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FIFTEEN
Decima
Finally,my hands were empty, and all that was left to do was wait for Anthea’s results.
I’d dropped off soil samples from a few different sections of the garden—soil that I’d stealthily scooped into little baggies while I’d wandered along the beds of flowers, pretending to be crouching down for a closer look and sniff. Once I’d left the house, I’d packed the samples carefully and sent them off by courier so Anthea would get them later today. She’d said it’d take a day or two for her to produce her results.
When I made it back to the house in the hill, the sun was waning, casting the entire world in a golden light. I found the guys all huddled around the sofa, flipping through channels on the TV and looking like they’d just finished squabbling over who would hold the remote. Unsurprisingly, Julius was the current victor. But the moment they heard me enter, he clicked off the screen and they all turned toward me.
“There she is,” Garrison said with a clap of his hands. “Is everything taken care of?”
I nodded and flopped into the space in the center of the sofa that was just big enough for me, right between Julius and Talon. “Anthea promised that when the courier got the samples to her, it would go to the top of her priority list.”
“You know, this is how Talon and I tested out new members of the crew,” Julius said, letting his fingers brush over my knee in a way that sent sparks right up my leg. “Set them up on a trial mission that they have to handle on their own.”
“I wasn’t completely by myself,” I felt the need to remind him. “Garrison helped with the diversion.”
Garrison rolled his eyes. “I hardly did anything. Without me, you would have easily handled the guards. Drawing them away was easy.”
“Still, I didn’t do it alone.”
Blaze cut into the conversation. “Were you alone in the room with the target?” I nodded and opened my mouth to counter, but he stopped me. “And you passed the other guard without a problem?”
“Okay, fine,” I said. “But it’s not like it’s the first operation I’ve carried out alone anyway.”
Julius smiled. “It’s the first one you’ve gone on since you took up with us, and you completed it much to your ‘client’s’ satisfaction and without any blowback. I think that means you’re officially part of the crew now.”
There was a mildly teasing note in his tone. I elbowed him gently. “Are you saying I wasn’t already?”
“I don’t know,” Garrison said with mock-skepticism. “Should it really count when we weren’t the ones who picked the scenario?”
As I debated whether there was something in easy reach that I could throw at him, since I didn’t want to leave my cozy spot on the sofa, Blaze tsked his tongue. “Maybe it wasn’t our call, but it was ten times harder than the trial mission I got sent on. Pretty sure yours didn’t involve a nearly unreachable target either.”
Garrison leaned back in his chair. “Well, there you go. It’s not fair that she got such an exciting scenario for her trial run. I think it’s only fair if she does a boring mission like the rest of us before we fully initiate her.” His lips twitched with a hint of amusement.
Talon patted my thigh, sending another wash of heat through my body. “I think Dess deserves a promotion for taking on a harder job than the rest of us did,” he said in his usual deep, emotionless voice, but when I peered up at him, I caught a glint of humor in his cool eyes.
I stretched out my legs over the bearskin rug. “I guess I’ll take Julius’s place if you’re offering.”
Julius snorted and gestured to the rest of the crew. “If you think you can keep them in line better than I can, more power to you.”
“Hmm.” I tapped my lips. “As my first order as queen of the crew, I demand that you bring me all the chocolate in the city.”
Blaze burst out with a laugh, and Garrison’s and Julius’s guffaws quickly followed. Even Talon let out a chuckle. He stroked my thigh again, and I found myself thinking about things they could do that would be even sweeter than procuring chocolate.
As I looked around at the four of them, basking in the warmth of their admiration and comradery, a surge of affection swelled in my chest. I had gotten incredibly lucky to find these four men who complimented me so perfectly. I cared about all of them more than I’d even known I was capable of. If I believed in a higher power, I’d have been thanking it right now for bringing them into my life.
But I didn’t believe in that. I was the highest power I believed in. And maybe it was time I showed them all just how much they meant to me.
I reached over and teased my fingers over Talon’s thigh in turn. He swallowed audibly, shifting just a tad into my touch. My gaze slid over the other men gathered around me.
I’d been with all of them individually—and Talon and Julius together once—but we’d never come together as a crew, as a team, in the most intimate way.
Would they even want to? They did just about everything else together, but Julius and Garrison had gotten pretty uptight at first about the idea that I wanted all four of them in any way at all.
They’d gotten over that hesitation, though. And we should probably find out if we could be a team like this too.
I trailed my hand further up Talon’s thigh, skimming just shy of the fly of his jeans. “Actually, I have a better idea. I just want all of you. In every possible way.”
