Chapter 6
SIX
Liam
My alarm going off sounds like hell. I’m pretty sure I could just ignore it and sleep for another day, but Gabriel rolls over and hugs me, and it gives me the life I need to rejoin the world.
“How much sleep did we get? Like three hours total?” he mumbles.
“The real question is… why are all of the other detectives too useless to do this stuff on their own, so we must sacrifice our precious sleep for them?” I ask.
“It’s what happens when you’re the best.”
I grin, having assumed he’d say something like, “Oh, they’re not useless, blah blah,” but instead, he just fed my ego, and I approve.
“Please don’t boost my ego too much, Gabriel.
You know I’ll get greedy,” I say as I squeeze him to me, not prepared to ever let him go.
He really is so lovely. I could kiss him all over and still not get enough of him.
I close my eyes, prepared to succumb to his embrace before he gives me a gentle shake, which causes me to receive a cat paw right on my eyelid as Lucy Fur, which is the much superior name for the satanic cat, makes her way off the bed.
“Your cat is trying to remove my eyeballs, Gabriel.”
“She just… it was the quickest way to her food bowl,” he says, like going around my head would cause her some great distress.
“Ah yes, so quick. She just wanted to use my eyeball fluids to moisturize her paw pads like in those videos I see you watching.”
“Don’t make fun of the cat spa videos that I find adorable,” Gabriel warns.
Like how could I not make fun of them? The second he saw one, he tossed all of the shit they used in the cart and then proceeded to try his hand at moisturizing Lucille’s paws, like cats have been domesticated for ten thousand years without paw pad moisturizer and will suddenly expire without soft paws.
That cat will let him do anything to her that he wants… but she wouldn’t let him do that.
She wasn’t mean about it, of course not, but she sure pulled her paw this way and that way until it was a moving target that he couldn’t pin down.
I told him he could moisturize my fingers all he wanted, and he just grunted and proceeded to shower Lucy Fur with treats…
like she did anything worth treating her for.
I get up and wander over to my dresser for underwear and socks before making my way to the closet that I stare inside.
It really isn’t that hard of a decision, but it’s made significantly harder by my sleep-deprived mind.
I grab some slacks and opt for a looser button-up so I can cram warm clothes under and over it, realizing I’ll likely be stuck at the zoo for at least part of the day.
When I’m done fastening the final button, I look over at the bed where Gabriel has managed to kick the sheets off, but that’s as far as his naked ass has gotten.
I grin down at the view.
“I approve.”
He opens an eye, not sacrificing both for this engagement. “I’m pleased you do.”
I grab his underwear and a pair of khakis before heading over to him where I kneel on the bed. Rolling him onto his back, I slip the underwear over his feet and then proceed to follow the underwear up his leg with kisses trailing up his calf and ending at his thigh.
“Oh, don’t wake up the lower half. We definitely don’t have time for that.”
I lift his leg a bit more and kiss his inner thigh. “I was just giving you good-morning kisses.”
“I… I can’t refute that,” he says while I lift his ass enough to pull his underwear up. Do my fingers brush over his ass cheeks as I do? Possibly. But I’m never going to pass up a good ass fondle when given the opportunity.
I kiss right above the spot his underwear rests. He shivers and reaches for my head.
“Your scruff tickles.”
“Yeah? I just want to eat you all up,” I murmur as I kiss the same spot again. His fingers grip my hair and I feel the way he’s starting to get hard.
“We really can’t, Liam. We’re supposed to be at a briefing in thirty minutes. We’re already going to be late,” Gabriel says.
“If we’re already going to be late—”
“We’re supposed to talk during it!”
I grumble and kiss him again before sucking on a spot that makes him squirm and laugh.
“Stop. You’re a menace,” he says.
“No idea what you’re talking about.” I used to think that the only thing that could snag my attention would be to hunt someone truly despicable who needed to die.
But now… now this is my addiction. Sometimes I wonder what he’d think if he knew how much I needed him.
As someone who never really understood emotions, feeling all of these toward Gabriel is such a strange thing…
I manage to get his khakis on him without causing him too many more problems in the nether region—that is until I button them, push up the zipper and then kiss his cock through his pants.
“You’re killing me,” he whines.
“I would never want to do that,” I say as I glance up at him.
