Page 18 of To Claim A King
Dropping my potato pal, I led the short distance to the kitchen with Aaron slowly following on my heels. Taking out the pint of whiskey, I eyed him with a grin. “We’re going to play a drinking game.”
Stone-faced, he shook his head. “I am recovering from surgery,Rojo. That is unwise.”
Right. Feck. Stupid little thing to forget. “Right,” I agreed, as if Aaron was just stating the obvious and everyone in the room—he and I—knew that little fact. “Which is why I’m going to drink, and you’re going to play along.”
Another thick eyebrow went up, like a well-manicured, judging caterpillar. I didn’t like the way it taunted me. “I have a revision for this plan.”
“Lay it on me, Roboto.” I swung my arms open wide, inviting him to suggest anything in this world he wanted. Anything was better than counting the ceiling tiles for the sixth time, even a mediocrenot-drinking game with the sexy robot.
He moved to the right and removed a pad and paper from one of the kitchen drawers. “How are you at tic-tac-toe?”
An incredulous snort escaped my lips before I could stop it. Tic-tac-toe. Here I was, about to suggest an invigorating, sexy little game of drunken Truth or Dare, and this man wanted to play tic-tac-toe? A children’s game?
“I thought you were a man of strategy,Rojo,” Aaron goaded, a shining gleam in his eye I’d never seen before. “Are you not a smart engineer? Let me show you my version to see how smart you are.”
Oh, ho, this man did know how to get my goat. A face-puckering smirk took over my mouth.
“Alright, Daddio. Teach me.”
Fire lit up his eyes, and it was definitely the sexiest look I’d seen on him by far. Still slightly pale, his dark hair less sleek without all of his expensive products, but those eyes could take me out with one targeted glance—like they were now.
He lingered over the small circular table, and I quickly maneuvered around him to pull out the chair. Settling into the seat, he started drawing a huge tic-tac-toe grid. I drew up the chair beside him, curious about his version.
“If I had coins, I would show youTrique,” he intoned as he drew precise lines I could only achieve with a ruler. “But this version will do.”
Fuck, he was cute. An adorable little man-child in a scary, sculpted meat suit. I needed to keep seeing the light in his eyes.
“What do we need forTrique?” I asked, eager to learn more about his Colombian heritage. “Could something other than coins work?”
A flicker of surprise crossed his face, but it quickly melted into that excited, childish look again. “I can draw it if you find something to use as pieces. We need eighteen; nine of each.”
I flipped through the kitchen cupboards, finding a box of Froot Loops. What was Aaron’s favorite color? I took a stab at red and shook out the cereal on the countertop, counting out nine red rings and nine blue ones, then shook out a side bowl of dry cereal to munch on. I whistled a tune and sauntered over with my colorful cereal pieces.
Aaron had drawn a small square inside a big square, with lines cutting the squares into eight equal triangles with the tips cut off. He shook his head when he saw my chosen game pieces, but I swear I saw a curl of amusement on those supple lips.
He patiently explained the rules—similar to tic-tac-toe—and we played several rounds, him beating me every single one.
“You are not wise enough to beat me,marica,” the Colombian crowed as he finished his last move, actually besting me at a children’s game after all. I wasn’t fazed. The silly triumphant grin on his normally stoic face riled my insides with equally silly little butterflies.
Curiosity was getting the better of me about this zombie super-secret plan he and Kellan were cooking, and he seemed relaxed enough to chat, so I gave it a go.
“What have you and Conan been planning to bring you back from the dead?” I asked as we cleared the board for the third time. He separated the pieces by color and handed them back to me slowly, as if considering his answer.
“Long ago, before we arranged my end,” he started cryptically, “we put in place a contingency plan, should I ever need to return. We recorded Marco Alvarez threatening me and ensured a witness overheard a useful conversation. Kellan planted evidence in the car that will point to Alvarez once they remove it from the water. And we confirmed that the night we made me disappear, Marco’s whereabouts were suspicious—he was bargaining women’s lives with a human trader. He will struggle to produce an alibi.”
I whistled through my teeth. The plan caught me completely off guard. It had been a useful gamble to put these layers in place before Aaron’s disappearance, and yet…
“You know,” I mused aloud, working through a scenario in my head as I played with my Froot Loops poker chips. “Sometimes the best solution is the most obvious answer. The easiest cons are the ones where the explanation you give the mark is so nicely packaged with a bow, they don’t even consider any other answer. It’s easy. They like that it’s easy. You’ve taken the hard work out of it for them.”
Aaron turned his full attention to me. I preened under his notice like a wee kitten in the sunshine, but I didn’t care. My mind was working a mile a minute. There was a way to weave more than this story together.
“What if…”
I wove a grand tale, one where we could tie Hillary’s and Aaron’s stories together with a neat little package for the friendly police force of the city of Carlisle, with enough planted evidence the FBI would dig elsewhere for the dirt they needed to close the case. It would connect Alvarez to Hillary, Sandra to Alvarez, and lean into the media-spun narrative something was afoot, but not in the ways they thought it was.
It wasn’t foolproof—no con was—but it was pretty near perfect.
Aaron grew more interested as I talked, and by the time I’d gotten to the end of my epic con proposal, he’d shifted so close to me in his seat, our thighs were touching. His hot, thick muscle just rubbing against mine on a carbon-fiber seat, like the softest porn I’d ever watched. Didn’t matter though—the heat of him and his close, spicy scent made my heart rate pick up and my palms sweat.
