Secret Men: a Hunter Dane Investigation (Hunt&Cam4Ever Book 6)

by Adira August

  … anything … I do what I want … anything … as long as I want … for you … until I’m done … Cam...

  HUNTER DANE MELTED beneath Cam, the surrender intoxicating. Hunt’s mouth relaxed onto his forearm, the sounds, those sounds, primal grunting, almost desperate, his hips slumped, and he opened …

  Cam tilted his hand slightly to ease the base of his thumb inside, rotated and slipped all the way into the soft heat. Hunter’s whole body trembled. Cam stilled, panting at the sight of the taut sphincter around his wrist. He could feel his own pulse where the muscle pressed. He wondered if Hunter felt it.

  Cam rubbed his rough cheek over Hunter’s shoulder and neck and ear, distracting himself from the thought, willing himself not to come.

  He clenched his fist and Hunter shivered and mewled. Cam withdrew his arm from Hunter’s neck. Reaching to the side, he released one restraint. Carefully, he leaned over. His fist rotating inside forced a stuttering soft cry from Hunter. Cam managed to reach the other restraint to release it.

  He tore off Hunter’s coat and yanked down the straps of his shoulder rig. Everything hit the floor. Hunter's shirt shoved up, his pants pushed down, his arms and legs jerked slightly with the movements of Cam inside him, though Cam was careful.

  Cam dropped his pants and pulled the t-shirt over his head, leaving it bunched at one shoulder. He would feel Hunter now—every shiver and tremble, every vibration of every moan. He would know him in the extremity of this thing that embraced an elemental invasion of his being far beyond pleasure fired by pain.

  Cam scooped up the rest of the pile of lube and slathered it around his lower arm and down to around his sub’s stretched hole and inner cheeks.

  THE UNIVERSE WAS CAM. All other feelings and concerns had fled, all awareness dulled except for being filled and ignited. Usually Hunter’s arousal was a thing that spread like wildfire in the grass. But this, this was a magnetic force that drew everything into the signal connection of self and other who became self.

  Hunt felt the clothes stripped from him, felt Cam bare himself. Please hurry. Heedless of the deep animal sounds he made, hungering for skin on skin, to be held and … oh god fuck me with it … impossibly deep and huge and terrifying and … Cam … all - more … more Cam ...

  CAM LEANED OVER and slid his free hand and arm over Hunter’s near shoulder, under his upper chest all the way to his side. He lifted and snugged the supple warmth of his sub’s back against himself.

  “Trust me,” he whispered. Cam understood intellectually the risks of what he was about to do. But a lifetime spent knowing in his body how to move and what he was capable of guided him now.

  With a turn and lift, Camden Snow took Hunter Dane to the floor in one perfectly controlled movement. He folded down, Hunter against his body, hips over his thigh, Cam’s legs folded beneath for support.

  Hunter roared at the surprise of it, but remained supple. He’d been perfect.

  “I love you so fucking much,” Cam said, pressing his rigid column into the firm flesh over Hunter’s hip. He opened the fist inside, turned his arm, pulled back slightly and tilted, pressing four knuckles over Hunt’s prostate.

  Hunt cried out and Cam felt the gush of cum and shoved his arm in a few more inches, turning, pulling back, relaxing his hand so when he hit the hot ring from the inside he widened it enough for his sub to howl through clenched teeth.

  Then Cam fucked him in earnest, milking his prostate on the in stroke and opening him slightly as if he’d pull out when he came back. Deeper and deeper with each steady thrust, slight twist and pull. Cam half laid on his sub, sliding on the film of sweat between them.

  Hunter keened and wept and flailed and his nipple against Cam’s arm rose diamond hard as the cock Cam made weep but did now allow to come. At some point, Cam did, gushing hot cum over his sub’s back and buttocks. But it seemed a simple counterpoint to the totality of his control.

  Finally, Hunter lay incoherent in the mess of their mingled fluids and wrinkled clothes, quivering, spent and satisfied.

  Cam stopped. Carefully withdrew and whispered to him, “Did you forget what’s greater, stronger, than everything, Hunter Dane? You are.”

