Sanctuary (Family Justice Book 3) (44 page)

“Mmm,” she growled, pressing her face into him. He loved when she did this. An odd habit for sure, but when his beloved held tight and breathed him in, he felt totally connected to her on a cellular level. “You smell of wood and heat.” Standing on tiptoe, she wound her arms around his neck and shimmied against his front. “Did you miss me?”

Ha! He wasn’t stupid. The simple question was code for ‘kiss me now.’ “No,” he drawled with a tight smirk. “You’re a fucking pain in my ass, Mrs. St. John.”

She giggled. He grinned. And then they kissed. Slowly at first. Victoria’s decadent kisses were a banquet of delights. Start out slow, he knew she enjoyed teasing nips and short smooches because they fired up an urgency that deepened as the kissing did.

“I hate you,” she murmured between kisses.

Drae chuckled. Sliding a hand from the small of her back, he took the sort of liberties with her ass which only stayed in the R-rated category because her clothes were in the way.

“Where’s my son, you lazy witch. Pass him off to your mom again?”

She threw back her head and roared with more laughter than such a tiny body should reasonably hold. “For real? Pass him off? More like she kicked in the nursery door, stormed to the crib, and kidnapped my baby like a goddamn dingo in the night.”

“Ah, so the dingo took your baaa-bee?” he said in a heavy accent that mocked the dramatic movie scene she referenced.

“Damn straight,” she bit out. “Although where she gets the energy, I do not know.”

He chuckled. “Ah. So you heard, huh?” Drae shook his head and waggled his eyebrows. “Sorry, honey. When we built the mother-in-law suite, I envisioned Stephanie sitting in a rocking chair with the baby. Period. If I’d known she’d be having wild, beauty queen sex with a washed up surfer right over our heads, I would’ve added some soundproofing.”

“Oh, my god,” Victoria snickered. “Shush. I can barely wrap my poor brain around those two as a couple much less the nighttime sound effects.”

“Humph,” he grunted. “Not just in the dark. She was giggling like a schoolgirl out on her private balcony. I could hear them when our patio doors were open. And then it got suspiciously quiet. I ran for cover. There are some things a man doesn’t need to hear.”

And just like that, her mood changed. “Yes, well … at least, someone’s doing the naughty at our address.”

A good spanking for being a bitch was probably in order, but he was too conflicted to act. And dammit, she knew it too. But leave it to his feisty wife to take matters into her own hands. Pushing him backward until his butt hit a worktable, her hands were everywhere. Undoing the buttons on his shirt, scraping her nails down his chest and across male nipples that in no way objected to her claws. And the biting.
Aargh.
He needed her to stop with the stinging nibbles and nips before he did something dumb.

Yeah, good luck with that
, his mind moaned. She knew his weaknesses as well as his strengths. Knew that going for what she wanted in a direct and fuck-me-now way was a huge turn-on. Not a good idea. But maybe … just for a little bit. After all, what she was doing to his flesh was hot. Like seriously hot. His wife had a naughty mouth, that was for damn sure. Drae knew despite his worldly ways he was mushy clay in her hands. Once she got started, he couldn’t stop her. That was the only way to explain how she got him sitting on the workbench as she climbed on top of him, straddling his thighs as she ripped his shirt off and began struggling with his belt.

Before she could get her hands into his pants, he pulled the stretchy sports top down her arms and uncovered the delectable tits that made his mouth actually water. She’d nursed Daniel as long as she could and only recently switched to bottle feedings. The way her breasts bloomed and changed made him briefly wish she’d walk around naked all the time. They were that spectacular.

Bare tits, peaked nipples, the red scratches her nails left on his chest, and the way she frantically worked on his belt and zipper meant shit was getting real. They were probably minutes away from getting naked and screwing on a wood slab when he came to his senses.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
They barely managed to make love in the comfort of their bedroom, so there was no way some desperate coupling in the wood shop was going to end well. Candles, music, and a warm bath followed by a long, deliberate seduction wasn’t enough to ensure success, so he highly doubted this moment was magically going to reset their love life.

“Honey,” he murmured. Drae heard the regret laced with frustration in his voice and winced. He had to watch that crap. Victoria was highly perceptive. She’d hear it too, and it would only make her feel worse. He could sense her desire and was sure she wanted him. But in the current state of things, she was just as likely to end up in tears, as she was to cry out in ecstasy.

Gently as he could, he lifted her off and swung her to the side until she reclined next to him. Turning on his side, Drae pulled her trembling body close and tried to kiss away her confusion. Bad move.

With hands that didn’t seem strong enough to fight off the Pillsbury Doughboy, she gave him a hearty shove that broke their embrace. Sitting up with a furious huff, she quickly adjusted the sports bra to cover herself again. He could feel the hurt and upset rolling off her, but what the fuck was he supposed to do? The last time he’d taken her, she’d been stiff as a board and not exactly in the moment. He hated himself afterward thinking she’d endured his lovemaking ‘cause that was what you did when you were married. For better or worse and all that. He couldn’t face that again.

The hurt rapidly turned to anger. It was her way. He felt like a total dick when she lanced him with a deadly glare. “Sorry to bother you,” she snipped. “I’ll let you get back to …” She looked around at the various half-assed projects going on. Her dead-eyed look when her gaze returned to his said it all.

And then she slid off the table, tapped her leg to call the dog, and marched away. The last thing he saw was her straight-backed and tight-assed angry retreat a second before she slammed the barn door as hard as she possibly could.

