Page 4

Chapter

Four

H is phone buzzed, and Thiago tried to ignore it. He didn’t want to wake up, because he had a feeling that Quin was gone, and that would just depress him.

There had been knotting. Then a platter of fried things along with carrot cake.

Then another long, slow loving before they’d drifted off to sleep.

But at some point, he thought he’d felt Quin kiss him on the forehead, and then the bed had gotten colder.

Groaning, he turned over on his side to grab the phone, finding a text from his business partner, Graham.

Did you find the kid?

Which kid?

he fired back. After all, he’d been after at least two last night.

His phone rang, Graham’s ringtone of Elvis’s “Let Me Be Your Teddy Bear” making him grin. Graham was a grizzly shifter with a constant ‘I just woke up from hibernation’ attitude.

“You know full well which kids, you little fuck,” Graham growled.

“Hey, I went out on two—count them, two—missions last night. Do not start with me.”

“And did you find either one?”

Fascinating question. “Actually, I think, in a strange way, I might have found both. I met this guy?—”

“Of course you did.”

“Stop it. I met this guy, super cute wolf. He was totally hot.” Oh, he shouldn’t have said that. Though Graham was his bestie as well as his business partner.

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m serious.” No one ever believed him. “Anyway. Everybody seems to think that this guy knows something. That he’s like the guy in the know about these missing omegas.” Graham snorted, and he cleared his throat. “Really.”

“So let me get this straight. You went looking for lost omegas. You found yourself a hot little something and instead of doing your job, you had sex?”

“No, you weren’t listening. I went to two different places to find lost omegas. When I left the first place, it led to the second place, and the woman who was there informed me that if I needed to find information about omegas that had gotten help then I would go back to the first place. And so I did.”

“Thiago—”

“And the guy who helped the omegas was there and then we had sex.”

“Thiago!”

“It wasn’t just sex. It was amazing sex, like the best sex, and I wanted to do it again.”

“Yay.” Graham’s voice was dry as dust.

“I’m serious.” He didn’t understand why Graham wasn’t listening to him.

“I don’t give a flying fuckety fuck about how good the sex was. We get paid to do a job. That job is finding omegas and delivering information to the families that are worried now. You didn’t do that.”

“Are you sure?”

“What? Don’t make me come out there.” Like Graham ever left his den. Ever.

“I would bet you good money that, by the end of the day, both of those omegas will have contacted their families.” He didn’t know how he knew, but he knew that he did know that Quin was going to deal with this, and that Quin was the one who could get a hold of the omegas, who would tell them that their families were worried.

He also had faith that the omegas had proof that they were safe. He wasn’t sure how Quin would manage it, but it would happen, and Graham was just going to have to trust him, because he was the one who was the road guy; Graham was the office guy.

“I swear to God if you have hired someone to fake being an omega…”

Thiago rolled his eyes and stood up, stretching. Man, he was sore. “Oh please. I’m offended. If I was going to do that, I would just call myself. That would be easier and cheaper.”

“I never should have sent you to Denver. I should have sent you to like bum fuck Idaho.”

“Do they have lost omegas in Bumblefuck, Idaho? If they do, send George.” And forward fold.

“George is a lemur. Do you think lemurs would fare well in Idaho?”

“My people are from Brazil. There’s no Boise in Brazil.”

“There’s not a lot of Denver in Brazil either, asshole.”

He put Graham on speaker and did Warrior I. “Yes, but Denver is a bustling little city, and it has the hot little guy that I fucked yesterday in it, and so I’m staying in Denver until?—”

“What, your balls fall off?”

“Yes, yes, exactly, until my balls fall off.”

“You are one sick motherfucker, my friend.” Graham sighed. “I’ll check in with the families tomorrow.”

“Want to make a bet?”

“You’re willing to bet?” Graham’s voice sharpened.

“Yep.”

“Shit.” Graham knew he never made a bet unless he was certain he could win. So there was that. “No bets.”

“Cool. Look, there seems to be a whole underground network for lost omegas here in town, so I’m going to check on a few more missings.”

“Yeah?” Finally, Graham sounded pleased. “I’ll send you a bunch from the Southwest and start there.”

“Good deal.” They had really focused on missing omegas, male and female, when they’d first gotten these two missing persons. It was a sad thing how many there were.

“Cool. Now, why did you call except to ride my ass?”

“That was it. I wanted a status update.”

He grinned and looked down at himself. “I think my cock is chafed.”

“You suck.” And Graham hung up on him.

He chuckled, heading for the shower. He’d had one last night with Quin, but then he’d gotten real dirty again.

By the time he’d eaten breakfast and a piece of leftover cake, he was ready to get to work, ready to go find more missing kids. So he grabbed his Mac and looked over all the stuff Graham had sent, then made a plan of attack. There was a coffee house that he’d heard some of the street kids hung out at because they could buy a coffee and get day-old pastry for free.

He would check in there first.

And tonight, he would go back to the Hogg, because if Quin thought he could just sneak away and never see him again?

That sweet ass had another think coming.