Page 12 of Magnum, Volume 2

Two women and three men on the panel, but this wasn’t about gender, it was about professionals having a public conversation, debating and discussing. I learned just how dirty and mean the news business can be during the commercial breaks — but my Storm held her own and still looked perfect when they went back on the air.

Her driver was great. Beyond great. He dropped her off at each door, she texted him to let him know when we were on our way back to it, and he was waiting for us all but one time, when he was thirty yards away in traffic, working his way to us when we stepped out of the building.

Still, it was a huge relief when we were finally back to the luxury SUV I’d rented, and I was behind the wheel once again.

She spent twenty minutes online, reading comments on her live shot out loud so I’d know what she was doing, and then dictating responses to her phone when appropriate, fixing the typos, and moving to the next.

“Okay,” she eventually told me, “it seems today was a success. Huge pain in the ass, but I’m going to keep planning these every couple of weeks as long as the big news guys keep wanting me.”

“Do you have an agent or representative who schedules these things for you?”

She shook her head. “Nope. It’s all me.” She turned her phone face down on her thigh and rested her head back against the headrest.

She was silent about five minutes before saying, “We haven’t really talked yet. How is Mason doing?”

“I think he was the exception to the other victims. He thrived in that environment — being told what to do, forced to stay in top shape, and given an outlet for his aggression. He felt bad about having to hurt people, and worse about having to kill them. It isn’t like he enjoyed that part of it, and he’s pissed to have it added to his already problematic karma — I gather there’s a ton of baggage around that, but he’s not doing so well away from the structure.”

“So then someone needs to give him that,” she pointed out, and I smiled.

“We’re working on it.”

“He was the star of the fights,” she pointed out. “Unbeatable, and there are notes about them making him throw a fight a few weeks before, threatening to hurt the others if he won. Everyone was betting he’d win, so they got a ton of income that weekend, but they only did it once.”

“Right, threatening to hurt the women when he misbehaved was the way they controlled him, since he wasn’t… isn’t… afraid of pain.”

I didn’t mention to her that I got the feeling his sexuality was all fucked up, after being tied down and raped so often, thousands of times. I’d picked it up from hints here and there, along with the odd places his scent would go at the most inexplicable times.

Mason was still fucked up, but he was working for our construction arm, and we’d put him to work with our team that sets up the concrete forms, putting them together and then tearing them down. It was hard work and long hours, but it kept him busy and active, and gave him a close, well-run team he was part of.

He was living in a tent on our construction yard. We’d offered to put a bed in an office for him, so he could live indoors, but he wanted to be outside. There was a shower and facility for him inside, though, and a place he could go in bad weather, if he chose, though he rarely did.

But I didn’t share all of that with her, just the job he’s doing for us, and the fact that he was actually talking to the fifth therapist we’d put him with. She’s out of Chattanooga and is retired, but she’d agreed to work with him as a favor to Dawg, one of our brothers in Chattanooga.

I had to tell Storm they mostly talk over video calls, but the truth is, this chick can teleport, so she just flashes to Mason when it’s time for their three-times-per-week appointments. And since she knows about supernaturals, he’s free to bring his inner hawk into their talks, too.

“Do you know how John is doing?” she asked.

I blew out a breath. “Not great. He lived with his sister and her family for a few weeks, but then went back to the streets.”

What I couldn’t tell her was that Brooke, the local Master Vampire, had taken an interest in him, and I thought he might end up being okay. She has a knack for helping people who can’t or won’t fit into society. For now, he was only visiting her, but I figured it was just a matter of time before he agreed to move into one of her many estates, and do whatever job the two of them decided would be best — landscaper, driver, cook, or whatever other job he’d do between being food for the vampires.

Like just about all Master Vampires, Brooke requires every group of shifters living in her territory to offer tribute on a schedule. Turtles are considered a delicacy, and I’ve been food for a vampire a handful of times, but never for Brooke, thankfully.

Still, it isn’t terrible. They can make their bite feel damned good. Uncomfortably good — and for some drug addicts, it can replace the addiction.

I wanted Storm to fall asleep, but she didn’t. She was wired from her day, so we talked about the victims the entire hour and a half left of our drive.

When we made it back to her place, I took her straight to the shower, where I massaged and cleaned every inch of her, my intent to both soothe and tease. When we were both clean, I dried my tired little slave-girl, zipped her into the nighttime cincher, and worked a mid-sized plug up her ass while she whimpered — but her hips moved and humped the bed a little.

No shoes this time, since she only had to walk a half-dozen steps to the bed, and she did so on her toes because she really is a good girl, even exhausted. The routine settled something in both of us, and I could scent her relief even as she muttered complaints about being too tired.

I understood completely. My Stormy girl needed the structure more than she needed rest.

Still, I only fucked her for twenty minutes, but I was rough and pitiless while I pressed her legs wide and forced myself into her so deep the plug shifted hard with every thrust, and she fought to pull air in, fighting the boneless cincher. Her cunt was already damned sore — not the raw, swollen, layered tenderness that would hit in another couple of days, but we were getting there. Her body took me because I gave it no choice, her muscles clenching and squeezing my dick while I fucked her into the mattress — watching her face the entire time, cataloguing every flinch, every sound, every change in her scent.

I wasn’t sure she was up to three orgasms, so I made the first one damned good, and I kept her riding it a good four or five minutes before I finally let my own release out.

She wasn’t the only one worn out from a stressful day, and when I came, it felt as if every last ounce of energy left me. I stayed buried, forehead pressed to hers, breathing her in while the last pulses went from my balls straight into her.