Always (Family Justice Book 1) (65 page)

Alex grinned. “Hold on to you shorts gentlemen ‘cause I have an announcement.”

Cam punched Drae in the arm and drawled, “He sounds excited. You know what happens when the Major gets excited.”

“My cock is available for blowing anytime you’re ready,” Alex sneered with a laugh.

“This announcement somehow concerns Jensen, right?”

“Correct, Drae.” He looked at them and considered what he was about to say. It was going to change everyone’s life.

“Not gonna bullshit you two or make up some wild fucking story. Just going to come right out and tell you.”

He grabbed another folder from the stack and lifted the flap, handing each of them a blueprint for a grand new vision for the agency compound.

“When I first started kicking this around, I was thinking out loud and mentioned to Meghan that we’d have to apply for a loan on agency collateral. We could probably join our personal assets and do this without help, but that was counter-intuitive to why we’d expand in the first place. So, she asked how much the agency would need to see the vision through. I gave her an off the top of my head figure and she simply contacted her financial guy and had him transfer the funds into an escrow account.”

“I know you’re not kidding, but are you fucking kidding?” Drae stammered.

“Not even a little bit,” he replied solemnly.

“Alex,” Cam exclaimed as he studied the paperwork. “Holy shit. A pool and a parking lot? Conference center? Business offices. You’re pulling out all the stops.”

“Well,” he explained. “This
is
the way we saw it, right? I even spoke to an environmental engineer about the impact of the expansion. There’ll be no personal vehicles beyond the lot with people moving around the compound by cart, Segway, bikes. And the pool? Fuck. That’s all about separating Justice from Family Justice. No more agency barbecues at the Villa. Now that there are kids in the mix, we have to ensure that our family lives remain private.”

“Wow. Good thinking on your part.” He could see Drae analyzing every detail. “So where does Jensen come into all this?”

“Fuck,” Alex said. “That’s practically a no-brainer.” He grabbed some more papers from another folder and shoved them at his brothers. “Take a look at those numbers. We could triple the size of the canine program, and it still wouldn’t meet demand. Plus, that shit is bringing in a small fortune.”

Cam whistled when he got a good look at the printout. “I had no idea the pups were so lucrative.”

Alex sat back in his chair. “Brody’s big reveal about his kid made me start thinking. He brought it up now ‘cause he’s ready to make some changes. Cam,” he said with a brief nod in his direction, “I know you’ve been lobbying him hard to stick around full-time.”

“Yeah. Dylan likes him, what can I say?”

“Good a reason as any,” he assured Cam. “I figured if we gave him the opportunity, he could easily develop of top-notch canine program. Making him a junior is the right thing to do. Plus, he’s kind of on the fence about it for obvious reasons, but he also has mad sniper skills in stealth, CAMMO, infiltration, and shit like that. He could be our go-to guy for that kind of thing. The fucking FBI came out of the woodwork and tried to recruit his ass for their agent training so we need to step up with a better offer.”

“Well, fuck it,” Drae declared. “I’m in. It’s a damn good call.”

Cam nodded his agreement. “What the hell,” he quipped. “Why the fuck not?”

“There’s something else,” Alex muttered. He really didn’t know how to say this and hoped it didn’t come out wrong. Last thing he wanted to do was piss anyone off or hurt their feelings.

“Oh fuck,” Drae grumbled.

“It’s past time for you two to come out of the field. We’re not the young guns anymore, guys. And you both have other responsibilities that come first.”

Alex blurted all that out in a muttered rush. It felt awkward telling his right hands that, in a nutshell, they were getting too old for this shit. But he knew it was the right thing to do. The time had come.

Drae and Cameron were absolutely silent. Like, paralyzed, immobile, slack-jawed silent.

Alex squirmed even if it was just in his mind. He was way too controlled for that, but their stunned silence unnerved him.

“Holy fucking shit!” Drae boomed as he shot to his feet. For a split second, Alex thought he was going to come over the desk at him.

Right then—the whirlwind of emotions swirling loudly in the room got way intense.

Then Cam started laughing. A deep, rumbling laugh that got his attention. Cam stood slowly and moved next to Drae—thumping him firmly on the shoulder blade.

“Dude,” he chuckled. “Here we were trying to handle the Major with kid gloves while this guy just double cocked us without blinking an eye.”

Drae started laughing, too.

What the fuck?

“Man,” Drae said as he tried but failed to keep a straight face, “we’ve been tiptoeing around here trying to find a way to bring this up. That last bit of bullshit with Majid? Come on.
So
totally unnecessary. The closest we should have come to that shit,” he bit out in that short, clipped tight-assed way he had, “was from a five-star hotel room where we directed a secure team to do the grunt work.”

It took a minute for Alex’s brain to catch up with what he was hearing. They
wanted
to stand down? For real? Aw, fuck. This was all happening.

Cam exhaled impatiently and crossed his arms over his chest. He looked pissed off and was nodding his head to what Drae was saying. “About the time my face was getting smashed by an iPhone, I remember thinking—
this is fucked up
. Frankly, bro—kicking those fucker’s asses? Annoyed the hell out of me. I don’t want to be doing that shit anymore. Got a wife and a kid, man. And nothing left to prove.”

