by Delta James
She turned her head slightly.
“Am I?” she asked, more fearful than he had heard her.
Even facing down professional killers, she had kept her wits about her and been willing to join in the fray. Even as roughly as he’d treated her, she didn’t fear him, but could he earn her love and respect?
“Yes, and don’t you forget it. Now, turn around and kneel. I’m going to fuck your mouth before you come sit on my cock while we talk.”
“Morgan...”
“Or we can talk with the butt plug out and my cock up your ass...”
* * *
Remi turned around and sank slowly to her knees, licking and sucking down his body until she was confronted by his cock. She sat back on her heels and obediently opened her mouth. She wanted to show him that she accepted his dominance. Stepping forward, he plunged his cock to the back of her throat, moaning as he did so. She felt her pussy clench and release in response.
There was an almost surreal quality to it. Morgan had been her hero and the man who occupied her dreams and fantasies since she’d been in her teens. She realized that he’d been the elusive piece missing from her life. Even though he’d just punished her and then fucked her hard through several orgasms, she could still feel the waves of arousal washing over her, infusing her entire being with an erotic energy she had never experienced before.
Usually when she went down on a man, Remi felt powerful and in control. But with Hoss, he’d let her know, in no uncertain terms, that she was servicing him... he was the one who was dominant in the encounter. She didn’t give him head; he fucked her mouth.
“Good girl,” he purred, obviously enjoying the act.
Remi felt Hoss push forward, each time further into her mouth. Time and again, he thrust gently and slowly into her mouth, clearly savoring the way she used her tongue and lips to enhance the experience. His cock throbbed rhythmically in her mouth as he continued to rock his hips back and forth, withdrawing almost completely before driving forward again. She opened her throat to give him greater access and licked the underside of his shaft until the tip passed by as he pulled back and then swirled her tongue around the sensitive head.
“Look at me, Remi,” he growled as he fisted her hair, tilting her head back slightly.
His eyes never left hers as he began to surge forward with more deliberate purpose. The butt plug reminded her that she was his to use as he saw fit—that this was something they both accepted, wanted, and needed. Hoss’ lust only added to her own. Remi realized that he wanted her to see that his need matched her own.
She felt the remnants of Hoss’ seed dripping onto her calves as well as tracing down to her plugged bottom to drip off the rounded end of the glass cylinder still engulfed in her dark passage.
Hoss grunted as he began thrusting harder and more deeply. Remi wasn’t sure how much more of him she could take, but somehow, she managed it. He made a strangled cry as he began to shoot his cum down her throat and into her belly. He was the only man she’d ever swallowed. The first time because he gave her no choice; this time because she wanted him to see and feel her capitulation to his will.
Finally, when he emptied himself into her, he pulled her from the floor and ravaged her mouth with his tongue. Remi kissed him back with an intensity and passion she’d never known before. In that moment, she felt the safety and sensual possession with which he held her. He cradled her against his massive frame, letting her know that he was her shelter from the storm that surrounded her... the safe harbor she’d always been seeking.
Tears started to leak from her eyes. She wasn’t sure of their origin—fear? Relief in knowing she was safe? Loss of what they might have been? Confusion over what they were and might yet become?
“Shh,” he soothed as he wiped away the tears with his thumbs. “It’s all right, Remi. I’ve got you. Nothing and nobody will ever hurt you again. If we can’t get this straightened out and I don’t feel I can absolutely keep you safe even if something happens to me, we’ll find a place in this world where I can be sure of that. Don’t worry, sweetheart, I’ve got you now.”
Remi rubbed her cheek against his chest and nestled closer. “I’m not sure what these tears are about, but I know that they aren’t because I don’t think you can keep me alive.”
They stood locked together in an embrace so tight that it seemed to mend all of their broken pieces.
Tilting her head back, she asked, “Morgan?”
His response was only marginally intelligible.
“Any chance I can get you to take this butt plug out?”
It took her a moment to realize the rumble from deep in his chest was amusement and not annoyance.
“Do you think you can manage to behave yourself with it out?”
She nodded. He led her by the hand back to the bed. Rolling up one of the king-size pillows to make a bolster, he helped her to get comfortable on her belly. As she lay down, Remi noted, to her chagrin, that he still had on his jeans and cowboy boots. Granted the fly to his jeans was unbuttoned and his cock was hanging out, but still it rankled a bit.
“You couldn’t even take your boots off before fucking me?” she asked with a degree of snarkiness.
He trailed his finger down the crack in her ass before lightly tapping the end of the butt plug, sending a jolt of resurgent arousal throughout her system.
“Remi, if you want me to believe you can behave without the butt plug, then you’d best do so with it. As for your question, I suggest that you get used to the idea that I won’t always be naked when I make use of one of your holes while you most often will be. If we need to talk that through, you can come and sit on my lap with my cock stuffed up your pussy and the plug still in your bottom hole while we talk to the guys.”
“No, Morgan,” she said meekly, “that won’t be necessary.”
“If you’re sure...”
“I am.”
