by Mari Carr
Cecilia had claimed to want this moment to pull them together, but when faced with not getting her way, she had no issue pitting them against each other.
She was incredible. An enigma. A powerhouse.
Dimitri grinned. “Touché, koxaha,” he said, adding his own Ukrainian term of endearment to the mix. He’d called her his love, not that she would know that. There were so many words he could have used, yet only that one felt right to him.
“I suggest a truce before we kill each other,” Mateo said through gritted teeth.
“No truce.” Dimitri had never given in, and he wouldn’t start now. However, his actions belied his words as he shrugged off his shirt and shed his pants and shoes.
Cecilia watched him with avid interest, even as she continued to give Mateo a hand job behind her back. Mateo had given up his grip on her wrists, wrapping his arms around her torso so that he could take both of her breasts into his large hands.
Dimitri stroked his hard cock as her eyes devoured him. Cecilia’s appetites matched his…and Mateo’s. Dragging them to the bedroom had been a spark of genius on her part.
He reached out, running his fingers along her slit. She was still drenched, her pussy so hot, steam should rise from it. He captured Mateo’s gaze.
“Tighten your grip. Hold her up.”
Mateo followed his direction, though his confusion showed he couldn’t read Dimitri’s intent. Until Dimitri reached down and lifted her legs, her weight suddenly dependent on the two men holding her.
He dragged her lower body to his.
“Birth control?”
She nodded, and he shifted her into position, driving his cock to the hilt in one hard thrust.
Her legs wrapped around his waist as Mateo kept a strong hold on her upper body, his chest on her back, pressing her upright, sandwiched between them, until her hands could grip Dimitri’s shoulders for added support.
Dimitri shifted his hands to her upper thighs, holding her tight to him, his dick fully encased in her tight sheath.
“Need some help?” Mateo asked, even as Dimitri felt the other man’s hands on Cecilia’s ass.
Mateo lifted her with ease, allowing her to slide up and nearly off Dimitri’s cock, before pushing her back down.
Dimitri and Cecilia grunted in unison as Mateo added his strength to theirs, lifting and pushing, lifting and pushing.
It was the hottest fuck of Dimitri’s life.
Cecilia was the first to go over, her pussy clenching him so tightly, he saw stars. That was when instinct took hold. Dimitri twisted, walking with her to the bed, following her down to the mattress as he fucked her like a man possessed.
He wasn’t sure where Mateo was, but Dimitri didn’t care. All that mattered was her. Taking her, claiming her, leaving his mark on her.
She came again, and he was with her, filling her with his come, murmuring more of the sweet words he’d never spoken before. Fortunately, his native tongue took over, the uncensored vows of caring for her, treasuring her as a wife should be, flowing easily in Ukrainian, allowing him to say things he would never utter in a language she understood.
He withdrew slowly, both of them shuddering with the last vestiges of sensation. Dimitri hadn’t kissed her yet. None of them had kissed.
Even as he thought that, he moved aside, suddenly aware of Mateo once more. Cecilia slowly sat up, her gaze resting on Mateo, who had shed his pants.
Dimitri was spent, his strength gone. If either of his future partners were sincere in their desire to do him bodily harm, they’d face little resistance.
Or at least he believed that until Mateo circled his finger. “Roll over, mi cielito. Put that sexy ass of yours into the air for me. After all that teasing, I want you from behind.”
Dimitri pushed himself up, sitting next to Cecilia as she flipped to her stomach, then slowly rose up on her knees. She came up on her hands as well, but Dimitri had found a like-minded lover in Mateo. He understood what the man wanted.
Placing his hand on the back of her head, he applied pressure until she lowered it to the mattress. “Like this,” he murmured in her ear.
Mateo ran his hands over her bare ass, the gentle touch provoking a shiver from their lovely lady. Despite what looked like a painful erection, Mateo seemed to be in no hurry to move them beyond this soft exploration.
Then he lifted one hand and slapped her ass, the quick, hard smack leaving a pink mark.
