“I didn’t expect you to,” Nic conceded. “But without me here”—he patted the mattress—“you can do so quietly.” He leaned forward, drawing Cam into a kiss that snuffed out his anger but not the hurt.
Cam retreated, resting his forehead against Nic’s. “How long will you be gone?”
“Four to six weeks.”
“What about Gravity?”
“I can manage the business end of the brewery from anywhere.” Nic curled a hand around the side of Cam’s neck, squeezing lightly and drawing his gaze. “It’s a good opportunity. I’ll have my own office and can set the agenda. Take cases that matter, not just the ones that guarantee a win. You know as well as I do that this is how DOJ works. We go where we can make a difference, where we’re needed.”
Like Cam had been needed in San Francisco so he’d left Boston behind.
And now Nic was needed in San Diego. But what about the people who needed Nic here? Was this thing between them not affecting Nic the way it was affecting Cam? “What happened to building something?” he whispered hoarsely.
Nic’s determination faltered and he twisted away, his back to Cam as he braced his heels on the bed’s foot rail. “I’ve never been good at construction. I’m better at demo.”
“That’s bullshit too,” Cam said, anger resurging but redirected for Nic, not at him. “Look at Gravity, at your USAO teams, at your work with the Bureau.”
“It’s too good, Boston. You, us, most of all. And the last time I had it this good . . .” Glancing sideways, Nic’s eyes were brimming with remembered pain. “I made a mess of things and lost it all. I can’t let that happen again. I can’t lose you and everything I’ve already built here.”
His breath hitched, torso heaving, and Cam’s attention was drawn again to the giant cypress on his back, to the spindly limbs that curled over Nic’s shoulders and to the mysterious GS in the center of its trunk. His biggest mess, Nic had once said. And now Nic didn’t want to make another. This was affecting him, maybe more than it was affecting Cam. And if Cam wanted a shot at building more, he couldn’t push right now. That would be a mistake he’d regret. He needed to give Nic the space to find his answers. “Okay, Dominic. Go to San Diego.”
Nic huffed a relieved sigh, shoulders dropping and curling forward. “You gonna let the argument go, just like that?”
Trailing a hand over his back, Cam slid to his side and rubbed his cheek against Nic’s, the brush of scruff against his own electrifying. “I’m thirty-six,” he rumbled in Nic’s ear. “Not a fucking teenager. I’m going to miss you like crazy, but this is a two-way street, one I’d like to keep driving on with you, the same direction.” He grasped Nic’s chin and angled his face toward him. “Do what you need to clear the roadblocks.” He palmed Nic’s cock with his other hand. “And fuck me good before you leave.”
“Christ, I’m an idiot,” Nic growled, right before he did exactly as Cam asked, proving himself smarter than he gave himself credit for.
Five weeks later, Cam was wondering who was smart and who was the idiot. He was leaning toward them both being the latter, phone and video calls a poor substitute, especially as they’d both had less and less time for those owing to work. He glanced at the ever-growing stack of admin paperwork on his desk, the pile teetering precariously. Assistant Special Agent in Charge came with more than just a pay raise, not that the extra cash went far in the Bay Area, especially when he was trying to keep up with a bunch of fucking millionaires.
A new mail notification flashed at the bottom of his screen and Cam groaned aloud, anticipating more busywork. Double-clicking the icon, he was halfway to hitting Print, his normal routine for admin emails, when he realized what it was—next week’s federal court calendar for San Diego. He’d set up the alert when the new month had rolled over without a firm word from Nic as to when he’d be home. Looking at the latest court calendar, which didn’t have D. Price on it anywhere, Cam deduced his answer was soon.
Which meant he needed to get his ducks in a row, namely on the case he was supposed to be working with Nic. Things had remained quiet during his absence, but with Nic returning, he’d be putting himself back in the line of fire should his father’s lenders get impatient again. Cam wouldn’t let him get hit. He’d committed to never losing someone else he loved, which now included Nic, the miserable weeks apart making that conclusion irrefutable even if he hadn’t let Nic in on that bit of information yet.
Pushing back from his desk, Cam left his office and strode through the bullpen. Bypassing the elevators, he continued down the long hall to “the cave,” the interior boardroom that had been converted into the cyber agents’ domain. He wove through the server racks to the workstations in back, finding the agent he needed at her desk, a wobbly pencil bun visible above three oversized monitors. While the other agents paused and acknowledged him, the rapid-fire tap-tap-tap of Agent Lauren Hall’s nails didn’t let up.
“If you don’t mind?” Cam said, tilting his head toward the exit.
The other agents gathered their things and scurried out, the flurry of movement finally attracting Lauren’s notice. Brows drawn and eyes narrowed, she looked stumped and seriously sleep-deprived. She was turning in her swivel chair, popping out her earbuds, when Cam plopped down behind the adjacent desk, the visitor chairs in front of hers made useless by the wall of screens.
“Something you can’t hack?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
Well, at least he had better news for her. “Nic’s on his way back.”
Her big blue eyes brightened, a spark of excitement—she was fond of poking the prickly bear and just generally fond of Nic—but then she reined it in, asking cautiously, “How do we feel about that?”
While he and Nic hadn’t told any of their friends about their relationship, Lauren had intimated she’d figured something was brewing between them. They hadn’t confirmed or denied.
“Like I need something to show for a month of work,” he answered.
She pressed her lips together like she wanted to say more.
He glowered.
She rolled her eyes, then spun back around to the monitors, some of the long brown waves coming loose from her bun. “Curtis’s bank accounts continue to dwindle,” she said.
While they hadn’t been actively investigating, they had set up alerts on Curtis’s accounts and installed extra security at the properties he still owned.
