Page 41 of Business vs. Pleasure

August hummed thoughtfully. “Arrival within the next two days, target dead in five?”

“Huh.” There was a brief clacking noise. “How did you know that?”

His lips curled with satisfaction. “I’m brilliant at everything, obviously.” August glanced at Ricardo and was glad to see the question in his eyes had subsided now that he knew August wasn’t about to pull the rug out from under them by changing his mind on the fly about taking a final job. He leaned back from the table and crossed his arms, implicitly giving control of the conversation to August.

Aww. August would have just taken control one way or another, but it was nice when Ricardo let him have his way too. He winked at his husband, then said, “Try again.”

“Um… all right, here’s a contract on an oil magnate who⁠—”

“No.”

“August!” Heidi huffed in exasperation. “You two take A-level contracts, and those are almost always going to be for very wealthy people. They’re the only fees that have ever made you sit up and pay attention before.”

“I don’t give a shit about the fee,” August said. “Genuinely. I don’t care whether our next job’s fee is paid in bunches of bananas or shares in a pangolin sanctuary. We’re not taking on a rich bitch for our next job. Keep looking.”

There was a heavy sigh. “Give me a moment.”

A tinny, instrumental version of “Fuck the Police” started playing over the phone, and August sat back in his chair and took a sip of his mimosa. Mm, Elodie kept the best champagne on hand, he’d have to⁠—

“You’re testing her.”

August smiled at Ricardo. “Not just her.”

Ricardo didn’t quite smile back, but it was enough that August could tell he wanted to. “I’ve never had a problem with Heidi,” he pointed out.

“And that’s wonderful. It’s been three years since you last worked with her, though. Circumstances change. People change.” He shrugged. “But honestly, I don’t think our troubles have anything to do with Heidi. She’s been doing her job exactly how we asked her to, which is by finding the highest-paying contracts on offer that are best suited to us and that would give her a significant fee, which means billionaires, for the most part. Under normal circumstances, you know I’d be all about culling my own clan.”

“You’re a bit of a sociopath, baby.”

August preened. “It’s part of my charm.”

Ricardo rolled his eyes. “So you want to avoid our usual and see if we can have a job go normally.”

“Exactly. And if it does, then hooray, all’s well and good, we do the deed and say our fond farewells, but if it doesn’t?” If it, in fact, ended up going all to shit while endangering their lives? “Then we know there’s something wrong on the agency side of things. Either with the security of the website, or the way the jobs are vetted, or…”

“Or with Heidi.”

August pointed a finger-gun at his husband. “Bang-bang, baby.”

Ricardo reached out and snagged a finger in the edge of August’s shirt. “Rude,” he said dryly, and August laughed in delight as his husband pulled him onto his lap.

“That’s my word,” he insisted, leaning forward until their chests were pressed together. He wrapped his arms around Ricardo’s neck and brushed his lips in a teasing kiss. “You don’t get to use it without paying the tax.”

“What would you know about paying taxes?” Ricardo scoffed. “Your people are famous for avoiding them, remember?”

August pouted. “I don’t evade taxes! I never have, even when I lived in the States. They’re the foundation of a functional nation, and I like paying for infrastructure and educating children and making sure there’s a safety net for⁠—”

Ricardo cut August’s tirade off with a kiss, slipping one hand around his waist and the other up into his hair so he could tilt August’s head just so, sliding his tongue across the plush line of August’s mouth until he opened up and let Ricardo inside. August squirmed as his cock began to fill, pressing uncomfortably up into the seam of his shorts, fucking Armani, they never cut enough room into their ready-to-wears. He could ignore it for a while, though; long enough to make his husband lose his mind and carry him off to their room so they could⁠—

“—cuse me? Are you even there anymore? August? Ricardo?”

Ricardo pulled away from the kiss with a slick noise that made August immediately follow him back in, but then—“Mmph!” He covered August’s entire mouth with his palm as he said, “Sorry, Heidi, we’re here. We’re listening.”

“What the fuck?” That was what August tried to say, at least. It came out more like “Whhfffhhh?”

“Good. All right, I did a quick run-down on some of your specialty work over the years, and I’ve got a few jobs that I think will appeal to your sensibilities. They do not meet your current standards for compensation,” she emphasized, “but they’re the sort of thing you’ve done in the past.”

“Go ahead.”