Bone to Pick

by TA Moore

  “Any way we could fuck without talking?” he asked.

  A sharp smile twisted Javi’s mouth. “I don’t see that happening,” he said. “You?”

  There was a sharp tension to the question and in the tight line of Javi’s body. Not unhappiness, exactly. It was more pissiness. The same bitten-back, pissy irritation that festered behind gritted teeth in the field every time people—and once, well, twice if you counted today, Cloister—did something Javi hadn’t approved ahead of time.

  Cloister’s cock was aching so hard he could feel the blood rushing to it. He wanted to fuck or be fucked. Either would do as long as it was hard, hot, and sticky enough to wear his brain out and turn it off. To cut short the guilt-inducing list of the people he hadn’t been able to bring home. It wasn’t like he didn’t know the names—the list started with his brother and ended with Julie-Anne Judson, who went missing in the mountains—and his mother’s tear-cracked, Midwest-flat voice narrated it. He didn’t need that stomach punch tonight.

  One of the advantages of screwing the sort of man who turned up for a booty call at past midnight with a bag of cheap food and a hard-on had to be that you didn’t have to care about them. Except, of course, he did anyway. Cloister Witte—damned romantic and eternal goddamn doormat.

  “Go on, then,” he said as he dipped his head to press a stubble-rough kiss against the crease of Javi’s neck. He could taste salt and the sharp, musky dryness of the cologne on Javi’s skin. “Spit it out.”

  Javi twisted his fingers in Cloister’s hair and tugged his head back until they were looking at each other.

  “Did you get hit on the head?” he asked, and he lifted his knee so his thigh pressed against Cloister’s cock. “You haven’t come yet, idiot, and for your information, I swallow.”

  That mental image—bruised lips, sweat, the swipe of Javi’s tongue after a drop of salty come, and Cloister’s cock drained and wet—clenched lust from Cloister’s knees to his shoulders and everything in between. He swallowed hard, and his breath didn’t want to cooperate.

  “Tell me what you want me to do to you,” Cloister got out, his voice harsh as gravel in his throat. He sat back, knelt across Javi’s thighs, and tried to ignore the ache in his balls. “Order me about, Special Agent. You know you want to.”

  Javi stared up at him as he considered that with his dark eyes hooded thoughtfully. After a moment he stretched up, the muscles in his stomach and chest slid elegantly under his pale amber skin, and he folded his arms behind his head.

  “Since you don’t want to talk,” he said, his voice harsh and strained, “why don’t you find something better to do with your mouth? Suck me off, Deputy.”

  It had been his idea, but Cloister still felt the brief impulse to tell Javi to fuck off. From the smirk Javi gave him, that urge showed on his face. Cloister resisted it, swallowed the words, and unbuckled Javi’s belt. The leather was soft under his fingers, the metal buckle cold, and the thought skittered through his head that Javi might want to use that on him. The image of it, half-formed and tentative, was ridiculous. He was six foot one, and the one time his uncle tried to leather the attitude out of him, he’d punched him. But it was kind of hot as hell.

  Not as hot as this, though. Cloister finished unfastening Javi’s trousers. His cock jutted up out of the fly, and Cloister pulled them down. He bent over to press his mouth to Javi’s taut stomach. The muscles clenched under his lips and clenched again—harder—when he scraped his teeth over the ridge of muscle. He shifted to the side. The mattress shifted under his weight, and he ran his hand up Javi’s thigh. With his fingertips he skimmed the tight skin through the scattering of fine hair and brushed the velvet-soft skin of Javi’s balls. The contact made Javi suck in a hard breath, and his cock bounced impatiently. Cloister slid his hand back and followed the hard ridge of skin back from Javi’s balls toward his ass. The rough swipe of a callused finger against the nerve-rich area made Javi curse and squirm in place.

  “Mouth,” he ground out through clenched teeth. “Not hands.”

  “Recon,” Cloister said. He grinned when Javi lifted his head off his arms long enough to glare at him. “What? I’m taking your advice.”

  It took a moment—Javi stared at him like he’d never seen him before—but then Javi snorted. “Shut up and suck me off.”

