Page 48 of Kept in the Dark (Hitmen of Ulysses #2)

“Da,” I agree, blowing some cool air against her clit and making her giggle. My cock is pounding so hard against my leg that it may explode, but there is not enough room to safely fuck her this way. It will be much easier if she gets up first, and I bend her over the bench.

“Da,” she repeats, and I can hear the smile.

“I’ll admit, I wasn’t sure where you were going with this bar initially, but lying here and knowing I couldn’t sit up but not actually feeling the restraint of it was…

I don’t know. Fucking incredible. I never thought I was that girl who wanted to be tied up. ”

“I have no wish to tie you up,” I say simply.

I lay her legs down one at a time, letting her get used to their weight again, and stand.

As I walk around, I commit the sight of her to memory.

She has not yet fixed her bra, and her breasts are flushed and covered with the same glistening sweat that is on the rest of her body.

“You don’t?” she asks, sounding somewhat disappointed.

“Rope is not in my style. I prefer a more… manual approach.” I remove one of the heavy plates and then the other, reaching down to lift the bar out of the way for her so she can roll up.

When she turns back to look at me, I can see from her hazy, desire-filled eyes that she likes the distinction I have made. “You like to be handled by a man, da ?”

She smiles, lifting one leg and bringing it around so she can stand. “You mean manhandled?”

“That is what I said.”

She shakes her head. “The words are the same, but the connotation is slightly different. But either way, you’re right. I think I do like being manhandled, but only if you’re the man doing it.”

“Good. Then bend over the bench. Let me show you the proper form for—”

There is a buzzing against my leg. And then another. I curse.

“You want to get that?” she asks, glancing down at my pants.

No. I do not want to get that. I want to fuck her.

I want to never stop fucking her. “I should. It is usually important.” I have to add the qualifier because sometimes it is very much not, like a picture of James’s dinner or a sports match update from Wesley that I do not care about.

Whenever they get too off-topic, I leave the group chat.

I reach towards her, and she comes, as if pulled by an invisible force.

Wrapping my hand around the back of her neck, I tilt her head and kiss her.

The flavor of her, still on my lips, changes as she licks against the seam of my mouth.

I pull back and tilt her head down to kiss her forehead, then let her go to dig in my pocket.

As she finds her shorts on the floor and struggles to pull them on over her shoes, I scan the message. “It is… very important. Shit. I must go.”

“It’s fine,” she assures me, smiling. “I’ll just finish down here.”

Fueled by irritation at the interruption, I take the stairs two at a time. Wesley pauses with his drink halfway to his mouth when he sees me in the doorway of his office. “You look… more pissed off than usual,” he begins, glancing up and down with a curious frown. “Did I interrupt your workout?”

“Different kind of exercising, I think, Wes. Didn’t you hear them going at it like rabbits down there?

” James says from behind me. I spin, moving aside to allow him through the doorway and then following him inside.

The smell of coffee wafts behind him, and he salutes me with the mug as he settles into his chair.

I scowl at him. I do not wish for Nicole to be embarrassed that the others heard us. “We were not—”

“Don’t bother denying it, Big D. The chandeliers were shakin’,” he continues with a wink aimed at me.

Unlikely. They are bolted in. “We were not—”

Wesley groans. “In the gym, Dimitri? The gym we all use? Ugh. You’d better sanitize everything.”

“Why? Your OCD ass is just going to clean it again,” James quips. “And he’s far from the first to christen the gym. One time, Eleanor and I—”

“Animals. Both of you.”

It is ridiculous to think they might have heard anything through layers of wood and carpet, but I know this teasing is part of male camaraderie.

I perch against the side table behind the desk, looking between them with my arms crossed, but I cannot bring myself to admonish them for their childishness.

For the first time, I do not feel singled out as different or strange for my behavior.

Though the jokes are at my expense, they are meant to include me.

“You said you had news?” I say, adjusting my position. My cock is still half-hard.

“In a rush?” Wesley asks with an insincerity that I would normally find quite grating. This morning, it does not bother me so much. Though cut short, my “workout” with Nicole has put me in a good mood. I can still taste her on my lips.

“Yes. I am training Nicole.”

“To do what?” James asks, his double meaning plain as he waggles his eyebrows.

“ Koz’ye yaichko. What are these important updates?”

Wesley flashes a grin, but chooses not to make whatever humorous comment he is thinking. “A few things. First, I got through the first layer of security on the USB—a fairly simple PIN—but there’s another. And it’s multifactor. We need Viktor’s phone and a password. No way around it.”

With those small, simple words, a torrent of emotions is unleashed that is so strong, it is nearly painful. Once the pride in my team dissipates, I am left with a prickling irritation about this setback, and a cold kind of fear.

I promised her that once we cracked the USB, we would discuss her leaving. This is one step closer to that.

I cannot lose her, not now that I have just had her. There is too much left between us—too much unsaid, too much to explore.

“Snatch and grab, then,” James says, interlocking his fingers and resting them on the top of his head. A relaxed, leaned-back posture. He looks to me. “Store him on ice?”

Our faceless corporation owns several properties all over the tri-state area, which are useful to us.

The old butcher’s shop has a stainless-steel freezer that is soundproof and lockable from the outside, and it is in a quiet enough area that no one is around to see bodies being hauled in or out.

It has become the perfect short-term prison, with the added benefit that the threat of frostbite makes people much more willing to cooperate.

“ Da. We will need to infiltrate his life more closely to determine the points in his routine where he is the most unguarded. What are the other updates?”

“I’ve got our confirmation about Kyle.” Wearing an excited expression, Wesley turns the monitor to show us a grainy picture of the side of Kyle’s face through the front window of a car.

