Hers To Keep: THE QUINTESSENCE COLLECTION I

by Akeroyd, Serena

  “Yes. I remember. You never told me how it went.”

  “That’s because it didn’t. That morning, there was a bomb. A lot of staff who were there preparing for the event were killed.”

  Vasily sucked in a sharp breath. “And you didn’t think it best to tell me?”

  “I didn’t want to worry you. Not until I had more information.”

  “You’d better have more information,” came the grim retort. “I might have the body of an old man, but my brain is sharper than ever.”

  Wasn’t that the damn truth? Andrei grimaced, and said, “Sean’s been looking into it, but he found no reason for anyone to target Sascha. She’d been fine, safe, until she got into a relationship with me.” He was careful to say me, and not us. His grandfather was open minded, but in his eyes, a man had five women to call on, not vice versa.

  “Someone’s targeting you?” Vasily asked, but his tone was loaded with doubt. “I have tabs kept on you, son. There’s been nothing brought to my attention. Certainly nothing that would have an assassination attempt brought against you.”

  “No. It’s her. We found out her parents aren’t her real parents.”

  “Who are they?”

  His jaw worked. “Remember I’m working with Jacobie?”

  “That idiot boy who sells computers?”

  He snorted. “He does more than that and you know it.”

  “A man who has to hire someone to come up with strategies on his behalf isn’t exactly smart.”

  Andrei’s lips twitched. Vasily wasn’t wrong. Not exactly. “Surely he’s smart for outsourcing to one of the best in the business though?”

  “True. I’ll give him kudos for that.”

  Andrei grinned but his grin died a death as he thought about his next words. “Anyway, it’s kind of a strange coincidence…”

  “You know my opinion on coincidences.”

  “Yes. I do. Which is what makes even less sense. We have reason to believe Sascha is related to the Jacobies.”

  Vasily blew out a whistle. “There’s definitely no coincidence there. Why do you think they’re family?”

  “It sounds like a weak link, but the likeness is remarkable—Sawyer saw a photo of Jacobie’s great-grandmother. She’s the spitting image of Sascha. It’s more than uncanny; it’s impossible that they’re not related.”

  Vasily didn’t comment on that, just asked, “Didn’t you tell me once that Jacobie is old school English? Country pile and everything?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, there you have it. If she’s related to his grandfather, then she’s due some of the inheritance.”

  Andrei nodded, even though he knew his grandfather couldn’t see him. “We’ve been investigating that line of inquiry too.”

  “It sounds like you’ve got a real mystery on your hands.”

  “We do,” Andrei said wryly. “Which is why I’m not too keen on the idea of stirring any shit by bringing her to Moscow.”

  “She’d probably be safer here than there,” Vasily pointed out, stung.

  Andrei had to wince because, damn him, his grandfather had a point.

  Twenty-Six

  She could do this. She could. She could sit here with her five lovers and her father, and not want to start giggling. Because yes, her nerves were manifesting in laughter. Just what she needed. The thought had her sniggering into the pot of spaghetti she’d brought up to the boil.

  “What’s so funny?”

  She shot Sawyer a look. “This situation.”

  His lips twitched. “I thought you’d be panicking. Not laughing your head off.”

  “This is me panicking,” she retorted, to which he shook his head.

  “Woman, can you never react normally?” He moved around the counter and kissed her on the forehead. A chaste kiss.

  A very un-Sawyer kiss.

  She peered around the kitchen, then murmured to him, “Hold that thought.”

  Heading over to the intercom, she pressed the button to Sawyer’s bedroom.

  “Dad? I’m in the kitchen. The intercom is over by the door. If you press the green button, that answers me, the red is to mute. I just wanted to let you know that dinner will be ready in twenty minutes.”

  “Okay, sweetheart,” her father said, his voice crackling over the speaker. “I’ll see you in twenty. That’s enough time for a shower.”

  Her eyes widened in satisfaction, but she just said, “Great. See you then.”

