Sawyer: Quintessence: The Sequel Read online

  For a second, his mouth worked as he processed that particularly correct logic.

  Fuck!

  "She checks out my ass too," was all he could think to say. "And she grabs my cock under the table."

  Devon pursed his lips. "I need to have a word with her about consent too then."

  "I think I should be around for this conversation," he said, striving to keep his tone bland, when, inwardly, he was snickering at the prospect of Sascha being lectured by Devon of all people on informed consent.

  Jesus, it was enough to make a man cackle.

  "Of course. It's good for everyone to have a refresher. I mean, no means no, right?"

  Instead of chuckling like he wanted, he coughed. "Indeed it does. But, there's the issue. When does Sascha ever say no?"

  That had Devon blinking. "Huh. She doesn't, does she?"

  "No. She's on us like butter on bread." Sawyer wasn’t ashamed at the level of satisfaction in his voice. Their woman might be far-too-many-years-than-Sawyer-wanted-to-count younger than them, but the age difference didn’t seem to deter her.

  Sascha was the bee to their nectar, and he was pretty damn smug about that.

  Devon beamed at him. "She likes us."

  "Only just figuring that one out, bud?" he asked, amused.

  "No. But, it's nice to know we still have her interested. It's been almost four years, Sawyer," came his serious retort. "We don't want her getting bored."

  Though he wasn't wrong, Devon's earnestness was cuter than a man in his forties had any right to be. Because that wasn't a line of thought he wanted to continue, not when Dev was a bigger pain in the arse than Sascha would be with a strap-on, he grunted, "You want to work?"

  "When don't I?" Devon countered.

  "This is also true." He heaved a pained sigh as he clambered out of bed. With his feet on the thick rug, he stretched and blindly sought out the lamp switch on the table at his bedside.

  When the light came on, he squinted then grunted as he reached for his robe and covered up.

  "You still working on that problem Andrei sent?"

  Andrei had taken to consulting for the Veronian embassy ever since an old friend of his grandfather’s had hooked him up with the King of the country.

  It was strange to think his prick of a housemate had a King's telephone number, and hell, Sawyer had no intention of helping Andrei’s head get any bigger.

  "Yeah. It's interesting."

  Sawyer cocked a brow, then he ruined it by yawning. "It is?" Not much interested Devon, after all. Not unless it was truly complex.

  "They shouldn't be suffering such high inflation. Yet they are." Devon shrugged. "It's something to think about." He cut Sawyer a look as he stood too. "I could use your input actually. I think it's something the DIVA program could help with, and I know you're more up to date with that than I am."

  The Diva program had been Sawyer's baby. It stood for ‘DIscounted Cashflow – VAlue at risk,’ the two major economic terms the program helped formulate. It was what had won them their Nobel Prize. Though Devon insisted Sawyer had been the driving force behind it, Sawyer knew that without Devon, it wouldn't exist. Though most of the initial ideas had been from his end, Devon's wild brain had taken the program and made it his bitch.

  "If you think it will help, I'll take a look at the information Andrei sent over," he confirmed, then he grimaced as his brain sorted through the day's events and hit a snafu. "Shit, we're supposed go out with Sascha today."

  "Shopping," Devon confirmed.

  "You remembered?"

  Devon huffed. "When do I forget?"

  When it came to Sascha, that was true, Devon had the memory of an elephant. If that elephant also got waylaid with math problems.

  "I need more sleep to deal with that particular torture though," he groused, running a hand through his already mussed hair.

  "You can nap later."

  "I hate napping."

  Devon just grinned. "You'll forgive me when I show you the papers I've been working on."

  Though he really did just want to crawl back into bed, that grin intrigued him. Shite. Devon knew how to twist him around his little bluidy finger just like Tin could Sascha!

  Really grumbling now, he rounded the super king bed. When he was a foot away, he punched Devon in the arm again. "You're a gobshite."

  "I have it on good authority that I'm actually rather tasty." Sawyer rolled his eyes. Then, before he could mock, Devon carried on, "And I'm not talking about cannibalism, either. Sascha isn't into that." He paused a second. “I asked her for verification.”

