Page 31 of Burn Bag (Owens Protective Services #31)

“Good morning!” she said cheerily, bending over to kiss my cheek. Her warm breath caressed my skin, sending tingles through my body that I had no right to feel after what this woman put me through.

Yet, here I was, smiling up at her instead of yelling at her for the damn cats running all over me. I found myself inhaling her sweet scent—peaches—and wondering if she tasted just as good.

“Stupid fucker,” I muttered as she sauntered into the kitchen, rubbing one of the kittens who had jumped up on the counter.

“Can we keep the cats out of the kitchen?” I snapped, angry that I was allowing myself to fall under her spell like this.

Yes, I wanted a loving wife. But what I didn’t want was a woman who could wrap me around her finger like this.

“Sure, sweetie,” she smiled, picking up the kitten and carrying him out of the room. Not that it fucking mattered. The moment she walked back into the kitchen, he scampered along after her, nipping at her heels to play.

I was supposed to be taking the day off, yet all I could think about was getting the hell out of here.

Why did there have to be so many fucking cats?

One of the Ashera cats rubbed against my leg, purring loudly.

I was about to yell at him when he jumped into my lap, then climbed up on my chest and curled up in a ball.

I had to lean backward so he didn’t slide down my body.

But he didn’t seem to care at all. He was perfectly content right on my chest.

“Aww, look at you!” Daphne cooed. “Looks like you made a friend.”

“I did not,” I argued. “He sat on me. It’s not like I had anything to do with this.”

“He likes you. Cats sleep on their humans when they trust them.”

That was a load of horseshit. I was going to toss the damn cat off my chest, then we’d see how much he liked me.

“Daphne, I know I said we could keep the cats here temporarily, but?—”

“It’s only for another couple of days,” she smiled, hurrying away before I could argue. “I already found homes for several of them, but we have to give people time to get supplies together.”

“At this rate, we should just have food and litter trucked in. We could probably get wholesale prices,” I said sarcastically.

Of course, Daphne, being the wonderful wife she was, popped up with a smile on her face. “That’s a great idea.”

“I was joking,” I said quickly, attempting to stand up, only to have the cat stretch his paw out as if he was pushing me back down. “Daphne, we are not ordering a truck full of litter and food.”

“Why not? It would make sense.”

“Because…because it would not! ”

What I really wanted to tell her was that I was concerned that it would only encourage her to get more cats.

“Well, I’ll talk to the other wives and see what they say.”

She continued to busy herself around the house, but I couldn’t do it. Everywhere I turned, there were cats. I couldn’t handle another minute of this. I shooed the cat, but he refused to move.

“Come on, you little fucker. Move.”

Still, he did nothing.

I tried nudging him, but that still didn’t do the trick. No matter how hard I tried, the cat just yawned and stretched out further. Finally, I picked him up and tossed him to the ground. Blinking slowly up at me, he jumped into my chair and laid back down.

“I’m leaving,” I called out, hoping she understood how pissed I was.

“Okay, sweetie!”

I rolled my eyes, marching to the door and slamming it behind me as I strode outside. Hopping in my truck, I was at the office in no time, ready to hit the gym or take a job, anything to keep me from spending another fucking minute in that house.

With her.

That smile, her golden hair, those large eyes that kept pleading with me to get along with the cats. Why couldn’t she plead with me to fuck her hard? That, I could do with my dick healed.

It was mostly scabbed over, but I was still a little gun-shy. Even the slightest touch had me flinching. If I ever wanted to get laid again, I was going to have to seek out a psychologist to get over this fear.

“Hey!” Fox grinned as he caught up to me, tossing some popcorn in his mouth. “Where’s the little missus? I was hoping we could work on her throwing technique today.”

“Not gonna happen,” I snarled, pressing the button on the elevator.

“Why not? She wanted to learn.”

“Because she’s not getting any weapons. The last thing I need is her getting any more ideas in her head.”

He snorted in amusement. “Okay,” he mocked. “You know, throwing knives is about more than death. ”

“I know,” I growled. “You’ve turned all the women in this company into trained killers.”

“Well, not all of them.” He leaned in close, whispering as if this was the answer to all conspiracy theories, putting a rest to the questions behind JFK’s assassination. “Between you and me, Bree will never have what it takes to hack it.”

“Good to know. I was really worried about that.”

He flinched back, frowning at me. “You were? I could give you a roster of where everyone’s at in training right now.”

“Fox, I was fucking with you. I don’t give a shit where the women are. And I don’t care how much you think Daphne needs to train. She is not and never will take any classes with you.”

“You know, I think you’re jealous,” he grinned, munching on some more popcorn.

“I’m not jealous. I just don’t want you teaching my wife to murder people. And what the fuck is it with you eating popcorn? What happened to your Funyuns?”

He grinned, little kernels shining where they caught in his gums. “They’re Funyun flavored. I made them myself by shaking off the dust of every Funyun in over thirty bags. It took a while, but I was finally able to get the right flavor combo I was hoping for.”

I gaped at him, unsure where to go with that. Who had the time to shake dust off thirty bags of Funyuns? Who would want to do that?

