Mutual Possession (Nine Tenths of the Law #1)

1. Kendrick

Chapter one

Kendrick

Spencer’s late.

He said thirty minutes, and it’s now thirty-four minutes since he hung up. It’s fucking cold out here on the sidewalk; where the hell is he? I could have waited upstairs a little longer.

Finally, a familiar black SUV turns the corner and comes to a stop in front of me. The window lowers, and Spencer—my work partner, life partner, colossal pain in my ass, and the love of my life—rests his arm on the opening and leans his head out, glancing up and down the road. “You shouldn’t be waiting outside; you’re a sitting duck out here.”

“You shouldn’t be late.” The only sitting duck is him, with his bright blond hair poking out of the black car. My dark-brown curls blend in a lot better in the dark.

“I stopped to get coffee and food: you’re welcome.”

“It’s four in the morning; where did you get them?” Nowhere acceptable. “If you were hungry, you should have told me, and I would have made you something.” He usually would have, but he was too busy being in a snit over the phone. Something’s up his ass.

Spencer curses under his breath and runs a hand through his hair, messing it up even further. “Why didn’t you say anything? Do you reckon we have time to go upstairs so you can make—”

“No, I’ll make something when we’re done.” We’re not called out at this time of day if it’s not urgent, and he took long enough to get here. He all but shut me out last night and wasn’t there when I got home; he can wait. It’s rare for us to spend a night apart, and I don’t know why he put distance between us, which pisses me off. If he’s got a bone to pick, it’s better to get it out in the open so I can deal with it.

He barely waits for me to secure my seat belt before he swerves back onto the road. At least the car is warm, and my frozen fingers can thaw.

Spencer sighs heavily and leans over me, flicking open the glove box and pulling out a pair of black leather gloves. “Put these on.”

I don’t bother arguing; he’s got his murderous face on, and it’s way too fucking early in the morning to directly deal with that. Not like it ever takes long for him to burst. We’re gonna have this out way before we get to our destination. Good.

“Which drink is mine?” I grunt, pointing at the takeout coffee cups after I slip the gloves on. My fingers tingle uncomfortably in that cold-hot in-between. The holders are vertical, so there’s no obvious “left and right” scenario. And Spencer’s will be decaf. If mine is decaf, I’ll murder someone. He knows better than that. Though in his current mood, I wouldn’t put it past him to do it just to piss me off.

“Front one.”

He turns the heater up and rolls up the sleeves of his long dark-green sweater, revealing his thick black watch. A ridiculous habit he’s carried for years; he’ll turn the temperature up to six hundred and then walk around in shorts and a T-shirt before he’ll put on layers of clothing. Not to mention the fact he wears clothes that have holes in them.

“Your knee is showing.” Peeking out between the rip in his jeans, in fact. Why anyone pays extra for damaged clothes, I have no idea. My suits may cost more than ten pairs of those jeans, but at least they’re impeccably designed, they fit me properly, and they don’t come damaged.

“Imagine if you could see my ankle too,” Spencer says, shooting me a sly smile. “You want to touch it? It’s okay if you do.”

He sounds like he’s joking, but I know he isn’t. He gets antsy if I’m not in contact with him, and he’s already on edge as it is. I lean over and rest my hand just above his knee, thumb brushing the exposed section. While I can’t feel the warmth of his skin through the leather glove, it’s enough to be touching him. For both of us. He’s not the only one that needs this.

“Do you know what this is about?” I ask. Considering our job description, it could almost literally be anything, and our boss, Hunter, didn’t give details in his message. Simply an address in Parramatta with “meet me there now.”

“No idea.” Curt and to the point. Is that how we’re doing this?

Spencer irritably taps his fingers on the steering wheel as he drives like he’s in a street race.

“Spencer.” It’s a clear warning. If he doesn’t tell me what’s going on, I’m about to start the conversation in a much-less-pleasant manner.

“How was your playdate last night?” Spencer blurts out. His hands twist around, gripping the wheel tight, his knuckles turning white.

“My what?”

“Well, it wasn’t a date, and you’re too old for ‘hanging out’ like a teenager. What do you want me to call it?”

What the hell is he—Oh. Christ, I should have worked this one out myself. Everything suddenly makes sense. The cold shoulder, the barely disguised anger. And the jealousy . How did I miss that?