  Cloister ignored that pinch of rebellion again and did as he was told. He tugged Javi’s thighs apart with his hands and pressed a wet, tonguing kiss against the base of his cock. Every breath he took was thick with the smell of sex and Javi, the taste of him on Cloister’s tongue. He licked his way up the shaft, the pulse of blood under the skin tangible against his tongue, and wrapped his lips around the head.

  The glaze of precome was sticky. He lapped at it, rolled his tongue around the hard curve of the glans, and dipped into the slit. The noise that scraped out of Javi wasn’t quite a swear word, but all the guttural intensity was there.

  Cloister slid his head down and rubbed his lips against the shaft and his tongue against the base. It pressed against the roof of his mouth—thick and hot as he breathed around it. He swallowed hard, and the convulsive movement of throat and tongue made Javi groan out his name. He tangled his hand in Cloister’s hair, pressed his knuckles against his skull, and pulled his head back. The dark length of his cock slid wetly from between Cloister’s lips, and he lifted his eyes to look up at Javi.

  His crisp white shirt was wrinkled and stained, glued to Javi’s shoulders and ribs with sweat. His face was set in controlled, reserved lines, but arousal flushed his cheekbones and up to his temples.

  “I was right.” Javi tugged Cloister’s head back a notch farther. His eyes were very dark as he studied the tight line of Cloister’s jaw and throat. Behind him Cloister could see the night sky through the long, narrow window that stretched across the back of the trailer. “You look good with your mouth wrapped around my cock. I think I have an idea for where you’d look even better.”

  He flipped Cloister onto his back and left him sprawled there while he got off the bed. Cloister reached down, cupped his hand around his cock, and idly stroked it while he watched Javi strip off his trousers. Javi retrieved a condom from his back pocket and then folded the pants neatly and set them on the narrow bedside table.

  “So you were a Boy Scout?” Cloister asked.

  “It you fail to plan, plan to fail,” Javi said. He slid the thin, latex sheath on and added a slippery layer of lube. He squeezed roughly at his cock as he worked it from base to tip. “Maybe you should try being prepared.”

  Cloister stretched, touched his fingertips to the window, and extended his bare feet over the end of the bed. “I date guys who carry condoms in their pocket,” he said. “That’s good enough for the Scouts, right?”

  For a second, Javi hesitated with his hand on his cock. Maybe he had been a Boy Scout and was offended at Cloister dragging them into this, or he was just disgusted at Cloister’s lack of foresight—although there was a box of condoms in the bathroom. Whatever he was, he got over it after a second.

  Javi grabbed Cloister’s legs, graced a caress around the bump of his ankle with his thumb, and pulled him to the end of the bed. Cloister squirmed as Javi reached a lubed-up hand between his legs and probed his fingers into his ass. Cloister bit his lip and took a deep breath, enjoying the slippery intrusion and aching for more at the same time.

  “Nothing to say?” Javi taunted.

  Cloister swallowed. His throat was so dry it felt like his voice needed lube. “Fuck you,” he cracked out.

  Javi smiled. “Since you asked nicely.” He took his fingers back, and Cloister’s ass clenched around the absence. “Lift your legs.”

  Cloister raised his knees and pulled them toward his stomach. He could feel the strain in the backs of his thighs as the position drew his ass tight. It felt more vulnerable—more exposed—than fucking against Javi’s window. Javi stroked the taut cheeks. The trail of his fingers sent tickles of anticipation down Cloister
’s nerves, and then he pushed them apart with his thumbs. The hard nudge of Javi’s cock against his ass made Cloister suck in a breath and the muscles in his stomach tense. It turned into pressure and a dull, heavy burn as he stretched around the width of Javi’s erection.

  It felt good. The heat crawled up and followed his taint from his ass to his balls. A hot weight pressed down in his groin. He lifted his hips and pushed up into the thrust until he could feel Javi’s thighs and the swing of his balls against his ass.

  Javi moved his hands to Cloister’s knees, and his fingers grazed over the old nightmare-proof scar tissue on one leg. Javi looked down at the join of their bodies.

  “Look at that,” he said. “I told you this would look even better.”

