by Anne Conley
No more interruptions.
When he came back in the room, Slade’s shirt was gone, and the top button of his jeans was undone, the purple tip of a magnificent cock peeking out the top.
“You want me to fuck you now, Deena Rae?” he asked, palming his bulge.
She shook her head. “I want it in my mouth.” This was so not her bag. This wasn’t what Deena Rae did. She did not let guys fuck her face. But for some reason, that’s all she could imagine with Slade. She wanted to be at his mercy. She wanted to bring him pleasure. She wanted to hear the noises he made when she made him come.
Deena Rae wanted this man to take control and come undone. With her.
He had been right. She hadn’t given any of herself to him. He’d been honest with her from the get-go, as self-deprecating as it was, but at least he’d been forthcoming. And she had more secrets than a Madam. It was the least she could do.
A wicked grin sent a shiver of need down her spine as he rasped down his zipper and dropped his pants.
Commando. Sweet.
She scooted back up, so she was leaning against the headboard, and obediently opened her mouth. Jesus, she’d never been so ready to please a man—ever. But she wanted this.
Now.
Looking up at Slade, as he completely dominated her with his presence alone, she grinned at him mischievously. “I don’t have much of a gag reflex.”
That was all he needed before he fed her the beautiful cock with a groan. As she sucked, he pumped, and Deena Rae felt the power of Slade coming undone.
His hips moved with abandon, pumping and thrusting into her mouth. His cock went down the back of her throat, and each time it hit, he’d let out a groan.
It was a noise she had never heard from him, but it sent goose bumps skittering across her back.
He didn’t hold her head, keeping his fists clenched at her sides, so she was free to twist and lick and suck from all angles. And each one made him moan more.
She loved it.
He didn’t do this for long, though, pulling out with a hand tightly grasping the base of his cock.
“I want to be inside you when I come, Ginger. Are you ready?” Slade’s face was a piece of tortured art, chiseled features, mouth twisted into something savage. He was so fucking beautiful she wanted to cry.
With a series of clicks, Deena Rae was out of the cuffs, and his face relaxed into something else as he watched her get out. Then he pulled her to the edge of the bed and settled her feet on his shoulders.
“We’re going to talk about that later.”
“Just shut up and fuck me, Slade.”
He paused at the entrance to her drenched pussy. “The herpes thing was a joke, right?”
She exhaled hard, frustration abounding inside her. “I’m fucking clean and on birth control, now stick that cock in me, now.”
With a mighty roar, he did, his girth stretching her wide. Deena Rae gasped, refusing to think about how long it had been since something this size had been inside her. Slade stood there, her feet at his ears, his eyes closed in some sort of pained euphoria, and he just breathed while she stretched.
And stretched.
It stung a little, but when he finally began to move, the burn turned into something else. Much-needed friction, his head stroking her, an immense sense of completion—it all overwhelmed her, conspired against her.
She was out of control now. There was no turning back. This weird courtship ritual they’d had was culminating in the most intense pairing she’d ever experienced. All the sneaking into each other’s apartments, being around their things, without the other one being there, was turning into a fiery inferno of built-up anticipation and sexual gratification.
Yes.
Her legs still on his shoulders, she felt a different sort of stretch as he leaned down and devoured her mouth. It made him hit her from a different angle, and suddenly he was swallowing her cries as she exploded into a white-hot heat. Fire raced across her skin, through her body, and her walls clenched around him. He moaned into her mouth, still swallowing her cries as she came down, before swiping his tongue across her lips and standing back up.
He grabbed her tits with both hands and used them as leverage as he pounded into her with no restraint. It hurt. It healed. It felt wonderful.
As every muscle in his powerful body tightened with his own climax, she watched, fascinated as his eyes clenched shut, his eyebrows furrowed, and his mouth pursed.
Fuck. He was fucking beautiful.
And she was in way too deep.
