“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 ONLYever 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 evenwasa 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.Deadwas one of the non-command words she always picked up on, along withball,treat, andcat.
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?”
