“After all that, you wrangled a play date for Tin?” Andrei gaped at her, then he slapped his knee. “That’s it, you’re helping me when I have to deal with those boring trade delegations.”
Sascha snickered. “You’d be better off asking Tin to help. He was the one who broke the ice. With a sledgehammer.”
Sean chuckled. “I wish I’d seen it.”
“I wish you’d been the one to take him to the bathroom. Total FML moment.” She blew out a breath. “Anyway, didn’t take much to figure out what was going on, and with Tin spilling the beans about how many kisses I give to his daddies—” They all groaned, and she nodded at them self-righteously. “—the cat leaped out of the bag pretty damn quickly.”
“So ye shared war stories?”
“Hardly war stories, Sawyer,” Sascha teased, finding a little humor in the situation now that it was well and truly over. “I didn’t think I’d ever be able to look her in the face again but Perry is… well, she’s like me. Just regular in an irregular situation.”
Sean frowned. “That’s a funny way of phrasing it.”
“I’m a funny kind of girl,” she joked, leaning over to kiss him. It was prim, not at all meant to entice, but intended to soothe whatever had him so tense. “I just meant… I don’t think either of us planned to have several men in our lives, and yet, it couldn’t have worked out more perfectly. For me, at any rate.”
If anything, the words that were meant to ease his tension further, had him stiffening up. He reached for her hand, squeezed it, and gruffly said, “I’m calling it an early night.”
The room, as a whole, gawked at him.
Sawyer declared, “It’s barely seven o’clock, man. We haven’t even had dinner yet.”
“Headache.”
And with that, he strode off, leaving Sascha staring at his back. She didn’t try to follow, thinking she would confront him later in private.
“Do we even know where we’re sleeping?” Andrei asked, making Sascha laugh.
“You didn’t think to ask?”
Sheepishly, he admitted, “No.”
Narrowing her eyes at him, she retorted, “You were going to leave it down to me, weren’t you?”
“Maybe.”
“What am I? Your PA?” She snorted at the thought. “How is Jane anyway?” Christ, it had been good to get away from the London house just to avoid his manic assistant.
Sascha swore if she heard Jane cascade into laughter one more time, she’d want to smash the woman’s laptop in with a rolling pin.
Andrei frowned then shrugged. “Her usual self. She’s been quiet today though. Must be because we were traveling.”
Sascha hummed under her breath. “She’s weird.”
He shot her a look. “She’s just an employee, Sascha.”
“So, she’s a weird employee. You’re funny, love, but you’re not that funny.”
Devon piped up, “Jane does laugh a lot at your jokes, Andrei.”
Shooting him an approving look, Sascha got to her feet once more and went to perch on his lap. Okay, okay, favoritism, but fuck, he was too cute not to use as a seat.
“Sascha isn’t the only funny person in the room,” Andrei responded, but his lips twitched as he shot her a knowing look before averting his attention to whatever he was reading.
He looked comfortable, tucked in an armchair beside the spitting fire. The room suited him. It was paneled in wood, filled with books and comfortable leather furniture. From armchairs, sofas, lounges, and little futons. It was a man’s room. Sascha could even smell the lingering scent of cigars, but it wasn’t brash, just spoke of a time when this had been someone’s smoking room. She could well imagine men in velvet smoking jackets sitting in here, bitching about their wives, and playing a game of cards as they swilled down whiskey after their meal while said wives drank tea and talked about polite, boring things in another parlor.
This place?
It was history made real.
A Duke lived here, and a King and Queen roamed its halls.
Sascha wasn’t sure whether to be impressed or just astonished.
“I don’t like her.” She wasn’t sure where the words came from, wasn’t sure why she was pushing this when she hadn’t before, but now just felt right.
“I know you don’t. Sawyer told me, but I can’t simply fire her because my wife doesn’t like her, Sascha. She’s good at what she does, and she’s dedicated.”
“Because she wants in your pants.”
