by Elle Keaton
Adam tugged Micah’s chin down; they were three or four inches different in height. He hesitated a moment, but he must have seen the answer in Micah’s eyes, because he finally put his mouth on Micah’s. His lips were soft, caressing and inviting, his tongue asking for permission to enter, flicking Micah’s lips and sketching the outline of his mouth. So gentle.
Micah moaned and opened for him, greeting him, letting him in. Pressing against Adam naked while Adam was fully clothed was so erotic. The rough denim of Adam’s jeans against his own languid erection made Micah shiver. He could smell both of them: smoke, sweat, and the sweet smell of arousal. He shuddered, longing coursing through his veins. His dick was throbbing with want and probably leaking precome. He had no idea where the energy for an erection had come from, but he wasn’t going to question it. Being alive felt so damn good.
“What do you want, baby? I don’t want to do anything you don’t want. But I’ve got to tell you, I am so close right now,” Adam whispered against the shell of Micah’s ear. Micah reached between them, unbuttoned Adam’s jeans, and pulled Adam’s cock out of his boring white underwear.
“Never figured you for tighty-whiteys,” Micah whispered.
Adam groaned as Micah wrapped his hand around both of them and started stroking. The pressure was exquisite as he moved the sensitive skin back and forth; he felt Adam get even harder, the soft outer skin sliding up and down against the hardness inside. Micah’s head rested against Adam’s shoulder as they both watched Micah’s hand; precome was leaking out, adding a little lube to the dry heat of their shafts. Before he meant to or could say anything more, his balls pulled up, and he grunted as he came so long and hard he saw stars. He still had one arm around Adam; he opened his eyes just as Adam was orgasming, and his own cock made a valiant effort to shoot just a little more. He didn’t think he could stand much longer. There was come everywhere, all over Adam’s shirt and Micah’s stomach. He loved the smell of them together.
They stood, plastered together, for a few more moments, Adam holding him and Micah reminding him he was alive with caresses and kisses. Micah shivered and pushed closer, pressing his lips to the crook of Adam’s neck.
Adam shifted against him. “Let’s get cleaned up, okay?”
The bathroom was tiny. No tub, just a shower enclosure hardly big enough for Micah alone. He harbored a short-lived shower fantasy until he actually saw it.
Micah took a long time in the shower, the water sluicing away the evidence of the crime committed against him: soot, ash, the smell of fire. He washed his hair twice to get rid of the smell. Reluctantly, he turned the spray off as the water began to run cold.
Twenty-Six
TWENTY-SIX
Adam heard the water turn off and Micah banging around as he navigated the tiny bathroom. He’d thought about ordering some takeout, but Micah’s throat still had to be sore, even if he wasn’t saying anything about it. Adam enjoyed cooking and regretted not having a kitchenette in the room. It had been a long time since he cooked anything from scratch—the rhythm of chopping vegetables one after the other, the fragrance of spices as they sautéed. He wanted to cook for Micah.
Wow, he’d just given Micah a hand job in the middle of his motel room, right after the guy had been released from the hospital. Adam was a cretin. It had been necessary, but still an asshole move. He wanted to do it again, but in a bed, with condoms and plenty of time. He wanted to lie next to Micah and stroke him; he wanted to watch his face the entire time. He wanted to fuck him. He wanted Micah to fuck him, if he wanted.
He was so screwed. Nothing about his life was good for a relationship, and there was no way Micah was anything but a relationship.
His cell phone rang. He thought about ignoring it, but he’d just have to answer it later and face even more questions.
“Yeah?”
“Yes.”
“For Christ’s sake, ‘Yes’?”
“Were you planning on filling me in?”
For a horrifying moment, Adam thought Mohammad was referring to the sex he’d just had.
“I had to hear from Lieutenant Nguyen regarding the questions they had for you about the fire at Micah Ryan’s house.” Adam was losing his edge. He had completely forgotten about his boss in the aftermath of the fire and his worry about Micah.
“Oh. Yeah. I completely forgot to call you back, huh.”
“Yes.”
