“I’m building bone; I need the calories.”
When Hunter disappeared down the hall to the laundry room, Cam grabbed the hand-held phone off the charger on the sofa table.
IT WAS A VERY OLYMPIAN HOME GYM. It had an obstacle course as well as the standard free weights, treadmill and machines.
Hunter spotted Cam, standing by to change weight settings as he did an upper body regimen. It was entertaining. Camden Snow in a tight white tank and black shorts rippling and flexing and sporting a sheen of perspiration.
“Does someone come in to help you, usually?”
Cam shook his head, using his crutches to cross to an open metal frame with a bar about eight feet up. “I can do it, it just takes a lot longer. But I can’t do this one. So…”
He raised his arms, letting the crutches fall. Behind him, hands at Cam’s waist, Hunter lifted him up. Hunt stayed in place to catch Cam if he lost his grip. Cam was still forbidden to put weight on his injured leg.
He expected Cam to do a series of pull-ups. Instead, he hung. His glutes and abs tight, legs together, extended at an angle. The seconds ticked away. Cam breathed deeply, slowly.
With no clock in view, Hunter didn’t know how long Cam had been hanging, but it was surely several minutes. Cam flexed his shoulders into place as if preparing for a pull-up. And kept hanging.
More minutes passed. Cam’s alabaster skin flushed across his chest and shoulders as if he’d been lightly flogged. Sweat rolled in steady rivulets down his body.
Hunt was beginning to understand the meaning of the word “champion.” He worked out, for his job and for Dwight, who’d been photographing him for stock photo sites since college. Hunter was strong and fit and looked good naked.
But he was not this. He didn’t think he ever could be this. This machine built from an early age, sculpted over more than a decade by hard work and uncompromising dedication.
Cam shifted to an underhand grip and rose a few inches into a 90-degree flex. More minutes. Cam didn’t pant or strain or quiver. Hunter was sure his eyes were closed as he continued his controlled breathing, his body locked in. His wet shirt clung to his body. His blond hair darkened at the sides and roots.
Cam switched to a forward grip and lifted into a full flex, and Hunter’s mouth dropped open as he looked up in what he would, himself, characterize as awe. He thought of the times Cam had simply lifted him and turned him or adjusted him, totally controlled him. The raw power always aroused the hell out of him.
Slowly, Cam allowed himself to drop into a passive hang again.
“Okay.”
Hunter pressed Cam’s waist with his hands so he knew it was safe to let go, and lowered him to the floor. When he touched down, he kept going, bending his good leg, the cast leg sliding out, Hunt squatted with him until Cam was sitting. He reached for his toes, laying his forehead on his knee. Finally, he sat up and laid all the way down, arms stretched out to the sides.
“That felt so damn good,” Cam sighed. “It’s been weeks.” He cocked an eyebrow up at Hunter. “Nice. Next time I’ll just use that.”
Hunt looked down at the pole peaking up out of the waistband of his shorts that had slipped down when he lifted Cam. He didn’t go 12 o’clock high very often.
Camden Snow knew in that moment, looking at the swollen lip of cock pouting over the edge of the fabric, exactly what to do for Hunter Dane. He sat up and held out a hand for Hunt to take. Once upright, he kept a hand on Hunt’s forearm and bent to pick up his “sticks” as he called his crutches.
“You can put that away for now,” he said off Hunter’s erection. “I’m going to clean up and get dressed. You work off that energy, and I’ll meet you downstairs.
“Okay.” Hunt moved to the free weights. “Hey,” he called back over his shoulder. “There’s a door over here.” He peered through the small window, but it was blank and white.
“Leads to the walkway, to the stairs and my studio. You’ve been up there.” Hunter turned the thumb latch. “I really don’t think you want to-”
WHAM!
“-do that.”
The wind had slammed Hunt back into the wall, and a thick curtain of snow filled the room on a blast of arctic air.
“Shit!” Hunt yelled from behind the door. He got his shoulder into it to force it closed again. When he turned, he found Cam failing to keep a straight face.
