“You climbed on top of me and said, ‘Again, Brogan.’” I tipped her chin up, forcing her to see the satisfaction she’d put in my face. “Then you rode my cock until you couldn’t hold yourself up. I remember enough for both of us.”
She buried her face against my chest with a mortified groan, and a quiet laugh escaped my lips while I wrapped an arm around her.
“Go away,” she muttered, though her fingers curled into my suit jacket and held me close enough to expose the lie.
“Soon as you kiss me goodbye.” I waited until she lifted her face, then took her mouth slowly, letting her taste the promise that I’d be back before I forced myself to straighten.
“Remember, no house repairs without me here to catch you.”
A cute little pout graced Jacqueline’s lips. “One time that happened.”
If anyone had been in the room, they probably would’ve been frozen in shock when a grin split across my face. “And you’ll probably never live it down.”
“Ugh. Go, you big brute.”
I laughed and bent to give her another quick kiss. On my way to the door, I told her, “I’ll set the alarm. Ghost, Bishop, and Wraith are outside, and the cameras are live. You need anything, call me.”
Jacqueline’s expression brightened, and I noticed she was looking at the open door to the closet where the edge of one of my shirts was visible beside her clothes. She didn’t mention it, but the pleased little tilt at the corner of her mouth had my lips curving in response. “Come home as soon as you can.”
The word home hit me with a deep sense of rightness I had no interest in examining. I already knew this was where I belonged. “I will,” I murmured before leaving the room while I still possessed enough control to walk away.
Ghost, Bishop, and Wraith were near the barn when I crossed the yard.
“She’s sleeping,” I told them, tightening the knot of my tie as I stopped beside my truck. “Nobody wakes her unless the house is burning, nobody gets near that porch without one of you knowing, and if anything happens to her while I’m gone, I’ll put all three of you six feet under before lunch.”
Wraith scratched his jaw and glanced toward the rising sun. “That doesn’t give us much digging time.”
“Then don’t fuck up.”
Ghost took a sip of his coffee. “We’ll keep her safe. Save the hole for Kessler.”
“Fuck, I hope so.” I started to turn toward my truck, then glared at Bishop when he grinned like he had one more thing to say. “You boys enjoy living dangerously?”
Bishop closed his mouth. “No.”
“Smart.”
Twenty minutes later, I was at Black Castle’s headquarters. It wasn’t long before I’d checked in with my assistant, stopped by one of our operatives’ offices for a quick word, and was behind the glass desk in my executive office reviewing a threat brief. But part of my mind remained at home with Jacqueline warm and naked in our bed.
I loved my jobs, both as president of the Black Crowns and for Rook Holdings. Black Castle had been built around standards I believed in, employed people I trusted, and protected clients who understood the value of preventing a crisis instead of reacting after it began. But today, every executive summary stood between me and the ranch, while the memory ofJacqueline’s sleepy smile and the slick heat of her body around my cock made concentration far more difficult than any client had paid for.
The morning meetings ran into each other. Even my increasingly surly attitude and deepening scowl didn’t discourage more delays in my exit.
Cipher walked into my office in the late afternoon without knocking, dressed in dark slacks and a black button-down that made him look like one of our intelligence analysts until a person noticed the way he moved.
He shut the door, dropped onto the chair across from my desk, and slid a thin tablet over the polished glass with one finger. “Loader got us a name. Stolen from a ranch-equipment yard just outside Sable Canyon six weeks ago.”
I looked over the report, recognizing the owner from a community fundraiser Rook Holdings had sponsored two years earlier. “How’d it get into Wade’s barn?”
“According to Wade, his employees purchased it from an unknown seller who appeared from the mist, accepted cash, and vanished without leaving a name, phone number, vehicle description, or single useful fucking detail.” Cipher pushed his hair away from his eyes with an irritated flick and leaned back. “According to him, he’s a private man.”
“Can Raines tie Wade to the theft?”
“Not yet.” Cipher’s mouth flattened as he tapped the screen, bringing up the purchase documents his search had uncovered. “Trent was standing beside the machine, Kessler’s truck hauled it, and their equipment stripped the identifiers, but Wade claims his son believed the purchase was legitimate. The bill of sale runs through a subcontractor, the signature is probably fake, and everyone involved has suddenly developed the memory of a fence post.”
I set the tablet down before the urge to put it through the wall became stronger than my respect for expensive equipment. Wade had built his operation around layers of plausible ignorance, always close enough to profit and far enough away to claim someone beneath him had made the dirty decision. “Everything’s still circumstantial.”
Cipher nodded, his expression turning colder. “Judge is pulling at the subcontractor, Raines is leaning on the three idiots who made bail, and I’m tracking every device that touched those replacement GPS units. Somebody fucked up. We just haven’t found the mistake yet.”
