Chapter 12
STRYKER
Iwoke with Jacqueline curled against my chest, one soft thigh draped over mine and her bare breasts pressed warm against my ribs beneath the sheet. Her hair covered my shoulder and half the pillow in a chestnut tangle, while her breath moved steadily across the skin below my collarbone.
I’d woken her twice last night, once because she shifted against my cock in her sleep and again because I’d opened my eyes with the taste of her still in my mouth and decided waiting until morning was just unreasonable.
Now pale light edged the curtains, her body was limp with exhaustion in my arms, and the only concern I had about how quickly everything between us was moving was that I hadn’t brought over enough clothes.
My semi-hard cock hardened against her thigh while I watched her sleep, apparently unconcerned that I’d kept both of us awake for most of the night.
Faint pink marks from my mouth colored the delicate skin along her throat and tits, and the sight stirred satisfaction in my chest. I loved that she carried everything I’d spilled deep inside her, exactly where it belonged.
I wanted to roll her beneath me again, spread those sleepy thighs, and remind her that her body was mine. But she trusted me to take care of her as thoroughly as I’d taken her apart, and right now that meant letting her sleep.
Easing out from under her required more work than escaping men with weapons ever had because Jacqueline made a soft protest and tightened her arm across my stomach when I shifted.
I replaced myself with the pillow, tucked the sheet around her bare shoulder, and pressed my mouth to her temple until the little wrinkle between her brows smoothed.
I stood beside the bed for several seconds admiring the flushed, thoroughly used woman sleeping in the middle of it.
Then I crossed the hall to the spare room, grabbed the clothes I’d brought, and carried everything back to the bedroom where it belonged.
I hung my shirts and two pairs of jeans in the closet beside Jacqueline’s flannels and soft dresses before I set my shoes next hers, claimed two drawers in the dresser, and emptied the spare-bathroom counter into the one attached to our bedroom.
My razor went beside her skin-care bottles, my toothbrush into the ceramic cup next to hers, and my shaving kit into a drawer.
By the time I finished, the spare room no longer held anything of mine except the bed I had no intention of using again.
I had three meetings at Black Castle Security I could no longer avoid, including one with a client whose travel schedule had changed twice overnight and another involving a contract large enough that Ledger had threatened to hunt me down if I sent Hawkeye in my place.
After showering, I dressed in a charcoal suit and returned to the bed with my tie still hanging loose around my neck.
Jacqueline hadn’t moved much, but the sheet had slipped low enough to reveal her tits and the soft curve of her stomach, giving my body several strong arguments for canceling the entire day and locking the bedroom door.
But if I wanted to have a future with her and our family that I intended to create as soon as possible, I needed to keep my damn job. I was going to start cutting my hours immediately, though.
I sat beside her and dragged my knuckles slowly down her cheek before lowering my mouth to hers.
She made a sleepy sound and opened for me on instinct, her lips soft and swollen while one hand rose to catch my lapel.
The kiss deepened before I intended it to, and my cock pushed hard against the front of my suit pants until she shifted beneath the sheet with a tiny wince that reminded me exactly how sore I’d left her.
“Easy, baby,” I murmured, brushing my thumb across her lower lip when her lashes lifted.
Her pretty blue eyes were hazy with sleep, but warmth filled them when she focused on me.
Then her adorably shy smile followed and tightened something deep in my chest. “I have to go into Black Castle for a few hours. You’re staying in bed and resting. ”
Her gaze traveled over the suit and returned to my face with a touch of amusement…and appreciation. “That sounded less like a suggestion than you probably intended.”
“Nope. Wasn’t intended as one.” I slid my hand beneath the sheet and settled it over her hip, enjoying the way her body softened into my palm even while another faint blush spread across her cheeks.
“You’re going to feel me every time you move today, and I want you thinking about exactly who put that ache there instead of dragging feed bags around the barn or working on house repairs. ”
Her mouth fell open before she pressed her lips together, trying and failing to hide a giggle. “You sound awfully pleased with yourself.”
