“I respect you as a person. You’re a fuck tonne smarter than me, and I’d pick ye to be on my team before anyone else. That isn’t what this is about. I’m thinking about you as a woman. I can’t stop thinking about your cunt squeezing my cock.”
He gave me no pause to process the shock of lust at his words.
“I beat myself off in the shower twice since last night because of memories of ye. The boyfriend flowers are a sham when my words tell the truth.”
I hovered between being turned on and hurt. He was lashing out for some reason. That didn’t give him licence to be a dick. The emotions settled into irritation.
Without answering him, I waited for the lift doors to open then stalked to Cassie’s flat.
She let us in with a hug for me and a chirpy hello for Kane. Still glowering, he took a position against the kitchen wall, Mila jumping up from a sprawl of paperwork on the floor to greet us.
I took in the scene. All the members of the Skeleton Girls Detective Agency were in attendance, Everly on the sofa with her hand to her belly and Genevieve on a cushion on the polished floorboards, her sparkling choker around her throat. My heart thumped. They were all wearing matching black t-shirts of a woman with a cute updo and a magnifying glass with the name of our agency beneath. It had pink and purple highlights.
Cassie fetched another from the counter. “With your news on Esther, it felt only right that we wear these for our meeting tonight. A whimsical addition to serious business. Murder, but make it cute.”
I accepted mine and held it to my chest. “I love it.”
Mila gave me a hug and tucked her shoulder-length blonde hair behind her ear. “Sorry that your search for Dixie didn’t work out.”
Regret filled me, but it wasn’t just for Dixie’s sake. I’d slept with Mila’s brother. All of a sudden, that felt more important to get out of the way.
I peeked over at him. Under the warm glow from the pendant lights in Cassie’s kitchen, he watched me. There was no hiding the want in his eyes, even in his terrible mood. I felt it all the way down to my shoes.
“Whoa,” Mila said quietly.
Shit.I grabbed her hand. “I need to talk to you.” Holding up a pausing finger to Kane, I drew Mila over to the floor-to-ceilingarched window with the view of the city and turned my back on the other women, though Kane was close enough to hear my words.
“I had a thing with your brother,” I whispered. “Past tense, but it happened.”
To my right, Kane swore.
Mila’s eyebrows hiked up. “I mean, I was about to guess that.”
I clutched my hands together. “I don’t want this to affect our friendship.”
“Are you kidding? I was about to apologise on his behalf. I can’t imagine how you put up with him.” Her lips lifted in a grin.
“Lovelyn. Outside,” Kane said.
I made wide eyes at Mila then scooted over to her brother.
“Girl code,” I explained to him. “But basically the look you gave me screamed the quiet part out loud.”
Across the room, Cassie waved. “Facts. We all saw it.”
He caught my hand and towed me out of the room. My heart sank. He didn’t like sharing information, I didn’t like concealing it. If this was the point in which we stopped whatever we were doing, it was going to hurt.
Outside of the flat, the hallway had access to the stairs, lift, and what appeared to be an empty apartment across the way.
“Past fucking tense.” Kane stopped in front of it and whirled around on me. “Tonight. One hour. Go downstairs and meet me at the back door of the warehouse nearest the river.”
I took a shocked breath. My core tightened. He was going to take me somewhere to play.
“Will ye be there?”
Despite everything, my mind whirring and giving me images of a busy night in the city and our unique game of chase, I managed to stick to my guns. “Convince me. You ruined the flowers. Try harder.”
Kane examined my expression then did exactly what I wanted him to do. With a hand to my lower spine, he brought me against him in a kiss that started soft but turned all-consuming. There was heat in it and something more as well. Annoyance. Passion. A decadence in the repeated takes from my lips while he held me closer than he ever had before, my wrists in his grip but pressed between our bodies so I could feel every thump of his big heart.
