His expression shifted, something that twisted his features and made Karina grip Uilleam’s hand before she even meant to.
“Uilleam, he’s—”
She never saw Skorpion coming.
Not until he was suddenly there, over two hundred pounds of solid muscle that didn’t have to put any real force behind the way he palmed the man’s head and sent him crashing face forward onto the table next to them.
Mere moments ago, it felt as if everyone was absorbed into their own conversations, oblivious to everything around them, but the man currently bleeding profusely from his nose gathered their attention very quickly.
Except Uilleam.
He didn’t look alarmed by the fact that his mercenary was currently holding a man by his bleeding face onto the table but rather … annoyed.
As if this was an inconvenience for him.
One look at Kit, however, told her everything she needed to know.
That they had noticed the man, probably well before she did even. That they too had been waiting for him to act.
And had the man chosen not to act, she would have never known just how in tune those two were with what was happening around them—a truly terrifying thought.
He told her once that he saw what people didn’t want him to see, and she believed him.
But even as she was sure Skorpion would drag the man out of the room and handle whatever this was elsewhere, she was surprised when Uilleam slipped his hand from beneath hers and stood.
Just as the energy around the room had shifted with Skorpion’s act of aggression, it did again when Uilleam moved to stand, still appearing far too calm and confident, considering the man had very clearly been about to attack him.
And every single one of them looked as nervous as she felt.
Skorpion only shifted a little as Uilleam drew near, though his grip didn’t slacken at all.
“What’s your name?” Uilleam asked with a little tilt of his head.
Karina looked at the man, fully expecting him to answer the question, but beyond the glare on his face and the slight wince anytime Skorpion pressed his weight into him, he didn’t acknowledge Uilleam’s presence at all.
“No English?” he asked when the man didn’t answer, shrugging before he asked the question again and again, each time in a new language.
Yet he still didn’t speak.
Not until Uilleam fell quiet.
Karina didn’t know what the man said, not even as his gaze flickered to her briefly before returning to Uilleam, but she could tell from the way Uilleam shifted on his feet that whatever he’d said had lit a flame inside him.
“We’ll get to that little remark in a moment,” Uilleam said conversationally, his voice inspiring a false sense of calm. “Let’s start with a name.”
It was as if those words were a call to action because Skorpion reacted before anyone else could.
Karina flinched and jerked her gaze away as he yanked the man’s head back before slamming it hard against the table.
That was all it took.
His lips moved, and though she couldn’t hear what he said, Uilleam seemed satisfied all the same.
But that didn’t stop the man from getting struck again, gasps of alarm ringing out around the room.
She couldn’t take it anymore.
“Uilleam.”
Her voice seemed to quiet the room, making even the jitters of terrified patrons taper out. It was as if she had gone from invisible to the only thing in this room capable of stopping what was about to happen.
Kit remained seated, his gaze on the man currently bleeding on top of the table. But though he might have appeared as composed as he had before they’d been interrupted, the spark in his eyes indicated he felt the same rage his brother did, even if it was for vastly different reasons.
Though Uilleam didn’t react, his amused gaze still on the man in question, he did seem to pause—hovering just before the point of no return.
After a long moment of tense silence, he finally spoke. “Poppet.” It took a moment before he turned to look at her, his expression expectant.
Making it clear she was the only reason the man hadn’t died just yet.
But no matter how rude he had been—no matter that he had said something even she could guess was unforgivable—he didn’t need to die for just that. “You don’t have to kill him.”
“Not unless he wants to die,” he returned just as easily, not fazed by the way the man shook his head even as Skorpion kept him pinned to the table. “Isn’t that right, Sonal? You came here tonight because you wanted to die?”
A flash of John in the snow played in the back of her mind. That spray of blood that had looked so stark against the fallen snow …
How he had stared sightlessly up at the sky when they’d rolled him over …
“I’m asking you not to. Please,” she added softly. “If only because I’m asking.”
Uilleam sighed as he patted the man’s chest. “So be it.”
The relief in the room was almost palpable. Even she couldn’t hide the way she took a breath even as her shoulders sagged.
“I won’t kill him.”
As quickly as she had felt reassured that he was listening to her—willing to bend in this if only because she asked it of him—she realized that hadn’t been it at all.
He’d never planned to let the man go free.
“Let’s play a game, Sonal. Obviously you love those because you sought me out this evening.”
Without asking first, he pulled the spare gun from Skorpion’s belt, removing the bullets. Karina wasn’t even sure why the man carried a revolver considered the 9MM handgun he already had on him, but her curiosity wasn’t helping anyone at the moment.
It certainly wasn’t helping Sonal who stared up at Uilleam with wide eyes, tears flooding them as he was then made to hold the revolver himself after Uilleam gave the chamber a spin. He forced the man to hold it, keeping it aimed there at his temple.
