Dane

by Webster, K

  I smirk. “Yeah, your heavy ass was out. I couldn’t have moved you if I’d wanted to.” Reaching across the table, I give his hand a squeeze before pulling away. “Not that I wanted to.”

  His shoulders relax and he gives me a crooked smile. “What are we going to do today? I have no clothes or anything with me.”

  “Borrow whatever you want. I have extra toothbrushes and anything you might need,” I assure him.

  While he continues to work, I pull up my phone and check emails. There is one from Max about going out tomorrow night if the roads are cleared, for drinks with his sons-in-law. I like Miles and Drew, so I’m game. I reply back to him that I’ll be there, weather permitting, but I’m bringing someone.

  “I updated your antivirus. It had expired. Your computer was running like shit, though, because you had a bunch of huge files saved in your C drive. There’s a link to the server at the office in a folder on your desktop that’ll take you to where you can save it there. That’ll free up hard drive space for you. Not to mention, if your computer crashes, you won’t lose everything. Your laptop was like a walking time bomb.”

  I raise my eyebrows. “I thought I was saving it to the server.”

  “No, old man, just because you named the folder server doesn’t mean it was actually being saved there.”

  “Smartass,” I grunt, but then soften my gaze. “Thank you.”

  He nods. “No problem. It’d been a bitch to get that stuff back if your hard drive failed. I could do it, but it’d still be a bitch.”

  “Last year, my laptop crashed and we couldn’t recover anything,” I grumble. “Our IT department basically told me to get over it because there wasn’t anything I could do.”

  His grin is smug. “Because they’re incompetent. I could have done it.”

  “You’re arrogant,” I huff.

  “You like it.”

  I do. I love that he’s brilliant and haughty about it. It’s nice seeing him confident about something besides the bedroom, since this past week, he’s been struggling to stay afloat.

  “Any cases you need help with? I may not be great with computers, but I’m pretty fucking good at everything else,” I toss back at him.

  He laughs but then his face grows stony. “I want to see about getting Malachi and Xavier moved.”

  “Who?”

  “The Bryant kids. Enzo said—”

  I put up a hand to stop him. “Slow down. I thought your case was against their last foster home. They’ve been moved already, right?”

  His brows furl. “They have, but I don’t like it. Enzo said he didn’t like the vibe either. Something about the new foster home feels fucking fishy.”

  “I didn’t realize you and Lorenzo Tauber were so close.”

  “We’ve just talked a few times about the case and the boys.” His eyes drift outside, and this young man suddenly seems older than his twenty-five years. “They’ve just been through so much.”

  “Yeah, kids in the system often have it especially hard.” I nudge his bare foot under the table with the toe of my boot. “But kids out of the system don’t always have it easy either.”

  He returns his attention on me. “Some kids, though, like Mel, have something good. I just want that for these kids. No one deserves to feel unsafe in their own home.” His jaw clenches and his brown eyes flare. My stare has fallen on his slightly swollen lip that still bears a split from his father last night.

  “Enzo’s their caseworker. Is the new home not fit?”

  His brows knit harder together. “That’s the thing. It is. Everything from the outside looks fine. It’s just…he says the way the foster parents look at the children feels threatening.”

  I let out a sigh and massage the tension forming at the base of my skull. “We can’t pull kids from homes based on feelings. You know how things work, Nick. We need more than that. Get us more and we can have a judge intervene. Until then, we can’t do anything.”

  He grinds his teeth together and rises from the table before grabbing his plate up and stalking over to the sink. I follow after him and hug him from behind. His muscles are taught and coiled for a fight, but the moment I embrace him, he relaxes.

  “It’s unfair,” he murmurs. “It’s so unfair.”

  I kiss his shoulder. “Get me more and we’ll make it happen. I’m not saying we give up on them, I’m just saying we’ll have to work harder.”

  His plate clatters into the sink and then he twists around to face me. Intensity burns in his stare as he crashes his lips to mine. He backs me against the fridge and kisses me hard. When he finally pulls his mouth from mine, his hot breath tickling my lips, he smiles.

