Quinn woke to the smell of frying bacon. He carefully stretched, reveling in the feel of the large, warm body next to him. The feel of Shane’s hairy legs rubbing against the soles of his feet. This was something that he could get used to, but a nagging voice in the back of his head bitterly reminded him not to.

As if to further torment him, Shane chose that moment to roll over and wrap his arm around his waist, pulling him into a wonderful cocoon of soft flesh and strong muscle. But…bacon…

The smell was getting stronger and his stomach was growling angrily, demanding to be fed. The day before, he’d managed to shove half a sandwich in his face. Worry over Shane had effectively killed his appetite, but now his stomach was more than happy to make up for lost time.

Biting his lower lip, he carefully lifted Shane’s arm and slid out of the bed, trying not to shift the mattress too much. As his feet hit the floor, Quinn turned and watched as Shane grunted and rolled the other way, pulling the covers up over his bare shoulder. His breathing evened out a couple of seconds later, indicating that he’d easily slipped back into a deep sleep.

Quinn quickly grabbed up a pair of pants from the floor and the T-shirt he’d worn the previous day. The bedroom door rumbled softly on its track, but Shane didn’t stir as he left the room and padded quietly into the kitchen where Shane’s dad was wearing a black apron as he stood in front of the stove.

Abe Stephens was not at all what Quinn had been expecting when he thought of Shane’s dad. Where Shane was tall with lots of lean muscle, Abe had a wide barrel chest and strong arms, but then Shane had mentioned that his father worked a lot in his garage on woodworking projects. That had to build lots of muscles. His light brown hair was thick and curly like Shane’s with only a few small streaks of gray. For the most part, Shane didn’t look like his father except for his eyes and their shared easy grin. And to be honest, Quinn was looking forward to teasing Shane about the fact that his dad was going to be a total silver fox in a few years.

Norma Jean immediately hopped down from where she’d been curled up on the bench tucked under the table. She meowed pitifully, rubbing up against his leg.

“Good morning,” Abe called with a grin. “Did my son let you sleep?”

Blushing, Quinn quickly bent to pick up Norma Jean, using her to block his face for a moment as he tried to regain his composure. Abe couldn’t have meant that the way it sounded. He cleared his throat and lowered the cat, cuddling her against his chest as he scratched behind her ear. “Yeah, he was out most of the night thanks to the painkiller. No problems.”

Abe turned enough to look over his shoulder at Quinn, tossing him a knowing grin. Had they been loud last night? Of course, it wasn’t like Quinn could pretend that they were just coworkers on a case. Not after spending the night in Shane’s bed or the way he’d hovered over the man after they’d left the hospital.

Shane’s father had met them at the condo after Shane had been released from the hospital. Once he’d seen that his son’s injury was little more than a handful of stitches in the back of his thigh, he’d stepped back and allowed Quinn to see to Shane’s needs. They’d talked some in the late afternoon about his work at Ward Security while he chatted easily about his woodworking projects. Quinn liked Abe. He had the same laid-back personality as Shane and sharp eyes that didn’t miss a damn thing.

“Have a seat. The bacon and sausage are nearly done. I’ve got the pancakes started. How do you like your eggs?”

Quinn’s mouth fell open and bobbed for a second as he struggled to find his voice. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“Not a problem. I know you didn’t eat yesterday, and Shane’s never been big on cooking. Thought I could at least give you both a good start to your day after you took care of him.”

“Oh, thanks.” He cleared this throat again, his hands tightening in Norma Jean’s fur. It had been a long time since he’d had someone trying to take care of him. He’d been on his own and taking care of his mom for so long. “Um…scrambled works for me. Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Grab the plates and silverware. The coffee just finished brewing if you want a cup.”

