His Angel (25 page)

His chuckle and expression were filled with lewdness which made her blush. "You gave me my present on my birthday a week ago."

And what a present it'd been. For once, he'd let her completely take over the blowjob she'd given him while she was dressed in a frilly bra and panties. She also wore a garter, sheer hose and his favorite pair of fuck-me heels, which she'd packed without his knowledge. He hadn't been allowed to touch her with his hands and she wouldn't let him orgasm until she said so. It was an hour of the sweetest torture he'd ever been subject to and he thought his heart would stop when she finally allowed him to blast his cum down her throat. Thank God he had been lying on a bed because it'd taken him a good fifteen minutes before his legs stopped quivering afterward.

She held out the blindfold. "Please, Sir, for me?"

How could he resist her? The answer was easy–he couldn't. Taking the blindfold with its elastic band, he slid it over his head and eyes then sighed. "This better be quick because I feel ridiculous."

She giggled as Jake put the SUV in drive again and accelerated. "Now you know how I feel sometimes." He knew she was kidding. His little angel loved being tied up and blindfolded while he had his wicked way with her, sometimes in public and sometimes in private.

Ian felt the car slow a bit as they approached the second gate, and when they didn't stop for Jake to have his hand scanned, he knew someone else had opened it for them. When the vehicle stopped, he estimated they were somewhere near the residential building. He heard the two of them exit the vehicle and shut their doors before his door was opened. Angie took his hand in hers and guided him carefully out of the car. She told him to take three steps forward and stop. When he did, she grabbed his shoulders and turned him a little to the right before releasing him again. "Okay, on the count of three you can take it off. One...two...three!"

A chorus of "happy birthday!" greeted him.

Holy shit!
Ian's mouth fell open and he couldn't believe his eyes.
What the hell had they done?
It was beautiful...beyond beautiful. He took a step toward the large space between the third and fourth buildings and tried to take in everything at once. The area was wide enough to have three tractor trailers side by side and long enough for two of them to be bumper to bumper, so it was the size of a small backyard...and now, it looked like one. Since he and Angie had left over two weeks ago, someone had transformed the paved, ugly unused space into a garden of sorts. It was complete with grass, trees, shrubs, flowers, sitting areas, a fire-pit and even...was that a waterfall into a small pond at the far end? For the first time he could ever remember, Ian was speechless. He had a knot in his throat and,
crap
...tears filled his eyes and he wasn't ashamed of a single one of them. He took a few more steps, not knowing where to look and seeing something new with each pass. There was a bar and outdoor kitchen, which somehow blended well with the landscaping, along with a huge barbecue and a weather-proof flat-screen TV. Beau was rolling around on his back in the grass a few feet away looking like he was in heaven. I'm right there with you, dog, Ian thought to himself. A small wooden sign two feet inside the grass line caught his eye.
Ian's Oasis.

Okay, now he had to wipe away the few tears which had started to fall. He stared at Angie standing next to him with her hands clasped together at her chest, waiting anxiously for him to say something. His gaze then turned toward his team, Mitch, Jenn, Kristen and Tiny, who were all sitting around the oblong fire pit. "Who...how?" He cleared his choked-up throat. "Shit, I can't talk."

They all laughed and Angie clapped her hands in obvious glee. His brother stood and stepped toward him, grinning like a fool. He shook Ian's hand and tilted his head toward Angie. "Happy birthday, bro. This was your lady's idea and she designed it all on paper for us. While you were away, we dug up the asphalt and had some people bring in the sod and landscaping, and install the kitchen and koi pond. We all helped out as much as we could because we wanted you to know this came from our hearts. Angie picked out everything and while you were away, Jenn and Ninja-girl took the list and went on shopping sprees for the furniture, barbecue, TV and kitchen stuff. They did some major damage to the Trident credit card by the way."

Ian laughed and wiped away a few more tears, which insisted on falling, before looking at his beautiful angel. "This was what you three were doing a few weeks ago?" One day he left the office to join her for lunch. When he didn't find her in his apartment as they had planned, he went upstairs looking for her, knowing she was most likely chatting with Kristen. He'd interrupted a pow-wow between her, Jenn and Kristen, and they'd clammed up when they saw him, while Angie tried to hide the sketch book she'd been holding. When he had attempted to find out what the little brats were up to, despite his best efforts, they all remained mum and broke up their little meeting. He'd forgotten all about it until now.

Angie nodded. "I wanted to do something special for your birthday and I remembered what you said up at the safe-house about wanting your own little oasis in the middle of nowhere. This isn't exactly in the middle of nowhere but it's close enough until you're old enough to retire. I was going to suggest we go up to Maggie Valley for the week, so they could get this done without you knowing, and then you suggested we go visit your folks. We couldn't believe we were able to keep it a secret from you. You, Sir, are a very good interrogator."