He chuckled. “Not to worry; I’ll have it handy in case you need to be reminded.”
He traced the welts lightly with the tips of his fingers.
“That hurts, you know,” she said without even a trace of bitterness.
He leaned down and trailed kisses all along each stripe. She purred in response.
“I think I like it when you kiss my ass,” she quipped.
Hoss chuckled. “Well, behave more often and I’ll see what I can’t do about that.”
He gently parted her cheeks, careful of how tender they were and slowly removed the butt plug.
“You stay here,” he said as he went into the attached bath.
She could hear the sound of running water and assumed that he was washing the plug. The very thought of him using it again made her quiver, and not in a bad way. She had to admit, at least to herself, that it had made her very mindful of her submissiveness to him. For some reason that escaped her comprehension, it increased the state of her arousal to the point that when she orgasmed, she did so in both places.
Hoss’ phone rang and he answered. She could hear him exchange pleasantries with the person on the other end of the call but didn’t pay it a great deal of attention until she heard mention of her own name. He made sure she saw him hit the speaker button.
“I think we’ve finalized the rules of our relationship, haven’t we, sweetheart?”
“Really? What might those be?” she asked.
“I don’t know, Hoss, she sounds more like Murph’s Ginie than my Heather.”
Remi recognized Detective Mitchell’s voice.
“That’s all right,” laughed Murphy. “The ones with fire and spirit are a lot more fun to ride.”
Remi blushed. Hoss rubbed her back.
“That’s enough, boys. I’ll remind you that you’re on speaker and that’s my woman you’re talking about who can hear you.”
She heard mumbled apologies but wasn’t sure if they were apologizing to him or to her.
“That’s all right, babe. I’ll just be sure to share what he said to his Ginie.”
The three men other than Murphy all laughed.
“Before you do that, could you give the rest of us a heads up. We’ll want to get popcorn for the show,” said Yancy with his amusement evident in his voice.
“I don’t know about you three old married men, but I’d like to get this trouble surrounding my woman cleared up so we can start living our lives without the threat of arrest or death as companions.”
“Yeah, about that...” started Adam. “There’s a growing feeling amongst the brass that we have enough circumstantial evidence to arrest your girl, or at least get search warrants for her house, financials, and cell phone. I’m not sure that I’m going to be able to do much more than give you some lead time if an arrest warrant gets issued. And with that, gentlemen and lady, I’m going to exclude myself from the rest of this conversation before I hear something a cop shouldn’t be party to... unless it becomes necessary. In which case, I’ll get emergency leave and join you. For the record, Remi, I don’t think you did it.”
Before she could respond, Adam had ended his participation in the call.
“What did he mean by that?” Remi asked.
“He knows we’re about to start talking about illegal things we might do to circumvent the system. Yancy, can you arrange for her cell phone records to disappear?”
“I’m already working on removing them from any system the cops could find, but I want to take a look at them to see if there is anything suspicious...”
“Does he think I killed Becca?” she whispered to Hoss.
“I heard that, Remi, and I don’t. The fact is that someone sent a helicopter with assassins to take you out. No one does that without a damn good reason. I think if I find something that points a finger at you, it means someone beat me to it and managed to alter the original record in ways that make you look guilty. I want to find those and then trace them back to whoever did this.”
“Do you think that’s what happened?” asked Hoss.
“Think? Yep. Do I know what was done or by whom? Nope. Just has my spidey senses tingling if you know what I mean.”
“Never mess with Yancy’s spidey senses. They are never wrong,” added Murphy. “Hoss, you talked about the cottage. I think we’re better off to find something that’s just outside of Philadelphia with an airport that can take a small jet or helicopter close by. We need to give Adam some cover for whatever we have to do.”
“We’ll be close enough to Philly at the cottage. Tilghman Island has its own airport, and could be an easy get away by jet, chopper, or boat.”
Murphy added, “And before you ask, our place in Dubai and the air team are both on alert if we need them. I’ll have everything ready by the time you get there. We’ll arrange for a fully loaded powerboat to be tied up at the private dock.”
Remi couldn’t suppress her giggle. “You guys sure make certain you have all your bases covered.”
Hoss nodded. “That’s why those of us who got out are still alive. We take care of each other and don’t get caught with our guard down.”
“Hey, Remi?” said Yancy.
“Yeah?”
“What do you know about Le Meilleur?”
“The company sponsoring the show? Nothing more than they’re an elite knife manufacturer. Their knives are wildly expensive but said to be worth it. Part of the thank you for playing gift is a complete chef’s set of their best knives.”
“Do you know they have close ties to that chef out of Seattle, Julian Burns?”
“There were rumors that the fix was in, but he wasn’t performing as well as had been expected.”
“Why do you ask? You think this Burns was after Remi?” asked Hoss in a low and menacing tone.
“Stop,” she said. “Julian Burns isn’t smart enough to pull off something like this.”
“Easy, big fella,” said Yancy. “Your lady is right. And even if he had the brains, he doesn’t have the balls. But the financials of the sponsor are pretty grim.”
