Page 46 of Business vs. Pleasure

Ricardo grabbed a pillow and tossed it at August, who cackled and knocked it away. In his moment of distraction, Ricardo pounced, and he knew from the heat in August’s eyes that they’d be fucking tonight whether he tipped his hand or not.

“Come on,” August pleaded breathlessly. “Just tell me.”

Ugh. As fun as it was to taunt him, Ricardo wanted him a little too much for games.

Leaning down to kiss August’s neck, he murmured, “It was nothing. I just took care of something with his mother-in-law.”

August tensed. “You offed his mother-in-law?”

Ricardo laughed, and he shook his head as he pushed himself back up. “No. I didn’t kill his mother-in-law.”

An eyebrow flicked up. “So, what did you do? Fuck her or something?”

“Oh fuck you.” Ricardo started to pull away, but August laughed, wrapped his arms around his neck, and drew him back down.

“Come on! Tell me!” He hooked a leg around Ricardo’s thigh and pulled him down so their erections rubbed together. In a low growl, he repeated, “Tell me.”

Ricardo could be as stubborn as anyone including the man beneath him, but he was too hard and needy to tease. He bit August’s collarbone, reveling in the way it made him gasp and arch. Then he nipped his earlobe before he said, “He knew his mother-in-law would be an attention-seeking pain in the ass at his wedding. So he paid me to be her date.”

August tensed again, though not quite as much as before. “Wait, so you did fuck her?”

“No, no.” Ricardo kissed along the underside of August’s jaw. “I just showed up with her, fawned all over her, danced with her, and made sure she got home.”

At that, August relaxed. “Oh. So you were just… like… the mother-in-law wrangler.” He deflated. “Well, that’s kind of anticlimactic.”

Ricardo pushed himself up again and glared down at his husband. “And it got my ghost profile approved in under an hour. Are you really going to look that gift horse in the mouth?”

August gave a bratty shrug. “I mean, I think I⁠—”

Ricardo shut him up with a hard, demanding kiss.

And August didn’t bitch about anything being anticlimactic for the rest of the night.

The next morning, as Ricardo watched with satisfaction as his husband gingerly got out of bed, his phone pinged with a text.

Rolling his eyes, Ricardo reached for his phone. It never stopped, did it? Before he checked the message, he stole another glance at August, grinning at the slight hitch in his step and the faint bruises on his hips. That handprint on his right butt cheek was sublime. Fuck, last night had been hot.

As August disappeared into the bathroom for a shower, Ricardo shook himself and looked at his phone.

Heidi

Are you sure about this?

Do you have any better ideas?

No, but having you guys bail on a hit doesn’t look good.

Having NightPigeon fuck up our jobs doesn’t look any better.

Touche.

And you got the second job, right?

Yes. It’s assigned to you boys. I hope you know what you’re doing.

Ricardo hoped so too. Last night, before he’d finally joined August in sleep, he’d set up another profile on RateYourHit. A client profile, this time. Allen had approved it, and Ricardo had created a dummy job. Fake names. A fake location. A detailed backstory about why one Herschel Clanton of Goshen, Arkansas, needed his father dispatched immediately. The patriarch refused to retire from the family business, which eldest son Herschel was eager to take over.

The job? Stage an agricultural accident on the neighbor’s soybean farm, which would ideally result in a lawsuit that would allow Herschel to take over the farm in question.