  “Thank you. Thank you for helping me.”

  I don’t think we’re simply talking about the kids.

  We’re talking about so much more.

  “Always, babe,” I rasp out. And I fucking mean it too.

  “I’d help you finish but I have to be in court in thirty minutes. I’ll see you at the office later,” Dane says, as he scrapes the passenger side window of my car free of snow. “Don’t forget tonight we’re going out with Max.”

  Max.

  Just the way he says his name with a slight happy lilt of his voice grates on my nerves. I’m not a fan of Max. The good, fair judge or not…he hit his best friend because he put a move on him. Every time I think of that, my blood boils.

  “See ya,” I grunt out.

  He slaps my ass with his gloved hand on the way back to his car and I can’t help but smile. Yesterday was reminiscent of the weekend we met. Just the two of us. Locked away alone, free to spend uninterrupted time together. We watched movies, ate, and fucked. The last one more so than the first two. Even now, just thinking of being inside his tight ass has my dick twitching in my slacks.

  Thank God it’s cold as fuck because my erection leaves as quickly as it arrives. I finish clearing my car of the lingering snow and head to the office. The nearer I get, the more my nerves begin to fray. Soon, no matter how hard I try, I’ll be forced to see my dad.

  As soon as I’m in the building, I make a beeline for my office. I attempt to close the door behind me but Susan follows me inside. Her lips are painted bright pink today and her boobs are threatening to spill from her top. The way she bites on her bottom lip and leans across the desk to hand me a file tells me she wants them to.

  She briefs me on my missed phone calls and upcoming appointments, all the while jiggling her tits at me. I’m about to open my mouth and blurt out that I fuck boys, not girls, when a knock resounds behind her on the open door.

  “Oh, Mr. Stratton,” she coos as she stands upright and sashays over to him.

  My father’s eyes drop to her tits and he grins wickedly at her. “Yes, Susan?”

  “Good morning.”

  “It’s a wonderful morning,” he agrees as he eyefucks her. “Can you be a dear and run along to Starbucks for me? We’re out of the good coffee, and I can’t drink the backup shit in the breakroom.”

  She shifts on her heels and then glances outside where the snow still covers the sidewalks. “Uh, sure.”

  Before she gets past him, he leans in and whispers something to her before giving her a soft pat to her ass that has her giggling. Then, she scurries off, leaving me with this motherfucker. As soon as she’s gone, he closes the door. His dark brown gaze clashes with mine, fury blazing in them.

  “Your mother has been worried,” he says blandly, despite the fire in his eyes.

  I lean back in my chair, threading my fingers together and letting them rest in my lap. “She didn’t call.”

  He narrows his eyes at me. “Where were you?”

  “A friend’s,” I lie.

  “Which friend? Waylon?”

  I don’t remind him Waylon was an ex-boyfriend, not a friend. Instead, I shake my head. “Nope. New friend.”

  He sits on the corner of my desk and picks up a heavy, glass paperweight. His eyes are on me as he rolls it around in his hand. I’m tense
and ready to duck in case he decides he wants to throw that shit at me. I wouldn’t put it past him.

  “Does your new friend work here?” he challenges, tossing the paperweight up in the air and catching it. To an outsider, this would all seem casual. To an insider, I know my dad is about three seconds from losing his shit.

  “I’m not jeopardizing our jobs,” I say coolly. Never mind the fact that technically I am. Probably, to any other employer, it’d be a big fucking deal. But we’re talking about Dane here. He doesn’t seem the type to go on a firing spree when I get bored and leave him high and dry.

  My gut hollows out.

  The past couple of nights at his house have been refreshing. Relaxing and right. I don’t know what I’ve been looking for, but this sure feels close to it, whatever it is.

  “Good,” he says, setting the paperweight down. “Keep it that way. I’m watching, son.”

  My phone buzzes and I expect it to be Dane done with court. Instead, it’s Enzo calling through.

  “Hello?”

