by Drew Elyse
“You’re so gorgeous,” Cassie raved again. She’d probably told my girl how attractive she was more times tonight than I had at all. “I don’t know if you can come to the wedding. I have to be the prettiest one there.”
“Are you fucking kidding?” Jess shot back. “You’re going to look so fucking hot. Jack is going to pass out.” Where Cassie got lovesick as the night wore on and she got more drunk, Jess just heightened her sass.
“Really?” Cassie asked, eyes wide as she looked up at her fiancé who was helping her keep moving in a straight line through the lot.
“Of course, babe. You want me to? I’ll faint right at the altar,” he shot back, but she was too far gone to catch the sarcasm.
“So romantic.”
“Unconscious groom is romantic. Got it.” He shook his head at me.
“She’s the bride, what she says is law,” Jess stated, firm.
As amusing as the two of them were, I squeezed Jess closer into my side. “Say goodnight, goddess. I need to get you home and cash in on a certain promise that was made earlier.”
Anything I wanted.
I felt her shiver a bit.
“Alright, we need to go,” she announced.
“Don’t forget to call me about the bachelorette party,” Cassie insisted as Jack led her away.
“Definitely. I’ll talk to Daz. He’ll set it all up,” Jess assured her.
Cassie’s sister and maid of honor had already planned to take the bachelorette party to a local strip club, Candy Shop, for their monthly male revue night. Little did she know when she invited Jess to come, the place was owned by the Disciples. Meaning Jess could get them the VIP treatment.
I herded her into the car. That could all come later, and it’d be a surprise if Cassie would remember any of this tomorrow. “A strip show? Really?”
“Don’t worry, big guy. The guys are hot, but they’ve got nothing on you. Besides, I know them all. Definitely not interested.” I got all that earlier when she’d talked about how the show was a regular girls’ night out activity for her and the Disciples’ women. “And I appreciate you not being the kind of macho-man jackass that would try to “lay down the law” about me going to that.”
“Lay down the law? With you?” I wasn’t near stupid enough to try that. “You do what you want. As long as it’s not going to get you maimed or dead, I know better than to try that shit.”
She grinned. “And that’s why you get to do what you want, too.”
Rock hard and needing her, I growled, “In the car, goddess. Time to get home.”
With a saucy wink, she did as asked.
She did a lot of that, all night. And it was fucking spectacular.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Jess
“I’m sorry. Would you like to repeat that in a way that won’t make me guarantee you’ll have no ability to give your wife more kids?”
Sketch glared at me, which I didn’t give that first fuck about because I was already treating him to the same.
It’d been a week and a half since my night at Braden’s when the pushy asshole—said with the utmost affection—decided to act like a one-man wrecking crew to my emotional boundaries. In that time, I’d bitched and moaned and manipulated my way back to work at last. I think it helped my case that I was able to diversify and spread that headache around. Braden, Park, Sketch, Carson, they all got it in droves when they tried to talk to me. I even roped some of the women—Kate, Ember, Ash—to harass their men about it.
Eventually, they were collectively forced to acknowledge that the only way to shut me up—permanently, at least, as Braden had many pleasant ways of doing it for periods of time—was to give me what I wanted.
Which meant that, right then, I was facing off with Sketch from behind my desk at Sailor’s Grave. Where I belonged.
“You can’t just go shopping by yourself,” he insisted.
“I’m not. I’m going with Ember. She’s a kickboxing instructor and carries a taser with her everywhere thanks to her overprotective man.” I told him something he already knew. “We’ll be fine.”
“You’ll be more fine if you have a guard.”
I was getting real tired of the guard business.
I had one nearly all the time. In fact, the only way I’d been “allowed”—a word that had been thrown around that set me off right quick—to return to work was with the condition that I not drive to or from alone and that Sketch had to be there the entire time I was as well. Although I had pointed out that this was patently ridiculous since I’d been living with Park, having him as the only one around plenty of the time for weeks now, I had been ignored. The reasoning being that Park now had that nifty security system at his place. While Sailor’s Grave was outfitted with much the same, only the cameras were operational during business hours for obvious reasons.
Since the condition wasn’t terribly invasive and I was desperate to get out of the apartment for something more than dinner or sex-a-thons with Braden, I’d agreed. After all, I was rational enough to understand that they were trying to keep me safe. I wanted that as much, if not more than they did. But that didn’t mean I wanted to stop living my life.
Now, I was getting more restrictions thrown at me, and I was losing it.
“We’re going to be in a public place,” I volleyed.
“Why can’t you just take your cop with you?” he shot back.
It was a fair point from his perspective. Braden and I had been spending a lot of time together. In fact, it was most of the time that he wasn’t on patrol.
However, “How am I supposed to blow his mind if he’s with me when I buy the dress?”
Sketch just stared at me like I’d lost my mind.
I rolled my eyes, sighing. “I need to get a dress for his partner’s wedding. I want to find something that looks incredible and makes him want to rip it off me right away so it’ll torture him all night. I’m hardly going to get that reaction on the day of if he’s with me when I buy it.”
