by Anne Conley
He froze, grabbing her hips to still her. “Did you just curse at me?”
“You bring it out in me.”
That was a shame. He liked that she didn’t curse that much. It reminded him of how he could be better. He would teach her a lesson later. He sat up and captured a nipple in his mouth, tugging hard as he let go of her hips and let her move again.
She cried out and clenched around him, even as she pulled his hair in her pleasure. Lacie went limp, but he wasn’t done yet.
Gripping her hips, Simon whispered, “Brace your hand next to my head and touch your clit. You’ve got one more in you.” There was a certain pleasure in giving up control, not holding her hands while they made love. He wasn’t afraid of her right now; he was simply focused on her pleasure. Having her on top of him took away complete control, but as her body trembled over his, he knew this was it.
He pistoned himself inside her, thrusting up as hard as he could to hit the spot that made her give out a short, grunting moan each time. Lacie was rubbing furious circles around her clit, and Simon managed to dip his head enough to clasp a nipple between his teeth.
He felt the tell-tale tingle at the base of his spine as it spread, and this time, when her pussy clenched around him, he saw stars as he came with a rushing roar.
Lacie was asleep when she felt the soft, warm tongue lapping at her center. She opened her eyes to find Simon between her legs, hands clamped around her thighs, eating her like the most decadent dessert. His flat tongue rasped against her clit, his unshaven face tickled her thighs, his teeth nipped at everything. He was a man on a mission, and the mission was her.
She moaned as she writhed, grasping at the sheets. It happened so fast, with little lead-up, that she came breathlessly on a harsh keening cry that left her a trembling mess. When she was finished, Simon kissed her thigh and sat on the edge of the bed, leaning over to kiss her good morning.
“A girl could get used to waking up like that.”
A foreign twinkle in his eyes matched the devilish grin on his face, and Lacie’s breath hitched. “I plan on you getting used to it.” He winked before getting up and striding over to his armoire for clothes.
That brought back last night and everything they’d talked about. Lacie’s heart swelled as she heard Simon’s proclamations again inside her head, his profession of love, his promises to her, but most of all, his desire to not take and to give more. The fact he hadn’t held her hands and let her control most of the lovemaking had been huge.
He sauntered to the bathroom, and she heard the shower running. Sighing, she laid back on the pillows and stared at the door to the bathroom.
Simon holding her hands during their first time made so much sense. He had to make sure she didn’t try to kill him. Not that she would have, and she thought some part of him knew that, but how hard would it be to go through life thinking you couldn’t connect with a person on that sort of level without worrying about your life?
Poor Simon. For someone who’d grown up rich and privileged, he certainly had gone through some horrific stuff in his life. But she was here now, and Lacie would do whatever was necessary to make sure he was happy.
Wait. Really?
Was she just totally ready to commit to him like this? Like he had committed to her?
She loved him so much it hurt. The thought of not committing to him, dating other people, and living her life without him just seemed wrong.
Yeah, she was committed to him. That thought eased the sudden tension that had flared in her mind when she’d questioned herself. But was she ready to move in with him?
Lacie had really liked her home two months ago. A small house she’d bought herself, it had been her sanctuary decorated in bright colors that made her happy. Then, the attacks began, and she’d found all the surveillance equipment and learned she no longer had any semblance of privacy. Her heart constricted, and she knew it would never again be a place of peace for her.
Clearly, there was a discussion to be had this morning.
As if on cue, Simon came out of the bathroom, wet from his shower, towel slung low around his hips. Lacie put her hands behind her head and enjoyed the view. Dark hair, mussed and dripping, framed a chiseled face with a strong nose and full lips. He had shaved in the shower and his face was smooth, giving him a relaxed, carefree look. And his muscles … Her eyes drifted lower, and she knew desire was flashing in her gaze. Lean muscle, strong shoulders, ripped abs, those lines on his hips that led down into his towel where she knew only pleasure lay.
