Hostile Takeover (46 page)

“What?” Those eyes widened to saucer shape. “The Mercedes? Your half-a-million-dollar sports car? The high-performance engineering piece of art?”

“Yeah. Thanks for reminding me. I donated it to the upcoming auction for the new domestic-violence shelter.”

Marcie’s gaze darkened then, and her hands cupped his face. “Ben, you didn’t…even that night, when you were so angry…I knew you weren’t going to hurt me.”

“Marcie.” He touched her lower lip. Though faint, the mark was still there where she’d hit the car. “I did hurt you. I laid hands on you in anger. That’s the one thing a Master never does to his sub, and a man never does to a woman. Not
ever
,” he repeated, underscoring it.

“You weren’t angry. Not at me.”

“Which made it even worse. I’m done discussing it,” he said.

The voice Marcie heard was his Master’s voice, which brought her nerve endings to full alert at once, even as his hand tightened on her wrist. To restrain, not to harm, an entirely different connotation. “It’s done,” he said. “Except for what I owe you.”

There was no changing certain things about the K&A men, any more than a woman could change the shape of a knight’s heart. She accepted that, loved him all the more for it. “How much will they get for it?” she asked.

He sighed. “Lewis, legal counsel for Sonoco, will bid on it. Matt sent him an email, telling him it’s up for auction because I lost a bet. He knew Lewis won’t be able to resist rubbing my nose in it, but he’s a good guy—I’ll deny that if you tell him. He’ll bid a fair price. His revenge will probably take care of the shelter’s operating expenses for the next two years.”

“Or you could bid against him.” She gave him a hopeful expression. “Since you insist that you owe me something, you could buy me your car. Even Cass would agree that’s a sufficient level of remorse.”

He snorted. “Not likely. I know Cassandra Moira. If I lie down under a convoy of semis, it wouldn’t be sufficient. Plus, you behind the wheel of the McLaren would make me old before my time.”

“Bet I could drive it faster than you ever have, you big pussy.”

He slung her back over his shoulder despite her squeal, ignoring her thump on his broad back. Snagging his coat from the ground, he started back down the dock. “I can see all my spare time’s going to be spent teaching you to be a proper slave. After we take care of what I should have given you from the very beginning.”

“What?” She was trying to look up into his face, working her way around his side like a sinuous python. Once they were off the dock, he let her down, holding her by the waist. With her looking up into his face, wondering, it hit him square in the gut. She was so goddamn beautiful. So strong, so brave, so intelligent. It all underscored what he’d blocked when she was too young for it to be appropriate, the clues he’d ignored… Like how much he’d missed her letters the past two years. Or his punch-in-the-gut reaction when she walked back into his office.

It all boiled down to one thing—that overwhelming sense that she was his.

His slave, his submissive. He saw it even now, in the way her eyes searched his face, anticipating what it was he was about to say, what he wanted, how she could serve him. She didn’t realize that the mere fact she was breathing and near was enough for him.

It was unexpected, and he wasn’t sure he fully trusted it. He’d wanted something like it for so long, but he’d lied to himself over and over, run smoke screens over those yearnings. It was hard to clear all that out in a moment, particularly when he’d spent so much time rebuffing her. Now he was going to have the pleasure of fully embracing what she was offering, and though he was feeling a sharp urgency to get started, his Dom side impatient to fully claim her, he needed some time to adjust to it, to prepare. To make sure the experience was everything she desired and more.

Still, he’d opened a door, and she wasn’t going to leave it alone. She was such a kid. It almost made him grin. “What should you have given me from the beginning?” she demanded.

He put the coat back over her shoulders against the incoming evening chill. Then he tucked her under his arm and started back toward the house. They’d set up a pavilion tent and soft music was drifting out from under it, a time for friends and family to relax and reminisce about Jeremy. About the importance of family, whether of blood or the kind that a person was lucky enough to find during his life. He tightened his arm around her.

“It’s time to make you mine, the way I should have done it the moment you walked into my office. Not tonight, but soon.” He stopped then, faced her. “Are you ready for that, Marcie? You know what belonging to me means.”

She nodded, quivered under his hands. “Yes, Master. I do. I want that more than anything.”

“All right then. In three weeks, I’ll send you instructions and you’ll follow them.”

“Three—” She bit her lip. “All right, Master. Will the others—”

At his second quelling look, she broke off the question, settled. She wouldn’t always be so malleable, God help him, but he expected that was part of what he loved about her.

He knew what she’d been about to ask. The other K&A men had always been involved in making a woman part of their circle. He saw no reason for Marcie to be any different, when she obviously wanted that. Yet she was unique to him, to his heart. His, in a way she wouldn’t be to any of the others, even as they contributed to her pleasure. He felt the edge of it in his teeth, like blood to a predator, and had to curb that impatience once again. Not today. She was impatient with the idea of three weeks. She had no idea what that wait was going to do to him, but he was going to do it right.

Right now, she needed something else from him. She was starting to drag her feet, her eyes on that pavilion ahead. The past week or so had been about arranging all the details, the service. This was the epilogue, a pavilion of people saying goodbye and facing the truth that her older brother was gone. An older brother who’d once been her hero, until he’d become a nightmare.

They were crossing a footbridge over one of the creeks. When Marcie stopped, listening to the music coming from the pavilion, he stopped with her, giving her time.

“
I’ll Stand By You
, by the Pretenders. Cass used to sing that when we were young.” She started to hum it, closing her eyes.

She opened them when he turned her toward him. Sliding one arm around her waist, he took her other hand in his, against his chest, and began to sway with her. He picked up the hum, going along with it. Hell, people didn’t dance at funerals, but he didn’t really care. She let out a weary sigh, relaxed a little more in his arms.

