“Really?” It came out breathier than he’d intended, but Aaron was standing so close, the heat of his body almost a tangible thing.
“Yes, really, but probably not for the same reasons.”
“Oh?”
“You’re SCTF. You know how we work, right?”
“Are you talking about bonding? Because—”
Aaron laughed. “No, calm down.” Michael relaxed, not realising how tense he’d got. “But even without a bond, having sex comes with consequences for shifters.”
Michael’s eyebrows rose. “Consequences?”
Scrunching up his face, Aaron sighed. “I’m doing a rubbish job of explaining this judging by the look of horror on your face right now.”
Lips twitching, Michael said, “It’s not horror.”
“Mhmm.”
“Maybe mild concern…”
Aaron huffed out a laugh. “Let me put it this way. When we had sex, it triggered some of my baser instincts.”
“Such as?” Michael was well aware of how quickly shifters became attached—bonded sometimes—but being the focus of that attention was a different beast entirely. It was a toss-up whether he found the whole idea worrying or exciting. With the way Aaron held him, still with one hand on his back and the other on his cheek, Michael was going to go with the latter.
Aaron smirked at him. “We get possessive.” The roughness to his voice sent a shiver down Michael’s spine. Aaron let his gaze drop to Michael’s mouth and linger long enough for Michael’s stomach to flutter and his heart rate to kick up. “And protective.”
Mouth dry, Michael struggled to answer. “I don’t belong to you,” he managed but without much conviction.
“I know that.” The reply was softly spoken, sincere.
“And I can look after myself.”
“I know that too.” Closing his eyes, Aaron leaned in just enough to touch his forehead to Michael’s. “But it doesn’t stop me from starting to think of you as mine and wanting to keep you safe.” He sighed, the warmth of his breath tickling Michael’s lips like the promise of a kiss. “It’ll pass, in time.”
I’m not sure I want it to.
Fuck, that was a thought he didn’t need to be having. Since when did he want to get mixed up in all the crap that came with dating a shifter? Especially considering what he did for a living. Even if Aaron hadn’t been involved with the case, it wasn’t the best idea for an SCTF member to cosy up with a shifter.
Aaron shuffled closer, dipping head to nose along Michael’s neck and aligning their bodies in a way that left Michael in no doubt as to how he felt. The hard length pressing into his hip had him biting back a moan and wanting nothing more than to slip his arms around him, slide his hands down towards Aaron’s arse, and—
Teeth grazed the side of his neck and he froze.
Another sigh, and this time Aaron’s warm breath ghosted over his skin, standing his hairs on end. “Don’t worry,” he whispered, “I’d never bite you.”
Not sure what came over him, Michael replied with, “Not even if I asked you nicely?” Panic threatened to follow, but Aaron’s huff of laughter staved it off.
He placed a soft kiss where his teeth had been moments before, then trailed more, equally as soft, up along Michael’s neck to just behind his ear. “Well, maybe then I’d make an exception.”
A car door slammed further down the street, and reality came crashing back in for Michael. What were they doing, for fuck’s sake? He was supposed to be telling Aaron they couldn’t have a repeat performance, not practically humping him in the street. Aaron’s presence clouded his judgement. How was he supposed to think rationally with 180 pounds of solid muscle pressed against him like a second skin and smelling so good?
Sensing his mood change, Aaron took a big step back, his hands touching Michael until the last possible second as though reluctant to let him go. “Sorry.” One word, but all the emotion behind it tugged at Michael’s heart. “I know we can’t do that again. I can’t seem to help myself.” Michael knew the feeling, but he shouldn’t.
He wasn’t a shifter. There were no base instincts at work for him. It had just been a blowjob in the toilets—albeit a fucking hot one—but nothing he hadn’t done before. Yet here he was, standing on the street like a teenager with his first crush, not wanting to leave. Something about Aaron just… called to him. Which sounded ridiculous even in his head, but it was the only description that fit.
Gripping Frank’s car keys in his palm, he raised his hand to show them to Aaron. “I’m going to go.”
“Okay.”
Neither of them moved.
Michael licked his lips, unaware of what he’d done until a low rumbling growl filled the air.
Aaron’s eyes, dark and hooded, promised things they couldn’t have. “Michael.” Even his name sounded like a growl. “Please go now. I want to kiss you so badly I—”
“Fuck it.” One more kiss tonight couldn’t possibly make things any worse. Two steps forward and Michael had Aaron in his arms, finding his lips a moment later. As soon as they connected, his whole body relaxed, as though just touching Aaron calmed him.
Aaron shuddered under his hands. Maybe it was the same for him? Whatever that meant, Michael had no idea and chose not to think about it. This was the last time they could do this for a while, maybe forever, because who knew what might happen in the future. So, for now, he’d just enjoy the fuck out of it.
Aaron wrapped his arms tightly around Michael’s back. All that coiled strength held back so he wouldn’t hurt him. Unable to stop the images from flooding his mind, Michael wondered what it would be like if Aaron let go and kissed him like he would another shifter.
Would it be much different? Could he handle it?
