Hello My Angel - Sue Brown Page 0,56

gave a wry smile. “I’m so tired even the idea of being spanked by you doesn’t raise a whisper of excitement.” He looked down at his limp cock. “This is so not right.”

“When this is all over, I promise you I’m going to take you away and I will spank you every night if it makes you feel happy,” Cal promised.

“Will this ever finish?” Josh asked quietly.

Cal looked as serious as he was. “It has to, my angel. We can’t keep going like this. Weatherly will be dead soon if we don’t bring her back.”

If she’s not dead already.

Josh nodded grimly. “Then we’d better go to bed because I can’t do this without at least six hours of proper sleep.”

Mr. Truffles raised his head from his position on Cal’s pillow and mewed at them.

“I told you so,” Cal grumbled as he climbed into bed. He didn’t even bother to fight the cat for his pillow. He still bore the scars from previous fights.

Instead he snuggled into Josh’s back. Josh kindly moved his head to share his pillow.

He yawned and tilted his head to give Cal a sleepy kiss. “It’s good to be home.”

Cal muttered something incoherent into his back and a moment later Josh heard gentle snoring. He smiled and settled down into Cal’s embrace, falling asleep between one breath and the next.

“Did you actually sleep last night?” Josh demanded as he looked at Max.

Max had been the only one to stay at the penthouse. His face looked translucent, it was so colorless, and the dark marks under his eyes were deeper than the day before. He was pretty sure Max had been wearing the same Silver Surfer T-shirt the day before.

“If I tell you I slept will you leave me alone?” Max didn’t even bother to take his eyes off his screen.

“No, because I know you’re lying,” Josh snapped.

“Then why bother asking?” Max said.

Josh exchanged glances with everyone else. The whole team was there except Rick who had been sent home for his day off. He fixed a sterner glance on Gil, who rolled his eyes.

“Okay, Max, it’s time you took a nap,” Gil said soothingly.

“No, I’m fine thanks,” Max said, his attention still fixed on the screen.

Gil shot Josh a “What the hell can I do?” look.

Josh flapped his hand at Max and mouthed, “Deal with it.” He stared down Gil who threw his hands up and focused on the young man.

“Okay, buddy, that wasn’t a request. You need to sleep.”

“I said I’m fine.” Now there was a hint of anger in Max’s tone.

Gil obviously decided to take direct action. He swung Max’s chair around and hauled Max out of the seat.

“What the fuck?”

Josh was hard put not to laugh at Max’s openmouthed expression of shock. What happened next shocked all of them. Gil laid a gentle hand against Max’s jaw. Josh noticed that the young man had very little in the way of stubble.

“You need sleep. Just a couple of hours and then you can start work again. But at the moment you look like you’re going to pass out and we’ve got too much to do to let you be ill. We’ve all slept, now it’s your turn.”

Max opened his mouth and then closed it again, before he nodded and shuffled off toward their bedroom.

“Wanna go after your boy to tuck him in?” Josh smirked at Gil who flipped him off.

“I ain’t a fucking babysitter,” Gil snapped.

“You are his babysitter,” Josh pointed out. “But more to the point your boy has a tablet in there and he’ll probably carry on working unless you take it away from him.”

Gil stared at Josh and then stormed off after Max.

Cal turned to look at Josh. “Should I ask how you know he has a tablet in his bedroom?”

“I know everything, don’t you know that yet?”

Dave nodded his agreement. “You should really know that by now, Cal.”

Josh smiled sweetly at Dave. “See somebody knows how good I am.”

Cal sighed and went back to staring at the smartboard. He stood and walked around until he was directly in front of it. There was a large map of London and the south-east on the smartboard, pinpointing Lucinda Weatherly’s other properties. He rubbed his temples. Josh handed him his glasses and he slipped them on without protest.

“Thanks, Angel.”

“If we focus on the houses around London today then if we don’t find her, we can extend our search.”

“Max was trying to narrow it down,” Gil said as he came out of the office carrying