Cantrips: Volume #1: Minor Magics Crafted to Amuse and Entertain, Page 3

  Sarah dropped the tough routine, apparently understanding she wasn’t dealing with the normal Violet, and took her other hand, cupping her face. “Sweetie, they don’t know anything yet. He’s going to be fine. You know him. The Oak, remember? That’s what they call him. The casualties are likely the dealers. You know the fucking media. If it was a cop they’d be screaming it on every station right now. They’re just drawing out the suspense to up the ratings. If I had my way, I’d shoot every one of those camera-toting idiots. Just settle down, now. You’re upsetting the daisy-girl. She’s wondering why her mommy is freaking out.”

  “You’re right, I know. God, I feel like such an idiot.” Even as her eyes couldn’t stop leaking and she felt fury take her. Where the hell was he? Why didn’t he call? She was pregnant, for Chrissakes. Why hadn’t she told him he had to do desk duty at the same time she did?

  Because she wasn’t a weak-willed candy-ass, and what they did for a living helped people, it made a difference. And he was okay, dammit. She accepted nothing less.

  “Okay.” She nodded, squeezed their hands. “I want to get up, let me get up.”

  “Easy now,” Lauren counseled, but they helped her to a sitting position. Marguerite stroked her back in reassurance. Violet turned her attention to her. “I think you and I were going to go outside and talk.”

  “Why don’t you all do that right here? The rest of us will go in the kitchen and get the coffee ready. You can come get us when you’re done.” Sarah squeezed her shoulder and rose, glancing at Lauren for confirmation. The pediatrician nodded.

  “Marguerite, just call out if anything seems amiss. You too.” Sarah glanced at Violet. “Don’t worry about overreacting, okay?”

  “Okay.” Violet didn’t know if she was talking about any symptoms she might experience in the next few moments, or the television program, which Chloe had shut off, but either way, it helped. She drew some steady breaths, and then realized she was still holding Marguerite’s hand. “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  Rather than letting her draw away, Marguerite simply tightened her grip, reinforcing the affection before letting her go. “It’s okay.”

  She noticed Marguerite didn’t reassure her that Mac was fine, probably because Marguerite understood better than most that, all too often, things didn’t turn out fine at all. However, the somber, steady gaze didn’t borrow trouble either. Marguerite’s expression was neutral, the tranquil surface of a slow moving stream, and Violet drew strength from that pale blue gaze. Many people made the mistake of thinking Marguerite was cold, but no one who’d won the rare chance to get close to her did.

  “What did you need to ask me?” She prodded Violet gently before Violet could get distracted by the call of the silent and dark TV screen again.

  “Oh, well…” Violet shrugged. “You know Tyler’s already agreed to be Daisy’s godfather.”

  “He was tremendously honored. He’s already setting up an investment fund to cover her college tuition to an Ivy League school.” A smile played around Marguerite’s serious lips. “So one less worry.”

  “Wow.” Violet knew enough about Marguerite’s scant sense of humor, and Tyler’s personality, to know it was likely true. It gave her a moment of shock. “Yeah, that would be one less worry. I’ll need to talk to him about that. It’s overly generous.”

  “No.” Marguerite shook her head. “We won’t have children of our own, Violet. We thought about adopting, but because of…well, how things are with me, my memories, and Tyler’s…we thought we might not be best suited to the day-to-day raising of a child. So we enjoy our children charities and mentoring. Don’t talk him out of it. He would love to do it.”

  “I’m going to just stand outside, paint myself gray and become one of those fountains,” Violet decided, taking the tissue Marguerite offered her. “Okay. I’ll raz him the requisite amount, but leave him be about it. Send him the world’s biggest thank you card. But here’s the thing. I don’t know if Tyler told you, but the way we’ve worked the jobs is that I’ll be home for the first six months, but once she’s weaned off breastfeeding, I’ll go back to the job. Mac’s going to take 0-6 years, then when she enters school, I’ll go to part-time for 6-11 years, and he’ll go back to work. We want her to have a full time parent at home until she enters middle school.”

