“In your dreams, horse-dick.”
“Now see, that’s just rude. And reveals your raging insecurity. I’m fine, guys.” Ben glanced at Lucas. “I’m just working too hard. I’ve actually been thinking about taking some time off.” Though that would now wait until whatever happened with Jeremy happened. He’d want to be close for that, to support Lucas and Cass. And Marcie.
She’d had a hard relationship with her brother. Before he’d become an addict, she’d idolized him. Then, when she was thirteen, one of his friends had tried to rape her while Jeremy was stoned in the other room. That was the end of him living under the same roof with Cass and the other kids. The past few years had mended things, but it reminded him now why he needed to keep their relationship where it had always been. Yeah, they’d stepped way the hell over that line yesterday, but he’d taken that step back. End of story. Time would take care of the rest. Marcie couldn’t afford having another male let her down.
“Mmm. A vacation may be a good idea.” Lucas rose then. “Once we get the Senecorp issue off the table, you’d be clear.”
“Lucas is just trying to cut Marcie’s internship short.” Peter chuckled. “We all know what a corrupting influence Ben is.”
“Can you blame me?” Lucas said dryly. He gave Ben a shove. “Up until the last couple years, she pretty much hung onto everything you said and did, so hell, I figured you’d already corrupted her.”
Great. Just what he wanted to hear. He managed an amused expression, no small feat when he’d swallowed nails.
“Time to get to work.” Lucas turned toward the door. “Did Janet say if Matt was coming in today?”
“Yeah.” Jon had been studying Ben’s expression, but now he thankfully turned his attention to Lucas. “He’ll be in around lunchtime. Savannah wasn’t feeling too great this morning, so he wanted to stay with her awhile. Even though she nearly took his head for telling her he was coming in late.”
“She’s tired of being in bed, and she hates to feel like the whole world is waiting on her, particularly Matt. No worse patient in the world than a submissive female,” Peter noted.
“Except Dana,” Ben snorted. “She has no problem with foot massages and being handfed bonbons.”
See? He’d jumped in with that one. Proof that he was fucking fine, right?
Peter took the bait with a chuckle. “Just don’t tell her she can’t drive the Batmobile or scale tall buildings with a nail file. She likes to be pampered, but on her own terms. She doesn’t like being helpless.”
“Why don’t we all go hang with Savannah and Matt tonight?” Jon suggested. “We haven’t gotten together in a few weeks. Ben, can you make it?”
“I’ll see. Maybe.”
Lucas met Jon’s gaze, what Ben privately called the secret decoder ring glance, because Lucas tried to cover it with a shrug. Ben knew what it meant, regardless. He’ll spend another night alone drinking. Jesus. Sometimes working with four guys known for their incredible intuition as businessmen and Doms was a pain in the ass. At least they weren’t women. If they were, they’d want to talk about feelings, and he’d have to throw himself off the top of the building.
He decided to ignore the look. He still had enough whiskey in his system to keep him mellow, and that’s where he wanted to stay.
“Sir?”
Glancing toward the doorway, Ben saw Randall Caldwell, the K&A security chief. “Morning, Randy. What brings you?”
The man shrugged casually. “Just need a minute of your time, Mr. O’Callahan, once you get done with your morning bullshit session.”
Peter gave the man a punch as he went by. “There’s important corporate strategy going on in here, rent-a-cop.”
Randall effectively blocked the blow, giving him a grin. “Yeah, yeah. A bunch of suits who don’t know what hard work is.”
There was some more banter back and forth, but Ben was focused on the steadiness of Randall’s pale green eyes. He was teasing to lighten the atmosphere, to distract focus. The others picked up the hint, though none were fooled. Lucas gave Ben that same look again, the look that was supposed to convey solidarity. Ben wasn’t sure where to go with that, given he’d been imagining the girl Lucas had shepherded to adulthood going down on him like a high-powered vacuum. Christ.
After they filed out, all traces of humor left Ben. “What’s up, Randall?”
The security head pulled a disk out of his coat, laid it on Ben’s desk. “That’s the only copy, sir. If you don’t want it returned, that’s fine. I’ll need to mark it on my monthly report to Mr. Kensington, but it’ll go no further than that. If this is something you want us to investigate further or file charges, we will. But I wanted you to see it first. No damage appears to have been done to your vehicle.”