Quinn quickly put Norma Jean on the floor and washed his hands at the sink before Abe directed where to find the plates and everything. With the table set, Quinn poured himself a cup of coffee and turned to the fridge, expecting to dress it heavily with milk and sugar. His heart gave a little skip when he saw the creamer sitting in the middle of the top shelf of the fridge. It was the same creamer that Shane had picked up for the office. He’d been stunned when Shane had picked it up for him there, but for it to appear here—it felt like Shane had wanted him to stick around longer, feel comfortable in his home.

“Having trouble finding something?” Abe asked, pulling Quinn out of his swirling thoughts.

“Nope. Got it.” He grabbed the creamer and fixed his coffee before moving over to the table.

He’d just sat down when the bedroom door rumbled open and Shane shuffled out. He’d pulled on a T-shirt and a pair of basketball shorts, leaving visible the white bandage wrapped around his left thigh. His hair was standing up and he looked beautifully rumpled and groggy. It took all of Quinn’s self-restraint not to walk over and wrap his arms around Shane, burying his face in the crook of his neck.

“You left me,” Shane mumbled. He stretched both arms over his head, pulling his shirt up so that Quinn got a tantalizing glimpse of his flat stomach. Okay, maybe he wanted to do more than nuzzle Shane, but he wasn’t moving with Shane’s dad right there.

He pointed to the stove where Abe was still working. “Bacon.”

Narrowing his eyes, Shane stopped right next to where Quinn was sitting on the end of the bench. “Were you going to save me any bacon?”

“Maybe.”

Shane ran one hand over Quinn’s hair, threading his fingers through it. “Your hair is standing up all over the place.” His voice was a low, raspy murmur that rippled through Quinn, making it harder to remain seated and not touch Shane.

“So is yours.”

Fingers tightened in his hair and Shane stared for several long seconds into Quinn’s eyes. He felt like if he strained, he could hear the wheels churning in Shane’s head as he mentally debated some deep question. A slow smile spread across his lips just before he leaned down.

Quinn jerked back at the last second and Shane froze. “Your dad,” Quinn whispered, his eyes darting to where Abe was piling pancakes on plates but could so easily turn around at that moment to look at them.

Shane’s grin returned and Quinn’s heart rate doubled. “He knows I’m gay.”

The bubble of laughter that escaped Quinn was immediately captured by Shane as he sealed his mouth over Quinn’s. That hadn’t been his point at all, but it didn’t matter anymore because Shane was kissing him. What had started out as a sweet “good morning” kiss was quickly turning dirty as Shane thrust his tongue into Quinn’s mouth, dominating him as only Shane could. Blood rushed to Quinn’s groin and a soft moan escaped him.

“All right, Shane,” Abe broke in with a chuckle. “Let the poor man eat in peace. He spent all yesterday waiting on you. He needs to eat.”

Shane pulled away and winked at Quinn, his expression little more than a dirty leer as if he wanted to say that he’d be more than happy to feed Quinn. He could feel the heat returning to his cheeks, making it impossible to meet Abe’s eyes as he turned back to the table. A plate loaded with fluffy pancakes, bacon, sausage, and eggs was sitting in front of him. Dear God, he never ate that much for breakfast, but nothing had ever looked so good in his life.

“Do you want me to fix your coffee?” Abe asked Shane.

“I can get it,” Quinn offered, starting to rise from the bench. His food was already forgotten.

“No. Both of you sit.” Shane pointed to the table, glaring at each of them. “I’m a little stiff, a little sore, but I can fix my own coffee. I don’t need to be babied anymore.”

“You were shot,” Quinn countered and Shane rolled his eyes.

“This is one very weak-ass gunshot wound. It’s embarrassing.”

“You’re lucky it wasn’t your ass,” Abe added.

“Too true.” He sent one last smirk to Quinn before he limped over to the coffeemaker.

Quinn dug into his food and moaned softly for a totally different reason. Abe could definitely cook. The bacon was perfect. The pancakes were fluffy with this amazing little crispness along the edges.