  "No, she's just into us," Sawyer said drily, then slugging an arm over Devon's shoulder, he dragged him out of the bedroom.

  Work wasn't what he wanted to be doing right about now, but he'd deal with it. As he'd done a million times in the past, and as he'd do a million times in the future, he’d sacrifice sleep for his best friend.

  Even if that best friend was, truthfully, a gobshite.

  The high street, as they were known in Britain, was cold.

  Really cold.

  She didn't know why she was out here, it was that frigid. But it was early October, she'd needed to buy some gifts, get a head start on Christmas shopping, had craved a burger badly enough to venture out, and going into Glasgow was a hell of a lot less hassle than going into London would be.

  London was life. She knew that sounded crazy, but it was true. There was a flow, an energy that was unlike anywhere else. Even when Kurt and Andrei had taken her to New York City, where she'd never been before, it wasn't like this.

  New York City was special, sure.

  And it had been awesome to be home in the States again, but London? It was in her veins.

  That didn't mean she liked shopping on Regents Street.

  She'd tried to get over the traumatic event that had happened there all those years ago, and for the most part, it had worked. But not there. She hated going. And even when she went to Bond Street or any of the other shopping hotspots in the capital, she felt uneasy. Like she could be targeted again.

  Petticoat Lane Market was cool, but the gifts she had to buy had to be top end, because the people she was buying for were snobs.

  Kurt and Sean's parents were difficult. They'd never accepted her. Had never even made it known they were aware of her, and yet, the distant relationships they had with their sons made her unhappy.

  Having Tin had made her see how easy it was for the parent-child bond to break down, and that hurt her because the notion of him not talking to them when he was older, and all because of some silly life choices, made her both mad and sad.

  She'd never reject him if he turned out to be gay, or even if he turned out to have a foot fetish! Why their life choices bothered Kurt's and Sean's folks, she'd never know, but it did, and it had caused a deeper chasm between the families. Though a gift was in no way a decent patch, it was something.

  An olive branch.

  She'd bought Margritte a silk scarf from Hermes, and Deidre, Sean's mother, was going to receive a rather nice gold bracelet—thank God for Frasers! For the two fathers, she'd settled on expensive Scotch whisky, knowing that was the easiest route. Even if they didn't enjoy it, it was something to have on their drink trays, and both families were definitely the kind to have those.

  Before she'd started working as a housekeeper in London, she hadn't realized drink trays were still used.

  Not outside of James Bond movies and Downton Abbey that is.

  Most people, herself included, had a cabinet in the kitchen that they stored the liquor in. Simple. Same in the USA. But in the la-dee-dah houses—as Sawyer called them—they tended to have small trays with decanters on them. Well, the richer folk of a certain age and a certain class did. Which was why Sean had one in his office, she thought, with no small amount of amusement.

  It seemed surreal to think that you could judge a person's social standing on whether they decanted their booze. But it was a thing in the UK, and who was she
to judge?

  She was from a world of beer-pong and margarita bowls.

  That was more her style.

  Even if she'd been born into a different life, the one she'd led had forged her, and she wouldn't change it. Even if her beginnings did cause her some sadness.

  Overhead, the sky was gray. The road was too, and the pavement under her feet—the sidewalk—was also murky. A part of her knew she should have dragged Sawyer and Devon out for the ride, especially as the drive over had been a-migraine-in-the-making torturous, but they’d been working and she’d really just wanted to head out alone. It had been snowing off and on, and while she wore sturdy boots, she'd already slipped once. That had been enough to prompt her to go back to the car but Tin who was chortling at her side—he was the only man in her life who enjoyed shopping—had insisted on heading for McDonald’s.

  Like mother, like son, she feared, her lips twitching.

  Sawyer hated that Tin ate Happy Meals, but hell, it was once in a blue moon! And Sascha was a firm believer that having a ‘little bit of what you craved’ did you good.

