Punishing for Pleasure

by Avery Gale

  She’d been in high school when she’d decided to run for a student government position at her posh private school. She had lost the election by a narrow margin and been devastated. Dan had been home that weekend and found her crying in her dad’s office. He’d listened quietly as she’d poured out her heart, ask her questions that she’d figured out later had gently led her to figure out all on her own what he’d known all along…that in the great scheme of things, this was a small bump in the road. He’d eventually donned her dad’s old felt Fedora and started singing the old Frank Sinatra classic, “Pick Yourself Up”. The words still echoed in her head whenever she felt like she’d failed. So take a deep breath - Pick yourself up - Dust yourself off - Start all over again.

  “I’m not sure whether to be pissed off or encouraged by the fact she isn’t answering the question.” Dex’s voice broke through the tune playing in Meri’s head and she frantically searched her memory hoping to remember what he’d asked her. “I know that expression, sweetheart. I’m fairly certain you didn’t even hear me ask you when you had planned to talk to Jax or Micah, so you might as well stop wasting all that energy searching your memory.”

  Meri let out a breath she hadn’t even realized she was holding and felt herself sag. In the back of her mind, Meri wondered why she was fighting this battle when it was so obviously in vain. “I have a business trip coming up in a few days. My hope is whoever is doing this will lose interest and move on while I’m gone. I promise to call them if I’m still having trouble when I return.” Despite what everyone might think, her life really was incredibly boring. Even her weekly trips to the Prairie Winds Club had begun to dwindle under the mounting pressures of her career. And she’d also started worrying about trouble following her there as well. Quite frankly, the fear that someone else might be caught up in her mess was the stuff of nightmares.

  “Well, pet, I think perhaps you need to start at the beginning. And don’t leave anything out.” Ash’s voice was pitched lower than she’d ever heard it and sounded even more menacing than his usual Dom-voice, and just the sound of it sent a shiver of apprehension up her spine. And if the two of them thought they were miffed before, they were going to be positively livid when she told them about the trouble she’d been having recently.

  *****

  Ash’s jaw was ready to crack under the strain—clenching his mouth closed might be keeping him from spewing curses like the sailor he’d been, but it was going to cost him a fucking fortune in dental work. The more Merilee Lanham talked, the more difficult it was to keep from asking the most basic question, Why haven’t you asked for help? Of course that question would lead to a hundred others, including What made you think this would just go away?

  He and Dex listened as Meri recounted how she’d started getting text messages to her private cell phone the day after her parents left for South America. The messages hadn’t been particularly threatening in the beginning, but they had been fairly frequent. When she didn’t respond, the sender had begun including photos of her that had been taken during unguarded moments. A few had shown her walking from the parking garage to her downtown office, others had been taken during her quick lunch breaks. She’d known they were current pictures because she’d recognized the clothing she’d worn on the days she’d eaten in specific locations. Once she started watching for someone taking her picture, they’d abruptly stopped.

  “I really thought it was over, because I hadn’t gotten anything for a couple of days…but then I started getting emails to my personal account.” Ash was watching her closely or he might have missed the small shiver that moved through her before she continued, “This time the pictures were taken from a distance, enough so some were a bit grainy. You know, like they’d been taken using a high-powered zoom lens. One showed me driving through the gates at Prairie Winds and another was taken later that night when I’d been standing out on the terrace behind the club. There were more over the course of several days’ activities, but you get the idea.”

  “Is this why you haven’t been to the club much in the past few weeks?”

  For the first time since they’d started talking, Ash saw a very real sadness move through her expression. Thinking back, he could only recall one other time he’d sensed anything other than a positive vibe from Meri and that told him a lot about who she was at her core. “Truthfully, that is a part of it but not all. My responsibilities at the Foundation are growing faster than my ability to acclimate and delegate…and with my dad gone, well, things are even more insane than usual.”

  One of the things Ash had noticed was the fact she appeared to have lost weight—not a lot, but enough to let him know she was probably stumbling into her home late at night when she was far too exhausted to do any more than fall into bed. If she belonged to them, he and Dex would make damned sure she took better care of herself. For a sadist you seem to be getting pretty fucking sappy. Shocked at the direction of his thoughts, Ash decided talking to himself probably wasn’t really a bad sign until he started carrying on both sides of the conversation.

  Ash had the feeling she hadn’t told them everything yet and when he looked over her head at Dex, he saw the almost imperceptible shake of his head. Obviously Dex had the same idea, so they would just wait her out. It was several long minutes before she finally continued, “There was a breakin at my home a few days ago. I’d sent the staff all home because I was just done, you know?” They waited while she took a couple of deep breaths and sighed. A part of him wanted to shake her until her teeth rattled, but there was also a small part of him that understood exactly what she was saying. He’d felt much the same way after missions that hadn’t gone well. “Have you ever been so tired and lonely that all you wanted was to be alone and drown it all in alcohol?” When they’d both snorted and nodded in understanding, she went on, “Well, that was where I was that day. Anyway, the perimeter alarms are the oldest of the security on the estate, so they went off just a few seconds before the house alarms started wailing. I didn’t hear my phone ring when the security company called because I was soaking in a bubble bath, and while I was busy scrambling for a robe, I slipped and fell.”

