Private Dicks (46 page)

And there was the biggest problem: Sebastian. Oz was not an idiot; he had woken up to see Quinn kissing Sebastian and he had seen the sadness in Quinn's eyes before he had noticed that Oz was awake. Quinn was in love with someone else and it burned to realize that he would only ever own a part of Quinn's heart. Of course, It was his own fault; he had waited too long.

If he were honest to himself, Oz would have admitted that Quinn had changed since taking on his friend's case. He had steadily insisted on being allowed to assist Matthew in his cases, until Matthew had given in out of sheer annoyance. And Quinn was good at it. It made him happy to help supernaturals. Then every night Oz got to curl up in bed beside him and learn every part of Quinn's body. So life should have been good—but it wasn't.

Oz was sitting in the center of town reflecting on how ungrateful he truly was when he was interrupted from his thoughts by a woman asking, "Would you like to hear your future?"

Oz looked up to see an old gypsy standing in front of him. "Others may fall for your ruse, Lily, but I know who you are."

Lily's smile was sweet as a young girl's, completely belying the fact that she wielded her scythe with grace and precision. She sat beside him. "If you will not accept my fortunes, will you at least accept some advice?"

"What do I need advice for?" He glanced over and saw her pointed stare. "Fine. What?"

"You were so much sweeter when you first started. Bastian has corrupted you," Lily stated mournfully, giggling when Oz glared at her. "Fine. Fine. You're too stiff."

"What does that mean?"

"You make yourself unhappy by thinking in extremes. If something isn't just right, you worry until everything looks wrong and you send yourself into a funk. You need to learn to bend."

"Bend? How am I supposed to bend?" He nearly confessed it all, then, and had to remind himself that he did not want to become a burden on others, the same way he was becoming a burden on Quinn.

"You'll figure it out, Oswald. You are a good boy." She patted his head then in a way that no adult had done since he had turned fourteen and started growing. "Bastian wants to see you."

Keeping his grumbles to himself, Oz nodded to her and left to meet him. Sebastian had taken Lady Covington's house as his headquarters and Oz had never bothered to question why. He was staying nearby, in case Francis should grow bold again. Despite all his claims of neutrality, it was clear that Sebastian intended to teach Francis a permanent lesson.

When Oz walked in, Sebastian was busy reading something and did not bother looking up to acknowledge him. Oz tried waiting patiently for a few minutes, and then tried subtly clearing his throat. When that did not work, he asked in an annoyed voice, "Why bother asking for me if you're just going to ignore me?"

Sebastian looked up, a smirk on his face. "A bit needy, are we?" Oz didn't dignify that with a response. Instead, he sighed and heavily crossed his arms over his chest, making Sebastian roll his eyes. "Honestly, Oswald, I have no idea why you persist in being antagonistic."

Oz bristled at Sebastian's use of his full name, but at least it was better than 'Angel'. That had sounded far too much like an endearment for his comfort. It was bad enough that he knew Quinn's feelings for Sebastian, that he knew Sebastian returned them with equal ferocity. It was worse that he had spent the first week uncomfortably aware of how close Sebastian stood to him, or the way his hand sometimes lingered like an extended caress. Yes—this was definitely another reason why he had begun to realize that he was not at all happy.

Bend, Lily had advised. But the situation felt so fragile, that if he bent even a little, Oz thought he might break. Because no matter how he worked it in his head, it always ended with him once again alone, trying to convince himself that seeing Quinn happy was the most important thing.

And it should have been. But Oz was selfish; he wanted to be the cause of Quinn's happiness. "What do you want, Sebastian?" The irritation had fled from his voice, leaving only exhaustion.

Sebastian stood from behind the desk and gestured to the sofa. When Oz took a seat, Sebastian sat beside him. Oz tried his best not to focus on where their knees nearly touched. "I want to talk to you about Quinn."

This would be where it all went wrong. When Oz looked back, he would remember it as a time when he had finally gotten exactly he had always wanted and lost it all. "I will not." No matter what, he had no intention of giving up without a fight.

Sebastian blinked in confusion. "What?"

