Celt. (Den of Mercenaries Book 2) (9 page)

“
Anyway
. We’re leaving, Mish. I’ll call you later.”

After kisses for both Mishca and Sacha, and a disgruntled one for Luka who complained that he was being shunned, Lauren walked out of the office first, Amber behind her.

Once they were out the back door where a car and two rather large Russians were waiting for them, Lauren drew in a deep breath and said, “Tell me everything.”

And for the next three hours, she did.

K
yrnon had fucked up
.

He knew it the moment he was running out of the old, abandoned house in Brussels, seconds before it went up in flames. It wasn’t because he was burning the residence down that there was a problem, but rather because the fuse had sparked earlier than expected, and during his haste to get out in time, he had lost his phone in the process.

It wouldn’t be the first time he lost some tech, and wasn’t too concerned with anyone being able to extract anything off it even if they were to investigate the fire, he had safeguards in place for that.

No, he was thinking about Amber and how he wouldn’t be able to get in contact with her until his assignment in Brussels was over. He didn’t know her number by memory, and the same safeguards that protected others from hacking into his phone, prevented him from accessing any data as well.

But, he had figured as long as he was there for their date, there wouldn’t be a problem.

Except there was delay after fucking delay that by the time he was boarding a plane and heading back to the States, he knew she was going to be royally pissed at him.

While honesty was the best policy, there was no way he could tell her about the mission. Even if he did, what was the likelihood that she would believe a story like that anyway, even if it was the truth.

His only hope was to smooth things over, try to win her favor.

Not even for the assignment, but because he didn’t want to be the reason why she was upset. It was already starting to not feel like a job when it came to her.

By the time he landed and was heading back to his place, night had settled heavily over the city. Grabbing a new phone once he was inside his war room, he activated the memory card inside of it, plugging in his credentials even as he made his way back to his bedroom.

While he didn’t have much time to spare, he still showered the day away and changed his clothes. Scooping up the keys for his bike, he was headed back out of his loft within an hour of getting there.

Kyrnon remembered the route to her place, having taken her home twice now. The street was quiet once he arrived, and though he rang the buzzer for her apartment, no one answered. While there was a possibility she wasn’t home, Kyrnon was a bit anxious, and instead of waiting, went around the side of the building to the fire escape.

Checking that no one was around, he climbed up, making his way up the ladders until he reached her window. Sheer curtains blocked the view inside, but from what little he could see, no one appeared to be home.

Which made fucking sense.

What reason did she have to ignore the buzzer?

It wasn’t like she could know it was him calling for her.

Feeling like a proper stalker, he quickly made his way back down, then took a seat on his Harley. He was willing to wait.

An hour or more passed before a town car came rolling down the street, pulling over to the curb, the door swinging open as Amber climbed out. “Thank you,” she said to the driver as she shut the door and watched it pull away.

It wasn’t until she was closer to the entrance of her building did she notice him.

Full, pouty lips parted in surprise, but a smile didn’t grace her pretty face when she saw him. Actually, she made it a point to not show anything at all, which only made him feel worse. But she did look like she would rather be anywhere but there with him.

“What are you doing here, Kyrnon?”

“You needed a driver?” Kyrnon found himself asking, gaze gone off in the direction the town car had taken.

“I was at dinner with a friend and something came up. Her husband had someone take me home, though I’m not sure why any of that matters to you.”

Shite.

Aye, she was mad at him.

Rubbing the back of his neck, Kyrnon pushed off his bike toward her. “Can I explain?”

Her arms crossed over her ample chest, offering a tantalizing view down her low-cut shirt, but he didn’t let his attention linger too long. He didn’t need her upset with him for another reason.

“If you want,” she finally answered.

But he didn’t like that. He would much rather have her anger than to have her be indifferent.

Even if he was still telling himself that it wasn’t supposed to matter.

“First, I lost my mobile,” he said, even pulling out the new electronic for her to see. “And since I was in Brussels on business, I couldn’t get another one until I got back.”

