by Olivia Arran
Despite his obvious need for sleep, the corner of his mouth twitched, which made me wonder if I’d muttered any of that out loud. “That sounds fair. Somewhere a little more private?”
“Sure, why not.” I’m not doing the hanky panky with you, though.
When he let out a startled bark of laughter, I hid my face in my hands. That had definitely not been contained inside my head. “Kill me now.”
He guided me out of the room, his hand warm on the small of my back. “You can’t die, I need to convince you to do the hanky panky with me again.”
We found a corner of a public waiting room and I waited while he retrieved a couple of cans of soda from the machine in the corner, wiping my hands on my pants and avoiding the curious stares being thrown our way. I hadn’t looked in a mirror recently, but I’d been out all night and hadn’t had much time to clean up after being thrown around a parking lot, so I probably didn’t look my best. I glanced down at the dirt lodged in my cuticles and resisted patting my hair to check for snarls.
Black cargo pant clad legs appeared in my periphery and I looked up, taking the can that Grant offered. The smile he flashed me eased the tightness in my chest, because if this man—this beautiful, stunning, gorgeous man—could give me a look like that, one that told me in no uncertain terms that he’d like to strip me down and lick me all over, then who was I to worry about a thing. He liked what he was seeing, and that was good enough for me.
“Cheers,” I said, tapping my can against his as he took the seat next to me.
“Cheers,” he replied with a wink, taking a long drink. Sighing with pleasure, he set the can on the floor between his legs, angling himself in his chair to face me. “So, last time I checked, you were mad at me.”
“Because you were an ass.” Honestly? I knew I should be angry or upset, but it had been a long night and I was feeling a little low on the emotional speedometer. I knew I should shout at him, but all I wanted to do was curl up in his arms and let him hold me. What I wouldn’t give to have his shoulder to lean on, to have him there to turn to at the end of a shitty day.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
I sipped my drink, trying to clear my thoughts. “You didn’t leave,” was what I finally said, and it was the main reason I wasn’t as upset as I should be. I had a thing about people leaving, I was the first to admit it.
“I nearly did.” His profile was hard, his jaw squared as he gazed outward.
“Why didn’t you? You seemed angry enough.”
He scrubbed a hand through his hair, sending the silver flecked ends spiking. Eventually he shook his head, his lips twisting in a grimace. “Because, despite what it looked like, deep down I knew I was wrong.”
I scrunched my face up. “That makes absolutely no sense.”
“When you showed up last night, everything pointed at you being involved in … something.”
“And that made you angry?”
He twisted the can in his hands, staring at the floor. “Angry, disappointed, betrayed, hurt.”
I slapped my hand on my knee, fighting the urge to run away. “Damn. I feel like I should apologize, but I don’t know what for.”
“No.” His hand slid over mine, fingers entwining loosely together. “I was wrong. I reacted badly.”
Whistling through my teeth, I tapped my foot on the floor, keeping time with the racing of my heart. “It’s really hard to have this conversation with you when you’re keeping things from me.” There. I wasn’t going to beg him to share his secrets; he either trusted me, or he didn’t.
Same as Kel.
“I want you to know that I do trust you and that it was that trust that prevented me from leaving. Even though everything is still messed up and I shouldn’t be having this conversation with you, I’m going to anyway, because…”
I had leaned toward him at some point, drawn in by his words, by the strength he delivered them with, as if they were the absolute truth. “Because?”
“Because I know you. We spent a week together in Heartsridge, then a couple of days here. I know it’s not a long time in the world of humans, but every single second I spend with you, I am present. I am with you. I am not thinking of something else or wishing I was elsewhere.”
My eyes had widened at his little speech. “Wow.” Yep, that’s all I could come up with right now.
He winked. “Plus, you’re my soulmate. Gotta trust my soulmate.”
I shook my head, tutting. “That’s not fair.”
His brow creased. “What isn’t?”
“That you can say stuff like that. How am I ever meant to be mad at you?”
