by Cari Quinn
Ready or not, she still screamed as I started to take the helicopter up. I hadn’t named her. I thought the practice of naming inanimate objects was ridiculous. Hell, I’d had a cat I called Cat for two years straight in college. But I still referred to the helicopter as “she” so I guess I wasn’t as immune as I thought.
The whir of the rotors wasn’t enough to drown out her shrieks of laughter as she hung on to the harness and whipped her head in every direction to take in every thing at once. With as loud as the ascent was, I didn’t hear anything but Grace begging her grandmother to go faster, push harder, make her go higher.
So I took her higher.
“Oh my God,” she chanted, fixated on the panorama of water and city and sky. The view was dazzling, even to a hardened flier like myself, and her reaction only doubled the sense of wonder. “Blake, oh my God.”
Hearing her say my name again made me smile, but I didn’t look her way. I focused on what I was doing. On keeping her safe.
She was precious cargo, one I’d been entrusted with many years ago.
We landed on the top of the Triton Tower, one of my holdings in Springfield. When we put down, Grace clapped a hand over her mouth and faced me with sheer joy in her eyes. “Can we do that again? Please?”
I had to laugh. I wasn’t used to being around someone so unabashedly excited about life. Well, other than Jack.
My mood instantly darkened at the edges. Jack would be perfect for Grace. They could have untold adventures together, while I watched from the sidelines and ran a running snarkumentary in my head.
“Yes, we can, since we have to go back.” I leaned over to fuss with her harness, only realizing then that her chest was rising and falling as if she couldn’t haul in enough air. “Are you all right?” I asked, glancing at her face.
She was glowing again, even more so than before. The night was no match for that kind of wattage.
“I’m so good. So good.” She grabbed my arm, the one she’d marked so thoroughly yesterday. My dick stiffened at the first scrape of her nails. “It was like flying. No doors, just air between us. Oh my God, what a fucking rush.”
I’d no sooner unstrapped her that she grabbed the box of lanterns and hopped down. She twirled in a dizzy circle, laughing maniacally as her hair spun out like golden ribbons around her.
And I just watched her, mesmerized.
Of course I couldn’t have her. No one could. It was impossible to trap a beam of sunlight. The only thing you could do was enjoy the warmth for as long as it lasted.
I climbed down and grabbed another box of lanterns from behind the seat. She was still buzzing excitedly as we made our way down to the street, then continued up the block to the park where the rally was being held. From a distance, I could see the giant reflective panel of glass Carson Covenant had sent to the event, the perfect backdrop for all the lights that were beginning to fill the park.
This event was a symbolic gesture more than anything else, and while I disliked the futility of such, even I could acknowledge this night would garner attention. That was all we could ask for, short of bringing Jimmy home.
We were at the outskirts of the park when Grace finally quieted, her happy chatter turning into a frown. Seeing her glow disappear into the shadows of what we were about to do was worse than the helplessness I still felt that Jimmy was still out there. Maybe alive or maybe not, but alone. His parents didn’t have closure, and an entire town was in flux.
And a playground that had once signified safety and happiness and childhood to me had been forever tainted.
I passed her the other box of lanterns. “Would you mind handing these out to whomever doesn’t have one?”
She nodded silently and clutched the boxes to her chest.
“I’ll be back soon,” I told her, nearly bending down to kiss her forehead before sense returned. I had so little lately that I was surprised the gauge still registered.
She nodded again and opened her mouth, then shook her head before the words escaped.
I spoke to the organizers of the event, as well as a few of the people who’d led the early efforts to spread the news about the boy’s disappearance. Jimmy’s father shook my hand, and I couldn’t get anything out but “I’m sorry.” Just those two words.
I’d prided myself for years at my readiness to face any situation at a moment’s notice yet here was a man who could’ve used a word of encouragement and I had nothing. Absolutely nothing.
I could lie to so many others and pretend I still had faith, but I could not lie to him. Staring into his knowing dark eyes humbled me to the point that I had nothing left.
