Secret Men: a Hunter Dane Investigation (Hunt&Cam4Ever Book 6)

by Adira August

Hunter took him to the root with no hesitation. Tension fell away. Cam’s cock was familiar and safe, substantial and powerful. Strong fingers cuffed him solidly. He pulled uselessly against the restraint and precum flooded his throat. His Dom gasped and thrust. Hunter choked and swallowed, his tongue rasping along the underside of Cam’s pulsing column.

  He felt himself thickening again in response, captured by this man he longed to own him, to roll him on his back, smother him in the press of hard muscle and fill his mouth and throat and soul in demand of service and sacrifice.

  But Cam came quickly, using Hunt for only what his body needed. All his own most critical desires had already been fulfilled.

  Ushering his exhausted, naked sub through the cold air of a foothills night, Cam crossed the outside walkway to the warm bedroom.

  Under the multi-headed sprays of the shower, Cam washed Hunt carefully. He dried him and dabbed antibiotic salve on every reddened patch of raw skin. He smoothed oil over sore shoulders and aching thighs and calves, telling Hunter how remarkable he was.

  In the bedroom, Cam laid his sub in the big bed, covered him in the puffy thick comforter and kissed his hair.

  Hunter heard the outside door close as he was falling asleep. He knew Cam had gone back to his studio, focused on his vision for whatever painting or sculpture Hunt had been model for. Hunter Dane knew what a sacrifice it was for Camden Snow to have spent the last hour caring for him.

  He drifted off to the thought that Cam had always cared for him.

  What you would seem to be,

  be really.

  Poor Richard's Almanac

  Sunday, October 1st, 2017

  “Did you actually just say ‘we have to talk’?” Cam carried breakfast dishes into the kitchen while Hunter refilled their coffee mugs.

  “No, I said this is something we have to talk about and you can’t keep blowing me off.”

  Hunter carried their coffee out to the patio past Cam who held the door open for him.

  “That’s different, how?” Cam closed the door and settled in a redwood Adirondack chair next to Hunt’s.

  The bright sun warmed the stone patio and the back of the house, mitigating the coolness of pine-scented air. It was their regular Sunday breakfast spot.

  “Okay, then, we have to talk.” Hunt sipped his coffee.

  “I told you the topic isn’t up for discussion.” Cam’s tone was cooler than the air.

  “You realize you didn’t ask me. You informed me.” Hunter determined to stay calm. “You can’t Dom me into marrying you, Cam.”

  “I don’t see why not. Total Power Exchange is just that.”

  “I also didn’t agree to TPE. You assumed that.”

  Cam frowned. “No, I didn’t. I said I didn’t know if you wanted to be my submissive. You didn’t answer because you were too busy getting a boner, so I specified: ‘That means all the time’.”

  “You know a submissive is not the same as a slave. Which is what real TPE makes the sub. That’s why—the one time we did it—you specified. There’s no way being a submissive ‘all the time’ translates into a permanent state of TPE. I asked you if anything would change and you said ‘for a while’. Meaning things would not change forever.”

  Cam shrugged. “Too late now. It’s been, what? Six-seven months?”

  Hunter got up. “I’m not marrying you. And whatever this was, it isn’t that any more. Or anything else with a name until we’re both clear on what we want.” He held out a hand. “You done with that? I’ll take your cup.”

  Cam shook his head.

  Hunt carried his empty mug inside and started the washing up since Cam had cooked. It wasn’t a rule made by a Dom or a service provided by a sub. It was just the way it had always been between them whenever Hunter stayed at Cam’s big A-frame.

  He wiped and rinsed and loaded the dishwasher. His stomach hurt. He hated fighting with Cam. He hated saying things that hurt him.

  Two strong-willed Alpha males, they used to get into it with each other. Those clashes sometimes took them past the edge of physical violence. But barely past. It was that which stopped them—the possibility of doing the other real harm.

  Since the TPE or whatever it was, they didn’t have explosions. But they did have tiffs. They’d started sniping at one another.

  He folded the dish towel and hung it up. He wasn’t going to become that kind of pissy asshole. He’d rather go back to shoving Cam into the nearest wall.

  “TELL ME THE TRUTH, HUNTER.”

