Chapter 21
Twenty-One
Cam slumped on the end of his hotel bed, shower-damp ends of his hair dripping water down the sides of his face and neck and over his chest, the latter heaving every so often.
Whenever he remembered the wall of pictures of Erin in that basement or all those graves in Harper’s backyard or the fact that his mother could die at any moment.
He’d still be at the hospital if it hadn’t been for his nieces and nephews who’d refused to leave unless Uncle Cam left, thinking he knew best. That if Uncle Cam thought it okay to leave, then Nonna would recover, or at least hang on until they came back.
Uncle Cam didn’t know that. What Cam knew was the kids needed sleep and the least he could do for his family was encourage that, seeing as he’d brought them nothing else but misery this past week.
While it looked like Harper had likely taken Erin, they didn’t know where he or Erin were, what he’d done to her, or why she’d been taken in the first place.
He had nothing to tell his mother, who was in a coma, barely hanging on, as if she was waiting for an answer he still didn’t have.
“You should lie down for a few.”
Cam shifted his gaze from the darkness outside the window to Nic standing in the doorway, coffee cup in hand. Hair likewise damp, he’d swung by his room, showered, and changed into jeans and a T-shirt. Further than Cam had gotten in just his boxers.
“You shouldn’t have brought me coffee if you mean for me to sleep.”
“I didn’t actually believe you would.” Nic crossed the room and sat next to him, handing him the cup with a smile.
He drank, but the warm beverage failed to chase away the cold that had settled inside him. “Any word from Matt or Jamie?”
Nic shook his head. “Checked in with them while you were in the shower. Still chasing down leads.”
“We should get going.” Cam threw back the rest of the coffee and started to stand.
Nic’s hand on his shoulder pushed him back down. “You need to breathe, Boston.”
“I’m breathing just fine.” He tried to shake off Nic’s hand, and when that didn’t work, tried forcefully pushing it away.
In moves too swift for his exhausted brain and body to keep up with, Nic knocked the cup from his hand, grabbed his wrist, crossed his arm in front of Cam’s body, and swung a leg behind him.
The end result was Cam locked in Nic’s arms, his back to Nic’s chest. He tested the hold, and Nic tightened it. He wasn’t going anywhere.
Cam growled in frustration. “Dominic, we need to go—”
“Do you remember what you said to me last April in your kitchen?”
“I said a lot of things that night.”
Holding Cam’s right wrist with his left hand, arm stretched across his body, locking him in, Nic slid his right hand free and caressed the lower right quadrant of Cam’s torso. “Do you remember what you said about the tattoo I have on me here?”
Cam’s skin there was bare, but in the same place on Nic, a rainbow-colored frog held a SEAL trident. He’d gotten the tattoo when Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell had been repealed. “We don’t celebrate the victories enough,” Cam said, recalling the words. “But you’ re the one who said it.”
“You made me realize it.” Nic slid his hand the rest of the way over Cam’s stomach and around his waist, pulling him back tight.
“You rescued Shannon Murphy. You saved her, Cameron. That’s a victory and not a small one.
I know there’s a lot of darkness right now but there’s light too. Shannon’s safe.”
Cam heaved a giant breath, remembering the way Shannon’s mother had arrived in Lincoln and wrapped her daughter in her arms, crying tears of joy.
He heaved another breath. And choked on it, realizing his mother would likely never have that moment.
Chin on his shoulder, cheek pressed to his, Nic whispered, “I’ve got you” in his ear. “Let it out.”
“Mom will never have that,” he croaked out through another stuttered breath.
“I let her down as a kid and now I’ve let her down as an adult.
She may die without an answer about her only daughter, my sister, who I should have protected that day.
” He squeezed his eyes shut, leaning his head back on Nic’s shoulder, tears leaking out and joining the other tracks of wetness on his face.
“Oh God, she’ll never know. I tried . . .
” His words drifted off, trapped behind the lump in his throat.
Nic clenched him tighter, and Cam swore it was the only thing keeping him together.
That and Nic’s faith in him. “She knows, Boston. That you dedicated the rest of your life to atoning for that day. That you help other families so they don’t lose their loved ones too.
That you’re here trying to give her resolution. ”
His breaths came shorter now, not quite sobs, Nic holding him too snug for that, but the tears, exhaustion, and frustration he’d been fighting for the past week were bubbling up and out.
