Page 9 of Business vs. Pleasure

He did not, however, fuck August into the mattress. Not tonight.

After all, there was a reason they kept a bottle of lube in the bar up here on the roof.

August was, unsurprisingly, in a good mood the next morning. He usually was after Ricardo plowed him that hard, especially under the stars.

Coffee in hand, he eased himself down on their enormous sofa beside Ricardo. Sitting a little bit carefully this morning—perfect.

Fidgeting subtly, as if Ricardo wouldn’t notice, August said, “I heard back from one of my local contacts.” He tossed his phone on the coffee table. “No one’s heard anything about someone wanting to break into our place, and so far, no one’s been reported missing.”

“So, it was probably someone who could keep his mouth shut and wasn’t local.”

“Probably. Ah well. They’ll keep asking around. I doubt it was just some thrill-seeking teenagers if they made it as far as they did.”

Ricardo grunted. “Probably not. What did you do with the ashes?”

August sipped his coffee. “Put them in the compost pile.”

“You—” Ricardo eyed him. “You’re joking, right?”

“What?” August shrugged. “It’s good for the plants! And Karmena is still trying to unfuck the soil from when you tried”—he made air quotes—“gardening.”

“Wood ash, August. It’s supposed to be wood ash.”

“Meh. It’ll be fine. And if it’s not, I’ll just say it’s a leftover problem from everything you did to the garden.”

Ricardo groaned.

His husband elbowed him. “I’m kidding. I wouldn’t put human remains in the garden.” Rolling his eyes, he tsked, shifting gingerly on the cushion again. “I drove a few miles and tossed them on a beach. That way if someone finds a tooth or a bone fragment or something, they might be able to identify him, but they’ll never identify him as our problem.”

“Better than using him to kill the garden,” Ricardo muttered.

“Says the man with more confirmed plant kills than human.”

Ricardo gave him the finger.

August just snickered, because of course he did. Yes, they were definitely back on solid ground, as if that hadn’t been obvious when August was coming down Ricardo’s throat early this morning.

“So.” August gestured with his coffee cup. “Should we reach out to Heidi?”

Ricardo put his own cup on the table. “It’s three in the morning where she lives.”

“And?”

Ricardo elbowed him. “I’m not waking her up again.”

“Ugh. Fine.” August sipped his coffee. “We’ll do what you want to do.”

Ricardo chuckled. “She did, however, send me some details.”

August perked up. “Oh yeah?”

“Mmhmm.” Ricardo handed over the phone, and he waited while August read what she’d sent.

It was exactly the kind of job she’d often sent him once he’d started working with August. There were plenty of gigs he could handle on his own, but when he’d partnered with the only other assassin who’d come close to knocking him out of the top spot on RateYourHit, the jobs got even juicier.

In this case, the client wanted the hit to look like a hit. That made things easy. Ricardo absolutely could make it look like an accident, like natural causes, or—in one memorable case—like a heart attack following an amorous encounter with some large livestock. Those were certainly doable.

But making it very obvious the person had been murdered by a professional? Ricardo was a sniper, for Christ’s sake. Nothing said “this was a professional hit” like a high caliber bullet through the head from a significant distance. Easy peasy, done and dusted.