She laughed and made some lame jokes about putting a bib on her friend when chocolate syrup and ice cream dribbled down Meghan’s chin. They were both trying to act normal.
What a joke.
“Are we just going to ignore the elephant in the room?” Asking leading questions was one of Meghan’s strong suits. Mostly, she just went for it.
“Which elephant?” Tori asked. “The big, thundering one with the tusks or that annoying bitch in the corner?”
Meghan dropped her spoon and swiped the back of her hand over her mouth. So much for napkins!
“I didn’t expect her to be so pretty.”
Tori grunted her agreement. “I know. What the hell? Did they find her in central casting?”
The arrival of Domineau Rivera shook up their sewing circle of Justice wives and friends. Even Carmen, who had years of practice pretending not to notice things, had reacted.
“And what’s with the motorcycle? I mean, really?” Meghan sounded especially pissy.
Tori still didn’t have words to adequately describe the ridiculous commotion this woman’s presence spurred. When she arrived, Alex had to intervene when passing through security led to a confrontation. Domineau Rivera did not take kindly to dick-dripping junior pissants challenging her badassery. A direct quote muttered by Duke when he tried to explain why his men had given her a hard time.
She rode up on a massive Harley to the front door of the Villa. They’d watched from a window as Alex went out to greet her. Nothing about that initial vibe indicated she’d been here before.
How to describe her? Hmmm, Tori thought.
Tall. As tall as Alex was.
Lean. Her body fat ratio or lack thereof felt like a challenge.
Dressed in head-to-toe black. Really? Pfft. Such a cliché.
When she took her helmet off, it was tough to say much of anything about her hair. Long? Short? Hard to tell since she wore it slicked back and murderously tight against her skull.
Scooping a pile of whipped cream fluff, Meghan licked her finger. “She looks like a Secret Service agent.”
“What would be weirder,” Tori grumbled, “is if a suburban mom showed up.”
They both thought about it for a good while.
“I saw that Roman fella. Just for a second. Parker brought him by after Domineau took off for the compound. You were upstairs resting. Alex sent them to Calder’s lab. He’s way more clean-cut than our Bendover crew.”
The front door opened and closed. “Is that Alex?” Meghan asked.
“No. It’s Cam.”
They watched silently as he waved to them and kept walking, working his phone the whole time.
Meghan reached for her hand. She grabbed her friend’s fingers and rubbed them. “It’s okay, sweetie.”
Part of Tori was dying inside. Meghan was a certified mess—there wasn’t a hint of the ball-busting badass she was accustomed to.
“That other guy comes tomorrow,” she whispered with a sigh. “Alex is so distracted and, ugh.”
She knew what her friend was getting at. Draegyn was also behaving differently. He seemed harder, more crusty than usual. And he was worried, which was something her husband tried to hide, but she saw through his act.
“Thank you for babysitting me,” Meghan murmured. “Ashleigh is taking guard duty tomorrow so you can have time with Drae.”
“My mother is practically living with Lacey,” Tori admitted. “She and Carmen tag team the poor girl nonstop. Thank god the boys are too young to realize there’s a kerfuffle. They just keep on keeping on. Everybody is pitching in. Ben took them into town with him. Supply run.”
Meghan snickered and laughed. “Is he nuts? Both of them? I can’t wait to see what they convince him to buy. Last time they all went to Flagstaff, he brought them home covered in chocolate and wearing Diamondbacks baseball caps.”
“Here’s a conversational pivot you couldn’t see coming,” Tori drawled. “I got the impression from Angie that we should turn our dirt-detector-triplets spy glass on Jace Delacroix.”
“Why?”
Tori shrugged and held up her hands. “Wait till you hear this! She picked up a strange vibe.”
Meghan jumped in. “Oh, please, no more problems.”
She laughed. “No problem thus far but hold your knickers. Angie thinks Sophie and Jace are somehow connected.”
“Ex-cuse me?” Meghan barked in an exaggerated drawl.
