Page 3 of Jumping In
Shoving himself off the wall, Black raked his gaze over Clint again. “You look fine to me.” He stepped closer and inhaled deeply. “Smell fine too.”
Suddenly, Clint wondered if Hawk Black was coming on to him. The idea seemed preposterous. Even if Black was into men, something Clint had never considered as a possibility, they were standing in the middle of the police station. Sure, nobody else was around, but that didn’t mean someone couldn’t walk up at any moment or that somebody couldn’t hear them from an adjoining room—two things Ewan often pointed out as his rational for why they needed to stay away from one another.
“Thanks.” Clint furrowed his brow and looked at Black appraisingly, but all he saw was a large, handsome man with intelligent eyes looking back. He didn’t know what he’d expected—for the deputy mayor to drop to his knees and ask to suck his cock? He snorted at the ridiculousness of his own thoughts.
“I’ll, uh, see you later.” He paused and wondered whether that comment could be misconstrued. “Next time you’re here, I mean.” He gulped. “If I’m working, which I probably will be because I have the weekday shift and that’s when you come here for…” He had no idea what the deputy mayor did when he was at the station or why he came there. “Sorry.” He dragged his hand through his hair. “It’s been a rough day.” And he needed to stop rambling like an idiot. Disgusted with himself, he raised his hand in a wave, said, “See you,” and turned on his heel.
“Clint?”
He twisted his head and looked at Black over his shoulder.
“Yes?”
“Nothing to apologize for. Let me know if you need…” Black quirked one side of his mouth up in a lopsided grin. “Anything.”
Grateful his back was to Black so his now barely repressible hard-on wasn’t visible, Clint dipped his chin in thanks and then uncomfortably walked out of the building. He’d go home, beat off, take a shower, beat off, find something to eat, beat off, and then, maybe, his mind would be clear enough to figure out if the deputy mayor was flirting with him. Whether or not he’d come up with an answer, at least he’d be distracted from thinking about Ewan Gifford’s upcoming nuptials.
Chapter Two
As if being relegated to a dirty little secret from the man he…liked, most of the time, and returning to town only to hear his ex was engaged to be married and starring in the town’s most exciting social event hadn’t been bad enough, Clint came home to more bad news.
When he’d lived in Detroit, Clint’s apartment window had faced a dilapidated church. When he’d looked at the crumbling building, he’d thought about the war-ravaged neighborhoods he’d been in during his time abroad, but as he stood next to the mailbox in front of his current apartment, it was the fading sign painted on the flaking church wall that he remembered.The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions.
He hadintendedto come home and stay there. He hadintendedto have a quiet night putting a dent into his bottle of lube. Unfortunately, hisintentionsdidn’t last because he was being evicted.
Reading the letter a second time didn’t change the facts. His landlord was selling the building to a developer who was going to tear it down, which meant Clint was being evicted. The thirty-day notice had arrived on the same day Clint had left so he now had two weeks to find a new place to live. He tried to shake off his frustration at the latest knee to the nuts.
Short on distractions, he flipped through the mail as he walked to his door. Solicitations, bills, and a heavy cream envelope.
No. There was no way he was holding what he thought he was holding.
His fist itching to punch a hole in the wall, he tore open the paper and saw another envelope inside. A gold one. Had Ewan Gifford lost his damn mind? Who invited a person he’d been fucking to a party celebrating his engagement to the other person he’d, it now seemed, been fucking?
The pain hit Clint before the realization that his foot was inside the stucco wall. Kicking a hole in the side of his house was better than kicking Ewan’s ass and getting fired, but it wasn’t nearly as satisfying. Plus, he was sure to lose his deposit.
“Damn it!” Clint wiggled his foot free and tried to find his way back to calm.
The cause was hopeless anyway, but when he noticed the rip across the top of his boot he fell deeper into the abyss. He loved those boots.
“Fuck!” he shouted. And there went another hole in the wall.
After counting to ten three times, Clint decided he could walk into his house without scaring his dogs. He shook off his only-slightly sore foot—those were damn good boots—and put his key in the lock while making a mental list of everything he had to do. He’d washed his truck on the way home from the station, but he still had to do laundry, go grocery shopping, find a new home, pack, possibly fix the holes in the wall, and repair his boots.
His hard-on was well and truly gone. He could probably resurrect it if he focused on Hawk Black for thirty seconds because the man was that hot, but right then, Clint was pissed as hell and the only logical course of action was to get pissed as hell. He’d skip dinner and go straight for the beer. Getting off would have to wait.
With his evening plans laid out, he pushed his front door open and tossed his keys and mail on the chair slash coat rack slash everything-holder. Waiting for him inside was good news and bad news.
Excited puppies rushing up to greet him were always a welcome sight. Fluffy wasn’t the brightest bulb in the box, but nobody had ever been happier when he came home. She whined and wiggled, her entire back end shaking from side to side. Speedy was on her tail, nosing Clint’s thighs in a combination greeting and request for scratches.
For a few seconds, Clint’s bad mood started to lift, but then he saw the white poof from the corner of his eye. Not understanding what it was at first, he squatted low and petted his dogs. He noticed another white something, and then another.
Squinting across the narrow portion of the living area he could see from his position in the small walled-in entryway, he straightened and said, “What is that?”
The answer became clear when he took one step and got a view of the entire room. The entiredestroyedroom. Clint’s jaw dropped. The source of the white fluff, also known as his sofa, was spread around—the frame was close to the original location and what once were cushions were strewn everywhere else. The coffee table top was flat on the ground with the legs splintered and, if he was seeing right, chewed. He took a moment to be grateful that he had chosen to spend the extra money for the wall-mounted plasma television. But then he saw the cord, which he’d had to plug into the outlet near the floor because the rental house didn’t come with an outlet at television height.
“You ate the TV cord?” he asked his still wagging dogs. “Why?”
He walked toward the television, at first carefully moving over the debris and then giving up and stepping right on top of it. The occasional crunching sound was both disconcerting and oddly satisfying.
