Page 13

Chapter thirteen

The Meeting

Mateo

O ver breakfast, I observed Kylie and Axel. Those two kept glancing at each other throughout the meal. Kylie’s cheeks pinkened at their intimate looks. I knew what they did last night. I had security set on the monitors that notified me with an alarm when someone joined Kylie in her bedroom.

The moment it went off, I rose from the small bed I had shoved in the corner of the surveillance room. It was easier to sleep there and be at the controls fast than to race from one room into another.

When I reached the controls, I watched Axel console Kylie over her nightmare—and everything that followed. I’d been transfixed seeing Axel strip her down and fuck her. They looked fucking hot together. Would Kylie be interested in fucking the rest of us? If so, I was game. It wouldn’t be the first time we shared a woman.

Kylie was smoking hot. But when she was lost in the passion with ecstasy coloring her features, she transformed into the most gorgeous woman on the planet. I hadn’t thought she could get any lovelier, and I had been wrong.

Axel and Kylie together had been the hottest fucking show for a voyeur like me. I had stroked one out like a man possessed. Because when I flipped on the camera mic in the room, her moans and whispered pleas arrowed straight to my dick. They didn’t know it, but the three of us came together.

“What are your plans this morning, Kylie?” Gideon asked, shoveling scrambled eggs into his mouth. Our leader might have initially protested over her cooking meals for us, but he was enjoying the hearty meals as much as the rest of us.

“Um, I was going to my yoga studio to work out some kinks,” she murmured. Her gaze flashed to Axel, who gave nothing away, except for the slight upward tilt of the corners of his mouth.

Kinks, my ass!

The only kink in this house was the sex between Axel and Kylie.

“Good. We’re having a security meeting. It’s nothing you need to be a part of or worry about. But we’ll be in the surveillance room for a bit. If something happens while we’re in there, head to the panic room in the basement. We’ll come for you once we’ve taken care of the security threat.”

We discovered three panic rooms in the house. One of them Kylie had known about since it was an offshoot from the master bedroom. But there was one on the first floor with access through her deceased husband’s office. And the other was in the basement, between the fitness room and movie room.

“Okay. I’ll be good and stay in the yoga studio until one of you come get me.”

“And?” Gideon could be a real stickler sometimes.

Kylie huffed. “And if something happens, I’m to head into the basement panic room and stay there until you come for me.”

“Exactly.” Gideon glanced at the three of us. “Be in the surveillance room in fifteen.”

“Will do.” I nodded, studying Axel’s expression as Kylie left the kitchen. His buddy looked like a man besotted.

I shook my head. I knew better than to allow my emotions to hamper a mission. No matter how good the pussy was, it was no excuse. Emotions interfered when critical decisions came into play.

I left the kitchen cleanup to the maid that had just arrived. Sandra was an older woman with kind brown eyes and salt-and-pepper hair. I had run a thorough background check on her, and it had come back clean enough. She had a driving under the influence charge in her twenties and a few traffic tickets, but nothing that sent up any red flags. She had good credit. Paid her bills. Had a small retirement nest egg. Her children were grown. One was serving in the Navy and was on active deployment somewhere in the South Pacific. Her other kid worked as a manager at a restaurant. So, she was in the clear.

I watched Axel fall into step beside Kylie. That dude couldn’t help himself around small, dainty women like Kylie. He had to be their protector, even if he never had sex with them.

I shook my head and headed up to my domain. I was totally going to give him shit about it.

In the surveillance room, I watched Axel drop Kylie off at the yoga studio. Gideon waltzed into the room. He strode up and glanced at the monitor with Axel and Kylie in the frame.

“What the fuck?”

“Yeah, I was going to bring it up.”

“Don’t bother. I’ll handle it when he gets here,” Gideon snapped with a furious scowl.

Chase strode in. “Why are you all pissed? Did something happen?” And then he spied the same thing Gideon had moments ago. “Well, hell. Axel got there first. I don’t know whether to toast him or feel jealous I couldn’t convince her to bounce on my balls.”

Gideon’s gaze snapped to Chase. “He could have put the entire operation at risk.”

“Ah, there’s the man of the hour now.” I tsked Axel over sleeping with her as he entered the room. Chase started clapping as if Axel had conquered a mythic feat.

Gideon whirled on Axel, looking like he would pummel the larger man into the ground. “What the fuck, Axel? Did you even think for two seconds what sleeping with her could do to this case?”

Axel scowled and glared at me. “I guess you caught the show and told them.”

“Mateo didn’t have to do a damn thing. We all saw you kiss her on the screen moments ago. It was far too intimate a kiss for it to be the first time,” Gideon snarled, getting in Axel’s face.

“Why shouldn’t we all fuck her? We’ve shared women before. She’s hot as hell, and I wouldn’t mind having her bouncing on my balls. It might create enough of a bond for her to trust us and divulge the intel we need to nab Santos,” Chase said with a Cheshire grin and casual shrug.