“This is so good. I’m willing to take a gunshot to the leg if it means that you’ll cook for me,” Quinn said between bites of food.

“Did Shane ever tell you about the time that he shot his best friend in the ass with a BB gun?” Abe said.

The fork full of eggs stopped halfway to Quinn’s mouth and he stared at Abe in shock while Shane groaned loudly. “Oh God, Dad. No. Please don’t.”

“Oh no, now I need to hear this,” Quinn quickly said before shoving the eggs into his mouth.

Shane groaned again, but Abe ignored him. “Shane was about twelve that summer. He and Kevin had been inseparable since they’d met when they were about six. Kevin had gotten a BB gun for his birthday a couple of months earlier, and they spent most of their time wandering through the small sliver of woods not far from our house. They promised me that they weren’t shooting at any animals.”

“We weren’t,” Shane firmly cut in. He limped over with his coffee mug in one hand. With extreme care, he slid onto the bench next to Quinn, sitting just close enough that Shane’s knee brushed against Quinn’s under the table. “We set up cans or other bits of trash we found as targets.”

“Well, that day they started out early as usual. His mother barely managed to get any breakfast in him before Kevin was knocking at our door, asking for Shane. I watched them run off, not expecting to see them again until lunchtime.” Abe paused and looked at his son with amusement flashing in his eyes while Shane just shook his head, keeping his attention on his plate. It even looked like there was a slight flush to his cheeks. “But it was less than two hours later, I was mowing the grass when I see Kevin limping out of the woods, tears streaming down his face. Shane was slower behind him, face flushed, looking both angry and confused.”

“What happened?”

Abe paused and smiled at his son. “Shane discovered boys.”

“What?”

“Kevin kissed me,” Shane said, his voice thick. “I was so surprised. I didn’t handle it well.” He took a deep breath and loudly exhaled. “We were lying on our bellies next to each other, shooting at stuff. Kevin got the last can, but when he handed the gun over to me for my turn, he kissed me. Then he got up to set up the can for me. I was so stunned that I wasn’t paying attention when I picked up the gun. He’d already cocked it so when my finger hit the trigger, the gun fired the BB…right at his ass. He was sure I’d done it on purpose.”

“Did you?”

“No.”

“Poor Shane,” Abe murmured.

“I was trying to figure out why he kissed me and why I wanted him to do it again and what my dad would think if I liked kissing him. The next thing I know, he’s upset with me because I shot him in the ass. Then I got angry at him for surprising me and for not believing me when I said I didn’t do it on purpose.” He looked over at Quinn, his smile a little crooked. “It was a real mess.”

“Did he ever believe you?”

“Took him about two weeks to start talking to me again.” Shane pushed his food around on his plate. “I kissed him the first time I could get him to agree to meet me. I was convinced he was going to slug me afterward.”

“And?”

“They were inseparable for about two years,” Abe said. “But you could tell it was a little different from the friendship they’d had before. They were closer.”

Two years inseparable sounded a whole lot like dating. Quinn closely watched Shane who wasn’t looking at him anymore. His body seemed a little stiff and more closed off than it had been before. Their knees no longer touching. Abe was also watching his son with a smile, but his eyes seemed sadder.

“What happened? Did he move away?”

“No, we just grew apart. Friends change.” Shane’s words were hard and he glared at his father across the table as if daring him to say otherwise. Abe looked unmoved.

“Happened at roughly the same time that Shane’s mom and I separated.”

“Whatever. I shot my first kiss.”

Quinn smirked and bumped Shane’s shoulder with his own until Shane looked over at him. “Gotta say I’m glad you outgrew that habit.”

Shane snorted and his smile returned, the tension that had filled the air suddenly deflating so that Quinn could breathe easier. Shane changed the subject to talk of moving his next get-together with his dad to the following weekend and FC Cincinnati’s chances of getting one of the two open Major League Soccer spots. Quinn was happy to let him. Abe had left him with enough to think about. He just didn’t know whether to take it as a warning or as a sign of hope.

