Staring into the dark, Misha closed her eyes.
Wyatt was the best blanket she could wish for, but it wasn’t enough. Every cell in her body buzzed with him behind her. Hot, firm, smooth, rough. She traced her fingers up and down his forearm resting between her breasts, hugging her to him. In response, he kissed quickly and modestly behind her ear. All that did was ratchet her desire until all she could think of was his unyielding body against her soft rear end—that hard length digging between the two halves of her bottom.
Heat pooled heavily between her legs, her sensitized nipples grazed against her pajama top, making everything worse. She was going to die if he didn’t touch her soon, and when he didn’t, when he infuriatingly laid still, she wiggled and pushed back into him, demanding with her body. The expletive he shot out made her smile, so she took his palm and slipped it under her top to her bare breast, molding his fingers over her flesh, until he couldn’t help himself but knead and plump and roll her puckered bud with his fingers.
A deep, sexual groan came from his mouth in a way that rumbled her entire being.
She urged him to keep going, but he hesitated. Getting desperate, she needed him, wanted to feel him inside her, wanted that connection to drive deep. She urged his touch from her breast down her flat stomach and below. They slipped together beneath her waistband until he hit her aching core. She wore no panties, and he approved with a grunt into her hair. When he took over driving the touch, she almost wept with relief. Thank Christ.
Yes. Yes. She lifted to his touch, and he pushed a finger inside. Little pleading sounds burst from her mouth as he pumped slowly, and toyed with her, spreading her wetness around.
“Oh, God, yes, koteczek. Play with me,” she moaned, breathing heavily into the dark.
A rough, ragged breath into her ear told her he loved it, and that he was falling as hard as she. With each stroke and flick of his fingers, her pleasure coiled tighter.
“More,” she breathed, craning her neck to see him over her shoulder.
His lips found hers and his heady taste brought a new sweet agony—she reached around and tugged his pants down until she found his arousal. She squeezed until he grunted, and then she pumped, sliding her fist up and down his satin-smooth length.
Still with their mouths on each other, but her back to his front, they increased the urgency of their loving until she could stand it no more. She needed him inside her. Now. She angled until his tip pressed against her wet, needy center. In one swift thrust, he pushed in completely. She cried out, almost flying into climax, but when he didn’t move, she came back down to earth.
Oh, so now he plays, she thought amused. Her humor vanished when he refused to move, even as she squirmed and writhed in arresting torment. The sensation of him filled and stretched her deliciously. She tried to move, to thrust back into him, but he gripped onto her and forced her to still.
“What are you doing?” she murmured impatiently.
“I’m taking a picture memory.”
She laughed. Bastard.
Only when she was panting and hot with need did his fingers wander down between her legs, rubbing and bringing her back to the edge of oblivion.
Feeling drugged on his heat, his scent, and his taste, she could do little else but let him kiss her while he expertly pleasured below, and only when that knot of sensation pulled so tight that she exploded and saw stars, did he begin to move inside her. Slow, languid thrusts that kept her orgasm cascading, curling her toes and making every limb pleasantly numb. There was no doubt in her mind that she felt loved in that moment. No doubt that whatever the test result would be tomorrow, he’d hold her with two hands, never letting go.
Forty-Two
The next morning, Sloan shuffled into the VIP room in the restaurant below their apartments. Heaven was only a short walk from her front door, but it seemed like a world away. The previous night’s activities had turned every muscle in her body into a screaming bitch. That’s what activity would do to you. Much easier to sleep all day than to force yourself to save the world. She’d rather have stayed in bed a few more hours, but she’d made a promise to Wyatt that she would make an effort.
The rest of the family were already seated around the enormous banquet table usually reserved for board meetings with snooty business men like Parker. As she stood at the door, in her fluffy Sailor Moon slippers, and looked for a vacant seat at the crowded table, she picked up the tail end of Evan’s recount of his efforts from the previous night. Apparently the explosions that rocked the city were linked to the dude Wyatt and Misha had beef with. When the cops ended up at that Russian club, and found the dead bodies inside, they chalked it all up to some gangland weird shit. It helped that she’d left some evidence she’d gleaned from his computers out in the open.
Of course, she’d also taken a shitload of evidence for herself. Why not? The guy had ties to the Syndicate.
Someone must have said something funny because everyone laughed and she looked up at all the smiling faces.
It was good to hear that sound, and somewhere deep down inside her, there was a yearning to feel the same, but… it was like an empty chasm in there. Hollow, dry, and achy from misuse. Just like her body. But she was done feeling sorry for herself and blaming all her woes on another man. Max Johnson, who?
He was just an asshole who didn’t deserve her.
Wyatt had been right. Getting outside and having purpose again snapped something inside her back to life. Pity she’d been useless last night. Mary had contributed most of the body count, while all Sloan had done was shoot a few arrows and then hid under a dead body. The edges of shame pushed at her but, to be honest, she didn’t care.
Empty, remember?
