"We should talk," she said after a while, her voice soft in the quiet room. "About what happened today. About what happens next."
Reality crashed back like a cold wave. Rhea. My father. The threats that still loomed over us all. For a few precious moments, I'd forgotten everything but Elin and the way she made me feel.
"I know." I sighed, tightening my arm around her, loving just lying here like there wasn’t a care in the world. Just us. "But can we just . . . stay like this? Just for a little while longer?"
Her answer was to press closer, her hand coming to rest over my heart.
Chapter 43
Thearomaofcoffeeroused me from sleep. Outside, the streetlights still glowed against the pre-dawn darkness, casting long shadows across our bedroom ceiling. For a moment, I forgot everything—the danger, the plans, the need to get Rhea away from Juarez. Opening my eyes, I found myself alone in Elin's bed, the sheets still warm where she'd been sleeping beside me.
Stretching, I got up and pulled on a pair of sweatpants, not bothering with anything else at the moment, and padded barefoot toward the kitchen. The sight that greeted me was so unexpectedly domestic, it made my chest ache. Elin sat at the counter, coffee mug in hand, while Rhea leaned against the refrigerator, her hair still tousled from sleep.
"Morning, you hungry?"
“God, Elin. Doesn’t my brother have at least a T-shirt here?”
Elin smirked as she took another sip of her coffee. “Yes, but I rather like the view. If you don’t like it, don’t look.”
I took a couple steps to where she was and kissed her. “Anything for you, Goddess.”
“Ew. Gross. Gavriel, please.”
I chuckled and turned to her as I turned to make some breakfast for us all. “What? How is this any worse than the three of us going to a club and me having to see my best friend make out and dry fuck my sister? Or when I’d be over at his house and you’d walk in and basically start making out him right in front of me?”
Rhea looked at Elin with mock shock on her face. “I would never show that much public affection.”
I laughed as I poured the mix and water into a bowl and started beating the mixture for pancakes. “Really, because Joel used to tell me how he loved to . . .” I shuttered and made a disgusted face. “. . . haverelationswith his girlfriend in public.” I tipped my head to the side. “Though, that was before he told me he was datingyou.” I was unable to stop the smile that spread across my face at the memory of Joel’s absolute panic when he’d tried to tell me. The look on his face that night as he’d fumbled for words had been better than any prank I’d ever played. And I’d played a lot.
I looked at Elin, who was sipping her coffee, and then at Rhea, who was giving me a look like I’d just grown another head. “You know, you could have just told me,” I said. “Saved the man a lot of pain.”
Rhea rolled her eyes, grabbing a fork from the drawer and jabbing it in my direction. “As if you would have handled it maturely. Come on, Gav. You wouldn’t have been able to keep your mouth shut for thirty seconds.”
She wasn’t wrong. That was the worst part. “Yeah, but at least I wouldn’t have had to sit through months of Joel’s awkward attempts at talking about hisamazinggirlfriend. I was his best friend, you know. The stories he used to tell me . . .”
Her face turned bright red. “Oh my god, do not finish that sentence.”
Elin smirked, watching the whole exchange like she was front row at a comedy show. “I’m dying to hear, actually. Please, Gavriel. Enlighten us.”
Rhea’s eyes went wide. “Elin, this is your father!”
She took a sip of her coffee and smiled. “Yeah. He was old, not dead. Just don’t give me explicit details. Gavriel, please continue.”
I grinned and started cooking the batter into something editable. “Joel once told me he was seeing this girl who liked it rough. Like, really rough. Wanted him to tie her up, spank her, call her names.”
Rhea sputtered, nearly snorting coffee out her nose. “Shutup. You’re disgusting! You cannot be talking about this. At breakfast, no less.”
I shrugged, totally unbothered. “Hey, you’re the one who kept it a secret. You should have told me your kinks before you started dating my best friend.”
“Yeah, that’s a totally normal conversation to have with your big brother.” She rolled her eyes.
Elin’s lips curled into a smile as she handed Rhea a fresh mug. “Don’t worry, Rhea. Your brother is just jealous because you got all the adventurous genes in the family.”
“Excuse you,” I shot back, but the words felt so light, so easy, that I was already laughing as I said them. “I’m plenty adventurous. I just like to save my kinks for the bedroom. Or, you know, wherever my Goddess tells me to.”
Rhea looked down at her coffee as if it might rescue her from the conversation. “This is the worst breakfast ever.”
I waggled my eyebrows at her, deliberately eating my pancakes with a little too much enthusiasm. “You’re blushing. Didn’t realize you were such a deviant, sis.”
