“After your shower, come join me in the kitchen.” He stood up as well and wrapped his towel around him, letting it ride low on his hips. He needed to cover up the fact that just looking at her brought him to attention. He wanted to make love to her. Slowly. Gently. Take his time in the bed, not take her like the wild animal he could be.
Breezy laughed softly. “I’ll never find it. I’ll get lost in this place.”
He grinned at her. “Code came with me to look at it and he got lost, either that or he found the racquetball room and just got stuck there.”
“There’s a racquetball room?”
He nodded.
“Do you play racquetball? Any of you?”
“Nope. But it’s there.”
“What in the world were you thinking, buying this house?” she asked.
He slung his arm around her neck and pulled her beneath his shoulder. He was taller than Breezy by quite a bit and his arm circled her shoulders and draped down so that he could caress the curve of her breast with the pads of his fingers. Each stroke sent a little electrical charge through his bloodstream.
“I was thinking my woman deserves the best and I was going to find her and bribe her to come back to me with this place.”
She looked up at him, her green eyes moving over his face. Searching. It was the truth, and he let her see that it was. He knew he’d told her repeatedly, but she would need reassurance often after the things he’d said to make her leave. He stopped abruptly just at the glass door and took her mouth.
Kissing Breezy was a singular experience and one he would never get enough of. He was addicted to her taste and the fire in her mouth. The way she gave him everything that was her instantly, the moment his lips settled over hers. He made his demands with his tongue and then waited to feel the delicate stroke of hers, such a contrast to his aggression and insistence. He loved that. He loved everything about it.
Steele couldn’t believe his woman was there—in the home he’d bought and furnished for her. He knew it would overwhelm her at first. He’d intended to overwhelm her. She wasn’t getting a bargain. She might protest as much as she wanted, but he knew. He knew the way he was, and he knew what was locked up inside of him. Chances were, when they made their run to find their son, she’d see, because once that monster was loose, there was no putting him away until he was satisfied.
He walked her up the stairs and waited to see if she chose the frameless shower or the one in the enormous double bathroom that was part of the master suite. She went with the smaller free-frame. He loved that. He loved that she would choose the one he was certain she’d like. He left her to it and headed down the stairs.
Maestro and Keys were already in the kitchen. Maestro indicated the camera with his chin. “Got your shots for you, bro. She really is beautiful.”
“Always liked that girl,” Keys added. “Sweet. She was always fuckin’ sweet to everyone. Never saw her pass up one of the kids without stopping to talk to them.”
Steele nodded. “Yeah, she’s amazing. She can forgive anything. That’s a good thing because I’m going to fuck up royally most of the time.”
No one argued with him. He took out the chicken he’d bought. Breezy liked chicken, and he was good at grilling. He’d learned when he rode with the Swords.
Keys washed potatoes. “You good?”
Steele shook his head, looking down at the chicken that was already cut up. His stomach rolled as images pushed into his brain. Children he knew. Children with the skin flayed off of them looking up at him, expecting a miracle he couldn’t deliver. It was all too close after opening that door.
Breezy thought the worst had been the beatings. It hadn’t been the beatings, and the ones he’d endured, the ones the others had, hadn’t been done with slaps or fists. Punches and kicks had been frequent, and there had also been chains and whips and cattle prods. There’d been all kinds of torture devices. Beatings hadn’t been the worst.
He looked up, his eyes meeting Maestro’s and then Keys’s. “Breezy thinks if Bridges kicks or slaps Zane that’s the worst that can happen to him. She’s so worried. I held her last night while she cried herself to sleep, just wanting him safe. That’s all she wants, our little boy safe. She has no idea what the worst can be. I know the Swords sell children to predators. Bridges will know the kind of bank he could get for a boy that age.”
“Steele,” Maestro began. He glanced at Keys. What was there to say? One of their own, one of their family, was in the exact position they had all been in as children. Someone had taken him from a safe environment and might give him to vile predators for money. Steele had every right to worry. Bridges had sent his daughter out to seal deals when she was no more than a child. He wouldn’t care about his grandson, especially when the boy was Steele’s son.
“We’ll get him back,” Keys said. “He’s ours.”
Steele didn’t voice his worry, that even if they did get him back, he’d be like those children lying on that filthy floor, staring up at him with despair. Bloody. In pain. Infections raging. He’d fought rats off of them. Laid on them to keep them from freezing to death. Stayed up all night to keep the bugs and rodents off of their dying bodies. So many.
“Fuck!” He yelled it, wanting to throw the cut-up meat. Those children had been nothing but meat to the predators, and he’d been a child himself, unable to save them. Unable to help them in any way.
“Steele,” Maestro said softly, trying to call him back to the present. “It’s over.”
Steele shook his head. He knew better. Maestro knew better. “It’s never going to be over, and you know who’s going to pay the price? That woman up there. She’s going to pay it just like Anya pays it for Reaper. Just like any woman you find that does it for you will. We’re so far gone and there’s no coming back from it.”
“We can learn . . .” Keys began.
“What? Social norms? We feel safer fucking our women when we’re together because we’ve got eyes watching out for danger. Our childhood was spent on survival, on killing to survive. We don’t know how to be without one another and we sure as hell don’t conform to other people’s ideas of bullshit rules. We’re assassins. It doesn’t matter how far we put down roots here, our first inclination when someone crosses us is to eliminate them.”
Maestro shrugged. “We’re getting by, Steele. Reaper found Anya. Breezy’s back.”
“Bree has this misguided belief that I’m a nice man and will be a good partner to her. She had a year with me; how she doesn’t remember what I was like, I’ll never know. She also thinks that if she wants out, I’ll let her out.”
Keys snorted. “She ought to know better than that. She was raised in the life.”
Steele looked down at the chicken again and the churning in his stomach grew worse. His past was too close. All those ch
ildren. Dead. Over two hundred and fifty deaths. On him. It hadn’t mattered how many of the bastards they’d killed. Even when they’d just been kids, Sorbacov had replaced their guards with even crueler wardens—or he had until he’d begun to run out of criminals.
“I can’t do this.” He shoved the offending chicken away from him. “Not yet. Give me a few minutes and I’ll be back.”
He had to get himself under control. He didn’t lose control. That was too dangerous. He’d done so on occasion and the results had been . . . monstrous. He stepped away from the work aisle and started toward the glass door that led to the extensive patio.
He caught her scent and turned, his breath hitching in his lungs. A knot rose in his throat. Breezy stood in the doorway, her gaze on Maestro and Keys, a soft flush rushing over her, making her skin glow. She had discovered the clothes he’d put in the drawers just in case he found her. Things he liked. Things he wanted her to wear in their home.
The little shorts were nothing but black stretch lace, showing all that beautiful skin, highlighting her little tawny landing strip. The matching bra barely stretched across her full breasts. Both nipples pushed through the lace. He could see his marks on her.
Keys saluted her. “Hey, Breezy. You shouldn’t stay out so long in the sun. I know it’s cooler here, but you could burn.”
All three men had been raised with no clothes. Their brethren as well as Alena and Lana had never been given clothes unless they were being sent out on an assignment. They’d been forced to have sex in front of one another until it was commonplace. Breezy was Steele’s. She was part of their family. They didn’t look at her as a woman simply because they’d been conditioned not to. Their bodies were totally under their command and didn’t react at the sight of a beautiful, naked woman.