“It’s not a big deal—”
“It
is
a big deal, Ella. You’re not even a paralegal.”
“Yet.”
“Not yet.” He rubbed the twitch that had developed over his right eye. “Which means it’s not okay.”
Ella’s eyebrows wiggled, her voice a sing-song. “Might be interested in what I found out.”
Keihl looked down, sighing. “Let’s hear it. I’m sure half of it is illegally obtained, so it’ll be as if I never heard the words. In one ear, out the other.”
“Legally obtained? Probably. The information I found? Probably not.” She drummed a long fingernail on the desktop. “You know the Coal Creek development, right?”
“It’s only what my entire job has revolved around for the last month, Ella. No, I have
no
idea.”
“Smart-ass.”
“Learned it from you.” He waved at her. “Come on. What about it?”
“Stan, you remember him, yes?”
“I do.”
He tried to suppress a smile, as he watched her warming up to her subject. She’d make a damned good lawyer someday.
“I looked up his firm — and it’s part of a holding company.”
“So? Lots of holding companies are used in developments.”
“It’s got a registered agent too.”
Now, that
was
a little interesting.
“Okay, odd, but not unheard of. Usually that’s simply to hide identities — or at least make discovering them a little more difficult.”
“I called a friend at the state and asked him to look up the agent.”
“Yeah, you can’t do that, Ella.”
“I know, I know. Just a favor, no big.”
“Not technically illegal — but it wouldn’t look good to a judge or arbitrator. At all.” Keihl scrubbed his face with a palm. “And what did you get for this
favor
?”
He wondered if she’d benefit from a little … structure, too. If she ever held down a boyfriend for longer than a month, he might have to have a word with him.
And tell him what, genius? Not everyone is as pervtacular as you.
“The name that agent was working for? It’s not a person.”
“It wasn’t?”
Ella shook her head slowly, her eyes dancing. “It was something called the Dominion Trust.”
Whoa.
“That’s… interesting. But I’m not sure I’ve seen a point to this. Are you just trying to show off your strings pulling skills? Duly noted.”
“I’m not done.”
He held up a hand. “Sorry. Proceed.”
“Do you know anything about them? That Dominion Trust?”
“Never heard of them. Should I?”
He wasn’t sure why he was lying. He needed to talk to Tom about this. Like yesterday.
“I hadn’t either, so I tried researching them. There were two things that were especially weird. One, was the fact that there just wasn’t much on them —
anywhere
. Second, what I
was
able to find seemed to say almost the exact same thing. Public records databases, search engines, you name it — all about the same.”
“Maybe there isn’t much to find.” Keihl picked up his pen. “Sometimes a company is just a boring company. Nothing of particular note.”
“To have all the information show the
same thing
? Doesn’t that strike you as weird?”
“We need to get you a thesaurus, Ella.”
“Shut it.” She shifted in her seat. “Seriously? It’s gotta make you wonder, at least a little bit.”
“It’s possible they’ve had their listings scrubbed. Wouldn’t be the first company to do it, but it’s incredibly time-consuming, and to hire one of the outfits that does it would cost a fortune.”
Ella stood. “I don’t know about any of that, but I thought you’d want to know it — just in case.”
“You did good — even though you shouldn’t have done it.”
She smiled at him, and opened the door, smoothing down the thin fabric of a skirt so short, he’d have to speak with her later about not wearing it to the office. Before she left, she looked back at him over a shoulder.
“One last thing. Just for the hell of it, I looked up all the entities that agent currently represents. I found thirty seven represented companies. I had my friend start checking into the companies on that list, but after he told me the first five, I told him to stop.”
“Why stop your law-breaking at five, Ella?”
He already knew.
“Because all five of them were owned by the Dominion Trust.”
Chapter Seventeen
W
atching him dress was one of her very favorite pastimes, the way those slacks slid up his legs, encasing that muscular ass of his in their snug embrace. The wide stretch of those powerful shoulders as he pulled on the crisp white button-down shirt. The sound his belt made as he pulled it through the loops. The crisp, male scent of his cologne as he bent to kiss her. It made her want to jump him rather see him off on his trip.
“Do you really have to go?” She untied the stay at the top of her robe, spreading it wide, the morning air cool on her revealed cleavage.
His eyes dipped to the proffered breasts for just a moment, a quiet growl sounding deep in his throat. “You’re cruel, wifey.”
She sat down on the edge of the bed, pulling up the hem of the robe to expose the lengths of her thighs, knowing her new position afforded him an even better view of her cleavage.
“You probably should do something about that, shouldn’t you? Keep your wife in line, maybe? I wonder what you might have to do to her to get her to behave?”
“I wonder,” he rumbled, stepping within the span of her thighs, his hand pulling her chin up. “You’re just digging your hole right now. You know I have to go.”
Time to up the ante.
She pulled the next three of the ties, and spread open the bodice of the robe, the curves of her breasts blatantly exposed. “You’ve got forty minutes until you need to be there.”
His jaw clenched so hard she was sure it would break.
“There’s time… before you go, Keihl. Sir.”
She locked gazes with him, the dangerous fire she saw in his dark eyes something she hoped to stoke until he lost all control.
His hand caressed her cheek, then eased over her ear, clenching suddenly in her hair, yanking her head back. Her breath left her in a pained gasp.
“You know I don’t have time.” His other hand lifted her breast from the clutch of the robe, his big palm closing around the flesh, squeezing tightly.