Cecilia tried to rise but Dimitri’s hand was still in her hair, and he held her down.
“That was for the teasing.” Mateo moved closer, using his hand to drag his cock along her slit. “And this is for us.”
Mateo slid inside easily. She was slick with her arousal and Dimitri’s come.
They were strangers. And yet, Dimitri was moved by the power of this sight. Of Mateo taking Cecilia.
He was here because he was commanded to be. He hadn’t expected to want to be as well.
Mateo was a more patient lover than he was, taking his time, moving slowly. Cecilia seemed to appreciate both approaches, given her soft sighs and sexy squeaks whenever Mateo hit the right spot.
Dimitri wasn’t happy with merely observing, so he ran his hand over Cecilia’s ass, the back of his fingers rubbing against Mateo’s stomach…and lower.
Mateo’s gaze slid his direction, but he didn’t look bothered. He was curious. And interested. The recognition of that fact jarred Dimitri, reminding him of his need to maintain emotional distance.
His entire life was built on role-playing, sliding into different skin to achieve his goals, to catch the bad guys.
He’d forgotten to do that tonight. Stood too close to the flames. Risked the burn.
Time to withdraw.
Dimitri removed his hand, shifting away to rest his back against the headboard and watch. Retreat was the wisest course of action. This alliance was created to trap a traitor. There was no room for sentiment.
Mateo studied him for a moment longer, his unshielded look of hunger turning to confusion before morphing back to the one he’d flashed at Dimitri all day. Disdain.
Mateo’s attention returned to Cecilia, to driving their lover to the brink and beyond again.
Dimitri waited for his racing heart to calm, blaming their hard fucking for the painful pounding in his chest. It didn’t subside as Mateo thrust faster, deeper, Cecilia’s cries growing louder.
Even as the two of them came together, Dimitri’s heart thudded. And that was when he realized, for the first time in his life, he was in over his head.
6
“Are you a legacy?” Cecilia asked Mateo as he drove down A75, headed to Stranraer.
After last night, the nonstop tightness in Mateo’s shoulders seemed to have evaporated. Weeks on edge, chomping at the bit to get back to the Isle of Man, had taken their toll on him.
With one word, Cecilia had taken all of the anxiety and fears away.
Sex.
His head was still reeling over her suggestion. What was more shocking was the fact that he and Dimitri went along with it…and it worked.
“I am,” Mateo replied. “Though I didn’t know about the Masters’ Admiralty until I was sixteen.”
Cecilia gave him a dubious look that he observed from the rearview mirror. For the last few hours of the journey, she’d taken the backseat to allow Dimitri more room to stretch out his long legs. “You never questioned the fact you had three parents before then?”
He drew in a deep breath. He rarely spoke of his parents—only sharing the details of his family’s history with his best friend in the Spartan Guard, Derrick Frederick. Until confiding in Derrick, Mateo hadn’t told anyone about his parents’ murders and the life-changing revelations that had followed—discovering he had a new father, learning about the Masters’ Admiralty.
Mateo wasn’t sure he was comfortable talking about it now. Not because of Cecilia. He had a feeling there was nothing he wouldn’t tell her over the next week. She was open and interesting
and kind. In a lot of ways, she reminded him of his beloved, much-missed mother.
Cecilia was the type of woman he’d share his secrets with, open up his soul to, if he were actually married to her. The fact that once he found the traitor, this trinity would be dissolved…
He shied away from that thought.
Cecilia was the type of woman he could trust, but Dimitri had him hesitating.
He didn’t trust the man, despite all that had happened between them last night. For one thing, Dimitri considered him a failure, blamed him for the fleet admiral’s death.
And…well…he sensed the man was holding back from them, that he had his own secrets.
“I grew up with my mama and papa. I wasn’t aware of my second father until I was sixteen.” They passed the turnoff for Castle Kennedy—the gardens on their right and the village to the left. It wasn’t far now.
Peripherally, he could see Dimitri studying his face curiously. “Was there a reason they hid the fact you had another father from you?”