“What’s got you looking like that?” Simon had an amused glint in his eye and a quirked eyebrow. He was almost smirking, such an odd look for him.
“Uh, I was thinking about some of the stuff you said last night. About me moving in with you.” Lacie managed to cover her lusty thoughts and obvious ogling with what she’d been thinking about before he’d emerged all wet and sexy looking. She sat up on the bed, pulling the sheet around her boobs.
Simon sat on the edge of the bed and reached over to tug the sheet down, exposing her to the cool air in the room, which, of course, made her nipples pucker and poke out like pencil erasers. She would have complained, but his reaction made it worth it.
His eyes darkened as he swept his tongue out to lick his bottom lip. When his eyes peeled themselves away from her breasts, he looked her straight in the eye.
“You want to?”
The question suddenly wasn’t clear. Did she want to move in with him? Or did she want him to have sex with her again? With him looking at her like that, the answers were both unequivocally resounding yeses.
“Move in?”
He nodded, his eyes going back to her boobs as his finger touched her collarbone, making a slow trail down to her breast, circling her nipple.
“Can I keep my job? You’re not going to, like, chain me to the bed or lock me away or anything, right?”
“Right,” he muttered as he dipped his head and closed his lips over her nipple. Gah. Was he really going to do this while they had a serious conversation?
“Would we live here? I thought you and your brother and sister were supposed to sell the house?” Hadn’t he said that? Oh God, the way he was sucking on her nipple was making it really hard to talk.
Simon relaxed his body, shifting so he covered her lower half and was clearly more comfortably situated on top of her. He spent some time worshiping her breasts, sucking on one, his hand tweaking the other one. It was scrambling her brains, sending shockwaves of sensations straight to her already satiated, yet suddenly greedy core.
“We can live wherever you want, baby. I just want to wake up to you every fucking day.” He shifted again, kissing a trail up her body as he reached to the bedside table for a condom. “I want to wake up with my skin sticking to yours and your hair in my nose. I want to eat with you, and eat you, every night.” He slowly pushed himself inside her, and she groaned, almost not hearing his words. “I love you, Lace.” Another thrust. “We can live wherever, you can work wherever, nothing changes, except you’re mine, and I’m not letting you go.”
His thrusts were long and slow and deep. Lacie honestly felt like he was splitting her open. She felt herself climbing, that precious feeling of agonizing pleasure getting more and more intense with each rock of his body against hers. He was stroking places so far inside her Lacie didn’t know she could feel there, and she honestly didn’t know how she would survive Simon Pierce, but she knew she was all in.
“So will you?” He kissed her without letting her answer, another push inside her, filling her, making her breath leave on a rasping gasp. “Move in with me?”
Lacie bit her lip against the sensations while she gathered enough wherewithal to answer. “Yes. I’m yours. I’m here for you.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
Simon strolled into the office without a care in
the world. Last night had been spectacular, this morning even better, and he was the damn boss. He deserved to be late every now and then. After Lacie had agreed to live with him, his heart had felt an indescribable thrill and he’d insisted on making love to her—long and slow—to celebrate. And then they required showers. So yeah, he was a little late.
Miriam followed him to his office with a stack of messages, but he stopped her at the door. “Don’t we have a program to do those on the computer?” She froze, little pink slips in her hand, mouth agape. She’d been trying to get him to use the program for messaging for almost a year. Everyone else in the office did, and Simon realized he’d been a pain in the ass about his incessant need for paper, making Miriam’s job more difficult in the process.
“Ye-es,” she said, almost in a question.
“I’ll get Q to show me how to use it. Go ahead and digitize those or whatever. I’ll get to them later this morning unless there’s anything urgent.” Yesterday, the FBI had told him they were finished until the Grand Jury hearing, which wasn’t for another couple of weeks.
