Chapter 20 #2
Kill him, Nic said to himself. Vaughn could do it.
Make it look like an accident or a hit. Make it appear connected to one of Nic’s cases.
He was a high-profile prosecutor after all.
Without any heirs. It was just a matter of forging some documents to turn Nic’s estate over to his father and, in turn, to Vaughn.
Except doing so could expose the illegal loans and Vaughn’s shady dealings.
A poorly kept Silicon Valley secret but a “secret” nonetheless.
“They’d rather keep it quiet,” Nic answered. “Make their threats so I pay them and make it all go away quietly.”
“I don’t like this plan,” Cam said, and Nic laughed at the familiar words. “You’re a goddamn sitting duck.”
“Now you know how I felt.”
Cam hid his fuming scowl in his beer glass.
Setting his down, Nic reached out and laid his hand on Cam’s side. “And I’m not just a sitting duck. I’m building a case.”
“On your own?”
He shook his head. “With Mel’s help.”
“Mine too now.”
He squeezed his side. “I can’t ask—”
“You didn’t ask.” Cam drained the rest of his beer, then slammed the glass down, turning to him. “If I want to build something with you, you need to be around for it.”
“Build something?”
“Yeah, Price, build something.” He ran a hand over Nic’s chest, around his neck, and drew him into a lingering kiss.
That taste, his beer on Cam’s lips, was way more addictive than it had any right to be. Nic pulled back, breathless. “This is messier than you signed up for.”
“You were the one concerned about the mess.”
“Because all this shit . . .” He gestured at the brewery around them, at the parking lot and shattered glass outside, at the picture from Aidan and Jamie’s wedding on the photo wall behind the bar. “Not to mention—”
Cam kissed him quiet, tugging his bottom lip between his teeth and tugging a moan deep from within Nic’s throat.
When Cam let his lip go again, it was to start on his shirt buttons.
“Exactly, not to mention,” he said, working the pearl buttons free of their holes, “I want to keep you, this, to ourselves for a while. Build it quiet, like we build a case, and when we’re sure it’s solid, then we present it. ”
Nic shucked off his shirt as Cam moved on to his belt and zipper. “I like that case strategy.”
“Learned from the best.”
“You better start getting busy then.”
Cam grinned against his lips. “You set that one up for me.”
“Are you gonna hit it?”
Cam dove a hand beneath Nic’s waistband, clutching his ass. “I’ll tell you what I’m gonna hit.”
Nic groaned again, half at the pun, half at the tongue teasing the sensitive spot at the crook of his neck.
“Keep tossing softballs, Price.”
Nic righted his head, mouth at Cam’s ear. “Are you going to start running the bases sometime today, Boston?”
“Right over the plate.” Cam angled his face in, capturing Nic’s mouth again, and that addictive taste eclipsed Nic’s worries for now.
They receded further as Cam trailed a path of kisses down his neck, teased his nipples with slow swipes of his tongue, then dropped to his knees, taking Nic’s pants and briefs the rest of the way to the floor with him.
He nuzzled Nic’s crotch, keeping up the torturous licks and nips.
“Now, I’d like to learn what it’s like to blow my man in his brewery. ”
Nic wound his hands through the blue-tipped hair, more than on board with that plan. Cam, however, grabbed both his hands and pinned them to the bar, exerting control as he had the other night. Nic was happy to second chair this argument.
“This is not you fucking me. This is me fucking you.”
“Christ, the mouth on you . . .”
Cam looked up, devilish dark eyes twinkling. “Do you want it on you?”
“Fuck yes.”
“Hands on the fucking bar, then,” Cam said.
Nic curled his fingers around the lip of the bar, nails digging into wood. He was going to leave dents for sure.
Cam had thought the sight of Nic surrendering—spreading himself over the beach house desk, arms wide, artful back on display, ass out for the taking—was the sexiest thing he’d ever seen.
Had thought maybe Nic standing behind his bar, dress shirt hanging open, pants and briefs around his ankles, blazing blue eyes rolling back as Cam took his dick down his throat might have eclipsed the first vision for sexiest sight ever.
He was wrong. On both counts. So fucking wrong.
Dominic Price, naked astride Cam’s hips, reared back on his haunches, skin flushed beneath all that ink and shining with a sheen of sweat in the early morning light filling Cam’s bedroom, was by far the hottest thing Cam had ever seen in his thirty-five years on Earth.
Head thrown back, Nic gutted out a groan each time he lowered himself down on Cam’s dick. It was the furthest from buttoned-up, cool, calm Attorney Price Cam had ever seen the man, and fuck, to know he’d undone him like that made Cam’s dick, clamped in the vise of Nic’s ass, even harder.
As if sensing Cam’s building orgasm, Nic righted his head, chin falling to his chest like a rag doll. Eyes heavy-lidded, his rugged face was a heady mix of pleasure and pain. “Close, Boston,” he grunted.
“Thank fuck.” Cam clamped one hand on Nic’s thigh, the other on his right hip, over the rippling JAG tattoo, and forced Nic to shorten his strokes as Cam powered up. “Jack yourself.”
Nic rammed down harder, faster. “Don’t need to.”
Fuck, hotter still, and good to know for future reference, but tonight . . . “I wanna see it.”
Blue eyes slit open, fiery ice, and when Nic took himself in hand, pumping, Cam stared in greedy lust, his own thrusts becoming frantic.
“That’s it, Boston, that’s it,” Nic panted, until come covered his hand and Cam’s torso.
His ass clenching around Cam’s cock was enough to shoot Cam off with him.
Head falling back, eyes fluttering closed, his fingers slipped off Nic’s warm, slick skin to the threadbare sheets.
