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  They were skimming close to her stripping and Mag wasn’t going to take it there.

  If she wanted to talk about it, he was game to listen.

  No judgments.

  But her Computer Raiders getup wasn’t as cute as that tee she had on.

  Noting that, if it was his choice, she’d be off Smithie’s stage and fixing people’s computers full time.

  And earning her degree the rest of it.

  It wasn’t his choice.

  “So yeah,” she went on. “I think Mom spoiling Mick and doting on him, and making me, and in some cases Sid, pick up his slack made him lazy and selfish and thoughtless. But I think for him it’s in the genes.”

  She pulled out the leftover slices of bacon that weren’t cooked that morning and arranged them in the skillet.

  She turned on the gas, adjusted it and looked to him.

  “Do you think I should prepare for something really bad happening to my brother?”

  “I honestly don’t know,” he told her.

  She stared at him.

  Then she asked, “What aren’t you telling me?”

  “Not something I haven’t said before. The place he’s in he put himself in and no matter what your mother said to you today, it isn’t on you.”

  “What else aren’t you telling me?”

  Shit.

  Damn.

  “Evie—”

  “I know he knows the bag is gone, Danny. Mom made that clear. And I figure it was you that told him when you went to go see him. How was he? Was he freaked?”

  He gave it to her straight.

  “Yes. And, baby, what I don’t wanna say, what I told him I’d tell you, but I’ve been struggling with telling you is, he didn’t give a thought to you. Even knowing he’d landed you in shit, he was all about him.”

  She looked down to the frying bacon.

  Fuck.

  Her fucking family.

  He hopped off the counter, opened a drawer, grabbed a fork and moved in behind her.

  He slid one arm around her to hold her to him and used his other hand to shift the bacon so it wouldn’t stick.

  “I’ve made a mess of my life, Danny,” she told the bacon.

  “Join the club, Evie,” he said into her ear.

  “I’m sorry you think your life is a mess,” she whispered.

  “And I’m sorry yours is a mess,” he replied. “Though I’ll note, strongly, it’s not of your making.”

  “How do you…?” she didn’t finish.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Nothing.”

  He wanted to push.

  He didn’t push.

  He just moved bacon around in a skillet.

  “After dinner, do you mind if I blow off the movie to go through the boxes Lottie and Ava brought around?” she asked.

  “Whatever you want, baby,” he murmured.

  “Thanks,” she mumbled, reached out and took the fork from his hand. “I got it from here.”

  He did the only thing he felt it was cool to do in that moment.

  He pressed his hand against her stomach and his jaw against the side of her head.

  Then he let her go and went to the fridge, saying, “I won’t offer you a beer.”

  She shot him a grin. It was small, but it was real.

  “What do you drink?” he asked.

  “Cold-pressed juice.”

  She was right there with him, boneless wing for boneless wing.

  So he was surprised by her answer.

  “Really?”

  “No.” Her smile was now bigger. “You think I’d pay six bucks for a juice?”

  He did not.

  He wanted there to be a time when she wouldn’t think too much about that.

  But now she did.

  “Though I’ve treated myself on occasion and they’re yummy,” she muttered.

  “You had beer at your pad,” he noted.

  “No, I had ale at my pad,” she corrected him. “I drink ale. I drink stout. I drink craft beer where the operative word is ‘craft,’ as in craftsmanship went into the making of that beverage, which is far elevated from just beer.”

  “So, you’re a beer snob,” he teased.

  “Absolutely,” she said without shame.

  He made a mental note to buy some decent beer.

  This he did while he popped the tab on a Bud and headed back to resume his seat on the counter.

  “Don’t think I missed how you lost at shotgunning and wiggled out of Anaconda. Totally watching that your next night off.”

  “Can I admit something to you?” she asked.

  “No judgment here, Evie, ever,” he answered.

  She gave him a long look and he really hoped she saw what he wanted her to see.

  “Scary movies freak me out. I don’t sleep great anyway. But a scary movie can mess me up for weeks,” she said. “Even bad ones.”

  “I’ll pick something else,” he replied immediately and then went alert when her body jolted.

  They were having another Toothpaste Moment. He saw it.

  “You’re a pushover, Daniel Magnusson,” she said softly.

  She totally had no issue with scary movies.

  “I’m really not, Evie,” he replied in her same tone. “Not normally.”

  Oh yeah.

  The way she was looking at him?

  They were totally having another Toothpaste Moment.

  He smiled at her.

  She smiled back.

  Quickly.

  Then she turned to the bacon.

  Chapter Eleven

  The Test of Us

  Evie

  The next morning, I was in the bathroom, brushing my teeth, when I heard it.

  I finished quickly, spit, rinsed, wiped and headed out.

  Just as I suspected.

  Mag was standing at the counter in nothing but his loose shorts that ran long, almost to his knees, and he was beating something in a bowl.

  But when I hit the space, he turned to me, his expression telling me he was about to smile and say some good morning–type words, but his body arrested when he clapped eyes on me.

  I had to admit, my new sleep set was cute.

  Shorts and racer-back cami, ivory with black flowers on them.

  But he’d only given my body a cursory glance.

