I rolled my eyes.
“Get it,” she offered as we walked out of the restaurant.
“I’ll get off quick.” I pulled the vibrating offender from my pocket.
“You’d better not.” She nudged me with her hip as we walked.
An amused grin crossed my face as I answered. I listened for long moments as my assistant rattled across the line. I caught only a few words here and there, and before she could finish, my body wound tightly, the muscles in my hands spasmed in Dillon’s hand.
“I’ll be right there.” I hung up and, feet rooted to the spot, looked at Dillon
“We’ve got to go to the club,” I said woodenly.
“What’s wrong?” Her eyes shot up in alarm.
“Fire.”
The tires of the Jag spun into the parking lot, spitting gravel as I turned in.
Red lights flashed, too many ambulances to count, and three fire engines. People milled around the parking lot, while my eyes darted around looking for someone in charge.
I launched out of the car without knowing who I was looking for.
“Over there.” She was suddenly beside me and pointing between two fire trucks.
I took off at full speed, my tie whipping around my neck as I ran. The dense smell of smoke filled my nostrils as I approached.
“I’m the owner—what happened?” I heaved as I reached the fire marshal standing with a group of firefighters.
“Glad you’re here. We think everyone’s out but we have no real count of how many were in.”
“Is anyone hurt?”
My eyes burned as smoke filtered through a few cracked windows. The warehouse was on lock down, a big, brick building with nowhere for the fire to go. If you didn’t see the commotion outside, you may never even notice that the place was on fire.
Except the smell.
The scent of smoke permeated the air and covered the normal pine and salt that characterized the coast.
“Nope. It was caught early. We’re thinking electrical, but I’ll be back to do a more thorough investigation. Lots of smoke inhalation, but everyone is okay. Lucky. I need to go talk to my chief officer. Hang around and we’ll go over what’s next.”
“Okay.” I nodded, shaken but relieved. I felt small palms rubbing my back and knew that Dillon was with me.
I swallowed, my eyes riveted to the building I’d poured the last decade of my savings into.
Only a dozen or so clients milled around, some sitting on the backs of ambulances, wrapped in blankets, a few with oxygen, but most just looking shaken.
And then two things happened at once. Simultaneously, two lives crashed together. Two opposing forces collided as if hellbent on head-on destruction.
“Hey…that’s my brother.” Dillon took a few steps past me, confusion written on her face.
“There’s another one!” a firefighter called and a small group of them rushed to the main entrance as two suited fireman came out carrying a body.
“No.” I ran full tilt to the doors and watched as paramedics rushed to give life support to my business partner.
The paramedics spoke to each other in words I couldn’t comprehend before a stretcher came in.
“You’re going to have to move, sir.” One touched my shoulder as I watched others lift him into the back of an ambulance.
My eyes searched for Dillon in the crowd. They landed on her clutching someone just a few years younger than herself, tears streaking her cheeks. He held her tightly, rubbing her back, stone-faced as he comforted her.
“What the fuck is going on?” I walked to them as if my shoes were loaded with cement. My feet unable to carry me fast enough.
“What happened?” I thrust a hand in her hair and held her as best as I could with his arms wrapped around her shaking form. He stared stonily at a pothole in the parking lot as he rubbed her back.
“That was my dad,” he finally said.
“What?” My eyes pierced him as I backed away. “Who was?”
“The last one. That was our dad,” he repeated.
“Why…” she stuttered between hiccups. “Why was he here?” she sobbed into his chest.
“Dillon.” I moved to her, placed a hand on her shoulder blade to get her attention. “Dillon, look at me, baby.”
She finally sniffed and pulled away, eyes watered and blue, staring up at me.
“That was my business partner.”
“What?” she stuttered and sniffed, utterly confused.
“Mark’s my business partner, that’s why he was here, he must have stopped by the office.”
“That doesn’t make any sense, Brian said he owned a place with escorts, prostitutes, not a…” Realization seemed to dawn as she looked up at her brother.
“I didn’t know what it was,” he muttered, his eyes still averted.
He was being eerily calm for all of this.
“He owned LUST…with Slade?” she questioned as her tears dried.
“I recognized the parking lot. After we were talking at lunch I got to thinking about it, thought I could find it. I couldn’t remember exactly where it was, but I knew it was this side of town. I thought if I drove around enough…when I found it, I just wanted to talk to him.” I watched his throat work back and forth as he rambled and she listened riveted.
“You were here when the fire broke out?” I thought out loud.
He only turned his head and nodded. Cold indifference in steel eyes that looked so much like Dillon’s.
I frowned as I tried to connect the dots. “You didn’t do this, did you?” I whispered softly so only the three of us could hear.
“No! God no! I saw his car here, the bouncer let me in when I said I was his kid. I just went in to talk to him.” His voice fell and a small whimper eased from his throat. Suddenly he looked so much like the kid he was. “He didn’t want to talk to me. He was high, Dill. So fucking high. I tried to beg him to leave us alone, both of us. I told him he could have the car back, and if he didn’t leave us alone, I would get a protection order. Call the police, tell them where the majority of meth comes from in this state.” He sneered.
