With a happy sigh, James breathed a kiss through Kit’s lips. “You really know how to cheer a man up,” he murmured, barely pulling away.
“Only sad, pathetic men like you,” Kit taunted—in a breathless, kiss-starved sort of way.
“We’ll see who’s pathetic by the time I’m done with you,” James said, and each word blazed through Kit’s veins.
“Nnnmph,” Kit answered intelligently.
James stepped back, the monster. “Time to go, my slutty little partner in crime.”
Kit counted to ten, then twenty, then thirty, before he was composed enough to stand up.
Downstairs, Holden and Carla were playing chess in the living room. They were each as stone-faced and silent as the pieces. Carla was dressed in her usual work clothes—sensible shoes and a shockingly pink floral blouse. The jacket currently slung over the couch would conceal the lump of her firearm.
Holden was dressed to go out. Dark gray jeans, a weirdly nice-looking dark gray t-shirt—did he get that from James?—and a subtle smudge of eyeliner. No firearm for him, even though he was tonight’s field operative. While James and Kit watched from the surveillance van, Holden’s task was to intercept the target and steal his phone.
Usually that would be Bishop or Darius’s job. But both of them would wait for more information. Kit agreed with James. This was how they could get more information in the first place, and opportunities like this might be rare.
Odds did not look good for the target’s relationship with the bartender.
Carla abandoned the chessboard to exchange quiet, cryptic words with James. Holden moved directly to Kit.
“Hey, sweetheart.” Holden blatantly inspected Kit, then reached out to fix Kit’s hair. “Missed you.”
The stroking fingers were so comfortable, Kit wanted to purr. “Missed you too.”
Under Holden’s intense gaze, Kit felt every trace of James’s touch on his body. As if Holden’s eyes were a blacklight, picking up traces of…
Wow, that metaphor got very bukkake very quickly.
“What are you thinking about?” Holden asked.
Kit glanced at Carla, who was definitely in earshot. “It’s very weird. I’ll tell you later.”
“I love when you get weird, darling.” Holden finished fixing Kit’s hair—then beamed and ruffled it into a mess again.
“Hey!” Kit complained, covering his head.
Jingling metal interrupted whatever Holden had planned next. Carla shook her car keys at all of them. “We’re going,” she said, and took off for the garage.
“You ready?” Kit asked, flushing.
“Depends.” Holden winked. “What’s my reward if I do a good job?”
Nice fucking try. Kit wasn’t going to contemplate rewards, not when he was about to ride in Carla’s car for half an hour.
“You’ll have to do a good job and find out,” Kit said loftily, then fled for the garage.
James’s nerves settled as he entered the surveillance van.
For the past few months, his thoughts had burned with paralysis. He craved action but lacked information. Demandedblood but feared staining more people with it. Love and friendship caught like fishhooks beneath his skin.
But Kit wouldn’t hold him back. That was James’s own fear, building a wall of unfair expectations. Kit was becoming so sweet and playful that James sometimes forgot their first date, when Kit aided and abetted a murder.
Now, Carla was already dropping Holden off. Holden would wait a few blocks away until James signaled that the target was in Cicada. Once Holden was inside, communication would be more difficult.
The van creaked. James yanked the door closed, and Kit hovered over the panel of dormant surveillance tech.
“How does this work?” Kit asked.
