Page 29 of Brutal Queen

“Goodnight, phoenix,” Nico says, and dips down to kiss her cheek. “We’ll see you in the morning.” He turns and heads towards the door, hooking a finger into the waistband of Benny’s shorts, dragging him out with him.

I’m looking carefully at Enzo because I don’t know how I feel about kissing Aurora in front of him. I’m worried about upsetting the balance we’ve naturally fallen into. It’s not that I don’t want to include Enzo, it’s that I don’t know what he wants or if he’s happy with this arrangement. We need to discuss it but now's not the time. I kiss the top of her head.

“If either of you needs anything, come and get me. Good night,colibrì”

I walk back down the hall to my room and I’m entirely unsurprised this time when I find one side of my bed taken up by Nico and Benedict. Nico shrugs at me in a ‘well what did you expect’ kind of way.

“It’s not our fault that you have the biggest bed,” he says with a wry smile on his face. He fluffs the pillow under his head. “But your pillows fucking suck. I’m bringing ours tomorrow.”

I shake my head and climb in the other side. “Knock yourself out, just leave mine be,” I reply.

As I roll over and close my eyes, I smile as I drift back off to sleep.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

NICO

Ican feel Benny tonguing his way down my abdomen, and for a moment I’m lost to the sensation of his gloriously hot mouth against my skin. Then I remember we’re in Sinclair’s bed and I sit bolt upright and grasp him roughly by the unruly curls at the back of his head.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I practically bark at him. I’m confused for a moment when he smiles back at me.

“Calm down. He got up ages ago and went to work on the overnight intel from Gabriella,” he says with a massive smirk on his face.

“Fucking cheeky shit,” I mutter, releasing my grip and pushing him off me before getting out of bed. “I’m still not fucking you in Sinclair’s bed. You know better, and you also know I’m going to enjoy punishing you later.”

“Promises, promises,” he sighs, throwing himself acrossthe mattress, bringing the back of his hand to his forehead, overacting how hard-done-by he is.

“Such a fucking brat. And I will not be baited into punishing you now, Bambi.”

He chuckles and hoists himself back up, bouncing off the bed to stand right in front of me. “Spoilsport. At least let me rim you a little in the shower before breakfast?” he says with a playful whine in his voice.

I roll my eyes and turn away from him, failing to hide my smile. As I reach the hallway, I shout out, “Fine, come on then. I want you naked in the shower in less than two minutes or I won’t let you come.”

He barrels past me, pushing me into the wall in his mad scramble to get to the bathroom.

I shout after him, “Oh, you’re gonna pay for that, Bambi.”

I break into a run and chase after him.

I’m rummagingaround in the fridge, starting to rustle up breakfast when everyone seems to descend on the kitchen all at once. Sinclair has emerged from his cave with an empty coffee cup, Benny is bounding down the stairs, and Aurora and Enzo are coming out of his office.

I’m struck by how domesticated this feels. Before Aurora, we all shared a house, but we were more like roommates. Admittedly, our old place wasn’t like this one at all. It was in the centre of the city, had tiny rooms, and half the square footage, so we were constantly getting in each other's way in the communal areas.

This place was only ever intended to be used in emergencies, but it turns out it suits our needs far better. I set to whipping up some scrambled eggs. Aurora and Enzo take a seat atthe counter while Sinclair heads to Rory’s office to make ‘the good coffee’, grumbling about how we need another coffee machine if she’s not going to let us keep it in the kitchen. He returns just as I’m plating up the food with a tray of full cups that he places down on the counter. Benny digs out a stack of bagels from the cupboard and we all sit down to dig into breakfast together.

“So, did we get anything usable from Gabi’s team overnight?” Aurora asks, teetering on the edge of her stool as she leans over to grab her cup.

“Nothing new, but Dom had trouble at one of the clubs. Some over-privileged fuckboys started a brawl. One of the customers called the cops before security got it under control which resulted in the club being shut down for the night when said fuckboys were found to have Rohypnol on them.”

“So a complete cluster fuck then?” Aurora responds.

“Pretty much, yeah,” Sin says.

“Wait a minute, you got their names?” I ask, my hackles rising.

Sin picks up his phone, unlocks the screen and hands it to me. “Yeah, I went through the arrest reports this morning.”

My face heats with rage when I see who it is. “Little fuckers are back to their old tricks.” I pass the phone over to Benny and it doesn’t take long for him to get to the last name on the list.

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