Shane sipped the last of his coffee as he watched Quinn and his dad working together to clean up the food and load the dishwasher. He felt a little guilty that he wasn’t up helping them, but they’d made it perfectly clear that his help wasn’t welcome. And in truth, he liked having this moment to watch Quinn and to analyze how much he enjoyed watching the man move around his kitchen.

When Quinn wasn’t looking, his dad had even given him a very pointed look as if to say, “You better fucking lock this one in before he gets away.”

His dad was so damn right. Despite their argument just a few days ago, Quinn had stuck by his side. He was there every step of the way at the hospital. Had been ready to take on the damn shooter. Even now, he was still there, with little touches and looks, as if his entire focus was on making sure that Shane was comfortable and happy.

He wanted to tell Quinn to stay so that all his mornings started with rolling over to look into Quinn’s big blue eyes and perfectly rumpled dark hair. He wanted to lie around on his rooftop patio, wrapped in Quinn while watching the game. He wanted to argue over the laundry and blowjobs on the couch. But that wasn’t their agreement, and people never wanted to stay. If he asked Quinn for more, if he asked Quinn to stay and then he didn’t one day, how was he supposed to go on?

A knock on his door pulled him out of the dark spiral he’d drifted into. He couldn’t think about Quinn and his growing need for more. Not when this fucking case had gotten out of control, putting both his life and Quinn’s in danger.

He started to push to his feet when his mouth fell open at the sight of Quinn grabbing a large knife out of the butcher block as he approached the door. He paused only long enough to gently lay a hand on Abe’s shoulder, telling him to go stand over by Shane. This wasn’t the Quinn he knew. Or at least…not the one he thought he knew. Quinn had never struck him as the violent, aggressive type.

But this was also the same guy who protected his mother at any cost to himself. Had Quinn put him and his father in the same category?

“That should be Ethan. He texted and said that he was coming over to talk about the case,” he called, not wanting to think about the warmth Quinn’s protectiveness created in his chest.

Quinn nodded but said nothing as he carefully checked the peephole in his door before opening it. Even then, he didn’t relax again until Ethan was in the house and the front door was locked.

“Hey, Shane, did you know you’ve got two menacing looking guys hanging out in front of the entrance to your building?” Ethan announced when he walked into the condo.

“Oh shit,” Quinn murmured. He hurried over to the kitchen counter and returned the knife to the butcher block before running into the bedroom.

“Do they look like Rowe’s boys?”

“I don’t know Ward Security employees quite as well as you do,” Ethan lightly teased, his gaze drifting off toward the bedroom. Shane just shook his head. He knew that Ethan was dying to poke at him and pull out all the details of what was happening. Quinn was wearing his clothes and…well…their offices were right next to each other. He knew that Ethan heard things through those paper-thin walls.

Quinn slowly walked back out, furiously typing into his phone. “Rowe is freaking pissed.” He looked up at Shane, worry pulling his brows together over his nose. “Did he contact you?”

Shane pulled his phone out of his pocket and waved it at Quinn. “Oh yeah. At length. I think he took the time to threaten every part of my body.”

“What’d you tell him?”

“New phone, who dis?”

Quinn made a choking sound like he was fighting hard not to laugh. “You’re an ass.”

“I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before he marches over here.”

Quinn shook his head. “Not yet. For now, he’s sent over Royce to keep an eye on me and I have a feeling Dominic tagged along for the fun of it.”

“Wonderful,” Shane muttered. He wanted to keep Rowe out of this, but he understood the man’s need to protect Quinn. It was the whole reason he wasn’t firing texts back to Rowe right at that moment fighting this nonsense.

“You finally going to tell me what’s going on with this case?” Ethan demanded. His friend and business partner had a right to be angry and worried. They never hid cases from each other, but this one just spiraled out of control far too fast.

