by Wane, BJ
Mia didn’t love Peter anymore, hadn’t for a long time, so it wasn’t the mention of Tami having him now that hurt, but the house that held all the memories of where she’d raised her boys that cut through her like a lance piercing her heart. She didn’t know whether she ached more from that pain or from suppressing the urge to lower herself to Tami’s level and lash back at her. Tears of anger and frustration blinded her way as she got into her truck and headed back to the nursery.
She stayed inside the shop most of the afternoon, leaving the guys to handle the customers. Her mood vacillated between bristling resentment over Tami’s public dressing down and despair over everything she’d lost. Telling herself losing material objects, such as the house, couldn’t rob her of her memories did little to soothe Mia in her agitated state. At least Barry had shown up today, and all three offered to come in tomorrow if the delayed shipment arrived. The eager way they’d jumped in to help her out reminded her how lucky she was, but she still wasn’t in the mood to play nice when Nolan showed up with attitude written in the tight set of his five-o’clock shadowed jaw and anger snapping in his cobalt eyes just as she was closing.
* * *
The sated, contented woman Nolan left that morning was nowhere around when he walked into the shop, and Mia’s attitude fit right in with his annoyance with her. After spending the past few weeks showing her she had no reason to cower from that prick of an ex and his immature side-piece, it pissed him off when he got wind of the nasty scene between Mia and Tami at her church. He waited for his deputy to tell him how Mia laid into the younger woman, but learned that wasn’t the case, and damn it, he wanted to know why.
Slamming the door behind him, he leaned against it, glad to see the taillights of the hired hands’ car leaving. Folding his arms, he returned Mia’s glare as he demanded, “Why the fuck didn’t you tell the bitch off?”
“What?” Enlightenment dawned, and her face paled before turning bright red. “Gee, Chief, I never knew you were so fond of gossip.”
“Cut the attitude, Mia.” Pushing away from the door, he stalked across the room and braced his hands on the counter separating them. “Haven’t I showed you that girl has nothing on you? What the hell is it going to take to get you to open your eyes and see you’re worth ten times what she is?”
Slamming the till drawer shut, her green eyes turned frigid as she snapped, “It’s easy for you to berate me, but you’ve never been humiliated the way I have, never lost the house you raised your children in or had people you’ve known your whole life look at you with pity because you were too stupid to see what was right in front of your face!”
Mia clamped her mouth shut, and he could tell by her appalled look she couldn’t believe she’d revealed those innermost feelings of inadequacy to him. Coming around the counter, he decided it was time to set her straight on a few things. Snatching her hand, he asked, “Where’s your office?”
“Why?”
Her suspicious tone tugged at his lips even though he was irritated as hell with her. “Because I don’t think you want me to bend you over out here even though everyone has gone for the day.” She yanked on her hand, but her pulse leapt under his fingers.
“What’s gotten into you? You can’t mean to… just because….” She stuttered down the short hall until he turned her and pressed her shoulders down on the desk in her office.
Nolan noticed she didn’t fight him too much but did swivel her crimson face around to glare at him. “What’s gotten into me is you, apparently. Yes, I can mean to punish you for your idiocy in thinking you were the stupid one in handling your marriage.” Yanking down her shorts and panties, he delivered a hard swat on her right buttock. “You’re ten times better than that twit your dick of an ex has taken up with.” He smacked her left cheek. “Repeat after me. I was not at fault.” Slap! Slap! Slap!
Mia shifted her hips and turned her face away but muttered, “I was not at fault.”
He belabored the tender area of her sit-spots with his next demand. “Repeat I was an idiot for letting her get to me.”
With a whimper, she lowered her head, shifted her feet and whispered, “I was an idiot for letting her get to me.”
Grabbing her braid, Nolan yanked her head up and covered her bouncing globes with a rapid volley of blistering swats, alternating between berating her and praising her with each one. “You are stupid if you continue to let that girl goad you.” Two blows on her right cheek. “I love fucking you, Mia. You’re a submissive delight any man would sell his right nut to have under his control.” A blistering slap to her upper left thigh. “Quit behaving as if they matter, because, God damn it, they don’t.”
Neither of them heard the bell clang over the door or the footsteps coming down the hall.
“What is going on here?” Peter’s shocked voice surprised both of them, but Nolan turned to him with a sneer as he released Mia’s hair and pressed one hand between her shoulders to keep her in place and switched from belaboring her ass to caressing the hot, reddened globes.
“Stay still,” he instructed, his eyes staying on Peter where the other man stood gaping at her naked, abused ass. “None of your business, is it, sweetheart?”
* * *
Mia couldn’t believe she wasn’t jumping up in mortification to cover herself in front of Peter. But Master Nolan possessed a way of driving home his point, as her throbbing, abused backside could attest to. As soon as he’d donned his Dom persona, her heart had tripped with excitement, her palms dampening in expectation as her pussy wept. Between those telltale responses and his words, she’d turned to putty under his hard hand while realizing everything he was drilling into her was right. It was time she quit taking the blame for what her prick of an ex was responsible for.
