K&A had considerable resources to protect what was theirs. Jon had assigned Shelley, one of their trusted security personnel, to discreetly watch Rachel’s place in his absence, and she’d follow his troubled submissive if she left on any errands. While Rachel slept, he’d also planted the tiny cameras he’d brought in his case last night. Shelley was monitoring the feed from them as well. Yeah, it might be way the hell over the line, but he didn’t really give a damn. He’d seen the scar on Rachel’s neck from that close gunshot. It had been faint, but the impression was still there. It had branded itself on his mind.
He might have uncovered the treasure inside her, but there were too many demons guarding it. He wasn’t going to make the same mistake he’d made at the yoga studio, leaving her vulnerable to them. Shelley was only supposed to call him if something started happening that caused her concern for Rachel’s safety, and only she had access to what was coming through those planted cameras. He didn’t want to learn about Rachel through an invasion of her privacy. He wanted to unfold the truth of her face-to-face, savoring every bit of it, the good and the bad, learning her soul so that he could wrap his own around it, bring them together as he was sure they were meant to be.
“And then Ben thought we’d hire a stripper to do a lap dance on Nelson’s limp dick to prove he actually doesn’t have balls.”
Jon blinked, turned from the window. “What?”
Matt Kensington arched a brow. The CEO of Kensington & Associates was on Jon’s office couch. As he referenced the open laptop next to him, he had a long arm stretched along the top cushions, the sole of one polished shoe braced under the coffee table. Matt preferred the sofa for their office meetings, as it accommodated his tall, powerful frame better, the legacy of a Texas oilman father who’d once been a professional football player. While his patriarch had given him the strong, determined features and broad shoulders, Matt’s beautiful Italian mother showed in the aristocratic sculpting of cheekbones, the dark hair he wore cropped short and the intense, deep brown eyes focused on Jon now. “Trying out astral projection?” he asked.
“Sorry.” Jon pushed it aside. “I think Nelson’s stats on the start-up—”
“Cut the bull. What’s going on?”
Jon gave him a tight smile. “I was going to ask you the same. You already know everything we’ve been discussing, backward and forward. You’re babysitting me. Why?”
“I watch your back. Same as you watch mine. It’s what we do.” Matt kept that gaze pinned on him. “Jon.”
He was the leader of their unique alpha pack for a reason. Jon lifted a shoulder. “She’s divorced. Has been for years.”
“I know. Dana filled us in last night when we all met for dinner. All of us but you. Peter said he figured you were going after her, from the look he saw in your eyes when Dana told you.”
“Has he spilled yet?”
Jon glanced toward the new voice. Lucas had appeared in his doorway, one shoulder against the doorjamb. Matt’s right hand and CFO was also an amateur cyclist. It showed in the roped strength of his body. Because he was getting ready for another of his marathons, his sandy brown hair was cropped short. The discipline and focus in his silver-gray gaze said he was ready for the competition.
Jon wasn’t surprised at his timing. He was just surprised that Ben and Peter weren’t here with him. The almost psychic bond the five of them shared was one he’d stopped questioning a long time ago. He turned back to the window. “Should have known you’d be in on this. I missed it. Missed that she was fooling me.”
“Doesn’t all that karma and spiritual bullshit you study say that things happen for a reason?” Lucas stepped farther into the room, slid a hip on the top edge of the sofa, close to where Matt’s palm rested on it. “Maybe you needed all these months to get to know her a little bit, to make the next step easier. From what Dana said, she’s a lady who’s been burned badly. A lot like Savannah.” He looked at Matt as he referenced their boss’s wife, then added, “She wasn’t as easy to sweep off her feet as Cassie was.”
“I’m going to tell Cass you said that and watch her chew you into little pieces.”
Despite the weight of his thoughts, Jon’s lips curved in an ironic smile as Peter’s voice reached them, heralding his arrival a few steps behind Lucas. It was his first easy feeling of the morning. “You all have a bug in my office too?”
“Nope. We just know when you have one up your ass.” As Jon turned, he saw the former National Guard captain, an Afghanistan veteran, cross his massive arms and lean in the doorway Lucas had vacated.
The Knights of the Boardroom. Jon wasn’t sure if their armor was as polished as the media’s mawkish name for them implied. They were more like a wolf pack, bound by primal instinct and animal intuition. All of them hardcore sexual Dominants, with varying styles. They were his friends, but far more than that. Not exactly brothers, because siblings didn’t usually share the types of things they did, but brethren, for certain.
The surface history was that they had built K&A to success together. When they went into business deals together, they were unbeatable. However, what simmered beneath the surface was that their minds were remarkably synchronized. They didn’t share the same viewpoints, but their viewpoints often hooked like puzzle pieces. Though he was the youngest next to Ben, he’d identified the inexplicable draw between them first, helping forge that bond years ago. It was more than the sexual Dominance. That was merely the base catalyst that had opened their eyes to other remarkable common traits.
None of them had siblings, and they’d all lost their parents too young. More than once, they’d pulled each other out of the fire of personal tragedies. Like the psychic connections of twins, they could anticipate one another’s needs over distances. Or across the space between their corner offices, like now. They knew when one of them might be in trouble, whether or not the stubborn bastard was willing to ask for help.
They shared the same moral code in their professional and personal lives, toward women and each other. When one of them found the woman he wanted to make his permanently—which, no surprise, had happened to three of them within the past couple of years—they came together the same way they did in business. They used every resource they had to close the deal. From the moment the claim was made and accepted, that woman was part of all of them. Theirs to pleasure, when her Master offered the privilege. To protect, even when he didn’t. And to love, no matter what. So the pack had expanded. Where they’d each had no immediate family, they now had one that commanded unshakable loyalty from each of them.
Though the other four badgered him mercilessly about what they called his New Age bullshit observations, Jon knew they didn’t necessarily disagree with them. They’d been born at different times, places and circumstances, but now it seemed inevitable that they’d found each other. The universe was like that.
“So what’s the main problem?” Matt took the natural lead as Jon settled on the edge of his desk, trying to settle his mind in the same way.
“My dick.”
It surprised them, he could tell. Of all of them, he was the one least likely to resort to crudity. “I went there worked up, because she’d kept me off her scent all that time. But once I was there…I wasn’t sure how far I’d get with her. I was trying to establish how deep her submission ran.”