“Oh god, Bri…” She breathed and put a hand to his cheek.
“He got so angry. He pulled out a mirror with two lines on it and snorted one, then offered me the other. Said I was no better than him, we were no better than him, despite what we thought.
“I told him he was wrong and he could go fuck himself. He laughed, did the other line and told me we’d regret fucking with him. That he knew people. Jesus, Dillon, I think he was threatening to do something bad. Hurt us…kill us. I don’t know.” Suddenly the boy’s face crumbled and tears dripped down soot-stained cheeks.
“The fire broke out within moments of him saying that. Like God striking somebody down, it was…unreal,” he murmured as he sobbed into her shoulder.
“I shoulda helped him, Dill. Fuck, I knew I should have helped him, he was so high. I knew he couldn’t make it out alone. He never could’ve gotten through those twisty dark hallways.” He sobbed and shook in her arms as I stood, rooted and listening.
“I should have helped him, but instead I walked out. I walked out and I shut the door. I just fucking left.”
“Jesus, Brian.” They wept together as I stood in disbelief, my mind unable to process what I’d heard, what had happened. Was this kid at fault? I didn’t even know.
“Am I in trouble?” he whispered so softly I hardly heard.
“I dunno, Brian. I don’t know,” she murmured into his neck.
I licked my lips, ran my hand through my hair as I watched the cops and firefighters milling around. The crowd had begun to break up, cars starting and pulling out as dusk faded to darkness.
“I think we’re all set here. There’ll be some smoke for a few days, normal. We’ll keep a few guys here for a while to make sure there aren’t any flare-ups. Otherwise we’ll call you when we need you. Probably tomorrow afternoon.” The fire marshal slapped my back.
&nb
sp; I nodded blankly as he walked away.
My mind pieced together the broken connections. I was dating Dillon, had known her my whole life, grew up with her, and I was in business with her dad. How had we never known? I’d only bought into the club a few years ago.
He was never in Rock Island. I’d never even been to her house when we were growing up.
I tried to piece the two men together, what I knew of her dad, and the man I’d been in business with.
The two were puzzle pieces that didn’t seem to fit until I recalled the conversation I’d had with my accountant earlier this week, and then it all clicked into place.
A week later and Dillon was settled in my arms, content and nearly purring after another epic orgasm with a belt around her neck. She was a complete masochist. It made my dick sinfully hard and had me itching to put a rock on her finger, or at least a collar around her neck.
We’d gotten the news today that the fire was determined to be electrical. Mark had assured me that the building was up to code when I’d originally invested, but it had been my failure to confirm. The inspector hadn’t done a walk-through in over a decade. We surmised that Mark must have been paying his way out of them. Anger burned hot in my stomach at the lives he’d put in danger.
The fire chief wrote up a notice of violation and explained that sometimes hidden issues can cause catastrophic circumstances. He was preaching to the choir.
Turns out electrical issues weren’t the only issue hiding in plain sight.
The accountant had gotten back to me. More than four hundred thousand dollars had disappeared in the last year, unaccounted for and with all fingers pointing in one direction. Dillon’s dad. I kept this secret to myself; I didn’t want him affecting her life anymore than he already had.
I was already planning the rebuild with contractors. The fire had caused mostly superficial and cosmetic damage, but I was already planning a redesign. I was using the insurance money to create a world-class pleasure club on the eastern seaboard.
My business partner, her dad, had passed the day of the fire. Pronounced DOA at the hospital. Because Brian and Dillon were his next of kin, they’d had to identify his body. I held her in my arms as she sobbed, her arm wrapped around her brother’s waist.
Mark Young looked utterly…normal. Peaceful, even. Being higher than a kite was apparently the best way to go. The medical examiner said it would have been just like going to sleep when the smoke inhalation took over his lungs and suffocated the oxygen.
Brian and Dillon were dealing with the loss together. She had plans to move him to Rock Island. Was already inquiring about rentals in the area. She was protective of him, like a mother bear with her cub. The maternal instincts she didn’t think she had shone. And I was more than willing to help. She asked me to be a role model as he adjusted to his new life – clean, sober, responsible, without the old man looking over his shoulders and coercing him into things he shouldn’t be doing.
An alarm shook me from my thoughts and I reached behind her, fumbling for my phone.
“Shit, we’ve got the barbeque at Wild’s tonight.” I slumped back against the pillow and wrapped her up in my arms, right where she belonged.
“Do we have to go?”
“Mmm, I promised.” I nipped at her ear.
“Maybe I’ll just send you and lie here in bed all night…naked.”
My laugh filled the room. “Not a chance. I go, you go.”
“I’m not your dog, Slade.” She gave me a playful push.
“Yeah, but you’re my sex slave.” I wiggled my eyebrows and tweaked her nipple between my thumb and index finger.
“Well, until you put a collar on it…” She giggled and fell back against me, tucking further into my chest.
“You’ll get that soon enough,” I growled in her ear.
“Stop,” she admonished with a giggle.
“If you’d rather have a ring…?” I stroked the knuckle of her left ring finger.
“You wish.”
“I know.” I laughed and pulled myself on top of her body, caging her in, just where she liked to be.