She didn’t even feel much about the revelation of their eldest sister being alive. Sloan was the second youngest in the family, and had no memory of Daisy, so—meh.
The only thing that held a trace of fire in her otherwise baron heart was the burning hate for Max. Seeing three of her siblings happy in love was making it clearer every day that her relationship with him had been toxic. Long distance, online, and always at the whim of his beck and call. The things she did with him over the phone—it would make Tony blush. Stupid, stupid things. And she knew better than anyone that your digital life was a mighty long time. You couldn’t completely erase your electric fingerprint. The worst part, the reason she hated him, was because after she’d confessed her deepest secret about her true identity, he’d told Sloan he loved her and that he was quitting the army to come and be with her. Then he fucking dumped her. No explanation, no reason, just disappeared like a ghost.
She’d looked him up and discovered he’d actually arrived in town like he promised, but had left the same night.
What a jerk, and now that she saw the bigger picture, that her true mate was still out there, and it wasn’t Max, he wasn’t worth the scuff-grub beneath her slippers. He was all wrong for her. A lover who ran at the first sign of trouble? Not for her. She needed a man who would run headlong into danger for her, like Wyatt had for Misha.
“You going to stand there all morning with a snarl on your face?”
The deep voice had her blinking away cobwebs in her mind. She turned to Parker’s disapproving stare. Like the rest of his family, he’d scrubbed up for the occasion. Suit, tie, shampoo-commercial lustrous locks.
“Swear to God, Parks. You should be on the cover of a romance novel with that hair,” she said with an arch of the eyebrow.
For a moment, her giant brother blinked, shocked that she had the audacity to insult him—or rather compliment him. For serious, those locks were swoony model territory according to all the women he dated. Made no sense to her.
She could virtually see thoughts colliding behind his eyes as he took in her limp hair, fluffy slippers and pajamas. Don’t give a shit. I do what I want. To shove it to him, she grabbed her pigtail and popped the crusty end into her mouth and then dared him with her eyes, pretending not to be grossed out by w
hat she’d just done. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
Parker checked his Rolex. “You’re twenty minutes late.”
Standoff over, she spat out her hair and moved down the room to a vacant seat between Liza and Wyatt.
“Who does a breakfast meeting, anyway?” She plopped down and reached for a croissant. “Most normal people aren’t even up at eight in the morning.”
“I, for one, am glad the security firm we’ve hired are so diligent,” Griffin added from his spot directly opposite her.
His life-mate, Lilo, was next to him. She poked her tongue at him. “Of course you would say that. You think five a.m. is a perfectly respectable time to wake up.”
“That’s what I was going to say,” Sloan said, laughing. She liked Lilo. The woman was growing on her. Another woman growing on her was Misha and her fun-times attitude. Sloan needed more of that in her life right now.
“Where’s Misha?” she asked Wyatt.
“She’s not well,” was all Wyatt said, and then left it at that.
The sooner this meeting was over, the better.
A knock came at the door, and in walked a tall, well-built man dressed in army fatigues and a black Henley stretched over an impressive body made for violence. Tanned, square jaw covered in scruff, sandy blond beach hair—brown familiar eyes staring right back at her. Sloan choked on her croissant and coughed it up.
Parker stood up. “Everyone, this is Maximillian Johnson from Nightingale Security. He’ll be heading up our private protection. Some of you may remember serving in the Aussie SAS with him.”
Tony yipped loudly and jumped to his feet, clearly over the moon as he went to his longtime friend. Parker proceeded to point around the table making introductions, but Sloan had spaced out. All she could see was a blur. All she could hear was his name turn over in her head.
Maximillian. Max.
Max.
Max.
What the fuck?
Rage, like none she’d ever known before, surged to the surface of every blood vessel in her body and the croissant crumbled to mush in her fist.
Wyatt’s gaze whipped her way. “Sloan?”
She couldn’t speak. Could barely think. As the rest of her traitorous family shook hands with the Australian bastard, she found she could barely breathe. And then Liza—thank the stars for Liza—snorted out a laugh.
“Max Johnson?” Another irreverent laugh. “Is that a joke?”
Relief sagged Sloan’s shoulders. At least one member of her family had the sense to remember this dickwad-filled-scrotum-tasting… Argh! She couldn’t even get expletives out right. Asshole. He was an asshole. I hate you!
“His name means big dick.” Liza elbowed Sloan in the arm. “Can you believe it? Get it, Max for maximum, Johnson for dick?”
Sloan looked aghast at her sister and the reality dawned on her.
No one gave a shit.
This man they were hailing a hero to come and protect their public identities had chewed up her heart, and spat it out. And now he was there to gloat.
And no one gave a shit.
Suddenly, all the anger drained from her body to leave her cold and shivering. Then slowly, keeping her eyes on the spot just in front of her, she pushed her chair out, stood, and walked out of the room.
“Sloan.”
When his rough voice called her name, she kept walking, because if she was forced to look back at him, she wouldn’t be held responsible for her murderous actions.
