MATCHSTICK MEN: a Hunter Dane investigation

by Adira August

  The black panther that stalked across his back and over his biceps to cover old battle scars, only served to remind Cam he had a wild thing under him. Strength belayed. This compelling man, haunted and haunting, leashed himself for Cam. It made him incredibly hard. And honored.

  Cam's fingertips moved lightly over the scars camouflaged by ink and artistry. Hunt growled deep in his throat.

  "Do they hurt? Does this hurt you?"

  "No, it's …"

  "Tell me."

  "No one's touched me there. It's a hard limit."

  The sinuous, stalking image stretched along the very top of Hunt's shoulders and back. Cam let Hunter feel his weight. Lowered his mouth to the the ragged raised flesh created by the bite of a motorcycle chain swung viciously by a gang member. Cam dragged his hot, wet tongue along the full length. Firmly, gently. Then, kissing along the skin, found another.

  "Oh, God." A gasp like a sob. Hunter pressed his face into the mattress. His back twitched and shuddered under Cam's tongue and lips.

  9:45pm Benefits

  Through his lips, Camden Snow felt the vibrations of Hunt's low moans and inarticulate words.

  After finding every scar, Cam smoothed the oil over his tat, deepening it.

  Starting at the back of Hunt's neck, Cam sucked each vertebrae. Moving down the long valley of spine between slopes of muscle, he gently caught the skin between his teeth. Massaged each firm hillock with his tongue.

  Hunter growled and writhed and reached for his own cock with one hand. Cam smiled against him, grabbed his wrist and brought it behind his back, the palm up. He sucked there as before, teeth scraping the skin, this time not allowing Hunter to pull away.

  "Oh, fuck ... oh God, Cam!" Hunter's hips flexed down into the soft bed. Not enough pressure.

  Cam felt Hunt's body stiffening and stopped. It was too soon to let him come. He slid up, lips at Hunter's ear.

  "Relax ... relax ... there … okay … yeah … there it is … that's it." His hands glided over Hunt's arms and shoulders, settling him like a nervous stallion.

  "Let it all go. I've got you."

  Cam sought along Hunter's tight waist, found the ripple of abs and the smooth protuberance of his hip bone. He pulled Hunter back against himself and followed the curve of abdomen, skin soft over firm muscle, until he wrapped his fingers around the fiery column of Hunter's erection.

  He squeezed hard, in place, his thumb grazed the rim and stroked the stretched skin of the wide glans. Precum gushed over his thumb, spilling down the sides.

  A high whine - God how he loved the sounds that came from this responsive man. "Tell me, Hunter," he whispered, enticing instead of ordering, the request more powerful than command.

  "Oh, God, it's good. You're so ..."

  "Have faith in me, Hunter, and I’ll bring you everything."

  Cam brought his wet fingers up and found the hard point of Hunter's nipple. He circled and pinched and a shudder ran the length of the lithe, strong body against him.

  He pushed Hunt's arms up and let him roll onto his stomach again, made sure his thighs were spread. Leaning on one forearm, next to Hunter's body, stretched and yielding, Cam pressed his own hard length against Hunt's hip, wanting him to feel, to anticipate Cam inside him.

  He made a circuit from Hunter's cock to his balls and up between his cheeks to gently massage the sphincter, tight and hot. Then back down, kneading his perineum, fingering his sac, jacking him smoothly a few times. He repeated this as his own hips flexed and he let Hunter feel him, fierce and flaming, harder than he'd ever been in his life, sliding against Hunt's oiled flank.

  Hunter was covered in sweat, panting. His ass twitched and clenched and released. Cam knew Hunter fought with himself to obey Cam's instruction to relax, while his instinct was to repel the invasion of his ass, yet still welcome the stroking of his genitals.

  That Cam was able to create this in Hunter, this agony of desire and doubt, wanting to please, desperate to escape, drove Cam to a savage need to be inside that molten body feeling the tight quivering of humiliation and hunger and surrender.

  But not yet. This was for Hunter. This was a night Cam dreamed of, wished for, planned, from the first time he'd laid eyes on Hunter Dane. This night would be perfect for him.

