Hiding the Moon Read online

  Either way, he didn’t like the idea of people messing with Jackson’s family—so he hadn’t told Lacey shit about them.

  “Yeah.” Cramer’s voice lost the tones of disgust and irritation that he’d used with Rivers. “Didn’t go well for him.”

  “He hates being left at home.” Jade Cameron’s voice was warm and maternal—sometimes. “You’re just lucky your neighbor hates Jackson.”

  Cramer chuckled meanly. “I think the old bag crushes after him. Seemed to think he was obscene in his running shorts.”

  “It’s forty degrees outside!”

  Burton shivered, and then Cramer surprised him—as he often did—with a slice of biting humor. “You could probably see his nipples through his shirt—most excitement she’s had in years.”

  Jade let out a hmmph. “Bring him by for dinner tomorrow night.”

  “Deal. Thank you.”

  But Burton didn’t hear any movement.

  “Jade?”

  “He’s… not getting better,” she mumbled.

  Cramer sighed. “He won’t talk about it. Any of it.”

  “I wouldn’t want to talk about it either,” she snapped. “But he’s got to. It’s…. God. I need him to get better. You understand that, right? For one thing, all those goddamned kids next door—the only thing keeping them from using again is him over the headset playing Overwatch.”

  Burton didn’t know what Cramer was doing, but at this point he was massaging the back of his own neck.

  “I am aware.”

  “And Mike has never had a friend like Jackson—it’s like he worries about him, all day, every day.”

  “I know that too.”

  “And why wouldn’t he talk to you? Or come home when he was lost? Or, for Christ’s sake, go running when the doctor said not to—”

  “I don’t know!”

  Burton actually breathed with him. In through the nose, out through the mouth. This man didn’t know it, but Burton was doing Lamaze breathing because this little family drama had become a part of his bones and blood.

  “I’m sorry,” Cramer muttered. “I’m sorry. I don’t know. All I can tell you is what my mother said—”

  “What does Lucy Satan have to say about this?” Jade asked, voice all attitude.

  “My mother, Taylor, says it’s going to take a long time before he talks. That even if he’s said something once, he’s going to have to talk about it two or three times, maybe, for it to sink in. And I can tell you what I know, which is that if he had his druthers he wouldn’t have told either of us a damned thing about those two days. He’d let us wander around thinking that everything in our lives is hunky dory and there’s nothing to worry about. So we’re lucky. We know just enough to worry. And that’s all I’ve got for you.”

  Breathe in through the nose, out through the mouth. This time it was Jade’s turn.

  “I’m sorry. It’s probably worse on you.”

  “It has its moments,” Cramer said grimly. “Running in December. For fuck’s sake, my balls shrivel just thinking about it.”

  “I didn’t know sharks had balls,” Jade said sweetly, for form. “I’m just messing with you. Keep doing what you’re doing. I mean, he’s not dead. That’s saying something.”

  Cramer grunted, and finally Burton heard the door close. He yawned and stretched and looked around to see if anyone was nearby. He sort of wanted to go pee while Cramer was commuting home.

  “So are they fucking now?” Patrick Manetti asked, leering.

  Burton rolled his eyes. “No, jackass. Cramer’s driving home. We got no coms on them in the car, and Rivers is on the computer, looking up classes. I’m gonna go take a piss—feel free to listen. Maybe you’ll hear one of ’em jacking off and your day will be complete.”

  “Gross. No, man, I’ll leave that homo shit to you.”

  “Just sac up and do the fuckin’ job,” Burton growled before he stalked away. He was pretty sure that would ensure that nobody picked up the com to listen, a thought that filled him with relief. He’d killed people in cold blood—bad people, but still. No remorse. All the sympathy of an alligator, and he had no regrets. And he’d still rank listening to these two people—who, by all accounts, had done nothing more than stop a serial killer on brains and guts alone—as one of the top three worst things he’d ever done.

  And listening to them make love….

  He suppressed a shudder, saving it for when the bathroom door was shut and he could have a modicum of privacy.

