Swallow (Kindred Book 2) (24 page)

They existed in this moment until he scooped his hands under her hair to cradle her face. “How the hell do you read me?”

“I love you,” she answered with a self-deprecating shrug and pushed up on her knees to kiss him. “I’ll do anything you ask me to, anything, because I want to live up to that image you have of me in your mind. But please don’t punish me for worshiping you and following your every command. All I want to do is make you happy. I want to be important to you.”

“You are.”

He was calm now and soothing the beast was an achievement to be proud of. “And I don’t ever want to lose this. I don’t want to lose you.”

He leaned down to kiss her and he smiled against her lips. “It’s cute that you think you have a choice… How about you show me some of that love,” he said, leaning back just enough to unbutton his jeans.

But she laughed before he freed himself and slapped her hands onto his thighs to push herself up while remaining in a perpendicular pose, so he had to tip his head back in readiness for the kiss she didn’t bless him with just yet.

“You get us our own room and I’ll love you all night long,” she said and turned her back on him. He smacked her ass as she moved toward the door, then he was hot on her heels fastening his pants.

“Are you done with your tiff?” Tuck asked when they came back into the living space. Paper plates on the table were lined up, each with a slice of pizza on them. This was a typical Kindred debrief.

“What’s next?” she asked, seating herself and pulling one of the plates toward her.

Tuck sat too. “You’re gonna call Grant and tell him you want in,” Tuck said. “Tell him you’ve met with Ben, that you’re intrigued, and that you want to shadow Ben for a while.”

Squinting, she pushed deeper. “Doesn’t that sound like I want to stalk Ben?”

“All we need is for you to get inside long enough to plant the bugs,” Tuck said.

The pizza was good, but she kept her bites small because she had more to say. “He wants the devices back,” she said.

Tuck nodded. “Zave and I have a plan for that, don’t worry.”

“Keep buttering up Leatt, find out what he knows about what’s to come,” Brodie said, sitting to enjoy his own slice. “He’s not gonna make it easy. He already knows you judge him for being part of the group, he won’t admit their failings.”

Picking the cheese from the edge of the pizza she’d just returned to the plate, she prepared herself to make what would be a bold and unpopular suggestion. “Why don’t we bring Grant inside?”

No one said anything, so she was forced to raise her gaze from the food to judge their reactions. But little was revealed because they were all frozen in time.

Brodie was the first to take a breath. “What?”

Images of Grant’s face after he found out about her and Brodie haunted her. She struggled to get past his connection to Brodie too. The men were brothers and should be on the same side. If they weren’t, whatever went down would only drive them further apart. “He’s in danger, just like we are. He tried to protect me—“

“He left you with a guy who wanted to rape you,” Tuck said. “I’m sorry, but we need skills on the team. Not dead weight.”

“He has capital,” she said.

“I have capital,” Zave said. He didn’t appear impressed. Resentment seemed to radiate from his side of the table.

Making a mental note to ask Brodie more about Zave, she knew that Art would’ve been more forthcoming. If they shot her suggestion down in flames then she wouldn’t pursue it. But for her own conscience, she had to put it out there before they were past the point of no return.

“Is it right that we leave him swinging in the wind?” she asked. “He’s family and he’s got to be scared. Sutcliffe is an intimidating man.”

Grant didn’t seem intimidated. But even she was smart enough to be afraid of Sutcliffe because if he planned to take out droves of people with Game Time, he clearly had no aversion to murder. Part of her still wanted to believe that the man she’d worked with for five years was more than a hyped up criminal who was too much of a coward to pull the trigger himself.

“Did he tell you that?” Brodie asked, and she shook her head. “If he wants to come to me for help, let him. Meantime, things stay the way they are.”

“You don’t trust him—“

“And neither should you,” Brodie said, exasperated in his anger. “Has he admitted he was wrong about Game Time? Did he ask your forgiveness for what happened in Purdy’s?”

Like a chastised child, she shrank and lost all interest in food. “No,” she whispered and the truth was Grant was still a threat because he still wanted to support Sutcliffe and had asked her to return the Game Time devices. “If you want the truth”—she measured each of their expressions as they waited for the rest of the statement—“I’m worried that if we don’t get to him first we’ll find ourselves back where we were all over again.”

“What do you mean?”

Picking at the pizza, she was aware of betraying Grant all over again. “He and I… we haven’t been getting along this week.”

“Because of us?” Brodie asked.

“In part,” she said. “But he still wants me to support him and Sutcliffe. He asked me to return the devices and the viruses.”

“He asked you? That means he’s still interested in doing the deal,” Tuck said.

Brodie lifted both hands to the back of his head and locked his fingers. “What does Saint have to do to lose your faith?”

“No one is supporting him,” she argued, leaving the table because it felt more civilized to be arguing from a standing position. “That makes him a man with nothing to lose. A man of his means… with a chip on his shoulder…”

“Which makes him dangerous,” Tuck said.

From nowhere, Zave left the table and went to a suitcase in the corner.

“You’re leaving?” she asked, thinking it rude of him to leave in the middle of a conversation.

“I’ve got business,” Zave said. “Wren will be in touch.”

He went out without a big goodbye, and she looked from Tuck to Brodie expecting them to be affronted as she was, but they both just looked done.

“I think I’ll go and get a drink,” Tuck said, leaving without further comment on Grant and she sort of felt like she’d been put in the naughty corner.

So when she fixated on Brodie she exhaled and shrugged, hoping there were some words of support coming her way, but his hands stayed locked behind his head.

“We got the room to ourselves. Want to suck the love outta my cock now?”

Ignoring her assertions didn’t inspire confidence that these serious men respected her. “Beau,” she said, going over to take his hands. “I’m worried about him… about what he’ll do if he’s angry.”