  She turned around, and saw Sawyer was watching her. “You told me ten minutes ago that dinner was ready in twenty.”

  She grinned at his cocked brow. “That’s because I have nefarious plans.”

  His eyes narrowed as he folded his arms across his chest. “Oh no. We’ve all been warned. No sex for at least a week. And that has nothing to do with your father being under the same roof but everything to do with your concussion.”

  At that moment, Sascha seriously felt like stomping her foot.

  “I need stress relief,” she said blandly.

  “Then I can massage you again,” he retorted, equally as blandly.

  She grunted. “I knew I should have asked Devon.”

  “You thought I’d cave in before the rest of them?”

  She pouted. “Not particularly. I just thought I could persuade you. It’s been five days since I saw the doctor last. That’s almost a week.”

  “I don’t believe you. You want to fuck in the kitchen when your dad is about to come and eat down here?”

  When he shook his head at her, she could tell he was both surprised and amused at that. One thing she loved about Sawyer was he was never shocked or disgusted. About anything.

  If she’d tried to give him a hand job in the middle of the street like she had with Andrei at the beginning of the week, he’d have let her.

  Public be damned—he’d have just taken off his coat to cover his cock and her hand.

  His attitude wasn’t exactly ‘live and let live.’ More ‘if you don’t like me, don’t like what I do, then fuck off.’

  She wasn’t sure if it was a Scottish thing, having only met a few Scots in her life—and knowing him the best—or if it was just a Sawyer thing.

  “Can I help it that I have a sex drive?” she complained, folding her arms across her chest. “And I was thinking the garden. Not the kitchen.”

  For some reason, that had him closing his eyes. He held up a hand. “Stop right there.”

  She frowned. Then, clutching onto a suspicion that plopped right into her head, she murmured, “Just me and you under the blue sky. The grass underneath us. The scent of flowers around us as you fuck me…”

  He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he bit off, “Stop it. I’m doing it for your own good.”

  “But I want you,” she whispered, stepping closer, crowding him against the counter.

  She pressed her front to his chest, letting their bodies touch from breast to hip where she felt a deliciously thick erection against her belly.

  She rocked her hips. “I want you inside me, Sawyer.” She reached up on tiptoe then grabbed his bottom lip between her teeth and tugged.

  His nostrils flared at the aggressive bite—she hadn’t nipped but bitten. His hands shot out to grab her hips, and he pushed her forward against the fridge.

  With one hand, he gathered her wrists and placed them above her head.

  The move thrilled her. Her eyes widening in delight at having ruptured his control. Breasts heaving as she took quick, panting breaths, she licked her lips as he stared at her. A storm brewing in his eyes.

  “You’re a pricktease,” he accused, his free hand shaping her breasts through her blouse, then dropping down to cup her between the legs. “A dirty, filthy pricktease.”

  She wasn’t sure why, but his gritty tone and the words made her melt inside. Her bottom lip trembled as her core exploded with heat, and she felt sure he could feel her slickness through the layers of her panties and pants.

  He pressed hi
s nose against her cheek, running the tip of it along her jaw. As he did, he whispered, “Aren’t you, Sascha?”

  “Y-Yes,” she replied, every part of her quivering now at his sudden dominant hold.

  “Say it. Tell me what you are.”

  She gulped as her pussy started to throb. She could feel the pulse deep inside her core and knew at that moment that he was deep in control. She hadn’t ruptured it, she’d just awoken the beast.

  “I-I’m a pricktease. A dirty, filthy slut,” she whispered and he let out a hiss. “Your dirty, filthy slut.”

  She wasn’t sure why, but the derogatory word that slipped from her lips had her nearly melting in a pool at his feet.

  Her pussy pulsed with the need to be filled. By him. All of him. Jesus, all of them.

  She wanted them so badly at that moment. It was an ache she feared would overtake her senses. Her body answered the call theirs made whenever she was around them, and that call was growing louder and more insistent with each day that passed without one of them inside her.

