Page 99 of Duty

Raw.

And oh, so good.

And when he couldn’t take it anymore—when he was lost in the sounds of her noises and the way she looked and how she felt around him—he yanked her down for a kiss that shattered his mind.

Yeah, he’d definitely missed this.

• • •

Andino laughed at the sight of Haven tossing Snaps’ latest teddy bear high into the air. She practically squealed, and she might have jumped up and down on the spot, when Snaps darted across the kitchen, spun sideways, and did a back flip to catch the teddy bear in his mouth.

“Did you see that?”

Andino nodded. “I taught him that.”

“What else can he do?”

“Pretty much anything—as long as it doesn’t require thumbs. He likes to learn, and he enjoys pleasing people.”

Also biting people when he doesn’t like them.

Andino didn’t add that little fact out loud. He didn’t think Haven would appreciate it, really. She liked Snaps. No need to go scaring her, too.

Haven smiled. “Does he bring in the newspaper, too?”

“No, he ruins those.”

Haven cocked a brow. “Really?”

“Newspapers hinder his walking time. You know, because then I’m sitting, and not walking him.”

At that statement, Andino gave his dog a look from the side. Snaps simply stared back with his purple teddy bear that Andino had picked up from a street vendor hanging from his mouth by a skinny arm. The dog regularly went through toys like it was going out of style. Nothing was safe from the wrath that was Snaps when he wanted to ruin something. Even those indestructible dog toys—those were fucking child’s play to Snaps, frankly.

Snaps dropped the teddy bear to the floor, and let out one loud bark. Andino gave him another one of his looks, saying, “We know you want to play.”

The dog just barked again.

And then again.

Andino quickly figured out Snaps wasn’t trying to get someone to play—he was alerting him to someone coming in the house, but Andino’s attention was otherwise distracted what with Haven being there and all.

“Andi?”

Shit.

At the sound of a woman’s voice calling his name, Haven’s gaze narrowed in on him instantly. Andino was stuck between cursing the heavens, and wanting to laugh because of how pissed off Haven looked in that moment.

“Relax,” he told her, slipping around the island, “it’s my mother.”

Haven softened her posture. “Oh. Kim, right?”

“Kim, yep.”

“Andino?”

He could have tried to get his mother out of the house before she even knew Haven was there—no doubt, she was going to go back to his father, let Giovanni know there was a woman at their son’s home, and then his dad would take that info to Dante. It was only going to take his mother describing Haven—she didn’t exactly blend in—and they were going to know exactly who his mother had found at his place.

Sure, he could have tried to stop that from happening.