“YOUR DICK REMEMBERS.”
That’s the damn truth. My cock aches to shove her habit—which, by the way, makes her look so fucking hot—up her thighs and fuck her over the sink. The woman once again has her talons in my heart, and this time, I won’t survive in the end. She nearly killed me last time. This time, which is inevitable, I will die with her as the last thought on my mind.
I glower at her. Those pink lips, free of whorish makeup to look the part of a nun, beg to be sucked and bitten. She pouts them out for further effect and my cock twitches in her grasp.
After sliding an arm around her back to her ass, I pick her up and haul her over to the sink. She gasps when I drop her on it and attack her neck with my mouth. If she wants to play dirty, I’ll play goddamned dirty.
“W-what are you doing, Omega?” The spicy Leviathan’s voice wobbles and falters.
I suckle her flesh and palm her breast through her clothes. “I know what you’re doing. You’re fucking pushing me away. Protecting something—her—I don’t know what the fuck. But I’m not going to sit by and watch it happen this time. I know there’s something inside you worth fighting for, even if that means dealing with the monster you pretend to be. Things aren’t over between us, Love. They will never be over.”
The desire to kiss her and fuck her and forget about every fucking thing is overwhelming, but we have a job to do. I just want to shake the foundation upon which she stands for a minute. I want to rattle the hardened woman she is at the moment.
My hand slips between her legs, and I finger her through her habit. I’ve been with the woman long enough to know exactly what makes her lose her mind. She thinks sex is her weapon against everyone? Well, I’ll use her weapons against her.
“Oh-mega!” she cries out once I make the connection.
I find her swollen lips with mine and kiss her hard, almost punishingly. “Yes, Love?” I murmur against her lips as I work her through her clothes.
“What are you doing?”
“You’re no longer in charge, baby. When you’re in charge, you fuck it all up. I’m not letting you fuck us up again,” I growl and intensify my massaging of her clit.
“Mmm, stop,” she whines, her voice shaking with need. “We aren’t an ‘us.’”
I do stop, but she whimpers, so I go back to fingering her. “We are an ‘us.’ Stop trying to fucking pretend, woman. I won’t allow you to say otherwise. Now get the fuck over yourself and admit we are something.”
She furiously shakes her head. “No. We have a job to do.”
When I stop my movement, she tries to force my hand to continue. I nuzzle my nose against hers and look deep into her chocolate eyes. Lust and something else swims in them. Uncertainty. That is what I latch on to and then use the lust to my advantage.
“I want to make you come, baby,” I coo as I begin stroking her again.
She throws her head back and bares her neck at me. “Yes, please.”
“Tell me what I want to hear.”
Once again, she shakes her head, so I stop.
“You’re pure fucking evil,” she grumbles.
I chuckle and tease her with my finger. “Say it. Just fucking say it.”
She leans forward and pins me with sad stare. “Yes, okay? You’re messing everything up, but I can’t deny that I don’t care about any of it when I am around you. I hate the fact that you are clouding my every thought and disturbing my plans. This will end badly, Omega. I did things my way for a reason. And you, with your passion you wear on your sleeve, are about to fuck up something huge. Are you at all prepared to deal with the ramifications of that?”
I mull her words over. So she doesn’t want to remain guarded in my presence but clearly feels as if she must.
Dropping my mouth to hers, I kiss her softly. The woman she hides claws under the surface.
I will save you.
My finger continues its dance, and soon, she shudders with an orgasm. I massage until she becomes too sensitive to take any more. When she comes down from her high, I slip my teasing finger up her body and around the back of her neck. With a little tug, I pull at her hair so that she looks up at me.
“Baby, drop the fucking act. Every time you try to push me away, I am going to crawl into wherever it is you go and yank your ass out of there. No more running. No more hiding. You’re mine, Love, and I’m willing to battle for your heart.”
Tears well in her eyes, showing me that I have won. I place a tender kiss to her trembling mouth. The kiss is short but full of promise. My vows are thick and binding as they work their way through to her. Eventually, she nods her understanding.
“Omega, this is going to be hard. You have no idea. I’ll do my best to not shut you out, especially when we’re alone. However, we still have a major job to do. Promise me that, when we leave the confines of our privacy, you’ll trust me always. No matter how awful or insane things get. I need you to trust me if we have any hope for surviving.”
Her fear is palpable and so real that I could almost grab it and strangle it to death. As long as I have anything to do with it, she’ll be safe. I will protect her until my dying breath. The hate I had for her yesterday was just a bandage for my bleeding heart. I had held on to the belief that I hated her.
