by TA Moore
“I don’t do everything you want,” Cloister pointed out, his voice hitched and breathless.
Javi made a skeptical sound as he freed his hand and pulled the cheeks of Cloister’s ass apart. He pressed the head of his cock against the slick hole and felt the resistance as he pushed forward.
“I beg to differ,” Javi said as he reached forward and gripped Cloister’s shoulder. He could feel Cloister’s pulse against his fingers and around his cock as he slowly pushed inside him. Pleasure flared and crackled along his nerves like a campfire, a hot coal of heavy lust and sharp, bright sparks of pleasure that singed along his nerves. “Because I definitely want this.”
Javi reached over the jut of Cloister’s hip and grabbed his cock. It was hard and still wet, sweat and come and spit rubbed from base to tip. Javi pumped his hand along it in firm strokes as he worked his cock deeper into Cloister’s ass.
It stole whatever smart remark Cloister was about to make. He just groaned, breathless and wordless, and let his head drop forward as he panted. The bony jut of vertebrae in the nape of his neck looked prominent and vulnerable under the close crop of his tawny hair. Javi used his knee to nudge Cloister’s legs farther apart so his cock reached deeper and he could fold himself over the broad span of Cloister’s back and kiss the sweat-salted knob of bone.
Cloister twisted his head around to graze a clumsy kiss over the corner of Javi’s mouth, a quick pass of lips and a tug of sharp teeth. It prickled a different pleasure down Javi’s back to tangle sweetness through the weight of lust in his hips.
“I like you, Agent Merlo,” Cloister finally got enough breath to drawl out. “And whether you like it or not, you can’t stop me.”
Give it a month, and Javi wouldn’t need to. Either Joel or Kincaid would do it for him. It would make it easier when Javi had to leave, he supposed. That sounded reasonable, but Javi suddenly found it hard to believe. It wouldn’t be easy. In fact, if Kincaid hadn’t already stamped an expiration date on this, Javi would probably have panicked at how not easy it would be.
He might anyway. Later.
“Your funeral, Witte,” he said.
Javi shifted, hooked his arm over Cloister’s shoulders, and dug his fingers into Cloister’s tensed muscles. He twisted his hand along Cloister’s cock in time with each thrust that buried his cock in that ridiculously beautiful ass. Cloister braced his arms against the counter and ground back against him, his breath ragged as he panted through each thrust.
Sweat filmed their bodies as they fucked. Javi dragged his thumb over the firm, come-wet head of Cloister’s cock and briefly broke his rhythm to reach down and give Cloister’s balls a quick, hard squeeze.
“Fucker,” Cloister groaned into his forearm. He came with a shudder, his come caught in Javi’s fingers, and his legs gave under him. The length of his body sprawled across the counter, his stomach creased where the sharp edge of the Formica dug in. Javi wiped come on Cloister’s thigh and stepped back. He admired the boneless, sweaty sprawl of Cloister’s body, lewd against the summer-holiday domestication of the Airstream kitchen as he jerked off with an efficient three strokes of his clenched fist.
His orgasm squeezed between his fingers and washed honesty through him. For a second he knew exactly how he felt about Cloister, but luckily it didn’t last long enough that he had to acknowledge it.
He wiped his hands on the discarded shirt—his now, he supposed, so he’d have to buy Frome another—and peeled Cloister up off the counter.
“If you lived in a house,” Javi said as he cupped a dazed Cloister’s chin in his hand and dropped a kiss on the bitten, parted lips. “It would have taken a lot longer for us to have fucked in every room.”
Cloister smiled under his lips and leaned his hips back against the counter. He wrapped his arm around Javi’s waist and pulled him in closer. The kiss left Javi’s mouth as he trailed his lips down his jaw to his throat, then farther, to press against the pad of the gauze bandage. “There’s always the bathroom.” He rubbed a circle in the small of Javi’s back. It was sticky and sweaty and vaguely tacky, slouched in the kitchen they’d just fucked in, and Javi didn’t particularly want to move. “You sure you’re okay?”
