Worse, picturing him in front of her instead of Ricky was better than the reality. She could almost imagine his profile—the sharp cut of his jaw, dark hair she’d shamelessly imagined touching, and even the cigarette he always had tucked behind his ear.
The visual made her feel warm all over, her stomach twisty from fluttering butterflies.
Shit.
She was attracted to him, and not just in the casual way she found most people who were nice to look at.
It was him.
The way his features were just a little too rough and a little too menacing to be considered classically handsome. Or how his eyes came alive when he was furious, and that muscle would jump in his jaw when he was grinding his teeth.
No, what she felt had transformed from simple appreciation to a burning awareness that was getting out of control.
Shit.
“What brings a girl like you here?” Ricky asked, drawing her from her tumultuous thoughts and back to him.
Synek had asked her something similar the first night they met—a meeting that should have knocked some sense into her. “I could use the company.”
She couldn’t be sure he’d actually heard a word she said with the way he was nodding absently down the front of her dress. While he was distracted, she noticed the key to his room on the bar next to his drink. Now would be the perfect chance …
“I was thinking,” she murmured, leaning farther into him, brushing her arm along his shoulder as she reached just past him for the key. His gaze flickered briefly to her face, maybe seeing her for the first time, before he licked his lips and dropped his eyes back down. “Why don’t we go back to your room to finish this?”
Deftly, she slid the card into the scanner, keeping him occupied long enough for a green light to briefly flash and Synek’s voice to sound in her ear. “Heading up now.”
Absolutely,” Ricky said as she slipped his key back where it had sat before.
He downed the last of his drink, then grabbed her hand before she could change her mind and practically dragged her off the stool.
“We’re going up now?” she asked, more for Synek’s benefit than her own.
Ricky frowned at her, shaking his head as if he thought she just wasn’t that bright. “Yeah, and you’re going to show me what’s up under that skirt.”
“Fucking hell, is this what they’re all like?” Synek asked, sounding reproachful. “Had you given me another minute, I’d’ve had your knickers around your knees without having to utter a word.”
Now, more than ever, she desperately wished Synek couldn’t hear what was being said. Not only because he was incredibly distracting, but because what he said was true. Even as she’d only considered him a job then, something about him had called to the part of herself she’d long thought nonexistent.
Luckily, Ricky didn’t seem to notice her inner dilemma as he stabbed his finger against the button for the elevator, practically shoving her inside once the doors opened.
“He keeps his hands to himself, clear?”
Iris narrowed her eyes at the mirrored wall of the elevator, knowing he could see her. He knew she couldn’t respond or else he’d never have said it.
“I’m the jealous sort,” he replied a moment later, and despite herself, her lips twitched in a semblance of a smile.
As the doors opened on the 17th floor, Ricky stepped out first, the predatory smile on his face growing as they neared his room. She was surprised to find him without guards of some kind. If he was as high up as Synek proclaimed him to be, then why didn’t he have people?
But when he gave a brief pause, making her wonder how much truth there was to that thought, he seemed to think better of it and opened the door, leading her inside.
A bathroom to her left and a sitting room to her right was all she could see of her surroundings before he was shoving her back hard against the wall, his mouth coming down hard on hers. She could taste the whiskey he’d been drinking, making her cringe even as she tried to lurch away with her back against the wall.
“Don’t get shy on me now,” he uttered roughly, bringing his hand up to curl around her chin, forcing her to turn back to him.
“Get off.” She hadn’t known she would say that until the words were out of her mouth, but the thought of his hands on her made her physically ill.
Ricky slapped his hand against the wall next to her head, jostling her with the one he still had on her face.
“What the fu—”
He cut off with a scream so loud, Iris’s ears hurt. As his grip loosened on her, she pulled away, slipping to the side before looking back at him to see what had happened.
His hand was still up against the wall, but not because he held it there.
One of Synek’s knives stuck it to the wall.
Her gaze darted to him, seeing the unmistakable rage there.
“No means no, doesn’t it, mate?”
It might have been amusing to see the mixture of fear and anxiety that lit up the man’s face once Synek was there, but Iris’s heart was racing so fast, she needed a moment.
“Syn, buddy, I didn’t know she was yours. I swear I—”
“Well, now that you’re all caught up,” Synek said a moment before he palmed the back of the man’s head and slammed him face first into the wall, “let’s get reacquainted.”
He yanked the knife free and dragged the semi-conscious man farther into the hotel room where Iris got an answer to her earlier question. Ricky did have security. There was just nothing they could do against Synek.
Once he had the man tied up, he started his interrogation.
Iris watched from the other side of the room, listening as Synek coaxed the truth from the man with very little effort. There was something rather intoxicating about watching him, knowing the only danger in the room was him.
Yet he wasn’t a danger to her.
