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The next morning, she woke with Graves’s head between her legs. She murmured softly as the feel of his tongue swirling around her sensitive clit pulled her from her dreams. Then the murmurs turned to mewls and the mewls to moans.

“Morning,” he said into her thigh, pressing firm kisses down to her knee. His gray eyes looked at her with a predatory glint. “Wanted to break my fast with my favorite meal.”

“You didn’t finish.”

His fingers slipped down her inner thigh, teasingly avoiding the one area she wanted. “Show me what you do when I’m not here.”

“I’m too busy with your cock to touch myself.”

“When you were gone, then,” he said devilishly. “Did you touch yourself thinking of me?”

Yes .

The word caught in her throat. She had. So many times. No matter how furious she was with him, he’d still been the best fuck of her life. And that wasn’t something a girl just forgot.

He grinned like a Cheshire cat. “Show me.”

Her hand slid down her stomach before parting the flesh and slicking her fingers through her own wetness. She was soaked from Graves’s ministrations. She hadn’t been that far from coming when he’d stopped. She brought her finger back up to the apex of her thighs and swirled it around her clit.

A soft sigh left her mouth as her pleasure ricocheted through her. She was so sensitive and so turned on and so ready to orgasm already. Graves watched her, fascinated by the sweep of her fingers and her pants and the rise and fall of her chest.

His cock lengthened, thick and heavy as he watched her.

As if he could hold out no longer, he took it into his hand and pumped it up and down to the time of her circles.

He could have fucked her at any point, but instead he watched.

His fascination with the sight of her pleasuring herself was a pulse between them.

And she, too, was mesmerized. Watching his cock disappear in and out of his hand. Hands that had blackmailed and tortured and killed people. That had made her scream her pleasure and find her memories and held her safe. A duality that she couldn’t begin to disentangle. Maybe she never would.

“Oh God,” she cried out as her orgasm hung by a string. “I’m close. So close.”

Graves was pumping even faster. One hand parted her legs, slipping fingers inside her wet pussy.

The added friction tipped her over the edge.

She came with a fury, clenching around his fingers.

He continued jacking off, watching her orgasm with a renewed fervor.

Then he unloaded, hot come spurting out of him to land on her chest and stomach. Sticky white seed smeared all over her.

When he finally finished, he looked down at her through bedroom eyes and said, “A masterpiece.”

She laughed. “I’m covered.”

“I fucking love it.” He ran a finger through his own come from breast to belly button and down further. “If I had it my way, I’d have you filled and covered in come every weekday and all weekend.”

“Oh my God,” she said with an eye roll. “What are you, marking your territory?”

He grinned. “Maybe I am.”

She laughed because there was nothing else to do. She couldn’t believe the girl who had always been more into girls and half hated the idea of a guy coming in her was now coated in the stuff and contemplating when she could have it happen again. Asshole.

Graves pressed a kiss to her lips. “We need to clean up. We have company.”

“What?” Kierse asked.

But no matter how she tried to wheedle an answer out of him, he carried her into the shower and cleaned her off. He had her bent over the bench again, pumping into her until they both came hard and fast. A desperate second orgasm that he milked out of her with precision.

She toweled off and changed into a black tank and shorts.

Graves claimed that he had one more thing to do in his office and then he’d meet her in the library.

He offered for her to be the one more thing he had to do, and oh how the idea had been tempting.

She pushed him toward his office and left him to his work.

She was starving and…a little hungover. How potent had that old bottle of wine been?

She’d definitely been buzzing, but now her head hurt.

So, while she wanted to find out about their company, she needed food first.

Kierse stopped in the kitchen to find Isolde with a spread already laid out. “I see you’re enjoying cooking for more people.”

Isolde brightened. “We’re like a bed and breakfast.”

Kierse laughed at that assessment. “Don’t tell Graves.”

“Never,” Isolde said conspiratorially. “We don’t want to disrupt him.”

Isolde hummed happily as she kneaded dough for a cinnamon babka. She was trying to match the recipe to the one Kierse loved from her favorite bakery.

“You were famished,” Isolde said when she downed a whole plate of eggs, bacon, and pancakes and went in for a second.

“Hangover,” she told her with a yawn.

“Ah, take some of the biscuits to go with you. Gen really likes them.”

“Everyone likes your cookies,” Kierse said.

Isolde straightened at the word. “We’ll have you using the proper words eventually.”

