Soul Rest: A Knights of the Board Room Novel (10 page)

When he kissed her, his arms around her, holding her so securely, the world disappeared. The parts of herself that usually interfered with the feelings unfurling inside her now disappeared as well. Instead, a plea resonated through her chest and down to the very core of who she was. A core that had been asleep for so long it roused like Sleeping Beauty, with a groggy “Where the hell have you been?”

He eased back when her eyes were still closed and she was holding on to him like she wouldn’t ever be able to let go. Her lashes lifted, her hands clutched hard on the front of his shirt and the man beneath, so tight a tremor was running through her arms. He made a calming noise, stroking a hand up her forearm. He closed it around her biceps.

“So what else happened that night?” he asked.

“I got angry. Really angry. Then sad. I was looking in a mirror and it hurt worse than being cut by the glass, but afterward…I wanted to see that image again, too much. But I knew it was such a profound thing, it wasn’t likely to happen ever again. If I chased it, I’d probably end up in a far worse place in my head. So it seemed better to focus on the things I knew I could attain for myself. Alone.”

Her reaction to that night had always been a confusing tangle in her mind, so she was flummoxed to hear the truth spill from her mouth. She stared at his chest, not sure she could meet his gaze after saying something like that. He pried her fingers off him but left his own tangled with them on his knee. When she at last managed to look at his face, she found him studying her with an unreadable expression, but what she saw in his face didn’t dismay her.

“Celeste, I want you to stand up and take off your coat.”

She didn’t think about anything. She just rose, shrugged out of the coat, put it on the back of the chair. As she leaned forward to do that, he slid his hand smoothly beneath her shirt. Not in an indecent way. He just took advantage of her position to slide his hand under there, fit his palm to her waist, his thumb stroking her stomach near her navel, his other fingers tracing the sensitive flesh of her lower back. The man had large hands. As she straightened, he hooked his fingers in the waistband of her skirt, gave her a little tug.

“Sit back down. You want your dinner now that you’re done acting out? It’s pad Thai.”

She narrowed her eyes as she sat. “Acting out? You know, cops are notorious control freaks. Entirely inflexible in their opinions.”

“Why change our opinion when it’s the right one?” He shrugged and nudged her when she rolled her eyes. “Want crunchy noodles, too?”

“Absolutely. Carbs are best topped with more carbs.”

“That’s my girl.” He put a packet of noodles on top of the container, handed it to her with fork and napkin. Then he fished out a bottle of water. “I figured you might be a diet cola girl, but you all tend to be picky about your brands, so I went with water.”

“Water works fine.”

He broke the seal for her as she opened the lid of the food and inhaled the mix of egg, peanuts, fried tofu and seasonings. When she put the first bite in her mouth, he settled back, stretching his arm behind her again. This time she leaned back against it. He moved his touch to her shoulder, his thumb sweeping along the curve of her neck to her shoulder and back again. Sometimes he went further, hooking her bra strap, tracing beneath it, then coming back again. Tendrils of sexual heat curved under her breasts, down her sternum, along her spine. Each time he passed over that place he’d pinched so mercilessly, her reaction increased.

“You’re not making it easy for me to concentrate on my food.”

“So women have trouble doing more than one thing at a time when sex is involved?”

“Depends on the man,” she said, intending to be catty. Too late, she realized she’d complimented him. His eyes laughed at her. He threw her off her game, for certain. She’d have to work on that.

“You said I’m a pain in the ass, yet you hung around for me to come back. Why?”

“When I got here, you said you didn’t want to do this. You just wanted me to take you back to my place and fuck you.”

“I didn’t say that last part.”

“Yeah, you did.” The smile disappeared, replaced by something as distracting. A piercing directness. “You have a clever mouth, Celeste. A sharp tongue. But it’s what you say with your eyes that holds my attention. I could duct-tape your mouth and still find out everything I need to know about you.”

What should have been offensive planted an image in her head that only made her sexual response to him worse. Irritated, she shifted forward so he’d stop touching her. Putting the lid back on the half-empty container, she resolved to eat the rest later and set it back in the bag. She tried to speak casually, as if the words didn’t matter.

