ALTERED BY LEAD: UNDERCOVER SINNERS BOOK 2

by James, Tate

  "All I meant was that I feel like this team belongs to me. But, you know, in a different way than it does Hawke." I sit up on my knees and then swing my leg over Mace's muscular thighs, straddling him but just barely teasing him with the hot wetness between my legs. "You boys are, in a sense, mine. Sexually, speaking."

  "We're yours?" Mace asks, a bit of a skeptical note in his voice. I quickly crush it by sliding my cunt along the thick, hard length of him. He truly has the biggest cock I've ever seen in my life, and I can't get enough of it.

  "That's right. Did you know female cats claim a harem of males, and that she's called the queen of her little group? If any other females try to invade their territory, she attacks them."

  "So you're a pussy expert now?" West asks, shedding his shirt and revealing the bronze perfection of his skin. There's only one lamp on right now, leaving the room with a dim golden glow and plenty of shadows. The curtains are actually open, but it's too dark outside for the windows to provide much light.

  "I was born with one. And I've used it plenty. Trust me: I know far more about it than you do." I flick my hair over my shoulder, raise up on my knees, and reach between my legs for Mace's impressive erection. Our eyes meet as I guide him to my opening and then sink down, letting him fill up my aching cunt inch by inch. I'm a bit sore from last night, but I also feel like my sleeping libido was woken by Hawke and his stupid, tender first-aid on my knees.

  With a groan, I sink down, putting my hands on Mace's massive shoulders, and then giving Weston a come-hither sort of a look. He doesn't waste a single moment in tearing off his shirt and climbing onto the bed.

  The slither of his belt leaving his pant loops gives me serious chills, and I find myself rocking up and down on Mace's cock to satisfy the ache in my lower belly.

  "Hold up, princess, I'm coming," he whispers, chuckling against my ear as he leans forward and snags some lube from the nightstand. Mace reaches up and curls his fingers through my chocolate hair, pulling me forward so that our lips meet in a crushing burst of heat. This is going to be quick, and messy, and dirty, and I love it. I love sex, always have, but there's something different about it with these guys. All five of them.

  "Am I interrupting something?" Arsen asks, and West curses, dropping the lube on my leg as he whips his head in the direction of the window where the crazy fuck is currently sitting. He must've climbed across the roof or something. Arsen is practically lounging, his chin parked in his hand as he smirks at us. "And in Hawke's bed, too? How naughty."

  There's a long moment of silence before Arsen finally stands up and moves over to the bed, flicking his pale blue eyes in West's direction.

  "Well, don't stop on my account," he says, as Weston grumbles something low under his breath and Mace lifts up the edge of his mouth in a snarl. "I'll join when I’m damn well ready. For now, I'd rather watch." Arsen puts one knee on the bed and snatches up the lube, leaning back into the pillows in just such a way that I know Hawke would freak if he were to see. The thing is, Arsen belongs to Hawke in a way. There's nobody else in the world that could or would want to control him. It's this or be locked up; he's too dangerous to be set free. And so with Hawke comes Arsen, and vice versa. And fortunately for me, that's exactly how I want it.

  "Fucking psycho," West murmurs, but then he's leaning forward and putting his lips on my neck, kissing away the interruption as he slides one, smooth finger into my ass. With Mace already inside of me, it's a tight fit, and I feel my face flushing with the delicious feeling of fullness.

  Arsen chucks the lube at West, probably intending to hit him in the head. Doesn’t work because West catches it midair, but the tension in the room amps up a bit.

  “Asshole,” West says, shaking his head and then leaning in to kiss and suck on the sensitive skin between my neck and shoulder. Arsen’s eyes watch us hungrily, and I know he won’t be able to resist for long before he’s crawling over here and inserting himself into the fray—invited or not. Pretty sure Arsen doesn’t give a shit if the other guys want him here; he’s staying.

  West’s hands are warm, comforting, and between him and Mace, I feel wanted, protected, even … loved? I don’t know about that last part, not yet, but something close to it at the very least.

