Page 23 of Covert Affections (Shadow Agents/PSI-Ops #5)
Chapter Twenty-One
Jesse
Jesse stood slowly, his legs feeling like they were made of rubber from as hard as he’d come.
He made his way to the bathroom, cleaned his hands, and then wet a washcloth before wiping away the evidence of his dick being in working order once more.
Each swipe of the cold material made his breath catch, and yet somehow managed to stimulate him more. It should have had the opposite effect.
He glanced at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. “Don’t turn into a teenage boy. You’re a grown-ass man. Act like it.”
Jesse returned to his workstation and took a seat. His cock was a step ahead of him and ready for round two. It had gone from no usage in over a decade to wanting non-stop release.
Lindy picked that moment to lift the book she was reading, giving him a view of the cover.
Jesse pulled up another window and did a search for the book.
Disbelief shot through him as he read the summary.
It was labeled as a dark paranormal romance, and he had to search for what that term meant.
When he did, his eyes widened, and he returned to the book listing.
There were tropes and triggers listed out for the reader to know what they were getting into.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” he said as he looked through the reader trigger warnings. They read like a laundry list of shit that would get the average person locked away for life.
A sobering thought hit him as he realized he’d already checked off a number of the triggers listed with his current behavior.
After all, what he was doing now was a form of stalking.
And he was watching her through her laptop camera without her knowledge.
He was sure there were more infractions that he was racking up, but he didn’t want to dig deeper to find out what they were.
A better man would let guilt seep in, and he’d stop what he was doing.
Hell, they’d have never done any of it to start with.
As he thought about how good it had felt to not only have his dick get hard again but to also come harder than he had in ages, the corners of his mouth drew upward.
“I’m not a better man,” Jesse said as he gripped his dick again and began to stroke it once more, totally fine with his role of morally gray, as noted by the book triggers, in life.
Lindy leaned back on the sofa and pushed her glasses up the end of her nose slightly.
The lighting was still too low for him to get a good view of her eyes to see what color they were.
Her attention went to something off-camera.
She tensed. “What in the heck was that? I swear to God, if I’m murdered by a serial killer wearing this outfit, I’ll be so pissed. ”
Jesse released his cock and sat up more, the need to find a second release all but forgotten, his attention glued to the screens.
Concern for Lindy rushed through him. He increased the volume and tapped into his shifter hearing, wondering what was happening at Lindy’s house.
It was late. Too late for anything good to be going on.
It didn’t matter that he didn’t know her.
Lindy’s safety mattered to him, but he wasn’t sure why.
He caught it then, the faint sounds of coyotes yipping in the distance—the sound coming through his computer speakers. If he were on-site, he’d be able to catch their scent and know if they were normal coyotes or if they were hybrids. As it stood, he could only guess.
Dread filled Jesse. What if the hybrids hadn’t called it a night like he’d thought they would? What if they’d decided to go out on the prowl for victims again? What if they’d managed to discover where Lindy lived and were outside of her home right now? They’d clearly had an interest in her.
Instantly, his head filled with thoughts of Masturbator, Jean-Guy, and Mr. Smitten converging on Lindy’s house, watching her, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
Numerous other scenarios involving the hybrids attacking Lindy all pushed through Jesse’s mind, taking him on an emotional rollercoaster.
One that left him darting up and out of the chair, his heart pounding furiously in his chest.
He was dressed and in his truck in minutes.
He pulled up her address on his GPS and wasted no time flooring it.
To hell with the speed limit. Nothing but getting to Lindy mattered.
Dust flew up behind his truck as he took a turn faster than he should.
He fishtailed and righted the vehicle quickly, continuing on a course to her home.
He was almost to Lindy’s home when he killed the headlights and let his shifter side up slightly for better night vision as he looked for a place to park his truck that wouldn’t draw attention or alert the hybrids of his presence should they be nearby.
He needed the element of surprise to be able to take them all.
Rolling down his windows, Jesse sniffed the air, trying to catch the scent of the hybrids.
What he found made him smile in relief. There was a threat in the area, but it was normal coyotes, not the hybrids.
He could have turned around then and there and headed back to his trailer, but something tugged at his gut, demanding he double-check that Lindy was safe.
It made no sense to him, but he’d been alive too long to ignore his gut.
