Not That Angelic: Chosen Book 28 Read online

  "Get hold of Granger, and keep an eye on Lane," West said, shrugging. "He is never to be left alone with them."

  Dylan nodded, a small frown pulling between his eyebrows. "You think he'll set them free?"

  West sighed, his body going limp next to me, leaning further into my side, and again, I didn't move, liking the pressure of him. "Maybe. I really don't know what he has planned, but don't you think he would have let them go by now if he was going to?"

  "I don't know." Dylan said, sounding just as exasperated as West. "Until recently, we really haven't strayed away from the house. Only a few times to get supplies and stuff, and it was usually just one of us at a time. He hasn't really had a chance yet."

  "Is this man dangerous?" I asked suddenly, wondering if I should be keeping an eye on things myself.

  "Well, yeah," West said, turning his head toward me and smirking, putting his plush lips far too close. "We all are."

  He didn't look all that concerned, and when I glanced over at Dylan, both gauging his reaction and needing to retreat a bit, so I didn't end up pressing my mouth to West’s, he yawned, stretching.

  "Damn, I'm tired." There were tears in his heavily lidded eyes when he looked at us. "Didn't we go to bed at a reasonable time yesterday?"

  A growl slipped out of my throat before I even fully registered what the tall, skinny man had said, and though his eyes widened slightly, a small grin slid onto his face just as I cut the noise off, realizing far too late that it had been a very possessive move.

  I glanced over at West, hoping for a miracle. A miracle being that he maybe had gone suddenly deaf and didn't hear it, but instead I found a wide-eyed, red-faced man, licking his pretty pink lips nervously.

  He cleared his throat. "Well, since we didn't go to bed together, I don't know when you went to sleep, Dylan."

  His friend chuckled, his tired body flopping forward until he was leaning on the counter again, fading by the second. "I don't think I've ever seen you blush so much."

  They seemed to have another silent argument where they talked with widening and narrowing eyes and moving eyebrows, while I sat there and contemplated their vulnerability if they fell asleep, since they'd both yawned several times over the course of a single conversation. In fact, I was willing to bet that if I was to move right then, West would fall over on the floor.

  "I don't like the idea of you being here with this Lane guy," I said, turning to look at West, making both men gasp before I turned to glance at Dylan, letting both men see how serious I was. "Either of you."

  "Oh, that is sexy," Dylan said, raising his eyebrows and reaching out to nudge West. "You were right."

  West groaned, dropping his face into the palm of his hand and shaking his head, a bright blush painting his cheeks. I fought a smile, ridiculously pleased at the prospect of him thinking anything about me was sexy, but especially my scowl.

  All this time, I'd thought those things would be the type of things that would make someone like West run and hide, but he surprised me every single time I frowned at him, by seeming to almost light up from it.

  I'd been fighting this draw toward him for so long, and for some stupid reason I'd thought I had a handle on it, but I'd jumped at the first excuse I'd been given to hunt him down, and now that I was here spending more time in his presence in the last couple hours than I had for the entirety of our relationship before, I wasn't sure I could walk away so easily now. The very thought made my chest ache.

  But he was too fun and funny and exciting to be with someone like me. I'd suck the life straight out of him. It would be for the best if I forgot all the things I really liked about him, because it would never work out between us.

  Yeah, because all my dealings with West Dyer were just that easy. Should be a breeze.

  Chapter Three

  I tried desperately to ignore Dylan's continued attempts to embarrass me, even though they were absolutely working. As the minutes ticked by, and Dylan didn't deem it necessary to take his drooping and getting droopier by the second ass to bed to save my dignity, and Gabriel didn't seem to be inching any closer to that door, I gave real consideration to just crying.

  I was tired and embarrassed enough to make a really good show of it.

  "You're not going to go home, are you?" I whined, letting my head flop forward onto my arms that were crossed over the counter.

  "No," he said dryly, his deep voice making me sigh with want.

  "Where are you planning on sleeping?" I asked triumphantly, my head springing back up so I could turn and look up into his eyes. "Lane has the other bed."

  He raised an eyebrow, his gaze unwavering. "The couch."

