Page 34 of Part & Parcel

Nick’s mission was to make room for Kelly’s things, and while Kelly hadn’t really thought he was serious, he was surprised to see that Nick really was clearing out half of his possessions to make room for Kelly to truly to move in.

“We’ll store what I don’t want to get rid of and then move it to the cabin later,” he said with a shrug as he headed back down to collect another box full of things to give away, trash, or store. They were really doing this.

Nick was almost six weeks out of knee surgery and was walking much better, and to his admitted dismay he’d been able to mostly get rid of the cane. He was well enough, though, to go up and down the stairs and carry heavy boxes, and sometimes when he got really excited or distracted, he didn’t even limp. Kelly watched the stairwell for a few moments, a smile on his face. When Nick committed to something, he committed with everything he had.

They were really doing this.

He returned his attention to the stuff on the table in front of him. Stacks of papers, books, and old case files that may or may not have been legal for Nick to have kept on the yacht. Nick took unsolved mysteries personally, and Kelly had no doubt at all that Nick had absconded with copies of the files on cases where answers had eluded him to continue puzzling them out.

But now Nick was done with the Boston Police Department. He would never be a detective again; even if his heart and mind were still in it—and Kelly suspected they were—his body was not. The Boston PD had come calling, offering him a bump to lieutenant so he could hide his injuries behind a desk. Nick had turned them down. But when Kelly had tried to put some of those old case files in the trash pile, Nick had quietly moved them to the storage pile.

Kelly grabbed the last handful of trash folders from the coffee table and stood. Something slipped from one of the supposedly empty folders and tapped across the table. He peered over the stack, scowling at the mini SD card he’d dropped.

He clucked his tongue and thumped the files back down, plucking the SD card up and turning it over. There was no telling what was on the thing, or why it had been in a stack of papers Nick had already earmarked for recycling. It was tiny, so it was possible Nick hadn’t known it was mixed up in this stuff.

Kelly ambled through the galley to the banquette where his laptop was sitting, and he slid into the bench seat and powered the Mac on. He’d take a glimpse at the contents, and if anything was on it, he’d just have Nick look it over when he was done with whatever he’d been cursing at down in their cabin for the last couple minutes.

When he found the converter for the mini SD card and pulled up the files, it appeared there were only a handful of videos on it. They weren’t named or dated, merely labeled with numbers, so Kelly clicked on the first one to get an idea of whether this was personal or work stuff.

The video popped up, and Kelly sat back, wide-eyed, when the first few seconds showed Nick in the main cabin of theFiddler, standing at the side of the neatly made bed, tanned and shirtless and barefoot, smirking at the camera as he unbuttoned his jeans.

Kelly grinned and reached for the volume to turn it up. He didn’t remember making this particular sex tape, but he hadn’t necessarily been sober during all of them. It was always entertaining to relive one of their exploits, and this little gem apparently hadfivevideos on it, all of them at least twenty minutes long.

“Are you fucking recording this?” Nick asked as Kelly ratcheted up the volume. Kelly’s cock stirred appreciatively at the growl of Nick’s voice, at the predatory look in his eyes as he stared almost directly into the camera.

The camera jittered as it was set on a hard surface and left there, aimed at the bed. “For posterity, O’Flaherty, come on.”

Kelly’s body flushed with ice and his stomach flipped at the sound of the voice. It wasn’t him talking. The man moved toward Nick and into the view of the camera, shedding his last stitch of clothing as he drew closer to Nick. The guy was about Nick’s height, with jet-black hair and a beard. He was fit and well-defined, with a body type that spoke of manual labor and real strength, not just hours on a machine in a gym.

This wasn’t a video of Kelly and Nick fucking. It was of Nick and someone else.

Kelly’s heart hammered in his throat, and he felt light-headed, his entire body tingling and his eyes burning because he was neglecting the need to blink.

The video rolled on, the naked stranger reaching for Nick’s jeans and tugging at him. The way Nick looked at him . . . the way they touched with familiar brushes of their fingertips . . . this was not a recording of their first time together. And there were four more of these videos on this card.

“You are a sight for sore eyes, babe,” Nick growled, right before they kissed passionately.

Nick’s hands swept down the man’s back, and the guy melted into him, like he knew Nick was about to turn on that dominant switch of his.

Kelly jerked and he reached for the keyboard to stop it. But he couldn’t. He was analyzing the details of the footage almost against his will. The video was relatively recent; he could tell by the décor of the cabin, the style of Nick’s hair, and the definition in his broad shoulders. It was before Nick’s last brush with death, though, because his ribs were free of the scar that should have marred him where he’d taken the knife in the fight in Miami.

Kelly realized with the slow burning shame of jealousy that his first thought, his firstclearthought, was to wonder if this was before he and Nick had committed to each other, or after.

They’d spent the entirety of their relationship thus far in what was essentially a long-distance arrangement. Kelly had never questioned Nick’s fidelity, he’d never had a reason to. But he realized with something like a wrecking ball to the gut that if either of them had ever wanted to step out, to set up a video camera and record themselves fucking some stranger in one of the beds they shared when they were together, they’d both had all the opportunity in the world to do so.

Kelly’s stomach churned as he watched Nick manhandle this guy into the very same bed he and Nick had slept in last night. After a few more minutes of sitting, stunned, Kelly was subjected to the sight and sound of his boyfriend fucking this stranger. He wanted to look away, but he couldn’t. He heard Nick whisper the guy’s name. Aidan.

“The fireman.” Kelly swallowed hard, shaking his head. This was the guy Nick had been casually seeing when he and Kelly had acted on their attraction in Colorado. This was the guy Nick had given up to be with Kelly.

Kelly’s eyes began to lose focus. This had to be from before. Nick wasn’t the kind of guy to step out, he never had been and he never would be. But telling himself that didn’t help the swirl of nausea in Kelly’s gut, the spike of jealousy, or the odd dose of being turned on from the moans of pleasure emitting from the laptop. He knew what Nick was doing to this guy. He knewintimately.

He heard a noise on the steps to his side, but he was still too traumatized to move. He merely sat there, staring at the laptop as the passionate sounds of two men fucking filled the pilothouse.

“Are you watching porn up here?” Nick asked incredulously, a hint of exasperated laughter in his voice as he thumped a box down on the top step and shoved it away from the staircase. “You’re supposed to be working!”

Kelly ripped his attention from the laptop. Nick was grinning, but as soon as Kelly met his eyes, his expression morphed into one of alarm. His smile dropped, his eyes widened, and his shoulders tensed as he pulled himself to his full height.

“Are you okay?”

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