  Cam had come inside. He put his mug into the dishwasher and leaned back on the wall counter. “Are you submissive?”

  Hands in his pockets, Hunter rested against the island dividing kitchen from great room, facing Cam. “What do you mean?”

  “You’re a switch. I’ve seen you Dom plenty of women. When you switch, when you’re with a man, are you submissive?”

  “We’ve been through this,” Hunt said patiently. “Only with you. With the Doms at the club, I gave them what they wanted so they’d give me what I wanted.”

  “You traded the illusion of submission for pain?”

  “You always knew this, Cam. You knew it before we got together.”

  “Yeah. But I just now realized you were acting. Lying to them.”

  “No. They all knew. And they didn’t care. Except for the ones who wanted to fuck me and couldn’t.” Hunter frowned. “What’s this about?”

  Cam’s lips pressed and Hunter closed the distance between them. He reached out to touch Cam’s arm, but pulled back when he stiffened.

  “You aren’t like them,” Hunter assured him. “They want a rent-a-sub for an hour who’ll let them do whatever they get off on. It’s a play and nobody’s real.”

  Cam shook his head and looked away.

  “Except for you,” Hunter told him. “You’re always you. Everywhere. You connect with every sub. Even that frat boy you scared off. You could have used him, but you didn’t. It’s real for you. I was real to you.”

  “Yeah, you were real to me. I’m just not sure you’re real for me.” Cam straightened up. “You’re in my space.”

  Hunter faded back a step. “I don’t know what that means, ‘not real for you’.”

  “You feigned submission to other men, why not me? I’m not the intuitive one here. Have you been playing sub for me because some bad shit happened to me? Now you figure I’m doing better, so you quit?”

  Hunt kept his face very still, a skill he’d honed in interrogation rooms and at poker tables. Cam was more intuitive than he knew. But honesty was Hunt’s default position, a decision he’d made as a youth.

  “Cam, submitting to you to please you is exactly what a sub does.”

  Cam’s ice-blue eyes flashed. “That’s not an answer. I want to know what’s real, Hunter. I need real now.”

  “Real is why I’m with you.” Hunt smiled a little. “You’re the one I could be real with because you wouldn’t accept less. Besides, submitting to you is hot.”

  Cam colored slightly at the idea and implied compliment.

  “It’s also true,” Hunt went on, “That I went with what you wanted because a lot of bad shit happened to you. And I get to do things for you, Cam. Just like you do for me.”

  Cam frowned at this, which somehow made him look more vulnerable instead of fiercer. “And now?”

  “These last months, I didn’t get to touch you much. I did before. During what you said was my ‘half-assed submission’ period. When we started. You liked that, too. Is that why you wanted the TPE? To keep me away?”

  “No.” Cam sighed. “Maybe. Partly. It’s what I’m used to.”

  “Why?”

  Cam shrugged. “If you let someone touch you, you start to want them to. It’s … distracting. I had a goal. And I couldn’t get there unless it was the only thing in the world I really wanted.”

  “What was the goal?”

  “Top tier.”

  Hunter nodded. “Well, it worked. You won every damn thin
g there was to win. But now there’s no more competing. So what’s the new goal?”

  Cam reached out and brought Hunter in for a kiss. Chest to chest, hip to hip. Tongues over tongues, hands over bodies. Hunter’s hands as well as Cam’s.

  They broke and clung together, heads on each other’s shoulders, cock nestled against cock.

  Cam sighed. “Oh, well. It was nice while it lasted.”

  “Being the boss of me?” Hunter scraped his teeth lightly over Cam’s shoulder through his shirt. They had no plans for the day.

  “I’m always the boss of you. You just stopped arguing about it for a while. And you will marry me. Because that’s my new goal.”

  Hunt straightened. “Why? Why do you want this so much?”

  Strains of the 1812 Overture filled the kitchen, Hunt’s ringtone for Denver Police dispatch.

  “Crap.” Hunter reached for his cell. “Lieutenant Dane. … Yeah. … Yeah, okay. … No, just Twee and Merisi for now.” He clicked off. “We have a case.”

  Cam shook his head. “You have a case. It’s October first, remember? I don’t work for you, anymore.”

