Ladies and Gentlemen I Present You…
THEY FELL asleep eventually, Josh tucked inside Liam’s embrace like he’d apparently always should have been, only to be awakened by the alarm from his phone on the floor.
“Crap,” Liam mumbled, finding his own phone on the bedstand. “We should be leaving now.”
Josh ran his lips over Liam’s bicep, practically purring. “We can be a little late,” he said, conscious that he was the one who’d said they should be at Glencoe at two. “We can get some lunch, take our time….”
“Wow,” Liam said, chuckling. “If your parents had known this was what it took to get you to relax—”
“Don’t finish that sentence,” Josh said, laughing.
Carefully, he swung his legs over the bed and took stock.
Lower body? Completely debauched, ass a little achy, everything else floaty.
Perfect. Upper body? Shoulder hurt like hell and, oh, hey, headache developing from who knew?
Not eating enough? Eating too much? Endorphins?
Anti-sex chemo residue? Whatever. Josh was tired of his fragile body’s fragile body reactions.
He wasn’t giving up what he and Liam had done, literally to save his life.
But he must have made a sound, because Liam was out of bed and heading for Josh’s shaving kit. He came back with a glass of water and a slightly stronger painkiller.
“Thank you,” Josh said meekly. “Why does my head hurt?”
“Dehydration,” Liam said with an evil chuckle, and Josh echoed it.
Liam was still standing by him, hand out for the cup with the water, and Josh wanted to touch him.
He handed Liam the cup and ran his hand over Liam’s taut stomach, his smooth ass.
Josh, who was surrounded by muscular man-gods, appreciated Liam’s fitness without the showy muscles.
This was a man who could hug you and make you feel safe without cracking your skull on his biceps, and who could also hold his own in a fight.
It was a physical feature Josh found particularly appealing, especially now as he reasserted his familiarity with as much of Liam’s body as he could reach.
“Mm… none of that now,” Liam murmured, capturing his hand. “We really do have to get a move on.”
Josh stood creakily and leaned into Liam’s body. Liam set the water down and pulled him tight. “If I said ‘I love you’ right now, would it sound clingy?”
“Yes,” Liam murmured, kissing him. “Say it.”
“I love you.”
“I love you too. No more pushing me away.”
“No more,” Josh promised, leaning his head on Liam’s shoulder. He didn’t want to admit it, but he wouldn’t have the strength to do that—never again.
THE HOUSE was full, even at two o’clock, and the kitchen, as usual, was bustling. Phyllis was there, directing her minions, some of whom were prepping for dinner that night and a few who were making sure there were snacks available for anyone dropping by.
Phyllis had been a fixture in the mansion at Glencoe since Josh was very small.
A midsize woman with spiral curls of brown and gray, she’d first taken the job because it allowed her to get her doctorate in philosophy while not requiring her to do anything with it—not teaching, not publishing, both of which she abhorred.
She’d stayed because they’d become a family.
Now she greeted Josh with a smile, because she saw him nearly every day, but Liam? Liam she greeted with a squeal and a hug and a “I was so happy to hear you were back!”
“You know I only came back for you, my sweet English rose,” Liam said, and Josh chuckled because he’d really played up the East End in his voice.
And Phyllis ate it up with a spoon. “Oh, my good lad you are. Come to steal away this’un now that ’es come to his senses?” She’d been born and raised in Chicago, but she gave that accent her all.
“Hey!” Josh laughed. “You’re required to be on my side!”
“It was making you crabby,” she said primly. “Now here.” She shoved a plate of sliders into Liam’s hands. “Take these downstairs to the others. They’re excited to see Josh. Apparently they can’t have a proper breakdown of a job without him.”
“I thought that’s what you were doing this morning on your tablet,” Liam muttered, following Josh through the kitchen.
“No,” Josh said, thinking about the bare minimum report he’d gotten from Danny. “They were taking it easy on me.”
“I think if Interpol knew how much work criming was, they’d simply raise the minimum wage in most countries and watch the crime rate drop overnight.”
Josh chuckled because it was true—at least for the things that he and his friends did.
“Well, taking care of a population usually stops a lot of bad things,” he said, not even wanting to think about how often the Salingers had stopped the rich and the corrupt from hurting people out of sheer entitlement.
“But that takes me back to my question,” Liam said as they made their way through the bustling kitchen—where they’d take the entrance to the dining room and from there down the staircase to the basement den.
