by SR Jones
I nod as he slides out of me and thrusts back in. His thumb works my clit faster, and his strokes become more intense. He angles himself, and I hold onto him as the feelings build inside me. He shifts his position again and lifts my leg higher, so it’s wrapped around his upper waist and back.
Oh, God. His cock hits that spot inside me that his fingers had before, and I cry out in pleasure, not pain.
It’s building in me again. The climb to orgasm. I stare up at Priest, huge and powerful above me, muscles flexing as he works us both higher and higher.
“Oh, God. Priest,” I don’t know what I’m trying to tell him.
It’s too much, and it’s not enough.
He pinches my clit gently, and I scream as I tumble over the edge, my pussy milking him hard, clenching around his thick length.
“Fuck.” He holds himself still deep inside me as he releases, hot and wet.
We’re both holding each other tight, and I kiss his shoulder as the waves of pleasure fade.
“Thank you,” I say.
“What for?” He looks down at me, puzzlement in his beautiful eyes.
“For making it good. Most of my friends had a crappy first time. You made it epic.”
“You were here too, AJ. You’re part of the reason it was so good.”
I giggle. “I didn’t do anything.”
“You did everything,” he says mystifyingly.
He pulls out of me, and I wince.
Rolling us over, he places me on top of him, his big arms coming around me, sheltering me as I lay my head on his chest.
I never want to move.
Chapter 18
She’s ruined me. Slayed me.
She gave me her virginity. Me. The guy who tried to put every barrier in her way, but she just blew past them all and wormed her way in.
She’s small in my arms, but mighty. Her bravery. The way she never really went to pieces after being kidnapped. The way she stands up to me and calls me out on my bullshit. The way she got on that helicopter despite being terrified to do so, and then chilled out and enjoyed the ride. My Roze is brave.
My?
I let it percolate. Yeah, mine. She’s sealed her fate so far as that goes. She didn’t back down and now she’s given herself to me, and I’m not about to let that gift go.
“I’m all sticky and dirty,” she murmurs.
I sweep my hand down over her back and ass, then I dip between her legs. “That you are. I like you sticky and dirty,” I tell her.
Unable to resist, I gently slide my finger inside her. She moans against me.
“Sore?” I ask.
“A little but not so much I won’t want to do that all over again in a few hours.”
Oh, we will. And so much more.
This time, I took it easy on her. I let her lead. Next time, I’ll take control.
That spark of fiery nature she has will be amazing when she’s pushing against my control. The thought has me hardening.
“You’re big.” She brushes her hand over my cock.
“You’re small,” I reply.
“A match made in heaven.” She giggles.
Thing is, we are. Despite being so different in many ways, we are a match made in heaven.
I like to chase my Zen, and she likes to chase the rush. I like to be in control, and she needs someone to take control. I’m big, and she’s small, but we fit.
We fit so damn well.
I kiss the top of her head, feeling possessiveness swell inside of me.
“You gave me a gift, today,” I tell her.
“I think I’m the spoiled one,” she replies. “You’re amazing in the sack.”
There’s a commotion outside, and I’m immediately on alert.
“Put some clothes on,” I tell Roze.
I climb out of bed, and throw my jeans on, grab my piece off the side, and exit the bedroom, to the living area. “Stay in there,” I throw over my shoulder.
When I reach the door to the hallway, I open it a crack. There are four big men outside, all with guns in their hands.
“What’s going on?”
“Perimeter breach.”
This can’t be about us. No one knows we’re here.
“How often does this happen?”
“Never. It never happens,” one of them supplies. “Mr. Bianchi sent us straight to you. It has to be connected.”
“Can’t be. No one knows we’re here.”
“Has to be. There are no other threats to us. And they’re Polish.”
My blood runs cold. “How many?”
“Twenty men.”
Twenty? What the ever-loving fuck? What the hell is going on with the Starz Allianz.
I race back inside and snatch my phone. Grabbing Roze, who is still dressing, I drag her into the bathroom. “Get in the tub and stay down. Do not move until I tell you to.”
I dial Reece, and he picks up straight away.
“Got a situation here,” I say. “Twenty armed men. Breached the perimeter. Polish according to the men guarding our door. Got to mean they’re here for us.”
“Can Bianchi deal with them?” Reece replies.
“I think so. He’s got a fuck ton of security and his men are cool, calm. Well trained, judging by the way they’re holding their weapons.”
“Good.”
“None of this is good. How the fuck do they know we’re here?”
“I don’t know. I’m about to find out, though. I’ll report back.”
He hangs up.
I go to the door, open it, and stand with the men in the corridor. “Mr. Bianchi said you were to stay in the room.”
Fuck that shit. “Negative.”
“You’re her only protection. You’re her last line of defense. You know it makes sense.”
I’m not doing that. These guys aren’t going to be out here fighting off those fuckers, while I cower in the room.
“I can take care of myself.”
“Can she?” The man jerks his chin to the room. “If you get taken out, and they get hold of her. What will they do? It won’t be nice.”
My phone goes. Konstantin. “Yeah.”
“They’ve taken her father. They have Gezim, took his phone. His second thinks Gezim is still alive, but he can’t confirm. It’s how they know where you are.”