  "Ew." I recoiled dramatically, curling my lip. "You're not sleeping on the couch."

  I wouldn't have put my worst enemy on that couch. There was a reason we were still sitting at the counter in the kitchen instead of retiring to the living room where the seating would at least be a bit more comfortable.

  The couch had been here when we took over, and we'd all been too afraid of catching some kind of staph to even pick it up and move it.

  "I think West's bed is probably big enough," Dylan supplied with a straight face, purposely not even looking in my direction.

  Shit! Could I handle that? I was trained for a lot of things, but I didn't know if resisting Gabriel's warm body lying in bed next to mine was something I was qualified for. There was a damn good chance I'd hump his leg like a dog if he even accidentally ventured over onto my side of the bed, but I was about ten thousand percent certain he wasn't going to leave, and I refused to let such a perfect being sleep in Herporrheachlamydatitisville regardless of the fact that he couldn't actually get any of those things.

  "That's true," I squeaked, before swallowing. "I might even have some clothes that would…" I glanced down at his body, licking my lips and forcing myself not to linger too long on all the muscle, or even lean back on my stool to see what he was packing underneath the overhang of the countertop. "Kinda fit you."

  "Hey," Lane said as the front door opened, and I snapped out of my still happening perusal of a body I was trying not to be creepy about and failing miserably. "I brought dinner."

  Everyone in the room tensed up, nobody answering the man as he headed in our direction, the awkwardness completely obvious to me, which only made my inability to think of anything to say that much worse as Lane entered the kitchen hesitantly, clearly unsure how to take the silence.

  His innocent face. That was what made it hard to believe the man was even remotely capable of being at a party like the one he'd clearly been at. He just had such big, innocent blue eyes. And he was incredibly sweet. It was just so fucking hard to see him as someone who would willingly take part in the auctioning off of innocent people.

  Gabriel reached out, gripping my thigh under the table and I had to stifle a gasp. Innocent-looking possible double-crosser within feet of me or not, the feel of Gabriel's big, warm palm so close to my dick did some serious things to my body.

  I glanced over, wondering what had prompted him to make such a bold move when I had been pretty sure his interest in me didn't extend beyond his curiosity of the situation Dylan and I found ourselves in, and his odd protective streak.

  Gabriel made eye contact with me while Lane walked across the room, putting the sacks of food on the counter over by the sink, and shook his head where the other man couldn't see.

  I tilted my head in confusion until he reached up, tapping his nose, and it suddenly dawned on me exactly what he'd been saying.

  "We already ate," I blurted, still watching Gabriel's face, and catching his barely perceptible nod, letting me know I'd interpreted what he'd said correctly.

  Dylan's head snapped over in my direction, and he watched me curiously for a minute, probably reading the look right off of my face.

  He licked his lips swallowing while Lane turned, a carry-out box in his hand as he leaned his head to the side, blinking at me.

  "Maybe save it for later?" Dyla
n asked, his voice sounding far calmer than mine had.

  Lane blinked in surprise, not necessarily looking hurt, but surprisingly put out by the fact that we weren't able to eat what he'd brought, and I felt a slight pang in my chest as I realized that meant he'd been pretty set on us eating that tainted food right then. A man I'd started to think of as a friend, just like I'd started to think of Dylan as, was happily planning on poisoning us. How could he just stand there like that with the plans he had?"

  "Sure," he said, his voice holding more strain that the single syllable called for. His eyes moved from Dylan over to me… and then Gabriel. "We have a visitor? Is he staying?"

  "Yes," I said quickly, suddenly very glad the gorgeous man had insisted on staying, since it meant another, set of eyes and ears on a man who Dylan and I clearly couldn't trust. "This is my boyfriend. Gabriel. Gabby, this is Lane."

  Gabriel stiffened against my side, and Dylan coughed, the beer he'd had up to his lips spraying slightly across the counter, making me purse my lips.

  I hadn't really had time to warn either one, but there was only one way it wouldn't look weird later when Gabriel climbed into bed with me, and that would be if he was doing it as my boyfriend.

