Grace’s head lolled to the side, her gaze finding his. Her smile didn’t falter; it just sharpened, all sassy and full of fire. “I can handle you,” she said, her voice a husky purr. She let her eyes drift from Bones to Lunchbox, then to Alphabet, and finally back to me. “I can handle all of you.”
The sheer, unadulterated confidence in her voice was a fucking turn-on. We all knew she could. We’d just spent the night proving it. But to hear her say it, to see the challenge in her eyes… that was something else entirely.
Just as she finished her declaration, a loud, insistent growl rumbled through the quiet room. It came from her stomach. The sound was so unexpected, so perfectly normal in the middle of all this, that it broke the tension like a rubber band snapping. Her eyes went wide for a second, and then her grin widened.
“But,” she announced, her tone full of theatrical importance, “I do demand breakfast after.”
Lunchbox, ever the one to seize an opportunity, snaked a hand out from under his blanket and wrapped it around her wrist. He tugged, and she went willingly, rolling across the mattress until she was flush against him. He pulled her in for a deep, lingering kiss, a kiss that was full of promises and a hunger that was just as on the edge of desperate as it had been a few minutes ago.
When he finally let her up for air, he rested his forehead against hers. “I’ll feed you anything you want, Gracie,” he murmured, his voice a low, intimate promise.
Grace’s eyes sparkled with pure, unadulterated mischief. She slowly, deliberately, began to walk her fingers down his stomach, tracing the lines of his abs until they reached the waistband of his boxers. She paused, her fingers tapping lightly against the fabric right over his cock, which was already showing a renewed interest.
“Anything?” she whispered, the single word a loaded question full of sin and suggestion.
I couldn’t help it. I threw my head back and laughed, a loud, booming sound that filled the room. The whole situation was fucking ridiculous. We’d just spent the night taking turns with her, a silent, competitive marathon in the dark, and now here we were, negotiating breakfast like it was a peace treaty. My firecracker, holding court in the middle of the bed, completely naked, sore, and demanding pancakes while teasing Lunchbox about a different kind of meal.
It was perfect.
Glancing at the faint light coming through the curtains, I figured it had to be pushing noon. Breakfast was more like a late brunch. And from the way Grace was shifting, trying to find a comfortable position, my firecracker was definitely going to be walking funny for the rest of the day.
Winning all around.
Chapter
Twenty-Three
GRACE
Late afternoon sunlight slanted through the blinds, painting stripes across the kitchen floor. I leaned against the counter, squeezing a lemon slice into a glass of iced tea. The warmth of the house seeped into my bones. The night—and day—had left us all ragged, but content in ways I hadn’t thought possible.
Legend was in his element. Two massive pans of lasagna were bubbling in the oven, garlic bread lined up on a sheet tray, and a salad sat waiting on the counter. The smell of rich, meaty sauce curled through the house, wrapping us in comfort and hunger. He glanced my way, a crooked smile playing on his lips. “Nibble on this while I finish the last of the salad?” he said, waving a forkful of crisp lettuce in my direction.
I grinned. “You know me too well.”
Voodoo was on a phone in the corner, low tones flowing, fingers tapping on the counter for rhythm. AB had his laptop open, a labyrinth of tabs and documents spread across the screen, eyes scanning faster than I could follow. Bones sat at the table, quietly carving up notes from our last interrogations, occasionally grunting when he found a connection.
It was domestic, somehow. And yet the undercurrent of danger never left.
“We’re not just playing house,” I murmured, taking a bite of the salad. Crisp, tangy, and perfect.
“No,” AB said, not looking up. “We’re putting together profiles. La Madrina, Castillo. Names, patterns, connections. It’s not cute, but it’s necessary.”
Voodoo lowered the phone, rubbing at his eyes. “I got the latest contacts lined up. We’ll cross-check with the names we pulled from Ignacio and Sinclair. Start filling in gaps.”
Bones looked up from his notes, reading out the fragmented recollections,
“Phillip Rojas—de Roja—red. He added red hat or red fish.Then another was a Felipe or Phillip with a very strong British accent. Spanish last name, British accent.”
He snorted. “He said there was a Xander something, German or South African, so that gives me Dutch. Also it would match Zander Visser.”
He flipped to another page.“Next two were… garbled,” Bones admitted. “But a starting point.”
“Mykel, Michael, Mikael. Then Jochem, Jorchan, or Jon though he said it might be Russian but definitely Eastern European.”
“Those aren’t the same thing,” I said as I took a sip of the tea. I had no idea when Legend decided to make it up, but everyone was having some. Despite the chill outside, it seemed perfect to go with the lasagna.
With a hint of a smile, Bones glanced at me. “No, they aren’t. But this is where we are.”