  Dex heard her soft laugh and saw her shaking her head, but the moonlight was bright enough he saw her eyes had filled with tears and knew how frantic she must have felt. “Hell, on my best day I can be a klutz, but that night was even over the top for me. I’m still wearing long sleeves to hide all the bruises, and we won’t even talk about the other places that are black and blue. Anyway, by the time the police arrived, there wasn’t anyone to be found and nothing was missing that I’ve been able to find. The only thing wrong was there was a small bouquet of monkshood laying in the center of the dining room table.”

  “What the fuck?” Dex’s confusion echoed Ash’s own bewilderment.

  “See? I didn’t know either, but one of the female officers Googled it and evidently it means ‘You’d better watch your back’. Who knows that kind of thing? I mean really, what kind of sick piece of navel lint sits around figuring out something like that?”

  Meri finally reluctantly conceded the situation had gotten out of control and she needed help, and despite the fact he’d found her reference to her stalker as a piece of lint amusing, Ash found himself barely being able to hold back his anger. And finding out Parker Andrews had been one of the officers called to her home the night of the breakin hadn’t done anything for Ash’s good humor either. He planned to have a nice long chat with his fellow Dom about the importance of sharing information. Well, fuck! At least he had planned to have a come-to-Jesus meeting with Master Andrews until he realized neither he nor Dex had any real claim on Meri. Even though they had been playing with her exclusively since they’d met, they hadn’t made any public declarations—hell, they hadn’t even made a private commitment to her. For just a moment Ash wondered how that had impacted her decision to try to handle this situation on her own.

  Ash wasn’t the “people person” Dex was, but he felt certain her
submissive training would have kicked in if she’d felt more secure in their relationship. At the very least she would have called them after the breakin because she had to know Parker Andrews would eventually share the information. It didn’t seem to matter how he looked at it, the bottom line was, Ms. Lanham wasn’t solely responsible for this mess. And somehow, punishing her for a situation they’d helped create just didn’t seem right.

  Dex’s question broke through his musing, “Any idea who might want to hurt you, sweetheart?”

  “Well, if you are asking me if I have any enemies, I can only think of a couple of people who really dislike me. But would it be enough to want to really hurt me? I just can’t see either of them going that far. I mean, they would both lose everything if they were caught and I honestly think their egos would stand in the way of that. Not to mention they’d see it as beneath them to have to do anything dirty themselves, and hiring someone else sets them up to be blackmailed later.”

  The last fragments of daylight had finally faded from the sky, but Meri’s face was illuminated by the full moon, highlighting her perfect features and giving her skin a soft glow that made her look almost ethereal. Even in the dim light, Ash could easily see her wrinkled brow and knew she was trying to decide how much more information to share.

  “Let me help you out with your decision, pet. Spill it all—don’t hold anything back, even if you think it is something we really don’t want to hear. We can’t help if we don’t have all the Intel.” Ash hoped she’d make the connection between their ability to help and their former jobs as Navy SEALs. Having all the available information usually meant the difference between success and failure. And when failure means people die—you have to develop a very high regard for those who supply your Intelligence. He saw her draw in a deep breath and could almost feel the last bit of fight drain away as she resigned herself to telling them everything. Just as she opened her mouth to speak, her phone starting vibrating and then ringing in his pocket.

  “That’s my dad’s ringtone. It overrides the vibrate only setting. He wasn’t supposed to call until Sunday night, so I need to answer that.” Ash reluctantly handed over the jiggling device and listened as she greeted her father. “Hey, Dad, what’s up? Is everything all right?”

  Ash could hear her father’s rapid-fire words, but was only able to make out a few. The longer Meri listened the more visibly upset she became, she was quickly on her feet and moving toward the pickup. She’d forgotten her shoes and Ash knew from experience the rocks they’d spread on the road had to be shredding the bottoms of her delicate feet. He grabbed her shoes and struggled to get to his feet, biting back the urge to curse out loud at the pain that shot up his forearm when he pressed against the dirt to stand up. Dex was already on the move and scooped her up without ever missing a step, his long stride eating up the last few yards between them and his truck in a couple of seconds.

  As the motor caught, Ash heard Meri repeat the fact she was safe and her promise to call her dad with an update on Tony as soon as she found out his condition. Tony? The man I tossed her keys to when we left the hospital? What could have happened to him in such a short period of time that would have her dad calling from South America?

  Chapter Six

  After Dex set Merilee on the seat, he’d gently pried the phone from her shaking fingers and slid it into his shirt pocket before scooting her into the center seat and fastening her safety belt. He smoothed her hair back from her face and double-checked that he’d heard their destination correction. She was white as a sheet and he wanted nothing more than to hold her against him and assure her everything was going to be all right. But since he had no way of knowing that was true, and he wouldn’t mislead her, he kept quiet. He planned to return a call to Merilee’s dad as soon as they reached the hospital he’d heard her mention. Damn if it wasn’t the same facility they’d just left a couple of hours ago. They hadn’t gone far when traffic slowed to a crawl. He was nearly blinded by all the flashing lights, but he’d glanced over to see a small red sports car that looked like it had been put through a metal compactor. Hearing Meri’s gasp was all the confirmation Dex needed that the mangled ball of metal was what little was left of her car.

