His groin.
Dear God.
He had an aching, unassuageable erection from hearing Gideon take this motherfucker down.
“Oh my God,” Gail whispered.“Who knew Chadwick could be that sexy?”
“I’m sayin’,” Joey muttered back, glad she’d put it in that zone before he had.
“Agent Chadwick?”
Joey and Gail were going to hyperventilate.That deceptively mild voice had been Harding’s, and in six months, Joey had never heard that tone.
“Sir?”Chadwick replied respectfully.
“Your work here is appreciated, but it’s my turn.Go check on Crosby, would you?”
“Yes, sir,” Chadwick said, and Gail and Joey had to skitter back as he opened the door.
“And Gid?”
“Sir?”
“Don’t let anybody but our unit and medical professionals into his room.”Clint Harding’s voice developed a blinding edge.“You’re authorized to use deadly force if they try.”
“Sir.”And Gideon stepped into the room and shut the door in time for Joey and Gail to lean on it again.
They had to.They’d held their breath so long on big gasps of air, they were both, Joey surmised, a little dizzy.
“You heard?”Gideon asked the two of them dryly.
They rolled their eyes at him.
“Just remember that,” Gideon said.“We have each other’s backs.”
They both nodded solemnly before Gail scooted back and motioned Gideon to the spot between them so they couldalllisten through the door.
Gideon took it, and for a full ten minutes, through a truly epic ass-chewing by Clint Harding, one that would go down in agency lore forever, Joey was face-to-face, sharing breath with Gideon Chadwick of the hooded falcon eyes.
His aching, insistent erection didn’t ease until Harding stepped back from the wall Jay Arnold had sweated against, and they had to let him into the room, along with a couple of patient, wise nurses.
When they finally left the room so Crosby could sleep, Joey noticed two things.
One was that Gideon’s presence, his heat, hissmell, seemed to have imprinted itself on Joey Carlyle’s consciousness like a mountain lion’s scent mark on its mate.
The other was an unfortunate body-sized wet mark on the hospital wall, where the NYC Gambling Commissioner had sweated through his ugly, overpriced suit.
Stakeout
“GOD, WEneed more people,” Gideon complained, leaning his head back against the rest.Carlyle sat next to him, quiet and still, which he’d been doing a lot since Crosby had been hospitalized.
But maybe he was, like Gideon, exhausted.
They were stretched thin, and Pearson and Kylie had been partnered with Kylie running point from a laptop in the passenger seat while Pearson hauled ass through NYC and much of the East Coast, terrifying the unwary, because the two ofthemwere still allowed their weapons, while Gideon and Carlyle were on administrative or surveillance duty after the shooting.
Kylie had confided that while Crosby and Gideon were thefastestdrivers of the unit, Gail Pearson was the one most likely to die as a grease spot on the highway, for impossible turn reasons.
But Gideon’s and Harding’s encounter with Jay Arnold hadn’t been without repercussions, and one of them had been a come-to-Jesus meeting with the FBIaboutthe NYC Gambling Commissioner, and how long it had taken him to take down the Gleeson Brothers.
