“Us.”
“What?”
“Us out,” Cam said. “We’re in this together.” He retrieved his crutches from under the couch and stood. “I don’t have a dog, but I do have a studio I can’t get to. And I’d really like to.”
He led the way across the great room, through the mudroom to the door that led outside to the breezeway. “Shovels and whatever across the way, in the garage.” He stood aside, blinking with innocent expectation at Hunter.
Hunt grabbed his jacket off the hook rack, eyeing Cam with not a little suspicion. “Trust you?” he asked, zipping up and fishing his gloves out of the pockets.
Cam shrugged and gave him a sweet smile. Hunter pulled the door open. The glass storm door was solid white two-thirds of the way up.
Hunter tried to push it open. The drift might as well have been a concrete wall. Lips pressed. No way was Hunter Dane backing down in front of Camden Snow.
He took off the gloves. A few seconds of fiddling with the release catches, and he lifted the top pane off the door and leaned it against the wall. The snow stayed in place except for the light dusting a swirl of wind blew in.
Hunt faced the opening and started pushing the snow back from the top.
“Very clever,” Cam said. “Shouldn’t take you too long to-”
A double handful of snow smooshed unceremoniously in his face effectively cut him off.
Hunt whirled around to reload before Cam could react. Not fast enough. A strong arm around his neck, elbow directly under his chin, contracted. Hunt had only a few seconds before the pressure on his carotids took him out.
He threw himself back into Cam, crashing him into the boot bench. When Cam’s arm left his neck to help stop his fall, Hunt came around with a double armful of snow.
“Don’t you dare!” Cam yelled, laughing. But the snow hit his lap, and Hunt grabbed for his waistband. Too slow. Cam’s hand was inside Hunt’s sweatpants first, shoving the ice-cold mess inside.
“Arrrrrrshit!” Hunt dropped to one knee and wrapped a hand behind Cam’s neck. He ducked and pulled. Cam tipped forward. Hunt shoved his arm between Cam’s legs and under his body.
Hunter Dane had always known how to defeat Camden Snow. Cam was strong. Cam was fast. But he hadn’t been in a hundred struggles with drunks and madmen and crazy-ass women.
Hunter did so love being owned by him. But this was boy war.
He ducked and shifted and lifted and stood with Cam over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. He swayed his body toward the open top of the door and exposed drift. “Missing the slopes, asshole?” he asked, making as if to shove Cam outside.
“You are SO going to pay for this…” Gasping the words through laughter.
Hunter moved quickly—in the opposite direction. He got Cam through the doorway to the great room with only a single clunk of his cast against the jamb and strode to the couch, dumping him on his back.
Falling across Cam’s body, he reached for the sodden mess of slush in his pants. He managed to get Cam’s waistband pulled out and his freezing wet hand inside.
He didn’t stop at Cam’s sweet, soft cock, but pushed down and back. He had his middle finger in Cam’s hole up to the first knuckle before his sex god could move.
“Hunter!” Cam froze. “Jesus, that’s cold!”
Careful not to move his finger, Hunter nuzzled Cam’s neck and took his earlobe gently between his teeth and pulled. He felt Cam’s buttocks tighten, his dick stir and thicken.
“Trust is a two-way street, remember?” Hunt whispered.
He looked into Cam’s face: eyes soft, unfocused, lips parted. His beautiful boy. Hunt didn’t see the photogenic symmetry of the magazine spreads and posters. He saw the mystery he’d never solve, the depths he’d never reach, the caring for him.
And as he shifted back onto his knees next to Cam and moved the cold, wet flannel pants further down and slipped Cam’s smooth solid length all the way into his mouth, for the first time the word “love” flashed across Hunter’s consciousness.
“Hunter,” Cam breathed his name.
Carefully, Hunt sucked Cam off, not wanting to purposely move inside him, not knowing what would be too much. Cam shifted, lifted up. Hunt’s finger slid out, and he felt more than heard the deep groan.
Laving the cock in his mouth with a firm tongue, he felt Cam push back onto his finger. Hunt kept himself still and straight for Cam to use.