  "I didn't know you had a boyfriend, Dyer," Lane said, giving me a genuine-looking smile that really made it hard to equate him to the man who was apparently trying to poison me. He actually looked happy for me as he tilted his head to the side.

  Suddenly, his head snapped up and he looked over at the man next to me with wide eyes. "Wait, Gabriel?" His giant smile moved with his excited eyes as he looked over at me again. "Isn't that the chief of police that you've been mooning over?"

  I sighed, smiling through the excruciating embarrassment of yet another person outing me and my big stupid crush to the object of it. "Yep," I said, voice strained. "I finally went after him."

  "Wow. Congratulations then." Again, he sounded genuinely happy for me as I watched his face rather than the snickering Dylan's. I didn't dared a look in Gabriel's direction, really not wanting to see what he might have thought about any of it.

  This is going to make for a really awkward night's sleep. Not that I'd had any confidence that it wouldn't before.

  Dylan and I helped Lane put all the food away, and I acknowledged in a state of surrealism that I was handling food that had been designed to possibly kill me, and then we all slipped off to bed. Dylan had tried to wave me off, laughingly telling me I needed to get my man to bed and do dirty things to him. He and Lane both laughing their asses off when I yet again blushed, leading Lane to mention––just like Dylan had earlier––that he didn't think he'd ever seen me blush.

  As we all made our way to our bedrooms, Lane having the room closest to the living room on the long hallway, and mine in the middle across the hall and on the same side as the bathroom with Dylan's being at the end of the hall, I determined I was going to pretend none of that embarrassing shit had happened, and I tripped Dylan as he passed, making the idiot laugh.

  Gabriel looked out of place as he scanned the room and I sighed, going over to the dresser and getting out the loosest pair of shorts I had, and handing them to him as I grabbed some for myself and raised an eyebrow at him when he wouldn't allow me to leave the room by myself to go change in the bathroom.

  Sighing and rolling my eyes, I went to the closet, pulling the door slightly closed as I stripped down to my boxers and changed, not necessarily modest, but definitely not needing Gabriel to see my semi as I nervously, but excitedly contemplated sharing a bed with the big gorgeous man.

  "Oh," I said when I emerged from the closet, not sure whether I should laugh or groan at the sight of the man in my shorts. Those are… tight."

  He wasn't considerably bigger than me, but definitely enough that my clothes were clearly not meant to be on his body… and good Lord I did not need to know his dimensions when I was about to climb in bed with him. It was going to be hard enough––pun intended––without the knowledge that the man was definitely big everywhere.

  He must have caught on to where my gaze was refusing to be drawn away from, because he reached down, pulling at the crotch of the nut-hugging shorts, pursing his lips. "Tomorrow, we're going to get me more clothes."

  He'd opted to wear the T-shirt he'd been wearing with his jeans when he'd gotten here, and I thought that might be a good idea, since I didn't think any of my shirts would be any better in the comfort department than I was pretty sure those shorts were.

  "You know we really can take care of ourselves," I let him know, not really wanting him to leave, but feeling the need to remind him anyway.

  Dylan and I both were very well-trained, and I had no doubt we could take care of ourselves against Lane. Even if it would be a little hard to hurt the man, who really was one of the sweetest people I knew… when he wasn't trying to kill me.

  "The food he brought in has something in it," Gabriel said, pursing is lips and glancing over at the bed before picking at his crotch again. "I bet if I went and sniffed the food in the refrigerator, it would be the same there too. I think that was why you and Dylan were so tired. I would almost guarantee he drugged you."

  "You might be right," I said, remembering how tired Dylan had seemed, and still feeling the pull of being overly sleepy dragging me toward my cozy-looking bed. "He brought food home last night, but it tasted funny, and Dylan and I had already eaten a pizza, so we didn't eat much. We only ate what we did because he brought it and we felt bad not eating any of it, but I've felt unnaturally lethargic all day."

  And just what the fuck would he have used that would still be in our systems after nearly twenty-four hours? It was kinda terrifying to think of what we'd have been like if we'd eaten more of it.

