Read Online PsyCop 4: Secrets by Jordan Castillo Price - Free Book Online Page A

without imagining an incubus exploding at the foot of his bed.
    The bed I’d been sleeping in all week. Gross.
    The frame traveled across the room, revealing a bunch of details that I only vaguely remembered, and then settled on the gigantic leather sofa.
    Crash sprawled over it, grinning from ear to ear. Without his shirt on.
    Fuck.
    It was October when I’d met Crash, so I’d never had a reason to see him shirtless. His ink went all the way up, his left arm a full sleeve of fitted-together tattoo flash, his right an abstract design that seemed more planned, less piecemeal. His stomach had the word
    “Mattie” arched over it prison-style in heavy gothic lettering, and above that, smack-dab on his sternum, was a black Virgin of Guadalupe, hands folded in prayer. I doubted he’d ever actually been in prison, but he wore the bad-boy look with the confidence of someone who didn’t give a fuck whether the tattoos had been inked in a modern tattoo parlor with sterile equipment, or a dark cell with a sharpened ballpoint pen.
    “Say something for posterity,” said Jacob’s voice through the tinny playback on the camera.
    Crash’s grin widened. “Let’s make our own porno.”
    Okay, it’d been the first thing I’d thought of, too. So why did it feel like I’d just been sucker-punched?
    “So you can sell it online? Not a chance.” Just great. Jacob was using his “I’m obliged to disagree on moral grounds, but you’re really hot and I sound like I’m smiling” voice.
    “I gotta make money somehow since you refuse to be my sugar daddy.”
    “Maybe you should stop buying me such expensive presents.”
    “I traded a full-building sage smudge for it. It wasn’t even stolen. The guy just upgraded before he’d had a chance to use this one.” Crash’s grin got even wider, like it could split his face. “Besides, you only turn fifty once.” Then he ducked as the camera lurched and a throw pillow sailed past the spot where his head had just been. Jacob turned forty-five the summer before—not fifty. “Okay, okay. You’re the hottest middle-aged man I know.”
    “That’s it, pal. You asked for it.” Jacob set the camera down on its side. It kept on going, recording a vertigo-inspiring shot of the upper corner of his entertainment center. Sounds of a scuffle with lots of squeaking leather ensued, with Crash yelling, “Help, police brutal-ity!” and Jacob telling him, “I’ll show you brutal.” And lots of laughing. And breathing. And something wet that couldn’t be anything other than kissing with plenty of tongue.
    “Hey, it’s still going,” said Crash, eventually. “See the red light?”
    “You’re railroading me into the porno.”
    “Like you need any help, horndog.”
    I felt queasy. Physically ill. I liked it a lot better when Crash called Jacob “PsyPig.” And didn’t tongue-kiss him.
    The couch squeaked loud, I heard a couple of footsteps, and a pair of hands straightened the camera. Crash’s tattoos loomed large and blurry, then came into focus as he backed away toward the couch, now with Jacob on it, barefoot in jeans and a black T-shirt. His feet seemed so naked.
    Jacob’s hair was a lot longer than I’d ever seen it. Enough to grab—and for my own mental health, I really didn’t need to follow that line of thinking any farther. He owned that couch, sprawling over it, one arm along the back. Crash flung himself down into the crook of Jacob’s arm. Both of them were smiling.
    “Happy birthday, baby,” said Crash. “This is gonna be your year.” Baby? I couldn’t breathe.
    They started kissing again, on-camera this time, and I told myself to turn the thing off.

    Now. But for some reason, my hand wouldn’t obey my brain. I reasoned that it was better to see what happened next then to imagine it. At least, I hoped so.
    There was kissing, yeah. But they smiled the whole time they did it, and touched each other, too. Crash pulled the hem of Jacob’s T-shirt out of his