Nolan caressed her heated cheeks, his softer touch soothing her raw nerves while fortifying her courage to face Peter where he stood rooted in the doorway. “That’s right, this—me—is none of your concern, so go away.” Just to taunt him, she wiggled her butt and grinned. “I’m busy.”
“This… Mia, that’s just… wrong. I demand you release her, MacGregor. What would people think—”
“You’ve got to be kidding!” Mia burst out on an incredulous laugh. “God, I never realized what a hypocrite you are.”
“As you can see,” Nolan put in as he continued to fondle her aching backside. “Mia is a willing participant here. In fact, I was just going to finish up this lesson with my belt.”
She heard the sound of him pulling the thick leather off his waist and then the caress of warmed leather ghosted a trail over her quivering buttocks. “Oh, God,” she moaned, a shiver of longing rippling down her spine. “Get out, Peter.” Turning her face away from his angry scowl and splotchy red face, she relished listening to his heavy stomping down the hall followed by the slamming of the door.
“I’m proud of you Mia.”
Nolan’s praise wrapped around her like a warm hug as he trailed the belt up between her legs. “Does that mean you’re not going to use that on me?”
“No.”
The belt slashed across her buttocks, leaving a swath of fiery pain that sent her senses reeling. With a cry that echoed around the room, she accepted each of the five strokes biting into her flesh. While embracing the seeping pleasure spiraling through her lower body, Mia struggled to maintain her composure over the way he’d handled Peter’s intrusion, sticking up for her while keeping her in place with the hand between her shoulders and the one caressing her butt. But giving her the chance to do the same for herself topped off everything else. By the time she heard the belt drop to the floor and his zipper lower, the tears pricking her eyes weren’t solely from the pulsating pain encompassing her backside.
Her pussy, already filled with liquid heat, welcomed the invasion of his sheathed cock, her hips dancing in tune with his womb-bumping plunges. A tight coil gripped her stomach as sensation built with each plummeting thrust, his harsh breathing mingling with her desperate gasps.
Mia hadn’t quibbled over his insistence she insert the anal toy for an hour each day and now was glad she’d obeyed. He pulled out of her tight orifice and she couldn’t wait another second to let go. “Master, please,” she pleaded in a whispery voice she knew and didn’t care revealed the height of her need.
“Took you long enough,” Nolan grunted behind her, his hands grabbing her hips and holding them still for the forceful finish of his possession.
Her mind blurring with the overflow of sensation, Mia squeezed his thick girth as she exploded in climax, felt the jerks of his hot come jetting inside her and basked in the knowledge she could bring him the same pleasure as he did her.
She was still trying to catch her breath when he helped her up and pulled up her shorts. “How long will it take you to get ready?”
“For what?” she asked with lazy interest as she leaned against him for support.
“It’s prime rib night at the diner, and I’m starving.”
And just like that, the strict Dom slid away, replaced by a regular guy ruled by his stomach. Was it any wonder she liked him?
“I can be ready in fifteen minutes. That sounds good.”
Chapter 10
“And I’m still telling you you’re wrong, Chuck.” Nolan gripped the phone tighter and swiveled his chair toward the window behind his desk. Preparations were hammering away for the citywide picnic this weekend, but this call put an end to his enthusiasm for attending with Mia.
His former boss’s exaggerated sigh came through the phone loud and clear. “I’ll let you know. We have people tracking several trucks headed for three different nurseries in New Mexico, and The Greenleaf Nursery is on the list. Mia Reynolds and her place stay on our radar,” Chuck insisted.
“If you’re targeting two other nurseries in different cities that means they have a ring going that has to involve inside sources at each stop.” The sick churning in Nolan’s gut was a sign his suspicions about who at Mia’s nursery might be the inside person there were right on target. He usually prided himself on his accurate intuitions. Not this time. “Look, I know her. It wouldn’t surprise me if she’s being used, but I guarantee she knows nothing about it.”
“I believe you, but I still have to follow the leads, and so do you. Keep looking.”
“Fine. But I didn’t see anything untoward at her nursery and I’m sticking by my assertion Mia is not involved in any way.”
Nolan hung up and strode out of his office with frustration eating away at his insides. This fucking investigation had put forwarding his relationship with Mia on hold almost since it started and now placed it in jeopardy. And that was unacceptable. He’d pursued her with the sole purpose of exploring the hint of submissiveness and interest he’d glimpsed that one time, a look he hadn’t been able to forget no matter how many years passed or how much distance separated them. Scratching that itch was all he’d intended at first, but somewhere along the way, the cock-stirring prickly side of Mia had merged with her surfacing submissiveness and heightened responses to meld into a woman he continued to crave more of. Could there be a more perfect combination when he added in her admirable determination to make a successful go of her business despite her evident low self-esteem that constantly kept her questioning her self-worth?
