Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 93984 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 470(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 313(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93984 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 470(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 313(@300wpm)
Not to mention that Justin was having trouble keeping his mouth shut around Gabriel. What had been his problem last night that he’d felt the need to spill his guts about his growing burnout? The words had tumbled free before he could stop them, and then he’d waited for Gabriel to laugh. But he hadn’t. He’d kissed him again and again until the old gnawing pain had receded to the shadowy parts of his mind.
Flopping back in his chair, Justin watched Gabriel lick the pad of his index finger and slowly turn the page. Justin swore he could feel that lick on his goddamn dick. Narrowing his eyes, he could see Gabriel’s lips twitch as if he were fighting a smile. Fucker. He was doing this on purpose as if he knew Justin was watching him. Asshole. Didn’t stop him from being sexy even if Gabriel was teasing him on purpose.
He would just kick his ass out and—
Justin stopped sharply at the thought as he realized he could kick Gabriel out. Well, send him to stay in a hotel. They’d tracked down the culprit for the hotel raid. It was highly unlikely the contract owner had discovered that the mercenary was dead. Gabriel was safe, and they could return to operating in separate spaces again.
How had he not thought of that before now? His eyes jerked to Gabriel’s face, wondering if the same realization had occurred to his partner. Justin had a sneaking suspicion it hadn’t.
And now that he knew he could kick Gabriel out, he didn’t want to.
Holy shit!
Fuck Gabriel. And fuck himself sideways with a barbed-wire dildo.
He knew better than this. He couldn’t want Gabriel. Couldn’t feel…something. The man could kill him. He was a trained, cold-blooded mercenary. He was in it for the money.
He was…wickedly brilliant and had a subtle, dry sense of humor that had a way of sneaking up on Justin. And even though he gave Justin grief over his own goofy sense of humor, he still laughed, even if it was only with his eyes. The man hummed when he cooked and moved around the kitchen with the grace of a dancer. Justin could spend hours just watching him.
There was a quiet strength to him, and Justin couldn’t help admiring him because under that strength, he knew there was something deeply broken within him.
Oh, no. No. No. No. No. No. Justin covered his face with his hands and moaned loudly. This was stupid. It was as if his brain had permanently leaked out the end of his dick.
Gabriel had to go.
But what if he stayed? And they went on working together, cooking together, laughing and fucking as they had been? What if he stayed because Justin liked him, and they enjoyed each other’s company?
What if he stayed?
A cheerful chime rang above the steady hum of computer fans. Justin dropped his hands to his lap and looked over to his main computer to find a little window greeting him with the best news he’d seen in days. The program hacking the doctor’s hard drive was done, and the contents were now unlocked.
With a celebratory whoop! Justin rolled forward and opened up the hard drive. There was just one file folder, but it was enormous. There were piles of spreadsheets and databases of information. There were more file folders with copies of X-rays and MRI results. There were pictures taken of what looked to be cultures in petri dishes. He opened a few, but he really didn’t understand what he was looking at for the most part.
An hour passed, Gabriel’s taunting sexiness temporarily forgotten as he worked his way through the files. He didn’t understand what he was looking at, but there was one document that got his heart pumping.
Unplugging the portable hard drive from his computer, he jumped up and grabbed it and a spare laptop before charging up the stairs. When he pounded into the living room, Gabriel was shutting his book. He looked poised to make some snarky comment, but he must have read Justin’s excited expression, because his own eyes widened and he stood, dropping his book onto the chair.
“What did you find?” Gabriel immediately demanded.
“I got into the hard drive.”
“And?”
Justin looked around for a place to set the laptop where they could both see it without one of them needing to sit in the other’s lap. With a grunt, he turned and placed the laptop on the breakfast bar. He slid into one of the chairs while Gabriel remained standing at his shoulder. Heat emanated from the man, and Justin wanted to twist around and offer up his mouth for a deep kiss, but this really wasn’t the time for such things. Maybe later…to celebrate.
“There are a shit-ton of files on here. Patient records. Test results. I don’t understand…well, any of it.”