"You want to pursue Quinn, correct? I may not be able to take you on physically—" Oz would not even fool himself into believing he could. "—but I will not cede him to you."

Sebastian stared at him blankly for a minute. "Wound a bit tight, aren't you?"

Oz flushed. "Regardless, I do not have to sit here and listen to this." He made to stand, but before he could get more than two steps away, a strong grip had locked around his upper arm, pulling him back down to the couch, where he found himself sitting noticeably closer to Sebastian than he had been before. He could feel the heat from Sebastian's body, and the whole situation, along with his body's reaction, brought to mind a word he had not used since he had taken his vows with the church: "Shit."

Sebastian laughed. "Such foul language. I think I like you better like this." Oz tried to squirm away and Sebastian tightened his grip until Oz settled down. "When your mind disengages for a bit."

Oz struggled to find a witty response to that, but he could not focus. He felt so angry and Sebastian was being very presumptuous. "What do you want with Quinn, then?"

"I would like to work out a compromise of sorts."

Oz's eyes narrowed suspiciously and he turned his head to look at Sebastian. "What sort of compromise?"

"Between the three of us, I am confident that we can come to some agreement."

Between the three of them? Oz's eyes widened in horror. He had heard of such things, but never in practice. There was no way—he might have given up his vows, but he would be damned if he gave up propriety, too. Then his mind betrayed him by providing an image of Sebastian's pale hand running down Quinn's tanned skin, drawing those same soft whimpers to which Oz had grown accustomed. They never stayed soft for long, though, and Oz had often been forced to muffle Quinn's moans with his hand. But with Sebastian there, perhaps there were other, more pleasurable ways to muffle Quinn's noises. Inadvertently, Oz's eyes shifted downward, his cheeks warming.

Oz managed to come to his senses before he made a complete fool of himself. His eyes shot back up to Sebastian's face and Sebastian smirked as if he knew the track Oz's thoughts had taken. "I don't think that would be appropriate." The words came out breathy. Oz cleared his throat. "And I am sure that Quinn would agree as well."
If you don't think it would be appropriate
, he asked himself,
then why are you not moving away?
Oz did not have an answer for that, other than the fact that Sebastian had loosened his grip, his fingers dancing along Oz's arm and making him shiver.

This was a bad position in which to be.

Sebastian's smile came slowly. "That is why I approached you first. I thought that perhaps you and I together would be able to convince him."

"What makes you think I would go along with your plan? I don't even like you." He could not even convince himself of those words, not when his mind had begun shooting in a million different directions since Sebastian's suggestion.

"Ah, but you are a smart man. Once you understand the advantages." Sebastian knew he had him and Oz wanted to curse as Sebastian drew him in.

As it was, all he could manage was, "I do not think Quinn will approve of us kissing."

"It will be all right. I've kissed him as well."

"Oh," Oz responded stupidly. "Then that's all right." He closed the distance between their lips and kissed Sebastian. The kiss started hard and searching, and Oz pulled back enough to turn around until he was in Sebastian's lap. The rough and ready meeting of lips had him hard enough, but when Sebastian softened until their kisses were leisurely slow and sweet, Oz was completely undone.

He protested with a whimper when Sebastian pulled back. "Kissing you is quite a bit different than kissing Quinn." He kissed Oz again before Oz could respond, soft butterfly kisses that drove him nearly insane. When he pulled back this time, Oz sat back and tried to calm his body. He was not thinking straight; he was unable to this close to Sebastian. When he finally looked, Sebastian was smirking again. "So have I convinced you, yet?"

What Oz meant to say was, "There is no way I could be convinced," yet somehow what came out of his mouth was, "I think I will need more convincing."

Sebastian was all too happy to convince him.

So, no, Oz thought to himself a few months later, his life was definitely not going the way he thought it might. He had the lover with whom he had not thought he had a chance curled up in his arms and the lover he had not thought he would ever want on the other side, arm stretched out so he could keep both of them close. They lived in the home he never imagined he would have, a guest house located on Lady Covington's estate that had fallen into disrepair, which Quinn had decided to fix up. All of these things, Oz had not seen in his future. But there was one thing Oz could say honestly:

He was happy.

