Hiding the Moon Read online

  “Proud of yourself,” Ernie teased, still pulling his cheeks apart, ready and vulnerable and taking whatever Burton wanted to give.

  “Your body is amazing,” Burton said bluntly.

  “Then come inside.”

  That quickly, Burton was almost there. He thrust his fingers in to the hilt and buried his face against Ernie’s thigh, suddenly so damned close it wasn’t fair.

  “Now!” Ernie demanded, and that alone was enough to get Burton to wipe his hand on the sheets and shove up, dominating Ernie’s thinner body with his shoulders alone. He positioned his cock right… oh God. Right there. He’d seen the mechanics, of course, but looking down, seeing his body disappearing into Ernie’s… this felt magical.

  He was becoming a part of another human being.

  He’d done this before—but this was the first time he felt that magic. He looked into Ernie’s wide brown eyes, surprised, and fell.

  Tumbled.

  Deep and deeper, only his physical sensation remained.

  His body was exploding, atoms and quarks, and he pumped his hips desperately, needing to disappear completely into the warmth, needing that tight grip to make him come, spill, become part of his lover’s body in a way he’d never felt before.

  On the physical plane, Ernie whispered “Harder!” and Burton’s muscles trembled with the force of driving inside him.

  In his soul, in his mind, he was still tumbling through the sweet haven of Ernie’s eyes, as safe as he’d ever been in his life. Ernie tilted his head back, eyes closed, and cried out, and the scald of his come on Burton’s chest brought Burton back completely to his physical self.

  His physical self was complete, immediate, tingling from taint to toes, on the verge of an orgasm that would turn him inside out, and for a moment he was afraid. Then Ernie clenched and spasmed around him, and he had no choice. He had to take that leap, had to give himself over, allow orgasm to swamp him, capsize him, drag him under, and expect Ernie to pull him back to himself and not let him drown.

  He buried his face against Ernie’s neck and screamed, and Ernie ran his fingertips in soothing circles over Burton’s shoulders.

  “Sh…,” he whispered. “Sh… it’s all right. Look what we did. We made love.”

  “It’s not all right,” he whispered, voice muffled. “I’m not all right.”

  “I got ya,” Ernie told him, dotting his cheeks and forehead with tender kisses. “Don’t doubt that I’ve still got ya.”

  For how long? How long can we cling to each other? Oh Jesus, kid, I miss you already.

  “Kiss me,” Ernie demanded, and Burton, lost and afraid and still buried in his ass, did exactly what he asked. Their mouths opened, and that curious merging sensation, that loss of himself and gain of the things Ernie loved the most—that resumed. They were sliding inside each other, their souls, their bodies. Burton had conjured sex magic with all his other lovers, but he’d been the magician.

  He’d never been the magic.

  For the first time, he was part of the wonder and not just the performer on stage.

  With a moan he collapsed, pulling out of Ernie’s body and falling into the wrap of his long arms.

  “Forever,” Ernie said, like he was answering a question.

  “What?”

  “You asked how long. As long as you want me. I’m going to want you forever.”

  Hokum. Bullshit. Burton should have doubted everything that came out of his mouth.

  But instead he felt comforted. Relieved. His body tingled from release, and his soul throbbed from ripping away the veil of innocence he’d kept so fiercely wrapped around his desire.

  But part of him was comforted. A wonderstruck, childlike part of his heart was convinced he and Ernie were going to be together forever, and in that moment, that vulnerable, fragile moment after sex, he believed it. Burton fell asleep for an hour, safer in Ernie’s arms than he’d felt since he’d joined the Marines.

  He awoke with a jerk, Ernie’s head snuggled against his chest, and he had to smile when Ernie patted him like a kid.

  “You’re awake,” Burton grumbled.

  “I’m always awake at this time,” Ernie said.

  Burton shoved himself up on the bed, bare-chested, and Ernie rested his cheek against his midriff, fingers walking across his muscle groups just firmly enough not to tickle.

  “Why is that?”

