Page 56 of Beautiful Vengeance

Trin gave her a sad smile. “I know it hurts. But this doesn’t mean it’s goodbye forever. Maybe one day, after all this is behind us, you can—”

“Yeah. Maybe.” Though she couldn’t allow herself to believe that. This hurt too damn much already without adding false hope that would crush her later on. She was too much of a realist, and she hadn’t asked for anything either.

Right now a shadowy figure known only as the Architect stood between her and any hope of a future. Kiyomi refused to allow herself to think beyond the mission.

As Trinity started up the staircase, Kiyomi turned to face Marcus’s study door. There was only one thing within her control at the moment, and she was going to make the most of it while it lasted.

Chapter Sixteen

The end was here, and it hurt like hell.

Heart heavy, Marcus smiled as Karas set her front paws in his lap and tried to lick his face. Zack had been taking care of her while they were gone.

“I missed you too,” he told her from the chair behind his desk, ruffling the top of her furry head while dodging her tongue. In spite of his smile, a mix of sadness and dread pressed down on him. It was raining now, the drops lashing the windows with each gust of wind. “Tomorrow it’ll be back to just you and me, lass.”

He was dreading it with every fiber of his being. This place had been his refuge ever since his ordeal in Syria, but soon it would only amplify his aloneness. He couldn’t ask Kiyomi to stay here, it was no longer safe. And the past two days had forced him to acknowledge what he’d been afraid to admit for so long.

He no longer had what it took to be effective on ops. He wouldn’t jeopardize Kiyomi’s safety by asking to go with her.

The study door opened. Kiyomi stepped inside and shut it, and just the sight of her made his heart pound and his body tighten. She had changed into jeans and a cherry-red sweater that hugged her breasts.

Smiling, she crossed the room toward him, the firelight gleaming on her shiny black hair. “How is she feeling? Any better?”

“Aye.” He patted Karas’s side. “Moving much better.”

Karas hopped her front paws off his lap and turned to Kiyomi, white tail wagging, grinning her doggy grin as Kiyomi reached down to stroke her head. “You’ll be back to yourself in no time.” Karas licked the back of Kiyomi’s hand, back end swaying with each tail wag. “I know you adore him, but if you don’t mind, I’d like to have your master all to myself for a while now.”

Straightening, she pointed at the bed in front of the fire, then snapped her fingers. “Bed.”

Karas stared up at her in astonishment for a moment, as if shocked that anyone other than him would dare to give her a command, then her ears lowered and she limped off to her bed as if she’d just been banished to the ends of the earth for all eternity. She flopped down on her bed, chin resting on the edge of it, giving Kiyomi a reproachful look that made him chuckle.

“Total drama queen,” Kiyomi said with a grin, then sauntered around the edge of Marcus’s desk.

His blood pumped hot and hard through his veins as her scent reached him. He inhaled, released it on a soft growl when she gripped his shoulders and straddled his lap in the chair. Her soft weight settled over his hardening cock. He pulled her close, one hand on the middle of her back and the other sliding into her hair.

“Everyone else is gone now, and Trinity’s left to pick up Rycroft,” she murmured, trailing her fingers over his jaw. “Which means two things.”

“Which are?”

Her eyes twinkled with sensual mischief. “We’ve got the entire place to ourselves for a while. And we don’t have to be quiet.”

Don’t go.The words were right there in his mouth. He swallowed them back. This was hard enough, he didn’t need to make it any worse. “Kiyomi, I—”

She laid a finger over his lips. “No talking. Just this,” she whispered, and leaned forward to settle her mouth on his.

Marcus tightened his grip and put everything he had into the kiss. It started slow and tender but quickly grew heated, both of them desperate for closer contact. He wanted to imprint himself on her, somehow leave part of himself inside her forever so she’d never be without him again.

He started to lift her off him, intending to set her on his desk so he could strip her and bury his face in the soft folds between her thighs, but she stopped him with a soft sound and her hands on his chest. She kissed her way down the left side of his neck, her hands reaching for the bottom of his shirt.

Marcus lifted his arms so she could pull it over his head and toss it aside. She settled back over his cock again, her fingers trailing gently down the scars covering his neck, left shoulder, chest and side. The nerve endings there were dead but his body didn’t seem to notice, her touch radiating all over him, right down to his aching cock.

The soft silk of her hair brushed across his chest as she bent her head and followed her fingers with her mouth. She kissed his scars, ducking to reach the ones over his ribs, then started at the top on the other side and worked her way down.

His pulse thudded in his ears when she looked up at him with those liquid dark eyes, her tongue darting out to lick his skin. “Stay still,” she whispered, then shifted back and scooted off him to kneel between his splayed thighs.

She murmured appreciatively and rubbed her palm over the bulge in his jeans. Marcus grabbed hold of the armrests to keep from reaching for her, unsure if he wanted to make her go faster or draw the anticipation out forever.

His mouth went dry as she undid his jeans, opened the denim and pulled the fabric down to expose him. His cock sprang free, lying thick and hard against his belly, and the sight of her face so close to his throbbing flesh had his thigh muscles bunching.

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