The Omega Team: The Lion (Kindle Worlds Novella) (11 page)

“I’m flying to London.”

“I doubt that’s wise.”

“I doubt you have a say.”

“In your condition, you need to be taking a few days, having fun.” He said that like he understood down time.

Right.
“You wouldn’t know fun if it came up and bit you on your tight ass.”

“That’s a joke, I know,” he said like a contrite soul. “But I agree with you. I don’t.”

“Yeah.”

“I need to learn.”

“You do.”

“I’d like to learn it with a good teacher,” he said as he came around the sofa and walked straight for her.

She backed up to the wall.

“You.”

She laughed. “Good one, Lyons.”

He put a hand up, palm to the wall, over her head and leaned down over her. His lips. Damn his lips. He brought them closer to her. “I want to be good for you.”

She swallowed. “You can’t.”

“What if I promised to change? Hmm?” He was crooning to her. “What do you say?”

Was he serious? She took a step to get away but he put a hand to her shoulder, pinned her to the wall and tucked one leg between her own.

“Hear me out. Please. I promised I’d come back from Tampa. I’m here and I need you to listen to me.”

She let her head fall back against the wall. “Talk.”

“I quit Omega.”

“What? Why?” The revelation snapped her out of her doldrums. “You love that kind of work.”

“No, I don’t. I’m not very good at it. Not the action part. The head injury, the PTSD mean I can’t take a lot of stress.”

“Okay. But what will you do? You’re not built for lolling in the sun.”

“No. I’m built for a little less chaos. Running my own business. Like Omega, but not as an operative. Running my own firm from here. D.C. Where I know people who need help occasionally. Where I have a home. A house. Connections. And where you are.”

She gazed into his large blue eyes and searched around in there for deeper meanings.

He touched a fingertip to her nose. “I want to live here. I want to come home. Better yet, I want to make a home. Here. With you.”

Was it the painkillers that made her woozy? She had to be dreaming this from Mikael Lyons.

“I love you, Rebecca Tierney.”

The room spun. She’d been on a funky ferris wheel years ago where she’d been strapped in to a seat and the whole capsule turned upside down. She’d loved the sensation but she was so dizzy when she got off that she staggered.

Her knees buckled.

He caught her up in his arms and walked with her to her sofa where he sat with her in his lap.

He smoothed her hair from her cheeks. “I love you, Rebecca Tierney. And I want to marry you. I want to live with you night and day. I want to laugh with you and go to parties with you and the movies and take the paddleboats out on the Potomac and—“

She cupped his face and she kissed him.

Kissed him.

“Say that again,” she whispered.

“I love you.”

“Again.”

He chuckled and hugged her close. “All of it?”

“Well, that would be helpful. You know I’m injured and on medication so that—“

He tickled her mercilessly.

“Enough! Enough!” She gasped.

He reached inside his trouser pocket and brought out an old velvet jewelry box. Then he flipped it open. “This was my mother’s engagement ring. I want us to go downtown tomorrow and have it resized for you.”

She stared at the single diamond in the Tiffany setting.

“I’ve loved you since we were kids. Since you first offered your pretty self to me when you were eighteen and I was so focused on other things that I couldn’t see straight. I’m seeing straight now, Becka. I love you.”

She caught her breath. “Will you…will you take it out and put it on me?”

“You want to try it out?” He sounded so lost, so unsure. The big bad SEAL who was hesitant.

She didn’t like him like that. But if he was allowing himself to be vulnerable, she’d protect his back. “No.”

His face fell.

“I don’t want to try it out. I want to have it. Own it. I want to be yours. Have you. All of you. All of you.” Her lips quivered. Words she’d never said aloud spilled out. “I love you, Mikael Lyons. I’d be your wife in any universe. I love you.”

He dropped the box to the floor, grabbed her, hugged her so tightly, she thought she’d go to dust. “When?”

“When what?”

“When will you marry me?”

“Oh. Ah. Well. I need a dress.” She loved making him sweat.

His blond brows wrinkled. “How long does that take?”

“Days. A week.”

“Why?”

“Because I intend to get married only once and I want a gown. Do you mind?”

“Yeah. Big time. What else?” He rose with her in his arms and strode to her bedroom. “Anything else?”

“Flowers. A cake.”

He put her on the bed and with one arm, swept her suitcase to the floor. She heard Roger’s nails on the floor right behind them, but Mike pushed the door shut with his foot.

“The dog is sensitive,” he said as he striped his tee-shirt off over his head and went to work on the button and zipper of his trousers. Then his jockey’s came off, too.

She giggled. “How do you know?”

“I’m guessing.” He gave her a lop-sided grin as he crawled up over her on the bed. He caught her jaw in his fingers and kissed her right out of her mind. “I love you.”

“Mmm. I heard.” She ran her hands over the contours of his shoulders and waist, the fabulous butt that was all hers now. “We have to send out invitations, too.”

He nuzzled her ear. “Besides you, who needs to come?”

She barked in laughter. “Is that a double entendre?”

“Yeah. You work on the guests who’ll come, baby. I’m working on getting you to come.”

As he unbuttoned the front of her blouse, she figured he had that last part knocked. “Not many folks. My cousin who lives in Dallas. A friend who lives in London. A woman I really like.”

He took her lips once more and lingered there while he skimmed her hip, lifted her skirt and did a little journey up her bare thigh. “You’re gonna quit your job, right?”

“Right,” she murmured as he slid off her panties and found the center of her with his talented fingertips.

“And work with me.”

“Is that a question?” she asked, breathless, as he slid two fingers inside her.

“No.” He rocked his fingers inside her and she gushed with need of him. “There’s proof we work well together.”

“Oh, yeah,” she agreed as she caught his long hot cock in her hand and massaged him. “We’ll make a lot of things happen.”

Flipping up her skirt, he sat up on his haunches and gazed at her naked body. He licked his lips. “Mmm. Mmm. What I’ve got planned for you.”

She pinched his shoulder. “Hurry up, sailor boy. I’ve waited a long time for you.”

“Yeah. Funny thing,” he said as he kissed her bare belly. “You’re the second person to say that today.”

She paused. “Who else?”

“My grandmother.”

She blinked. “You went to see her?”

“I did.” His blue eyes locked on her own. “I had to go thank her for what she did for us.”

That was a mystery. “What did she do?”

“She was the client who hired Omega to get me to guard you.”

Laughter bubbled up inside her like fine champagne. “Your Nana hired you through Grey Holden to protect me?”

“She knew I was in town, that you were having problems settling your case. What’s more she knew that my father suspected Vince Mayhew of fraud and theft of major art. She thought it was time you finished your job and I got on with loving you.”

Becka sank her fingers in Mikael Lyons’ thick blond hair. “Come here and kiss me. Make love to me. And then we both better go visit your Nana and thank her.”

“She wants to come to the wedding,” he said as he kissed his way up one thigh and down the other.

“Front row. Honored guest.”

“I love you.”

“I love you.”

THE END

Cerise DeLand
loves to cook, hates to dust, lives to travel—and write! She has penned dozens of novels, contemporary and historical, and is the #1 Best-Selling author of sexy Regency romances!

Visit her website for a complete book list:
www.cerisedeland.com

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