Hiding the Moon

by Amy Lane

  As he was pulling up Jackson’s number, Jason spoke in his ear. “Jade Cameron and her boyfriend are fine. Well armed and apparently scary as fuck, but fine.”

  “Were there any shots fired?” Burton asked nervously. Adkins had his arm around that kid’s throat, a gun to his head. How had they let that happen?

  “Yeah, by the civilians.” Jason gave a bitter laugh. “I am going to have to cash in my retirement, Burton, because apparently I can’t train my guys to protect a doghouse, much less civilians. No—two guys tried to crawl in over the fence. The dog barked, the residents opened fire, and now we’ve got two mercenaries in the hospital whining about dog bites with a bullet chaser.”

  “I’m going to check on Rivers and Cramer, sir.” Burton sighed. “One of Lacey’s scumbags is MIA, and he claimed he had a special mission.”

  “Shit. I’ll call the hospital—”

  “I’ll call Rivers.”

  Rivers picked up on the first ring—but he sounded fucking unhinged.

  “Rivers? How you doing?”

  “Fucking peachy. How’s my family?”

  Burton met Kaden Cameron’s grim gaze. “They’re rattled but okay. We’ve got most of the mercenaries sent to mop up accounted for, but we’re missing one operative. A snake-mean fucker named Pruitt Leavins.”

  “Missing one?” he said, sounding damned near insane.

  “Yes, sir. We’ve got the others, including Adkins and Gleeson—”

  “You got Adkins and Gleeson, but you’re missing one.”

  “Yeah, Rivers—”

  “You’re missing a bad guy. Missing. Heh-heh. Missing one. Uh-huh. Like a shoe. Sorry, y’all, got all the bad guys, but we’re missing a homicidal shoe.” Uh-oh. This did not bode well for Jackson’s night. “Why, yes,” he continued. “Yes, we found your homicidal shoe. Why the fuck do you ask?”

  “Can I talk to him?” Burton asked—but he didn’t hold out a lot of hope.

  “Can you talk to him?” Jackson gave a hard bark of laughter. “No, Burton, you can’t talk to him. Because he’s dead. Yes, that’s what I said. Dead. Your missing shoe is bleeding out on the hospital floor. Yup. You heard me. Bleeding out. No—everybody’s fine.”

  The phone was grabbed, apparently by Cramer’s mother.

  “Jackson’s being admitted momentarily. You can debrief him when you return. I take it the Cameron families are both in good shape?”

  “They are, ma’am,” Burton said, struggling not to stammer like a kid.

  “Yes? Good.”

  “Could you make sure Rivers knows?”

  “Yes, I will. I’ll tell him that just as soon as he goes to the ER!” Her voice rose shrilly on that last note, and Burton grimaced, holding the phone away from his ear while he struggled to find words.

  He didn’t have to, because she hung up. Burton let out a grunt and scrubbed his face with his palm and met Kaden’s sardonic gaze.

  “So?”

  “The good news is he’s still alive,” Burton said, feeling ill. Bungled. This whole thing was bungled so badly.

  “And Cramer?”

  “Jackson said everybody was fine.”

  “Was Jackson injured?”

  Burton cringed. “Uh, Mrs. Cramer said something about him needing medical attention, yes.”

  “Goddammit!”

  “I’m so sorry.” Burton was starting to wonder if he was in the wrong line of work.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Kaden Cameron said, surprising him. “I know, I know—you feel like you fucked up. And you sort of did—but everybody I care about is still breathing, so I’m gonna say job well done.”

  Burton’s head ached fiercely, and he wanted Ernie’s unconditional acceptance in a way he’d never wanted anything in his life.

  “I thought he’d be safe, at least, with Cramer,” he confessed, feeling as foolish as a child.

  Cameron shrugged. “Jackson’s never safe. It’s why my sister and I worry so much about him being right with God.”

  Burton gaped at him. “That’s a terrible thing to—”

  “We don’t want him to die,” Cameron told him, obviously annoyed. “But dammit. He’s come close so many times. It’s just… if the moment comes, we want him to be at peace. To have known happiness. To know he’s loved.”

