Mr. Sir (Ball & Chain) (2 page)

Still mostly hard and buried inside her, he kissed her shoulder and looked down at her. “I know that wasn’t quite what you were hoping for,” he teased, pressing his lips to her shoulder.

Her lips twitched and she shrugged. “It’ll do, I suppose,” she said, opening her eyes and sliding him a look.

He sank his teeth into her and gave her a gentle swat on the thigh.

Her body shook them both when she giggled and said, “Thank you, Sir, may I have another?”

Chapter Three

Grace watched her husband dress. He never stopped amazing her. Two hours of play reduced to a quick fuck in under ten minutes and he’d still managed to leave her feeling loose-jointed and more than a little buzzed.

It was hard to stay angry with him when she knew he’d have been there on time if something hadn’t come up at work. Unfortunately something was always coming up at work, especially since he’d been transferred to this new company. If Ziegelski had gotten word that Sanders was going to sit in on the meeting in Owen’s place he would definitely have done something to sabotage Owen leaving early. She wished the old geezer would retire and put everyone out of their misery already.

She sighed, enjoying the view as he pulled on the jeans she’d brought for him to change into, his strong back and fine,
fine
ass toward her. He was unbelievably beautiful naked—not especially broad-shouldered but deep-chested with long, strong arms and legs and a very tight stomach. That body, hidden from the rest of the world in business suits or jeans and t-shirts, was her very private, very erotic secret. A secret that gave her an incredible amount of joy to have all to herself.

He was a walking contradiction on so many levels, with his plain, brown business haircut, clear blue eyes and kind, unassuming face. He came across as an average, everyday kind of guy at a glance, and for the most part he was. In most of his daily life—with the boys, their families and friends—he was relaxed and easygoing. In the boardroom and the bedroom, he was a powerful force to be reckoned with.

She was almost ashamed to admit she’d overlooked him several times when they first worked together. She’d been hired as a receptionist directly out of the vocational high school she’d attended, and hadn’t been there more than a year when he was hired as an intern his senior year of college.

She’d seen him. It was her job to know who was coming in the door and for what reason. She’d thought he was cute in an all-American kind of way, but hadn’t really given him a second thought until a coworker pointed out that he looked at her differently than he looked at any of the other office girls.

So she’d started to flirt with him for fun. He’d been adorably shy at first. Morning hellos eventually led to him introducing himself, which in turn led to him occasionally stopping by her desk to make small talk.

Then, at the company Christmas party that year, she’d found herself alone with him in a quiet corner. With a couple of glasses of wine in him, he’d been charming and easy to talk to. And when she’d looked into his eyes, really looked into their depths for the first time, she’d nearly been knocked off her feet by what she’d seen.

Beneath his sweet-faced exterior was pure, unadulterated, untapped power.

He’d taken her out for a drink when the party ended. They’d closed the bar and gone for breakfast at an all-night greasy spoon near her apartment after that. She’d taken him home with her that morning and let him tie her up with the belt on her bathrobe by the light of the rising sun shining through her bedroom window.

Oh, how far they’d come since that first night.

“We’re going to be late getting the boys from the Y if you don’t get dressed,” he observed, shaking the creases out of the clean t-shirt she’d brought for him.

“I’d give my right arm to have someone we could call to pick them up for us right now,” she said, standing to run her hands over his still-bare chest.

He groaned a little and bent to kiss her. “We’d miss soccer practice.”

“Aren’t we allowed to miss just once?” she asked, sliding her arms around his neck. She leaned her still mostly undressed body into his and went up on her toes for a kiss.

Her head went fuzzy as his tongue slid into her mouth, seeking hers. He wrapped his arms tight around her and pulled her in so close she could hardly breathe.

“And this conversation just came full circle,” he said when he broke the kiss, touching his forehead to hers. “I’m sorry we can’t just call your parents anymore.”

Her parents had moved to a green retirement community in Arizona shortly before Owen was transferred a little more than a year earlier. They actually lived closer to his parents now, but they’d had him rather late in life and weren’t able to keep up with their wild grandsons for more than an hour or so, and never at the drop of a hat.

He brushed her hair back, exposing her shoulder to another kiss. She dug her fingers into his hair and pressed her cheek to the side of his head.

“We promised each other we wouldn’t get lost in parenthood,” she said.

He sighed against her skin. “Yes, we did.” He kissed her neck, her lips. “And until recently, we hadn’t.”

