Page 78 of Lost Kingdom

Stunned, he pulls back and searches my eyes. “Over me?Oh, honey,” he snorts. “You’ve known him for three minutes. I’ve known him my entire life.”

“Uh-huh. You can tell Archer and Felix what I said, too. Cordoza tolerates the Malones, because he must. He reveres the Malone wives.” I press a kiss to the underside of his jaw. “Because we’re divine. I’m starving, and you’re neglecting your husbandly duties.”

“You’re taking the news better than I expected.” He leans around me and picks up a piping hot lump of scrambled egg. He blows on the pile and sends steam billowing to the side, then he sets my dinner on my tongue and chases it with a kiss. “I expected knives and a fitat leastas bad as the glueing my remote to the TV thing. Instead, I’m getting laid and a sleepover?”

“Like I said,” I hss-hss-hss around my food and swallow before I lose my tastebuds. Then I snag a slice of toast and take a bite of the corner. “I’ve had time to process. I won’t be doing your laundry, by the way. Ever. And I expect credit cards to be issued in my name. Minka is sending me broke with her coffee consumption, and my husband is, understandably, loaded.”

“Your husband is tired,” he chuckles, snagging a lump of egg for himself. “And worried he may live to regret marrying you in secret. Why do I feel a heavy ball of dread in my stomach? That shit typically precedes disaster, so forgive me for thinking my instincts are warning me about something.”

“They are. But you were brave enough to get the certificate. Now you’ve gotta be brave enough to accept the consequences.” I grab some egg and turn back to place it, and my fingers, on his tongue. “And don’t even think of sneaking out to save the city while I sleep, Batman. I’ll know.”

“Dammit!” He nips at the tips of my fingers. “How’d you know? No seriously,” he addsseriously. “How did you know?”

“You’re an open book, and I’m fluent in Timothy Malone.” I flash a playful smile and take another bite of toast. “When we do eventually decide to invest in the property market, which will be withyourmoney, by the way—the city pays me in trauma and Posturepedic office chairs I rarely havetime to sit in—can the new house have a tub? Showers are fun and all, but I’d kill for a long, luxurious bath right now.”

“Anything you want, dear.” He slips a hand beneath my shirt and grazes my peaked nipple, the breath I had sitting in my lungs emptying on a gasp. “But until then, I’ll hold you up. It’s not the same as a bath, but when I’m fucking you against the tile and you’re screaming my name, it’s kindasame sameat that point, ya know?”

“Confident.” But I spin to the eggs and shovel them in before I leave this kitchen. Because once we do, I doubt we’re coming back. “Do you have salt?”

25

TIM

REUNION

We head downstairs the next morning to find my bar closed up. The floors have been mopped. The chairs have been stacked. The pool cues are neatly arranged on the green-top, and every glass in the place has been washed, dried, and placed until they’re pulled out again tonight.

Daisy was the best investment I ever made as far as this place goes. She could ask for a seven-figure salary, and I wouldn’t tell her no.

“Are you attracted to Daisy on a sexual level?”

“For fuck’s sake.” I wrap Aubree up and drag her beneath my arm, crushing her against my ribs as I yank the front door open and step out into billowing snow and inches-high sludge on the sidewalk. “Well, this is shit weather.” I force her right, then back in through a glass door.

“You didn’t answer my question.” She grins wide and anchors her hand on my opposite hip as we start upstairs. “She’s very pretty.”

“She is pretty.” But I tangle my hand in her hair and tug her head back until our lips clash. “Objectively, that is. Jessica Alba is pretty, too. But you’re the prettiest.”

“You think you were helping your case,” she drawls, stumbling up a step, but not falling. Because I refuse to let her go. “But now you’ve gone and added another name to my list.”

“A list of what? Pretty women?”

“A list of pretty women I have to hurt, because you like them and I don’tshare very well. It’s odd, really, that I have seven siblings, but I never learned the art of division.”

“Pretty sure Jessica Alba deserves your mercy. We’ve never met in person, and even if we did, I’d still choose you.”

She rolls her eyes. “Mmhmm. And Daisy?”

Jesus Christ on a unicycle. “Daisy is my friend. She’s my employee. She’s really fuckin’ good at her job, and I hope she sticks around forever, because for as long as she’s working for me, I’m not chained to that bar. And now that I’m a married man whose wife works a standard nine to five, I’d rather be with you in the evenings, and not with a hundred drunk cops who chose the bar over going home to their families.”

“Wechoose the bar over going home. Often. At least four nights out of seven.”

“Yeah, but you’re there to see me.” I pull her in and press a kiss to her supple lips. “What are you telling them?”

She pauses for a beat, as though to process my question, then she glances upstairs as we approach the third-floor landing. “I’m telling them you broke the law, forged a federal document, coerced me into a marriage I never asked for, failed to buy me a diamond as bribery, and yet, here I am, still sticking around like a punk.”

“You pick the diamond.” I drag her in and kiss her temple. “Any kind. Any size. Any price.”

“Because buying a woman’s love never backfired on anyone in the past.” She smirks and glances up when Minka’s apartment door opens and Cato steps out, his wild smile dropping away to something coated in disappointment.

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