“Blizzard,” Cam said. “Sustained winds sixty-five miles per hour. Gusts up to one hundred.” Cam stopped smirking when he realized Hunt’s eyes were huge, his movements jerky.
“Come over here,” Cam told him, making his voice hard. “Now.”
Hunter complied, stopping a couple feet away, eyes darting around for a possible enemy. “What? Are you alright?”
“Closer.”
“What?”
Cam grabbed a handful of shirt and pulled until their bodies pressed together. The crutch he’d released hit the floor with a clatter.
“Hold onto me, Hunter, I might fall.”
Hunt took Cam into his arms, holding him tightly, searching his face for any sign of pain. Cam stroked his palm over the side of Hunter’s face and down his neck until the rapid pulse he felt beneath his hand, slowed.
“We’re okay. We’re safe,” Cam said. “I have rich people generators, buried cables for the phone and electricity, plenty of food, an insanely sexy guy to keep me warm. As do you…”
That got a small answering smile.
“The roof is specifically designed to bear the weight even if the snow drifts right over the house. Okay?”
“What if your appendix bursts?” Hunter asked, trying to sound like he was kidding.
“Lost the appendix when I was thirteen. I could blow an aneurysm,” Cam said thoughtfully. “But even on a clear summer day we’re so far from a hospital I’d die.”
Hunt dropped his forehead to Cam’s. “You’re mocking my tragic PTSD, you know.”
“Sadist,” Cam reminded him. He pointed, and Hunt retrieved his crutch. “C’mon. Skip the workout and give me a short version of your sexy sponge bath. Then we’ll find something to eat.”
“THIS IS THANKSGIVING DINNER,” Hunt said as Cam put dishes from the stove, oven and microwave on the counter for him to take to the table.
“Yeah. You spent Thanksgiving doing some tedious evidence thing at the museum of natural history,” Cam said, tossing him a couple oven mitts. “What’d you eat?”
Hunter sniffed appreciatively at a pan of turkey in gravy he placed in the center of the small dining table. “Uhhh … no idea.” He went back for the dishes of stuffing, mashed potatoes and asparagus. “You were at your mom’s?” He balanced a small cut glass bowl holding jewel-bright homemade cranberry sauce in the crook of his elbow.
“Gran’s.” Cam wheeled himself into place at the table with a bottle of wine between his legs. “With my insufferable sisters who showed up from school and insisted on keeping me company, since I was trapped on the first floor. Mom and Gran were in the kitchen.”
He opened the wine. “The entertainment consisted of an 11-year-old screeching at a 13-year-old about which ship is the real OTP. Of course, I have not one fucking clue what an OTP is or what ships have to do with them.”
He poured chardonnay into their glasses. “Did you know ‘pharmercy’ is not a drugstore where you’d get something to ‘mercykill’? Which is what I hoped someone would do to me.”
Hunter filled his plate listening to Cam complain about the little sisters he adored but barely knew. It made him feel old and a little sad and a lot alone. But it also made him happy for Cam, coming from a place full of love and support and normalcy.
“Then my uncle Bernard showed up who is, among other enthusiasms, a self-taught legal expert. He opined endlessly on our last case.”
Hunt gave him a quizzical eyebrow lift. He said nothing as his mouth was stuffed with stuffing.
“I didn’t say a word. None of them know I’m working for you.” His tone aggrieved, he
pointed his fork at Hunt. “And that’s getting old.”
“Working for the city in a data management capacity is not a secret. Of course, tell them. Just not the details of the team or the cases,” Hunter said after a swallow of wine.
Cam went back to his food. “Gran says if I don’t bring you to Christmas Eve, I shouldn’t bother showing up.”
Hunter started. “What?”
“Don’t fight it, Hunter, Gran always gets her way.”
Hunt shook his head. “I’ll have to work,” he decided. “It’s … how does your grandmother even know about me?”
The question confused Cam. “What do you mean? I told her.”
Hunt closed his eyes for a few seconds. “This is—I appreciate it. But remember how much your mother doesn’t like me.”
He’d only met Cam’s mother once. A stunning ash blond, a prominent attorney, she’d made herself perfectly clear the morning after Cam was shot.
