barely legal and there under parental supervision.
Mettes and Patterson were in their usual corner. He snagged a beer at the bar before claiming a seat.
“Look who’s slumming tonight,” Mettes said.
Patterson laughed, turning more than one badge bunny’s head. “You kidding me? Hanging with Vice gives him a wider selection of women. The babes love our down and dirty.”
Mettes nodded. “You’re definitely right about that. Could be right about his reasons for joining us, though I’m starting to sweat here. They’ve got some kind of epidemic sweeping through Homicide from what I’ve heard.”
“Yeah, I heard that too. Guys up there, and gal, though Storm’s an ass kicker, vomiting out I do or on the verge of it. That true, Dylan?”
“I’m the last man standing.” Dylan carried the beer bottle to his lips and took a deep swallow.
Mettes shook his head. “Sorry state of affairs.”
Dylan leaned back in his chair. This worked for him. What more did he need? Life was great. Couldn’t get any better.
A blonde with a rack sent him an I’m here to serve you smile.
Patterson caught it. “Lot of silicone in those tits.”
Mettes snorted. “Not that it’d stop one of us from enjoying them. You answering the call to action, Dylan?”
“No.”
Patterson laughed. “You’re behind the times, Mettes. Our friend here is a one-trick pony. He only lets redheads ride him.”
Mettes hooted. Dylan took another swallow to keep from saying anything.
Fuck that. They had it wrong. Yeah, he preferred redheads. Hell, he could pinpoint the moment they’d become fantasy material, that first time he’d found his father’s stash of skin magazines and flipped through their pages, getting hornier by the image until finally he’d pulled his cock out and discovered the joys of masturbating with an actual picture in front of him.
Not that he needed to do either anymore. He had plenty of opportunity, and if he kept the phone numbers pressed into his hand or slipped into his pocket on the way out the door, he’d have a black book full of women he could call.
Irritation sizzled in his veins and crawled up his neck at remembering his last pickup and how miserably that had ended. He swiveled the ring on his right hand like a married man trying to hide his wedding band. But hiding the green stone only made him flash back to the witch. And that’s all it took for the raging hard-on to return.
Jesus. She had a mouth made for exploring a man’s dick. A scent he still caught out of the blue sometimes, a phantom whiff as if she were there or thinking about him too.
Fucking insane. He slammed the door shut on those kinds of thoughts. Next thing he knew, he’d be imagining he heard her voice in his head and could communicate without words, the way it sometimes seemed Aislinn and Trace did.
He couldn’t keep his attention from dipping to the ring. Trace wore a similar one, also gifted by Aislinn.
Heartmate stone, that’s what Storm had let slip the other day. Feeding him a line of bullshit about how it would heat up in the presence of his perfect mate.
Dylan shifted in the chair. Not because he believed—fuck no, his entire body had been enflamed by lust that day he met Seraphine—but because it was damn uncomfortable given the size of his dick and the way it wanted freedom and the opportunity to pound into her.
He never should have accepted the green stone from Commander Joe in the first place, much less shown it to Aislinn and let her set it in a ring for him. But hell, the homeless guy had his pride, and it’d been the price for getting him to take the bear claw and coffee.
No good deed ever goes unpunished. His old man had been fond of that saying, the lying, cheating prick.
“Heard you and Trace had a suspect in the Melvin Booker homicide,” Mettes said. “The apprehension team bring him in yet?”
“Brought him in and handed him over. We nailed him down with a confession a little while ago and put a