Page 69 of Meet Me In The Dark

Kara inhaled sharply, not only at the sexy spell he wove around them, but at the deeper implication—the promise, the wish there. The juxtaposition between the dream he was forming for them, and the nightmare they were currently in.

“When the oil is heated and we start dropping the donuts in, Conor, you and Luke enter the house after chopping down a tree for firewood. And, of course, you leave tracks of snow all over the hardwoods because neither of you are capable of remembering to take your boots off when you come in.”

“Well,” Luke said, voice gruff, “We don’t want to miss the show.”

“You both gather around the stove, Luke teasing Karaabout her adventures in cooking and promising to eat the sufganiyot…”

“Despite how bad they’re going to be,” Luke interjected, his voice amused. “With a second promise that I’ll punish you both later for it. Maybe with some Hanukkah candle wax play.”

“Mm,” Micah said, quiet for a moment, like he was also lost in the fantasy he was weaving for them.

“And what about me?” Conor asked, and although the words were light, his voice was not.

“Oh, you’re still bitching that I wasn’t precise enough with my chopping, but your cheeks are flushed and your cock is hard, because when you called me on it, I took it out on your ass without letting you get off,” Luke murmured, a filthy, tender promise in his voice.

“You mean you didn’t take it out on my ass because you were still angry at me? Or will you have gotten over it by then?” Conor asked.

Both men were quiet for a beat as they looked at each other.

Luke sighed. “I understood why you sacrificed yourself to save me, because I would have done the same for you.”

Kara closed her eyes, letting their words wash over her. The peace behind them. The forgiveness. The cell disappeared, and so did her desperation, her regret.

“Right,” Micah prompted. “The donuts are browning in the oil, and the whole kitchen begins to smell like fried dough and sugar. As they fry, my phone buzzes. It’s another request for a hit, this one in Europe. A Christmas party, which just happens to be our anniversary, baby,” he said, turning to look at her. Her hands were still on his shoulders, rubbing absently.

“Yeah,” she said. “It is. Although our real anniversary is May third.”

“May?” Luke asked.

“When you kidnapped me, and I woke in the cabin,” she said, holding her breath, waiting for their response.

Someone sucked in a breath. Conor.

Luke’s teeth flashed in a quick smile. “Yeah, I guess that’s our real anniversary.”

Micah, head still turned, dropped a kiss on her shoulder in reward. Kara bathed in the sensation, committing it to memory. Just in case.

And then Micah continued. “We discuss the details, the pay, decide we’re going to do it…”

“Figure out who’s staying back with Kara,” Conor said, his tone intractable.

Kara broke in. She was determined to make this part clear. To him, to all of them. “No, no one’s staying back with Kara. I’m a part of the mission. I’m the honeypot, remember? The one who keeps meetings from exploding into murder—until it’s called for.”

“Kara,” Conor warned.

“No,” she said, making sure it washervoice that sounded intractable. “In fact, it’s my mission. I take lead with the planning.”

“Our little badass queen,” Micah murmured, and Kara was glad that at least he was on her side with this. That he trusted her the way she’d asked him to back at Vixen, right before they’d killed Victor.

Luke was silent.

“Luke?” she asked.

“If that’s what you really want, sweetheart, then I meant what I said earlier. We’ll make sure we teach you how. Just like we taught you how to shoot a gun.”

Conor growled but didn’t say anything.

Well, she couldn’t win every battle. Not immediately, anyway.

---