  “I should spank you for calling yourself that,” he growled against her throat. Nipping her there, before lashing it with his tongue.

  Her eyes widened. “S-Spank?”

  “Yes. Paddle your behind,” he said with a growl. “You’re not a slut.”

  “I-I am for you,” she said on a whimper, her hips rocking against his front, loving the thick bulge between his thighs.

  He grabbed her chin, held her head in place. “Look at me,” he commanded out of nowhere, and her lashes fluttered open to obey.

  He stared at her, a question in his eyes. One she hoped she answered.

  In that silent, long look, she knew he was asking if she was speaking ill of herself by calling herself a slut. Or if she was playing, if it was a game that got her hot. His nostrils flared as he realized it was the latter.

  “Our dirty slut,” he whispered under his breath, his tone like gravel and raspy enough to rake over nerve endings she didn’t know she even had.

  “If I touched your cunt,” he asked, “what would I find?”

  She moaned. “I’m wet, Sawyer. So wet. I need you inside me.”

  “That’s not going to happen, baby. Not without doctor’s orders.”

  She licked her lips as desperation struck. “Please. I’m so hungry for you.”

  He hissed out a breath, then stunned her by dragging her against him. But not for long. He moved back to the counter, then spun away from her. “Bend over,” he ordered, and flustered, praying he was about to fuck her, she did. She rested her arms on the marble as she bent over at the waist.

  The cold chill of the stone against her overheated skin was a torment in itself, and when he reached around her, began unfastening her fly, then pulled her trousers down to her upper thighs, the chill was a sudden counterpoint to the sheer inferno blazing around her blood.

  She was on fire.

  A fire only he could quench.

  But he didn’t touch her. No. She heard rummaging in a drawer, a noise which had her eyes widening and she turned to see what he was doing.

  Before she could see what he’d been looking for, a whistle snapped through the air, then a smack. It was strange how she heard it before she felt it, but when she did, she pressed her forehead into the cold counter.

  “God,” she whimpered on a moan, letting her butt dance a little as the sting of the wooden spoon against her ass spread a fire there.

  “You like that?” he said, covering her so she felt his cock prod the area he’d just spanked.

  She mewled. “Yes.”

  “How many do you think you deserve for being my dirty little cocktease?”

  She gulped. “I’ll cum.”

  He stilled at that, then chuckled. “I can handle that.”

  She gulped. “Seven.”

  “Why seven?”

  “I don’t know. Just… s-seven,” she said with a wriggle of her shoulders.

  “I think it should be ten. It’s a better, rounder number.”

  Licking her lips, she nodded. “Okay.” Sascha wanted to wince at how breathy her voice was, but it wasn’t like she could help it.

  This had exploded out of nowhere. From a kiss to Sawyer spanking her with a wooden spoon? Even in her wildest dreams she’d never imagined this happening today. Certainly not with her dad upstairs.

  Although, maybe that added an extra thrill to the buzz slaloming around her veins like a bobsled going two hundred miles an hour. Before she could overthink things, the spoon found its aim three more times. She counted under her breath, loving the sting, loving the dance of her hips as she tried to absorb the pain.

  When they reached five, he grabbed her butt and murmured, “Keep still.”

  “But it hurts,” she complained.

  He rammed his cock into the hot skin of her ass. “You don’t think I’m hurting too?”

  She whimpered. “I’ll try.”

  “You’ll do more than try,” he growled roughly, then proceeded to tap her butt again. Five more times. Each one growing progressively harder, creating more of a sting, until she had to grip the counter tight with her fingers, straining them to keep still elsewhere.

  She was shuddering when they hit ten, and he stunned her further by slipping the end of the spoon down through the slick folds of her sex, tapping her clit with it, before letting it slide into her greedy, grasping, cock-teasing pussy.

  He groaned. “See this, Kurt?”

