Chapter 5 #3
Kyle thought he was done being impressed with Jamie’s wealth.
Turned out he wasn’t.
Standing in the front living room of an eleven-room gated property in the ultra-wealthy Kensington district in London proved to Kyle that he was way, way out of his league.
Tucking his hands into his jacket pockets, he rocked back on his heels and stared up at the delicate light fixtures extending from the ceiling, listening with half an ear as the rest of the team hauled everything in from the SUVs and deposited them in rooms they had no trouble finding.
Liam had confirmed that UMG agents had cleared the house of any possible electronic surveillance, which was great, but that was one less thing Kyle could’ve helped with.
He’d offered to help unload the vehicles and been shut down by everyone. Carrying his own weight was, apparently, not something he was supposed to do anymore as Jamie’s arm candy. If he were honest, Kyle really didn’t like that.
He’d spent a good chunk of his childhood relying on himself because he couldn’t rely on his family before they’d died.
The years he’d lived with the Dvorkins showed him a family that pitched in with everything and shared whatever they had, even when they didn’t have much.
Going into the Army and, later, into Strike Force was a master class in learning to rely on yourself and your brothers and sisters in arms. Standing on the sidelines like he was useless was pissing Kyle off.
“<>” Alexei asked in Russian as he came over to Kyle and slung an arm over his shoulders.
“>”
Alexei peered around them at the open layout filled with expensive furniture and pricey artwork, the stairs that led up to the second and third stories, and the glass french doors that opened out into an actual garden.
The house extended two levels into the ground to get around the height restrictions for residential building codes.
It was not at all what they were accustomed to.
They’d both grown up in cramped residential towers in Boston, and Alexei remembered a time when his family lived out of honest-to-God tents in a refugee camp before getting transferred into one of the many refugee cities that had popped up over the last century in the Eastern European contested region.
The space of this house, the entrenched wealth that filled it, wasn’t comfortable.
“>” Alexei reminded him, using the affectionate diminutive of his name their mother had bestowed on him the first time Alexei dragged him home after school when they were younger.
“<>”
Alexei gave him a little shake. “>”
“<>” Kyle waved a hand to encompass the space they stood in. “<>”
Alexei sighed deeply—then smacked Kyle upside the head. “>”
Kyle elbowed him, hard, in the side.”<>”
“>”
“>”
“<>” Alexei stubbornly replied. “>”
“>”
Alexei gave him an unimpressed look before shoving him toward the stairs. “<>”
Kyle gave him the middle finger, because that was their nonverbal version of I love you and had been since they were kids, before taking the stairs two at a time to the second floor.
He slowed his pace once he came off the last step, his sneakers sinking into the plush runner rug spanning the length of the hallway.
Seven bedrooms—not counting an office, parlor, a library with actual books, and an entertainment level on the first sublevel—meant there was enough room for them all if one or two bunked up with each other.
If everyone could hide from the stranger in their midst the fact that Kyle would be sleeping with Jamie.
Figuring out where the master bedroom suite was located didn’t take very long.
The door was half-open, Jamie’s many Goyard suitcases stacked neatly near the walk-in closet.
The number of clothes and accessories Jamie had insisted everyone bring, not to mention the quality he paid for out of his own pocket when they came up short, would’ve been ridiculous if Kyle didn’t understand that appearances in this world were just as important as a person’s wealth.
Shaking his head, Kyle tipped the first suitcase flat on the floor and opened it up, intent on unpacking since it was the only thing he could do.
He was nearly done hanging up all the suits Jamie had chosen to bring with him when he heard footsteps approaching the bedroom.
“Kyle? Alexei said you were up here,” Jamie called out.
“Yeah,” Kyle said as he secured the clasp on the second to last suitcase and pushed it against the wall in the closet. “Keeping busy.”
Jamie stepped inside the bedroom, closing the door behind him and locking it. Kyle ignored Jamie in favor of finishing the unpacking.