  “World’s too loud in the day,” Ernie said. “Too many people, so close by.” He shuddered. “Albuquerque isn’t a big city either. But too big. About five thousand people is perfect. Just open stretches of desert feels weird—it’s like being in a sensory deprivation tank. But that many—there’s enough white noise to sleep.”

  Burton grunted. His family called it witchiness. His father held to this day this his great-aunt Gertie could read a person’s palm like reading their job résumé and family history all rolled into one. He didn’t necessarily have a problem believing in Ernie’s gifts—or believing that Ernie needed to be gentle with himself to sustain them.

  But he couldn’t figure out how it had earned the kid a bevy of his own personal assassins either.

  “You basically read people,” Burton said, thinking. “Good intentions, bad intentions—whether they mean harm to you or others or not. Who knows about this?”

  “The Navy,” Ernie said guilelessly.

  Burton knew his eyes grew really large.

  “And that happened because….”

  “My parents died,” Ernie said, his voice dropping. “I was… I was seventeen. And… I mean, they did all the right stuff with a will and everything, but… I was so close, you know? They didn’t figure on going out together, and they didn’t appoint a guardian or whatever.”

  Burton started rubbing gentle circles on his back, just like he would if Ernie were a girl in distress. Ernie’s entire body went slack against his, and their nakedness became important. They were skin to skin, and Burton had become the chief comforter.

  This was… a big deal. This was how people became close.

  “So, you went into the foster care system.” That was logical, right?

  “Yes. My first family wasn’t….” Ernie shuddered. “I was so sad, and when the older brother tried to comfort me… it was easy at first, to let him touch me. And then… then there he was, hands everywhere, and my own… grief I guess, rolled away, and it was like being touched by a greasy octopus all over my body. So I started to scream, and the whole world showed up, and it was a big fucking mess.”

  “Oh, baby….”

  “Mm.” Ernie was so boneless. Like a light-boned cat or a really sleepy small dog. “But I went back into the system, and the next family… the social worker walked me to the front door, the mom answered, and I said, ‘She’s glad I’m here. She needs more money for her coke dealer.’”

  Burton let out a chuff of air. “Well called.”

  “Yeah. Well. I was taken to a sort of holding place, an orphanage of sorts, and that was all kinds of bad. I’d stay awake all night, terrified, because I could feel all the bad—and so much of it wasn’t the kids’ fault, but it was there. And finally, the week before I turned eighteen, a guy in a uniform showed up and said, ‘We have a special ROTC program just for kids who need scholarships.’”

  Burton stared. “That’s convenient. And unlikely. And—”

  “And I slept in barracks for a year. I mean, I ate, had PT, got individual martial arts training, and didn’t have to sleep near too many people. But… I was, you know. All alone.”

  “What did you do there?”

  Ernie shuddered. “Do I have to talk about that? It….” His voice dropped. “I’m hungry. Can we eat? I don’t want to talk about that anymore. We had donuts hours ago. Can we have dinner now?”

  Burton took a deep breath. He was pretty good at interrogation—had done it a number of times on the job and overseas. But Ernie felt warm and sweet—they were naked together. They were close. Pushing him now felt like a violation.
<
br />   And this kid had been violated plenty.

  “Yeah, kid. Sure. Pick something out of the takeout menu. We’ll order in.”

  Ernie’s smile at him was transparent—he’d played Burton like a violin. But he also seemed grateful, maybe because Burton had allowed himself to be played.

  “Can we hear stories about you now?” he asked, all but batting his eyes.

  “Don’t you know everything?” This was important, actually. How far did the gift extend?

  “I know… I know good intentions or bad intentions. I get bursts of specifics, of speech, of pictures, but that’s not consistent. When I think hard, I can scan the people around me for what they think about me or about the people I’m with. It’s… difficult. If, say, a group of people were to walk into the hotel looking for us specifically, it would wake me up like a smack to the face.”

  Burton stared at him. “That’s happened to you before?”

  Ernie nodded. “Oh yeah. It’s sort of how I left the military. But I’m hungry. Let me get food first. I swear I’ll tell the rest.”

