Jez Morrow - Force of Law, mm
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05/02/2010 01:28
Force of Law
Copyright © 2009 by Jez Morrow
All rights reserved. No part of this eBook may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without
written permission except in case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For
information address Torquere Press, Inc., PO Box 2545, Round Rock, TX 78680
Cover illustration copyright Alessia Brio
Used with permission
ISBN: 978-1-60370-916-3
Printed in the United States of America.
Torquere Press, Inc.: High Ball electronic edition / January 2010
Torquere Press eBooks are published by Torquere Press, Inc., PO Box 2545, Round Rock, TX 78680
Force of Law
By Jez Morrow
Chapter One
The noise of something powerful made Tom look up. It was loud. Not the usual, rusty kind of loud of a heap
about to drop its muffler on Tom’s head. This engine sounded fine, aggressive and sexual.
Tom shouted up from the pit of the quick oil change garage to the guys topside, “What the hell is that?”
But the guys up there were just killing themselves laughing. Something exotic was coming into bay number
two.
The undercarriage rolled into view over Tom’s head.
Someone was not here for an oil change.
To say the car was expensive would be a bad joke. Even from this angle, Tom could see it. If Tom saved
every last nickel of his gross income for the next ten years he still could not afford to buy one of these.
Collector cars were rare enough on the streets of Cleveland’s west side. But no one ever ever ever took a car
like that to a quick lube shop.
Somebody up there is just yanking off us poor grease monkeys. And Tom knew who it had to be. This show
was all for Tom Russell.
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Too many emotions crashed together. Feelings he thought he had put behind him a year ago opened right
back up like an infected wound.
Then he was just angry.
That could only be the beautiful, blond godling Wells Sebastian Campbell up there. Tom remembered his
lithe, golden body and long limbs from that sweet, gilded summer when Wells had been his lover.
Wells left him over a year ago—just vanished from Tom’s apartment without a word. Tom had called his
parents’ house in concern, only to have Wells’ mother Cynthia inform Tom coldly not to try to contact
Wells again or she would have Tom served with a restraining order.
Tom had not deserved that. He didn’t know if Cynthia Campbell had grounds to get a restraining order, but
then again, rich people could get anything they wanted. It stuck like a bone in the throat that she would
make that kind of threat when all he’d done was ask if Wells was okay.
To make it worse, Wells hadn’t said anything to counter Cynthia.
Wells hadn’t said anything at all.
Tom learned only later and through the grapevine that Wells had left him for a woman.
Now Wells had the balls to come back. It was over. Tom had gone through all the stages of grief. He’d got
his head clear. He had said goodbye to that gauzy dream once. There could be no twice.
So, what is this?
Had Wells got tired of being straight?
Too late now, sweetheart. I don’t care!
Wells was back, showing off his latest toy. The first time it had been a Rolls. This ride was a lot less sedate
and a whole lot more muscular and sexy. Maybe it was even his own ride this time. The Rolls had been
Daddy’s car.
Down in the pit, Tom couldn’t identify this car from its underside. He’d never worked on anything in this
tax bracket.
When that growling engine cut, Tom grabbed a broom, reached up and rapped on the undercarriage with the
end of the wooden handle—not as hard as he wanted to—just enough to get the driver’s attention. He yelled
up between the wide wheels. “Get your crotch out of my face, you poser!”
The guys up top thought this was desperately funny, and they laughed all the harder—which was tough to
do since they were damn near peeing themselves already.
Then came the answer from above, deep, languid and sensual. “Now Tom, I thought you would enjoy it.”
Tom’s insides went instantly cold.
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Not the voice he expected.
The voice filled him with the kind of cold that burned. His nerves sparked with fight or flight or fuck
adrenaline.
That was not Wells up there.
Now Tom was really beyond angry.
He threw down the broom and stalked to the concrete steps that led up from the pit to ground level. As he
surfaced, he heard one of the mechanics say, “Devil.”
All the guys in the garage were gathered around a low-slung, black wet dream of a car with Virginia plates.
Tom wasn’t sure if by devil they meant the car or the driver.
It sure described the car. Tom had only ever seen one of these before in pictures. Lamborghini Diablo.
Devil also fit the driver. Law Castille. Big, powerful, sleek, sexy, dangerous. Evil.
Law lived in Arlington, Virginia, inside the D.C. beltway. My odious cousin Lawrence, Wells always called
him.
Tall, gangly Vinny was bending over at the driver’s side window. “You gotta know we don’t carry oil filters
for one of these, mister, so what do you want us to do?”
None of these guys ever called anybody mister.
Law seemed to consider the question for a moment, then tipped his sunglasses down his nose so he could
look Vinny in the eyes and suggested, “You could bow.”
Vinny stepped back, and he and wiseass Gordy Johnson lifted their arms high over their heads and bent
over double into I-am-not-worthy kowtows to the awesome machine.
“Don’t encourage him!” Tom called across the garage.
Stocky Demetrius shuffled over next to Tom and mumbled into his own palm. “Mofo’s gotta be in the same
tax bracket as basketball stars, huh?”