He sighed. “And what if the only person I want in my pants is you?”
“They’d never fit,” Devon replied.
Andrei shot him a look. “What?”
“They’d never fit. Sascha’s butt’s too big.”
Because Devon loved her ass, she couldn’t find it in herself to be anything other than amused. “Thank you, Devon.”
He smirked at her. “Your ass is many things, Sascha, but tiny enough to fit into Andrei’s pants? Nope.”
“Glad you’ve noticed,” she purred, and his eyes flashed as he reached down to adjust himself.
Inwardly, she felt like celebrating.
Even though these past months had felt dark and dismal, she still had it in her to have one of her men adjusting himself after barely a few words.
“You know exactly what I mean,” Andrei retorted, apparently not willing to be dissuaded from the topic at hand. “She knows far too much for me to just—”
“So, you’re keeping her because you think she’d squeal?”
“No. Because training someone else would be a nuisance.”
That answer satisfied her, and because it did look like she was jealous, she didn’t prod the subject anymore. She knew she had no reason to be jealous. Andrei was like Devon—barely saw the woods for the trees when he was neck deep in a project, and he was rarely anything other than that. It was unusual for him not to be working on several deals at one time.
She trusted him.
She just didn’t trust Jane. Not only because she laughed when Andrei wasn’t even trying to be funny. Not just because the woman wanted a man who wasn’t hers to have—there was no way someone who worked from Sascha’s home could fail to see that she was with all five men under that roof. That meant Jane was trying to poach, and that pissed Sascha the hell off.
She hummed under her breath. “I’ll be sure to encourage Matthew Dreyford’s attentions when we’re in Berlin.”
Andrei scowled at her. “Sascha.”
A smile curved her lips, but there was a sharp glint in her eyes. “Don’t take me for granted just because I’m a sure thing.” She shot him a kiss that was supposed to take the sting from her words, but from his uneasy frown, she knew the person who’d be feeling the sting was her.
Just on her ass.
Still, they couldn’t boss her around the way they did, dominate her so totally without their dynamic changing in other ways too.
It was telling that Sawyer, Kurt, and Devon didn’t leap into the argument either, which irritated her more, honestly. That meant her instincts were right.
Jane was over the top. They weren’t the kind of men to try to appease her for the sake of it. They’d argue if they thought she was in the wrong.
“Do you have to go to Berlin?” Devon complained, breaking into her internal grumbling, then he shot Kurt a dirty look. “It’s your fault.”
“Sorry for being German,” Kurt retorted, not hiding his laugh.
“You know I want to meet his parents before we go to the set,” Sascha explained, hard-pressed not to laugh at Devon’s scowl. “It will look odd enough with Sean visiting, never mind you too.”
“Plus, Margritte doesn’t even like you,” Sawyer pointed out.
Kurt winced. “She says you’re a loose cannon, Devon.”
“She knows you quite well then,” Sascha teased, making Devon pout. She reached for his hand and squeezed his fingers before nuzzling into his side.
It wasn’t as complete as it ought to ha
ve been—without Sean there was a space, a hole that let in a draft almost. Even as she relaxed, for the first time in far too long, her smile coming as easily as her laughter at the bickering and conversations between her men, she wondered what was wrong with Sean.
❖
Sawyer narrowed his eyes at her as she moved toward his desk. “Why aren’t ye sleeping?”
She smirked at him. “Why aren’t you?” She pronounced ‘you’ like ‘yoo’ and he rolled his eyes at her, even as he grabbed her by the waist and dragged her over his lap. The side of his desk dug into her hip, but she ignored that.
Sascha liked to believe that her hips had so much damn padding because of all the narrow places she was squidged into when her men hauled her around.
“Working,” he answered with a sigh, tipping his head back against the chair’s headrest.