  Burton wasn’t sure what made him cup Ernie’s cheek. “My father’s name is Roger. My mom is Anita. I have two little brothers. Eddie’s a business major, and John can play the violin like a dream. I was engaged to my high school sweetheart all the way through two tours with the Marines, but I broke up with her when I joined black ops, because it didn’t seem fair to be in a relationship with someone when I was going to be a ghost in her life. And I love Chinese food. Good Chinese food. If your gift can help me tell the good stuff from the weakshit tempura chicken in red sugar glaze, I’ll be forever grateful.”

  Ernie’s eyes grew big and limpid. “My parents were Glen and Sharon. They… they used to tuck me in every night, even when I was seventeen. They were my… my scale for good. If someone had a heart like my mother or father, they were good. When… when I was suddenly in a world with people not like that….” He bit his lip.

  “You were helpless,” Burton whispered.

  Ernie nodded. “I… I had to work really hard to find… to find a life that wouldn’t make me insane.”

  “I’m so sorry I ripped that away from you.”

  And this next smile—shaky, hurt, and glorious. “I’m not. I might never have known what sex was for. It was beautiful. But I will miss my cats.”

  Gently Burton placed a kiss on his forehead. “I’m sure there’s somewhere else, somewhere small, where you can feed every cat for miles.”

  “You understand.”

  “I’ll do what I can for you, Ernie.”

  “Chinese food.” But Ernie didn’t move. He just stayed there, looking at Burton like he held the secret of peace in a painful world.

  Burton leaned down and claimed his mouth and drank in his trust like wine. He’d make it happen. He’d save this boy. Maybe not for himself—who lived a life where that was possible? Where he worked as an assassin but had this much sweetness in his home, his bed?

  But Burton would save him. It was his mission now. It was why he took the job in the first place.

  Ernie’s taste flooded him and Burton groaned, falling into the kiss in earnest.

  Of course it was.

  BURTON CLEANED up the last of the Chinese food at around two in the morning. Ernie helped him—well, helped by licking some of it off his chest—and then they ended up in bed again, and this time when Burton fell back against the rumpled sheets, he felt well and truly done.

  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d fucked himself out like that—but he obviously had been missing something in the meantime.

  “What are you thinking?” Ernie asked, snuggling in against his chest. “I’m thinking I wish I’d charged my phone—I need to read something right now. It’s reading time, if I’m not out at the club, you know?”

  “Mmm….” Burton’s phone had a reading app. “What do you like?”

  Ernie’s chuckle was so wicked. “Action adventure and spy stuff.”

  Burton pulled it up for him and paused, phone in midair.

  “You want the rest of my story,” Ernie said softly.

  “Please. I need to know what I’m dealing with here.”

  Ernie chuffed out air. “Whatever I was supposed to be doing, I failed. I mean, you’d think a ranking officer would understand, right?”

  “What didn’t they get?”

  “That good and bad are subjective!”

  Burton blinked. “That’s pretty fucking obvious, actually.”

  “Right? But they would ask me to talk to a guy and tell them if he was good or bad. I asked them what sort of criteria they wanted—because I’m not a moron! And they said, ‘Just good or bad, son.’ So, well, I’d tell them. Except… I guess I thought ‘good’ was someone who wouldn’t kill without cause.”

  Burton took a quick breath. “That’s my general definition too. Someone who’s not cruel. Someone who’s kind to all people, not just special friends.” He didn’t mention racism—he didn’t have to, he figured, because Ernie patted his chest unhappily, like he was apologizing for something.

  Hell, wasn’t Ernie’s fault.

  And this other thing didn’t seem to be either.

  “That’s what I thought,” Ernie said, voice dropping. “But they wanted someone who would… you know. Follow rules. Regardless. So, like….”

  Burton’s heart turned cold and pumped ice through all his veins. “So, like, someone who would look at a picture of a clueless club kid who fed every stray cat in town and take him out without asking why.”

