Page 122 of My Temptation

Striker turned all of his attention on Kyle. “Why?”

He snorted. “Because you’re not. Plus, she doesn’t know anyone around here.”

“Been busy,” Striker replied, but he seemed annoyed. “I told you to leave her alone.”

“Just bein’ friendly, brother.” Kyle shrugged. “She called and asked me, so I said yes.”

“We’re getting off track.” Jax sighed. “Again.”

“True,” Kyle agreed, which was odd, but I knew why when he turned his attention on Ethan. “I wouldn’t have pegged you for liking cougars, Ethan.”

“No idea what you’re talking about, man,” he replied, but I knew where Kyle was going with this. I was a few years older than Ethan, which didn’t really mean anything other than Kyle had more to tease us about.

“Isn’t Mila older than you?”

“Isn’t Striker’s sister younger than you?” he fired back, and I laughed beside him. Sometimes Ethan surprised me with how sneaky he could be with an answer. He knew Kyle spending time with Striker’s sister, Bridget, was a sore subject, but he did it anyway just to take the heat off us.

“You are not dating my sister,” Striker said loudly.

“Who said anything about dating? I’m just playing tour guide,” Kyle defended himself.

“Make sure you keep it that way.”

Kyle rocked his chair back so all four legs were flat on the ground and stared at Striker. “What are you sayin’, man? You don’t think I’m good enough for your sister.”

“Didn’t say that.” Striker shook his head. “You just don’t have the best track record with women.”

Kyle snorted, but he looked a little more relaxed than he had a second ago. “Doesn’t matter anyway. I’m seein’ someone else.”

“Who the hell are you dating?” Nick looked confused. “With all the fucking gossip around here, I can’t believe I haven’t heard that.”

He turned his attention to Nick and grinned. “Like to keep my shit on the down low.”

I laughed again, surprised at how easily I was laughing today. To be honest, I’d been dreading this meeting and how it would be handled, but the guys were acting as if they didn’t really care. Or maybe we really were terrible at hiding it, and they suspected this was coming. Either way, they were making it really easy for me to feel even better about my decision.

“Down low? No one else I know says the stuff you do,” I replied.

“Anyway.” Jax interrupted again, and it was easy to hear the frustration in his tone. “Brody and I have decided that Mila, you, and Ethan will not have cases together.” I was ready to protest before Jax held up his hand. “Let me finish. You won’t work cases together unless we need you to pose as a couple or an install Ethan’s working on overlaps with a case you’re working on.”

“You don’t trust that we can get the job done working together?”

“It may not seem like it, but we’re doing you a favor.” Jax looked back and forth between us. “It’s hard as hell to work all day with someone and then go home with them. You need a break, and your work can offer that.”

I glanced at Ethan, and it was easy to see he agreed, so I nodded. Jax was right. It would be hard to work together all day and then go home together. This would give us time apart and still let us do the jobs we loved. Satisfied with that, Jax continued. “We have some new assignments.”

We listened while he detailed those and handed them out. Ethan and I talked about him doing installs, and he insisted he liked it more than what we had to do in Devil’s Lake, and I couldn’t disagree. Helping Brody design and install security systems challenged his mind like how tracking and investigating challenged mine. I was still working with Nick on the case from last week, which had taken us out of town for a day, but it seemed like we would be local all week, and I really liked that. I didn’t mind the small undercover jobs, but I no longer wanted to take long jobs out of town. I didn’t want to leave Ethan for long, but I also wanted to get to know the people of this town, and working away from home for long periods put a strain on those efforts. Beyond work, we hadn’t really talked about our plans. We’d just fallen into a routine, but I had every intention of bringing up that conversation today because there was no way in hell I was sleeping at my place alone. Not now that I had him in my life.

“Okay, that’s all for today.” Jax stood and said what he said every Monday after our meeting. “Find us if you need us.”

There were murmurs while everyone started moving around, but as soon as Landon stood, Ethan called out to him, and I barely contained my smirk. “Hey, Landon. You got a minute?”

“Yeah.” I stood and followed Ethan to stand in front of Landon who was grinning at me. “You ghosted me Friday night.”

“Sorry about that. I was umm,” I cleared my throat but grinned when I glanced at Ethan. “Working something out.”

He chuckled. “I’ll bet.” He shifted his attention to Ethan. “What’s up?”

“Heard you’ve been at my sister’s place.”

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