Tom shook his head. “This guy’s in the league that pays the basketball stars.”
“Nuh uh!” Demetrius protested, his eyes gone round.
Vinny called over, “Hey, Tomcat, is this guy a friend of yours?”
“No!” Tom shouted.
The passenger side door lifted. The door of a Diablo swiveled up and forward, which was so over-the-top
that the guys fell to knee-slapping howling again, tears in their eyes.
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God, stop pumping his ego before it explodes.
They didn’t know who they were dealing with.
Tom did, and he stayed rooted where he was, sullen and unimpressed. Okay, he was impressed, but he
wasn’t going to stroke Law’s superiority by showing it. Law could go stroke himself.
Law’s deep voice carried from within the cockpit, a resonant, seductive command. “Get in the car.” His
tone wasn’t insistent. Just absolute. Law need only speak and knew he would be obeyed.
Tom refused. He imagined his steel-toe work shoes clamping themselves down to the concrete floor,
immobile. No. He wouldn’t even say it. Just no.
The other mechanics egged him on. “Go!”
Gordy got down on his knees and begged, “Go, Tomcat! Go for me!”
Tom was about to remind them all that he was working here. Then the shift supervisor, D’Shon Trent, came
out of his office.
Thank God, thought Tom. D’shon was going to order Tom back down into the pit and everyone else back to
work.
But D’Shon wagged his shaved head over the Diablo and said quietly, in that mumbly laid-back voice of
his, “I mean damn, Tom. Get in the car. I’ll clock you out.”
Cornered and pissed, Tom jammed his work gloves and his safety glasses into his pockets and stripped off
his greasy coveralls, which left him in tee shirt and jeans. He passed his bundle of work stuff to Gordy.
Gordy took his things and bowed like a manservant.
“Eat me,” Tom snarled.
“Very good, sir,” Gordy said in a stuffy voice that burbled into a giggle at the end.
Torn between desire and resentment, Tom approached the Diablo. He hated to think it, but it really was
pretty. And that frikkin’ door was sticking up like it was excited or something.
Tom dropped into the deep, leather bucket seat. It embraced him lovingly. He reached up to pull the door
back down, shutting himself in with the devil.
Tom avoided looking at Law, all too aware of him. Law was no one you could ever ignore. He had a
presence that could fill a room, so it pretty much choked the tight, two-seat cockpit, a taurine bulk at the
corner of his eye. Power and heat rolled off of him. Tom could smell him. He was wearing a subtle, stealthy
scent, woodsy, earthy with an edge. Tom kept his eyes dead ahead. He remembered clearly what Law
looked like.
In front of Tom there was an imprint of a powerful bull with lowered horns embossed on the leather of the
dashboard. Fitting. Yeah, that was Law.
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Tom belted himself in as the maintenance bay’s exit door rattled up before them.
The engine’s sexual awakening filled all the available space. Tom felt it in his nuts. The mechanics saluted
as the Diablo rumbled slowly out into bright, summer sunlight.
A wide console separated Tom from the driver’s seat, and he was thankful for the barrier. He glanced over
at the gear shift on the console. Law’s broad hand rested easily on the stick. His hand looked lethal, even
relaxed like that. His fingers were thick, blunt-tipped with neat, squared-off nails. Something in the way he
held the stick, with more palm than fingers, was disturbingly sexual.
Tom swallowed, dry-mouthed. He tried to sound bored as he said, witheringly, “Only a five-speed?”
“It’s an older vehicle,” Law said, with a shrug of one massive shoulder.
This was the kind of car that increased in value with age and could only be bought at auction.
Law steered out onto the interstate and headed west. He drove, not speaking, the engine thrumming like an
aching hard-on. Sex like an electrical charge sparked around them.
Tom felt very uncomfortable with Law knowing he was gay.
It was a big joke to Law.
None of the guys in the garage knew Tom’s preference. It never came up. It was none of their business.
And they might kill him if they found out. When men shared a shower room to wash off the grease at the
end of the day, straight guys just trusted that you’re one of them. And some guys, if they find out you’re
gay after you done seen them nekked, they just might get a little homicidal.
Straight guys were funny that way.
But suspicion never occurred to them. For one thing, Tom Russell had more women sniffing around his tree
than any man could want.
Tom guessed he was good looking, though he didn’t see himself as a hunk. He stood a little shy of the
magic six-foot mark required for hunkdom, and he was twenty-two years old, so he didn’t guess he would
get any taller.
He had a vulnerable bad boy appeal. He hated the vulnerable part, but he couldn’t shake it. Even for all his
workouts, his masculine build had an indefinable gentleness. He was told his brown eyes were beautiful. He
used a shaver attachment to keep a growth of stubble on his jaw, because he liked the roughness it gave his
look.
His disinterest in women made him a must-have. And he could be had, because the women were safer than
the guys. He hadn’t met a guy who was to die for.
He was a selfish lover. Hey, that’s what you get from a bad boy.
Tom often left work at five o’clock with a woman he’d just met seated behind him on his motorcycle, which
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