  Javi leaned in with his weight against Cloister’s legs, and his cock managed to somehow fit an impossible half inch deeper. With a smirk tucked into the corner of that thin, FBI-smug mouth of his, he watched Cloister pant and squirm as his muscles flexed helplessly around the cock inside him.

  “Sonofabitch,” Cloister muttered as he pressed his head back against the bed. Heat pulsed inside him—a steady ache of pleasure that balanced just on the edge of being more. “Javi. Please, just, God, please?”

  The begging struck heat in Javi’s eyes and flared in the back of his pupils, and he began to move. Cloister gagged out something that was half cursing, half taking the Lord’s name in vain and Javi’s name mixed up in both. He clenched his fists, twisted the sheet into knots between his fingers, and rocked his hips into the thrusts.

  Javi shifted forward, braced his knee against the mattress, and dropped one hand to Cloister’s hip. He dug his fingers in and hooked his thumb over the ridge of Cloister’s hipbone as he thrust harder. Each thrust buried his cock inside Cloister, and jolts of sharp, black sensation shot up his spine as it jostled his prostate.

  He shook one hand free of the sheets and grabbed his cock. The tender skin folded and wrinkled as he tugged at it roughly, closed his eyes, and imagined Javi’s hand on him instead.

  “Open your eyes.” Javi’s voice straggled on the ragged edge of breathless. “Look at me when you come.”

  Cloister opened his eyes, tightened his fingers around his cock, and pumped his hand up and down in skin-chafing time to Javi’s thrusts. He watched the play of muscle under sweat and Javi’s skin, the clench and stretch of it, and the way Javi chewed his lower lip as he struggled to hang on to control. The orgasm wrung out of Cloister spilled white over his fingers and across his skin in a wash of almost pain. It left him sweaty and limp, with come smeared over his stomach and his brain waiting to reboot.

  Javi pulled out of Cloister and stepped back from the bed. He closed his eyes as he brought himself over the edge with two harsh tugs on his cock, and come filled the tip of the condom. His chest rose and fell in slow, ragged breaths, as he visibly pulled himself back under control before he opened his eyes.

  Cloister scruffed his fingers through his hair where sweat glued it to his scalp. He wondered whom Javi was thinking about when he came. Then he winced and tried not to think about it.

  “You fuck like you’re going to be scored at the end of it,” he said instead.

  Javi stripped the condom off. “You fuck like you’re aiming for a C,” he said.

  “I was always an overachiever,” Cloister said. Then he yawned hard enough to crack his jaw and bring tears to his eyes. He weighed the prospect of a couple of hours sleep against having to shower off the night in the morning. Sleep won. “Shower’s in there. Wake me up if you want to leave.”

  “And disturb you?” Javi said. “After your considerate disappearance last night? I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  “Up to you,” Cloister said. “I mean, Bon Bon has never bitten off anyone’s balls. She could, but she hasn’t.”

  The bed tipped, and weight tilted it toward the wall. Cloister opened his eyes, and Javi cupped his chin in his hand and grazed his thumb over the curve of his lower lip.

  “Or I could just stay,” Javi said.

  Cloister didn’t know what his face looked like, but it made Javi smirk. Cloister cleared his throat. “If you want.”

  Javi leaned down and skimmed a kiss across Cloister’s mouth and caught his lower lip between his teeth. He dipped his tongue into Cloister’s mouth, and he tasted himself there.

  “I’ll think about it,” he said as he sat back and ruffled Cloister’s hair. “Get some sleep, Witte.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  BUCKING THE trend, Cloister did sleep.

  For a few hours, anyhow. He woke up to the wind howling through the trailer park and the insistent factory-installed ringtone on Javi’s work phone. His side was sweaty warm, and the seaside smell of Javi’s cologne was rubbed onto his skin, but Javi was already on his phone.

  Javi’s voice had a rasp to it from sleep, but his words were crisp and clear—more than the grunt Cloister would have mustered at that time of the morning, even if he’d been awake.

  “Special Agent Merlo,” Javi snapped. “What is it?”

  Cloister stretched and scratched himself. His bladder demanded attention. He rolled out of bed, left the bedroom to Javi, and ducked into the bathroom to piss and step into the shower for a brisk, cold shower.

