Knights of the Boardroom (9 page)

“Jesus, Joseph, and Mary, I’ve died and gone to heaven.” Cressida’s pussy was still pink and slightly swollen from the waxing she’d had earlier, he leaned forward pressing a soft kiss to the tender area just above her slit. “This won’t be tender for long, baby.” Her whole body shuddered in response to the simple touch of his lips against her abused skin. When the musky scent of her arousal hit his nose Law felt as though he’d been struck by a thunderbolt.

Standing, he looked down at her trying to assimilate this sensuous creature with the professionally put together woman he’d worked with for the past two years. Fully dressed Cressida Walker was beautiful, but naked she was breathtaking. Her dark hair cascaded in soft waves to the middle of her back, some of the strands had fallen forward when he’d removed her shirt and the ends lay curled atop her breasts, drawing attention to her tightly peaked nipples. Brodie had folded back the bed covers and they settled her in quickly before they each kissed her chastely on the forehead and then turned to leave the room.

As they made their way back to the front door they detoured long enough to clean up the dishes she’d left on the coffee table. Law stopped to re-set her alarm before they slipped out, closing the door behind them. After double-checking her locks, they walked in silence back down the hall. Once inside the elevator, Lawton couldn’t stand it any longer, “I’m not sure I have words to describe how hard it was to leave her alone in that bed.” Taking a deep breath, he tried to get a grasp on all of the emotions warring for the upper hand as they swirled in a vicious vortex in his mind. “There was a vulnerability in her eyes tonight that I have never seen before. Maybe it was the intimacy of having us in her home or what she was wearing, although I’m not sure she ever realized what her appearance was doing to both of us.”

Brodie didn’t respond until they were in the car they’d summoned and almost home, “I don’t know what it is about her that draws me like a moth to a flame. I don’t think she’ll ever be the woman we thought we were looking for—I doubt she’ll ever enjoy anything but the least intensive BDSM elements. I can’t imagine inflicting the level of erotic pain on her that we’re accustomed to giving subs to get them into sub-space—I’ve never considered myself a sadist, but I do love the feel of my hand heating soft ass cheeks. Watching the color blossom as the blood rushes to the surface, seeing the soft jiggle of those large muscles as they absorb each swat, and the musky smell of a woman’s arousal—those all go straight to my cock.”

As they exited the coded elevator that delivered them to the top floor of the Templar building, Law heard Brodie’s soft sigh and knew his friend was fighting the same battle he was, damn his cock still felt like it might burst. When he looked up, Brodie was leaning back against one of the marble-topped console tables in their front vestibule. The entry was overly large with several hidden storage spaces, they’d designed the spacious entrance to accommodate large numbers of people entering simultaneously to attend social functions and there was plenty of room for coats and hats. The irony was they’d yet to host a single party, it was as if the two of them had silently agreed to wait until they were able to find a woman to share. The entire top level of the Templar building had been carefully planned so it could easily be converted into one enormous living space once the woman they’d been dreaming of since college walked into their lives. The construction had been completed long before they’d hired Cressida, but the space had been a stark blank canvas awaiting the personal style of the future lady of the house.

Six months after Cressida had come on board, they’d introduced her to the decorator they’d contacted. They had simply instructed her to decorate it as if it were her own and then let her have free rein. Lawton could still remember seeing the gleam of knowledge in Jeffrey’s eye when he and Brodie introduced the two of them. Jeffrey and his partner, Master Marco, had been among the first members of The Knight’s Club. Both owned extremely lucrative businesses, Jeffrey’s design house contracted with many of the city’s oldest and wealthiest families and according to Marco, J as he was called at the club, was quickly building a client base among Broadway’s up and coming stars. Brodie had helped Jeffrey refine his contracts in exchange for him working with Cressida rather than the owners themselves.

Before the project was completed, Jeffrey had begged to pay for the contract work because he swore spending time with “Cressi-baby” was a joy not a job and he didn’t feel right about the deal they’d made. Lawton wasn’t sure how that particular discussion had ended because he’d left the room when Brodie threatened to call Master Marco.

“Where the fuck did you just go?” Brodie’s teasing tone let Lawton know he must have completely
zoned out
—a habit he’d had since he was a small child. Once he started thinking about something, everything else faded into the background.

“I was thinking about Jeffrey and Cressida working together decorating this floor and how much that huge ass vase probably cost us, so don’t break it. According to J, it was one of Cressida’s favorite ‘finds’.” The damned thing was at least three feet tall and decorated in a floral pattern Law recognized from his art history classes in college as Impressionist—probably painted to look like a Monet. It was also teetering precariously on the table Brodie was leaning against.

“Jesus Christ, I know exactly what everybody thinks when they look at that ridiculous mass of porcelain. Impressionist masters did not paint fucking vases. I’ll bet this was copied from some poster purchased in the Metropolitan Museum’s gift shop, Jeffrey could have another one just like it up here by noon tomorrow if this one crashed and burned.” Law was relieved Brodie seemed to be relaxing enough for his sense of humor to resurface. No doubt their visit to Cressida’s apartment had been strangely intense, but something about her easy acceptance of them as her Doms stirred questions in his mind. Her easy acquiescence at their declaration that they’d be training her made Law wonder if perhaps Brodie had been right, and she’d wanted them all along, but had been too intimidated to ask.

Evidently Brodie had already reached the same conclusion, “I see the lightbulb finally switched on.” Law snorted his derision, then reluctantly nodded as Brodie continued, “She didn’t seem all that surprised—it was more like she was surprised to have gotten what she wanted. I don’t really know how to explain it, but I think there is a part of me that simply recognized the emotion, because I remember feeling that way one Christmas. I’d wanted this elaborate fucking train set and my parents had repeatedly told me it was too much, they didn’t want to devote an entire room to trains, and other such excuses. So when I opened the train box Christmas morning, I wasn’t surprised by
what
was inside, but I was certainly surprised to have
gotten it.
”

As strange as it sounded, Law understood what his friend had just described. “I agree, but quite frankly, I think—if we’re right—it raises some fairly significant issues.”

