Gabriel hid his smile behind his coffee mug when Justin stumbled into the kitchen the next morning. The man grumbled and growled about getting too old and his aching body when it damn well shouldn’t. Gabriel just wordlessly wandered over to the chairs in front of the breakfast bar and sat down. He’d enjoyed an up close and very personal inspection of Justin’s body the night before and there wasn’t an inch of that man that he would label as old. And he was looking forward to a second shot at him in what he hoped was the very near future.

Justin’s eyes narrowed suspiciously on Gabriel. “Why the hell do you seem so chipper?” Justin said.

“I haven’t said a word,” Gabriel said.

“I know, but you’re usually the grumpy one.”

“You’d think after getting laid you’d be in a better mood.”

Justin grabbed a mug and stopped before filling it with hot coffee. “Well, maybe I would have been in a better mood if I’d been awakened with a blow job.” He turned back to the coffee maker and filled his mug. Gabriel set his own coffee down and walked back around the breakfast bar. Justin started to turn toward the refrigerator, but he backed straight into Gabriel who boxed him in against the L-shape of the counter.

“Don’t fuck with me before I’d have my coffee,” Justin growled in warning.

Gabriel leaned his head forward and brushed his lips against the shell of Justin’s ear. He licked the shell, loving the shiver that ran down his frame. “I thought this was what you wanted,” he whispered. “For me to fuck with you.”

A low groan rumbled up Justin’s throat as Gabriel carefully slid one hand around Justin’s side to caress across his stomach and down into his sleep pants. He wrapped his fingers around his hardening cock and slowly stroked until Justin was thrusting into his hand.

“Oh God, G. Don’t be mean,” he moaned.

Withdrawing his hand from Justin’s pants, he turned the man around and pushed him back against the counter before dropping to his knees. The hard wood immediately pressed against the bone, making the position uncomfortable, but the pain was partially forgotten when his eyes locked on the tent in the front of the soft gray pants. It had been a long time since he’d last gotten on his knees for someone, and if he was being honest with himself, he was more than happy to do this for Justin. He made the most amazing noises when he was getting off and Gabriel was dying to taste him.

Pulling Justin free of his pants, Gabriel stroked him a times before running his thumb over the leaking head. He swiped up a pearl of pre-come. Looking up at Justin’s wide eyes, he lifted his thumb to his mouth and licked it off, wringing another groan out of Justin.

“Suck me. Fucking suck me now.” That low, growled command went straight to Gabriel’s own cock, creating a throb of need.

But he didn’t give Justin what he wanted. At least, not yet. He liked teasing the man. Leaning forward, he licked the tip, swirling his tongue around the head without actually taking him into his mouth. Justin tried to thrust forward, but Gabriel kept a firm hold on the root of his dick as well as his hip. He was still in control.

“Teasing bastard,” Justin snarled. He finally threaded his fingers through his hair, tightening until pain shot through Gabriel’s scalp, and then shoved his head down until Justin’s cock hit the back of Gabriel’s throat. He gagged and his eyes watered, but Justin quickly relaxed his grip and started to pull Gabriel off. But he didn’t want him to ease off. He loved Justin’s rough but cautious grip. Gabriel quickly recovered, beginning to lick and suck his cock in earnest.

Relaxing his throat, he loosened his hold on Justin’s hip, allowing him to thrust into his mouth at his own pace. The sounds coming from Justin were as intoxicating as the taste of his cock on his tongue. They were something between a grunt and a whimper. Just pure pleasure as he lost himself to the moment. And Gabriel loved that he was causing it. His own dick was rock hard in his pants and leaking, but he’d take care of himself in the shower later.

Gabriel slid his hand from Justin’s cock to cup and fondle his balls as they drew up tight against his body.

“Fuck, G. I’m there. I—”

He broke off and Gabriel sucked him harder. His cock swelled on Gabriel’s tongue just before Justin shot down his throat. He moaned and swallowed the load down. A tremor ran through Justin’s body as he came hard. And Gabriel very nearly did the same without needing to touch himself. Fuck, Justin was just naturally sexy.

The dick slid from his lips and Gabriel leaned forward to nuzzle the soft skin along Justin’s hip bone. He smelled of sex and sleep. His skin was deliciously warm and smooth. Above him, a little moan of pleasure rose from Justin’s throat. There was a little part of his brain that was demanding he pull Justin back to his bed and they put off starting the day until later. But that wasn’t an option.