  Burton looked around the nice two-story house that Jackson’s family had turned into a cozy, tastefully decorated home. Everything was stain-resistant and brown-and-plum-colored—probably to hide any stains if they couldn’t be resisted—but it was cozy.

  “He’s loved,” Burton said softly. And so am I.

  He still had a long stretch ahead of him.

  He and Jason needed to account for every mercenary who’d been at the base when things went south and every mercenary who’d been sent off the base with a mission. They needed to take a look at the jackets Hamblin had sent Jackson and cross-reference them with crimes that had been committed since November.

  And they had to send out members of Jason’s unit to either bring the mercenaries in or take them down.

  The task was monumental. Herculean.

  Bigger than a day, or a week, or a year.

  Neither of them was getting fired, and neither of them was resigning—but something had to change.

  In the end Jason simply commandeered Lacey’s old base, since it had a functioning administration building and barracks and all. He pulled the entirety of his unit in on the operation, and they held meetings every morning, after they’d caught a few scant hours of shut-eye after working sixteen-hour days.

  Burton would hit the hard wood of his barracks dreaming of mad-eyed men, blood dripping from their fingers, as they tore through Ace’s little house and murdered its inhabitants and ate his dog.

  One night, about two weeks after he’d taken out Adkins in the Camerons’ home, he sat up in bed screaming, only to see his CO sitting quietly at his feet.

  “What?” Burton muttered. The base was big enough that they got the CO’s barracks—the privacy was great, not that they used it much.

  “You were calling out for someone named Ernie,” Jason said, a quiet smile on his face. “I figured you wouldn’t want the rest of the unit to hear you.”

  Burton groaned and scrubbed at his face with his hand. “I, uh….”

  Jason waved his protests away. “The people in your life are yours, Lee. I know what we tell you—no connections. But I’m not training automatons. I’m training soldiers—and real soldiers are human.” He grimaced and looked around the plain barracks room. “If nothing else, Karl Lacey’s little experiment should have taught us that the people who defend our country need to be allowed to be human.”

  Burton nodded, his heart suddenly so sore from missing Ernie, he wasn’t sure it could beat.

  “Lee?” Jason said, kindness unexpected in the corners of his eyes.

  “Yessir?”

  “We’re going to be at this for years. We need to make this a nine-to-five job, something with hours and downtime and weekends, or my people are going to burn out, and I like my team. Do you understand me?”

  Burton’s eyes started to burn. “Sir?”

  “You have a week off. Come back here in a week with a place to go every night from here that’s not in this compound, do you hear?”

  Oh God. He took a shattered breath. “Sir?”

  “Find a home, Lee. And go there. See you in a week, when we’ll start working shifts for the duration. You may still get assignments, but for right now the Lacey Project will be our priority, and my team will work hours that won’t make their eyeballs bleed. Go home, Lee. Find Ernie or whoever you’re calling for, and go home.”

  …And Cats

  ERNIE FELT him coming in the middle of the night. He hadn’t texted, he hadn’t called—but Ernie knew.

  He got home and put Duke in his crate, nodding at Ace and Sonny as they sat on the couch and argued over TV.

  “You’re back early,” Ace said midkvetch, and Sonny looked up and nodded.


  “Burton’s coming,” he said shortly. “Getting ready.” He didn’t explain that this time would be different than the other times—he’d told Ace about the promises that had been made, about his belief that they’d be kept. The energy he felt from Burton was fully focused and completely on him.

  And needy. So damned needy.

  Ernie wanted to be ready.

  He hopped in the shower, and when he got out, he grabbed water bottles and snacks for the room.

  He wasn’t planning on coming out for a while.

  Lee’s knock on the front door was weaker than Ernie had expected. A timid request for sanctuary, as opposed to the confident demand for it he’d employed when he’d first brought Ernie there. Ernie let him say hi to Sonny and Ace for a moment before opening the door and ushering him inside his room, dressed only in a towel.

  Burton took two steps in, closed the door behind him, and wrapped his arms around Ernie like he was drowning and Ernie was his last best hope of safety and air.

  Ernie hugged him back just as fiercely, raising his mouth for a slow, greedy, painful kiss.

  Slow. This was seduction, slow and simple. His mouth on Ernie’s begged—when Burton should never have to beg.

