Salvation (The Protectors, Book 2) (24 page)

Ronan

Twelve days later

“Wake up, Seth.”

“No,” Seth grumbled as he burrowed deeper into my chest. “Too early,” he mumbled. “It’s Sunday,” he added.

I glanced at Bullet who was sitting patiently on the floor next to Seth’s side of the bed. “Okay boy, you’re up.”

“No!” Seth said a second before the dog jumped on top of him and began licking his face. Seth squirmed to get away from the wet tongue, but Bullet simply laid down on top of him and kept at it until Seth began laughing hysterically.

“Okay, okay, uncle!” Seth cried.

I chuckled. “Bullet,” I said and when the dog looked at me, I patted the spot on the bed on my other side and the dog happily jumped over me and curled up against my back. I ignored the dog drool Seth was trying to wipe away with the bed sheet and leaned down to kiss him. “Morning,” I murmured.

“Morning,” Seth whispered and then he wrapped his arm around my neck and held me there as he thoroughly kissed me. My intent had been to get Seth up so we could go boating like we’d planned, but I quickly lost interest in the prospect as Seth made love to my mouth. The kiss turned heated quickly and I was about to tell Bullet to take a hike when the dog figured it out for himself and jumped off the bed.

Seth rolled me to my back and began kissing his way down my body. He did what he often did which was give each of my individual scars his complete attention. It was something that had made me uncomfortable at first because I still struggled with the memories they brought forth. But like the day we’d gone to see his old house on Mercer Island, I’d realized Seth was giving me new memories to replace the old ones.

After Stan’s attack on Seth, we’d spent a few days in New York to deal with the authorities and to give Seth time to heal from the concussion he’d suffered. Daisy had easily found the two men who’d helped in the home invasion. One had been a serial rapist who’d been convicted of murdering his ex-girlfriend shortly after Seth’s parents were killed. The man had taken a plea and only served a few years in prison before he was paroled. There was no doubt in my mind that he’d been the one to rape and murder Seth’s mother. Mav had gladly accepted the job and the man was dead before Seth and I even left New York. The second man was a different story. He’d been the younger brother of the rapist and had stayed out of trouble after serving two years in prison for drug possession. I’d given Seth a choice on that one and he’d said to let the young man be since he’d been the only one of the three men to actually try to stop the assaults once they’d started. But I’d told Daisy to monitor him.

I’d had the last several days to consider what and who I wanted to be going forward. I’d always thought I could only be one or the other, but Seth had made me realize I didn’t have to choose. I hadn’t just been Ronan, the doctor before losing Trace and I hadn’t been just Ronan, the killer afterwards…I’d been a little bit of both with one just taking a more prominent role than the other. Seth had been right. I saved people. It was all I’d ever wanted to do.

While my organization would go on doing what it did best, I had no plans to pick up a gun again unless I absolutely had to. Mav had agreed to help me make decisions on the best way to handle all the incoming cases and my plan was to ask Hawke to deal with assigning the right man to the right job and pulling in new recruits who needed what Mace and I had needed so long ago.

I hadn’t heard from Hawke since he’d left New York and while that had me worried, I knew it wasn’t unusual. I’d been the same way, only now I had people who cared if I didn’t pick up the phone or return a text. Hawke would get there someday too.

Seth had thrived once he’d returned to the office a few days after getting back from New York. He’d known he still had a lot of work ahead of him to regain his employees’ trust and to get the company back on solid ground, but instead of trying to figure out how his father would have handled it, he focused on what he could bring to the table that would finally make the company his.

I hadn’t been as certain as I’d wrangled with the idea of giving up the life I’d been living. The idea of returning to medicine was intimidating, but I also knew it was something that ran in my blood. I wasn’t rushing into anything, but I had already started the process of figuring out what I needed to do to update my training.

“What are you thinking?” Seth murmured as he slid up my body and rested his chin on his folded arms.

“I’m thinking I want another new memory,” I said. “A good one,” I added. Seth understood what I meant and he traced his fingers over my lips.

“Tell me what you need,” he said softly.

“You,” I responded. “Every part of you.”

It took a moment for Seth to understand what I was asking, but instead of resisting, he said, “Are you sure?”

I reached down to draw him up so his lips were hovering over mine. “Make me yours, Seth. In every way.”

Seth ghosted a kiss over my lips and then settled his hands on the side of my face so he could hold me still for his next kiss. But it was so much more than that. It was him telling me what I needed to hear. That no matter what happened next, everything we had was perfect just as it was.