An unexpected surge of annoyance rippled through her.

“So what are we going to do about it?” she asked.

He straightened and gave her a cool look.

“What do you want me to do about it?” he asked, his tone weary.

“I didn’t say you.” She dropped her arms and took a step backward. “I said we. Owen,
we
have lost ourselves since we moved here.”

“Gracie, we knew things weren’t going to fall back into place instantly.” He moved around her and picked up his shirt from where he’d dropped it on the foot of the bed. “We don’t know anyone but my parents and the Millers yet. The house is taking up all of our time and energy, and you know it.”

Knowing it didn’t help. She loved the old farmhouse they’d bought just beyond the suburbs of the city they now worked in. It was out of the way, safe and private but within driving distance of everything. It was huge and rambling and she could see the boys bringing their own families home for the holidays there. That didn’t mean it needed to be sucking up every single second of their free time.

She snatched the trailing ends of her patience and reined in her temper.

“That’s not what I’m talking about.”

“Then what did you mean?” He spun, just his head through the shirt, and threw her a look that chilled her. “Am I supposed to wake you up out of a dead sleep after you’ve worked, taken care of the boys and then spent hours working on the house so we can play at the old slap and tickle?” He jammed his arms into the sleeves. “I’m just as tired as you are at the end of the day.”

Her foot snagged on the discarded black silk scarf as she turned to finish dressing. She picked it up and stuffed it into the gym bag now holding their work clothes, snatched her own jeans off the bed, sat heavily and shoved her legs into them. He was an amazing husband and hands-on father. He’d never brought it up when they argued before, and there was no need for it now.

“That’s not what I’m talking about either.”

He jammed his fists on his hips. “Then what is it? If you need me to feel worse than I already do for getting here late, I’m not sure I can manage that.”

The argument was getting out of control fast and she didn’t know how to stop it. She pulled her shirt on and tried to get her thoughts to stop spinning. He already had one running shoe on and was tying the other by the time she looked back at him.

“Owen,” she said when he stood and grabbed his keys and the bags with their clothes and still-unused toys.

He stopped to give her an impatient look.

“I wasn’t trying to make you feel bad.”

He took a deep breath and looked down at his feet.

She went to him and tentatively put her hands on his waist. “I wasn’t trying to pick a fight. It’s been so long, and I had my hopes up that we were going to get to play a little this afternoon.” When he merely looked at her, she added, “You know damn well what just happened was amazing.”

His eyes closed briefly. She could feel a little of the tension leave him when he kissed her, but it didn’t all go away. “I’ll get the boys if you want to swing through someplace for food. We can eat in the parking lot at the practice field.”

And then he left.

By all outward appearances, he was his usual easy self by the time she caught up with him and the boys at the soccer park. They sat on a blanket in the grass eating chicken sandwiches while Liam devoured a burger and Ian inhaled chicken nuggets and fries. They didn’t speak to each other as much as they listened to the boys talk about what happened at school that day.

It wasn’t long before the parking lot was full of other families, all chatting with each other as they wrestled their children into soccer cleats and shin guards. Owen didn’t look her way as he took Ian to the practice field across the park, laughing with Ian’s friend Adam’s father as the boys ran ahead of them. She spent the next hour and a half catching up with other parents and cheering Liam through practice, but the unsettled feeling she’d left the motel with wouldn’t leave her alone.

After the boys went to bed that night, Owen opened a bottle of her favorite wine.

“These don’t seem like much compared to what you tried to make happen at the motel this afternoon,” he said, handing her a small box as he sat on the floor next to her in front of the fireplace, lit with a dozen tall candles in lieu of a fire.

Guilt over how the afternoon had ended zipped through her as she pulled the bow free. Lying on a bed of red satin were a pair of long, delicate silver earrings she’d fallen in love with months ago. She’d never been able to justify buying them for herself, and she could hardly believe he remembered looking at them with her so long ago.

“I’m really sorry about today,” she whispered, feeling a little overwhelmed.

He shook his head and lifted one of the earrings out of the box. “It’s life, Grace.” He brushed her hair over her shoulder, removed the earring she was wearing and replaced it with the new one. “We both know better than to expect things to work out the way we want them to. Spontaneity went out the window years ago.”

“I booked that motel room and dug the duffle out of hiding months ago.”

“And the boss messed it up for us.” He shrugged and leaned across her body as he changed her other earring.