And there on the couch, freezing in the draft from the mudroom, on fire from the mouth and tongue and finger and service, Cam surrendered his control over himself. When his movements elicited the heat lightning of stimulation throughout his core, he grabbed Hunter’s hand, and Hunt grabbed in return.
They stayed like that, as if about to arm wrestle across Cam’s torso for control of his body. But it was only Hunter anchoring Cam to the world.
When the feelings became too much and Cam lifted away, Hunt stopped everything and waited. And Cam learned not to fear the rushes of energy, and let himself—finally—feel deeply. Hunter would take care of him. When he came, he held nothing back: no sound, no movement. And Hunter welcomed him, wanting all of him.
8:00pm
The silence was only broken by the delicate susurration of tiny ice crystals blown off the tops of the drifts. It was a sound Hunter Dane loved. He stood at the edge of the breezeway, the shovel at rest, catching his breath. His exhalations left no clouds in the dry air at altitude.
He looked out at the bright dark. A blanket of champagne powder covered the landscape, a trillion sparkling pinpoints in a black night.
Stepping out into the open air, head back, eyes closed, myriad pricks of ice touched, melted and cooled his face. Longing to stay in the moment forever, knowing his body was rapidly losing the heat from his exertions and his clothes becoming damp, and not being a foolish child, Hunter stepped back out of the night.
HUNT PEEKED INTO THE OVEN. “Is that mac and cheese?”
“Grab a big spoon and bring it out here,” Cam said, putting silverware on the table. “We’ve got hot apple pie for dessert.”
“I got enough cleared to get you to the stairs,” Hunter said. “That should take care of dinner. Doing the stairs later will take care of the pie.”
Cam shrugged. “Let it go. It’s good enough.”
“It’s only good enough to get into the garage or about eight feet into the drive before you’re wading through snow. It drifted almost to the top of the nearest of your driveway lights. That’s like, ten feet.”
Hunt set the big pan on a towel in the center of the wood table. The cheese was still bubbling.
“Looks like a picture in a cookbook,” he said, waving away the bottle of wine Cam held up from the behind the kitchen island.
“You read cookbooks?” Cam slid the pie into the oven and turned it down.
Cam wheeled up with four bottles of water that Hunter took from him.
“At one time, I did,” Hunter answered. “I mostly drooled over the pictures.” He drank one of the bottles down in one. “I worked off-duty at the Slightly Foxed on Larimer,” he explained, loading his plate.
“I don’t get that name; it’s not a used bookstore.” Cam spooned bright red beets onto his plate next to the macaroni.
“It was when it opened.” Hunter passed on the beets, the color too close to blood. “Used books and some new stuff from local writers. And maps, lots of maps. First ones around here to put coffee and armchairs in a bookstore.”
Cam shook his head in admiration. “How do you know all this stuff?” He shoved a huge forkful of macaroni into his mouth.
Hunt shrugged. “My mom used to take me there all the time. All over Larimer, that neighborhood. There were junk shops and second hand clothes stores and shit. Before the urban renewal thing happened.”
“Cool,” Cam said. This was the first time Hunter mentioned anyone in his life who wasn’t a member of the club or cop-related in some way. “So you do have family around here?”
It was the second time that day Cam had asked Hunter about his family. Hunt knew that was what people did in relationships: They exchanged information about the other people in their lives. He wasn’t sure why, exactly. But Cam had talked about his sisters and his family and then asked Hunt about his. He acted like it was no big deal, to ask or answer. It was what people did.
Hunt put down his fork and opened a second bottle of water. He took a mental deep breath.
“No, I don’t. My father’s family disowned him when he married a ‘nigger’ as my grandfather referred to my mother. He declared that no ‘half-breed pickaninny’ would ever inherit a dime of the Dane fortune. You see, my father came from a good family.”
Camden Snow was as white as his name. “I’m sorry,” he said as though someone had died. “So, your mom’s black?”
“As far as my father’s father is concerned, everyone from a ‘mud race’ is the same. As for my mother”—he drank some water—“no one knows exactly. When my grandmother was fourteen, she was walking along a road outside Hopi. A carful of men—grown men—gang-raped her.
