“Wait, are you in the Dallas area?”
“I will be a little later on this week.”
“Shit. I’m stuck in Austin while I’m recovering.” Yeah, stuck in a dick-sucking machine with my evil-scientist boyfriend.
“Oh well. Thought it might be fun to hang out like old times."
I hesitate, hoping that I'm misinterpreting him. "Greg, you know that I'm with someone now, right?"
Odd frowns then points to himself.Mine, he mouths with a pout that I want to erase with my dick.
There’s a small pause on the line, so small that I doubt it was a pause at all.
“Well, that must be new. But I promise this is just a dinner between friends. I'll keep my hands on the table the entire time," he jokes, and I can practically hear him grin.
"That's a good thing,” I say, reaching out to scruff Odd’s beard. “My guy is blond and beautiful, but he can get a little jealous.”
“Blond, huh? You always did have a type.” And now the smile is completely gone from his voice. I think briefly about our past and hope I haven’t wandered into a thorny personal area between us.
Trying to get the conversation back on track, I try for a joke. “Well, less a type and more the one person I was never able to get over.”
Oh god, thepreeningon that man. Odd gestures at his face, his ass, and his cock. Punk.
Huh. Nowthatis a pause.
“So…Odd?”
Something in his voice sets my teeth on edge. “Uh, yeah,” I respond carefully. Odd cocks his head to the side.
Greg’s laugh sounds fake. “Wow. Figured you were going to pine for him forever, what with all of your rules about never pursuing subordinates.”
I’m sitting here, all of these subtle things starting to come together, and I’m reminded of my psych warfare courses. Our professor was a Vietnam War vet with an eyepatch and a prosthetic leg, and he was funny as shit. He taught us that your senses pick up on clues well before your brain can spit out the identifying language, like the way you know that someone is a creep well before they actually do anything. He taught us to listen to our body clues in tactical situations and rely on our training.
And right now, my body is on full alert, and my training is finally putting together pieces of a puzzle that have been scattered for too long. Odd shifts, his brow raised as he up-nods me. “What’s going on?” he mouths.
“Yeah, kinda broke my own rules on that one.” I rub the back of my neck as realization stiffens my spine. Greg has one of the only jobs in the world that has damn near unlimited access to data files across all agencies.
We’ve been so focused on this being a problem within the Marshals organization that it hadn’t occurred to me it could be anything else. And then I went and fucking showed my hand to the bastard holding all the cards. I’ve always viewed his access as a reason to keep him at arms’ length, but not a reason to suspect him. I hadn’t factored in our personal entanglements.
“I just had to get my head out of my ass, really.” I chuckle, wanting to point Anders at this asshole and pull the trigger. He not only endangered my crew, but he made it harder to take down truly terrible people.
The thing that’s gonna keep me up tonight is that I don’t know why he would fuck around with the data instead of having me arrested.
“So itispossible. Duly noted.”
Fuck, maybe I’m wrong.
I’m not wrong.
Thinking quickly, I make my excuses. “All right, I’ve got a rendezvous in Bastrop to plan for, so I’ll call you later when I have an idea of where to meet.”
Giving him the location is tactical, a baited hook.
“Can I assume I don’t want to know all the details?” he asks, amused with himself.
“That is a wise assumption.”
“So I'll have to track you down another time, I suppose,” he teases.
