Don't Read in the Closet volume one (102 page)

Matt had been
eight when seven year old Cam and his family moved into his street, just two
doors down from him. His lips curved upwards as he remembered the gangly,
doe-eyed kid who had clomped up the path with a box of comics balanced on one
hand and the rapidly melting ice cream in the other. Cam’s gaze had locked onto
his where Matt had sat on the front stoop of his house. Of course, Matt had
done his very best to ignore the kid, he was practically grown up for God's sake.
He'd be in double figures soon, and what business had this younger kid had
looking at him like that? As though they were already the best of friends?

“Hey, my Mom
made apple pie, wanna have some and read comics?” The “kid” had asked. His gaze
had faltered slightly when he’d noted Matt’s mocking glance. He’d shrugged, his
bony shoulders clearly visible beneath his Star Wars t-shirt, the movement
almost making him drop his ice cream. “Whatever. I'm gonna have some, my Dad
said he's finished putting up the treehouse.”

That one word
had immediately sparked Matt’s interest. “You've got a treehouse?” He’d tried
to keep his tone even and not reveal his own excitement at the sound of that
one word. The kid had
nodded,
he’d stood up and
brushed down his shorts, casually. A treehouse – now that made all the
difference. Treehouses were cool. I mean, what was he going to say? No? He was
only eight for God's sake. “I'm Matt,” he’d said, then plucked the box of
comics from the kid’s precarious grip and held it to his skinny chest.

“Cameron,” the
kid replied. “But people call me Cam.”

That had been
it. They’d been attached at the hip ever since. Cam had been there to hold Matt
when he cried himself to sleep after his father died when they were fifteen.
Matt had been there to keep Cam’s spirits up when his mom had been diagnosed
with cancer, and there to cry happy tears with him when she was given the all
clear. Cam had patted Matt on the back and taken notes when Matt had lost his
virginity to Holly Peters in the back of his Chevy. Matt had done the same when
Cam had finally had the nerve to take his girlfriend of six months, Susie
Daniels, up to lookout point and use the condom his older brother had given him
when they had their first date. They’d been through it all together; college,
broken hearts, good times and bad, even graduating from the Police Academy in
the same class with honors and finding positions at the same station. Cam and
Matty against the rest of the world.

But through all
of that…there was one golden rule. Friday night was boys’ night. Had been since
tenth grade, as Cam had rightly pointed out. Of course, their choice of
beverage had changed somewhat over the years, but the rules were the same. Matt
had first pick, then it was Cam’s. So here they were. Friday night – watching
Shaun of the Dead, again.

Matt smiled to
himself and downed the rest of his beer, putting the empty bottle on the floor
beside the sofa and settling his gaze on the screen. Not that he could pay the
movie much attention with Cam reciting every other line of dialog verbatim. “If
we have to watch this, can I at least hear it?”

“What’s crawled
up your ass tonight?” Cam said
,
pausing the TV just as
zombie girl number one was trying to bite Shaun. Turning in his seat his gaze
roamed over Matt’s face. “You’ve been weird ever since you arrived.” He swung
his legs up and brought his heels down on the hard muscle of Matt’s thigh.
“Spill. What’s going on with you?”

“It’s nothing.”
Matt winced and pushed Cam’s feet off his leg, glaring at him as he rubbed his
now throbbing muscle.

“Sure it is,”
Cam said sarcastically. “Just like it was nothing the time when we were twelve
and you lost your Millennium Falcon. ‘Cause you’re wearing the same face now
that you had on then.” Cam’s gaze was unwavering as he threatened: “Don’t make
me beat it out of you.”

Matt sighed and
scratched his fingers through his cropped, brown hair. “Angie wants to have a
threesome.” The words came out of his mouth on a rush of breath and he avoided
Cam’s gaze, his cheeks flushing at the admission.

“Awesome!” Cam
crowed. “You have the best girlfriend in the whole world, dude! Why the
fuck are
you all hangdog about it? Teresa would
never
suggest anything like that.”

