“Nik—” he began, but she lifted a hand, shaking her head.
“Yeah. Yes. I get it, Mag. I got it the minute I heard her call you Danny.”
And without another word, she turned to the door, opened it, and disappeared behind it.
We both stood, Mag’s arm still around me, presumably staring at the door (it was presumably only on Mag’s part because I couldn’t see him, I was staring at the door) and we did this for a long time.
Then the realization dawned on me that for the first time in my life I’d gone on physical attack against another human being, which was mortifying.
It was also why I pulled from his arm, took several steps away, turning to face him, but staring at his feet while I tucked hair behind my ear and babbled.
“Well, that was an interesting afternoon’s diversion. But I think now I’m willing to go to the grocery store because we definitely need more cinnamon marshmallow clusters after that.”
And ribeyes and the makings for loaded baked potatoes, because if I could make this man think he wanted to marry me over hamburgers, I was totally broiling him a steak.
“Babe,” he called.
I lifted my eyes to his.
“No pressure,” he said softly. “After what I just said. It’s just, you’re, well…Evan…” He cleared his throat. “You’re just the shit.”
“You’re more the shit,” I told him.
He grinned and his discomfort started to melt away. “I didn’t invent cinnamon marshmallow clusters.”
“Well, I didn’t forgive you in less than twenty-four hours for saying douchey things to me.”
“I didn’t charge your ex, going for blood.”
“I didn’t take a bullet then arrange a commando rescue.”
His grin got bigger and he slightly lifted up his sling. “I’m seeing a variety of pluses for this wound. First, you keep climbing on top, and second, I can drag it out for years, squeezing it for all its worth.”
“I like the top.”
His expression changed and so did his voice when he shared, “Baby, when I’m fighting fit, you’ll beg for the bottom.”
I shivered.
Mag didn’t miss it.
The hot look in his eyes could melt steel.
Even so, I shivered again, and my nipples got so hard, they ached.
“You really should rest that arm,” I whispered.
“Later.”
“Danny—”
“Evie, either get in my bed or I’m gonna carry you there. What’s it gonna be?”
We stared at each other.
He got fed up with it first and took a step toward me.
So, I turned and dashed around the island.
Straight to his room.
Chapter Seventeen
Special
Mag
Tuesday morning, Hawk sat at the head of the conference table in his offices.
Mag sat to Hawk’s left, Jorge to his right, Aug next to Jorge, Mo next to Mag.
“So, we got word. Cisco does not have that gun,” Hawk declared.
Mag’s eyes moved to Jorge, seeing as Jorge was likely behind procuring this information considering he grew up on Mamá Nana’s patch, Mamá had a soft spot for him and Mamá Nana knew everything about everybody because a large part of her operation was trading information.
“Though, it probably goes without saying, Cisco is actively looking for that gun,” Hawk went on.
“Shit,” Auggie muttered.
Mag just concentrated on controlling the boil in his gut because this meant there was a gun floating around out there that killed a cop.
And the man who killed that cop was Cisco, who wasn’t that smart, case in point, the continuing existence of this gun, a gun registered to him that had, if tales being told were true, his prints on it. So he’d clawed his way to where he was because, after Benito Valenzuela was put out of commission, there was a void in the power structure of Denver crime and Cisco wasn’t squeamish about how he went about filling it.
The longer that gun went unfound, the more chance he could get desperate.
This meant Evie was likely still in the line of fire—Cisco’s fire—because that man would leave no stone unturned to cover his own ass.
They’d had a seriously fucked-up Saturday.
Their Sunday was marred only by Mag having to lay it out for Nikki.
And yesterday, Hawk and Smithie had been in touch and told them they were still not to pitch up for work.
This meant he and Evie spent half the day in bed and half the day on the couch with only a quick trip to the grocery store to buy steaks and stuff for loaded baked potatoes and for her to make more of her clusters breaking up these activities.
They’d watched Anaconda.
She’d laughed her way through it.
Then, when she learned he hadn’t seen Harry Potter, she’d