by Addison Jane
I flush red hot as the wave hits my stomach and butterflies flurry and swarm in a mad dance, flittering around as they continue up my chest making it hard to breathe. My head goes foggy as lights flash behind my tightly clenched eyelids. I gasp into Kace’s mouth while my entire body tenses, my muscles go taut and everything squeezes as the tidal wave crashes releasing a wave of pleasure rolling out over my entire body. My entire body shudders and quivers as I moan out loudly while the waves roll on and on and on.
My nails dig into Kace’s back. Moving his mouth to my neck, he nips and sucks on my burning flesh as he pumps into me slightly faster building to his own climax. As my pussy clenches from my orgasm, he jolts and clenches his muscles groaning from his pleasure as he halts and unloads inside of me, draining himself completely.
His body relaxes against mine as we both pant furiously, trying to regain some composure. His head moves back up, looking into my eyes and he smiles sheepishly. “I love sofa sex.”
I giggle and shake my head. “At least this time’s a bit cleaner than the last round of sofa sex we had.”
He raises his eyebrows and nods. “Yeah, last time instead of cleaning the sofa we blew up the house.”
I sigh with a smile. “We don’t exactly live a normal life do we?”
“Nope, but I promise you, baby, I’m gonna do everything in my power to give you something as close to normal as soon as I can.”
I stare into his eyes and I see he’s absolute in his statement. He believes he can give this to me and I want it, I want it so bad. I just hope that somehow, someway, I can get my life, our lives, back to some state of normalcy… one day.
THE NEXT DAY
I pull my coat in around me, the gentle breeze has a cold edge to it cutting straight through my clothing and chilling my body. Despite what’s going on at the moment, I can’t help but admire the rundown cabin that we’ve made our home, and the forest that frames it like a postcard you’d send to your relatives. The sounds of the stream rushing past and the brush of my feet as I hobble through the long grass seems almost like heaven.
The cabin walls have started to press in on me, making me feel like I’m trapped and needing to get out. I need a reminder that the world outside my cell phone is still very real, still alive and vital.
A rustle in the grass a few feet from me causes me to freeze. My eyes flick back to the cabin, my brain trying to calculate just how quickly I can run back with my crippled knee. I swallow past the lump in my throat, feeling my heart rate increasing dramatically within a few seconds.
As I take a step back, the grass moves again.
I gasp as a wing flutters above the ground followed by a painful screech. My animal loving instincts kick in and I stumble forward, chasing after the injured bird as it tries to escape me.
“Shhh, it’s okay,” I whisper softly, trying my best to soothe the struggling creature as I advanced on it. I can see the fear in its eyes, thinking I’m a predator and these are the last moments of its life. “I know, buddy, but it’s okay. You’re gonna be okay.”
We stare each other down for a few moments before I finally spring into action. I try to be gentle but the instant I take hold of her, I can feel the barbed wire wrapped around one of its wings, the barbs digging into its flesh.
“Oh gosh, you poor thing.”
The bird squawks and screams, but I hold it tight in my hand as I try desperately to disentangle the wire from its body. My body feels lighter almost immediately as I work toward my goal. This is what I’m made for, this is what my life is about and what makes me happy. Animals don’t have a voice, they can’t ask for help or tell us what’s wrong. Being able to help ease their hurt, it fuels me, makes me feel like I have a purpose and almost like I’m changing the world, or their world at least. I’m giving them a second chance, and caring for them when they can’t care for themselves. If I was never able to work with animals again, I’d feel like I had lost a piece of myself.
But for now, everything has changed. My life is about surviving and making it through another day. I’ve always dreamt of owning my own pet clinic, a future that seemed so bright and so fulfilling. Now, though, it’s all about simply surviving a future as opposed to what’s actually in it.
I have to be strong, put on a brave face for Kace. I realize how much this is hurting him and how hard he’s struggling with the realization that his mother is, most definitely, a psycho. But it’s so hard to keep someone else afloat when you’re drowning in your own mind.
