Chapter 20
THORNE
Three minutes had passed and my heart rate and breath still hadn’t slowed. If there was one thing I could always depend on, it was Calder’s skills in the bedroom. And from the feel of his heaving chest, it seemed he was having the same problem.
The thought made me chuckle. Sex between us always burned.
“You better be laughing at some joke you just told yourself and not at me,” he warned, his voice playful but rough.
“I’m laughing at us,” I said. “Here we are, two apex monsters, and we can barely breathe after a rather vigorous romp in the sack.”
“Oh, don’t call it that,” Calder said, laughing.
“What would you prefer? Bumping uglies? Doin’ the hanky panky? The horizontal hula?”
“The horizontal what?” That laugh came from deep within his chest and shook the entire bed. “Where do you learn these things?”
“Social media,” was all I said. “But don’t avoid my question—what’s your preference?”
“Can’t we just call it sex?” he said. “Like normal people?”
I half-shrugged, then snuggled deep into the blankets.
My lidded eyes craved sleep, to replenish my still-quivering muscles.
But I also knew a nap was off the menu. We had far too much to do today.
A quick glance at the clock next to my bed revealed it was nine-fifty-three in the morning.
My brothers were menaces but they tended to stick to a predictable routine.
Each had an alarm set for ten a.m. If they didn’t set one, they wouldn’t wake up until after lunch.
They didn’t have day jobs, but in their words, even crime stuck to a schedule.
I’d never been one to live by a set routine, but recently, I’d started sleeping later, since I now half-owned a bar that ran only during the darkest hours of the day.
“We have seven minutes until my brothers wake up. And after last night, I suspect they’ll call me soon after.”
“Seven minutes, hey?” Calder mused.
I lifted my head from the pillow and rested my chin on his chest. The sly smile tugging at his lips sparked a flicker of interest—okay, more like a meteor of interest—from deep within the pit of my stomach.
“Hmm,” he said. “What can we do in seven minutes? Or longer if you don’t answer their calls.”
I snickered. “Lovely thought. I’m not ready to talk to any of the brutes. But if I ignore all three of their calls, they’ll come busting down my door. And I want that even less.”
Calder glanced down at me, then smiled as he brushed my hair back from my eyes. “Let them bust in. I don’t care.”
“You may not care. But those are my brothers. Seeing me naked isn’t on any of our life goal lists. Trust me.”
Another laugh fell from Calder’s lips. “Okay, fair. But you didn’t answer my question. What can we do in seven minutes?”
“More like five now,” I teased. “And I don’t know about you, but I’m going to use the washroom and clean myself up.”
“Boo,” he faux-pouted. “But I guess if you must, then I should do the same.”
“You absolutely should.”
Together, we rose from the bed. Him on his side. Me on mine. Except both of us tugged on the sheets.
“Pretty sure you don’t need the sheet,” I told him.
“Pretty sure you don’t need the sheet,” he shot back, giving it another tug in his direction.
Laughter burst free of my throat. “What are you doing? What do you need it for?”
“What do you need it for?”
I didn’t answer and instead just wrenched the sheet back toward me. Surprise widened Calder’s eyes when he suddenly toppled back into bed.
“Ha. I win. It’s mine.” Grinning, I wrapped the sheet around me like a toga, then spun in a circle to show off my new look.
“Gorgeous,” Calder said, splayed on the bed. “But I’m feeling a little exposed here. Not to mention, slightly cold. And you know what they say about guys and the cold.”
I rolled my eyes, then strutted toward the bathroom. “Please. We both know you have nothing to worry about.”
My comment hit with my intended praise, and he flushed with pleasure.
I had just stepped inside the bathroom and had partly closed the door when the condo doorbell rang. Like a deer caught in headlights, my eyes shot wide. I yanked open the door and stared at Calder for a moment before cursing.
Calder scrambled off the bed and clapped his hands over his obviously warm package, based on its current size. The sight of him cradling his dick and staring at the bedroom door in downright shock nearly had me doubling over with laughter.
“What are you doing?” I wheezed between laughs.
“Well! You have the freakin’ sheet!” he said.
“No one’s going to come in the bedroom, you fool! Just wait here.”
Still laughing, I hurried toward the front door.
It was a little too early for my brothers, but after last night’s fiasco, I wasn’t sure what to expect.
Nor was I sure how they would react to the sight of me dressed in a sheet-toga.
We were all adults, but my brothers sometimes forgot that I’d celebrated my centennial a few years back.
To them, I would always be their baby sister.
Hand on the doorknob, I gave it a twist and pulled open the door, only to find Isadora standing on my porch. Relief rounded my shoulders. I wasn’t sure how I’d planned to handle Tweedle-Dee, Tweedle-Dum, and Tweedle-Doofus. But at least now I didn’t have to worry about it.
At the sight of me standing in the doorframe, dressed in nothing but a sheet, Isadora raised a perfectly manicured brow. Her blue eyes twinkled with mirth, and her lips parted in a grin wide enough to flash me her vampy fangs.
“I think that answers all my questions,” she said by way of hello.
I frowned. “What?”
She thrust a hand toward me, complete with a cardboard tray and two coffees.
“I hadn’t heard from you in a few days. Which made me wonder if you’d killed your husband or slept with him.
” She jerked her chin toward me. “My question is now answered. Unless you committed a murder so bloody, all your clothes are in the wash?”
I scrambled to balance the coffees while waving Izzy inside.
With the door open, anyone passing by would catch sight of me, and really, that was the last thing I needed right now.