“Because she
wants a threesome with another guy, doofus!” Matt rolled his eyes at Cam and
hauled himself to his feet, padding across the carpet and into the kitchen for
more beer. Angie had dropped her bombshell last night while they were in bed.
He’d thought their sex life was pretty good, but then she’d decided to open her
mouth and make him question every aspect of their relationship. Throwing
himself back down onto the couch and rolling a fresh beer along the cushions to
Cam, he downed half of his own bottle before even daring to look at his friend.

“And?”

“What the fuck
do you mean?
And?
” Matt spluttered, beer spurting out of his nose.
Wiping his sleeve across his face, he stared at Cam in amazement. “She wants me
to, you know,
do
stuff!”

“With
him?
”
Cam said, crossing his legs and leaning forward with undisguised interest.

Matt chugged
another shot of the ice cold beer in his hand. “Can we just watch the movie?
You’re starting to freak me out,” he hissed, reaching past Cam for the remote.
“I wish I’d never said anything.”

Cam chuckled
loudly and wrestled the remote from Matt’s grip. “Don’t be such a wuss. Didn’t
you suck the face off Danny Summers in college?”

“No I did not,
that was Matt Anders, not me. I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” Matt
was getting more and more pissed as the seconds ticked by. “Just give me the
goddamn remote, dude.”

“You’ll have to
kiss me for it,” Cam said suggestively, pouting his lips and waggling his
eyebrows, stuffing the remote down the front of his pants.

“There is
something seriously wrong with you, Cam,” Matt ground out, shoving at Cam’s
shoulder and sending him sprawling onto the sofa. “I’m warning you. If you
don’t give me that remote, I
will
come after it.”

“I don’t know
what the big deal is,” Cam said in a conversational, albeit slightly slurred
tone. “It’s just a kiss. Kissing a guy is no different than kissing a girl,
except for the stubble. Although, having said that, you have kissed Martina
Roberts, so you probably wouldn’t notice.” He doubled over, his arms clutched
around his stomach as he laughed at his own wit.

“You can be
such an asshole!” Matt was fuming now. He was fueled by numerous bottles of Bud
and Cam’s unsympathetic reaction to his predicament. “I’m going home.” Hauling
himself into a sitting position, he threw his arm over the edge of the couch
and felt around for his shoes. “If you can’t say anything helpful, don’t say
anything at all.”

Cam was
immediately contrite and he grabbed the remote out of his pants, threw it onto
the carpet and lunged toward Matt, his fingers closing around his friend’s
muscular upper arm. “Don’t be stupid. You can’t go home, ass-wipe. Movie’s not
over yet.” He pushed and pulled on Matt’s arm and in their slightly inebriated
state, they both lost their balance and he found himself suddenly staring into
Matt’s hazel eyes as he lay sprawled beneath him on the couch.

“Dude, get the
fuck off me,” Matt complained, wriggling against the weight of Cam’s body
pressing him into the cushions. Glaring up into Cam’s pale blue eyes, he
growled through his teeth. “I am not kidding, Cam. Get. Off. Me.” The last
three words each had their own capital letter at the beginning and period at
the end. That alone should have been enough to make Cam back off, but for some
reason Matt couldn’t fathom, it wasn’t working tonight. He slapped at Cam’s
back and hissed when the other man grabbed his hands and pushed them back
against the cushions, holding him down. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Kiss me and
I’ll let you up,” Cam replied with a smug smile.

“You’re
certifiable, dude. Get the fuck off.”

“Not until you
kiss me.”

“You’re
freaking me the fuck out!”

“Then kiss me.”

“No!”

“Just one kiss,
that’s all.”

“Cam-.”

“
Kiss me
!
.
”

“I am not
fucking kissing you!”

“Why?”

“Because it’s
you
,
asshat!”

“Exactly,” Cam
crowed. “It’s me. Little ole me. You love me. If you can’t kiss
me
? How
the fuck are you going to kiss someone you don’t know?”