I toss the wire into the grass as I pull the last barb from the bird’s wing. It makes me smile, my body filling with joy as I look down at the little bird in my hands. It seems calm now, its little black head tilted to the side and staring at me in curiosity.
“That feels better, doesn’t it?” I grin, using my free hand to stroke its soft feathers back in place. I take a deep breath, bending and placing it gently on the ground and taking a step back. It hops once before stretching its wings out, testing them. Then without warning, it throws itself into the air, the loud flapping causing me to stumble backward. I can’t keep the smile off my face though, allowing the sense of accomplishment and joy to fill me up, and for a moment I feel almost like I’m normal again. The bird circles above me and I giggle, feeling like that’s its way of saying thank you.
“Fly away,” I mutter. “You’re free!”
“I wish you wouldn’t go far, it stresses me out.” Kace’s voice makes me jump and my body sinks as I turn to face him, my jovial mood torn away by reality.
I shouldn’t feel this way.
I shouldn’t feel like he’s pulling me down, but it’s like my mind is stuck in this trance.
What would I be doing right now if Kace hadn’t come into my life?
Would I be happy?
Safe?
I shake my head, trying to shake off the creeping darkness and hate.
“I’m like fifty feet from the cabin, Kace,” I tell him, rolling my eyes.
He steps into my space, leaning down and pressing his lips to my forehead. That same electric buzz shoots through me, making me want to pull him into my arms and not let go.
“One foot from me is too far,” he smiles, cupping my face in his hands and pulling my lips to his. I smile against his mouth, his presence enough to close the gaping hole in my chest for now.
This is why I’m still here.
Because when I’m alone with Kace, he surrounds me with himself and it makes me feel safe, protected and happy. If it weren’t for the other forces in the world trying to shred our lives to pieces, we would be perfect. There wouldn’t be anything that could keep our love from winning.
But that’s not how it is.
I sigh. “I really like this place, minus the fact that we’re dead.”
He chuckles, turning my body and slipping his arms around me from behind. We look out over the glistening stream, the morning sun lighting it as though the surface is covered in a million tiny diamonds.
“Well, maybe once this is all over we can think about getting something like this with a barn attached for a vet clinic that you can work out of? How’s that sound?”
“You remembered!” I say with a slight pep in my voice and then laugh. He smiles, running his thumb up and under my shirt along my stomach.
“Of course, I want you to have everything you’ve ever dreamed of.”
“Hopefully, we will.”
His chin rests on my shoulder, his breath tickling at my ear. “Have a little faith, Lily. We will get through this. This is on me and I’m gonna make it right.”
I lick my lips. “I always wondered… who is Kace Colt?”
I feel Kace smirk against the sensitive skin of my neck. “Who is he?”
Turning my body in his embrace, I reach up and wrap my arms around his neck. “My everything.” He smiles and leans in pressing his lips to mine softly.
A sharp whistle breaks us apart, both of us looking up to see Luca chuckling as he leans against the porch. E
li is with him, his hulking body one that isn’t hard to miss. I wonder how he does the whole secret agent thing. It doesn’t seem like he would be very stealthy.
This time Tanner is with them too, looking unimpressed and bored as she checks out the state of her nails.
“I didn’t hear them drive up,” I whisper as Kace directs us toward the cabin.
He smirks down at me as he helps me hobble through the grass. “I did.”
I roll my eyes. “Of course you did,” I grumble.
As we reach the porch stairs, Luca comes to greet us.
I spot the file in his hand and screw up my nose. “I didn’t like the last one of those you handed over.”
Luca grins and lifts the file, bopping me annoyingly on the head with it as I try to swat him away.
“That’s ‘cause it wasn’t for you, nosy parker,” he sings cheerily in his usual sarcastic tone.