That brought Ben’s attention up sharply. “Someone was fucking around with my car?” He hadn’t retrieved the Mercedes from the parking deck last night, but when he checked on it this morning, it had looked fine. “When did this happen? How the hell—”
“Time stamp’s on the disk, sir. Best to look at it first. I’ve taken disciplinary action on the security detail assigned that shift, but… Well, I’ll be in my office to discuss questions, after you look at it.” Randall had moved to the door. Without further explanation, he stepped out and pulled it shut after him, so Ben wouldn’t be disturbed unexpectedly.
Ben stared after him. What the hell?
Putting the disk into his laptop, he called up the footage. To better see the details of the black-and-white security tape, he put it on his wall screen.
The time stamp was 12:50 a.m. The security patrol went through each level of the parking deck once an hour, though they rotated that time by a varied amount each night so no one could anticipate their schedule. Apparently, whatever had happened had occurred right after the detail went through, because he watched the guard walk past, checking between the cars and in the shadows near the stairwell as always.
So the perpetrator had anticipated their schedule, known to do his worst when he had at least an hour to pull it off. There was a guard in reception to watch the cameras pan through the buildings and decks, but he didn’t pay close attention unless one of the guards called in a camera check. The footage was merely for history, flagged if a problem cropped up. Ben wondered what had caught Randall’s interest if there’d been no damage to the car.
He parked on the top covered level, the back corner. It was a secluded area, but one camera was focused directly on that section. He sat down, his attention sharpening. And then everything else disappeared.
She was walking toward his car. In five-inch heels that had a plethora of straps over her ankle and a little tassel teasing the back. She was crossing one leg over the other, putting a serious sway to her hips. As he watched, she unbelted the thin coat she was wearing, let it slide down slow, until it fell below her bare shoulder blades. Her hair was slicked back and in a tight knot on her head, the black and white of the camera making it look darker. But he already knew that hair was blonde and thick. With a faint scent of perfumed coconut.
The garment dropped to her waist, the sleeves holding her elbows to her sides. She stopped in front of the grill of the car as if studying it, her back to the camera. Then the coat fell to the ground. Milk-cream skin, slim arms and legs, a gentle flare of hips. An Audrey Hepburn figure in truth. Completely naked.
“Fucking Jesus.” He snapped up straight in his chair as if he could throw a coat over her, ask her if she’d lost her mind, even realizing he was looking at something that had happened hours ago.
She moved another several steps toward the car, keeping his gaze glued to the swing of her ass. She didn’t play it up, just put everything that was female and perfect into the movement, the slight quiver of the buttock as her heel made contact with the deck concrete, the shift of hip as she moved forward. When she put her knee on the nose of the car, Ben stifled a groan as she braced her hand on the hood and then looked over her shoulder at him, right at the camera.
She was wearing a mask. A Mardi Gras mask with deep purple and teal green feathers, the gold thread edging drawing attention to her lips and sweet line of chin. The feathers brushed her temples. A tiny waterfall of rhinestones emphasized the eyes.
Holy fuck. He’d seen this mask before. Her movements at the file cabinets had been familiar for reasons other than inheriting her sister’s grace. Marcie hadn’t been lying. She had gone to a club. She’d been at Surreal ten days ago.
He usually played private, but lately the privacy mocked the intimacy he really wasn’t getting with his subs, so he’d decided to go for a public playroom scene. He’d gone over the top, chosen three women. Clara, Sharon and Myra. All staff regulars up for hire, and his preference that night because they thrived on rough edge play.
He’d put them in a triangle of stocks, the kind that bound neck and wrists, and then he’d locked their feet to the floor in the anchored boots that increased the sense of vulnerability. He’d gone to work on them with a flogger, then wielded a paddle with expert precision and force until they were crying, the marks showing on their asses, but they were also soaked as honey hives. Drawing out that honey with clever fingers that had them on the cusp of orgasm, he’d mixed that natural lubricant with a stimulant that would heat up their rectums, make them even more sensitive to his penetration.
He’d been ruthless that night, wringing two or three orgasms out of each woman before he’d plunged his cock into them. Three different condoms, three different orgasms. When he was done, his chest was heaving and his vision was a little gray, so when he sat down on a nearby bench to watch their aftercare, handled by the staff, he was almost spent. But not too spent to notice her.
He’d been peripherally aware of her during the session, which was unusual in itself, because once in a scene, it usually absorbed him completely. In this case, as the scene became more intense, he noticed her more. She kept circling, so he saw her first on his left, then right, at a distance, then closer. She’d eventually found a stationary spot, near the wall across the floor of the public play area, blending with the shadows.