  “Sensible, and admirable,” Marguerite observed, though she kept studying Violet carefully, either because she sensed something momentous coming, or was keeping tabs on Violet’s color.

  “We hope so. I think he’s really getting a charge out of the idea that his only job will be taking care of the two of us for awhile. I mean, he’s worked on the job since he was eighteen. But on the other hand, I’m a little worried about him. He was really torn about it. He wants me to have a career, because I’ve only been doing it a few years, whereas he has twenty years under his belt. However, staying home, while I go out and risk my life, is brutally hard on him. I know it doesn’t make sense, but I think somehow, when he’s out on the job too, taking similar risks, it’s easier on him.

  “So if something happens to me”—she met Marguerite’s gaze—“I need to know she’ll have a mother. I want you to agree you’ll be her godmother, the same way Tyler’s agreed he’ll be godfather. I know what you just said, about you not being suited and all. But you’ve faced down nightmares no one should have to. The person that’s made you, that’s why I know you’d be the best mom for her. You’ll fight for her like a tiger, but teach her to appreciate the gifts every day brings, and how fleeting those gifts can be. And if something happens to me,” she repeated, “Mac and Daisy will really need you both.”

  As Marguerite said nothing, Violet knew she was thinking it over in that quiet way of hers. However, as the minutes stretched out, Violet cocked her head. “You know, a woman in her last trimester gets everything she wants. I’m pretty sure it’s a state statute.”

  The taller woman relented, with a somber nod. “All right. I’m honored, Violet.”

  Violet squeezed her hand, but Marguerite dispelled the weighted air between them with an arch look. “I’ll do it for a price.”

  “A price? Mercenary.”

  Marguerite’s blue eyes twinkled. “Two prices. One, you must do everything you can to make sure that nothing happens to you. Tyler would be devastated to lose you.” Her tone softened and her knuckles brushed Violet’s cheek in a rare gesture of affection. “I might miss you some as well, even if I was bequeathed the care of Mac.”

  “Bitch.”

  Marguerite smiled a true smile then, warming Violet’s heart. “Second price. Tyler has a birthday coming up. Once you’re more flexible physically, you have to help me figure out how to get him chained up. I have a very special present for him.”

  “Do I get to watch?”

  “No.”

  Violet pursed her lips. “Double bitch. Fine, then. Done. But I want video.”

  Chloe poked her head out of the kitchen, her face wreathed in smiles. “Violet, your cell phone’s ringing. And the display says it’s Mac.”

  §

  The wrap up of the messy bust did take a while. Two dealers going to the morgue, three cops going to the hospital with fortunately minor injuries. It had been a long day. Violet could tell as Mac’s motorcycle pulled into the driveway and he dismounted, pulling off his helmet and rubbing a hand over his curling hair. Her party goers had cleaned up, enjoyed coffee and sugar and carbohydrate overload with her and then headed out with hugs and a few tears. Not all of them hers. Such rituals made her glad she was female, particularly if her gender had gained her the prize coming down their front walkway.

  When he turned, she noted the cut along his cheek, the bruised eye. And he was moving stiffly. But he hadn’t been one of the hospital casualties, so he’d apparently just gotten into a scrap during the melee.

  She thought she had herself under control, but she couldn’t help but stand back behind the sheer panel of the window and drink him in like a hard shot of whiskey to bo
lster herself. That straight nose contrasting with a rugged, resolute face. Nothing pretty about Mac Nighthorse, but he was pure sexuality on the hoof. Over six feet, broad shoulders, body built like a football player’s, though it was his steadfast nature under pressure that had given him the nickname Sarah had recalled. The Oak. Gray eyes under dark slashes of brow, his silky hair a white, black and silver mix. He noticed everything around him with the alertness of a lifetime cop. His attention to detail made him a liability to criminals, but a joy to a wife with an endless supply of sensual demands. He was all hers, in a way most—except those who’d been at her shower today—wouldn’t expect. He’d had a lifetime of holding the reins, commanding operations, protecting and serving. And yet in their quiet world, he served and protected her, while she held the reins, on her irresistibly powerful sexual submissive. Maybe that was one of the reasons she had such a hard time letting him out of the house. He was one of a kind.

