Law & Beard

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  “Sure did,” I told him.

  “Did you know that five of the six flags planted on the moon are still standing?” He tilted around to look at me, gauging my reaction.

  “Didn’t know that, Cody,” I admitted. “How do you find all of these facts?”

  “I make Mommy read to me off of the Google,” he answered.

  “Mom reads him the headlines off of the current events every night, too.” Conleigh came in, her laptop clutched in both hands. “And every once in a while, Mom will let him pick a random fact to read. Last night was the one about the flags.”

  That made sense.

  “That’s kind of cool,” I said. “You want to hear a few more?”

  Cody’s eyes lit up like it was Christmas Eve, Christmas, Halloween, and Easter all rolled into one.

  “Yes,” he breathed. “Please.”

  His please was almost an afterthought, and I winked at him. “Good job.”

  Then I spent the next hour reading him random facts and having him point out his sight words as we did it.

  I couldn’t believe it, but I had a lot of fun.

  And I also realized how badly I missed my own son being as young as Cody was.

  The wonder in his eyes when he learned something new was just fantastic.

  “Whatcha doin’?” I questioned Conleigh when I saw her smile light up her side of the room.

  Conleigh’s eyes flashed to mine. “Just talking to a friend online.”

  Something that put a smile like that on her face wasn’t likely to be only a friend, but until she wanted to confide in me, I’d allow the parenting to stay in Winnie’s court.

  Conleigh was old enough now to make her own decisions in life. I just hoped that she wasn’t doing anything stupid that would harm her for the rest of it.

  ***

  Winnie

  “I like what you said to him,” I breathed, snuggling up to Steel as he scooted into the bed next to me.

  I felt him grin as he placed a kiss on my shoulder.

  I rolled farther into him and brought my mouth up to his bearded cheek and pressed my lips against those curly hairs that dominated the bottom half of his face.

  “Did you mean to leave the back door unlocked?” he questioned, ignoring my words.

  I rolled my eyes, and he squeezed my hip as if he knew I’d done so.

  “Yes,” I said. “I heard you coming and unlocked it. This new app is the bomb dot com”

  He snorted.

  “I like it myself,” he said. “It’s not the alarm company I would’ve personally chosen, but with that prick Anderson in town, anything is better than what you have.”

  I agreed.

  The day that I got home from work—the day that Anderson had made himself known—I’d contacted a local alarm company. They hooked me up with not just an alarm, but also two outside cameras, one inside camera, two locks and a smoke detector system that contacted 911 if smoke was sensed. The whole set up was so cool—I could unlock the locks from my phone, wherever I might be.

  It also had a passcode so I would never have to rely on a key ever again.

  Cody and I loved it. Conleigh tolerated it.

  As I was thinking about how much I loved my new alarm system, I felt Steel’s hand slip down my backside, and then curl around to rest against the lips of my pussy.

  He did this a lot, though, so at first, I wasn’t really expecting this to go into anything more.

  When Steel had surprised me at work after saying he most likely wouldn’t make it for lunch, I’d eaten without any excitement for my food like I normally would have.

  Then he’d pushed through the door, and I instantly became so freakin’ happy I couldn’t explain it.

  Then he’d given me some of the best sex of my life.

  “Got a call from my ex,” he said into the darkness.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah,” I felt him nod against me. “She has decided not to contest the divorce. As of five PM this afternoon, I’m no longer a married man.”

  I grinned and moved to hug him tighter when his middle finger breached the seam of my pussy and started to circle.

  His finger dipped inside my entrance, causing my entire body to jolt.

  “Always wet for me,” he growled.

  I couldn’t argue with that. Simply laying in the same bed as this man was a turn-on.

  We’d done this exact thing all of three times lately, but it’d been enough to make me realize that that would be a constant state for me.

  It was as if my body simply waited him out, knowing that if I was patient, he’d give me what I needed.

  “Please?” I whispered. “I don’t want to be teased today.”

  He flipped us, causing me to shriek, and situated himself between my legs.

  The covers were gone an instant later, and the next thing I knew, his beard was tickling the inside of my thighs. “Open for me.”

  His order made me smile.

  “And if I don’t?”

  “If you don’t?” he teased, biting the soft skin of my thigh. “Well, I’ll have to just convince you.”

  And then he was running those smooth lips up and down my thigh, gently coaxing them open without saying a word.

  Before I knew it, he’d settled his broad shoulders in between my thighs—thighs that I parted without having to be asked a second time. Then he was pressing a kiss to my bare pubic bone.

  I’d forgone panties, knowing how he liked to have access to me—even though we’d only had a few nights like this together.

  Most of the touches over the last few times we’d shared my bed were innocent. Today’s, though? Most certainly not innocent.

  “Steel,” I whispered. “Why do you like to tease me so?”

  Then I felt his tongue trail up the seam of my pussy.

  I did a full body shiver. It started at my toes and ended up at the tips of my fingers.

  His tongue was warm and hot, but the feeling of his breath against my wetness caused a shiver to follow the trail he’d forged.

