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She held out a mug, waiting until I came to her, and pulled it back at the last second so my hands grasped at the empty space where it had been. Playing children’s games, I see. With her free hand, Ray tapped her cheek, turning her head and pouting. When I didn’t move, her eyes shifted to the side, watching me.
“I can wait all day, sweets, and you know I’m strong enough to withhold this coffee from you.”
She was grating against me again, and I ground my teeth together before planting a quick kiss on her cheek. Her smile was wide with superiority as she handed me the mug, and I almost gagged on the bitterness of the coffee as it simultaneously burned my tongue.
“A kiss for this? Doesn’t seem like I got a good trade.”
She licked her lips, her eyes flashing. “Do you want me to kiss you somewhere else to make up for it?”
I felt a rush of warmth between my legs at the memory of the extended orgasm she had pulled from me, almost painful in the pleasure. Ray had kept going until almost every drop of energy had been drained from my body. It felt like minutes, but even if it was thirty seconds, it was still the longest and most intense fucking orgasm I’ve ever had in my life, and I was getting wet simply thinking about obtaining that level of pleasure again.
Ray bit her lip, her eyes dropping to my pants before back up to my face, and I knew she sensed what I was thinking.
“Some sugar in the coffee will do,” I said dryly. Ray had already gotten the upper hand, planting her dominance with the kiss-for-a-coffee move, and I didn’t like how this dynamic was developing. I needed to regain some ground here.
“You sing in the shower.”
Her statement threw me, and I stared at her blankly for a moment before bringing myself back to reality. “Yeah, didn’t know you could hear me.”
She laughed. “It was cute. I haven’t heard the song before.”
““Daydream Believer.” My mum used to sing it to me.”
“Is she dead?” Ray bit her lip, adding quickly, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for it to sound so harsh.”
Pursing my lips, I waited a beat before I responded. This wasn’t really a topic I wanted to get into at all, let alone with Ray. “No, both my parents are alive, I just don’t see them anymore.”
“Why?”
“What’s with all the questions?”
Ray leaned on the counter, resting her chin in her hands. “I’m curious about you.”
Sighing, I mirrored her posture.
Fine.
“My dad was military as well. When I was medically discharged, I might as well have been a deserter in his eyes. Either you die on the field or you retire with style, and anything else is a disappointment.” Why was I telling her this? I hadn’t spoken to anyone about this other than Kelly, and even then, I hadn’t given her much more than enough well-chosen words to get her to leave the topic alone. “My mom’s Columbian. Dad was never happy his genes didn’t steamroll over hers with me like they did with my brothers. I look like Mom, my brothers all look like Dad. I was doomed to be a disappointment from the start.”
“I like your sexy caramel skin,” Ray purred.
I snorted. “Can you not compare my skin to food, please, demon?”
Ray purred again, making some throwaway comment about eating me up which I chose to ignore. Ray continued, “So, your dad was a high rank then.” She tapped her chin, and I wondered what she was thinking.
“You don’t get much higher.”
“Why doesn’t your mom leave him if he treats her like he does you?”
I eyed her. “No one says no to the General.”
“You did.”
I didn’t need to say and look where it got me.
Living on the wrong end of the city, spending my nights tracking down demons.
We stared at each other for a beat. Ray shuffled around a bit, seemingly unsure as to what to say. There was nothing she could say anyway. I shrugged and straightened, reaching for the cupboard to fetch the sugar. She had asked, and I had answered. I didn’t need her sympathy.
“Ray, we need to figure out who you’ve pissed off,” I said.
“Who I pissed off… this year?”
My lip twitched. “Yeah, let’s start with that.”
“So, what’s the plan?” Ray asked, sliding up next to me as I stirred sugar into the bitter mess she called coffee, her shoulder bumping mine. She was so relaxed as though nothing had transpired between us. Perhaps to her, it was nothing more than pleasure, so I supposed it made sense I looked at it the same way.
Normally, not a problem for me. But Ray was a puzzle I was apparently determined to solve.
“We search for links between the places you’ve targeted, find out who runs them.”
She made a face. “I don’t think I can remember them all.”
“It’s fine. I have notes.”
“Oh yes, you’ve been stalking me. I forgot.”
I raised my eyebrows at her. “I prefer investigating, but yes, I guess so.” She smirked again, and while I fought to keep a neutral expression, I knew a twitch of my lip betrayed me. “You deserved it, though.”
“Never said I didn’t.” She grinned.
Christ, she was intoxicating but also cheeky and a troublemaker. I’d have my hands full as long as she was staying with me.
Speaking of hands being full…
My eyes shifted to her chest again, and I shook the thought from my mind. Not soon enough, though, judging by the look on her face. Once again, she knew exactly what I had been thinking.
Tipping the coffee into the sink, the sugar unable to save it, I dropped the mug in after it before heading to the coffee table, tossing papers to the side until I found the map I had made tracking Ray’s whereabouts.
“Wow, you have been busy,” Ray said as I sat at the breakfast bar before unrolling the map. Ray shook her empty mug after staring at my handiwork. “Mind if I have some more coffee?”
“Go for it,” I muttered, not looking up again.
Searching for patterns on the map, I put it together with what I had learned doing online research and asking around the streets while I tried to track Ray down in those first weeks. It was difficult to track who owned the businesses Ray had targeted, and to her credit, it did seem that it was almost completely random—no wonder the authorities thought it was a gang-war issue. The ownership of the buildings was tangled in layers upon layers of business names to protect the not-so-innocent, and I had learned more by asking people who were willing to talk on the street than I had from the internet.
Attempting to color code with only three different pens, I got to work. Looking up when there was an odd noise from the kitchen, I found Ray with a spoon in her mouth. She paused, sucking on the spoon, eyes widened slightly from the look I gave her like she had been busted doing something she shouldn’t.
“Are you…” my gaze flitted from the jar in her hand to the spoon in her mouth, “… eating dry instant coffee?”
“Yeah,” she mumbled, the word muffled around the spoon before she withdrew it from her mouth with a pop. “Is that a problem?”
“Ah, I guess not?”
I pulled a face as she took another spoonful, shoving it in her mouth before coming and sitting next to me.
“Whoa, look at all the places I hit,” she exclaimed, pride emanating through her voice. “Go me.”
“This isn’t something to be proud of.”
“Isn’t it?” She swept the empty spoon across the map. “Look at all these criminal bases that are now out of commission thanks to me.”
It was hard to argue with that, so I didn’t.
“It’s not your place to make those decisions.”
