by J. D. Light
He looked down, dragging the last weight off of his side of the bar, but I swear I saw a fucking smirk tick up one side of his mouth. "Who's going to do all that paperwork if you're out in the field with me?"
"Michaels for the most part." I pulled my shirt off over my head, cringing when the wet collar dragged against my face. "I just have to go over it when I'm in and sign it all."
I felt the rumble slide across my skin more than I actually heard it, and when I looked up, it was to find Cowen glaring at my chest like it said something about his cowboy hat.
When his eyes met mine, he cleared his throat and stepped around the bench, moving back over toward the doorway. "Paperwork might suit Michaels a little better than anything in the field."
Damn the man was fucking sexy. His T-shirt pulled over the thick muscles in his upper back and bunched over his ass where it wasn't quite wide enough to fit over the biteable bubble.
Michaels had been the third of fourth agent I'd sent him. And though he was older than me by a good ten years, he'd been passed over when they were filling the position I was now in, because he tended to act before he'd fully thought things through.
"Actually, he's an excellent marksman," I said to Cowen instead, not wanting to see his smug I told you so scowl. "He's an especially accomplished sniper. I sent him right after you nearly blew Roark up and told me it was because he was too close to you all the time. I'd sent Roark to replace Blankenship when you left him at a location, because he hadn't stayed with you and you didn't have time to wait for him to stop and tie his damn shoe or whatever the hell he was doing."
"Well, he should have been able to keep up with me," he grumbled, and I felt the familiar rise in my dick and my temper. "And when I looked back, he was hunched over on the ground like he was tying his shoe."
I licked my teeth, refusing to rise to the bait. This was what he did. Said rude-ass, stupid things that were specifically designed to piss me off. "That's because he was picking himself up after you tripped him."
"Why do you argue all the time?" he asked through clenched teeth, like I was being the unreasonable one. "If you're done lifting your baby weights, I made breakfast."
Smiling brightly, though I kinda wanted to kick him straight in the balls, I once again batted my eyes, sweetly. "I'll refrain from saying something that would insinuate that one of us has to be the logical one, because I'm intrigued by this breakfast idea."
Snorting, but otherwise showing no signs of being amused at all, he turned making his way toward the kitchen. "I'm glad you refrained," he said dryly.
"I'll get in the shower. I'll be right out."
***
I tilted Cowen's hat back on my head, so that the brim wouldn't get in my way while I pulled up the video feed on the computer in his home office.
He'd grumbled a bit when I stole it off the coffee table, but he hadn't asked me to take it off yet, nor had he all out ripped it off my head, so I felt like it was basically mine.
When the screen loaded and filled with several different video feeds, Cowen leaned over my shoulder to get a better view of what I had going on, pressing his bare chest practically against my arm, the warmth of his skin making me shudder slightly.
I knew the moment he realized what he was looking at, because a growl vibrated the air around me, and then the chair I was sitting in was jerked backwards and spun, so I was looking up into the angry yellow-green eyes of Cowen Maxwell.
"Have you lost your fucking mind?" He asked, leaning forward and gripping the arms of the chair on either side of me. "How do you have surveillance on that floor without someone knowing?"
I smirked, crossing my arms over my chest and looking up into his handsome face. "That's the thing about that place, and all the buildings on that property, really. The networks aren't secure anymore. There are like thirty to forty different wifis and hotspots going at one time, and nobody ever goes through and checks them. The guy who used to be in charge of that got fired in the fall and they decided to delegate his jobs to other people instead of replacing him." I shrugged, batting my eyelashes. "They just didn't remember that particular duty. And I'm sure as hell not going to tell them, because all my stuff runs off of the hotspot on my burner phone. Hell, I brought the burner in through security, put the thing in the tray along with my other phone and nobody even questioned it. Who doesn't have two phones these days?"
"Me," he grunted, still scowling down at me.
I tried not to sigh like an idiot, but there was a need in me to lean forward and lick the tight line of his lips to see if I could get them to relax. Maybe slip inside and taste the honey he'd put on our French toast this morning.
"You don't count," I said a bit huskily, squirming a bit in hopes of getting my dick to settle down, and knowing it was a lost cause with him standing so close, shirtless and leaning over me like that. I cleared my throat. "You barely carry your phone as it is. Which is why I didn't put my tracker in there. Knowing you, you'd leave the damn thing here and I wouldn't be able to track you."
I bit my lip as he shifted slightly and the muscles of his deliciously formed upper body moved under his skin. He was so close. I wanted to reach up and run my hands up his arms and over his shoulders. I wanted to draw him close.
"Why do you need to track me anyway?" he asked, drawing my attention back up to his face.
It seemed closer. It really wouldn't take much to lean up and press my mouth to his. Would he be responsive?
"Hollyster," he growled, making me blink in confusion as I pulled my gaze up to his scowling eyes.
"Huh?"
He tilted his head to the side, the frown on his face not easing a bit. "Why are you tracking me?"
I shrugged. "To know where you are."
He leaned closer, so his eyes were directly in front of mine. "That's not an answer."
