Page 84 of Our Tricks

“Fuck, don’t talk like that.” She groaned. “You’re going to get me all fucking turned on again, and I doubt we’ll be able to get away with this long enough for me to fuck you all out here.”

“You wanna bet?” I teased. “You lay down that kind of challenge, and I have no doubt they’ll rise to the occasion.”

She snorted. “As much as I’d love that, I’d rather save that marathon for a time I know I can pass out in a puppy pile of all of you together in bed with me.”

“Hmm… that does sound far more appealing,” I admitted.

Reluctantly, I set her down and helped her get cleaned up enough to be comfortable hanging out for the rest of the night. We’d been shocked when all our luggage showed up here and were informed that we’d been checked out of the hotel. It seems they thought of everything when they decided to kidnap us.

Collecting the wood we’d gathered, the two of us returned to the campfire. Everyone looked relaxed and none the wiser to what we’d been up to. That was until Sprocket caught my eye and cocked a brow with a knowing smirk on his lips. I returned the smirk and shrugged, not fucking ashamed of what we’d done. There were two more wood adventures to keep the fire going, and the last pairing had me chuckling as Ghost, Harper, and Jaxson left together.

“Seems you’re idea’s caught on,” Picasso teased. “Wish I’d thought of it sooner, so I wasn’t traipsing around the woods with Cognac.”

“Here I thought you wanted my company, but instead, I found he only wanted my body,” Cognac teased, clutching his chest. “Had to fight the rogue off with a stick.”

All of us laughed, and I smiled as I looked at Dax curled up next to Sprocket with her head on his lap, half asleep. These assholes had been doing their damnedest to get my little hellcat to become a morning person. It would take more than a week of morning drills to make that happen. Some people just weren’t wired that way.

When we saw the trio returning, we noticed they didn’t bring back any wood. “So I see you decided not to follow through with the sham?” I asked.

Ghost looked furious. “We didn’t get a chance to even try before we caught wind of our tail. Seems someone decided we’d been unsupervised for long enough.”

That had me sitting up straighter. “One of the guys here?” I asked, feeling like he wouldn’t have been quite so mad about that.

“Personally, I think the higher-ups sent someone to check on us,” Jaxson commented. “We’ve been here a week, and per our agreement, they haven’t shared our intel with anyone outside this group until after the mission is complete.”

I growled at the thought of more people sticking their noses in our plans. We had enough going on without needing more cooks in the kitchen.

Cam rose to his feet and brushed off his pants. “I suggest we turn in for the night. No sense in leaving ourselves isolated if there might be trouble.”

Everyone agreed and left the fire since it was mostly embers and headed for the barracks. It was better we get our shuteye as it was since four o’clock is early for anyone. Dax was with Void tonight, and they curled up in a top bunk, quickly drifting off to sleep. I sat on the edge of the bottom bed, mulling over what just happened. Surprising the shit out of me, Magnus came and sat next to me. Over the past two weeks, we’d found a friendship of sorts or maybe a solid mutual respect that put the two of us at ease.

“If you tell Harper anything about what I’m going to tell you, I’ll deny every word of it,” Magnus announced.

Glancing at him out of the corner of my eye, I nodded. “Duly noted.”

“I need you to promise that if anything happens to the three of us, you’ll look after Harper,” Magnus said in a low-pitched voice. “This mission has way too many unknowns and variables for my liking. It’s the best we could make it, but it’s the nature of what we’re dealing with. Knowing she’ll have people there to look after her will help settle some of my worries.”

“Harper is family to us,” I stated emphatically. “No matter what, we’ll always have her back like I know if something happened to us, you’d be there for Dax.”

Magnus let out a huff of laughter. “Pretty sure Harper would actually leave our asses if we didn’t take care of Dax. The little shit might fight us on it, but yeah, we’ll make sure she’s got family to lean on.”

Reaching out a hand to him, he took it without hesitation. “Then we have an agreement that will stand until all of us are six feet under.”

“Yeah, I suppose we do,” Magnus agreed, then stood and looked down at me. “I’m glad you got your head out of your ass. You’re decent company.”

“Asshole!” I growled. “You are the one who had their head up their ass.”

Magnus shrugged. “Maybe we both did, but like the girls have been saying, we’re family now.”

“One weird fucked-up family, but yeah, guess that’s kind of what works for us.” I chuckled with a grin.

Magnus smiled then turned and left. The only time I’d seen that asshole smile was at Harper.

Guess we really were family now.

Chapter 30

Dax