He filled Mohammad in on what had happened since the abortive break-in. Also about him and Micah going to visit Jessica Abrahams’s family.
“I didn’t go in any kind of official capacity; I went as moral support because Micah asked.”
They hung up. Mohammad had made absolutely no further reference to Micah or whatever shenanigans he suspected might be going on. Mohammad was up to something. Adam hadn’t worked with him for almost ten years to learn absolutely nothing about the man.
Micah reappeared. He was bundled up in the sweatpants and long-sleeved shirt that Adam had left out for him. Micah wasn’t a small man, but he wasn’t as broad as Adam. The sweatpants were in danger of sliding back down his narrow hips, and Adam knew he was wearing nothing underneath. Micah had also put on an old UCLA sweatshirt of Adam’s, completing his deflated Michelin Man look. Or that guy who gets poked in the stomach all the time. It was cute. And remarkably sexy. Jesus Christ, he was in trouble and he was an asshole.
Micah’s stomach rumbled, and he blushed, his cheeks pink just like that time in the Booking Room. “Sorry,” he whispered. “I guess I’m really hungry. All I got in the hospital was cherry Jell-O. I hate cherry Jell-O.” Adam couldn’t resist; he leaned over and kissed him thoroughly. It was so good.
Twenty-Seven
TWENTY-SEVEN
They completely failed Thanksgiving. They’d been holed up in Adam’s motel room since the day before, ignoring phone calls and watching bad TV. Micah was curled up under the covers, and Adam was doing a terrible job of trying to pretend he wasn’t quietly freaking out over whatever they were doing while still enjoying the domesticity. Micah’s lungs seemed to be recovering just fine. He’d stopped coughing, and his breathing sounded clean.
Adam had hoped they were safe from visitors. He hadn’t told Ed where he was staying, but when the knock on the door came, he remembered that the SkPD knew exactly where he was—and, by inference, Micah as well.
It was Sara, Ed’s daughter, who punctured their cocoon. Ed who, Adam now remembered, he had not called in several days. Sara was resplendent in a dark blue 1950s-style dress, a long black wool coat with faux-fur collar, and a pair of heels that she teetered dangerously on top of, bringing her nearly to Adam’s height. This was frightening. Sara was taking no prisoners and no excuses. They had twenty minutes to get dressed and out the door, or she was going to move everyone to the motel for the celebration and use Adam’s hot plate for a warmer.
Adam was bemused. He had never celebrated the holidays. His dad had never believed in them. At college, he’d gone to friends’ a couple of times, but once he started working . . . well, people committed heinous crimes no matter the time of year, so he usually just worked through.
Micah was horrified, babbling about green beans and apple pie while comically trying to jump into his jeans. He’d just gotten out of another shower, so he was still damp. If he wasn’t careful, he was going to end up face-first on the motel rug. He would probably catch some kind of secondary infection from that. Legionnaires’ disease, maybe.
They made it to Sara’s in just thirty minutes, which Adam thought was pretty good, even if he’d had to talk Micah off the ledge over not bringing anything.
“There is going to be plenty to eat without green beans and apple pie. No one is going to notice, I swear. There’s nothing open in this town today, anyway,” Adam told him, pulling away from the curb while Micah was still buckling himself in.
Micah looked at him sideways. “You think I was going to buy beans and pie?”
“I don’t know, but whatever you we
re going to do, there is no time, and where were you going to cook?” He hated reminding Micah that his kitchen was a crime scene. “Can we leave before she comes back for us?”
Sara’s bungalow was cute and tiny and filled with about five hundred people, all laughing and talking. Clearly they all knew each other. Micah was immediately swept away by Stephanie, who fussed over him, needing to assure herself he was in one piece. Micah plainly enjoyed her attention. Adam had no idea what he was doing at a thing like this.
He hid in the kitchen with his cell phone. Ida picked up almost immediately.
“I have no idea what I am doing here.”
Ida should have been an interrogator. She was an expert, like an old-timey butcher who was trained well and knew where to make the cuts for a perfect prime rib. A gruesome analogy? Maybe. At any rate, the woman was a world-class information gatherer.