He squeezed my hand before leaning over and brushing a kiss against my cheek. “So, before I explain, can I ask you something?” When I nodded, he smiled. “Remember, I’ve already told you that I trust you and this question is just to confirm something I already know.”
“Okay,” I said, drawing the word out.
“How do you feel about technology?”
I made a noise that sounded like the wrong answer buzzer on a game show. “Thumbs down.” When he waved his hand for me to explain, I swallowed my embarrassment. “I struggle, all right? Computers hate me and phones turn themselves off in my presence. If computers ever take over the world, I’ll be the one rocking in the corner, sobbing hysterically.”
“Yeah, I thought so. I’ve seen you use a computer.”
For some reason, he looked pretty darn happy about my big embarrassment. I mean, how many people at my age were technophobes? We lived in the age of smart phones and online everything.
Grant lifted my chin with his finger. “Could you hack a backdoor into a secure system? Would you be able to request a tap on a phone, then create a clone, hacking an account?”
“Half of what you just said is gibberish, so no?”
“And there’s the truth that I can use to prove to everyone you had nothing to do with this.”
Okay, him trusting me was lovely, but I could really do with some answers right about now. “How about you spit it out.”
He leaned his head closer, until his mouth brushed my ear. “Heartsridge was hacked.”
“No!” I said on a gasp.
“We let them hack us.”
I twisted until our noses were touching. “Really?” I mouthed. Oooh, that was bad. Or was it good, if they knew about it?
“We planted the information about Mr. Moonbeam.”
“But…” I was confused.
“The hack was done by someone on your squad. We wanted to draw them out into the open.”
I bit my bottom lip, chewing it. “Someone on my squad is working for the Purists?” I was going to be sick. Betrayal cramped my stomach and bile burned my throat.
“I’m so sorry.” He sounded sincere and when I turned my head, his eyes glistened with regret.
“But you must know about why we were there.” That’s what Kel and the Chief had been briefing them on.
“We know. Whoever it is, they’re playing us all.”
“And when we all turned up you thought—”
“That you were all involved. It was the only thing that made sense. We deliberately set the bait to trap the dirty cop. We knew he’d taken it and would come to the meet. We didn’t know or think about the fact that he was playing both sides, that he’d share the information with the rest of the squad.”
“Well … fuck. That sucks donkey balls.”
He nodded, gray eyes solemn.
“Grant?”
“Yes, pretty lady?”
I smiled at the endearment. “I’ve had enough of today. Wanna take me home, caveman?”
Pulling me up out of my chair, he wrapped an arm around my shoulders, gently tugging me into his side. When I slid my arm around his back and leaned my head on his chest, a sound rumbled up out of him, it sounded happy. “You got it.”
My hand slid down, copping a feel of his ass.
He arched an eyebrow. “Is this defined as ‘hanky panky’?”
<
br /> I sniggered, hooking my thumb into his back pocket. “You got it, caveman.”
Chapter Twenty
Grant
It had been a few days since the night everything had gone wrong and Daryl had been shot. Kel was out of the hospital, but Daryl was being kept in for observation, much to his dismay.
Owen and Bree had returned home once it was clear that Daryl was on the mend—albeit slowly. They needed to get back to the pack, and see what they could do on their end to poke the dirty cop. Bree’s words, not mine.
Emma was sleeping at the hospital, keeping an eye on Daryl and running tests. She’d managed to isolate the poison, but had been unsuccessful so far in finding an antidote, which was pissing her off. She spent her days cooped up in a lab and cursing up a storm. Sometimes she stopped by to stab Daryl with a big needle. I loved those moments and tried to be there for them. All in the name of brotherhood.
So, yeah, Daryl was on the mend, at a sloth shifter pace.
Looking up from my computer, I winced at the sight of Mandy hammering hers to death, jabbing at the keyboard and cursing under her breath. “Damn screen of death! Why! Why do you hate me!” she spat out, before shoving away from her desk and glaring at the monitor.
