Snowed In

by August, Adira

  Hunt nodded, though she couldn’t see him. “I agree, not much downstairs but dishtowels.” Hunt scratched a quick note: sketch layout of office and adjoining. He handed Cam the pad.

  After he read the note, Cam shot Hunter an exasperated look and tried to hand it back. Hunt pointed firmly at the paper and gave Cam a do it look. Knowing better than to argue with Hunt in cop mode, Cam got to work.

  “Precisely!” Delores sounded very satisfied with Hunter. “I’d been working about an hour when the computer went off. Click - off. Just like that. Nothing happens when I press the power button. My electricity is still on.”

  “Pardon me, but were you being literal just now? Did you hear a click?” Hunter asked.

  Silence. Then. “You know, I didn’t think I was being literal, but now that you ask, I did hear something. I think. But there was a sort of static pop from the monitor at the same time, so maybe I’m imagining it.”

  Hunter made a note. “Thank you. Please go on.”

  “I looked at the power strip. That took some effort, you see, because it’s a very big heavy desk very close to the wall and there’s a cabinet next to it. I had to get a flashlight and lean all the way over. Of course, many things had to be moved so I could peek back there. It’s still plugged in. So is the monitor, and it works fine.”

  “The monitor is plugged into the power strip?”

  “The computer is in the power strip. The monitor in the wall. I got this power strip because it’s supposed to protect against these big surges of electricity. Lightning and all that. We get plenty of lightning here, you see, we’re out on the plains. But not usually during blizzards.”

  Hunter took the pad back from Cam. “Nothing else is plugged into the strip?”

  “No. My lamp is on the opposite side and uses an outlet over here.”

  “Will you give me a minute, ma’am?”

  “Take all the time you need. But start calling me Dee.”

  “Thanks, Dee.”

  Hunt studied Cam’s diagram. The office was essentially a wide hallway, open at one end to the kitchen around the corner, the long arm of the L. The other end of the room gave access to the garage through a door.

  “Dee, does the door to the garage have weather stripping at the bottom?”

  A pause.

  “Gran?” Cam asked.

  “How do you know there’s a door to my garage?”

  “I made him a sketch,” Cam said. “He asked me while you were talking.”

  “Smart man. No, detective, it does not.”

  Hunter was making more notes. “And you keep a kitchen trash under your sink?”

  “I do.” They could hear the puzzlement in her voice.

  “Well,” Hunt said, “I have an hypothesis, but it’s just guesswork based on the assumption the problem isn’t with the computer, itself.”

  Cam looked surprised.

  “Let’s hear it,” Dee told him. “We’ll see if you live up to your reputation.”

  “A power strip with a surge protector has a switch on top. What they call a rocker switch. Sometimes there’s a light, or the rocker itself is a light, to tell you the power is on. Sometimes there isn’t. My assumption is yours doesn’t have one, or you would have mentioned the light being on. That’s not a detail you’d miss.”

  “Are you trying to flatter me?” She sounded amused.

  “No, I’m not,” Hunter answered. “I’m reporting an assumption based on observation. I also assume the power strip is flat on the floor or you wouldn’t be able to see it, well.

  “My theory is you have a mouse. Maybe driven inside by the storm. “Came in from the garage under the door, ran along the wall, stepped on the rocker and shut off the power. It made its way to the kitchen, probably looking for a meal in your trash.”

  “Hang on,” Dee said. They heard the clunk as she put the phone down.

  Cam was grinning and shaking his head. “If you’re right, you’ll have a fan forever.”

  “Mouse droppings!” They heard Dee call out some distance from the receiver. There was a clunking and scraping close to the phone. Hunter was nodding; Cam was mystified. Hunt handed him another note.

  Broom handle

  “It’s on!” Dee crowed into the phone. “Hunter Dane, I’m baking you muffins!”

  Hunt made a quick inventory of appropriate responses. “I’d be delighted to have anything you bake, Dee. Everything Cam’s ever given me has been amazingly good. Also not flattery.”

  Cam switched off the speaker and grabbed up the handset. “So. You going to tell Mom to get over herself? … I know … That’s all I’ve been saying.”