“Donovan’s making everyone brunch. It should be ready in about thirty minutes,” Jamie said.
“Great. I’m starving.”
“You’re pissed.”
“That too,” Kyle admitted through clenched teeth.
Jamie unbuttoned his suit jacket and shrugged out of it, carrying it with him into the closet so he could hang it up. He leaned his shoulder against the doorframe once he was done, loosening his tie a little as he watched Kyle work.
Kyle could outwait him, but he wasn’t in the mood to. “I hate being useless.”
“It’s for the cover—”
“I know it’s for the fucking cover. I just hate it.” Kyle shook his head, trying to ignore how closely useless rubbed up against helpless. “Reminds me too much of when I was a kid.”
The admission was hard to make, but Kyle knew Jamie would understand. This wasn’t a wartime PTSD issue so much as a childhood one, and he hated being reminded of that, especially right now.
“I’m sorry,” Jamie said quietly.
“It’s not your fault.”
“I agreed to the mission.”
“That doesn’t make it your fault. If it wasn’t you, it would’ve been someone else, but the director was right. You’re the best man for the job. You usually are.”
Fingers carded through his hair, and Kyle sighed, leaning into the touch, not fighting it when Jamie gently pulled at his hair to tilt his head back. The look in his blue eyes wasn’t one Kyle had ever seen before, and he couldn’t parse it. He wasn’t sure he wanted to.
“No matter what happens, I want you to know that I’ll keep you safe,” Jamie said in a deep voice that sent a shiver down Kyle’s spine.
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
Because they both knew better than to promise something like that.
Jamie was his captain, and Kyle would follow him anywhere, even to his death.
Considering the job they had, that was a distinct possibility that woke them both up some nights, shaking from nightmares they never wanted to talk about for fear of making them a reality.
Jamie’s hand moved to cup the side of Kyle’s face, the calluses on his fingers familiar.
Kyle didn’t have any, not anymore. His rapid healing meant wounds disappeared in minutes or hours, depending on their severity, and he’d lost all the scars he used to have on his body when he first became a metahuman, the chapters of a life carved into skin and etched in bone—gone.
“I’ll make whatever promises I damn well want when it comes to you,” Jamie said fiercely.
Kyle swallowed, the uncertainty he’d felt when he first walked into this house that was too much, too everything he wasn’t, washing away beneath the steel in Jamie’s voice.
Kyle grabbed at Jamie’s arm, using him as leverage to get to his feet.
Jamie helped him up, the strength in his hands a promise all their own as Jamie walked him backward to the huge, comfortable-looking bed situated between a pair of floor-to-ceiling windows.
When Jamie kissed him, it was hot and demanding, a deep claim that stole the breath from Kyle’s lungs.
He was dizzy from it, barely cognizant of Jamie turning them around so Jamie could sit on the bed while he pushed Kyle down, down to his knees.
The kiss broke when his knees hit the soft rug, one hand tangled in Jamie’s tie, the other gripping the now-wrinkled, ruined collar of his dress shirt.
Jamie’s eyes were more black than blue when he nipped at Kyle’s lips, a tiny, punishing bite.
“Hands behind your back.”
Kyle unclenched his hands from Jamie’s clothes and dropped them down to his sides before clasping them behind his back, fingers wrapped around his wrists.
“Breathe.”
The ugly doubt in his mind—about them, about this situation—disappeared in moments as he breathed through the stress and pushed through to the other side, following Jamie’s order.
“That’s it. Just like that, baby.”
The calmness drifting through him felt a lot like when he was behind his sniper rifle and looking through the scope, waiting to shoot.
Kyle watched hungrily as Jamie undid his belt and the zipper to his expensive dress pants, pulling his underwear down beneath his cock and balls.
His cock wasn’t hard, not yet, but Kyle didn’t care.
He just wanted it in his mouth, in his throat, to know that this was where he belonged—safe in Jamie’s hands.