He took one hand out of her grip. “You spend your whole life making excuses for him,” he said, grazing his fingers on her cheek.

She sighed. “He would say I do the same thing about you,” she said. “But my concerns don’t come from a place of compassion. Losing Art was… it was hard on us all.” He squirmed enough that she considered retreating, but couldn’t skirt around it any longer. “What if Sutcliffe puts a bullet in someone else at the next showdown? What if that’s you or me? What if we lose each other?”

His discomfort disappeared in the face of renewed anger. “I can keep you safe. Don’t you dare doubt what I’m capable of. I’ll put a bullet in Saint tonight if—”

She shook her head. Brodie had not taken advantage of the several opportunities he’d had to kill Grant. Being that they were blood, she could understand his reluctance. Art wouldn’t have sanctioned killing one’s kin, regardless of how tempting it was.

“Like it or not, he’s your brother, and all you have left is each other,” she said.

He wasn’t dismayed. “I have the Kindred and I’ve got you,” he said, curving an arm around her to haul her close. “I don’t need nothing else.”

Relaxing her body, she curled her fingers around his waistband. “You’d do anything for me. You told me that you would do anything.”

He grumbled. “Yeah, like torture a guy slow or go to prison for you,” he said. “You want me to bury myself alive for you, baby, I’ll do it.”

It seemed so counterproductive that Brodie wouldn’t consider an alliance with his own blood when it could save lives. “You’d die for me but you wouldn’t talk to your own flesh and blood?”

“Now you’ve fucking got it,” he said, swinging her around one hundred and eighty degrees to walk her backwards toward the bed. “Who’s your guy?”

She wasn’t ready to just forget about Grant, nor was she ready to throw him to the wolves. But when Brodie crouched to lick her neck, she knew his mind was drifting away.

“Baby, please,” she said, running her hands up his back and into his scalp. “We have to—”

Thrusting her body away from his, she bounced down onto the bed they’d shared last night. “I asked you a fucking question,” he said, and the bite of anger was emphasized by the darkness coating his expression. He lowered his hands to his jeans and began to unbutton them then he tugged his tee shirt up over his head. “When I ask you a fucking question, you answer me. Who is your guy?”

The conversation was over. Period. He’d lost any inclination to humor her. “You’re my guy,” she said, rising to her elbows, but he grabbed her ankle and pulled her leg so high that she was forced onto her back again.

He kissed her instep and put a knee on the bed between her thighs to crawl up between her legs. “Say it again.”

“You’re my guy,” she said. He came down on top of her and lifted her head to scoop her hair up and back to spread it on the bed above her.

“When I’m done with a conversation, we’re fucking done with it.”

With a grip on her wrists, he stretched her arms high over her head as he descended to kiss her mouth, her jaw, her collarbone. The sting of suction made her gasp. Being with Brodie when he was in this kind of mood meant he’d be rough and possessive, which she loved. Except her mission required her to be clean and without signs of intimacy, meaning they’d have to restrain themselves.

“Don’t leave a mark,” she said and he rose enough to wink at her.

“I’ll do what the fuck I want with you. You’re my toy, my plaything, no one else’s.”

And as though to prove it, he used one hand to part her towel. As soon as her body was exposed, he began to nuzzle her breasts, licking and sucking each nipple until they were painful in their sharp need. Try as she might to coil her legs around him to pull him into a union, he kept her wrists clamped together on the bed of hair he’d spread out.

“Right now,” he said, kissing her cleavage. “You’re gonna open your legs so your hot, hungry pussy can swallow my dick whole. You understand me, pretty plaything?”

She muttered in affirmation, but could do little more than nod, especially when he came up to spear his tongue between her lips again.

“You gonna take my cock in deep? Are you?” She coiled her legs around his thighs, but he lifted her arms to shake her. “Tell me.”

“I’m going to take your cock. I want it, beau. Give it to me.”

“Greedy girl,” he snarled, tasting her neck until it burned in opposition to her request.

But him taking what he wanted from her, branding her with his possession, it was his fire that stoked her that made her want to glow as bright as he made her feel. Their passion for each other was inextinguishable, and this was what they both needed.

Brodie was still recovering from his seclusion. They were thrown back into the deep end and already their relationship was being tested. Brodie had to know that he was her priority, especially after having been on a date with another man tonight.

“I’m hungry for you,” she said, trying to tug her arms free so she could levy up to bite at his lip. But he shoved her onto the mattress, pinning her arms with the weight of his forearms clamped down over her, and a cold laugh echoed from his throat.

“I’m gonna fuck you so hard, baby,” he said, scraping his teeth on her chin then kissing her lips. “You won’t move for a week. You won’t be able to breathe. You’ll feel me inside you with every step you take.”

Oh, God, he had a way of taking her sanity until she couldn’t breathe past the need to be sated. “I already do,” she exhaled and he let her steal his mouth.

Stretching her arms higher, he shifted one forearm over them and held her down. With his freed hand, he traced his palm down her side and pressed his hand down between them. His fingers began to wheedle their way through the moisture her body produced in anticipation of receiving him. Each slide of his fingertips, each press of his knuckle, enticed her further. But frustration made her draw her lips into her mouth, away from his because focusing on the motion of their kiss was becoming difficult.

“It’s too much,” she exhaled and writhed up against his hand that was still playing in her juices without entering her. “Please, Brodie.”

“Please, what?” he asked, wearing a wry smile that was fully aware of her torment.

“I need it, please…”

Massaging her entrance, he dipped his fingers into her opening and pushed down with the pads of his fingertips. She yelped and he took the opportunity her parted lips gave him. Removing his fingers from her, he took them upward to coat her lips with her own juices then, without a word, he came down to kiss her again.