Suddenly uncomfortable, I shuffled to sit up and swept a hand through my hair. “Well, it’s not really as bad as it sounds. They don’t remove anything. It’s just tubal ligation to prevent pregnancy, and uterine ablation to stop periods. The second one was voluntary, though, because why the fuck would I want periods messing up my jobs?” I gave him a lopsided smile, climbing out of the big bed. “Anyway, we should go and discuss our plan of attack for Blanchet with Leon. Also…” I trailed off, realizing I hadn’t told Kai about the reason I’d been at Meow Lounge the night before.
“Also?” he prompted when I disappeared into my thoughts.
I grabbed some leggings and pulled them on—a physical barrier to stop me thinking with my pussy—and spun to face him with a renewed sense of purpose. “You and Leon need to talk. We—he—found some information about Remus that could help Mo’s plans.”
Kai got to his feet and stretched.
Fuck.
“…take care of that body, too,” he was saying when I snapped out of my little lust-induced trance. He crossed the gap between us and tilted my chin up with his fingers. “Are you… listening or drooling, Siren?”
“Um.” I flashed a grin. “The second one. Definitely the second one.”
His gaze heated and the air fucking crackled between us. Crap, what were we doing again?
“Coffee,” I muttered, sliding out of his orbit and hurrying my ass out the door. “Coffee before brain power.”
Kai’s teasing laugh followed me as he did, and we both made our way down to the kitchen where the delicious aroma of freshly ground coffee beans mixed sharply with bleach.
“Ugh, that stings the nostrils,” I groaned, covering my nose with my hand. Leon was in the kitchen, shirtless, mopping the floor with what smelled like straight bleach. Fair call, though, we’d only done the bare minimum in cleaning up the mess before we’d all gone to bed.
“Coffee’s ready,” Leon told us with a cool smile, nodding to the two tall glasses of perfectly made latte on the island. One had a heart drawn in the milk foam, and I smiled like a twit as I picked it up, meeting Leon’s intense gaze.
I took a sip, then licked my lips. “Thanks, Bunny.”
He murmured a quiet you’re welcome back, but his attention flicked to Kai in a glance so quick I almost missed it. But I didn’t. Acting on instinct, I reached over and smacked Kai’s coffee out of his hand before it reached his lips. The brown liquid splashed all over the island, and the glass smashed, but Leon just smirked.
“What the hell?” Kai asked, bewildered.
I just placed my own coffee down and gave Leon a hard accusing glare.
He rolled his eyes, going back to his mopping. “It wouldn’t have killed him,” he muttered under his breath, and I stifled an internal groan.
Kai was a bit slower to catch on, gasping a second later. “You tried to poison me? What the fuck?” His roar was incensed, and my eye twitched.
So much for ironing the elephant in the room. We’d be lucky to all survive the day, let alone survive the Guild.
40
It took some convincing, but eventually, reluctantly, Leon told Kai about our mini-mission in retracing Layla’s last steps. The fact that she had some top secret data cache on Project Remus was relevant to Kai and Mo’s involvement, and it wasn’t okay to keep withholding that information. If the three of us were going to work together—and certainly in the short term, it looked like we would—then we all needed to be on the same page.
When Sabine turned up on our doorstep just after dusk, wearing an oversized hoodie and looking nervous as all hell, I made a decision for the good of my own sanity.
“Out,” I ordered the guys. “Both of you. I need some time alone with Sabby, and you two are legitimately choking me with all this alpha male energy you’ve got going on.”
Sabine gave a strangled laugh, covering her mouth as she eyed Kai with utter fascination. For their part, both of my men looked like they thought I was joking. Nope, no jokes here.
Leon worked it out first, giving a nod. “I’ll go dispose of the trash,” he murmured, grabbing me in a possessive, earth-shaking kiss that went far longer than polite. I was helpless but to lean into him, too, considering he was talking about disposing of the body currently wrapped in plastic in his trunk. We’d needed to break the dude’s legs to squash him into the small space, but it’d worked.
He gave Sabine a nod and totally ignored Kai, then headed out to his car with a skip in his step.
“You too, Big Man,” I prompted when Kai stubbornly folded his arms over his chest and looked like he wanted to refuse to leave.
He scowled harder. “I’m not leaving you here alone, Siren. What if—”
Sabine cut him off with a scoff of insulted laughter. “Excuse me? She isn’t alone, Hercules.” To demonstrate her point, she pulled a slim knife from a hidden pocket and threw it. The point embedded into the wall right beside Kai’s head, and he gave it a surprised glance.
“I’m rusty, but I’m still probably more useful than you,” Sab muttered, and I grinned. Shit, I missed her. “Not to mention, I doubt you’ve ever needed to protect my girl. And if you think you have, then it’s because she let you, to make you feel like you’re useful.”
Kai frowned, then glanced at the knife again. “I guess… I’ll go find somewhere else to be.”
Sabine beamed. “Atta boy. Now you’re getting it.”
I snickered a laugh, unable to help myself, but Kai quickly shifted the mood by grabbing me around the waist and pinning me to a wall. My feet couldn’t even touch the ground as he savaged my mouth, his kisses stealing my sanity as I wrapped my legs around his waist and pulled him closer.
“Ahem,” Sab fake coughed, and I reluctantly pushed Kai away.
“I’ll be back soon,” he murmured against my lips, brushing soft kisses as he carefully set me back on my feet. “I love you, kaikohuru iti.”
He didn’t wait for my response—no doubt still not wanting to hear my weak, bullshit denials—and strode out of the house. A moment later, we heard his motorcycle kick over, and Sabine gave me a wide-eyed look, her hands on her hips.
“Danny DeLuna…” she teased, grinning with delight, “did he just say that he loves you?”
I wrinkled my nose, biting back the dumb smile that wanted to cross my face. “He’s delusional.”
She barked a loud laugh, shaking her head. “I think you’re the delusional one, Dan. What about Leon? That kiss from him was equally scorching. Fuck me, I feel like I need a change of panties from just watching that.”
Rolling my eyes, I went to the kitchen to grab us snacks and drinks, and we made ourselves comfy in the living room. Sabine peppered me with questions about Kai and Leon the whole time, but I gave her very little in response. Not because I didn’t want to share with her, but because I was an awkward, emotionally-stunted dumpster fire.
“Did you question that guy from last night?” she finally asked, changing the subject.
I nodded. “Yeah, that’s the trash Leon is taking out.” Sabine’s eyes widened, and I grinned. “Sabby, you should have seen him work. It was like fucking poetry; he got that prick singing like a nightingale in six minutes flat.”