Shane nodded and then lifted his gaze to Abe. “Dad…”

Abe dropped a hand on Shane’s shoulder and squeezed. “I get it. I’m out of here. I put a new loaf of bread and some deli meat in the fridge for lunch. Give me a call if you need me to run for anything else.”

“I will—”

“Hold on a sec,” Quinn interrupted. He put his phone to his ear and walked back into the bedroom. There was a low murmur of urgent conversation that Shane couldn’t quite make out punctuated by some threats that Shane could clearly understand. Quinn returned a minute later, a nervous smile on his face.

“Abe, Dominic Walsh is going to follow you home, if that’s okay with you. He’s going to check over your house and make sure that everything is safe before he comes back here to keep an eye on Shane.”

“If you think it’s necessary,” Abe said, looking from Shane to Quinn, but Shane couldn’t talk because of the lump that had grown in his throat. He hadn’t even thought about the potential threat against his dad. If this was the mayor and his bodyguard, it wasn’t exactly hard to find where he lived, where his dad lived. If anything happened to his dad…

“Nah, it’s probably not necessary, but it would be one less thing for us to worry about.”

“Please, Dad,” Shane added in a low, rough voice.

Abe squeezed his shoulder again. “Why not? A strange, male visitor wandering around my house. It’ll give the neighbors something fun to gossip about.” He then leaned down and pressed a kiss to the top of Shane’s head. “Be safe, Shane,” he whispered.

While Quinn walked to the door with Abe, giving a quick description of Dominic, Shane motioned for Ethan to accompany him into the living room, where he could more comfortably stretch out on the sofa. The back of his thigh was throbbing in time with his heart. He needed another painkiller, but he didn’t want to go back to the bedroom for the bottle. His head had to stay clear.

He’d just gotten comfortable on the couch with his leg up when Quinn returned with a fresh mug of coffee and his bottle of pills. He accepted both but put them on the table before roughly grabbing a fistful of Quinn’s shirt. Jerking him close, he barely managed to get out, “Thank you for protecting my dad,” before he captured Quinn’s mouth in a blistering kiss that had the other man melting into him. He didn’t care that he’d kissed Quinn in front of his dad and he didn’t care what kinds of questions Ethan was going to ask him. Quinn made sure that his dad was safe. It was the only thing that mattered.

He only broke off the kiss when he heard his front door open and close. Releasing Quinn, he started to get up, but Quinn put a restraining hand on his shoulder and gave him a shaky smile.

“It was part of the deal for your dad,” Quinn explained. A couple of seconds later, the heavy footsteps across the hardwood floor resolved into Royce as he walked into the living room. The same grim expression he normally wore filled his handsome face, but he seemed even more pissed than usual and Shane was sure that it was directed at him.

Dragging his eyes back to Quinn, he reached over and took his hand. “He can’t know, Quinn. Not yet.”

“I’m not asking to know what shit you’ve dragged the squirt into,” Royce said, his voice more of a low growl. “But I’m not leaving. I’m his shadow until this is finished.”

Shane looked up at Quinn, who didn’t look disturbed by Royce’s announcement, sending a ripple of unease through him. Had he misread Quinn and his feelings? Maybe he was able to keep things separate and his heart was really locked up with Royce. You only had to see the two men in the same room to know that they were close.

“There’s a fresh pot of coffee. Help yourself.”

Royce dropped his eyes to Shane for a long second before giving a grunt and turning back toward the kitchen.

“See if you can keep Rowe off my back for a bit,” Quinn called after him. Royce’s only response was a low chuckle that held more menace than amusement.

“Shane, what the fuck?” Ethan demanded when they could hear Royce moving around the kitchen. “The cops have stopped by the agency, demanding full details on the case. I’ve managed to put them off until they get a warrant, but it’s only a matter of time. You’ve been in the center of two shootings in two weeks.”