He clutched them in his fists, arching his back as he rode the waves and emptied himself into Nic.
When he came back to Earth and the bed, Nic’s long body rested atop his, Nic dotting kisses along his collarbone, gooseflesh rising in their wake. Cam lifted a hand, brushing back the sweat-drenched hair that had fallen into Nic’s face. “Remind me again why we circled each other for months.”
Nic rested his face on Cam’s shoulder, looking relaxed for a change. “Because arguing is half the fun.”
Cam kissed his forehead. “I’m too tired to argue tonight.” He squinted as a ray of sun snuck around the bedroom curtain. “Or rather, this morning.”
“No objection here,” Nic mumbled, half asleep already.
“Up, baby, gotta get rid of the condom,” Cam said, nudging Nic’s hip.
His bedmate grumbled about moving, so Cam moved for him, rolling them onto their sides and carefully slipping out.
“So smart, Agent Byrne.” Nic grinned mockingly, face half in the pillow.
Cam slapped his ass for the sass while a contented, humming Nic wiped his hand on the sheet. He nestled down into the bed, not seeming to care that the sheets were a disaster even before they’d made a mess of them.
Shaking his head, amused to no end by this side of Nic, Cam cleaned up in the bathroom, then did a quick lap around the house, checking locks and making sure blinds and curtains were drawn against the rising morning sun.
A swoosh by his feet, the pitter patter of claws on hardwood, and Bird, whom he’d fed and watered when they’d first gotten in, snuck into the bedroom ahead of him, hopping onto the bed with a meow.
Nic startled, but not enough to do more than grumble and attempt to shake the cat off from where he was crawling up his back. “Fucking Bird.”
Cam grabbed the troublemaker and dropped him back on the floor, shooing him out of the room. “Spoken like a true Lakers fan.”
“Wrong end of the state.”
“Warriors, then.”
Nic buried his head in the pillow, muffling his laughable words. “Worse, Kings.”
“Oh, you poor baby.” Chuckling, Cam slid back into the bed beside him. “But I understand. Being a Red Sox fan wasn’t always championships.”
“Fuck,” Nic groaned, snuggling up to him. “You’re gonna be insufferable come October.”
“Says the Giants fan.”
He got a light snore in answer. Good; Cam didn’t want anyone to see the stupid grin on his face.
Nic had implied they’d be together for at least the next several months.
Cam liked that idea a lot. He didn’t, however, like the idea of Nic being caught in the crosshairs of his father’s mistakes.
Worse still that Nic was in jeopardy for a man who’d disowned him, who’d turned him out for being gay.
Cam didn’t even know the fucker, but no way he was going to let Nic get hurt because of him more than he’d already been hurt.
Threats, Nic had argued, but Cam was far from convinced.
Someone had tried to gun him down tonight.
What was next? Worst-case scenarios ran through his head.
Sure, Nic could take care of himself better than most, but depending on how much force was brought to bear against him, he could be injured, killed, kidnapped.
He was Curtis’s only son. And a successful one in his own right.
The loan sharks could try to ransom him or force Nic to deed over his interest in the brewery.
In any of those scenarios, Cam didn’t see Nic walking out alive.
Cam shouldn’t have walked out of last night’s scenario or the past week alive either, much less happy and with his psyche intact and the man he’d wanted for months in his bed, but Nic had helped make all that happen.
Had anchored him when he’d needed it most. He had to do the same for Nic.
Had to make sure Nic stayed anchored to this Earth with him.
Extending his arm, he snagged his phone off the bedside table where he’d plugged it in. Nic snuffled, pulling him closer, then settled back down, snoring evenly. Cam brought the phone closer and texted Lauren.
Get me everything we have on Curtis Price.
He didn’t expect the text right back, assuming Lauren had already passed out. Nic’s father? Did something happen? Was there another attempt?
The rest of the pieces fell into place. Tonight wasn’t the first time Nic had been targeted. The sniper at the initial botched raid. The car at the foiled South Park meet. The Unknown calls and hang-ups.
Another text came in from Lauren. Shit, I might have said too much.
No fucking shit. He was her boss. She should have told him all this before now if she and Nic had already put it together. Unless . . .
Nic shifted in his arms, reacting to his sudden tension. He’d probably asked her not to say anything with how closely he’d played this to the vest, and with Cam undercover on a dangerous assignment himself. Nic had been protecting him.
Now he had to protect Nic.
Everything, Lauren. Full report when we’re back in the office.
On it.
A ray of sunlight snuck through the curtains again, splashing light across Nic’s back. The giant tattoo came to life, the intricately carved GS standing out in stark relief. How had he ever missed it on first glance?
His biggest mess, Nic had said. Then tonight, when asked why he’d left home, he’d been holding something back.
Cam had let it go, too eager to address the immediate danger, then too eager to get his mouth around Nic’s dick.
In the light of morning, Cam realized Nic had glossed over the exact details of the falling out with his father.
Cam sensed it wasn’t just his coming out.
He also sensed it maybe had something to do with Nic’s familiarity with abuse cases and victim support organizations. Was it Nic or someone else?
This GS? Who or what exactly had driven him to that enlistment office the day after graduation? His investigator’s brain wouldn’t let this go now.
He sent Lauren another text. And see if you can find anyone with the initials GS connected to Nic or Curtis.
She sent back the thumbs-up emoji and some of his tension rolled away on a quiet laugh. He darkened the screen and laid the phone back down on the table.
Relaxing into the mattress, he dragged Nic closer, half on top of him, so he could wrap both arms around him, holding Nic tight as he kissed his drying brown and gray curls.
He needed to know everything if he was going to be ready. This was serious.
Cam wouldn’t lose someone else he loved.
Thank you for reading!