  Cam repositioned himself, pulling Hunter's leg across his inner thigh, and focused entirely on Hunter's spasming ring. He eased a finger just inside, opening and loosening until a second and third finger slipped in easily.

  Hunter panted a cacophony of muted pleasure, the sounds pumping the fire in Cam’s balls.

  Control. Stay in control.

  "Calm, Hunter. Calm, now. Feel how slick and simple it is, feel my fingers. You're so tight, so good. I can't wait to be inside you. Calm now, there's no hurry."

  He felt the body beneath him still. Reaching to the nightstand, he found the lube, covered his fingers and spread it liberally between Hunter's cheeks and on his own cock.

  He began again, starting with three fingers, working the lube inside, rotating the digits, pressing outward, fucking Hunt's hole slowly, firmly.

  He wasn't afraid of hurting Hunter, now. He was afraid of getting him off. If he wanted anything from tonight, it was for Hunter to love what he felt when Cam's thick column sank deeply into him.

  "Is this good for you?" Cam asked, knowing from the way Hunt lifted up to meet his thrusts, seeking more, that it was.

  "Cam," he gasped, his name a plea. "Cam."

  "I'll take that as a yes," he said. "Tell me what you want, Hunter."

  "I - "-- he choked --"please. You know."

  What happened next Hunter didn't believe another man could do to him. He was six feet three inches of well-muscled male. But the young Dom suddenly unwound himself and with one arm between Hunter's legs sliding up and the other under his chest, Cam simply lifted Hunt and flipped him onto his back.

  Then Cam was on him. Urgent, demanding, face flushed with lust, mouth wet, his rigid heat rubbing against Hunter's weeping, aching cock. Cam grabbed a fistful of Hunt's hair, bending him back, exposing his throat. Cam's eyes, almost completely black, pinned Hunt to the mattress.

  "It's not me that has to know," his voice a harsh rasp in his arousal. "Tell me what you want."

  Tonight, just for tonight.

  "Fuck me, for God's sake, fuck me now."

  Cam moved on the first Fuck me. "Hands behind your neck," he ordered, sliding down.

  The raw need in Cam's voice made a savage joy bloom in Hunter's chest. His body relaxed in full submission. He was still hard enough to jack up a car, but it was as if Cam's lust for him raced along nerve paths, an electromagnetic pulse that melted the pathways and flowed back to his gut. A bank of burning embers at the base of his erection flared. His too tight skin about to ignite.

  And he knew that only Cam, there, owning him, could release the power built to critical mass inside him.

  Then Hunt's legs were in the air, over Cam's upper arms. Cam reached toward the corner of the headboard with one hand. He caught up a length of chain attached to a padded leg restraint. Deftly, he brought it around Hunt's thigh and clipped it to one of the links.

  "I'm going to need my hand," he said.

  Left leg held up, his right over Cam's thickly muscled biceps, Hunt was spread, exposed. He could feel his sphincter trembling, pulsing.

  Cam rolled a bit to the side, raking the man spread-eagled and waiting with his gaze. He curled his fingers and ran his nails firmly up and down the backs and insides of Hunter's thighs. He lightly stroked Hunt’s erection, tracing every ridge and vein. Teased over and under his tight sac.

  He laid one finger on Hunter's hole, just leaving it there, feeling the burning pulses.

  "You are the most beautiful fucking man I have ever seen," he breathed. "I've never been this ..." He looked at Hunt. "I need to not come too fast for you. Especially the first time. I have to-"

  Cam closed his eyes. The look of ferocious greed ebbed.

  Cam laid o
n top of him. He crooked his left arm around Hunter's leg so far he could slip his hand under Hunt's neck and manacle his wrists with steel fingers.

  "Okay. Okay," he panted. "Jesus, look at you." It was Hunt's face he was looking at now.

  His right hand holding a fistful of hair, he gazed down at Hunter and rocked his hips, sliding his erection between spread buttocks and along the pulsing anus exposed between them. His raphe compressed and slid, slick with lube. Precum poured from them both, mingled, added to the delicious frictionless movement.

  The chain rattled, Hunt keened and tried to writhe, but Cam owned him, now.

  The Dom finally slid his hand down to guide his cock.