Shi typed in the ten-digit passcode to unlock the door quickly, glancing down the street while the door buzzed quietly as it unlocked. A passcode lock was rudimentary for this day and age, but Shi had had too many print scanners broken by punk kids to invest in higher security. Anything he needed really secure he either took home or left in the vault.

It wasn't the right time of morning for a car to be hovering down the street. The prostitutes were all gone for the night, back to wherever they spent the daylight hours. The line of shops on the street—including Shi's—didn't open for another two hours. The car was also far too sleek for this part of town. It was black, polished to a shine, and showed none of the dents and scratches travelling in the hoverstreams typically produced.

Shi let himself into the office, shutting the door and flipping the lock back on. A car that nice was either never driven in the hoverstreams or had some sort of shielding. The former required tires, which had been conspicuously missing from the hovering car. The latter required a lot of money or for the car to be military-owned. Shi could guess which.

The lights in the foyer had turned on when he'd opened the door, displaying the secretary's desk and the various uncomfortable chairs in the waiting room. The electronic display on the left wall was off, not displaying the obnoxious loop of news that it usually broadcast across the foyer. The plants were real fakes instead of holo-projections, and they showed it in the bright florescent light.

Shi headed past the secretary's desk, into the hallway behind it. There were four offices in this building. Shi and two others were private detectives, and the last office was occupied by a sleazy divorce lawyer. There had been more than one client who had gone from Shi's office to the lawyer's office after learning their spouse was cheating on them.

Shi's office was in the back, with a view overlooking the river. It was the best view in the building, which wasn't saying much considering the river was gray on the best of days and black on the rest. He'd been at the office the longest—almost five years now—which was why he'd managed to finagle his way into the best office. The door was shut firmly, like it had been when he'd left. There was a telltale glow of light coming through the window in the door, however.

It was nearly impossible to turn off the lights when a person was in a room. The office had the glitchiest wiring Shi had ever encountered, but it was useful on occasion. Unbuttoning his jacket, Shi unhooked the strap holding his stun gun in place. Approaching the door cautiously, Shi paused outside the door and pressed his hand to the print scanner there. It chirped cheerfully and the lock mechanism in the door thunked loudly as it unlocked. Placing one hand on the butt of his gun, Shi opened the door.

A man sat in the chair opposite his desk. It was as comfortable as the chairs in the waiting room, but the man didn't show any discomfort sitting there. There was a real, physical file folder resting in his lap, thin enough it could only hold a few sheets of paper. He was wearing dark blue jeans and a casual shirt, his jacket draped over the back of the chair like he'd been there a while.

He was military. It was in the way he sat, his back rigid and tense, as though he was waiting for the order to relax. His hair wasn't quite standard military; it was cut short, but had grown out a bit. If Shi didn't know any better—and hadn't had the hint of the car out front—the man might almost pass for a civilian. That was obviously the intention.

Relaxing slightly, Shi stepped fully into the room and shut the door behind him. He stripped off his jacket, not bothering to relatch the strap over his stun gun, and hung the jacket on one of the hooks beside the door. Ignoring his visitor for the moment, Shi crossed the room, his boots muffled by the thin synthetic carpet covering the floor.

The office was bland and beige. The walls were pale and undecorated; the only thing that hung on them was the federal and state licenses Shi had, and he'd only put those up because the law required it. He had a rudimentary filing cabinet in one of the corners behind his desk, secured only by a thumbprint scanner. The secretaries had access to that one.

The desk was the most expensive thing in the room. Shi had commissioned it after receiving payment for earning his special license to work within the military. It was huge, and he knew most people thought he'd gone for the size to prove how important he was. They were idiots; if he could have gotten a TXL-49 vault installed in a smaller desk, he would have.

The vault was where he stored the most confidential cases. He'd gone after the highest level of security clearance when he'd trained to receive his military special license; it had paid the most and seemed like it would be exciting. Shi wished he could go back and shake his younger self out of that notion. If he hadn't gone for the grade N7 license, he'd never have met Elis.