Kierse laughed as she grabbed the tray and took it upstairs and into the library.

When she pushed inside, she’d honestly been expecting Graves’s mentor, Kingston.

Graves didn’t have many other friends in his line of work.

Just a long list of enemies, broken hearts, and staff.

Kingston was the closest thing he had to a friend, but they hadn’t heard from him again since the ominous roses when they’d first returned to the city. And he wasn’t here today, either.

“Walter Rodriguez,” Kierse said.

Graves’s old apprentice was seated cross-legged on the couch, a laptop open on his knees. Gen sat next to him, stroking Anne’s head. Anne hissed at Kierse as she approached and trotted off into the stacks. One day that cat was going to like her. She swore she was.

“’Sup,” Walter said, pressing his black-rimmed glasses up his nose as he buried his head back in the computer. He wore a gray T-shirt with a comic book character Kierse didn’t recognize on it, black jeans, and black high-top sneakers.

“Surprised to see you here.”

Walter shrugged. “No one more than me.”

She set the tray down on the table and put a hand on her forehead as she dropped into a chair. She grimaced at the decoy box in front of her, which she was still having trouble with.

“You woke up late,” Gen said.

“Late night,” Kierse said. Lots of sex . “And a hangover. Do you think you could…?” Kierse gestured to her head.

Gen snorted. “You earned that hangover. You can live with a rough morning.”

“I had a rough night.” She winked at Gen, who blushed.

“I bet,” Gen said with an eye roll.

“What about you ? Did you and Ronan do the dirty?”

Gen flushed. “No!” Then glanced sideways at Walter and back. “But we did hook up.”

“Ahhh!” Kierse said. “Tell me everything.”

“I can hear you,” Walter promised. “And I do not want to know, respectfully.”

“Sure. Sure,” Gen said. “We just met, but I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Walter looked up at her with a tilted head. “All bad, I presume.”

“Heard you’re really strong.”

“Huh,” Walter said and then went back to his computer.

Kierse fiddled with the combination lock.

She’d spent the last couple weeks dismantling the thing piece by piece, but the lock still eluded her.

It was infuriating. She felt like she was missing part of the puzzle.

It had been years since a lock had messed with her this much.

Not since she’d been a child, working with Jason as he trained her through the intricacies.

And she felt again like that small child again as this lock refused to open for her.

“So, Walter,” Gen said amicably, “you decided to join Team Holly.”

Kierse nearly choked on her own spit. “Team Holly?”

“What? It works! I even designed a logo.” She turned over the notebook she had in her lap to reveal a little holly leaf with the berries in the center, Team Holly written in block text over top. “I thought we should get T-shirts.”

Walter stared at Gen as if she were some bizarre sort of creature with horns sprouting out of her head. He shrugged. “I’d wear a T-shirt.”

Kierse sputtered. “You just joined!”

“I try not to do things half assed. If we’re getting team shirts, I want one.”

“I like him,” Gen said with a wide smile.

“How did he convince you to work with us?”

“He didn’t,” Walter said into his computer.

Gen and Kierse exchanged a look. “What convinced you?” Gen asked.

“You did,” Walter said.

Kierse frowned. “Me?”

He looked up at her very practically. “You could have killed me at any point. You can get through my force fields. You can bypass my wards. You are a weapon. Graves should have used his weapon to kill me, which would have deactivated my wards. Then he could have walked in and taken the spear himself.”

“But he didn’t,” Kierse realized.

“You didn’t kill me. Graves didn’t want me dead,” Walter said simply.

“Huh.”

Sometimes she forgot that Graves could have been even more of a villain.

For whatever reason, he didn’t want Walter dead, and Walter knew that.

If Graves was asking for his help, Walter also must have calculated it was better to work for the biggest bad on the block than get stuck in someone else’s machinations.

“While we’re on the topic of not killing people,” Gen said matter-of-factly.

“Yeah?”

“Triskel training.”

Kierse groaned. She’d hoped to never think about triskel training again. “Do I have to?”

“You agreed.”

“Yeah, but…”

“Niamh said it’s best to start on the full moon, because we’ll be at full strength. That’s Tuesday.”

“Okay,” Kierse said with a sigh. “I’ll need the week to prepare to see Lorcan again, anyway.”

“And Niamh,” Gen said softly.

Kierse nodded at her friend. They were both a little fucked.