“People tend to speak freely coming out of anesthesia,” she said. “He told me about your”—she hesitated—“attachment disorder, let’s call it. Camden would be an extraordinary human being if he’d never heard of the Olympics. My son deserves to be loved.”
“Gran is my mother’s mother. Don’t worry, you and I will go hang at her place after the streets are cleared. Just the three of us. You’ll like her. She bakes.” Cam tilted the glass bowl over his plate and splorked half the cranberry sauce onto it. “You don’t have family in the area?”
Hunter dropped his fork and sat back, arms folded across his chest. “You’re an internet research prodigy, Cam, you know what family I have.”
Cam frowned at Hunter’s tense undertone. “No, I don’t. I wouldn’t invade your privacy, Hunter. That’s like stalking.”
A prickling heat swept over Hunter Dane.
“No, no,” Cam said, seeing the look of shame. “I asked you to. Fuck, I challenged you to find out about me.”
Hunter swung the monitor around. “Take a look at this,” he told Dan Gordi, the medical examiner on duty.
“Why?”
“It’s your job?”
Gordi sighed and glanced quickly at it. “You took the name off.”
“It’s confidential for now,” Hunt said. “I just need to know if what I was told is consistent with the medical facts.”
Gordi squinted at the screen. “So … we have … left femur … comminuted midshaft fracture. That means ‘broke into pieces’ to you … Jesus, can’t believe he survived … huh … no graft, sutured the femoral artery … no compartment syndrome … This is a lucky guy … oh … maybe not that lucky.”
Hunter went hollow. A presentiment of something vile. He kept his voice even as he pretended to make notes. “Oh, yeah?”
“Let’s see, just turned twenty-four so probably not symptomatic yet … wrong side of the full-penetrance line …”
Dan Gordi sat back. “Okay. Someone shot him, he had multiple procedures, he’s got a lot of metal holding his leg together. Looks like the artery repair healed well.” Dan Gordi sat back and turned the monitor to Hunt.
“In fact,” he said. “Looking at his numbers, I’d say he’s in perfect health, except for being shot and having a fatal genetic disorder.”
“Hunter!”
Hunt made a dash for the downstairs bathroom. He managed to get to the kitchen before vomiting his meal into the stainless steel sink.
Running the cold water, he flipped on the garbage disposal and used the spray arm to clean up the mess.
Cam wheeled up next to him, holding out a clean, damp towel.
THEY WERE BACK AT THE TABLE, cleared of food. A carafe of coffee, some cream, brandy and glasses of water were untouched. The men sat diagonally from one another at the corner of the table.
Cam had Hunter’s hand in his, his thumb stroking over the knuckles. His other hand gently held Hunt’s wrist, a mystery of strength and delicacy in the sculpted rise of his styloid process under smooth, tan skin and silky black hairs.
“It’s my Huntington’s, isn’t it?” Cam asked.
Hunter tried to pull his hand away. Cam tightened his grip.
“Did you forget I’m stronger than you are?” Cam asked, keeping his tone light.
“Did you forget I’m more ruthless than you are?” Hunter asked, not masking his darkness.
Cam grinned, and Hunter looked confused. “Well, you did once threaten to dump me out of this chair and toss it off the deck of the club. … And wasn’t there something about me crawling down after it to see if it still worked?”
Hunter’s hand relaxed, and he fought hard to not smile. “You were being a brat.”
“I was,” Cam admitted. “You were being obtuse.” Hunter didn’t deny it. “And you are now, too. Maybe unconsciously.”
Hunter looked away and back. “Jesus, Cam, we’re not going to start shrinking each other, are we?”
Cam ran a hand soothingly up and down Hunter’s forearm. “Hunter Dane. I’ve been ‘shrinking you’ since the moment we met. It’s kinda my job.”
Hunter was fascinated by the sight of Cam’s fingers trailing over his arm.
“You avoided me for two years. What took you so long to come to me for what you needed?”
Hunter dropped his head. Cam leaned forward to hear him.
“I was afraid I’d lose myself.”