She clapped her hands and gave Meghan a conspiratorial eye waggle. “You heard it here first!”
“Sophia Marquez and Jace Delacroix?”
Meghan’s confusion was comically adorable.
“The very same.”
The question Meghan asked next hung in the air for a second and then they cracked up laughing. “Does he know she’s pregnant?”
“Just what we need,” Meghan quipped. “Something to break up the boredom.” Her sarcasm was over the top. “Another mystery couple.”
“Oh.” Tori laughed. “You mean like your brother and Remy? What is it with those two? Are they doing it or not?”
“Not, as far as I can tell.”
“No offense, Red, but Finn doesn’t come across as the type to keep it in his pants.”
“Oh, Jesus.” Meghan snorted. “There’s an understatement. He’s in the running for man-whore of the century.”
“He must really like her then. This are-they-a-couple-or-not farce has been hanging on for months.”
Meghan chuckled. “Do you think Angie was messing around or serious about Sophie?”
“Totes serious.”
Meghan sat up straight with an impish glint twinkling in her eyes. “Maybe we should pay the stable a visit.”
She made a face. “Oh, yeah. Like that wouldn’t seem strange. We’re banned from riding while pregnant, remember?”
“Oh, right. Hmmm. Hey, I know! I’ll grab the camera bag, and we can pretend we’re taking horse photos.”
Laughing at the idea, she looked at Meghan and smirked. “Horse photos.”
“Yeah, sure,” Red hooted. “I’m pregnant. I want some horse pictures. Believe me. Alex warned everyone. Whatever I want,” she drawled with an evil snicker.
Tori stood and reached out a hand. Bracing herself, she hauled her friend from her chair.
“Let’s go, Mrs. Marquez. If horse pictures are what you want, then horse pictures you shall have!”
Their laughter filled the air.
“My turn,” Cameron declared before swooping in and stealing their daughter from her arms. It melted her heart to see her oh-so-serious husband turn into a puddle of teary-eyed goo when he held the baby.
He kissed her tiny face until she squeaked and wriggled in his hands. “Hi Lily,” he crooned. “Daddy missed his little princess.”
Cuddling the small swaddled bundle, he spoke softly. She stroked his back while he told their precious baby about his day. It made her laugh when he explained to a twelve-day-old newborn how much it sucked when your computer’s router took a crap.
“So your uncles and I have to go out of town for a little bit. That means you and your brother are in charge of taking care of Mommy for me while I’m gone.”
Lacey put her head on his shoulder and watched Lily’s beautiful face while he talked.
“No wild parties, okay? And keep the movie watching to a minimum. Daddy doesn’t like people messing around in the theater room when I’m not here.”
She giggled and hugged his arm tight. “Yes, headmaster.”
“See that?” Cameron chuckled. “Your mom loves being a smarty pants.”
He kissed her hair, and she lifted her head to look in his eyes. With a very suggestive leer, he waggled his brows and whispered, “Headmaster, huh? Now that sounds like fun. Lessons, flash quizzes, proficiency tests, and final exams? Now, you’re talking.”
“Proficiency tests?” she drawled with a smirk.
His enormous grin was one of the reasons she loved him so much. Before she came alon
g, a team of detectives and a four-day head start couldn’t locate his smile.
“Behave in front of the baby, my wanton wife.” He snickered with a cheeky frown.
“I believe you were laying out the house rules, headmaster,” she quipped. “Please continue.”
Cameron’s smirky drawl made her body tingle. “Pay attention. There’ll be a flash quiz later.”
It didn’t matter that they couldn’t make love the traditional way—not so soon after Lily’s birth. Their deep passion for each other gave them a strong foundation. Intimacy was more than penetration and climax, and a period of intercourse abstention was nothing but a blip on the radar.
“Where was I?” he asked aloud. “Oh, right. No oatmeal cookies when I’m away. I just decided on this. They’re my favorite, so you can’t eat ‘em when I’m not here.”