Her expression remained the same. “Glad you got a new phone.”

“I didn’t get back until a few hours ago,” he added, thinking back to just how long it had been since he talked to her. “I—”

“Kyrnon, you really don’t have to explain if you don’t want. You don’t owe me anything.”

She wouldn’t meet his eyes as she said that, and that just wouldn’t do. He didn’t like that look on her face.

“But I do.” He came closer, but not so far that he was crowding her, but enough that she finally had to acknowledge his presence in front of her. “I can’t have you thinking I didn’t want to be there.”

She shook her head. “Kyrnon, seriously. Everything is fine. I’m not—”

Maybe that was what that other eejit had wanted from her when he fucked up, lessen his guilt for being a shite person, but Kyrnon didn’t want that. “
Amber
.”

The way he said her name, low and a little harsh, grabbed her attention finally, making her turn those soft brown eyes on him.

“I wanted to be there,” he said before she could say anything else. “I had every intention to be. I’d thought about it for days.”

And he had.

He wanted to see what she was like when she was in her own space and could let her guard all the way down. He wanted to see her thoughts reflecting on the canvases that he didn’t have a doubt were all over her apartment.

And he also wanted to see just how flexible she was.

“And if you give me a chance, I’ll make it up to you.”

She didn’t say anything for a long time, just studying him as though to gauge his truthfulness. Then, she asked, “Brussels?”

Kyrnon released a breath, feeling some of his tension easing. If she was asking about it, she at least wanted to talk. “It was a long trip.”

“Is that why you look so tired?” she asked, and he could see the concern in her eyes.

She wasn’t wrong though.

He was fucking exhausted.

It felt like he had been up for the entire week, and besides the handful of hours he slept, he had been. Before he had gone, he had felt rather energized, glad for the fact that he had been able to catch at least three hours of sleep when she was warming his bed, even if it did surprise him.

Kyrnon didn’t sleep well by nature, so whenever there was someone else near him, he
really
couldn’t sleep, not trusting anyone in his space when he was that vulnerable.

But he had with Amber.

There wasn’t any fear of what she might do to him while he was passed out, so maybe another part of him was glad to be back here in the hopes that she could help him sleep again.

“Aye,” he said answering his question. “But I wanted to see you first.”

Finally, he was able to manage a smile out of her. “Do you want to come up?”

“I’d be a fool to say no.”

Fingering her keys absently, she didn’t start for her door right away. “I’m not sleeping with you.”

Remembering the last time they were together, Kyrnon couldn’t hold back his smile if he tried. “Bit late for that, lovie.”

“
Again
. I’m not sleeping with you
again
.”

“Maybe not tonight, but I’ll wear you down.”

With a roll of her eyes, though she didn’t look half as bothered as she tried to pretend, she let them into the building, leading the way to her apartment.

He had only gotten a glimpse of it the last time he was there, needing to get going so he could catch the flight to Brussels, but he could tell that it was different. For one, she had unpacked, getting rid of the moving boxes he had seen on his last visit.

More paintings had been hung along the walls, and he was starting to reason that there were reason behind the madness. They were hung based on which period they fell in, something not many would have noticed.

Her place was different from his. He was tidy to an almost compulsive degree, and because people were always in and out depending on whether he was using the place as a safe house, he always kept it cleaner than usual. Her apartment, on the other hand, felt lived in, like there was life within the four walls.

Dropping her keys on the table, Amber asked, “Do you want something to drink?”

After the week he had, that was the last thing on his mind.

Scrubbing a hand down his face, he answered honestly. “I just want you and a bed, the rest can be worked out tomorrow.”

Reaching for him, she said, “Then let’s go to bed.”

I
t was
in the wee hours of the morning that Amber came awake with a gasp, her back nearly coming off the bed at the sensation of Kyrnon’s tongue on her inner thighs. With the glow of the moon spilling in through the nearby window, she could just see her duvet kicked off at the foot of her bed, and the length of Kyrnon’s nearly bare body as he was stretched out before her.