I’d toyed with the idea of asking Seth to make love to me after I’d come so close to losing him. The physical damage to my body hadn’t been permanent, but I’d given up on the idea of ever letting anyone inside of me again because I simply knew I wouldn’t be able to give someone that level of power over me. But Seth wasn’t someone.

He was the only one.

And I knew he could take the pain of what had happened to me out in the desert and replace it with something beautiful.

Seth kissed me for a long time before he began working my body into a simmering pool of need. He and I had fucked in so many different ways, positions and locations, that I couldn’t keep track of them all, but this would always be my favorite. This slow burn as we worshipped each other, as we healed each other.

I managed to hold it together as Seth took me into his mouth, but just as I was about to come, he pulled off of me and kissed his way back up my body. He took his time kissing me some more and then he started the process all over again. When he swallowed me down a second time, I begged and pleaded with him to let me come. But he was ruthless and pulled off of me with a pop. The lube was already sitting on the nightstand so when he grabbed it, I forced back the tension that shot through me. But Seth felt it anyway. I dragged him down before he could speak and I rolled him onto his back.

“I know you’ll stop if I ask you to, Seth. I’m not going to keep quiet if I can’t do this. I swear.” Seth nodded.

I kissed him again and reached between our bodies to palm his dick. My own cock had wilted a little bit as my fear had started to inch up, but Seth was rock hard and pulsing in my hand. I teased him a few times like he had me and he let out a groan when I pressed my dick against his and began jerking us off together. My need came back quickly, so I only gave us a few tugs and then I rolled onto my back again. Seth crawled between my legs and gently urged me to lift and separate them. I automatically tensed up as his finger played with my hole, but when I saw Seth scoot farther down the bed, I nearly bit my lip as I realized what he was doing. It was something I’d done to him dozens of times.

I let out a ragged moan as his tongue licked my crease but it wasn’t until the tip pressed against my hole that I nearly bucked off the bed. Seth used his hands to separate my cheeks and pressed his whole mouth against me and then pressed his arms against my thighs to keep me in place. His tongue flicked at me repeatedly before he closed his mouth around my opening and sucked gently.

“Fuck, yes!” I shouted and I reached down to grab my own legs so I could spread myself wider for him. I hadn’t ever been rimmed before since it wasn’t something Trace had ever been into and the previous men in my life hadn’t been interested in my pleasure. So nothing prepared me for the ecstasy that rolled through me. And when Seth stiffened his tongue and pushed it into me, I nearly passed out from the pleasure. He licked as much of my insides as he could reach before giving me a few more gentle kisses that kept me on the edge, but didn’t drive me higher. When he reared back and reached for the lube, I knew I wouldn’t be stopping him.

I knew what to expect when Seth’s fingers began working into me and while there was no pain, I did have to struggle through a few moments of fear as my brain tried to send me back to the last time I’d been in this same position. But then Seth ordered me to open my eyes and I’d come back to the present and I’d relished the feel of him searching out and ultimately finding my prostate and gently massaging it.

“I’m too close,” I said huskily to him as he increased the pressure on my gland. Under any other circumstances, I would have been fine with him getting me off and then taking me until I came again, but this time I needed him more than I needed the release.

Seth prepared himself and then leaned over me and kissed me. “I love you.”

“I love you,” I returned and then he kissed me again as his hand moved between my legs and positioned his cock at my entrance. He took me slowly and his mouth never left mine, not even after he’d bottomed out inside of me and stilled. My body adjusted quickly and the burning sensation that I had always loved in the past, rolled through me. The tingling quickly followed and when Seth began to move, my skin lit up deliciously. Every part of me that Seth touched sparked with sensation. With it being Seth’s first time taking someone else, I’d expected him to fuck me quickly or struggle to find a rhythm that worked for both of us, but it didn’t happen. Our coming together was as natural as it could be, as if we’d been doing it for a lifetime. There was urgency, but finesse. There was need but there was something else too…something only he and I would ever share.

I closed my hands over the back of Seth’s arms as he continued to rock into me. His hand pressed between our bodies and wrapped gently around my dick and he began dragging up and down the sensitized skin at the same pace that he was fucking into me with. I had to stop kissing Seth as the need inside of me grew and I was forced to drag in more oxygen. I closed my eyes and pressed my head against the pillow, but the only place my brain went this time was the same place my body was…surrounded by Seth.

I came with little warning and as I cried out in blissful agony, Seth was there to drink down the sound. I felt his own release flood my inner walls as his free hand linked with mine on the bed. Seth groaned as his body finally took control and pumped into me over and over again, each slide of his dick causing aftershocks to roll through me.