Clara, who had been hanging around watching the show while munching on chips from my snack stash, laughed. Sketch, on the other hand, looked mildly horrified for having even listened to me say all of that.
“You mean you women do that shit on purpose?”
Was he dense?
“Of course we do.”
He looked away for a minute, probably recalling some particularly torturous outfits his wife had worn on occasion. I hoped Ash didn’t feel like I’d betrayed the sisterhood when he brought that up later.
Shaking his head, he returned his focus to me. “Fine, I’ll call Jager. He can take you. He’ll hate it, but he barely likes Ember being out of his sight anyway.”
Sensing that he wasn’t going to back down on the guard thing, and realizing that Jager would at least just lurk around silently, I gave in. “Fine.”
Sketch walked away then, probably to thoughts of how the women in his life were doing his head in. Whatever. Not my problem.
“Not bad,” Clara praised.
“I’ve been getting a lot of practice,” I bitched.
Hours later after my mall trip with Ember and her man escorting us, after finding a dress that would definitely be everything I wanted for Jack’s wedding, and dinner with the couple and their little one at their place, Jager dropped me off at Braden’s. He was waiting at the door when I walked up, since he’d only just gotten home from work.
Which meant he was still in his uniform.
And wow. That was a sight.
How they managed to make something that had to just be standard issue fit him like it was made to highlight every muscle, I didn’t know. What I did know is that it had to be criminal for him to roll his sleeves the way they were, showing off those cut forearms and the ink on them.
He leaned in for a kiss, then eyed the dress bag. “Successful?”
“Very,” I said, walking past him inside to hang it in his closet. Only managing to do it because I knew what else I had in the bags on my
arm.
I had big plans for my man in uniform. Plans that would give me plenty of time to appreciate the view.
“Worth the reaming I got from Sketch about dealing with your stubborn ass?” he teased when he followed me in.
After handling the dress and unceremoniously dumping the other bags on the floor, I approached, getting right up against him and patting his cheek. “You love my ass.”
No hesitation, he reached around me and grabbed said ass with both hands, yanking me tighter to him. “How could I not?”
My hands landed on his chest, running over his uniform and the solid warmth of him beneath it. “Is having a great ass a crime, Officer Miller?” I asked, a very different type of tease to my voice.
He went on alert in an instant, his body tightening, eyes piercing into me. “No, but showing it off like this for anyone to see is.”
I withheld my grin that he was going to play along with me.
“And what are you going to do about it?”
“That depends on if you’re going to cooperate with me.”
Biting my lip, I shook my head slowly. There was something new in that familiar feral gaze. Because this time, as the predator awoke, he was ready for the hunt.
Before he could hold me, I backed away, headed toward the bags I’d discarded. Being quick so as not to disturb the moment, I went for the plain black one, wrapping my hand around the item I’d already taken from the packaging in case this played out the way it was, without time for me to prepare. When I unearthed the baton, I grabbed onto the protruding handle, waving the black stick around tauntingly.
That had been Ember’s idea. It was the worst kept secret ever that she and Jager had a very interesting sex life. I knew more even than most about their play since we were tight. I’d initially thought to get handcuffs, knowing she’d have plenty of experience with those. She’d taken my idea and run with it. After all, as she’d pointed out and I could see right then, he’d already have the cuffs ready. So, why not tease him another way?
Luckily, Jager—with some pleading from Ember to convince him to help—knew exactly where to get the baton. With the way Braden’s eyes lit up in carnal delight at the sight of me with it, I’d have to thank them both profusely.
Kicking it up a notch, I ran my other hand along the length of the baton. His eyes tracked the movements, liking how I handled his cock, and got darker still.
“Taking an officer’s weapon? That’s a very serious offense,” he chided.
“Are you going to punish me?”
“Someone has to.”
“And you think I’ll come quietly?”
“I’ll make sure you don’t,” he promised.
In the next heartbeat, he lunged. I went to run, but I only got a few feet before he had me, arms closing around me, pinning mine to my sides. I struggled a bit to keep up the game, but I wouldn’t be getting anywhere even if I tried. With the ease of his training, he used one hand to force the baton out of my hold, then moved me to the bed. He forced me down, so I was bent over the side, face to the mattress. His body pressed me into it, the length of him—including the bulge of a particular body part—tight against me.
My breathing accelerated as I heard the clinking of metal. There was no question what the sound was. When I felt the cold bite of one metal cuff at my wrist, a flood of heat spread through me.
His voice was serious in my ear as he said, “I’m going to cuff both wrists, but you need to be careful.” Knowing he needed the assurance I wouldn’t hurt myself, even with the brace still on, I nodded. He kissed my neck once in approval, then got back to securing me.
With both arms trussed up behind me, he stood and moved away. I couldn’t help raising my hips, seeking him out, wanting the heat and pressure of him back.
“Do you know what wielding a weapon at a cop means?” His deep voice sent shivers through me, the blatant sex in it only making it better.
“No.”
Something touched my leg and skimmed upward. The baton. The end of it hit the bottom edge of my skirt, and he pressed a bit harder to catch and pull the fabric up.