It actually was an answer. It might have sounded like I was being a smart-ass, but I'd really just wanted to know where he was at all times, so I'd put a tracker on his purse.
The reasons for why I wanted to know where he was at all times were unimportant. And completely pathetic, especially when you take into account that I hadn't even technically met the man before I'd put that stupid device in his bag.
I hadn't wanted to lose him. Over the course of our video chat arguments, I'd developed the most ridiculous crush on the man and an odd affection that I didn't really understand since we argued about almost everything.
But I definitely couldn't admit any of that to him.
"What do you mean?" I asked instead, getting the intended reaction.
He narrowed his eyes further, and I wasn't even sure how he could see out of those things by then.
"Do you have one in my office?" he growled finally, his breath warming my lips.
He was definitely closer. Like really, really close.
"One what?"
"Hollyster." he growled in warning, making me bite my lip so I wouldn't laugh. I'd never met anyone in my life who was so much fun to rile up. He just made it so easy, being all grumpy all the time.
And so rewarding with the way his eyes nearly glowed and his scowl got deeper, making the already unforgiving cut of his cheekbones somehow sharper and his jaw harder. The way he growled and watched me like prey.
I tilted my head back defiantly, putting our faces that much closer, our mouths nearly touching. I let my lip slide from my mouth as I smirked up at him, daring him to… do something.
"What do you think?" I whispered.
His hat finally slipping from my head and hitting the top of his hand where it still clutched the armrest on the chair was what had him snapping out of the stare-off going on between us and pulling back.
"Where is it?" he asked, and this time I genuinely had to remember what it was we were talking about.
He meant the camera and bug. I didn't actually have one set up in his room, somehow finding the idea of spying on him a bit distasteful. Not because I didn't want to sit down and watch the man just…
be him all day long. But because I knew he was actually a good man and putting surveillance in his room would just basically be me being a creepy perv.
"Don't worry," I said perkily, once again wiggling in my seat to try to get the hard-on pressing against the front of my pants to calm as I turned back to the scene. "You haven't done anything too embarrassing. Eugene, though? Dude eats his boogers. Like, all the time. And I don't think Patty knows, because she comes in at least twice a day to stick her tongue down his throat."
Grunting, he too faced the screen and though he managed to place himself behind me again, for a split second, I could have sworn I saw the outline of his thick, hard dick through his athletic shorts as he turned.
"Isn't he married?" he asked gruffly. Clearing his throat as he leaned over me once more, this time not letting his chest touch my arm.
I frowned, nodding. "They both are."
"Hmm," he growled, sounding odd. When I looked over my shoulder, he was glaring at the monitor, which at the moment, was showing a loop of the day before when Patty had slipped into Eugene's office and spent her entire lunch break munching on the booger-eater's mouth. "When all this is said and done, I feel like maybe their spouses should get an anonymous email."
"I already have the files saved for later." I batted my eyelashes sweetly when he glared at me, making him grunt and stand, looking back at the screen as I turned to face him, crossing his arms over his chest.
"Good," he grumbled. "Human or not, they should cherish their mates."
Fuck! He looked absolutely delicious standing there, face fiercely gorgeous and sporting his ever-present scowl, his arm muscles bulging and his shorts riding low on his hips… Yep, he definitely had an erection.
Definitely an erection. Definitely.
I must have sat there for a considerable amount of time, staring at the outline of his long, thick dick as it pointed sideways at an angle, so it could still be contained, but barely, by the band of his shorts, because he cleared his throat… twice, and I blinked, slowly raising my eyes to his while once again taking in the miles upon miles of exposed, lickable looking skin.
Damn, I really needed to get my shit together. I was throbbing in my own shorts, itching to pull myself free and make like the old days, sitting in a computer chair and rubbing one out in the lovely glow of a computer screen.
Okay, old times really hadn't been that long ago, considering I'd been doing it once or twice a week since Cowen and I started our interesting video chat relationship.
I was only human, and the man did serious things to my body by looking so deliciously scowly and growling at me like he wanted to throw me across my desk and rip my clothes off.
Okay, that was just what my fantasy always turned into. It was more like he wanted to choke me… while he pounded into my body after clearing my desk and slamming me down on the unforgiving wood.
By the time my eyes met his, he was watching me with a raised eyebrow and very surprised, wide eyes.
I would have laughed at the expression on his face if it wasn't for the fact that I had to literally grip the armrests on the chair with enough force to actually hurt to keep from standing up and wiping the desk clear of everything, so he could bend me over the damn thing.
"I hate cheaters," I croaked out stupidly.
I blinked, trying to clear my head and he grunted, his face returning to its normal scowl. "Have you been cheated on?"
I shook my head, my erection starting to wain just thinking about it. "Not me. But I've seen what a cheating partner can do to the one they're cheating on."
Almost always with them it was their own insecurities that sent them into the arms of another. But what was usually left in the wake of their infidelity was a person who felt like there was something wrong with them. Like they weren't good enough.
