Page 10 of F*ck Steal Kill

“You all right, man?” a voice asked from my left.

“Yeah,” I grunted, not looking up to see who it was. It didn’t matter, anyway. I wouldn’t remember their faces once I left this town.

Shoving my hands into my pockets, I took off in the opposite direction of the voice, hoping to avoid any further conversations.

I didn’t like to talk to people. They expected too much and confused things. It was easier in my line of work if they were just an obstacle to avoid.

The gravel crunched under my boots, the sound loud in the quiet night. The sounds of the bar faded away the further I walked, reminding me I was alone.

Our job wasn’t for the faint of heart. We traveled more than we stayed places, always on the go. The only two people I cared about were with me, and some days, even that was questionable when Grady got in his moods.

This job suited me, though, and it was the reason I stayed.

But lately, I felt that itch under my skin when things became too much to process. The job wasn’t distracting me the way it typically did, feeling that void within. I’d grown bored with the chase; all the perps were too easily caught and dealt with lately. Outside of the last mission. That had been a clusterfuck.

But the fact remained, I needed something more. I just didn’t know what that was yet.

My phone buzzed, pulling me from my spiral of thoughts. Lifting it to my ear, the smell of the pink temptress filled my nose, bringing my lust straight back to the forefront, and my cock hardened against my leg.

“Q, you there?” Max asked, reminding me I’d answered my phone.

“Yeah.” I didn’t elaborate, mostly because I was unable to. I’d stopped in my tracks, the hotel a few blocks away.

“Did you discover anything?” he asked. Suddenly, I was paranoid he’d been spying on me through cameras or listening through my phone.

“Excuse me?” I growled, the thought of him watching me with my pink-haired temptress upsetting. But not in the way I expected.

Shove that thought far back.

“David Johns. Was he there?” I heard shuffling. “His house was dark, and I completed the surveillance there. So, I’m back at the hotel already. Grady hasn’t checked in yet, so I hoped it meant one of you had found him.”

Exhaling, I remembered I was supposed to be on a hunt and not distracted by pussy.

But fuck, it had been top-grade pussy.

“It’s not him,” I said, not offering an explanation.

“Damn. Okay, you headed back?” he asked, something shifting in his voice as it went higher.

“Yeah.” I hung up, his voice replaying in my head as I attempted to decipher what it was about.

When you spent all your time with two people, you tended to pick up on their quirks. Like earlier with Grady, I knew he was hiding something, and now with Max, something was on his mind.

Sighing, I pushed my pink temptress to the side and marched the rest of the way to the hotel. Despite what most people believed about me, my role in this team included being the team communicator. While most people found that funny since I said the least amount of words possible and often wore a scowl, it was true.

I was selective with my words, but it didn’t negate the fact I was excellent at getting my meaning across. Most people hid what they were saying in flowery messages and subterfuge. I’d learned at an early age how to dig through the bullshit and find the true meaning of what they were saying without really saying it.

It seemed stupid to waste time and words, so I didn’t.

Now, no one could bullshit me. I was the ultimate BS detector, making me a valuable team member when finding bad guys and keeping us together as a unit.

Though sometimes, I loathed my role.

Being attuned to your teammates' emotions 24/7 was exhausting. It was probably why I locked mine away so much. It was more comfortable to focus on theirs and ignore my own.

And that was too much deep shit for me tonight. Time to shove it into the recesses of my mind and focus on Max.

The hotel lobby was quiet as I passed through, with only a few patrons sitting around the bar area as the TV blared the local news. No one of interest stood out, so I kept walking toward the elevator. It arrived instantly, and I stepped in, hitting the floor for our rooms.

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