“It means that I have the right to do whatever necessary to subdue you.”
The hem of my skirt was just under my ass when he changed the path of the baton, moving inward.
I swallowed hard. “I’m already subdued.”
“I’m not so sure.” He pressed the length of the baton against my pussy, hitting my clit perfectly and making me jump. “See? Still trying to get away.”
“No,” I moaned. I didn’t want to go anywhere.
He sawed the hard length against me, rubbing my wet panties against me, making me desperate.
“You need to learn a lesson about challenging a police officer.” He yanked up my skirt the rest of the way, bunching it around my hips. “About wielding weapons like this.” He caressed both globes of my ass with the baton, and I didn’t know which weapon he was referring to. Honestly, right then, I couldn’t care.
He leaned over me, one leg between mine, hard against everywhere that ached. “Are you going to take your punishment?” I only moaned in response. “Well, it’s not as if you have much of a choice.”
He stayed there, trailing open-mouthed kisses across the back of my neck and shoulders as he tugged my panties down until they were taut across my spread thighs. Then, the baton was back, right against me. I rolled my hips, needing friction.
“Naughty girl,” he admonished, but gave me more, dragging the baton back and forth.
“Please,” I begged.
He splayed a hand across my lower back, applying enough pressure to make the point that I was not to move. I gasped when the blunt end of the baton parted my folds, slowly pushing inside me. Braden moved it in careful, shallow thrusts that went a bit deeper each time. I moaned, wanting more, wanting him to fuck me with it if he wouldn’t just give me his cock. I tried to move back, but he held me still, keeping at his maddeningly slow pace of working it deeper.
The full length of the baton pressed across my ass, and I realized he was using the handle. The image of what we must look like, him in his uniform, me cuffed and bent over the bed, ass bared, the handle of a police baton inside me, only drove me higher. He picked up speed, now truly fucking me with it. In and out, driving me crazy.
Then, I was empty, and there was a dull thud as the baton dropped to the rug. Braden grasped my shoulders, helping me upright.
“You want to earn what you want?”
I could feel myself clenching around the emptiness where the handle had been. I’d been so close, so ready to come. “Yes.”
“On your knees,” he ordered.
Oh, yes. I obeyed right away.
He undid his pants, freeing his hard cock and I dove for it right away. I took him in my mouth, sucking him deep, rolling my tongue over him. I wanted him as crazy as I was, and I’d do it even if my hands were bound.
“Fuck, that goddamn mouth is too sweet,” he groaned.
I gave him all I could, sucking him with a fierce need that only heightened seeing him above me, still dressed except his cock, face like granite against the onslaught of pleasure. I itched to touch him everywhere but trying to, only served to remind me of the cuffs. There was nothing I could do but take what he gave me.
It wasn’t long before he broke, tearing his cock from my mouth. “I need you,” he growled, helping me back to my feet.
I was back over the bed in an instant, and he was thrusting inside. We were both there, right on the edge from our dirty game, and it took only minutes of him pounding into me to send us both over the edge. He roared my name as I cried out, the blinding bliss almost too much.
In the aftermath as he released the cuffs, he muttered into my hair, “Little devil.”
I grinned, drunk on the ecstasy of coming hard and long. “You love it.”
His tone wasn’t at all the teasing one I’d used when he responded, “Yeah, I do.”
I didn’t have a response to that, cou
ldn’t even begin to know how to react. We cleaned up and while he ate a late dinner I kept him company, and once he took me again and we fell asleep in his bed, I kept replaying those words.
“You love it.”
“Yeah, I do.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Braden
Jess was processing.
I knew it, and I let her have the space in her head to do it. I also knew what set it off: that exchange after she’d shocked the shit out of me with her baton surprise.
If I were honest about it, I knew what I was saying was more than our normal back and forth. I was pushing her, because although it hadn’t been that long since we had our reunion of sorts, I was sinking harder and faster than I’d thought I would.
And I knew going in that I was a fucking goner.
She hadn’t pulled away, and that was all that really mattered to me. If she needed to work things out in her own head for a while, I was content to wait.
What I was far past being content to wait for was some sort of lead about the fucker that hurt her. Whoever he was, the asshole was smart or lucky as fuck. Jager had been able to identify a handful of men who were seen regularly in the footage he’d gathered, even some across locations Jess was known to be, but none of them showed up more than another, and checks on them hadn’t revealed anything suspicious in their backgrounds.
Jess, for her part, was coping. Physically, she was nearly entirely healed, just the brace on her wrist remained. Mentally, she’d confessed to struggling with episodes of extreme panic in the aftermath, but those had largely abated.
A few days ago, I’d witnessed one firsthand. The power had gone out briefly in the evening, sending us into abrupt darkness. While I’d rushed around to grab candles—which luckily my mother thought I needed and I had simply packed rather than tossing them before the move to Hoffman—she’d sat eerily still on the couch. When I’d gotten some light for us and went to sit beside her, she’d jumped away. It wasn’t until nearly half an hour after the power had been restored that I was able to get her to stop pacing and trembling.