  Ernie shrugged. “And I could have told them that—but they kept saying they wanted someone who could be molded into the perfect soldier. Eventually, every man I shook hands with gave me a sweat-screaming, wet-the-bed nightmare. One day they just… just took me to Albuquerque. I have no idea even why that city, although it wasn’t so bad, really.”

  “Maybe they thought the same thing you would,” Burton said thoughtfully. “Maybe they thought it would be a place where not too many voices were in your head.”

  “Well they were fuckin’ wrong,” Ernie said unhappily. “They gave me money for my education—”

  “Which you couldn’t use.” Burton remembered those grades—someone who wanted an education but who probably couldn’t manage all the people.

  “Yeah.” He sounded so disheartened. “They added a year’s worth of cash in the bank on top of my inheritance and an honorable discharge. I… I have no idea what happened next, but… but I’m telling you, some of the men I had to assess….” He shuddered.

  “Any names stick out?” Burton had seen a lot of good men in the military. But he’d seen the few bad apples too. The ones who came to the States from deployment and beat up their wives and made the news with a lot of blood on their hands. They weren’t his job—weren’t his business—but sometimes he really wished they were.

  “This one guy….” Ernie sighed. “Had red hair and this ugly knife scar across his face—”

  Burton sucked in his breath. “Galway,” he muttered. Oh Lord—he knew what had happened to that guy, and it was bad news.

  “Whatever. Anyway—he liked hurting people. And when I told my CO that, he promoted the guy. Another guy named Owens…. God, the inside of his head was like a dirty toilet. He… he was definitely going to kill. And a bunch more.”

  Oh hell.

  “Ernie,” Burton said, his voice dropping to a dangerous quiet.

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m going to call some friends in the morning. Some people who will take you in, and not ask questions, and be kind to you.” It had been his plan from the first—but it seemed even more urgent now. “But I need you to do me a favor.”

  “Why can’t I stay with you?”

  Burton remembered Jason’s warning that he was on his own. “Because I’m about to find out how to join this unit. You wouldn’t happen to remember your CO’s name, would you?”

  “Commander Karl Lacey,” Ernie said promptly. “But you’re… w
hat? What branch are you?”

  “Multijurisdictional covert operations.” Burton kept his voice bland, and Ernie rolled his eyes.

  “Black ops. I’m not stupid.”

  “You are if you mention me to anybody but my friends in SoCal.”

  Ernie sighed. “You’re going to… what? Infiltrate the enemy? Can you do that?”

  Burton shrugged, feeling sleep pull at him. “It’s my job,” he said, yawning.

  “Here. Give me your phone—”

  “Only that app,” Burton said, unworried. Yeah, his phone could be a scary place—if he hadn’t locked everything down but the entertainment apps.

  Ernie snorted. “I’m not stupid. I don’t want you to have to kill me for real.”

  “For real?”

  Ernie snuggled back into his arms. “Didn’t you tell your handler I was dead?”

  “I said I walked away—”

  “But he assumed. No, that’s fine. I can be dead. As long as I can read this book on your phone and maybe play Two Dots.”

  “All the scary stuff is locked,” Burton said with a yawn.

  “Yeah. I know. But I’m not going to tempt fate.” Ernie smiled, so sweetly Burton’s heart about broke. “I mean, we’ve had this night. How much better can my life get?”

  He started reading then, and Lee Burton, who trusted nobody, yawned and fell asleep with Ernie on his chest.

  He woke up a few hours later, and Ernie was right where Lee had left him, phone off and shoved under the pillow. His mouth was parted just a little, and he was snoring softly.

  Burton paused and stroked his hair from his face. “Okay, my boy, I’m going to find a place for you to be safe for a while. If I’m any sort of person at all, I’ll find you a home before this is over, just so you know.”

  “You’re my home,” Ernie mumbled. “Two more hours, Burton. Then we’ll be on the run.”

  Burton didn’t say anything, thinking about how this kid needed some peace and Burton was the last person to give him that. Thinking about how he was going to just leave the kid with strangers and run back into an operation where he might not talk to anybody for months. Thinking about how this kid deserved so much more than just a wonderful night and a promise that Burton might not be able to keep.