“We have to get ready.” Her body shook with giggles as I dug my fingers into her hips and tickled.
“You look good enough to eat already.”
“Thanks.” She breathed and slipped out from beneath me before darting to the bathroom. I trailed in after her like a pathetic puppy begging for her attention.
Until I pressed her up against the wall and impaled her with my dick, then she was the one begging.
I watched the diamond necklace I’d given her sparkle in the afternoon sunlight. The one she wore like a collar, never taking it off.
In essence, that’s what it represented for us. A small secret only we shared. I never expected her to wear it every day, but the days had turned to weeks and then to months, and still she wore it. I was elated. I’d given her a necklace, and she’d given me commitment.
I’d slipped it on her neck a year to the day after the fire had ravaged LUST, the one that had taken her father’s life, the one that had changed everything for us.
In the years since then, we’d grown closer. Become entwined. I think we’d both realized that life was precious and fleeting, and the relationships we had with the people we loved were the only thing that mattered.
She and Brian were good.
So were we.
Fingering the leather box buried in the pocket of my jeans, I held her hand in mine as we walked the weed-ridden land north of Rock Island.
“I hope Honey likes it here,” she mused about the little buff-colored cat she’d taken in when we’d first started dating.
“She’s a cat. Feed her and she’ll be happy.” I traced invisible circles on her wrist with my thumb. Dillon never had been able to find Honey a home, but in all honesty, I don’t think she’d tried very hard. She’d lost Spook over a year ago to old age, we assumed, and from that moment on Honey had become part of the family, officially.
“True,” she giggled.
“I was thinking we could clear the trees over here, and if we face the house southeast we could have a great view of the water.” I held her hand gently in my own.
“Hmm…” She did that finger thing with her chin that had me melting into a puddle at her feet. The thing she’d been doing since the moment we’d starting seeing each other, more than four years ago.
“But if we face northeast, imagine the sunrise…” Her head tilted to one side as she thought out loud.
I’d finally settled on a piece of densely wooded property north of Camden. At first I’d imagined it as a cabin, a home-base for hunting and fishing, but as our relationship evolved, so had my dream.
“I was thinking a big wraparound porch, take in the sunsets with my favorite girl.” I squeezed her hand in mine. “Maybe the kitchen on this corner,” I pointed to where I envisioned the layout in my mind. “Master suite on the back corner.”
“With a walk-in closet?” she teased.
“What’s a master suite without a walk-in? Maybe a corner tub big enough for me to fuck you in,” I murmured the last sentence in her ear.
Her face flushed as she shook her head.
“Don’t pretend that didn’t make you tingle.”
“You’re a pig.”
“Always. So back to the house plan. Kitchen here, master suite on that corner, and I was thinking a little nook off the bedroom, fantastic lighting, bright, airy…”
“Like an office?” She frowned as she tried to visualize the plans in my head.
“I was thinking more like a nursery.”
Her lips twisted before she turned, big, blue eyes gazing up at me. “A nursery?” she asked.
“Yeah. Ya know, for babies.” I held my breath and watched her. In all fairness, she’d known this day was coming. I’d been easing her into the idea for years. Baby steps with Dillon. It was all about the baby steps.
I dropped down on one knee and pulled the cool box from my pocket.
<
br /> “Dillon–”
“Oh my god.” Her hand shook as she held it over her mouth.
“I’ve loved you from the first moment you threatened to cut off my balls and shove them down my throat when you were sixteen. I’ve made you my sex slave–” I nodded to the diamond choker circling her delicate neck, “And now I want to make you my wife. Live with me here, make your life with me, make babies with me, grow old on the front porch with me. Dillon, will you do me the honor of marrying me?” I finished as I pulled the custom-designed, platinum, princess-cut ring from its velvet cushion.
My eyes riveted to her face, I watched her. Read her signs just like I’d been doing from the start.
She chewed her lip, her eyes darting from the ring in my hand and back to me. Her throat constricted as she swallowed before I got my answer in the form of a slow nod and a soft smile.
Finally, she spoke. “Yes. Oh my god, yes!” she shrieked and fell on her knees with me and wrapped her arms around my neck. She planted quick kisses across my lips before I pulled away, slid the ring on her finger, and then took her face in my palms.
“I love you so much. You’re stubborn, strong, sassy, and beautiful. I never stood a chance. No one on this planet has ever loved anyone more than I love you.” I finished and kissed her fully, every emotion I had conveyed in that kiss. I wanted her to know, in addition to telling her, what she meant to me. Dillon preferred actions over words, I knew that now.
“You’re wrong, Slade.”
“‘Bout what?” I nipped at her lips, kissed her eyelids and stroked her cheekbones.
“I love you more. I’ve loved you every second of every day since you told me you owned me, I was just too stubborn to see it for what it was.” She smiled softly.
I couldn’t contain the grin that lifted my cheeks. I pulled her to me and we stood, hands clasped, with my diamonds at her throat and on her finger dancing in the soft Maine sunlight filtering through the evergreens.
“It’s about damn time.” She held her hand out to admire my ring on her finger.
Slade Page 14
