Star of Wonder (7 page)

Remembrances that waited until Sunday night to torture her instead. All night.

Which was why, as midmorning break rolled around on Monday, she joined Eve and Reiley by way of a stop at the coffee cart for a large latte with a double shot.

“Whoa.” Eve tucked a stray red curl behind an ear as she eyed the tall cup. “Fueling up a little early today, Kouris?”

“Rough night,” she mumbled. “And this custody case is sucking it out of me too.”

Rei frowned in sympathy. “Still Lieutenant Braden?”

Celina sipped her drink and nodded. “His wife can’t see past her own selfish ass about this. Just because she’s got some cushy gig and a fancy new CEO boyfriend in Tokyo now doesn’t give her the right to sue for full custody. Zell is a good man. He was special ops, he did shit he can’t even tell me about, but he gave it all up, asked to be reassigned here as a trainer at RTC so Zach could have a stable upbringing. He’s been there nearly every day for that kid. And Cassandra took that as
her
open invitation to gallivant across the globe with a shitload of playboys. I hear she’s about to sign some new reality-show deal too!”

Reiley patted her hand. “Careful there, cowgirl. Your personal agenda is showing juuust a wee bit.”

Eve chuffed. “I’m more impressed that she used ‘gallivant’ in a complete sentence before noon.”

Celina’s phone saved her from composing a decent comeback to her friend. She looked in the window to check the caller first but rose as she did, expecting it to be the return call she expected from Zell Braden.

She froze. Her coffee slid so hard from her other hand that it splashed a little on the table.

In the window, she read:
Global Restoration Incorporated.

There was only one person she knew at GRI. He’d left her house on Saturday morning, fuming like a pit bull—and sucking the atmosphere from the whole place with him.

She clicked Ignore. Then sat back down, unable to hide how her legs shook with the effort.

Eve’s brows lowered. “Okay. You want to tell us who
that
was?”

“No.”

“No?” Reiley echoed. “Seriously? The color just drained from your gorgeous Greek skin, honey.”

“Nobody important.”

Dante didn’t let her get away with that. The next second, her phone turned into a Mexican jumping bean with a string of texts.

We need to talk.

Friday was significant. I know you felt it too.

Celina, CALL ME.

Dinner. I’m only asking for dinner.

Do you want me to keep this up all day? I’m clearing my schedule now.

“Damn it!” she muttered. He was persistent as a pit bull too, which meant that eventually, he’d get tired of his new “play toy” and move along to something new, probably in the neighborhood of a 36-C chest, a mass of mermaid curls, and hefty stilt heels to hold it all up. But before that happened, she refused to let him toss her around in his frenzy. It was torture. It was heaven.

It was one night that would never go any further.

The phone vibrated twice more before she could delete the other messages. Her teeth jammed together. “How the hell did he even get this number?”

“He?” Eve perked up like a three-year-old tempted with a candy bar. “Whoa. He who?” Before Celina could react, her friend snatched away the phone. “What’re you holding back from us?”

“Eve! Shit!”

Eve’s jaw dropped. “’Shit’ is right. Friday was significant? What the hell? Friday…when? Nothing happened Friday, except at—”

“The party!” Rei finished it off with a voice spiked in excitement.

“But you left,” Eve stated. “You went to the Blue Sax.” She stared in accusation. “You texted and said you’d caught a cab home.”

“Yeah.” She fumed. “And that’s exactly what I did. Give me my phone back, Eve. I’m not kidding.”

“But you weren’t alone, were you?” Her friend looked at the screen again, and her eyes widened. “You went home with somebody! And whoever it was had a pretty great time too.”

“C’mon, Eve. Please.”

“Wow,” Reiley interjected. “This feels big. It was either completely shitty or pure heaven.”

Eve placed the phone back onto the table. The move was slow and solemn. “Okay. Whatever. We’re just your two best friends. If you don’t feel the need to share, then—”

She was interrupted when another call started vibrating the phone. The thing still lay faceup on the table, now visible to all three of them. Celina prayed that this time it was Zell Braden.

Again, the screen flashed
Global Restoration Incorporated
.

Eye and Reiley gasped in unison.

“Oh my God.” Reiley’s whisper sounded like they stood in the Sistine Chapel. “Right after midnight, Dante Tieri disappeared from the party.”

