As soon as the first shadow of the guard passes my door, I step out and accidentally-on-purpose crash into Heidi Holmes.
And absolutely everything I spent hours preparing for falls to the wayside.
I get so close to her I could drag my tongue against her cheek, and I nearly do. Except my stunning beauty is whip quick, and she shoves her knee so hard into my nuts I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to have kids. And how’s that for personal conflict—she leaves me groaning in pain but so fucking desperate for more.
I definitely should call it in. I will, but first I have to soak in the lingering song of her sweet apple scent. Her unique smell reminds me of summertime, when you’re so fucking hot you can’t see straight and all of a sudden you get gifted the sweetest, juiciest, coolest apple in the goddamn world.
Holy shit. She’s straight from the garden of Eden. I rub my nuts, but my epiphany has me realising Heidi is pleasure and pain wrapped in a sinful package. One that I have to explore, irrespective of the risk.
Stumbling back to standing, I lean against the closed door and drag my phone out of my pocket.
My call rings once, and Kai and Dare pick up.
“What did you do?” Darius laughs.
Straight up, my middle brother starts fucking laughing so hard he snorts, not even waiting for an explanation.
“We have a problem,” I squeak before clearing my throat.
Heidi nailed me so hard I’ll be seeing stars for a week, but with the pain comes the best fodder for my memories of her. Honestly, I’ll be hard in seconds whenever I think of our moment. “We have a problem,” I repeat, my voice sounding more like my own. You know, deep and manly.
“Ramses, you stupid fuck,” Kai starts his lecture.
“Kai,” I scoff, sounding like a teenage girl getting all huffy straight up. “I’d like you to try to sit around and do nothing.”
I hear him rolling his eyes and feel his exasperation from here. “You were meant to stay away from her.”
I hit my forehead against the back of the door, talking slowly since they keep not hearing me. No shit, I’ve had this discussion with my brothers so often it’s not funny. “I can’t, you fucking idiot. It’s getting bad—nearly every morning these days I wake up in a crumpled heap at my door, Kai, wearing all my clothes and with my keys in my hand. I’m trying to get to her even when I’m asleep. You both need to start believing me.”
Of course, he ignores my explanation. “You are meant to wait.”
My other dickhead brother pipes up, but I can still hear him fighting to stop laughing as he talks. “Kidnapping her, Ramses? I mean it could work.”
Kai loses his cool. “You don’t think people would notice Heidi Holmes was missing?”
“Of course, people would. I wasn’t going to fucking kidnap her.” I pause because I don’t think I was going to kidnap her. Was I? Hearing both of them breathing down the phone spurs me past my reflection. “I just needed to see her, a hit of her scent, maybe.” My voice falls away, because since we got offered the job, we’ve been casing her. Purely professional, yeah complete BS.
“What happened?” Darius asks, adding another chuckle at the end.
“Stop fucking laughing, Dare!”
“You’re a clown, Ramses. Fuck, I’ve got tears in my eyes. The way you sound like you’re in full panic mode right now, it’s nothing short of gold.” He stops all pretence of trying not to laugh and starts snorting and wheezing.
Kai snaps, yelling at me. “What happened?”
I talk over the top of Darius and answer Kai. “She might not be aware, but there’s a part of her that recognised me. But she also saw past every disguise I was wearing.”
That small confession has them stop making a fucking sound, finally realizing how serious it is.
“Really? What happened then?” Kai asks, his anger giving way to concern.
I squeeze my eyes shut, shuddering at having to admit the truth to them. “She kneed me in the balls.”
For all of two seconds, a pin could have dropped before Darius dissolves into a fit of hysterics. His laughter kind of diffuses the tension. Eventually Kai joins in.
I chuckle too because it is pretty funny. We are not the three stooges at fucking all. We are next level experts who have trained for years in not being seen. Except for today apparently.
Darius sobers up first. “She really saw past your disguise, Ramses?”