  Wednesday, October 3rd, 2017

  Cam woke at his usual ungodly early hour to find himself erect and half-lying on a naked Hunter Dane who nestled under him, holding Cam’s arm around him like a blanket. Hunt shifted and pushed back into the rigid shaft against his ass.

  “You’re awake.” Cam pulled his hip back, but Hunt grabbed him, keeping him in place.

  “Stay with me.” Hunter’s voice was thick with sleep and arousal.

  Cam rolled over onto Hunter’s nude body even more, his length settling between his sub’s cheeks. “If I stay I’ll be inside you and you’re sore from yesterday. I’ll go make coffee.”

  Hunter flexed, tilting to get Cam’s firm heat against his hole. “Please.” He reached up and grasped Cam’s hair and drew his face down, turning his own up. “I want to feel you come.”

  Sonuvabitch. Cam shoved and kicked until he was free of his pajama pants. He reached for the lube. “Don’t move. Don’t help.”

  Hunter relaxed himself all over, the better to feel Cam’s solid weight—the flex of his pectorals and abs against Hunt’s back. The bulge of his thighs. His cock, his hard and hot and thick and … with no preamble Cam pushed into him, an inexorable aching renewal of yesterday.

  Titling him back slightly, Cam ripped the pillow from under Hunter’s head and bent one leg thrusting more deeply inside. And then he pumped, a slow motion, feel-every-millimeter fucking that had Hunter quivering, needing. He wondered how Cam would ever reach the orgasm Hunter so longed to feel inside.

  “Fuck. Oh, fuck,” Hunter moaned. Then Cam’s hand was around his erection, stroking in time with controlled pump and drag.

  “Relax,” Cam breathed in his ear. “Just take it … that’s it… good … does it hurt Hunter?”

  “Ye- ah - fuck yes.” He gushed precum and felt Cam’s whiskery smile against his neck. “Please…”

  “Please?”

  “More.”

  But Cam didn’t alter his pace or his grip. He knew the slow build was not only safest, but most torturous and most intimate. He wanted to remember every second. He wanted Hunter to remember, to get hard every time he thought of it. To think of it every time he sat down. To think of him.

  And when he couldn’t hold himself back any longer, Cam tightened his grip on his sub and gave him the release he wanted while he throbbed and gushed inside and Hunter’s rough groan of ecstasy made him spasm again.

  After a few moments he kissed the back of Hunter’s neck. “I’m going to shower first.”

  “CAN WE DRIVE in together?” Hunter asked as he poured himself coffee.

  “Sure.” As Cam picked up his own mug, he stopped and flexed his fingers.

  “Elbow?” Hunt asked.

  “Yeah, I was on the floor behind a desk hooking up computers a couple days ago and leaned all my weight on it. Fingers went numb. Rivers put the coffee room together, I was afraid I’d smash the pot if I picked it up.” He switched hands to lift his mug.

  Hunter knew that in one of Cam’s competition falls he’d come down directly on his elbow and had minor nerve damage. If he put too much pressure on it, he lost feeling in three fingers of his hand for a while.

  “You’re working in an office now, maybe this is the time to wear that protective cap thing,” Hunter suggested. A neurologist told Cam it was possible the nerve would heal if it wasn’t continually re-damaged by the elbow being what it was: something people leaned on.

  “I’d have to wear it for six months except to shower. It looks stupid. Can you imagine that at the club? Are we going to the club tonight?”

  Hunter frowned. “It’s Thursday.” They usually went to Seen and Not Heard on Wednesdays.

  “It’s Wednesday,” Cam said. He knew Hunter often lost track of days with his irregular schedule. “I see about the clin
ical trial today.”

  “But we’ve had the Hortt cases since…” Hunt thought for a minute, then put his arms around Cam. “Not a secret, right?”

  Cam dimpled and blushed. “What’re you up to?”

  Hunt gave him a swift kiss. “Nothing. Never mind. I’m taking the Bronco.” He grabbed his jacket. “Text me when you’re done. Maybe we can cut out early, get some food. You can tell me about the trial.”

  “Where the hell are you going at six-thirty in the morning?” Cam called after him. But Hunt was already out the door.

  “IT WAS SUNDAY.”

  Captain Horace VanDevere looked up to find Hunter Dane just closing his office door. “What?”