“So you don’t want to have sex with me.”

His chuckle put her back up, but when she shot a glance his way, she found she wasn’t the only one with expressive eyes. His gaze told her his answer to that, even before he spoke.

“That’s a no-brainer. If it wouldn’t get us arrested, I’d bend you over this table and fuck you until you screamed for mercy. My cock hasn’t settled since I made you come on my couch. But that’s the thing, Celeste. Fucking’s easy. You don’t look like the type of girl who denies yourself the chance to scratch an itch, because that’s functional, cause and effect, no thought required. I expect you’ve had a couple fuck buddies along the way.”

“I’m a pain in the ass
and
a slut?” She started to get up. His hand returned to her shoulder, his grip strong enough to keep her in place.

“You’re not stomping off again,” he said quietly. “And no, that’s not what I meant. This isn’t high school. What a consenting adult does to get through the lonely hours of the night is what we do. No harm, no foul.”

She thought she might grind a full layer off her teeth before the night was over. “So what is it you want, Leland?”

He considered her. “I can make a woman’s cunt wet and fuck her to climax. That’s mechanics. When you give me every ounce of who and what you are, because you trust me with all of it, that’s the real prize. It isn’t easy,” he added. “Fears get in the way of need, and you tangle yourself up in all of that, so you can’t tell me how to find you. And you won’t trust someone to figure it out for you. With you.”

She was all too aware of where he’d shifted from third person to directly referring to her. He could have chosen to be less targeted, but he’d said he was honest. Hearing it aloud still bugged her. She really did want to leave now, but as if he sensed that, he hadn’t let go of her. “Sounds like I’m a lost cause.”

“No. Not at all. I’m just telling you you’re in for a bumpy ride. Accepting how a Master is going to touch you, handle you, in order to learn everything about you, inside and out, isn’t easy for a sub like you.” His gaze slid back up to hers, held. “It kind of stirs me up, thinking how tough I’m going to have to be with you.”

His expression sent a little quiver through her belly, but she managed to sound dismissive. “That’s your thing? Getting rough with a woman? That’s why you’re looking for someone who will be a pain in your ass?”

His flash of a grin was a sensual threat. “Yeah. To keep me occupied until the sub I really want comes along. A docile little thing who keeps my house clean, sucks my dick on command and calls me sir.”

“If you think that I—” she started, and then shut her mouth at the dancing light in his eyes. “Jerk,” she muttered, but he’d made her smile. “Asshole,” she added for good measure.

He squeezed her shoulder, then removed his hand. “You can bolt now if you want. But I’d prefer it if you stayed.”

She returned her gaze to the colorful carousel. Around and around, the horses going up and down. She’d made up that rhyme the first time she’d come here as a college student. “You looked up my work history.”

“Through the Internet, not through the police database.”

“Good. So you don’t know about my juvie record as a chronic Toys R Us shoplifter.”

“I’ll lock up my train sets and Star Wars action figures.”

“I only go for Barbie stuff. Especially her shoe collection.”

“I keep those in a safe deposit box,” he said gravely. “So why did you leave the New Orleans paper?”

She was on safer ground with that and wondered if he knew it. Either way, she’d take that road in a heartbeat to get away from the less comfortable responses he was eliciting from her. “I had an opportunity to move from social business over into the crime beat. I thought it was going to be so different. Then I found out it was all about ratings and stirring up people’s emotions by leaving out key facts. It wasn’t about journalism anymore, giving people all the pertinent information so they could make their own informed decisions about their lives and community. It was about creating power factions, dissent. When I took the NOLA job, the person who helped me get it said he hoped my editor would appreciate the way I could tell a story. I think now he was warning me.”

“I went to your blog and read some of your stories.”

