“Uh, he’s here,” Tris managed, voice rising on the last syllable before ending in a sharp inhalation. “We’re…exercising together.”
The rhythmic thumping on the other side of the line fell off, followed by what sounded suspiciously like muffled laughter and the squeak of bed springs.
“How nice for you. Can I talk to him instead?” Walker asked.
“Hand me that phone and I’m hanging up,” Cade said, voice muffled.
There was another huffed-out laugh, followed by a low, drawn-out moan.
“I’m hanging up,” Walker grumbled.
“No. No. No. No. No,” Tris begged, clearly shifting position.
Tris’s chant had Walker thinking about moments ago. The memory arrived uninvited: Kota pinned against the wall of the shower, pleading with Walker to keep going. Kota flushed and breathless, eyes glassy.
His cock hardened almost instantly, reminding him that only one of them had gotten off.
Maybe that was why Cade and Tris’s sexcapades were annoying him more than usual.
“Then put Cade on the phone,” Walker stated.
“My husband doesn’t know shit about anything. Unless you’ve finally decided to use the matchmaker feature again? Is that it? Are you trying to get my husband to do a job with you? Oh, wow. That’s not where I thought that would go. I thought it could be like a murder mate feature. A meet-cute for killers.” The throbbing in Walker’s skull intensified. “Just to be clear, you’re not Cade’s type. You know that, right? He’s not into those jacked-up Iowa farm boys. I’m his type. Me. He likes me.”
Somewhere in the background, Cade made a noise that sounded suspiciously like agreement.
Walker pinched the bridge of his nose.
This conversation had somehow become less productive than talking to Carrot Cake, and Carrot Cake’s primary form of communication was screaming at him when her food bowl was half empty.
“A twink with verbal diarrhea and a sugar addiction?” Walker questioned.
“Hey!” Tris cried, then deflated. “I mean, you’re not wrong, but still.”
“Please, can I talk to Cade?” Walker said, exasperated.
“No. Don’t be rude,” Tris panted. “He’ll kick your ass. My husband is very protective of me. Isn’t that right, baby?”
“Yes,” Cade growled, entirely too close to the speaker for Walker’s comfort. “Very.”
There was a brief silence, followed by a noise Walker very deliberately chose not to identify.
Tris gasped, then made some kind of half-bitten off sound that made Walker huff out a breath through his nose.
“See?” Tris said smugly.
“Christ, you’re annoying,” Walker said. “Can you two stop fucking for five minutes so we can have this conversation?”
Tris cackled. Walker heard a rustling of fabric, then Tris saying to Cade, “Take five, baby. We’ll pick this up in a minute.”
There was a low snarl of frustration before Cade grumbled, “Hurry up.” This was followed by a sharp slap of skin-on-skin and Tris yelping in pain.
“I’m serious,” Cade said menacingly.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Tris retorted dismissively.
Walker could practically hear the eye-roll.
Rainwater dripped onto the brim of his hat as he circled around the truck, weaving between puddles. The headache behind his eye had spread to encompass most of his skull.