“Before you decide to make it a free for all with Kylie, I didn’t intend to fuck her last night. She started screaming bloody murder in the middle of the night. I rushed in, thinking something was wrong. Poor thing was having nightmares. I comforted her, and one thing led to another.” Axel might be bigger, but he always bowed to Gideon’s leadership. Then again, he’d gotten us through Iraq and Afghanistan, so our faith in him was well deserved.

“So, you took advantage of her. That’s even better.” Gideon rolled his eyes heavenward like he was praying for strength.

With his fists clenched, Axel argued, “No. It wasn’t like that at all. I tried to stop her. But she wanted me. And maybe you can turn down a gorgeous woman like Kylie, but I couldn’t. I’m not sorry for it, either. Because I got to see her scars.”

“Yeah, yeah, we all have emotional scarring. Boo fucking hoo.” Chase snorted.

“Not those types of scars, idiot. She has physical scars all over her torso. Kylie said that her husband liked to heat knives and burn her skin. He would cut her with them. And I’ve seen the proof. We all knew her husband was a douchebag. But I think he was even worse than suspected, given the scarring on her body. So yeah, I fucked her last night. A couple of times. And I would do it again in a heartbeat.”

“You think he beat her?” Chase asked contemplatively, because it was an angle none of us considered.

Axel nodded in the affirmative. “There’s no doubt after witnessing her wounds. It would align with his image, his personality. If the fucker wasn’t already dead. I would kill him myself for what he did to her.”

Chase pressed his palms over his heart. “Aww, you’re sweet on her.”

Axel wasn’t wrong. I butted into the conversation finally. “I’m still reviewing the feed from the security cameras before we arrived. There’s a shit ton to go through. But I don’t think Axel’s wrong, nor is she making up a story. Check this video out.”

I brought the video feed I wanted up on the screen with a few keystrokes. When I found the one I wanted, I hit play. “Take a look.” I nodded at the screen. The video played. As a group, we watched Kylie with her deceased husband at the front door, returning from some event. They were fighting. He backhanded her hard. Hard enough, the force slammed her slight body into the wall with the recoil. Then she was holding her cheek while her husband got in her face and started knocking her around.

Axel roared. “Son of a bitch!”

“Damn, he beat the shit out of her.” Gideon frowned, like he hadn’t expected this turn of events. He was rarely wrong about anyone or anything, so this couldn’t be easy for him, reassessing what he thought he knew.

Chase’s voice was laced with disgust as he said, “She weighs what, a buck twenty? A guy like that could do a lot of harm.”

“Then there’s this one from the following day.” I pulled up the video feed of Kylie outside by the pool in the backyard. She was in a bikini exposing the scars on her belly that Axel mentioned, lounging with sunglasses on, looking lovelier than any woman had a right to. But we could clearly see that her lip was split and swollen. And we could discern right around the periphery of the sunglasses, the dark discoloration of bruising around one of her eyes.

Axel swore. “Fuck. I’d kill the motherfucker if he wasn’t already dead.”

Gideon rubbed his chin, his eyes distant as the wheels in his head spun. “So, we know his widow holds no love or allegiance to the deceased. We could use that to our advantage.”

“What do you propose?” Chase asked, leaning forward with his elbows propped on his knees.

A half smile curled the corners of his mouth up as Gideon said, “Axel beat us all to the punch, but it wouldn’t be the first time we shared. It might be our best angle. A woman like that, who has been abused, will be aching for praise and adoration in the bedroom.”

I wanted to crow in my seat at the sharp turn, but I kept a straight face as I asked the boss. “So, we share her? Get her to trust us? And then, what?”

Chase had his devil-may-care smile plastered over his face. “And then find out what she knows while keeping her safe. It’s a win-win for all parties.”

“She’s not a piece of fucking meat,” Axel snarled vehemently, seething, like he was ready to tear us limb from limb. The big guy was really sweet on the widow. Not that I blamed him after the performance I saw last night.

“Are you claiming her as yours, then?” Chase asked Axel with raised brows.

Axel opened his mouth to argue. Closed it. Scowled. Then said in a deep voice, “No. But don’t make her promises you don’t intend to keep.”

Chase was all sly dog as he responded, “The only promise I ever make is that I will make them scream with pleasure. Think she’d be down for some double or triple team action?”

I hoped she was. There had only been a handful of women who enjoyed having sex with all four of us at the same time. And it was something each of us enjoyed immensely. There was something almost poetic about each of us fucking the same woman at the same time.

Axel glanced at each of us with a dark scowl. “Do whatever the fuck you want.” Then he slammed out of the room.

He’d get over it. Eventually. But it was open season on the sultry widow. And I, for one, was looking forward to charming her out of her panties.