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Aaron grunts in response. “You can’t promise me that. Not any more than I can promise you Melissa is okay out there at her place all alone. She seemed sad, Matt. About her kid. And her ex. And…stuff.”
My stomach sinks and the familiar guilt sets in. I’m there for Melissa a lot, but not nearly as much as I would like to be. And when I leave, I won’t be there at all, not for things like checking the bed for monsters and setting up generators and assuring her that her latest recipe is fantastic. Phone and video chats will help us stay up-to-date on each other’s news, but it won’t be the same.
There’s no Nora in South America, either. No Nora smile or Nora laugh or Nora kiss or her incomparable, unicorn pussy…
Shaking away thoughts of Nora’s pussy—not a kosher thing to be thinking about while on the phone with her big brother—I say, “I know. It’s been a hard time. I’ll call her now. I’ll let her know I’m thinking about her and promise to check on her as soon as all this mess is sorted.”
“And tell her you’re a spy,” Aaron says.
“Officer,” I sigh through gritted teeth, pretty sure I should give up on trying to adjust the layman’s vision of the CIA.
“Whatever. Just tell her. ASAP.” Aaron makes a disgruntled noise. “It feels wrong that I know before she does. She should know. It will make her feel better. Her marriage might have gone to hell, her ex might be in love with someone else, and her kid is away for the holiday, but at least her brother isn’t a piece of shit criminal in too deep with the mob.”
I promise I will and end the call, flinching as Nora lets out a long, tortured groan. I spin in time to see her collapse onto the bed with her forearm to her forehead, Victorian-lady-having-a-fainting-spell style.
“Thank you,” she says, throwing her other arm across the mussed bedspread. “Thank you for not asking him if he wanted to talk to me again. I’m talked out.” She shifts her arm up to her forehead, peering at me beneath it with a wicked grin. “I need to do things that don’t involve any talking unless it’s dirty talk. You should give me that spanking you’ve been threatening since this all started, and tell me what a filthy little girl I am.”
I shake my head, fighting to think straight as most of the blood in my body surges directly to my cock. “As amazing as that sounds, I have to call my sister first.” I toss her cell on the bed and pull mine out of my back pocket. “And I’m going to need a compellingreasonto call you a filthy little girl.”
She pulls her arm all the way above her head, her big blue eyes alight with curiosity. “A compelling reason like what?”
Fighting a grin, I murmur, “You’re going to have to do something filthy.” Then, I press Melissa’s contact number to keep myself from tackling Nora right now and whispering a few filthy suggestions into her ear.
Nora mouths, “You’re bad,” and points a warning finger at me before rolling off the bed and heading to the door, where a persistent mixture of mewling and belching makes it clear, Clyde is tired of being outside our closed bedroom.
Mel answers on the second ring this time, easing my twin separation anxiety until she says, “I’m going to kill you.”
I walk toward the window, gazing out at the pouring rain. “Please, don’t. I’m so sorry, Mel. I never meant to put you in harm’s way. I swear. And I’ll never do it again.”
“Oh no, not about that,” she says with a disgusted snort. “That Rex guy is a huge wimp. I kicked his shin, and I swear he almost started crying. I was about ten seconds away from being free on my own when Aaron Boudreaux had to go and stick his big meathead nose into my business. And I hate Aaron Boudreaux, even if he does have one of the most nuanced palates I’ve encountered in a while.”
“Yeah?” My brows lift. “You cooked for him?”
“Only because he wouldn’t leave, and I needed an opinion on my smoked duck tortilla appetizer,” she says. “I’ll cook for anyone. You know that.”
I also know that she’s very fussy about who she allows to try her new recipes, but I know better than to bring that up when she sounds this cranky. “Well, from what I heard, he was just trying to keep you safe.”
“I don’t need a man to keep me safe!” she insists. “And if I did, Jerky Jock Head Aaron Butt-Row isn’t the person I’d pick. He made fun of me all the time in high school. He’s the one who started calling me Butter Phalanges.”
“Oh, yeah,” I say, dimly remembering my sister being pissed off for most of her freshman year at some jock who made fun of her for having two left feet and a handful of thumbs. Mel is still kind of a hot mess when she’s not in the kitchen. She’s just accident prone, always has been. “That was Aaron?”
“Yes,” she hisses. “And I hate him even more now than I did then.”
“Why?” I trust the tingle in my CIA-trained tail as I add in softer voice, “Because you tapped that Jerky Jock Ass?”
“He told you!” she screeches.
“Hush, let me take this to another room,” I say, fighting a laugh as I excuse myself to the bathroom, leaving Nora rubbing Clyde’s belly on the bed. Once I shut the door behind me, I add, “No, he didn’t. I guessed. He sounded really worried about you. The sex must have been great.”
“Gag. You know I don’t talk about sex with you. We shared a uterus. It would be too weird.”
“So, itwasgood, huh?” I continue to prod. “Why did you kick him out?”
“Because I hate him.” She sighs, then mumbles, “And I hate myself for being a weak, lonely, sex-starved loser who slept with the first non-relative who stepped through my door in seven months.”
“You’re not weak. You’re one of the strongest people I know,” I say gently. “And I’m going to help you get stronger. Just a few more days and I’ll have all my crazy shit sorted and be able to devote myself to helping you get your groove back.”
She snorts. “You think getting out of the mob is that easy?”