"Ha! Apparently not good enough."

Everyone else stood and there was a round of hugs from the women followed by handshakes and back-slapping from the men. After he finished with the reception line, he pulled Angie into his arms and kissed her senseless. When the whistles and cat-calls faded away, he ended the kiss, which left them both breathless. She placed her hands on his cheeks and looked at him with all the love in her heart. "I love you, Ian. I love you now, and I will love you when you're old and grey. I will never walk away from you, even if you push me, without trying everything in world to stay by your side. And if you leave this world before me, I will look forward to the day I join you in the afterlife, because you're it for me. You're my heart, my friend, my Dom, my lover and my soulmate, and I will love you forever."

Ian stared into the eyes of this incredible woman and, like a light bulb going on, everything clicked into place for him. She wasn't Kaliope or any other woman he'd been with over the years. She was the woman his heart had been searching for, and if any of those other relationships had worked out, he wouldn't be standing here next to his destiny. A line from one of his brother's country songs came to mind–something about God blessing a broken road leading him to this point, and to her–and he knew it would be his mantra to her for the rest of his life. He took her hands from his face and kissed her knuckles once but didn't release them. With a deep breath, he took a leap of faith. "Marry me."

"W-what?" Angie was stunned. Surely, she hadn't heard him right.

Ian barely heard the other women squeal, and the men chuckle and groan over the beating of his heart. "I'm not perfect. I'm not even a romantic. I'm not a flowers and perfume kind of guy. I don't spout poems out of my mouth or break out into song. Hell, I don't even have a ring for you…yet. I will probably drive you crazy with my demands. We'll argue, we'll fight, but then we'll make up and that's what I'm looking forward to the most. But the one thing I know is...I love you, Angel, and I will love you long after the day I die. You are my soulmate. Marry me. Have beautiful babies with me. Please."

He waited a heartbeat, and then a few more–hell, he'd wait forever–for her answer before her mouth turned up in a sexy grin. "Who says you're not a romantic? Because you most definitely are one, and yes, Sir, I will marry you."

Overjoyed, Ian picked her up around the waist and swung her around before capturing her mouth with his and kissing her like crazy again. Around them there was a chorus of cheers and clapping, but for him, his angel was the only person there.

Boomer sat at the desk in his office, his eyes narrowing as he studied the paper before him. The answers should be easy, but for the life of him, he couldn't come up with the solution. He glanced at his cell phone to check the time and saw it was eighteen-twenty hours. The six-thirty appointment Colleen had scheduled for him was later than normal but she'd told him the new client had requested the evening hour, so here he was trying to kill a few more minutes.

Mondays and Tuesdays were the only evenings it wasn't a problem for Trident clients to come to the compound where their offices were. The rest of the week, Ian and Devon Sawyer's other venture, The Covenant, was open. Some of Trident’s clients might be a little shocked to see the BDSM club's members in varying stages of undress walking through the parking lot.

As Boomer tapped his pen on the desk, he looked over the hints available to him and got more frustrated because he still couldn't figure it out. He glanced up as Ian walked in and sat in one of the two guest chairs on the other side of the desk. "What's a nine letter word for vague? Starts with an 'A' and fifth letter is a 'G’.

"Ambiguous." Ian rolled his eyes. "And if you're going to keep asking me for help with the daily crossword puzzles then I'm getting you a fucking thesaurus for Christmas this year instead of your bonus."

Boomer gave his boss a smirk. "You do, Boss-man, and I'm signing you up for an anchovy-of-the-month club."

Even though he knew his friend and employee was joking, Ian got a queasy look on his face. Boomer always found it funny how, out of six former SEALs, he was the only one who liked the oily, yet salty fish, considering how much time they'd spent in and on the ocean while in the Navy. Well, maybe that was the reason.

"Not funny, Baby Boomer." Ian picked up the stress squeeze ball the other man kept on his desk and tossed it back and forth between both hands. "So, did you find out any information on this new client?"

Boomer tossed the pen down on the desk and leaned back in his chair. "Nope. Colleen said the woman, a Kate Zimmerman, needed to hire Trident but she wouldn't deal with anyone but me. I've racked my brains and can't recall ever meeting anyone by that name. I tried calling the phone number she'd left but got the standard computerized voice telling me to leave a message. The number comes back to a throwaway cell."

"One-night-stand?"

He snorted and didn't take offense since all the guys on the team had more one-night-stands over the years than any of them cared to admit. Their time in the military and then the security business didn't give them many opportunities for long term relationships. Even if it did, Boomer wasn't interested. "I'd be lying if I said I remembered the first and last name of every woman I've ever slept with or scened with. But I'd like to think it would ring some sort of bell. Maybe she's a friend of a friend or something."

