Page 8 of Trigger

“Ididn’t ask for a partner,” he said, his voice dripping with venom. “I don’twant a partner. I don’t need a partner. For the rest of your stay in thisshithole, bear this in mind. Stay as far away from me as possible, and we willget along just fine. Stand in my way…” He swaggered over toward me, making megulp. “And you will see the side of me you won’t like. Do you get me, partner?”

I saidnothing because I was speechless. My vocal cords all but disappeared intoanother dimension. Not to mention that those eyes made me trip earlier in thehall when I caught them staring at me. Damn jungle green booby traps.

“Perfect,”Carter said, slapping my back in passing. “Good boy.”

Onlywhen the door closed behind him did my brain join the party, asking me whereall the oxygen went.

Idon’t know, brain.I all but shouted.Where the hell have youbeen? By the way, you’re fired.

Thenmy gaze landed on my pants, and I gasped in alarm, swiftly lowering my backpackto hide my crotch.

No.Noooooo.This did not just happen.

Ilooked down to check, only to whine internally.Fuck.The rude dude mademe hard. In fact, his poisonous tongue made me so hard that a comparison to abrick wall wouldn’t be an understatement but an insult. My pants were tented atsuch an embarrassing angle, I felt my cheeks warm, but also… fucking respect. Iall but belonged in a porn flick with the size of my erection, and I had a wetstain on my crotch to prove it.Fuck.No way. No way I was leakingpre-cum for that asshole, no matter how pretty he was. I’ve had embarrassingboners in my life before, but this one took the goddamn cake.

Okay.Okay. Let’s think it through.

Thenagain, so what? It didn’t mean anything. A few times I got hard for this nice,grey-haired lady that was telling the weather on this weird religious channel.An elephant once gave me a semi, but in my defense, it was really cute. Thebottom line—so what if God’s most perfect creation just gave me a boner?

No bigdeal.

None.

At.

All.

Chapter3

On the Wrong Foot

Carter

“So, whenwill you introduce me to your new partner?”

The mere mention of a person made me cringe.

“You don’t want to meet him, Vic,” I said with a sigh as shepulled into the parking lot across from the police station. “Trust me on that.”

“Why? Is he mean?”

“I… I don’t know. I just met him.”

“Was he rude to you?”

If anyone was rude the day we met, it would be me, but his suddenappearance in the locker room rattled me. I knew it was a matter of time beforewe met formally, but to see him stand there, to feel his eyes on me, to hearhis voice, to be able tosmellhim… it made me feel weird. I couldn’tremember noticing a man’s scent before. Bruce sometimes used the avocado-basedanti-dandruff shampoo, which I could smell on him when he stood close to me.Chief Bibb wore the most obnoxious cologne his wife gave him for his birthday.But this guy smelled good. I couldn’t describe it or compare it with anythingelse. It was just… good.

“What does he look like?” Vic asked me.

Huge. Muscular. Ridiculous.

I shrugged. “Dunno. You know… just a regular guy.”

His hair was tied into a messy bun the other day, but he hadseveral hair ties wrapped around his wrist, which meant he was probably losingthem a lot. There was a tiny mark above his upper lip, possibly from a lippiercing he once had. His voice was deep and melodic, with a faint French liltthat made his r’s sound funny. And his eyes were so damn blue, it wasuncomfortable to look at them. Creepy, really. Imagine the clearest, the bluestsky, and then make it creepy. Those were his eyes.

“Is he handsome?” Vic asked me.

“No,” I scoffed. “Of course not.”

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