“Since there was a fifty-fifty chance of you leaving this room alive when I held all the power, I’m happy to even the odds for you.”
The room was far too afraid to make a move, and if she didn’t step in, Uilleam was really going to make him do it.
But as she moved to take a step forward, Kit was suddenly there with his hand wrapped around her wrist, and though his hold was gentle, it was also clear he had no intention of letting her walk any closer to Uilleam than she already had.
“Whether you like it or not,” he whispered next to her ear, his voice far too composed for the violence playing out in front of them, “you’ll have to harden yourself.”
“This is wrong,” she protested, refusing to believe this had to be accepted.
Just because you could do something didn’t mean you should. It didn’t matter that Uilleam had all the power in the room; that didn’t mean he should have the power over life and death.
It didn’t mean he could play God.
“Whether you live or die is entirely up to you, Sonal. Tell me, what do you believe in—your will or mine?”
He wouldn’t be leaving until he played Uilleam’s game, that much became clear to him at that moment.
Even at her distance, she could see the way his hand shook—the way he wished he could leave this room—but just as quickly, he resigned himself to his fate and what he had to do next.
Karina couldn’t bear to look, turning away at the last second and squeezed her eyes shut.
Waiting for the—
The click was audible, making her heartbeat trip over itself.
“Seems you don’t have to die tonight,” Uilleam said, that smile back on his face as he took a step away from the man. “Perhaps you are lucky after all.”
Nearly to the second Skorpion took the revolver off him and released the hold he had on the front of his shirt, the man crumpled to the ground as if his body were boneless. But as quickly as he’d become a relieved heap on the floor, he was hurrying to his feet a
nd sprinting out the door before anyone could stop him.
Before Uilleam could change his mind.
And as she looked at the man in question, he didn’t seem to care that all eyes were now on him—or that they all looked at him differently.
Admiration.
Fear.
He didn’t seem to care about them at all.
Uilleam merely reclaimed his seat before turning his gaze to Karina, and her only. “Where were we?”
Was it possible to hate someone as much as you loved them?
Karina had been asking herself that question from the moment they’d sat back at the table as if nothing had happened—as if the entire room hadn’t still been staring at them even after all the commotion was over. But the only one who seemed to care about this was her.
Uilleam had merely placed a napkin back in his lap before he continued eating, and Kit had merely looked quizzical a moment before he started the conversation back up.
Not even after the plates had been cleared away and the restaurant emptied did she know what to even think about what had happened, but the more time that passed, the more she didn’t like where her thoughts were going.
The more she hated how Uilleam had responded at the slightest provocation.
It was unnecessary and barbaric.
And no matter how she tried to excuse it in her head, she couldn’t.
“You’re not still cross with me, are you?” he asked as they entered her apartment, stepping around the many boxes that littered her floor.
Because she was moving in with him. She’d already thought it was a bit soon, and after tonight ... she wasn’t sure what to think anymore.
“What you did tonight was unnecessary.”
“Was it?” he asked, though everything about his tone and the way he tilted his head to the side made the question feel mocking. “If you challenge a man like me, you’ll never like how I respond. He knew that before he ever stepped foot inside that restaurant.”
He tried to make it sound reasonable—as if that was the only thing that made sense. “Do you truly think it made a difference that you didn’t pull the trigger? Had it been loaded and he shot himself—you would have still provided the bullet.”
Karina tugged off her heels, tossing them aside as she pulled at the pins in her hair next. Anything to keep herself distracted so she wouldn’t have to look at him.
But he didn’t give her a choice.
As quickly as she was moving toward her bedroom—that would very well not be her own for much longer—he spun her around to force her to face him. If she was expecting understanding, she got none. He didn’t seem to regret his actions at all.
“What would you have me do?” he asked, catching her jaw in his hand when she meant to turn away.
Uilleam had never been harsh with her, had never made her fear him with his touch, but she could still feel the difference in him now with even as gentle as he was being.
Tonight, it seemed, he wanted her attention, and he wasn’t taking no for an answer.
“You have something to say,” he said with a slight inclination of his head, “then say it. I’m listening.”
There was no use in trying to push him away, not with the hold he had on her. Besides, she had never been one to shy away from how she felt. “You don’t have to make everyone fear you. There’s always another way.”
“Should I have smiled and bore it as he insulted me?” he asked, looking at her as if she couldn’t see reason. “Should I have thanked him?”
“Don’t patronize me,” she snapped, trying to push his hand away. Not that it did her much good since he still refused to move.
Now, she did pull away, her annoyance growing. “People aren’t just pawns for you to do what you will, Uilleam.”
He smirked—actually smirked—before asking, “Nid ydynt hwy—Aren’t they?”
Did he think because he spoke in Welsh that that would make it better? And perhaps had he not been smiling at her with that infuriating little grin on his face, she might have remembered herself.
She might have remembered that she was merely a reporter having grown up as practically an orphan, but at that moment, she remembered who she also was.