“When you come back,” Lacey ventured as a thought appeared in her mind and she said it aloud. “We’ll celebrate with oatmeal cookies and milk.”
Her husband’s pleased smile told her a tradition had just been birthed.
“Now, about your brother,” Cameron drawled. “There may be some house rules just for him. Like no climbing on the counters. You’ll have to keep an eye on him, little darlin’. Dylan is half-monkey.”
“No parties, no movies, no oatmeal cookies. And Dyl has to stay off the furniture. Anything else?”
“Yes,” he soberly replied. “When Daddy has to go away, I want Mommy to light a candle every night and put it in the window. So I can find my way home even if it’s dark.”
It was hard to hang on to her composure when he showed that much of himself, but Lacey knew she didn’t have a choice. She understood the power over people that military service held. During a stopover at a base in Oklahoma during their trip across the country, she got an up-close look at his former life. She hadn’t been exposed to Justice yet, so the impressions of that day formed the base of her understanding where those things were concerned.
Cameron Justice was a warrior. Time and a different life weren’t going to change that. Neither would a wife, kids, and a name change. Her choice was simple. She could rail against this reality and make them both miserable, or she could have his back.
She lifted the baby from his arms and offered her lips for a kiss. “Dylan is asleep, but I promised that Daddy would tuck him in when he got home.”
Lacey watched him make his way across the room and head for the stairs. He was a wonderful father. Engaged, curious, enchanted. Her sigh was louder than she intended.
Her life experiences since she was a young child showed her that time continued to move forward no matter what. It didn’t matter if life was cruel or kind. Plans washed away like words written in the sand. All you had for certain was the present. How each person dealt with that irrefutable fact was up to them.
She chose to love as much and as deeply as she could.
24
“I love it,” Kelly gushed as she ran around the quaint desert dwelling. “What’s it called again?”
Roman chuckled. He stuck one hand in his pocket and gestured with the other. “Casita. It means miniature house or something like that.”
“I could live here,” she exclaimed. “It’s so cozy and cute.”
“Only one bedroom, though,” he pointed out. “I love Matty, but no way are we doing a family bed thing. Two bedrooms or bust.”
She shoved him with both hands on his chest when she walked by. The laughing snort she tried to brush off filled the air. “And one of those bedrooms must be soundproofed. Either his or ours.”
Laughing, he grabbed her around the waist and effortlessly picked her up, tossing her over his shoulder. She waited for the smack of his palm on her ass and purred with satisfaction when he did.
“Got myself a screamer.”
“Hey,” she hooted. From her position over his shoulder, it was easy to swat his butt as he walked. “I’m not the loud one. It’s you and all that grunting.”
He let loose a thunderous growl and mimicked climaxing with her name on his lips. She dissolved into giggles as he grunted wildly and proclaimed all sorts of lewd, crude things.
“Put me down, you scoundrel,” she cried like a damsel in distress.
“Sure.” Roman laughed and dumped her on a bed. She tumbled when she hit the mattress and ended up with her arms and legs all over the place.
Scrambling to right herself, Kelly couldn’t stop laughing when Roman kept swatting her hands away so he could tear her jeans off. The ape grunts and comic chest pounding made her laugh harder.
He got in on the laughter when she screamed like a terrified 16th century virgin as his big, strong hands ripped her panties to shreds.
She kept up her efforts to scramble away as he stripped her naked, huskily chuckling and grunting the whole time.
When he put his face between her legs and sniffed, she gasped and used her hands to shield her pussy. “No,”
He reared back with a horrified look. “Really?”
Kelly rolled her eyes and sighed dramatically. “I thought we were playing.”
“Yeah, me too, but I distinctly heard the word no.”
She started laughing hysterically. “You’re my grunting captor. I’m the terrified innocent. Okay?”
He smiled slowly and looked around. “Hang on.”
She watched him move around the room. He closed the window shutters and plunged the room into darkness. On the low chest of drawers, he lit a candle nestled in rocks at the bottom of a tall cylindrical vase.