“Very.” I let my thumb trace the warm crease where her thigh met her center, close enough to feel her tense without giving my cock another reason to keep me home. “You begged for harder, took everything I gave you, then woke up twice and asked for more. I’ve earned pleased.”
The color in her face deepened as her eyes dropped to my tie. “I don’t remember asking the second time.”
“You climbed on top of me and said, ‘Again, Brogan.’” I tipped her chin up, forcing her to see the satisfaction she’d put in my face. “Then you rode my cock until you couldn’t hold yourself up. I remember enough for both of us.”
She buried her face against my chest with a mortified groan, and a quiet laugh escaped my lips while I wrapped an arm around her.
“Go away,” she muttered, though her fingers curled into my suit jacket and held me close enough to expose the lie.
“Soon as you kiss me goodbye.” I waited until she lifted her face, then took her mouth slowly, letting her taste the promise that I’d be back before I forced myself to straighten.
“Remember, no house repairs without me here to catch you.”
A cute little pout graced Jacqueline’s lips. “One time that happened.”
If anyone had been in the room, they probably would’ve been frozen in shock when a grin split across my face. “And you’ll probably never live it down.”
“Ugh. Go, you big brute.”
I laughed and bent to give her another quick kiss. On my way to the door, I told her, “I’ll set the alarm. Ghost, Bishop, and Wraith are outside, and the cameras are live. You need anything, call me.”
Jacqueline’s expression brightened, and I noticed she was looking at the open door to the closet where the edge of one of my shirts was visible beside her clothes.
She didn’t mention it, but the pleased little tilt at the corner of her mouth had my lips curving in response. “Come home as soon as you can.”
The word home hit me with a deep sense of rightness I had no interest in examining. I already knew this was where I belonged. “I will,” I murmured before leaving the room while I still possessed enough control to walk away.
Ghost, Bishop, and Wraith were near the barn when I crossed the yard.
“She’s sleeping,” I told them, tightening the knot of my tie as I stopped beside my truck. “Nobody wakes her unless the house is burning, nobody gets near that porch without one of you knowing, and if anything happens to her while I’m gone, I’ll put all three of you six feet under before lunch.”
Wraith scratched his jaw and glanced toward the rising sun. “That doesn’t give us much digging time.”
“Then don’t fuck up.”
Ghost took a sip of his coffee. “We’ll keep her safe. Save the hole for Kessler.”
“Fuck, I hope so.” I started to turn toward my truck, then glared at Bishop when he grinned like he had one more thing to say. “You boys enjoy living dangerously?”
Bishop closed his mouth. “No.”
“Smart.”
Twenty minutes later, I was at Black Castle’s headquarters.
It wasn’t long before I’d checked in with my assistant, stopped by one of our operatives’ offices for a quick word, and was behind the glass desk in my executive office reviewing a threat brief.
But part of my mind remained at home with Jacqueline warm and naked in our bed.
I loved my jobs, both as president of the Black Crowns and for Rook Holdings.
Black Castle had been built around standards I believed in, employed people I trusted, and protected clients who understood the value of preventing a crisis instead of reacting after it began.
But today, every executive summary stood between me and the ranch, while the memory of Jacqueline’s sleepy smile and the slick heat of her body around my cock made concentration far more difficult than any client had paid for.
The morning meetings ran into each other. Even my increasingly surly attitude and deepening scowl didn’t discourage more delays in my exit.
Cipher walked into my office in the late afternoon without knocking, dressed in dark slacks and a black button-down that made him look like one of our intelligence analysts until a person noticed the way he moved.
He shut the door, dropped onto the chair across from my desk, and slid a thin tablet over the polished glass with one finger. “Loader got us a name. Stolen from a ranch-equipment yard just outside Sable Canyon six weeks ago.”
I looked over the report, recognizing the owner from a community fundraiser Rook Holdings had sponsored two years earlier. “How’d it get into Wade’s barn?”