“I can’t believe the show would have gone into business with them if they couldn’t produce. They had to have done some kind of financials to verify their claim that they could sponsor,” added Murphy.
“The ones they gave the show are just dandy, but those have little resemblance to what their real books say,” said Yancy. “It looks like there was some kind of deal that they’d help Julian win and he’d play celebrity chef roulette for the next two years before they came through with the prize.”
“But the CEO is a well-known chef out of New Orleans...” said Remi.
“Who doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground when it comes to financials. He’s their face they show to the world. But the COO is a shady bastard. He’s been convicted of embezzlement, stock manipulation, extortion and the like. My guess is there is money, but Donny is just building himself a nice retirement nest egg somewhere offshore where he can live like a king surrounded by all the high-priced tail he can buy.”
“Couldn’t we just tell the show or Chef Ettinger? I don’t know the man well, but I can’t believe he’d condone this,” stated Remi emphatically.
“You’re not paying attention, babe, Yancy doesn’t think he knows.”
“That’s right, Remi. The only remaining people who could have beat Burns were you and Becca. Her phone records show she might have been starting to nose around.”
“You think they killed her and tried to frame Remi?” asked Murphy.
Hoss nodded. “Makes sense, kill two birds with one stone... literally.”
“And Julian? Do you think Julian knows?” whispered Remi. Granted, she didn’t like the man, but she didn’t want to believe him capable of murder.
“I think he knows he’s supposed to win. As for the rest, I have no way of knowing.”
“Yet,” said Hoss. “Murph, why don’t you have a little chat with Chef Julian. I’ll secure our position, and we’ll leave in the morning. Send the coordinates to the sat phone. This one is going dark when I hang up.”
* * *
Remi went to roll to her side and stopped when he looked at her, arching his left brow.
“Right; sorry,” she said. “Do you really expect me to obey you all the time?”
“No. But you can depend on getting your ass spanked and anything else I deem appropriate when you don’t,” he stated matter-of-factly.
“Morgan...”
“Most people call me Hoss.”
“I never thought I was just most people to you,” she replied.
He leaned down and kissed her temple. “You aren’t; you never were.”
“Can I tell you something?”
“Sure. I might not like it and you might get punished for it, but you’re better off to tell me than to let me find out on my own.”
“I didn’t stand you up.”
“That was a long time ago, Remi. Let it go.”
He turned to stand; she reached for and caught his muscular arm.
“No, this is important to me... to you... to us.”
The last two words seem to break through his stoic wall. He didn’t turn back to her, but he didn’t pull away.
“The night of the prom, I was dressed and ready to go. I was so excited and happy. You were the best thing that had ever happened to me.”
“I doubt that. Initially, I got you out of an awkward situation with Steve; I think we got caught up in the romanticism of it.”
“Is that what we are now—just caught up in some fairytale story?”
Morgan took a deep breath and exhaled, but said nothing.
“I know I’m not. You were my first truly safe place; my first stability. Life with my dad might have been fun for him, but for a child it was chaotic and stressful. There were times before we left that there wouldn’t be food on the table or there’d be some woman I didn’t know in my dad’s bed. He had a bad habit of sticking me in front of the television with the sound turned up so he could fuck their brains out. When my dad left for the oil fields in Saudi Arabia, he d
idn’t give me any choice in the matter. You were quiet and kind...”
“I’m not that boy anymore. I left him behind when I joined the army. I had to in order to survive.”
“And I am so sorry for any part I had in that, but it wasn’t intentional, and it wasn’t my fault.” She laughed bitterly. “It took me a year of therapy to say that. I went in to see my dad to show him my dress and to either borrow the car or get him to drive me to meet you at the school. I was so happy... so excited... so proud to be going with you.”
“With me? You were the homecoming queen and I was just the overweight center. You should have been going with Steve.”
“Don’t you say that! I could have gone with Steve... that was the first time you saved me. You were the heart and soul of that team. With a less talented center, Steve would never have looked even half that good. You were my hero; my proverbial knight in shining armor.”
It was Morgan’s turn to laugh bitterly. “If I was anybody in those stories, it was the dragon, not the knight.”
“One of the things my father taught me was that shiny armor gets dented and tarnished, but dragon fire will keep you warm through all of the years,” Remi said wistfully. “Anyway, by the time I got back and called your house, your dad told me you’d joined the rangers, been deployed, were probably dead and it was all my fault.”
“You didn’t make me punch Steve, which got me arrested. They offered me the army or jail. I chose the army, then the rangers chose me. Why didn’t any of your friends say something?”
“Because we were gone and they had no idea when, where, or why.”
“Your dad was a piece of work.”
“My father, in his own way, loved me and gave me a wonderful start into adulthood. He made me very self-reliant and when he died, he had left me enough to pay for culinary school, buy my row house, and pick and choose what jobs I wanted. I always prided myself on being practical. You were lost to me, so I made the best of it. But I never forgot you and when I felt my life was in danger, it was you I ran to. I don’t even think it was a conscious thought. I just ran to the one place, the one person left in this world that I knew could save me.”