She would never be able to spark this kind of fear in Spader, but Synek could. He could force the man to see his worst nightmares played out right in front of him.
Maybe … maybe she could make him another deal—one that would benefit her in the end.
Iris just needed the opportunity.
Chapter 19
Much later, after they’d come back from the hotel, Iris felt restless.
Washing off her makeup and taking a shower hadn’t helped, nor when she tried to get more recent articles on Spader. No matter what she did, nothing kept her attention. She didn’t understand why it had been so easy before—easily forgetting his existence—but now, more than ever, she wanted to seek him out.
There was work to be done and that didn’t include getting distracted by attractive mercenaries—especially one like Synek, who would just as easily hurt her as he would fuck her.
Needing something to do to get her mind off who it shouldn’t have been on in the first place, Iris headed downstairs to the kitchen, thinking of the cake she’d ordered the night before, but as she rounded the corner, the very man she was trying to avoid suddenly appeared, blocking her path.
It was easier to ignore the tension between them and the way he looked at her sometimes when he thought she wasn’t paying attention when he was gone. But at the moment, it looked like she was the only thing he wanted to see
Though they had only been in the safe house for little more than a week, he had grown comfortable enough to walk around in nothing more than a pair of gray sweatpants that should have been illegal.
Then again, it was entirely her fault that she could possibly find anything about him attractive considering who he was and even what she’d seen him do tonight.
Her hands flew up before she collided with his chest, her fingers instinctively spanning over the scarred skin.
Her first instinct was to push away, put more distance between them, but he seemed to know what she was thinking as he captured her wrists, keeping her exactly where she was.
She couldn’t bring herself to mind.
Iris didn’t have to
guess which parent she’d inherited that from. Her mother has always liked courting danger. She’d loved to seek it out for the adrenaline rush it provided.
That had been the reason she’d walked away all those years ago. She’d wanted excitement and adventure—something, she said, she couldn’t get from a police detective.
Iris thought she wanted straight and narrow, someone infallible—someone she could come home to that she could count on. Synek didn’t seem like he was any of those things.
Yet she wanted him all the same.
She was an idiot.
She also didn’t care.
“Looking for me?” he asked in a voice that made her acutely aware of how close they were standing.
Yes, her thoughts said. “No,” her mouth said. “Dessert, actually.”
The rebuttal was meant to get rid of whatever thought was shining in the dark depths of his eyes, but while he released his hold on her, he didn’t move away from her.
“Why don’t I believe that?”
The question was asked with a knowing smile, his gaze traveling down the front of her body until he landed on the tiny shorts she was wearing.
She tried to tell herself it wasn’t a conscious decision—that she hadn’t thought about him as she got dressed to come down here, but what other answer was there.
She couldn’t even deny it to herself.
“I didn’t think you’d be down here,” she said, which was only partially the truth.
She’d hoped.
“Were you looking for me?”
“Yeah, I was.”
Her heart tripped over itself. “Why?”
“You owe me a night,” he answered after a moment, his voice holding a trace of something that sent heat racing up her spine.
“A night?”
“That was the agreement, remember?”
Back at the Hall.
He’d said he could give her one night even as he’d kissed the breath out of her, something she had wholeheartedly agreed to, though she hadn’t been thinking clearly then.
Iris wasn’t sure if she even was now. “It was part of the job,” she reminded him, not sure who she was trying to convince. Him … or herself. “You were just a job.”
“Mmm, I’m not so sure. See, I watched you tonight with Ricky. He was a job, but I wasn’t.”
Iris cleared her throat, taking a step back, but it didn’t help matters when he stepped toward her. “It was one kiss.”
“But you kissed me,” he reminded her unnecessarily. She remembered that little fact all too well. “And it wasn’t the only one, was it? Or do you need me to remind you, is that it?”
There was no chance of her formulating a response to that, even if she wanted to. She felt those words in some deep, buried part of her that made rational thought click off inside her, just as it had that night.
“Syn …” she whispered his name, needing to say something, if only to get him to back off, but that only drew him in.
It was wrong for so many reasons, her wanting him and even his wanting her, but she couldn’t deny the thing that passed between them. She couldn’t deny it was there.
“Is that what you’re going to sound like when I get inside you—all breathless and eager? Go on,” he said as his hands rested on the wall on either side of her. “Say it again.”
“We can’t,” she said, her best attempt at denying him. She needed to get away from him before she did something she would regret.
“Why not?”
“Because you hate me,” she reminded him.
Synek shrugged, the movement making the snarling wolf head on his chest look a little crueler. “I don’t have to like you to fuck you.”
No, of course he wouldn’t. “Well, I do. I prefer not to sleep with men who’ll try to kill me once my guard is down. And in case you’ve forgotten, you have. Twice.”
“Then we’ll call a truce,” he said a moment later, his gaze raking over her body in blatant perusal. “Because I couldn’t give a shit about that right now.”
