Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 93984 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 470(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 313(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93984 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 470(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 313(@300wpm)
Justin’s smile turned a little wry and he focused on his plate. “It was for a fucking job. I was hired by this woman’s family. She’d suddenly died, and her family was convinced that her husband poisoned her. They wanted me to kill him. While I was waiting for the coroner’s report on whether she was really poisoned, I started taking this cooking class that he was teaching. A class that was focused on classic French dishes.”
“You learned more than coq au vin?”
“Not much more. I was pretty good at ratatouille. My beef bourguignon was okay. My tartiflette was horrible. We never got to the cassoulet.”
“Why?”
“The poison test came back positive, and I finished the job.”
Gabriel grunted and dug into his baked potato. “That’s a shame. I’ve had cassoulet only a couple of times, and it’s fantastic.”
“I thought about trying to find another cooking class. Something a little more common than the fancy French stuff. Working in the kitchen was fun. Totally let me zone out and just focus on the ingredients.”
Justin moved his food around on his plate for a moment, getting lost in thought. Maybe he really should look into taking another cooking class. Something to get away from the computer and the job. Life had become too much about work recently.
“What about you?” Justin suddenly asked, shoving aside such thoughts. He could think about taking a break from work when he wasn’t in the middle of an important job.
“What about me?” Gabriel stopped cutting his steak, and Justin tried to ignore how the muscles in his hand tightened around the handle of the knife.
“What weird shit have you learned for a job?”
“Nothing,” Gabriel mumbled, his eyes directed down to his plate.
Justin laughed. “Bullshit! You know I took a French cooking class. What did you learn?”
Eyes narrowed, Gabriel looked up and his smile turned sly. “I’ll tell if you make coq au vin.”
Hesitating only for a moment, Justin nodded. “Fine. You’ve got it. Now spill.”
“Tango.”
“What?”
“I learned to tango,” Gabriel said slowly, his deep voice curling between them. Justin’s cock grew harder at the thought of Gabriel’s long, lean body moving around a parquet floor, pressed against his own in a seductive dance.
Justin cleared his throat and shifted a little in his seat. “What was the job?”
“Seducing the wife of a high-ranking official so that I could access their home and acquire certain secrets.”
“Were you the dance instructor?”
“No, just another student, but I made sure that we were paired together.”
“And how good of a student were you?”
Gabriel’s grin turned a little more wicked, and Justin’s dick got harder. “I was a very good student.”
Justin pressed his tongue into his cheek, fighting back the offer to enjoy a horizontal tango with the man. They were supposed to be just working. Sex would complicate things. And he definitely needed to keep his mind focused on the job.
“Were you able to discover anything useful?” Gabriel suddenly asked, and Justin was grateful for the distraction. They needed to keep this professional.
“Not as much as I would have hoped,” Justin admitted. “I still haven’t managed to crack the doc’s hard drive. I wasn’t expecting it to be this big of a nuisance. Most people don’t give a shit about their home security when it comes to their computers. There better be something on this thing.”
“We might be able to get something from the other dead doctor,” Gabriel said. “I did a search on her and found that she has a surviving husband and young daughter. With the right incentive, we might be able to get him to talk.”
Justin lifted his eyebrows at the other man and leaned across the table. “Are you really thinking of threatening the man’s daughter after he just lost his wife?” His voice was full of disbelief.
Gabriel jerked back, a look of disgust twisting his features. “Of course not! I was thinking that we could appeal to his sense of justice. He might just hand over the information if it means getting justice for his wife.”
Justin winced a little and nodded. “Yep. You’re right. Hazard of the job. My brain tends to imagine the worst first.”
Gabriel relaxed a little in his seat again and took a breath. “Understandable. In many cases, the worst is the most likely scenario, but no, I don’t make it a habit of terrorizing innocent people. I save all my horrific actions for the not-so-innocent.”
He lifted his nearly empty bottle of beer and tipped it toward Gabriel. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
Gabriel blinked at him, his full lips slightly parted in what Justin could only guess was surprise. “Thank you,” Gabriel murmured softly.
“I got into the drug trial data stored on the hospital’s server, but at the moment it’s a lot of gibberish. I’m not quite sure what I’m looking for. Right now, I’m just trying to gather names, whether patients or doctors. From there, I figured we could research each person and maybe track down another potential target.”