Knight Nostalgia: A Knights of the Board Room Anthology(42)



She rested her hand on his chest, fingers curling against his shirt, so he felt the bite of her nails through it. There’d been times he hadn’t restrained her during sex, had allowed her to put her arms around him, and she’d damn near left furrows down his back. He took them as a performance review. He wasn’t exceeding expectations if she didn’t leave scars.

He moved his hand to the side of her throat, folding his palm over it. As always, he was struck with an odd mix of emotions at the slimness of her neck, the large size of his hand. How delicate she seemed, against how strong she had proven herself to be. Strong enough to take anything he needed to do to her, and fucking ask for more.

“I want you inside me, too, Master,” she whispered. “I want that all the time.” An echo of his own thoughts, no surprise.

He put his forehead against hers, his hand tightening, thumb sliding over her windpipe. Just a light pressure stroke, but enough to make her catch her breath, her pulse accelerating.

It was raining, he realized, at the same moment Marcie registered the mist of water hitting them. Her lust-fogged eyes cleared, and she started laughing as she saw Rachel squirting them with a spray bottle, probably snagged from the storeowner’s cleaning supplies.

“Dana told me to do it,” Rachel said to Ben hastily, holding up both her hands, the bottle in one. “It’s her fault.”

“I did not,” Dana said. “I’m blind. I can’t even see them getting all hot and bothered with each other over at the dip samples.”

“Right.” Ben snagged the bottle and lunged at them in mock retaliation. The two women scattered, Rachel catching Dana’s arm to guide her escape.

“Yeah, you better run,” he said, chuckling. He returned the bottle to the storeowner. “I’m sorry. I can’t take them anywhere.”

The woman, about sixty with bright blue eyes and a lovely riot of dyed brown hair, chuckled. “I handed her the bottle willingly. I was concerned the heat you and your friend were putting off were going to melt the cheese cake samples.”

“There are cheesecake samples?” Dana asked. “Where? Point me in the right direction.”

Ben angled her shoulders toward that compass point and nudged her that way, barely restraining the urge to give her a healthy slap on the ass. Rachel, too. But as indulgent as the storeowner was, Ben figured that would be over the line. He’d wait for the lingerie store. Hot Toddy had a nice BDSM section, complete with paddles. Or a switch. It was totally appropriate to try those out before buying, he was sure.

He returned to Marcie. She was considering the dips again, but now his girl had an endearing little frown on her face. She looked up at him as he joined her.

“I really am sorry I’m such a bad cook. It’s so frustrating. I think I’m doing it right, and then it goes wrong. Cass always says it’s just a matter of following the directions, but you don’t do directions at all. And it doesn’t matter, because I can’t do it right either way.”

He couldn’t argue with it. She’d learned to be a decent sous chef in ingredient prep, but entirely under his direction. She just didn't have the soul of a cook, but that was fine, and he told her so now.

“It’s kind of a relief that you’re bad at something else. Because you’re damn near perfect. Just like that woman said when I was with Rachel. And she wasn’t just talking about how beautiful you are.”

Marcie’s eyes narrowed. “Something else? What else am I bad at?”

He should have left that word out, he knew he should have, but he had to give her an honest answer. “Listening to what’s good for you.”

“I listen.” She stepped closer, laying her palm on his chest once more. He saw the steel in the set of her mouth. “And what’s good for me is something just the right side of bad.”

He gripped her face in fingers that held her a little too hard. “Do you ever behave?”

“No.” She lifted her chin in his grasp. He could see the challenge, and she knew what that did to him.

“Keep goading, little girl,” he muttered. “You’ll know what it feels like to be caned two nights in a row.”

Something he’d never do, because it would break those welts open on her backside and be too much, but she didn’t need to know that. There were other things he could do to punish her, things that captured his mind way too urgently for their public environment.

Hell, he’d meant what he said in her ear. She had him looking for a bathroom, a broom closet, a freaking alley. Yeah, he could see how that would go. Soon as he had her bent over a sturdy surface, Dana would pop up like a jack-in-the-box and say something like, “I need to buy this. Can I grab your credit card?” Sure. It’s in the pocket of my jeans, halfway off my ass.

His lips twisted. Marcie must have seen the flicker of humor, because her brown eyes glinted with a reflection of it. She slid her arms around him, nestling her head under his chin. He sighed when she pressed her lips to the base of his throat. “Sorry,” she whispered. “I should have asked if it was okay to do this, but I just love it when you hold me.”

She was so young sometimes. So impulsive, so open. Those very qualities somehow leapfrogged her over his walls of jaded cynicism, so he could feel and act almost the same way. Closing his arms around her, he inhaled her scent once again. He might just stretch her out on the bed tonight and move over her flesh an inch at a time, detecting the lingering scents of all the places they’d visited today. This store. The candy store. The limo. Her soaps and lotions. That unique and addictive honey between her legs, the intoxicating scent of her aroused sex. Himself, because she always bore his scent in some way.

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