  She made herself move, come out on the front porch to meet him. He’d stopped to get the mail and now he looked toward her, his eyes crinkling with his heart-stopping smile. “Hey, sugar. How was your girl thing?”

  “You’re going to love the gifts.” She’d managed to stay together on the phone, because he’d been on scene and talk had to be short. But she knew he’d known. He knew everything about her, heart and soul. It was in the way his eyes covered her now, taking it all in, him understanding enough to wait until she pushed the door open with her toe, inviting him home.

  As he stepped in, she reached up toward his face. He laid aside the mail. He’d read the cues right and wouldn’t touch her until she said he could, but she could tell the big hands were itching for the privilege. She’d been initially concerned, like most women were, about the changes in her body from pregnancy, but he’d quickly dispelled that worry, cherishing each change as if they made her all the more sexy to him. She smoothed a finger over the cut, the bruise.

  “And who dared to touch what belongs to me?” She pitched her voice low. She watched carefully, wanting to be sure he wasn’t too tired out from his day, but his silver eyes glinted in pleased response.

  “One of the dealer’s girlfriends. I was trying to subdue her without breaking her damn neck. It was tempting.”

  “No, it wasn’t.” She cupped his face, a familiar exasperation filling her. “You’ve always had trouble putting a girl down. You’re lucky one hasn’t killed you by now.”

  He shrugged, and she couldn’t resist any more. Catching hold of the shoulder harness for his gun to lift herself on her toes, she put her mouth over his. Oh, God…the male heat of it, along with the taste of blood, perhaps lingering from his cut, despite the fact he’d washed up. He was wearing a black T-shirt and matching jeans, his badge still clipped to his belt, and it dug into her distended belly. She missed pressing herself flush up against him. Those damn hormones had their uses, however, for now they funneled up like a cyclone, demanding him.

  “Mistress,” he groaned against her mouth, “Let me touch you.”

  “Just my waist,” she managed, and closed her eyes when his fingers took the liberty of sliding along her pregnant belly, caressing, before he found her hips, dug in. The answering raging need from his body told her just how close today had been, no matter that he said it all went okay. On a normal day, he might come home tired, and she’d sense it, backing off and giving him time to just be her husband. Eating dinner, telling her about his day and watching some cable sports, easing into flirting banter that might become lovemaking. Or just a restful falling into dreams, wrapped in his arms, his hands spanning her belly as he spooned in behind her, his breath teasing her cheek, her ear. But the instant response, the erection he now rubbed with erotic disobedience against her swollen abdomen, told her how much he needed, that he’d been too close to the line between life and death today. She could hope it wasn’t him directly, that he’d just rubbed elbows with someone who’d had a brush, but even then, it was still too close.

  She pushed him back with the flat of her hand, though it took a few seconds for him to react, because he wasn’t always malleable, her sub. One of the things she liked best about him. “Go get a shower,” she ordered. “Ten minutes. Then come back to the bedroom and kneel at the foot of the bed until I tell you otherwise.”

  “Sugar—”

  “Obey me, Mackenzie,” she said, and the bite she put in her voice was sharp, because she had a tsunami of need tied up in her as well. The way she’d felt when she heard the news program, hormones surging with the knowledge of how close he could come, every day he walked out the door… Was she going to be able to get past this unbalanced reaction, hold it together until she had a normal perspective again, which was difficult enough to manage? Sometimes she teetered so close to the edge with these hormones, she was sure she was going to knock him out in his sleep and chain him in the basement. She could get Tyler and Marguerite to help her, she was sure.

  He released her but, because he was her husband as well as her submissive, he put a gentle hand along the side of her face. A brief touch only, then the fingers slid away, knuckles caressing her mouth. The love and desire in his eyes was tempered by tenderness, a reassurance she wasn’t sure she could handle right now. She took it in both mental hands, though, as he walked into the house. He offered her a pleasurable view of his tight ass in those jeans as he moved down the hallway, the breadth of his shoulders and ripple of back muscle as he removed the harness and pulled the shirt over his head, tossed it in the hallway laundry.