  "I wonder what his end game is," I said absently, watching Gabriel cross the room and move to the side of the bed closest to the door before pulling his shirt off, peeling back the blankets and climbing in.

  He was that gorgeous bronzed color everywhere and the muscles on his upper body were absolutely stellar. Everything I believed to be true in life was confirmed in that moment. Aliens were real, and Gabriel Todd had a perfect fucking body.

  "Will you be able to hear if something happens with Dylan?" I asked finally, closing my eyes for a moment so I could mentally visualize what he'd just hidden under the blankets.

  I too moved to the bed, my body saying finally as it started to become more and more floppy, the closer I got as Gabriel rummaged around under the blankets, finally bringing the shorts I'd let him borrow out from under the covers and tossing them on the floor next to the bed.

  I froze, my hand already having raised the corner of the comforter on my side of the bed, I blinked, over toward where the shorts were, not actually able to see them since I was on the other side, but imagining them in a heap on the floor… along with the naked man underneath the blankets, since I had clearly been able to make out through those tight shorts that he hadn't been wearing underwear earlier.

  "I probably won't sleep much tonight," he said, clearly oblivious to my mental crisis. "You and Dylan can relax. In order to get to him, Lane would have to go by our room. I'll definitely hear that."

  I nodded… and kept nodding as I swallowed hard, blinking over at the shorts I couldn't see while thinking about the naked man in my bed and hearing the words our room echoing around in my head.

  I cleared my throat, shaking myself out of it, and slowly slid into bed, lying as far on my side of the bed as I could, completely stiff––again, pun intended­­––and took a deep calming breath, silently praying for a miracle that might keep me on my side of the bed… like lightning to strike and split the thing in half, so I couldn't physically reach over and touch all the skin I probably wasn't allowed to, especially now that he knew about my big, giant, enormously huge crush on him.

  "Why would you do that?" I asked eventually, closing my eyes. "I mean, it's nice, don't get me wrong, but why would you stay to protect us when it is clearly going to be a g
iant inconvenience to you?"

  I could feel myself starting to relax the longer I lay there, my body slowly giving over to my exhaustion and the will of my mind to settle down.

  "I'm a police officer, West. It's my job to make sure the people around here are okay."

  It was a good answer, even if it wasn't the one I'd apparently secretly––secret even from myself––been hoping for.

  I wondered if the sad sounding whimper I heard as I drifted off to sleep was my own, or if someone had let a pathetic little dog into the house.

  ***

  The feel of the bed shifting next to me woke me up, but I didn't open my eyes, waiting instead to figure out what was happening.

  It was Gabriel, that I had no doubt about, and I cracked my eye just a hair, hoping that even with his amazing eyesight, the light would be too low for him to see the small sliver. He was facing away, so I opened my eyes further, blinking in surprise to realize I was looking at his gorgeous ass as he bent down and picked the discarded shorts off the floor before slipping them on.

  Damn! Pulling shorts up should never be that fucking sexy.

  He paused, and I slid my eyes closed as he turned to look over his shoulder, but I was pretty sure, judging by the grunt, that he didn't actually believe I was sleeping as he moved to leave the room.

  I shrugged, easing from the bed and tossing a look in the direction of the digital clock on the dresser, not all that surprised to realize I'd only been asleep for a couple of hours, and it was still closer to midnight than it was dawn.

  I slipped into the hallway behind him, and we eased our way down the hall toward the living room. Just before we made it to the opening where the living room and kitchen met, he froze, turning slowly to laser me with those white-blue eyes and a scowl.

  "What the hell are you doing?" he whispered, barely audible with the sound of the furnace drowning out the sound of his voice. "And how the fuck are you so damn quiet?"

  "Training," I said, raising my eyebrows. "I've told you about a million times that I'm highly trained for all this, but you keep doubting me because I'm not a shifter, and I'm following you because it's pretty obvious you've heard something, and are in the process of checking it out. Do you really think I'm going to let you walk down here by yourself when it's possible one of my colleagues, who, I might add, is trained for the express purpose of pursuing and capturing, or killing immortal beings?" I whispered back, wondering if he was ever going to understand that there was a good chance I could very well take him in a fight.