Resist (Sphere of Irony 3)

A week and one very disturbing incident that spurred me to quit the bureau.

After pulling on sweats and my favorite T-shirt that says, “I’m Undercover” in bright yellow script, I boot up the computers to get some work done.

While the systems kick on, I pick up a pen and chew on the end, my mind wandering to last night’s humiliating failure with Hailey.

“What’s wrong, Mitch? You haven’t been, you know, functional lately.”

I roll over and face the wall, tired of listening to her bitch at me.

“Jesus, Hailey. I’m just exhausted, all right?”

I hear her huff and feel Hailey’s weight shift as she gets out of the bed.

“I’m going, Mitch.” The sound of clothes rustling fills the room. “You’ve never been really into this, have you?” She pauses, waiting for a response that isn’t coming. “Mitch! Can you at least look at me?”

Sighing, I flip onto my back and tuck my arms behind my head. At least the sheet is covering what tiny scrap of dignity I have left.

Hailey, now dressed, has her hands on her hips and is staring at me. She has her long, blonde hair piled up on her head and her mouth pulled into a pouty frown. She’s gorgeous, yet when I look at her I feel nothing.

“Jesus, Mitch. Forget it. I’m not wasting my breath.”

I move to get up but she throws up a hand.

“I’ll see myself out. Don’t bother.”

Yeah, not being able to get it up for her, again, wasn’t mortifying enough. She dumped me while I was still in bed, naked. Not that I care. Hell, I know I was just a piece of ass for her. She practically licked her lips whenever I took my pants off. As little as I cared about Hailey that episode was still humiliating. Now that damn twitch in my eye is back, reminding me how screwed up I am.

The home screen pops up on my computer. I log in and sift through a dozen emails, responding to the urgent ones. Then I pull out the file given to me by Ross Evans before the meeting went to hell. I can do basic research—cross check with different agencies to see if the few letters they kept have any matches to other similar crimes. But until I can interview Gavin Walker, most of what I’ll need to do will be more hands on investigating.

The image of my hands literally investigating Gavin Walker flashes through my brain. Blood rushes south, startling my sleeping cock. I remember the light scent of coconut I detected when shaking Gavin’s hand and my dick gets even harder. Gritting my teeth in anger at the unwelcome thoughts, I resist giving in, clenching my fists and willing the images away.

It takes a good ten minutes of picturing some of the worst crime scene photos I can recall to get myself under control. Why would I think about Gavin that way?

I can’t even go there right now. Not a chance.

After staring at the closed file for another fifteen frustrating, cock-swelling minutes, I decide to give up and go for a run.

Denial complete.

Chapter 2

Mitch

“Tell me again why you agreed to do this? You sound as if you’d rather be getting your nuts cut off than working on this case.”

I laugh at my friend and former co-worker, Sasha Knight. “I wouldn’t say that, but I’m certainly realizing that this was a bad idea.”

Her loud, no-nonsense voice surrounds me in my car thanks to my hands-free device. “Hale, I know you better than you know yourself. If you were smart, you’d turn that car around and go right on home. You’re already frustrated and you haven’t even started your investigation.”

Sasha and I were on the same task force at the bureau. She’s a brilliant profiler and a full-time badass. The fact that she could read me like an open book was always uncomfortable, but tolerable since she kept most of her thoughts to herself. She’s not as edited now that I don’t work with her every day.

“I’m fine, Sasha,” I counter, lying through my teeth. “I just don’t like Hollywood types, that’s all.”

“Oh really? How many Hollywood types do you know?”

She got me there.

“None, until now.” She always did make me feel like a junior profiler.