“Dinner with a friend,” I say firmly. “And I don’t think the words ‘hanging out’ are exclusively cornered by the teenage population. I asked you if you wanted to go.” Would have preferred if he had. Does he think I like being apart any more than he does?

“I didn’t want to.”

I didn’t want you to either is heavily implied. I can hear it loud and clear, and he knows it because he did it deliberately.

“He needed someone to talk to after he got shot last year. That’s all.” Six months for me to recover from a badly broken leg while on duty protecting a criminal defence lawyer, Sebastian Devlin, from a deranged killer. Henry Campbell, a homicide detective assigned to protection duty at the same time—thanks to a mutual connection who happens to be Henry’s boss—had taken a bullet to the side of the head during a scuffle when both the lawyer and Spencer were taken. Scars heal faster than mental wounds. Some never heal.

“‘After’ is like a week later. Maybe even a month if I’m being generous. You see him at least once a month. Usually more. At least twice.”

It’s barely once a month. He’s using exaggeration just to drive the knife further into himself. “I don’t say a fucking word when you have your ‘playdates’ with the lawyer.”

“It’s not the same thing at all.”

It’s exactly the same thing. “I’ll stop seeing mine if you stop seeing yours,” I counter. The only one that Spencer should be leaning on is me , or our team. Not some random lawyer he had the bad fortune to get kidnapped with. He’s mine to protect, to comfort.

“Done.”

For fuck’s sake. “The kid is zero threat to you.” Less than zero. I haven’t looked at another person since I met Spencer even before we started whatever the fuck this is. He’s been my only from the very first moment his stupid blond hair came into my view. He hit me like lightning, and I’ve stayed electrified ever since. I can’t have anything close to what I want from him, and I’ll take whatever I can get. It’s not enough and everything at the same time.

“Don’t call him a kid. He’s a single adult male, unlike the ‘lawyer,’ who has four boyfriends. Henry happens to be gay, also, which you never told me, and there’s only one reason why you would hide that.”

I can think of more than one. “I didn’t even know he’s gay.” Does he think we sit around and paint each other’s nails or something? We don’t get that personal. “How do you know he is?”

Spencer glances at me, anger still firmly sparkling in his gorgeous brown gaze. Did he even sleep last night, or did he stay up all night pacing? He should have come to me, and I would have fixed it.

“He dated some other kid back in high school for three years in his little Podunk town.”

It should surprise me that he went to the effort to look Henry and his history up, but it doesn’t. It’s not even the worst thing Spencer has done. Instead of irritating me, it only makes a deep satisfaction roar through me. I fucking love it every time he gets like this. Growly, possessive, mine . He may not want to sleep with me, but that doesn’t mean every part of him doesn’t belong to me. No one else gets to have any of him.

A glance at the next street sign tells me we’re not far from our destination, and we don’t have time to properly get through all the things bothering him right now. “Can we talk about this after?”

“Fine.”

“Fine.” Indulging his petulance right now will mean we’ll be even later than we already are. If it were anyone else waiting for us, I may not have given a fuck.

I flick the stereo on, and Spencer stays silent for the rest of the trip. As if I can’t see how tight his jaw is, or the way he’s glaring at everything, or the grip he has on the steering wheel. Not even rubbing his knee is making it better.

Fuck that. He doesn’t get to retreat from me like this. Dragging the glove off my hand, I get us skin to skin. His knee’s warm under my palm, and I squeeze, massaging. He glances at me, some of the anger diluting. If he wasn’t driving, I’d drag him into my arms. Touch grounds him in a way nothing else does.

Once we park right behind Hunter’s car, I grasp Spencer’s nape and force him to look at me properly. “It’s just you, Spence. It’s always only ever you.” He owns me. I’ll go to my grave needing him. No one will ever come close to what he makes me feel, and nothing will ever change that.

He searches my eyes, expression hard and unforgiving, and then he leans forward. I know what he’s going to do, and I won’t stop him. I didn’t the first time, and I can’t now. His lips touch mine, his head tilting to lock us together like a puzzle. His breath caresses my cheek, and his hand rests against my throat. There’s nothing sexual in it, but it’s still an ownership that kills me as much as it gives me life.

I don’t know what his tongue feels like against mine, what he tastes like inside, and the ache at missing out on those parts of him are a constant companion. It doesn’t matter.

I’ll never let go, and neither will he.