by TA Moore
Cloister had never really gotten the hang of that part.
Javi finally let go of his grip on Cloister’s arms. He ran his hands down Cloister’s back, along the taut lines of muscle, to grip his ass. A twitch of pleasure puckered Cloister’s asshole and pulled pleasure all the way forward to his balls.
“Don’t fish for compliments,” Javi said as he pulled his mouth away from Cloister’s. He laid sharp, bitten kisses along Cloister’s jaw as his teeth scraped through the wiry gilt stubble. “I asked you to come in, didn’t I?”
“So I’m better than a Jehovah’s Witness?” Cloister teased. He worked his hand down between their bodies to wrap his fingers around Javi’s cock. His knuckles grazed against the tight plane of Javi’s stomach as he pushed his thumb up from the base. Javi’s cock was solid, a layer of soft, velvety skin smoothed over the hard flesh and the pulse of blood. “I suppose that’s something.”
Javi swore a choked “fuck” under his breath and arched his body under Cloister’s. His cock thrust against Cloister’s palm and through his fingers, the head wet with precome as it bumped Cloister’s stomach.
“Of course, I’ve never met a Witness I wanted to fuck,” Javi gasped out raggedly. He grazed a wet-mouthed kiss along Cloister’s shoulder and bit down against the jut of his collarbone. The mingled pinch-pleasure of it scratched down Cloister’s spine. “So that could change.”
He shoved Cloister off him and rolled over on his side to pull open the bedside drawer. While he fished in the drawer, Cloister sprawled out on his back and reached down to grab his own cock. He played with the heavy length of it, his fingers slick with Javi’s come, as he admired the play of muscle in Javi’s long back. Against Javi’s dark hair and the glossy black of the sheets, his tanned skin had a cool tone to it that reminded Cloister of fall in Montana—the perfect fawn brown of leaves just before they fell.
Cloister sat up, his cock pressed against his stomach, and leaned over to press an openmouthed kiss against Javi’s shoulder blade. He grazed his hand down the side of Javi’s chest and along the curve of his waist to his hip.
“Thanks for staying with me the other night,” he said against the warmth of Javi’s shoulder. “I didn’t mean it when I told you to fuck off.”
Javi rolled back with a tube of lube and a condom. No promises meant safe sex. It was part of the deal.
“Yeah, you did,” Javi said as he ripped the corner of the sachet open with his teeth and pulled out the condom. He sprawled back with his legs spread as he rolled the rubber down over his cock to the base.
Cloister snorted and ran his hand up Javi’s thigh, the tickle of fine, dark hair under his fingertips, to cup his balls. The soft skin wrinkled under his fingers as he squeezed his handful and made Javi curse and his cock jump between his fingers.
“I did,” he admitted. He traced the tight thread of skin under Javi’s balls with his thumbnail. It made Javi let go of his latex-shiny cock so he could clench his fists in reaction. “I still appreciate it.”
Javi squeezed a handful of lube into his palm and coated his cock in it with two slow, thorough strokes of his hand.
“Prove it,” Javi said, his voice low and dark. He lay back on the bed with his shoulders against the pillows and his legs spread so his cock stood up wet and lewd from the crux of his thighs. “Come here.”
Want curled tightly in Cloister’s stomach, the hooks of it buried in his cock. It twitched hard and willing against his stomach, and his balls ached with a dull, heavy throb that made him squirm. He hesitated for a second—the idea of his battered, lanky body in Javi’s lap was more ungainly than erotic—but Javi grabbed his good wrist and pulled him across the bed.
He straddled Javi’s thighs and braced his hands—hand, after a thump of plaster on flesh made Javi wince—on his shoulders. His cock bounced in the air between them, and the mattress dipped under his knees as he shifted his weight forward. Javi reached between his legs and worked cold, lube-slippery fingers into his ass as he spread Cloister open.
“Fuck,” Cloister groaned as he dug his fingers into Javi’s shoulders. The long muscles in his thighs tensed and trembled like wires under his skin.
“That’s the idea,” Javi said.
He slid his hand free—Cloister’s ass twitched at the sudden emptiness—and shackled it around his cock. With his thumb he pushed against the heavy vein on the shaft in a slow, rough caress as he waited.