  “More,” I whisper, because while I love being teased, I love being pounded more. Weston chuckles, inserting a second finger and then a third, stretching me and playing with that fine bit of skin between my cunt and my ass. He can probably feel Mace’s cock on the other side. Just the idea of it makes my body ache with desire. One of these days, I’m going to convince the boys to play with each other, if only for my benefit.

  “You really love all of this, don’t you?” West asks, his voice caught somewhere between excitement and resignation. “I kind of thought we might settle down and have babies together, but … I could get used to this. You, me, the team. Bloodshed. Money.”

  I chuckle, working my hips against Mace’s cock as he gazes up at me, dark blue eyes blazing with need. That date we went on, it was literal perfection, even if I was wondering about the bet the whole time. Next time, we won’t take any baggage with us, and it’ll be even better.

  “Aw, how sweet,” Arsen purrs, sneering at West as he works his shaft with a tight fist. “You wanted to play Suzy Homemaker with Natalia? A girl like her needs a man like me.”

  “Like me,” Mace snaps back with a snarl.

  But they’re both wrong.

  They’re all wrong.

  “A girl like me needs all of it, everything. I spent my whole life trapped, caged. I want to experience every side of myself, every facet. I want to make babies, sure, just not yet. I want to live on the edge of adrenaline. I want to be dominated and loved and worshipped and topped.”

  I reach a hand back as Weston presses in close to me, sucking on my earlobe and then withdrawing his fingers, replacing them with his cock. He eases into me, bringing me that much closer to contentment, completion.

  “Son of a bitch,” Arsen snarls, crawling over to us. He looks supremely pissed off as he grabs my hand and forces my fingers to clench his shaft. “Just get me off, so I can get the hell out of here.”

  I doubt he means a damn word of what he’s saying. He thinks he’s so mysterious, but I’m starting to get his crazy, starting to understand his monster. He’s mine, just as much as the rest of them.

  Someone tries the doorknob, curses, and then I hear the distinct sound of a key in a lock before it swings open and Hawke is filling the doorway. He stares at the four of us with an expression torn between lust and rage.

  “Oh, whoa, there’s an orgy going on that I missed?” Colt says, slipping around his boss, fully dressed, but with his green eyes shimmering in excitement. “Boss, how long do we have?”

  Hawke doesn’t turn to look at him, but our eyes meet from across the room.

  Instead of getting angry, I need him to take control of this situation.

  I need him to be the boss.

  A muscle in his jaw ticks, and he scowls, running his tongue across his lower lip. But I think he knows that by giving into anger, he’s giving up his power. He needs to be a true leader, even in a moment as strange and personal as this.

  “Thirty minutes,” he snaps, and then he stalks across the room, assessing, evaluating. His gray eyes scan my naked body, my flushed face, my bouncing tits. “Colt, get your cock out and let Natalia give you a handjob.”

  “Yes, sir,” Colt murmurs with an eager grin, more than willing to unbutton his cargo pants and climb into bed with us. Weston hands over the lube, and Colt pours a generous amount onto his shaft, positioning himself so that I can grab onto the base of his shaft, giving it a tight squeeze before I begin to pump.

  “Mace, my apologies in advance,” Hawke growls, climbing up onto the bed and standing on it. He straddles Mace’s chest, his front to me, and then unzips his pants. There’s no mercy in his tight grip when he grabs my hair and forces his cock down my throat.

  As soon as that
happens, the dynamic shifts.

  Everything seems to fall into place.

  Or maybe that’s just my hormone-addled brain and happy cunt trying to make something perverted into something … more.

  Hawke fucks my mouth while my hands work Arsen and Colt, while Weston controls the pace that gets both me and Mace off. They’re the first two to come, spilling hot seed inside of me, but they’re also not permitted to go anywhere.

  “Don’t you dare fucking move,” Hawke commands, his voice like stone, impenetrable, unbreakable. He loves me. That thought echoes in my mind like a mantra. “Not until Natalia and I are finished.”

