Javi didn’t thinkhewould.
Chapter Nine
“ThisiswhyIwanted to keep things casual,” Javi groused.He pulled the carafe from the coffee maker—a top-of-the-line machine with Wi-Fi capability that putting into the corner of his kitchen had been Javi’s version of putting down roots—and topped up his cup.Steam wreathed his fingers as he poured.“If there wasn’t an ‘us,’ then Kincaid wouldn’t have come after you.”
Cloister waited for the crippling jab of insecurity to hit.It didn’t.He was surprisingly OK with Javi’s regret over formalizing their relationship.It was probably something to do with the fact that Javi was fresh from the shower, naked except for an expensive black cotton towel slung around his waist.Although Cloister couldn’t pinpoint whether the casual intimacy of the moment undercut the claimed neglect, or if he was just distracted by the beads of water on lean, sharply carved shoulders.
“He came for Bourneville too,” he pointed out as he picked a rasher of crisp, greasy bacon out of the breakfast roll he’d grabbed on his way here.He slipped it to Bon under the table, and she snatched it out of his fingers.
Javi turned around.He leaned back against the counter, the sharp edge of dark-stained oak pressed against his hips, and crossed his arms over his chest.His attempt at a frown made him wince as it creased the skin around his abused nose.
“Great.I ruined the dog’s life, too.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Cloister said.He left his sandwich on the table as he got up to walk over to Javi, who watched his approach with stubborn, studied reserve.Cloister stopped in front of him and leaned in, one arm braced on the counter to take his weight.He reached up and brushed his thumb gently over Javi’s cheekbone as he grimaced sympathy for the bruises.
Despite himself, Javi leaned into the touch, his breath warm against Cloister’s palm.
“It’s the ‘…and your little dog too’ approach,” Cloister explained.“I’ve seen it before.Kincaid’s carpet-bombing your life.Being disposable wouldn’t have protected me.You’d just not have cared as much that he fucked me over.”
The corner of Javi’s mouth twitched.
“And that wouldn’t be a good outcome for me?”he asked, his voice sour with self-deprecation.
Cloister snorted and dropped a quick kiss on Javi’s mouth.Cynicism didn’t have ataste, but it had afeelin the hard twist of lips that resisted softening.
“I hate to break it to you, but who else is going to put you up when you get evicted?”
Javi grabbed a handful of worn T-shirt to pull him back and then stopped.He tilted his head back and narrowed his eyes suspiciously.
“Wait,” he said.“Why am I getting evicted?”
Cloister hooked his fingers into the knot of the damp towel where it was secured over Javi’s hips.A tug loosened it, but Javi caught his wrist before he could dislodge it completely.
“Because, like I said, Kincaid’s coming in hot,” Cloister said, grazing the word and a kiss over Javi’s jaw.The fine scruff of stubble was rough against his mouth.“He wants you off-balance, and that means taking out support structures.People, jobs, housing…and you should probably get some walking-around money from the ATM while you still can.”
Cloister had actually kind of enjoyed it when he was a kid.Rolls of cash in his pocket like he was a gangster and eating takeout by candlelight because the utilities had been cut again.Plus, whatever LEO was sniffing around always got Cloister excluded from school at some point, so he’d gotten a handful of extra government-sponsored holidays throughout the year.He’d never been sure why they thought his parents would care—not like the crime lord stepdad and the grief-obsessed mom had ever gone to a PTA meeting.But he’d not been stupid enough to point that out.
That last thought soured what had almost passed for a happy childhood memory.Cloister distracted himself from the pang by leaning in to press a warm, open-mouthed kiss on Javi’s neck.He inhaled skin and warmth and something that was probably sandalwood or sawgrass or whatever it boasted on the expensive toiletries that Javi favored.
If he thought about it too much, it would freak him out that something as simple (toJavi) as over-priced shower gel could ground him.It felt like…permanence.
He shoved aside the loitering “home” that tried to slip in past his guard as an alternative.There were things he didn’t think about too hard, and things he didn’t thinkat all.A man whose house was on wheels had to be careful of a hair-trigger fight-or-flight response.
The brush of Javi’s fingers along the nape of his neck made him shiver.
“Are you trying to seduce me, Deputy Witte?”Javi asked, his voice warm and rough with a mixture of lust and humor.
Cloister pushed himself back enough to give him a wry look.“Not sure that’s something you should need to ask.”
Javi reached up to cup the side of Cloister’s face in his hand and then slid his fingers back into tangled, needed-cut hair.
“I’ve just never been talked into bed by a man in a thrift store…” Javi paused as he glanced down at today’s T-shirt.He just about managed not to roll his eyes.“…possum T-shirt while talking about how fucked we are.”
Cloister hadn’t really paid that much attention to the T-shirt he’d grabbed that morning.If Javi said it had a possum on it, he’d believe him.As for the rest…
“I can fix the T-shirt easy enough,” Cloister said as he leaned back to strip it over his head.The worn fabric was soft between his hands as he balled it up and tossed it over a nearby chair.“And as for the rest…who said anything about bed?”
He finished the tug on Javi’s towel.The loose knot unraveled, and it fell to the floor with aflumphof damp cotton.
