REDEEMING THE ROSE: GILDED KNIGHTS SERIES BOOK 1 Read online

  It’s fine. This’ll be easy.

  There’s no way this will blow up in my face and go bad.

  * * *

  I’m a whore. A dirty, two-bit, loose as a corner-gal, immoral bimbo… but this bimbo pants while I lay sprawled out on my couch, and my knees squeeze Mitchell’s shoulders.

  I lay on my back, my legs splayed open, my pulse in my ears, and Mitchell rests on his stomach, a portion of his body on the couch; the rest, he supports with his knees on the floor. There’s just not enough room for us both laid out like this, but it doesn’t matter, because I ride Mitchell’s face as my third orgasm of the day teeters on the brink of oblivion.

  Mitchell is on night shifts this week, and I have the day off work. Which means he snuck into my home as soon as his shift ended this morning, and since I have nowhere to be, we’ve enjoyed every single minute of having no one check up on us.

  Every single delicious second.

  “Nadia…”

  Mitchell’s tongue does filthy, dirty, magical things to my pussy. And whatever his tongue does, his fingers follow, to ensure I can’t escape insanity. His hips bump against the couch, his hunger for pleasure palpable and painful. The stubble on his jaw burns my skin, and his hands, large and powerful, bruise my thighs. But I can’t find it in my head, heart, or soul to tell him to stop.

  No. But I manage to thread my fingers in his hair and tug him closer.

  My spine arches at an unnatural angle, and my throat aches from my growls of pleasure. But my stomach is filled with fire, and my orgasm teases the edge of my sanity. “That’s so…” I squeeze my eyes shut. “Fuck, Mitchell. That feels so good.”

  “Come on my face.” His voice is husky and mean. “Nadia. Come—”

  “Oh god! Mitchell, I—”

  The sound of the wire screen door invades my senses first, then a heavy knock comes next, and my eyes shoot wide open, my orgasm, gone and buried somewhere I’ll never again find it.

  Hearing the same thing I did, Mitchell abandons his work, and his head whips up high. He looks around the room, as though expecting someone to be here with us. My pleasure glistens on his chin, his hair is messed and pointing in a million directions because of my hands. He was drowning in lust and need a moment ago, his eyes hooded and hungry. Now they search the room for our intruder.

  “Mail?” His voice is rough, commanding, but low. “You expecting something?”

  “Oh shit.” My heart skitters with genuine fear when the bright yellow Post-It on my fridge teases my brain. “Oh fuck.”

  I scurry along the couch and fumble for my clothes. I’m wet, my couch is wet, and when I pull my panties up, they get wet too. But fear makes me choke. It makes my hands shake when I realize what I’ve done.

  “I forgot.” My eyes jump to Mitchell’s. “Oh no,” I whimper. “I forgot.”

  “What did you forget?” He jumps to his feet and tugs a pair of jeans on, then he stalks to the front window and growls when he sees what I know he’ll be seeing right now. “You have a visitor, Nadia? A fuckin’ dude?”

  “It’s so much worse!”

  I dive for my shirt, then hiss when my elbow clips my new lampshade and sends the base crashing to the floor. Pink ceramic spreads like water on my rug, but it’s worse than water, because it cuts the bottom of my foot when I don’t stop moving.

  “Get dressed. Get dressed!” I toss Mitchell’s shirt across the room so it smacks his chest and drops into his waiting hands. “Hurry up! Then go out the back.”

  “Out the back?” he snarls. “You want me to run away and hide from your dude visitor? Are you insane?”

  “Yes! Because it’s not just any visitor, it’s a snitch! Now go!” I race across the living room and grab Mitchell’s arm. It’s rock-hard from adrenaline, and possibly from the orgasm he didn’t get to have. “You need to leave, Mitchell.”

  “My truck is out the front,” he counters. “Whoever owns the fuckin’ Humvee knows I’m here.”

  “Oh god!” I stumble my way toward the front door, and work on my shirt, since it’s not yet sitting right. “I have to…” I place a hand on the doorknob and swallow down what may be a heart attack. “Oh shit.” I close my eyes, and hesitantly crack the door open.