  Of course, he’d no sooner sat down than his phone gave three short bursts up against his thigh.

  Have you met them yet? The shark and the broken fish?

  Burton’s breath stopped in his throat and his bowels turned to ice.

  Yes, he typed numbly. They’re good men.

  I know. You’re watching out for them, right?

  Yeah. I’m monitoring their coms. It’s invasive as fuck. Finally—somebody he could say that to!

  I’m sorry. It must feel really dishonorable.

  It does. It’s so personal. I hate hearing them talk to each other when they think no one else can hear.

  And their sex gets you horny.

  Burton pulled in a sharp breath. Oh God. It did! It so did! And it occurred to him that he was talking to the one person in the world who might understand.

  Which only makes it worse!!!!! He was going to have to flush soon and walk back in there. Oh God.

  Well, it’s a good thing you’re the one listening. Anybody else wouldn’t respect them like you do.

  Burton stared at the screen hungrily. God. He needed to hear that. He’d been undercover before, had posed as an arms dealer, a crooked narcotics officer—once, God help him, as a coyote so that he could trap the real monsters who left people to cook in the desert. But he’d dealt directly with the bad guys, the scum, the dregs of the earth, and deception hadn’t bothered him in the least.

  Doing this, listening to two nice people make love, felt so horribly dishonest.

  I do respect them, he typed simply. They’re really decent people. The shattered fish—the description fit perfectly—needs time to recover from his wounds, but he won’t let himself have it. I keep wanting to butt in and tell him to just give it a rest.

  Burton’s hands were shaking, clammy with the relief of confessing this strange intimacy to somebody.

  Ernie’s next text was a shot of the sky in the desert, the last light of the winter sun lingering in the powder blue of the horizon, fading into a shiny obsidian blue-black, the stars as crystal on his phone as they probably were in person.

  That’s beautiful. He swallowed. Suddenly that peace, that sense of freedom, the heat of Ernie’s body next to him as he let his spirit soar, was the only thing he wanted in the world.

  It’s like you’re here with me.

  Except Burton wasn’t. Burton was hiding in the bathroom of an abandoned military base, getting ready to go listen to two men who didn’t deserve to have their privacy invaded, and lucking out because the other thing he’d be asked to do would be to carry out a hit on a possibly innocent victim.

  He’d just typed I’ve got to go but hadn’t hit Send yet when Ernie’s text came through.

  I miss you. I don’t know if that helps or hurts. But I think I have to tell you.

  Oh hell. I dream of your skin, your heat around me, the shyness of your smile. About how a thing I’ve done a thousand times was brand-new. Like our time was a cloud, and we’ll never find it again, and I’ll spend my whole life searching the heavens for that exact same cloud.

  He hit Send, thrust the phone in his pocket, and flushed, going to wash his hands. His phone buzzed against his thigh, and again, and one more time, but he couldn’t be seen mooning over a text, not in the bathroom.

  He waited until he got to the hall and gave his phone a businesslike glance.

  I’m waiting.

  Here on our cloud.

  Poetry. Me. We’re here.

  Burton couldn’t
afford a deep breath, or a harsh swallow, or even a fond look. He put the phone back in his pocket and kept his expression neutral, barely nodding as he passed Leavins, Lacey’s favorite new boy, down the hallway.

  Leavins gave Burton a sideways glance and muttered a racial slur under his breath.

  For a moment, Burton’s heart rate sped up, his anger reaction kicking in on instinct. But none of that showed. He kept his respirations even and lifted a disdainful eyebrow.

  Just that, with a careful roll of his eyes, and he kept walking.

  He was prepared for Leavins’s kick behind his foot, using his forward momentum to roll, coming up and whirling to give a chambered kick to Leavins’s shin. Simple and effective—Leavins went down like a dumpster of rotten squash.