The hunger that swept through him, the need to find out took him by surprise, and he put his hands on Aaron’s shoulders, gently pushing him back. “I need to go.”
“You do.”
Aaron’s sad smile made him feel like shit.
He shouldn’t have done that. After everything Aaron had just told him, he’d gone and made it worse. “Sorry for that.” He gestured between the two of them, hoping Aaron understood.
“Don’t be.”
“It was cruel—telling you one thing, then doing the opposite. But it really can’t happen again.”
Aaron walked backwards down the pavement until he was a few feet away, wry smile in place. “I feel how I feel, Michael. One kiss isn’t going to make it any worse, just like I can’t make it disappear in an instant.” His smile widened, reaching his eyes this time. “Besides, I’m glad I got to kiss you without having two of Smith’s men checking their watches in the other room.”
Returning his smile, Michael walked over to Frank’s car and unlocked it. “So am I,” he said. Even if it makes me want you more than ever.
Hopefully, that was just leftover adrenaline mixed with the afterglow of sex. It would fade overnight. Especially if they didn’t see each other over the weekend. Would that be the same for Aaron? He wanted to ask but wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the answer.
Deciding against it, Michael opened the car door. “Have a good weekend, Aaron.”
“You too.”
“See you next week sometime.” He got in the car without looking back.
SINCE HE’D worked all day Friday and Friday night at the fight, Michael technically had the weekend off—barring any dead bodies turning up.
Frank, however, was working Sunday, and when Michael’s mobile went off with an all too familiar ringtone before nine o’clock, he knew it wouldn’t be good news.
Accepting the call, he dispensed with any pleasantries in favour of, “Fuck, not another body?”
“No.” Frank’s amused tone immediately eased the tension in his shoulders. Clearly nothing too bad.
“Why are you calling me at the crack of dawn then?” He yawned hugely as if to prove his point.
“I’ve been in work two hours already, you lazy bastard.”
<
br /> “It’s my day off,” Michael protested. “I’m supposed to have a lie-in.”
A huff was all he got in response and then, “Do you want to know why I called or not?”
Michael rubbed a hand over his face, trying to wake himself up. “Come on then. Spill.” He yawned again. “It’d better be good.”
“We got a call from Crossford’s friend, Gavin Foster.”
It took a second or two for the name to register. “Oh?” Interest thoroughly piqued, Michael sat up and propped a couple of pillows behind him.
“Now you’re glad I woke you up, right?”
Michael grinned into his phone. “Well, that depends on what he had to say.”
“Apparently he has information about the night Crossford was killed.”
“That he’s only just remembered?” Fat fucking chance.
“Apparently he was too scared to tell us before and will only come into the office if we promise to protect him.”
Michael barely smothered a laugh. “Will he now?”
“Yep.”
“And I’m assuming you explained that it’s not like the TV, right? We don’t have safe houses and a huge army of officers who can give him round-the-clock protection.” Michael rolled his eyes. They might have a swanky new building and lab, but that was about as far as it went.
Frank laughed. “I did. I said the best we could probably manage was to get a car to watch his house overnight for a while, depending on what he had to tell us.”
“And what did he say to that?”
He heard Frank’s smile as he said, “I quote, ‘I can’t in good conscience keep this to myself any longer regardless of the risk to my own life.’”
“Fuck’s sake. What’s he been watching? And I bet after all this, it’s nothing relevant to the case at all.”
“Hmmm… I don’t know.” Frank sighed, and the sound of pages being flipped filled the silence. “Hopefully he’ll want to tell us just what he and Crossford were talking about on that Friday.”
Michael sat up more. “Shit, that’s true.” He was reaching for his jeans before he realised. “When’s he coming in?”
“In about an hour. You coming in too?”
“You know I am.” Cradling the phone against his shoulder, he shoved his feet into his jeans and pulled them up. “That’s why you called, right?”
“I knew you’d want to hear what he has to say first hand.”
Michael spied the keys still sitting on his bedside table and smirked. “That the only reason?”
“Well, that, and you still have my car, you wanker.”
Laughing, Michael hunted in his wardrobe for a T-shirt, then thought better of it and grabbed a shirt. “I’ll be in in about half an hour.” He ended the call without waiting for a reply and headed for the bathroom.
FRANK WAS sat at his desk when Michael arrived at the office.
“Not here yet then?” He tossed Frank’s keys into his lap, smiling when he fumbled for them.
“Knob.” Shoving the car keys in his drawer, Frank sat back in his chair with a yawn, making Michael follow suit. “Why are you yawning? You had a lie-in!” Michael gave him the finger. “And no, he’s not here yet.”
Glancing at the clock, Michael let out a low whistle. Traffic had been shit on the way in; it had taken Michael over an hour. He’d expected Frank to already be interviewing Foster. “You think he changed his mind?”
“Maybe.” Frank shrugged. “Or maybe he got caught up in traffic, same as you.”
It was possible, although anyone coming to the SCTF tended to catch the tube or bus. There was limited parking for those who worked here, let alone visitors. “If he’s a no-show, we can just go pay him a visit.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
Michael wandered off to make them both a coffee and was just carrying them back to their desks when Frank’s phone rang.