Hazily, she remembered stripping out of her clothes with him and falling into bed, thrilling in the feel of him wrapping his arm around her as they got comfortable. No sex, she had told him, and how quickly that thought had gone out the window now that she was faced with the sight of him between her legs.

His lips were barely brushing her skin and she was already aching for his touch. When he realized he had her rapt attention, he grazed the back of his fingers along her lace covered sex. “You’re trembling.”

“Kyrnon, what are you doing?”

But she already knew the answer to that, could feel it in the way he inched closer to the apex of her thighs with his mouth, leaving lingering, biting kisses along her heated skin.

“I’m apologizing.” He skirted a hand up her stomach, not stopping until he had his hand on her breast, pinching her tightened nipple. “Will you let me?”

She wasn’t thinking clearly, too caught up in the moment with him, but nevertheless, she found herself nodding, aiding him in getting her panties off as she lifted her hips.

Sitting up now, the straining bulge in his boxer-briefs was all too visible, making her pussy clench at the remembered feel of it. But his own need seemed to be the last thing on his mind as he gave her thigh a tap, silently commanding she spread her legs, and even when she thought they were wide enough, he wrapped his fingers around her leg and opened her further for his gaze.

“I thought of nothing else,” he murmured, eyes riveting to her sex as he rubbed his fingers up and down her slit, pausing at her clit to rub tight, slow circles. “
Nothing
else.”

She couldn’t help rocking her sex against his hand, seeking out more of his touch as he brought her closer and closer to bliss, but each time she felt like she was getting close, that she was one stroke away from falling apart, he drew back, barely touching her until she calmed once more.

When she reached for him, he caught her wrist before she could, twining their fingers even as he pressed her hand against the bed beside her. “Hands to yourself, lovie. I’ll take care of you.”

And in the next breath, he slid two fingers in as deep as he could.

He worked them in and out, dragging over every nerve ending inside her. Her cry of pleasure encouraged him to thrust harder, faster, deeper.

“I don’t want to rush this,” he said almost conversationally, slowing the rhythm of his fingers until he removed them entirely.

Already she missed the feeling of being full, the feel of him stroking her higher until she was nothing but a quivering mess beneath his touch. He wasn’t the only one who had thought of the night they spent together, of the emotions he made her feel.

“I need you. Please.”

“Patience,” he told her, even as he shifted until he was hovering over her. “We’re not even close to being done.”

Shoving her shirt up her stomach to bunch at her chest, he yanked the cups of her bra down, his mouth covering the exposed flesh in seconds. His tongue worked over her nipple, the heat of his mouth making her moan loudly. But it wasn’t until he had the bar between his teeth and tugged that she was arching farther into him. He repeated the same actions with the other before his whiskered jaw was drifting down her stomach.

The tension that pooled there only grew stronger as he finally settled between her legs, his gaze shooting up to hers. The toe-curling smile he offered her was downright sinful, a promise of what was to come.

“So fucking wet and slippery,” he said on a husky whisper, rubbing over her once again, his fingers glistening with her arousal. And as he sank his fingers back into her, her body gradually accepting the intrusion, he groaned, a harsh sound that made her clench around him. “And so fucking tight. I can’t wait to feel you squeezing my cock.”

And as she was helpless to do nothing more than accept the pleasure he was giving her, she was already thinking of him climbing up her body and sinking into her.

“Tell me what you want,” he said, the words sliding over her like molten lava.

Unable to touch him, she took up handfuls of her sheets, needing to anchor herself. “I want you inside me,” she said on a broken moan, desperate and pleading.

“I am inside you, lovie,” he said with a smile in his voice, twisting his fingers back and forth to get his point across.

“
Kyrnon
…”

“But I don’t think that’s what you want at all,” he said, his gaze flickering up to hers. “I think you want to come.”