  Hunter leaned back against the door, hands in his pockets, head tilted, considering the man at the desk. “Sunday,” he repeated. “I was so focused on the cases it took me a while to realize it. You don’t work on Sundays. Everyone knows that. Your weekends are reserved for church. You came in on Sunday specifically to talk to me.” Hunt smiled a little. “You’d only do that if you were doing God’s work.”

  VanDevere’s eyes narrowed. “Careful, Sergeant.”

  “You wanted to know if I’d already signed up for the test. You wanted to get me to do that here, so I wouldn’t go to Civil Service, myself. I’d give you the application and you’d throw it away after I left.”

  VanDevere sat back, hands open, palms up. “No idea why you’d think that. You had a new case. I wanted to make sure you applied to take the exam.”

  “No. You were here in the office before I got the case. And you called Civil Service to make sure I missed the deadline.”

  “I called to make sure you’d taken care of it.” He shrugged, but his eyes held a malicious glitter. “Sorry you missed it. Maybe next time.”

  “Why?”

  Hunt came off the door and opened his coat, turning around. “No wire. You and I always got along. I told people you were a good Captain. So why? What happened?”

  VanDever came around his desk and patted Hunt down. Satisfied, he sneered into Hunter’s face.

  “Because you’re an unnatural abomination to God, you disgusting pervert. Corrupting that boy, doing unspeakable filth with him.” VanDevere was just getting warmed up, his face red, spit on his lips. “You should be gutted and your body left on a spike as a lesson to every one of your kind. He’s barely off probation! I’ll bring you down and expose your-”

  “Whoa, whoa! You’re talking about Merisi?”

  “Don’t pretend-”

  Hunter laughed out loud. It was real laughter. “I am not fucking Mike Merisi. You have some very bad information.”

  “You were seen!”

  “No, I wasn’t,” Hunter said calmly.

  “You deny you’re a homo pervert?”

  “I don’t deny, admit or think my sex life is any of your business. Or anyone else’s unless I commit an illegal act, and I never have.” Hunter sighed. “I’m trying here, Captain, but you’re making it really difficult.”

  Hunter took an envelope from his coat pocket and placed it on VanDevere’s desk.

  “That’s an order removing you from the chain-of-command of my Unit. We are still part of Homicide; I just don’t report to you. Whoever is appointed to head the Unit in future, if they make it permanent, will also not report to you.”

  Hunter went to the door.

  “I’m going to tell you something, not for me, but in the hope you leave Detective Merisi alone. I’ve never at any time had any sexual contact with him. On or off the job. Never considered it, or wanted it. He’s never indicated in any manner, whatsoever, that he wanted sexual contact with me. I don’t know who told you this or what they saw. The fact is, it’s not true.”

  VanDevere frowned as if considering the possibility Hunter was being honest with him.

  “I believe you’re completely sincere in your beliefs, Captain. And since you’re going to hear it anyway, I’m engaged to be married.”

  “You’re …” VanDevere looked thunderstruck. “To who?”

  “Camden Snow.”

  Hunter didn’t wait for VanDevere’s reaction to leave.

  “ANYONE HAVE ANY GOOD NEWS?” Hunter stood behind his chair at the head of the low table with a super-sized cup of amaretto cream coffee. He wasn’t usually one for jazzed-up coffee but it smelled so good in the coffee bar he’d stopped at, he’d indulged himself.

  “Hideyoshi Maki’s in Australia,” Natani said, looking smug.

  Hunter grinned. “Is he, now?”

  “He is,” she answered. “Avia?”

  “It seems a tropical depression became a typhoon and his plane was diverted to Sydney where he is probably fast asleep in a Hyatt hotel. He left a seven aye-em wake-up call,” Avia said.

  “Ikeda?” Hunter asked.

  She shook her head. “I don’t have him, but that doesn’t mean he’s not there.”

  He looked at Natani.

  She shrugged. “This morning, I filed fourteen felony counts against Maki and Robert Ikeda, if we find him. Some helpful people at the Australian Attorney-General’s Department”—she checked her notes—“have law enforcement officers waiting outside his suite. Guess what we have in common with Australia?”

  “Extradition!” Twee shouted.

  Merisi and Hunt exchanged a look. Hunter lifted his coffee in salute.

