“What the fuck, man? I thought that was for us?” Randy, red hair sticking up at odd angles and freckled face flushed, reached to snatch back a piece of toast.
The point of the knife came down in a swift arc, pinning Randy’s hand to the gleaming marble though it stopped short of puncturing flesh.
“That is for her now.” Ilya growled, eyes never leaving Randy as he placed the toast back on Quinn’s plate.
Knowing better than to argue the point, Quinn kept her eyes on her plate as she covered the eggs with a liberal amount of the thick red sauce. Andres might be Lee’s right hand in business affairs, but it was Ilya who saw that things were carried out in the physical sense. He dominated the other males in more than just size.
If he said the breakfast was hers, it was hers now.
Darryl chuckled and shrugged, leaning against the open refrigerator to peer at its contents. A frosty bottle of beer came out wrapped in his beefy palm, the top popping off and clattering to the counter. With a silent salute, he ambled out of the kitchen towards whatever it was they did when not on a job.
Randy grumbled, taking his hand back with care before he, too, left the kitchen. A final glare was sent over his shoulder at Ilya before he let the door swing shut behind him.
“Good,da?”
“They’re very good, thank you,” Quinn mumbled to the eggs, scooping up another precarious forkful before shoveling it into her mouth. The sweet burn of chilis reminded her of all the wrong things, but the bigger she had gotten, the more she had craved the delicious tingle. Tears brimming along her lashes, she hid a sniffle under the pretense of nibbling at her toast.
“Your back?”
“What?”
“Your back, it aches,da?” Ilya gestured at her slumped shoulders, taking in the way she shifted and squirmed. At her wary look, he smiled wide, full of teeth and dangerous sincerity as he came around the counter.
“What are you doing?” Panic laced her voice as he took up the space behind her, warm and imposing as his shadow fell over her. Dwarfed under his size, she jostled and would have vaulted off the stool if his hands hadn’t held her to the chair.
“Calm,kroshka. It is only you and me. I will not tell.”
Before Quinn could fill her lungs with enough air to scream, his hands slipped down over the curve of her shoulders and dug into the knotted muscles of her lower back. Fingers kneading the snarled aches, he gave another delighted rumble when Quinn slumped.
Cheek meeting cool stone, Quinn held back the gratified moan that battered against the back of her teeth. Memories flooded her eyes, trickled over her lashes and stained her cheeks as she allowed the male to touch her. The deep, pinching pain was manipulated into something tolerable with each hard caress.
“You miss him.” Ilya’s mangled voice was a breath of coarse sandpaper. More statement than question, he didn’t give Quinn time to formulate an answer before he continued in the same hoarse whisper. “Omega needs her mate, needs the things only he can provide.”
Words sat thick and salty on Quinn’s tongue, burnt ash and razed dreams choking her as a little more of her soul leeched away. Closing off the world with a slow meeting of wet lashes, she pretended not to understand at all. For long minutes Ilya allowed her to play the game, plying her flesh and smoothing away the little aches and gnawing pains.
It wouldn’t last.
“You have pain through here,” Ilya asked, massaging the taut muscle of her sides. Fingers dipped low, into the cradle of her hips, under the heaviness of her belly. Under the taut elastic of her pants. Callused fingers scoured bare flesh, the rhythmic clutch of his palms hugging her belly.
Tension snapping back into place in a whiplash of fear, Quinn sat up too fast. White knuckled grip clinging to the counter, she swayed as the world slipped sideways and nausea surged.
“Your child comes soon,” he went on, fingers continuing to trip over her skin though they no longer sought to ease away the strain. “The little pains, they grow stronger. Contractions. Soon they will be too great, and your little one will come.”
More startled by the fact he knew what the pinching aches were than that she’d been having them, Quinn peered over her shoulder at him. Brows scrunched over the bridge of her nose, bemused grays met bitter blue.
“Da, very soon.”
A thunder of sound, footsteps and voices, rumbled beyond the door. Ilya straightened her clothes and was around the corner of the island in a smooth series of movements that looked effortless.
Quinn wiped at her face and nose with her sleeve before ducking over her plate. The eggs were long since cold, but she set her trembling fork back to work. With her back to the door, she didn’t see who entered, or Lee’s pause, but she felt his regard like a searing brand along her back. Taking in the state of her, perhaps the curve of a wet cheek. Plodding on, Quinn ate her eggs and tried to pretend nothing was wrong as Randy, Maurice, and Andre ranged around the island.
Grunting his displeasure, Lee’s chest met her back. Plucking at her thick sleeve, he made some comment about money and image that she couldn’t bother to listen to. Peeking through her lashes at Ilya as he set about making coffee, she kept silent.
Soft under Lee’s possessive hands, she ate her cold eggs and toast as the males spoke to each other as if she wasn’t even there. Mergers, deals, and murders were discussed without constraint. It was all just noise, a deep undulating resonance of Alphas caustic with their aggression.
At some point she had become used to it, stomach no longer soured by the very scent of them too close while she tried to eat.
“Heard from a connection that Rippin’s on the run. Seems he pissed off the wrong guy and had to get out of town fast. No one can lay eyes on him. Bastard is a ghost now.”
