Page 54 of Double Shot

It took some getting used to, and I was really,reallyhoping we weren’t going to be here long enough to get used to it. I wanted to gohome, and byhomeI meant America. It felt like I knew the rules better on our home turf and I definitely wanted back on the home court advantage.

Roan and I were staring at his laptop screens, me perched on his good leg, his arms around me as he clicked through screens and spoke urgently into his mic.

Lach had either taken out his earpiece or switched us off and that made me extremely nervous even despite Roan’s assurances that this was actually a good thing and perfectly normal when a job was well done.

I jumped and bolted to my feet when we heard him at the door. Or rather, heardsomeone.

I very nearly cried out in relief when he stepped through and I went to him, thrusting myself against his lean, hard body, twining my arms around his waist as he leaned back against the door to shut it.

“Hey, what’s the matter?” he asked and I looked up at him. He smiled down at me and took his hands from his pockets, capturing my face between them. I made a noise somewhere between surprise and protest as he covered my mouth with his.

I froze, stuck between welcoming the kiss and cringing from the sensation of the thick wet he smeared along my cheeks with his thumbs.

“Mate!” Roan called out with reproach and Kyle drew back, a dreamy look in his obsidian eyes that I didn’t usually see untilafterwe’d had sex. He let me go and looked at his hands which were covered in thick, sticky, congealing blood and I felt vomit burn the back of my throat. I put the back of my hand to my lips which still tingled with his kiss.

“Aw, shit, I’m sorry Shady. Come on, come take a shower with me, I’ll help you get it off.”

I nodded and looked back over my shoulder at Conan who nodded, his green eyes shuttered and unreadable, the set of his mouth disapproving, yet softening when he saw the alarm on my face. He jerked his head at Kyle’s back and I nodded and trusting Conan that he knew what was up, followed my other lover into the bathroom where I tried very hard not to look in the mirror.

“C’mere, baby,” Kyle murmured and drew me into his arms again. I slipped the straps of my satin nightgown off my shoulders and let it puddle at my feet just inside the door.

He took off his black bomber jacket, revealing the plain black fitted tee underneath. He had on black tacticaleverythingfrom pants, to the belt holding them up, to the boots on his feet. I didn’t think about things too hard. I tried not to fixate on his bloody hands, I just offered up my lips and murmured, “Please don’t touch me until we get that off,” and started to work on his belt, peeling the Velcro, slipping the long tongue through the belt loops so I could free it through the buckle.

He groaned, holding his hands out to his sides, the fingers flexing as though he battled mightily with the need to have his hands on me.

His belt free and hanging open, I gathered his tee in my hands and he raised his arms over his head, we broke the kiss just long enough for him to raise his arms to allow me to pull it over his head and once his upper body was freed, I don’t know… it’s like he lost himself and lost focus, his arms going around me and his hands on my back half grabbing my ass, he hauled me up against his trim, hard chest and God, if he wasn’twarm.

I worked at things between us. Getting his pants open, sliding his boxer-briefs down, and wrapping fingers around his cock, stroking him.

“What would you have me do, Mr. Lachlan?” I asked him in as sultry a voice I could manage.

“Stop,” he whispered. “No games, no Mr. Lachlan… not tonight,” he said. “I’m just me this time. Just Kyle and his Shady.”

I felt a tremor that went soul deep followed by a wave of shock. I stared up at him and swallowed hard stammering out, “I… I don’t understand.”

He smiled at me then, his usually hard and dark eyes that reminded me of glittering obsidian, softer somehow. Soft like they used to get when he looked at me when we were kids. I thought that look was lost to me with the man that Kyle Lachlan had become, but it was back, it was here right now, and I felt drawn to him like a moth to the flame.

His arms went around me as I sank against him and into that look gratefully and we kissed for I don’t know how long.

I don’t remember how he got out of his boots, just that he did, stepping on the cuffs of his pants to get out of them before drawing me into the shower, working the knobs deftly to get the spray going while I stood well out of it as he adjusted the temperature.

He ran the water over his hands, the worst of it coming off, and when satisfied, he held out a mostly clean hand to me. I swallowed hard and took it and he turned me into the spray. I gasped as the deliciously hot water hit me right between the shoulders, the tension that rode there with my uncertainty easing marginally with the onslaught.

Kyle smiled down at me and it was like nothing I had seen by way of expression to date. Soft, gentle, a little boy’s smile on the cold hard man’s face and I delighted in it. He loaded his hands with soap and got the rest of the blood off while I luxuriated under the hot spray, and when he was done? He soaped his hands again and held them out as though asking. I nodded, and he smiled and smoothed gentle fingers over my face. I closed my eyes as he made small circles with his fingertips, paying close attention to what I assumed were the bloody patches left by his thumbs in the other room. He smoothed those same fingertips along the sides of my neck, brushing my wet hair back over my shoulders and I relished the sensation in the killer in front of me being so gentle, so careful of me.

“Head back, Shady,” he murmured, barely loud enough for me to hear over the running water.

I tipped my head carefully back, soaking the rest of my hair and with Kyle looking on, closed my eyes and tipped it back even further, letting the shower spray rinse the soap and blood from my face.

His arms went around me, and his lips went to the hollow of my throat where my collar bones came together. I barely had the presence of mind to tip my face yet further back out of the spray before I gasped.

I tangled my fingers gently in his wet hair as he kissed his way down my body, slowly going to his knees in front of me, looking up at me as though I were the Mona Lisa indeed; the finest work of art that he’d ever laid eyes on. Something special, something sweet radiated from him. A contentment and I didn’t know why but it both moved me and bothered me. I thrust the latter aside for now, in favor of reveling in the former as he nuzzled my stomach, closing his eyes and just holding me close for a long moment as I slicked my hands back through his hair, lightly scratching his scalp with my nails.

“God, I love you, Shady my Sadie,” he murmured and I smiled, whatever misgivings holding whatever tension in my back and shoulders relinquished for the time being.

“And I love you,” I said back softly. He looked up at me then, resting his chin against my chest, between my breasts and looking up at me with such anadorationpractically begged me, “Say that again?”

“I love you,” I told him and I meant it. I loved him madly, deeply, not precisely the way I loved Conan, no, not exactly the same, but I loved him. So much. I loved each of my men equally for very different reasons, but Ididlove them both and losing either of them? I knew it was a risk we took, I had already lived it once, and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I wouldn’t survive it a second time. Not losing Kyle, not losing Conan… they were both now such a part of me but I had to confess Kyle maybe deeper so in one aspect – I had a history with him that ran so very deep.

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