“If she has to go, I wanted her to go . . .” Three gulped breaths later.
“To go to heaven and know Erin was there waiting for her.”
Nic shifted around to his side and lifted a hand, lightly grasping his chin and turning his face toward him. Cam startled at seeing tear tracks on his face too. “You wanted her to know that?”
Cam swallowed hard, admitting the truth. “I needed to know that.” He reached up, brushing the wetness from Nic’s face. “Why—”
“Because I can’t stand seeing you hurt like this when I know you’ve damn near killed yourself to make it otherwise.”
God, this man. Behind that cold, hard mask, it was nothing but fire and feeling inside.
So deep, so loyal, so self-sacrificing that Nic had stood by his decisions all week, even as he disagreed, even as he almost broke himself on this case.
Like he’d done for someone else nearly thirty years ago and been disowned for.
Because he’d do anything to protect and help those he cared for.
That’s the man he was—the man Cam was in love with.
And fuck if he didn’t want everyone to know it.
He leaned forward, forehead resting against Nic’s temple. “You know what else I regret?” he whispered hoarsely.
Nic wiped again at his face, then trailed the hand over his back, soothing, as he rested the other on his thigh. “You have nothing . . .”
“I regret that she might die not knowing I’ve fallen in love.”
Nic gasped, the hinge of his jaw opening under Cam’s lips, the hand on Cam’s back freezing while the other on his thigh tensed.
“She might never know that her son had found a smart, beautiful man, a soldier and lawyer, who would stand by her son’s side even when he didn’t deserve it.”
“Boston,” Nic rasped.
He drew back and framed Nic’s face in his hands, senses firing at the thicker than usual scruff prickling his palms. “I’m so sorry, baby.
I realize now how much I want her to know you, to know you’ve made me happier than I’ve ever been, that I love you.
” He tilted forward, dropping a kiss at the corner of his mouth.
“I’m so sorry I was too much of a coward to tell her. ”
Long, soothing fingers trailed up his back and carded through his hair. “You don’t owe me an apology.”
He shook his head. “I love you, Dominic. The last thing I want to do is hide that love from anyone. Can you forgive me?”
“Nothing to forgive.”
“Do you love me?”
Nic’s lips trailed across his cheek, nuzzling, as the hand on his thigh inched higher. “More than I should.”
“Then I’m ready to present our case.”
Nic pulled back, meeting his gaze. His pupils were blown so wide hardly any of the blue showed, but the dark brows across the top of them were knitted. “What are you saying, Boston?”
Cam smoothed over them with his fingertips, then down Nic’s face. “No more hiding, from anyone. Family, friends, the fucking Federal Building. I don’t want to regret not telling anyone how much I love you.”
Nic gripped his wrists. “You’re putting yourself in the line of fire. I need you to understand that.”
“I’m already there, baby.”
The fingers around his wrists convulsed, then constricted, Nic’s face taking on the determined look he got right before he went into a courtroom. The look that made Cam’s blood boil. “I won’t lose you.”
“We can’t be sure of that,” Cam said. He was a law enforcement officer, Nic was an officer of the court—anything could happen, that was their reality. So was the fact that he loved this man. “But I don’t want to waste another minute of loving you.”
“No objections.”
Nic captured his lips, the same sort of deep, claiming kiss from this morning.
Only this time he wasn’t making an argument.
And neither was Cam. The case was closed.
Another victory, seemingly small but huge for them.
Back to building what they’d started months ago, the both of them on the same schedule.
“Need you,” Cam mumbled against his lips. “Too long.”
Nic dropped a hand onto his thigh again, but it didn’t stay there long.
He glided it up and over his erection, palming him through the cotton of his boxers.
Cam groaned, thrusting into it. “Let me take care of you,” Nic whispered, stroking him as he ran a tongue up the side of his neck and shifted back behind him. “I just want to be here for you.”
All the tension of the past week bled out of him.
Relaxing back into Nic’s body, Cam laid his head on his shoulder, baring his neck, and threw his legs over Nic’s knees.
Spread wide, he rolled his hips and shoved his dick into Nic’s grasp.
“Take me, baby.” Away from it all, for the space of a moment, to celebrate this victory they so badly needed.