“Yeah,” Eve concurred. “And fast.” She looked up at Celina with her wide green gaze. “And you were the reason why…weren’t you?”

Reiley let out another rasp. “Holy crap, Cel. You slept with Dante Tieri?”

Eve snorted. “I’ll bet there wasn’t a lot of sleeping going on.”

“And now he wants to see you again! Shit! Cel!”

Celina grabbed her phone and rose, failing at making both actions seem anywhere near calm. “It’s not happening.
He’s
not happening. And no, I’m not going to ‘share’ about it.” She felt her friends’ hurt curl through the air like acrid smoke. She felt shitty about that, but it didn’t change her determination to push Friday night into the past. The
far
past. “Things sometimes happen, okay? Anomalies are only that. Nothing more.”

“Anomalies?” Eve tossed a disbelieving glance at Rei. “She did
not
just call Dante Tieri an ‘anomaly,’ did she?”

Celina rolled her eyes. “Fine. You want a better word? How about mistakes? Yeah, that
is
better. Mistakes happen, you guys. That doesn’t mean one needs to repeat them.”

Before either of them could hold her hostage again, she grabbed her coffee, then left the lounge without a backward look. That didn’t stop Eve from lobbing a parting shot, directed at Reiley but deliberately loud enough for her to hear too.

“I wish
my
mistakes made me blush like that.”

Chapter Seven

Dante ordered a fourth Glenlivet on the rocks while finishing off his third. He set the empty glass on the bar and studied the leftover condensation on it, collecting the blue-gray lighting off the back bar. Delilah’s was a perfect pick for tonight, his and Mark’s go-to choice for enjoying whiskey, pool, and conversation without worrying about the social page editor taking dictation on their words. Not that he gave his friend much to go on so far. That didn’t stop Mark from sharpening up the scalpels in his gaze, or hunkering his leather-jacket-covered shoulders in a lame attempt at unobtrusive.

“No reserve chute tonight, eh, Inferno Boy?” Mark finally drawled.

He cocked his head at his friend. The liquor finally started to work, creating a warm fuzz in his head. Well, wasn’t that nice? It did shit for the chill he couldn’t get out of his blood, the emptiness since he’d left Celina’s on Saturday. The void he didn’t even know he’d been living with until the party
this
guy talked him into throwing.

“You called this meeting, boss, not me.”

The bartender brought him his new drink, but as he reached for it, Mark clamped a hand on his arm.

“All right, Tieri. Start talking before you’re not able to.”

Dante took a quaff of the whiskey out of pure defiance. Mark huffed.

“Is it the company? Something with the family? Is your mother sick?”

“No,” Dante snapped. Hell, the man would just keep ramming if he didn’t. “No, no, and no.” He dragged a hand through his hair. The room felt too small. His skin felt too tight. “Fuck. If only it were that easy.”

He should’ve expected his friend’s reaction. A knowing snicker leaked from Mark’s lips. “Okay, got it now.”

He glared again. “Really? All figured out, huh?”

“Shut up, Tieri, and tell me who she is.”

Dante brooded into his drink. He’d let the guy crow about getting that far into his head. But the rest?
He
couldn’t figure out the rest. And damn it, he liked being miserable about it. The gloom gave him a reason to think about her. To hang on to her somehow.

“All right, then. I’ll assume it’s Meredith Collins. Personally, I didn’t get the connection with you two on Friday, but—”

“Shut up.” He practically snarled it. “Are you kidding me? Meredith? Don’t you know me better than that?”

Mark cocked a brow in arrogance and swigged his beer. “Guess not. But I’m all about enlightenment.”

Damn it. Now the fucker had him backed into the proverbial corner. No wonder Marker Man was in demand to consult with every major company in the city, not to mention the senate wanting him back. He scowled again at his friend’s serene profile, then muttered, “You remember the JAG officers…the three who approached us at the party?”

“Ohhh yeah.” A grin breached Mark’s lips. “The two little ones were cute. Didn’t they stick around for a while? But of course, you fixated on that leggy brunette. The one who glared like you were every box in her ‘no’ column checked off. Man, she did not like y—” The guy broke into a knowing chuckle as Dante’s face tightened. “Hell. It
is
the brunette. You dog! How on earth—”

“Long story. Too long. Let’s just say I ended up escorting her home. Let’s just say things progressed from there. Fast.”

