Cantrips: Volume #2: Minor Magics Crafted to Amuse and Entertain

by Joey W. Hill

  He grinned, though his eyes remained on his work. "Stroking your Dom's ego. Okay, for that you can wear the shirt."

  She rose and went to the wardrobe, rising onto her toes to pull it down. As she slipped it on, she wrapped it around herself, burrowing her nose in it, savoring the feel of it holding her the way he did. She loved his scent, and imagined the fibers still held the heat of his body. Or maybe it was that her flesh still held his heat, and the shirt insulated and enhanced it.

  “Don’t button it.”

  Looking up, she saw he was watching her, and he’d pushed the laptop halfway closed. The flickering light praised the line of his jaw, his intent green eyes and firm mouth, his thick dark hair, tousled in that artful way a handsome man accomplished so effortlessly. “Come here,” he said.

  As she returned to him, he shifted around on his chair to bring her between his knees. His gaze passed over the visible curves of her generous breasts, her nipples against the loose fabric of the open shirt, then down to her thighs and the cleft of her sex. He slid his hands over her throat and into her abundance of hair. “God, you're beautiful,” he murmured. “End of protocol.”

  She didn't have to be told twice. She climbed up and squatted on his lap like a frog, her feet braced on either side of his thighs in the roomy office chair. He kept studying her body, touching the new marks he’d put upon her. The wraps across her thighs and stomach were evident in thin red lines. He stopped on a bruise over her hip.

  "Who did this?"

  She smiled. "How do you do that? Even when you mark me all over, you always know the ones you haven't put there."

  "I notice everything about you. I know what's mine.” His gaze lingered on the bruise, his fingers treating it with care. "You haven’t answered the question."

  "That one was all me. I didn't keep my guard up during sparring and Billy landed a lucky blow."

  "So Billy is responsible," Ben said with a lazy drawl.

  "No, I am. You can’t cut up Billy’s body and leave it in a swamp. He’s a good teacher.”

  “He’s your sparring coach?”

  “Yeah.” She straightened with pride. “He says he’s afraid to let me spar with the other guys. Afraid I’ll hurt them and they’ll get discouraged.”

  Ben chuckled, as she’d hoped he would. While he was getting better about her attendance at the police academy, it didn’t take much for it to set him off. He was still so not on board with it. He’d had a hard enough time with some of her more risky ventures in corporate investigations. But for now, perhaps responding to her fervent mental wish that they not get into it again tonight, he let it go. Or rather, chose another tactic.

  “What do they think about you showing up in the McLaren for class?”

  She sniffed at him. “They’re totally fine with it. You’re not getting that car back.”

  "It was just a question.” He lifted his hands, giving her an innocent look, probably the only thing in life at which he failed consistently, though it always made her laugh. “I merely wondered what the other rookies thought.”

  "Oh, they pick at me, of course. Gives me a reason to outshoot them in range practice, since Billy won’t let me beat on them. When I outshoot them, the ones who are mean-spirited about it pretty much shut up.”

  Ben shifted, adjusting her so she sat on his lap and straddled him, her feet dangling out under either chair arm as he cupped his hands over her buttocks and held her. “Aren't you worried about getting ripped about being a dirty cop?”

  “Not the least. For one thing, you tell me all the time I’m a dirty girl.” She dimpled. “I also tell them I have an obscenely wealthy husband, and an even more obscenely wealthy brother-in-law and three adopted uncles.”

  “I bet they wonder why the hell you want to be a police officer.”

  “Maybe the ones who’re in it for the paycheck and benefits, because it’s better than most job opportunities they have. But I think even they have to possess a certain level of calling to stick with it. You’re not paid enough for the abuse. So those who’ve figured out I’m there because I want to be, they get it. They still have to razz me about the car, though. They’re cops."

  “Yeah.” Ben followed the curve of her breast inside the folds of the shirt. His thumb slid over her navel piercing. “You know I do understand how you feel about it, Marcie. Sometimes.”

  “I know you do. And I know how hard this is for you.” Her tone softened. “I’m grateful for every day you’re trying to deal with it. If it turns out…if it turns out to be too hard, I’ll figure out something else to do.”