Matt stared at
Cam in utter amazement. How the fuck had they got from Angie suggesting a one
off threesome to Cam lying on top of him demanding to be kissed? And why the
fuck did the thought of kissing Cam suddenly have him hardening in his pants?
Tonight was getting way too weird for him. “Cam, please,” he swallowed against
his suddenly dry mouth, appalled that his voice had sounded more like a raspy
whimper, than the manly growl he had meant it to be. “Don’t make me shoot you.”

“You don’t have
your gun,” Cam replied, his tone softening and his gaze roaming over Matt’s
face. His blue gaze darkened when Matt lifted his hips and tried to throw him
off. “Or maybe you do.”

“Shut the fuck
up,” Matt whined, his heart beating faster against his rib cage. So hard that
he was sure Cam could hear it knocking against the bone. “Cam, come on, please.
Let me go.”

“Don’t wanna,”
Cam said softly.

Matt’s racing
heart picked up the pace when Cam’s face moved slowly toward him. So slowly
that the movement was almost imperceptible.
Oh. My. God.
He could feel
Cam’s breath against his mouth, the exhalations warm on his skin, sending
shockwaves up his spine. What the hell was going on? “Cam-?” He was cut off by
the gentle press of Cam’s lips to his. It was a barely there kiss, a mere brush
of flesh that lasted a second, if that – but he felt it everywhere. Sparks of
heat unfurled in his belly and he stared into Cam’s eyes as his friend, his
best
friend pulled back to gaze down at him.

“Huh,” Cam said
on a rush of breath, the expression on his face quizzical as his gaze flitting
from Matt’s mouth to hazel eyes and back. “If I do that again…will you break my
face?”

Matt’s head was
spinning. His entire world had tipped on its axis and he wasn’t sure what was
up or down, left or right. But there was one thing that seemed to echo
throughout ever fiber of his being. Snaking out his tongue to moisten his lips,
he took a breath, his voice no more than a whisper. “I think I’ll break your
face if you
don’t
.” Cam’s smile was fleeting as he bent his head and
kissed Matt again.

This time, Matt
tentatively kissed him back, their lips parting on a soft snick. The smile on
Cam’s face was echoed on his own and he pushed against the hands holding him
down, urging Cam to let go. He saw the hesitation in Cam’s eyes, and lifted his
head to capture the other man’s full lower lip between both of his. He scraped
his teeth across the soft flesh in an attempt to reassure Cam that he wasn’t
going anywhere. When Cam released his fingers, Matt lifted his hand and slid
his fingers up Cam’s jaw. The scratch of the other man’s new beard growth on
the palm of his hand seemed to burn where it touched. “What the fuck are we
doing?” He curled his hand around the back of Cam’s neck and pulled him down so
that their lips were only a breath apart. Matt whimpered as Cam’s fingers
slipped beneath the hem of his T-Shirt, their tips stroking against his bare
skin.

“I have no
idea,” Cam murmured, the tip of his tongue stroking across the seam of Matt’s
lips. “But please don’t ask me to stop.”

“Don’t want you
to stop,” Matt groaned, closing that final breath between them and slanting his
mouth over Cam’s. He moaned into the kiss, marveling at how soft Cam’s lips
were and how the scrape of Cam’s stubble against his skin was driving him
crazy. Being kissed by Cam was a total assault on his senses. Matt’s fingers
scrabbled for purchase against the strands of short hair curling around Cam’s
ears and he gasped at the tentative brush of a warm tongue at his lips. “Oh
God,” he mumbled, opening his mouth to allow Cam’s tongue to slip inside.

When Matt
tentatively touched his tongue to Cam’s, it was as though someone had lit the
touch paper and the fireworks were about to blow. Cam’s hands seemed to be
everywhere all at once and Matt arched into their touch, his own fingers all
but ripping Cam’s shirt from his pants to get to the skin beneath. Not even
breaking the kiss, Matt struggled into
sitting,
reluctantly having to relinquish Cam’s lips when he lifted Matt’s T-shirt over
his head and tossed it to the floor. Dealing with Cam’s in the same haphazard
manner, Matt groaned low in his throat as their bare chests rubbed sensuously
against each other. The light dusting of soft hair on Cam’s skin on his was
driving him insane where it brushed against his own hairless chest.