  That was why she had five men.

  Outright grinning at that as she peered into a store front, she eyed the sweaters, and wondered if Vasily would like one of them. He was approaching ninety-two, was moody with it, and often lamented Andrei's infrequent visits to Moscow, even though Andrei had flown over there more since Sascha's entry into their world than he had since he’d left for Oxford university decades earlier.

  The sweater was in a traditional tartan, and though Vasily was a proud Muscovite, she thought he'd get a kick out of the sweater. Especially as it was from Scotland itself.

  "Baby, let's go in here."

  Though she loved Buchanan Street with its Victorian architecture and its upmarket shops, she also liked how there was half a mile’s worth of shopping to be had. Most of it varied.

  "But McDonald’s! You said so."

  Tin's whine had her rolling her eyes. But she couldn’t stop herself from smiling. She knew she spoiled him because he was Andrei’s spitting image. It wasn’t fair, not to him or to her, but whenever he crumpled his brow and pouted, it was so beyond adorable she just melted. And then there were the times when he actually managed to look regal. Regal! How an almost three-year-old managed that, she wasn’t sure. Andrei claimed it was the Russian in him, which only made her heart melt even more when he pulled that particular look.

  "It's only eleven in the morning," she countered, trying hard not to laugh at him. That only encouraged him. "Who eats lunch now?"

  "Happy Meal," he argued back. "Happy Meal!"

  She winced at his chanting, which gathered the attention of a couple of Japanese tourists who twittered as they moved on. Tin, with his mop of bright golden curls, often garnered attention. He looked like a little angel; only his family knew he was more devil.

  "After we go into this store," she negotiated, well aware that it was ridiculous to be negotiating with her toddler.

  His lower lip popped out in mulish annoyance with her.

  Just like his father in manner as well as looks. Tin's thought processes were already revealing themselves to be unique.

  If she said they were going to McDonald’s, that meant immediately in his eyes. And, sadly for her, she’d used McDonald’s as a prompt to get him to try on some clothes twenty minutes ago.

  It would have figured that with Devon around, she'd be used to phrasing things 'just so' but she was having to learn a different method with her son.

  He was direct to a fault. And he was so cute with it that she often let him get away with murder, even though she'd pay for it in the end. If she’d had any uncertainty with the timing of things, there was no doubt in regards to it in Tin's face.

  He was a walking, talking, mini Andrei.

  It was weird.

  Even weirder when he'd been a little baby.

  Not that Vasily had thought that. He'd crowed when they'd hauled ass over to visit him, the baby in tow.

  She smirked at the memory and tugged at Tin's hand—loving the days when she'd just lugged him wherever she went, his will be damned.

  Only trouble was, as she went forward, he pulled back, and even though he was small, that gentle force on the slick pavement had her wobbling in place for a few terrifying moments. Then he compounded it by letting go entirely so he could ball his little hands into fists and stomp his foot.

  For a few endless seconds, she was suspended in air. It was bizarre. She’d had zero traction on the ground, and she was both motionless and utterly out of control. Time was frozen. Just like the paving beneath her feet. Then, it crashed, just as she did. Her feet slid from under her and she, with her fucked up center of gravity, tilted forwards.

  She tried to break her fall, but it was too fast. She didn’t have time. Not even enough to put her hands in front of her. She went down. Hard. Her belly took the brunt of the fall as it was closest to the ground, and the moment she felt her bump connect with the concrete, Sascha released a scream.

  It pierced her own ear drums, shattered her own thoughts.

  Agony tunneled through her. Pummeling her senses. But what was worse was the terror.

  For what seemed like hours, she just lay there. Winded. Unable to move, unable to function. Then, Tin’s tantrum-in-the-making was put on permanent hiatus as he broke into terrified sobs at the sight of her on the ground.

  She didn't really know what to do with herself as she lay there, an oversized lump on the ground. She was in pain, unable to twist, unable to take the pressure off her stomach. Her back ached, her knees pounded with a dull thud, and her skin felt frozen as the cold, wet ground bled through her coat and started to bite into her skin. But none of that mattered. None of it.