The rest of the executive meeting took less than five minutes. This was it. They were done with the boots on the ground shit. All of them. From here on out, they turned their attention to expanding the agency, bringing on new talent, and coordinating without being the fool to lead the battle charge when the time came.

CALDER FIGURED THAT AT HIS age it was a good thing he’d figured out the fine difference between chasing pleasure and engaging in real intimacy because it gave legs to what was going on between him and Stephanie.

Now that Tori was getting around more and the St. John household was starting to establish a rhythm, his lady preferred spending time with him at the casita rather than
entertaining him
, as she so quaintly put it, in her suite.

She was giving Drae and Tori the widest berth possible so they had all the space and time they needed be husband and wife and not just new mommy and daddy. He had to admit, Stephanie had uncanny senses when it came to reading other people’s moods and understanding their needs.

Not that he was complaining, because he was certainly benefitting from the arrangement. Sometimes they had dinner together and sometimes they didn’t. Her priority was Tori and Drae—if they wanted family dinner—she made sure it happened. If they wanted alone time—they got that, too.

But after dinner, that was when he was more or less assured that the beautiful and elegant Stephanie Bennett was all his.

There were times when he’d court her with his best gentlemanly behavior with a little flirtation and teasing until he got her so flustered she’d blush and giggle. Other times, he flat-out seduced her. She always seemed shocked that he focused so much effort on her pleasure. Made him grateful that no man before him had managed to get close to her. She was
unique.

They were in bed, engaging in the sort of mind-blowing eroticism that always seemed to break out when they were alone.

Calder enjoyed getting off just as much as the next guy, but when it came to this woman, what he’d come to need as much as his body wanted an orgasm, was to see her pleasure. He loved watching her come. Craved the little noises she made. Like the ones she was making right now as he slowly stroked in and out.

The lady was like sexual crack. He was addicted more and more every day. After all, there was nothing like being treated to a sensual ballet while she was under him, her moans and writhing body wiping out his brain so completely it was a wonder he could function afterward.

There was something about the way her agile legs hitched around his waist, her small feet digging into his backside, as he rode her that satiated a deep need.

Taking her to the edge, he wrapped them tightly in a cocoon of desire, until she began to drift too high, then he’d cleverly distract her by licking her tits or kissing her deeply until the storm calmed. Then he set about building her pleasure all over again, stroke by stroke.

Rubbing the plumped head of his cock on the hot wet velvet walls of her sex made Calder moan and shake. The pleasure receptors fired up and sent his senses reeling. She was too beautiful for words and made love to him with such sensual abandon. How was it always like this? Why was it never enough? Almost as soon as one fuck ended he was ready for the next.

When he was inside her, she was soft, wet, hot, and steamy. As her orgasm built, all that softness tightened until her sexy muscles took control. When her pussy clenched, he felt it along the length of his shaft. The rippling convulsions stole his sanity.

“I want to be the reason you come, Duchess,” he groaned into her ear.

Stephanie’s hands were everywhere on his body. She stroked his back, dug her nails into his shoulders, scored his flesh, and grabbed his ass.

He’d held her on the tantalizing brink of an orgasm for long enough. She was so responsive to him and came so easily with the slightest touch that he’d been showing her a better way, teaching her to control her body so that the intensity of her climax had a chance to build.

The succulent sounds her body made when he pumped, made him grit his teeth and clench his jaw. There was no mistaking the depth of her arousal. The little sounds she made invaded his senses. Feeling her lusty wetness where they were joined turned him inside out. The wetter and messier, the better.

Her hands moved into his hair and gripped tight. Lifting her face to his, she silently begged for his mouth, which he gladly surrendered in an incendiary kiss that practically set the bed on fire.

“Calder,” she groaned softly.

His answering moan was all he had at the moment.

“Please,” she whimpered.

He looked into her eyes. What did she need? He’d give her anything.
Anything.

She was so tight around his cock—the muscles squeezing him nearly cut off his oxygen supply.

“Come with me,” she cried on a choked gasp. That was all he needed to hear.

Spreading her open further by angling his knees wider, he down shifted to fuck gear and let go.

Calder was good at reading her, sensing when she needed him hard and fast. Or when slow and steady would win the race. But today he sensed a fire burning deep inside her that wanted him to feed it before finally bringing them home.

Flexing his hips just once, he pounded her with a powerful thrust, paused a few beats, then drew back and repeated the deep lunge.

He watched her face. With each heavy push into her creamy center, she groaned. The fingers clutching his head, tangled in his hair. Her small feet pushed on his ass encouraging his thrusts.

By the time his balls tightened and drew up, he was nearly delirious with pleasure.

And then she shattered. He couldn’t look away. It was a complete loss of control.

With her thighs crushing his hips in a determined grip, her body arched, jerked, and quivered as a powerful orgasm detonated in her core. The head of his cock was strangled by her ferocious completion. He pinched a nipple, hard—heard her gasp of surprise as her pussy gushed and then he lost it.

Thrusting violently with savage determination, Calder answered his body’s demand for full possession of the woman writhing beneath him. They panted and moaned, the sounds they made becoming a low, feral sounding grunt that didn’t end.

The sensation of his cock going off when he was buried deep his flesh jerking and throbbing as he filled her with his come swept him away to a place he’d never been—where feeling her quaking body in his arms and the way she melted for him gave Calder his first real glimpse at happiness and contentment.