But I didn’t.
I loved her so much that it made me crazy.
Now that I see there is more than meets the eye with Love, I only want to love her more.
“I never hated you,” I blurt out before seizing her lips with mine again.
Her moan is far from sexual—it’s one of relief. I stroke her, comfort her, and kiss her in the small bathroom. She’s letting me in, crack by crack.
“I never stopped loving you,” she murmurs in reply.
Truth.
Motherfucking truth.
“We’ll figure this out, baby. I promise.”
She nods. Her belief in me is heart stopping. I will prove to her that I will make it all okay.
I finally pull away from her and give her a lopsided grin. “Ready to go pretend to fuck shit up, Love?”
The beautiful woman morphs before my eyes from something innocent and vulnerable to the feisty vixen I first fell for. “Is that even a question? Let’s go have fun, O.”
“And this is the west wing. Over here is where the nuns stay,” Father Owen says with a grin.
Father Owen is an old man with a kind smile. His eyes are crinkled around the edges, and it’s clear he laughs a lot. I like him instantly and have the urge to protect him.
I will protect him.
His Seraph Guardian, Bosefus, is behind him, glaring at us—me in particular. He knows we aren’t supposed to be here and can see right through our façade—the one where we told Father Owen we are from St. Peter’s Church from San Francisco. We mentioned our desire to grow our small church and visit a few other churches to get a feel for how others are doing it.
“Why are you here?” Bosefus snarls.
Of course, Father Owen can’t hear him. The SG are invisible to the humans and the ones they protect. However, the Leviathans can see them plain as day.
When Father Owen shows Lovenia the stained glass on one of the windows that’s been around since the 1800s, I turn my attention to Bosefus. The guardian angel is massive, towering several inches over my tall frame. His giant, feathered wings are spread out behind him, making him seem even larger. A hint of remorse rushes through me because I almost had those wings at one time.
“Working,” I mouth back.
His jaw clenches, and rage ripples from him at my presence. I would be furious too if I were him. This isn’t how things work.
“Leave,” he snaps.
Ignoring him, I glance over at Lovenia as she admires the glass. Her skin takes on a pink hue as the sun shines on her skin. In her habit, her face free of makeup, talking to the priest, she seems every bit a vision from heaven.
Normally, Love would be swaying those sexy hips and turning the heat up around men. However, with Father Owen, she appears to be using a different tactic to mess with him. One I haven’t quite figured out yet. My problem is the big, winged mammoth who is glaring at me.
“No.” Even though no sound comes out, I mouth the word very clearly to him.
His hand, with superhuman quickness, seizes my bicep.
I learned about this when I was in training to be a Seraph Guardian. They have abilities—the ability to see your desires, motives, and integrity or lack thereof.
That’s the last thought before he dives deep into my soul without my permission.
“He’s just a boy,” Connor pleads with tears in his eyes.
I glare at my best friend. “A boy who is planning on blowing your ass up!”
The small child with a mop of dirty, dark hair peeks out from behind Connor. He can’t be any more than six years of age.
We’ve been stationed here in Afghanistan for too fucking long. Every single one of us soldiers is tired as hell and ready to go home. Connor and I have managed to stay alive this long, and I won’t let some goddamned terrorist boy with a backpack full of explosions ready to detonate take us out. It’s not happening on my watch.
“Connor,” I growl. “Step away from him.” I raise my M16 and point it at the child.
The small boy pleads with me in his native tongue. I don’t doubt his innocence. However, I doubt the innocence of the ones who shouldered him with the heavy backpack and sent him our way.
“Drew, please, don’t hurt him.”
I drop my gun toward the dirt and run a frustrated hand over my scruffy jaw. Connor was always too soft to be a marine. The moment I met the man in boot camp, I knew, deep down, that I was supposed to always look out for him. I needed to be tough enough to protect both of us. Now, I will use his heart against him.
“What about Lark? And the baby?”
He grimaces at the mention of them, his resolve weakening—so I pounce.
“Do you think Lark would want you risking your life for some killer kid? I can’t let anything happen to you. She fucking made me promise, Connor.”
He pinches the bridge of his nose. I’ve dealt a low blow, but I’ll do anything to get him to step away from the kid who was headed right for our camp with a backpack full of explosives.
“Do this for her,” I urge.
His hand is still behind him, holding the boy safely in place. Connor and his fucking weakness for children!
“Mota'assefam,” the boy squeaks out. Sorry. Tears are swimming in his eyes, weakening my heart. The child doesn’t want to be here—some fucking psychotic idiot made him do this for his own personal gain.
