all she was experiencing, if she wasn’t also inundated by a million different overpowering needs, hopes, and desires, she wouldn’t be so overwhelmed by this sudden desire to cry.
Selene lay on the kitchen floor, her bra still tangled around her middle. Oscar used a kitchen knife to cut through the tape, then peeled it off Luca’s shirt. He slid off the chair to sit beside her on the floor. They were both still panting. Oscar, like Luca, was still dressed, but he’d tucked his cock inside his pants.
“Do I have to carry you two to bed?”
“Fem Dom doesn’t need a bed,” Selene declared from the floor. “That’s what we’re doing next.”
Luca grinned, a big, goofy, heart-on-his-sleeve grin that Selene adored. “I never thought I would actually get to try the things I fantasized about.”
Selene rubbed his back without moving anything but her arm. “If it’s not what you thought it would be like, that’s totally normal.”
“It’s not.” Luca looked over at her. “It’s better.”
“We’re clearly not doing Fem Dom right now,” Oscar declared. “You two are practically dead on the floor in the chicken kitchen. We need a fucking nap.”
“I’m just lulling you into a false sense of security,” Selene assured him.
Luca snorted and started to laugh.
“But the floor is hard.” Her butt was starting to hurt. “You may pick me up, servant.”
Oscar hooked his hands under her armpits and yanked her to her feet. Selene looped an arm around his neck, ready to be carried like a princess to the bed.
Oscar briskly unlooped her arm, planted his shoulder against her hips, and slung her over his back. Selene yelped as he straightened, his hard shoulder digging into her stomach.
Luca rose to his feet. “The urge to, uh, spank her. You…”
Oscar smacked her ass. “Go for it. Her ass is very spankable.”
Selene shrieked as a wicked slap landed on her ass.
“Too hard?” Luca sounded so worried.
“No,” she breathed. “It hurt in a good way.” Luca’s unexpected dominance, followed by his seemingly endless compassion, just made everything that much hotter.
“My turn—”
Oscar’s words were interrupted by the clucking ring of the chicken phone. They all turned to look at it, Selene bracing her hands against Oscar’s ass.
“Fuck,” Oscar breathed.
“I’ll get it. Back up.” When Oscar had brought her close enough, Selene snatched up the receiver, still slung across Oscar’s back. “Hello?”
“Selene?” It was Preston Kim.
She poked Oscar, and he seemed to get what she wanted. He lowered her to her feet. “Hello, Preston.”
“Lance and I ran the calculations.”
She swallowed, her stomach knotted. “And?”
“The numbers don’t work.”
Selene closed her eyes in sudden, earth-shattering relief. “The bomb doesn’t work.”
Luca sank into a chair, his whole body slumped. Relief…or disappointment?
If these results had come a few days earlier, she would have suspected—worried—it was the latter. But there was no doubt in her mind now that Luca was grateful to know his designs couldn’t be used to snuff out countless innocent lives.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes. We’ve tried several iterations.”
The city-killer bomb wasn’t the horrific thing they’d all feared.
“Did you inform the Grand Master?”
“Yes. They wouldn’t give me this number until I informed them of our results.”
“Thank you, Preston. And please thank Lance for me.”
“I will.”
Selene hung up the phone and turned to look at Oscar and Luca.
Luca raised his head, and he was smiling. “I have never been so happy to be proven a fool.”
“It’s over,” Selene said. “The bomb doesn’t work, so it doesn’t matter who has the plans and—”
“I wish that were true,” Luca said quietly. “But it isn’t over.”
Chapter Eleven
Oscar said, “Right. Uh-huh,” for the third time since answering the phone, and Luca sucked in a deep breath, forcing a fake calmness when the other man turned to look at him.
They’d been awakened at the crack of dawn this morning to the phone ringing, er, clucking. They hadn’t managed to answer it the first time, but when it began clucking again almost instantly, it was clear whoever was calling didn’t intend to stop until one of them answered.
Oscar, dressed in only his boxers, had managed to grab the chicken leg receiver first, and the look on his face had made it clear who was calling.
The Masters’ Admiralty.
Meanwhile, Selene was pacing back and forth across the kitchen floor.
She stopped when Oscar turned to hang up. He continued to face the wall for a moment, his back to them.
“Well,” she said impatiently. “What did Sebastian say?”
Oscar turned to look first at her, then at Luca. “They’re getting us out of here. There’s a helicopter en route as