Jude met his gaze, framed in the low wash of headlights and the amber hush of the streetlamp. God, he was stunning. And Warren didn’t even know when that word had entered his vocabulary, let alone why he used it now and why it fit so cleanly around a man he barely knew outside of a case file.
That alone was dangerous enough.
“They’ll charge me for the whole thing.” Jude’s half-smile curving his mouth betrayed his regret. But beneath it, there was restraint. A boundary held. For now. “You did well, PE. You’re officially on the team.”
He held out his hand.
Warren took it. Gripped it. Let it linger. That split-second longer.
The contact buzzed. Skin to skin. Warm. Charged.
Jude’s cheeks coloured. He coughed into a closed fist, then stepped back. “Goodnight, Mr Bailey.”
“Goodnight, Mr Ellison.”
Jude sauntered over to the taxi. The door closed behind him, and the car pulled away into the night while Warren stood still, hand tingling where they’d touched. Then, with a sigh and a kick of himself into gear, he climbed into his car, pulled out slowly, and tailed the Prius from a comfortable three-car distance.
Watching. Always watching.
The taxi turned onto a quiet side street near the harbour. Jude got out, shoulders hunched in the breeze, and made his way up to a narrow stone-fronted cottage with a crooked gate and a porch light left on.
He unlocked the door.
Stepped inside.
Warren waited until the door clicked shut, until the light in the front room glowed warm behind drawn curtains.
Another day, then.
He leaned back in the seat, exhaled from rounded lips, and let the silence wrap around him.
Chapter six
Digging up the Past
Jude closed the door behind him, the latch clicking softly in the quiet.
The warmth of the pub clung to his skin, laughter echoing in his ears, the low hum of conversation, and Warren’s voice lingering beneath it all like a song he couldn’t quite shake.
He was smiling.Actuallysmiling.
That ridiculous little thrill from the way Warren had held his hand a second too long fizzed under his ribs, hijacking rational thought and replacing it with something soft. Something he’d forgotten he could feel.
Stupid. Sweet.Seductive.
And for a fleeting moment, Jude stood there in the hallway, grinning like a man who’d remembered what it felt like to be wanted. For something other than pain.
Then—
“Hello, little lamb.”
He froze.
Those words sliced through the quiet like a blade. Jude’s breath stuttered, gone in an instant, the smile vanishing with it.
It couldn’t be.
Please. No. It can’t be.