Cloister lowered himself onto it. The pressure against his ass as it nudged through the tight ring of muscle made sharp jolts of pleasure twitch down to his balls. He took a deep breath as he pushed down again until he could feel Javi’s thighs under his ass and felt the heft of Javi’s cock stretch him open around it.
“You’re beautiful like this,” Javi said. He stroked his hands up Cloister’s thighs to his hips and tucked his thumbs into the crease at his groin. “When you fuck and when you run, all that bone and muscle is like silk under your skin.”
Cloister leaned forward until he was nearly sprawled on top of Javi. He shifted his hand from the muscle of Javi’s shoulder to the headboard and twisted his fingers around the metal rods.
“And the rest of the time?” he asked.
Javi smiled thinly and kissed the sweat out of the hollow of Cloister’s collarbone. “The rest of the time, you look like someone you don’t want to cross in a bar fight.”
“Good,” Cloister said raggedly as he rocked his hips against Javi. He could feel the pulse of Javi’s cock inside him as he thrust back up against Cloister. “That’s what I’m going for.”
Pleasure simmered like warmed honey in his ass and slipped down into his balls. It was sweet and slow, almost gentle, but it wasn’t enough. Cloister tightened his fingers on the headboard and clenched the long muscles in his legs as he thrust himself roughly down onto Javi’s cock.
Sprawled under him, Javi grazed his teeth and tongue over Cloister’s shoulder and chest in wet, sharp kisses that marked the skin where no one could see. He scraped a bite over the tight bud of Cloister’s nipple with a jolt of sensation that Cloister couldn’t—in the moment—tell whether it was pleasure or pain, and let his hands wander appreciatively over the taut planes of Cloister’s body.
Pain curdled in Cloister’s thigh as he moved faster, more urgently, on top of Javi. The hot ache of it spread up the map of bruises into his hip and his lower ribs. He could feel it catch with each ragged breath, but it was worth it for what was on the other side of the wall.
Cloister pushed himself off the headboard and sat back so he could wrap his cold fingers around his cock. He jerked his fist impatiently along the shaft as he looked down at Javi. Hunger pulled Javi’s jaw tight and glazed sweat across his chest and in the trail of hair that arrowed down his lean stomach.
“Fuck me,” Cloister said. The words rasped out of him like a command, but the ache of how much he needed this undercut it with a ragged “Please?”
The plea made Javi swallow hard and lick his lips. He tightened his fingers on Cloister’s thighs and then relaxed. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he said.
“Then just hurt me enough,” Cloister said.
Dark, hungry temptation flared in Javi’s honey brown eyes, and he closed his hands on Cloister’s thighs again. It wasn’t the offer of pain. That wasn’t Javi’s kink. He wanted control, not bruises or blood, and Cloister had just given that to him.
“I did try to be nice,” he growled as he flipped them over.
Cloister cursed raggedly as the angle of Javi’s cock shifted and caught his prostate roughly as he slid out. His own cock was caught between the hard, sweaty lines of their bodies as they squirmed back into position. He saw stars as the shock of pleasure went off like a starburst along his spine. His wrist hurt as the cast bounced off the pillows, but he hardly noticed the hot-needle jab of pain.
“Son of a bitch,” he groaned out raggedly as he wrapped his legs around Javi’s lean waist and dragged him down for a sticky kiss and the uneven reminde
r. “And I didn’t ask you to be nice.”
Javi shifted his weight back onto his knees and snorted as he braced his hands against the backs of Cloister’s thighs. “No one ever does.”
He thrust into Cloister in one deep, quick stroke. Cloister gasped and arched up into him. He fumbled down between their bodies and grabbed his cock again and twisted his fingers around the shaft in time with Javi’s thrusts. Pleasure trembled and tensed in Cloister’s upraised thighs and pulled like a wire in his balls.
The sheets tangled under them and stuck to their sweat-wet bodies as they fucked. Javi buried himself balls deep in Cloister with fast, hard strokes that jarred the bed under him. His jaw was clenched, muscles tight under the skin, and he dug his fingers into the meat of Cloister’s thighs.
