“I meant here.” Lark taps the free pillow.
I hesitate for a moment before I pull on my shirt. There’s conflict in Lark’s eyes as she watches me, as though she’s not sure she should have asked. “Do you want me to?”
Lark nods. “Yeah. I think I do.”
“Want me to bring back some ice?” I ask with a wicked smile, and she giggles.
“I think I’ll survive, unless you’re planning on fucking me in the ass when you get back. In that case, yes.”
I grin like it’s a joke, but my blood instantly heats and my cock hardens.
Lark settles in beneath the covers and I place a kiss to her temple before turning to leave. Her eyes are still on me when I pause at the threshold of her door and look at her over my shoulder.
I take my time around the block. Though part of me is eager to get back, I want to give Lark space to process and allow my own thoughts to settle. And predawn quiet is the perfect time to do that. The streets are dark between the lamplight, and the cold air refreshes my sweaty skin. There’s hardly anyone on the street, just the occasional car and a lone man dressed in hospital scrubs, his hood pulled up against the morning chill. He leaves the building across the street and walks in the opposite direction. So I let Bentley take his time to sniff every post and piss on every fire hydrant as we walk around the block.
When we get back inside, Lark is fast asleep.
I hesitate for a moment, unsure if I should just go to the other room to let her rest. Maybe it’s selfish, but I strip down to my briefs and slip beneath the covers next to her. She wakes as soon as I do and my regret is immediate, but she reaches for my wrist to drag my arm across her body then settles against me.
“Who knew,” she says, her voice hazy with exhaustion. “All I needed to get to sleep was a thorough fucking from my husband. Could have saved money on that sleep retreat.”
“I think we can still make use of that yoga sleep pose. I feel like that alone is worth the investment.” I kiss her shoulder as she breathes a laugh, and I wrap my arms tighter around Lark’s body. “Try to get some rest.”
“No trying this time,” she replies with a yawn. “Only doing.”
With a final kiss, I fall asleep with my wife in my arms.
When I wake a few hours later with the sun streaming through the leaded glass, Lark is gone.
Within a few slow-moving moments, I’ve gotten myself together enough to be semipresentable. I follow the scent of coffee and toast in the kitchen. Lark is there, humming to music that plays quietly from her speakers as she flips eggs in a pan. Bentley sits at her feet, waiting for scraps to drop in his direction.
“You know, he wouldn’t be so bad about getting in your way if you didn’t toss him bits of bacon. I saw that,” I say, trying and failing to give Lark a chastising look as she tosses another piece of meat to the dog and grins.
“It keeps his coat shiny.”
“Right. Sure.” I lay a quick kiss on Lark’s lips before grabbing the coffee she’s already set aside for me. “What do you have planned for today, aside from giving your dog more gastro troubles?”
Lark laughs more than I thought the joke deserved. “I forgot about that.”
“I didn’t. That was the feckin’ worst. I’m serious—you should look at changing his food. No animal should emit smells like that.”
Bentley glares at me from his seat.
“It wasn’t his fault,” Lark says as she takes two plates to the dining table and we settle into chairs across from each other.
“I know. It’s yours, for feeding him bacon and cheese.”
“No, I mean I blamed it on him, but it was the dead guy in the coffee table.”
I blink at Lark. Then at the coffee table. Then at Lark again. “What?”
Lark takes a slow sip of her coffee. “I sanded the tip of his nose a little when we were talking. That was the smell. Nose bits and resin, I guess.” She shrugs and starts cutting into her bacon and eggs.
“Sometimes, I forget that I’m married to a serial”—Lark glares at me and I catch myself—“multiple deleter. And then you conveniently remind me that you’ve made your victims into crafts. Crafts which I’ve apparently been setting my drinks on while watching Constantine, or Speed, or basically any other Keanu movie ever made.”
“About that, you should probably start using my coasters.”
“I’ve seen your coasters. I’ll take a pass.”
“Anyway, crafting is a soothing hobby. I could start selling things on Etsy,” Lark says with a charmingly sardonic smile. “How’s your contract killer gig going by the way, dear husband?”
“About that …” I pull my phone from my pocket and set it next to me, opening the messages from Leander that came through while I was asleep. “Leander needs me to head over there this afternoon. Naturally, he’s asked if his favorite muffin murderer could come with. Conor said the payments we found in Pacifico were legit, so I was thinking we should go back to the drawing board and search for some new options on who the killer might be. What do you think?”
“I’d be delighted. And I’ll make some muffins.”
We exchange smiles and slip into a routine that feels so easy and familiar that it’s hard to reconcile our marriage with the circumstances of its beginning. We talk and laugh as we finish our breakfast and then bake together. We enjoy comfortable silences and long, weighted glances, slow smiles and crimson blushes. We take a shower together and I fuck my wife against the tiles, her legs wrapped around my back and her mouth pressed to mine.
And then we head to Leander Mayes’s estate.
Visiting Leander sets me on edge as it always does, especially with Lark at my side. But he’s welcoming this time, though maybe suspicious of the muffins until Lark and I each have one. He’s taken with Lark in a way that a gem collector might obsess over a rare diamond. He hangs on to her words like they’re precious facets of light. Polishes her with compliments. I’m halfway convinced that he only called me over here so he could learn more about the woman who waltzed into his home and left him on the floor of his man cave with a splitting headache and a bruised ego. He only asks me a few mundane questions about an old job and then his focus is back on Lark. I finally manage to pry us away and lead Lark into Leander’s office.
“We need to start branching out,” I say when we settle at a workstation. I’m trying to get down to business but my eyes almost instinctively linger on Lark’s mouth. I clear my throat and turn back to the screen. “Let’s think of people you and your family know—even people who you don’t think of as enemies. Could it be someone in your inner circle? Someone trying to cause disarray among your family for their own advantage?”
Lark shrugs and leans forward, resting her chin on the heel of her palm. “Maybe. Most people in that circle have been with our family for years, though, and nothing like this has ever happened.”
“Now that your aunt is so ill, maybe they’re seizing their chance. Who’s closest to her? Is there someone who holds sway with both the Montagues and the Covacis?”
Lark types a name as a little shudder rolls through her arms. “Probably not worth digging too deeply on him, but Stan Tremblay is my aunt’s enforcer, for lack of a better term. He’s the one who always handled our dirty work, for the Montagues, anyway. My stepfather keeps him at arm’s length but respects him, particularly after the way he handled things with the school.”
“Ashborne?”
“Yeah,” she replies as she enters Tremblay’s information into the advanced search. Though I’m sure she can feel the heat of my gaze warm her face, she doesn’t glance my way. “He cleaned everything up when Sloane …”
Lark’s sentence tapers off, and she gives a little shake of her head as she swallows.
“Leander did that for me, like Stan,” I say before she can claw her way through an explanation she’s not ready to give. “He waltzed in just moments after Rowan and I killed my father. My father owed debts everywhere, and eventually, he fucked with the wrong people. Leander’s people. Leander came to collect for some of his extended family while he was visiting Sligo. Guess he did collect a soul, just not the way he thought he would.” When Lark raises her eyes to mine, I give her a warning look. “Leander covered our crime. Got us to America. Set us up. He’s been one of the closest people to me for more than fifteen years. I owe him my freedom, my brother’s freedom. But I don’t feckin’ trust him. So don’t discount anyone from your inner circle, no matter what they’ve done for you. Trust your instincts. Can you see this guy being the one?”