Cam cocked his head. “But you didn’t.” Hunter’s hand tightened in his. “It’s not the decomposed body or the guy who tried to kill you or the tortured victim, is it? Not this time. This is about me, right?”
“Not ... exactly. It’s about me.” Hunter’s voice was so strained and soft, Cam leaned over until their heads were touching.
“About you … ?” Cam prompted him.
“About me—needing you.” He raised a face so stark with anguish tears sprang to Cam’s eyes.
“Hunter…”
Hunt was out of his chair and on his knees in front of Cam who dragged him up and into himself. He lifted his good leg to circle Hunt’s waist as well as he could.
“I can’t stop it. I can’t stop it.” Hunter whispered.
Cam did the only thing he could do. He kissed Hunter deeply, and Hunter kissed him back. All the pain and fear and confusion and unspoken feelings in lips and tongues and hands and chests and arms, desperate and needing and somehow beyond the intense sexuality that seemed to inhabit their every moment together.
Finally, even kissing kept them too far apart. They wound themselves together, two men so powerful they would have broken the ribs of weaker men, men who loved each other less.
4:15pm
Outside the big A-frame, the snow still fell, but the winds abated, the snow slanted instead of horizontal. An occasional gust stirred up a thick flurry from a drift or shook cascades of snow from the upper boughs of blue spruce. The storm was moving.
Inside, Hunt and Cam lay together on the sofa in front of the newly built-up fire. They were quiet, lost in their thoughts, needing the contact.
Hunt shifted against the lip of Cam’s cast. “Isn’t this plastic?”
“Hmmm? What?” Cam rubbed his cheek over the top of Hunt’s head.
“Your cast.”
“Oh. Yeah, polyure-something, I think”
Hunter lifted up and thumped on the cast. “So why can’t you get it wet?”
“I can. It’s the stuff inside, the padding. Stays damp, gets itchy.” Cam gave a shiver. “They were going to take it off today. But,” he gestured at the windows, “snowmageddon.”
“You mean off-off?” Hunter asked.
“They said. If everything looked okay, yeah. They had a thigh cast made for me. Some kind of webbing-over-metal deal.”
Hunt cocked an eyebrow. “Sounds kinky.”
“Sounds like heaven. I’ll be able to drive my Outback. I can bathe and bend my leg. And scratch.” He closed his eyes and sighed, imagining the luxury. “I can remove it to sleep.”
Hunter’s arms tightened, imagining himself pressed
back against Cam, bodies curved into each other, both hard and hot and … forever his mind whispered.
Hunt pushed himself away from Cam into a cross-legged position between his legs.
“I have a serious question. How are we going to work together? At the end of the Tamil jars case, when I thought they might go after you, it wrecked me. I had a team to lead; there were hostages.” He shook his head. “This thing between us, it affects other people, not just me.”
Cam withdrew into himself a little. He was certain Hunter didn’t realize how much the work meant to him now that he couldn’t be on a mountain or even exercise his body properly. But he also knew Hunter had to make his decisions based on what made sense for the team.
“Do you want me to quit?”
“No! Hell no, I don’t want you to quit.” Hunter got up, pacing. “It’s not just that I love working with you. It’s that you’re great at this.” He stopped.
“I’d never have solved it in time without you. Never. Two more people dead, maybe three. I was asking a question, Cam, it wasn’t rhetorical. How are we going to work together?”
Cam sat up, allowing his cast leg to rest on the floor. He pointed to the coffee table in front of him. Hunter knew what Cam wanted. He shook his head.
“I can’t sit. Not right now.”
Cam considered him. “What would you be doing if you were home, instead of here? Right now?”
“Cam …” A wtf statement.
“Hunter.” Cam let himself shift slightly; Hunt frowned. “Right now, you’re going to trust me. Answer the question, what would you be doing?”
“I’d be outside helping Ed shovel snow. Keep an area clear so people can get their dogs outside to pee. Make sure the walks at least get salted.” He cocked an eyebrow at Cam’s surprised look. “I’m useful as well as decorative, you know.”
“Then what are you doing inside, now?”
“You don’t have a dog. And you’re a rich guy. Isn’t anyone coming with equipment to shovel you out?”
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