And then he was gone.
And Carlyle was left to close up his locker and remember how to walk.For a moment, he’d thought he wasn’t special, like that moment hadn’t been real, and Gideon Chadwick hadalwaysbeen that intense and he’d simply missed it.
But then it sunk in: Gideon had said he smelled like blood and pine trees, and Joey felt those things in his marrow.
And Gideon hadn’t been appalled.Just… just accepting.Like he knew Joey by his smell alone.
The moment had been real.Gideon smelled him—sawhim.
And Joey was never going to forget that wave of attraction, that wave of raw desire that had stopped up his breath and blood.
HE WOULDN’Tforget it—but in the meantime, he had a job to do.
“I hear them,” Crosby said over comms, and Joey grimaced.He and Gail had been creeping around their assigned paths for half an hour, sweltering in their layers of clothes in spite of the crisp October breeze.The property was all concrete base and aluminum buildings—it was probably twenty degrees hotter there than the ambient temp.Crosby and Gideon were supposed to betheirbackup, while Natalia and Harding took care of the holes in the surveillance.
That Crosby had stumbled on the place where the dogs themselves were being kept was just fucking aces.Gideon would probably raise an erection, erm, erect a monument, to his golden boy’s prowess now that he’d managed to crack the op.
Stop it.Crosby is a good operative… and your friend.
Goddammit, it was no good if—
The thought died in an explosion of barking and Crosby’s deep voice calling out, “SCTF, freeze!”
“Who?That isn’t a real thing!”The voice was a cackle—uneducated, slurred.It had to be one of their subjects.Given the pitch, Joey would put odds on Colin, their White meth buddy.
“We have a warrant to search if we hear anything suspicious,” Crosby said, “and all the barking coming out of that building you’re leaving, that’s suspicious.”
Joey heard a door slam, and with it a silence that made him realize there was a racket he hadn’t marked.
Well shit.Crosbyhadfound the dogs.And nowhewas the one who needed backup.
Silently, Joey rounded the corner behind Crosby and saw the scene as if through a wide-angle lens.
Front and center, he could see Crosby, small weapon (a Glock, which wasn’tthatsmall) drawn, sighting down the smaller Gleeson brother, who had just closed the door on a long, low building that could be used to house dogs.They had initially dismissed it; there was a layer of trash that made it appear partially collapsed.But Joey thought with a flash of insight that Crosby would have used it as cover.He’d gotten close enough to hear the dogs past the insulating trash.
Wellshit.
But that was in the center.On the peripherals, Joey could see two things.One was the other Gleeson brother, rounding the corner, gun drawn.
The other was on the complete other end, but not for long.Charging headlong for Crosby, teeth bared in a salivating grimace, was one of the biggest fucking dogs Joey had ever seen.
Later he’d take in the details: the mixed Rottweiler breed, the scars on its back and around its face, the barbed collar, the near emaciation.All the things that would make a dog savage—pain, hunger, mistreatment—had been leveled against this poor creature.
At that moment all he knew was that the dog was, for once, a more dangerous predator than the two men with guns.
Per all protocol, Crosby was focused on the armed, drug-impaired criminal, but God, that dog was coming in fast.
Right as Joey swung to focus on the dog, the other Gleeson twin raised his gun toward Crosby too.
“Drop it!”Joey shouted, swinging around to aim at him.
Dog dog dog dog dog….
“Both of you are covered,” Crosby barked.“Lower your weapons and nobody gets hurt.”
Kent Gleeson looked gaunt in real life, so he and Colin probably did their meth together.He grinned, the light bouncing off his grill.
“Nobody?”he asked.