Chapter Seventeen
The next afternoon, Deena Rae was at work, still digging around in Cecil’s background. She was looking for something to point her in a direction she could go in when she got Slade to take her to the bar tonight. He didn’t know that’s what they were doing, but they were.
She needed to get into one of those back rooms soon, before Simon decided she wasn’t cut out for it. Her gut roiled at the idea she might lose this job to Andrew just because they were on some timeline she couldn’t fulfill. It would look funny that she was there twice in one week—if anyone were watching her.
Slade was, but he was interested in her. Or else she had sorely misjudged him, and if that was the case, she’d totally fucked herself. If Slade were setting her up, Deena Rae wouldn’t get another job like this with Pierce for a while, if ever. And that wasn’t even taking into consideration her own personal shit. She’d misjudged Slade, she couldn’t trust herself anymore. And if she couldn’t trust herself, who the fuck could she trust?
Remembering she’d spilled the beans about her job last night just pissed her off more. She’d let her pussy rule her thoughts and gave in to hormones. Deena Rae was better than that. Or at least, she’d thought she was.
Slade’s words haunted her as well. His words about no exclusivity, no promises. Did that mean she couldn’t trust him? With anybody else, that would be cool. Deena Rae would love to never do strings and exclusivity. She didn’t want to owe anybody anything.
Except Slade. And she didn’t understand why. And it pissed her off.
She was mad at herself mostly.
All of this bothered her, but she didn’t want to talk to Simon about it. Quinten was her number-two choice, but he was out of the office. Ryan was available, and she trusted him, so when Andrew was out of their shared office for lunch, she went in and plopped her well-used body in the chair between the two desks.
“Hey, you got a minute?”
Ryan was one of the co-owners, even though everyone looked to Simon as the boss. In fact, almost everybody was a co-owner; even she had the option to buy in to the business after six months of working. Ryan was currently raking his hand through his hair, sighing massively while staring at his computer screen, so Deena Rae assumed he could use a break.
“Yeah. I want out of this office, but I have to get this done first. I’d be happy to look at you instead of this fucking screen.” Deena Rae smiled. It would have been gross coming from Andrew, but Ryan was genuine. He didn’t like computers any more than Simon did, and preferred a campfire to the office. He had Krista and baby Lauren at home, and was obviously in love with both of them, so she didn’t think he was flirting. He made her feel like her face was genuinely more attractive to him than a computer.
“I may have messed up last night, but I’m not sure,” she hedged. It killed her to admit this to anyone, but Deena Rae knew she needed help.
“What happened?” Ryan leaned back in his chair, propping his long legs up on his desk.
“Well, there’s this guy I’ve been flirting with at my apartment complex. It turns out he’s a bouncer at Ignite, which I did not know until I went in there the other night.” She realized she was rubbing her palms on her thighs, a sign of nerves. She stilled herself, unwilling to show weakness to anyone, even Ryan. “Last night, I might have let it slip that I work for a private investigations company and am looking at Cecil.”
One eyebrow quirked up as Ryan s
tudied her, waiting for her to say more. She only shrugged.
“Well, you know that could go both ways. He could be in Cecil’s back pocket, feeding him intel about you and us.” Ryan drummed his fingers on the desktop, absently. “Or he could work with you to help feed you info.” He chewed on the inside of his cheek. “What does your gut say?”
Deena Rae shrugged. “That he’s every bit as weird as I am, and he’s astonishing in bed, but I don’t really know anything about him other than that. We’re supposed to go out tonight, and I’m sort of seeing it as an opportunity to get what I need on Cecil, but I’m not sure how to go about it.” Because I like him.
“You want to leave his name with Evan and see if he can dig anything up on him?”
“Sure. I’ve looked him up already and haven’t found anything but the basics.” She shrugged. Like why he might have gone to Zack’s dad’s funeral. Or cared that she’d been there.
“Just be careful tonight, Deena Rae.”
She nodded. “Will do.” When she rose out of the seat and turned to leave, Andrew was skulking by the doorway. She rolled her eyes at him as she left Ryan’s office.
