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“Hey. Champ wants you on a mission with us to Nashville.”
His eyes widened. “Today?”
“Right now.”
“Oh! Yeah!” He grabbed the edge of the covers to pull them back. “I’ll be ready in—”
I stopped him with a gentle hand on his throat. “Wait,” I said softly. “I just… you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”
He searched my eyes. “But I do want to. I want to help.”
I ran a thumb along his thrumming pulse. His fine skin was reddened in places where I’d held him too firmly, sucked him too hard, and that possessive feeling swamped me again.
I was becoming familiar with that too.
“Just promise me you won’t feel pressure to do anything you feel uncomfortable wi—”
Kev surged forward until his lips touched mine. “If you’re going, I’m going,” he said, and then he kissed me enthusiastically. It was awkward and clunky but so damned sweet I wanted to pin him down and reward him for his confidence. Unfortunately, there wasn’t time.
I pulled back and grabbed his glasses off the nightstand before settling them on his face. “I think it would be more efficient if we showered together. Save time.”
“And save the planet,” he agreed piously.
Showering together turned out to be a mistake. As soon as I got my hands on him under the hot spray, my dick thundered to life. I fumbled us through a quick frot before rinsing off and throwing yesterday’s clothes on.
Thankfully, I had a change of clothes in a guest room upstairs. I raced through my usual pre-op checklist of dressing, then feeding Rodrigo and cleaning his cage, and by the time I hit the kitchen for coffee, I was only three minutes late. I definitely didn’t have enough time to brew a fresh pot of coffee, but maybe I could—
Kev was already there, holding two travel mugs and bags of something that smelled like Mrs. Carmody’s breakfast sandwiches. He shook one cup and a bag in my direction.
“I added that gross syrup you like,” he began, but I cut him off with a fierce kiss.
There were definitely some upsides to having Kev on the team.
Maybe a lot of upsides.
We quickly made our way out to the driveway, where the team was assembling. I was surprised to see Quinn in the group. “Is it Bring Your Boyfriend on the Op day?” I muttered under my breath.
Kev frowned. “Sorry, did you say something?”
I blinked and felt my face heat. Shit. Had I actually just thought of Kev as my boyfriend?
Jesus Christ.
Kev was supposed to be the less-experienced one of the two of us, but suddenly, I was acting like a teenager who’d just exchanged promise bracelets with his first crush. I needed to slow the fuck down.
“Nothing,” I said, annoyed at myself.
“Huxley,” Champ said, glancing pointedly at his watch, “nice of you to join us. Did you have trouble finding Kev?”
“Uh. No.” I knew my face was getting even redder. “Nope. He was… right in his bed.” It was harder than it should have been not to add, “with me.”
“Thanks for coming, Kev,” Champ said much more warmly. “Okay, let’s move.”
Kev seemed strangely shy as we loaded up. He didn’t meet anyone’s eyes, including mine, and deliberately chose a seat in the back of the surveillance van, away from everyone else. I must have glanced at him in concern one too many times because Riggs side-eyed me.
“What’d he do to piss you off now?” he asked in a low voice.
“Who? Oh, Kev? Nothing.”
Riggs tilted his head and smirked. “Then why do you keep glaring at him?”
“I’m not glaring at him,” I hissed. “I’m worried about him. He’s being unusually quiet.”
“You? Worried about Kev?” Riggs’s smirk widened. “Sure, bro.”
I tightened my grip on my coffee. “I’m serious.”
Riggs’s eyes narrowed on me for a moment, and then he shrugged. “It’s five thirty in the morning. Maybe he’s half-asleep like the rest of us.”
Except I knew that wasn’t it. Something had gotten in his head between the time we’d left the kitchen and the time he’d gotten in the van, and whatever it was, I wanted to fix it for him. Hell, I wanted to grab the front of his shirt and yank him toward me, wrap my arms around him, and reassure him. But that was definitely not happening here in front of my team, my boss, while on a mission.
Besides, I didn’t know what Kev even wanted. Yesterday, he’d been calling that cheating asshole Anomaly his boyfriend, about them maybe becoming exclusive in Vegas—
“Hey.” Riggs nudged me. “Are you eating that sandwich or turning it into a smoothie?”
I looked down at the crumpled breakfast sandwich bag in my hand. “Neither. Just… thinking.”
“About?”
I bit my tongue. I was absolutely not going to tell Riggs about what had happened with Kev. For one thing, Kev was an adult, and his sex life was none of Riggs’s business, even if he did think of Kev as a brother. For another… how the hell could I explain what was going on when I didn’t know, myself?
