Page 32 of Jonas (Silver Team #4)

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

“Enjoy your swim?” Kira asked without looking up from her laptop.

Damn cameras!

“I didn’t see much swimming,” Cash drawled.

“Don’t be a dick,” Jonas clapped back and grabbed my hand to lead me to a chair on the other side of the table. “Where’s Zane?”

“He went back to his cabin to take a call. He’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Theo, Easton, Nebraska, and Smith were already seated. Jonas pulled out the chair next to Nebraska, dipped his chin indicating I should sit, then took the seat next to me.

“I’ve been thinking,” Cash announced.

Everyone but Kira looked at him.

“What do you think hurts worse, being kicked in the balls or childbirth?”

“Balls,” Smith immediately put in.

Easton, Theo, and Jonas all confirmed with a round of “balls.”

Nebraska turned to look at me and shook her head.

“Childbirth.”

“No way, balls,” Theo denied.

“How do you figure that?” I asked.

“There’s no comparison between getting kicked in the nuts and having a human come out of your vagina,” Nebraska added.

“You got that right, sister,” Lore said, as she stepped into the room.

“Says the three women who have never had children.” Cash paused to look at Lore. “Or have you popped out a herd of loinfruits?”

“Loin… fruits ,” Smith sputtered between chuckles.

Lore’s blank stare turned into a megawatt smile that gave Katy Perry’s “I Kissed A Girl” song new meaning.

“You’re hot,” I blurted out.

“I get that a lot,” Cash jibbed.

“Not you. Lore.”

Lore’s smile swung my way, and she winked.

“Thanks, dollface, I was thinking the same about you earlier.”

“If this is going to turn into one of those girls’ night sleepovers where y’all pillow fight, I can run upstairs and?—”

“No you can’t,” Jonas snapped.

Thankfully, Kira broke into the conversation and veered us back to safer territory.

“Why were you thinking about childbirth? Are you thinking about trying to con a woman into having your spermlings?”

“Fuck no.” Cash’s quick denial had my attention zeroing in on him. More specifically his frown. Damn, the man really didn’t want to have children. “I saw this video where men were hooked up to a TENS unit and they were comparing it to being kicked in the balls.”

“I still say childbirth is more painful,” Nebraska affirmed.

“I’m not saying it’s not,” Theo rejoined. “But if it was more painful than a shot to the balls, women would be one and done. There’d be no siblings.”

“Truth.” Cash backed up his friend. “No man in this room is going to stand up and take a kick to the T-zone for funzies.”

I wasn’t sure which was funnier, Cash referring to his testicles as the ‘T-zone’ or him saying ‘funzies.’

“There are some men who like cock and ball torture,” Lore smoothly educated.

Cash visibly shivered.

“I’m not one to yuck someone’s yum. And to each their own with their kink. But the words, ‘may I have another, mistress’ are not in my vocabulary.”

“Then you haven’t found the right mistress,” Lore shot back.

The room went silent.

Then it broke out into rancorous laughter. I couldn’t see who was smacking their palm on the table through the tears blurring my vision. The only two people in the room who weren’t laughing were Cash and Lore. I wiped away the amused tears brimming in my eyes and focused on Cash.

He looked horrified and Lore looked dead-ass serious, which made Cash’s expression even more hilarious.

“What’s so funny?”

“Lore offered to be Cash’s Mistress of the Dark,” Smith lied.

“More like Mistress of his balls,” Easton corrected.

“That tracks,” Zane said and tossed a file on the table.

“We were discussing which is more painful, childbirth or a kick in the nuts,” Nebraska told Zane.

“Childbirth.” Zane wisely agreed with the women.

“I’ve witnessed it twice. It’s voodoo. Some sort of ancient curse.

It is mathematically impossible for a head to come out of a vagina.

Yet somehow it pops out. Before my wife had my testicles surgically removed, I would’ve taken a sledgehammer to the jewels before I signed up to birth children.

And since you idiots never seem to take my advice to wrap your stump, the day will come when your woman hands you a pee stick with two pink lines.

So here’s some wisdom for you. Don’t watch.

I don’t give a shit what you’re packing—seeing a watermelon come out of your woman’s fun zone is a hit to the ego. ”

I was still back on the two pink lines part of what Zane said when Kira rasped, “For the last time, it’s called a vasectomy. Say it with me—va-sect-oh-mee.”

I was only half paying attention when news of Zane’s vasectomy hit the room.

My mind was back in the cabin and the phenomenal unprotected sex I’d had.

Jonas had pulled out and in the single hottest moment of my life painted my lips with his orgasm.

But everyone knew the old pull and pray method didn’t work.

At least not a hundred percent of the time.

I was counting back days, trying to remember when my last period ended, when Jonas’s hand landed on my thigh.

As nonchalantly as I could, I looked over at Jonas.

He leaned closer and whispered, “We’re good.”

I couldn’t decipher if that was a question or a statement.

If it was a statement and he thought we were good, that implied he thought he was good at the pull out, which I really didn’t want to think about for obvious reasons, but also because I could feel my blood turning green.

If he was asking, the math said I was four days from my last period so… hopefully.

