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hundred and thirty-four years, he finally had his mate under him.
There was no way in hell he would ever let Lewis go.
Evan pulled Lewis's jeans down and off, removing his shoes. And don’t forget the socks. Evan mentally chuckled at his cop’s idiosyncrasies.
Evan went straight for his mate’s erogenous zone, his inner thighs.
Lewis definitely was a strange human, but Evan found himself falling deeply in love with him. It was a feeling he had never experienced before. Evan pulled Lewis's sac aside as he licked the apex of his mate’s thigh. Lewis shuddered under his hands.
He inhaled deeply, his fingers digging into Lewis as the need to come overtook him. How could one man be his undoing? Lewis was the beginning of his downfall, his control no longer his own.
Evan's tongue weaved a path from Lewis's inner thigh to his hip bone then around to his abdomen.
“Evan,” Lewis whimpered.
“Hush, let me take care of you.” Evan scrapped his canine up to one of Lewis's nipples, lapping at it as if it were cream. His mate’s legs pulled up then circled around him, trying desperately to connect their cocks. Regretfully, Evan pulled back. He needed to pull free of his clothes, to clear his head before he came in his jeans.
The sight that lay before him was magnificent. Evan pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it aside, ridding himself of his jeans. He licked his lips before hovering over his mate, tucking his head into his mate’s neck, nipping at the tender flesh.
“Make me come, damn it,” Lewis cried out in a fit. Evan sunk his teeth into his shoulder, Lewis gasping then crying out his orgasm as the heat of his seed warmed Evan's stomach. Lewis panted in his arms as Evan reached under his pillow and grabbed the lube. Trying his best to balance his hold on his mate with his teeth, Evan coated his cock and then tossed the bottle aside as he angled himself and pushed in.
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Evan grabbed his mate’s ass as he thrust deeply as his mind scrambled at the whimper Lewis gave. Evan pulled his hands up, plunging them into Lewis's hair as he sealed the wound, caressing Lewis's face with his. He never realized how lonely he had been until Lewis, until the hurricane blew into his life.
“I love you.” Evan kissed his eyes, his nose, his chin, and his lips.
Evan held his man close as he rocked in and out, losing himself in the feelings of desire as they took pleasure in each other’s body. .
“I love you, too.” Lewis whispered so low Evan almost didn’t hear the softly spoken words. He knew how hard it was for Lewis to say them. He probably never had before, and the gift was more precious to him than any action could have told.
Evan rose up, crying out as he came, his pelvis rocking Lewis's body. He locked eyes with his mate, shocked to see such love staring back at him. Evan dipped down, kissing the very breath out of his lover.
Evan pulled Lewis to his body, succumbing to the sleep of a satiated lover.
* * * *
“She is no longer allowed to roam the house by herself. Someone is to be with her at all times.” Lewis heard Maverick decree as he walked into the office with Evan at his side. The Alpha was standing in front of the window, his hands clasped behind his back, staring out into the night.
There wasn’t much Lewis could do, only catching a glimpse of the stranger standing below Melonee’s window holding Mr. Peepers in his hand. No other evidence was found. But the face of that stranger was etched in Lewis’s memory, and he would know him if he saw him again.
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Heading into work the next morning, an eerie thought struck Lewis. What if that man took the toy for her scent? But why? Lewis couldn’t think of any reason someone would want to harm her.
Lewis pulled his cell phone out, smiling when he thought of Evan telling him about them being invented. “Maverick, I think it was a warning.”
“For what? Who?” the deep timbre voice asked.
“Not sure. But I kept going over the scene in my head. That guy
let
me see him, had an evil fucking grin on his face. It was as if he was waiting for someone to look out.”
“Question is how did he get past my Sentries? Their hearing is superb,” the Alpha asked. Lewis couldn’t think of an answer to give Maverick.
“I’ll call if I can think of anything else.” Lewis hung up, wondering how they got into her room and why.
As the station came into view, Lewis pulled over to the side of the road. This was his first day back. Could he handle it without sneaking to the bathroom for a quick drink from his flask? He didn’t have that flask anymore—he gave it to Remi—but the urge was still there.
