Chapter 28 - Trifecta
"So Christian," I begin quickly before he can force feed me another strawberry "what's your best childhood memory?" With that, he smirks and shoves another half of a strawberry into my mouth.
He laughs and oh my god is that a sexy laugh – velvety smooth. "When Elliot was fifteen, he brought some bimbo from school into my parent's boathouse. I guess you could say, once he discovered something, in this instance that his penis was happier inside a girl than in his own hand, he embraced the attitude of use it or lose it. So he takes his latest special friend to the boathouse with half of a box of condoms in one hand. He'll never be a spy because he doesn't have a stealth-mode. I saw them, so naturally, I sent Mia up there, saying Elliot was hiding from her. We were protective of Mia, so I knew he would do anything to protect her from the site of himself in action. There was nothing funnier than watching Elliot trying to sneak out the boathouse window while trying to get his pants up from around his ankles. The splash into the water was epic. The best part though, was it was caught on my parents security system, so Elliot, his poorly timed erection, and him dropping like a Soyuz capsule into the water guaranteed him being grounded for a month. Good times."
Just when I think Christian can't get any sexier I get to see this relaxed, mischievous, carefree side of him. All I can do is gaze up at him as I struggled to breathe.
"And your favorite childhood memory Ana?" he asks, but all I can do is gaze at him. He repeats his question for me, not once, but twice before grinning from ear-to-ear. "Miss Steele, where oh where did your naughty mind venture? Certainly not to my brothers erection."
I shake my head negatively, blush and giggle, causing his grin to grow even more. "God you're all kind of hot," I mumble before putting my hand over my mouth because I meant to think it, not say it. He just stares down at me with a mischievous grin on his face and waits. I have no doubt in my mind that he knows if he says nothing, I'll be stumbling over my words to try to explain my latest bout of subconscious, verbal purging. I do my best to wait as I continue leaning against him with his arms around me. Is it getting hot in here?
It takes all of thirty seconds before I crack and start stammering away. "It's just… well, I don't … you looked so … well… carefree and well… young … oh hell, and just glorious." I can't help it; I cover my now crimson face with my hands. What does he do? He pulls me onto his lap, straddling him, and gently makes me look into those grey eyes that have consumed my thoughts since the moment I fell into his office. I can't help but bury my flushed face in his muscular chest. What a mistake, no one should smell this phenomenal. Just breathing him in makes my heart race as my mind fills with naughty thoughts.
"Do you feel this connection between us?" he softly asks. All I can do is nod against his chest. "The minute we shook hands in my office I felt it. I know you did too. I've never felt drawn to anyone like this and had those feelings validated by an almost magnetic connection."
Gently, he adjusts my position so my gaze is once again locked with his sincere grey eyes. It's difficult to breathe just being this close to him. As he softly runs his fingertip down the side of my neck and shoulder my body tingles. I can't help but close my eyes and just allow the sensation to slowly consume me. It's heavenly. The irony isn't lost on me that I'm ceding control to him at this very moment, but it just feels so good.
Her skin is so soft and smooth. I can't resist lightly touching her and feeling her body respond. Her breathing becomes shallower. Her eyes slowly close as her head reflexively tilts allowing me better access to her supple neck. The way her entire body quivers when she feels my breath as I move to whisper in her ear. "Oh Anastasia, I could stay with you like this forever," I whisper in her ear causing her to let out a soft, feminine gasp. It's followed by an equally soft moan when I gently nibble on her earlobe. The air is tingling around us and it takes my breath away. Being this close to her felt like a natural high.
This is an entirely new experience for me. With my subs it was just get in, get off, get out, and ignore. There was no tingle, attachment, or profound emotional desire just to be in the same room with them like I feel with Ana. I now completely understand it was just detached sex with a bit of anger and self-loathing released in the process. I have no words to describe this connection to Anastasia. Flynn explained how he saw there was something more between us when he visited Anastasia in the hospital and I barged in on their session. He called it more, before laughing at me as he explained he was trying to avoid scaring the pants off me by using the word love. How did he put it? When you find the right person, you just know it. It's why he moved from rainy Great Britain to rainy Seattle. He'd follow Rhian to the end of the earth to be with her and to a certain extent, he has.
Having now spent more time with Anastasia, I knew I would do the same with her. She was sweet, smart, compassionate, driven, and most of all, human. I couldn't help but chuckle softly in her ear, breaking the intimate moment.
"What?" she barely whispered as I removed my lips from her neck and brought my forehead against hers and smiled. Her confused blue eyes get me every time; whether it's because she's happy, sad, befuddled, angry, or even disappointed with me. I could get lost in them. Now all I see in them is desire and it's my turn to gasp.
