It was nearly midnight when Max stepped out onto the porch and walked with Carlos to the red Audi in the driveway. The dinner had been surprisingly enjoyable, and while he’d been grateful for Abby’s presence in the beginning, he’d gradually gotten used to Carlos being in his home. He liked the other man, and if he still had a ways to go to trust, liking him was a start.

“It’s nice out here,” Carlos said. “Quiet.”

“It is,” Max said. “We can still see the lights though.”

Carlos looked toward the city, shining like an electric mirage in the distance. “Best of both worlds.” He turned and held out a hand. “Thanks for dinner. It was great.”

Max shook his hand. “Our pleasure.” He hesitated. “Nico tells me in your business, a right-hand man is called an underboss, but I have to be honest, it sounds melodramatic to me.”

Carlos laughed. “I don’t disagree, although I’ve never been close to the position myself.”

Max nodded. “Thing is, I need someone to keep an eye on Abby when I can’t.”

“Are you asking me to be your wife’s bodyguard?” Carlos asked.

Max sighed. “Fuck. No. Sorry. It’s not just Abby. I’m not bringing anybody to the table in my association with the Syndicate — and Nico tells me I need someone at the table.”

“What do you think?” Carlos asked.

“I think Nico knows a hell of a lot more about this business than I do. I think Jason fucking Draper is back in town, and he once pointed a gun at me and tried to have Abby killed. And I think by taking over this business, I’m opening myself up to other enemies like him.”

Carlos nodded. “You’re not wrong.”

“So?” Max asked. “Will you do it? It comes with a hefty raise, but more work too.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” Max said.

“Are you offering me the job for a specific reason? Or because there isn’t anyone else?”

Max grinned. “Why not a little bit of both?”

Carlos chuckled and shook his head.

“Listen,” Max said, “I told you I’m not bringing anyone to the table. That’s true. I don’t have any close friends besides Abby, and I don’t come to trust easily. But you have the skills and background I need. You’ve been a big help in bringing me up to speed on DeLuca’s operation, his men, his interests in the city. That’s as close to trust as I can get right now.”

“What about me?” Carlos asked. “Why should I risk my life for you?”

It was an honest question, and one that took Max by surprise, mostly because Carlos had the balls to ask it.

Max let his gaze travel out over the brush around the house. The moon was full over the desert, the sagebrush and cactus casting strange shadows on the cracked earth.

“I didn’t come to this business lightly,” Max said. “In fact, I didn’t want to come to it at all. It started as a desire to protect Abby from Jason, to shut down the trafficking operation and weapons game he was running with DeLuca. The plan was to get it done and go back to my normal life, although looking back, it wasn’t much of a life after I came back from Afghanistan.”

“What happened to change your mind?” Carlos asked.

Max shrugged. “Realized this shit is going on all the time whether we see it or not. We can either let people like DeLuca run it — people who take advantage of the depravity of a few — or we can try to run it clean.”

“Never heard someone describe the Mob as clean before.”

Max ran a hand over his face. “It’s crazy, isn’t it?”

“Not so crazy,” Carlos said.

“The Syndicate makes their money illegally. There’s no sugarcoating that. But they have an honor code, lines they won’t cross. Seems better than the alternative.”

“So you believe in what they’re doing?”

Max thought about the answer, considering his words. “Let’s just say I believe in how they’re doing it.” He shook his head. “Fuck. There has to be some honor, doesn’t there? Even among thieves?”

“It’s an optimistic view, but what can I say? I’m an optimist.” Carlos got in the car and looked up at Max. “See you tomorrow. Boss.”

He shut the door and started the car.

Max stood in the driveway until the headlights disappeared at the end of the drive.

When he returned to the house, Abby was sitting on the sofa with a glass of wine, her feet tucked up under her. He sat down and pulled her feet into his lap, grateful she didn’t speak right away.

He rubbed her feet and she repositioned herself so she could lay back against the arm of the couch.

She sighed. “That feels so nice.”

“You worked hard tonight,” he said. “Thank you.”

She smiled. “You cooked the steaks.”

“True, but you did everything else.”

“Fair enough.”

She closed her eyes and for a long moment there was nothing but silence.

“I like him,” she finally said.

“You don’t know him,” Max said. “Not really. And neither do I.”

“Maybe, but I like what I know. He seems nice, solid.”

“Solid, how?” he asked, starting on her other foot.

“Just… reliable. Plus, it might be nice to have someone else around, you know?”

He squeezed her foot. “Are you saying you’re getting tired of my company?”

Her eyes flickered open. “If that was going to happen, it would have happened a long time ago. Like in eighth grade when you got all dumb around Ashley Gonzalez. Or in tenth when you wore that stupid U2 shirt to school every day.”

“That was a good shirt,” he said.

“It was practically falling off you when you stopped wearing it,” she said. “And it stunk, because you hardly every washed it.”

He chuckled. “Ouch.”

“The point is,” she said, “if I’m not sick of you by now, I’ll never be sick of you. It’s one of the advantages of sleeping with your best friend.”

“Noted.”

“I’m just saying it might be nice to have someone you can count on,” she said softly.

“I can count on you.”

She sat up and maneuvered onto his lap, one of her legs on either side of his thighs. “That will always be true, but we don’t have to be an island of two.”

He cupped her ass in his hands. “Why not? It sounds perfect.”

She smiled and bent her head to kiss him. Her lips tasted like the lemon sorbet they’d had for dessert, like wine, like love.

She rested her forehead against his. “Nothing bad will happen if you let someone in a little.”

“You can’t possibly know that.” He’d meant it as a joke, but it came out more seriously than he’d intended.

“I do.” She touched her lips to his, then left a trail of kisses over his cheeks and jaw. “And if it did, it wouldn’t matter, because there will always be us. There will always be this.”

She slid her tongue into his mouth and his cock sprung to life in his jeans.

He slid his hand under her T-shirt, the heat of her back searing his palm.

She molded her body to his, her breasts pressing against his chest as he moved his hands over her hips, up her arms and across her shoulders. Holding her face between his palms, he deepened their kiss, the urgency in his body bringing new fervor to the sweep of his tongue in her mouth.

She moaned as she worked the buttons on his shirt, then pushed it off his chest. Desperate to feel her bare skin against his, he lifted the T-shirt off her body and wrapped his arms tightly around her back, pressing her to him as he kissed his way down her neck and across her collarbone.

“We could go to bed,” he said, touching his lips to her chest.

“No way,” she murmured, running her hands through his hair. “We’re not moving.”

“If you say so.” He kissed each of her nipples through the lace of her bra, then pulled the cups down. They offered up her perfect breasts, nipples hard and pink and begging for his mouth.

She grabbed a fistful of his hair and gasped when he drew one of the buds into his mouth, arching her back to give him easy access as he sucked.

The cleft between her legs was hot against his cock, even through his jeans. He already knew what it would feel like to slide into her: like tunneling through warm satin, like being enveloped in the heat of the sun.

He held onto her hips and rolled her under him so that she was the one sitting on the couch.

Her eyes were glazed, only half-open as she watched him kneel between her legs. He unbuttoned her jeans and she lifted her hips as he pulled them off with her underwear in one sweep.

He looked up at her, lips slightly parted and swollen from his kisses, breasts still plump above the lace of her bra, nipples swollen and hard from his sucking.

He pushed her knees apart and pulled her lower on the sofa. Her pussy, glistening with desire, was at the edge, right where he wanted it.

He leaned in and lowered his mouth to the inside of her thigh.