When he left the small bedroom, she scooted around on the bed and tried out a couple of provocative poses. In the end, she settled on huddling near the headboard like a proper virgin captive.
Roman came back and dropped his heavy leather duffle bag on the bedroom floor. It landed with a thud, and she flinched at the sound. She didn’t know what other people traveled with, but they had a bag of books and his satchel of kinky.
She hadn’t noticed the bottle in his hand until he came to her side, grabbed her hair, and yanked her head back.
“Open your mouth,” he demanded.
When she did, he poured a huge mouthful of whiskey down her throat. She sputtered and tried to get away from his grasp.
“Drink,” he growled. “You’ll need it for what I’m going to do to you.”
Pleasure exploded in every corner of her body. “Please, don’t,” she whimpered.
“Too late. I smell your fear and your desire. Nothing can stop my cock from fucking that sweet pussy.”
She scrambled away and clung to the bedpost. Her trembling was real, only it wasn’t from fear. It was her excitement.
He stood there and inspected her naked body—occasionally taking a hefty swig from the bottle.
From the bag, he pulled a neatly wrapped hank of black silk rope. When he grabbed her foot and unceremoniously yanked her to the end of the bed, she yelped and blindly kicked, but all he did was laugh.
With fast hands, he wrapped the rope around one ankle and secured the other end to the bedpost. She had a couple of feet of rope to maneuver around with, but basically, she was lashed to the bed like an animal on a leash.
Shielding her nakedness with her hands and hair, she pretended to cower and peered at him through downcast eyes.
He wrapped his hand around her throat. A dominant power play. She smiled, and he arched a brow.
Oh, right. Smiling wasn’t in the role-playing handbook under the heading of virgin’s distress.
Quickly averting her eyes, she felt a delicious pulse between her thighs when he let out a deep, sexy chuckle.
“Have you ever seen a man’s cock?” he asked silkily.
Ah, this was easy. The only cock she’d ever seen was Roman’s. Shaking her head, he firmed his hold on her neck.
“I want you to watch,” he demanded in a thick voice. “Don’t look anywhere but at me. Understand?” He pulled her off the bed and had her kneel. It took less than a minute for her sexy captor to be
gloriously naked. The big, thick cock he stroked just inches from her face made her whimper with need.
“Take me in your mouth.”
She shook her head and crawled away. He took a fistful of hair and held her head in a vise grip.
“Open your mouth and suck me, or I’ll fuck your throat right now.”
Her hands moved of their own volition seeking to cup his balls and test the strength of his erection.
“No,” he barked. “No hands. Just your mouth, and do it good or I’ll punish you.”
It was deliciously sexy and arousing to pretend this was the first time she’d tasted a man’s sex. She used her tongue a lot and didn’t let him slide across her tongue until he demanded.
The gagging was real. She liked the gagging. Roman had a sizeable cock that presented quite the oral challenge. And instead of fighting it, she went with the flow. The more she’d gagged when he nudged the back of her throat, the thicker her saliva. And the wetter, the better in her book.
He grunted commands. Told her how to suck and lick. Eventually, he put his hands on either side of her face and went for it. It felt so spine-tingling perfect to be on her knees, hands limp as her virile man-beast fucked her mouth.
“Swallow,” he growled as his cock pulsed on her tongue. “All of it.”
When he pulled from her mouth, he grabbed her chin and surprised Kelly with a drugging kiss.
“A mouth like that will make up for your inexperience.”
And then he turned around and walked out of the room. She was stunned and scrambled to her feet to start after him until the rope around her ankle reminded Kelly she was his sex captive.
Her sex throbbed. She bit her lip. His taste invaded her senses.
He came back several minutes later and threw her on the bed. She lay in a sprawl. When she looked at him, he was openly staring at her bare pussy.
She struggled against the ankle restraint, closed her legs and shifted on the bed. He sniggered. With another section of rope, he tied her hands together and secured them to the headboard. He joined her on the bed and roughly separated her thighs.
Everlasting (Family Justice Book 6) Page 36