Page 57 of The Devil's Pair

“Babe, we aresosure.” Dux ran his fingers down her throat, down the centre of her body, down to her pussy. She arched into his touch, already aching for his mouth on her, in her. “Besides, we need to do some more ofthis,and it canonlybe done face-to-face.”

“Yes,” she murmured. Her moan was lost in Drake’s mouth as he took her face in his hands and kissed her, and she was already mindless as Dux slid down her body. “Yes.”

Chapter Fourteen

The next day, Dux and Drake gently kissed Briley on her shining hair, then gazed down at her. She was still curled up in Dux’s bed, completely exhausted and tousled and fast asleep. Without a word between them, the men turned and silently crept out of the room, didn’t speak until they were in their kitchen.

“Well,” Drake said. “We’re gonna be Dads, man. Did youeverthink this would happen to us?”

“You know I didn’t.” Dux shook his head and rinsed out his coffee cup. “But I’m fucking thrilled beyond belief, which is a pretty great surprise.”

“No kidding.” Drake stared out the window, realizing that the sun was rising on his first full day of embracing fatherhood, and it was happening at the age of forty-five. From this day onwards, how he thought about himself, and his role in the world, and who he really was in his core, was going to shift wide and forever. He was leaving the house thinking about himself as a Daddy for the first time – and he was delighted about it.

“So we need to start figuring this out, man,” Dux said. “Money for the babies, and how we can support her through this pregnancy. I mean… do we all need to go to a lawyer? Put everything down on paper?”

“We need to talk to Briley again after work today, and go through all of that.Plus, we have to tell her that we’re leaving Colorado tomorrow to go source that goddamn motorcycle part.” Drake sighed. “I can’t believe that that slipped our minds last night.”

“Well, wewerea bit distracted,” his brother said. “First by the woman’s news, then by the woman herself.”

“I fuckinghatehaving to leave her like this, and so soon after she showed up with her amazing news. I hope she doesn’t take that the wrong way.”

“I know it sucks. But we’ll be back day after tomorrow at the latest.” Dux stretched, then grabbed his house keys, made sure to leave the spare set and the security system code fob next to the coffee machine for Briley to find when she woke up. She wasn’t to go out, but she needed to be able to leave the house if some emergency happened. “Our job right now is to make Briley feel totally safe and secure – so we’ll do whatever it takes to make her feel that way,includingbringing her on the work trip with us, if that’s what she wants to do.”

“Deal.” Drake grinned. “We can take this sexy show back on the road, which is pretty much how everything started up, huh?”

“Idolove having the woman in a hotel with us.” Dux shut the door quietly, made sure it was locked. “Actually – I love having the woman with useverywhere.”

“Ditto, big brother. Fucking ditto.”

**

Thirty minutes later, they walked into Satan’s to grab a couple of coffees before heading to start work at The Garage… and they immediately picked up on some seriously weird tension in the air. They exchanged looks, then headed over to Elle, who was standing behind the bar looking upset.

“What’s up, hon?” Drake asked her. “You OK?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Elle said in a small voice. “It’s just – quite a bit of money’s missing from the bar till from last night. And Violet’s gone.”

“Ah, shit,” Drake said gently. “You told Wolf?”

She gestured with her chin, pointing towards the hallway, and they turned to see Wolf and Scars standing there, deep indiscussion. The twins gave Elle reassuring smiles, then walked over to their President and Vice-President.

“Hey,” Dux said. “Elle just told us what happened… are we thinking that Violet stole the money and just took off in the middle of the damn night?”

“Midway through her waitressing shift, actually,” Scars said. “One minute she was here, working and serving up food and drinks, the next she was gone. Vixen noticed it because she was getting slammed with customers and she was on the floor all alone, so she asked Elle what was happening. Elle was surprised as hell, because she gave Violet her dinner on her break, and didn’t see her again after that. She assumed Violet was out front working.”

“So she just walked up to the cash register, opened it up, took some money, and waltzed out?” Drake asked. “I mean, I can see how nobody would notice her being around the till.”

“Nobody even looked at her sideways,” Wolf said. “Scars and Elle figure that she walked off with about a thousand bucks.”

The men all nodded; Satan’s took in a lot of cash every night, largely because a certain type of clientele were loathe to leave any real proof that they’d been there. Bank cards and credit cards wereout– they were so easily traced and left one hell of a definitive IT footprint – and cash wasin. Scars emptied the register at least three times a shift, just to keep the large bills situation a bit under control, but he’d been so distracted with getting Zoe home to pack, that he hadn’t done it the night before.

“I mean, she wasn’t really settling in, was she?” Drake added. “I never got the sense that she was very happy to be here.”

“That’s my thinkin’,” Wolf said tersely. “And frankly, I’m not sure why we’re still talkin’ about this, Scars. The woman is gone, and I don’t know what else to say about it.”

“All I’m saying is, don’t you think the timing is weird?” Scars asked. “Like,worryingweird?”

“Man, we’ve gotwaytoo much to worry about right now, with fuckin’ Crusher conspirin’ with that royal-level asshole Michael and disappearin’ on the FBI’s watch,” Wolf said. “Ireallycan’t get involved in lookin’ for one unhappy chick with sticky fingers.”

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