  “Helluva job. Good work, everyone,” Hunter told them. “This isn’t over. The man has power and unlimited resources. Could be a year before we can pry him out of Australia.”

  “I’m counting on the press,” Avia said. “Somebody’s going to leak the indictments. Everybody will want to kill this guy.”

  “You ready with the Hortt Orchard cases?” Hunter asked her.

  She looked surprised at the sudden change of topic, but told him she was.

  “Twee? Walk us through it.”

  As she spoke, Avia kept the big monitor filled with images from the scene.

  “The hole in the ceiling of the pantry that the suspect dropped out of was seven inches wide by fifteen inches long. Nugent took a mold of it before he widened it.” She stopped and looked at Hunt. “This was a stop and go process and people had to wear hazard suits and masks and it happened kind of piecemeal, so I’ll just give an overview, now?”

  “Right.”

  Twee looked relieved. “This gave access to a crawl space under the addition roof. It was just for the wiring and the supply and return ducts for the furnace.”

  “A search through building permits showed they converted the coal burner to a gas furnace in nineteen-fifty-nine,” Avia said. “That was the last time there were any structural changes to the house.”

  Twee used a laser pointer to highlight areas of the images. “The space, which was sealed off from the rest of the attic”—an image of a long triangular space appeared—“was twenty-seven inches high by thirty-seven inches wide. It measured five feet, six and a half inches from the lip of the access panel to the near side of the furnace duct. This seems to be where Russell Robl lived.”

  “Lived? You couldn’t fit a coffin in there,” Natani said and squinted. “What are those? Are those canning jars?”

  “They were. My guess is he ate all the stuff in the pantry a long time ago,” Twee answered.

  “They’re full,” Natani pointed at the screen. “So what’s in them?”

  “Fecal matter and urine.”

  “The toilets were turned off,” Merisi said. “He seems to have used the jars and emptied them outside when they all got full. Maybe once a week.”

  “Talked to Candace Farleigh this morning on the way in,” Hunter told them. “She’s doing much better. She said once the house was released by the police, which took about three years after her mother’s murder, she hired a property manager. He turned off the toilets, closed the heat and air vents upstairs, left water running for the outside, set the furnace on some kind of vacation setting. Removed all food, unplugged the refrigerator.”

  “
Left the lights on,” Merisi reminded him.

  “Right. That is, he turned them off but left the breakers on in case the owner wanted to come in,” he said. “Twee, where did he dump the jars?”

  “Health wouldn’t let us take soil samples around the house, said we didn’t have the right containment for human waste. It looked to Nugent and me like he just dug a hole and dumped them out. Not much of a hole, either. But he had a gallon and a half of waste up there with him.”

  “The bucket,” Merisi said. “I never saw a cleaning bucket on a top shelf of anything. They’re usually on the floor. This was right under the panel.”

  Hunter tossed his empty cup into the trash. “You’re thinking it wasn’t to hide the hole? He was dumping jars into the bucket and then hauling it outside?”

  Merisi looked to Twee, who shrugged. “We think he was using the backdoor until the kids were killed,” Merisi said. “The silt build-up was a lot a shallower.”

  “We assumed at first it was because it was an enclosed porch,” Twee told them. “But there was leaf debris between the boards and in the corners. That screendoor had been opened. A lot.”

  “And Robl had access to to keys,” Merisi said. “The set inside the pantry.”

  “He could’ve been dumping his waste in the orchard for years, then.” Natani said. “But how did he get out to dump the jars after he killed those kids if he didn’t use the door? You said his coffin space didn’t connect.”

  “It didn’t when it was built. Avia?”

  A several images of the larger cross-shaped attic popped up. “He made a hole. And see this, this is your gable vent, right Lieutenant? The one you smelled him through?”

  “Could be, can’t tell from this side.”

  “Okay, look at this one, opposite it,” she said.

  “Son of a bitch. It’s hinged.” Hunter got up and walked around the tables closer to the screen. “That’s a sash lock.”

  “Right, and that”—Avia enlarged a smaller image—“is a large cottonwood tree at the corner of the house. Merisi helped me process it yesterday. The white hairs and fibers are like trail markers between roof and ground.”