“According to Wade, his employees purchased it from an unknown seller who appeared from the mist, accepted cash, and vanished without leaving a name, phone number, vehicle description, or single useful fucking detail.” Cipher pushed his hair away from his eyes with an irritated flick and leaned back. “According to him, he’s a private man.”
“Can Raines tie Wade to the theft?”
“Not yet.” Cipher’s mouth flattened as he tapped the screen, bringing up the purchase documents his search had uncovered.
“Trent was standing beside the machine, Kessler’s truck hauled it, and their equipment stripped the identifiers, but Wade claims his son believed the purchase was legitimate.
The bill of sale runs through a subcontractor, the signature is probably fake, and everyone involved has suddenly developed the memory of a fence post.”
I set the tablet down before the urge to put it through the wall became stronger than my respect for expensive equipment.
Wade had built his operation around layers of plausible ignorance, always close enough to profit and far enough away to claim someone beneath him had made the dirty decision. “Everything’s still circumstantial.”
Cipher nodded, his expression turning colder. “Judge is pulling at the subcontractor, Raines is leaning on the three idiots who made bail, and I’m tracking every device that touched those replacement GPS units. Somebody fucked up. We just haven’t found the mistake yet.”
“Find it.”
“Already on it.” Cipher rose, retrieving the tablet before he reached the door, then glanced back at me with one brow lifted. “You know it’s Tuesday, right? A typical work day.”
I stared at him.
“Just checking. You’ve looked at the time eleven times in twenty minutes.”
“Get out.”
His mouth twitched. “Going.”
The few hours I’d promised Jacqueline became the entire fucking day.
A client protection issue in Los Angeles required a revised team, a diplomatic movement needed resources Helix had to pull from another operation, and Ledger cornered me over acquisition numbers while Hawkeye sent increasingly unhelpful messages asking whether Black Castle had taken me hostage.
By the time I approved the final personnel change and left the campus, the sun had already dropped low enough to turn the western sky orange. And I was pissed off at the day for stealing hours I could’ve spent at home.
I wanted to go straight there, but the clothes I had there would only last a few days, and I had no intention of repeating this stop every time I needed another suit.
I pulled into the compound, went straight to my room, and filled two duffels with clothes, extra boots, toiletries, weapons, and everything else I intended to keep at the ranch.
Hawkeye appeared in the doorway while I cleared the final hangers from one side of the closet, his shoulder braced against the frame and pale eyes moving from the packed bags to the empty shelf. “Taking the whole closet?”
I zipped the second duffel, lifted one bag in each hand, and walked past him without comment. His quiet laugh followed me into the hall, but he had enough sense not to stand between me and the door.
Darkness had settled by the time I turned beneath the Rutledge sign and drove up the long lane.
The security lights glowed around the barn, and two brothers on patrol lifted their chins from the west side.
The farmhouse windows shone warm against the dark, pulling something tight in my chest loose before I even parked.
I found Jacqueline asleep on the living-room couch with one socked foot hanging over the edge and a folder of rehabilitation plans open across her stomach.
A faint line of dried sage paint marked the side of one hand, dust clung to the knee of her jeans, and exhaustion had softened every feature in her face.
Between the work she’d apparently done after ignoring my order to rest and the lack of sleep the night before, she looked completely fucking spent.
I’d clearly failed to account for how hard the previous night would hit once she started moving through the day.
I took my things upstairs. It took less than ten minutes to fill the remaining space in the closet, claim another drawer, expand the collection of toiletries in the bathroom until no one walking into that room could mistake whose life had joined hers.
When I returned downstairs, Jacqueline still hadn’t moved.
I slid one arm behind her back and the other beneath her knees, lifting her from the couch as carefully as a man my size could lift anything.
She made a sleepy sound and cuddled against my chest, her fingers closing around my shirt while her face found the side of my neck.
“Brogan?” she murmured, barely awake.
“I’m home, baby.”
A soft smile touched her mouth without her opening her eyes. She relaxed completely in my arms, and I carried her upstairs toward our bed while the ranch stayed quiet around us, protected, occupied. Our home.