He spotted a detached garage and pulled off the small one-lane road. He ended up parking in tall grass and brush behind the garage, hidden from both the road and the view from the house.
He killed the engine, shut off his interior lights, and then opened the driver’s side door.
He stepped out and into the grass. He approached the detached garage slowly, listening and sniffing for threats.
The wild coyotes in the area began yipping again, no doubt chatting about his presence.
If they were smart, they’d stay away. He was the bigger threat by far, no matter how many of them there were.
Jesse eased around the side of the building, surprised at how dilapidated it was.
Most of the white paint had peeled off years ago.
There was a side entrance to the garage, and when Jesse noticed it wasn’t closed tightly because the door was warped, he fought the urge to growl.
Anyone could enter it and do God only knows what inside.
Before he could think better of it, Jesse had the door yanked open and was entering the old garage.
A blast of what smelled like cigarette smoke hit him in the face.
It wasn’t fresh, but it didn’t smell that old either.
Like maybe someone had been smoking in the garage in the last hour or so.
The scent made him think of Efren and Peters, of all people.
He had to shake the thought from his head and focus.
Was Lindy a smoker?
If so, why would she come all the way out here to the old garage that was filled to the brim with what looked like enough stuff to build an entire home?
He doubted she was into woodworking or was much into fixing things up.
The tools, at first glance, weren’t modern in the least. There were hand saws, smooth planes, numerous awls, a box of wooden-handled hammers, wrenches, screwdrivers of all sizes and kinds, old-school double inclinometer, try squares, too many wood chisels to count, and hand drills.
There was so much more too, none of which looked new or cared for.
The sight of it all left him feeling nostalgic, having lived a very long life. Before he’d started doing renovations on his Airstream, he’d never really thought of himself as a handy guy. But it had come to him with ease, like he’d done those types of things all the time.
He noticed a number of old doors stacked on their sides and quickly eyed one in comparison to the side entrance of the garage.
It looked like it would fit as a change-out.
He had to stop himself from doing just that—changing the door.
This wasn’t his home. Lindy wasn’t his concern.
If she wanted the door changed, she’d have done it, right?
What if she doesn’t know how? Or what if she can’t lift it?
Worry left him struggling with the need to handle the door issue for her as if she was his responsibility. As if she was his woman.
The thought left warmth blossoming through his chest. Never before had he ever considered wanting a woman to himself.
Hell, he didn’t even bother getting their names before he’d fuck them—back when he was actually still fucking anyone.
But he’d learned Lindy’s name and taken it ten steps beyond that by doing a dark web deep dive on her.
Hell, he could have her shoe size in less than ten minutes even.
The idea of having Lindy all to himself left his cock twitching and threatening to harden.
He looked down at his groin and sighed. “I get you’re excited to be back in action now, but stop interfering with my brain.
We don’t do the monogamy thing. We don’t even commit to more than a few hours of fun. Relax.”
The smart thing would be for him to get back in his truck and leave.
He needed to formulate a plan to stop the hybrids from harming Charley.
He had no business here. As he took a step toward the door, he caught the fading scent of artificial pine.
His body went into fight or flight mode almost instantly.
He yanked off his clothing, letting it fall to the floor of the garage, and then shifted forms. In cat form, he barely fit in the open area of the garage because of how packed full of items it was.
He leaped through the open doorway and into the tall grass near the side of the garage.
He twisted, sniffing the air, he and his cat scanning for threats—for Peters or Efren—even though he knew they weren’t there.
That his mind was playing tricks on him.
The smell had probably come from something in the garage.
It stood to reason there might be old chemicals and cleaning supplies stored out there.
As Jesse turned more, he caught sight of Lindy’s home.
The house was in as bad a shape as the garage—hell, it might even be worse.
She was there, standing inside, near the front window, looking out into the night, fear clearly etched on her beautiful face.
There was a certain sadness and vulnerability to her that shook him to his very core.
Something primal surged through him, urging him forward, his protective instincts on overdrive.
It felt as if someone had tied an invisible rope between himself and the enchanting beauty in the window, drawing him inexorably closer.
The next he knew, he was padding out of the shadows and into the main yard. He went right for the front porch, his gaze locked on her, like a moth to a flame, or in his case, a cat to a temptress.
The rational part of his mind told him to retreat—to keep an assured, cleared distance and observe from the shadows, to not reveal himself. But the pull to Lindy was too great to resist.