“When they were done, they dumped her off the side of the road. She’s been on Third Mesa, at Hotevilla, since. She doesn’t speak of it. Never has. I have no idea what my mother’s biological father was. Besides an asshole who doesn’t deserve to live, I suppose.”
“They made your grandmother pregnant?” Cam’s face crumpled, eyes full.
“Don’t.” The word had teeth; Hunt’s eyes bright with pain and guarded rage. He knew Cam was oddly sheltered: world-traveled, but protected from hardships that weren’t a function of racing down mountains at highway speeds. The first time Cam saw a bloody murder weapon, he’d vomited. But Hunt had no sympathy to spare for him now.
“The end of the story,” Hunter said, carrying his half-empty plate to the island. “Is that I had wonderful parents. My father taught music at Metro State, and my mom was our Parish organist and had private students. They loved each other. They loved me.
“I was ten when my father was killed in an auto-ped by a drunk driver.” He snapped his fingers. “Gone before the ambulance got there.”
Hunter dumped his plate into the sink and ran the disposal. Then he turned off the oven.
“I went to college on the insurance settlement Mom put away for me. It was enough with the modeling that I never had to take a loan. In the middle of my junior year, a doctor called me. My mother was hallucinating. They’d stuck her in on a three-day mental health hold. He wanted to know what drugs she did.”
After putting his plate and silverware into the dishwasher, Hunt began wiping the counter.
“They assumed”—he stopped, coughed—“She was young, only fifty-three. When the drug tests came back negative, they diagnosed her with late-onset schizophrenia. They didn’t look for anything else.”
He stared down at the countertop, swiping the sponge over it with a ferocious intensity.
“They wanted to commit her to a state facility. Told me to go back to school. … I took her to Hotevilla. A few years later a young guy doing an internship at the health clinic got interested. My mother has a dementia similar to Alzheimer’s. Only it makes you crazy before it lets you forget. She was supposed to be dead by now. But my grandmother won’t allow it.”
He threw the sponge into the sink, rinsed his hands and grabbed a towel.
“I go up once a month and take them good food, whatever they need. I think they give most of it away.”
Hunt went back to the table and took his seat.
Cam had gotten control of his face and his emotions. But he couldn’t ignore the vision of Hunter, the morning after that first night, pulling away after Cam had kissed him sweetly.
“I care for people, in that I do things for their benefit. I just don’t do all the other things. …touch someone just to touch them, when it serves no other purpose…”
Cam wondered when the last time was Hunter had felt his mother’s touch?
“Can I go with you sometime?” Cam asked. “When I can walk again?”
“It’s not a good idea.” Final.
“Can you tell me why?” Cam was careful to keep the hurt from his tone.
Hunter rubbed his face hard with both hands, reminding himself that Cam was a fine, caring man who would never call anyone a disgusting, dehumanizing name. He deserved better than Hunter’s ancient, impotent wrath.
“You really can’t understand,” Hunt said, leaning forward. “They need peace. Constancy. If you showed up with me, it could … disturb that. Even after you left. There might be repercussions. In the place where they are, that particular place, to a lot of people, you’re the enemy.”
Something inside Cam shrank and crumpled. “Am I to you?”
Hunter looked away. “When I told you that you’d get hurt, you should have believed me.”
“Am I to you?”
Hunter shook his head no, his throat too tight to risk words.
Camden Snow had never had an intimate relationship outside of his family. There’d been many guys he’d hung with and had sex with and liked. But he’d never had a boyfriend or real lover any more than Hunter had. For Cam, it had simply been that he had no time or feeling to spare; everything went into the training, the slopes and wind and speed and torque and victory.
Once diagnosed with Huntington’s Disease, accepting the inevitability of a descent into uncontrollable body spasms and madness and death, he couldn’t risk loving.
He knew only one man who might be strong enough to not abandon him, and that man avoided him. Until he hadn’t. Hunter Dane had dropped to his knees and given Cam possibility.