It was one thing to fuck Cloister. Javi wasn’t going to pretend—not anymore—that it didn’t matter, but it was just sex. He could get sex anywhere. When had been the last time someone he took to bed actually gave a damn about anything other than what his cock could do for them?
When was the last time he’d wanted them to?
“I ruined a good shirt,” Javi said dryly. He absently raked his fingers through Cloister’s hair and quietly admitted, “For some reason it’s harder to be responsible for someone’s death when you didn’t pull the trigger.”
There was a pause, and then Cloister quietly murmured “I know” against his shoulder.
CHAPTER TWENTY
IT WASN’T the first time Cloister’s nightmares had woken Javi up. They weren’t physical—Cloister didn’t flail or kick in his sleep—but they left the aftertaste of it in the air. It reminded Javi of a crime scene where the violence had left its imprint on the room. Cloister’s nightmares had a presence to them, half the bitten, metal-salt smell of fear and half the dread that bled out of Cloister like the chill of a winter night.
“They’re going to make me see a shrink because Macintosh blew his brains out in front of me,” Javi said through a yawn as he sat up. He crossed his legs under the crisp cotton sheets—they felt nicer than before, and he briefly entertained the notion that Cloister had bought them for him—and watched Cloister’s shoulders slowly unclench as he rubbed his scarred knee as though it were a rosary. On the floor Bourneville did the same, her chin on Cloister’s knee as she waited for him to get back from wherever he’d been. “I could drive up to LA for it, but they’d probably accept the department’s psychologist instead. What are they like?”
Cloister chuckled. He rubbed his hand over his face and up into his hair. Pale hanks of hair stuck out between his fingers. “What do you want to know?” he asked. Bourneville whined and put a paw on his knee. “If they’re shit because they can’t fix me? Or if I’m shit because I can’t be fixed?”
Out of Javi’s mouth, that would have been vicious, the clear end to the conversation. Cloister just sounded amused and tired.
“I…. Neither,” Javi said. “It’s not my business.”
Cloister leaned over to bury his fingers in Bourneville’s thick ruff and give her a reassuring shake.
“Drive to LA,” he said. “Dr. Mangan is okay, but our HR department isn’t what you’d call discreet. When Green—one of the K-9 handlers over in San Diego—lost his dog and his nerve—it got out. Nobody could pin down who spilled it, so….”
He shrugged and grabbed a pair of shorts from the wardrobe to pull on, one-handed and clumsy as he hitched the waistband up over his hips. The light from the window, still dim, but closer to dawn than midnight from the color, picked out the shadows under his collarbones and down his spine.
Javi watched him and wondered whether that was an invitation to a conversation or just a heads-up.
“I’ve seen doctors,” Cloister said as he sat down on the end of the bed to pull his shoes on. He didn’t look at Javi as he hooked his finger into the back of his sneaker to unfold it. “Psychiatrists, psychotherapists, hypnotherapists. Quacks, priests, faith healers. My mom took me to all of them—anyone she thought she could fix me, could make me remember what happened that night, who took my brother. They couldn’t, but she always believed in the next miracle. My stepdad put his foot down eventually, but that only made her go behind his back.”
“At least he tried,” Javi said.
Cloister shrugged and yanked on his other shoe. “People always try. Then they give up because it’s hard.” He snapped his fingers to bring Bourneville to heel and gave a soft, humorless laugh under his breath. “Maybe it’s for the best. If you’re right, Jessie Macintosh went all out to protect her kid, faked
their deaths, and disappeared, and what good did that do in the long run?”
He paused on his way out the door, an impatient Bourneville shoving between his knees, and looked back.
“Sorry,” he said.
“For what?”
“Waking you,” Cloister said. He smiled wryly and rubbed the back of his neck. “Being a jerk. When I get back, if you still want to tell me about—”
“No,” Javi interrupted. He never actually wanted to tell Cloister. He just thought he should. It could wait. “Wrap this case up. Then we can talk about Phoenix.”