Simon sat in his chair behind his desk and looked at the massive piles of papers and binders. He had always liked his organization system, but it was outdated and made more work for Miriam. Everyone else in the office had neat desks with everything on a laptop or tablet. He sighed. Simon could get with the twenty-first century.
He started pawing through a stack of papers pertaining to Jonas and decided against it. Baby steps.
Quinten walked by as Simon was stacking everything on a shelf behind his desk to clear it off.
“Are you smiling?” Q’s question in his doorway froze Simon while he examined himself.
Sure enough, a vague smile sat on his mouth, his cheeks feeling it.
“Why yes. Yes, I am.” His smile broadened into a grin, and a slight chuckle left his mouth.
“So last night went well? I was hoping it would.” Quinten came in and sat in the chair opposite Simon’s desk.
“Last night went spectacularly, and this morning, I feel like making a few changes.”
Quinten eyeballed his cleared-off desk. “It’s so shiny,” he said, noting the gleam of the wood nobody ever saw for the papers usually strewn across it.
Simon threw a ball of paper at his brother, who didn’t even try to duck, letting it bounce off his forehead while he grinned stupidly.
“What the hell is everyone working on now?” Simon was so out of the loop with all the stuff with Lacie and Jonas, but he found he didn’t really mind. Maybe that meant it was time for a vacation. For the first time in years, that thought didn’t stress him out.
He continued piling papers around his desk on the shelf behind him as he opened drawers, while Quinten softly spoke about the different jobs the team was working on. When he got to the bottom drawer, Simon paused.
Quinten knew what was in the drawer and stopped talking, waiting for Simon.
He pulled out the bottle of scotch and the picture of Tanya, his self-pitying reminders of everything. Fingering the picture’s edges, he remembered the day. For the last time.
It hadn’t been real. Certainly not on Tanya’s part; the smiles she’d given him were great acting. And his smile? He examined it closer, seeing it as if for the first time. He’d really liked Tanya, and she’d seemed to love him. His smile was a throwback to the smiles in his family portraits. Put-together. Pasted-on. What Tanya expected.
Had it been real? He would never be able to tell. Not now. And it didn’t even really matter if he’d really loved her or not. She was dead. He was over it. He’d finally moved on, with Lacie’s help.
With a whoosh of expelled air, he tore the picture in half and tossed it across his desk. “Goddamn that felt good.” Half the picture slid to the floor at Q’s feet. “Get rid of that for me, would you?”
Quinten grinned and picked up the pieces of the image. “No problem, brother.”
Passing the bottle across the desk, Simon continued, “This too.”
His brother’s shaggy eyebrows rose. “Why? What if you want to celebrate or something?”
Simon set the bottle down with a clank. Celebrations would now be reserved for Lacie. And the bottle represented his inability to deal with shit that got too heavy. “I have other ways to deal now. Changes, remember?”
Quinten took the bottle and leaned back in the chair, scotch and picture in hand. “Change can be good.”
“Change can be excellent.” Simon pulled a new picture out of his bag and set it on the desk. The picture showed him and Lacie surrounded by this summer’s class of kindergarteners after the assembly.
“Yes,” he reiterated. “Change will be good.”
Epilogue
One year later
Ryan’s barbecues used to be a monthly thing, but that was when everyone was single and the firm was their life. Now that every last one of them had coupled up, and some had families of their own, it was difficult to make it out to Dripping Springs every month, so it was turning into an annual thing.
Simon almost hadn’t let Lacie come today. She was about to pop. But as he looked over at his woman sitting in the passenger seat, enjoying the scenery as they passed out of the city, he could only hope she was right in this. If she went into labor today, there wasn’t any way he’d risk driving all the way back to the hospital they’d preregistered at, where their normal doctor could deliver the baby.
She looked so happy. He reached over and placed his hand on her swollen belly, as always, in awe of her gestation abilities. The fact she was growing a tiny human inside her, as he sat there doing nothing but driving a damn car, was fucking incredible.
