Much more.
Soon.
Behind me, the door opens and the room fills with people. The sight of paramedics makes my heart slam in my chest, the memories of the last time I saw them rushing to the surface.
“It’s time to go, Mr. Hooper.”
Cole takes my hand and he doesn’t let go, not until he falls asleep on the airplane that takes us across the States.
I plant a kiss on his forehead and stroke his cheek.
“I don’t know if you know it, but I love you, Cole Hooper,” I whisper.
“I love you too, Casey Keagan,” he mumbles, his eyes still closed.
“You’re just drugged up,” I whisper.
“Like fuck.” He opens his eyes a sliver. “But it’s still true. I would never have given up on you. You were mine from the moment I saw that pathetic little shape outside the airport. When you pulled up the cap and pinned me with those eyes... There was no coming back from that.”
My heart somersaults, and I don’t know how to even draw my next breath. I clutch his hand, reveling in his strength when he squeezes back, how it’s coming back a little more every day.
“Shh, sleep. I’m not going anywhere.”
“I’ll hold you to it,” he says as his eyes fall shut.
I settle in the seat next to the gurney, buckle up, and close my eyes. I don’t know where this is going, but I know for sure I’m going there with him, and that’s perfect.
Epilogue
Cole
“Did the client call yet?” I shout toward the back of the workshop.
Casey sticks her head out in the door opening. “Which one?”
I gesture to the table that I’m polishing.
“Stein?”
“That’d be the one.”
“He called this morning. Said he’d come by tomorrow. I told him you’d be done by then.”
I drop the paper and stride up to her. “You told him, huh? Since when do you get to say when I finish a product?”
Casey takes a step back, her eyes darting between mine. “Since you’re too lazy to take your calls yourself.”
I move closer. She backs, tilting her head to hold my gaze as I tower over her. I back her into the wall. An adorable gasp escapes her, a sound that shoots straight to my cock. “I want you—” I stroke along her arm, “to go lock—” I put my hand on her hip and pull her to me, “the door. Then you take off your clothes, one by one, as you walk back to me. Make it slow. Time it well. I want you naked when you bend over.”
Casey widens her eyes and squirms. Her breaths quicken.
“Now.”
She twitches and sneaks past me, running toward the door in the workshop. I look at her firm butt in her tight little shorts. Her legs are toned and brown and I ache to slide my palm up along the silky inside, up to where she’ll be hot, wet, and needy.
Summer was good to us. I healed. She stuck around, found a part-time job. Fall was even better. My ex has clearly hung with Casey more than I’d have allowed if I had known, but when they ganged up on me regarding my carpentry skills, I decided to give it a shot. I wasn’t fit yet to get back as a paramedic, but I could start slow with a table here and a couple of chairs there. When winter came, she took over the administrative shit and by spring we were partners and business bloomed. Casey is also setting up her own garage next to my shop. It’s a work in progress, but when she found my dad’s old Plymouth Barracuda behind their house, rusty and forgotten, her eyes shone and it took off from there with her restoring classic automobiles to their former glory. She loves her cars and I love watching her work.
Our new house has more rooms than the old one. Room for everyone. Sage and Alicia stay here every other week, and I never grow tired of seeing them interact with Casey. She’s got the patience of an angel, and enough of a childish side to play with them. She’s stern when needed, fair, and unflinchingly loyal.
When I made her my submissive up in dark, cold Alaska, I didn’t consider the human behind the cocky facade. I didn’t want to think about her dreams, or her hopes, about how she felt for me. Most of all, I didn’t want to think about how I felt for her.
I didn’t dare to dream that I would ever have this again.
Love.
Devotion.
A future.
Casey turns and holds my gaze, her look full of mischief, then she pulls off her black Guns n’ Roses T-shirt and drops it on the dusty floor. She’s got a pink lacy little bra and raises her hands behind her back as she walks a couple of steps toward me, but then her hands change direction and move to the front of her jean shorts. Pulling down the zipper, she takes another step, then stops to shimmy the garment off her hips, letting it drop. Her panties match her bra. Kicking off her flip-flops, she keeps coming closer, one step at a time, slipping a bra strap off one shoulder, then the other.