  "Look at me," Cam ordered. Eyes locked, each with perfect awareness of the instant the nose of Cam's glans touched Hunter's ring. So wet. Swollen. Tight, but not unyielding.

  Cam grunted as the muscle spasmed against his cockhead. Hunter's hips tried to rise, instinctively, to meet him. But Cam held him motionless.

  "Take it. You just take it," he said and fed his erection slowly inside.

  Hunt was tight, but Cam met no real resistance. He knew Hunt was trying to help. He uttered a choked groan as the head of Cam’s cock passed the rim.

  Then, he slid all the way home in one, steady thrust.

  Hunter screamed the jaguar's throat shredding, chest deep snarl of a scream.

  Cam froze in place. "Say it." Fearing the worst, Cam was no longer requesting. "Say it." His tone edged toward danger.

  "Fuck, yeah!" Hunter gasped. "Yes, fuck, yes!"

  And Hunt's hair was in Cam's fist again. Savage in his delight, Cam's mouth opened Hunt’s. "Give me your tongue," he rasped.

  Hunt gave himself up to Cam, who sucked him into his own mouth and began to fuck him. He laved and slid his teeth over Hunter's trapped tongue, driving the whole length of himself into Hunt's tight hole with every sucking pull, scraping his teeth along the sides with every withdrawal.

  The chain rattled, the bed shook, Hunt fought for a freedom he didn't want, to feel the utter helplessness he did. He growled deep in his chest, the pitch changing with every thrust and pull, every suck and release, every second of being taken ... Taken.

  Cam released his mouth. "Keep looking at me. Don't stop. I want to see you come."

  Cam shifted the angle of his thrusts - and grazed Hunt's swollen prostate with his shaft on every drive.

  Hunter's eyes were wide on Cam, his mouth open in a series of guttural huffs to match the thrusts.

  Cam wrapped his fingers around Hunt's weeping cock and jacked him from balls to slit, his thumb swiping and pinching with a twist before sliding back down. Hunter struggled to keep his eyes on Cam - begging, fevered, desperate.

  "Tell me," Cam said. Hunt's vocal chords tangled on the words, and Cam slowed the pace of his fist. "Tell me."

  "Oh, God, I - your hand, fuck, harder … please, your cock, so far so far - oh my God, in my ass." Hunter exploded. Head back, veins throbbing, ligaments stretched, body undulating.

  Cam raised up and watched thick jets of cum arc all the way to Hunter's neck, along one shoulder, down his chest, across his stomach.

  The sight pushed Cam over and he emptied himself with a roar, sliding on the cum-slick torso, jammed hard into Hunter Dane.

  Rush.

  The rush.

  PART TWO

  THURSDAY

  4:16am The Call

  The first thing I noticed was the freight train roar of ferocious wind. I opened my eyes. Light from the bathroom door. My bathroom is in the hall. The faint sound of an orchestra - the 1812 Overture.

  Dispatch!

  I scrambled across the mattress - no one else - and onto the floor, to the chair. I dug through the clothes to find my pants and fumbled my phone out.

  Shit! What time was it?

  "Dane," I said.

  "Got an unknown dead at a residence," dispatch came back.

  "I'm on a three-day."

  "Yeah, sorry about that."

  The dispatcher did not sound at all sorry. I got up and sat on the edge of the bed.

  "Captain VanDevere wants you on this. It's north of the country club."

  While she was talking, Cam walked into the room in sweatpants and a tee, smelling freshly showered. He put a mug of steaming coffee on the nightstand next to me.

  "Which one?" I asked, taking a sip. Damn that's good.

  Cam turned on the bedside light and pulled open the nightstand drawer. He pointed to a pad and pen amongst various sex toys and potions. I nodded and grabbed them.

  He disappeared into the bathroom.

  I jotted down address and particulars. "You have a victim's name?"

  "No ID at the scene, yet. House is owned by C. Bennett Farleigh," she said, spelling the last name. The Farleighs were old money. Or as old as money gets in Denver, which is maybe two hundred years. Cattle and minerals, if I remembered right.

  "Who called it in?" I asked.

  "Neighbor on a loud music complaint."

  I blew out a breath. Parties meant lots of witnesses. Mostly drunk, uncooperative and worthless. But you'd think they'd at least know the name of the dead person.

