Smack!“Ten minutes at the most, Brooke.Ten minutes, if that! Even with Langston storming into the operations area like he did,you hold your position. You don’t fucking lure him out like you’re some kind of goddamnbait!”Smack!
When they had gotten home, Blake had immediately pulled Brooke over to the sofa—using the infamous speed she was well-known for—yanked down Brooke’s jeans and panties to bare her bottom, flipped her face-down over her lap, then used one of her long legs to pin a stunned Brooke in place before showing her femme why punishment spankings existed.
“Indi got hit by a deflected bullet, Brooke! I’m fuckingsickthat happened to her, but I also know she is an operative trained to handle this kind of shit!You, however, arenot!” Brooke started to cry. “What if Clay had been just a little bit faster than you expected him to be? The fact that you thought to do something you learned in Utopia makes me prouder than hell, especially given how fucking intelligent you are.But this is not what you do, baby!”Smack!
“We train our associates six ways from Sunday on how to handle different situations when they crop up.Your jobis to keep yourself safe until I can get to you! Not put yourself in the line of firewhere I could lose you!”
Brooke went limp, crying as if her heart would break as Blake continued to spank her. Finally, the Utopia team lead stopped and pulled Brooke up into her arms, mindful of her tender, burning bottom, as she rested Brooke’s head in the crook of her neck and wrapped her arms around her. “Iamproud of you, you know,” she said softly after a while, rocking Brooke as her femme continued to cry. “More fucking proud than I think I have ever been of anyone in my life. But, baby…this is justoneof the reasons why we train the way we do.
“The world is a dangerous place for women. You don’t need me to tell you that. It’s why APS exists, my tigress. I don’teverwant you to change, because I fell in love with the passionate, fierce, protective woman in my arms. But I also need that woman to keep herself safe for me, because she is my whole world. You don’t want to know the hell I’d wreak on creation if I lost you.”
Silence reigned as Brooke finally calmed. “I’m sorry,” she quavered after a few minutes, hiccupping and taking the tissue Blake handed to her when her sobs had stopped so she could blow her nose and wipe her eyes. “I didn’t mean to upset you or make you mad. That was never my intention. But you’re right. Thisisn’twhat I do, and I took a risk I shouldn’t—” she hiccupped again, “I shouldn’t have taken. I love you, too.Somuch.”
“Enough to marry me?”
Gasping, Brooke’s head whipped around, and she stared at Blake, her red, swollen eyes as big as cue balls.
“You know yournonnowould expect me to make an honest woman of you. This whole living-in-sin shit would probably drive him bonkers. Marry me, Brooke. We’ll go next week and pick out an engagement ring. Then, you can tell your girls, and I can tell those assholes at APS after we tell our families.” She grimaced, narrowing her sunlit green eyes.
“Although I’m warning you right now: I’m going to give Drew a fucking wedgie if she picks on me, or at least get her on the mats in Hades so I can kick her ass. Just because she’s the last one standing on the singlehood side of the column doesn’t mean I need to put up with her shit.” Brooke burst out laughing before starting to cry again, this time with happy tears.
“Yes! Yes, I’ll marry you!” she cried, throwing her arms around Blake and kissing her hard. Huffing, however, when she could speak again a few minutes later, Brooke snarked, “You need to understand, however, that Iwillget Alyssa on the mats and throw down if I have to myself because I suspect my bitch is also going to need a good ass-kicking.” Blake started laughing as well, hugging Brooke to her.
“You need to take a shower, then I need to smear some arnica cream on your bottom so you don’t bruise. Ihatedspanking you like that, baby.” Blake kissed Brooke’s forehead. “But I will never shy away from doing what I need to do to keep you safe in all ways. I wasn’t kidding when I said you were my whole world, Brooke Marino-almost-Seibert. Whatever it takes to keep you protected in the dangerous landscape life can be sometimes is what I will do.Always. And pity the person who ever tries to come between us, because the odds of their survival will be slim to none. You can bet on it.”
?ω?ω?ω?
Running her mouth over Blake’s bare sculpted abs, Brooke sighed as she basked in the feel of her lover—herfiancé—underneath her. “I love you,” she whispered as her hands wandered over Blake’s lean, hard length. “You areeverythingto me, Blake Seibert. Until death do us part, until the very end of time, I will be yours and you will be mine. Giancarlo Marinomade sure we found our happily ever after as he watches over us from heaven. However did I get so lucky?”
After Brooke and Blake had showered and Blake had taken care of her bottom, the Utopia head had gone to make sure everything was secured while Brooke had folded the comforter and sheets back, smiling as she always did when she saw the new bedding. Waiting for Blake, she thought about everything that had happened over the past few months.
Their entire apartment had been transformed, thanks to their mothers. While Dolly and Pia had opted to keep the original soft blue-gray walls and pale gray trim, bolder, deeper tones of color came into play with the bedding as well as the kitchen and bathroom linens. Stunning artwork hung on the walls, along with accessories that lent an ambiance that was almost 1920s deco in feeling. The apartment satisfied Brooke’s graphic artist’s soul while still respecting Blake’s more moderate taste. Brooke had burst into tears when it had finally been completed, while Blake had held her in her arms, enormously impressed by the alteration.
