Passion's Dream (The Doms of Passion Lake Book 1) (24 page)

Sucking her lower lip between her teeth, she bit down hard, her cheeks flaming with embarrassment, her heart hammering so loudly she barely heard his next words.  “You are mine, Leah, every part of you.  And I like to look at what’s mine.  I like to look at you, touch you.  Smell you.  Taste you.”

A tiny whimper was the only indication she gave of having heard him.  He hunkered down next to her and reached up to turn her face toward him.  She swallowed hard, fighting not to lean into the comforting warmth of his touch.  Fighting not to arch forward and let him claim her mouth with his. 

“Do you trust me, Leah?”

“Yes, Sir.”  The honorific slipped out automatically, a development Clay noted with satisfaction.

“Do you trust Richard Gordon?”

She snorted.  “About as far as I can throw him.”

“And yet you’re still allowing him to define how you feel about yourself.  He taught you to hate your body.  To be ashamed of how you look.  I
love
your body.  I
love
the way you look.  Every inch of you is beautiful and precious, and sexy as hell.  I intend to celebrate the way you look and I want you to celebrate it, too.  You allowed your asshole of an ex to destroy your self-esteem.  For the past six years you’ve hidden that gorgeous body beneath bulky, unflattering clothes.  That stops now.  I will put you in clothes that flatter your body.  And I will place you in situations where you are on display for me because I want you to be completely aware of just how goddamn sexy you are.”

“It’s embarrassing,” she managed to whisper.

“Only because you allow it to be.  Because you have been conditioned to believe that it’s so.”  He paused, letting his words sink in.  “Do you think I would ever harm or humiliate you?”

Her eyes flew to his, a stricken look on her face.  “No, no, Clay.  I know you would never do that!”

“A D/s relationship is based on trust, Leah.  A trust I realize that I have not yet earned.  I will not often feel it necessary to explain to you why I do things.  Or why I ask
you
to do things.  But when that trust comes, you will know instinctively that I would never do anything to embarrass you or expose you in front of others.  Look at the windows, baby.  They are dark enough so no one can see in, not even passing truckers.”

She looked around at the heavily tinted windows and felt the tightness in her chest begin to ease somewhat.

“This is strictly for us, baby, you and me, nobody else.  I love your pussy. Especially now that I can actually
see
your pussy.  It’s one of my favorite parts of you.  I will never get tired of looking at it, all pink and wet and shining and beautiful.  And all mine.”

Overcome with emotion, she fought the tears stinging her eyes.  No man had ever told her she was beautiful before.  Or that she was valued.  Or sexy.  Like being sexy was a natural, normal thing and not something to be ashamed of.  Certainly Richard hadn’t valued her or thought she was beautiful. 
Clay is right.  For the past six years Richard’s voice in my head has been shaping the way I feel about myself.
 
Well, no more.
  She squared her shoulders and firmed her chin. 
Clay thinks I’m beautiful.  I’ll go with that.

“I love you, Leah,” Clay said tenderly.  “You are beautiful to me, the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known.  And I intend to devote the rest of my life to showing you exactly how beautiful you are.  Starting right here, right now.”  He leaned in, his eyes never leaving hers, and claimed her mouth in a slow, lingering kiss that melted everything south of her waist into a pool of fire.

She moaned, feeling oddly abandoned as he pulled away and stood up.  His massive hard-on was mere inches in front of her and she longed to bury her face against its warmth and inhale his musky, masculine scent.  As if he’d read her mind, Clay shaped his hand around the back of her head and pulled her into his groin, groaning as she nuzzled against his painfully restricted penis, fitting her mouth over him.  He was standing in the open doorway of the car, head back, eyes closed in bliss, where any of the hands could see him and know what she was doing to him.

But she no longer cared.  At this point she didn’t care if the entire world could see what she was doing to him.  She wanted this man in her mouth more than she’d ever wanted anything in her life.  The breath she blew through the fabric heated his skin, making him throb and jerk.

