Page 26 of The Last Call Home
I hate him.
I hate both of them.
I hate how much I don’t want to walk away.
However, I do have something I’d like to say before I turn around and walk away.
ChapterNine
Cassian
You learna lot watching someone from afar.
You learn even more when pastries are involved—and her mother’s serving them with a bottomless pot of coffee and opinions.Rosalinda Mora is a delightfully dangerous woman.She’s the first person I’d smuggle out of town if I ever confirmed the Syndicate had their hooks in Birchwood Springs.Not because she’s in danger, but because she’d spill every town secret before you even asked for one.
The woman tells you everything.And I mean everything.
I now know that Delilah lost her first tooth at the age of five.She took ballet because her mom made her, hated every second, and quit before she turned eight.Joined the fencing team at thirteen—“because she saw a movie about a woman who stabbed a man for cheating,” Rosalinda said proudly.
She studied in a famous culinary school in France—Rosalinda can’t remember the name.Lilah, as her mom sweetly calls her, worked under pastry legends.Apparently, she had a few flings with some international hotties and, in her mother’s words, “refused to trap one with marriage.”
Yeah, Rosalinda’s on a mission to marry off her daughter to someone who doesn’t necessarily know how to knead dough but appreciates her, warts and all.
Even with everything I’ve learned—through recon, through Rosalinda, through my own foolish interest in a woman I should be avoiding—Delilah still managed to surprise the shit out of me this morning.
The way she called us on our lies.Laid it all out without flinching.Tore through our excuses and handed us our asses like she’d been waiting for the chance.
It was poetic, honestly.
And if I hadn’t been half-asleep, a little drunk, and inconveniently horny, I probably would’ve handled the whole ‘you’re both undercover agents’ confrontation with a shred of dignity.
But it’s not just what she said.
It’s how she said it.
The way her mouth curves when she’s about to drop something explosive.The tiny pause she takes to make sure we’re really listening.The gleam in her eyes that dares us to look away.Now I’m just hoping she tells Malerick to fuck off and drag me upstairs to my apartment so I can show her how much I appreciate her.
“Listen,” Delilah says now, voice so calm it’s practically weaponized.“I wouldn’t mind fucking the two of you.”
My brain short-circuits because those aren’t the words I was expecting.However, I would be happy to include Malerick in this round.I’ll be honest, I miss his cock and it would be sweet to share him with her.
Before I can talk, though, she adds, “Together or separate.”The way she says it, though, is like she’s discussing grocery lists, not fantasies that could break my self-control into tiny, begging pieces.
She pauses.
No, she does it for us.To let it land.To make sure we feel every syllable settle into our bones.
And then, just when I think I couldn’t want her more, she delivers the final blow.
“But I’d only do it without your bullshit.You tell me who you are to each other—because I know there’s something.And what my role is in this game you’re playing.”
Her gaze flicks between us, sharp as glass, bright with heat.Unapologetic.
“I want sex—with orgasms,” she says like it’s a perfectly reasonable request.“And zero bullshit.”
And just like that, I forget how to breathe.
Delilah Cecilia Mora is a walking temptation.A wildfire in human skin.And right now?I want every inch of her.Every gasp, every kiss, every dangerous promise she doesn’t even know she’s making.