An Ashworth.
And she refused to be fucking bullied.
“No, they are not,” she replied, watching the surprise flit across his face.
After all, as far as he knew, she didn’t speak Welsh.
But as quickly as she saw the most obvious question forming in his mind, his expression changed entirely. He took her words as a challenge.
“If that’s how you want to play it ...”
Uilleam was always so easy, so quick to remind her that Kit was the assassin and one trained to be deadly—he even had Skorpion with him who did the majority of the heavy lifting—that she forgot how quick he could be on his feet. That at some point or another, whether he’d been trained or had just learned during his time evading his father.
It certainly shouldn’t have taken him mere seconds to have her pinned on the bed, his hips wedged between her legs as he kept her there. She was so taken off guard that she couldn’t do anything more than stare up at him in surprise even as the rest of her registered his undeniable weight on top of her.
And it most certainly had to be muscle memory that made a flash of heat rush through her. Not because she was turned on by him. Not now.
She should have been too angry to feel anything of the sort, but that didn’t stop her traitorous body from responding to him.
To the way he stared down at her as if he dared her to move.
Sweeping his hand up her throat, he held her there, leaning forward until he could press his lips against her own fast and hard. Just a taste and nothing more.
He then skimmed his mouth along the curve of her jaw. “How many times do I have to remind you that I’ve never alluded to being anything other than what I am?”
More than she could count.
He had never, in all the time she’d known him, pretended to be anything else.
But that didn’t mean she had to like it—it certainly didn’t mean she hadn’t hoped to change him, if only a little.
Before she could answer, he angled his body to the side and shoved his free hand beneath the skirt of her dress and dragged the lace down her legs, the material scoring as it went.
“Yet you wanted me still,” he reminded her, moving down her body in a way that was abundantly clear of his intention. “Even now. I can feel how fucking pissed off you are, but you want me all the same.”
Worse, he made sure to illustrate those words by deftly moving his fingers over then in her sex. Even if she hadn’t been away to feel how wet she was, she could certainly hear it. And it was all his doing.
The way he traced his fingers over her clit before sliding down and pressing two fingers inside her with ridiculous ease. He pushed them in as deep as they could go before he pulled them out again, bringing his hand up to show her the proof of what she already knew before he made a show of licking the essence off his fingers.
But he wasn’t done making his point.
That much was clear when his gaze darkened at the taste of her before he moved his hand back between her legs and thrust them in again. Nothing was sweet or gentle about the way he fucked her like that.
In and out. Hard and fast. Making her take everything he gave.
It was impersonal even as he illustrated his point. He held her there with his hand on her throat even as he fucked her with his fingers until the fight drained out of her and the only thing she could think about was just how close he had gotten her so quickly.
“You wanted me,” he growled in her ear, grinding those fingers in deeper, hitting a spot that had her back arching off the bed. “You have me. I’m not letting you go, poppet. Say it.”
She could hardly form a coherent thought let alone understand the gravity of what he was saying. But Uilleam didn’t seem to care that her focus was on her impending o
rgasm.
He wanted an answer.
Removing his fingers just long enough to slap her pussy, making her shout his name, he thrust them right back in. “I won’t ask a second time.”
Her eyes squeezed shut and her voice shook, but she gave him the words he was looking for. Practically spit them out to get it over with, but he wasn’t so easily deterred.
But as his hand started to tighten around her throat—the sensation only ratcheting up her desire further—she gave in to what he wanted. “Yours,” she finally said on a breathless whisper. “I’m yours.”
Uilleam kissed her then, whispering words she couldn’t hear, pressing his fingers in as deep as they could go before he ground them against that magical spot inside her that made her breath hitch. Before she could acknowledge what was happening, the dam burst and the orgasm hit her so strongly, she saw stars.
But even still, he didn’t stop.
Just pushed her higher. Faster.
Until all she could think about—all she knew—was him.
Much later, after he’d exhausted her, Karina lay awake, staring at the wall. Uilleam had long since fallen asleep—a change, for once, considering she was usually the first to fall asleep.
His arm lay draped around her waist, holding her firmly against him even in his sleep. But no matter how she tried to drift off, even closing her eyes and counting backward, oblivion eluded her.
This was what love was, she reminded herself even as her heart felt heavy.
Loving someone, flaws and all.
Looking past certain things and seeing the person she had grown to know and care for.
He was capable of such horrid and terrible things, but he was also more than that when he wanted to be. When it came down to it, he would never go so far over the edge that she couldn’t ignore it.
But as she lay there, feeling as if she was staring at the abyss, Karina wasn’t so sure she believed that.
15
Weaklink
She should have known after spilling coffee down the front of her blouse first thing this morning, today was not going to be her day. Coupled with the fact that her bagel had landed cream cheese side down right after was only confirmation that she had attracted some sort of bad karma, but she had accepted it and moved on.
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