  “Sweet baby Jesus.”

  Matt hadn’t been good at oral sex. Hell, Matt hadn’t been all that good at anything. Sure, he’d had an impressive cock—nowhere near Steel’s in size yet still a fairly decent sized penis—that was obviously big enough for my former best friend to want, but that he didn’t quite know how to wield. Certainly not like Steel did.

  My God…there were no words to describe his cock. Not and do it justice.

  His arms moved under the backs of my thighs and curled around until his hands were resting on my lower belly.

  “You know,” he murmured, his hot breath brushing against the sensitive skin of my sex. “I watched you race once.”

  “Yeah?” I asked distractedly.

  A lot of people had watched me race. I used to run in televised marathons, so it wasn’t a stretch to imagine that he’d seen me.

  “Yeah,” he muttered. “The last one you did here right before you had your stroke.”

  He bent forward and nibbled lightly on my labia, causing me to jump.

  “You were in those tight black shorts that were so short they could have been a freakin’ bathing suit bottom,” he continued, moving to the other side and following the same process all over again. “And the number that you had pinned to them? I think that was bigger than your ass.”

  I would’ve laughed had he not parted my labia with his thumbs and brought his mouth down to where I’d been needing him the most. But he didn’t lick, he didn’t suck—he only stared.

  I doubted he could see as well as he usually could. The only light in my room at the moment was the street light shining into it—though that was fairly bright seeing as I’d been contemplating getting blackout curtains due to the amount of light that shined into my window while I tried to sleep. It was like sleeping during the daytime, sometimes. I’d even contemplated shooting it out with a BB gun, but seeing a
s there was a cop right next door, that probably wouldn’t be a good idea.

  With my luck, he’d catch me.

  “And as I was watching you run in on that jumbo screen they’d set up, one of your strides lengthened, and there was this gap in your shorts.”

  I closed my eyes as I felt his breath flutter against my clit.

  “And I saw your pussy…for just a little peek. A flash and it was gone…but it was enough. It was enough to set off a whole string of questions in my mind. Did shaving make you run faster? Did being bare drive you insane after twenty-six miles? Did anyone else see your pussy slip like I did?”

  And then he moved the last half an inch, capturing my clit between his lips.

  “Oh, oh sweet God.” I nearly howled.

  “Quiet,” he growled. “You don’t want to wake your kids, do you?”

  No. No, I most certainly did not want to wake my kids.

  I wanted him to fuck me.

  I wanted him to suck my clit.

  I wanted him to do everything to me. All at once.

  He didn’t do it all at once, but what he did do was enough to make me nearly lose my mind.

  He tortured me by torturing my clit. Over and over he’d lick, suck and flick.

  I was steadily squirming on the bed, and the only thing keeping me still was the steel banding of his arms that were wrapped around my upper thighs, holding me in place.

  He tortured me for what felt like hours, bringing me to the brink of orgasm only to pull back and circle his tongue at my entrance—allowing my orgasm to wane.

  He did this so many times that by the time I realized that he wasn’t going to stop this time, I didn’t have time to prepare.

  The orgasm that overtook me was breathtaking. He tipped me over the edge with a flick and threw me so hard into an orgasm when he sucked my clit into his mouth that I screamed.

  I couldn’t help it.

  Luckily, Steel was ready for it.

  He withdrew one arm from around my leg and reached up my body just as my mouth opened in a scream. He muffled the sound with his hand as I orgasmed in his mouth.

  His beard tickled my entrance, and I wanted him inside of me so badly in that moment that I couldn’t help what I did next.

  I was off my back and on top of him in a matter of moments. Before he could even react, I was sinking down on his extremely hard cock reverse cowgirl style, and he gripped my hips so firmly that it would likely cause bruises.

  I didn’t give one single fuck, though.

  All I cared about was the way he filled me up.

  The way he was hitting spots inside of me that no one else had ever come close to hitting.

  I started to move, up and down. Then I swiveled left and right, causing him to groan.

  “You gotta be quiet,” I teased, breaths coming out in heaves. “We don’t want to wake the kids.”

  He hissed something behind my back and urged me faster.

  I complied.

  I could feel my orgasm starting to build once again, and I knew that if we kept this pace, I would be coming. Not one single doubt in my mind.

  And then I felt his thumb brush my back entrance, and the shock of it—something that wasn’t wholly bad—caused me to squeal.

  Oh, and come.

  Let’s not forget that part.

  Apparently, my body liked the forbidden nature of the act, because I’d gone from getting there to being there in a few strokes.

  “Steel,” I sighed as the breath in my lungs fled.

  He didn’t brush that entrance again, but the knowledge that he had touched me there carried me through my orgasm. I came and came and came, and didn’t ever want to see an end in sight.

  Vaguely I was aware of him coming, too, but I didn’t care.

  I could only focus on me in that moment. The way he made me feel. The way my nipples were hard and peaked. The way my clit felt like it was on fire. The way my pussy was stretched almost to the point of pain around him. The way he reached so deep inside me that I couldn’t tell from one stroke to the next whether it was pleasure or pain.