  Hunter held the brandy snifters in his hands, warming them both while Cam finished his conversation. Hunt was content; he got to fix something.

  Cam hung up the phone, leaned over and pulled Hunter in for a kiss. Hunt’s arms went out, keeping the snifters upright. Cam held his face with both hands, and their tongues met in a slow waltz.

  After he pulled back, Cam took one of the snifters and held it up in a salute to Hunter before he took a sip. They both settled in with their drinks as before, at either end, facing each other.

  “I’m going to answer your question, now,” Cam told him. “The way we work together is to work together. Yeah, it’s only been thirty-three days. And that’s the key. This is new for both of us. Not just each other being new, but being in this kind of relationship.”

  “Wait.” Hunter frowned. “You said you knew how to have a relationship.”

  “I do. Just haven’t done it with a guy before.” Cam said.

  “You had an intimate relationship with a girl?”

  “Four girls. Two sisters, a mother and a grandmother,” Cam said.

  Hunt was not amused. “You know what I mean.”

  “I do. But you don’t know what I mean. I mean I know what it is to be committed. To negotiate issues. To know, not just trust, but know as much as I know there’s a drink in my hand, none of those people would ever abandon me. No matter what kind of major asshole I might turn out to be.”

  Cam lifted his glass to his lips and tipped the entire contents down his throat.

  He was teasing Hunter, who knew exactly what he was doing. They’d been at work...

  Cam twisted off the cap and downed half the bottle of juice in a couple swallows. The ripples of his throat …

  “I’m beginning to feel sexually harassed,” Cam smirked.

  “It’s just new, being together like this,” Hunter said. “We’ll get used to it.”

  “That would be too bad. We going to discuss the case or go into your office, and I’ll drink the rest of this for you?”

  “You trying to seduce me?” Hunter asked as Cam set the empty snifter on the sofa table.

  “I’m trying to remind you. … Looks like I succeeded,” he said, his eyes on the mound stretching the crotch of Hunt’s sweatpants.

  “Remind me of a time we didn’t do it?”

  “Remind you of what you told me.”

  Hunter nodded and finished his own drink. “We’ll get used to it? That’s how we work together?”

  Cam shrugged. “Yeah. Look, cops are married. Wives, or maybe husbands, stay home and deal with the danger every day. They deal. So will we. You have to give this time. You have to believe in us.”

  Hunt pulled his knees up and crossed his forearms on them. “Bullshit about your family aside, you misled me. Lied to me. That’s hard to believe in.”

  “You think I lied to you.”

  “You did.”

  Cam looked at his lover, huddled behind the bulwark of his legs and arms, and knew he was hurt and afraid.

  “You once told me you didn’t hurt me on purpose. Well, I didn’t mislead you on purpose, either. Think about it, you know I didn’t.” Cam stayed still, giving Hunt time to work it through.

  “I warned you, more than once, you’d get hurt,” Hunter said. “I told you what I am. So, yeah, I hurt you. But not on purpose. I already explaine
d, I don’t do relationships. I don’t know how.”

  Cam pulled Hunter up until their mouths almost met. “I know how to have a relationship, Hunter,” Cam whispered and brought them together.

  Hunt dropped his forehead onto his arms and stayed that way a long time. When they came, his words were spoken into the space between his knees and his heart. “You know what I wanted when I came here?”

  “What was that?” Cam asked.

  Hunt raised his head. “I wanted to sleep and fuck and watch TV and eat popcorn and fuck some more, right on this couch.” He crossed his legs and sat up. “But it’s been like a marathon therapy session, hasn’t it? With you in the role of therapist.”

  Cam shrugged. “We did sleep and fuck and eat, though not popcorn. Know what I hoped for the storm?”

  Hunter shook his head.

  “That you’d be here. That you’d get done with the case and still want to be with me. And it’s all been great, to me. But”— he gestured to the side of the fireplace—“right now, get my sticks.”

  Hunter fetched Cam’s crutches from where they leaned against the edge of the mantlepiece. Cam stood up.

  “Have a seat and wait for me,” Cam said, and Hunt realized it was an order. Cam was shifting.

