Chapter 16
Sixteen
After seeing Lauren and Aidan out, Cam made his way back across the patio to where Nic waited inside the warmly lit cottage.
He’d claimed he was staying behind to take back his truck.
Cam figured he wanted one more chance to plead his case.
Not that it would change Cam’s mind. He knew what he needed to do.
About Nic too.
Bucking up his resolve, he entered the cottage and closed the door behind him.
Nic didn’t flinch, arms still spread on either side of the window, his back to the room.
Sleeves rucked up to his elbows, Nic’s toned forearms were on display, as was the perfect V of his torso.
Broad shoulders that led down to a trim waist and a firm, round ass.
Cam’s pulse ticked up, remembering the tattoos on Nic’s chest, imagining the JAG emblem on his hip, wondering about the ink on his back.
Something was definitely there. The spindly ends of it had been visible on Nic’s shoulders and sides the other night, but Cam hadn’t gotten a look before they’d been interrupted. He wanted to see it now.
But he needed to set something else straight first.
Nic, however, as Cam anticipated, wasn’t ready to let go of their earlier argument. “I don’t like this plan,” he said, still glaring out at the ocean.
“Of course you don’t.”
“We have no idea who is playing who here.”
Not exactly true. “Kristi?’s at the top.”
Nic spun, blue eyes flashing. “You think Kristi?’s at the top but you don’t know. Either way, there are two crews working every heist, and you want to walk right back into the crosshairs.”
“Says the former SEAL.” Cam took two steps forward, bringing them face-to-face. “This is my job.”
“Do you often do your job with this many unknown variables?”
“Not if I can help it, but it’s not unheard of.” He’d gone on less before. Nic had too. “Shouldn’t be hard for a former SEAL and prosecutor to grasp.”
Nic threw a hand out toward the house. “We don’t even know if our own CI is still on our side.”
Now they’d reached the conversation Cam wanted to have. “You haven’t doubted Abby before. Granted, I’ve had my doubts, but evidence indicates you were right. She’s an unwilling participant, one way or the other.”
“Unwilling.” Nic scoffed, turning back to the window.
Cam fought not to smile. He really shouldn’t take any delight in this, but Nic was playing right into his hands. “What’s really going on, Price?”
“You know damn well what’s going on.”
Laying his hands on either side of Nic’s spine, Cam slowly glided them up his back, drawing out a tremble. “Then why won’t you turn around and kiss me?”
The tremble gave way to a jolt, then a harshly bit out, “After you just kissed her?”
“I didn’t kiss her. Brady kissed her.”
“Semantics.”
“Says the lawyer.” Cam was intentionally needling him, using Nic’s own tactics against him as he poked holes in the prosecutor’s argument.
In his protective outer layer.
“She knows who you are, Boston.”
Cam coasted his hands over the packed muscles of Nic’s stiff shoulders.
“It’s still a cover. While evidence points to her being cooperative, if Abby decides Becca’s a better bet than us, I’m gonna need to convince her I’ve gone rogue so I can stay close and protect her. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
Nic was silent a long minute, the building tension heavy in the small space. “This is why you’re not supposed to get involved with colleagues.”
Finally, an opening. Cam closed the distance between them, winding his arms around Nic and hugging him from behind.
Body warm, despite the cool night, Cam wanted to get even closer to it.
They might both get burned, but he was done watching the fire from a distance, holding himself back from the heat.
“Technically, we’re not,” he said.
“You have an answer for everything, don’t you?”
“If it wins the argument with you, yes.”
Nic chuckled, hanging his head, and Cam skirted his nose and lips along the nape of his neck. Nic’s quiet laughter died on a breathy gasp.
“Turn around, baby,” Cam whispered. He stepped back, only far enough for Nic to rotate, then pulled him close again.
“We’ve been dancing around this for months,” he said, walking them back toward the desk, Nic bumping up against it.
“You want this as much as I do, if the two kisses we’ve shared are any sign. Unless I read them wrong?”
Chin down, Nic glided his hands up the outsides of Cam’s arms and over his shoulders, leaving a trail of goose bumps in their wake. “You’re not wrong.”
It was a miracle Cam had held out this long. This close to what he’d desired for months, the wild part of him desperately wanted to break free, wanted to play rough and hard with Nic. “Then what’s the problem?” he asked. “You came to my place the other night. You made that move.”
“A lot can change in forty-eight hours,” Nic said, angling his face away.
