“Yeah.”
“He’s great,” Carlyle said.“He’s half in love with Crosby already, and Crosby’s still in the hospital.”
Gideon couldn’t help the low moan that issued from his throat.“God.Yeah.”Crosby and Garcia had followed a hunch, and Crosby had ended up getting shot in close quarters.Even with Kevlar, the force of the bullets broke his ribs and punctured his lungs.He was going to be out for a while, and Gideon couldn’t help it.He’d felt protective over the kid—God, theyallhad.The rest of the squad, they’d nursed at the breast of the DOJ, all of them training for this job in one way or another through special forces, covert ops, or plain old book learning.Gideon had hit the Princeton for four years, Marines next andthenfinished the book learning with his PhD, but he’d been good at his job.Particularly the wet work.Something about his dry dispassion had made him clean, methodical, and not particularly remorseful, but that could be because he was called upon to kill very, very bad men.
Crosby had thought the world was fair until being a flatfoot in a shitty Chicago precinct had taught him different.He’d caught a serial killer single-handedly and headed off a gang war and then had stood up against the entire force when his partner had gone rogue.If Harding hadn’t picked the kid up by the scruff of the neck and hauled him to New York, Crosby would be dead already.Such a sweet baby boy, and he had thrown his heart and soul into his new job.
“He wasn’t supposed to last,” Gideon said fretfully, perhaps to mask his concern.“I took one look and told Harding, ‘Oh my God, he’s going to end up in the river if we don’t turf him somewhere else.’”
“I thought he’d done that himself with the fucking dogs,” Carlyle said, and while a stranger might have heard the disgust, Chadwick had been there the day Crosby had turned his back on the dogfight dog in favor of the drug dealer who’d trained it.Chadwick had dispatched one drug dealer, Crosby had dispatched the other, and Carlyle had ripped up his T-shirt to use as a bandage to keep Crosby from bleeding out—after killing the dog.
“He popped back up and learned,” Chadwick said, shaking his head.“But yeah.The ‘Oh God, they killed Crosby!’game is old already.I would like to not see that boy in the hospital.”
“Do you want him?”Carlyle asked, his eyes on Chadwick’s face.
“I thoughtwewere partners,” Chadwick said mildly.
“But you seem in love with Crosby.”
It was time for Gideon to interrupt.“No,” he said gently.“I’m not in love with Crosby.He’s a friend, like he is to you.We, you know, love the guy, but we don’tlovethe guy.”
“Garcia will,” Carlyle said.Why was it that only Gideon could follow him?It always seemed to him like Joey Carlyle left a clear and distinct trail.
“You think so?”Chadwick murmured.He closed his eyes in the dark, knowing he could because Joey would watch out for him.He scented the jacket again, the soap.The dark animal smell that was Joey Carlyle, that seemed to feed Gideon’s soul.
“I can see it,” Joey said.“They’re… they’re two halves, one coconut.Like you and me.”
“But Crosby and Gail are pretty tight,” Gideon said curiously.“I would have thought it would be them.”
“She’s like his sister,” Joey said.“Same pheromones, practically.Theysmellthe same.Can’t you smell it?”
Chadwick grimaced.The “what do you smell” game was one of the other things they had that nobody else did.“Milk and blood,” he muttered, almost embarrassed.
“Yes,” Joey said, following him with ease.“They’re both wholesome and dangerous.”His smile went wolfish again.“Garcia isn’t wholesome—but he’ll wash off pretty with Crosby.They’ll be good once Crosby gets better.”
Chadwick let out a long sigh of relief.“That’s good to know,” he said, smiling.He didn’t doubt Joey’s faint clairvoyance.It was something they’d never talked about, but when Joey said, “Our subjects are in that building, overdosing,” Chadwick knew to bring his gun and put rescue workers on notice because Joey Carlyle wasn’t wrong about those things.
And sometimes he was right about good things too.He’d known Kylie, their texpert, wasn’t coming back from her honeymoon.He’d known Kylie had been pregnant probably before Kylie had.That was good.He’d known Gail Pearson, who looked like the Swiss Miss Hot Chocolate girl, was in truth a knife maiden with superlative skills who didn’t shy away from blood work.
And now apparently he knew that Garcia and Crosby would be a thing.
Good for them.
“Is that why you came?”Chadwick asked, his throat suddenly dry.“To tell me that Garcia and Crosby are going to be a thing.”
Joey shook his head, his eyes—a dark, dark ochre color—fastened upon Chadwick’s face like Chadwick was a magnet.Chadwick knew for a fact he wasn’t handsome.Every line or angle, from his nose to his chin to his cheekbones, was sharp and beveled like a hatchet, and he wondered uneasily what Joey Carlyle saw in him.
“Then what?”Gideon rasped, suddenly conscious of the moment.The soft patter of the rain on the deserted street below, the darkened, empty apartment, their proximity on the bed, the quiet harshness of their breaths.
The deliciousness of Joey Carlyle’s skin.
“Because Crosby is taken now,” Carlyle whispered.“Which means there’s only me.”
And Chadwick followed him there too.He swallowed—twice—because longing rushed up so thickly to block his breathing.
“Joey Carlyle,” he rasped slowly, “what makes you think that Judson Crosby—or anybody else for that matter—would ever be competition for you?”
Carlyle’s grin went full wolf right before he captured Chadwick’s mouth, and Chadwick was fallen upon and devoured by his desire.