He pulled into the driveway of Ryan’s house, a cabin he’d built some rooms on and updated with all the solar and wind-powered shit so he could stay off the grid. He and Krista had made this bachelor pad in the woods a home, and there was a time when Simon envied the easy relationship they shared, but not anymore. Their daughter came toddling out to greet them.
Simon remembered when Lauren first learned to walk and how Ryan had freaked out every time she went into their gym, afraid she would get her finger stuck in the treadmill or pick up a weight and drop it on herself. It had been cute, but Simon knew the gym was a dangerous place for babies. He knew he would never allow his child to ever go in the gym.
Holding the giant bowl of broccoli salad Lacie had made in one hand, he twined her fingers with his other and led her around to the backyard, where tables were set up and everyone was already there.
As the cheers greeted them and all the women got up to coo at Lacie, steering her off to the drink table, Ryan came over to shake his hand in welcome.
Simon had never felt so at peace with his life. Finally, everything had a place, and everything was in its place. He had no idea all it would take to make things fit together was Lacie.
“Hey, man. Glad you decided to make it.” Ryan was looking at Simon but talking about Lacie. “I know it’s hard this close. Anything could happen.” Unease twisted in his gut, but it was a sort of ever-present discomfort that accompanied his every thought regarding Lacie’s pregnancy. Anything at all could happen.
“Yeah. She told me I was being ridiculous.” Simon shrugged.
Ryan laughed. “So glad you found someone you’ll actually listen to.”
Simon’s glanced at Lacie, who’d gotten a glass of punch and was seated, talking to Krista, Mia, and Paige. She was laughing, and her posture said she was as relaxed as she could be, slumped in the chair with a pillow under her back. He’d been worried about her yesterday when she’d insisted on all the chopping for the broccoli salad. They’d almost argued about it, but she was determined, so he’d helped. Seven heads of broccoli, two bunches of celery, an onion, grapes. Who the hell chopped grapes? They were already bite-sized for Christ’s sake. But whatever. He’d rolled
his eyes and helped so she didn’t have to stand as long.
Convinced she was okay, he started making the rounds, greeting each of his men in turn.
Quinten and Valerie stood next to the beer cooler with Slade and Jordan. Simon looked around for Deena Rae but noticed she wasn’t here. His eyes fell on Lacie as he spoke, still watching her for signs of discomfort.
“Where’s Deena Rae?” He grabbed a beer and opened the top before taking a pull.
“Inside throwing up. She can’t stand the smell of meat cooking right now, and it’s pissing her smooth off.” Slade was grinning like a lunatic, and Simon couldn’t help the cock of his eyebrow. “Yeah. She’s pregnant. About two months along.”
That would put a damper on her working, but Simon didn’t voice it because Deena Rae would try to rip off his ball sack for even suggesting she wouldn’t be able to do something.
“How’s she taking it? Excited?” He chose to focus on something besides Deena Rae ripping off his testicles, although he couldn’t imagine Deena Rae painting a pink nursery for anything either.
“Sometimes. She would never admit it, but I think she’s terrified.” Slade spoke softly around the neck of his own beer bottle. “But you didn’t hear that from me.”
“You excited?”
“Fuck yes. I can’t wait.” Slade clinked the neck of his bottle against Simon’s, and Quinten joined in before they all had a congratulatory drink.
“I just finished the paperwork for Ryan’s big announcement. It’s gonna be epic.” Quinten broke his silence with a shit-eating grin. His brother had been lording this big secret over Simon’s head for a month, and it had been pissing Simon off. At least he would get to learn the big secret. Finally.
“I’m gonna go see what the others are clustered over there talking about.” Simon made his excuses and continued his rounds.
Jason stood with his arm around Miriam with Nick wrapped around his leg as they talked to Jordan and Evan by the dessert table. Evan was shoveling cookies in his mouth like they would disappear if he didn’t eat them in the next thirty seconds.