I make a decision that could cost us our lives.
“Listen. I’m going to remove the backpack and get rid of it. You snatch the boy and we’re going to haul ass back to camp,” I huff out in resignation.
Connor’s rigid frame relaxes. I turn my attention to the boy, and when I motion that I am going to take his backpack off, he nods emphatically.
Poor fucking kid.
“On my count of three, I want you running your ass off,” I order to my best friend.
He nods and regards the child. After stalking over to them, I clutch the straps of the backpack.
“One. Two.” I lock eyes with Connor, and he nods. “Three.”
Time becomes molasses as I pull the bag from the boy’s back and Connor scoops him into his arms. As he runs away, I carefully place the bag on the dirt and then haul ass after them. We barely make it twenty feet toward camp when shots ring out all around us.
“Get down!” I bark.
Connor tackles the boy to the dirt to protect him from the gunfire. I, on the other hand, fling my gun around and shoot in the direction of the shots to protect my best friend.
“Drew,” Connor gurgles out. A cough from him startles me.
Though the shots are endless, I am no longer worried about them.
I’m worried about Connor.
Dropping to the dirt next to him, I roll him over to see that the boy has been shot in the side of the face. His innocent eyes are still open and staring at me, but the life is long gone. Everything around me blurs.
“We have to get back,” I choke out.
But when Connor’s head turns to mine, I fucking lose it. His face is greying fast, and blood blooms from his chest. The same bullet that killed the boy appears to have traveled through my best friend as well.
“No, Connor! Fucking no!”
“T-t-tell Lark I l-l-love her,” he sputters out before coughing some more.
I have to stop the bleeding. Lifting up on my knees, I roll the boy out of the way and press my hand over the gushing wound. It soaks my hand, and I panic because it’s too much blood.
“Don’t leave me, Connor!” I scream through my sobs.
When his eyes droop closed, I snap into action. I have to get him to a medic. With that realization, adrenaline surges through me, and I lift the man that weighs every bit of two hundred pounds as if he weighs no more than the boy.
I run.
And I run.
And I run.
Until I can’t run anymore.
Pain pierces my lower back, and I stumble forward, losing my grip on Connor. He hits the dirt, and I fall right on top of him.
“I’m so sorry I couldn’t save you,” I bellow and clutch onto my best friend’s bloody uniform.
When an explosion rings out nearby, everything is cloaked with a blanket of the blackest of black.
But as soon as I’m shrouded in darkness, bright white light then steals me away.
Jerking my arm from Bosefus, I glower at him. My cheeks are damp, and I can hardly breathe. What the fuck just happened?
His eyes have lost their angry flare though, and he smiles at me—almost as if he approves of my presence.
“I don’t know what is going on, Leviathan. You come in here, a place you don’t belong, with intent to destroy what I work so hard to protect. Yet, when I peer into your soul, it tells a different story. You need to see Jes.”
My eyebrows pinch together. “Who is Jes?”
“My boss. He’s not so black-and-white like the rest of our superiors. Jes sees in all colors. He finds solutions where there isn’t one. You need to see Jes. I implore you to do so.”
I shake off the horrific memories of what must be my past. Like Lovenia, I remember who I was now. Parts are beginning to trickle into my head. Some worse than others. All of them, I greedily devour. Alpha told me on more than one occasion that he desired to know who he was before we became Minders. I was never interested.
Until now.
Now, I can’t stop the tentacles of the need to understand who I am from unfurling their way through each crevice and cranny of my mind.
“Where do I find Jes?”
Bosefus’s chuckle warms me, further reminding me that I was taken from people I belonged with and thrust into a world full of those I don’t belong with. “That old hippie? He has an office on the top floor, but he hates it. Says it’s too pretentious. He moved into HEA’s basement decades ago. Go see him and leave her behind.”
My eyes roam down the corridor, where I see Love in animated discussion with Father Owen. I don’t know that I could ever leave her behind.
“What if I say no?”
Bosefus shakes his head. “Then you’re one thick-headed demon. I’m telling you—meeting with Jes is of the utmost importance. Finish up whatever it is here you are pretending to do. I’ll continue acting angry—that’s kind of my thing. And you continue as if you’re raining on my parade. But at the end of the evening, go straight to him.”
I nod. Things are a big, fucking confusing mess, but acceptance radiates from the angel. It’s clear that he senses my hidden agenda to dupe HEL Enterprises. Apparently, despite our job descriptions, we’re on the same team. I grunt out my agreement and stride down the hallway toward Lovenia.
It’s showtime.