Putting his mug on the edge of Quinn’s desk, he pulled up his T-shirt to reveal a stunning set of abs along with a long pink scar along his left side.
“When they find this one, they just want to lick up and down the scar like I’m a goddamn lollipop.”
“And you don’t encourage that at all,” Royce deadpanned.
With his shirt still tucked up under his armpits, Dominic quickly unbuttoned and unzipped his pants, shoving them down to his knees to reveal a pair of boxers covered in dinosaurs. “And then the one on my ass—”
“I don’t want to see the one on your ass!” Quinn shouted while laughing.
“What the fuck, Dom?” Royce growled at the same time.
From down the hall, they could hear Rowe bellow. “Put your goddamn pants on, Dominic!”
Dominic instantly turned and grinned. His coffee forgotten on Quinn’s desk, he started shuffling down the hall, his pants still around his knees. “No! My pants aren’t going on until you put me on more jobs. One measly mayor job isn’t cutting it, Boss!”
“No!”
“Come on, Boss!”
Their voices became more muffled as Dominic went down to harass Rowe in his office. The doctors had cleared Dominic for action, but Andrei was still running him through training sessions. Until Andrei and Rowe cleared him, he was mostly sidelined and that sucked for everyone because Dom was stuck hanging in the office and bored out of his mind. Hijinks and antics followed. Quinn had been surprised to see him at Taft yesterday.
Royce’s low chuckle drew Quinn’s gaze back to his face. Whatever pain he’d felt moments ago was at least temporarily forgotten but then, Dom had a knack for making you forget the dark things in life.
“At least I know you guys aren’t bored without me.”
“Not bored.” Royce clapped him on the shoulder and squeezed for a second before pushing back to his feet. “But you need to get back here soon. You can’t leave me alone with that lunatic for much longer.”
“Agreed.”Shane picked up his phone, unable to stop himself from checking it even though he knew he hadn’t missed a text from Quinn. The first one had arrived less than thirty minutes ago, warning him that he had stopped over at Ward Security and was running a little late.
A few minutes later, another asked if he wanted coffee since he was stopping at a Starbucks on his way to the Agency.
Shane replied that he was good.
Then there was another asking if he needed a bagel or a sausage biscuit sandwich or some other breakfast sandwich.
He couldn’t stop the wide grin on his lips and was glad that Hollis couldn’t see him. Quinn was a texter. A hard-core, “rather text than talk” millennial. While he’d much rather talk than text any day, he could do this for Quinn to give him a safe zone.
After Shane turned down the offer for breakfast, Quinn waited a whole seven minutes before sending the last text, and it was just two words.
We good?
Quinn turning him down for sex the previous night was surprising, but there was no animosity between them. There was no reason for it, which only made him wonder about Quinn’s past experiences with hookups. Was he more accustomed to dealing with controlling, high-maintenance douchebags?
Shane shook his head as he quickly sent back, We’re good.
And now he waited. His computer screen had a list of notes for the Spring case, but he couldn’t see them. He kept replaying the kiss in his head while at the same time straining to hear for the sound of the front door opening with Quinn’s arrival.
His office might be more cramped and confining with Quinn’s presence, but he liked the guy being there. He enjoyed their ridiculous banter, and he liked being able to bounce random ideas off Quinn as they occurred to him. He had a quick mind and was able to ferret out holes in his thinking so damn fast.
Lost in thought, he actually jumped when Quinn walked through the door, a paper coffee cup in one hand and his messenger bag slung over his shoulder. His greeting was a practiced nonchalant, but there was no missing the slight stain of pink that rose to his cheeks.
“Morning,” Shane said easily.
“Hey, did you see the news about the Indian Hill Chief of Police? Exposed string of lovers. Wife chased him out of the house with a baseball bat. It’s like the city has gone crazy over the past week and all the haters are crawling out of the woodwork. But it got me thinking on the drive over that we could be more proactive in our hunt,” Quinn quickly said as he dropped his bag by his little desk and shed his light jacket. His words were fast and slightly breathless, making Shane smile. It was like he was trying to fill the air so that Shane couldn’t say anything that would make things uncomfortable between them.