“You need to sleep. You’ve been working on and off all day.” She reached up and traced her fingers over his brow, wondering how such a beautiful man could be beneath her at this very moment. She’d intended on heading to bed because Sean was definitely in need of her tonight, but having spied the light in here and seeing Sawyer’s red head bent over his laptop from the doorway, she couldn’t have stopped herself from wishing him goodnight properly.
“I’ll be glad when this project is over with,” he admitted softly, pressing his face to her throat. “I didn’t realize it, but it’s got Devon all worked up.”
She frowned at that—Devon hadn’t seemed any more manic than usual. “Why?”
He shrugged. “He likes all the data. More than usual.”
She winced. “Oh.”
No more explanation was required. Deep in his bones, Devon adored statistics. Sawyer was the statistician but for their resident mad genius, statistics were a hobby. For him, heaven came in data, reels and reels of it. There weren’t fluffy white clouds around heaven’s gates, but endless reams of paper loaded with statistics that would bore the average man senseless.
“Yeah. Oh.” He blew out a breath. “Plus I’m tired.”
“Not like you to admit that,” she murmured, reaching up to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth before she snuggled into him.
He reached up and ran a hand over her hair, tucking her into him as they just sat there, rocking back at his desk.
After a while of studying the positively ‘posh’ surroundings, she muttered, “This was probably a Duke’s office or something.”
He snorted. “Or something. The place is huge. Have you seen how many offices there are? And libraries? Jesus, why did they need so many libraries?”
“To show off their wealth?” she hazarded a guess.
“Could be,” he admitted. “Books cost a fortune back in the day, after all.”
She hummed, taking in the walls that were lined with embroidered silk of all things, then had panels with light fittings attached to them, which had been modernized from old candelabras. It was gothic and creepy all at the same time thanks to the shadows and play of light that fell oddly on the silk. Walls shouldn’t gleam, Sascha thought drily, but these did.
The desk was huge, extra wide and covered with leather, and there was even a space built into it for an ink pot with a couple of quills jauntily plopped into it, which made her lips curve at how old and new married in here. It was like the house itself though. Or estate, she figured was the correct term.
Everywhere was modernized—electrics, WiFi, her bathroom even had a jacuzzi tub that had to have been installed within the past year—and yet history reigned. There were suits of armor everywhere, and pictures of dead dudes staring down at her, crinkling their noses in disapproval at having an American, or two if she included the Queen, wander their halls.
“The butler showed us around this afternoon but you missed out on that when you were nattering with the Queen.”
She elbowed him in the side. “Shut up.”
“Only if you make me,” he teased, then sobering, he murmured, “Have the butler show you around too. You’ll get lost otherwise. It’s like a feckin’ labyrinth this place.”
She’d have preferred a guided tour from her Scot but knowing how busy he was, she didn’t push it. It wasn’t like they were on vacation. Sawyer, Devon, and Andrei were here to work. More’s the pity. She’d have liked a chance to go all Lady Chatterley on this ducal estate. Talk about neat.
When she hummed her agreement, Sawyer sighed beneath her and she felt him relax a little more as his arms came around her, snuggling her deeper into his hold in a way that made her lips curve in a joyous smile.
There was something about this man that got to her every-fucking-time. There was a joy in the silence they shared, a joy because there was no pressure, no need to talk. Sometimes, it was just wonderful to feel connected to him because her Scot was so earthy, so vibrant with life, that he called to her in ways she couldn’t begin to describe.
Rubbing a hand over his arm, her fingers trailing into a faint caress, she murmured, “You know what’s wrong with Sean?”
“Think it’s the case,” he replied drowsily. “It’s been going on too long now.”
She thought back to the child killer who was haunting Britain and had been for the past several years. A shudder racked her, wriggling down her spine in a way that set her nerves on edge.
“Wonder if there were some updates. He’s been moody since we arrived.”
“Sean’s always been a moody bastard. If you haven’t figured that out by now, then you’re not as bright as I took ye for, Sascha darling.”
Her lips curved as she pulled back to stare up at him. “Jerk.”
