Page 14 of Someone Else's Wolf

"Peter. Comeon." Sue's voice got more insistent, and she tugged at him. "Would you stop hanging all over Shane and do some work?" Her voice rose slightly, but it was the unexpected moment of quiet around the precinct — a pure accident, I was sure, and not at all designed to humiliate me and Peter — that made her words ring out so.

The whole room heard. Not a shadow of a doubt. Peter removed his hands from my shoulders abruptly, as if he'd been burned.

I turned around to frown at her. Even though I'd meant to tell him off myself, I couldn't do it now. "It's okay," I managed. "He's only mildly distracting." I gave him a small frown, just to be evenhanded. To be fair, he looked flustered now, as if he'd only just realized what he was doing. "But I think an argument would be distracting, and I have reports to finish. If that's okay with you?" I gave her a false smile and put as much solicitously polite snideness into the words as I dared.

I didn't want to give her any credit at all, but if I'm honest, she looked like she regretted having opened her mouth. As if, perhaps, having a hole open up in the floor for her to step through wouldn't be a terribly bad thing right now. I was inclined to agree; I wouldn't miss her a bit.

Peter cleared his throat. "Sorry about that." He flexed his offending hands — his big, hairy, handsome, long-fingered hands;fuck mehands — as if they were a separate, unruly element. "We'll get going." He touched Sue's arm, and they turned away. "Lockett, this conversation will continue!" It sounded like a threat.

Juan raised an eyebrow at me. "Enjoy your massage?"

"You're just jealous." I tried really hard to focus on my work after that.

But there were other comments throughout the day. Peter wasn't making this easy. To be fair to him, he really did try to stay away from me for the rest of the day. And what was my problem, that I kind of regretted when he succeeded?

I saw him veer towards my desk a few times, then catch himself, reconsider, and head the other way. It did weird things to me. But there was enough talk and teasing already. We didn't need more.

He texted me a brief apology midway through the day.

Sorry bout that.

Then he undid all the professional distance by ending the text with anxo.

Kisses and hugs. Yeah, well, you'd just better follow through, buddy. Tonight.

CHAPTER SIX

"Sorry about that."

He kept his head down as he focused on making a salad. He was cooking for me tonight — definitely before we did anything else.

If we did anything else. It was taking an awfully long time for him to cook — and, to be honest, I was having doubts. If he couldn't keep it together at work, was this worth it? He was hot enough that I couldn't think straight, but was that worth possibly losing my job? After all, if one of us got fired, it wouldn't be him.

"You could've said something," he added.

"Oh? What should I have said?"

"I don't know. 'Quit touching me'?" He glanced at me, then quickly looked back at the salad. He seemed as embarrassed as guilty.

I didn't want him to quit touching me. That was part of the problem. And itwasa problem — one I couldn't blame on him. Still, I didn't like being blamed for it.

"Well," I managed, "I'm pretty sure Sue likes me even less now."

"She ought to like you." He seemed disturbed by that. "You said she didn't, and it's not that I thought you were wrong, but, well, shereallydoesn't like you."

I didn't know why that shocked him.

"Yeah, I actually can tell when someone doesn't like me." I popped a slice of carrot into my mouth and chewed aggressively. Getting warned away from him had been a pretty big damned clue, after all. I had tried to soft-pedal that so as not to interfere between them, but that didn't mean I was clueless.

"She actually warned me to stay away from you. I don't get it."

"Really? What's not to get? She's jealous. She thinks she's going to lose you as a partner."

"That's not going to happen."

"Make suresheknows that. You're hanging around me all the time, so of course she's worried. She fought hard for you." And just why was I defending her, anyway? I didn't even like the woman. "Look, don't tell her I'm gay, okay? Don't tell her we're sleeping together. But could you reassure her that you're not about to fling her over for the guy who doesn't have any training and couldn't get into the Shifters and Partners program no matter who he offered to blow?"

"I'm sure you could." He frowned, like that idea didn't sit well with him. Possibly the mention of blowing someone else, if he was the jealous type.