He grabs my head and just smooshes it against the bed like that’s the best way to deal with me.
“Why?”
“I don’t know, Liam. You’re too tempting. You’re like the devil. I need to get up but you’re tempting me to remain on my back.”
I’m pleased by this. “Which shirt do you want today?” I wander over to look at his shirts.
“That gray one is fine,” he says.
I glance at it and then decide that really… this other one would look much better on him. I pull it down and grab an undershirt to help him keep warm. When I reach the bed, he’s at least sitting up, so I guide his arm into the undershirt and then the button-up before he looks down at it.
“This is your shirt,” he says.
“I’m aware.”
“Why am I wearing your shirt?”
“Because I thought it would look nice on you… and it’s warm… since we’ll be outside.”
“Are you sure that’s why I’m wearing this? For warmth?” he asks as he lets me button it up. It really is such a delightful experience. I’m usually taking his clothes off, not putting them on.
“Tie or no tie?”
“No tie.”
I frown, wanting to put a tie on him.
Seeing my disappointment, he amends, “You can put it on and take it back off.”
“I think I will,” I say as I grab a tie and loop it around his neck. I slowly feed it through while he watches me closely. Then I slide it tight and smile at him. “Just practicing for our wedding.”
“You are not proposing to me yet. You hear that yet word?” Gabriel asks. “Someday, but not yet.”
“Someday can be tomorrow or the next day,” I say, which Gabriel doesn’t seem to agree with for some reason. I pull the tie free and then start unbuttoning his shirt farther than it needs to be.
“Stop! We have to focus.”
“I am focused,” I assure him as I let my finger dip into that V.
He grabs my hand and kisses my finger before slipping it into his mouth and sucking it. And my god, the way that tongue wraps around it goes right to my dick. He pulls off and with a smirk, he goes on his merry way.
And I realize that this is exactly what karma looks like.
“It’s okay, the best detectives have arrived,” I announce as I walk into the briefing room where Michaels has already started.
“Sgt. Michaels was running through everything really fast in the hope that we’d be done before you even arrived,” Matthew says.
“Fear not, I’m here. Wipe those tears of longing away, Chris,” I call, ignoring Matthew completely.
“I’m still not crying,” he says as I take a seat next to Jesse.
I give Jesse a nod. “Hello, human, I would like to look at your findings.”
He cocks his head to the side before shaking it. “You act like I’m over here probing assholes or something with the way you talk.”
Most of the room laughs because Jesse is cute, and from my findings, people tend to like cute and little things.
Michaels does not laugh because he is jealous of Jesse’s hair. And then I realize that I also didn’t laugh, and I refuse to be on the same level as Michaels.
“May I continue?” Michaels asks.
“I’m really sorry we were late,” Gabriel says as he sits next to me.
“It’s understandable. You two had quite the eventful night,” Michaels replies. “So far, we don’t have much news on Nadine Gates. We know that she is in critical condition, but she’s very lucky you two found her when you did.”
Gabriel’s shoulders slump. “I just… I wish we’d found her sooner.”
“There are so many variables to everything we do in life. If it was that easy to find out what happened to people, there would be no need for us,” Matthew says. “We do what we can and shouldn’t hate ourselves for not doing it quick enough.”
Jesse slowly nods. “Yeah… what Matthew said.”
And I’m annoyed to admit that Matthew has said something sensible.
“Finding that woman was a fantastic feat; you two have given her a chance to live. Don’t knock yourselves down,” Penny encourages.
Gabriel smiles in acknowledgement, but I’m still not sure he’s convinced.
Michaels goes over a few more things then hands the reins over to the four main detectives who were present. Since I already know everything our group is going over, I’m immediately bored but do pay attention while Jesse talks in case he’s found anything new.
“What I can tell from examining the head is that it was removed with a large, sharp knife, which lines up with the butcher knives that were collected from the zoo. There is bruising on the back of the head, making me question if he fell and hit his head when he died, but nothing severe enough to be the cause of his death. The rest of the body is mostly bones that arrived damaged by the hyenas, but I’ll still be examining them closely. ”
“Was the body chopped up or intact when given to the hyenas?” Donna asks.
“It appears like it was intact.”
“So did the person who killed Zach also plan on killing Nadine?” Penny asks.