They’d been seen together in public and it pissed him off when she would shy away from anyone who’d been friends with both her and Peter. The woman who walked around blaming herself for her husband’s infidelity was so completely at odds with the attitude-driven woman who’d kept him at arm’s length for months, was it any wonder his dominant side insisted he take her in hand? She’d blossomed into a sensuous woman under his tutoring and had taken the first step toward putting that prick in his place the other day in her office. But it wasn’t enough, not by a long shot.
“Hank, Morgan. There’s a three-car accident blocking traffic out on the highway at Miller Road. No injuries but a damned bottleneck. Go see what you can do,” he instructed his two most seasoned deputies.
“You got it, Chief.” Morgan stood and grabbed his hat without questions. Hank nodded and followed him out.
“Everything okay, Chief?” Carrie, the dispatcher, looked up at him with concern clouding her face.
“Yeah, for now, Carrie. Thanks.” He returned to his office praying it stayed that way.
* * *
“What now?” Clifton looked up from the numbers swimming before him and glared at Sanchez’s rude intrusion into his office. “Knocking would be nice.”
“Fuck being nice and fuck you if you think I’m taking the rap for you,” his pain-in-the-ass hired hand snapped.
“Can you be a little clearer?”
“I can be clear as glass.” Stomping across the room, he leaned his hands on the desk and snarled down at him. “Word is the Feds are on our ass. How’s that for clear?”
Swearing a blue streak, Clifton forced himself to rein in his temper. Imbeciles. He was surrounded by them. He may have waited too long to sever ties with his current associates. “Stand back, Sanchez. I haven’t gotten this far by being stupid. There’s nothing that can lead them to us, as I’ve repeatedly told you.”
Straightening, Raul crossed his arms and said, “The Reynolds bitch can put me with one of her guys.”
Clifton shrugged. “So?”
“So, it’s not you putting your ass on the line meeting up with all these connections.”
Some placating would be necessary if he wanted to keep Sanchez in line for the next few weeks while he figured out what to do next. He despised the necessity, but he would continue to do whatever was required to save his land. “You have my word we’ll pull out of this if anything points in your direction. In the meantime, I’ll double your bonus on the next shipment, which should be ready in the next few days. I told you I’d always have your back.”
“See that you do, boss.”
* * *
By the time Saturday morning rolled around and Mia was slipping back into her apartment after spending another night being tormented in Nolan’s decadent bondage room and then waking sore and sated in his bed, she was more than ready to socialize at the annual town picnic. She’d missed last year’s Fourth of July celebration for the first time. She and Peter had just split, and she’d chosen to stay home in shame rather than hear a lot of platitudes and contend with a slew of pitying looks. Thanks to her friends’ constant prodding and Nolan’s influence, she was done with putting her life on hold.
The week had started on a sour note when she’d gotten word her shipment would be delayed until at least next week. Since a good amount of her foliage came from horticultural farms in Mexico, it hadn’t been the first time she’d suffered the frustration of such a wait, something she’d learned could happen when she’d researched this career choice. At least she’d ended the week on a high note after Nolan talked her into taking yesterday off to drive up to Santa Fe and visit the boys. Playing hooky from work the day before they closed for the town’s festivities had felt good. What felt even better was spending the entire day with both him and her sons after he’d insisted on accompanying her.
Watching Nolan’s easy, comfortable interaction with her boys, as if he’d known them for years, edged up her like of the man yet another notch. She still shied away from thinking about how many notches remained before like tumbled into something much stronger.
With only a few hours until Nolan picked her up, Mia sat down to catch up on bills before putting together her popular spaghetti pie casserole to bake while she showered. By the time she’d braided her hair and dressed in a su
mmer, calf-length skirt of swirling pleated blues and plain white tank top, she heard him coming up the stairs and rushed to greet him. Flinging open the door, her pulse jumped as if she hadn’t seen him in days instead of hours and her body warmed just from the look in his vivid blue gaze when he tipped his hat back.
“Why do you have your hair pulled back?” he asked with a frown as she held the door open.
Mia rolled her eyes behind his back. “I’ve told you. It’s too hot to wear it down all day, especially outside.”
Without looking back at her, he ordered, “Stop rolling your eyes and pull up your top.” Fishing a small vial out of his pocket, he pivoted to face her again.
She eyed the tube with wariness as she shut the door. “We’re going to a city picnic. You do remember how many people attend every year, don’t you?”
Not trusting the gleam in his eyes, she backed up as he walked slowly toward her until her calves bumped against the sofa. “I assume it draws as big a crowd as I recall. What’s your point?” he drawled, using his other hand to tug her top free of the skirt.
Mia narrowed her eyes at him when he released the front catch on her bra and her breasts sprang free, her nipples puckering from the sudden waft of cooler air and the banked heat in his eyes. “You’re making me uncomfortable by being deliberately obtuse.” She held her breath as he popped the cap and the scent of cinnamon permeated the space between them.