“Adam, what am I going to do with you? Talk to me; what’s happening? Mo has told me some, but not enough. And I’m so sorry about your father. I know you weren’t close, but it is never easy.” Ida’s quiet, rough voice soothed him. She’d had a scare a few years earlier with lesions on her vocal cords. Thank God they turned out to be benign, although now she sounded like she smoked two packs of cigarettes a day.
“I’m at a Thanksgiving dinner.” No need to explain any further. He’d spent more holidays at their house than any other. They didn’t exactly celebrate, either, but they did gather the local L.A. flock of the unattached, orphans, and outcasts who had nowhere to be when all the stores were closed. Okay, it was L.A., so most stores weren’t closed, but things could still get depressing.
“Oh, Adam. Is it a family gathering? Is your friend there, the one Mo told me about?”
“‘Mo’ needs to learn to keep his mouth shut.”
“My wish is Mo’s command, young man; besides, he knows I worry about you. This is what you do: Get your butt back out there and mingle.”
“Mingle.”
“Talk to people. Share childhood stories. Trade recipes.”
Adam pulled his phone from his ear so he could stare at it in disbelief. “Ida. I’m good at investigating people and discovering their heinous secrets, not kitchen chat.”
She sighed, long and gusty. “All right, then, tell me about your ‘friend.’” Adam could hear the air quotes loud and clear. “Mohammad seems to think it is pretty serious.”
“As I said, Mohammad needs to learn to keep his mouth shut. There’s nothing to tell. It’s nothing, just a casual thing while I’m here.” Lying to himself was painful. Out loud it sounded like sacrilege. Though he couldn’t help remembering Micah’s “no big deal” when he was talking to Brandon back at the hospital.
A group of infiltrators chose that moment to barge into the kitchen, hands full of crockery, arguing about which football game to watch or whether they should replay the Macy’s parade. Adam clicked off without saying goodbye. Ida was used to his bad manners.
The kitchen was tiny, like the rest of the house. Adam was trapped at the wrong end of the horseshoe-shaped room. A huge Sub-Zero fridge had been installed where there used to be a door. Opening the refrigerator meant he had to find something useful in it, not just use it as a shield.
Predictably, the thing was stuffed to bursting. Adam stared at the contents, and they stared right back. Celery, apple cider, several dishes covered with foil and plastic wrap, three cartons of eggs. It was lucky Micah hadn’t brought anything.
“Here, dude, can you put this in there?” Adam stood up from his inventory of the vegetable bin and narrowly missed dropping whatever dish was being shoved at him.
“Uh, Joey?” Adam’s brain stuttered. While he was staring at the young nurse from St. Joe’s, he absently took the dish from his hands.
“Hey, Adam, I saw Micah in the living room! Didn’t know you were here! So . . .” Joey smiled mischievously. “You are the boyfriend? Dang it!”
Shaking his head at the man who apparently could only speak in exclamations, Adam smiled, trying to squash the uneasy feeling in his gut.
“I’m just here to take care of my dad’s property. I’m based out of L.A. Got to get back to work soon.” Of course he’d left all his stuff in a storage unit, so it wasn’t like he had anything concrete to go back to.
“Oh yeah, you’re a big-shot investigator, I remember one of the cops in the ER telling me that. Rumor has it you’re here because of that girl’s body. Your dad, huh? He lived in Skagit?”
“Gerald Klay.”
Yep, just like ripping off a Band-Aid. All the chatter in the kitchen stopped just as Joey yelled, “Get out, you are pulling my leg! Gerald Klay was your dad? For real?”
Which was worse? Talking about his ties to Skagit or whatever he had going on with Micah? There was a circle of hell he hadn’t yet considered.
“Joey James!” Sara’s voice cut across the thick silence. Joey cringed, turning toward the kitchen doorway, or what Adam was now secretly calling the portal to safety.
“Now that you have announced Adam’s business to the biggest group of gossips in Skagit,” she ran her fierce glare across the motley crowd in the kitchen, “do us all a favor and shut your trap. Start getting the tables set up.”