“Ah, yes,” she hissed, her eyes closing. Hoping. Somehow seeing him like this, knowing he’d be gone soon, made her feel almost desperate, as if by delaying him just that much longer, somehow he wouldn’t have to leave after all. It was unlike her. He’d left on dozens of trips, she on even more. What was going on here? Was it the baby? Was it just crazy hormones? Or was this something more, something deeper? Why was she so desperate to keep up with the Game, when in the back of her mind she knew she should just set it aside, revisit it another time? After.
“I’ll miss these when I’m gone,” he rumbled, giving her breast a deep, hard squeeze sending that confusing mix of pain and pleasure straight to her sex. “I’ll miss
you
when I’m gone.”
He pulled up on her hair, making her stretch for him, and he bent over her, closing that gap, his hungry lips devouring hers, his tongue darting deep, possessively, angrily.
Yes.
She thrilled to it, knowing, feeling how much he didn’t want to leave her either. This was what was so confusing to her, this spiraling need, almost an obsession to go deeper, to push further, to see what lay beyond that next turning point. To see what might be, to learn what she might want. Kirsten didn’t want him to go, because she was already starting to think of herself as
his
, as connected to him in a way much deeper, much more profound than simple bonds of marriage. Now, it was something truly primal, instinctive. She kept coming back to this — it was a desire that fed on itself, drawing energy, velocity from all corners, from all experiences.
Even her pregnancy.
Your therapist would have a field day with this.
But did she care anymore?
As Keihl growled into her mouth, his soft lips pressing to her cheeks, to her nose, her eyes, the little sounds of delight, and of ownership, coming from deep in his chest, she knew the answer to that.
All that mattered was this connection, the forging of this ever deeper bond — and her fear that in the end, just as all seemed in her grasp, it would slip away, lost to the heartache of what might have been, of the path seen, but never taken.
Keihl dropped to a knee in front of her, his hand loosening in her hair, but not letting go. He guided her other breast from the confines of her robe, his gaze greedily drinking in the sight. He met her gaze.
“These… are mine.” His eyes narrowed a moment, and he looked up. “So I have a task for you, my beautiful wife. Something I want you to do, while I’m gone.”
“Anything,” she murmured, turning to kiss his wrist, her hands upon that solid chest, feeling the hard muscle there. The muscle she’d be bereft of for the next sixteen days.
His hand cupped a breast, gently bouncing it in his palm, the thumb stroking back and forth across her nipple, sending electric pulses down to her core each time. The sensitivity of her nipples was now at an almost unreal level, the fine line between pleasure and pain nearly indistinguishable now.
“While I’m gone, I might miss something.”
“Like what,” she asked, giving him a coy smile. She was changing every day. Perhaps the reminder of that would stay his decision, convince him to remain after all?
A fool’s hope. A hormone-addled, deeply in love, pregnant woman’s hope.
He took hold of her nipple, squeezing just enough to get her biting her own lip, the sensation dancing on that knife edge between not enough, and too much.
“These, for instance.” He twisted her nipple slowly, and her breath caught, her pussy spasming. “They’ll darken, and lengthen — among other things. And I want to see it all.”
“How do you expect to do that from 3000 miles away?”
The trip to DC had been planned for months, long before she’d gotten pregnant. She wasn’t far enough along to convince him to stay — quite. But up until today, she’d nursed the hope that perhaps — no matter how irrational — he’d change his mind, that somehow someone else could go in his stead. But it wasn’t to be.
Stop being an idiot. He’s not leaving forever, Kirsten.
“Did you hear me, girl?” He twisted her nipple again, harder, and she squeaked with the pain.
“Sorry. What did you say?”
He gave her a gently admonishing shake of his head. “You’re going to do something for me while I’m gone. And you’re going to do it every single day.”
“I am?”
He nodded, a slow smile curving his lips. “Yes, you are. Tomorrow morning, I’ll be at the hotel in Arlington, and I want to see a report from you.”
Uh oh…
“Report?”
“Yes. Each morning I want either a picture or a short video of you. Naked.”
“O—Okay.” She swallowed the lump that had suddenly formed in her throat. “What … do you want me to do?”
“Simply show me that body. I’ll leave it up to you for tomorrow — and tomorrow only. After that, I’ll have instructions for you for the next day, and each day after that.”
Holy shit…
“Instructions? For what?”
He planted a soft, lingering kiss on each of her now aching hard nipples, and stood. The bulge between his legs made her look up at him, giving him a wink.
“I really could at least take care of that for you.” She reached for his fly. “Definitely time for that.”
His hand caught her by the wrist, holding her hand away from him. She frowned at him.
“What — why not?”
“Did I say you could do that?” He gave her wrist a little squeeze. “Put your hands on your lap.”
She pulled at his grasp, but his expression cooled immediately, and she thought better of it.
“Okay, okay. I’ll do it.” She clasped her own thighs, her desire to touch him so strong that she dug her fingers into the flesh of her legs. This was something new, totally unexpected. And though it should’ve pissed her off, the hot, heavy weight of arousal she felt between her thighs told her something entirely different.
“Good girl,” he said, the words making her stomach flutter. Somehow those words held more weight, more meaning now. She felt an odd sort of …
pride,
when he said those words to her. And though the very
concept
of it was like an uppercut right in the feminism — she wanted to hear him say them again.
What in God’s name has happened to you, Kirsten? This is crazytown.
He’d made her sit there and watch him finish getting ready, heat simmering between her thighs, every ounce of her wanting to jump him, to convince him — the way only she could — that it was better to stay. Much better.