She hadn’t been lying about the whole technology thing. I thought it was kinda cute, especially when she tried to up her game and use emojis in her text messages to me. I’d received the poop symbol way too many times already. She thought it was chocolate.
I didn’t have the heart to break the truth to her. I liked spending time with her, and wasn’t going to risk getting banned.
I managed to shove my chair back fast enough to catch her when she threw herself dramatically onto my lap, her sidearm digging into my stomach. “Save me, please.”
I nuzzled her neck, a sense of peace filling me. “From the killer computer?”
“I swear, I think someone’s messing with me.” She ducked her head so she could whisper in my ear. “I bet the culprit is hovering. Who’s watching me?”
“Hmmmm, that’d be everyone.”
Her head snapped up, nearly cracking me in the jaw. “What?”
“You are straddling me in the middle of the station,” I pointed out, trying to be helpful.
“I’m not straddling you.”
I tilted my hips, chuckling when her eyes shuttered and her teeth nipped at her bottom lip, not able to contain her breathy sigh.
She licked her lips. “Down boy.”
I grunted. “You’ve been hanging around with Emma too much.”
“I like Emma.” I could hear the smile in her voice.
“You like me too.”
She wriggled on my lap and I grabbed her hips, trying to keep her still. Walking around the station with an erection was never a good thing, as I had found out several times over the last few days.
“What if I say ‘up boy’, will that work for you?”
I finally managed to halt her wriggling. “Mandy…” I growled my warning.
“All right, sorry!” She bounced off my lap. “Meeting room.” She sauntered off, giving me a good view of her ass swaying from side to side.
Which wasn’t doing anything for my current predicament. After giving myself a moment thinking about the least sexy person I could think of—Dante, which did the job—I adjusted myself discreetly and caught up with her, pulling her into my side. “What’s this meeting about?”
So far, despite laying more bait, we’d yet to gain our dirty cop’s attention. Obviously, whoever it was, was spooked after the failed meet the other night, but the waiting around was grating on the team. Talon and Ridge had gone back to grunting their answers, and Dante had a stick back up his ass.
“Kel said something about security cameras.” She shrugged, tugging the door open to the conference room. We were the last to arrive, the rest of the gang was already caffeinated and munching on sandwiches, so Kel kicked off the meeting without preamble.
“I’ve had junior officers combing through CCTV footage, trying to find footage of the night you two were mugged.” He indicated myself and Mandy.
“Attempted mugging,” she corrected, putting on a haughty tone.
“You’re a badass, yada yada, we know.” Sarah picked up a grape and popped it in her mouth, giving her friend a toothy grin.
“I so am,” Mandy agreed, stealing a grape.
“Anyway.” Kel gave Mandy one of his stern looks. She’d told me the other day that it wasn’t as effective now that she had officially claimed him as her dad person, but she let him believe that it was. She was pretty sure that’s how kids dealt with their parentals. “We’ve also been looking at footage from the day you smelled that shifter outside Mrs. Barone’s place.”
I sat forward, swallowing the huge chunk of sandwich I’d just chowed down on. “And?”
“We’ve identified a facial match.” Kel tapped his computer a couple of times and the projector screen on the wall behind him lit up. “Right, here we go.” He tapped again. Then frowned. “Damn it.” He scowled. “I need to go see IT again. Piece of shit equipment.”
“I’m online, where have you saved it?”
“Thanks, Don.” Kel moved around the room and came to stand behind Don, watching over his shoulder. “Just a second, you need clearance.” He leaned in and tapped away for a moment, then patted Don on the shoulder. “Shoot it to the screen.”
A moment later, the screen came to life again, displaying the grainy image of a male. He looked to be in his thirties, wearing a baseball cap, hoodie, and faded jeans. Brown hair curled over his ears and I couldn’t tell the color of his eyes from the picture. He was built like a shifter though, tall and broad through the shoulders. “Do we have a name?”
