He was still staring at the way her plump ass molded around the bike seat when I jogged past, startling him.
“Get inside, Ches,” I snapped. “Unless you want to lose those eyes.”
Why I cared that he was staring at her perfect, full ass, I had no idea.
Ches grumbled something under his breath after I passed. The urge to turn around was strong, but not stronger than the insistent need to ensure Juno made it home safely.
That wasn’t the reason I followed her whenever I could, though—or at least that was what I told myself. I needed to protect my family by uncovering her secrets, exposing what she was hiding so I could finally be done obsessing over the obnoxious, feisty, brilliant computer programmer who looked like a blonde—now brunette—version of my baby sister’s Strawberry Shortcake doll from when we were kids.
What? I was a good older brother who entertained his kid sister while our mom worked two jobs just to keep us fed and a roof over our heads. Memories of dark nights, the electricity being shut off again because of nonpayment, and sleeping on thefloor in front of Mattie’s door slithered through my thoughts, infecting me now with all the bad from then.
My breath hissed through my teeth as my stomach cramped, the worst memory flashing like a horror film on repeat of that awful night that triggered my insistent resolve to always protect Mattie.
Stretching my neck from side to side, I forced those memories back into the box stuffed in the back of my mind where they belonged and recentered my focus on the current threat.
Juno Jones.
The background check Carl begrudgingly ran at my request—for security reasons only, obviously—came back completely uneventful, so I had zero clues as to why she was here. On paper, she was the innocent, introverted though smart-mouthed programmer she claimed to be, but there was something that just didn’t sit right with me. She was hiding something, but not some weird fetish or hobby. I’d noticed it the moment she boarded the boat in Anchorage after accepting the social media job with Uplift. It was almost like she was skittish, haunted even, but not in grief like our resident veterinarian, Baylee, had been when she moved to Anchor Bay.
No, Juno Jones was running from something. Or someone.
And I was determined to find out what or who. All in the name of protecting the community, of course.
It took twice as long to get back to our community outside of town as it should have. The woman must love the nice weather, because there was no way she could’ve pedaled any slower—hell, my cat GG could’ve made it here faster, and she was the laziest cat I’d ever known.
After making sure Juno made it into her cabin safely—which pissed me off since I’d followed her from Oliver’s gym all the way here and she didn’t even fucking notice; she needed lessons insurveillance and awareness instead of that boxing shit—I headed home to get cleaned up.
And maybe jack off in the shower.
Which also pissed me off. I couldn’t even look at her from a distance without getting a hard-on. It didn’t help that ever since she signed on with Uplift and moved into one of the single cabins three down from mine, I hadn’t been with a woman, alone or with West. There was plenty of opportunity, sure; West and I never had issues finding someone who was down for a night of fun with us. But since Juno arrived, I hadn’t found anyone who could distract me from my weird obsession with her.
Hand wrapped around the back doorknob, I stilled at the muffled grunts and heavy breathing from the other side. Licking my lips, I quietly turned the knob and pushed the door open without making a sound. The sounds, no longer distorted by the heavy wood, along with the erotic visual playing out in the living room had me adjusting my hardening cock as I watched my best friend and roommate.
West was butt-ass naked, pumping out one-arm push-ups over and over with his injured hand resting in the center of his back. The colorful sugar skull tattoo that covered the full expanse of his muscular back moved and shifted with every rep.
Either feeling the breeze from the open door or sensing my stare, he popped up and spun around, a knowing smirk on his lips. Swiping his thick, black-framed glasses off the kitchen island, he slid them on and strode to the fridge.
West and I were… complicated. Until him, I was never attracted to men. And I still wasn’t—just to West. Though we weren’t in a relationship in the conventional way. Hell, nothing we did around here was what most people considered “normal.” But I wasn’t sleeping with anyone else, neither was he, and we hadn’t done anything together, just us two, in a while either.
And of course, my abstinence coincided with the arrival of that woman.
I was glaring at the floor, wondering why in the hell I allowed Juno to mess with my sex life when she wasn’t a part of it, and almost missed the question West tossed over his shoulder as he scanned the refrigerator shelves.
“How did your early-morning stalking go?”
Rolling my eyes, I flipped him the bird while shutting the back door. “It’s not fucking stalking; it’s intelligence gathering.”
He scoffed, taking out a bottled water and slamming the fridge door shut. Twisting the cap off, he lifted the water to his lips, downing half before responding. “You say recon, I call it what it is, and that’s stalking. Though I guess it’s the same thing—the biggest difference is that one of us isn’t lying to themselves about the underlying reason for it.”
Ignoring him, I ripped my thin T-shirt over my head, tired of it sticking to my sweat-slick back. Balling it up, I launched it at his face, which he dodged easily with a grimace.
“What the fuck is that smell?”
“I had to wait next to the dumpster while she worked out,” I grumbled, cheeks heating at the admission. “It was the best vantage point to see through the front windows without being noticed. Speaking of which, how important do you think Oliver is to this town and the ongoing investigation? Would anyone really miss him?”
The water bottle froze, hovering just over West’s lips as his eyes widened. “Fucking hell, Langston. I swear I’m your ride or die, brother, but digging a shallow grave with one hand will?—”
“Fuck, I didn’t kill him.” He waited, motioning for me to say the next part out loud. “Yet,” I groused.
