“Bitch!” I hurled another cushion at her head, and the three of us broke into peals of laughter. “Hey, I’ve been told a handful is plenty. Plus, just because I haven’t slept with him…yet, that doesn’t mean I’m not going to.”
“I knew it! You little whore. You were practically humping his leg earlier.”
I groaned loudly and headed into the kitchen. “I am so done with you!”
CHAPTERNINETEEN
DEREK
“What the fuck happened to you?”
Kai was at my front door as I pulled into my drive and climbed out of the car. He looked me up and down, arms across his chest and a cocky grin on his face. I glanced down at my soiled clothing and how one side of my shirt hung over my pants. I was a goddamn mess.
“Do I want to know?”
Tossing my jacket over one shoulder, I shrugged as I pushed open the door. “Snapped some asshole’s neck and had a little run-in with Belov’s crew while dumpster diving with a hot detective. You know, nothing too crazy.”
Kai followed me inside, bellowing a laugh. “Your day sounds a hell of a lot more interesting than mine.”
We moved into the kitchen, and I pulled out a bottle of Weller, setting two glasses on the counter with a loud clang. I slid a drink toward Kai and lifted my own with a nod before knocking back a sip.
“I thought you had that job out in Seattle.” I glanced at my watch. “No way you came and went so fast.”
Kai savored the amber liquid in his mouth, shaking his head and swallowing. “Trash took itself out. Guy turned himself into a street stain this morning. Jumped 200ft out of the City Centre building. Made my day a whole lot smoother and gave me time to catch up with Leni.”
Needing to take the edge off, I poured myself another drink, brow cocked at his statement. “You and Helena again?”
“No, not like that. We have our fun, but we know what this is.” He eyed me curiously. “How’s the princess?”
I looked at him from behind my glass and chuckled. “What do you really want to know?”
Kai shrugged his shoulders and sat back on the barstool. “Ronan was asking questions. Something about you getting close to this girl bothers him. He didn’t say as much, but it was obvious. Says you’re letting pussy—his words, not mine—knock you off your game. Making you messy.”
“Fuck him,” I growled, squeezing the glass between my fingers.
My gratitude for what he’d saved Kai and me from only extended so far. Through the years, he’d proved his motives and where his loyalties lay. He didn’t give a damn about either of us in any way that mattered. Neither did his whore of a wife.
“Well, you can tell him that in person, brother, because he warned me he’d stop by.”
Speak of the fucking devil himself. No sooner had the words left Kai’s mouth, my doorbell rang, and his image popped up on the screen of my cell phone.
“Fuck me. He brought Maeve with him too.”
I cut across my living room and into the foyer, Deimos on my heels. Glancing at my screen one more time, I hoped they’d left or burst into flames.
The left side of Ronan’s mouth twitched as he regarded me with disgust. Always one to take pride in my appearance, I was sure I saw him double-take at my disheveled look. Maeve simply offered a flirtatious grin, as usual.
“Derek, darling, you get into some kind of scuffle? Look at you!”
Maeve was the type of adoptive mother whose duties ended with signing the legal docs. I probably could have counted on one hand the times we’d been in the same room with her those first few years. Shortly after my seventeenth birthday, something about how her eyes lingered too long and how she’d lick her lips and blush around me made me uncomfortable. I didn’t know it then, but she wasn’t trying to be a mother figure. She was attempting to be a woman in my life.
One drunken night, she stumbled into my room, naked and panting like a whore in heat, proposing I let her teach me how to tame a woman as she dropped to her knees and grabbed my cock.
Ronan beat her bloody when I’d dragged her ass back into their quarters by her hair.
“Something I should know, Derek?” His voice was threatening yet calm as he walked to my bar and poured himself a drink. “You look like hell.”
“No.” My voice was sure, betraying no emotion.