  Hunter felt the familiar hollowing and rushing as blood moved into his lower body. Just being near Cam in Dom mode excited the hell out of him. And if that was tinged with a thrill of fear, it only made his yearning more acute.

  Cam went into the alcove next to the fireplace where his Olympic medals lay in an unlighted glass case mounted on the wall. Underneath, was an antique five-drawer cabinet.

  Hunt sat down, ready to jump up if Cam needed any help. He could just make out his back and butt, heard a drawer slide open, a clink of metal. The drawer close.

  Cam returned, stopping on the far side of the coffee table. He took something from his pocket that flashed and gleamed, and dropped it on the table in front of Hunter.

  A stainless steel disciplinary dog collar, a choker, with bent prongs on the inside of every link. It wasn’t a BDSM toy; it was an actual dog collar found in any pet store. A length of chain looped through the ends of the links. Jerking on the chain tightened the collar so the metal prongs dug into the wearer’s flesh.

  The blood drained from Hunter’s head so fast he thought he’d faint where he sat.

  “Breathe,” Cam ordered.

  Hunt obeyed automatically and looked up. But Cam’s face in the firelight was all ruddy planes and sharp-edged shadows. His mouth a black line.

  “Twenty-four hours TPE. Starting when you hand that back to me and ask me to collar you.” Cam went silent and stone-faced.

  TPE. Total Power Exchange. Cam’s standard operating system at Scene and Not Heard, the exclusive BDSM club they belonged to. In his case, no safewords, no limits. Absolute submission. Absolute domination. Hunt had avoided Cam—compelling, enticing by the sheer power of his presence—because of it.

  Until complete surrender was the only way.

  “There are no limits. You have no safeword. You do nothing I do not order. I don’t stop until I’m done.”

  Now, without explanation, Cam wanted not a limited session, but twenty-four hours of Hunter having no will of his own. Of having to ask to use the bathroom. And if Cam decided Hunt would kneel until he shit on himself, he’d have to do that.

  But Hunter also remembered another time. In a car in the dark working against time to solve a murder.

  Cam slid further into his mouth and throat. Hunt’s lips stretched so far he thought they would tear.

  With both fists buried in his hair, Cam slowed his thrusts to feel every millimeter and moment of Hunter serving him. He was close.

  “Bitch“—he breathed the mantra with every drive of his cock—”bitch … bitch … bitch … you fucking … bitch … you sonuva … bitch … You … own me.” Wave after wave of cum poured down Hunt’s throat, open and paralyzed by Cam’s girth.

  Cam spasmed a last time and pulled out quickly. Hunter gasped, throat raw, greedy for the cool air.

  Cam searched Hunt’s pockets for the keys and unlocked the cuffs. Hunter slid back, under the steering wheel, legs akimbo on the floor. He reached a trembling hand down and eased his aching erection to a less painful position.

  Head on the seat, Hunt looked up at Cam: satiated, half-closed eyes on Hunter. Unreadable.

  And Hunter Dane knew who the killer was.

  In that moment, he appreciated Camden Snow more than any person he’d ever known. Cam was perfect.

  “How do you always do that?”

  “You mean force you to take what you need?” Cam pushed damp hair off Hunt’s forehead.

  “Know what I need.”

  Cam grabbed Hunter by the tie, pulling him into a quick kiss. “Sexual psychic,” he said.

  Hunt looked around the brightly lit car interior. “Think maybe next time you could choose a more private place for it?”

  Cam shook his head with deliberation back and forth. “Anything you need, Hunter. Anytime. Anywhere.”

  Hunter wondered why Cam thought TPE is what he needed. The fear streamed through his center, from his throat to his gut, hollow and cold. But there was also the lure of letting go, of having no responsibilities at all.

  No way to help, no way to hurt.

  “Did anyone ever tell you, you think too much?” Cam asked.

  “Did anyone ever not?”

  He wouldn’t have to think.

  Hunter Dane picked up the collar and dropped to his knees.

  10:30pm

  “Unless you’re carrying out specific orders, you’ll sit at my feet. Some part of your body will always be in contact with mine,” Cam said after he fit the collar to Hunter’s neck.