Cloister tilted his head and gave him a crooked smile. The dim light blurred the dimples it cut in his cheeks, but it still lit that just-about-handsome face into something lovely. His chest was bare, the ink and bruises on his side blurred into one monochrome patch against the golden skin.
“I’ve told you, Merlo,” he said. “I like you, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
He finally gave in to the nudge of Bourneville’s nose against his knee and left.
“Wanna bet?” Javi asked the space where he had been.
FOUR HOURS later Javi took a coffee from Sean and sat back on the private investigator’s soft leather couch. He took a sip of the bitter black brew as he waited for Sean to fold his lean, suit-clad body into the seat opposite.
“I should probably have asked this before I made the coffee,” he said. “Do I need to call my lawyer?”
“Unless something has changed since I left the office yesterday,” Javi said, “you’re not under suspicion for anything right now.”
Sean nodded and took a drink of coffee. “I saw Frome on TV this morning.” He leaned forward and set down the coffee on a torn envelope that, from the coffee ring stains on it, had been used as a coaster before. “He identified the shooter at the hospital yesterday. Andrew Macintosh. Ten years, and no one’s thought about the man. Now all of a sudden I can’t get away from him. Does this have something to do with Tommy?”
“Not exactly,” Javi said. “How well did you know the family?”
“I didn’t,” Sean said.
“You knew them well enough to think Tommy Macintosh needed your number to call for help.”
Sean slouched back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. His biceps strained against the fitted cotton as they tensed. “Yeah, well, you’ll have to excuse me. The last time the FBI came around to ask about how I did my job? I lost my badge. I’ve also lost my husband, half my house, and all my friends. You can understand that I’m not eager to put anything else on the line.”
“Did you kill the Macintosh family?” Javi asked.
“No.” Sean sat up straight in his chair. “Jesus, no. Nothing like that.”
“Then I don’t care,” Javi said.
Sean reached for the coffee, studied Javi over the chipped rim as he took a drink, and was apparently convinced by what he saw.
“I didn’t break any laws,” Sean said. He tapped his thumbnail against the side of the cup. “But when you’re one of, maybe, three cops who can say that in the station? It doesn’t do you any favors. When everything went down with Macintosh, I didn’t want my name attached to that. It would have given my captain the reason he’d been looking for to bust me down to traffic… or just get rid of me altogether.”
“And what does that have to do with my question?” he asked.
Sean stood up, walked over to the office’s narrow window, and looked out, one hand shoved into the pocket of his trousers. The silence lasted long enough that Javi thought he wasn’t going to answer, but just as he was about to ask again, Sean cleared his throat.
“Macintosh had plenty of guys with fewer qualms than me to do his dirty work for cases,” Sean said. “I knew that. Everyone knew that. So I should have known what he was up to when he offered me that first job.”
“To follow his ex.”
Sean nodded. “He said it was about spousal support, that she’d basically moved in with some guy, and he’d get his payments cut if he took it to court. That when I testified in one of his cases, against one of his clients who assaulted a hooker for saying no, he’d been impressed with my integrity. Except it turned out he just wanted creeper photos of his ex on the treadmill. It turned out that all the jobs he had me do for him were like that—petty, nasty. I worked it out eventually. I made him look bad in court, called his client pathetic, and he wanted to make sure I got it.”
“That he could buy you.”
Sean nodded and lifted his coffee mug in a sardonic toast. “And he was right. I needed the money. I always needed the money back then, and he never asked me to break the law. So it was easy enough to justify. He’d get someone else to do it, after all. The photos would get taken, so why not put the money in my pocket? At least I didn’t get off on it.”
Technically Sean still hadn’t answered Javi’s question, but the pieces were all there.
“He had you follow his wife.”
“Mostly,” Sean said.
“Did he think she was cheating on him?”
“No. Macintosh just liked to have a dossier on everyone in his life, something to keep them in line if he needed to. I don’t think he even thought it was weird.”