  “You fuckin’ asshole—what was that—”

  Burton placed the toe of his boot up against Leavins’s lips. “You were so close behind me that you could have been wearing my pants. Next time you want to fuck with me, make sure I know it’s not you. Except now I will know it’s you, so if you want to get someone else to fuck with me, remember, I’ll always know it’s you. Always. You enjoy that. And maybe drag your sorry ass to the medic and see if he knows what to do with a bruised bone. But make sure he doesn’t have a sharp object in his hands when he sees you—he tried to remove a sprained wrist last week with a scalpel.”

  Poor Saunders—he wasn’t the brightest bunny in the forest. Somehow he’d gotten on an admiral’s shitlist, and Lacey had co-opted him as a medic. The kid maybe knew how to put on a Band-Aid—and that was only with instructions. Burton had needed to walk him through using an Ace bandage, and he didn’t have really high hopes for the patient’s survival after he left the room.

  If Saunders himself wasn’t the only morally decent person in this entire clusterfuck of an operation, Burton would feel sorry for anyone he had to treat. As it was, Burton was mostly grateful. If shit went sideways, Saunders had accidentally decommissioned three operatives in the last week, and those were men Burton wouldn’t have to fight.

  But walking away from Leavins right now, Burton wasn’t counting him among the guys out of commission. This fucker…. Burton had seen guys like this—usually at the other end of his scope. The idea that Lacey was actually training men to be like—oh hell, Burton didn’t even know his rank. He was on a supposed military base, and Burton didn’t even know this guy’s rank. Somebody was going out of his way to create assholes like Leavins to be bigger assholes with no respect for protocol, and it offended Burton to the pit of his balls.

  And it made him want to protect Ernie and Ace and Sonny even more.

  He was it. He was the guy standing between the people he cared about—and that was starting to include Rivers and Cramer and all their people—and this fucking viper pit of twisted delusions.

  He could practically feel Leavins sighting a target on his back, even as he turned the last corner to the com room.

  Once there, he spotted Patrick Manetti at his coms, listening in. Sonuvabitch.

  Manetti spotted Burton and pulled the headset off. “You were gone a while. Thought you’d miss something.”

  Burton regarded him with ill-concealed dislike. “He was driving home. Did they plan world domination when he went for Thai takeout?”

  “No,” Manetti grunted, handing the headset over. “It’s just taking a damned long time for you to find something. Lacey’s looking for a way to jam these guys up—why aren’t you finding it?”

  “Because all they do is fight and fuck!” Burton shot back unfairly. But he didn’t want Lacey’s people to move on them too soon, and he didn’t want them to know Rivers could barely run around the block at the moment. “That’s not my fault!”

  With a grunt, Burton pulled the earphones on and scowled until he caught the thread of who was speaking.

  Oh. They were listening to the home setup now. Cramer had just gotten in.

  “I got your favorite,” he was saying as Burton caught up. “Pumpkin cur—oh my God. You look awful.”

  “I just got out of the shower. Jesus, sue me for forgetting product.”

  “Goddammit, Jackson, is there any way I can talk you out of—”

  What followed was a muffled sound—one Burton was getting used to.

  “Mm….” Cramer was the one breaking off the kiss. “This isn’t going to make me stop nag—mm….” And some more. Apparently it did stop him from nagging, which might explain why these guys went at it like rabbits on Viagra.

  “What are they saying now?” Manetti demanded, and for the first time in his undercover career, Burton almost lost it and belted someone for non-cover-related reasons.

  “They’re kissing.” He stood up then and raised his voice. “For anybody wondering, Rivers and Cramer are about to have rabid homosexual sex. I assume there will be oral/genital, oral/anal, and anal penetration by both digits and penises. Does anybody need to listen to this for information or arousal purposes, because I can put this shit on speaker now if you all are that hard up.”

  Fifteen or so people in the com unit, and they all turned to stare at him with wide eyes—some of them more interested than others, even though they all claimed to be straight.

  But none of them wanted to admit they were interested. He was relieved at the first actual look of disgust he got, and then the others, until the entire room had rolled eyes and waved him off.

  And then he was left alone with two guys getting naked, in spite of Cramer’s best intentions.