  When he came out of the bathroom, scrubbing his hair with a towel, Bon Bon gave him a reproachful look from inside her crate. He slung the damp towel around his hips, patted his thigh, and gave a sharp whistle. She bolted up to her feet, nosed the door open, and let herself out. He followed.

  She clamped her tail, sidled over to him, pressed against his leg, and sighed pointedly. Most nights she slept by his legs on the floor, close enough to touch him if she wanted. She knew she had to be good if she was put in her crate or her kennel, but she didn’t like it.

  Cloister crouched down and fussed over her. He scratched under her jaw and play-bowled her over to rub her belly. She kicked him like a cat and grumbled happily with her tongue hanging out of the corner of her mouth like a wet pink ribbon.

  She scrambled to her feet when Javi came out of the bedroom, and she pricked her ears suspiciously.

  “Get dressed.” Javi tossed most of a uniform at Cloister. Javi was already dressed, although last night had left him looking a lot less sharp than usual. Cloister caught the Kevlar vest and pinned it to his chest, but the trousers slid free and hit the floor. “Our friend ‘Bri’ just Skyped the Hartley boy. I want to be there to oversee the conversation.”

  “Why do I want to be there?”

  “Because you sometimes have good ideas,” Javi said. “Besides, the boy likes you, and his parents still haven’t forgiven me. So get dressed.”

  Cloister dumped the armful of clothes on the table and ditched the towel. He grabbed his trousers, pulled them on over wet skin, and left the fly undone as he grabbed for a T-shirt. He was halfway through putting it on when Javi touched his ribs and walked warm fingers over the scars. It felt strange. The misaligned nerves under the knotted skin didn’t always fire in the right direction, and it gave the feeling of ghost contact where Javi’s fingers weren’t. Not bad, just weird.

  Cloister tugged his T-shirt down over the scars.

  “Motorbike accident,” he said. He’d had the ink for three days before it got scraped off. The remaining Rorschach mangle was more familiar than the original pattern had ever been. “I was fourteen. Still don’t know what my stepdad was more pissed off about, the ink or that I’d totaled his bike.”

  He felt—briefly—bad about lying about the scar. But Javi didn’t need any more ammunition, and besides, it wasn’t even really a lie. Almost everything he said was true. He just left out the small explosive charge someone had strapped to the fuel tank. There were a lot of people who didn’t like Cloister’s stepdad, and to be fair, there were even more who didn’t like his actual dad.

  His family was fucked up.

  IT TOOK fifteen minutes to get to the Hartleys’ in the suburbs. They lived in a sprawling, seashell-wh
ite house just like all the other houses. There were two sports cars in the driveway. The dusty, scouring wind was doing a job on the glossy metallic paintwork, but Cloister supposed they had other things on their minds.

  He parked behind the cherry-red Porsche and reached back to unhook Bourneville. She scrambled between the seats, jumped out, and shook her head as the wind tossed sand in her ears. Cloister gave her a conciliatory pat, looked around, and squinted into the low morning sun.

  Javi had parked on the street. When he got out of the car, Cloister noticed that, somewhere between the trailer park and there, he’d managed to change into a fresh shirt and uncrumpled tie. He smoothed the second down over the first and held it against his chest as the wind tugged at it.

  “You can tell me the truth,” Cloister said when Javi joined him, squinting into the wind. “You really were a Boy Scout, right?”

  It wasn’t a great joke, but it wasn’t that bad. Not bad enough to warrant the tight-lipped grimace Javi gave him.

  “Cloister,” Javi said as he touched his arm, “look, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. We’re not dating. You know that, right?”

  Oh. Okay.

  “Did not think otherwise,” Cloister said.

  “It’s just that I don’t,” Javi said. “I don’t date or do relationships. I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea.”

  “I haven’t.” Cloister slapped him easily on the shoulder. He smirked. “Look, if I wanted to eat with someone that didn’t like me that much, I’d be heading home for Thanksgiving. We’re fine. It’s fun. It’s sex.”

  Javi stared at him for a second, and with his dark eyes, he searched Cloister’s face for the lie. When he didn’t find it, the tight line of his mouth relaxed into a more natural-looking smile.