  She jolted, unaware that anyone had even come into the kitchen. Her head popped up, but she had barely a second to process that Kurt was here, Andrei too, when Sawyer pressed against the back of her head, and forced her back down to the counter.

  Her cheeks blazoned with embarrassed heat, but the men seemed more intrigued than anything else.

  How hadn’t she heard them?

  Now she knew they were there, she heard their steps, felt them both as they approached her. A hand came up to rub her hot cheek, and she hissed, the muscles in her thighs and calves tensing in response.

  “Beautiful,” Kurt replied, his voice thick.

  Of course, he got off on watching.

  Fuck, she really was a pussy tease.

  Her stomach muscles clamped down when one of them grabbed the spoon and pulled it out of her. Before she knew what was happening, from the corner of her eye, she saw it held out beside her.

  “Suck it clean, dirty girl,” Kurt whispered. Her eyes flared at the fire in his face; and she swallowed hard. They watched her tongue dart out, and the way her throat spasmed with each swallow.

  He was aroused.

  They all were.

  She parted her lips and waited for him to press the spoon to her. He thrust it into her mouth, not stopping until she’d tasted herself and the polished wood and had slurped her juices clean of the implement.

  A finger appeared at the rim of her cunt. Slender digits, unlike the next one which had calluses. She groaned as they both plunged inside her, rubbing up against each other in a way that had her wondering what it would be like to have two cocks inside her cunt at the same time.

  She knew about double vaginal penetration, but they were all too big to fit inside her. But one in her ass as well as her pussy? That was totally workable.

  A notion that had her shooting up onto her tiptoes.

  From underneath, the spoon appeared, this time, it gently patted her clit. The sting against the tender skin wasn’t uncomfortable. If anything, she felt herself soar higher, faster as a result.

  As the three of them worked her over, all of them concentrating on her pleasure, she came. Her release was a hoarse cry that she knew would reach the floor above, but she didn’t care. She trusted them to cover her up if they heard footsteps and trusted in them to keep her safe from her father’s wrath.

  She allowed herself to fall into the ecstasy they gifted her, loving the freedom that came with it. The sense of flying and soaring that had her body feeling tension-free.

  She gave one
last shudder as they pulled away from her, and though she was slightly mortified at having been caught this way, she was too replete to really mind.

  Plus, it wasn’t like they hadn’t seen her in naughty positions before.

  Just never with a wooden spoon inside her pussy.

  Her cheeks heated, burning hotly against the now-clammy stone.

  Hands came up to her waist, and she found herself being urged upright into a standing position.

  She blinked as Andrei stepped around her, and as he pressed a kiss to her mouth, his hands went to work on her pants.

  He dragged them up to cover her, then fastened her fly. At her back, Sawyer—she knew from his aftershave—acted like a wall for her to use as support. But his hands came up to cup her breasts. His fingers plied the soft mounds, and she knew it was more for his pleasure than hers.

  “You’d better sleep naked tonight,” he growled in her ear. “That’s going to be the only consolation for not being able to get inside that sweet cunt of yours.”

  She let out a breathy moan.

  Kurt chuckled, and she turned to follow the noise, half amused to see he was placing the spoon in the dishwasher. “I’d give her a break. Her father will be down shortly.”

  Sawyer groused at that, but he stopped touching her breasts, instead, stacked his hands on her hips. “Can you stand?”

  “Y-Yes.” Of course, she could. If she locked her knees and didn’t move for the next ten minutes.

  He stepped away but hovered a second to make sure she was okay. Touched, she squeezed his hand as he made to move around the counter. He winked at her.

  Kurt stepped closer to her. “How are you feeling?”

  There was a wicked sparkle in his eye that had her smiling at him. A dirty secret shared among them that was theirs to know, and for Devon and Sean to ask.

  Her answering smile was soft with sleepiness. “Like I could go to bed.”

  “How’s your head?” Andrei asked. “You weren’t supposed to touch her, Sawyer.”

  “And I didn’t. Not that way anyway.”