Fox.

“Right, well, this has been entertaining, but I have things to do.”

“Like what?” he asked, following me down the hall to the gym.

“Like work out.”

“Cool. I’ll do it with you. Gotta keep up these muscles. Anna likes it when I hold her up against the wall.”

“Fox, I really don’t care what you and Anna do sexually.”

He gripped my shoulder, stopping me as I tried to enter the gym. “Hey, everything okay at home? You seem a little tense.”

“Everything’s fine,” I snapped.

“Yeah?” he grinned at me, waggling his eyebrows. “I remember the honeymoon phase. Man, I couldn’t get enough of Anna. ”

Gritting my teeth, I stormed away from him. The last thing I wanted to think about was another man and his wife, and all the sex they were having. Meanwhile, I was a newlywed and still hadn’t even attempted to do more than kiss my wife.

“Not going so good, then?” he said, catching up to me. “I can sense these things.”

“Can you?” I bit out.

“Well, not hard to see. After your trip to the hospital and the angry look on your face, I’m guessing things are not as wunderbar as you would hope for. That means wonderful, by the way.”

“Fox, can you just let it go?”

He slung his arm around my shoulder and laughed. “Man, I can’t leave you alone in this depressing time. We men have to stick together. We’re teammates.” He turned to face me. “Hey, when you suffer, I suffer.”

“I never fucking said I was suffering.”

I tried to shake him off, but he grabbed my shoulders and started massaging them. “Hey, it’s okay, man. Let it out. I understand. Things can be tough and sometimes you need a shoulder to cry on.”

“I don’t need a fucking shoulder. What I need is for you to leave me the fuck alone!”

He snorted. “Like your wife is? How’s that helping?”

I pinched the bridge of my nose, taking a deep breath. Fuck, I was going to kill him. “Fox, there are some things that are personal between a husband and wife.”

“Right, like what kind of flavor you like on your shawarma. That’s very personal stuff.”

“Sure,” I bit out, hoping that would end the conversation.

“Now, about the whole sex thing, is it because of the cats? Because I gotta be honest, there’s no fucking way in hell I’d let a little thing like a cat scratch stop me from fucking my wife.”

“A little thing?” I snapped. “My cock hides inside my body anytime anything comes near it. And if that weren’t bad enough, there are fucking cats all over my house. Everywhere, Fox! I can’t walk into a fucking room without a cat jumping on me. Do you have any idea what that’s like?”

“Nope,” he grinned. “I don’t have a horde of cats. Though, if I was going to collect animals, I think I would go for a Capuchin monkey.”

Dear God, I really didn’t want to ask, but I did anyway. “Why?”

“Well, one, they’re easy to train. Imagine how I could have him help me in the kitchen. All that shawarma takes a long time to cook. It would be nice to have some help.”

“From a monkey.”

“Exactly. Plus, they communicate with these awesome calls. I always wanted to speak another language.”

“You already speak five,” I retorted.

“Yeah, but imagine a language I could speak that only monkeys knew. How useful would that be on a job? Huh?” he grinned.

“Fox…” I didn’t know what to say. Seriously, what the fuck did you say when a friend said he wanted to keep a Capuchin monkey so he could talk to him in secret?

“Ooh, added bonus, they don’t eat meat. Well, supposedly. Which means I don’t have to worry about sharing my shawarma with him.”

“Yeah, just your Funyuns,” I muttered.

“Nah, I really doubt they’d like the onion flavor. Ooh, maybe you could learn to speak cat language. That way, we could have a cat army.”

“Fox—”

“Now, hear me out. Imagine we’re on a job and you have to go down a dark alley.

You could send a cat first and wait to hear back from him.

One meow is the all clear, but two meows means there’s danger.

And I bet those Ashera cats you just brought home would be perfect for the job because they act like dogs. How could it go wrong?”

“How could it go wrong? Did you seriously just ask me that?”

“Yeah,” he said succinctly. “Cats have been used for all kinds of things in war. Did you know they brought them on ships in World War II?”

“Yes, to kill rodents. Not to go into combat zones! ”

“Au contraire mon frère,” he grinned. “Cats were used to detect mustard gas during the war. In fact, it’s because of their heightened sense of smell that they were so helpful.

” Then he frowned, turning away from me.

“Which makes me think we might be missing out on some vital points. IRIS could use them to detect bombs. Imagine all we’re missing out on.

We really could have a cat army! Your wife is brilliant! ”

He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to my cheek, then jumped back. “I have to talk to IRIS. We need to set up cat housing and start a whole program for training. It’ll take some time, but we’ll be up and running in no time. Ooh, and you know who will want in on this?”

“FNG?” I said drolly.

“Yes!” he laughed. “It’s going to be so amazing!” He walked away, still muttering to himself and making plans. I sighed, running my fingers through my hair in frustration just as Lock approached.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. “Aren’t you off today?”

“I came in to get a workout, but apparently, I inadvertently got Fox to start a cat army.”

Lock sighed heavily. “I guess I’d better look into the price of mice.”