  All of it was enough to keep me flying well past when his orgasm overtook him.

  And when I finally did come down, literally straight on Steel’s chest, causing him to grunt?

  Yeah, I felt like my life had changed.

  “I think,” I breathed. “I think that we’re going to have to do that again sometime.”

  He started to chuckle, then rolled me until I was on my side. He was snuggled up against me, still inside of me.

  Neither one of us made a move.

  Long minutes passed as our breathing went back to normal, but a nagging question kept fluttering around in my mind.

  “What’s gotten into you?” I whispered.

  Not that I was upset or anything. I liked this frisky side of him. I liked being able to soothe his bad day away, even if it was with my body.

  I’d talked to him after my walk, but he’d been pretty clammed up about what was bothering him.

  Then, when I’d finally gotten him alone, his son had called.

  He’d headed over to Sean’s house because somehow Naomi had broken their kitchen sink and water was pouring into their kitchen and living room. Sean had turned the water off, but until they fixed it they couldn’t use water. Hence Steel being gone for the majority of the night.

  And also making me realize how much I’d come to rely on Steel’s help throughout the day.

  “I don’t want to talk about my bad day. At least not all of it. There is one thing that we need to figure out.” He sighed, long and loud, his hot breath hitting the skin of my neck as he did. “Did you get a call from your lawyer about Anderson?”

  My belly tightened. “I did.”

  “And you heard?” he confirmed.

  I nodded my head miserably. The hair of his chest tickled my lips as I did.

  “We’re not waiting for him to do something stupid,” he promised. “We’re going to figure this out. But, we’re taking the right steps. Keep a log of when you see him. If he’s within any length of space that makes you uncomfortable, call me. I’ll come. We will have it on police record then.”

  I nodded again, not wanting to speak.

  I could tell Steel was upset about it. Anyone with even a minuscule amount of brains could tell. And I had a feeling that, though this wasn’t all that had happened today, it was one of the leading reasons he’d been so upset.

  “It’ll be okay,” he promised, his large palm smoothing down my hair.

  And for some strange reason, I knew it would be. The tightness in Steel’s words made me realize that Steel had yet to let me down. And I knew he never would.

  He was nothing like Matt. Nothing.

  Where Matt hadn’t told me a single word about Anderson being out of jail, Steel would go out of his way to make sure that I felt not a single ounce of fear. Even if we weren’t together, I knew he would’ve been the first person to inform me that the man I’d put in jail was out.

  I also knew that, if this ever ended, even badly, he’d never treat me wrong. He’d still spend time with Cody and Conleigh. He would never drop them like Matt had done.

  When we passed each other on the road, he’d never curl his lip at me, acting like it’d been all my fault that we were over. No, Steel would stop. Talk. Make sure that I was okay.

  And it would be pure, unfiltered torture.

  Because I knew that I would never, ever recover from losing Steel. Not ever.

  He was deep in my skin, and if the day ever came that he came to his senses and left, I’d be heading for a one-way trip to rock bottom.

  I was in love with the man. I loved him. I loved Steel Cross.

  I loved that he loved my kids. I loved that he loved his job. I loved that he dropped everything to go help his son. I loved that he asked how I was doing, even if it was in the middle of a movie or in a simple text. I loved that he sought m
e out to say hi if he came into the hospital. I loved that he brought me a cookie from a little old lady that had brought them to the police station for saving her cat. I loved that he was teaching my son how to be a man and my daughter how to funnel her anger into something productive. Even more, I loved how he wanted to make sure that all of his other officers were protected before him.

  I just plain loved him and everything about him. There was nothing that I didn’t love.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah, what?” I questioned, totally lost.

  “Do you understand that this could get ugly?”

  A little of my exhilaration fled.

  “Yeah,” I promised. “I do.”

  He pressed his lips to my forehead. “Go to bed.”

  I tried. I really did. But hours later, when I thought about something I wanted to add to my shopping list, I realized it was futile. But for now, I’d enjoy being in Steel’s arms.

  Here, there was nothing wrong. Here, everything was always right.

  ***

  Conleigh

  Sneaking out was surprisingly easy, considering the alarm.

  I’d had to practice earlier in the day when I was the only one home, but eventually, I figured out that I had to hold my pillow over the panel on the wall and disarm it from the app on my phone. That way nobody heard that I’d deactivated it.

  Really, the hardest part had been figuring out how to get outside without waking Steel. He’d come in only an hour before, and I’d semi freaked out that I wouldn’t be able to do it. However, after turning off the alarm, I’d snuck out the kitchen window—which was the only window without the alarm due to the glass break sensor.

  And as I ran to the car that waited at the end of the street for me, I felt exhilarated.

  The closer I got to the car, the more excited I became.

  Andy was in that car.

  The car door opened, and my heart seemed to stall in my chest when I saw his beautiful smiling face.

  He was older than I expected but no less beautiful.

  My mom could date an older man, so why couldn’t I?

  Chapter 17

  Excuse the mess. My children are feral.

  -Text from Winnie to Steel