Steal the Night (Thieves #5)(27)

Dev was the modern man. He was unashamedly metro and put a great deal of thought into his clothes. His hair was so black, in the right light you could catch a hint of blue. His eyes were emerald green and he had the most beautiful face I’d ever seen on a man. He was slightly taller than Daniel but his build was smaller. He was built more along the lines of a swimmer or a surfer, where Daniel looked like he could take on the Cowboys offensive line and win. What am I saying? He would definitely win.

“Now I won’t mistake you for our wife when I’m drunk off my ass.” Daniel smiled at his partner.

“Yes, I don’t have boobs, Dan,” Dev pointed out seriously. Something caught his eye and his face lit up. “Oh my, their condoms have flavors.”

“Oh, no.” Daniel groaned and put an arm around Dev’s waist to drag him away. “Don’t let the fertility god into the sex shop, Z. We’ll lose him. He’ll never come back out.”

Dev laughed as he allowed Daniel to playfully drag him away. He put out his arms like he wanted to embrace the store. “But Daniel, they have toys. We need toys to get our wife hot.”

No, they didn’t. They just needed to do exactly what they were doing because I was getting plenty hot and already wondering how long this whole demonic call was going to take. I was ready to head back to the penthouse and play with my toys.

“She’s hot enough as she is.” Daniel’s voice got low but not so quiet I couldn’t hear every word. “I think if I bit you right now, she might let us take her in the alley.”

I sighed at the thought.

“Perv,” Daniel said affectionately, releasing our fertility god and kissing me firmly.

“Hey, I want in on that.” Dev growled and stole a kiss, too.

“You got in on that last night,” Danny teased. “I’m not drinking anymore. I miss out on all the fun. And when we get this whole crappy business thing over with, I intend to go home and watch that little sex tape the two of you made last night. It’ll get my mind off the other one.”

Dev’s smile was slow and sexy. “You’ll find it amusing. Our wife was very domineering. She was sweet and bossy. We should let her tie you up.”

I was suddenly very aware that we were in public. “Guys, people are watching.”

“So?” Daniel playfully touched the tip of my nose, letting me know he thought I was being silly. “Let ’em look. They don’t know us. How did you think this was going to work, baby? Did you think we’d take turns playing your husband when we’re in public? Is the other one supposed to be the third-wheel friend?”

“Not going to happen,” Dev assured me, shaking his head. “We have to play enough games. If I want to kiss you, I’m going to. Dan feels the same way. If we receive stares because of it, I’ll assume the people staring would love to be in my place. Now kiss me.”

Even in my super-cute Dolce and Gabbana booties with four-and-a-half-inch stilettos, I still had to go up on my tiptoes to plant a kiss on his mouth. Sure enough, I heard whispers. I was going to have to get used to it.

Dev turned back to the problem at hand with a longsuffering sigh. “So instead of the very interesting looking sex shop, I get to spend my evening in a smelly old bookstore.”

“It doesn’t seem fair, does it?” Daniel opened the door and started inside.

Dev and I followed. The owner was not a big fan of proper lighting. The whole place seemed to be in a deep gloom. There was a musty, unused feel to the space, as though it had been sealed off and forgotten. It seemed very small and the stacks of books almost claustrophobically tight. Anxiety started to build in my gut, and I had to take a deep breath. I forced myself to move further inside when all I wanted to do was get back to the street. Even the little bell that rang sounded ominous to me.

“Wards.” Daniel pointed at a place high on the wall in front of us. There were small drawings there. To an outsider, I’m sure they seemed like some arcane form of decoration, but they served another purpose. The whole shop was warded against interlopers. It explained the feeling I had. There was something telling me that this was not a good place. I needed to leave. It was an excellent security system for supernatural stores that didn’t want human traffic. The human would never realize anything was weird about the place. They would just have an overwhelming urge to leave.

“It must be for humans only because it’s not bothering me at all.” Dev stepped up to the small counter with an old-school cash register on top. It wasn’t completely in the technological dark ages, however, since I saw a credit card machine behind the register.

There was a shuffling from the back. “I’ll be with you in a second,” a feminine voice said.

“No hurry,” Daniel shouted back as his cell phone rang. He pulled it out of his leather jacket and frowned at it. “It’s Marcus, thank god.” We’d been trying to get in touch with him for months, ever since we returned to the Earth plane, but he’d been on some sort of retreat. Daniel hit the answer button and placed the phone to his ear. “Hey, Marcus…” He pulled the phone away from his ear as it started to scream at him. “Damn, man, you don’t have to yell.” I watched as his face turned stubborn. “Calmatevi! Non parlate cosi, Marcus.”

Dev shot me an amused look. “He always looks so weird speaking foreign languages. I like how his Texas accent makes Italian seem so down home.”