She loved his smell, a clean mixture of soap, aftershave still left from that morning and something else that was inherently all Owen. The heat and close proximity of his body, his face, his mouth, were starting to work their magic on her. It was astounding that he could turn the simple act of putting earrings on her into an erotic event.

She shivered when his fingers brushed her neck as he touched the earrings and made them swing from her ears.

“Beautiful,” he said, his gaze on hers, not her ears.

“Take me upstairs,” she whispered, the need for him sudden and urgent.

He shook his head. “I think you and I are overdue for a good rug burn.”

Her eyes went big. “The boys.”

He dipped his head and touched his lips to her neck. “Do you remember when we lived in that little one-bedroom when we were first married?” he asked, his breath warm on her skin.

Her body came instantly to life under his touch. “I do,” she sighed, her arm coming up around his neck as she turned her body toward him.

“Liam used to sleep right in the same room with us.” He trailed his fingers down her throat and touched the hollow at the base. “Remember the first time he pulled himself to standing?”

Grace wriggled her hips at the feel of him smiling against the underside of her jaw.

“We’d just finished making love.” She couldn’t help but smile at the memory of finding him standing in his crib across the room, wide awake. He’d been standing there with the most clinically curious look on his face, and then he’d burst into peals of laughter. “They’re not babies anymore, husband. They’d be devastated if they came downstairs and found us rutting like animals in the living room.”

He snorted and straightened. “All right,” he said, groaning as he stood.

Together they put out the candles and cleaned up the wineglasses. He held her hand as he led her upstairs and made sure their bedroom door was locked tight against unwanted intruders. He made love to her twice more, first with his mouth and then with his whole body, the old-fashioned way—slowly, face-to-face.

As she came down from that second orgasm with her sweaty, spent husband collapsed and gasping on top of her, she could feel something in him was still unnerved by the argument they’d had that afternoon.

And she still didn’t have the foggiest idea about how to fix it.

Chapter Four

Ziegelski was leaning on her desk when they got to work Monday morning.

“I need to speak to you,” he said, stalking into Owen’s office.

Grace looked at Owen, who shrugged.

“Shut the door,” the older man barked as they stepped into the room. His face was bright red and a vein was bulging dangerously in his forehead. “How dare you carry on like hormone-riddled teenagers in my office,” he growled, clearly trying not to shout.

“Hold on.” Owen stepped forward, hands raised. “What are you talking about?”

Heat flooded Grace’s face.

“You know goddamn well what I mean.” Ziegelski poked a bony finger in Owen’s chest. “Having your wife pleasure you here at the office. Leaving work early to go do God only knows what.” He hissed the last of the sentence.

Grace looked at Owen, her eyes wide with disbelief. Bragging to his coworkers about what happened wasn’t like him at all, but their boss clearly knew all about their rendezvous Friday afternoon.

“I requested that time off and arranged for someone to cover both Owen and myself weeks ago,” she said. “We had plans for our anniversary. It wasn’t a secret.”

Okay, maybe she’d misled human resources by leaving out the part about wanting a couple hours of really dirty sex with her husband, but she’d been up front about the fact that it was their tenth anniversary when she’d requested the time off.

Ziegelski turned his beady eyes on her, acknowledging she was in the room for the first time. “I wasn’t talking to you, now, was I?” he asked, lips pulled back, teeth bared.

She watched her husband pale and his mouth press into a tight line.

“Let it be known that you’re both walking on thin ice as of this moment,” Ziegelski said, looking her over with disgust. “One more slip-up from either of you and you’ll both be gone.” He looked back at Owen. “Do you understand?”

“Got it,” Owen told him through clenched teeth.

“I’ll be looking into getting you a new secretary,” he added to Owen.

“I’m fired?” Grace asked, incredulous.

“Not fired. Not yet.” He was talking to Owen as though she wasn’t in the room again. “She’s being moved to another office where you’ll both be less tempted to participate in any more inappropriate behavior.”

“There’s no need for that.” Owen was using that calm, assertive voice that always made her want to drop to her knees before him no matter where she heard it.

She watched Ziegelski blink and wondered if he knew what he was seeing in her husband’s eyes that made him pause and back down the barest fraction of an inch. Wet heat pooled between her legs and her nipples tingled despite the highly inappropriate circumstances. She loved seeing the effect that voice had on others almost as much as she loved it directed it at her. Almost, but not quite.