I lash out, punching him in the side and he dramatically hunches over, grasping his stomach and crying out in pain. Kace grunts and rolls his eyes before helping me up the stairs.
“Damn Lily,” he says, leaping up the stairs after us. “You punch like a girl.”
Before he can slip in the doorway ahead of us, Tanner catches him by the shoulder with one hand before using her right fist and plowing it into the right side of his stomach. This time he drops hard to the wooden decking, gasping for breath and in real pain.
Tanner grins at me and I can’t hold back the giggle that rises. She holds up her palm and I slap it with my own before we all file through the door, leaving Luca still writhing on the porch.
Kace shakes his head, plucking the folder from Luca’s hand as he steps over his best friend with a chuckle. “That’s what you get for underestimating girls,” Kace comments dryly.
We all take a seat in the living room and Kace instantly looks at Eli. “Should I be scared of what’s in this folder?” he asks, tapping it impatiently on his knee.
Eli exhales, his eyes flicking to me before returning to Kace, sending my heart racing. “I’m not sure about scared, but shocked, maybe.”
Luca appears in the doorway, grasping the doorframe in his hands. “You guys suck,” he coughs out.
Kace ignores him as he grumbles all the way into the living room, sitting on the armrest of the sofa.
“So I guess we should just rip it off like a Band-Aid then?” Kace asks.
I take a deep breath, but Tanner cuts in before he can open the file. “Should Lily be here for this?”
Kace reaches over and grabs my hand. “I’m not hiding anything from her anymore, she needs to know everything. She’s a part of me now, which means she’s a part of this.”
I can’t help but smile and squeeze Kace’s hand.
“Okay, but be warned… the file involves Lily,” Tanner advises and I groan softly.
“Why does everything involve me somehow?” I ask awkwardly, but with a forced laugh.
Do I really want to be here for this?
Am I ready for what they have to say?
“It’s like when you hire a hooker,” Luca says as he grins. “Once you’re in, you’re in. You’ve gotta take the herpes that comes along with it. You’ve gotta take the lumps that come with the humps.”
Tanner groans, “Oh my God, Luca. Who hired you again? Is it too late to throw him out on his ass?” she asks, looking at Kace pleadingly.
“Yeah, it’s too late. Luca is like the herpes in the SO7,” Eli answers instead, and everyone chuckles except for Luca who frowns across at him.
“All right, that’s enough.” Kace cuts in. “Should I read the file myself or are you gonna break it down for me?”
“Best you see for yourself, I think,” Luca answers, his voice suddenly taking on a very serious tone.
Kace takes a deep breath and flips the front cover over.
I instantly see pictures, the two blond men that were at my funeral. They still seem so familiar, like I know them somehow but my brain can’t quite place them. Slowly my eyes gaze down the page and for a second I lose my breath.
Ares and Ezra Sinclair.
Sinclair was my real father’s last name.
“Holy crap,” I hiss. “Are they—”
“Your big brothers? Seems that way,” Luca confirms as I sit forward, a part of me wanting to take a good look, to really see them.
Kace’s body is rigid and straight. I place my hand on his shoulder to gain his attention. He turns his head a little, looking at me from beneath a harsh brow.
“What does this mean?” I ask, frustrated when he doesn’t instantly reassure or comfort me but instead, he flicks his attention to Luca.
“What were they doing there?”
Luca shrugs. “Looks like Camilla got in touch with them. She knew they’d be there and she wasn’t in the least bit surprised to see them. Why? We’re not sure yet. They left right after they had spoken to her and they stayed far away from the rest of the crowd at the funeral.”
“Because my mom would have recognized them,” I said unconsciously as I continued to stare at the two pictures. “They look like Gael, that’s why I couldn’t figure out how I knew them.”
Kace rubs at his temple with his fingers, closing his eyes and hanging his head. “I’m trying to make sense of what I heard.”
Luca sits forward, his eyes focused on Kace. “She said ‘they need to pay for the people they’ve hurt’?” He licks his lips. “Who is they, though?”