Standing there, shirt open, zipper down, and a cock that wasn’t very happy with him, he wanted to yell. Or hit something.

“W
HAT DO YOU
call this?” Cam fingered a length of leather overlaid with green lace that Lacey draped over the back of a chair. She was sitting at a sewing machine surrounded by who the hell knows what. Women and their crafts. This shit was a mystery to him.

Pushing away from the machine, she rolled back on a wheeled chair and gathered her long blond hair into a tail that she deftly wound into a knot at the base of her neck. Cam recognized the quirk. She did it when concentration and focus overtook her.

Looking at what appeared to be long straps, she sighed then rubbed her face. “Don’t know.” Peeking at him through fingers spread wide, she held her head and laughed. “Carmen gave me a set of instruction and a bag of supplies. That’s all I know.”

Putting out his hand, he motioned for hers, and then pulled her out of the chair. With an arm banded around her waist, he walked them into the kitchen. “You don’t know? Really?”

Lacey snickered and turned toward him. “Which means you do.”

Cam shrugged. Somehow, he ended up knowing way more than anyone except maybe Angie about the Marquez-O’Brien wedding. He knew exactly what the straps were for.

“It’s a harness for Zeus, isn’t it?”

Man. She was smart. Nodding his head in a determined ‘yes,’ he grinned and said, “I have no idea.”

“Smarty pants.”

Swatting her on the behind, he growled, “Wench.”

Lacey smiled broadly. “Wait. Smarty Pants and the Wench. Um, isn’t that one of those classic movies you love so much?”

He wished. Their story would make a great old-school cinematic love story. One with loads of hot, raunchy sex and tons of sweet, old-fashioned innocence. How those two opposites came together was worthy of a movie.

“I made you some of those protein bars you like so much. Wanna kill Ria, though. She insisted they were, and I quote … easy peasy.
Pfft
. Maybe in her kitchen.”

“What a difference the passage of just a little bit of time makes, hmm?”’

His wife gazed at him with eyes full of love. She knew what he meant. Her journey from a homeless girl to a married woman with a baby, a sewing machine, and a kitchen full of high-tech gadgets was short when weighed against a lifetime. But the real difference was that they found each other at all. It really was nothing short of a miracle.

“I love you.”

He kissed her softly. “Okay then, my little Martha Stewart. Bring on the snacks and I’ll taste test ‘em for you.”

Lacey loved all this domestic shit. Taking care of him and Dylan was pure joy for her. He was one lucky motherfucker. Babbling about household stuff, she went to the pantry and pulled out a large container that she dropped on the counter with a thud. While she rambled on and went about taking one of the bars out of the container, he admired her sexy ass.

Sidling quietly behind her as she worked at putting the bar on a plate, he put his hands on her waist and fit his big body to hers. Her startled squeal was all kinds of cute. Cute enough to warrant a rather earthy grunt and some very suggestive grinding.

Cam’s heart thumped heavily when he felt her push back, just enough to wiggle her sweet butt into his growing erection.

“That’s not how babies happen,” she purred.

Growling, he wrapped her in a tight embrace and bit her earlobe. “It’s not always about next year’s crop. Sometimes, it’s as simple as just wanting to nail your ass.”

Cam hit the fantasy jackpot of all time with Lacey. She was untouched when they met. He was her first, and if the gods played along, he’d be the only lover she’d ever have. Everything she knew, everything she did … to him and with him … he’d taught her. What could be better than that?

Whipping around in his arms, she totally took him off guard when she stuffed a wedge of protein bar in his mouth. “Better load up, in that case, Mr. Cameron.” Her sultry teasing was going to lead to them being naked and on the kitchen floor if she kept it up. “Gotta keep your old guy butt fueled and in top shape if you plan to satisfy a young wife.”

“Did you just call me old?” Crumbs were falling from his mouth as he hurriedly chewed the tasty treat. “What happens when you do that?”

She was laughing with tremendous glee. “Why the old guy I’m married to tosses me over his knee and gives my bottom a hearty whacking.”

“Don’t fucking tempt me, wife.”

Lacey wound around him like a clinging vine and shimmied quite shamelessly. “Oh, my. Maybe you’re starting to lose it.”

He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Say again?”

“My darling husband. That wasn’t a taunt. It was a request.”

Uh-huh. Wait. What? A request. A request for … oh, my fucking god. With a burst of laughter, he yanked her behind him over to the breakfast table, pulled out a chair, and sat down. “Assume the position, Mrs. Cameron.”

She stood her ground, eyeballed every inch of him, and licked her lips in case he didn’t get the message. “I like it more when you take my panties off first.”

“Fuck you, woman.” He was barely keeping from laughing like a crazy man.

She crossed her arms and frowned down at him. “Cameron,” she cooed. God. He knew that tone. He was going to enjoy denying her this little pleasure.

She tapped her foot and tried to glare at him with a comically stern expression. They got into a crossed-arm staring contest, which he knew for sure he’d win.

“Oh, fine!” she yelped with clear exasperation when he wouldn’t back down. Mumbling about old men and bad manners, she got into position across his knees. The petulant frown turned his dick hard as steel.

When she finally stopped wiggling around, he slipped a hand between her legs and chuckled. “Goddamn, you’re hot.”

“Not that it matters much,” she murmured.

She couldn’t be more wrong. Carefully peeling her sweats and panties down, he bared her ass as she sighed with pleasure.

“Now, that’s a beautiful picture. You across my knee, ass up and ready.”