“What?” she snapped at the nosy bastard.
“You sure? Like, what if he’s an ass and you get into some trouble?” Andrew leaned against the doorway, blocking her exit. It was a casual move, but the taunting way he asked raised her ire.
“How would that be any different from every other date I’ve been on in my life? They all have that potential.” Deena Rae shrugged it off. If he were an ass, that was something she could handle. If it were something else …
“Yeah, but if this one’s involved with Cecil, and Cecil’s as bad as everyone thinks he is, then you might just up and disappear.”
Deena Rae ignored the shudder that raced up her spine.
Ryan’s voice came from inside his office, “Andrew, you sound like a bitch. Deena Rae can handle herself.”
Pride chased away the shudder as Deena Rae realized these guys trusted her to do her job; she just needed to quit second-guessing herself.
Deena Rae decided to go do some more digging on Slade with Evan.
The next office door down, Deena Rae knocked on the doorframe. Evan looked up at her from his row of monitors. He didn’t have to share an office, mostly because he had so much shit. “You busy?”
Evan’s wide, welcoming smile brought her inside the office to sit on the chair. “Can you look up someone for me? I need more than just basics.” She gave him Slade’s name, along with the birthdate she’d gotten off his ID while he slept last night, and leaned forward. “I’d like to know specifically if he has anything to do with Zack.”
“Zack?” Evan’s eyebrows raised in surprise.
Deena Rae nodded. “Yeah. It’s just a hunch, but I need to know.”
Slade had been way too interested in her whereabouts when she’d gone to the funeral. His anger about it was what struck her hardest. Something about that niggled at the back of her brain.
The sounds of clickety clacks filled the room, and Evan murmured to himself a few times as he pulled something up on both monitors. After a few minutes of relative silence, Evan’s face blanched and he swallowed, leaving a hollow pit in Deena Rae’s stomach. This couldn’t be good. He motioned her to come around and look for herself. When she did, her air left her in a resigned sigh.
“Do you think Zack knows?”
Evan shook his head. “We could ask him, but he’s not here. I wouldn’t, though. Not really sure why, but this probably needs to be handled with some delicacy since his dad just died.”
“Yeah. Wow. Well, that puts a different spin on things, I guess.” Her mind whirled, and Deena Rae was having a difficult time keeping up, piecing things together. What was the spin?
“That’s not definitive, but it’s pretty fucking obvious. I can dig some more.”
“Don’t.” Deena swallowed, her eyes glued to the monitors. “Slade knows. If something happens, now we know. But this is a family thing. They need to figure it out themselves, I think.” She didn’t want to be the one to tell Zack he had a brother. Evan had pulled up DMV photos of both Zack and Slade at varying points in their adulthood, along with Zack’s parents and Slade’s mother at comparable points in their lives. It was pretty telling. Putting the dates on a timeline, it looked like Slade was the product of an illicit affair.
She could most likely use this to her advantage. But how? And if she did, would it hurt Zack? Slade? She bit her lip, trying to figure out what to do. For once in her adult life, she cared about what happened to the people around her.
Deena Rae decided to file it away and not use it for anything.
Yet.
That evening, Deena Rae entered her apartment to find an outfit laid out for her and yet another note from Slade.
Looking forward to tonight. Last night leaves me speechless every time I think about it. I had to go into the club to do something for Cecil, but I’ll be by to pick you up at 7:00.
She examined the outfit from her closet and smiled. He’d laid out the pair of leather pants she’d been trying to fit into forever, a red silk shell, and his leather jacket. Pairing it with some boots, she realized they were going on a ride on his bike. He was dressing her for safety. Something her dad, a motorcycle buff, used to say chimed in her head. Dress for the slide, not the ride.
She couldn’t wait.
Deena Rae stopped in her tracks on the way to shower for the date. She hadn’t been excited for a motorcycle ride since her parents had died on theirs. They’d been on the way to a fundraising picnic at the lake and were hit by a teenaged girl who admitted to trying to change the radio station. The girl had run into her father, and in swerving to avoid her mother, had lost control of the car and hit her, too. They’d both died on the scene.
