Chapter Eighteen
Hacked Servers, Heated Moments, and Highly Indecent Behavior
Elliot
Ten pm and I’m still sitting in my office, finishing up a research paper that’s not due for another six months.
Because what’s the point of going back home?
Sleep has decided it hates me, and the closed walls taunt me.
My home, my safe place, is overrun with ghosts I don’t have the energy to confront.
I would have tried therapy, but I can hardly share anything real without the danger of being thrown in prison or a mental institute. While I may prefer my office over my house, it’s definitely better than the other options.
I tried sleeping pills, but they make the nightmares worse and I woke up more exhausted than normal. Working with a massive headache is the only option I’ve got.
My phone buzzes with an incoming message. I don’t even have to check to know it’s Nicholas. I should ignore his texts, but what else am I doing? You can only use ‘writing a paper for a conference I’ll skip when I’m selected’ as an excuse for so long. Besides, I’m already halfway done with it.
So, giving a big head to Detective Makes-World’s-Best-Pancake, it is.
Nicholas Harper Oliver’s Friend: Someone misses you.
The message is sadly not followed by a dick pic. It’s a picture of Mickey.
I should really ignore it. It’s a travesty.
So cliché, he should be embarrassed. Mickey is cute and all, but what the fuck, Nicholas?
It’s definitely not a reply-able text. He just got around to spelling the words right.
I pity anyone who reads his reports. Replying to this would just encourage him, and then I would never get him to stop being a dork.
Me: You’re a dork.
I know it’s counterproductive, but it needed to be said for humanity. It’s pure public service.
I go back to editing the same paragraph for the fifty-seventh time. Surprisingly, you can’t work your best when you’ve barely slept for two weeks. Embarrassingly, the last time I had a full night of sleep was in Nicholas’s bland bed.
Must be the blowjobs. Or my body was so tired, it gave up. I even woke up fresh and was almost tolerable for all of three days before Ashley started complaining about me being a bitch again. Has grown quite a spine, that girl. At least my insomnia is helping someone.
I replace the first sentence again when my screen distorts like an old-timey television with a bad signal. I jerk back on my chair.
The screen goes completely black, and Sam’s smug face comes on it.
“What the fuck?” I yell, clutching my chest.
He laughs, the bastard. “You deserve it for ignoring my calls for a week.”
“I replied to your messages,” I say, it still comes out a little loud. I clear my throat.
“Not the same. You know, check-in calls are not optional. So, here it is,” he says, spreading his hands.
“What is it?” I ask, frustrated.
“Your check-in call, O Invincible Unbeatable Great One,” he taunts.
I scowl at him, unimpressed. “This is an ambush, is what this is.”
“I don’t mind that, actually. Makes me sound like a badass, which I am, considering I knew exactly where you’ll be and on which device,” he says smugly. “You look like shit, by the way. No wonder you didn’t want to talk,” he continues with no input from me.
“Thanks,” I roll my eyes. All that does is make my headache worse.
“So, talk to me. How was the last assignment?”
I move my coffee cup to the corner and arrange my pens in a line. “It was great.”
“Mmm-hmm,” he says judgementally. “Elaborate on that, will you?”
I look up at the screen. “The murderer is dead. The task is done. That’s all that matters,” I say.
I sound cagey even to my ears. There’s a reason I’ve been avoiding talking to Sam.
The guy knows me too damn well. And he’s the only person capable of making me confront what I’ve been trying to avoid.
The task didn’t go well. Not even close.
“Elliot,” he warns.
I sigh. “I went a bit off script,” I confess.
“How off script are we talking?”
“I snapped at him a tiny bit, and he freaked out.”
“Start from the beginning, man. I’m sure it wasn’t really your fault,” he assures.
So, I tell him everything. About how that stupid werewolf decided to park right in front of the store's camera. What kind of dealer was he? About how much convincing it took to get him to meet me at a different Wendy’s that didn’t have any cameras in the parking lot.
How it frayed the little patience I had left for him. Then he finally decided to suspect me and didn’t stop looking around long enough to finish his laced coffee, which I got from a different store because I’m not an amateur.
And when he finished it, for the first time, the formulation decided not to work fast enough on him. Or it did, and I was too wound up. I was at my wits’ end with putting on an act for him, so I might have been acting shady.