He looked over at his long-time friend and his heart broke a little bit. When the mayor’s case had landed in his lap, he thought that they had been handed a chance of a lifetime to take their little detective agency to the next level. But now it was looking like they’d been played by the mayor from the very start. He’d risked his own life, Quinn’s, and possibly Ethan’s. At the very least, their business could be completely sunk if they made a wrong step now.

Taking a deep breath, he reached for his coffee and took a drink. He skipped the painkiller for now. He told him about the shooting, the identity of the dead kid, the emails, and what they suspected about the shooting at Sawyer Point. There was no need to tell Ethan about his growing feelings toward Quinn. That was a different problem and Shane suspected that Ethan’s too-sharp eyes had already picked up that there was more going on than mind-blowing sex.

When Shane was finished talking, Ethan pushed to his feet and paced to the far side of the room, his hands linked on the top of his head. He didn’t seem angry, and with Ethan there was no hiding it; Ethan had never been good at masking his feelings. He was the type to wear his heart on his sleeve and leave everything out to read straight from his eyes.

“We don’t have any proof, do we?”

“Just those emails that Brenda Spring wrote,” Quinn said.

“Those are circumstantial evidence at best. Not a smoking gun.”

“And Kate Masters’s word,” Shane added.

“Which is against the word of the mayor. Not great.”

Shane paused and scratched his jaw. “I was thinking…maybe we do need to contact Rowe Ward for some help.”

Ethan whipped around, his mouth hanging open before he could compose a thought. “Did you get hit in the head when you were shot?” Ethan sighed and looked over at Quinn, who was blushing. “No offense, Quinn. Rowe is a great guy, but he’s like a bulldozer through a china shop.”

“None taken. I love Rowe, but you’re right. Subtle isn’t exactly his thing.”

“Why don’t we go to the cops with what we have? They can at least start an investigation.”

Shane’s hand dropped to his lap. The ache in his thigh was getting worse. With a soft curse, he grabbed the bottle and popped a pill. It would at least take a few minutes before it started to kick in. The pill might not help his thinking, but the pain wasn’t helping either.

“If Kate is right, Spring has already gotten away with murder once, and he’s about to do it again with her son. I’m willing to bet that Kate took down the Indian Hill Chief of Police because he helped cover up Brenda’s murder.” Shane paused and looked down at the brown pill bottle in his hand. “I want to keep this all legal and send Spring to jail for what he’s done, but do we want to risk our lives on an unknown cop who could also be in Spring’s pocket?”

To his surprise, Ethan smiled at him. He shoved his hands into the back pockets of his jeans, looking particularly proud of himself. “What about the cop we’ve got on our payroll?”

“What? Hollis?”

“He’s an ex-cop,” Quinn added.

“Who knows a lot of Cincinnati cops. Probably knows cops from other townships around the area. I have a feeling that he’s got to know a detective or two who’s squeaky clean.”

“Looping Hollis in would finally get him off my back,” Shane said with a grin.

“I’ll go talk to Hollis and see if he’s got a suggestion.”

“If we’re screwed, then we go with Ward.”

Quinn snorted next to him. “Lovely thought.”

Ethan crossed the room to Shane’s side. Before he could shift, Ethan bent down and pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “You stay here and get some rest. We’ll meet up at the office on Monday. Make plans on how to proceed from there.”

“Okay,” he murmured, but he was already walking out of the living room.

“And don’t get shot at!” Ethan called at him, his words echoing off the brick walls.

Shane wanted to shout back at him that he hadn’t planned on getting shot at the other two times, but he swallowed the words.

With a groan, he settled back on the couch, his shoulder nudging Quinn’s. He wasn’t leaving the damn condo. And once the painkiller kicked in, he was planning to put all his focus on Quinn. Maybe make it clear to Royce that he had a stake in the sexy man in glasses next to him. He sure as hell didn’t know what that stake was just yet, but he wasn’t going to hand Quinn freely over to the grim bodyguard. Or anyone, for that matter.