“
Christ
, baby, that feels so fucking good!”  His voice was a harsh rasp.  “God, I can’t get enough of you!  I want you every minute of every day.  I can’t wait to get you into my Play Room and get my collar on you.”

Leah gulped. 
Holy crap!  Play Room?  Collar?
  The thought should have terrified her. Instead it filled her with an arousal so fierce, she thought she would come right then and there.

“But that will come later.  I promise.  Right now we have other things to do.”  Clay released her and closed her door, then walked around to the driver’s side and folded himself into his seat.  He backed out of the parking space and pulled away with a low growl of the BMW’s powerful engine.

* * * *

Clay and Leah were married in the two-hundred-and-fifty-year-old Marshall County Court House inside the elegant, mahogany-paneled chambers of Judge Richard P. Walters.  The judge was an elderly, but still vigorous man with a shock of white hair that looked as if it had been combed with a vacuum cleaner hose.  His thick white eyebrows were just as unruly.

Jesse Colter and his wife Sarah, who was the Marshall County attorney, stood for them as witnesses.  Jesse was even more devastating in full daylight than he’d been last evening at the airfield.

Sarah was beautiful and gracious and welcomed Leah with a hug and an air kiss on each cheek.  “I’d kiss you for real,” she said with a tinkly little laugh, “but I don’t want to get lipstick all over you.”  She turned to Clay.  “Adam sends his congratulations, Clay.  He is so sorry he can’t be here for this.”

“That’s okay.  I think Leah wants a real wedding, so he can come to the official ceremony whenever she decides on a date.”

Leah just stared up at him, surprise warring with love and sheer, unadulterated joy.  “Really?”

He smiled down at her and gave a nonchalant shrug of one shoulder.  “You wanted hoopla,” he said.  “You got hoopla.”

‘Oh, thank you, thank you,
thank
you!”  She jumped up and threw her arms around his neck, hanging on him and peppering his face with kisses until he finally put a stop to that by claiming her mouth in a kiss that was at once sweet and hot.  So hot, in fact, that Leah swore the temperature in the room increased by at least ten degrees.  His strong arms around her waist holding her around eight inches up off the floor, he twirled her around in a delirium of happiness.  Sarah and the judge’s secretary, Hannah, were both taking snapshots of the embrace with their cell phones.

After the brief ceremony, Hannah left the room briefly, then re-entered carrying a silver tea tray, which she set down on an antique mahogany sideboard.  The tray held a sterling silver coffee pot, fine china cups and saucers and an elegant little cake decorated with white buttercream flowers, swags and festoons.  Sarah picked up the silver cake server and handed it to Leah.  “Would you and Clay like to cut your wedding cake?”

“How did you manage this?” Leah asked in amazement, taking the knife, “when we just walked in here twenty minutes ago?”

Sarah laughed.  “Cakes ‘R’ Us is just across the street.  Our cousin Lisa owns it.  Wait till you taste it.  It’s pure magic.”  She stepped aside to let Clay move in to stand next to Leah.  He put his hand over hers and she lifted her face for his kiss.  Once again the cell phones came out to snap photos.  Sarah moved back to stand in front of Jesse, who put his arms around her from behind and kissed the top of her head.  They watched as Clay and Leah made the first cut in the beautifully decorated cake, after which Clay relinquished the knife and let Leah continue cutting it into generous portions.  She placed the slices onto dessert plates and handed them to Hannah, who served them to each of the guests.  Clay fed the first bite to his new bride, whose eyes closed in bliss as the delicate confection practically melted on her tongue.

“Oh, my God, Sarah, you were right.  It
is
magic!  We have a Cakes ‘R’ Us bakery, too.  The guys at the ranch were raving over someone named Laura’s cakes.”

“Laura Calvert.  Lisa’s younger sister.  This is probably her recipe.”

“You should try their donuts,” Jesse said around a mouthful of cake.  “If I didn’t bring my staff a coupla dozen every mornin’, they’d lock me up in my own jail.”  He patted his rock hard abs, displayed to perfection by the black T-shirt he wore that said Marshall’s Creek Police Department in gold embroidery above his left pec.  “By all rights, I should weight six hundred pounds.”

