Page 35 of Bad Men

His back lifted under my hands with his deep inhale. “Kicking myself for not bringing more condoms.”

The indication made me giggle. “I might be able to hunt a few down from my parent’s bathroom.”

Nero raised an eyebrow. “A few?”

I lifted one shoulder innocently. “Unless once is your limit?”

His eyes narrowed even as they glimmered with amusement. “Davien was right, you are going to be the death of us.”

My answer was the threading of my fingers through his hair and the lazy capture of his mouth with mine.

“Again, Nero. Fuck me again.”

Chapter Eight — Davien

“You came home late last night.”

Nero stumbled into the kitchen, looking the worst I’d ever seen the guy. There were deep wrinkles all across his clothes, clothes he’d been wearing the day before and apparently gone to bed in. His hair, normally brushed back was in tangles around a haggard face. And he smelled of sex. Lots of sex. He reeked of it.

He pulled open the fridge and yanked out a water bottle. I watched with amusement as he chugged down half of it. He gasped and wiped the back of his hand over his mouth.

“Long night,” he muttered, scrubbing a hand over his eyes and down the dark stubble coating his jaw. “Feel like I could sleep forever.”

I didn’t need to ask where he’d been or with whom.

“How was she?” I asked instead, biting back my grin.

He started back in the direction of his bedroom.

“Exhausting,” was the last thing I heard before the bedroom door shut behind him.

I snickered to myself. It served him right. He’d thought I was exaggerating. Mia was an animal. Taking her on alone was suicide. Granted, a really hot, really fulfilling kind of suicide, but still a suicide. She was going to kill a man, I just knew it. No one alive was going to be able to keep up with her, not without some serious chemical help. She needed her own haram, a line of virile and horny men to fuck her around the clock.

I wasn’t complaining. The passion Mia showed was exhilarating and contagious. It made a man want to keep going, to keep making her come until she passed out. But she was definitely not a one man job. It almost made me wonder if we needed to start seeing her at the same time. That way, at least we could tag each other in when it became too much. I knew that wasn’t always possible and it went against our rule to give each other one on one time with the girl on occasion. Otherwise, it would be an endless orgy. Sad to say, I’d been in many orgies and never walked out feeling like I wanted to crawl into bed for a month.

Setting aside thoughts of Mia and her addictive pussy, I returned to the binder with our count of the monthly pickups. Each of our houses had a solid yellow highlighter streaked through the names. We had never been late, never been short. Our record had always been impeccable.

Until now.

Luis’s request left us in a bad spot. Even with us covering the difference, even with Mia making up for the trouble, we couldn’t highlight the month. We didn’t lie in the book. That was how we tracked people who had shorted us in the past. That year so far, no one had. This would be our first blank slot.

I sighed, oddly disappointed in the sight. I’d always liked Luis. He was a good guy, did well by his family, but I couldn’t fathom what was so much more important than paying what he owed Eduardo. It was just such a risky decision, and he’d never struck me as a stupid guy. I just hoped whatever it was, he wouldn’t do it again. If not for his sake, then Mia’s. Even she wouldn’t be able to save him and it wouldn’t be up to me or Nero to decide his fate.

I closed the book and rubbed a hand over my prickly jaw. Most of my morning was spent counting Eduardo’s money and checking houses off the list. I hadn’t bothered with a shower or pulling a top on over my sweats. It was too hot outside and if I got dressed, I would feel the compulsion to go do something and I couldn’t find energy for that. Sitting in the same clothes I’d gone to bed in was a good deterrent.

The soft click of a door opening at the end of the hall had my head coming up. It was just me and Nero sharing the flat and I’d expected him to be in a coma, not shuffling into the living room as if someone shot his dog.

“Thought you’d be out longer than that,” I said, peeking at my phone sitting on the coffee table next to the open book.

He was silent a moment before closing the last few steps to the armchair. He’d stripped out of the clothes he’d come home in and wore flannel bottoms and a white t-shirt. His feet were bare against the piss colored carpet.

“What’s your deal?”

He met my gaze, his face harboring the same mask he’d worn the afternoon he had to tell me he had to kill Mickie.

I’d liked the guy. We weren’t close like Nero and I, but he’d been fun to hang with, an almost friend. Now, his grave stood as a reminder not to get close to people. I’d stuck by that rule, so that couldn’t be it, unless…

“Did I do something?”

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