  “Something’s not right,” he growls down the line.

  I sit up straight. “The boys?”

  “Not just the boys. Cora and Jenna too. I did some digging and this couple is friends with Juanita Aikens.”

  I’ve been fixated on the boys because they’re my case and I’ve seen the reports of the physical abuse from their parents as well, but the girls were placed in the same home. Are there no safe places for these kids?

  “What do we do?” I demand, frustration souring the coffee in my stomach.

  “I was hoping you’d know.”

  We’re both silent as we think. Enzo is older than me, in his late thirties. He’s been a social worker since he graduated from college, according to our conversations. It’s his passion. Unfortunately, aside from this specific case, being an attorney is not my passion.

  “Let me talk to August and see what we can do,” I tell him before hanging up.

  I rise from my chair, snag the file, and stalk from my office. When I get to August’s, I hear him laugh. I didn’t know he even knew how. As soon as I step in his doorway, his features turn to ice once more. The girl standing near him has candy-apple red hair—something unnatural and straight from a bottle. She gives his shoulder a squeeze, murmurs a goodbye, and then slips past me.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” I tell him gruffly. “It’s important.”

  He waves my words off. “Don’t worry about it. What’s going on? The Bryant case?”

  I nod as I plop down in the chair across from his desk. “Enzo is worried they’ve gotten out of one bad situation to land in another one.”

  “There was no home study?” he asks.

  Flipping open the file, I find a copy of the newest home study for their current foster situation and point at it. “Perfect.”

  He pulls it closer and skims over it, his face impassive. “It’s bullshit. Too perfect.” His sigh is heavy. “Not all foster homes are abusive.”

  “I know, but these poor kids have shitty luck. I can smell a rat from a mile away. So can Enzo. And you…” I trail off and gesture to the file. “You smell it too. How do we intervene? Everything so far is by the books. Everything I learned in law school. What happens when it’s not by the books?”

  August frowns. “I can get a judge to issue an emergency well-check per an anonymous tip. Then, we’ll send in CPS. Enzo can do his job—what we can’t do. We’ll present our findings to the judge and go from there. That’s all we can do for now.”

  “How will you get him to grant it for you if you don’t actually have an anonymous tip?” I ask in confusion.

  “We have our ‘anonymous’ tip. The judge doesn’t need to know it was Enzo.” He grins wickedly. “Now get out of here and research some good foster homes. Let’s make sure they get sent someplace safe next time. I’ll handle the rest.”

  As I rise, he starts tapping on his computer and then immediately curses.

  “I fucking hate this thing,” he grumbles.

  I walk over and see he, like Dane, has eight million programs running all at once. “Save everything and close it. Then, restart. When was the last time you rebooted this thing?”

  He grumbles. “I close the damn thing every evening when I leave the office.”

  “You put it in sleep mode with multiple programs continuing to run. It’s never able to refresh. Imagine starting your day with the leftover coffee in your mug from the day before,” I tell him, shrugging.

  His lip curls up. “You’ve made your point.”

  I smirk and give him a wave. “Don’t forget to tell me I’m right later.”

  “Yeah, yeah…”

  I spend the better part of the day on the phone with August and Enzo, off and on. August made good on his abilities to get the judge to sign off on what we needed. Enzo wasted no time and has been at the home ever since. He’s been doing the home check and later, he’ll be interviewing the children living there, including the Bryant boys. Whatever he finds, we’ll present to the judge in a couple of days.

  When I see Dane storm through the office with his phone glued to his ear, I can’t help but follow after him to tell him the good news. He’s griping to someone and after eavesdropping a bit, I can tell it’s Janice.

  “She’s fine,” he grumbles. “If something were wrong, we’d be the first to know about it.”

  I can hear her yapping on the other line. His eyes meet mine and the hard, irritated glare dissolves as a smile tugs at his lips. Standing beside his desk in his long black dress coat, and looking dapper as fuck with his suit underneath, my mouth waters for a taste of him. His eyes darken at my look and he motions with his head at the door. I push it closed and lock it behind me. She continues to talk to him and he just grunts out words of agreement as I prowl his way. When I grip his dick through his slacks, I’m happy to find he’s hard and just as horny as I am.