“Fergus Sandringham.”
“That’s a mouthful,” Sarah mumbled, yawning into her hand. Seated beside her, Dante stared at her like someone might watch a bug under a microscope, with morbid fascination as her jaw cracked and she blinked watery eyes.
“Do we have a location for him?” Chris was tapping away on his own laptop, splitting his attention between what Don had sent to the projector and whatever he was doing on his smaller screen.
“Not yet. His picture is circulating as we speak and I’m sure it won’t be long before he’s picked up.”
Chris swallowed hard, giving Kel his full attention. “Wait, what?” His hands hovered over his keyboard. “He’s a shifter. Whoever tries to pick him up with be slaughtered.”
“Dr. O’Casey has provided us with a small quantity of the poison used on Daryl. Once we have visual confirmation on our target, we’ll go hunt him down ourselves.”
“Are we certain that this guy’s involved? I mean, just to be clear, I thought we were working on trying to track down our internal affairs problem. This seems more like a shifter problem.” Don glanced my way. “No offense.”
“He paid someone to try and mug me. He deserves everything that’s coming to him.” Mandy scowled at Don.
I squeezed her hand. “And I want to know why.” Crossing my legs at the ankle, I rested my chin on my hand. “I also find it very suspicious that the same guy knew where we were going to be, twice.”
“Definitely insider knowledge.” Sarah had plucked a pair of glasses out of her bag and had slipped them on, nodding sagely, peering at the screen.
Dante stared harder. She gave him the finger, not taking her attention off the screen.
“Okay. That’s all I had to say. Keep your phones on you and radios on. When we get the call, we’ve got to be ready to move out.” Kel gestured that we could leave, then returned his attention back to his laptop, jabbing at it with his finger.
I leaned over to Mandy. “Are you sure your condition isn’t contagious?”
She smirked. “Well, in Kel’s case I can’t really say it’s hereditary. Maybe it’s like when future fathers get those sympathy pregnancy pains?”
I had nothing to say to that. Absolutely nothing. I couldn’t see anything beyond the i
mage of a pregnant Mandy.
Luckily, she didn’t seem to notice, giving me a sharp elbow in the ribs to get my attention, nodding at the front of the room.
Don hovered by Kel. “I can have a look at your laptop if you’d like? It’ll save you waiting on IT to get around to it.”
That caught my attention.
Then Chris elbowed Don out of the way. “I bet you just overloaded the processor. Let me just…” He spun the computer to face him and tapped away for a minute or so. “There you go. I shut everything down and set it to do a system scan. Make sure you clear your cache more than once a year.”
Kel scratched his chin, a bewildered look on his face. “I have no idea what that is, but I’ll make sure I clear it.”
Don had wandered off, not looking too bothered about losing the chance to get his hands on Kel’s laptop.
But he had watched Kel enter his password. Had offered his assistance.
But Chris had fixed the computer.
Damn. Why did there have to be two computer whizzes?
At least it looked like Kel was in the clear.
I caught Mandy’s eye. “Please don’t tell me Sarah is a computer whizz.”
She winced. “Not a whizz, but she’s better than me.”
Which gave me absolutely no baseline to measure from.
We were making our way out of the room when my phone buzzed. “Nita.”
Her voice came down the line, and it wasn’t happy. “We’ve got some bad news and some good news.”
Grabbing Mandy’s hand, we ducked into an empty office. “I’ll take the good for twenty.” I clicked the phone onto speaker, putting my finger over my lips.
“Our guy’s still looking for Mr. Moonbeam.”
“Okay. And the bad?”
“Our guy’s still looking for Mr. Moonbeam and he isn’t just running a standard trace and hack. He’s digging deep. And he’s good.”
“Better than you?”
“Screw you, mangy wolf.” I bit the inside of my cheek while Mandy rolled her eyes. She’d never met Nita, but I had a feeling they’d get along just fine.