There is a timestamp at the bottom with a date.

“Traffic cam footage caught him leaving the home of our coroner in the wee hours of the morning after the wedding—well past his supposed time of death.”

“And this is why I drive the speed limit and do not run red lights,” I say, vindicated. I have been teased about this relentlessly for years—accused of driving like so many dead grandmothers.

“Yeah, yeah,” James rolls his eyes and waves dismissively. “So, he’s alive. Do we know where he is?”

“No. ”

“What about Felix?”

“That’s my last update. I had a hit on one of the aliases Mac sent me: Roberto Lomas bought petrol in a Podunk town in western Pennsylvania last night. No way to confirm it was Felix. No cameras.”

“Felix would know which places didn’t have cameras—could definitely be him,” James nods, thoughtfully stroking his chin. “Long way from home. Kinda seems like maybe he’s not involved in all this with Kyle and the coroner.”

My eyes cut to Wesley, and we both look at James. He has some lingering loyalty towards Felix that I do not quite understand. Perhaps it is an abundance of caution where my woman is concerned, but I would rather treat Felix as a dangerous unknown. I can see that Wesley agrees with me.

“I’ve been thinking about that. I know we can’t be certain they’re working together, but if you had to fake your own death, who would you go to?” Wesley asks carefully.

“You.”

Wesley smirks at the speed of James’s answer, but shakes his head. “If you couldn’t come to me.”

After a few seconds of grinding his jaw, James sighs.

“Felix. It’s not like he’s got a menu of services or anything, but he’s the guy who gets you things—he makes things happen.

” He sighs, casts his eyes towards the ceiling, and shakes his head.

“I just… I dunno. I know we can’t set our watches by my gut, but something doesn’t feel right about this. ”

“Explain,” I demand.

“It’s not like we’re pals or drinking buddies or anything, but I know people.

I know him. He goes where the money is, but he’s real careful and smart.

I’m not saying he doesn’t occasionally cross paths with a Bratva , but they’re not subtle.

They run guns and drugs. They’re on all kinds of FBI lists.

You get what I’m sayin’? A guy with a reputation as someone real careful and smart wouldn’t get in bed with the likes of them. ”

Wesley lifts a brow. “You’re saying working with a Bratva is not his style?”

“Kind of. He’d do a job for them, get himself set up with a fat stack or a favor or two, but he wouldn’t work with ‘em. The distinction is small, but it feels important. If he’s involved, he’s an independent player.

He’s got his own agenda—maybe it aligns with theirs, but it’s separate.

And to a point Big D’s made before, Volkevich has everyone he needs to take care of issues in-house.

Bratvas don’t use contractors. So why would he need Felix? ”

“Valid points,” Wesley admits. “Perhaps Kyle is working outside the family on something.”

“That’s my guess,” James shrugs.

“Well, I’d argue we need to keep Felix in our sights. He’s dangerous.”

“Fair enough,” James acquiesces, though his mouth is tight and his brows are drawn together. “Priority is Viktor and his phone. And Kyle.”

They both glance at me for the final word. Realistically, my opinion holds no more weight, but we often default to my decision since I assume the most risk as the man on the ground.

“It is poor form to kill useful, neutral men. James believes he is not directly involved. I would rather avoid violence against Felix for now, and focus on the job we have been paid to do.”

James’s brows shoot up. “Wow. This from the guy who loves violence,” he says, directing it at Wesley. “Usually, it’s not a last resort; it’s a first-round draft pick.”

“Truly baffling,” Wesley agrees dryly.

“Must be going soft in his old age.”

I roll my eyes. “But if it turns out that he is a threat to Nicole, I will not hesitate,” I tack on.

James’s smirk tilts to something altogether more bloodthirsty, and I receive a nod of approval from Wesley .

“And James, perhaps you should come down to spar with me if you truly think I am becoming soft, and I will show you that you are wrong,” I level the challenge at my sniper.

He laughs in his easy way. “I’ll hand you your own ass some other day, when I’m not covering it.”

I roll my eyes at his needling. Even if it were true that he could beat me as easily as he implies, it would be a testament to my own abilities as much as his—he has learned much more about hand-to-hand combat under my tutelage than from the US Army.

“You know, I’ve been charting points scored while sparring. Care to see just how many times you’ve handed Dimitri his arse in the past six months?” Wesley asks lightly, turning his screen slightly to display a graphic of a circle with two distinct colors.

“I assume it is the very small blue wedge in the much larger red circle,” I point to the screen, shamelessly taking immense satisfaction from the visual representation of my skills.

“You made a fuckin’ pie chart? Why am I not surprised?” James shakes his head, a small smile at the corners of his lips. “Where’s our sparring pie chart, you fuckin’ nerd? I’ve gotta be the bigger slice in that one.”

Wesley lifts one shoulder. “By a margin smaller than your ego, that’s for sure.”

I laugh, and the two of them turn around as if they had coordinated the movement in advance, gaping at me. I look between the two of them, but they just stare. “What?” I ask, scowling. “It was clever.”

They exchange a look. James snorts, and Wesley shakes his head and reaches for his mouse.

“I got the joke,” I say, still baffled by their reaction. “Normally, people enjoy it when you understand the things they say to be funny, da ?”

“Yeah. And you laughed at it. You never laugh.”

I scoff and push off the desk. “You are both ridiculous. I will finish what I started with Nicole, then return here so we can discuss the plan. ”

“Have you ever heard him laugh?” Wesley asks James, his question following me as I leave the room. I cannot tell if it is another joke, so I ignore it.

If this is what comes of showing Wesley that I understand his humor, I will save my laughter for someone who does not make me feel ridiculous for it. Like Nicole.