He stayed on top of me and inside of me as he slowly brought me down with gentle kisses. I released the death grip I had on his hand and wrapped both my arms around him. I didn’t need words to tell him what I was feeling.

When Seth did finally pull back from me a little bit so he could see my face he whispered, “I have a confession to make.”

I stilled at that and couldn’t help but wonder if he hadn’t enjoyed what we’d done as much as I had. But when I saw the slightest hint of a smile, I automatically knew what was coming.

Because Seth was a terrible liar.

“Okay,” I said. “What is it?”

“You suck at Tetris.”

I laughed and kissed him. “I really have been letting you win.”

“You have not,” Seth said with a smile. But when he saw the seriousness of my expression, he said, “No way!”

I chuckled at his look of outrage.

“That’s it, we’re doing this,” Seth said as he made a move to climb off of me. He groaned as his dick slipped free of my body and I quickly used the distraction to my advantage and flipped him on his back.

“Later,” I said just before I kissed him.

It ended up being
much
later.

The End

***Scroll for a sneak peek of Hawke’s story***

Retribution (The Protectors, Book 3)

Sloane Kennedy

Copyright © 2016 by Sloane Kennedy

Prologue

Hawke

Excitement flooded all my nerve endings as I worked to pick the lock in front of me, but that wasn’t a good thing. I needed the familiar numbness back. I needed to not feel anything at all.

Excitement in my line of work accomplished one of two things. It either left you open to making a mistake that could end up getting you killed, or it meant you were so far gone that you’d become as soulless as the men you’d been sent to rid the earth of. In my case, it was still the former, but I often wondered if there would be a point where I’d actually look forward to taking a man’s life. Where I thought less about the life or lives I was saving in the long run and more about the satisfaction of finally having some of the power back that I’d lost so long ago…that had been stolen from me when they’d stolen her.

But unlike the countless lives I’d taken in the last decade for both the army and for the underground organization I now worked for, this kill
would
be about pleasure. I was going to enjoy watching the man’s frantic eyes pleading with me as he desperately promised to give me what I wanted. And I’d let him believe up until the very end that he had a chance of walking away without a bullet in his brain.

He wouldn’t. Nor would his partner. They would die the same way she had died. Slow and painfully. And they would suffer the way she’d suffered. They’d beg the way she’d begged. And I’d finally be able to keep the promise that I’d whispered in her ear as her heartbeat had slowed, the pauses between beeps on the heart monitor she’d been hooked to growing longer and longer.

I’ll find them. I’ll end them and then we’ll be together again
.

A sigh of relief went through me when I heard and felt the lock disengage. But as I reached for the knob, I heard the elevator open behind me and I yanked my tools out of the lock and hurried to the stairwell door that was just around the corner from the apartment I’d been about to enter. I didn’t hear voices, but I could tell that there were at least two people heading in my general direction. And when I saw two men stop right in front of the door I’d been about to open, I felt a surge of energy rush through me. I’d hoped and prayed I’d find both of my wife’s murderers at the same time, but it had been just that…hope. But my hopes were dashed when I realized one of the men wasn’t old enough.

“Um, thanks for the ride,” I heard the one guy say. His back was to me so all I saw was an average build and a head of thick, brown hair that had a little bit of curl to it. He was wearing a beat up leather jacket and a loose pair of jeans.

“My pleasure,” the man with him murmured. He was about the same age as the first guy who I guessed to be in his mid-twenties. But whereas the other guy looked very blue collar, the guy with him was white collar all the way. His suit looked custom made for his tall, rangy body and I had no doubt the thick watch on his wrist cost more than my car.

Even from where I stood, I could tell by the first guy’s body language that he was uncomfortable. But if the second guy noticed, he didn’t care because he pressed against the first guy until the man had nowhere left to go since the door was at his back.

“I should get going,” the first guy said. “I’ve got an early morning.” Suit guy ignored the clear signals the other guy was sending and leaned down to kiss him. The brown haired guy turned his head away but that didn’t stop suit guy from kissing the man’s exposed neck. I couldn’t say why the whole thing bothered me, but I didn’t dwell on it. Brown haired guy deserved whatever he got because he was clearly the one who lived in the apartment…he was the man I was interested in, but for a whole other reason.

“I could use you again tomorrow night,” Suit guy said as he took a whiff of the other guy.

“Yeah, sure,” brown haired guy said, but he didn’t move at all. He clearly wasn’t enjoying the other man’s attentions, but seemed reluctant to stand up to him.

“Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow.” Suit guy placed a kiss on the other man’s cheek and then pushed back and strode away. I heard the elevator ding but my target didn’t move right away. At some point, he’d closed his eyes and leaned his dejected frame against the door. He looked…done.

