EVEN THOUGH Jordan would’ve liked Edra to stay the rest of the night, it made more sense to go home alone and try to get some sleep. For the rest of the world, they still had to pretend there was nothing between them. He didn’t know how that was going to happen when he was already thinking about how best to make room for Edra’s clothes in his wardrobe. And he wasn’t sure he’d be able to sleep; he was too wired, and the jitter in his hands wasn’t from Bliss cravings. He needed a shower because there was dried come on his belly.
Sinner bitched at him when he entered and then stalked to his bed as though pissed Jordan was late getting home. The empty Bliss bag was still on the kitchen counter where he’d left it only hours before. Was he over the addiction because he’d had sex? He should probably have some of the ginger-and-dead-things tea to be certain.
He swallowed hard and glanced around his apartment. There was room for them both, and while he wasn’t used to sharing, it would be nice. Edra would be able to leap off the balcony and fly….
Fuck, what are the neighbors going to say?
It wasn’t as though he was bringing a werewolf home, but this area of town was pretty much mytho free. But no one would know. Edra looked human until he lifted his shirt.
Jordan stripped off his T-shirt, tossed it in the laundry hamper, and caught scent of Edra on his clothes. He rubbed his stomach and closed his eyes as he remembered licking their linked fingers.
It was done. He imagined he could still taste Edra on his tongue. He still wanted him. That craving was there—a need that wouldn’t settle.
What had he been thinking? Fucking in public like that? Hidden only by a dragon and the notion that what they were doing would be a fine at worst. If the captain knew what he was doing, he’d be gone so fast they’d be delivering his personal effects to his door.
He had to play it smart.
Keep it quiet.
Pretend that his lover… boyfriend? partner? was human.
So he couldn’t call Edra his mate.
He turned on the shower and waited for it to warm up. Nerves tangled in his stomach. What the hell had he done? He was married to a dragon, and not one of his friends would believe him if he told them the truth.
COME DAYLIGHT he got up, even though he wanted to pull the sheets over his head and sleep. He managed to choke down one cup of tea, which he was sure was made of ground bones and bugs. Then washed it down with a cup of coffee. It still felt like he hadn’t slept—which he hadn’t. Two hours didn’t count. That was a nap that had left him feeling gritty and just as strung out.
He should be feeling better, shouldn’t he?
When he got to work, no one looked at him weird, as though they somehow knew what he’d done. Christ, it wasn’t like him to treat sex like an open-air event. It wasn’t like him to be an addict either. But he’d nearly blown it all. He nearly let Edra leave.
His computer hummed to life and emails trickled in. One from Edra made him smile before he’d even read the subject line.
Problem.
How could there be a problem? It had been only five hours since he’d last seen him. Had they not done it right? He opened the email, ignoring even the ones flagged for his immediate attention. It was a link to a news article.
Invisible mytho thief terrorizes the city.
Oh fuck.
He scanned the rest of the article, looking for names, but there weren’t any. His spine melted for a moment under the weight of relief.
Then he reread it all the way to the byline—Carlin Howard.
Goddamn. He sucked in a breath and stared at the screen.
The article was mostly fabrication, as far as he knew. Narv had only stolen from mythos, though to be fair, he was missing opportunities that many perps would love. But an invisible mytho? No one aside from the captain knew that information. That hadn’t been made public, because one water dragon stealing from mythos wasn’t a big deal. But an invisible dragon? That was a much bigger problem.
No one knew about Edra.
No human except him knew about Edra.
But the mythos knew. Just when the police were making headway with the mythos, this would set things back. Humans would get twitchy, and the protests would get another day in the sun.
He leaned back in his seat, willing the article to vanish. They could get it pulled down and maybe take action against Carlin Howard for releasing crucial information about an active investigation—he’d send it on to legal, but the damage would be done.
There was only one way that information had reached Howard. Someone had told.
The captain? He was friends with the Campbells. Had someone else read his reports and leaked them to Howard? That could be just about anyone with an anti-mytho ax to grind.
He rubbed his eyes and wished he’d had more sleep, more sex, more coffee, and not necessarily in that order. He didn’t want to involve internal affairs yet, not without something more. At the moment, they’d probably just laugh, and he was only the mytho guy.
Inspector Freak. The SFPD Zookeeper.
Good thing they didn’t know he was also a mytho fucker. What had seemed like a good idea by starlight was giving him the cold sweats by daylight. Though that could be the witch’s tea.