I already knew the guy would not hesitate before killing me, but I was confident he wouldn’t do it without a concrete reason.
Boy, I was wrong because his claws were out before we could even start the deal.
I dodged it, but his car took the hit. So, when the drugs finally kicked in, and he calmed down enough for me to start the clean up, there was so much destruction.
I feel lighter as I form the words. I can finally admit I screwed up. No other way around it. I was careless, and my sleeping schedule, or the lack of it, is affecting my work. I just wish I knew what to do about it.
Sam says nothing for a long time, his eyes wide. “Okay, yeah, that was kind of your fault,” he says finally.
I sigh again. “Yes, it was, and I’ll analyze things so it’s not repeated,” I assure him.
“I’ve already analyzed it, actually. I’m the brains of the operation, remember?” He smirks, extending an olive branch.
I grasp it. “Clearly can’t be the face of it with that mug, so yeah.”
He laughs. “Why are you not at home right now?” The abrupt topic change confuses me.
“I had some pending work,” I lie.
Sam raises one eyebrow.
“Ugh, okay, I can’t sleep anyway, and the house feels weird,” I confess.
“Why can’t you sleep?” he asks.
I wish he would let this go, but Sam has never let anything go.
Ever. Then again, that’s probably the only way to get anything out of me.
Time to come clean. “The nightmares are back,” I mumble.
I immediately regret saying it out loud.
It makes me feel like a helpless kid. Tiny. Maybe he didn’t hear me?
“About Raymond?” Of course, he heard.
I nod.
He sighs. “When?”
God, I hate disappointing him. None of this would be possible without him. He helped me transform from a meek little kid to the strong badass man I am now. He handles so much to make this possible, and I can’t even do the little things I’m responsible for properly.
“Dude, whatever you’re thinking right now, it’s bullshit,” he says, reading my mind.
“They started over a month ago,” I confess.
“And you didn’t tell me?” The hurt on his face feels foreign and wrong.
“I thought I had it handled,” I say honestly.
“Elliot, we’re a team. You don’t have to handle anything alone. No, not even your mental health,” he stresses when I interrupt. “We’re taking a break,” he announces.
“What? No, that’s unnecessary,” I protest.
He shakes his head. “It’s final. We can’t make mistakes. What we do is too dangerous. I did not have any active suspects anyway before you give me the whole tirade about how this is bigger than us,” he counters.
I nod meekly.
“Now tell me about the dreams.”
***
Nicholas shows up at the clinic with sandwiches for lunch the next day. Natalie, an adorable Shih Tzu’s mom, fawns on him for an hour, so lunch break gets delayed until I’m hungry and cranky.
“Dude, stop glaring at her. She’s a regular client, and that’s not even a good way of feeling someone’s arm. She’s too transparent for him to fall for it,” Ashley says.
Nicholas laughs at me when Natalie finally leaves and drags me to my office. When I say drag, he literally pulls my arms until I follow him. He slams the door behind him, then me against the door.
His mouth crashes on mine, teeth clattering. He slows down to adjust me to his liking before shoving his tongue into my mouth. Technically, a bad kiss in every way, but my body heats up, dick taking immediate notice. I pull him close while he licks into my mouth with his stupid tongue.
He pulls back. “Even if it’s casual, it can’t be right only to meet once a week,” he says against my lips.
I nod, but I have a feeling I’d agree with everything he says to get him back to kissing again.
I’ve never really been a fan. But Nicholas kisses with his whole body.
His hands gliding over me, my brain scrambling to keep up with the sensations.
His body easily covers mine, but it doesn’t make me feel weak. Just safe.
I bite his lip hard to make that particular thought go away.
He walks back, pulling me with him. I mouth at the stubble on his jaw, lightly biting the skin. He pushes me against the desk this time. I climb up to get better access to his mouth. He parts my legs and closes the gap between us.
The shift brings his dick right there with mine. I gasp when he rubs against me.
“Fuck, this is perfect,” he sighs.
He moves down, nipping my neck, grinding against me.
“Wait,” I say. He immediately pulls back.
I unzip his pants, taking out his hard, heavy cock. “Fuck, baby,” he moans as I give it a couple of tugs.
I unzip my pants and take out my cock too. I place my palm near his mouth. “Lick,” I tell him.