  He was staring at my head.

  “You’re making breakfast,” I accused.

  “Well…yeah.”

  I stomped his way, stating, “I can’t offer a multilayered thank-you if you keep doing things for yourself. You helped clean up after dinner last night.”

  “Babe, you cooked.”

  I stopped beside him where his body was still turned to the counter, somewhat twisted my way, his hand on the spoon he was using to mix what was in the bowl, and I slammed my hands on my hips.

  “Yes!” I snapped. “But it doesn’t say ‘thank you’ to fry up messy burgers then make you help me clean up after. Cleanup is the worst part. And it doesn’t say ‘thank you’ to wander into the kitchen in the morning and have you serve me food.”

  He didn’t respond verbally.

  He lifted his free hand and tugged at the hairband I’d used to put a topknot in my hair so I could brush my teeth and wash my face without it getting in the way. A hairband that was oddly precious to me seeing as it was one of the few things the bad guys hadn’t destroyed.

  Mag pulled it out and my hair came tumbling down.

  I felt all of that in my nipples.

  “Fuck me,” he whispered, his eyes wandering my face and hair in sultry admiration.

  And I felt that right between my legs.

  So of course, being me, I attacked.

  I heard the spoon Mag had been using in whatever he was making in that bowl clatter soggily to the countertop as he caught me in his arms.

  He’d learned, fortunately for him.

  Thus, he clamped one arm tight around my waist, his other hand he wrapped around the base of my head, cont
rolling it, tilting it to the side, then his mouth came down on mine.

  Hard.

  I opened my lips and his tongue instantly invaded, and tasting him, receiving the signal he couldn’t wait even an instant to taste me, I pressed tight, fisted both hands in the back of his hair…

  And went at him.

  He returned the gesture.

  We did some shuffling around, Mag to press me back into the counter so he could fit himself deeper into me.

  Me turning him so I could do the same.

  Him turning me to regain the dominant position.

  Me approving of this nonverbally because it gave me a cleaner go at his back, which I was headily exploring with one of my hands, doing this moving south.

  Mag realizing he’d limited his exploratory options by pressing me to the counter, so he whirled me again.

  My fingers were caught in the waistband of his shorts.

  His hand was going up inside my cami.

  All of this we did without dislodging our mouths.

  There was nothing nice about it. Nothing sweet.

  It was hot and sexy and reckless and intoxicating.

  It was careless and freeing and exciting and magnificent.

  I’d never experienced anything like it. Never been lost to a kiss, to the feelings that kiss created, to a man like that.

  He was stroking the side of my breast with the pad of his thumb while I was pressing even closer, like I wanted to climb him, feeling him growing hard against my belly, when I tore my mouth from his.

  “Yes, Danny,” I breathed, giving him permission to stop the torture at the side of my breast and just take it.

  “Christ, you’re gorgeous,” he whispered, staring down at me with hooded, dilated eyes, moving his hand, cupping my breast, now using the pad of his thumb to take a swipe at my nipple.

  Oh God, that felt good.

  I moaned, my head falling back, and locked him to the counter by giving him my weight, seeing as my legs couldn’t hold me up anymore.

  “Gorgeous,” he growled.

  Then his mouth was back on mine, he was sucking my tongue into his, circling my nipple with his thumb while I tried to burrow into him, wiggling against his hardness, attempting to force my hand down his shorts to get to his ass.

  He groaned down my throat and then ripped his mouth from mine.

  When it didn’t go somewhere else, I blinked up at him.

  His head was turned to the door.

  “This is not happening,” he snarled.

  He was wrong.

  “It” was happening.

  The door was opening.

  And there we stood, me practically fused with Mag, his hand up my cami, my hand in his hair, the other one unsuccessful, but obvious in its bid to get to his ass, while Mo, Axl, Boone and another guy I hadn’t met yet strolled in.

  Mag took his hand from under my cami, but he didn’t allow me to move away. He wrapped that arm around me and I figured he did this because he liked me where I was, but also because, from what I could tell, he was fully erect, there was significant promise to that erection, and it wasn’t something he wanted his buds to see.

  “Explain,” he barked to his friends.

  Mo was looking at his feet.

  The rest of them were grinning audaciously at us.

  “I’m not hearing any words,” Mag warned.

  “You see,” Boone began, “there’s a pool.”

  I was not keeping up.

  I’d barely processed the fact the activities had been interrupted.

  Why was Boone talking about a pool?

  “It’s a Rock Chick thing,” Axl explained as he sauntered in further. “We all got in late, our slots on when you two are gonna seal the deal aren’t for two weeks, Lots said you guys were goin’ at it yesterday morning, and we’re dudes, so we know the drill, consequently we figured we had to instigate some evasive maneuvers early in the morning.”

  Mo’s head came up. “I didn’t place a bet. I’m here ’cause I got an update. These jackasses just wouldn’t let me knock.”

  Oh God.

  I didn’t have one frat boy on my hands.

  I had four.

  I looked up at Mag and snapped, “You need to confiscate keys.”

  “No kidding,” he said angrily, but his gaze was still aimed at his buds.