  Ernie gave, everything, without reservation. What would he hold back? He’d been in love with this man from the very first, and giving him sex had been incidental.

  But giving him trust and faith, stability, a home—those were things he’d had to learn, lesson by painful lesson, until this moment right here, when he could offer every one of them with each and every careful touch.

  Burton’s hands turned the last of the moisture on his skin to steam, and he moaned softly, sliding his own hands up under Burton’s regulation OD-green shirt.

  Words later.

  They needed to communicate skin to skin.

  Ernie let the towel drop and yanked at Burton’s shirt until he shed it voluntarily and then pulled at his belt to remove his pants.

  “Let me get my boots,” Burton rumbled—the first words he’d said.

  Ernie moved so he could sit down on the bed but tormented him with openmouthed kisses on the back of his neck, his ears, the back of his shoulders.

  He sucked on Burton’s earlobe, pleased when he let out a frustrated whine while he was working a stubborn bootlace.

  “Kid,” he begged breathlessly. “Please. Just… gimme a minute. You’re so naked, and it’s not fair.”

  Ernie let out a strained chuckle. “We’re not gonna talk about what’s fair, Cruller. Get rid of the goddamned boots. We’ve got shit to sort.”

  The boot went flying across the room with a thump, and the other one followed in short order, along with socks, pants, and shorts.

  Burton stood by the bed, naked and beautiful, and Ernie crouched on hands and knees to wrap his mouth around Burton’s cock.

  He was starving for the taste of it.

  But Burton stopped him, catching his chin under two fingers and tilting his head up. “I haven’t showered,” he said gruffly. “I’m not… you’re so clean and soft….” He trailed a finger down the side of Ernie’s neck, and Ernie closed his eyes. It wasn’t the sweat of an honest day that was bothering him—Ernie could tell. It was the film of deeds he couldn’t wash away.

  “All of you, Cruller,” Ernie said softly. “That’s who I love.” And with that he took Burton into his mouth entirely, to the back of his throat, swallowing as he went to put pressure where it would feel best.

  Burton moaned, fingers massaging Ernie’s scalp through his overlong hair, and Ernie kept sucking, kept stroking with his fist, kept pleasuring, using every trick he’d ever learned in a random hookup to make Burton forget any reservation he had about being right here, right now, in Ernie’s arms, in his bed, in his mouth.

  Ernie tugged gently on Burton’s testicles, fondling, and Burton jerked his hips. “Kid… I’m gonna….”

  Good.

  Let him climax.

  Let him flood Ernie’s mouth, lose his mind, come undone.

  He was lost—Ernie could see it, could feel it. Burton’s need was like a tattoo needle on Ernie’s skin, etching his pain with every touch.

  Let him fuck Ernie’s mouth until his pain exploded. Ernie pulled him deeper, slid his fingers more daringly behind Burton’s balls, teased more tauntingly between his cleft, and just when he found Burton’s pucker, Burton gave a strained shout and orgasmed, coming until Ernie couldn’t swallow any more and it ran out the corners of his mouth and down his chin.

  Ernie looked up at him in the dim light of the bedside lamp and let Burton see him, his mouth shiny and dripping with come, his lips swollen, his eyes fierce.

  “Get down here and love me,” he ordered, and Burton fell upon him like a lion with a lamb.

  He pressed Ernie back against the pillows, licking at his mouth, the last traces of his own spend, and then pushing back for more. Ernie spread his legs, letting Burton rut against him, sloppy and hardening and not taking a break, even a little, from the kiss.

  And his hands moved possessively, restlessly, like he could gather Ernie in fistfuls and keep him near. Ernie wrapped his legs around Burton’s hips and pressed them even closer, whimpering when Burton’s hardness jammed in the space between his thighs.

  He fumbled under the pillow for lube and handed it to Burton demandingly. Burton managed enough self-possession to rock back on his knees and drip some on his fingers.

  “Thinking of me?” he teased, closing the bottle with a little snick.

  “Yes,” Ernie told him unapologetically. “I’d think of you and touch myself and stroke myself, and sometimes I’d use two fingers and… ah! Ah! God yes!”

