Soul Rest: A Knights of the Board Room Novel (40 page)

She braced herself on his upper abdomen, squeezing him inside, sliding up and back down faster, so her breasts bounced and drew his gaze and hands again. Then she slowed down, rotating her hips in sensual seduction, arching back and bracing her hands on his knees so he could lower his gaze and see his cock sliding in and out of her cunt. She was catching fire, her flesh glowing, her pussy tight on him and starting to vibrate with another climax rising between them.

He caught her arms then, bringing her down to him, his grip unbreakable on her biceps, holding her fast as he pushed into her, withdrew, pushed in again. The friction on her clit resulted in an immediate reaction, and she saw by the light in his eyes he fully intended to push her over the brink of helpless pleasure once again.

“Master…”

“Come for me, Celeste. Like this. I want you coming when I climax.” His voice was hoarse, his body like iron beneath her, from straining thighs to tense shoulders, the muscles bunched in his arms.

He held her still as he pushed in and out, in and out. Her lips parted, drew back, her wild, frantic eyes finding his. The climax grabbed her the same way he could close his hand over her throat and make everything in her center toward one point, one goal, only one thing in the whole world important. It was incredibly powerful with him thrusting into her, his face so close. She was pleading as she came, wailing as her pussy convulsed on him. She brought him along with her to that same peak. His grip moved from firm to bruising, and she knew she’d relish the imprint of his fingers on her flesh.

He groaned out his own release, kept thrusting, harder, deeper, until she knew her arms weren’t the only thing that would be sore today. She was glad. She helped, moving her hips as much as she was able, working his cock until she had every drop, until he let her go. It was only to shift his grip, though, for he brought her down on his chest, wrapping both arms around her and rocking them both. He kissed her forehead, her nose, then her lips, holding that one a heartbeat or two before he drew back enough to meet her eyes.

“You’d make a hell of a cop’s wife, darlin’.”

Her heart stuttered, a flare of panic and delight. “I hope that wasn’t a proposal. One marriage is enough this weekend.”

“Yeah, but you should have seen the terror in your face. It was worth it.”

She narrowed her gaze, and he caught her hand before she could give him a halfhearted slap. “No assaulting an officer. I’m too tired to cuff you. Given how much I’d enjoy that, that’s saying something.”

He slid her off him, but didn’t let her go far, keeping her cuddled up to his side. She wanted to leave his warmth like she wanted to take an ice bath, but nature was calling. With amusement, she saw he was already falling into a half doze.

“What are you grinning about?” he mumbled. “It makes me nervous.”

“Even superheroes need a nap after sex.”

“It’s because you women are vampires.”

She kissed the corner of his mouth. “I’ll be right back. Bathroom.”

“Yeah. Go for me while you’re in there, because I’m not getting up until daylight.”

She shook her head at him, picked up his shirt and slipped it on without buttoning it. As she passed the writing desk, she snagged the tablet Lucas had loaned her to check things online and held it against her body, hiding it as took it into the bathroom with her and closed the door.

It didn’t take her long to pull up the story. If she’d turned on the news, she would have heard about it immediately. The death of a child was always a ratings kick, and two were a bonus. The media outlets were milking it for all it was worth. Her mouth thinned in sympathy as she read through the few facts available so far. A seven-year-old and a ten-year-old, brothers Tony and Ron Roberts. They’d been killed in the crossfire at an apartment complex. From the location, she deduced it was another drug dispute.

Loretta Stiles had been fifteen, and that was bad enough. Handling a pre-adolescent child was so much different from a fully grown adult or even a teenager. She’d been on-site for a child killing before. When they wheeled the body out to the coroner’s van, the adult-sized bag they’d had to use looked like it barely held anything, just air and shadows.

Jai’s death and now that of two children were going to turn the heat up against anyone involved. Leland was right. The MoneyBoyz wouldn’t be wasting time on one member’s vendetta against a reporter, especially with Dogboy hiding out in Houston. By the time he returned, they’d keep him busy with other priorities, but she was betting they’d apprehend him before then.

