Craft Brew (Trouble Brewing #2)

Chapter 1

One

“Move in with me.”

Four words that should have resulted in amazing sex round two.

Not that Cam had ever uttered those words before, but from what he understood, they usually brought a couple closer, including a celebratory tumble in the sheets. Perfect as he and Nic were already there, naked and sweaty from amazing sex round one.

Nic’s understanding, however, was apparently not the same as Cam’s. He stiffened in his arms one second and scrambled out of bed the next. Levering up, Cam braced a hand on the mattress and watched the giant cypress inked on Nic’s back sway with his mad dash to the bathroom.

“Never known you to run from an argument, Counselor!” Technically, they hadn’t been arguing, but Cam knew the start of one with Nic as well as he knew the other man’s taste. Arguing was what they did best, even better than sex.

“That’s not what I’m doing,” Nic hollered over the running water.

Cam flopped back onto the bed, staring at the ceiling. “Sure as fuck could have fooled me.” A warm wet rag slapped his face, and when Cam pulled it off, it was to the sight of Nic lowering himself onto the bed beside him.

He waited for Cam to finish wiping off, then took the rag and tossed it aside. He stretched an arm over him, planting it in the mattress on the other side of his hip, icy blues staring down at him. “I’m not running.”

“You told me your rental is getting demo’d and you’re getting kicked out, which thank fuck because that place should have been torn down ages ago.

” Aside from its proximity to the brewery Nic co-owned, the run-down duplex made no sense for Dominic Price, federal prosecutor and son of a real estate mogul.

“Seeing as you’ve been here every night for four months, I made the logical suggestion that you move in.

” He flung an arm toward the door. “And then you bolted like the sheets were on fire.”

“I’m leaving for San Diego.”

Shock propelled Cam up to seated again. “You’re what?”

Nic leaned back just in time to avoid a head-on collision. He folded his arms, lean muscles taut as they bisected the myriad of tattoos painting his torso. “The US Attorney down there is taking paternity leave. They need someone to cover.”

“And you volunteered?”

“No, they asked me.”

Cam scooted back against the headboard, letting it hold him up as his world spun faster than he was equipped to handle at this hour.

It was a great opportunity for San Francisco’s best Assistant US Attorney—getting out from under his asshole boss here and taking the reins of an entire operation there.

Major problem for Cam, though, who after a year in the Bay Area had only recently begun to feel at home, in no small part due to the man beside him.

Anger and hurt bested professional goodwill. “Bullshit you’re not running.”

Nic inched closer, laying a hand on his thigh. “You’ll be safer if I’m not here.”

“This is about your father,” Cam surmised.

Nic’s diverted gaze confirmed as much. Curtis Price, once a Silicon Valley real estate tycoon, was drowning in debt, and last spring some of his lenders had come after Nic, looking to collect despite the decades’ estrangement between father and son.

Cam covered Nic’s hand with his own. “You said we would do this together.” Nic had promised to let him help with the investigation.

“The case, yes.”

“But not the moving-in part?”

“The case part has to come first.” Nic turned his hand over under Cam’s, lacing their fingers together. “I won’t put you at risk.” He was holding something back. The former SEAL trying to protect him, the FBI agent.

Growling in familiar frustration, Cam tried to yank his hand free. “I can take care of myself.”

Nic held on tight. “Yes, you can, but I won’t paint a bull’s-eye on your back.”

“Think it’s a little late for that. Besides, things have been quiet lately.”

“And I mean to keep it that way,” Nic said. “Us moving in together? Not quiet.”

“I’m not going to stop digging whether you’re here or in San Diego.”

“I didn’t expect you to,” Nic conceded. “But without me here”—he patted the mattress—“you can do so quietly.” He leaned forward, drawing Cam into a kiss that snuffed out his anger but not the hurt.

Cam retreated, resting his forehead against Nic’s. “How long will you be gone?”

“Four to six weeks.”

“What about Gravity?”

“I can manage the business end of the brewery from anywhere.” Nic curled a hand around the side of Cam’s neck, squeezing lightly and drawing his gaze.

“It’s a good opportunity. I’ll have my own office and can set the agenda.

Take cases that matter, not just the ones that guarantee a win.

You know as well as I do that this is how DOJ works.

We go where we can make a difference, where we’re needed. ”

Like Cam had been needed in San Francisco so he’d left Boston behind.