No, he was making it abundantly clear that the only thing on his mind was getting her naked. God, that look—as if he had never seen anything he’d wanted half as bad.
She couldn’t help but think of how easy it would be to say yes. To let him do whatever dark fantasies he had of her that she could see swimming in his eyes.
The smart thing would have been to keep her mouth shut, to give him—and herself—enough time to consider why this would be a mistake.
But he didn’t give her a chance to reconsider before he was invading her space, so close that it was hard to take a breath without smelling his scent as well.
Before she could deny him, he cupped her jaw, tilting her face up to meet his as he claimed her mouth. She couldn’t resist him even if she wanted to.
The moment of contact was just too good to deny.
His kiss alternated from demanding to gentle, like he wanted to devour her while simultaneously learning the shape of her mouth.
It was too much.
It wasn’t enough.
He broke away, his eyes dark and intense. “Iris.”
It was the first time he’d said he name since he’d taken her from her apartment earlier—the first time he’d said it without malice.
If only for that reason, he had her undivided attention.
“Say yes.”
Iris had every reason in the world to say no, to make the smart decision and break away from him now. He wouldn’t force her, of that she had no doubt, so the only thing left to do now was push him away, go to her room, and close the door.
That would be the end of it.
And he probably wouldn’t try again.
But she had never been smart when it came to Synek—not since the very beginning.
There was no other thing to say than, “Yes.”
He didn’t give her a chance to change her mind.
Synek tightened his hold on her as he turned, carrying her backward into the living room. With one booted foot, he shoved the coffee table from the middle of the carpet, laying her down with a gentleness she hadn’t expected. One minute he could go be domineering and controlling and fucking terrifying, but then there were moments like these when she saw another side of him that made her wonder which side of him was real.
But at the moment, she didn’t care which part of him she had. She was just glad to have him.
Lifting, she helped him work her shirt off, barely paying attention to it as she stared up at him with wide eyes. Seeing him now—shirt long gone, muscles rippling, his belt and top button of his jeans coming undone—she was captivated.
Her hand swept down her own body, just brushing past her lower abdomen when he caught her hand, shoving it away.
“First one’s mine.”
If it was possible to escape her own body, she would have at that moment. The words were like an audio aphrodisiac, and the way he was staring down at her only heightened the feeling.
It would be easy, too easy to get lost in him and the sinful promise radiating off him.
He gripped the back of her knees, shoving her legs wide even as he came down. He didn’t even give her a chance to take a breath before his tongue was sweeping over her pussy, drawing a breathless cry that sounded like his name.
Her fingers delved into his hair, gripping tight, never wanting it to end. “Syn, please.”
The only answer he gave to that was a muted groan she felt down to her toes.
He hooked her leg over his shoulder, using his free hand to sweep up her body and cup her breast, squeezing tight, then kneading until he pinched her nipple hard enough to elicit a cry she hoped the neighbors couldn’t hear.
But what sent heat racing down her spine to pool in her lower half was the sounds he made—as if he couldn’t get enough. Like she was the only thing he wanted.
The thought was intoxicating even as she knew it couldn’t be true.
But fuck if he didn’t make her believe it.
/> He was too into it—from the harsh grip he had on her thighs, to the way he kissed and licked and bit at her until she was shaking and begging in broken syllables for him to make her come.
It was there, just out of reach, but not for long.
He needed only to suck her clit hard into his mouth and she was done.
Her body torpedoed into bliss so quickly it took her breath away.
But Synek didn’t stop, not until she practically had to push his head away for a reprieve. He wasn’t done with her yet, though.
His intent was clear in his eyes as he reared up, shoving at his jeans and boxer briefs until his cock sprung free.
But once he had his hand wrapped around the thick root of it, he paused. His gaze skimmed over her, lingering in places that might have made her blush if she wasn’t already flushed.
She wasn’t a virgin by any means, but no one had ever looked at her the way Synek did. Like she was perfect, and he needed a moment to drink it all in.
“Ask me for it.”
If he hadn’t been kneeling between her legs, she might have pressed her thighs together at those words. Heat raced down her spine, pooling in the place where his eyes were glued.
She reached for him without meaning to. She knew how it looked. How desperate she suddenly seemed for him, but she couldn't think of anything she wanted more at that moment than him.
So she gave him what he wanted.
“Syn, please.”
She could see what those words did to him, how they spurred him into action. Iris didn't think before she was repeating them over and over, lost in the moment with him.
The anticipation was killing her as she watched him pull the condom out of the back pocket of his jeans and rip the foil with his teeth. He wasn’t in any rush to roll the latex down his cock and managed to draw out every single second.
His fingers coasted over her thigh before he eased them open wider. He whispered words she couldn't understand, but the look on his face captivated her.
“What did you say?”
Den of Mercenaries [Volume Two] Page 42