Plunging his fingers deep, he used his thumb to rub at her clit, coaxing her to rock her hips and take more of what he was offering.

She was so sure she was going to explode in that moment, but just as she reached that peak, he pulled his fingers free and removed his touch entirely.

“Wha—”

But before she could utter a word, his mouth was on her.

It wasn’t that he was using the broad side of his tongue to lick every inch of her, or that he then used just the tip to flick across her clit that made her mindless beneath him.

No, it was his own grunt of pleasure, the way his own hips seemed to thrust against the bed, like he was desperately trying to ease his own ache. It made her burn hotter, until she was panting with need, not caring in the slightest that she was moaning his name over and over again.

“Come on, give me what I want,” he said a moment before he sucked her clit into his mouth, and before she knew it, she was seeing stars.

Her body seized tight before she came, her fingers holding tight to him, a scream working its way up her throat. She hadn’t even stopped shaking yet before he was pushing up, grabbing tight to her thighs as he yanked her down the bed until her legs cradled him.

His chest heaved with the force of his breaths as he shoved his boxer-briefs down, releasing that thick, straining erection of his. Wrapping his fist around it, tighter than she would have thought comfortable, he stroked it slow and easy, a strangled moan leaving him.

“I’m not going to fucking last with you.”

But he didn’t seem to care about that, not when he aligned his cock with her dripping slit and thrust against her. It was meant to be just a taste, a hint of what was to come, but she didn’t know who was more impatient for what was to come.

Reaching across the edge of the bed, he snatched his jeans off the floor, digging a condom packet from his pocket. Tossing them to the side once he was finished, he made quick work of getting the condom open, then rolled the latex over and down his length.

Looking up at him, he looked like a god over her, strong and unyielding. The glow of the moon illuminated his skin, the shadows making the contours of his body seem sharper. Beneath him she felt small, delicate … she felt like a
woman
.

His eyes on her sex, he stroked himself once, twice, then the broad, latex-covered head of his cock was pressed against her opening a moment before he was plunging inside, all the way to the hilt.

A shudder worked its way down his body as he cursed low and harsh, the grip he had on her thighs almost painful.

But it was a good pain.

A pain that had her throbbing around him.

Though he had seemed desperate to get inside her moments before, he didn’t give way to hard thrusts, but gave shallow pumps of his hips. “
Fuck
yes,” he groaned. “You’re so fucking tight, so fucking
good
.”

He was buried as deep as he could go, and too soon, he was pulling out, just until it was the tip inside her before he was thrusting back in, harder than before.

One arm slid beneath her, his palm lying flat on the small of her back, even as he balanced his weight on his other arm, the muscles in it standing out in stark relief.

Whatever control he seemed to have, snapped as he used his hold on her to force her to meet his brutal thrusts, urging her faster and faster still. He uttered sharp, guttural commands as he fucked her, telling her how good she looked wrapped around him, how he was about to fucking spill before he was ready.

It was too much.

The way he fucked her.

The way he whispered dirty things in her ear, seeming to thrill in making her cry out in ecstasy. He buried his face in the crook of her neck as his thrusts sped up, harsh broken groans leaving him as he impaled her with his cock.

Amber was lost, so fucking lost in the sensations he was inspiring inside of her that she knew the orgasm she was hurtling towards would be the strongest she’d ever had.

“
Come
,” he growled in her ear, his thrusts frenzied and hurried as he was caught up in his own waves. “Fucking come for me, Amber.”

She had no choice but to obey, giving in to the bliss that she had been denied so long. She came screaming his name, clenching so tight around him that he planted himself inside her and let himself go.

He dropped down to his elbow, his weight on top of her pleasant, even as she felt his racing heartbeat beneath her palm as she laid a hand on his chest.

Reaching up, unable to quell the impulse, she brushed strands of his hair back out of his face, smiling when he pressed a quick kiss to her wrist. “I like the way you apologize.”