Mateo nodded slowly. Very few people knew the truth of his rather prestigious lineage. “My mama and papa were renowned doctors, specialists in their fields. My mother was the world’s foremost neurosurgeon.”
“Was?” Cecilia asked, leaning forward.
Mateo sighed. “She died when I was sixteen. She and my papa both died.”
Cecilia crossed herself, murmuring a quiet prayer in Italian. “I’m so sorry.”
Dimitri remained quiet, but Mateo could see the other man’s interest, imagined he was refraining from asking the countless questions his comment had raised.
“After they were gone, my other father came to me. Took me into his home and raised me. He taught me about the Masters’ Admiralty…and the Spartan Guard.”
Mateo realized he was leaving out a very large part of the story, but there were secrets about his past he’d never shared. Only Kacper and Greta had known the truth about who his second father was, and they’d respected his desire to keep it hidden. Mateo wanted his achievements to be based on his abilities and work ethic, rather than his auspicious ties.
So he took the conversation in a different direction. “Up until I learned about the society, I’d dreamed of becoming a surgeon like Mama and Papa. When my second father told me about the Masters’ Admiralty and the fleet admiral, that goal changed, and I dreamed of becoming a Spartan Guard, of protecting our leader, our society.”
Cecilia smiled. “It’s nice that you managed to achieve your dream. I assure you, working in import and export wasn’t what I pictured for myself as a young girl growing up in Milan.”
“What did you want to be?” Mateo asked, his curiosity growing when he glanced in the rearview mirror and realized she was blushing.
“A ballerina. I started dance lessons when I was four and continued through school. Unfortunately, my dream became less achievable when I hit a growth spurt at fourteen. Suddenly, I was the tallest in my troupe, amongst the girls and the boys. It became difficult for them to balance me during the lifts.”
“You should have joined a troupe with taller boys.”
Cecilia laughed at Dimitri’s suggestion. “Yes. Perhaps I should have.”
“You are a legacy as well, yes?” Mateo asked Cecilia, recalling her comment about being cousins with James.
She nodded. “Si. Raised by my mother, next door to my,” she finger-quoted, “aunt and uncle. We all knew the truth of their relationship, of course, but for appearance’s sake in our hometown, they maintained a different family dynamic. What about you, Dimitri?”
He didn’t look at either of them as he said, “I was not a legacy. I was recruited out of the military.”
Mateo debated questioning him further. So far, Dimitri had been very elusive about his background, offering them only tiny pieces without ever filling in the blanks.
“Which branch?” Cecilia asked, clearly unwilling to continue to wait for Dimitri to share more.
Their woman was impatient. Mateo grinned—before pushing that thought away. With this mission, he was actively working to ensure Cecilia and Dimitri would not be his. Allowing himself to get close to them would only make it harder when they discovered the traitor and Mateo held the fleet admiral to his promise to reinstate him to his position as head of the guard.
“Spetsnaz.”
Mateo’s brows rose. “Special forces.” He didn’t bother to hide the impressed tone in his voice.
Dimitri nodded, continuing to look outside.
The man had shut down again, had been distant all morning.
No. Mateo recalled Dimitri pulling away last night when they touched. He had been stroking Cecilia’s ass, but his fingers had brushed against Mateo as well. The touch, combined with the way Dimitri had looked at him, had inflamed him, made him even harder.
Mateo had never been with another man, but in that moment, as he looked at Dimitri, there had been no denying his desire.
His guard lowered, Mateo had revealed too much. And Dimitri had retreated, pulled away.
While last night had been wonderful, there was no doubt that they couldn’t let it happen again. These two people were not meant to be his. His destiny lay with the guard.
And with that, the tension was back, Mateo’s shoulders and neck stiff with a new anxiety lying beside the previous worry. He no longer sought to merely find the traitor. Now, he also had to resist these two people until they succeeded in their task and could walk away from each other.