  My hands pump Arsen and Colt, the former groaning and wrapping his fingers around my neck as he comes across my bare tits, unashamed in his actions. He’d probably want to play choking games with me if the others weren’t around, but as crazy as he is, Arsen knows that Hawke and Mace can and will kill him if he takes his behavior too far.

  Colt is more polite, but still cocky, reaching down to guide the pace and pressure of my hand before he finishes on my right leg.

  And Hawke … he takes his sweet time as Mace drops his hand to my clit, working all of that desire and pent-up need in me out, making me groan and scream around the weight of Hawke’s shaft in my mouth.

  When he comes, he holds my head still and finishes on the back of my tongue, completing this strange ritual of ours.

  “Everybody get up and get dressed. I won’t tolerate tardiness.”

  Hawke steps off the bed, zips up his pants, and stalks out of the room like he didn’t just team up with four other guys to fuck me.

  And it’s most definitely not the first or last time that’s going to happen.

  Chapter 16

  Natalia

  "You're late," Janet says cooly, assessing me with a particularly unimpressed gaze. She's standing beside the blacked-out beast of a car with her arms tightly folded over her chest and her mouth pursed into a thin line. Her dark hair is slicked back into a severe bun, making her look years older than I think she truly is. "Let me tell you this from a place of experience, woman to woman." She moves toward me slowly, like a predator homing in on prey. Mace bristles at my side, but Hawke stays still, calm, even-tempered. Shocking, right? “If you spend more time fucking your teammates than actually worrying about your assignments, you won’t make it long in this field.”

  "I—” I start, but there’s not really much I can say to that. She’s probably right, but also … I don’t care? If I can’t find a way to balance this job, and these boys, then I’ll never find what I’m looking for in life. This career is too isolating, too all-consuming. I need people at my back that I can trust.

  Or fuck.

  “Nothing to say then, recruit?” Janet asks, sounding a hell of a lot like Hawke. I figure she’s probably had to put up with a ton of misogynistic shit in her day, to get to where she is, so I let it go.

  I also see right away why they would never work together.

  They’re the same person, exactly the same person. And two Hawkes does not a good relationship make.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I say, choking the words out, even if they catch in my throat and turn to ash. Arsen chuckles as he slips around us, adding yet one more crate to the trailer that’s already attached to Hawke’s navigator.

  “Next time, save your orgies for after the mission,” Janet snaps, letting just a bit of her temper and jealousy shine through. It lasts a split-second, and then it’s gone; she’s all business again.

  She’d have to be, to survive in this world alone.

  Luckily for me, I’ve found friends.

  Or fuck-buddies.

  But still.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I repeat as Hawke leans down next to my ear. I can’t see him, but I can feel his smirk it’s so damn intense.

  “Look how submissive you can be to another woman; I’m almost jealous. Maybe I’ll fuck a few more of our female superiors, just to keep you on your toes?” I grit my teeth as he stands up and moves around to the driver’s side door, but I don’t lash out.

  I can’t do that anymore.

  When it comes down to Blackbirch business, I have to follow orders.

  “I wish I could say it gets easier over time,” Mace rumbles, helping me into the same strap and rifle I wore when we went deer hunting. It feels ominous somehow, putting on the same gear I used to make my first kill. And today, at some point, I’ll be making another one—a very human one.

  “Wish you could say what gets easier?” I ask as I check and double check the knives in my boots, the ones strapped to my thighs, the guns on my hips. I’m wearing Kevlar and black cargo pants, a long-sleeved black shirt, and a helmet, like I’m a member of SWAT or something. I didn’t think I’d feel sexy in this outfit, but I do. And it’s not because it’s physically attractive; it’s the way it makes me feel.

  “Following orders,” Mace says, exhaling slightly, his voice a growling rumble. “It never gets easier. You just have to ask yourself: do you want the burden and responsibility? Because if you don’t, then you shut up and do what you’re told—but only if you trust your leader the way I do Hawke.”

  I nod and then let him squeeze my small hand in one of his big ones. Even if I were unsure about Hawke or Arsen, I’m not unsure about Mace. And Mace trusts Hawke. That’s enough for me.