  After a few more details I told her to call Cushman to meet me at the scene. Cam was waiting at the end of the bed.

  "Shower's running. Towels laid out. There's shaving stuff on the sink," he said. "I'll lend you a clean shirt and tie." He went to a dresser. "You'll need underwear."

  "I keep a clip-on in the car console."

  "With the extra ketchup packets? I don't think so."

  I checked the time, four-twenty. The call came in before three. "I should probably just go."

  He turned around with a t-shirt and pair of black briefs in his hands. "You smell like cum. Which is a great scent on you, but I'm thinking Bodywash No. 9 for this gig."

  Oh, yeah. Last night. Bedpost. Cocks and sweat and Cam and exploding over myself … I looked down.

  Shower.

  The R8 got us to the parking lot behind Scene and Not Heard at Cam Standard Speed. Mach 3, I think it was. It was still dark. The buildings blocked the wind enough that it wouldn’t almost knock me over when I got out, as it had when Cam and I struggled to the R8 in his foothills driveway.

  A small tumbleweed danced on the wind, trapped in doorway under the stairs. I tried to figure out what I wanted to say to him. I didn't even know what I wanted to say to myself.

  Honesty was usually my default position.

  "I never did that before."

  He nodded. "I know."

  "No," I corrected him, "I don't mean that." I gestured at the club. "I mean I've only done this."

  Cam frowned. "You never had regular sex, before?"

  "That was regular? I thought my balls were gonna shoot out my dick along with the cum."

  He laughed and colored. "Yeah, it was pretty intense. But, relative to what happens inside, it was just sex, you know? Pretty vanilla, genre-wise."

  "Genre-wise? Must be your interior librarian surfacing." I opened the door, keeping a tight hold on the handle so the wind wouldn't take it.

  "I just - I don't want -"

  “Yeah, yeah, you don't want to lead me on.” He managed to not roll his eyes. “Look. I liked fucking you. You liked me fucking you. I'd like to fuck you again some time. Now get out of my damn car and go catch a murderer.”

  5:15am Unknown Dead

  Cam waited until I was inside my old black Bronco before he took off. "Took off" was almost literal.

  I shrugged out of my leather jacket and grabbed the shoulder rig from the lock box I'd installed under the passenger seat. I dropped the Colt's magazine, not because I thought maybe the bullets had escaped while it was locked in the box, but because I always checked the action before I went to work. I jacked the round out of the chamber, a new one slid into place. I put the ejected round back into the mag. That made ten. I slipped into the shoulder rig and holstered the Colt.

  It didn't take long to get to the scene in t
he pre-dawn, almost empty streets. A country club neighborhood. Old mansions. Big trees. Trees were scarce enough in the area. Great old oaks almost unknown.

  The house was gray granite. The grounds overgrown. The Medical Examiner’s van was at the curb, the ME on call already inside. A uniform in front directed me around back.

  I passed an old in-ground pool, a few inches of murky water and leaves at the bottom. Cracks in the concrete sides. I wondered at the absence of a fence or cover. Maybe I should write the corpse a code violation.

  I used my flashlight to scan the darkness around the pool patio. The surrounding overgrowth shivered and swayed in the wind. Dried leaves chased each other across paving stones, creating a drift over the two shallow stone steps up to a small porch and glass doors.

  No lawn at all. No obvious pathway into the overgrowth. Maybe a hundred feet to the fenceline. I wondered how the neighbors heard enough music to complain about, through the wind and the mini-forest.

  There was no obvious evidence on the ground. No blood drops, no weapons, no anything beyond leaves and twigs. The area looked more than neglected; it looked abandoned.

  There were double wood-framed glass doors. Substantial. Wide open, swinging back and forth in the wind. Out of sync.

  A uniform stood in the center of the doorway, watching me. I switched off the flash and saw that the light from the house reached to the pool edge. He could see me from where he was standing.

  Hard to sneak up on someone inside if you had to approach glass doors.

  I mounted the steps to the patio, kicking the leaves aside.

  "So, no party, I'm guessing?" I said.

  "You heard about the music?" the officer asked.

  We called him Wink because Winckelmann barely fit on his name plate, much less in our mouths. He'd been in my academy class.