This is Me
Cam fought through the crowd of friends gathered around the bar and leaned his forearms on the bar top, narrowing his eyes at his husband. “You’ve been holding out on me.”
Nic’s smirk as he popped open bottles of Gravity’s FBI Stout was the same one he’d been wearing all day.
As he’d strutted out of Aidan and Jamie’s guest room in a pink fringe vest, tattered skinny jeans, rainbow-glitter cuffs, and combat boots to match.
As he’d strutted from the Embarcadero to the Civic Center, the very out and proud US Attorney for the Northern District of California at the helm of San Francisco’s Pride Parade.
As he’d strutted behind the bar at Under the Table, case of beer over his shoulder, seemingly the master of ceremonies in this crowded corner of the Pride-themed bachelor party for their friends, Marsh and Levi.
That had been the first of six cases. Cam had been counting.
Gravity’s imperial stout was his favorite, his namesake one especially, and by his count, and by the number of red ale and pilsner pints multiplying around him, the stout should have been polished off a while ago.
And yet, his husband had just made a “Last call on the imperial stout” shout from behind the bar.
Something didn’t add up, and Cam—the trained investigator, stout enthusiast, and turned-on husband—was determined to find out what was going on. “Let’s start with the beer,” he said. “Where were you hiding the extra stout? Same place you were hiding that outfit?”
Heat danced in Nic’s icy blue eyes. “That sounded like two questions.”
“Answer them, Counselor.”
He finished handing out bottles first, then grabbed the two bottles he’d reserved and slipped around to the front of the bar. “Feb tapped into her supply,” he said as he handed Cam a bottle.
Nice of Jax’s girlfriend who owned the joint. But that only answered one of Cam’s questions.
“And the outfit?”
When Nic first appeared in it that morning, Cam had had to rush behind the kitchen island to hide his hard-on.
Nic was turn-him-on-sexy any day, either in worn Levis and Gravity tees or one of his sharp, tailored suits.
But dressed like he was today, with his tattoos visible beneath the vest and his long legs and fine ass poured into ripped jeans, Nic had been the source of Cam’s temptation and thinning resistance all day long.
Made even more thin as Nic tipped back his beer and took several long swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing. He lowered the bottle and licked his lips. The fucker.
“Katie made me these,” he said, showing off one of the sparkly bracelets. “Bought the rest when I was out with Lette one day for lunch.” Nic’s sister had never passed a vintage store she didn’t wander into. “Saved it for a special occasion.”
Cam gestured around them. “A bachelor party?”
Elbows propped on the bar, Nic leaned back and surveyed the crowd, and for a moment, Cam thought he was going to answer yes.
But then he slowly returned his gaze to him and the earlier heat in his eyes had morphed into a determined fire, the same one Cam was used to seeing whenever Nic walked into a courtroom.
And when he spoke, his voice carried the same intensity. “No, Boston, not a bachelor party.”
All business, full of confidence, bordering on smug even. An attractive sort of arrogance that had driven every one of Nic’s struts and smirks today. Fuck you energy, if Cam had to put a name to it.
A memory wire tripped. Nic and Eddie dismantling Duncan Vaughn’s muscle in two seconds flat. They’d been full of the same sort of energy that night—and making a statement.
Like Nic was doing today.
“You’re making a statement.”
Nic tipped his head, a subtle acknowledgment, then finished his beer and set the empty on the bar behind him.
“Why now?” Cam asked.
“Things are changing,” he answered. “I don’t know what the world and this country are going to look like this time next year, or the year after that.”
Cam felt it too. Saw it in the uptick of hate and anger that motivated an increasing number of cases that came across his desk.
Even more reason to grab on to the good.
He set his own empty aside, then moved in front of Nic, sliding his hands under the ends of his vest and splaying his fingers over warm inked skin.
“So, we celebrate the victories while we still can.”
“The victories and who we are. And this is me.” He spread his arms wide, nothing to hide.
“Dominic Price. Former SEAL and JAG captain. US Attorney with the highest close rate in the country. Brewery owner. Brother of Nicolette Sare. Husband of Cameron Patrick Byrne.” He draped his arms over Cam’s shoulders.
“Who I married despite his horrible taste in sports teams.”
“Says the Kings fan.”
“Hey! We had a winning record this season.”
Cam rolled his eyes. “Barely.”
Nic grinned and erased the remaining distance between them, his warm breath drifting over Cam’s lips. “I wanted to be real today. To be my whole self with my family and friends while I still could.”
Cam groaned and buried his face in Nic’s shoulder.
The rumble of laughter beneath his ear and against his chest was as sexy as the fucking outfit. “Got a problem with that, Boston?”
“Yeah,” he mumbled before lifting his face enough to meet Nic’s amused gaze. “You’re not just unfairly good, you’re unfairly perfect.”
“I’m not perfect.”
Cam begged to differ. He coasted his hands over Nic’s hips and down, squeezing two handfuls of denim-clad ass cheeks.
“Your butt is perfect in these jeans.” Glided them back around and up Nic’s torso, fingers raking through brown and silver chest hair and over the myriad of memories tattooed on Nic’s skin.
“Your inked chest in this vest.” Continued to trace the ends of his tattoos over his shoulders and down his arms. “Every muscle between the fringe and the bracelets.”
The shiver that rolled through Nic was a victory. The erection pressing against Cam’s thigh too, as was the gravel in Nic’s voice as he whispered, “If I was perfect, I wouldn’t be mentally calculating how fast I can get you into a bathroom and get your mouth around my dick.”
Cam’s breath caught, then raced—right along with his heart and all of his blood rushing south. “That’s exactly why you’re perfect.” He tangled his fingers with Nic’s. “Ninety seconds,” he added, before turning out of Nic’s arms and tugging him into the crowd.
And into a blessedly empty bathroom a minute and a half later.
Another ninety seconds after that, he had Nic on the vanity cabinet in nothing but his fringe vest, his legs thrown over Cam’s shoulders and his cock in his mouth.
“Fuck, yes,” Nic cursed, as he clutched at Cam’s rainbow-tipped hair.
“I have been hard for this all day.” He rocked his hips, filling Cam’s mouth, his cock swelling with each thrust. “The hair, the eyeliner, that fucking jacket, that fucking shirt.” Cam had recalled how much his Brady Campbell undercover ensemble had turned Nic on, so today he’d dressed for the occasion too, with an added Bi and Badass tee.
“You talk about my jeans,” Nic panted. “Every time you bent over I could see your bare ass through the tears in yours.”
Cam drew back, an aching mess himself. “Stop trying to win the argument and come so I can get my dick in you.”
Nic threw his head back on a groan, and fuck if Cam didn’t wish he had a camera right then to capture the image. Sweat glistening on his man’s heaving chest, precome dripping from his erect cock, all of his lean muscles, from his calves to his jaw, taut with tension.
Fucking perfect.
He glided his hands up Nic’s thighs and clasped his hips, fingers splayed over the tattoos inked on each. “You’re real, baby, and sexy as hell in a suit or in nothing but a pink fringe vest.”
Nic righted his head, heat and devotion blazing in his heavy-lidded eyes. “You help me be me, and I love you for it.” He laid a hand over Cam’s on his left hip, over the clover with the stylized B there. “Now, being real . . .” he said, and added a smirk. “Make me come.”
Ninety seconds after that, Nic was exploding in Cam’s mouth, and a respectable several ninety seconds later, Cam ruined the pink fringe vest when we came all over his husband.