Reflex had also had three other microbreweries dangling from their hook at the same time as Cask & Canvas. On a conference call with them—Brooke participating as well—Bryn Armstrong had laid out Reflex’s embezzlement and money laundering scam in detail, assuring the microbrewery owners they were now safe from their schemes and that the four Reflex partners were deceased. After all their questions had been answered, Brooke had been astounded, however, when one of the owners had told her they wanted to talk about hiring her to do some of their graphic art—the two remaining owners also promising they would be in touch in the very near future.
“That’s all I need,” she had playfully growled when Blake had gotten home from work that night and they were eating dinner. “For Brooke Marino Designs to become known for bothgraphic artandinvestigative services.” Blake had thrown her head back and burst into laughter. “Seriously, I’m glad I can help, though. I think those owners understand they had a very narrow escape. If knowing I have the strength and protection of someone like APS at my back makes them feel safer and less skittish, who am I not to let them use that?”
While Brooke was going to be busy catching up on the work that had fallen behind because of her involvement with the Reflex debacle, Blake and the rest of the APS would be heads-down helping Drew investigate her body brokering suspicions. Now, however, Blake nuzzled the top of her woman’s head as she warned Brooke, “I’m not in the mood to go slow, tigress. Either you take what you want first—without teasing—so I can devour yousoon, or I am going to bind you to this bed and keep making you come over and over again until you’re hoarse from screaming and your body is a limp, exhausted mess.”
“Ooh, promises, promises.” Brooke bit Blake’s abs then giggled as one hand wandered south to cup Blake between her legs. “You willnotdeny me, Blake Seibert. I’ve waited my entire life to have a strong, sexy, mouthwatering butch like you under my mouth and hands. It would be plainmeanto take away my opportunity.”
“What would bemean, tigress, is for me to make you ride one of my toys while you’re restrained and keep taking it away every time you are on the verge of coming. Orgasm denial can besuchfun.” Blake chuckled at Brooke’s gasp of outrage. “Your choice, baby. Making my femme beg is one of myfavoritethings to do, so your window of opportunity is rapidly closing before I take control.
“Fine,” Brooke huffed. Her mouth traced a path down over Blake’s abs and lower belly to the top of the neat triangle of hair between Blake’s legs. “I love that I can give this to you,” she whispered in response to Blake’s increased breathing asshe sank even lower, no longer thinking about teasing. “That after years of you believing a woman going down on you was something that didn’t do anything for you, you now wantmytouch.” Her tongue flicked through the damp wetness on Blake’s thighs, smiling as she heard Blake groan.
“Love of my life. The butch who has always been meant to be mine.” Licking the wet slit that hid the entrance to Blake’s body, Brooke buried her mouth until she wrapped her lips around the firm, distended clit she found after murmuring, “Come for me, beloved. Bathe me in the essence of everything that’syou.”
With a deep rhythmic suction that caused Blake to buck her hips and groan louder, Brooke kept urging Blake up the hill toward her climax, moving fast, sliding one of her forefingers into her butch’s narrow channel to stroke in and out of her body. A feminine growl erupted from her as she sensed Blake shake even harder, her butch’s hips bowing and flexing with her approaching orgasm, as Brooke felt her heart almost explode from her emotion.
This was what she had waited for and wanted her entire life. Despite her stubborn denials, despite her refusal to admit the truth, Brooke had known since she had met the spirited, protective baby butch who drew her like a magnet that they were meant to be something to each other one day. As young as she had been back then, there had been no doubt in her mind that she belonged to Blake Seibert—that they belonged to each other—and always would.
With a loud yell, Blake exploded abruptly, the eruption from her body soaking Brooke’s face and the bed below them. Brooke didn’t pull her mouth away until Blake’s shudders started to subside, then removed her finger from Blake’s body and nibbled the inside of Blake’s thighs until she finally turned her head and nestled the side of her face against them.
“I love you,” she whispered, her heart full, as she felt Blake’s tremors underneath her. “You are my heart and my soul, and I willneverlet you go.”
Suddenly, Blake seized her and yanked her up her body until Brooke was lying on top of her. “God, baby, how much I love you, too.” She raised her mouth to Brooke’s and claimed her trembling mouth. “I’ve waited for you forsolong,” she whispered when she lowered her head. Astonishingly, there were tears in her voice and in her eyes. “I’ve always known you were mine.Always.But now, to have you in my arms and in my bed, knowing my ring will be on your finger next week, that you are going to be mywife, is like a dream come true for me. You own everything I am and everything I ever will be, my tigress. Just as you said: Till death do us part, until the very end of time.”
Rolling Brooke on her back, then climbing on top of her to straddle her with her strong thighs, Blake kissed her woman once more as she cupped her breasts, thumbing the hardened nipples, then lightly pinching them. As Brooke moaned, Blake ran a strong hand between her thighs, finding her wet center, and slid two fingers into her, starting to move them in rhythm. As she followed her hand with her mouth, pausing to nibble and lick Brooke’s belly, Blake increased her thrusts, feeling Brooke’s body clench around her.
