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A dangerous thought, meant only for the shadows.

“Later,” Hanna whispered, though her voice wasn’t nearly so bold or brash as usual, and Ash had to wonder if she felt that same string wrapping them tighter, the moment narrowing down to where they touched in the dark. “They’re coming.”

In the next second, the door to Iverson’s office clicked, and several men entered. Iverson, the only voice Ash could recognize, played the part of host, telling them to sit and offering drinks. They spoke in pleasantries for a while, until matters turned to business—oil and natural gas from Texas.

Ash swore silently to himself. He had been hoping the reward for this torture would be a meeting with Ralston that would give them what they needed, but they hadn’t been so lucky.

Well, they had the key.

But he also had a cramp forming in his leg from holding his position, and he shifted as quietly as he could.

Sure. Shift because of a muscle cramp.

Not to see what the position was doing to Nicco, not to see if Nicco was as hard and achy as Ash was in the dark.

He was. There was nowhere for them to go but into each other’s space, and the simple shift of weight pushed him right back against Nicco’s strong body, lithe muscles at Ash’s back, and…

Nicco pressed his teeth to Ash’s ear and murmured so quietly that Ash wasn’t even sure Hanna could hear it.

“Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to, Ash.”

But Nicco had it wrong. He had it so wrong.

Because Ash wanted every answer Nicco was willing to give him.

Chapter Fourteen

“She’s asleep,” Nicco said, stepping out of the truck just as Ash pulled up to Hanna’s house on Marigold. They hadn’t wanted to take Nicco’s bike to the gala, not dolled up as they were. After Iverson had left his office, which had felt like it had taken the better part of a century, they had slipped back out into the hallway and finally, blissfully, into the cold night air. Hanna had been dead asleep within moments of him pulling onto the highway.

Which had given Nicco too much quiet, too much time to think, too much time to consider the pulsing, demanding need of his body. And his mind.

He could have lied to himself, could have pretended he was leaky and needy because of the kiss with Hanna on the balcony, or the erotically charged dance they had shared, spinning her back and forth between him and Ash, or even the conversation they’d had in the in-between with only the moonlight for company, about what they both craved in the dark.

He could have lied to himself, but Nicco had been getting tired of lying to himself, and the will just hadn’t been there to pretend away what he had been feeling when Ash had pressed against him in the closet and Nicco had almost lost his tether on the control he was so proud of.

It had been a long time since he’d been with a man. But the truth was, it had also been a long time since he had been with a woman, the need for physical releasing becoming less and less important over the last year. There had been occasions when he’d taken himself in hand, just to take the edge off, but it had felt clinical and emotionless, like eating a protein bar just to get the calories.

What he had felt in the closet had been anything but clinical. He’d felt like he was on fire, and it had taken all the strength within him not to yank Ash’s hips backward and grind himself between the soft cheeks of his ass. Then Ash had whispered his name, and Nicco had nearly felt himself unraveling, because the wrecked tone of Ash’s voice had mirrored Nicco’s own.

Ash stepped off his bike. He wore his riding jacket over his tuxedo, and he looked like the very picture of debauched respectability, hair mussed from his helmet, bowtie tucked into his front pocket, exposing his throat and the tattoos peeking out from his collar, leather over fine, tailored wool.

“I’ll bring her in,” Ash replied. “She hasn’t been sleeping well, best not wake her.”

He stepped over to the passenger side of the truck and gently lifted Hanna into his arms like she didn’t weigh a thing. It made the heat coiling in Nicco’s belly swell and burn, because Hanna looked so at peace in her sleep, her soft curls spilling free from her updo over Ash’s arm, her lashes fluttering against her soft, freckled skin. And Ash looked so effortless in carrying her, like they were a true couple coming home after a night at some fancy event, and he would bring her upstairs and tuck her into their shared bed.

Nicco didn’t know why the thought felt like poison in his blood.

“Sounds good,” he muttered, shutting the truck door carefully so as not to wake Hanna. Then he unlocked the door to the house and allowed Ash inside.

It was so perfectly domestic.

Or rather, it would have been, if he had been somewhere else.

“Maybe I should go back to the safe house tonight,” he said quietly. “Bring Jinx the key.”

Ash raised a brow, as if to call Nicco a coward without saying a single word. “Jinx may never sleep, but you have to. Besides, we can’t get into Iverson’s house tonight. No point in rushing.”

Nicco knew he was right, but it was suddenly suffocating to be in that house, to see the beautiful couple after a long day, so comfortable with each other.