When I climbed to the podium after being introduced, I gripped the makeshift lectern and searched for Grace’s face amidst the sea of people and lights. I didn’t expect to be able to find her, but somehow I zeroed in on her as if she were a beacon.
Holding my light in her hands, she was.
The tremor in my hands I hadn’t even fully been aware of subsided as I greeted the crowd. I’d given many speeches and talked to many groups before, often ones made up of the very rich and powerful. None of those talks shook me like this one, where I faced honesty and had to give back my own.
“Jimmy Calagnino is six years old. Not was six years old, is six years old. Because until we hear otherwise, he’s as alive as you and me. He has dreams and hopes and wishes just like all of us do, but the difference is that for this moment, we’re charged with fulfilling his. And the number one wish we need to fulfill of Jimmy’s is that we never forget his name or his face so that we can bring him home.”
I sought Grace’s gaze again and again as I spoke. Knowing she was watching me kept me steady and focused. Without her there, I would’ve floundered, lost in a sea of my own recriminations. Not about Jimmy, but about my own life. Faced with such innocence—and its potential loss—it was impossible not to see all the opportunities that had been squandered.
Even with an ocean of pale blue lights and reflective glass all around me, I would’ve been caught in the dark.
When I finally finished my speech, it was the event organizer’s turn, then finally Jimmy’s parents approached the podium, their hands clenched tightly together. In halting words, they thanked everyone for coming before the park began to empty for the planned walk through the streets. I moved toward Grace, and silently we joined the others, eventually falling toward the back of the large group.
It seemed as if we walked for miles, chanting the words “Find Jimmy.” I cast a quick look at Grace and she was staring straight ahead, mouthing the words, her focus centered entirely on our group leader as we walked along the damp streets.
Once we reached the walk’s planned end at yet another park, there was another quick round of speeches and a moment of applause for Carson Covenant’s sponsorship of the event. I didn’t want undue attention so I merely raised my lantern in appreciation of their gratitude.
The instant the spotlight shifted back onto Jimmy’s parents and the large glossy photo of their son that they carried, I reached down and gripped Grace’s hand, tugging her away from the crowds.
I’d reached my limit on socialization tonight. Now I needed to be alone with her. To study her face in flickering candlelight, full of joy once more. I couldn’t stand to see her somber.
She’d been that the day of Annabelle’s funeral, her head bent, her long hair streaming to shield her expression. I hadn’t needed to glimpse her pain to know the grief that seized her. I’d felt just a fraction and it had been crippling.
“Are you hungry?” I asked quietly, drawing her with me up the street. Without realizing, I’d tucked her arm under mine and was dragging her with me.
When I’d had enough, I’d had enough.
She glanced down at my hold then up at my face. “You’re holding my hand.”
I didn’t let go. I couldn’t just yet. “Is it bothering you?”
“Not as much as the fact that my feet have barely touched the ground in the last fifty
paces. Holy fast. Slow down, Speedy.”
I smiled and relaxed my grip. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay. Just short legs here. Respect the short legs.”
Chuckling, I shook my head. “Your legs are perfect, just like the rest of you.”
“You’ve already been in my pants. No need to whip out the flattery now.”
I lowered my head and brushed my lips against her hair. I was trying to be circumspect while we were in public, but she made it so very difficult. “Skirt both times. I’ve never seen you in pants.”
“My preference is overalls, when I work on my projects. Only problem is I tend to forget to put on shirts underneath. Sometimes I don’t even remember underwear.” She shot me another of those heavy looks under her lashes as we rounded the next block. “And yes, I’m hungry. Starving, actually.”
Her meaning was clear. So was mine as I nudged her toward the darkened doorway of “Je L’adore”, a French restaurant I’d visited a few times.