“Okay. So what’s the problem? Was it shitty sex?”

“No.” He polished off the whiskey and flagged the barkeep for another. “No.
Fuck
. No. It was…” He grabbed a napkin and twisted the thing until it shredded. “Let’s just say I’m surprised the roof stayed on, you know?”

Mark glanced in confusion. “For her as well as you?”

He closed his eyes for a second. All too clearly, his mind filled with the beauty of Celina’s face against the pillows, the ecstasy of her body around him. His cock pulsed in his jeans, still craving the feeling of her vagina squeezing him as he’d brought her to orgasm. She’d come even harder the second time, when he’d ordered her to grip the headboard while he slammed into her from behind and thumbed her clit with every thrust.

“Yeah,” he finally said. “She—uh—well, it was mutual. Yes.”

He watched his friend barely contain a smirk. “Usually that’s not a problem, Dante.”

His new drink arrived. He was shocked he didn’t shatter the glass as he gripped it. “Usually I don’t do what I did on Friday, either.”

“Oh?”

He squeezed his eyes shut again. When he opened them, the room started to swim a little. Thank God. The whiskey simmered in his blood none too soon, bringing with it the words he’d never be able to utter sober.

“Celina’s different, Mark. She’s smart and strong…and lippy and defiant. She brought out shit in me…” He gave his throat another handshake with the Glenlivet. “Fuck. I had no idea where it came from. Jesus, I—”

A fast glance at Mark didn’t turn up a shred of judgment on the man’s face. But there wasn’t understanding there either. Hell. He was going to have to say it.

“I struck her, man. I did it hard. And not just once.”

Three seconds of assessing silence bounced back from his friend. Then Mark said in a calm undertone, “You mean you spanked her.”

Dante swallowed heavily. And damn it, fought to forget the other body parts getting heavy as well. His balls felt like chunks of coal, and his cock was a battering ram, just from the memory of how his hand had felt on the firm globes of her ass. “Yeah. I—I guess you could say that.”

“And you liked it.”

He stared at his friend. “How can you be so conversational about this?”

“Just answer the question. Did you like it?”

“Yes, goddamn it. I liked it, okay?” The room tilted in commiseration. Who was he kidding? He’d loved it. He wanted more of it.
Now
. More of taming her fire, harnessing her lightning, making her scream and writhe and orgasm for him.

“Fuck!” He couldn’t keep the memories from filling his mind.

“And you probably liked the rest of it too.”

That shaved a discomfiting hunk off his buzz. “What the hell do you mean, the rest of it?” he snapped. “There
was
no ‘rest of it’!”

Mark frowned. “No pulling her hair? No growling a few orders? Having her get into position and stay there?” The man’s mouth ticked up. “No loving how that made her turn to putty in your arms? And maybe a few other consistencies too?”

“Shit.”

“So there
was
a bit of the rest.”

He clawed his hair again. “I’m at least ten years older than her.”

“Doesn’t fly in my book, Tieri. Look at the woman who put this bastard’s ring on her finger.” He thumbed his chest.

“Yeah but you didn’t throw Rose over the bed and whack her ass to—” He stopped when he focused enough on Mark’s face to see the affirmative glints in his eyes and the growing grin beneath his gold beard. “Holy shit.” Both words came out as growls. “Hell. We’re a couple of goddamn perverts.”

“No, my friend. We’re a couple of Doms.”

He raised a brow. “What?”

“Doms, Dante.
Dominants
. People who enjoy being in control. Men who like nothing better than taking the lead during a sexual sequence and controlling every second of a woman’s pleasure. And for many of us, when that woman makes us earn the privilege of her submission, the experience is even more…errmm…addicting.”

Dante dug a hand into his hair again. He stopped when his palm hit his forehead. “Addicting,” he echoed. “Jesus. That’s a good way of putting it.” And a lousy way too. He needed another hit of Celina Kouris and highly doubted there was a detox program for shit like this.

“I’m just a little stunned you didn’t know this about yourself until now.”

“And how long have
you
been doing this shit then, spanky?”

Mark shrugged. “I was about twenty-two when I discovered the lifestyle. I was just damn lucky Heather liked it too. Of course, the Dom/sub world wasn’t what it is today. Clubs were still in people’s basements. There wasn’t as much education about things, and—”