  When I drop to one knee and begin working at his belt, his palm cradles the side of my head. Such a tender touch despite the fact he’s about to get his dick sucked in his office. This should be filthy and wrong and fucking taboo since he’s my boss, but the way he touches me erases all of that. It confuses me for a moment. But then his thick cock is punching against his black boxers, begging for its own touch. I free his length and admire the angry crown of his cock. Red—nearly purple—his pre-cum glistening from the slit at the top, eager to be licked. His dark hair is cropped short, making his dick seem longer and every bit as distinguished as he is. Who the fuck has a gentlemanly dick? Dane, that’s who.

  He says some things to her and I decide I want to distract him from that awful woman. Jealousy over the woman he once cared deeply for and loved has me running my tongue over the tip of his dick in a teasing way sure to make him crazy. His soft touch fades as he fists my hair, messing up the gel. I look up and revel in the way his gray eyes blaze with intensity as he peers down at me. From my vantage point, he’s a god. Tall, powerful, radiating delicious energy. I’m on my knees, worshipping this god. Begging for a taste.

  Usually, I like being the one in his position. But with Dane, it’s nice to reverse the roles a bit. He looks hot as fuck in his three-piece suit and coat. His tie is one I’d love to wrap around his wrists and bind him with later. Until that time, I work the base of his cock with my fist as I suck on the top half.

  “I’ve gotta go,” he grunts out. “Congrats to you too.”

  He hangs up and tosses the phone on his desk. His full attention is now on me.

  “Fuck, you’re so good at this.” I love the way his voice sounds husky and raw and unsure.

  I slip my hand away so I can take him deeper into my throat. He groans, his grip on my hair tightening as he begins to lose control. His hips thrust into me, causing his giant dick to ravage my throat. Fuck, he’s the biggest I’ve ever had and the thought thrills me. My throat is being rubbed raw by his massive cock and I love every second of it. Later, at the bar, I’ll numb it with some tequila. Until then, I enjoy
the burn.

  “Yessss…” he hisses and his body trembles. “Fuck, Nick, you’re killing me.”

  I swallow and a hum vibrates through me. It’s enough to send him over the edge. A feral roar that he doesn’t do well to keep contained rips from him. His heat—explosive and furious—bursts down my throat. I drink his pleasure down, satisfied that I can bring this once “straight” man to absolute bliss. Once he’s done and I’ve swallowed every salty drop, he pulls away, his dick slipping past my lips. My saliva tethers us together for a moment before it breaks free.

  “I like the way you taste,” I tell him with a devious smile.

  His cock that had started to soften twitches. I love that he’s always turned on for me. He’s admitted to me that he thought his sex life was dwindling. And it had been…with Janice. But with someone new and exciting, it’s like his beast has been awakened. I woke that beast.

  He stuffs his wet cock back into his slacks as I stand. Once he’s decent, he steps closer and grips my hips. His mouth is on mine the next instant. Desperate and hungry. We kiss wildly until we’re both breathing heavily and groaning for more.

  “I have half a mind to cancel tonight’s plans and just take you home so we can continue this,” he rasps out, his lips peppering kisses all over my mouth. He nips at my sore bottom lip.

  I’m about to open my mouth to agree with him when someone knocks on his door. We break apart and panic flashes in his gray eyes. I give him a reassuring smile as I go to answer the door. It falls away when I find myself staring at my father.

  He glowers at me. Glances at Dane and then back at me. The vein in his neck bulges and his skin turns nearly purple.

  “I need to speak with you, son,” he snarls.

  I can feel Dane’s stare boring into me as I leave without so much as a backward glance. I follow Dad to my office, and I’m barely in the door before he slams it shut and has me shoved against the wall.

  “Who the hell do you think you are?” he bellows, unable to keep his tone down despite the fact Susan can probably hear every word.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I snap.