Free The Primal Connection by Alexander Dregon

there that he didn’t mean the way it sounded but had its own venom nonetheless. This time, Terry didn’t pull back on his temper.
    “If you got something to say, Benin, spit it out! But remember, we’re up here alone, so if it gets ugly, you don’t have those two gorillas you keep on a leash.”
    Benin smiled. “How do you know I don’t?”
    Terry’s grin was hard enough to cut diamonds. With a stare as steady as the North Star, he answered in a voice just as cold. “I know.”
    Benin was as sure that he did, as he was that neither Simms nor Salazar was close enough to help if he needed them. He decided alienating Terry wasn’t the way to go.
    “Okay, okay. We’re on the same side here. To tell the truth, we should be even more on the same side. I could pull some strings and—”
    Terry cut him off, still agitated. “I gave up working for the government when…I got out of the army. You guys have too many rules for me and too many politicians running the show. I got no problem working with you guys but working for you is another thing altogether.”
    Without another word, Terry turned and headed for his car. Benin wanted to say more but bit off the words. Everything was a process. There would be another time, that much he was sure of, and there was no reason to poison that time by driving a wedge between them even further.
    As Terry slid into the car, he felt Charlie nipping at the corners of his mind. He ignored him. He wanted Benin and him to make nice, but Terry was fonder of the idea of cuddling up with a rattlesnake. He figured either way he was going to get bit on the ass.
    Not to be ignored, Charlie pushed his way in. “I believe that is what your people call offering an olive branch.”
    Terry took a deep breath and prepared to cut loose a shrill whistle to drive Charlie back into the recesses of his mind. Instead, he let it out slowly, saying out loud, “Shut up, Charlie.”

Chapter Nine
     
     
    It was a long drive back to Billings. Long and quiet. Terry said nothing, and Charlie didn’t want to push the issue. There was nothing new about this. After every case, Terry went into what he termed the winner’s blues. Happy as he could be he, nonetheless, felt depressed about all the things that he felt could have gone better. There was little enough to complain about, but it was a habit he had left over from the army. Since nothing was perfect, that meant there was always room for improvement. Charlie shuddered to think what would happen if he ever actually did everything right.
    In Billings finally, Charlie felt brave enough to bring up their customary celebration. It was tricky bringing the subject up. Terry was every inch a modern man but some things he simply couldn’t handle. One of them was sharing his sex partners. Since Charlie was a part of his mind and able to feel everything Terry did, he enjoyed sex as well. What he found extremely pleasing was that in all the occupied he had experienced, Terry was, by far, the most gratifying. To say nothing of being the most intense.
    For Terry, it was just the matter of not being able to let go and really get into it. The first time he had tried, it was fine until he realized he could feel Charlie’s…amazement at the strength of the way it felt. So much so that he had allowed too much through in their first try. Terry had lost interest after that for a long time.
    Charlie had finally apologized enough and come up with a compromise that suited them both. Finding a hooker. The impersonal nature of that kept Terry from feeling too guilty about Charlie’s voyeurism, which worked out fine for Charlie.
    For Terry, not so much. Like most, he longed for a relationship based on more than his ability to pay. And he wanted that relationship with a person he knew and loved. Only he couldn’t do that as long as Charlie was in his head. As a result of this, Terry had lost his shot at the girl he had been in love with since he was a kid.
    He often wondered if