Chapter 42 Bastian #2
I nearly choke on my bourbon as I swing in my seat to stare at him. “Excuse me?” I rasp.
“Ezra.” Thatcher’s watching me with those sharp eyes, the drunk flush on his cheeks doing nothing to dull his focus. “Kai’s brother.”
“I know who the fuck Ezra is.” The expletive slips out before I can stop it, because Jesus fucking Christ, what the hell just happened?
Just what the hell kind of investigating has this guy been doing?
“So does Kai know? About your…relationship?”
I set down my glass very, very carefully. There’s a growling in the back of my head, and it doesn’t sound like Good Wolf.
“Ezra was my teaching assistant,” I say, each word measured. “Whatever relationship you’re implying—“
“I’m not implying. From where I’m sitting, it looks like you make a habit of sleeping with your students. Ezra. Kai. Maybe others.” He pauses. “Like Haven. Like Melissa?”
He might as well have been reading me my rights.
I should deflect. Should laugh it off, redirect, do any of the dozen things I’ve spent my life perfecting.
Instead, I lean forward. “Whoever told you I was being inappropriate with students—”
“No one told me anything, Professor Rooke.”
I don’t know what’s more chilling—that he’s bluffing flawlessly, or that he doesn’t need to bluff at all.
“So you’re guessing,” I huff, smiling bitterly as I tip my glass to my lips. I don’t expect it to be empty, but it is.
“Have it down to an art,” Thatcher says. His beer thuds down on the bar, and I glance over to see it’s empty, too.
I gesture at the bartender.
Not to bring us another drink, but to bring us the check.
I slide off my stool, taking my wallet out of my pocket. Thatcher doesn’t move, but I can see him watching me from the corner of my eye.
When I speak, my voice is pitched low enough so that only he can hear. He leans in a little, eyes boring into me with an intensity that makes my hackles rise.
“What would your professors at Cornell think, seeing you like this? Just some exiled deputy in a backwater town, digging into a professor’s personal life like you have nothing better to do.”
My voice is an icy monotone.
The mask is slipping, Bad Wolf stepping forward, teeth bared.
“Think I give a fuck?” Thatcher says.
The bartender hands me a slip. I don’t even glance at it as I hold out my black Amex between my fingers. Thatcher doesn’t offer to split the bill. I guess he knows by now that I won’t even notice the transaction on my statement come end of the month.
“What’s with your sudden interest in me, Deputy?
” I continue as I wait for the bartender to swipe my card.
“Are you bored? Lonely?” I smile at the bartender and put my card away, turning to Thatcher so quickly that he recoils.
“Or are you so desperate to prove yourself that you’ll chase any lead, no matter how circumstantial? ”
Thatcher’s jaw tightens, but he stands—or at least sits—his ground. His one hand is on the bar, the other on his thigh.
I can’t tell if he’s armed. His jacket is loose enough to hide a holster, but he hasn’t touched his hip once.
“I’m just doing my job,” he states quietly but firmly.
I step closer until my leg presses against his outer thigh. He doesn’t move away.
I tilt toward him so I can murmur into his ear without anyone realizing what I’m doing.
“Your job is writing parking tickets and breaking up college parties. Not playing detective like a fucking Sherlock fanboy. If you think this will earn you some kind of promotion, I hate to be your reality check.”
“I don’t do this for the recognition, Professor.”
I scoff. “A payday is even less likely.”
“Or the money,” Thatcher grits out.
“Then why, Deputy? Why waste your time on someone like me when there are real criminals out there for you to catch?”
Thatcher grimaces, covering the gesture with a sip from his beer. “Closure.”
“Yours?”
“The families.” He glances at me, but his gaze returns almost immediately to his beer. “It’s bad enough their loved ones are murdered, assaulted, raped, defrauded. Some may find out who did it, but too many of them never find out why.”
The tequila is too warm in my stomach, loosening my reserve, letting a piece of myself I usually keep locked down claw its way to the surface.
Thatcher is the last man in this town I should be toying with. But what can a pair of alphas do but circle each other, growling and snapping, until one of them finally lunges for the throat?
“You want to know if I’ve told Kai about Ezra?” I murmur. “No. And I don’t plan to. Because it’s no one’s fucking business. You want to know what else isn’t anyone’s business?”
Thatcher blinks. Whatever he expected, it wasn’t a direct admission. This time, when I lean in even closer, he stiffens like he’s forcing himself not to move away.
“Whoever else I decide to fuck. Kai. Haven. Melissa.” I huff, turning and sliding my arm over Thatcher’s shoulder so I can point out the handsome college kid who bought us shots. “Oscar.”
I squeeze Thatcher’s shoulders, turning to look at him so close that his face is mostly a blur. “Would you insist I notify you once I’ve sunk my cock into Oscar’s asshole, deputy? Or are you only interested when I’m fucking brothers? Are you aware it’s not a crime to fuck siblings?”
I grab his shoulder, holding him in place as I turn partly toward him and put my mouth close enough to his ear that my lips touch his skin. “Unless I’m their daddy.”
He shoves me so hard, I nearly topple. It says a lot that my stumbling goes mostly unnoticed by the drunkards surrounding us.
Thatcher is at my side before I’ve fully regained my balance. This time his arm is around my shoulder. This time he’s the one whispering in my ear like a lover.
“I don’t care who you fuck. I care about the truth. And I’ll unravel as many lies as I need to, until I’ve figured out what that truth is.”
“You want the truth?” I lean back so I can stare straight into the deputy’s brown eyes.
They’re not as muddy and plain as I’d first thought.
They’re flecked with gold, a particularly large fleck in the one drawing my gaze.
“I’d fuck anyone of legal age if I thought it would be worth my time.
I’d even consider fucking you…So tell me, Deputy… would it be worth my time?”
Thatcher goes very still, only his throat moving as he swallows.
The thought of him on his knees, swallowing me down, is making my cock twitch.
“Are you propositioning me?” he croaks. Surprisingly, he sounds more amused than disgusted.
“I’m leaving.” I hold his gaze. “The bourbon at my house is leagues better than the piss they sell as top shelf around here. And if you’re not a hard liquor man, I’m sure I’ve still got a six-pack somewhere. You could ask me anything you want. I might even answer you truthfully.”
Thatcher’s mouth opens. Closes.
He doesn’t say no.
He doesn’t shove me away again.
He just stands there with me, side by side, staring at me like I’ve just offered him the Holy Grail and he can’t figure out what the fucking catch is.
Because there is none.
He wants the truth? I’ll give it to him.
And he’ll reject every word because he can’t handle the truth.
No one can.