"Is it wrong that I'm not sorry I disappointed you the day I showed you my playroom?" She looks at me with confused, almost pleading blue eyes. "Don't get me wrong, part of me wishes I didn't show you that room, but if I hadn't we wouldn't be here. I wouldn't have had my ah-ha moment and started to right myself. The only thing I regret from that night is your accident. The person I was back then wouldn't have been able to talk to you about my past or even empathize with you. Hell, I was an asshole back then. I wouldn't have taken the time to listen to you tell me about yourself."
She laughs sweetly. "I stumbled into your office and the rollercoaster ride began. You were fascinating, complicated, and underneath that arrogant exterior I saw more. I was disappointed when you showed me the room. Hell, I was devastated. I questioned my judgment, my self-worth, and I couldn't get past the fact that I must have been sending out some silent vibe that I'm only good to be beaten." She sighed sadly before running her fingers through my hair. "Disappointment sucks, as Kate would say, but the reality is, as far as disappointments go, it was the best disappointment ever. I know it sounds odd, right?"
I nod even though I know I'm looking at her as if she's delusional. When she reaches up and gently cups my face in her soft hands and brings my gaze to hers.
"Ever since I was little, Ray told me that disappointments and trials in life were like blocks. Sometimes you build things and the disappointments and trials knock them down, but each time you rebuild you need to make sure they are stronger with a firmer foundation. Little by little, he'd say, you build a mighty strong house. I finally really get it now because it applies perfectly to this situation."
"He's a smart guy. Did I ever tell you about my first encounter with him?" She replies negatively and I continue. "I remember standing there at the hospital with Taylor by my side waiting to hear word about your condition. All I knew is you had described him as taciturn, so I felt comfortable in meeting him. He wandered down the hallway toward us and immediately tore both Taylor and I new assholes. He didn't care about my net worth or position. All he cared about was you. In my entire adult life, no one has ever talked to me that way. It was shocking, unsettling, yet I knew he was right and he didn't even know the whole story; though he knew there was more to it."
Watching Ana giggle at my words I couldn't help but wonder more about her upbringing with taciturn Ray Steele.
"Ray, like you, has protective mode. He's like a human lie detector. You can't hide anything from him when it comes to emotions. After Texas, he knew there was more but I wasn't talking about it. I was too busy trying to bury it in the deepest, darkest recesses of my mind. I never told him everything, yet I had little doubt that he knew. He was always protective of me growing up, but after Texas he went out of his way to make me feel safe, loved, emotionally secure, nurtured, and self-sufficient. He had doubts about you in the beginning, but he actually really likes and respects you now. You've won him over."
"So if we drag him out fly fishing in Aspen there's no danger I won't be found a decade from now in a shallow grave in the woods?" I taunt.
"He's fond of wood chippers and using guys like you for chum," she smirked.
Naturally my mind immediately went to husband number three and Ray's words at Escala – mischief managed. I couldn't help but wonder that day if it wasn't Stephen Morton's fate to become fish bait, which conflicted with Ray's words to the state trooper that Stephen Morton was still living in Texas. I had Taylor look into the fate of Morton and what he found amused me. It seemed that a year after Ana returned to Montesano, Morton was arrested on child pornography charges and drug distribution charges, both of which Morton denied of course, but the evidence against him was overwhelming. The material was on a computer purchased by Morton from Best Buy for cash. There's even security video of him buying it and leaving the store carrying it. The illicit material was downloaded over the course of months using his IP address. On top of that the drugs found in his house included all the makings of a meth lab, vats of chemicals, more crystal meth than had been seized in the state of Texas, along with ten pounds of marijuana in small, easily distributable bags. It was an airtight case against him. Morton was serving fifty years without the possibility of parole as the guest of the great State of Texas. This is what Ray must have meant in terms of mischief managed.
"Remind me never to piss Ray off."
"I think you are safe as dad has already deemed you as family in his own way. It didn't hurt that both Rock and a Hard Place vouched repeatedly for you," she counters running her fingers through my hair.
"Rock and a hard place?" I ask.
Again she giggles. I swear that is just one of the many arousing sounds she makes. "Taylor is Rock and Sawyer is Hard Place because they are your security so he envisions you standing between them. Taylor is hard headed, so Rock; and Luke, well, he's just stuck in a hard place, so it fits. I mean his job has him stuck between us in an awkward way. His situation with Mac is another awkward mess. According to Lacey awkward tends to find him. Generally, he tends to put on his asshole attitude, and then laugh about it later. Every time I talk to her she shares yet another story from her little brother's asshole or awkward ways when backed into a corner."
"Care to site an example?" I ask. I've seen asshole Sawyer in our interaction when he quit and headed toward the elevator. It was like the generally laid back CPO flipped a switch in his mind and became intimidating as all fuck. He would make an excellent dominant. He mastered that situation and once it was resolved I was fortunate enough to get to know a bit more of the real men both Taylor and Sawyer were when they weren't on duty. I have to admit, I enjoyed those few hours of normalcy and being just one of the guys. It's not something I'd really experienced before. Before my blue period, I never would have allowed that to happen. Was I an asshole before Ana or what?