“Then let me take care of all your needs.” I slipped my hand around her waist to guide her inside, and lightly pressed my pinky against the top of her thigh. She inhaled. “Oh, and Grace?” She glanced back at me, her eyes huge in the faint light from the sign in the window. “As soon as we’re seated, take off your panties.”
Chapter Seven
We were seated in a circular booth near the back of the restaurant at my request. As soon as the server left to fill our drink orders, I lowered my menu and cocked a brow at Grace. “I believe you have a task to complete, Ms. Copeland.”
Her lips trembled and she nodded. I expected her to slip out of the booth and head to the bathroom, but instead, she shimmied a bit lower in her seat and flipped up her dress, working so quickly I could barely see her hands move. After a moment, she drew out a swatch of purple lace—a darker shade than the day before—and fashioned it into a triangle.
Before I could fully process what she was doing, she’d whipped out the pocket square from my suit jacket and slipped the panties inside, fluffing the material until it looked like it had been made for that purpose.
“You caused me to be so hot and bothered,” she murmured close to my ear. “Only fair you should be reminded as often as I am.”
Reminded? Hell, the heat from that square of fabric was branding a tattoo on my skin straight through my clothes.
And the scent of her. God, I had to be imagining it. But just the mere idea that the lace had been against her pussy was going to kill me.
“Your wine, sir, madam.” The server poured the Muscadet I’d ordered into two glasses, then left the bottle behind as requested. He waited until I sampled and approved of the taste, though Grace held up a finger as well so she could do the same.
“Perfect,” she informed him while I smiled behind my menu.
She would never take a deferential role in anything.
“I’d like to order the oysters on the half shell to start,” I said, ignoring Grace’s sharp kick against my leg. Her heels today weren’t quite as lethal, but they were bad enough. “Then I think we’ll have the Chateaubriand for two, with a side of—”
“I’d like the chicken,” Grace interrupted.
I cocked a brow. “The Chateaubriand here is excellent.”
“I’d like the chicken.”
The waiter gripped his pad. “I could come back, if you’d like more time…”
“No, this is fine. We’ll take the Chateaubriand and the Poulet aux Champignons, please. Thank you.”
The instant he’d taken our menus and left the table, Grace fisted her napkin. She’d started to unfurl it over her lap before the waiter had made the mistake of trying to take her order. “I didn’t want that fancy ass chicken. I wanted the simple grilled breast. No champagne, no scallions, no cute little button mushrooms, just plain damn chicken.”
“The chicken I ordered for you is perfectly satisfactory. I’ve had it myself.”
“Satisfactory for you. And that’s just it. Ordered for me? Who does that?”
“I ordered you to remove your panties. Didn’t see you protesting there.”
Watching her flush was a revelation. “There is a difference.”
I smoothed my own napkin over my lap. I didn’t want her to know I was growing even more rigid from this conversation. Her panties had started me off, and her anger would finish me.
She was so fucking hot when she was pissed.
“And that difference is?” I asked, reaching for my wine.
“Sexy stuff is one thing. But when it comes to dinner, I make my own decisions. I’m my own woman. I can decide on my own wine and my own meal. And you know what else? I think it’s absolutely ridiculous to pay over one hundred dollars for fancy beef when there are people starving. It’s wasteful. It’s—”
“On my tab, so I’ll take the karmic burden.” After taking a sip of my wine and setting aside the glass, I lowered my voice and spoke close to her ear. “Enough, Ms. Copeland. Or else I’ll order you to not only remove your own panties, but to take my cock out right here and not stop until your mouth is full of something else.”
Her chest heaved, her full breasts rising and falling against the bodice of her dress. “I’d bite it off.”
“I doubt it. Seems silly to harm something you enjoy making use of so much.”
She screwed up her mouth to the point that all I could think about was being inside it. “Go to hell.”
I brushed a kiss over the shell of her ear. “How wet are you right now?”
“I’m not.” Her chin came up. “I’m dry like the freaking Sahara.”