  Then I’m met with a sexy, seven-foot-tall Spencer Serrano, with a leering smile, and a heavy box held securely in one arm.

  Chuckling when our eyes meet, he brings his free hand up and points at his own throat. “You got a big ol’ hickey right there on your neck, miss.”

  My eyes widen, and before my brain can catch up, I swing a hand up to my neck and incriminate myself.

  “It’s company policy that I apologize for interrupting,” he sniggers, “but it would be a lie, and I’m not about that life.”

  “I forgot you were coming today.” My face burns, and my stomach simply doesn’t exist anymore. I dropped it somewhere inside. “I’m so sorry.”

  Spencer snorts and readjusts his box of everything I ordered when I realized I may have housemates I’ve never met.

  Whoever they are, they’re not dangerous. They don’t steal. They make no noise and no mess. But I’m certain they use my shower, my kitchen, and hang out while I’m not home. Then they race out again the moment I pull into the driveway.

  It’s ridiculous that I feel bad for them; I feel guilty that they think they can’t be more open about their presence. I know it’s irrational and weird, but there it is anyway. A secret I’ve kept from Mitchell. A secret that slipped my mind once Mitchell began taking my clothes off.

  The security system being delivered and installed today has nothing to do with securing my home, and everything to do with finding out what happens when I’m out.

  “I can assure you,” Spencer drawls with much too much pleasure in my discomfort. “I didn’t come today. But I am here to install your security. Wanna let me in?”

  “Umm…”

  Mitchell moves around behind me, grumbling and infuriated. I know exactly how he feels about this man—or, more accurately, this man’s potential involvement with Abby—but before I can slam the door shut and pray my boss’ maybe-secret-lover didn’t see the truck parked outside, Mitchell grabs the door and steps into the open anyway.

  His hair is messy, his shirt still isn’t on, and I may have bitten him at some point today. But none of it matters when his and Spencer’s eyes meet.

  “Serrano.”

  Mitchell is fuming, but Spencer’s grin transforms back into a leer.

  “Mitchell-fucking-Rosa. Well, hump my leg and call me Dolly. This is an interesting turn of events. Does Abigail know you’re fucking her assistant?”

  “Oh god.” It’s all of my worst nightmares in one sentence. My brain, splattered on the concrete, a baseball bat laid out beside the gray matter. A termination letter in my email when Abigail finds out and dismisses me like she doesn’t care if she never sees my face again. “Oh no.”

  * * *

  “You need to keep this shit to yourself.” Mitchell follows Spencer everywhere he goes in my home. The downstairs ex-main, to the stairs, the halls, my bedroom. Spencer’s grin is gone, and now he’s settled on a scowl while Mitchell hounds his every step.

  I should stop this. I should stop these men butting heads every two seconds. But I have no strength left, no will to live, and no way out of this mess.

  Is Spencer going to tell Abby? Is he going to bite at Mitchell’s attacks and demands about his sister? Is he going to do the job I ordered weeks ago, long before I realized the connection between Checkmate Security and my boss’ potential boyfriend?

  “I need to keep you and your afternoon delight to myself?” Spencer drills a hole into my kitchen wall. “Why?”

  “Because what I do in my spare time is none of anyone’s business,” Mitchell snaps. “Least of all yours.”

  “But why does it matter? I don’t get bent out of shape if people know who I’m fucking.”

  Oh god. I sit on my couch, my head in my hands, and whimper at Spe
ncer’s jabs. He’s trying to make Mitchell snap. He’s trying to get a reaction.

  “You better not be fucking anyone!” And there it is. “You don’t touch my sister, and for as long as she’s looking at you, you don’t fuck anyone else. Abigail is special, so if you break her heart, I’ll take you the fuck out.”

  “Mmhm.” Spencer moves about my kitchen and works. “I’m not breaking anyone’s heart, Rosa. Whatever you think you know, you’re wrong.”