Gabriel got back to his feet with a little help from Justin. His knees were not happy with his decision to kneel on the hardwood floor, but he was ignoring it in favor of the taste of Justin on this tongue and the pleased but dazed look on the man’s face. He wasn’t sure if he was ready to bottom for Justin yet, but he figured he could at least get on his knees for the guy after last night. And he certainly hadn’t minded.

“I’m going to jump in the shower and check my email. When you’re ready, we can do a drive by of the Jones residence. See if the doctor’s husband is at home.” Gabriel started to walk away, but Justin roughly grabbed his arm and roughly pulled him back until their chests bumped against each other.

“You’re not leaving like that,” Justin said. He leaned up and brushed his lips against Gabriel’s.

“I thought I was leaving you satisfied,” Gabriel said with a smirk.

“Oh, I’m quite satisfied. I discovered last night that your mouth is a fucking dream, and I’m hoping to spend a lot of time over the next few days putting that mouth to good use. But…” He nipped at Gabriel’s mouth until the man finally leaned down and captured his mouth in a hard, thorough kiss.

Gabriel broke off the kiss for a moment and lifted one eyebrow as he looked down at the man. “But?”

“But I’m not the type to leave a guy hanging.” He reached down for Gabriel’s own sleep pants, but Gabriel captured his wrists and pulled them over his head, pinning them back against the overhead cabinet behind Justin.

“Later.”

“Seriously?”

Gabriel grinned at him and took a step backward before releasing Justin’s wrists. “I want something to look forward to later today.”

Justin stared at him, looking utterly dumbfounded before a little smirk played across his lips. “Not feeling confident about our odds today with Mr. Jones?”

Gabriel nearly groaned with frustration. “You’ve been shot, my hotel ransacked, and your car shot up. Our luck is shit.”

“We had some success with Gretchen,” Justin was quick to point out.

“Not the odds one would call successful.” Gabriel started back out of the kitchen toward the stairs.

“You got laid!” Justin shouted, his voice ringing through the house.

Gabriel allowed himself a chuckle as he walked up the stairs. Getting laid while in the middle of a job was definitely a new twist for him…at least it was since he’d started working solo. His mind quickly shied away from old memories that tried to rise up. The past didn’t exist. There was only the present, the job, and the insane man in the kitchen downstairs. The rest could wait.

Gabriel parked the rental car on the street almost a block away from Dr. Jones’ address and they both sat in silence as they looked around the quiet, wooded neighborhood. It was a family neighborhood with signs warning of kids at play and bicycles in the front yard. The homes looked a little older and the trees were mature. It should have been the place where Kristen Jones had the chance to raise her young daughter while helping to potentially cure one of the deadliest diseases in the world.

But someone had stolen that opportunity from her. As well as Dr. Weiss.

“It looks like he’s home,” Justin ventured. They’d made one pass in front of the house before going around the block to part. An SUV had been parked in the driveway with the rear door open with a few grocery bags visible. By the time they’d parked, the trunk was closed. They’d just missed him unloading it.

On the drive over, Justin had pulled up some basic details on Devon Jones, widower of Kristen Jones. The man was listed as a data analyst, which he very likely did out of his home now that he was without a wife and was probably struggling to find a new balance in his broken life.

“Let’s see if he has anything useful to say.” Gabriel led the way out of the car and down the block with Justin hurrying to catch up.

“You are going to play nice, right?” Justin teased, or at least Gabriel hoped that Justin was teasing him. “The guy does have a baby daughter and he just lost his wife.”

“Well, I wasn’t planning to walk straight in with my gun drawn, demanding to know what secrets his wife was keeping,” Gabriel snarled. He stopped sharply and spun around to face Justin. He moved closer, getting right into the man’s face. “Is that what you think of me? That I only use force and threats to get what I want? That I can’t show compassion toward a person who as far as we know is innocent?”

“I don’t know, G. Love. I’m still trying to figure you out. For a man who freaked out about holding my hand in public and was in pretty heavy denial about being gay just a couple days ago, you certainly didn’t have any problems with last night…or this morning.”