  Burton thrust two slick fingers into him, and Ernie splayed his knees, opening himself up, begging for full possession. The stretch, the burn, the ache—these were things he needed, and he needed them bigger, with all of Burton inside him.

  It was the only place Ernie could keep him safe, inside his body, in the haven of his heart.

  Burton put himself in position and thrust in, glorious and huge, and Ernie raised his hips to meet him, swallow him down to the hilt, and again and again and again.

  “Gonna be quick,” Burton apologized. “Need….”

  “So bad,” Ernie agreed. “So bad. God, Lee, fuck me harder.”

  The tenderness was overwhelming, and Burton must have felt it too. His hips picked up speed, harder, faster, brutal, claiming possession, and Ernie gasped breathlessly, needing, oh God… just a little pressure on his aching untouched cock to… please just… oh please….

  Burton bit his shoulder hard, roaring into the hollow of his neck as he came again, and Ernie gasped “No!” because he wasn’t there yet, needed just… just a little touch.

  But Burton wouldn’t leave him hanging. Not now. Still thrusting slowly, still not soft, he kept fucking, powerfully, while he grabbed Ernie’s cock and squeezed.

  Fireworks, bright and beautiful, exploded behind Ernie’s eyes, and he came in Burton’s hand like Burton possessed all of him, his ass, his cock, his come.

  Burton did possess all of him, and not just the sex parts, tingling with hard use and climax.

  He fell against Ernie, covering his body protectively, murmuring nonsense in his ear, and Ernie wrapped his limbs around Burton’s body to keep him safe.

  All of him. Burton owned all of him. Cock, ass, mouth, come.

  Heart, soul, body, love.

  All.

  HE HAD to roll off sometime, but Ernie didn’t want to let him go. “Stay,” he murmured. “Stay inside me.”

  “Am I in your heart?” Burton asked quietly, his voice rumbling.

  Ernie caught his gaze then, unflinching. “Always, Lee Burton. Always.”

  Burton swallowed and nodded, his eyes squeezing shut. “I don’t deserve that.”

  “Are you going to stay? I mean, not stay, but stay?”

  Burton really did roll off, stretching his arm over his head and facing Ernie on the p
illows. “Yes,” he said. Then he reached down and grabbed the comforter to pull it up over them. February was still chilly, even in the desert. “I have a week to get a home. A place not work. Then I go back to work like a nine-to-five for a while. An hour commute, but there’s worse things.”

  Ernie gaped. “Like… like an everyday job?”

  Burton’s mouth grew grim. “We had to set up a database and trackers. My commander’s entire unit is dedicated to getting the guys Lacey turned loose. We don’t even have time to go after Corduroy—too many of these guys are showing markers, coming up on DNA matches. Everything from serial rapists to quickie-mart robberies—it’s insane.”

  Ernie nodded. “So… so your job changed.”

  Burton’s mouth lost its tightness. “My life changed,” he corrected, reaching out to trace Ernie’s mouth with his fingertips. “My heart changed.”

  “So, your home…?” Oh God. Ernie’s heart was hammering so hard in his chest he was surprised it didn’t explode outward.

  “You are my home. I’ll have you buy a house and set it up. Not too far from here—”

  “There’s a little stretch of property a half mile away,” Ernie said promptly. “I looked. It’s isolated, but it’s got a giant kitchen and a big bedroom and a porch and even sod—Ace is so jealous. And it’s got a hot tub—I mean a hot tub, and I can walk here every night and cook dinner for Ace and Sonny, and we can eat together when you get home and then we can go home, to our own house, and—”

  Burton’s finger over his lips was the only thing that would have stopped him from spilling out his hope, his silly pipe dream, the thing he’d longed for with the fierceness of pain since Burton had left him last time, promising him everything right before he left.

  “Cats,” Burton said softly. “You can feed every cat in Southern California. It’s okay, Ernie. You get the whole dream. You’re my heart. It’s the least I can do.”

  Ernie started to laugh then, and cry at the same time, finally sobbing on Burton’s shoulder while Burton rocked him and crooned in his ear.

  They’d talk about all of it later.

  The fallout between Rivers and Cramer, who were going back to Sacramento in a couple of days after being released from the hospital finally. Lee’s agony over almost letting Rivers’s family down.