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He'd been sent to the car. To the *car*. The modicum of humiliation was actually worth the private time. Neal closed his eyes, an unused tool in someone's belt, and the words drifted through his busy mind, stilling it: "I don't care how you and Peter do it."
Neal smirked to himself. He felt about fourteen years-old. She said do it.
Neal shifted and opened his eyes, gazing around the street. He ascertained that the hotdog vendor fifty feet down the block probably wouldn't venture away from the corner and that pedestrians crossing in the near intersection tended to ignore his side street, continuing on in search of sushi or a dry cleaners.
Neal closed his eyes once more and slid his hand into his crotch casually, squeezing a bit at an erection that had started without him.
He liked how Peter and he did it. They had a simpatico and a rhythm. The ideas flowed between them. They bounced off one another well. Neal stood too close and he knew it. Peter let him. What Neal had to offer, Peter wanted. And unlike Hughes or Rice or countless others (Kate?) who wanted to use him, Peter always made him feel…like he was worth something.
He liked to stand too close to Peter. He liked the smile that shone down on him when he contributed well, which was, let's be honest, all the time. Neal liked the way Peter's body, running perpetually hot, felt like a protection on him, his keeper and his bodyguard. His superior and his equal. His opposite.
Neal liked being owned. He liked running and being caught, reeled back in. He liked being subdued, brought to heel. He liked that it was Peter. That it always was Peter. He stood too close, in part, to show everyone who he belonged to, who he chose. Neal liked that no one could stand as close as he did.
And he sure as hell liked how Peter smelled. Cheap aftershave and bureau coffee. Neal could get hard on that scent. He was hard remembering it. He never would have thought… He bought organic, essential-oil based lotions and tonics. Pretty scents in pretty, expensive bottles. And yet, the best part of his morning was sliding past Peter on the way in, getting too close and smelling that Aqua Velva. Instant dick twinge.
Neal cupped his balls through the silky trousers and thumbed his shaft lazily. He wondered if agents like Rice thought they were fucking. He wondered if they simply assumed it. Neal had suspected that even judge-not Jones looked at him sideways sometimes, perhaps picturing Neal on his knees for Peter, under the desk and whimpering. Or maybe that was just Neal projecting. Maybe that's just where he wanted to picture himself.
How did Peter and Neal do it? Unfortunately, with their clothes on and with a great deal of orgasm denial. Neal smirked again, eyes fluttering but still closed, his hard-on starting to sting and ache.
The soft knock came on the window, and Neal jerked his hand away, in a moment going from thinking it was the tool belt, to realizing it was Peter, covering his surprise and arousal behind a vaguely pleased greeting, "Peter," when what he wished he could do was groan a little at losing the touch and the fantasy only to gain the reality leaning into his window.
Peter insisted he wasn't there for Neal. Neal felt that body heat envelope him as he exited the car and Peter didn't step back far enough. Neal brushed against him easily, heart pounding. And then they talked about the case.
Rice spotted them like lovers in the shadowed stairwell. And before she reached them, Peter asked suddenly, "What else did she say to you? Besides the tool belt thing." That clear and focused mind on a hunch.
Neal looked at Peter, into his warm eyes, and told him, "She said she doesn't care how you and I do it."
There was a smirk, glittering more in Peter's eyes than around his mouth. There was amusement and wistfulness and maybe guilt. Peter touched Neal's wrist, holding it while one finger slipped under the cuff of Neal's shirt and brushed skin, right over his pulse. It was less than a moment, then he looked away, took his touch away, and Rice was there, and Peter was saying that cute but ultimately dorky line about being petrified, but because he smelled so good and was so very smart and had rescued Neal from Rice for a few precious moments and from jail for four years, Neal flashed him a big smile, "Nice…" and saw it returned bashfully, proud, before he had to turn and walk away.
We do it just right, Neal thought, then, flying high. We do it perfect.