“We both fully understand that we made a mistake,” Owen continued, taking another step toward his boss as he pulled himself up to his full, impressive height. “It was a one-time lapse in judgment. I assure you it won’t happen again.”

She could have sworn the boss’s eyes widened with something that looked a whole lot like fear for just a moment.

“You get one more chance.” Ziegelski’s eyes flickered to her. “Don’t make me regret my decision.”

“We won’t, Sir,” Owen said, faking every passive syllable.

Ziegelski left the door open when he stalked out.

“Fucking Sanders,” Owen muttered, nostrils flared and eyes bright with anger.

“What does Dean have to do with this?” Grace asked, thoroughly confused.

He sighed, deflating a little. “He was at the urinal next to me when I went to the bathroom after your surprise anniversary gift.” He looked at her pointedly and added, “I was still wearing your lipstick.”

She clapped a hand over her mouth and giggled.

Dean Sanders was infamous for putting his considerable assets on display in the men’s locker room of the executive gym. He was also notorious among a select few of his peers for sneaking a peek while at the urinal to see if anyone else’s dick measured up. It was strange but harmless. And Owen, who was entitled to a whole lot of bragging rights himself, had just sort of gotten used to it.

Owen gave her a smile that vanished just as quickly as it appeared.

“I know he’s gunning for Lantz’s partner spot when he retires, but I had no idea he would stoop to something like this to make sure he knocked me out of the running.” He looked out the open door, thinking.

Grace shook her head. “That doesn’t sound like him.”

“Maybe I’ve underestimated him.” He shrugged casually but she could clearly see the disappointment in his eyes. He considered Sanders a friend. “Maybe it wasn’t beneath him to throw me under the bus the first chance he got.”

She narrowed her eyes. “That’s pretty risky. I know all about him and Stacy.”

“Yeah, but if you go to Ziegelski about it now it’s just going to look like retaliation,” he said, nodding to Tim Greenburg as he came in the office. “And you’re not like that.”

She gave him a look that made his eyebrows go up.

“Grace,” he warned, clearly seeing she was already hashing out a plan.

“You know, seeing the old man go all red in the face over a blowjob just makes me want to do it again,” she said, quietly so Tim wouldn’t hear, then added, “right now.”

Owen’s cool, controlled look didn’t change one iota with Tim in the room, but she very clearly saw the effect her words had on him in the dilation of his pupils.

“I’ll be right back with the coffee,” she told him sweetly and peered around him. “You still on your tea kick, Tim?”

“God, no.” He smiled. “I’ll take the good stuff today. The stronger the better.”

“You got it.” She straightened out of his line of sight and gave her husband a private wink. “Be right back, Sir,” she whispered.

He looked mildly amused—a huge improvement over the surly mood he’d been in most of the weekend—and touched his fingertip to her mouth in lieu of a kiss.

* * * * *

“I don’t think it was Sanders,” Grace said, settling onto the couch.

Owen stopped rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands and looked at her. He was so tired he hadn’t bothered to turn the television on and it was fifteen minutes into one of his favorite shows. After soccer practice, he and the kids had worked on cleaning some more of the previous owner’s junk out of the barn. Part of it was being converted into an indoor play area so the boys could get out of the house when they were wound up during rain or snowy weather.

“What makes you think that?” he asked, taking the cold beer she offered him.

“I asked Stacy to lunch today.” She shifted sideways and tucked her toes under his thigh. “Sanders was in his office with the door open, and he was his usual, flirty self.” She shook her head, thinking. “I don’t know, Owen. I’d think if he was the one who’d gone to Ziegelski he’d be acting differently.”

He arched an eyebrow at her. “Flirty?”

She gave him an impatient look. “You know how he is.”

The eyebrow dropped and he nodded before taking a long pull from his beer. She watched the muscles of his throat work as he swallowed.

“He’s just not acting any differently,” she continued.

“He’s a great showman. Have you ever seen him with clients? Each and every one of them is his best friend in the world while he’s talking to them. He pulls it off like no one I’ve ever seen.” His head dropped onto the back of the couch and he closed his eyes. “I’m sure he’s no different with his real friends.”

She watched him silently for a moment. The idea of Sanders going to the boss was clearly eating at him. He’d thought they’d become friends, despite the fact that they were both teammates and direct competitors for that partner position at the office.

Owen didn’t trust easily. In his mind, being betrayed by someone he considered a friend was one of the worst offenses one person could commit against another, and a blow he would not take lightly or get over any time soon. The man could hold a grudge.