He sat there for what felt like hours until he slowly directed the car into the parking lot, cutting the motor. He stared at the battleship gray building, wondering if he wasn’t making a mistake.
Pocketing his keys, he jogged up the front steps and pushed past the door into the noisy chaos. He used to love coming to work every day. He chomped at the bit for a new case to slide across his desk.
Now all he could do was stand there, watching everyone else get on with their own lives, feeling as though his had just stalled out.
“Good to see you back, Keating,” Jones called out. “We’re heading out after work, want to join us?” Heading out meant going drinking, and Lewis would never head out again. Begging off an excuse, he headed straight into his captain’s office. The captain had kept to his word, not telling anyone why he’d been absent.
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“Hey, you look a hundred percent better.” Captain Foster waved him in. “Have a seat.”
Lewis spent the rest of the day going over cases he’d been given.
Still more recovered files. They were things he could do in his sleep.
It was obvious he was being given the easy cases. That pissed Lewis off. He was a damn good cop. He didn’t need coddling.
He took the files back to his desk to look through. Most of them just needed closing out.
The desk drawer rattled as Lewis opened it to drop some of the files in, seeing the hidden bottle of whiskey toward the back. He slammed it closed, looking around to see if anyone caught a glimpse of what lay inside.
Call Evan, Drew. Anyone.
Lewis slowly opened the drawer back up, his mouth watering instantly at the sight of the amber liquid. Just one taste. He could handle one taste.
Tossing his coat onto the drawer, he extracted the bottle with shaky hands, using the coat to cover up what he was taking out.
Making his way down the front steps, Lewis got into his car, heading for the park.
He sat in the gazebo, staring at the bottle. Lewis unscrewed the lid and inhaled deeply. The intoxicating aroma made his chest tighten and his saliva glands work overtime.
Lewis took a deep and shaky breath.
His heartbeat racing and his hands shaky, Lewis looked around at the small town he called home. How had he ended up here? How had his life taken such a wrong turn? Rolling the bottle in his hands, Lewis stared as the whiskey sloshed around in the bottle.
He could handle one drink.
* * * *
Evan walked around the gazebo, approaching his mate slowly.
Lewis had called him, told him he couldn’t stay dry anymore, that the
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struggle was just too damn hard. Evan raced from the Den, finding his mate sitting with his face in his hands.
“Are you…?”
Lewis looked up, his eyes bloodshot. Obviously, his mate had been crying. “No, I poured it out.”
Evan took a relieved breath. He knelt in front of the sober man, cupping Lewis’s face in his hands. “You did good, baby.”
“I feel like shit.”
“Because of the fight or because of the temptation?”
“Both.” Lewis leaned forward and laid his head on Evan’s shoulder. “I feel so damn lost. I feel like I’m breaking inside. I don’t want to lose what we have. Nothing seems clear anymore. Just so damn lost. ”
“I can buy you a GPS.”
Lewis smiled as he dried the tears from his eyes. “If that would help, I would let you.”
“Do you want to come home? No one will think any less of you.
Drew had a relapse when he was in the first stages of his recovery.” Evan kissed his mate. He was thankful to the heavens that Lewis had reached out to him and called him instead of getting lost in the bottom of that bottle. The glass container lay on the grass, the cap nowhere in sight. He could smell the dark odor, and he wanted to get his mate away. Surely, he could smell it, too.
“No, I need to get back to work. Captain will notice me missing after awhile. I didn’t tell him I was heading out anywhere.” Lewis made no move to stand. Instead, he held on tight to Evan.
“Come on, baby, I’ll go back with you. You can tell the guys I’m some journalist or something doing a story on detectives.” Evan stood, pulling Lewis up with him. He was proud of the way his mate had handled this. He was proud he was so damn stubborn he wanted to return to work.
“I don’t need a babysitter.” Lewis nipped his neck.
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“Keep that up, and we’ll need the fire department to hose us down.”Evan pulled Lewis away from the deep whiskey scent, getting him over to his car and clean smelling air.
“Just don’t send Gunnar to watch me again. That wolf was busted within twenty-four hours of his surveillance work.” Evan threw his head back, laughing his ass off. “He didn’t tell me that. You’re good, baby. No one has ever known he was watching them.”