“Your jerk,” he reasoned, making her snort.
“You’re not saying it right,” she teased. But the way he rolled his R’s had her insides rolling in a similar pattern.
Yum.
“I’m saying it perfectly fine. You’re the ones who fucked up the English language.”
“I’ll have you know that Americans speak the same English as Shakespeare.”
He snorted. “You read any Shakespeare, lass? Because that makes no sense and so much sense it’s crazy.”
A laugh escaped her as she prodded him in the chest. “I’ve read plenty.”
“Figures. You’re too romantic for your own good.”
Trust her Scot to consider Shakespeare romantic.
Rolling her eyes at him, she stilled when he asked, “You eaten three meals today? You had dinner with us but I didn’t see you eat breakfast or lunch.”
Fuck. She bit her bottom lip and peered at him from under her lashes.
Knowing what that meant, he growled under his breath. “Jesus, Sascha, how can it be so hard to fucking eat?”
“It isn’t!” she argued, and that was actually the truth. “I genuinely forgot.”
“Unlike all the other times where you genuinely remembered to forget to eat, you mean?” he grumbled.
She winced. “Honestly, there’s a difference. I started eating more over Christmas. Can’t you tell? My ass can. My jeans are tight.”
He squinted at her. “You bullshitting?”
“Nope.” She wriggled in his arms, and though—in a million years—she’d never imagined wanting to show a man in her life that she’d gained some fucking weight, she mumbled, “Let me up so I can show you.”
He sighed, and she knew he was comfortable and cozy with her right where she was, but it was a testament to how important it was for him that she looked after herself that he helped her stand. The second she was on her feet, she lifted her shirt and showed him the button on her jeans, and it was, no shadow of a doubt, straining.
A grunt escaped him as he stared at it, then flickering a glance up at her, he reached over and curved his hands around her hips, before he trailed his fingers down over the fly and to the space between her legs. She bit her lip because even through the denim, that felt good. She rocked her pelvis up in response, making his mouth curve, his upper lip curling into a smirk that was well earned.
“You horny, lass?”
“You know I hate that word.”
“You wet for me, then?” he countered with a sniff.
“Aye,” she whispered, and she was. She didn’t know if it was from that simple touch or from the threat of being spanked for not eating, but fuck if it wasn’t the truth.
He narrowed his eyes at her. “I shouldn’t reward you for bad behavior.”
A snort escaped her. “I totally deserve some spankings, and I admit it. But this one? Nope. It’s been a busy day, and coming across the fucking Queen in flagrante delicto was enough to make anyone forget about food. For a moment I thought I was about to be shoved in front of a firing squad!”
Sawyer wrinkled his nose. “I still cannae believe that you told her about us.”
“I was trying to avoid the firing squad,” she grumbled, poking his chest with her finger.
He huffed, then began to work on her fly. Her lips rolled inward to hide a smile as he unbuttoned the tight fastening, which had her groaning with no small amount of relief. He stripped the skinny jeans down her legs with her panties, so she was bare to him from the hips down.
“Spread ‘em,” he grunted, and she shivered at his delicious words as well as the gorgeous tenor.
She obeyed because she wanted to, and there was a distinct difference to how sometimes, she chose to comply. Tonight? She wanted to be fucked.
Over this desk.
Ugh. Talk about a scene to add to her jill till.
Her lips curved at the thought, and he cocked a brow when he caught her smile. “What are you grinning at?” he demanded, his hands cupping her hips still but his thumbs hovering over her pussy lips, dragging her wet flesh apart slightly.
“I want this in my jill till.”
“Your what?” he questioned, scowling at her.
She reached up and rubbed at the scowl. “My spank bank?”
He snorted. “Dinnae know you’ve got time to be touching this pussy, not when you have five of us dying to crawl inside it.”
“Ew,” she groused. “And I’ll have you know I jill in the bath.”
Sean: Quintessence The Sequel: Part IV Page 3