  “Abby isn’t a toy for you.” A thud in the next room draws my attention in a heartbeat. “You don’t see how different you two are? You’re a fucking thug, she’s pure. You look like… you. And she’s perfect.”

  “You don’t like my ink, motherfucker?” Spencer spits back at the insult. “Should I not mention the chest piece I see under your crooked shirt, or the ink I saw on your girl’s belly when she was pretending everyone walks around with messed-up buttons?”

  “Don’t look at her fucking belly!”

  Fuckkkkk.

  “I never said I was anything for your sister, Rosa. I never said we were fucking. I never said we were dating. I didn’t say shit. You boys assert yourselves on her, you gag her, smother her, and act like it’s all for her own good, and when she steps out of the lines you’ve carefully drawn up for her, you make assumptions and look like dicks while doing it.”

  “How do you know we smother?” Mitchell demands. “If you don’t know her, how do you know what we do?”

  The guys stop at my counter and stand toe-to-toe.

  “I never said I don’t know her. I’ve talked to her a time or two. We sat together at Bishop’s wedding. I’ve been into her shop a couple times—”

  “She didn’t come home two nights ago!”

  “Okay… well…” Spencer smirks and signs his own death certificate. “So we’re friends. But I know you smother her, because every time we’re in the same room, you or your brothers get in my face and act like I’m trying to make her my slave.”

  “She is special,” Mitchell sneers. “She can’t cope with what you’re selling. She needs to be left alone so she can focus on her, not chased after by a man who will never be the Prince Charming she’s been waiting for. Twenty-five years, Serrano, and this is the first time she’s started clapping back at us. It’s the first time she’s copped an attitude, the first fucking time she’s been out all night and not taken our calls.”

  And here we are, talking about Abby again.

  “God forbid the woman grows a little spine and pushes her obsessed brothers back to where they should have been all along,” Spencer retorts.

  “We’re not obsessed! We’re her protectors. We’re what stands between her and the cruel world. We’re the ones who pick her up when she falls. And you…” Mitchell slams his fist against Spencer’s chest. “You’re going to knock her down again.”

  “How could you know what I’m doing? You don’t know me.”

  “She’s not a one-night stand! She’s not a fuck and run.”

  “But Nadia is?”

  Spencer’s words make Mitchell freeze.

  His eyes come to me for a moment, then back to Spencer. “Don’t talk about her.”

  “Don’t hide her! If you wanna fuck, fuck. If you wanna have a raging affair, have an affair and make it fun. But the fact you hide her makes me curious.”

  “Don’t get curious.” Mitchell steps around, so his back is to me and he acts as some kind of shield to keep me safe from the commando. “What I do is none of your business.”

  “Funny,” Spencer snarls. “I could say the same about you getting up in my business. I don’t know you, man. We aren’t friends, we aren’t brothers. We aren’t colleagues or penpals. I’m a messed-up motherfucker, and I’m not scared to get my hands dirty. I haven’t put you down yet, because no matter how mad Abigail gets about you being in her face all the time, I know she’d still get upset if I hurt you. But make no mistake, what you call protection, she considers smothering. And the second she finds it hard to breathe, I’ll clear the way for her. Sit the fuck down,” he growls. “I’m here now.”

  20

  Mitchell

  The Audacity

  I walk laps of Nadia’s living room as Serrano roars away from her place a couple hours after he walked in. My blood sizzles with rage, and my hands tingle with the want to do damage. I was enjoying a day with my girl, enjoying every fucking inch of her skin, but then that motherfucker comes in and screws with it all.

  “Sit down, Mitchell.” Nadia slumps back on the couch with a sigh. “You’re exhausting me.”

  “I want to kill him.” I walk past her and stop by the TV, then pace back again, only to stop by the door. On every lap, I look out the window and expect to find that fucker driving up again for another round. “I want to end his life and get him away from Abby.”

  “Why? You mad he wants to protect her?” Nadia’s voice is cranky, sarcastic, and exhausted, all in one. “What a bastard, huh? How dare he care for a woman and make that known to those around her?”