“Was she cheating on him?”
Sean turned around. “I never told him,” he said. “If he found it, it wasn’t from me. It wasn’t my fault.”
“Who?”
Javi was pretty sure he already knew the answer. It occurred to him that morning when Cloister talked about how few parents would actually go this far for their children. The number of practically grown half siblings who’d do the same had to be fewer and farther between. Even if Andrew Macintosh Junior was willing to give up everything—his college spot, his dad’s money, contact with his own mother—why would Jessie have risked his involvement? A single second thought and he’d have ruined everything. Unless she loved him too.
“Andrew Junior.” Sean confirmed what Javi had already, more or less, been convinced of. “It wasn’t new, not from the way they acted with each other, but they said they were going to stop.”
“You talked to them?”
Sean shrugged and rubbed his jaw. “I got careless or cocky… or both. They were at this restaurant—out of town, along the coast road—and when Junior got up to go and piss, I tried to get closer for a better picture of Jessie. Turned out there was a line at the gents, and he was happy to piss outside like a man.”
They both grimaced at the same time. Most law-enforcement officials had some story about how they got made on a stakeout by some random number-generated twist of fate.
“So they paid you off?”
“No,” Sean said as he gave Javi a sour look. “Junior smashed my camera and beat the shit out of me. The restaurant called the cops on us. Jessie, the wife, begged me not to press charges. She said that Macintosh would kill them or have them killed, and she promised that this was the last time.”
“Did you believe her?”
“That he’d kill her? No. Not then,” Sean said. “But he’d have never let them go either. He’d have held it over their heads for the rest of their lives. Like I said, he was an asshole. So I didn’t press charges, and I didn’t tell him anything. Not that it made any difference. After what happened I guess someone spilled the beans to him. Hope they could live with themselves afterward. I know I had trouble. What does it matter now, though?”
“I don’t know yet,” Javi said. “If it turns out to be useful, I’ll let you know.”
Sean made a sour face and drained the rest of his coffee. “Good of you,” he said. “Look, you have to tell Witte about this?”
Javi lifted an eyebrow. “Should I be the one getting jealous?” He was a little surprised to find that it was only mostly a joke, a possessive bristle hidden under his smirk.
Sean chuckled. “You’re more my type,” he said, his dark eyes appreciative as he gave Javi a once-over. “I like a guy who puts in the effort to look good. Witte’s just… the
sort of cop I wish I’d been.”
He ended on an awkward shrug, but he didn’t need to put it into words. Javi got it. It was why he didn’t want to tell Cloister about Phoenix. When there was no way you were going to live up to someone’s example, the best you could do was hope they didn’t find out.
“If I don’t have to, I won’t,” he said. “I can’t promise, though.”
Sean looked resigned. “I suppose I wouldn’t either.” He sat down behind his desk and sat back. The chair under him creaked as it reclined a few inches. “Anything else?”
The coffee was bitter and lukewarm at that point. Javi took a fortifying drink anyway.
“What if I were your client,” he said. “Could I get a promise of confidentiality out of you then?”
Sean lifted his eyebrows in surprise as he sat straight up again. “You want to hire me?”
“I’m considering it,” Javi said. “I need to find out some information on someone, and I need it done efficiently and discreetly.”
“My middle names,” Sean said. The surprise had faded, and he looked cocky again as he grabbed a notebook and pulled it over the desk toward him. He flicked open the cover and grabbed a pen. “Is it Witte? He says he doesn’t have any secrets, but trust me, he does.”
Javi set down the coffee on the envelope coaster.
“Timothy Kincaid,” he said. “SSA Kincaid of the FBI’s LA office.”
Sean had written half of that down before the pen trailed to a stop on the page. He stared at Javi with suspiciously narrowed eyes.
“Are you fucking with me?” he asked. “You want me to investigate an FBI agent?”
“You can say no.”
Sean clicked down the pen nib. He folded his arms and braced them on his desk. “No,” he said. “Unless you can convince me this isn’t a bad idea?”