“Must be all that exercise you get flogging your slaves,” Sarah smirked.

Jesse smirked back.  “And that smart mouth of yours just earned you another five.  On top of the ten you earned earlier this mornin’.”

Holy crap!  Five what? Ten what? 
Leah watched as Sarah turned her head away from Jesse, pressing her lips between her teeth.  At first she thought the other woman was on the verge of tears.  But the twinkle in her eye and her wink told Leah she was wasn’t trying to keep from
crying! 
She was trying to keep from
laughing
.

“Well.”  Clay set his saucer back on the silver tray, with a rattle of the cup.  “I want to thank you, Your Honor, for agreeing to marry us on such short notice.  And you, Jesse and Sarah, for agreeing to stand up for us.  And thanks especially for the cake, Sarah.  That was a very thoughtful gesture.  But we need to get to the hospital so Leah can see her uncle.”

“Well, I can definitely report that he had an uneventful night,” Jesse said.  “My deputy just called in.  Congratulations, you two.  Leah, I know my friend, Raven, and I think it’s safe to say he has found his heart in you.  We hope you’ll be very happy here.  If you’re even half as happy as Sarah, Adam and I are, you’ll be delirious.”

“Thank you,” she said.  Clay shook all the men’s hands, Leah hugged them all, even Judge Walters, who seemed a bit nonplussed at first, but who succumbed to the gesture and returned the embrace with enthusiasm.  They all parted, promising to get together soon.

Since the hospital was only three blocks away, they chose to walk.  They entered the lobby and approached the information desk.  “Good morning,” he said to the woman seated at the computer.  “I would like Everett Burke’s room number, please.”  She consulted her screen and looked up, puzzled.  “I’m terribly sorry, sir, we don’t seem to have a patient by that name.  Are you certain he’s in
this
hospital?”

Leah’s heart flew to her throat and she was about to order the woman to look again, when Clay thanked the woman and grabbed Leah’s arm, walking her briskly toward the bank of elevators against the left wall.  “What did she mean, he’s not here?”  She struggled to keep her voice from turning shrill.  “Then where is he?”

“He’s here,” Clay whispered.  “She was told to say that, in case anyone shows up looking for him.”  He put his arm around her shoulders.  “Turn around without being obvious about it and tell me what she’s doing.  Is she talking on the phone?”

Leah bent forward, pretending to brush down her skirt, and stole a quick glance over her shoulder, back at the large desk.  “Yes.  And she’s looking right at us.”

“Good.  She’s describing us to the hospital administrator, who’s probably giving her the all clear.”  The elevator pinged and they stepped inside.  He pressed the button for the third floor.  “Your uncle’s in room three-fifty-one.”

Geez! 
This was like some super-covert, black ops, espionage mission
.
  Of course, if this really
were
a super-covert, black ops, espionage mission, she couldn’t have asked for a more capable group of men to conduct it.

They stepped off the elevator and she felt Clay stiffen beside her.  “What?”

“There’s no guard by the door.”  He strode over to the nurse’s station and flashed what appeared to be a badge in front of a plump, older woman’s face.  “Where is Mr. Burke?” he demanded.  “Room three-fifty-one.”

Flustered by his urgency, the gray-haired nurse fumbled through the chart rack, finally locating Everett Burke’s chart and flipping the metal cover.  “Oh, he’s been taken to x-ray.  His doctor and his bodyguard went with him.  They should be back within the hour.  You can wait for him in his room,” she offered, with a gracious gesture of her hand.

“Have any strangers been asking about him?”

“No sir.  It’s been very quiet.  Just me and Kendra and a doctor checking on a patient in another room.”

“Good.  Where is X-ray?”

“It’s in the basement.  Just follow the red line in the floor.”

Clay took both of Leah’s hands and turned her to face him.  “Okay, sugar, you wait in his room.  I’m going to go down to X-ray and check with Sam and the deputy.  You’ll be perfectly safe,” he assured her when she drew in a breath to speak.  “At least there’ll be a chair in there and you can sit down.  Go.  I’ll be back shortly.”