  “He doesn’t get to care for my sister!” I spin toward the couch and snarl. “And pot, meet kettle! I told you I loved you. Days ago! And you haven’t said shit back.”

  Stunned by my outburst, she sits taller and meets my eyes. “What?”

  “How dare he care for a woman and make that known to those around her? I tried to tell you, and you acted like I punched you in the fucking face.”

  “I did not!” Bad temper for bad temper, Nadia shoves to her feet and stands on my level. “I didn’t act like anything.”

  “No? Because you sure as shit acted deaf. You didn’t react, and you didn’t say it back.”

  “How are we even fighting about this right now? You’re mad at a guy because he likes your sister, and now you’re gonna take it out on me?”

  “I’m not taking anything out on anyone. I’m merely responding to your words. He likes someone, so he’s making it known to everyone around him. I love someone, and we’re on the fuckin’ downlow like it’s shameful.”

  “It’s not shameful,” she argues. “It’s my job at risk. Not to mention my skull when your sister finds her baseball bat.”

  “Bullshit!” I step forward so I’m shouting in her face. I’ve lost my temper. I’ve lost my fucking mind. “You can say you love me back while we’re alone. Abby won’t know about it, ya know!”

  “No? Well, I don’t want to say it! I’ve never said those words to a man in my life, so what makes you think you can have them simply because you’ve decided you like my cooch?”

  “Still defaulting to crass bullshit when you’re wrong, huh?”

  “Still obsessed with controlling everyone around you, huh? You’ll control me, if I allow it. And you insist on controlling Abby, even though she’s a grown fucking woman and can take care of herself.”

  “Wait.” I bounce back, like her words are a suckerpunch to my gut. “You think what she and Serrano are doing is okay? You think my baby sister being looked at by someone like that,” I point toward the window, the road, “isn’t a power imbalance and an abusive relationship in the making?”

  “No!” She throws a hand up. “I think he adores her more than even you do. And I think whatever relationship you get into, with whoever, is an abusive relationship in the making.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about? Abusive? Are you crazy?”

  “First of all, asswipe. You don’t call a woman crazy, ever. It’s not gonna go down well. Second, that word is actually a catchphrase that abusive bastards use all the time to catch a woman off-guard and plant the seeds of doubt in her mind. I would know; my uncle David tried it a million times before—and after—his marriage dissolved. Third, yes you, and yes, abusive. You need to control people. You have your insecurities, your neuroses, and instead of working on yourself and trying to find peace, you force everyone else around you into a straight little line so that everything is neat and tidy and safe for you.”

  “Oh? We’re gonna talk
insecurities and neuroses, are we? Okay.” I grab her shoulders, and yank her forward so she’s forced to meet my eyes and stay put. “I love you, Nadia Reynolds. The kind of love I’d like to marry and grow old with. Because despite your crass attitude and impulsive ways, despite how fucking mean you can be sometimes, I really wanna be with you.” I look around the room, make a point of showing that no one is here. “Abby can’t hear you. No one is gonna snitch. I said I love you, so what do you say back?”

  “That you’re acting like a child! That you’re stomping your feet and demanding a toy you were told no to. You’re mad because Spencer disrupted your straight little line, you’re furious about it, and now you’re in damage-control mode. I’m the only person here, so I’m taking the brunt of your bullshit, but I have no doubt that the moment you leave here, you’ll run to Abby and try to corral her too. How dare she meet a man she likes? Huh? How dare she not seek your permission first!”

  “He’s not right for her! He’s not even in the same fucking stratosphere.”

  “Too bad it isn’t up to you! From where I sit, she’s grown, and she will never require your permission.”

  “She cares what I think. She doesn’t need permission, but she will need approval. And look at that, you’ve magically skipped over your turn to tell me you love me.”

  “Because I don’t want to say it!” she roars. Her words are so final, so fucking certain, that my heart stops for a beat. “What don’t you hear when I say that, Mitchell? What don’t you understand?”