But I wasn’t going to give Cassie a microwavable meal after her night in the tunnels.
I pulled out the eggs and butter and took them to the commercial range we’d had installed when we’d renovated the house.
Vigo hopped on the counter. “Not gonna lie, I’m psyched to have a sweet little virgin.”
“I’m glad somebody’s happy about it,” I said, cutting open a pack of bacon.
“Why wouldn’t you be happy about it?” Vigo swung his legs back and forth. “We’ve never had a virgin.”
“Because it makes things more complicated,” I said. “And things are already complicated enough.”
“It doesn’t have to be complicated.”
“Only if you’re a sadist.” I started cracking eggs into a bowl. “Or a moron.”
“He’s right.” Hawk stepped into the kitchen and grabbed an apple out of the bowl of fruit on the island. He’d changed into clean jeans and a T-shirt, his hair damp from the shower. “It’s complicated.”
I looked at him in surprise. Hawk wasn’t as… unfiltered as Vigo but he was every bit as unhinged.
“Why?” Vigo asked. “She knew what she was signing for. And she said shewantsto lose her virginity.”
“It’s simpler for her than it is for us,” I said.
Hawk sat on one of the leather chairs at the island. “Exactly. She just has to decide she wants someone to pop her cherry. Being the ones to do it is a bigger deal, especially because she’s Bram’s little sister.”
“I don’t see what that has to do with Cassie’s virginity,” Vigo said.
“It has everything to do with it,” Hawk said. “It’s one thing to know your sister is getting fucked. It’s something else to know she’s never been fucked and is about to get fucked by three guys at the same time.”
I was a little surprised Hawk gave a shit. Giving a shit wasn’t Hawk’s style, and it wasn’t like he had sisters. None of us did. Then again, the specter of Bram’s wrath loomed large. It had been easy to shrug it off in the tunnel where we made the rules, where Bram himself had once made the rules. The real world seemed far away during the Hunt, possible consequences to our actions so remote they were rendered meaningless.
But aboveground in the harsh light of day?
I wasn’t going to lie: I was starting to wonder what we’d been thinking when we’d claimed Cassie Montgomery.
I started laying slices of bacon in the pan. “We should’ve cut her loose.”
“We’d already marked her,” Hawk said around the bite of apple in his mouth.
He was right. By the time we’d known Cassie was a virgin, we’d already marked her with our blood, had already put our collar around her neck.
“Still.” I was starting to spin, looking for a way out to stem the rising tide of anxiety in my gut.
“It’s too late now,” Hawk said.
“So who gets to do it?” Vigo asked.
I glared at him because Vigo had no impulse control, and that was going to be a problem with Cassie Montgomery living in the house.
“To be determined,” Hawk said.
He was trying to sound cool, but I heard the tension in his voice, knew he was already dreaming about being the one to give Cassie a great first fuck.
I didn’t understand the surge of jealousy that rose in my body. Hawk, Vigo, and I shared everything, including women. I actually couldn’t remember the last time I’d fucked a woman alone, or the last time I’d even wanted to.
The problem was that our tolerance for excitement — for danger — had been stretched to the limit by design. It wasn’t just the way we made our living, which would have been enough danger to send any normal person looking for a nice quiet accounting job.
It was the way we lived, the bargain we’d struck when we’d gone all in with each other, Vigo ditching his professor gig while I quit my job on Wall Street (the FBI had already been in Hawk’s rearview at that point).