Gabriel grunted and turned away from him, continuing to the house. Now was not the time to get into any of this. And he definitely didn’t want to explain while standing in the middle of the street that Justin made him feel safe, something he hadn’t felt in so damn long. Maybe he’d made a horrible mistake in getting physically involved with the man, regardless of how compatible they seemed to be in bed.

He rang the doorbell a Justin joined him on the porch. All the other shit didn’t matter for now. They had work to do and $22 million was on the line.

Gabriel was just reaching for the doorbell a second time when the front door was jerked open suddenly, revealing a young man who couldn’t have been more than twenty-five, maybe twenty-six.

“Don’t ring it again,” he said in a soft rush. “I just got my daughter down for a nap.”

“We’re very sorry,” Gabriel said. “We didn’t mean to disturb your baby.”

The young man shook his head, waving off the apology. “You didn’t know. It’s okay. I typically put a sign up on the door, but you showed up before I could. Is there something I can help you with?”

“We’re hoping to just have a few minutes of your time to talk to you about your wife,” Justin said.

Mr. Jones’ expression tightened and the hand holding the edge of the door clamped down as if he was preparing to shut it in their faces. “My wife is dead. She was killed in a car accident nearly three weeks ago.”

“We don’t think it was an accident, Mr. Jones.”

He took a step backward, his eyes sweeping down over their dark suits. “I’m sorry. Who are you? Are you cops?”

“We’re private investigators looking into the deaths of Dr. Jones and Dr. Weiss, your wife’s co-worker.” Justin took a step closer, moving beside Gabriel. “Did you know Dr. Weiss?”

“Kevin? Yes, Kevin came over to our house a few times. He…I’d heard about his death. I-I-I just didn’t give it much thought in relation to Kristen’s.” He stopped and rubbed his face, then suddenly looked around himself as if realizing that they were all still standing on the front porch. “Here. Come inside.” He stepped out of the doorway, waving them in.

Gabriel led the way into the house, glancing over the family photos that adorned the wall of a happy couple soon joined by a tiny little girl with a full head of black hair and wide dark eyes. Judging by the progression of photos, their daughter couldn’t be more than two years old now at most.

Devon ushered them into a living room that was in disarray with a child’s toys and a basket of clothes that was in the process of being folded. There was also an old pizza box on the coffee table. The widower made a disgusted sound in the back of his throat as he quickly threw the clothes spread across the sofa in the basket before setting it off to the side. He grabbed the box and turned back to Justin and Gabriel.

“Sorry. I guess I’ve let things go since…. I’ve never been very consistent about the housework. At least, not without Kristen there to hound me about things. She was always more organized than me.”

“It’s okay, Mr. Jones,” Gabriel said gently. “We’d only like a few minutes of your time.”

“Do you want some coffee, Mr. ..umm?”

“I’m Mr. Prescott and this is my partner, Mr. Mallory.” Gabriel motioned to Justin who had hung back toward the entrance of the house.

“Mr. Jones, did your wife talk about her latest project with Iaso?”

Devon’s hands tightened around the pizza box he was holding before he shook his head. “I knew that it was supposed to be a cancer treatment. Oncology was her specialty. She was putting in a lot of long hours over the past month for it.”

“Was she hopeful that the treatment would work?”

Putting the box back on the table, Devon sat on the edge of the couch and frowned. “Not really, but you have to understand my wife. She had worked on successful projects before. She’s not normally hopeful or disappointed. It’s all about the data. She used to say that every failure eliminated all the useless noise from life, getting her closer to the truth.”

“In her final weeks, did you notice anything different about your wife?” Justin asked. “Did she seem anxious or worried?”

“Yeah, she was pissed.”

Gabriel straightened at his words and looked over at Justin, who also appeared mildly surprised. “What do you mean pissed?”

“Just that. She was angry. She was convinced that someone was fucking with her data.”

“How?”

Devon placed his elbows on his knees and scrubbed his hands over his face. “I don’t know,” he replied in a muffled voice. “I’m not sure she knew either. She was just sure that someone was messing with her data, deleting information for patient records. There was something about a patient who died during the trial and the autopsy information was incomplete.” He paused and heaved a heavy sigh. “The last two weeks before she died, she wasn’t sleeping. She was barely home at all.”

Gabriel frowned. Dr. Jones had a young daughter and a loving husband at home, but she was obsessed with this trial. Likely because she knew that someone was secretly fucking with her research.

“Was your wife scared?” Justin asked.