"Could be," Ian knew a lot of their business was gained by word of mouth. "Guess we'll know in a few minutes. If she has no objections, and even if she does, I'll be sitting in on the meeting until we find out what she needs from us. If it's a bullshit my-husband's-cheating-on-me thing, I'll leave you to it."

"Fine with me. Are we the only two left in the office?"

Both men's phones chimed a text. The guard at the front gate was alerting them to their new client's arrival. Murray would buzz her through the second gate and instruct her where to park. They both stood and Boomer grabbed a legal-sized yellow pad and his pen, while Ian headed for the door. "Yeah. Colleen left. Polo and Egghead are on their way to New York to escort that shipment of diamonds from a dealer to the buyer here in Tampa. Jake is trying to track down one of his informants who he's worried about. He hasn't seen the guy in about two months, which he says is unusual. And my lucky brother is wedding venue shopping with Kristen and probably picking out pink tablecloths with matching napkins as we speak."

"Ha!" Boomer barked and shook his head. "I wouldn't fuck with him, Boss-man. You're right behind him and karma's a bitch. Angie's going to be dragging your ass through the same tablecloths and napkins someday soon."

"Don't I know it. I'm trying to talk her into eloping but I'm not having much success." The pained look on his face was mostly false since he'd give his woman the world if she asked for it. Well, as long as he didn't have to help pick out matching flowers, cummerbunds and bridesmaids' dresses to go with it, he would. "I'll go get your client and meet you in the conference room."

"K. Just going to hit the head real quick."

While Boomer headed in one direction for the bathroom, Ian walked in the other, toward the reception area. He pulled the front door open and found himself looking at a brown-haired beauty who seemed to be about Boomer's age of thirty. Wearing a pair of jeans and a short-sleeved navy blouse, she stood about five-foot five in her flat off-white shoes which matched the belt at her slim waist. Her slender build made the shirt and pants look a little big on her as if she'd recently lost some weight but hadn't yet gotten clothes to fit her new frame. In Ian's opinion, she looked too thin. She took off her sunglasses and peered up at him, with big chestnut-colored eyes. "Hi, my name's Kate Zimmerman. I'm looking for Ben Michaelson. I have an appointment with him and the guard told me he was in this building."

When she glanced over her shoulder to where Murray was keeping watch at the gate, Ian's eyes didn't follow hers. Instead, he looked with interest at Beau, who was sitting near the driver's door of Ms. Zimmerman's Ford Focus. The goofy faced dog was panting but something about his posture and the fact the seemed to be in a 'stay' position had Ian eyeballing the woman in front of him. She saw where his gaze had been and the corners of her mouth curved upward a tad as he raised a curious eyebrow at her. Her smile didn't quite meet her anxious eyes and when he got no answer to his unasked question, he opened the door wider. "Please come in, Ms. Zimmerman. I'm Ben's boss, Ian Sawyer. It's nice to meet you. If you don't mind, I'll be sitting in on your appointment."

Her smile faltered a little before she recovered. "Um, no. I mean, it's fine; I don't mind. It might actually be better that way."

Ian's curiosity was now further peaked but he wasn't getting any bad vibes from her other than her nervousness, so he let her last comment slide for the moment. He glanced back at Beau, who was still sitting there with his tongue hanging out of his mouth and seemed to be waiting for a command. Ian tapped his leg. "Beau,
heir
." The dog rushed over to his master, stopped and when he received a slight hand signal, trotted past him on the way to the darkened conference room.

"He's a beautiful dog. Lab and Staffordshire Terrier, correct?"

"We think so. I found him as a pup...well, actually, he found me." He shut the door and gestured her toward the conference room. "The vet thinks there may be something else mixed in there, possibly Great Dane, because his legs are a little longer than normal for the two breeds." He turned on the overhead lights to the room as they entered. "Please have a seat. Boomer will be here in a moment."

"Boomer?" she asked as she placed her large purse on a chair while he pulled out the one next to it for her to sit in.

Ian then took the seat across from her, leaving his usual chair on the end empty. Although this was his company, he trusted his employee to take the lead in the unknown case. The client had requested him specifically and Ian was willing to concede his authority for the moment, therefore giving Boomer the 'head' seat at the table. He studied the woman for a few seconds before answering her. "Sorry, I meant Ben. Boomer is his call sign from the Navy. No one really uses his first name around here but it's out of habit." He heard the man in question come down the hallway and saw him enter the room a second later. Ms. Zimmerman's back was to the door, but Ian knew the moment she realized Boomer was there without having seen him. Her body stiffened.

"Sorry to keep you waiting, Ms. Zimmerman. I..." Boomer walked over, peered down at the woman's face and froze. Confusion in his eyes turned to pure shock and Ian watched as his teammate's blood drained from his face. His normally strong voice changed to a whisper. "Katerina?"

And with that, Benjamin Thomas 'Boomer' Michaelson did something he'd never done before in his life. He fainted.

THE END