He abruptly pulled out, and Cloister arched off the bed with a groan of protest. His ass clenched around the sudden absence, and Javi shut him up with a kiss. He folded his body over Cloister’s as he fumbled between his legs. Then Javi discarded the condom off the bed and thrust the bare, velvet length of his cock against Cloister’s stomach.
Cloister wrapped his fingers clumsily around both their cocks to shackle them together. He groaned raggedly as he came, the mess of it smeared between his fingers and along Javi’s cock. A second later Javi rolled away from him and stretched out on the bed as he finished himself off with short, businesslike jerks of his clenched fist.
He wiped the come on his thigh and lay boneless and sated for a second. Then he rolled to the edge of the bed, sat up, and went back into the bedside table to find a wipe.
“If you want, I can go,” Cloister offered. “Sleep on the couch.”
His back still turned as he cleaned his hands and cock, Javi snorted. “You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?”
Cloister thought about it for a second as he stretched. He still hurt, but it felt worth it now. “Probably not.”
Javi lay back down and handed Cloister an unopened wipe to clean up his own mess. It was cold against his stomach and colder against his cock. He still felt sticky afterward, but he could grab a shower in the morning.
He closed his eyes and waited to see if he’d fall asleep. Before he quite managed it, Javi brushed his hair back from his forehead, and his fingers lingered on the edges of the stitched bruise over his eyebrow.
Cloister opened one eye to squint at him.
“I don’t fuck anyone else in my bed,” Javi said. “I can’t give you more than this, but I wouldn’t fuck someone behind your back either. Okay?”
“I know,” Cloister said after a second. It was even true. If Javi was nothing else, he was honest about where Cloister stood with him. The problem was Cloister’s, because for just one night, he’d wanted someone to lie. It didn’t seem like the moment to explain all that, though. So he just grinned and brushed the backs of his fingers along Javi’s forearm as he teased. “Wanna cuddle?”
As expected, the suggestion made Javi—who slept like a dead lizard and changed his sheets twice a week—recoil back to his side of the bed. “No,” he said, voice gone prickly again as Cloister laughed. He rolled over so his back was to Cloister. “Go to sleep before I change my mind about you staying.”
Cloister supposed it wouldn’t hurt to do as he was told, just this once… at least for a while.
CLOISTER ONLY ever had one nightmare, only one that he ever remembered, anyway. It was always the same night, but it didn’t always spool out in the same order.
The little metal car wasn’t Cloister’s. It was bright red and shiny, with white stripes of paint and all its tires. He’d never had a toy that didn’t have his brother’s name scratched on it and his brother’s fun battered into it.
It wasn’t Cloister’s, but he had it. He clutched it as though it were soft, as though it could be a comfort, as he hid in the long, dry grass. It was hot down there and dusty dry. The edges of the truck cut into Cloister’s sweat-soft hands as he clung to it.
Out in the dark, someone whistled. He couldn’t hear the dogs yet.
Something grabbed him, the collar of his shirt twisted around his neck like a wire, and he pissed himself. For a second he was too ashamed to be afraid. He was too old to have accidents. Everyone said that. The hand dragged him out of his hiding place and….
Cloister woke up with a jolt, unceremoniously ejected from his nightmare. He was breathless, drenched with sweat, and with the dream-sharp certainty that he had pissed himself. He hadn’t. Once he was sure of that, Cloister lay and stared up at the bare concrete ceiling as he tried to catch the threads of who he was and where. It took a minute for the spare walls and black silk sheets to be more real than the sharp grass and the fancy red Matchbox car. He finally sat up, put the cold tile floor under his bare feet, and rubbed his hand over his face tiredly.
Every couple of weeks—every couple of days, when it was bad—his brain dragged him back to relive his brother’s disappearance. It never helped. There were huge chunks of that night that were either gone or his brain didn’t want to admit they were there. The memory just stuttered and skipped like a broken film reel when it hit anything useful.
If it even was a memory. He’d never had a Matchbox car. Maybe he never saw whoever it was who took his brother. After so long, it was just his brain’s attempt to fill in the gaps.