"I watched my own mom fall deeper and deeper into depression every time my dad cheated on her," I said quietly, a bit surprised when Cowen's arms dropped to his sides and his face morph into something that looked more like concern than anger. "The worst part was the fact that he didn't even have the decency to hide it. He flaunted it in her face. It was like a fucking game to him to see how far he could push her."
I didn't know why I was telling him about my parents. It was something I never talked about to anyone, but when he surprised me by grabbing the chair a few feet away and dragging it over to straddle the back, facing me, I couldn't seem to stop the story from tumbling out.
Cowen, "Grouchy Ass" Maxwell was sitting in front of me, being gorgeous and concerned and willing to listen. How could I not feel the need to tell him things. Everything.
"I tried to get her to leave him, even at ten when a kid isn't supposed to understand or know what a monster his father is." I shook my head again, rolling my eyes. "When he is supposed to think his dad is a superhero and want his parents to stay together even when things are bad. Not me, though.
"I guess in a way my mom and I were pretty lucky. He never laid a hand on either one of us."
"Then he's the lucky one," Cowen growled, and I wanted to tell him to stop, because now was not the time to be getting hard again, but between his deep, rumbling voice and the crease between his eyebrows that I was starting to think was permanent, despite the fact that he was a shifter and should be wrinkle free, the blood was definitely flowing in that direction.
I looked away, letting my gaze land on the desk leg.
"He might not have hurt us physically, but he tortured my mother with the women he would hook up with and ignored me completely." I shrugged, not really feeling it anymore. I guess that was just something that came with age and finding happiness in yourself. I hadn't really thought about my parents in a long time.
But then again, I hadn't gotten to the part of the story that I always felt.
"By the time I was thirteen, my mother's pre-occupation with what he was doing when she wasn't there had grown to an obsession that meant she ignored me too." I licked my teeth, feeling the knot start to form in my throat.
"After that, I had it pretty easy as far as teenaging goes. I did a lot of stupid things and never got in any trouble with the law."
And why would I? I was a rich son of a prestigious lawyer and neither of my parents gave enough of a fuck about me to do anything about it at home.
"My dad kept on with his obsession and my mom kept on with hers, and three months after I turned seventeen, my mother walked into my father's office, shot him while he was on the phone with his latest fling and then turned the gun on herself."
I don't know what I was expecting in the way of reaction from Cowen. To be honest, I'd delivered that last part in that abrupt way to protect myself from the pain that always came with my mother's death. But when Cowen growled, I glanced up to find him clutching the chair back, the terrifying look on his face somehow calming to my exposed emotions.
I swallowed. "I wasn't even surprised," I said, looking into his nearly neon eyes. "When the police showed up at my school, I saw them get out of the car through the science window, and I knew it had to do with my parents."
I narrowed my eyes, reaching down to scoop his cowboy hat off the floor and plopped it on top of his head. "Somehow, that prick survived." I shook my head, letting out a huff of humorless laughter.
Cowen's lip curled and the relaxing rumble of his voice made me close my eyes and smile slightly. It looked like he thought the same thing I did. The guy should have died right along with her.
Maybe then I would have forgiven her for doing it. Maybe if she'd at least managed to kill the bastard for everything he'd done to her over the years, I might have been able to feel like it hadn't been completely in vain.
"By then I'd already been pretty far gone in my own pursuits of stupidity, but after that, I didn’t give a shit for a while and ended up stealing a car and running from the police… on my eighteenth birthday."
It was funny, but it wasn't. Who would have thought after all the shit I pulled while I could get off for the most part
because I was still a minor, I'd pull the biggest stupidest thing when I was officially an adult.
When I looked back up into Cowen's scowling face, I smiled. A real one. Not the ones I usually gave him to get under his skin when I was being a smart ass, and nearly lost it when his entire face slowly relaxed and his mouth fell open.
What? What the hell was that look for?
Clearing my throat, I shook my head, not needing to be getting reeled in by yet another of his stupid expressions. "I hadn't even graduated high school yet and was headed to prison."
He blinked, the scowl slowly sliding back on his face as he sat there watching me.
"I hadn't really ever been arrested before. I usually got picked up and taken to the Chief's office, who was a good friend of my dad's. But that night I had three different towns and the county after me by the time it was all said and done."
I chuckled, remembering how pissed that sheriff had been when he was finally standing in front of me, screaming bloody murder, face bright red.
I often wondered after that night if he'd ever had that heart attack. He'd actually made me kind of nervous that night, panting and falling into a chair after he'd yelled himself out of breath.
Maybe I should look him up sometime. A lot of police officers liked to see someone turn themselves around after something like that.
"It wasn't at all like I expected that first night in County," I said eventually. "I'd expected the cell with bars and stuff. Like you see in an old western. Or even the stacked cells with a walkway. And later I did find out that they had those, but I needed to be processed first. I just remember being really disappointed. This was like a concrete-block room with a steel door."
The walls had been bright white and the florescent bulbs made the glare so bad, I'd had to keep my eyes closed most of the night.
"There was one other guy in there at the time, and I could tell the minute I stepped in there that there was something not quite right about him." I cringed, remembering the way he'd eyed me like dinner.