  “Crap.” He called dispatch back. “Yeah, Dane. ... You’d better call Avia Rivers in, too.”

  EVEN FROM THE DOORWAY Hunter Dane could see Penelope Maki’s Japanese heritage clearly reflected in her apartment. Spare furnishings. Low, lacquered tables, cushions instead of chairs. Pristine wood floors polished to a high shine.

  Hunter stopped just inside the doorway and pulled off his boots.

  Seeing this, Carol Twee set down the big crime scene case. “Why?” she asked quietly so the uniform by the door wouldn’t hear.

  “Preserving the scene.”

  She slipped out of her low, black pumps.

  Hunter had once described the almost five-foot tall CSI as “an African American elf.” And so she appeared with her a cap of fuzzy hair, wide, slanted eyes, and small but succulent heart-shaped mouth. And lisp. And irrepressible joie de vivre.

  He’d found her extraordinarily competent and professional, a keen observer who worked tirelessly without complaint. But he had also wanted to spank her pert backside just to feel her squirm on his lap. He was getting over that particular auto-response. Which was difficult, as he strongly suspected she wanted him to.

  She handed him shoe covers and slipped a pair over her stocking feet. He did the same. Twee was a relentless advocate of the protocols that preserved the integrity of the scene.

  “Are you Dane?”

  The tone of the voice behind him commanded rather than requested. Not very amenable to being commanded at his own crime scene, Hunter took a moment before turning around.

  Lawyer. Rich. 40s. Representing … the family, he decided. A lawyer for the property wouldn’t be here this quickly on a Sunday. Or at all. Slightly Asian cast to his features. Possible relation?

  “Detective Lieutenant Dane,” Hunt said, not holding out a hand.

  The lawyer did. His had a business card in it. Twee took it from him.

  “You are?” Hunter asked.

  The man narrowed his eyes at the card Twee held in one hand while she got a pic of it with her cell.

  “Business cards aren’t identification,” Hunt told him.

  The man, who was five-feet ten-inches of barely maintained in a gym solidity, drew himself up. “Robert Ikeda. I represent the Maki family.”

  “Show your bar card to Technician Twee, please.” The “please” was a meaningless formality. Ikeda fished out his proof of admission to the Colorado Bar.

  “Lieutenant, you are familiar with the Maki family?”

  Hunter didn’t have a clue who the Maki family might be.

  “Who I’m not familiar with is you, Counselor. I have an investigation to conduct and no information for you at this time.”

  Ikeda gave Hunt a tight smile. “But I have information for you. About the victim. Mr. Maki is a private man. You will find his daughter’s death a very unfortunate accident.”

  “Will I?” Hunter asked, paying out a bit of rope.

  “Yes. And you’ll find that a lot faster with the information I have. The family is devastated, of course. They would like a swift resolution.”

  “I’m sure.” Hunter assumed a look of concern. “How does the family know Ms. Maki is deceased?”

  “I informed Mr. Maki immediately.”

  “Before the police were informed?”

  Ikeda’s little smile faltered.

  TUSSEY FOUNDATION FOR HUMAN ENERGY SYSTEMS RESEARCH

  Camden Caulfield Snow, Director

  Cam stared at the brass plaque on the heavy oak door for a full minute.

  The workmen had finished the remodel on the new offices late Friday afternoon. The whole team had moved the Tussey research from Twee’s lab and the Unit office, down the hall to the brand new Foundation offices.

  Afterward, they’d perched on desks, eating pizza and beer-toasting the birth of something they’d only wished could happen in the aftermath of Minerva AnneTussey’s murder. It was a tribute to Camden Snow, who’d led the effort. Cam had left the team to continue Doctor Tussey’s work scientifically documenting the continuation of consciousness after death.

  He’d gone home ahead of Hunter that night. That’s when Hunt must have mounted the plaque, to surprise him on Monday. If Cam mentioned it, he knew exactly what Hunt would say. “So they’re all finished, now?” As if he knew nothing about it. As if it wasn’t special.

  Cam would find a way to thank him.

  “Hey.” Avia Rivers came down the hall and spotted the plaque. “That’s very nice, isn’t it? Understated, professional. What do you think?”