  His eyes lifted to meet hers, his mouth tightening. “You want this, though.”

  “There are other ways I can help people. Less dangerous ways.”

  “Yeah. There are.” He didn’t say anything, and she felt that familiar sinking feeling, anticipating him listing out those options. Instead, he shook his head. “But there are very few people who want to do what you want to do, who have the integrity and grit to do it the right way and make a career of it. You do. I’m likely to be a bastard about it way too often, but as long as it’s what you want, I’m not going to tell you no.”

  “Not going to pull the ‘I’m your Master and I forbid it’ card?” She attempted to keep it light, because his words tattooed themselves on her heart and made her want to become inadvisably mushy.

  “You and I may be way more 24/7 than everyone else, except maybe Rachel and Jon, and I may come off heavy-handed on things that should be your call…”

  “I know how to stand up for myself when you try to bully me.”

  His lips quirked. “Yes, you do. Don’t interrupt me, or I’ll smack your very tender ass. I’m clear on what things are your choice, and when I need to be the supportive husband. Even if I’m still working on my learning curve.”

  “I think you’re doing brilliantly.” Hoping to leave it on a positive note, she opted for a subject change. "You remember me mentioning Lucas's birthday is coming up?”

  "Yeah. I could tell that was on your mind.”

  “We were thinking…"

  He lifted a brow. "We?"

  "Cass and I. She wants to do Lucas’s sisters fantasy."

  That stopped Ben’s idle stroking of her breast. His head came up as his fingers stilled. "When did this discussion happen?"

  "We were having lunch earlier in the week and she sort of brought it up."

  "In what way? Like she's talked herself into it?" The way Ben measured her expression, Marcie knew he’d weigh every word she spoke next, but that was what she wanted. She was pretty sure that Cass was ready, but if Ben was persuaded by what she’d learned from Cass, he could convince Lucas. This wouldn't work unless Cass was in the right mindset, by her Dom's standards of protection and love for her.

  “For the longest time, she’s said he’d have to settle for it being one of his perverted dreams.” She managed a smile. “But as time’s gone on and we’ve all done more with our Masters, and with each other, she’s started to be more comfortable with trying new stuff. More than that. I think she's not only ready… she’s curious."

  “You had some pretty detailed fantasies about Lucas yourself in the same context. At least until you became mine and I drove out all fantasies of any other men but me.”

  “Of course, Master,” she said demurely, and whimpered comically as he pinched her indeed very sore ass.

  "Has she told him?"

  “No.” Marcie shook her head. "She feels like the right thing…the right etiquette, so to speak, is to have you present it to Lucas first.”

  “Because he might need a little bit of prying to open his mind to the possibility, and that’s better coming from another Dom?”

  At his steady look, she shrugged. “That, and because she expects he would want to control how it was executed. I know that would work better for her, too, as a sub. She doesn’t want to feel like she’s taking control of or directing it, if that makes sense.”"

  "Yeah. It does.” Ben p
ursed his lips. “Okay. I’ll talk to him about it.”

  “You agree with me, that Cass is ready?” Marcie felt a flutter of surprise at his ready agreement, and a little rebound trepidation. What if she’d been too confident? Or Ben trusted her opinion too much? Don’t be an idiot, she admonished herself.

  “I trust your judgment, particularly when it comes to Cass,” he said, twining his fingers around a lock of her hair and tugging. “Sounds like she’s ready enough to initiate the discussion. And Lucas won’t let her get away with it being all third party anyway. He’ll talk about it with her first, you know that. So don’t start worrying about how it will turn out because you think it’ll be your fault for getting this started.” He touched her nose reprovingly and she wrinkled it at him. “We leave the final decision to him and her. But if I do this mediation thing, there will be a cost."

  "You want me to have Property of Ben O'Callahan tattooed on my ass."

  His lips quirked. "Not at all. I'm not that much of a Neanderthal."

  "Yeah. Actually you are. Did I mention cavemen give me the hots?" She laughed, squirming as he gave her another pinch. "So it's not a tattoo. What is it?"