  “Mag’s making pancakes,” the one I had not met yet, who I assumed was Auggie, declared.

  “Fuck yeah,” Boone replied happily.

  “I’m not feeding you all pancakes,” Mag declared.

  “Am I on Evan today or what?” Auggie asked. And before Mag could answer, he went on, “That’s a marker. And my payback is your pancakes.”

  “His pancakes are freaking brilliant,” Axl told me.

  “Totally got the touch with pancakes,” Boone muttered.

  They were all milling about, taking stools at the island, or leaning into it. Axl even rounded it to head to the coffeepot.

  All while Mag and I stood in each other’s arms, staring (or more aptly, glaring) at them.

  Most women, maybe every breathing one on the face of the planet, would not be crotchety at the company I was keeping right then.

  This was because Boone was a tall, dark-blond, green-eyed Adonis.

  Axl had a full head of silver hair, prematurely that color or he was born with it, I didn’t know, but it was fabulous, and coupled with his ice-blue eyes, he was a sight to behold.

  And I couldn’t be sure, it was a fantastical thought, but from the sheer perfection of Auggie’s swarthy good looks, he might actually be a Greek god roaming the earth.

  Even so.

  Them being there, I was crotchety.

  Rationally (and such thoughts were not coming to me fast enough around Mag), I should be glad for the interruption.

  Attacking Mag first thing in the morning was not conducive to me eventually gently extricating myself from his life, after, of course, I gave him what it was clear he needed, the opportunity to look after me while things were uncertain.

  But I was far from glad for the interruption.

  I felt it before Mag demonstrated he had a lock on his condition, his demonstration taking the form of putting his hands under my arms, twisting and planting my ass on his counter, then pulling himself up beside me.

  And once he had us where he wanted us, he honed in on Mo.

  “You got an update?” he prompted before he turned to Axl. “Pour a cup for Evie. She takes a shot of cream.”

  Axl was grinning hugely as he muttered, “Gotcha,” and reached for another mug.

  Mag looked back at Mo.

  “Yeah?” he pushed.

  Mo glanced at me and back to Mag.

  I read what that meant.

  “Oh no,” I said. “I get to know. I’m not kept in the dark.”

  “She’s not kept in the dark,” Mag confirmed.

  Mo’s barrel chest expanded, and he blew out a sigh that I was pretty certain wafted my hair back before he leaned into a hand on the island.

  I braced because none of that seemed a precursor to good news.

  “Snag, short for Snaggletooth, street name for Fletcher Gumm,” Mo began. “He runs a couple of girls.”

  I went solid.

  That guy I met, a guy my brother knew, ran a couple of girls?

  “He’s a pimp?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Mo verified shortly. “Evie, did you look into that bag?”

  “Danny did,” I said.

  “Danny,” Auggie muttered amusedly.

  Mag ignored him and stated, “Oxy, meth, coke, a lot of it.”

  “So much they’d tear Evan’s place apart?” Mo asked.

  That was when I felt Mag go solid.

  He then hopped off the counter, wrapped his fingers around my knee, and laser focused on Mo.

  “We didn’t empty the bag,” he shared. He looked to me. “Did you go through it?”

  I shook my head.

  He turned back to Mo.
r />   “Well, Boone and I had the occasion to chat with a few of Snag’s girls last night,” Mo said.

  Great.

  Absolutely fabulous.

  My brother’s crap meant Mo and Boone had to find then chat with prostitutes.

  “Snag is in the wind,” Mo continued. “But one of his girls said one of his other girls had a john who had something she decided she wanted. Snag found out about it. He commandeered it. Word got out she stole it, and now she’s dead.”

  “Oh my God,” I whispered.

  “Though, before she was taken out, she shared Snag had it. Now he’s in the wind.”

  “What is it?” Mag asked.

  “That, I don’t know, the girl who shared all this didn’t know, and who’s looking for it, she also didn’t know,” Mo answered.

  Great.

  Absolutely freaking fabulous.

  “So, maybe they found Snag, who led them to Evie, and they got it back and this is all done?” Mag suggested.

  “Maybe,” Mo said ominously.

  “You know more?” Mag asked.

  “Dick,” Mo told him, shaking his bald head.

  “So, we continue efforts to find Gumm at the same time wait and see if they make a move on Evan, or her brother, to know if whatever it is, is back where it belongs,” Mag deduced.

  “Yeah, without any other leads, those are the plays we got,” Mo replied.

  No one was happy with this, I could feel, including me.

  But it was only me who sat there, paralyzed.

  I didn’t know what to do or say or how this could possibly be worse than what it was before.

  A woman was dead.

  I felt Mag’s fingers give my knee a squeeze and heard him murmur, “Evie.”

  I focused on him. “You guys have to stop.”

  “We will when we know you’re safe,” he replied.

  “A woman is dead.”

  I watched Mag’s mouth grow tight.

  “It was in the bag,” I said. “Everything that was in that bag when I got it was in it when it was taken. I’m done. I don’t know anything. I’m out.”

  “There’s a scenario to that where you’re not out,” Mag noted.

  My voice was rising when I cried, “How can that be? I’m not in that life!”