Cam didn’t let him get away with it, trapping Nic’s chin between his thumb and forefinger and righting his gaze. “The way you feel about me?”
“This is messy, Boston, for a number of reasons, the least of which is you could get killed tomorrow.”
Nic’s blue eyes swirled with a stormy mix of lust and hesitation, the former on the cusp of winning out.
Cam just needed to push a little harder.
Hands traveling north, he tangled them in Nic’s hair and tilted his head back, exposing his neck for Cam’s mouth.
“The last thing I want to do,” he said between kisses there, “is get killed before I get my dick in you.”
A deep groan rumbled against Cam’s lips. Nic clutched his waist, holding him close. And tight.
“That’s what you like, isn’t it?” Cam taunted, kissing a path up the column of Nic’s throat.
He wedged a knee between Nic’s thighs, as he’d done the other night, and pressed his own need into Nic’s hip.
No hiding that or the way Nic ground an equally hard cock against his thigh.
Cam trailed his open mouth along Nic’s stubbled jaw and up to his ear.
“Boston . . .” A warning wrapped in so much desire it might as well have been a plea.
“You’re standing here, jealous and angry my cover kissed someone else.
” Cam brushed his lips over the hinge of Nic’s clenched jaw.
“Worried about my safety and about what our friends will say.” Nic opened his mouth to protest, and Cam pressed his lips to Nic’s chin, forcing it closed.
“Don’t deny it.” He dipped down, suckling Nic’s bobbing Adam’s apple.
“It’s part of what’s kept you away all these months.
Me too.” Then back up, a peck in the hollow of Nic’s cheek, before he dragged his lips back to Nic’s ear.
“But most of all, you’re turned way the fuck on and ready to bend over this desk for me.
” He punctuated his assertion with a roll of his hips.
“Have been for months.” Nic’s hands slipped from his waist, onto his ass, and hauled him closer, so close to conceding the argument.
Cam ground against him. “Stop pretending the mess doesn’t already exist.”
Cam was surprised when Nic’s hands left his ass to grip the sides of his face, Nic forcing him back enough for their eyes to lock. “Is this going to push you over the line? Break one rule, break them all?”
Cam’s heart stuttered in his chest. Nic was hesitating out of worry for him, over what he’d said the other night at the house.
Cam was nowhere near good enough for this man, probably never would be, dirt-broke and as screwed up as his past had been, but fuck if he could hold himself back now, the chemistry between them winning out over good sense.
“I broke the rules the minute I laid eyes on you, Dominic Price.” Shaking off the hold, Cam leaned forward, brushing his lips against Nic’s. “Now you’re the fucking rope keeping me tethered to shore.”
As if a judge’s gavel had fallen, Nic came after him, hard and fast.
Clutching his ass in one hand, the back of his head in the other, Nic hauled him into a kiss that had blood roaring in Cam’s ears, loud enough to drown out the crashing waves.
Case closed. Finally.
Onto a more pleasurable argument, which Nic was already winning.
Hands beneath the hem of Cam’s shirt, he forced it up and their lips apart long enough to tear it off Cam’s head.
They fought for whose lips would hit whose neck first, and Nic won, biting and suckling a path over the temporary tattoo.
“I like the ink even if it is decades out of style.”
Cam laughed. “Good thing it’s not permanent.
” Head tilted back, he struggled blindly against Nic’s buttons, too many valuable seconds passing before he reached warm and hard skin, searing against his palms. “Doesn’t hide as well as yours.
” He tried to look down to the ink that still surprised him and turned him on to no end, but Nic had other ideas.
Long fingers tunneling through his hair, Nic tilted his head back even farther. “Like the hair too,” he said before licking into the hollow of his throat.
Knees going weak, Cam flipped their positions while he still could, resting back against the desk. “Reminded me of you.”
“I’ll give you something else to remember,” Nic mumbled, before dropping to his knees and giving Cam’s belly button the same attention he’d bestowed on his neck, and fuck if that didn’t have Cam gasping toward the ceiling.
If Nic’s hands weren’t already working on his zipper, his hips would have been off the desk, dick begging for attention.
As it were, Cam lifted them the instant he heard the zipper rip, helping Nic get his jeans and boxers down, but after that, once Nic circled the tip of his cock with his tongue and then swallowed him whole, the most Cam could manage was flailing.
“Holy hell,” he cursed, the arm braced behind him giving way. Lie back or watch the show? No question. He curled forward, hands diving into Nic’s hair and down his neck, creating a cocoon while he watched Nic blow him.