“You know I love you, Sara!” Joey yell-whispered over his shoulder as he edged out of the kitchen and away from her deadly gaze.
“I love you, too, Joey. Any more from you and you’ll be at the kids’ table!” She sighed and shook her head.
The rest of the crowd pretended they had heard and seen nothing, quietly putting their dishes on the crowded countertop and filing out.
“Sorry about that. About Joey. He’s the best, he just … ”
“Has no filters?” Adam hazarded.
“Exactly.”
The rest of dinner went smoothly. Sara seemed to have put the fear of dismemberment into most of her guests, thus his relationship to Gerald Klay was not up for discussion. There were plenty of other things to talk about: the body that had been found, and why Micah’s home had been vandalized and then set on fire.
While Adam had been hiding in the kitchen, Brandon Campbell and his wife Stephanie had showed up. Adam managed not to growl at him, since it was perfectly clear to anyone who had eyes that the beautiful Stephanie held all his attention. They were a striking couple, both over six feet tall, and Stephanie was unabashedly wearing four-inch heels. Adam appreciated women who were not afraid to rise above the crowd.
Stephanie introduced herself, apologizing for Brandon’s protective behavior. Adam waved her concern away. “I get it, I do. I’m glad someone has Micah’s back.”
“I heard from Joey that you’re here on an investigation?”
Adam wondered how Joey had heard the rumors about Adam investigating the death. He made a mental note to interrogate him later. Do the little shit good to quake in his boots a bit.
Sara had her living room crammed with a variety of card tables; the couch had been pushed against a wall to make more space. She had everyone get up and move after each course, even Adam. He managed to make small talk and keep his eye on Micah, who for some reason never ended up at one of the tables he was sitting at.
He fucking mingled.
Twenty-Eight
TWENTY-EIGHT
Thanksgiving was a nightmare. If Micah didn’t love Brandon like a brother, he would have killed him. Even so, maybe the only reason he didn’t was because he knew how much Stephanie adored him. However he managed it, Brandon kept Micah away from Adam during the entire dinner. What, did he think Adam was going to toss Micah to the ground and ravage him in front of Sara’s Thanksgiving dinner guests? His face heated. Looking up from his plate, he accidentally caught Adam’s gaze. Adam winked and licked his lower lip. Dear God.
The meal went on for what seemed like hours before Sara had the teens clear the plates and serving dishes into the kitchen. They all moaned, but Micah knew she had already made a deal with them: They got to take their pie and head downstairs to where she
had set up a gaming system. Once they were down there, the adults would leave them alone—plus they got to stay overnight, so their parents, or guardians in one case, could stay or go as they pleased.
Sara was incredible. Soon the living room was transformed from a dining area into a cocktail lounge. She had lowered the lights, left out only the smaller side tables, and lit a wood fire. It crackled and popped just like a sappy holiday commercial. The acoustic holiday music set a romantic note.
Micah shuffled around awkwardly. He wanted to sit with Adam, but Brandon was hovering. If he sat now, Brandon would be right next to him. Stephanie glanced over, a small smile coming to her lips. She stalked toward them, a huntress.
“Hey, Bran. Wanna go look at the stars for a minute?” she purred.
Good lord. Micah almost laughed out loud as he watched a helpless Brandon being steered out to the front porch where Sara had a porch swing hanging, ready for use with fuzzy blankets and an outdoor heater.
Strong arms circled his waist from behind. Adam rested his forehead against Micah’s shoulder. “Sit with me?” Adam asked, before taking Micah’s hand and leading him to one of the love seats near the fireplace.
Finally.
Twenty-Nine
TWENTY-NINE
Grudgingly, Adam drove out to Gerald’s on Friday with Ed and Tim to work on the inside of the house and maybe figure out the cars. He could give no shits about the cars. He’d put them out of his mind as much as he could; there were other things he’d rather deal with. However, Micah was busy. He had a meeting with his insurance agent to see what was covered and one with a builder for an estimate. The fire marshal had declared the house structurally safe, at least.