Page 16 of Bond

“Okay then, if that’s all, we’re finished. Remember, keep an eye and an ear open for anything suspicious, but otherwise, until we hear from Dex, it’s business as usual. Have a good night, everyone.” Bull slams the gavel down on the table, and everyone gets up and starts to disperse.

I had to bite my lip to stop my laugh when Bond calls out, “Blaze, give me my kid back before you leave.”

I’d barely walked in the door when he’d taken Daisy from me. Noni and Bull’s daughter, Samantha, was with Grace and the other children, but I wasn’t comfortable having Daisy out of my sight just yet.

Blaze stops at the door and turns around, and he’s pouting. I kid you not, the man was full-on pouting. And that is something to see on a grown man, especially one his size with a full beard and close-cropped hair. He was the epitome of an alpha male, but at the moment he looked like a five-year-old who’d just had his favourite toy taken away. “But she’s sleeping so peacefully,” he protests. “Look, she’s so comfy.”

Laughter flowed from those left in the room. “Dude, you really need to get your own woman,” Cairo laughs. “Then you can have your own sprogs.”

“But I like these ones because I can give them back and get a peaceful night’s sleep,” Blaze points out, but he does walk back to Bond, who takes Daisy from him.

I’d worried about how much Daisy slept when I first brought her home, but the doctor had assured me that being premature, she would sleep longer and that it was good for her. As long as she fed well, then it wasn’t something to worry about.

I was still smiling when we walked into our room. It didn’t take long to get Daisy settled and for us both to have showers and get into bed. I’d thought that Bond would push for sex after this morning, but to my surprise, he just pulled me toward him, tucking me up tight against him.

Pressing a soft, barely felt kiss to my head, he whispers, “Night, baby. Wake me if you need me tonight.”

Taking his hand that was between my breasts, I lifted it and pressed a kiss to his palm, replying softly, “Night, Bond.”

“Andrew, or preferably Drew,” was his answer, which had me confused.

“What?”

“My name is Andrew Smith, but I prefer Drew, or you can keep calling me Bond; I don’t mind, but I thought you should know my name.”

“Oh,” I respond quietly, running his names through my mind before trying them out, “Andrew, mmh, Drew? Bond?” Sighing softly, I tell him, “Bond suits you best. I think I’ll stick with that if that’s good with you.”

“That’s perfect, baby,” he reassures me as we drifted off. Bond it was; he’d only ever be Bond to me.

CHAPTER 8

BOND

I’m not sure if Rochelle thought that I’d push for sex that night, but as far as I was concerned, I wanted more from our relationship than her feeling that she somehow had to give me sex to keep me happy. I knew that this was learned behaviour from her marriage. But if our relationship was going to survive the ghost of her marriage, I’d have to show her how different it was going to be.

That didn’t mean that I wasn’t going to touch and tease her at every opportunity, because I would, so that she’d get used to receiving and not always giving. It was no hardship to me to show her how much she meant to me every chance I got. I’d come to love the little confused glances she’d give me after I’d kissed her senseless, leaving her wanting just that little more. I had a feeling when we eventually came together it would be explosive. This was the longest foreplay I’d ever indulged in, but I found myself enjoying it immensely.

We’d put off moving out of the hotel until the weekend when we all had a little more time because we’d been busy as hell over the last week, not only fortifying our businesses but also letting the tenants who hired shops from us know that we may be expecting trouble. Not that any of them seemed all that worried, having lived through us cleaning up the town. They knew that we could handle anything coming our way.

Rochelle had completely reorganised the parts shop, and I had to say it was working much better; this week she was going through the order book and calling customers to come and collect their parts. I was busy drilling holes to fit shutters that we could pull down over the windows of the shops every night should anyone decide to target the businesses. We’d done our tenants first, leaving ours for last. Screwing the last bolt in, I wiped the sweat from my forehead with my T-shirt, thinking I could really do with something cold to drink when a lightly tanned hand appeared in front of me holding a bottle of water.

“Thank you, baby,” I say to Rochelle, bending to press a light kiss on her lips, only to have her tug on my T-shirt when I go to lift my lips from hers. Wrapping my hand around her neck, I pull her closer, angling my head to deepen our kiss.

“Mmh,” I whisper when she whimpers slightly, “I’ve missed you today.”

Rochelle laughs softly, wrapping an arm around me in a light hug, sighing quietly as she nuzzles into my chest, replying, “I’ve been here all day.”

“Oh, I know, but I still missed you,” I tell her, pressing a kiss to her cheek before taking a long drink of water. Only when I’ve satisfied my thirst do I continue, “Did you need something?”

Letting me go, she moves slightly back so that she is able to see my face clearly, “Yeah, I did. I’ve found your discrepancy of missing money and how it was done. You’re not going to be happy because it’s going to cost quite a bit to fix it. I hope whoever you had running this place before is in prison for theft.”

“Fuck,” I say, rubbing a hand over my head, “yeah, he is. But I had a feeling there were still some discrepancies hidden. Can you show me?”

“Of course,” Roch replies, taking my hand and pulling me into the shop towards the warehouse. She’d taken a quiet corner of the warehouse and made it into an area for Daisy; we’d brought over a rug, a travel cot, as well as a table to change her on. Stopping at the cot, I lean over and, seeing Daisy awake, I scoop her up before following Rochelle down the aisle.

“You’re going to spoil her,” she chides. “She needs to get used to amusing herself.”

“And she will,” I assure Rochelle, “when she’s with you and you’re busy, but I have free hands right now and she’s awake, so my princess is going to keep us company.”

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