Unchained (37 page)

“So now that we’re in the air with the next stop Sedona,” Meghan joked, “may I have my phone back?”

Her husband let loose with a rumbling sigh and put his head on the rest behind his neck. “Guess this means the honeymoon’s really over, huh?”

She reached for him and started unmercifully tickling him under his arms and along the sides of his torso. Didn’t take much to get him laughing. She went flying through the air, though, when he caught her off guard, lifted her bodily, and brought her down onto the sofa with her head on his lap.

Looking up at him, her heart did a flip-flop when his eyes met hers. His bold gaze raked her body and then returned her stare with a heated leer. Meghan luxuriated in the tingling shiver he caused when his fingers lightly traced her hairline before drawing a lazy ring around her parted lips.

“I like your head in my lap,” he drawled.

She winked. “But my face should be pointing the other way, right?”

His gaze quite pointedly fell to her mouth. The near constant fluttering in her tummy increased.

“Is that your way of saying you want to suck my dick?”

“What?” she teased. “This morning in bed? Or when you pulled that Dom shit in the limo? Wasn’t that enough for you?”

She playfully bit his thumb when he toyed with her lips. “Just keeping your naughty mouth busy. Too busy for phone calls.”

“Bet I could suck and text at the same time.”

His mouth quirked with humor. “Aw, come on, babe. That’s taking multitasking a step too far.”

She couldn’t control her burst of laughter. The very idea of taking him in her mouth and thinking for half a second she’d keep her shit together long enough to text a single word was riotously funny.

Clasping her hands, she pleaded and please, please, please’d him into next week.

“Promise I won’t turn it on before we land, but baby, I
neeeeeed
my phone.”

His sexy laugh was low and throaty. “Begging always works.”

She immediately sat up, threw her arms around his neck, and latched onto his mouth for a ravenous kiss. Alex was a master of many things, and kissing was one of his crowning achievements. His tongue invading Meghan’s mouth sent shivers racing through her body. She’d give her best Jimmy Choos at that moment for a locked door and a bedroom.

His lips eventually left hers to nibble on her ear and whisper, “Your phone is fully charged, turned on, and set to mute. It’s in your purse.”

“Don’t care,” she moaned when he sucked her earlobe. “Kiss me again, Major.”

He said something, but their lips touching once more smothered his words. Her belly felt like the Tilt-a-Whirl carnival ride as the kiss slid ever closer to being out of control for where they were.

“God almighty, Meghan.” He groaned into her mouth. “I want you so bad.”

Her mind was spinning, and not much was stopping her from tearing his clothes off.

“Remember the first time we made love? In my old truck?”

She clutched at him and tried to continue the kiss. “Uh-huh.” She was panting. Her lips parted, and her heart was thundering in her chest.

“Can you do that again?”

His hands moved possessively down her back and fondled her ass through her clothing.

She searched his face. The first time they made love?

“Can you do it, baby? Take me inside and not move? Fuck me with your muscles until we both come?”

He already knew the answer because he was busy removing her panties. With all the grace her horny body could muster, she stood up, let him slide the delicate silk over her feet then watched in mesmerized silence as he undid his zipper, reached for his cock, and pushed his pants out of the way.

She glided over his knees, lifted her dress so they could watch her body slowly sink onto his sex, and when she was fully seated and found the perfect position, smoothed the dress down to hide what they were doing and squeezed his mighty cock with all her might.

“Yeah. Like that.” He groaned.

There was no reason to drag things out. She wanted to feel him swell and fill until he released inside her. Wanted to squeeze every drop until she came all over his cock and collapsed on his chest.

“Look at me,” he demanded as her inner muscles did their job and caressed his length with increasing fervor.

She shifted and ground in tiny circles. His hands slid beneath her dress and clutched at her thighs.

Their eyes locked; she barely heard him as he whispered a litany of alpha crudeness that fired up her senses.

Enough was enough. With a mighty effort, she pulsed her muscles over and over. His fingers dug into her thighs. When he started to roar his pleasure, she dived onto his mouth and inhaled his earthy grunts. Her legs shook as a flood of liquid heat poured from her body.

There was a long, hard pause when she felt suspended in midair, and then his cock jerked, and she heard his chest rumble on a deep groan.

Meghan squeezed and squeezed until her body ignited like a firecracker. She jerked from the initial explosion, mewled softly as a staggering orgasm rocked through her then finally folded onto his chest at the end, totally spent.

They were somewhere over the middle of America. Mrs. and Mrs. Alex Marquez. Newlyweds. Zooming above the clouds at six hundred miles an hour. And she’d just made wicked love to her husband, fully dressed in their private jet.

The next time they made love, it would be in their own bed. If they made it that far without giving in to another quickie.

“W
HICH ONE DO
you like?”

Stephanie straightened and stood back to get a better look at all three designs.

“Well,” Betty replied with a finger tapping her lips and a pair of glasses riding halfway down her nose, “I prefer the pastels, of course. More in keeping with the whole theme around Stork Affairs.”

