He’d just recently been able to go a full day without crying about Frank’s murder, and only now began to fully hate all the paperwork, lawyers, and stupidity that followed close on the heels of discovering his adopted father left him a bunch of money, a few properties, and a shit fuckton of headaches. Connor Morgan did not need to be added to his pile of shit to worry about.
“He’s not my cop,” Forest replied, keeping his voice as steady as he could, but he couldn’t help watching Lt. Connor Morgan eat up the space around him.
And Forest hated what the man did to him—because he found himself looking for Morgan every morning when he came down for coffee, and the little chirrup of glee in his chest was getting a little bit too loud to ignore every time he spotted the lieutenant coming through the Amp’s front door.
Connor Morgan showed up at the most inconvenient times, usually when Forest just stumbled downstairs after an all-night session running beats over his kit for other musicians. Since Frank’s death, he’d thrown himself into his work, keeping the studio’s time booked tight and working the drums when needed.
In the three months since Frank’s murder, Lt. Morgan of the SFPD’s SWAT division appeared to have gotten very fond of the Amp’s lattes. He also really liked Jules’s double-chocolate cake donuts, because he always bought four at a time with his coffee and ate two of them as he waited for his drink to be made. The way he ate sugar should have been a crime—and also made him fat—but no, Connor Morgan merely stood at the end of the pickup counter and mouth-fucked pastries as Forest tried to ignore the Irish cop’s broad shoulders, flat stomach, and tight ass.
Not that Forest watched the man lick chocolate ganache from his fingers and from the corners of his lips.
But he had. And the disappearing chocolate frosting entranced him because it took him a few seconds for an alarming beep to penetrate his brain before he realized he’d scalded his soy milk beyond recognition.
“Fuck.” Juggling the milk pitcher, Forest found someplace amid the staff mugs to put it down and searched for a cold rag to wrap around his steamed fingers. “Ow. Ow. Shit.”
He couldn’t find a towel, and what made things worse, the shop was full of customers—paying customers—so he couldn’t really yell across the floor for Jules to come help him.
“I so don’t need this.” Forest threw his gaze up to the ceiling and wished God would quit fucking with him. “Really, Dude?”
“Here, give me your hand. Let me see to you.” As if the Irish roll of the man’s voice wasn’t enough to send shivers through Forest’s nipples, the damned erotic masculine smell of Connor Morgan did him in with one whiff. Whoever thought green tea in a cologne was a good idea should be flayed and left out for the seagulls to eat their eyeballs.
And Forest would do the flaying too—as soon as he licked every inch of the man’s muscular body.
“You’re not supposed to be back here,” Forest muttered, trying to sound more like the owner of two thriving business and less like a tongue-tied loser. “Customers—”
“Most customers don’t have EMT training.” The rolling burr hit again, raking its delicious claws up Forest’s back. “Now let me take a look at that.”
He’d look stupid fighting the man off, especially since Morgan was a cop and probably used to carrying babies out of burning buildings. Forest immediately regretted thinking about a burning anything as his mind seized up on the memory of smoke and melted plastic. Frank should have been there to scold him about scalding his fingers, because he’d have to keep time with a speed metal band in the afternoon, and drumming was hard enough at that rate without adding first-degree burns to the mix.
Connor either didn’t see the tears in Forest’s eyes or did the manly thing and ignored them, concentrating mostly on scooping some ice into a plastic bag. After wrapping the bag up in a bar towel, Connor balanced the makeshift pack on the back of Forest’s hand, keeping it steady with the press of his palm.
“I could have done that,” Forest snarked. “Where’d you get your EMT certificate? With a piece of bubble gum?”
“If I had the gum, I’d give it to you so you had something to keep that smart mouth of yours busy.” Connor chuckled.
“I’d need more than gum to do that.”
Forest winced, hearing the innuendo in his words, especially when Connor’s deep blue eyes narrowed and his sharp focus shifted from Forest’s hands to his face. It was a glare sharpened on life’s whetstone, giving Forest an idea of what the man might look like as he came through a door behind a black battering ram.
Or even on his knees between Forest’s legs and working up a sweat tearing apart his ass with a thick, long Irish cock.
“Are you warm?” One of Connor’s ice-chilled hands drifted up to test Forest’s forehead. “You’re turning red. Do you have a fever? Getting chills, maybe?”