on him.  He wouldn't and I knew it, but I knew how much it was costing him not to.  Not that he seemed to be at all distracted from how it was feeling.

"Sonny...."  I knew the tone, knew what was coming.  I took his balls into my palm, gently rolling them against my fingers, not lifting off.  "Sonny... please...."

He lifted his head and our eyes met over the dark curls at his crotch... he came, quick and hard, down my throat and I swallowed it all, even licking his cock as it went soft in my mouth.


Rico:

Jesus Christ.  Sonny Crockett, lying between my legs, with my cock in his mouth... if we'd never done it again that would have been enough to keep me fantastising for the rest of my natural life.  I couldn't talk, couldn't express how I felt about him at that moment in anything more than a kiss - one that gave me my own taste overlaying Sonny's.  The best taste there is.

Keepin' his mouth on mine he crawled up my body, I wrapped my arms around him, wanted him as close as he could be with out being inside him.  And that... that was an idea I'd pushed right out of the way for now.

When we finally parted, wrapped in one another, he was smilin' at me in this incredible shy way.

"Long time comin', huh?"

I could only agree.  “Yeah, all that tension building up, was gonna blow us sky high eventually.”

"And here was me thinkin' it did."

Already he was makin' himself comfortable usin' me as a pillow.  Fine with me.

I don't remember much after that, just Sonny's weight on me and his flushed skin under my hands.



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