“What question?” Josh asked. “Hold up. Marco!” He smiled with genuine pleasure at Phyllis’s head chef—and Josh’s in-house caterer for the night before—who was currently cleaning the sides of a mixing bowl with a spatula.
“Hey, I wanted to thank you for taking the gig last night. The feds give you any trouble?”
“Me?” the handsome young chef asked. “No, I’m just the caterer. We were hired by Celeste to do the job. Here, have a canape, they’re delicious.”
Josh chortled. “Good. Is Tor here tonight?”
Torrance Grayson, Marco’s boyfriend, was also one of Felix’s premier anchors on his news network.
Torrance split his time between Marco’s cottage on the property and, when he had to work late, his own apartment in the city.
The night before he’d been taping a show, but he’d been their very compelling face man since they’d started this endeavor, making sure that whenever the crew’s exploits hit the news, the first spin of the event was to shine the spotlight on the bad guys and away from the people who’d exposed them.
“He’ll be here for dinner and the meeting afterward,” Marco said. “I guess I’m invited downstairs too this time.”
“Not for dinner?” Josh asked.
Marco rolled his eyes. “I’d rather cook,” he said frankly.
“Danny’s list of items we can’t talk about at the dinner table is up to two full pages on his phone.
” He shuddered. “Liver fluke people. Liver fluke people, Josh. I don’t care if the X-Files did it first, I don’t want them showing up during a dinner I cooked! ”
Josh grimaced. “That wasn’t Grace, was it?”
“No,” Marco said grouchily. “That was Stirling. Apparently he and Tienne have been binge-watching old shows.”
“Well,” Josh said diplomatically, “we take some, uhm, digesting to get used to.”
Marco glared at him. “Get out,” he said.
“I’m sor—”
“It’s my kitchen,” Marco snapped, gesturing imperiously with the spatula in his hand. “Get out!”
“Wow,” Liam muttered. “Is he always that touchy?”
Josh winced. “I think we were a little more tightly wound than usual before this job,” he admitted. “Grace, Hunter, and Carl had been out of town, pretending to be Lightfingers while we set up the job and the ID, and they got back and, well, things got a little, uhm….”
“Out of hand,” Liam said dryly.
“I was going to say up to our usual energy,” Josh lied.
“Sure you were.”
By this point they’d made it through the dining room and were heading toward the stairs. Josh held his hand out for the railing and drew air through his teeth. “Dammit,” he muttered. “Fucking Kadjic.”
Liam sighed and paused at the landing, his brush of fingers against Josh’s shirt noting the absence of the sling. “Listen,” he murmured. “I need you to not downplay this thing with your arm tonight.”
Josh glared at him. “It’s no big—”
“It’s a very big deal,” Liam said. “Because I need the lot of you to take him seriously. He’s a very dangerous man.”
“Oh, believe me,” Josh said grimly. “We know. But they’ve got to trust me in there—”
“They’ll trust you more if you tell them the truth,” Liam said without bending.
Well, that was a part of him, Josh knew. A very attractive part of him. He could hold his own against Josh, against his family, against the things they took on. “I don’t lie to my crew,” he said. “But I’ll try not to blow it off either.”
Liam kissed his forehead. “Thank you. Now proceed before these sliders get cold. They smell delicious.”
Well, Josh thought with a certain amount of satisfaction, he and Liam had been rather active that day. The sandwiches they’d downed as they hurried toward the garage to leave hadn’t quite hit the spot.
The den was dark, lit only by the giant TV screen where characters from World of Warcraft were being pursued by bad guys and each other in search of treasure.
“Are you doing a raid?” Josh asked. “Without me?”
“No,” Stirling said, still very focused on the screen. “We’re all building up our characters so we can wipe the floor with you.”
Josh snorted. “No. No. Not going to happen. Has never happened. Will never happen. Grace, watch out, Molly’s orc is going to—”
They all grimaced as Grace’s character—a lissome elf—separated into two pieces and toppled in a pile of animated blood and gore.
“Wow,” Grace said. “We’re on the same team.”
“We’re building our characters,” Molly said primly. “All’s fair in—Tienne! You little bugger!” But she said it with pride.
“You told me,” Tienne said, his accented voice sounding extremely pleased. “You told me to practice being ruthless in video games, so I did. You weren’t paying attention.”
“No, I wasn’t,” Molly said. “And you’re totally forgiven. We want you to live, that’s all.”
“Harsh,” Liam said in Josh’s ear.
“Well, he wanted to be in on going after Kadjic,” Josh said. “I think Molly’s been giving him ruthlessness lessons.”