Devon’s head popped up and he stared at Justin for a few seconds, his brows pulled together over his long, narrow nose. “Scared? I…I don’t know. I didn’t think so. She was upset. The drug had been submitted to the FDA against her recommendation and she was sure that someone was falsifying the data.”

“Did she tell anyone?”

“Yes, of course. She reported it to her boss, Dr. Elba, as well as the chairman…that bastard Dane Hamilton. No one was listening to her.”

Gabriel sat in a chair near Devon and met the man’s eyes. “Did she tell Dr. Weiss?”

Devon nodded. “Yes. He didn’t take her seriously at first, but then he started noticing things when the third person died.”

“Did your wife have any notes on her work here at the house?” Justin asked and Gabriel’s heart sped up with hope, only to have it crushed a second later when Devon shook his head.

“No, not that she kept here. Anything she was working on was kept on the laptop, and Iaso confiscated it from the accident.” Devon paused and frowned at Gabriel and then Justin. “But you don’t think it was an accident. You think someone…killed my wife?”

Gabriel looked over at Justin, not sure how much to tell the grieving man. Was it kinder for him to think that it was just a cruel accident or better to know the truth, that someone put a hit out on his wife because she had the power to stop it from hitting the market?

“Yes, we think your wife might have been killed for what she knew about the drug,” Justin said evenly. “It doesn’t look like a car accident. We think that someone intentionally ran her off the road. The same way that Dr. Weiss’s death was not about a burglary.”

“Fuck,” Devon whispered. He covered his hand over his mouth, but there was no missing the way his eyes glistened with tears. He blinked, and the tears spilled down his cheeks. “She hadn’t been sleeping. I’d been sure that she’d fallen asleep behind the wheel one night on her way home from work. How could someone do that? She was trying to save lives with her work.”

“And the drug stands to make Iaso billions if it is approved by the FDA,” Gabriel said.

Devon stood, bringing Gabriel to his feet as well. “What should I do? There’s got to be something I can do. My wife was killed and—”

“Your first priority is to take care of your daughter,” Justin interrupted. “I’m sure that’s what your wife would have wanted you to focus on.”

“We will investigate your wife’s death and Dr. Weiss’s death further. If we have any additional question or information, we will contact you,” Gabriel continued.

Devon looked at Justin and then Gabriel before finally nodding. He didn’t appear to be happy with their advice, but it really was the best thing in that situation.

“Thank you.”

Gabriel pushed to his feet. “We’ll be in contact if we have any information that we can share.”

Justin led the way back to the front door with Gabriel and a dazed Devon following behind them. They were lucky that the poor man was so stunned by their information and questions that he wasn’t asking for their contact information.

As they got back to the street, Gabriel paused and looked back at the house, then up and down the street. No one was out. There were no kids playing and no cars on the road. A breeze stirred, rustling the trees and pushing around the flowers. He could see no people, but he could feel eyes on him. And not just the nosy neighbor type of eyes.

“I’m thinking that we need to have another little outing this evening after the sun sets,” Gabriel murmured.

“How do you know he’s going to come after the widower?” Justin asked. He stood with his hands shoved into the pockets of his slacks.

“I don’t. The person who hired the killer is either Elba, and he will need to make sure that the husband didn’t know anything. Or it’s Dane, which means that the killer could go after the husband or Elba.”

“We risk Elba.”

Gabriel shrugged. “But then we know it’s Hamilton.” He glanced over to see Justin giving him a look to indicate that he wasn’t in the least amused. “Besides, if it was Hamilton, he would have likely gone after Elba already.”

“Unless he needed Elba to complete the FDA application.”

A groan of frustration rumbled up Gabriel’s throat and he led the way back to the car. “Fine. Then we check out Elba tonight.”

“No, I think you’re right.”

Gabriel swung around to find Justin grinning at him. “You’re a pain in the ass.”

“True. But there’s also a little girl in that house who’s already lost her mom. It’d be good if she didn’t lose her dad too.”

Gabriel nodded and hit the key fob to unlock the car. That was another point that he’d not wanted to make out loud. That family had been torn apart enough and he didn’t want another innocent death on his conscious. Devon Jones should be raising his daughter with his wife, but that wasn’t going to happen. Gabriel had a sneaking suspicion that the killer was already out there watching them or the house. If they’d put the Jones family in danger, he would not forgive himself.