Page 128 of Lovesick Titan

Mal had just stepped out of a hot shower, skin still flush, basically naked save the towel. The sight of Danny wearing nothing but the duster was enough to bring him half-mast all on its own, even without the impish expression and teasing hands. “Are you sure you’re not the devil, Sparky? Coz I’ve never known temptation this cruel.”

“Who says it’s cruel if you can have everything you see?” Starting to unzip the duster further, Danny got about to his navel before he paused. “I thought we could play a game.”

“Isn’t that what we’re doing tonight, which is why we should be leaving?”

“We have time.”

Mal eyed the hand at the zipper, holding it in place, forcing him to conjure the image of what lay beneath, which he knew well now, but he still loved when Danny made him work for it. “What kind of game?”

“If you come first, you have to return the diamond.”

Resisting a scowl, Mal pulled the diamond tighter to his chest. “And if you come first?”

“The game continues. You can hide the diamond again, anywhere you want, and the next time I find it, we play again. Deal?” He drew the zipper down another inch.

Mal was already tenting the towel. Envisioning Danny hard beneath the duster, naked inside of it before Mal had even worn the damn thing, was the best way he could imagine breaking it in.

Reaching out with the diamond, he tapped the sparkling rock against Danny’s chest. “What would Captain Shan think of this arrangement, I wonder?”

Danny shrugged. “The diamond will get returned eventually.”

Shuddering, Mal watched Danny drop his hand, leaving only the smallest bit left to be unzipped, though Mal could see the tease of dark ginger hair. “I think I might be a bad influence on you.”

“Mmm…yep, and I’ve never been happier.”

Those words, they were one of the phrases people justsaid. An exaggeration no one ever meant. But that was just the thing—Mal knew Danny meant every word.

“You, Sparky, are better than anything I’ve ever stolen,” he said, leaning forward but not closing the final gap just yet.

“And you are better than anything I’d ever ask for.” Hovering closer, mere breath between them and barely any tangible space, Danny didn’t close the gap either. He took the diamond, which Mal gave up willingly—for now—and dropped it into the duster’s pocket. Then he reached between them and divested Mal of his towel. “Gonna return the favor?”

Shifting his hips forward, Mal let Danny feel how hard he was as he brushed the kid’s bare thigh. “Not yet. Gotta christen this piece of equipment properly. Now come here.”

R

Andre raised an eyebrow at Mal when he and Danny entered the main room of the morgue a while—maybe a long while—later. “I thought you were the perpetually on time one.”

“We got held up,” Mal said. At least he’d won. He still had to decide where to hide the diamond next.

“So who held who up and who held the other down?” Priestly asked from his place on the floor beneath Arty in a recliner. The room had been transformed into a lounge for the night, with multiple places for seating and a flat-screen TV. Both of them had controllers and at least one eye on the screen.

“Depends on the mood, the night, and if any props are involved,” Danny said.

“Danny,” Stella chided him, covering Joey’s ears maternally.

The teenager rolled his eyes, but Danny cringed. “Sorry.”

Mal was far too proud of the scandalized expression on Andre to be upset by the comment, not that it would have upset him anyway.

“Lucky bastard,” Dom muttered, with a beer in one hand and a controller in the other, which she juggled whenever she needed to perform a certain task.

Joey also had a controller, while Lynn and Lucy were near the food. It didn’t surprise Mal that Danny immediately disappeared from his side to inspect the provisions laid out.

“You started without us,” he complained, even as he filled his plate.

“Just a practice round, Spark Plug, relax,” Dom said, frowning when her character, who looked impressively like her actual self, was killed by a sniper. “Damn camera…”

“Plus, we have to rotate in, unlike the girls,” Joey added.

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