from the things he’d said about her.
“Can I get anyone something to drink?” Amelie asked from her kitchen.
They’d made their way quietly to her house thanks to her reminder they were in public discussing matters best heard in private. Saedra sat on Garik’s lap where he’d pulled her when Amelie told them to get comfortable. Sulen preferred to remain standing, his back to the wall by her door.
“I’ll have a juice. Any kind, if you have some,” Saedra called out in a pleasant tone.
“No, you will not,” Garik countered, his gaze unwavering as he watched every move Amelie made.
Sulen understood the need for care. If it was anyone other than Amelie, he would have been the same way.
“I. Will,” Saedra gritted out.
Which was how she ended up with a glass of juice and sipped contentedly. She even refused to let Garik taste it for poison first.
Amelie took a seat in a chair across from the sofa. “Is anyone going to tell me what’s going on?”
“That would be me.” Sulen straightened from his relaxed pose against the wall. “I asked Garik to come here to watch over you while I’m gone because I don’t trust Roan.”
Amelie folded her legs beneath her hips. “Why Garik?”
He knew he’d eventually have to explain this part. “Because he and I have—”
“Used to have,” Saedra piped up from her seat.
“Used to have,” Sulen corrected with a wink at her, “the same job.”
Amelie’s brows went up. “What job is that?”
“Assassin,” Saedra merrily answered, finished her glass and snuggled deeper into Garik’s lap with a shiver of delight.
Garik tipped her chin up and kissed it. “There is a reason we operate in secret, petti coincin. Not everyone needs to know who the members of the Guild are.”
Amelie’s gaze darted to him. Shock reflected there. Sulen knew it wasn’t what the average individual did. Before he could reassure her, his attention was caught by Saedra.
In the past, she would have been hesitant to speak up but Saedra had grown so much in the years Sulen had known her. She displayed that now by speaking up further. “Amelie’s not anyone, she’s Sulen’s bond mate, and as his friend, you need to knock it off with the death stares.”
“We’re not friends,” Sulen grumbled at the same time as Garik.
Saedra and Amelie both laughed and that was when they all relaxed. Sulen picked up Amelie and sat her on his lap so he could sit on the chair. And touch her if he was honest.
With the attention on him, Sulen explained everything that had been going on, answering Garik’s questions in between. Most of it Garik already knew it seemed from the in-depth report he’d compiled on Amelie in his effort to rush to Sulen’s unnecessary rescue.
In the end, the answer was simple. Garik gripped Sulen’s arm on his way out with Saedra. “I’ll watch over her, Sulen. You can trust I won’t let anything happen to her.”
Once they were alone and seated together again, Amelie twisted on his lap. The shock of earlier had dimmed to curiosity and concern. “Assassin? You actually belong to the Assassins Guild?”
“Mmm.” It was hard to listen to her when she squirmed on his growing erection like this. There were other things Sulen preferred to talk about right now. He nibbled his way across her collarbone and up the column of her neck.
“Sulen!” Amelie’s hands landed on his shoulders but she didn’t push him away.
He continued his kisses, the taste of her taunting him to take more. Stroking his hands over her torso, Sulen didn’t stop until he reached the fullness of her breasts. Amelie leaned into his touch, thrusting her nipples right against his palms through the material of her shirt. Sulen groaned.
It was pleasure and the biggest tease. He needed to see what he touched. Turning her to straddle his lap, her knees on each side of his hips, Sulen jerked Amelie’s shirt up and over. She worked with him, clearing her head through the opening and tossing it to the floor behind her.
She arched on his lap, her bottom half undulating over his erection. Sulen groped her breasts like an inexperienced youth with his first woman. Warm and heavy in his palms with pert pink nipples that begged for attention. He leaned forward and tongued one with a fleeting lick.
Amelie gasped, her hands going to the back of his head to hold him steady. Sulen switched to the other for a similar quick lick.
“Sulen, stop teasing!” Amelie rocked up and down, pressing his