I nodded.

“Either way,” he clarified. “We’re good.”

Either way?

Either…

Way!

That was pure insanity. I mean, it was good to know if he’d knocked me up during our first sexual encounter after knowing him only forty-eight hours, he wouldn’t leave me high and dry. But I wasn’t in the market for a baby daddy. I wanted kids…one day. But not today or in nine months from now.

My face must’ve telegraphed my thoughts because he squeezed my knee.

“Same thing, MiniMe. My wife paid to have my balls removed,” Zane said, pulling my attention from Jonas and thoughts of my period.

“Smart woman,” Lore tossed out.

“You have no idea,” Kira grumbled.

“Got an update from Myles.” Theo’s declaration garnered everyone’s attention. “He’s in the wind.”

“Not our problem,” Zane muttered. “We need to get to Lou Peterson and Karen White before they find themselves on slabs next to Anson in the coroner’s refrigerator.”

“How’d he die?” I asked.

“Multiple gunshot wounds to the chest and face. It’s being investigated as a home invasion gone wrong.

” That was a crock of shit. “I got in touch with the detective who caught the case—he’s a friend of a friend.

The place was tossed but whoever did Anson knew better than to leave without actually stealing shit.

Wife’s jewelry drawers were cleaned out.

Anson’s watch collection and six porcelain sculptures all valued over twenty-five K are gone. ”

“Professional hit,” Cash surmised.

“Someone’s cleaning house,” Zane confirmed. “Theo, Easton, you’re on Karen White and her husband. Jonas, Derrika, you’re on Lou Peterson. Smith, Cash, you’re on Lou’s driver. We need a real name for Keith Mitchell.”

“I can go with?—”

Zane cut Lore off. “You and Nebraska are with me.”

Well, damn, it didn’t look like I was going to get to meet the president after all.

“I know this is a touchy subject and I don’t want to shake the hornet’s nest, but has Dutch gotten anything out of John Wu or Liam Gagnon?” Nebraska inquired.

“No, and before you ask, the Wus have been picked up in Canada, and they’re being questioned. So far nothing out of them, either.”

Frustration laced Zane’s tone. It was easy to read that irritation as two-fold—the first being obvious, we needed them to talk. The second part of that was, Zane Lewis was not a man who was used to not getting what he wanted.

“Anything on the bridge or power outage?” Theo probed.

“No. Though I’ve moved on,” Kira said. “I’m tracking down the other transformers that were made in China and installed into the grid.”

It sucked, but what was done was done, and hopefully the power would be restored in Phoenix before there was any loss of life. Kira looking into stopping future attacks was time better spent.

“Do we have any new intel on Bolin Chen or his brother?” Easton asked.

“Shep’s on that and he’s looking into Senator Rutte,” Kira answered. “And Garrett’s still running down the NSC to make sure there are no leaks.”

I wanted to know how Garrett was able to look into high-ranking officials that made up the National Security Council but I didn’t ask.

“We’re back here tonight,” Zane announced.

Smith and Easton both pushed their chairs away from the table.

I guess that meant the meeting was dismissed.

I glanced at Jonas. “Do you know where we’re going?”

“Yeah. KK’s intel’s on the server.”

Cash was already jogging up the stairs, Smith and Easton following him. For some reason, I looked over at Lore. She was watching Cash—not just watching; she was watching with unconcealed interest.

I startled when Jonas’s arm went around my back and his hand landed on my hip.

His mouth was close to my ear when he whispered, “Steer clear of that, baby.”

I was pretty sure he was talking about the fireworks sparking between Cash and Lore.

I pegged Cash for the fun-loving, devil-may-care playboy of the group.

He had the same air of rough and ready and up for a good time that Jonas had, but I didn’t take him for an asshole.

Nor did I take him as the type of man who wouldn’t be upfront about what he wanted.

“You think he’d?—”

“No, Dee Dee, not him.”

He thought Lore would chew Cash up and spit him out.

I glanced back at the beautiful woman and could see how he’d think that. She was a bold, confident, take-no-shit and take-what-she-wanted type of woman. It was stamped all over her, impossible to miss.

“Really?”

“Oh, yeah.”

Huh. I didn’t see it, but I didn’t know the woman, or Cash, so who was I to argue?

“Before we leave, I need to finish washing my hair,” I told him. “It’s one thing to sit through a briefing with a rats’ nest on my head, it’s another to go out into public looking like this.”

Jonas’s eyes lifted to my hair.

“What are you talking about? You look your normal gorgeous.”

I rolled my eyes at his lie.

“I’m a sure thing, J Dog. You don’t have to blow sunshine.”

His eyes flared before he dipped his face closer.

“Warning. You call me J Dog again, you’ll find it’s you blowing something and you’ll be doing it on your knees with your ass red from a paddling.”

I couldn’t stop the shiver. I’d never had my ass paddled so how would I know the threat would send a tremor through me and have my lady parts quivering?

“Pleased as fuck you’re on board,” he rasped. “But we got work to do.”

Right. Work .

I filed away my kink and put calling Jonas ‘J Dog’ on top of my mental to-do list as soon as we had time.