He couldn’t wait for tomorrow.
RILEY
Riley reached out blindly for his bottle of beer, eyes fixed on the email he was trying to write. The cursor blinked steadily and tauntingly afterDear Amy.It was all he’d managed to type in thirty minutes.
Jason was a shifter.
The thought still sent a jolt through him, like the ground had moved under his feet. Riley had always thought of himself as progressive—definitely not like his father, who ranted about shifters like they were animals. Riley believed in rights, in equality under the law. Hevotedthat way.
But still, somewhere along the way, he’d absorbed the idea that shifters were different. Dangerous, maybe—not always, butenough to make him wary. And even though he told himself that different didn’t mean bad, some part of him remained uncertain.
And then he remembered Jason’s fear when Riley had realized, the way he’d flinched away. As if he expected… God, Riley was going to be sick, and he wasn’t sure if it was because Jason lived with that fear of violence, or the fact that people, people just likehim, made shifters feel that way.
So much for the revelation he’d had on his first day in this town thatanyonehe spoke to might be a shifter. He’d thought it, then instantly forgotten again. If only he’d kept it in mind, maybe he’d have realized about Jason in time to avoid this. Maybe there’d been a clue he’d missed.
Except, thinking back through all his time with Jason, there was nothing that saidshifter.Just Jason, and acceptance, and warmth in eyes that were so soft on Riley’s. Yeah, he was a shifter, but first and foremost he was Jason.
He picked up the bottle, desperate for distraction, only to find it was empty. Luckily, Tim had sent him away with a few, so he opened another one and took a long swig. It only reminded him of the afternoon he had spent—and of Jason.
Swearing again, he pushed back from the desk and strode the few feet to the bed. The bed where he’d learned just how responsive Jason could be to a touch, how open and trusting he’d been beneath Riley’s hands and mouth.
Fuck it. His throat worked, and he told himself it was the aftertaste of the beer. He sat down in the lumpy green chair and wondered what the hell he was supposed to do. He wasn’t going to be here long, but he didn’t want to call a halt to this thing with Jason before he had to. Something deep inside him clenched unhappily at the very thought. But he didn’t want to betray Jason, either.
Underneath it all lay the simple truth—he couldn’t walk out on this assignment, because it was his last chance. If he screwed this up, he’d spend the rest of his life serving fries.
He took another mouthful of beer and tried not to focus on the fact that Jason seemed happy with that sort of a job. Like happiness was enough.
It was all right for Jason. He didn’t have Emmett Clark II, Rotary Club President and all-around pillar of the community, being continuously humiliated by his failure of a son. His son who had no high-flying career to make up for the crushing disappointment that he’d turned out to be gay.
Riley had to make something of his life and that meant doing the job he’d been sent here to do. And with Jason being part of the pack, he now had the perfect way to find out exactly what he needed for his story.
Decision made, he headed for the bathroom. He’d shower, clean off every last reminder of Jason, and come back to the laptop and do some fucking work. That was what he was being paid for.
But when he was under the weak spray of the shower, rubbing bodywash over his chest and arms and remembering the shy yet hopeful look in Jason’s eyes as he’d touched Riley, things seemed less clear.
* * *
By the time he’d drunk all four of the bottles Tim had sent back with him, Riley’s head was spinning, but he had his solution. He wouldn’t ask Jason about anything to do with the pack. If Jason offered up information freely, well, that was a different matter.
And when Riley’s story broke… That was when his plan stuttered to a halt, because he couldn’t see any way Jason would understand what Riley had done to his pack. But then, Riley wouldn’t be here anymore. He’d be back in LA, with a successful career ahead of him and a father who finally saw him as something more than a failure.
His father hadn’t disowned him on finding he was gay. He’d just stopped being his dad. He used to introduce Riley like he was something special. “This is my boy,” he’d say to colleagues at work events, arm slung around Riley’s shoulders, pride thick in his voice. That pride used to feel like a shield. Until the day it disappeared without a word.
It took a few attempts to iron out the spelling mistakes the beer had made, but he finally finished his email. His finger hovered oversend.
It was just an email. Merely a few words to his boss. He shouldn’t feel bad—he was doing what he had to.
I’ve got the perfect way in.
The last few words stared back at him, stark and undeniable. The perfect way in. He drained the last of his beer, then slammed his finger on the button.
The instant the email sent, something inside him soured. He pushed back the laptop like it might burn him. The words were out there now. There was no taking them back.
Chapter Thirteen
RILEY
Riley spent the morning combing through every databaseThe Daily Sentinelhad access to. It should have been easy to focus because he was gaining ground in his investigation. But ever since last night, his thoughts had kept circling the same point, around and around.