Rage went through me at the momentary pang of pity and that had me striding out of the stairwell as the guy turned to go into his apartment. I reached the door just as he was closing it. His startled eyes lifted to mine just before I used my booted foot to kick the door open, knocking him on his ass. I pulled my gun from my waistband as I strode into the apartment and slammed the door behind me.

“Please-” the man whispered but his words dropped off when I pointed my gun at him.

“Where is he?” I snarled.

The man put both his hands up. “Wh…Who?” he stammered.

I leaned down and grabbed the man by the hair and yanked his head back until he cried out in pain. “Don’t fuck with me,” I ground out.

“Please…please,” he bit out as tears formed in the corners of his eyes.

I released my hold on him and pressed my gun against his forehead. He let out a choked sob, but I didn’t care. I wanted so badly just to pull the trigger. But I couldn’t. Because I didn’t want to spend another day knowing that even one of the two men who’d raped my wife and left her for dead was still breathing.

“You want to play it that way?” I said calmly as I finally felt the familiar emptiness creep back into my veins.

I hauled the man up so that he was on his knees and then pressed the gun back against his head. “If the next words out of your mouth aren’t his location” – I removed the gun from his head and pressed it against his groin – “this is where the first bullet goes.”

The man was crying silent tears but he didn’t say anything. He was shaking uncontrollably, but despite his fear, he remained silent and I noticed that even though he was crying, his eyes looked blank, like he was somewhere else. I ground my jaw in frustration and began searching for anything I could use as a gag. I didn’t have a silencer but I could come up with creative ways to make the guy talk that didn’t require a gun.

Before I could decide what to do next, I heard a knock on the door behind me.

I slammed my hand down over the man’s mouth and yanked him to his feet. The move seemed to finally snap him out of his daze. “One word…” I warned quietly as I jammed the gun against his temple.

“Mr. Travers,” came a woman’s voice on the other side of the door. She began knocking harder. “Mr. Travers, I know you’re in there. I saw you pull up out front a few minutes ago!” she shouted in irritation.

The man was frozen in place so I shoved him towards the door. I moved to the other side of the door jamb so that the person on the other side wouldn’t see me when he opened it. But I kept my gun pointed at his head.

“Answer it,” I ordered.

He shook his head violently.

“Do it!” I snapped.

“No!” he said in a harsh whisper.

The woman continued knocking. “Mr. Travers, we agreed to nine o’clock, no exceptions!”

“Answer it or I’ll kill her,” I threatened. “Get rid of her or you both die.”

The man finally reached for the door and opened it a crack. “Mrs. Parks, I’m sorry-”

I nearly pulled the trigger when the door suddenly opened wider but it wasn’t the woman who entered. A little boy no more than five or six years old squeezed through the narrow crack in the door. My instincts kicked in and I grabbed him and dragged him to me, covering his mouth with my hand before he could scream. The man at the door gasped, but the woman he was talking to didn’t seem to notice that his attention was no longer on her.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Travers. We had a deal. You want me to watch him longer, you have to pay me for longer!”

I heard footsteps hurry off but the man staring at me in horror didn’t move or even shut the door. “Please don’t,” he whispered as his eyes fell on the kid who was squirming in my grasp. And that was when I knew I had him.

I kicked the door shut and stepped forward. The man automatically stepped back.

“Where is he?”

“I swear to God; I don’t know who you’re talking about!”

“Your father!” I shouted.

The man was so caught off guard that he lowered his hands. “My father?” he stuttered.

The kid was furiously trying to escape me and it was a struggle to maintain my hold on him without hurting him. I also didn’t know what the fuck to do with him – he hadn’t been part of my plan. I hadn’t even once considered the possibility that the younger of my wife’s murderers might be a father. And no way in hell was I hurting a kid…I’d use him to get what I wanted, but I wasn’t so far gone in my hatred that I’d actually follow through with my threats.

“I…I haven’t seen my father in years,” the guy said desperately. His eyes shifted back to the little boy. “It’s okay, Matty. Daddy’s here. Just be real quiet for a few minutes, okay,” he said gently, his voice surprisingly even.

The boy quieted in my hold.

“No loyalty among murderers, huh?” I said.

“Murder?” the man whispered.

My fury was so intense that I released my grip on the boy and he ran to his father. “Get him here now!” I ordered.

“Jesus,” the man cried as he grabbed his son and put him behind him. “You’re looking for Denny!” he said.

“What?”

“I’m Tate. You’re looking for my father and Denny, my brother.”