She glanced over her shoulder at him. She was still sitting on the edge of her chair, though she wanted to be back inside the curve of his arm. Since she wouldn’t let herself do that, she turned on her hip so she was facing him. Her shoulder pressed against his forearm stretched out on the chair, a good compromise between her desires and her unwillingness to bend so soon after he’d gotten under her skin. “Thanks. I appreciate that. I did a lot more freelance work at first, until the blog started to get a following, enough that I could sell advertising. Last year, I was ahead on a couple big stories. The papers and networks released on them first, but they had the information wrong, because nowadays they don’t investigate. They just do press releases, Twitter feed and people’s cell phone videos. When I got it right, it was noticed. Some bloggers, concerned citizen groups, that kind of thing, started mentioning me, and my following has grown. Now I’m doing subscriptions, and people are actually paying to have access to the information.”

She stopped, a little embarrassed. Though she didn’t deny her job was the thing about herself that gave her the most pride, going on about it to Leland seemed as if she was trying to prove something.

“Your articles seem thorough and fair. Just like Mike told me they were. I’m one of your newest subscribers.”

“I wondered who [email protected] was. Now I know.”

“I think that’s the chief of police’s email address,” he said.

“I’m going to tell him you said that. I’ve met him a couple times.” She laughed as Leland winced. “So someone
can
intimidate Sergeant Leland Keller. I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Not intimidate,” he said with dignity. “I just have a healthy respect for the person who decides whether or not I can pay my cable bill. Do you still do freelance?”

“Nice diversion tactic.” But she smiled. “Some. Mainly because I have more control over the stories. The editors who initially cut them to give them the slant they wanted are far more light-handed now. It may sound naive, but I hope it means they might be seeing the benefit of giving people the full story.”

“You obviously take a lot of pride in doing your job right. I respect that, Celeste.”

She allowed herself to glow a bit. It was high praise from a man in a profession that understandably loathed the press like plague-carriers. But then she sniffed, tossed her hair out of her eyes. “You looked pretty sharp yourself Monday morning. Billy nearly wet himself when he thought you were going to chew his ass out for accepting my coffee.”

“That’s Officer Johnson to you, and I have a strict limit on making a rookie soil himself. Once a week, tops, and Billy already had his turn this week. I didn’t look sharp at the courthouse?”

She raised a brow. “How did you know I was there? I was very stealthy.”

“Saw your name on the security sign-in sheet, so I was on the lookout for you. Caught you in the corner of my eye. Would have talked to you, but Fielding was about to have a nervous breakdown. I had to be sure the kid understood judges and lawyers put on their pants the same way we do. Though the Gucci shoes lawyers wear are custom fit to cover the cloven hooves. So?” He gave her an expectant look.

“What?”

“Did I look just as sharp and irresistible at the courthouse?”

More so.
She rolled her eyes, though. “I never said irresistible.”

“It was implied.” He nodded toward the carousel. “So why did you suggest we meet here?”

“I like it. Most people look at it and don’t notice how much is there. On first look, all the color and mirrors, they think it’s garish. But when you look more closely, you see how beautiful it is. All the hand-painted details, and the colors are soft, like Easter.” She put her hand up over his eyes, suddenly playful. “Tell me three animals it has that you can ride, other than horses.”

“None. I’m way too big.”

“Everyone knows carousel animals are magical creatures. They’re much stronger than they look. A detective wouldn’t be dodging the question. He’d be trying to impress me with his recall of detail.”

“Careful now. Those are fighting words.” His lips curved under her hand, making her want to nibble on the full lower one. She didn’t, but she did lean closer, such that he stilled, telling her he was aware of her breath against his face. He put his hand over hers, removed it, but when he opened his eyes, he looked straight into her eyes, no cheating.

“A tiger, an ostrich, and…” he frowned. “A rabbit.”

“I love the rabbit. He’s one of my favorites. Watch when the tiger goes by, though. See under his saddle? There’s an eagle carved under it, or some kind of raptor. And both of the tigers are called Mike, for the LSU mascot of course. Their name is written on them.” She pointed. “I never stop finding new things when I watch it turn. See how the camel has a curved knife, like a
janbiya
on the side? The cat is carrying a fish in his mouth, which you’d expect, but he also has a gold crescent moon painted on his side and a blue sash around his neck. The pig has a pink bow, because pigs always seem to wear pink. It’s like whoever created it had a vision into a child’s dream, where everything is whimsical, surprising, but it fits, too. Random but not.”