  “Stop,” she said abruptly. When he did, she was sure he knew already what she wanted, but he would wait until she commanded it. “Take it all off right there.”

  “I was going to use the outside shower.”

  “I know.” Cocking her head, she leaned against the front doorway as he looked at her over his shoulder, slanting a wry grin her way. “Ms. Ford loves when you slip out to the shower naked. She’s our only neighbor in view. You don’t want to be unfriendly, do you? In fact,” she considered him, head to toe in just the jeans, her gaze lingering on his erection, held behind straining fabric, “keep the shower door open when you wash. And take a particularly long time with your cock and balls. Not enough to come. That’s for me.” She told him the obvious, just to see the flush build in his cheeks, the fire in his eyes. “But give her something to fantasize about tonight. Then come back to the bed. I’ll be watching from the window.”

  He nodded, then bent to untie his boots, toe them off. Followed by the socks and the jeans. She’d been telling the truth to Chloe, unbeknownst to the younger girl. Often she didn’t permit Mac to wear any underwear, loving the knowledge that when the fabric shifted over his ass or cock, it was sliding against bare, muscular skin. Knowing that when he was having a busy day at work, it wasn’t enough to distract, but when things were uneventful, he was very conscious of that state of undress.

  He was long, sweeping planes of muscle, scattered with some scars, incurred in the line of duty. Her gaze lingered on them, unpleasant memories but part of what made him the man she loved and admired so much. He was terrifyingly fearless, had worked undercover in drug rings for years, and then immersed himself in Homicide for a few years after that. Since the near fatal shooting, he’d been working a variety of cases in both areas. He was an asset everywhere he went, because he was as tenacious and unflinching as a pit bull. But she could make him flinch. And beg. And come like a horny teenager, in a hundred different ways.

  She grasped the power of that and let it dispel all the terrible worries of earlier in the day, and moved into the house to position herself at the lower level window, where she could see the outdoor shower positioned beneath the upstairs porch. He left the door open as she required and proceeded to wash with the soap and shampoo he’d brought down. That gorgeous, muscular body—chest, legs and arms layered with a light dusting of coarse dark hair, making him look like the sensual animal he was. Lathering up his hands, he went to work on the heavy cock and testicles, the cr
ease of his ass, just as she’d required. Slow, circling rubs that had her lips pressing together and moisture trickling between her thighs. His gaze stayed on the marsh view, as if oblivious to her attention or Ms. Ford’s, but the increasingly turgid state of that erection said differently. She was throbbing with need, her fingers itching to ease herself, but she was willing to deny herself for a different form of satisfaction.

  When he at last turned off the shower, she went to their room and stripped, maneuvering onto the bed and laying out the items she wanted, relaxing, at least in a surface way, while everything thrummed beneath. She ran her hands over her engorged breasts, the ones that had fascinated him in typical male fashion ever since they started to swell, preparing for Daisy’s arrival. Then down over her sensitive belly, to the mons she could no longer see but she could feel, the lips slick against her fingers. He came in when she was like that, idly twitching a nipple with one hand, the weight of the breast in her palm, her other hand working between her legs.

  He swept her with his gaze, but then went to his knees by the bed. He was still somewhat damp, drops of water on his neck, beads glistening on his chest hair.

  “I didn’t tell you that you could look at me, Mackenzie.”

  “No, Mistress.”

  “I also didn’t tell you that you could touch my stomach when I said to put your hands on my waist.”

  “It’s kind of hard to avoid it, Mistress.”

  She narrowed her gaze at him. He was angling for punishment, obviously, and she was more than happy to deliver. With one bare foot, she pushed the harness, cuffs and collar off the bed. “Put those on.” Then she pushed the other item off. “And that inside you.”

  His gaze flitted up, startled. It was a sizeable, lifelike dildo that would go into the back fitting of the harness, to hold it inside. It was the largest one she had, the one she used when he was most disobedient, or when she most needed to feel her reins taut on him.

  She waited to see if he would try to get out of it, knowing from his body language he was struggling. In about two more seconds she would tear into him. But anticipating the timing of her patience, he began to put everything on.