Page 32 of Loco

Still, we wouldn’t beuswithout a bit of fun, right?

So I gave her ass a sharp smack just because I could. She yelped and jumped, more out of surprise than pain, and shot me a breathless glare over her shoulder.

“It doesn’t count if you’re not inside me,” she hissed, still panting slightly, her voice dripping with sass. “What was that for?”

“You know what it’s for.” And she did—we had an agreement—a very clear one. The rules were simple: deals were made, and consequences were served. No welching allowed.

She groaned dramatically and burrowed her naked body into my side, draping herself across me like a human blanket. “But it’scoldwithout the covers and your furnace-level body heat.”

I lifted my hand in warning, fingers twitching like I was about to do it again.

She caught me off guard—completely—when a cushion came out of nowhere and smacked me right in the face. I blinked, stunned, more impressed than annoyed, considering I’d been distracted by the tempting view of her bare ass.

“Fine,” she grumbled, tossing the pillow aside. “You insensitive asshole. I’ll do it. But only because it’s my turn, andIactually honor my commitments—unlikesomepeople.”

With exaggerated martyrdom, she flung the covers back and rolled out of bed, standing tall and gloriously naked in the soft light filtering through the window. Her ass was perfectly on display, taunting me. It would’ve been a crime not to take advantage.

I reached out and swatted her again before she could take her first step. The sound echoed like music in the room.

She squeaked, instantly clapping both hands over her cheeks and whirling around to glare at me. And not just any glare—theglare. I’d seen enough of them by now to start naming them like storms. This one was all haughty indignation, the kind that could wither a lesser man.

But then it shifted into something that stopped me cold—a smile.

Not a sarcastic smirk or smug little twist of her lips, but a genuine, sweet-as-sin smile that hit me right in the chest. Soft, warm, and affectionate, in a way that made my throat tighten just a little.

That was exactly why I didn’t trust it.

And sure enough, she leaned in close, brushed her lips against my ear, and whispered with lethal sweetness, “Just remember—you can’t hideallthe scissors in this house while you’re asleep.”

I froze, she wasn’t joking. Iknewshe wasn’t. I could already picture waking up with my hair hacked into some disaster—spots, stripes, spikes—hell, she’d probably add glitter to make a point.

I groaned. “You wouldn’t.”

She gave me a wink over her shoulder as she strutted toward the bathroom. “Wouldn’t I?”

Damn it, I liked my hair way too much to test her.

Rolling my eyes like I didn’t give a damn—even though I obviously did—I waved her off with a lazy hand. “Go on. Your turn.”

She groaned like I’d just asked her to scale a mountain barefoot instead of letting the dogs out and checking the snow levels outside. Still, she shoved her legs into a pair of sweats with aggressive determination, like they were the enemy. The sweats were followed by a tank top, a thermal, and finally, a hoodie—all layered in a clear declaration of war against the cold.

The fact that she didn’t bother with a bra didn’t escape me—but now wasn’t the time to bring that up. Barely resisting the urge to comment, I kept my mouth shut and watched her stick her tongue out at me over her shoulder before heading for the door.

“C’mon, boys!” she called out, her voice light and teasing.

A second later, the telltale scrabbling of nails on the wooden floor echoed through the house, and my small, amused smile stretched into a full-blown grin. My pets weren’t just animals—they were family. They each came with their own quirks and baggage, and not everyone could handle that, but Sayla saw them. Reallysawthem. She talked to them like they understood every word, and maybe they did because they looked at her like she hung the damn moon.

She belonged here.

I was halfway out of bed, tugging on a pair of jeans and trying to pull a hoodie over my head, when I heard her shout my name—a sharp, high-pitched squeal that snapped me to attention like a gunshot. My blood went cold even as the adrenaline kicked in.

What Ididn’thear was barking, that was what got me.

If someone had been outside—someone unfamiliar—the dogs would’ve gone off, no question. The silence was more alarming than noise unless they were distracted in the garden… or something worse.

In this job, you saw everything—things you couldn’t unsee. Things that happened fast, things you never thought could be real until they were splattered across your reality. And after a while, your brain stopped writing things off as “impossible.”

I tore through the hall, feet skidding on the hardwood as I rounded the corner into the kitchen, ready for anything.

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