His thoughts drifted to Lucas. How his own body had reacted towards the alpha, begging,pleadingto be taken. To be blanketed in his scent and grounded in his arms. Throwing a pillow across his face, he groaned. He didn’t want to feel like that anymore, like his mind and body were pulling him in two different directions.
Then his phone rang again. He ignored it. It rang again a minute later. “Oh, just piss off!” He cried into his pillow.Didn’t the phone know he wanted to wallow in silence?
He relented when it rang for a third time, throat going dry when he saw Lucas’ name pop up on the screen. “Hello,” he said, trying to sound like he hadn’t just been kicking and screaming in the middle of his bed like a toddler.
“Reed. Good, I thought you’d fallen asleep.”
As if, you big fucking idiot.
Clearing his throat, Oliver said, “What’s happening? Has Helena actually gone missing?”
“Unfortunately, yes. She snuck out the care home last night. We’ve got her on CCTV getting into a van at the end of the driveway. Shirley Spencer called it in.”
“Shit. So Shirley’s been doing a stand up fucking job, as always.”
Lucas hummed, it sounded muffled, as if he were in a vehicle. “The boss wants us to bring the search warrant forward to this morning. I’ll pick you up on the way in.”
“N-No, that’s okay. I’ll get the bus.”
“At five thirty in the morning?”
“What? Jesus, that’s an early start.”
He glanced at the clock again. That was in four hours’ time.
“Are you going to be sober by then?” Lucas said.
Oliver scoffed. He’d sobered up the moment Inspector Callahan called during their little passion project on the kitchen floor. “Yeah. Are you?”
“Yes. Blake is giving me a lift back to the hotel.”
“Hi Ollie!” The other sergeant called. Oliver’s face turned crimson, hoping on everything holy that Blake wasn’t aware of what happened. Could he still smell his scent on Lucas? Would they talk about it, alpha to alpha? Oliver squeezed his eyes shut and bit the inside of his cheek.
“Reed?” Lucas said. “Wear casual clothes. It’s going to be a long day.”
The tension in his brows eased a little. “Coming from you?”
Lucas huffed, “I’ll let you take me shopping when this is over.”
With that, Oliver hung up. Because he absolutely didnotneed DS Smith hearing the two of them speaking to one another like old chums.
When Oliver’salarm went off at 5:00am, he felt—and looked—as though he’d been dragged through a hedge backwards. His hair stuck up at angles that even products couldn’t fix. Sighing, he resigned himself to looking a little wild and hungover that day—the black tracksuit he’d picked out certainly didn’t help with the back alley raggamuffin look.
He let out a sharp breath as the familiar roar of the V6 twin turbo sounded outside his apartment building. Taking a quick look out his bedroom window, he saw Lucas pull up on the side of the road, arm lazily hanging across the open window. The butterflies in Oliver’s belly fluttered around as though theywere having a school fucking reunion. Thankfully, his cock was behaving itself, but he took another round of suppressants, just to be sure.
Feeling like an inmate making the long walk to the executioner’s chair, he trudged towards the car. The radio was on, and he could hear soft jazz playing through the open window.
“Morning,” the alpha said as Oliver slid into the front passenger seat.
“Morning,” he replied, looking ahead as he clicked the seatbelt into place.
“Did you sleep?”
“Not really. You?”
“No.”
Oliver’s gaze slipped across the centre console, falling on the grey jogging bottoms clinging to Lucas’ toned thighs. “Are those from the custody store?” He asked, cocking an eyebrow.