Cloister supposed it didn’t matter. He’d never know. He got out of the bed and grabbed his sweats from the floor. A quick glance at the bed showed Javi was still asleep, flat on his back with one arm tucked behind his head. He even slept tidily.
The streetlights were still on and cast long, pale bars over the relaxed sprawl of Javi’s body. It looked like art. Cloister had only meant to see if he woke Javi up—he’d perfected the apology for just such an occasion over the years—but he lingered to admire the view.
Even without his expensively cut suits, and with his expensively cut hair tangled from Cloister’s fingers, Javi looked elegant. He was all lean muscle and long, smooth lines, his skin scuffed with marks from Cloister’s mouth and hands. Sleep softened the sharp, impatient lines of his face and exposed the lush curve of his mouth and how ridiculously thick his short, black lashes were against his cheek.
The bastard didn’t even have the common decency to snore or drool in his sleep. He just lay there and looked… fuckable.
Despite his exhaustion and the dull thud of background pain from his battered bones, Cloister’s cock twitched with lazy interest. Cloister let himself dwell on the idea that he could crawl back into bed and kiss all the shadowed hollows the light picked out. Sex was nearly as good as a run to shed the last sticky strands of his nightmares.
The twinge of interest that tugged at his groin wasn’t so lazy. Cloister was tempted for a second, but in the end, he’d spent too many nights awake to steal a night’s sleep from someone. He swallowed hard and dragged himself away.
He padded barefoot out of the bedroom and gently closed the door behind him. Bourneville was asleep in much the same position as Javi on the couch, flat on her back with her belly in the air. Her paws twitched occasionally as she chased some scent in her dreams.
“Bon,” Cloister said softly as he climbed into sweat-stiff bottoms. “Walk.”
She flopped gracelessly from asleep to awake as she scrambled to her feet. Her ears pricked eagerly in his direction, and she wagged her tail. Cloister felt a pinch of guilt. She was bored. A run through the streets of Plenty and a game of fetch with her favorite bit of rope wasn’t enough for a dog used to tracking meth dealers for miles every night.
Even when the department lost their patience and made Cloister use his holiday leave, he usually filled the hours with search-and-rescue work. Bon wasn’t used to downtime.
“We’ll back at work soon,” he promised. “In the meantime, we’ll get some more training. Find some dead stuff, huh?”
Bourneville grinned at him, all sharp teeth and tongue hung out the side of her mouth. Dead was one of the non-command words she always picked
up on, along with ball, treat, and cat.
She jumped off the couch, toenails loud against the floor as she skidded over to the door to wait for him.
Cloister turned his T-shirt right side out, realized that was inside out, and tried again. He finally dragged it over his head and tugged at it one-handed until it hung straight from his shoulders. It reeked a bit—dried sweat and a night spent on the floor didn’t improve the smell of anything—but not enough to worry about at 5:00 a.m. People had lower expectations before dawn.
He sat on the coffee table to pull his shoes on. Luckily he hadn’t bothered to untie the laces last night, because it took him fifteen minutes and his teeth to get them knotted.
“If I didn’t know better,” Javi drawled, his voice low and cat rough from sleep, “I’d think you had someone you needed to sneak off home to.”
Cloister looked up. “Good thing you know better, then.”
“You never told me what you worked out about Morrow,” Javi said as he leaned against the doorframe and crossed his arms. He was still naked, all soft skin and hard muscle. He watched Cloister notice that and smiled crookedly with a rare flash of unguarded warmth. “Or was that just an excuse to come by?”
“No.” Cloister lowered his foot back to the ground and rested his elbows on his knees. He picked absently at a chip in the edge of the cast and wondered if what he’d just said was entirely true. Guilt pinched at him easily, and he could be distracted, but he was used to that. It didn’t help—not him, not Janet—so he did his best to ignore it. He cleared his throat and admitted, “Not just an excuse, anyhow. I was going to call you about it later. I didn’t want to wake you up.”
Javi rubbed his hand over his eyes and blinked owlishly. “Too late for that.” He glanced at Bourneville, still patiently waiting in front of the door, and sighed. “Hold on.”
He pushed himself off the door and padded across the room to the narrow desk set up against the back wall. Cloister turned to watch him, mostly for the curve of his ass and the lean line of his back.