He holds my wrist with his large hand and does just that. His eyes meet mine as wet heat coats my hand. Suddenly, my palm feels like it’s made of live wires that are directly connected to my dick.
It gets difficult to breathe.
I snatch my hand when I realize he has no intention of giving it back. Shit to do, dicks to jerk, Nicholas.
I slide our cocks together and tug at them. Hard to do with the monster he carries in his pants. So, I lick my other hand (to save time) and get it in there too. I move my hands up and down, in a quick, firm rhythm.
Nicholas’s eyes are wide with amazement. “I—I love this. Why… haven’t I been doing…. this all along? Fuuuuck, Elliot,” he blabbers. His words are broken, but that doesn’t stop him.
I wrap my legs around him and slam my mouth against his. The feel of his dick sliding against mine makes my body feel like a spring coiling tighter and tighter. Then, lightning ripples through my entire body, and I spill in my hands.
I pant against his mouth as he wraps his hand around mine and jerks himself off. He comes with a groan and a shudder.
His head rests against mine. “That was fucking awesome,” he says between heavy breaths.
I pat around the table until my hand lands on a tissue box. I hand him a couple and take a few myself. Then I climb down the desk, pushing Nicholas away.
It takes a while to make ourselves presentable again, or rather a little less obvious.
“Lunch?” he asks. “Lunch,” he nods and picks up the package he apparently dropped on the couch next to the door. He places it on my desk and takes one of the chairs.
After a cursory fix of my clothes, I sit on my chair, studiously avoiding the corner where I’d just rutted against this man slowly unwrapping the sandwiches. Nicholas is making me regress to being a horny teenager, and I resent that.
That’s not to say I’ve never had sex in this office before. I’ve had plenty of quickies and even full-blown fucking sessions, if it was late enough, here. No awkward goodbyes that you can’t avoid if you have to throw someone out of your house. It’s practically been my preferred location.
But Nicholas is clearly here to stay. He got lunch. It would be completely fine if we had gone to the awful burger place across the road for a quick lunch before he left. This is pushing the limits of ‘casual.’
The sandwich smells divine, and it feels criminal to say no to good food when I’m still coasting on that orgasm, but I feel this urgent need to shut this down.
“Coming here without much notice, when you know I don’t have fixed lunch hours, were you hoping to have both sandwiches?” Damn it, that sounds like friendly teasing. Why am I so off my game around this man?
Endorphins. It’s the endorphins… and oxytocin… and dopamine. My brain is literally fried. I snatch my sandwich from his hand.
Nicholas laughs, making me feel worse. Then again, he has laughed off all my attempts to repel him since the day I met him.
Now that I think about it, I was mean to him right off the bat.
Weird since I avoid unleashing the real me on people until I’ve known them enough to decide if I want to keep them or toss them. Not literally.
It could have been the need to wipe off that goofy smile on that unnecessarily pretty face. It’s intolerable, really.
“I’m okay with sharing too,” he says, grinning so hard I can’t look at his face.
So, I dig in instead. “Shit, this is good,” I can’t help but say after taking the first bite.
“Right? The city’s best sandwiches,” he says proudly.
“Calm down, it’s not like you made them,” I say. There, that’s devastating. Okay, it’s not, but it’s a win I’m going to take.
He snorts. “As if you weren’t practically licking your plate after eating the pancakes I made,” he claims.
“I was half asleep, and those were the only fuel of sustenance present.”
“Yeah, yeah, finish your fuel of sustenance. I already have a thousand texts from my partner asking where I disappeared off to,” he crushes the wrapper. I look down at my barely eaten sandwich, and he’s already done.
Fuck, werewolves can eat.
“I’m going to savor this. You should go,” I suggest.
“You sure?” He looks doubtful.
“Fucking leave, Nicholas. I won’t cut down your manners scores. The city needs its finest at work,” I wave him off.
He huffs but gets up. Then he comes around the desk and leans down, placing a hand on the back of my chair. I’m still processing when his lips land on mine.
What the fuck. I could have had food in my mouth.
He swallows my protest, flicking his tongue on my lower lip, then inside my mouth. When he backs off, I’ve almost dropped the sandwich from my hand.
“And here I thought the sauce went best with ham,” he says, then disappears out the door while I blink the haze away.
I need to buck up and start protesting this behavior, or the man will realize how much power he already has over me. And that won’t be good for anyone.