Page 13 of Going Dark

I look over at her and give her a face. She giggles and I am once again reminded of why I love her. She can always make me smile.

Not my type. What about you? Are you distracted by one of your brother's coworkers?

As soon as she reads the note the blush hits her cheeks. I mouth my o.m.g. and ask who. Now I'm dying to find out who. She mouths back telling me to guess. Damn it! I'm no good at these kinds of games. I try to think of all the men. She throws the note back to me.

Not Jack - he's too dark. Right?

I sail it back to her. She makes a scrunched up face at what I wrote and gives me a head shake, sending it back to me.

Dante is just as dark and Remy is a flirt. I don't think either of those guys is the one you are crushing on.

After I give it back to her she tells me I am on the right track. It is neither one of them. Out of eight men, I narrowed it down by four. I think about which one of the men might have caught Ana's eye. Jim is too old and I was only briefly introduced to Gauge and he scared the shit out of me with his dead eyes. That only leaves Duncan and Steve. Both of them are here today so she had to have her eye on one of them.

My eyes widen and my mouth drops as pink washes over her face because she suspects I have guessed. I write his name down and sail the note back to her but right before it lands Ace steps in the way. Oh shit!

"Are you girls passing notes when you are supposed to be studying?" he gives us a tisking sound with his tongue. Ana looks like she could die at any moment and for once I am thankful Ace's eyes are on me. Ana looks like she's about to cry when she jumps up to try to take the note out of her brother's hand. He doesn't really pay any attention to her, instead looking at me. "That's very naughty. I wonder what secrets you have in here."

Ana finally gets his attention as they fight for the piece of paper around the couch. Ace just barely keeping the note out of Ana's reach. He starts to unfold it and I don't think about what I am doing as I stand up on the couch and launch myself at his back. It's the only way to be tall enough to reach when he holds it up so high. I have to live by the friend code Ana and I made so many years ago. If one of us tells a secret the other will do anything to protect it. She's Russian so...secrets are important to her.

I wrap my legs around his waist and my arm around his neck and use him to push myself higher so that I can knock the paper out of his hand and into the waiting Ana's. The noise has drawn the attention of the other men, in-particularly Steve. He looks young; they put him with Ana when she is at the university because he seems to be able to blend in a little easier than some of the men who look like they kill and eat college kids before breakfast daily.

"Is this a family squabble?" He sees the piece of paper and laughs, "Oh, you been bad, cher? And here I thought you were a good girl." He gives her a charming smile dripping with his Cajun accent and I see her go all stupid over him for a minute.

A minute too long, because I finally knock the note out of Ace's outstretched arm only to have it fall on the floor and Steve dive for it. Me and Ana give each other the look that says we went from fucked with dinner first to fucked with no lube. Both of us have big eyes and both of us understand how mortifying it is going to be if Steve reads that note.

I'm still on Ace's back and now I can take a minute to realize - I'm on Ace's back! He has his hands under my ass holding me to him and he's got a sucker sticking out of his mouth like James Dean used to have his cigarette. He's warm in between my thighs and thick, I know my thighs are going to be tender tomorrow at the stretch I have to do to keep my legs around him. He smells so fucking good too. I have to fight the urge to run my nose up his neck.

Ana reaches the note first and gives me a triumphant smile but Steve picks her up around the waist and the battle is back on. I laugh and loosen my hold I have on him with my legs. Ace lifts me higher for a moment before moving his arm in some ninja move and all of a sudden I am in front of him with my legs wrapped around him. He's carrying me like I'm a baby. The front is even nicer than the back because now I can look at his sexy face with his half-cocked smile and his laughing eyes.

"What's in the note?" his hands go to my ass but in a lot of ways it feels like old times when we used to wrestle and play with each other physically. Before we both realized the other was different.

"Not my secret to tell." I have no intention of sharing Ana's secret with him. He would forbid her to be around Steve and make Jim remove him from watching her and then she wouldn't get to be around him anymore.

"I have ways of making you talk, little girl." He brings one of his hands up to my side. He plans on tickling me until I can't breathe anymore. "I'm a highly trained solider who's carried out more than one interrogation in my past."

I roll my eyes hard, "I'm sorry I had to unfuck my eyeballs before I could pay attention to what you were saying. Tell me how highly trained you are again," I lean closer to him, making sure my boobs brush up against his chest and whisper in his ear. "When you're the one not smart enough to take the sucker out of your mouth when you're in a wrestling match with girls."

He shivers and all of a sudden I feel powerful like I never have before. I caused him to do that. I made him react to how close I am to him. I take the sucker out of his mouth. The thing was just barely hanging on anyway. "Somehow I'm not afraid of you." I pop his sucker in my mouth. I watch him follow the sucker with his eyes and give me another shiver.

"Hey, that's my last one until I can go to the store." He reaches for it but I take it out of my mouth and hold it over his head much like he did with the note to Ana. His hands burn into my jeans and I can feel the heat of the palm of his hands on my ass cheeks. I want this to remain innocent and fun but I can't deny how having him between my thighs makes me wet. I stretch higher and his green eyes drop from the sucker to my breasts that are at face level.

He gets a mischievous look in his eyes and I hyper-aware I should be worried. Ace has never, ever done anything in front of his sister to give us away. He wouldn't start now. Would he?

But he does. He nestles his nose in between my breasts and starts blowing bubbles on my chest. I give a shocked yelp before I am laughing too hard to hold my arm up very high at all. A shadow falls over us and when me and Ace look over we spot Jim standing in the doorway of the living room and the whole room goes quiet. I am pretty sure Ana and Steve have spotted him also.

"Can you tell me why two of my best men are assaulting the women they are supposed to be protecting? I mean I can understand if this was Remy." He looks back at me and Ace, "Or Ace." I am acutely aware of Ace's big palms under my ass, so close to where the edges of my shorts are. All he would have to do is wiggle his fingers a little bit and he would be touching me again. Not something I want to do with so many people in the same room with us.

"I can understand if it was Ace but what the hell are you doing Steve?"

Ace tenses up under me. Both of us turn our attention to where Steve and Ana are. Steve is in between Ana's legs and Ana has her hands up under his shirt. Before I have a chance to work on breaking the tension in the room, Ace is setting me on my feet. Ana takes something out from under Steve's shirt and I am one hundred percent sure it is the note that started all of this. She runs from the room and up the stairs without saying anything.

I'm torn between going to her or staying and making sure Ace doesn't kill Steve. For the first time in almost a month, his attention isn't on me. Everyone left in the room is waiting, holding their breath to find out what happens next.

"Keep your fucking hands off my sister!" Ace is the first to break the tension by exploding the warning out.

"Hey, I understand. I didn't mean anything by it, brother. You know I wouldn't do anything like that to you."

I find myself not liking Steve as much as I did before he opened his mouth.

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