Apparently, he wasn’t the only one to sense the return of the heaviness that seemed to blanket them. Cecilia leaned back, her gaze turning to the scenery outside.
Dimitri was silent as well, clearly willing both of them to keep their questions regarding his past and his life to themselves.
Stranraer sat at the bottom of Loch Ryan, which was actually connected to the Irish Sea, creating a long, narrow bay that cut down into the western coast of Scotland. Once prosperous, the small port was no longer as important as it had been. Just up the road from the village of Stranraer was the ferry post, where large ships moved people, cars, and cargo across the Irish Sea to Belfast.
Stranraer wasn’t big, but it wasn’t so small that every stranger was noticed. That meant members of the Spartan Guard could hop on a small shipping boat, head north out of Loch Ryan with all the other ocean traffic, and then make a U-turn and go south to the Isle of Man.
Mateo stayed on the main road as it went through the village, changing from what was commonly called the “London Road” to a narrow high street. Cecilia craned her neck as she looked around. The buildings huddled close to the street, remnants of a time when the roads had been plenty wide enough for two horse-drawn carts to pass, but once they were widened to allow cars, the front doors opened up practically into the road.
Houses, businesses and pubs were painted white or gray with a smattering of bright pastels in their midst. A pink B and B with a black door looked almost aggressively cheerful.
Feeling a bit like a tour guide, Mateo pointed to a pub as they passed it. It had a small front garden that had been walled off and optimistically turned into a beer garden, though the weather rarely made drinking outside a good prospect.
“That’s where we used to come and drink.” He pointed to the Custom House pub with one hand, keeping the other on the wheel. “It gets some tourists, so it was a good place to blend in.”
“Last stop before Ireland.” Cecilia read the slogan that had been painted onto the low retaining wall around the beer garden in front.
Mateo nodded. “The ferries that leave from here go to Belfast. Lots of families take their cars on the ferry, and some stop here in Stranraer before either getting on the ferry or before heading off into Scotland for their holidays.”
On the far side of Stranraer, the high street once more became a fairly respectable two-lane road, but the wear was evident in the crumbling shoulder and salt- and time-worn surface.
The landscape was windswept and devoid of trees. Stru
ctures were stone with small windows to help weather the storms that blew in from Ireland. Five minutes outside the town of Stranraer, they reached the corner of a stone wall that paralleled the road going one way and, going the other, marched up a small rise to crest a hill before continuing on down the other side to the rocky beach.
Mateo was unaware of his white-knuckled grip until Dimitri spoke. “You’re tense. Why?”
Mateo flexed his fingers on the wheel and ignored the question. “We’re here. The wall surrounds Craigencross Farm.”
“Farm?” Cecilia asked.
“It’s been owned by the Masters’ Admiralty for a hundred years or more, but originally it was a working farm. That was part of how it was hidden. Plus, that kept them self-sufficient in the early days.”
There was a break in the wall, and Mateo turned right, stopping in front of the gates. He pulled on the parking brake and hopped out, flipping up the protective plastic covering that was supposed to keep the metal from rusting, and dialed in the code. The gates swung out—a security measure that meant it would be hard for a car to ram them to force them open—as he jumped back into the driver’s seat.
“It would have been simpler to give me the code and let me get out.” Dimitri didn’t hide the challenge in his words.
“But then you would have the code.”
“You don’t trust me.”
“I don’t know you. You’re not Spartan Guard.”
“Stop.” Cecilia gestured as she spoke, seeming more Italian when she did so. “It is not the time for this.”
When the gates were fully open, Mateo put the car in gear. He drove slowly, knowing that the camera mounted on the wall would have a visual of the front seats—showing that he’d brought at least one stranger to Craigencross.
He knew what should be happening. When a car pulled up to the gate, an alarm went off. The guard assigned to check the cameras would run for the control room, and if it was a delivery or a known visitor, they would let them in.
Mateo had cut past that by entering the code. That meant the guard looking at the monitors was probably alerting the others. The watch commander would join him and they’d assess the situation.