He could be here for this, and for every need she had after this moment. She might think he was her Master, holding all the reins, but when push came to shove, he couldn’t deny her anything.

* * * * *

Cass had gone into the house with Jessica and Nate to show Steve Pickard’s wife some pictures of Jeremy. She’d told Lucas she’d be okay, and so he was sitting out in a corner of the pavilion, keeping an eye on Cherry and Talia. Steve had the two girls engaged in conversation about their school activities, so all the kids were handled, giving him a momentary break.

As he took a swallow of Scotch he’d poured from the self-serve wet bar, he glanced out over the marsh and saw Ben and Marcie coming back from the lake. He’d intended to go after her when he didn’t see her come in from the service, but he’d gotten involved in other things. His moment of guilt was short-lived, though, seeing Marcie tucked under Ben’s arm, a comfortable fit.

His lips twisted wryly. He hoped he’d done well by Cass’ siblings, because he loved all of the kids. The rest of the guys felt the same way, but there’d been a special relationship between Ben and Marcie from the beginning, he couldn’t deny it. He hadn’t had to worry about Marcie all that much, because when she needed an adult friend, a shoulder, an ear, Ben had been there. Her playmate, her surrogate big brother, and now something else entirely.

As they stopped on the bridge and he saw her register the song, the sadness from it reflected in her face, he was ready to go to her. But Ben turned to her, going into that slow dance, his head bent protective and attentive over hers.

“She’s the one for him, Lucas. You can tell.” Jon was standing at his shoulder now, holding a beer and gazing at them. “He gave his heart to her a long time ago. She brought it back to him.”

“Yeah, I know.” Lucas sighed. “With all this other shit, I’d forgotten their history. There it is, right in front of us.”

“Right where it was destined to be. That was why it took him so much longer. He had to wait for her to be ready. And figure out what he truly wanted.”

“Hell, if his head’s back on straight, there’s no one in the world I’d trust with her more.”

“You might want to tell Ben that at some point. I think he’d be surprised to hear it.”

Lucas glanced at Matt as he took a seat next to him. The CEO nodded toward them. “She had to have enough faith for both of them. She’s a remarkable young woman.”

“In some ways, I get how Ben felt,” Peter said. “I still don’t know what I did to deserve a gift like Dana. I just try to do whatever’s needed to earn it, every day, weighting the other side of that scale as much as I can.” He gave a half smile. “She always gives me twice as much, so I’ll never catch up. Some gifts take a lifetime to find the balance.”

”For some of us, maybe not even then.” Lucas nudged Matt. “Most of us still think Savannah married beneath her.”

No argument there,” Matt returned, unruffled. “Cass’ll probably throw your midwest beancounting ass back into the pond any day now.”

Lucas sobered, looking back at Ben and Marcie. Their lawyer had his hand curved around her jaw, thumb stroking her cheek as she pressed her face into his chest. “He’ll protect her with everything he is. He’s figured it out. He won’t let her down.”

“That’s the job.” Matt lifted his glass, tapped it to his. “And the blessing.”

Marcie: I’m sitting in the student commons, and the sunset is spectacular. The reds are painted against the clouds, as if the sun is courting the moon.

Ben: Does the moon like being courted?

Marcie: What woman doesn’t?

Marcie texting Ben, sophomore year

Chapter Fifteen

Marcie stood on the footbridge, watching the sky and remembering the dance she and Ben had shared here, three weeks before. Tonight would be a full moon. She felt like its light was already filling her, lifting her up toward the heavens.

Ever since Jeremy’s service, she’d received some type of whimsical gift or gesture from Ben every day. He’d made her dinner at his Garden District house. Her as well as Cass and Lucas, the other K&A men, her siblings. He’d had her come early, help him chop, mix, sauté. Driven her completely crazy when he laid kisses on her neck, holding her inside his armspan as he showed her exactly how he wanted things prepared. But her Master had been clear.

No sex right now. These next three weeks are for something different.

She tried really hard to change his mind. Alice had returned from her trip, but Peter needed some admin help on an offsite project. Therefore, Ben agreed to let Marcie split her internship between his office and the research department on the days Alice was gone. Of course, on those days, she always wore provocative clothes, doing a lot of bending over file cabinets in line with his office door. When he brought her close enough to touch, she made sure he knew what every inch of her felt like against him. She couldn’t help herself, and it wasn’t entirely her fault. While he’d said no sex, apparently that didn’t mean he couldn’t kiss her whenever he desired, long, drugging kisses that left her knees weak and her pussy soaked.

She’d lost count of how many times he’d had her come into his office, shut the door and then ordered her behind his desk to straddle his thigh while he kissed her, his hands dropping to knead her ass. Every time, no matter how she tried to control herself, she found herself rubbing herself on that hard muscle, straining against him like a complete out-of-control nymphomaniac. He’d stop her before she could come, make her stay completely still. Sometimes he’d open her blouse, stroke her breasts. Lay a kiss between them, then rearrange her clothes and send her back to her desk with a firm pat on the ass.

She was going to hack him up with his commercial grade, beautifully sharpened and polished meat cleaver. She’d be sorry, but no jury of her female peers would convict her.

He took her for long walks at lunch, holding her hand, buying her food from the sidewalk vendors. At night, he’d call her, give her bedtime stories that left her toes curling and her anything but sleepy. Especially with his parting good night.

“Remember, your hand and your vibrator stays away from what’s mine. You come on my command alone.”

“What about you?” She’d purred it into the phone, trying to cover the desperation. His sexy chuckle alone made her nipples harden.

“I’ll be stroking my cock, baby. Thinking about you while I watch the evening news. And when I come, I’ll say your name. Your punishment for trying to change your Master’s mind with your tight skirts and those little stunts you pull at the office.”