“I wouldn’t write him off so quickly,” she warned, setting her glass of wine on the coffee table as she slid down far enough to rest her head on the high arm of the couch. “There may have been pillow talk, and someone else’s loose lips might have slipped.”

He opened his eyes a crack and slid her a sideways look.

“Stacy is definitely up to something,” she added. “She couldn’t look me in the eye when I was talking to her today. And she wouldn’t go to lunch with me, even after I shot down her no money excuse by offering to pay.”

One corner of his mouth curled, amused. “Did you think she was just going to rat out her boyfriend over salads?”

“Of course not.” She pulled one foot free and poked him in the thigh with her big toe. “I don’t know what I was hoping to find out. I guess I thought she might slip up and tell me something, even if she didn’t really know what she was telling me, if she’s really that close to Sanders.”

He sighed. “I think we’re thinking about this way too much.” He covered her foot with his hand, squeezed and started massaging the arch with his thumb.

“It was a shitty thing to do, even if it was minor in the grand scheme of things.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “It happens. I guess I was wrong to think small-city corporate was going to be any different than big city.” His fingers slipped around the inside of her ankle and up her calf. “I don’t want to think about it any more today.”

She had to admit she was pretty tired of thinking about it as well. Her body started to tingle despite the long day as his fingers trailed up the inside of her thigh.

“Don’t you dare start anything you’re too tired to finish, mister,” she warned as they moved higher. Even as she said the words, she could see his cock growing long and hard within his jeans.

Both eyebrows went up this time. “When have I ever?”

She gave him a dry look. “Do you really want a detailed account?”

The eyebrows slammed together. “Do you really remember actual occasions?”

She giggled, then gasped, then moaned as he found her without underwear beneath the short leg of the cutoff sweatpants she’d stolen from him and turned into pajamas.

“Well, well, well. What have we here?” he asked, lightly sliding his fingertips up the crease on the inside of her thigh.

Her pussy instantly filled with heat and wet, opening for him.

“Owen, the boys,” she whispered.

He shook his head and put the beer on the end table. “They’re dead asleep.”

She rolled her leg to the side as he parted the lips of her sex and slipped just the tip of his middle finger inside her, circling her opening.

“Take those off and come here,” he said quietly, easily slipping into assertive mode as he used the slick tip of his finger to circle her clit.

Her back arched as she angled herself into the touch and her nipples pulled tighter.

He used his free hand to unbutton his pants and pull his zipper down. She watched, heat flushing her chest, neck and face at the sight of him stroking his thick length as he freed his cock from his underwear.

“Come on, baby,” he whispered, the tip of his middle finger fluttering over her clit.

Grace stood and shucked her shorts while he pushed his jeans and underwear down over his hips. She was more than ready for him as she straddled his hips and angled herself over his cock, still clutched tightly in his own hand.

The moan that poured out of him as she sank fully to the hilt ripped through her entire body. Exhaustion was instantly replaced by the adrenaline rush of being filled to more than capacity. She rose up and came back down, her own back arching and her self-control snapped, gone.

“Yes, baby,” he growled through clenched teeth as she rolled her hips in a tight circle, grinding her aching clit against him where the root of his cock met his pelvis.

He shifted his ass toward the edge of the couch, bringing her arms to rest on the back and her ass up in the air. He fucked upward into her fast and furious, the angle of his cock hitting all the right spots and his body slamming into her clit on each thrust.

She had no idea how long it lasted, all she knew was that she was wild with it in an instant. When it was over, her entire body was tingling with the aftereffects of the orgasm that had gone screaming through her and she was collapsed on top of him, smothering his face with her tits.

“Don’t go,” he breathed, holding her in place so she could only shift backward when she moved to get off him. “Not yet,” he said, lifting the hem of her t-shirt high enough to kiss her still-peaked nipple.

She shivered and they both groaned as the movement caused an aftershock. She braced herself, her hands on either side of his head, as he kissed her other nipple. Her hips rocked reflexively as he flicked it with his tongue and sucked it into his mouth.

“It’s late and we have another long day tomorrow,” she told him, her body already recovering and getting ready for more. “We should go to bed.”

He hummed deliciously against her skin. His cock, still inside her and not completely soft, stirred. “In a minute,” he murmured against her skin. He pulled the t-shirt off over her head and gripped the breast he wasn’t lavishing with his mouth.