She wanted to get back to Baton Rouge right away, start putting together a story that covered multiple angles on this. But she reined back that urge. She was here for Marcie’s wedding. While Marcie was work-driven enough to understand, she was Celeste’s friend. And what about Leland? He was here for his friends too. As a police sergeant and combat veteran, maybe he’d realized a smart person made time for friends and family, no matter the demands of the job. A day like today reinforced how vital it was to celebrate the good things, to help deal with the far-beyond-bad ones.

She used that thought to douse her own impatience. While she usually put a quick update on her blog for the preventive safety aspects of a crime—something like ‘a robbery has happened in the so-and-so area, and here’s how the suspect did it’—the in-depth details of a crime didn’t come through right away. And everyone in the apartment complex knew the boys’ deaths were tragically incidental, that the motive of the crime was drug-related. From her knowledge of how the coroner and detectives worked, there’d be more vital and accurate information to harvest on Monday. She’d get back on it then.

So she’d focus on the wedding today…and the after-party tonight. A shiver went through her. She’d told Leland she’d go with him. As his sub. She should definitely go get some sleep.

Yeah, good luck with that.
Now that she’d thought of what might happen at the after-party, the possibilities had her mind churning a hundred miles a minute.

When she emerged, Leland’s even breath told her he’d succumbed to sleep. She stopped by the bed, gazed down at him. The sheet was draped low on his hips as he turned on his side, arm stretched out and palm on her side of the bed, as if he wanted to know when she returned to him. That hard twist of guilt came again as she thought about how short she’d been on the phone with him when he’d been dealing with the murder of two children. But he’d pushed that aside, had found solace in her arms.
You’d make a hell of a cop’s wife, darlin’.

Since she was obviously having a crazy person moment, she let the idea fill her mind. A cop’s wife. What would it be like to be married? To be his, not just in words, but in fact? She didn’t want to wake him, but the desire to touch was too overwhelming. She bent, pressed a kiss to his shoulder, brushed her cheek against the back of it.

He mumbled something incoherent, acknowledging her, though his eyes remained closed, his breathing undisturbed. He really was exhausted, and he trusted her enough to sleep while she stood over him, as if even in slumber he knew it was her. She chided herself for the overly romantic thought. For as little as she really knew of the man, he might sleep through hurricanes.

She didn’t know details like that, but she understood deeper things about him that called to her. He’d had an inside look at her soul as well, and he hadn’t bolted yet.
For some of us, it’s a single moment…
Savannah’s words went through her mind.

None of this was making her any sleepier. Maybe Leland was right. Women might be vampires when it came to sex. She was wired. If she laid down next to him, she’d keep him awake with tossing and turning.

Drifting to the window, she looked at all the props intended to turn the spacious back lawn into a picturesque wedding venue in a few hours. It was then she noticed something different about the storage pod. Someone was sitting on top of it. Someone whose mind was likely gnawing on some of the same things hers was.

Sliding on her underwear and pajama bottoms, she buttoned Leland’s shirt over her breasts and added a pullover over it to ward off the night chill. Then she pulled a pad and pen out of her tote and left a note on the side table.

I’m safe. I went to see Ben on the lawn.

§

She was used to seeing him in his expensive suits, but tonight he was in faded jeans and T-shirt, sneakers with no socks. It made him look younger than his thirty-something age. Ben O’Callahan had a jump-me-now body and a face blessed by the gods, with piercing emerald-green eyes and dark hair falling rakishly over his high brow. She knew firsthand how strong he was, how ruthless a Dom, but his casual attire and the way he sat on the top of the pod, knees drawn up and arms clasped loosely around them as he tipped his face to the sky, made him seem approachable.

“Is this a private party?”

“Not at all. A good-looking woman is always welcome.”

He didn’t lower his gaze from the firmament, telling her he’d known she was approaching. He wasn’t the only one. The voice that came from behind her was low and relaxed, making sure she wasn’t startled by it.

“Let your fiancée hear that, and you’ll be limping to the altar tomorrow. Lot of activity out here tonight. Think I need to impose a curfew.”