  When he glanced over at Ash, his friend gave a quick jerk of his head to their right and Dex caught sight of the unmistakable lights of a chopper moving off into the distance. They had evidently airlifted the driver away from the scene and that didn’t bode well for the man’s condition. They moved past the snarled traffic at a snail’s pace and Dex was relieved to hear Ash talking softly to Meri, reassuring her they would get her to her friend’s side as quickly as they safely could. Dex had no intention of making an already difficult situation even more so by taking unnecessary risks.

  By the time they reached the small trauma center their phones had been ringing almost continually as word spread that Meri’s car had been involved in a bad accident. Austin might be a large city, but the Prairie Winds community was much smaller and well connected enough that word had spread through the members like wild fire. Dex had been impressed the call that seemed to have settled Meri the most had been from Tobi West. Sure wouldn’t have predicted that. Dex's respect for his bosses’ wife seemed to grow each time he had an encounter with her. The way she had forgiven Meri unconditionally and defended her when other club members hadn’t been so charitable had spoken volumes about her character.

  Walking in to the small hospital’s emergency department made Dex think about all the old Carol Burnett Shows he’d watched on late night television as a kid. The entire area was filled with people in various stages of frustration. Dean and Dell West were standing at the nurse’s station and, judging by the look on the older nurse’s face, that conversation wasn’t going particularly well. A couple of reporters spotted Meri right away and made a mad dash in her direction. He and Ash moved to block the circling sharks and their snarling finally discouraged the news hounds. The reporters finally slunk back against the wall, but Dex knew they’d only won a small skirmish, the real war hadn’t even started yet. Turning back to Meri, he pulled her against his chest and just held her. He was stunned to feel her shaking to the point he wasn’t sure how much longer she’d be able to stand before her knees gave out.

  He and Ash had worked together so long their communication often required little more than a quick nod, so when Dex saw his friend’s eyes dart to the waiting room he began to lead Meri in that direction. Ash strode off toward the nurses’ station and Dex hoped his friend would summon some of the charm and tact he probably wasn’t feeling because pissing off the nurse Dean and Dell were already haggling with wasn’t going to be all that difficult. And getting kicked out wasn’t going to help Meri at all. Dex had almost gotten Meri through the sliding doors of the waiting room when they heard a loud shriek followed by a man’s excited voice saying, “Honey, if you plan to put your hands on me there, you need a mani. What do you do—sand wood with your bare hands?”

  Dex was grateful he already had an arm wrapped around Meri because he’d barely registered her softly whispered words, “Oh thank God” before her knees folded out from under her. Scooping her up in his arms, he quickly made his way to a chair and cradled her in his lap. It wasn’t difficult to determine the voice she’d heard was her assistant and if he was chastising someone for the condition of their hands, he probably wasn’t mortally injured.

  “Are you alright? I hope that was your assistant we heard, because I’m pretty sure he isn’t going to die from being chafed by someone’s rough hands.”

  “Yes, I’m fine, but thank you for not letting me make a scene by dropping like a stone. And yes, that was Tony, and I agree with you that he must be doing okay if he is saying things that are so typical of him.” He could almost feel her relief but her relaxed state was destined to be short-lived.

  “Ms. Lanham, who was driving your car? Would you like to comment on the rumor your car was sabotaged? And is this your new boyfriend? Is he the reason you and the S
enator broke up?” Dex hadn’t even seen the man step up in front of them until he started firing questions at Meri. And the minute the woman next to him jumped on-board the whole room became instant chaos. There were several camera flashes and more shouted questions when Dex saw the Wests and Ash stalk into the room. What had been chaos quickly degenerated in to full-blown FUBAR. And if he was honest, Dex would have to say fucked up beyond all recognition was an understatement.

  *****

  The photographer stood by shrieking about her rights while Ash calmly deleted all the photos of the accident scene, which included a close-up shot of Meri’s tag—he didn’t even want to think about what she’d planned to do with that picture. The pictures of Meri and Dex were also gone with a few quick presses of a button, he then double-checked the device’s backup. Oh yeah, saw this one coming. Good try, Lois Lane, but Navy SEALs are smarter than the average bear. The woman shouted something about him destroying her personal property and he laughed. “Listen, if you intend to blame me for destroying your camera then you can bet your sweet ass I’m going to get the privilege. So as I see it you have two choices, shut up or watch me fix your camera so there won’t even be salvageable parts left.” He leaned closer to her and snarled, “I deleted twenty-two pictures out of the fifteen hundred and sixty-two you had. How would you like to lose them all, honey?” He had deliberately leaned over her, making sure he towered over her in the process.