She’s only got a couple of steps left before she’s reached me. “Told you to time it,” I growl.
A beautifully insecure expression crosses her face, then she stops and pulls her bra past her hips and let it slide off along with her panties.
“That’s cheating,” I say.
She smiles wickedly and holds my gaze as she lowers herself to all fours on the dirty floor.
“You’ll scrape your knees.”
“I like pain.”
If I wasn’t hard before, I definitely am now. Her look is one of hunger and raw arousal.
“It’s dirty.”
“I like getting dirty,” she says and crawls toward me, swaying her ass with each move.
“You’re playing with fire, girl.”
Casey raises, stands on her knees before me and puts her hands on my belt, holding my gaze as she unbuckles it.
I grab under her arms and pull her up, throwing her over my shoulder. Not in the dirt in my workshop. Not today.
She squeals and holds onto my hips as I make my way to our bedroom.
“You’ve been a bad girl.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Telling my clients when I’m done without asking me first.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Do you know what I do to bad girls?”
“Mm-hmm.” Her giggle is absolutely adorable. I love hearing her laugh.
Throwing her on her back on the bed, I tear off my T-shirt, my jeans, and my briefs, almost in one move. Casey’s eyes widen as her eyes dart to my unapologetically hard cock. I give her a dark look, promising her a world of hurt—good hurt—then I grab the bag from under the bed and pull out the braided black suede flogger, holding it up before her. Her lips part and the tip of her tongue darts out to tease along the edge of her teeth.
“So, what is it you do to bad girls?”
“Your ass will burn, you tease.”
Casey rolls her eyes. “Promises.”
I put a hand over her throat and hold her down, reveling in how her eyes immediately gloss over and how her breaths quicken as I drag the tails of the flogger across her chest. Her nipples peak into delicious little buds and my mouth waters at the sight. Flicking my wrist, I let the flogger fall. Once. Twice. The other breast. A little harder.
“Oh, God!” she gasps and arches up. “Ow.”
I push her back down, tightening my hold, squeezing warningly. “You’re not afraid of me at all anymore, are you?” I flick my wrist again, watching pretty pink stripes bloom on her tan skin.
Her whole body tenses and she bunches the sheet in her hands, fighting the sting, then she smiles beautifully. “I was never afraid of you.”
“Oh, yeah?” I drop the flogger, quickly losing interest in anything else than burying my cock in my woman. “Turn around. On all fours.”
Casey scrambles to obey, presenting me her glistening wet pussy. I slap her ass cheek, hard, my palm tingling from the impact. She yelps and jerks away only to immediately come back for more, jutting out her ass, wordlessly pleading for my touch. Slapping the other cheek as well, I then dive in to lick along her slit, devouring the sweet taste and scent t
hat is my cocky little mechanic.
She talks, but the words that come out of her mouth are a made-up jumble of pleas and curses that intensifies as I push two fingers into her tight channel and begin to pump. Finding the rhythm, her unique rhythm that I know so well, I tongue her clit relentlessly. Her increasing moans are the sweetest sounds on Earth.
“Cole! God!”
Thrashing on the bed, she screams out her orgasm, her inner walls squeezing my fingers. My cock aches to take her and I sit up on my knees, two fingers still inside her as I line up.
“You’re not afraid, huh?”
Her half-hysterical giggle makes me laugh out loud.
“Nu-uh.”
I definitely need to see her face for this, so I wrap an arm around her waist and spin her over on her back, then I sink down on her, pushing her thighs apart. “It’s time I put a baby in you, Casey Keagan.”
I rest my cock against her entrance, teasing back and forth, shaking with the effort of not thrusting inside. She gasps and puts a hand on my chest. Her eyes are wide and filled with questions. I wait, and when a coy smile spreads on her face, my heart sings with joy.
“I’m not afraid,” she says.
I hold her gaze a moment longer, then I grin and thrust inside, triumph surging through my chest with the primal need to possess, to mate, to feel that I belong somewhere.
Mine.
The End
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Commanding Casey Page 21