She asks me if I've heard about Luke's second CPO assignment with an heiress. I merely nod. I always wanted more details. All I knew was she repeatedly sexually harassed him, and then paid him off big time when he quit; hence his owning a two point five million dollar townhouse in Seattle and his being able to financially retire when he was in his early thirties.
"The nameless female heiress for whom he was a CPO was a few years older than him. Not many, but according to Lacey, she was unattractive, socially awkward, chunky, and obsessed with Luke. She hired him for his looks, didn't have him sign an NDA, and figured with her wealth she would win him over. That's not Luke's style at all. He worked for her for six months, hired two female CPOs to help out, tightened her security because she came from money and the only reason she hired Luke was because he was hot and working as a CPO for someone she hated and hated her back, but Luke had treated her with the utmost respect even though his then employer didn't. He put up with her flirting and butt pinching for six months before it all went wrong. He stayed at the job because her father asked him to do so, as there had been a kidnaping attempt on her sister just a month before where the woman was severely injured.
"According to Lacey, Luke was just plain miserable, but he couldn't just walk without having a suitable replacement lined up. Her father was well aware of his daughter's unhealthy obsession with Luke and they were working together to find a new security head for her. When the threats continued, the father sent private jets for each of their children to take them to their Hawaiian estate, which was deemed highly secure. Once she was safely delivered to Maui, Luke was planning on walking away from the job, so he relaxed on the private plane ride between Seattle and the islands. He vaguely remembers being naked, still on the plane while she was trying to put a condom on him, but unable to really move." Ana was blushing profusely now.
"She'd drugged his coffee so she could have her way with him. She was completely nuts. The dose she gave him was so high enough to knock out half an NFL team so he was kept in the hospital for nearly a week. The doctors said he was lucky to be alive. Her father paved it all over with money. Luke walked away with the townhouse he lives in and the one next to him, which he rents out, twenty million dollars, and a permanent restraining order. He gets this horrified look on his face whenever the situation is mentioned and I don't blame him. He was lucky, given the threat situation, that her father had arranged for the local police to meet her plane and escort her to the estate. They were the ones that found them. She even admitted to drugging him. He just wanted to quit his job with a decent reference but her father put papers in front of him while was still in the hospital half-dazed and basically forced him to sign them. It was days later before he realized what he'd signed. Given his medical condition, his family knew what had happened to him and told the wacko's father to shove his NDA up his butt."
"I can see what you mean that awkward seems to follow him. It clearly was a difficult position to be in, so I get the hard place reference. It also explains why Sawyer always makes and serves his own coffee."
"So what are our plans for the remainder of the day?" she asks gazing up at me with her arms wrapped around my neck.
"Personally, I wouldn't mind staying just like this all day long," I inform her as I caress her cheek causing her to tremble. She nods in agreement, never taking her eyes from mine. "For the first time in my life, my heart, body, and mind are in agreement. This to me is pure bliss. The perfect trifecta."
There was no hiding evidence of my arousal, so I pulled her closer to me as our lips met. I never kissed my subs. The action is too intimate. Now I'm glad that I didn't. Anastasia's lips were hesitant at first, but when I felt her relax against me and give in to the chemistry between us my hands began to move of their own accord down her back and over her perfect backside. I'd been dreaming about this for months and here she was in my arms – mine. Every time she ran her fingers through my hair, I couldn't help but stop kissing her long enough to let out a groan, but returning to plunder her mouth immediately.
When her arms went under mine and she reached up around my shoulders pulling me even closer to her, I lost a bit of my normally steadfast control. I once again ran my hands over her backside, but this time I pulled her even closer and she gasped as there was no way she could miss my arousal as it rubbed against her most intimate of areas. Her soft moan right near my ear encouraged me even further as I wrapped my arms around her and held her tightly against my body. I felt every one of her curves and I know she felt every inch of me.
We gave into the chemistry, kissing passionately as the friction of our bodies caused her to moan once again. It was the softest, sexiest sound ever. When I caressed her face and gazed into her eyes, I could see she was as lost in the moment as I was. She gave me a small smile before pulling my head toward hers and our passionate kissing resumed with even more fervor.
I couldn't get her close enough to me. I just wanted to feel more of her against me, so I held her as tightly as I could against me and felt the air leave her lungs as she stiffened, then gasped in pain. I immediately let her go.
"I'm sorry Ana," I stammered. "I didn't mean to push you this far."
She laughed as she rubbed her left lower back. "You've done nothing wrong," she informed me before getting to her feet, turning her back toward me and lifting her shirt to reveal her bruised back. I'd completely forgotten the attack just a few days before that left her with injured ribs and significant bruising. She was grinning now. "You just squeezed me a bit hard. That's all. I would do it all over again because it was amazing and you are so worth it."