  Deep inside, she felt it.

  Something was wrong.

  Her eyes prickled with tears, and the wind chill just made them sting all the more as she tried and failed to lift shaky fingers to rub at her eyes, then she felt them. Hands. Several pairs.

  Before she realized what was happening, a small gathering had collected around her and they were helping to turn her over. As she was finally moved off her belly, a man dropped to his knees, "Are you all right?"

  His voice was kind, kind enough to make her eyes burn a little more. She wanted to nod, but her head felt like it had been rattled. Her brain felt like it had been shaken better than one of Bond's Martinis. Instead of nodding, she whispered, "I don’t think so."

  "The bairn?" The man jerked his chin at her prominent bulge.

  She pressed her hand to it. "I-I…” Her mouth quivered. What could she say?

  No.

  Nothing felt right.

  Seconds before, all had been well. But now? It hurt. Like, maybe, she’d torn something inside.

  Sucking in a breath, she finally managed to tilt her head to the side, and as she did, she saw Tin was on his little knees, his eyes pink and his cheeks raw from crying. She hadn't realized he was clutching at her arm through her thick down coat, and that gave her some hope—if the bulky fabric cushioned his pinkies from her, maybe it would have cushioned her fall?

  But that pain!

  God, it was like nothing else she’d ever felt.

  "We need to call an ambulance," the stranger was saying, and the small crowd of four or five nodded in agreement, their murmurs of 'ayes' blending in amongst them.

  She wanted to argue; she wanted nothing more than to go home, but she couldn’t. Home wouldn’t hold any of the answers.

  "Could you help me up, please?" she asked, and her voice was a little rusty. She didn’t want to sit up, but the cold of the ground and the ache in her back made laying down even more agonizing.

  "O' course," came the man's concerned reply, and she placed her hand on the slick concrete while reaching up to grab his as he levered her into a sitting position.

  She winced as her bones settled, and the pressure on her stomach increased. It was compounded by glass tearing through her glove and she hiss
ed out a long breath even as she leaned back, trying to ease the heavy sensation in her stomach.

  Over eight hundred pounds of whisky lay in shards around her, and it was such a perfect representation of how she felt at that moment, she knew she could start sobbing.

  She took off her glove and was relieved to note that the thick fabric had taken the brunt of the cut. There was some blood, but not much.

  "I'm sorry, lass. I didn't realize there was glass. I wasn't looking," he admitted, and she shot him a wan smile.

  "Don't be silly. I really appreciate you stopping to help me out,” she whispered, her voice small when Tin began wailing at her side as he saw the cut on her palm. She quietened him with a shushing noise and turned in his direction but the movement had her cringing. Something was definitely not right.

  Deep inside.

  There was no avoiding it, no ignoring it even if she wanted to.

  Biting her lip, she told her son, "Darling, it's okay. Mommy is fine."

  It didn't work.

  The tears fell from his eyes as freely as the snot did from his nose, and she had to sigh at the sight. God, even with a snotty snitch, as Cinta called it, he was cute as hell.

  This time, however, she didn't even have to resist the urge to reach for a handkerchief to wipe his nose. She didn't have it in her to do much else than murmur, "We’ll be fine, Tin."

  Apparently, her tone wasn't enough to inspire confidence in him because, once again, it didn't work. One of the crowd broke away, revealing an older woman with graying hair, a red beanie on her head. Her thick woolen coat parted as she squatted at Tin's side.

  "Come now, laddy, your mummy's okay. We just need to get her seen to, and when we do, then she'll be right as rain."

  The woman said 'right' as 'reet,' and Tin's eyes widened. Jacinta hadn't introduced him to that particular phrase, it seemed.

  "Reet as rain," he murmured, repeating the phrase with her accent too.

  The woman laughed. "Aye." She cut Sascha a look. "Be honest. The hospital?"

  Sascha licked her lips, then she nodded. There was no ignoring the strange sensations fluttering away inside her.