  He paused. "You know how we've been donating to that Catholic mission in Mexico?"

  "Father Dominic's place. Father Dom." She dimpled. "I have a very difficult time saying that with a straight face. I'm going to Hell."

  "Probably, but not for the reason you think. You aren’t allowed to go anywhere I can't go, and I'm fairly certain Heaven has a warrant out to send me straight down if I show up at those Golden Gates."

  "I believe that’s Pearly Gates, and no, they don't." She softened. "I'm pretty sure God is a woman, and She knows all about you. She won't turn you away. Why did you bring up the Father?"

  "Last time we went to check on the operations in Mexico, we played poker with him a couple nights. Man is a card hustler. Doubled his donations that night. Anyhow, I got to talking to him after one of the games, and…"

  Leaning forward, Ben kept one arm around her to hold her close as he fished in his desk drawer. "I had him bless this. For you."

  It was a St. Jude's medal on a slim chain, something she could wear under her uniform.

  "Ben," she said softly, taking it. While she believed him when he said he wouldn’t always be able to make this decision easy on her, this gift said he accepted her choice. In his typical way, he'd done something momentous with a small gesture. Also typical for her husband, she was sure he didn’t want to make a big deal of it.

  "They bless things for a Catholic who’s never activated his member card?" she said in a teasing voice, though her throat was tight with unspoken emotion.

  "Well, I went to confession and took the sacrament, and lightning didn't bring the church down, so he owed me. Though my confession may have traumatized him for life."

  Her gaze flickered up to him, startled. He'd seemed more relaxed this week, and now she wondered if that was the cause. She didn't question it, sensing whatever had motivated him to do this was something he wasn't going to discuss. Instead, she slid her arms around him and held him so close he might have had trouble breathing if he wasn’t so strong. She pressed her lips to his temple. "Thank you, Ben. This means so much to me. I love you. More and more every day, and I didn't think I could love you more without my heart exploding."

  He cupped her head and brushed his mouth against hers. "Same goes, brat."

  Part Two

  Ben paused at the half open door to Lucas’s office. Their CFO was frowning at his computer screen, an arc of papers fanned out on his desk and the nearby table. A quick glance at the contents showed charts, graphs, and endless rows of numbers. Things Ben understood well enough to be thankful his job was navigating the legal challenges, quagmires and valleys of an operation their size. He’d rather deal with all that than even one set of the numbers on Lucas’s screen. But they each had their niche.

  Well, okay, Jon might have a wider range. Boy genius could probably step into any one of their shoes. If Ben went MIA, he wouldn’t be surprised if Jon suddenly remembered, “Oh, yeah, I do have a law degree. Let me just pull that out of my ass and dust it off.”

  As Ben grinned mentally at that, he re-thought his assumption. Jon could step into any of their shoes except maybe Matt’s. Lucas was the most capable of handling Matt’s job if needed, but Lucas probably didn’t want to think about that any more than Ben wanted to think about doing Lucas’s job.

  Matt was the captain of the K&A ship. They could all take a temporary turn at the wheel when he needed it, like when Savannah had nearly died during childbirth. Matt had taken a month at home for her convalescence and to personally help care for her and their baby, no matter the top-notch nanny they kept on staff. However, when push came to shove, they all admitted without shame and with no little pride that he was the captain they most wanted at the helm.

  But Ben would trust his life, his heart and soul, to any of their five-man team. And he knew that bond, all the different, complicated layers of it, was the ultimate reason why Cass had come to Marcie, and Marcie had come to him, to talk to Lucas.

  Their women…there weren’t words to describe what each of their wives meant to them. And yeah, their Doms were all way too protective, but the independence and strength of those women kept that protectiveness from moving over the line into 1950s meets medieval times. As in, stay at home in the kitchen and the bedroom while surrounded by a fortress wall, fifty armed clones of Max, and a moat populated by the unfettered savagery of a…well.