Kace shakes his head in frustration before looking up. “It makes no sense. Why would Camilla be talking to Lily’s brothers? Brothers she’s never even met or had anything to do with, about something like…” His eyes slowly widen. “Unless…”
Both Eli and Luca sit up taller in their seats like they have been shocked. “Shit,” Luca says. “You mean unless Camilla is setting up the SO7 for Lily’s death and sending the Sinclair Syndicate after us.”
Tanner snorts, following it up with a short sharp laugh like she’s not at all surprised by this tidbit of information, while my heart won’t stop racing. “The bitch wants to take over and she wants us gone,” she says, rolling her eyes, but I can see the tension in her shoulders like she’s dying to punch someone again.
“Exactly, you’re a liability. You were all too close to me, too loyal. You know too much.” Kace is suddenly on his feet, scrubbing at his face in frustration. “She knows where your loyalties lie and they’re not with her. They are with me. She’s planning on wiping you all out and using Lily’s brothers to do it.”
“So she won’t get her hands dirty,” Eli adds with a shake of his head.
“Fucking hell,” I murmur, slumping in my seat and taking the discarded file into my hands. “I was just a vet… your neighbor. How did it come to this?”
Kace looks at me with sympathy and even pity in his eyes, it makes me feel like shit. I already feel weak and broken, the last thing I need is for him to treat me like a child. “At first it was a coincidence, and now she’s turned this all into something she can use for her benefit,” he growls softly. “She’s so fucking conniving, I don’t know her at all.”
Eli stands, patting Kace on the back. “She was always like that. But I think we all just played it off, thinking it was for the good of The Agency and our country.”
Kace’s team crowds around him, offering him support. Reminding him that he’ll get past this shit and that his mom being a fucking bitch doesn’t define him.
It all becomes white noise, a background haze as I stare down at the two photos in my lap.
Kace is lucky to have six people who care so much about him, who would literally give their lives if they had to. It must feel so good to have that kind of support to lift you up when you feel like your world is crumbling around you.
I wouldn’t know.
Because at this moment I feel so fucking alone.
I’m not meant to be in his world, I’m not made with the resilience and the fighting skills that they have, both physically and mentally.
Years of practice, strict training, people at your side who have your back even through a nuclear explosion.
Blood or not, Kace has his family.
I, on the other hand, am dead.
My family thinks my body was burnt to ashes. They couldn’t even support me if they wanted to.
The two faces of my brothers stare back at me.
They are my family, my blood.
The question is, why are they doing this? Is it because they feel obligated? Is it an excuse to take out a team that’s powerful and strong, a foot in the door that Camilla has opened?
I want to know if they’re like him, like the man who donated his genes to complete my existence. He was so vile, what he did to my mother was unforgivable. I’m glad someone stood up and took his demonic presence from this earth so he couldn’t hurt anyone else.
But what if Ares and Ezra are exactly like him?
I feel myself being torn in two. One part of my heart is so lonely it wants to reach out to these two people who could be the supportive family I need. My heart’s so desperate for a rope to help pull me from this dark hole that I’m digging for myself. On the other hand, they’re after Kace and his team—the only people who genuinely care about me right now, and the man I love more than my own life.
What a mind fuck.
I’m not sure how much more of this I can take.
When will this hell end?
“When is the Board coming in?” I ask Luca as I finally move back to sit beside Lily. She’s staring down at the file in her hands, I can tell she’s in some kind of shock, so I slowly slip it from her hands and close it.
She looks at me, the sadness and confusion in her eyes obvious. “What’s the Board?”
“The Board are five ex-members of The Agency who come together when the shit hits the fan and vote on how to proceed,” Luca explains candidly, pointing to me. “Since Rambo over here decided to take his anger out on Mark Luthendale, technically right now, The Agency has no leader. And a position like that you don’t just step into, the Board has to vote on it.”
