Page 78 of Café Diablo

“God, I can’t even hold my own weight up right now. My arms are bloody Jell-O!” he bellyaches, turning his face to my ear and covering it with hot breath. “I promise I’m going to do—to you—everything you did to me last night,” he threatens. “Just … not right, now. Right now, I think I need to wrap myself in an ice bath.”

I turn my face to his and kiss him on the chin. “You promise to do all those things later?” He nods like he’s too exhausted to even speak. “Well, that’s probably a good idea, since your brother’s in the other room and he’d probably hear us.”

“Excuse me?!”

Edwin manages to jolt up onto his arms at that comment. Obviously, there’s enough strength in them to give me his best tell-me-you’re-fucking-kidding-before-I-kill-a-kitten glare. I bop him on the nose and use the opportunity to slip out from under him, grabbing the bolt cutters from the end of the bed.

“Yeah, I had these bad-boys delivered.” I snap them together—Chomp! Chomp!—for emphasis. “I promised I wouldn’t leave you here all alone and handcuffed.”

“And you thought it would be a good idea to call Connor?”

I smile sweetly, even though Edwin’s pissed. “Yes.”

“You realize I’mnevergoing to hear the end of this!”

“Nope, you’re not!” Connor’s voice rings out from the other room; obviously, the walls of this apartment are not thick enough to mask anything. “If you want some tips from Arie in the handcuff department, she’s pretty well versed in—”

“No, thank you!” Edwin yells to his brother, who starts laughing on the other side of the wall.

“Actually, I’m going to go get Connor,” I say, pointing to the cuffs that are still locked around Edwin’s wrists. He’s no longer attached to the headboard, but there’s still some cutting to be done. “I think he’ll be better at freeing the prisoner than I am. If I’m not careful, I’ll probably take a pinky off.”

“Are you kidding me?” Edwin grumbles, and I shrug.

“Remember my awesome hand-eye coordination when it came to golf?” I toss back at him sheepishly and he rolls his eyes like that’s all he needed to hear on the subject.

“Fine.”

“Connor?” I yell. “Can you come in here?”

Edwin grabs a sheet, barely covering his lower half, before Connor comes in with the biggest grin on his face.

“Well, I didn’t expect to be invited in for a threesome when I came over with my massive tool,” Connor quips, nodding to the bolt cutters—but also to his pants.

“You make another comment about your dick and I’ll punch you,” Edwin growls.

“I doubt that,” Connor jokes. “Pins n’ needles and all.”

Yup, no privacy through that wall. Not a bit. Edwin shoots a glare at me like this is just getting started.

“I can’t say I’m much of a fan of the threesome with incest part,” Connor continues, living up to Edwin’s frown. “But I’ll take female-Houdini over here with the bad handcuff act, if she and Arie are up for a little—”

“You go near Olivia,” Edwin grits out, “and I will make sure that is your last breath.”

Edwin’s not joking when he says that. His tone is serious as hell—and it’s super hot! Obviously, Connor is just trying to get a rise out of his brother, and boy did he! My, my! Where’s a girl’s hand-fan when she gets hit with some mad Jane Austen-style vapors?

“Well, damn!” Connor hoots. “I don’t know if I need to take the handcuffs off if she’s got you that hung up!”

Edwin raises his wrists like Connor is here for one purpose. “Get these things off of me, then get the fuck out of my condo.”

“Yes, sir!” Connor takes the bolt cutters from me and walks over to his brother. “So, tell me,” he says, that tone in his voice anything but innocent. He maneuvers the jaws of the cutters under the cuff at the back of Edwin’s wrist before saying, “Was the sex good?”

“I’m going to fucking kill—”

Connor clamps down on the cutters and Edwin yowls at the pressure against his hand. The question was a distraction to keep his brother from realizing how painful it would actually be to cut off the handcuff—which falls onto the bed like a dead bird with its metal wings open.

“You’re welcome,” Connor retorts, referring to the released cuff, before nodding to the wrist Edwin is now rubbing that’s red and bruised. “Looks like the sex wasn’t your normal pump n’ dump missionary.”

“That’s none of your goddamned business,” Edwin snarls, and I laugh at the two of them.

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