“You told him?” I’m incredulous.
“Had to report back, yeah. He’s the one paying us. Told him she was safe and gave him basic details. He’s not the enemy, Priest.”
He’s mafia, which makes him the enemy in my book, but then Konstantin is too, and that’s not a conversation I need to be having right now.
I’m not reporting in anymore, though. They fucked up.
I glance back at the door to our suite, heart sinking at what this news means. Roze might have just lost her father.
Konstantin sighs. “Shit is fucked up. You need to come in.”
Oh, now they want me to go there. Fuck them. “No way. I’m dealing with this, and then we’re off radar.”
“Do not go dark, motherfucker,” Andrius chimes in.
“Too late. You had a chance to bring me in. You blew it. I’m running this show now.” I hang up.
There are gunshots from below us somewhere.
One of the men says something in Italian, and the other nods his head.
The one who has been talking to me translates. “They’re saying if these bastards damage any of Signor Bianchi’s antiques or artwork, he will skin them alive. That is not a euphemism.”
Damn.
The gunshots continue, building in intensity.
I’m ready. Primed.
As always, right before a battle, I get the same sense of eerie calm. Happens every time. It’s as if I switch off all the emotions in my body. Go into lockdown. It’s a calm I’ve been chasing since leaving the service.
Once I’m in the fight, I become a living, breathing machine. I react on autopilot. It’s weird as fuck. The nearest thing it can be likened
to is when I’m driving somewhere, and I’m so used to the journey, I forget a whole chunk of it. Except in battle, things at once become hyper realistic, and a blur.
The men around me seem pretty much on the same page. They’re calm. No one is panicking.
“You ex-military?” I ask the man I’ve been talking with.
He shakes his head. “Police. Tactical unit.”
Ah, makes sense. Breaking down doors and heading into God knows what demands a cool head.
“Same as him,” he points to the man next to him. “Those two fuckers were gendarmerie, and became part of a specialist anti-pirate squad, with forces from three other nations.”
“Are all Bianchi’s men so well trained?”
“Yes. I recruited them. I lead them. Only the best. He wants better. That’s why he’s so interested in what Mr. Silvanov is building. He wants to be a part of it, partly so we can have a few of your men here, and partly because he sees a good business investment.”
There’s a familiarity to how he’s talking about his boss and his plans.
“He tells you a lot,” I observe.
“He ought to; I’m his half-brother.”
I stare at him. They look nothing alike. This man is fair. Slim.
“Same mother, different father. He took after his father. I took after our mother.”
“Okay.” I tense as the sounds below us stop. That’s either good or bad. We both re-focus our attention on the doors at the end of the corridor at the same time.
Footsteps sound, pounding up the stairs. Then a shadow by the glass. “All clear,” a voice says.
The doors open slowly, and a man pokes his head around them.
“Thank fuck,” Bianchi’s brother says with a long breath out. “Casualties?”
“Two, both going to need medical treatment. On our side, that is. On theirs? A lot of deceased.”
“Any left alive?” I ask.
“Yeah, three. You want to come talk to them?”
Do I? “That would be an affirmative.”
“Mr. Bianchi thought so. Come with me. You too, Marcello.”
Bianchi’s brother nods, takes out a packet of cigarettes, and lights one up.
“Give me two minutes,” I state. “You two.” I point to the two men who had been in the anti-pirate force. “You speak English?” They nod. One giving me a curt, yes. “Good. Guard these doors with your life. Don’t let anyone but me, Marcello here, or Bianchi inside, okay?”
“Affirmative,” the one who nodded states.
I head inside and find Roze still in the bathtub like I told her.
“Hey,” I say, bending down.
She unfurls and winces. “Ouch, stiff. Is it safe?”
“For now, yes. We need to move, though.”
“Where?”
I’ve been thinking about this. I won’t feel that’s she safe until I’m on familiar ground. I want to head back to the US. Getting her there, though, is going to be a logistical nightmare. “I’m figuring that out,” I say. “For now, I need to go talk to Mr. Bianchi. Will you be okay? There are two men guarding the doors with strict instructions not to let anyone but me or Bianchi in here.”
“I’ll be okay,” she says quietly.
She must be terrified. These men are coming for her. I’m in the firing line too, but if they get to me, it’s a quick death. Her? I think they’ll make Roze suffer. She must know as much too. It makes her bravery even more commendable.
“I’ll die before I let them get to you,” I tell her, resting my forehead on hers.
She pulls away and looks at me, nothing but truth in her gaze. “But that’s just it, Priest. I don’t want you to die.”
And right there, in a nutshell, is why I never should’ve crossed the line. My job is to protect her. If I take a bullet doing so, then so be it. She should be fine and get a new protection detail. In letting shit get too close between us, something happens to me, and it’s just one more trauma for her to deal with.
I need to make this right, but before I can, I must make her safe.
“I won’t be long,” I tell her.
I lift her out of the tub, stand her on her feet, and give her a soft kiss.
Then I head to the bedroom, pull on a t-shirt and some shoes, and turn to her one last time. “Finish packing your shit up, baby. You’re still leaving, but we’re going together.”