Nic’s hands disappeared, but only long enough to strip off his shirt, then his warm, bare chest was against Cam’s back and his hands were on his body again, traveling two different directions.
One cutting a path to his nipple, the other diving below his waistband.
Cam lifted his hips, encouraging Nic to push his boxers down farther so it was easier to stroke and fondle.
As Nic pumped him, Cam writhed back against the erection nudging his backside.
His ass clenched in anticipation, wanting Nic inside him.
The prosecutor preferred to bottom, but he’d been willing to switch on occasion when the urge hit Cam.
And it was hitting him hard tonight, wanting that connection and more.
Needing to grab hold of every part of Nic.
He turned his head, mouthing the underside of Nic’s jaw. “Want you to take all of me tonight. Want to feel all of you inside me.”
Nic swiped his fingers over the tip of his cock, collecting moisture, then closing them back around him, easing the slide.
“Whatever you want tonight, I’ll give you all of it.
Everything.” Using his knees, he spread Cam’s legs wider and dipped his hand lower, down the seam of his balls and under to tease his taint.
Cam groaned and shoved his ass back against Nic’s erection, practically riding him.
Grabbing his chin, Nic angled his face around and plunged a tongue into his open mouth, renewing that connection.
Cam poured it all into their kiss—all of this week’s fear and frustration, all of his guilt from the past two decades, and all of his love for Nic that had been building for months.
They kissed and rocked, wrapped up in everything, in each other, until Nic lifted his legs and tumbled them backward. He slithered out from under Cam, ditched the rest of his clothes, and climbed onto all fours beside him. He leaned over him and took his cock down his throat in one swallow.
“Ah fuck, yeah.” Eyes scrunched closed, Cam arched his back off the mattress. Every bit of him, every thought, every weight and worry, was being sucked out of him, Nic taking the darkness away and just leaving him with light. Pure white scorching light.
It brightened more when Nic eased off his dick, mouthed each of his balls, then, hand on his hip, rolled him the opposite direction, onto his side. He spread his cheeks and speared his hole with his tongue, teasing and licking.
“Yeah, baby, that’s it,” Cam panted. “Get me ready for you.”
Nic rimmed him into a writhing mess before backing off his hole and nipping his ass cheek. “Tell me how you want this.”
“Bare. I want to feel all of you.”
Nic groaned and took another bite of his cheek. “I’m negative. It’s only been you since my last test.”
“Same,” Cam moaned, the one word drawn out as Nic reached an arm through his legs, grasping his dick. Cam dropped a hand over his, stroking him together.
“Keep jacking yourself,” Nic said after what felt like hours but was probably less than a minute. Withdrawing his slick hand, Nic rubbed it down Cam’s crack, around the wet rim, and pushed a finger inside.
Cam stroked himself through the burn of one finger, then two, and finally a third. Nic did his part for distraction as well, licking and kissing over Cam’s shoulder, his neck, and up to his ear, groaning there when he began to stroke and coat himself.
“Get that dick in me,” Cam ordered on a growl. “Now.”
“Tell me to stop if I need to,” Nic said. “I’m taking care of you.” His kisses were soft, gentle, a sharp contrast to the hard length pushing into him, spreading, burning.
He grimaced, the sting sharp without extra lube, and he couldn’t keep a hiss from escaping his clenched teeth.
“Okay?” Nic asked, and Cam nodded. “Short breaths,” Nic said, winding his arms around him again, holding him tight across the chest like before.
Cam relaxed into the strong, sure hug, held together, safe.
Nic thrust gently, once, twice, taking care as Cam got used to the fit again. “Harder,” Cam pleaded, and Nic rolled them so Cam was sprawled on top of him, dick saluting the ceiling. He hiked their legs up, sinking deeper, hitting Cam in just the right spot.
“Jesus, fuck,” he cursed, never feeling so wide open nor so safe before. His arms flailed and Nic was there, catching him, tangling their fingers.
Wrapping one combined grip around his dick, working him together, he laid the other across his chest, splayed over his heart.
Holding all of him.
It was all so bright, blinding white, not a speck of darkness in his world, all of it focused on the man beneath him, inside him.
He came wrapped up in love, Nic’s “Love you, Boston,” a whispered exclamation in his ear.