“Yes, it does indeed. But I’m tired and desperately in need of a cold shower—damn.” Brodie’s words once again echoed exactly what Law was thinking, they’d need to sort it all out, but it didn’t need to be tackled tonight.

Lawton nodded and straightened from the opposing wall he’d been leaning against. He knew the next day was going to seem interminable, but the project deserved all of his focus so he set aside the niggling in the back of his mind that something had been amiss with Cressida tonight. They would see her again Saturday morning and that would be soon enough to start the delicate process of binding her to them forever.

What is that damnable racket? I swear, if Carli is playing some blasted screeching opera I’m going to strangle her.
Cressi felt like she was walking through a dense fog—lost.
Maybe that’s some sort of signal I’m supposed to follow.
By the time she realized it was her alarm clock the crazy thing had kicked over to round two and switched to an even more annoying tone. When she couldn’t find the button to silence the offensive device, she simply batted it off the table. Landing upside down on the small rug by her bed hadn’t silence it, but it had muffled it enough Cressi no longer felt as if the sound waves were going to cause her head to explode. Rolling over, she realized she must have gotten hot during the night and kicked free from the covers that Brodie and Law—
oh my God!
Bolting upright in one quick move made her head spin and that’s when she realized she was naked as the day she was born. Slapping her palm against her forehead in humiliation proved to be a monumental error in judgement because now she could add pounding to spinning and for a few seconds she thought her head might actually split in two.

Holy hell, she hadn’t been sick in two years—not once had she missed a day of work because she’d been ill and she wasn’t about to break that record today. Forcing herself to get to her feet, she took stock of herself and finally conceded that she did indeed feel awful, but it was probably just a head cold—no need to waste a day of sick leave for something she could just medicate. When she set her alarm back on the small table beside her bed, she had a moment of pure panic when she realized what time it was, but then her boss telling her that she wasn’t to go in to the office before ten drifted up from the dark recesses of her memory.

Showering and dressing robbed all of her focus, ensuring that Cressi wasn’t going to get the chance to consider all the implications of Lawton’s and Brodie’s late evening visit—well, at least until she was feeling better. When she picked up her purse from her desk, she noticed the email icon blinking on her ancient home computer screen. Clicking the icon, she took a drink of her coffee and glared at the email message slowly filling the screen. Whoever Master D was, he obviously hadn’t gotten the hint when she’d told him last week she wasn’t interested in his
private assistance
. He’d been one of only a handful of people she’d interacted with in the chatroom, she had rarely posted questions and had certainly never given out any of her private information. He was the only one who had continued contacting her even after she’d quit the group. Cressi had become uncomfortable when he had started asking her personal questions, and she was more than a little uneasy knowing he’d somehow managed to get her personal email address.
Maybe he was one of the administrators of the group?
She briefly wondered if she should report him to the website, but she needed to get going so she just closed the program and tried to shake off her growing sense of foreboding. She’d deal with it later when she felt better, after all, he’d only reminded her that his offer to answer her questions still stood and asked why she’d deleted her account. Now that she thought about it, he probably was one of those group administrators who had to find out why people left the group. She’d figure out some sort of evasive answer later and put an end to his questions once and for all.

By the time she made it to her office, Cressi was soaked to the skin and freezing. As hot as she’d been last night, it seemed a cruel twist of fate she’d been forced to walk through the pouring rain and now she felt like a damned penguin who’d just enjoyed a nice dip in the frigid waters off the coast of
Antarctica.
She tried to focus on the few tasks she had left for today, but by four o’clock she had barely managed to make the revisions to one contract. She’d answered email questions that needed immediate attention and hoped she hadn’t come across sounding like a complete dope. She’d put aside anything requiring any real concentration, those tasks was simply going to have to wait. Making her way down the crowded street, Cressi was grateful the rain had finally slowed to a drizzle since the raincoat she’d worn earlier in the day was still too damp to provide any real protection from the elements. She nearly got decked when she opened the door to the small corner pharmacy, but she finally managed to make her way inside and grabbed a small shopping basket before making her way to the aisle with the cold and flu medications.

*****

Parker Daniels sat at the stop light drumming his fingers along the top of the steering wheel of his Jaguar XF wondering whether or not to go downstairs to the club when he got home or just call Tristan and have him send one of his usual play partners up to his apartment later. One of the perks of living in the same building as the kink club he’d co-founded was his easy access to subs when he needed to blow off some steam. His security business had been growing by leaps and bounds, and while he appreciated the venture’s success, often there simply wasn’t enough of him to go around. He knew he needed to hire more help, but he was having trouble getting it done when he was continually putting out fires his celebrity clients seemed to light with alarming frequency. What possessed people to mistakenly assume their public notoriety meant they could behave like irresponsible teenagers was a mystery to Parker—hell, half the time he felt like he and his staff were nothing more than well paid babysitters.

He needed to get the extra staff hired soon or he was going to burn out and end up a bitter old man before he turned forty—which was coming far more quickly than he wanted to think about. Sure he had a couple of years before he needed to worry too much about that particular milestone, but he sure as hell wasn’t getting any younger and his best friend was continually reminding him they needed to spend time dating or they were never going to find a woman to spend their lives with. Tristan had complained just last week about some damned clock ticking and how they weren’t getting any younger and he didn’t want to be raising a family from his room in assisted living—hell, weren’t women the ones who were supposed to be worried about that shit?