  Cam had his office door key in his hand and looked from it to the brass plaque. “I think I need a Ph.D.”

  She didn’t disagree. “Be interesting to figure out what in. Could you help me out? I don’t have a door code yet. Natani was supposed to do that tomorrow and-”

  Cam gave her a horrified look and ran past her down the hall. “You have a case!” He punched in his own code and threw the Unit’s door open. The office was dark. The computers dark. He ran to his former station. “Jesus, Rivers! You have a case. They’re all in the field. Put your stuff down and get over here.”

  She hit the lights and he got the laptop and the huge main screen on, checking incoming messages. “Shit.” He raised his voice without looking up, so she’d hear him. “Did you get anything from dispatch? Names, location?”

  She was next to him. “I’m right here. No, they said report to the Unit.”

  “Don’t let them pull that shit with you. You’re a civilian, but your job is critical and you’re cleared for the same information the Lieutenant is. You need location, personnel on scene and enroute. Nature of the call, possible weapons, suspects in area. All names, reporting party, witnesses.” He glanced at her. “You don’t even have an employee number yet, do you?”

  “No.” She had her reporter’s notebook in hand. “Give me orders.”

  He got up. “Sit here. See this business card?” He pointed at an image on screen. “Find out everything you can in three minutes about the guy and send to the Lieutenant.”

  He moved to the low conference table next to the higher lab table he preferred to work on and pulled the landline phone over. “I’ll call dispatch.”

  “I have an alert,” she said. “Dane and Twee on scene.”

  “Get an ETA for Merisi.” He spoke into the phone. “Hey, Knox. Yeah, training the rook. What we got? … Yeah. … Okay. … Which pathologist? … Never heard of him ... her. ‘Zee’ as in the letter? … Okay, be good to my replacement.”

  “Hunt knows her,” Avia said when he hung up. “She’s good.”

  Cam went to Merisi’s desk and logged in on his computer. “He’s ‘Lieutenant’ at work, including to the rest of the team. It’s hard at first. I was his friend when he hired me, too.”

  “You were fucking his brains out when he hired you, according to him,” she laughed.
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  “Look at the big screen.” Cam’s tone made it clear his private life was just that.

  A box labeled with a case number popped onto the wall-mounted monitor. Data appeared: date and times, locations, names.

  “I’m taking over your screen,” he told her.

  Avia sat back. She was used to this at her previous job when Carson Sanchez—her friend and chief programmer at online newsmagazine The Week—would fix or change something.

  Her screen appeared on one side of the big monitor. An alert box outside of it told her Merisi’s ETA was three minutes.

  Cam sent that and what she’d found on Ikeda and Maki to Hunt. Then he found more. In one minute he’d gathered more information than she’d find in ten and shipped that also. He released her screen.

  “I’m officially impressed. … More impressed,” Avia amended having been a huge fan of Camden Snow since she was ten years old. She’d known he was fast. But he wasn’t just fast on the slopes, everything he did seemed to be at hyperspeed. Yet, he didn’t seem to be in a hurry. He was focused, not frantic.

  It was a hell of an act to have to follow.

  “YOU INFORMED YOUR BOSS of the death before you called the police?” Hunter repeated.

  Ikeda remained silent and blank-faced.

  “You discovered the body.” He made it a statement.

  Again, no answer.

  “Counselor, you know better than I do that you can be charged criminally for withholding information. Every unattended death is investigated vigorously for evidence of a crime.”

  “There is no crime. It’s a simple accidental death that may be puzzling to”—the hesitation was brief, but Hunter knew that man was finding an alternative to whatever offensive reference had risen to his lips— “those unfamiliar with our culture.”

  Hunter ignored this. “You’ve been inside and seen the remains.” Not a question.

  Detective Mike Merisi appeared quietly behind Ikeda from the stairwell where he’d paused to listen.

  “Mr. Ikeda, Detective Merisi”—Hunt nodded toward Merisi who stepped forward, startling Ikeda— “will confirm your identity and take your statement. You’ve already made clear you have information you believe vital to my investigation. You’ll explain that to the Detective and provide a complete accounting of your actions, starting with what brought you here.”