  Ben guessed he’d have to own the dragon part of the metaphor. He’d evolved so that civility was a more comfortable fit for him, rather than an uncomfortable coat he’d shaped into Armani style with tremendous effort, but the dragon was there to be called if needed.

  But the bond between the men ironically meant they were each other’s best choice to help one of them see when he had to let his lady cross that line and not be an asshole about it. They could provide one another the necessary perspective to look past the concerns about her physical wellbeing to see when it was something good for her, something she needed as much as wanted. Life was about way more than staying safe.

  Yeah, easy for him to say in this situation with Lucas and Cass. It was still a work in progress for him and Marcie on the whole being-a-cop thing. Her heading out the door each day to rub elbows with the dangerous and unpredictable underbelly of New Orleans was something that initially had had one response from him. That savage side had thrown off the suit to stand naked, blood-stained and roaring under a full moon: No and hell no.

  The guys had talked him down. They understood, in a way Marcie and the other women never could, no fault to it, how it felt to stand back and let one of their wives step into harm’s way. He and Marcie had had some pretty bad fights over it, Marcie’s stubbornness and his Irish temper a volatile mix when they weren’t in agreement. But those fights had put it all out there, and the subsequent heart-to-heart talks with each of the guys had helped. Which they reinforced daily with their random comments and banter that expressed understanding and the “hey, don’t be a prick to her about this”, slap-upside-the-head, kind of support.

  He’d also talked at length with a friend of their inner circle, Leland Keller, who was on the Baton Rouge police force. Leland’s submissive and love of his life, Celeste Lewis, regularly walked the front lines as a crime beat reporter there. She was also one of Marcie’s close friends.

  Ben would never like it, but he’d finally meant what he’d said to her last night. If it was what she needed to do to be happy and complete, it was part of the whole husband-Master job to support her. He remembered the way Marcie had dimpled and glowed, the first time she’d been introduced as his wife at their wedding. She might not realize it, and he’d never admit it to anyone—though Jon probably already knew, because he knew every damn thing in the universe—but he felt the same damn kick when she or anyone else called him her husband, or even when he thought about it in ran
dom moments. It was a damn miracle. He’d never thought he’d be anyone’s husband, let alone to the most wonderful woman and submissive he craved above all others.

  So he’d learn to be a cop’s spouse. As long as that spouse understood if anyone ever did her serious damage or… He couldn’t go further than that, because as soon as the image of a uniformed sergeant or captain coming to his door with that somber look entered his head, he shut down. Needless to say, they’d never find that perp. He’d be dead in the most vicious way imaginable, making the work of Dahmer or TV’s Dexter look like clean and harmless fun in the Willy Wonka bubble chamber.

  He suspected that was why, when she was filling out her paperwork, Marcie had listed two emergency contact names in the event she fell in the line of duty. In typical Marcie fashion, she’d written it frankly:

  In case of serious or life threatening injury, contact Ben O’Callahan, husband.

  In case I am killed in the line of duty, contact Matt Kensington. He is to be told FIRST, and will inform my husband.

  Maybe the wives did understand things better than they gave them credit for.

  But he was digressing onto his personal shit. In this case, Ben believed Cass’s decision to cross a line was good for Lucas as her Master, as well as Cass’s growth as his sub.

  Marcie was Ben’s perfect match in the Dom/sub area, but if something happened tomorrow where she physically couldn’t handle those demands, he’d step and scale back however she needed to find a mutually pleasurable ground. Love was the common denominator that decided everything else. Which was kind of Cass’s point in this, right?

  Lucas was entirely satisfied with everything and anything Cass could give him. He’d never been the hardcore player that Ben was. But something Ben’s perspective gave him that maybe Lucas’s didn’t was that, as the bond between Dom and sub grew, sometimes that made other levels not only possible but desirable. Trust allowed them the pleasure of exploring new territory, if they both wanted that. Ben knew for sure Lucas had that capacity within him. He’d seen the guy play before he ever met Cass. If Lucas agreed Cass was ready for it, Ben was all about having a front row seat to watch Cass go deeper into that world and learn more about her husband’s capabilities as a Dom—and seeing her enjoy the surprise of it.