“These logos are fantastic, Stephanie,” Cheryl said in amazement. “I can’t thank you enough.”

“Well, hell’s bells, shugah,” she drawled satirically. “Little ol’ me didn’t do the designs. I just asked a question and boom! This is the answer.”

The three women laughed in unison. She was delighted that Betty and her BFF, Cheryl Prescott, sought her input for the parties and events business Cheryl had started. They were working from fantastic plans, and she liked adding her professional expertise as a pageant coordinator. Children’s parties, family reunions, graduation events, baby showers, and everything in between was big business these days.

“My daughter is a midwife, and she’s beyond excited about offering her unique services through Stork Affairs.”

Betty, who knew more than a little bit about running a successful business, offered her ten cents.

“First off, changing the company name from ‘creations’ to ‘affairs’ means the reach is broader. People see a word like creations next to the name stork, and all they see is babies.”

“So true,” Stephanie muttered.

“Next, the key to covering all your bases is to offer an exclusive option for higher end clients who don’t want to hear the word no. The catalog of options and a price list are enough for most people, but you need to be ready for anything.”

Cheryl’s hometown Texas twang when she asked a question was infectious and made Stephanie consider challenging her to a Southern Lady’s Drawl-Off.

“Tell me again who made these beautiful watercolors.”

“That would be Ms. Charlize Baron-Wilde,” Betty answered. “You didn’t meet her when she was here, Cheryl, but she’s the girlfriend of the guy in charge of the Major’s secret project. Caleb. Caleb Merrill is his name. I guess she’s some kind of artist, and she’s got that hippy vibe thing the gals like so much.”

“Tori wants to marry her,” Stephanie chimed in with glee. “Says she’s got more creativity in her eyelashes than my daughter thinks she has in her whole body. They were plotting some sort of themed wall mural for the new family center as a surprise for Meghan.”

“Well, she-it,” Cheryl drawled. “You tell the little lady for me that her paintings are simply amazing. I can’t wait to have business cards made!”

They continued chatting about plans and making lists of things to do when a bang sounded from downstairs. Everyone paused and looked up. Footsteps, stomping footsteps, thundered up the stairs. In unison, all three heads swung to the entrance, and sure enough, a few seconds later, the door to Betty’s inner sanctum flew open.

And who was framed in the doorway looking more like an angry apparition than a person? Why, it was her daughter, Tori St. John.

Oh, my.

Barely acknowledging her own mother’s presence or that of Betty’s friend, Tori zeroed in on the Justice business manager and began talking in rapid-fire sentences.

“Betty. Help me out, would you? Does Justice have any clients or contractors by the name of Carol?”

Stephanie and Cheryl looked from Tori to Betty, who seemed a bit shocked by Victoria’s terse tone.

“Carol? Um, well, dear. I don’t think so. I mean, at least none comes to mind. Is there a problem?”

Tori’s answering snort was derogatory at best. “Will you check the computer please?”

Even Stephanie heard the command in the statement. She wasn’t asking. She was telling. The dull pulse of worry—the kind only one’s children can evoke—came to life in her stomach.

“Sure, dear. Come on over to my desk.”

Betty waved a hand for Tori to step behind the big wood surface then turned to give her and Cheryl a ‘What the hell?’ face.

As Betty sat and started tapping away at the keyboard, Cheryl got her attention. Nudging and gesturing with her head for Stephanie to check things out, Cheryl gathered her notes and a couple of stray papers, shoved everything into a satchel, waved her fingers at Betty, gave Stephanie a brief hug, and then got the hell out of there.

Going to Tori’s side, she placed an arm around her shoulders. Support? Worry? Both.

“No, honey. Not a single Carol—first, last, or business name—anywhere in my database.”

Stephanie sensed this was not the news Tori wanted to hear.

“Oh.”

One simple word. So much unsettling emotion. Stephanie wasn’t sure what to do or say.

“Please be sure,” her daughter mumbled. “Check again.”

Betty nodded and started a new search. This one took longer but had the same results. Tori’s reaction appeared calm on the surface, but hell, she was the girl’s mama, and Stephanie had a pretty good idea what was happening on the inside. Her little Victoria burst into the world as a tiny whirling dervish, and nothing had changed in the decades since.

Hoping a distraction would ease the tension she felt radiating off her daughter’s body, she changed the subject, innocently asking, “Where’s my grandbaby? I wanted to take him to the stable later.”

“Draegyn has him. They’re building Angie a chest of drawers.”

Stephanie laughed, and Betty chortled. “They? Daniel’s helping, is he?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Tori muttered hastily. She was distracted, and Stephanie could hear her brain working. “It’s a guy’s thing. Or so I’m told. They talk. Man stuff. Draegyn made him a set of wood tools that Daniel happily pounds wherever he can.”

She noted what her daughter was wearing. “You headed to the studio for a workout?”