Once Izzy crossed the threshold, I shut the door with my hip, then led her to the kitchen where I placed the coffees on the counter.
“No murder. Yes to the other. Give me a few minutes to freshen up, okay?”
Izzy waved a hand. “Take your time.”
Well, I wouldn’t take my time. That was for sure.
Izzy and Calder hadn’t met personally yet, and I had a feeling my bestie would be even less forgiving toward him than my brothers.
After everything she and I had been through in the last few months, I didn’t see her willingly accepting his return to my life without a complete interrogation first.
I scooped my shorts and Calder’s shirt off the kitchen floor, quickly and covertly, before Izzy noticed them, then hurried toward my bedroom.
Calder stood at the foot of the bed, already—sadly—dressed in his jeans.
At the sight of his shirt cradled in my hands, his body visibly relaxed.
I tossed it to him before finally ducking into the bathroom and quietly closing the door behind me.
The sound of voices carried through the condo, so I knew Calder and Izzy were now chatting.
That knowledge spurred me into cleaning up faster than I ever had before.
Silently, I thanked my supernatural speed and reflexes.
But I also silently cursed myself for not waiting for the water to warm before washing myself clean.
Nothing like a cold soap rinse to wake a girl up in the morning.
Once clean, I dove back into my bedroom and grabbed the first outfit I could find.
A long-sleeve shirt that read “Furrever Fabulous” and a pair of jeans that were more wrinkled than my grandmother’s face.
I slapped on a pair of mismatched socks, then raced through the condo, into the kitchen, to find Izzy and Calder seated at the nook.
I grabbed two mugs from the cupboard along the way, then snatched the coffee Izzy had brought me and split it in half between the cups. Calder smiled at me as he took his.
“I was just asking loverboy here where he’s been.”
“Izzy,” I sighed.
“What? I didn’t think it was a difficult question.”
“Not difficult,” I said, “but definitely rude.”
She just shrugged and took another sip of her blood-coffee. “It’s a question he’s going to get asked.”
“And I’ll tell them the same thing I told you—none of your business,” Calder said in a perfectly pleasant tone.
“Izzy,” I said again, drawing her narrowed gaze away from my husband. “Was there a reason you came here? Or was it just to check on me?”
Her expression softened. “I wanted to check on you. I ran into Ricky last night. He stopped by the bar and mentioned—well, he said some things went down. But he wouldn’t tell me what. He just said, and I am quoting him directly, ‘Cassian royally fucked up.’ So I wanted to make sure you’re alright.”
Adoration warmed my chest. “That was sweet of you. Yeah, Cassian said some stuff last night he shouldn’t have said. And I kicked him out of my parents’ house. We haven’t spoken since. But I’m expecting them to call any minute now.”
Izzy’s eyes briefly widened. She knew how close I was to my brothers. For me to have kicked any of them out reaffirmed that Cassian had done something colossally stupid.
She didn’t comment further or ask what my brother had said, and I appreciated her for that. But that appreciation was short-lived when she pointed a finger at Calder and then at me. “And you two clearly… well, that mark on your throat tells me everything, really.”
I instinctively lifted a hand to my neck. Honestly, I’d almost forgotten about it. It didn’t sting, but there was a sense of warmth ebbing from it, one that spread through my entire body.
Izzy stared at me for a moment, then Calder. Her silence was unnerving, but after a few moments, she simply nodded and took another sip of her coffee.
“Wait, that’s it?” I asked. “A nod?”
The corners of her lips turned upward. “You expected something more?”
“Oh, I expected a lot more,” I said. “Threats? Questions? Demands?”
She nodded. “And I anticipate you’ll get a lot of that. From the town, from your brothers, from your parents even, I’d imagine.”
I winced at the mention of them.
Placing her coffee cup on the table, Izzy rose to her feet and crossed the room to me. She rested her hands on my shoulders, then pulled me in for a tight hug.
“Thorne, you’re a grown woman, and it’s your life. If you want him in it, then that’s your call. My job is to support you, no matter what happens. Whether I like him or not is irrelevant.”
“Well, not irrelevant,” I mumbled against her shoulder. “I’d like it if you two got along.”
“Oh, we’ll get along just fine.” Izzy stared at Calder. “Because now he knows that if he hurts you, your brothers won’t get a chance to kill him. He’ll already be dead.”
Calder had enough sense not to rise to the challenge. But I caught the flash in his eyes and the tightening of his jaw.
On that note, Izzy tossed him a beaming grin, one that absolutely showed her pearly whites, then she headed for the door.
“If you need a few more nights off, that’s fine,” she said. “I think Lucien is enjoying playing bartender. Gives him a break from his own club.”
I chuckled at the image of Lucien slinging bottles. “A few more nights would be nice.” Especially considering we had a heist to pull off tonight.
“No problem. You know how to reach me,” she said. “Love you.”
“Love you,” I said back as she slipped out the door.
Once we were alone, I turned and faced Calder with a relieved smile. “Well, that went better than expected.”
He opened his mouth, surely about to reply with something sarcastic. But of course, at that moment, the doorbell rang.
Again.
Sighing, I pulled it open, expecting to find Izzy standing on my porch again. Maybe she’d forgotten something.
Instead, I found the Three Unwelcome Musketeers.
All six of their eyes immediately dropped to the fresh bite mark on my neck.
“Oh,” Felix whispered, his expression that of a shocked gorilla. “That didn’t take long.”
A growl started deep in Ricky’s chest while Cassian’s eyes practically flatlined into lethal gold.
Great. Let the circus begin.