“How do you think he ate so well that week?”
“He was in your house?”
* * * *
“Now who’s sexy when they’re jealous?” Lewis felt better. Evan hadn’t focused on what just happened. Instead, he tried to take his mind off of it. God love him.
“Let’s get you back to work before I hunt dear old Gunnar down.” Evan followed Lewis to the police station. It wasn’t a large building, with this being such a small town, and a lot of poor families lived here, but Maverick had donated a large fund to update the precinct, which enabled them to add on a detective’s division. His captain had always raved about Maverick Brac. At the time, Lewis had no clue who he was talking about. He chuckled to himself now. If the captain only knew what Maverick really was.
Lewis had worked in the city for his first years as a rookie. When he learned there was an opening here, he jumped on it. The cases were less seedy than the crime in the big city, but Lewis didn’t mind. He enjoyed the small town feel.
“Hey, Evan, what brings you here?” Jones shook his mate’s hand.
Lewis studied his mate’s face. Bastard had a smirk on it. “Just stopping in.”
Evan shrugged at Lewis when Jones left them alone.
“You know him?”
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“Are we playing jealous tag? I guess that means you’re it.”
“Spill.” Lewis glared at him.
Evan took a seat at Lewis’s desk. “Not too many people don’t know us around here. We help out the community a lot. Maverick is big on giving back. I was a part of the renovations crew when they gave this building an overhaul.”
“You worked construction?” Lewis was impressed. He imagined Evan in a hard hat. Fuck, he was hard now.
“I am a man of many talents.” Evan wiggled his eyebrows, his gaze dropping down to the bulge in Lewis’s jeans. “I can show you one of my talents if you want me to take care of that.”
“Tease. I’m on duty. No hanky-panky.” Lewis sat in the chair next to his desk, liking the fact that Evan sat in his seat. He looked good sitting there. He would make a hot ass cop.
“You’re no fun.” His mate pouted. Lewis reached over and pulled on Evan’s bottom lip. “Hand me those files in the bottom drawer, sexy.”
Evan twisted around, grabbing the handful of files and dropping them in front of Lewis. “What are you working on?”
“A few months ago one of the detectives got greedy, took a bribe to make a whole mess of files disappear. We recovered them, he went to jail, and now we have the fun job of going through them and closing most of them out.” Lewis flipped the top file open. “That’s how I ended up on your doorstep a few weeks ago. Cecil’s was in the lost batch.”
“You know he didn’t do it. His ex was a real piece of work.”
“I figured that out the first time I came out there. I just wanted to get away from my desk.”
Evan grinned. “I’m glad you did.”
“Leave me alone, I’m trying to work here, and you’re distracting.
Go look hot as hell over there.” Lewis pointed to the janitor’s closet.
“Only if you join me.”
“Evan.” Lewis growled.
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“Fine, what are you working on now?”
“Three men are missing. The foreman called it in when they didn’t show up for work. It’s like they fell of the face of the earth.”
* * * *
Evan watched as Lewis went into detective mode. He was thanking the heavens his mate was so thorough. If he hadn’t been, he would have just closed Cecil’s case out, never coming to him. Evan looked around the second floor of the station. There were only five other people there, one being the receptionist, one a delivery man, and three detectives to solve the crimes in their town.
The police force did a fine job in keeping the crime rate down, and they were outstanding men and women, but when a mystery arose, his mate was the one called in. Hell if that wasn’t hot. The detective unit helped out the city as well when they became backed up. Half the files Lewis had in front of him were city files.
He checked Lewis out. The cop was sex-on-a-stick. Nice, chiseled chest, dark, military-cut hair, and he wore his jeans like he owned them. The gun holster around his shoulders was even sexy. Evan liked the badge that dangled around his neck. It made him seem official.
And Evan got to keep him.
“I can feel you watching me,” Lewis warned.
Even his mate’s deep voice was seductive, making Evan hard in zero point five seconds. His mate had that detective look about him, that look that made you sit up and take him seriously. Evan had the urge to crawl over the desk and knock his mate to the floor, claiming him in front of everyone.