And now Nic was needed in San Diego. But what about the people who needed Nic here? Was this thing between them not affecting Nic the way it was affecting Cam? “What happened to building something?” he whispered hoarsely.

Nic’s determination faltered and he twisted away, his back to Cam as he braced his heels on the bed’s foot rail. “I’ve never been good at construction. I’m better at demo.”

“That’s bullshit too,” Cam said, anger resurging but redirected for Nic, not at him. “Look at Gravity, at your USAO teams, at your work with the Bureau.”

“It’s too good, Boston. You, us, most of all. And the last time I had it this good . . .” Glancing sideways, Nic’s eyes were brimming with remembered pain. “I made a mess of things and lost it all. I can’t let that happen again. I can’t lose you and everything I’ve already built here.”

His breath hitched, torso heaving, and Cam’s attention was drawn again to the giant cypress on his back, to the spindly limbs that curled over Nic’s shoulders and to the mysterious GS in the center of its trunk.

His biggest mess, Nic had once said. And now Nic didn’t want to make another.

This was affecting him, maybe more than it was affecting Cam.

And if Cam wanted a shot at building more, he couldn’t push right now.

That would be a mistake he’d regret. He needed to give Nic the space to find his answers. “Okay, Dominic. Go to San Diego.”

Nic huffed a relieved sigh, shoulders dropping and curling forward. “You gonna let the argument go, just like that?”

Trailing a hand over his back, Cam slid to his side and rubbed his cheek against Nic’s, the brush of scruff against his own electrifying.

“I’m thirty-six,” he rumbled in Nic’s ear.

“Not a fucking teenager. I’m going to miss you like crazy, but this is a two-way street, one I’d like to keep driving on with you, the same direction.

” He grasped Nic’s chin and angled his face toward him.

“Do what you need to clear the roadblocks.” He palmed Nic’s cock with his other hand. “And fuck me good before you leave.”

“Christ, I’m an idiot,” Nic growled, right before he did exactly as Cam asked, proving himself smarter than he gave himself credit for.

Five weeks later, Cam was wondering who was smart and who was the idiot.

He was leaning toward them both being the latter, phone and video calls a poor substitute, especially as they’d both had less and less time for those owing to work.

He glanced at the ever-growing stack of admin paperwork on his desk, the pile teetering precariously.

Assistant Special Agent in Charge came with more than just a pay raise, not that the extra cash went far in the Bay Area, especially when he was trying to keep up with a bunch of fucking millionaires.

A new mail notification flashed at the bottom of his screen and Cam groaned aloud, anticipating more busywork.

Double-clicking the icon, he was halfway to hitting Print, his normal routine for admin emails, when he realized what it was—next week’s federal court calendar for San Diego.

He’d set up the alert when the new month had rolled over without a firm word from Nic as to when he’d be home.

Looking at the latest court calendar, which didn’t have D.

Price on it anywhere, Cam deduced his answer was soon.

Which meant he needed to get his ducks in a row, namely on the case he was supposed to be working with Nic.

Things had remained quiet during his absence, but with Nic returning, he’d be putting himself back in the line of fire should his father’s lenders get impatient again.

Cam wouldn’t let him get hit. He’d committed to never losing someone else he loved, which now included Nic, the miserable weeks apart making that conclusion irrefutable even if he hadn’t let Nic in on that bit of information yet.

Pushing back from his desk, Cam left his office and strode through the bullpen.

Bypassing the elevators, he continued down the long hall to “the cave,” the interior boardroom that had been converted into the cyber agents’ domain.

He wove through the server racks to the workstations in back, finding the agent he needed at her desk, a wobbly pencil bun visible above three oversized monitors.

While the other agents paused and acknowledged him, the rapid-fire tap-tap-tap of Agent Lauren Hall’s nails didn’t let up.

“If you don’t mind?” Cam said, tilting his head toward the exit.

The other agents gathered their things and scurried out, the flurry of movement finally attracting Lauren’s notice.

Brows drawn and eyes narrowed, she looked stumped and seriously sleep-deprived.

She was turning in her swivel chair, popping out her earbuds, when Cam plopped down behind the adjacent desk, the visitor chairs in front of hers made useless by the wall of screens.

“Something you can’t hack?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Well, at least he had better news for her. “Nic’s on his way back.”