Forty-Three
Later that morning, in Wyatt’s apartment, he paced outside the bathroom door, waiting for Misha’s test results. After she’d crashed the previous night, and spent the morning puking, they’d had precious little time to talk about anything. He’d had to go to the family meeting at Heaven and take Alek home to where the rest of the Minski family waited. Alek was instructed not to mention a thing about Misha’s possible condition until she notified him, and the kid was more than happy to oblige. When all his errands were done, as per Misha’s request, he’d stopped by the store to get a pregnancy test. The minute he got home, she took it and entered the bathroom.
And there they were… waiting.
His heart pounded in his throat and his palms felt clammy. She’d been in there for three minutes. That was long enough, right? Why wasn’t she opening the door?
Maybe she didn’t want to keep it.
The thought slammed into him with a frightening intensity and he stopped pacing. She hated the strain of looking after her brother and sister. To her, that work had robbed her of a happy youth. She’d missed out on so much. She was probably terrified of dying during childbirth like her mother.
And what did he want?
Shit.
Wyatt had never expected to have children of his own. They’d been told they were sterile, and Wyatt believed he always would be. Mary had refuted that “always” and said Gloria had designed their genetic code to resist reproduction while they were unstable in mind—without a mate to balance their sin’s dark urges—because having an unhinged powerful person reproduce would only pass on the darkness.
No one had believed Mary about the mate business. It had sounded ridiculous. They all thought their sterility was a side effect of being experimented on, and that people as twisted as them, abhorred by mother nature, weren’t allowed children.
Christ.
Wyatt ran a hand down his face, scratching over the stubble he’d forgotten to shave. Why wasn’t she coming out?
“Misha,” he prompted gently at the door.
A shuffling sound, and then the door opened. His heart leaped into his throat.
Dressed in yoga pants and a borrowed T-shirt of his, Misha came out holding the little white stick in her hand.
He held his breath, but she didn’t say anything. She just looked at him with glistening eyes, so he took the stick and checked the result. Two blue lines in the window. That was positive, right?
“Positive?”
She nodded.
Suddenly, the floor shifted beneath his feet. It was her decision.
“And… how, um. I guess, how does that make you feel?” he asked.
She shot him a wry smile. “Is that your way of asking if I want to keep it?”
“It’s your body. The decision is ultimately up to you.”
“What do you want, though?” She sighed and slumped. “We promised we’d be honest with each other.”
“You’re right.” Uncertainty twisted his heart. He had said they’d be honest.
“Wyatt,” she said. “You can’t keep being afraid that I’ll run away. I’m sorry I left yesterday, it was a stupid move, and I learned my lesson, but I need you to tell me the truth. I’m asking because I will always consider your feelings. What do you want to do?”
She took the test from him and placed it on the bench in the bathroom, then came back and held both his hands. “Two hands goes for both of us, right? Tell me what you want.”
But his throat closed up. “I don’t know.”
“What do you know?”
“That I want you to stay.”
“I’ll stay regardless of your choice.”
“You say that, but…” He shook his head. She wouldn’t.
When he didn’t answer, she let go of his hands with a disappointed expression. “You don’t want to keep it.”
Alarm pricked him. “No! That’s not what I said.”
Cautiously, she met his eyes, a slow grin forming on her cupid’s bow lips. “You do want to keep it?”
A wash of heat rushed him, and he realized he was embarrassed. What the fuck? He didn’t get embarrassed, but… he did want it. He wanted a life with her and everything that came with it.
Of course he did. He’d always wanted the family life. The Syndicate had made them freaks of nature, and he resented them for it. Being one of the Deadly Seven always felt like a duty, but not something he would have set out to actually want. To him, being normal, or having normal things like a fam
ily or a job as a chef, was what he’d wanted. It was probably why it had hurt so bad when Sara took that choice away from him—lying to him about everything she offered and ruining his voice. He met Misha’s expectant and hopeful gaze, confident that what he voiced mattered.
“Yeah, I do, but I’m worried you’re afraid because of what happened with your mother. I don’t want to push you into anything.”
She launched at him, latching onto his body. He stumbled and almost fell backward from her sudden weight, but he caught her under her thighs.
“I want it too.” She kissed him, full on the lips.
Relief washed through him so thoroughly that his knees weakened and he had to take them both to the couch and sit down. Cupping her face and spearing his fingers through her hair, he smiled down at her. “You want it.”
She nodded. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m freaking the hell out. This is the complete opposite to how I thought I’d ever feel, and like you said, it’s scary because of the way mama died, but”—her smile turned shy—“With you, I… I don’t know, I feel good. I know you’ll look after us.”
“Damn straight, I will.”
“I guess I can close the yoga studio down for a while.”
“No,” he said immediately. “I don’t want you to miss out on anything you don’t want to. I’ll stay home and look after the baby.”
Her eyebrow arched. “Really?”
“Sure. I’ll stay home during the day, and you can watch the kid at night. Plus, with any urgent missions, we’ve got a big family. Grandma Mary on my side and, what do you call your father now?”
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