  Janet climbs into the front seat as Hawke gets behind the wheel; the rest of us file into the back two rows.

  Arsen lights up a cigarette in the backseat, even as Hawke snarls curses under his breath.

  “Smoke that fucking thing out the window, or I’ll knock your teeth out after we’re finished with this mission.”

  Arsen rolls his eyes, but lets the window down a crack. Just a crack. He doesn’t make much effort to blow the smoke away from Hawke’s shiny leather interior.

  “Let’s get this over with, so we can find Konstantin and skull fuck him with a pistol. I’m going to use his lube as blood.”

  “I see that you’re still running your team like a circus,” Janet quips, making a note on her iPad. “You’re lucky this is an active duty assessment for Colt, and a new member assessment for Natalia, and not a team evaluation. You’d already be in the red, by the way.”

  Hawke clenches his jaw, but says nothing.

  Janet is his superior, and even though he’s a supreme asshole, he’s also made for this life. He’d get nowhere if he didn’t follow his own orders.

  We drive for almost an hour in silence, but I’m pretty sure Colt and West are passing notes in the backseat. It’d be cute if I wasn’t sweating bullets, sitting between Arsen and Mace, my mind already running through every possible way this could go wrong.

  “Don’t do that,” Arsen snaps, drawing my attention over to the sharp but handsome features of his face. He gestures at me with a freshly lit cigarette, and even though he’s scowling as per usual, I think he’s trying to be helpful, too. “Don’t think about how you might fuck it up. Assume you won’t, and stride in like you’re bulletproof. Fear is your worst goddamn enemy.”

  I just stare at him, shocked that a useful piece of advice actually came from his crazy (yet beautiful) mouth. But he turns away from me, finishing his cigarette without even bothering to acknowledge that we just had a moment.

  Hawke pulls the Navigator up a logging access road, the dried mud so bumpy and uneven that Mace hits his head against the roof as we climb the mountain, cursing under his breath in that grumbling way of his.

  Once we get to the top, we climb out and stand in a half-circle around the trailer.

  “Colt and Weston will deal with the explosives,” Janet says brusquely, her eyes narrowing slightly as she looks up and over at me, like she expects me to protest or flaunt the hickeys on my neck. I just stand there because I know better than most that a woman stuck in a man’s world is the alpha among alphas; I’m not about to piss her off and lose my place in the company. “Hawke and I will remain with Natalia to assess her progress; Mace and Arsen will
guard the gate leading from the compound. Not a single one of those trucks is to make it off the property, is that understood?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Mace growls, frowning severely, his dark eyes flicking to me. He doesn’t like the idea of leaving me without his protection; I like it even less, but it is what it is. Orders are orders, right?

  “The first explosion should take place here.” Janet shows the boys a spot on the map, and then gives them coordinates to add to their smart watches. “The second here. And the third and final should be the lab itself. I expect the first to go off in fifteen minutes or less.”

  “As you wish,” Colt says with a grin, unloading one of the wooden crates from the trailer. Janet curls her lip at his less than professional response to her command, and then turns to me.

  She hates me. I can already tell. Maybe she doesn’t want to, because she seems the type to bond over womanly comradery, but there must be something about Hawke that she likes because there’s a fury there that I can’t figure out otherwise.

  “Your job is to prove to me that you can do this. I don’t expect perfection. I don’t even expect you to be good; I just need to see progress, potential.” I nod as she turns back to Colt. “So far as your assessment goes, I just need to see you complete this assignment without fucking up.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Weston answers for Colt, elbowing him in the side before he can say anything stupid in response. The two of them pause, each one holding up a side of the heavy crate, and then they press a kiss to either side of my mouth. “Don’t die while you’re out there, okay? I really liked that bit about me and you making babies.”

  “I wouldn’t mind a brat or two either,” Colt says with a shrug and a grin, and he winks at me as the two of them disappear into the trees together. It doesn’t occur to me in that moment that I won’t be seeing them for a while.