She pivoted to face the man she knew had to be Dale Rousseau. Like Max, he looked every inch a SEAL, albeit a retired one. She was facing a man who’d put in twenty years of dangerous missions in places far from this one. She guessed him to be around fifty, his brown hair peppered with gray, the lines of his face and hardness of the fit body giving him a rugged appeal that would make him a head-turner for the next several decades at least. He wore a wedding ring, so some woman had the good fortune of having him in her bed on a regular basis. She hoped they’d both be at the wedding so she could meet her. If Dale was a close enough friend to be doing guard duty, she assumed he’d received an invitation. Which reminded her of her responsibility.

“Thank you,” she said, offering a hand. “I really appreciate you watching out for me.”

Dale closed it in his, a light-handed grasp, typical for a strong man. She’d noted Leland had the same tendency, though there were times when he wasn’t light-handed at all. Thinking of his grip bruising her biceps, at the pleasurable soreness of her sex now, she knew she loved his gentle side but craved his rougher side. She could still taste him on her lips.

“It’s my pleasure,” Dale said courteously. “That scumbag tries to reach you here, we’ll end any concerns you have about him. Plenty of marsh to dispose of a body.”

She had no doubt he meant it, and was greatly reassured as a result. “Mind giving me a boost up there?”

The lines around his eyes crinkled and he obligingly bent and cupped his hands together. Ben now had his long legs dangling over the side, so as she stepped into the stirrup Dale had made, he reached down to clasp her hand. The two men boosted her up and into a sitting position on the top of the pod. “Thanks,” she said.

Dale nodded to her, glanced at Ben. “I’ll finish my perimeter check now.”

“He’s going back to his nap,” Ben told her. “We woke him up. Old people can get cranky.”

Dale shot him an amused look. “Don’t push me, son. There’s more than one reason you could be limping up that aisle tomorrow.”

He moved away into the shadows. Leaning back, Celeste braced her hands on the pod’s metal surface and gazed up into the sky, wondering what Ben saw when he looked up there. “I think I’d listen to him. He looks like he could kick butt and take names without breaking a sweat.”

“And then some. But he and Max have that whole military discipline thing happening. I have to yank their chain. It’s what I do.”

“Hmm.” She noticed that his position on the pod, the direction he was facing, gave him a direct view of Marcie’s dark bedroom window. “Were you waiting for the opportunity to scale the wall, do a Romeo and Juliet thing?”

Ben shook his head, slipped a cigarette out of a pack next to him. The flare of his brass lighter showed a face that was pensive but not unhappy. He was just…waiting.

“You couldn’t sleep.”

A short nod confirmed it. He drew on the cigarette and blew the smoke over his shoulder, away from her.

She’d never experienced Ben this way. In the times she’d seen him since their night, he was typically charming, a man with an infectious sense of humor who made conversation easily with men or women. But his lack of conversation didn’t make her feel intrusive. On the contrary, it made her feel as if he was comfortable enough with her that he didn’t have to be charming, funny or engaging.

That night at Club Surreal had been more about Celeste, getting to the root of her surrender, of why loss of control was so difficult for her, but Marcie had been right. Celeste had seen something in Ben’s eyes. What’s more, he knew she’d seen it. His silence now told her so, a bond between them.

“You were the one who came to me that night, because you knew how I felt, in a way the others couldn’t,” she said. “You knew what it was to feel unwanted, like nothing, and want nothing more than to be…wanted. But it’s more than that. When you’re finally wanted, then you have to deal with that feeling, that weird, dumb-ass shit that tells you to push it away and run from it, though that’s the last thing that makes sense. You can’t explain it to anyone, not even really to yourself. Or worse, to the people you love.”

Ben drew on the cigarette again, his eyes on Marcie’s window. “I see you have a date for the wedding,” he said in answer.

“Yeah. I see you have a date for life.”

He slanted her an amused look. “So you think I’ll go through with it.”

“I know you will. Because you’ll break her heart if you don’t. As worried as you are about what kind of husband you’ll be, you know you have to step over the starting line. You’re way past the point of no return. The waiting’s the worst part.” She gave him an appraising look from head to toe. “So you’re doing the Zen thing tonight. Accepting your fate. Really feeling it, and realizing it doesn’t suck at all. Not in the least.”