Desire Me If You Can Chapter 16

Grayson was smiling, but the staff members who saw that face felt cold sweat trickling down their backs.

“No, we really don’t know…”

“Give us a clue, at least. How are we supposed to keep track of who did what in that kind of situation?”

“Yeah, once the job is done, it’s over. We don’t go around nitpicking who did well or poorly. Even when we look for who made a mistake, it’s to set up countermeasures so it doesn’t happen again, not to reprimand anyone.”

Everyone was spouting reasonable arguments, but these were words Grayson had absolutely no interest in. His concern was solely on who the Extreme Omega was who had poured pheromones onto him and knocked him unconscious that day.

“It is certain that this is the entire team, right?”

As Grayson asked, pointedly gesturing with his finger, Wilkins replied with a dissatisfied face, “Yeah.”

“Oh, Dane is missing.”

At someone’s remark, everyone looked at him in unison. Grayson muttered past the team members who were firing daggers at him with their eyes.

“Dane?”

As he twitched his eyebrows briefly while saying the name, another team member replied with a smirk.

“Yeah, the guy who smashed your head with a fire extinguisher.”

Snickers erupted here and there. Grayson laughed too, but his eyes remained cold.

“He only tried; it didn’t connect.”

“Ah, what a shame. He could’ve done it.”

To the man who was acting cocky with a regretful sigh, Grayson replied with a laugh of his own.

“I think so, too.”

There was no need to ask what the hidden meaning behind those words was. In the atmosphere that had frozen over once again, Grayson finished the rest of his beer and scanned the group one last time.

“Excuse me for a moment.”

They watched blankly for a moment as he turned around and walked toward the restroom.

“Why is that guy looking for Dane?”

Ezra spoke up first, and the others asked as if they had been waiting.

“Ezra, what happened back then? We just went along with it for your sake.”

“Wasn’t that the first time you ran into Dane today? Didn’t that guy seem out of his mind back then, too? There wouldn’t have been any time to talk, right?”

“What happened to make that bastard come all the way here grinding his teeth? Hurry up and tell us; we need to know so we can respond!”

“Wait, wait a second.”

Flustered by the barrage of questions, Ezra held his hands up. Caught under everyone’s gaze, he made a troubled expression.

“I don’t know either. I just arrived at the scene with you guys.”

“I wasn’t there. Explain it in detail.”

Wilkins had been commanding operations from the outside at that time. If he had known it would turn out like this, he would have gone in himself. They heard the post-incident briefings, but who saved whom was generally considered useless information. He had no idea what was happening within his own team.

“Uh… well, it’s like this… when I followed Dane, he and two other victims were there. You know, those crazy twins… They were already out of it, and only that guy was still sane. But I don’t know what he did, but those two kept going crazy, so it was a handful…”

“And then?”

As Wilkins urged him, unable to suppress his impatience, Ezra pointed toward the direction Grayson had disappeared in with a contorted face.

“Suddenly, that guy just passed out.”

“What? Why?”

“Suddenly?”

Everyone reacted the same way to the unexpected news. Ezra shook his head, looking troubled.

“I don’t know, either. I didn’t see it, but it seems Dane did it.”

“Dane? How?”

When someone asked in wonder, another voice spoke up, as if remembering something.

“Oh, come to think of it, didn’t Dane say he was in the military?”

“Yeah, he said he was even deployed to the Middle East.”

With that, the same thought crossed everyone’s mind. He must have used a special technique he learned in the army.

“You know how on YouTube, they knock people out by hitting them here on the neck?”

As one person made a motion of striking with the side of their hand, another shared their knowledge.

“I heard you can pass out if you squeeze here, too.”

“There must be many ways, right? They get special training, after all.”

The group nodded in turns, forming a consensus.

“Anyway, once he passed out, the other two stopped going so crazy… they were rescued separately, and Dane and I threw that guy out the window.”

“…Could he have some head injury because of the way he was knocked out?”

“No, looking at that guy’s personality, he might just be enraged because he got hit in the first place.”

“Yeah, if that’s the case, it makes sense that Miller is looking for Dane.”

“So he was looking for the person who hit him? Then that ‘reward’ is actually a cover for revenge?”

As someone spoke, Ezra stepped in to add a word.

“That’s why I tried to hide that incident however I could. After what happened during the day, if he finds out the person who hit him and knocked him out is the same person, he’ll really try to kill him.”

As everyone nodded in agreement, one person raised an objection.

“No matter how much of a Miller he is, it won’t be easy for him to escape a murder charge.”

“If it’s Miller, he has countless ways to deal with someone without resorting to physical force.”

The counter-argument soon died down. In the end, their opinion was unanimous. Under no circumstances, absolutely not, and at all costs, they would keep the secret that the person Grayson was looking for was Dane.

Even at the risk of their lives for the sake of their comrade.

∞ ∞ ∞

Idiots.

Grayson headed across the hall toward the secluded restroom with a rigid expression. It was blatantly obvious that they were hiding something. Should he grab them one by one and break their fingers?

He could think of many ways, but there was no guarantee they would confess the truth. There are countless studies showing that torture is ineffective for getting confessions. Unless it’s just for hobbies or pleasure, there was no reason to go through such trouble. Above all, what mattered to Grayson was the truth. If it wouldn’t help him obtain the truth, he didn’t want to waste time on useless deeds.

Is the only way just to wait?

It wasn’t that he hadn’t anticipated this situation. Isn’t that why he became a firefighter in the first place? In any case, if he kept watching from nearby, he would find him eventually.

Thinking that, he didn’t feel tired at all, despite it being quite late. He could finally meet his destiny. Just that thought made his annoyance vanish into the distance, and he felt overflowing energy in his body.

Even though he failed every time, he would always get excited and full of anticipation like this. Imagining someone who was about to come into his life was the most enjoyable time in Grayson’s life. Perhaps he wouldn’t be able to get any sleep until he discovered his destined partner. Even so, he wouldn’t be tired at all. Because Grayson was standing right in front of the most important moment of his life.

Right now.

As he opened the door while whistling, something entered his field of vision. A woman groaning with her upper body bent over, leaning her arms against the wall, and the man behind her, moving his waist…

His chest.

Grayson stood there without even blinking, staring intensely at the man’s large, supple breasts. Every time the man moved, those luscious mounds tightened and loosened repeatedly. Grayson watched, momentarily mesmerized, as the muscles rose and fell firmly.

The man’s body was like a well-sculpted statue. Beneath abdominal muscles with a clear six-pack, a heavy member could be seen, disappearing and reappearing. The two were joined as one, and the man was in the middle of thrusting in and out, one hand gripping the woman’s breast and the other holding her waist.

Grayson vaguely realized that he had mistaken the shop’s storage room for a restroom. Even though it had only been a few seconds, he realized too late that he had been staring blankly at the couple having sex—specifically, at the body of a man so focused on the act that he was thrusting into the woman.

Suddenly, the man turned his head. A composed face, somewhat flushed from the sex, entered Grayson’s field of vision. The moment the red-blond hair and blue eyes were etched onto his retinas, the handsome brows furrowed in annoyance.

Oh.

That was as far as his memory went.