Page 49 of Cross & Crown

teammate or random strange Marine he was sharing with. It

had always been hardest with Kelly because the man had no

sense of personal space and no hint of self-consciousness. But

now Nick was completely at liberty to run his hands down

Kelly’s sides, to press him against the tile and kiss his neck, to steal the water because he was a few inches taller.

Okay, that last one he’d always done.

When they were both clean, they crawled into bed. The

sun would be coming up soon. He’d have to go back to work

in twenty-four hours. Until then, however, he and Kelly could

wrap up together under the covers and close out the world.

Nick was almost asleep, curled on his side with Kelly

wrapped around him from behind. It didn’t matter how they

started; Kelly always wound up the big spoon.

“What books were they?”

Nick startled back to full consciousness, inhaling noisily

and blinking the sleep away. “What?”

“I’m sorry, I thought you were still awake.”

“What indicated that? Was it the snoring?”

“Shut up. What books were they?”

“Uh . . .” Nick rolled to his back and rubbed his face.

“One was a firsthand account of the Battles of Lexington and

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Concord. Diary. Really rare. Another was something about

English royalty. The last one was a book of maps.”

“You said there were four. What was the last one?”

“I . . . have no idea. Why?”

“Well, if they took the books, they’re obviously

important.”

It wasn’t exactly a new concept to Nick, but he’d been

concentrating more on the missing objects and assuming they

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