He raised his eyebrows and picked it up. “Coldwell.” A pause as he listened. “Thanks. We’ll be right down.” After ending the call, he looked up with a grin. “He’s here.”
They went to collect Foster from reception and took him through to one of the interview rooms. Foster watched everything with interest as they walked him through to it, only starting to look nervous once they were inside with the door closed.
“This is a bit different to the other police stations.”
Michael took a chair across the table from him. “How many police stations have you been in, exactly?”
Foster fidgeted in his seat and looked down at his hands. “One, but it was nothing like this.”
Frank sat next to Michael. He set a brown folder on the table in front of him but didn’t open it. Michael knew what was in there: crime scene photos, just in case Foster needed a little prompting. Hopefully they wouldn’t have to use them.
“So,” Frank began. “You have something to tell us?”
Foster fidgeted some more. “I texted him that night.”
“What night?”
“The Friday night he was killed… the twenty-fourth.”
Michael refrained from saying he was actually killed on the Saturday morning. Instead, he said, “We know you texted him; we saw the phone records. You called him too. We just don’t know what you talked about.”
“I told him to meet me after the fight.”
Both Michael and Frank stared at him. “Were you at the fight?” Frank asked.
“Yeah. I knew he was supposed to go down in the second round. He’d told me earlier. But he said he wasn’t going to. He knew he’d lose—no one beats the Assassin these days—but it’s in what round you go down that counts.”
“And the two of you came up with a different plan?” Michael guessed.
Foster let out a long sigh. “Yeah. Fucking stupid, I know. But we both needed the cash, and who the fuck would know, right?”
Smith, obviously. Michael had an idea where this was going. “Go on.”
“We didn’t arrive together, deleted all the texts we sent as soon as we read them, just in case. I put a bet on, Charlie went down in round three, and that was that. Easy.” He’d started to sweat—a thin layer of moisture covered his forehead, and he wiped it away with his hand. “I don’t have any bloody idea how they found out.”
“But they did, right?”
Foster ducked his head, then ran both hands through his hair. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “They did.”
“What happened?”
“I went to collect my winnings, and instead of the cash I was expecting, I got an envelope.” He paused. “At first I thought, weird, they’ve given me a cheque.” Rolling his eyes, he added, “I know how stupid that sounds now, but I’d had a few drinks by then.”
“I take it there wasn’t a cheque inside,” Frank said dryly.
“No. It was a note. It said they knew what I’d done. What me and Charlie had done. And that I should arrange to meet Charlie in that alleyway at 1.30 a.m. but not turn up.”
Bollocks. Michael had hoped either Smith or one of his men had actually threatened him. “And you just did it?”
At least he had the grace to look ashamed. “Like I said, I’d had a few drinks by that point. And the bottom of the note said it was in my best interests to do as asked and not to tell anyone.” He glanced up, eyes wild. “That was a threat, right? And everyone knows Smith’s men carry guns. What was I supposed to do?”
Michael had heard enough of his excuses. “Oh, I don’t know… maybe realise you were in over your head and call the police?”
“But we were at an illegal fight. Me and Charlie could both have been arrested!”
“Instead, Charlie’s dead. Didn’t work out so well for him, did it?”
“No.” Foster hung his head again. “I didn’t think they were going to kill him. Maybe beat him up a bit, but he was a boxer, he was used to that.”
Michael stared at him, incredulous. “So you set up Charlie to save yourself?” He shook his head when Foster didn’t answer. “Do you still h
ave the note?”
He shook his head. “No. I ripped it up and threw it away. The guy who gave it to me insisted on watching me do it.”
Fuck’s sake. “So there’s no text messages, because you both deleted everything?”
Foster nodded.
“And no note.” Michael sighed and chanced a glance at Frank, who looked as pissed off as him. Even if Foster took them to where the fight had taken place, Smith would have had the place cleaned by now. He never left anything behind that could incriminate him. “So basically we just have your word for it?”
“But it’s true!” Foster protested. “Why would I risk telling you about the fight if it wasn’t?”
Frank rested his arms on the table, hands clasped as he stared Foster down. “Maybe you went to meet him that night to share your winnings, then decided to keep it all for yourself.”
“What?” Foster looked between the two of them with wild eyes. “The paper said he’d had his throat torn out. That’s why you lot are investigating it. You know I couldn’t kill him like that.”
“Maybe you met someone who could.” Michael was clutching at straws now, but it was a possibility, no matter how remote.
“That’s insane! I came here because I felt guilty, all right.” Foster scrubbed his hands over his face, his expression distraught. Michael didn’t think it was an act. “I know I shouldn’t have done it. I know that. But I’d had too much fucking whisky to think straight. And after what happened to him, I was too fucking scared to tell the truth.”
And probably still didn’t want to get arrested for being at an illegal fight.
“What changed your mind?” Frank asked.
“I keep seeing it on the news, just the odd mention here and there, but each time I hear it, I think about Charlie, and I… I can’t do it. I can’t keep quiet about it any longer.”
Michael blew out a breath and sat back in his chair. “Have you had any contact with Smith or his men since?”
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