  For a moment Burton was able to put his brain on “skate” and just listen to their sex noises like he was listening to white noise. Then Cramer gave a grunt and spoke.

  “No—no—not on your knees out here. Dammit, Jackson—we’ve got a perfectly good bed.”

  The image of Burton—Jackson—on his knees before Ernie—dammit, Ellery!—seared itself into Burton’s brain, and he had to fight to keep his breathing even.

  “But I was mid-blowjob here!”

  “Well, you can be mid-blowjob again—just on the bed.”

  Their conversation moved down the hallway, and Burton switched the feed to the bedroom, where they were still bitching at each other.

  “But you were digging it!” Jackson was saying, sounding defiant. “I mean, I know my way around a BJ, and you were liking that BJ—”

  “Yeah, I was digging it. You were giving me your best professional-quality blowjob—it’s top-notch.”

  Burton’s antennae pricked up at the term “professional-quality,” because he’d learned in bed those were never good words. But Rivers—Rivers was a different breed of alley cat.

  “Then what’s the problem?” And Burton could also hear the thread of hurt in his voice. Oh… damn. This was a tough one.

  Fortunately Cramer could talk his way through an ion storm.

  “C’mere,” Cramer demanded throatily. “C’mere and kiss me like you mean it.”

  “I always mean it.” Burton pictured the man in the jacket he’d gotten, not the one he’d given Lacey. Arms crossed, green eyes snapping, stunning face full of distrust.

  “Yes—but sometimes you mean it like you mean it, and sometimes you mean it like you want my attention on my orgasm and not on you. I’m not sure who taught you about sex—”

  Rivers cleared his throat, but Cramer kept right on going.

  “Besides her—but the person you’re with is supposed to be paying attention to you. I mean, I get you’re supposed to be God’s gift to manwhores, but you’ve got me. Maybe use me a little in this whole two-person interaction!”

  Rivers’s chuckle, wholly filthy, had Burton solidly on his side. For a moment.

  “You want me to use you?” Flirty, throaty, wholly sexual, Burton could admit it—if he hadn’t had those hours alone with Ernie, almost a month ago, the guy might have made his knees a little weak. “Hands and knees, counselor, and watch me use you.”

  Judging by the squeaking of the bed springs, Burton reckoned Cramer was no different, but then, God
help them both, the guy started talking.

  “You think… oh God… rimming me isn’t using me… oh wow… you’re good at that… dammit, Jackson….”

  He tried. Burton listened, keeping his face stoic, as Rivers apparently licked Cramer into submission.

  And then fucked him into the mattress.

  Their moans, harsh and unapologetic, filled his head, and he kept his shoulders back and his crotch under his desk to hide the unmistakable sign of arousal.

  “Goddammit,” Rivers panted. “Come.”

  “You. First.”

  Burton’s eyes popped open, and he almost chortled. That was just sneaky! He’d never realized how much power people wielded over each other in the bedroom until he’d heard these two guys negotiate their relationship while literally balls-deep in each other.

  “Augh!” And that there was Rivers, losing a game he hadn’t known he’d been playing. His orgasm was followed quickly by Cramer’s, and then… oh no. A pain sound, as Rivers collapsed on what was apparently a bum shoulder.

  “God, Jackson, are you okay—”

  “Fine, counselor,” Rivers slurred, sounding out of it and fond. “No worries. Overdid it.”

  “Yeah, I know.” There was some rustling then, and Burton imagined the two men righting themselves on the bed. Maybe they were snuggling under the covers. That would be nice. Kind. For all their snapping at each other, these moments were always rooted in kindness. “You overdid it all day,” Cramer said softly, his voice muted. “Care to tell me why? I mean, running today? It’s vile outside.”

  “My head was a sort of shitty place today,” Rivers admitted grudgingly. “AJ was at work, Mike was minding the gas station. Just… needed to do something.”

  Cramer grunted. “Wanna share?”

  “Nope,” Jackson said promptly. “Starving. Wanna eat.” Everything Burton had heard between them told him this was a lie.