“Really. So if I were to do this…” I slid my hand up the outside of her thigh, tugging her dress up until I could see she’d worn hose and garters again, just to drive me insane. I wasted no time in slipping between her tightly clenched thighs and drew my fingers through the moisture sealed between them. “You’re a liar, Ms. Copeland.” I bite down on her earlobe, clinking my teeth against her large silver hoop earrings. “I don’t like liars.”
Her breathing sped, but she said nothing. Didn’t move at all.
“Especially because I’ve discovered if someone lies about one thing, they’ll lie about another.” I inched my hand higher. I’d never intended to go down this path here—not to touch her intimately in a public restaurant, and especially not to prod at the boundaries of her deception—but a wise businessman never refused an opportunity when it was presented. “Have you found that to be true, Ms. Copeland?”
“You’re a bastard.”
“I am. Undoubtedly. I’m the bastard who’s about to finger fuck all your objections right out of your pretty head.” I slid my mouth down the side of her neck. “And maybe your lies too.”
Her thighs clenched around my hand, as if she intended to force me out. She tipped back her head and exhaled sharply, then gripped my hand between hers and shoved it deeper, pushing my fingers right up against where she needed them.
Against an inferno of wet heat, all for me.
I obliged her, parting her swollen folds with two fingers. She reached for her wine and gulped it down as I circled her stiff clit, rotating the pad of my finger over it again and again until she started to squirm against the booth. This wouldn’t take long. She was so soaked that my fingers kept sliding along her folds, making obscene noises I knew she could hear even over the sounds of other people dining. Our booth was somewhat sheltered by a tall divider, but other diners were close by, close enough that if she gasped, they would probably hear her.
“You like to watch other people fuck,” I murmured against the side of her throat while my fingers worked her slippery pussy. “But how about others watching you?”
The waiter returned with our platter of oysters and Grace jolted upward, trying to get away. I clamped my hand over her center, holding her firmly in place with one hand as I spoke calmly to the waiter. Her clit was pulsing so hard I could feel the reverberations against my palm.
Little vixen was turned on by this. She li
ked me having my fingers on her while the awkward waiter stood by, making small talk with me for the sole purpose of heightening Grace’s arousal.
“I think we’re all set for the moment,” I said, sliding my index finger over her plump clit, gathering the wetness there and using it to fuel my caresses. “What about you, Grace?” I gave her a tight smile. She wasn’t the only one on the verge of combusting. “Do you need anything else right now?”
She shook her head, pressing her lips together until they were white.
The waiter left, and I used my free hand to pry one of the oysters from its shell with the seafood fork. I’d done it so many times that I could do it blindfolded. I pressed the oyster against her closed mouth while my fingers played over her flesh. “Open for me.”
She responded by separating her legs and opening her lips so I could simultaneously push my fingers all the way inside her pussy and slip the oyster onto her tongue.
With one hard thrust, she exploded, her eyes going wide as she fought to swallow the salty delicacy. She gripped her wine glass until I half expected it to shatter, her hips bucking against my hand as I sought to extend her pleasure with slow, deep strokes.
Then she turned her head as if to speak into my ear. Instead she bit my earlobe hard enough to bruise. “You’ll pay for that.”
I withdrew my hand from between her legs and reached for another oyster, pushing it and the tips of my drenched fingers between her lips. Her eyes shot fire as she tasted it and herself, her sharp teeth scraping my skin. Then I did the same for myself, except I openly licked my fingers once I’d swallowed the oyster.
She shut her eyes on a moan.
“I can’t wait, Ms. Copeland,” I murmured.
Chapter Eight
We lingered over the dinner. Grace finally relented and tried the Chateaubriand, and the sound she made upon tasting it turned my rock-hard erection into pure agony. She was clearer-headed than I for obvious reasons, so she seemed to delight in my predicament. Her wrist brushed the tent in my pants more than once, though the final time she did it, I held her there until she whimpered in her throat and drew her fingers over the tight sac between my legs.