Now, he knew why his man was strong enough to stay with him. Now, he knew how strong Hunter Dane needed him to be. As strong as he was, himself.
Cam fixed Hunt with a direct stare, cool and removed, to give him the solid support he needed to speak.
“Tell me what am I to you,” he ordered.
Hunter raised a shattered countenance. “You’re”—he cast about for the right word—“refuge.”
THEY WORKED IN SILENCE, cleaning up after dinner. Cam wrapped the untouched pie in plastic. Hunt put things on high shelves that were difficult for Cam to reach. They touched often in the space between the island and the counter. Hunter on his feet, Cam in the chair. Thigh to shoulder, hand to hip. Each taking comfort in proximity and industry and connection.
Hunt finished folding the last dishtowel and hung it on the rack at the end of the island.
“How about you pour us a couple brandies and meet me by the fire?” Cam asked.
“Sounds good,” Hunt answered. “Like something Gloria Swanson said to William Holden in Sunset Boulevard.”
Cam grinned. The phone rang and he rolled off to the other end of the room to answer.
Hunter hit the head first. He washed his hands longer than usual, working up a thick lather, spreading it up over his wrists and halfway up his forearms. He hated it when his hands smelled like kitchen cleaning.
Cam had matching soap and lotion dispensers in silver and black; the products gave off a faint clean almond scent. Hunt wondered if it was his choice or something else his mother supplied.
When he came out, he located two small snifters and poured out healthy dollops of Armagnac. Hunt didn’t know dicksquat about brandy, but it was the only one in Cam’s liquor cabinet.
Cam was on the phone when Hunter joined him.
“I have no idea; I’d have to be there. … You still have TV. … Yeah, of course, I am … Gran, the whole development is built for this kind of storm, we have our own snow plow company and everything.” He rolled his eyes at Hunt as he listened, but his smile was soft.
Hunt started to get up, to give him some privacy. Cam waved him back down.
“I’m not alone … I am telling you the truth, Hunter’s here. … Right here, yes. …” He shot Hunter an evil grin. “Sure.” Cam touched a button on the base that activated the speaker.
Hunt jum
ped, but Cam grabbed his wrist and pulled him down. “Hunter, this is my grandmother, Delores Snow.”
“Mrs. Snow,” he said automatically. “Very nice to meet you.”
The voice that came back was a strong and sultry contralto that sounded not at all grandmotherly. “Thank you. You’re a puzzle and mystery solver, Camden tells us.”
“I’m a homicide detective.”
“Yes, but beyond that. He was stumping us all with matchstick puzzles at Thanksgiving. He says you’re quite a master of them.”
Hunter had never in his life had a conversation like this one, where someone just wanted to know you and asked. His instinct was to excuse himself. He thought treating her like an important witness or judge was his best option.
“I like them,” he said. “I like all kinds of puzzles and games.”
“Good. When you come over, we’ll play a few. Right now, I have a mystery I need solved.”
“Gran, he’s not a computer expert,” Cam cut in.
“Hush now, and you listen, too. Are you with me, Hunter Dane?”
He grabbed the notepad and pen Cam kept next to the phone. “Ready when you are, Mrs. Snow.”
“Do you want ‘just the facts, ma’am’?” Delores Snow asked, referring to the signature line of an iconic TV detective.
“I’d rather hear the whole story, if you don’t mind,” Hunter replied, ignoring Cam’s frantic head-shaking.
No one was better at coordinating information than Camden Snow. But he was no detective. Hearing every detail from a witness or suspect gave Hunter the most working data. And he wanted to please this woman if he could, if for no other reason than to pay her back in some small way for her cooking.
“I don’t mind at all,” she said. “I am in my home office working on my computer. It’s a desktop. A tower, you see. I’d rather be useful than sit around like a mindless lump watching television.”
“If I can interrupt, where in the house is your office?”
“Downstairs, off the kitchen. Short arm of an L, used to be a laundry room. I moved that upstairs, you see, no sense whatsoever in having laundry downstairs. I told Camden that when he was building his house.”
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