“Yes, sir, Priest,” she says with a mock salute.
I can’t resist. I walk back to her, grab her into my arms, and kiss her hard.
I want the taste of her on my lips when I annihilate the fuckers who came for her.
Chapter 19
I walk down the corridor with Marcello, who has finished his smoke. We meet up with Bianchi at the bottom of the stairs. “This way,” he says.
We walk down the hallway, take a left, then a right, and come into a large kitchen. There are staff milling around, including a woman who is shouting at everyone as she cooks. She’s elderly, possibly in her eighties. I’m sure there are laws around employing someone that ancient.
“Nonna,” Bianchi says, giving her a kiss on the cheek.
She replies in rapid fire Italian.
“You have your grandmother working for you?” I ask as we walk by her.
“She lives here and does what she wants, and what she wants is to be in the kitchen. She loves it.” He shrugs.
Marcello pinches the old lady’s cheek, and she smacks his arm.
There’s a door at the end of the kitchen, which Bianchi takes. It leads to old, worn stairs heading down to what looks like a cellar.
Sure enough, when we get to the bottom, it opens out to reveal a huge cellar space. It’s filled with wine bottles all down one wall, and food on the other. Cheeses, hams, all sorts line the other wall. It’s the center of the room that catches my attention, though. Three men, bloodied, tied to chairs.
“These fuckers are the only three left who can tell us who the hell dared to send them to my property.” Bianchi cracks his knuckles and stares at them with loathing.
Two of the men stare back, belligerent and defiant, but the third, the one on the far right, he swallows nervously.
Bianchi takes off his jacket and rolls up his shirt sleeve. He’s slimmer than me, but I can see where he got the power behind the punch he gave me. Ropes of corded muscle define his arms, and his hands aren’t the soft hands of a man who makes his money from finance. No, Bianchi here is something else entirely, but what, I’m not sure.
“Do you speak English?” he asks.
“Fuck you,” one of them spits out. In perfect English.
Bianchi looks to me and laughs. “Well, that answers our question, no?”
“There’s an easy way this can go, and a hard way,” he states. “The easy way is you tell me exactly who sent you, what they are planning, and how many more men there are who might be headed my way. The hard way? I make you scream, and then you tell me those things.”
“We’re dead if we talk,” nervous says. “So, why would we?”
“How about if no one knows you talked?” I ask. I shrug, glance at Bianchi, then back to the men giving them a cold smile. “I mean, me? I wouldn’t mess around with the whole making you scream bit. I’d go straight in and kneecap you fuckers, and the one who talks only gets one knee blown out. The other two die. No one will ever know who talked because the one who talks is the only one left alive.”
“I like your style,” Bianchi says.
The nervous one glances at his colleagues.
“Fuck. You.” The same guy who told us to fuck ourselves the first time reiterates it.
I take my gun out, aim, and calmly obliterate his lower leg.
He screams and screams, thrashing around in his chair.
“I didn’t say you could do that.” Bianchi’s voice is low.
“Don’t need your permission,” I point out.
“Might be polite to ask seeing as this is my house.”
“Please, may I shoot th
e other one?” I ask.
He bursts out laughing. “I like you, Priest. You could do some work for me with Marcello here. Run the security together. Once my librarian arrives, I’m going to need to be extra secure.”
I blink slowly. Fucker needs his head examined with this hard-on he has for this librarian. I have no interest in becoming involved in whatever his world here is. None.
“No thanks, and may I?” I jerk my gun at the scum in front of us.
“Of course, you may.” He gives a dip of his head.
I aim at nervous guy, right at his leg. His co-worker is now on the floor, having tipped the chair over, and writhing around like a beetle on its back. I make a big show of it all. He’d have been screaming in agony already if I’d really been going to shoot him.
“No, please, wait.”
The one who so far hasn’t said anything, turns to nervous and lets go a stream of rapid Polish. I can’t understand it, but I get that he’s telling him to shut the fuck up. I shoot the bossy fuck. Central, in the chest, twice. He jerks, stares at me, opens his mouth, but nothing comes out as he slumps in his restraints.
“One is dead, the other will be as soon as you tell me everything, and then you get to walk out of here, both legs intact, and no one will know,” I tell nervous.
He swallows and starts to cry.
Fucking pussy, I do not have time for this. I stalk to him, hunker down, and tip his chin up with the barrel of my gun. “If you can’t take the heat, don’t fucking go into the kitchen is my advice. You came for something that is mine to take care of. This is what happens.”
He frowns at me.
“Roze,” I state. “You came for Roze. Now, you’re fucking lucky, but if you tell me everything, you get to walk away from here.”
“What if he talks?” Bianchi says.
“He can’t. He goes back to the people who sent him and admits he’s the only one who got out alive, they’re gonna know he flapped his lips. His only option is to disappear. We can send a message via Gezim’s second that we killed them all. That way no one in the organization will know he’s alive or that he told us what we need to know.”
“He’s right,” nervous babbles. “I can’t go back and tell them anything because it would be a death sentence. Fuck dying for them. I only got involved because there were no jobs, and I was doing some drug running. I wouldn’t have been down for this shit if I’d known in advance.”