His smile grew even wider as he laughed, gingerly easing out of her. “I’ll spend the next week making it up to you if you want.”

He knifed off the bed and as she watched as he headed out of her bedroom to the bathroom across the hall, she couldn’t think of a single objection to his comment.

“
I
need a towel
!”

“They’re under the sink!” Amber shouted back, too busy hunting through her refrigerator for something to eat to pay much attention to Kyrnon’s antics.

After drifting back off to sleep, she had slept in, only to wake up a few hours later with Kyrnon already up and getting in the shower. Her face had heated in remembrance of the night they shared, but before she let herself get caught up in those thoughts, she forced herself out of bed, failing to ignore the slight ache between her legs.

Amber was just setting a carton of eggs and bacon on the counter when there was a knock at her door. Glancing back to the bathroom, the door was cracked, the shower still going.

Brushing her hands off on the front of her shorts, she went over, checked the peephole first, and promptly cursed.

She just couldn’t win.

“Rob, why are you here?” she asked the moment she got the door open, though she stayed in the doorway to make it clear that he wasn’t coming in.

Though it was only ten in the morning, he was in a suit, hair in place. “I wanted to talk to you.”

“There’s nothing for us to talk about. If you want someone to talk to, go find Piper.”

He didn’t budge. “It’ll only take a minute.”

“Now’s not a very good time,” she said, hoping that Kyrnon would stay in the shower for just a little while longer. “And I honestly don’t think there’s anything left to be
said
.”

Scrubbing a hand down his face, he looked off to the side, trying to find the right words. “I was serious when I told you I made a mistake, but I didn’t get to say …”

He was not … “Please don’t say you were thinking of us getting back together.” When he didn’t rush to say no, she decided that despite his degree from an Ivy League school, he wasn’t that bright. “Your girlfriend, my
cousin
, is pregnant with your child. If that’s not answer enough for you, then here’s another:
no
. And if you want, I can say it in Russian too.”

“Oy! You call this a bloody towel?”

Amber spun in surprise at Kyrnon’s voice behind her, she hadn’t heard his approach. The moment she caught sight of him, her mouth dropped open.

He stood there soaking wet, naked as the day he was born, with one of her decorative hand towels in his hand. He looked indignant, like she had purposely made him walk out there.

A hysterical giggle grew, but she slapped a hand over her mouth before she could let it out. Rob asked, “Who are you talking to?” Then pushed the door open farther as he stepped in and got an eyeful of Kyrnon.

Kyrnon’s expression shifted, jaw going hard, but a smirk still curled his lips as he took his time covering his junk. “Whoops.”

Rob’s face mottled with rage, whether from Kyrnon’s nudity or his taunt, she didn’t know. “Who are you?”

“I think we’ve already been through this once, mate. Let’s keep it to that.”

“This has nothing to do with you. Go away.”

Kyrnon’s face screwed up with mock confusion. “Oh? It has everything to do with me. You’re trying to step between me and something I want, boyo. I don’t take kindly to that.”

“Rob, you need to leave,” Amber spoke up, not liking the challenge to Kyrnon’s voice. The last thing she needed was the pair of them fighting in her living room.

“Amber …”

“She asked you to leave,” Kyrnon butted in, and this time, there was no humor in his voice. “I suggest you keep moving.”

Rob looked desperate in that moment as he turned to face Amber, his hurt reflected in his eyes. “This is who you want? This asshole?”

“Yeah, Rob, but even if it wasn’t him, it wouldn’t be you.”

He looked like he wanted to say something, anything, but when no words would come, he hurried back out the door disappearing down the staircase at the end of the hall.

Sighing, Amber closed the door, pressing her back against it.

“If we’re going to have guests, you should probably warn me, eh?” Kyrnon put one hand on his hip, the other pointed to his cock. “I’m not even wearing pants.”

“
I
mpeccable
,” Gabriel said to himself as he surveyed the canvas, his leather shoes clicking on the floor. “You’ve done excellent work.”