Page 37
Then the bed dipped.
And the warmth vanished.
Jake blinked, dragging himself up as Harrison moved fast beside him, leaning over the bed to reach for his trousers, pulling his phone free before it could buzz again.
He answered with a clipped and sudden, “Black.”
Jake felt that like a door slamming shut.
It was fine. He knew what this was. He’d been around enough coppers to recognise the way they shut everything else out to get the job done.
Or failed to, in his experience.
“Yes, sir.”
Jake frowned, pushing up onto an elbow as Harrison stood, shoulders pulling tight, his posture changing in an instant. Precise. Different. Not the man who, at some point in the night, had nuzzled into Jake, soft and warm, slipping his leg between Jake’s, and held onto him as if he were his personalised plushie.
He might be.
He was certainly heading that way.
God, what the fuck was it about this man?
Jake let his gaze wander while Harrison was occupied. He didn’t know what Harrison had been so worried about last night. The bloke was a fucking sight. Lean, toned, blond-grey hair still wrecked from sleep. Older, yeah, but Christ, that worked for Jake. Maybe more than it should. And now he’d seen him like this, Jake could suddenly picture the younger version far too easily. Light hair falling into his eyes. Skinny jeans. Festival bands around his wrist. One of those lanky little indie lads bouncing around sticky gig floors with too many opinions about music.
A proper rock twink.
Jake grinned into the pillow.
Fucking hell.
He looked again.
Christ. No wonder he’d never done this bit before.
Usually the morning after was easy. If he’d gone back with someone, he’d have left before daylight. No awkward lingering. No pretending the night had been anything it wasn’t. He’d certainly never lain there wishing the bastard would stop answering his phone and get back into bed.
Yet here he was.
Wanting exactly that.
Harrison turned and Jake dropped his gaze to the tight boxers.
Very much wanting that.
He had the sudden urge to reach out, hook an arm around Harrison’s waist and drag him straight back down. Get his hands on him. Kiss the copper out of him until the man from sometime around three in the morning came back.
But Harrison had gone somewhere else entirely.
“…No, I wasn’t informed.”
He paused, listening to whoever it was Harrison called sir on the other end.
“Understood.” He rubbed a hand over his forehead. “With respect, sir, that should’ve been contained at source.”
Jake shuffled up against the wall, sheet pooled around his waist, and watched Harrison pace once, twice, before gathering his shirt from the floor. And there it was again. That stupid little drop in his stomach.
He didn’t want him to go.