  Surprised at not being expected to kneel, it took a few seconds for Hunter to react. He folded himself into a half-lotus and, careful of the crutches, slid close to Cam and laid his knee on the top of Cam’s foot. Hunt had to bend his head far back to watch Cam’s face.

  “You will call me ‘Sir’ and look at me when I speak to you. Otherwise, eyes down. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Sir.” The fear had sent his balls into retreat, but with Cam’s words, with his cool expectation of obedience, Hunt felt the familiar tightening and tingling.

  “If you need to speak without being told to, kneel and wait to be recognized. You’re an experienced sub. You know how to behave.”

  Hunter didn’t nod or twitch or speak.

  “Stand up and strip.”

  I WANT TO SERVE YOU, Hunter had answered when Cam asked if he wanted to be dominant. Cam wondered at the irony of it—that Hunt declared his urgent desire to serve, the very same desire Cam had: to serve his sub by giving him exactly what he needed.

  His eyes moved over Hunter’s body as he revealed himself, the cool light from a side table lamp playing against the warm glow from the fire, creating soft shadings of muscles bunching and skin stretched over ribs and collarbones—the dark valley between his glutes, the shadows underneath them.

  If Cam could have anything he wished at that moment, his big sketch pad and a charcoal stick would materialize in his hands. He’d use the power Hunter had gifted him to make him stand and turn and bend and stretch. And Cam would capture him again and again.

  Hunter finally stood nude before him, cock thickened and lifted slightly away from his body in response to his humiliation and Cam’s power. Cam wanted to take him then: torture him and ravage him. But he had a plan.

  “Fetch my club bag; it’s in my car.” Cam watched realization and acceptance flow across Hunter’s face in the space of a few seconds. Saw his cock darken and rise.

  Hunter turned and walked away into the mudroom. Cam heard the door to the breezeway open, the storm door’s metallic squeak and rattle as it closed. Hunter had stepped out into the freezing night.

  It made him hard so fast, he barely registered the rise. Ignoring this, he returned to the alcove and took a thick fo
lded sheet from the bottom drawer. It was waterproof on one side and would protect his sofa from bodily fluids. He returned and tossed it on the coffee table.

  When Hunter returned, Cam would send him on more errands, to prepare the space for his ordeal. He’d cover the cushions, lay out items from Cam’s gym bag: lubricating oil and cloth wipes and a whippy black rod for his punishments. Finally, Hunter would go back outside to fill a small drinks cooler with fresh snow.

  Orchestrating the build of anticipation and anxiety was one of Cam’s special talents. Prolonging a sub’s arousal, controlling his depth of need, retreat from completion and vulnerability to pain and pleasure was Cam’s genius.

  CAMDEN SNOW HAD HUNTER DANE across his lap for over half an hour before frustration and pain spilled over in a steady stream of tears that soaked into the sheet under Hunt’s cheek. Saliva from Hunter’s open mouth had created a larger wet spot the tears were lost in.

  He’d made Hunt lie across his thighs, from right to left. His head faced the back so Cam could see his expressions and hear the sounds of pain and arousal clearly. Hunt’s hands lay palms up in the small of his back. His slightly open legs stretched out, toes pointed, soles up.

  Once Cam positioned Hunter, making sure his junk hung down between Cam’s open thighs, he had given his sub one order: lie still. Hunt’s only restraint was his promise of obedience, the weight of his collar. The lure of submission.

  The first time Hunter’s hands clenched in response to Cam’s teasing touches, the rod connected swiftly and sharply with the sole of one foot. The pain was exquisite.

  “Hands open,” Cam said after the brief, surprised yelp.

  When Hunt complied, Cam laid the thin rod across his palms twice, leaving red welts. Each time, Cam tightened his fist and jacked Hunter hard, connecting the pain and punishment to arousal.

  He rubbed his own throbbing cock against Hunter’s oiled hip so he’d know how much making him suffer turned Cam on.

  “Oh yeah, that hurts, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes, Sir,” Hunter gasped, his face flushed.

  But Hunter Dane didn’t weep from pain.