Deena Rae wasn’t scared of bikes, really. She just didn’t want the reminders of her parents. She’d done everything she could to forget the pain almost as soon as she felt it. Moving across town, getting a job in a different field, and basically changing her entire personality hadn’t really done what she’d hoped it would. Yup. When she’d been living with her parents, she’d been going to school for accounting, of all things. But when a recruiter came to the community college she was attending, she’d signed up to be a bail enforcement agent almost on the spot. She’d gone from someone who became friends with almost everyone she met, to a prickly stand-offish woman. Deena Rae fully admitted—to herself, not others—it was a protection mechanism. The fewer people she liked, the less it would hurt if something happened to them.
And now things were changing. Her brain was working differently, and she didn’t know why. Was it the job with the Pierce guys? Did she somehow finally feel connected to something with them? Or was it Slade? Could he be doing this to her?
Did she even want this shit to be happening to her?
Deena Rae shook her body, like a dog shaking off bathwater, in an effort to get the sappy shit out of her head. She liked her life. No strings, no pain.
Right?
Chapter Eighteen
Slade was pissed. He was ready for a date with Deena Rae before work, but Cecil wanted him to stop by and do something for him. It had only been a couple of weeks, but Slade was already sick of this shit. He didn’t want to be in Cecil’s back pocket and was still trying to figure out how to get out of this. He had just enough money for some Mexican food tonight and didn’t want to make a big deal about how fucking broke he was.
Although, he had told his mom when she’d called to ask about the funeral and beg for cash for another date with the rich guy. All the good feelings he’d had for her on the phone call a couple of nights ago had completely evaporated when she’d called this time. He was over all her bullshit. Slade had too much of his own to deal with.
Now, he was on his way to the club to see what the hell Cecil wanted.
This bouncing gig had started out like a dream job. Stand around, flex his muscles, be a badass, and ki
ck losers out of the bar. And for a few years it had been. Now, though, he wasn’t sure where he was supposed to go. It was clear he wouldn’t be moving up in the ranks, not that he wanted to manage Ignite. Actually, managing any club didn’t hold any appeal to him.
But without an education or any skills in anything else, Slade was stuck. He knew how to work on his own bike, and could probably learn other bikes, but most mechanic shops in this area worked on those imports that practically required a college degree to figure out.
He’d almost forgotten the high of last night as his bike rumbled to a stop outside Ignite. He strode in, anger radiating off him with every clunk of his boots on the pavement.
Surprisingly, Cecil sat at the bar. The space looked different in the daylight, lights on, dance floor empty. The bartenders were working behind the bar, chopping fruits and stacking glasses.
Cecil grabbed his drink and motioned for Slade to join him at a high-top table away from prying ears.
“Slade, my boy,” he greeted him jovially, as if they were long lost relatives. Slade cringed at the greeting.
Instead, he dipped his head. “Cecil.”
“A drink?”
“No, thanks.” Slade sat on the stool, wholly uncomfortable and ready to get his new assignment so he could leave.
Waving the drink around, Cecil looked at the ceilings of the club. “I do all this for my son. It’s all for him. You don’t really understand life until you have kids, you know?”
Slade nodded, even though he didn’t understand that at all. He didn’t have any kids, and his parents certainly hadn’t acted that way with him.
“Sometimes, I wish I’d just kept my dick to myself with his mother, but I didn’t. Her pussy was just too damn tempting. Now, I got my son, and she’s wanting to take him from me to go live in her fucking trailer park trash, like she’s better than me.” Cecil sipped his drink with a steady hand, but when he put the drink on the table, he slammed it down.
Slade had never seen Cecil this drunk. He sounded almost pathetic, slurring his words and gripping his glass like it was something precious to him. He hadn’t ever seen a kid around here and gave kudos to Cecil for not raising him in a club.