Uncovering Satisfaction [Satisfaction, Texas 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)

by Diane Leyne

  She sat in front of the computer, hesitating. Would researching the men, meeting them, ruin the fantasies she’d had about them since she first saw those photos? What if reality didn’t live up to what she’d built up in her imagination? She needed those fantasies. They were what kept her sane when she was a prisoner and what she lived for since she got back from her last assignment.

  Quin had included in his e-mail a file that had been compiled by Dace. It seemed very professional and complete. She was impressed, but that didn’t mean she didn’t need to do her homework.

  She started her research with a quick Google to look into Dace and found out that he was an upstanding citizen. He was born and bred in Satisfaction with a degree from Texas A&M where he’d gone on a football scholarship. Quarterback, of course. He’d been good, not quite good enough for the NFL, but apparently that had never been his goal. He went on to get a master’s in Criminology before joining the El Paso PD. He’d risen quickly, but when the longtime sheriff of Satisfaction had announced he wasn’t running for reelection, Dace had headed home. He had held the job for seven years and was up for reelection in a year.

  Micah Durrance, on the other hand, had left Satisfaction for much longer, returning permanently only two years earlier to take over Whips and Spurs. When he’d come home, it was a rundown bar. He and his sister Jules had worked their asses off and made it into a Western-style saloon and a roaring success. Even more successful, if less well-known, was the other Whips and Spurs, the BDSM club. There was very little information available on it. From what Quin said, it was an exclusive BDSM club that was members-only. Any prospective new members had to be recommended by an existing member and vetted carefully. Even then, it wasn’t a given they’d be allowed to join. Apparently a lot of assholes got off on abusing women by calling themselves Doms.

  She’d never personally understood the attraction to the lifestyle, or so she’d always said. She’d known Quin for years and had met his best friend, Doc, a number of times. She knew they were both Doms and that they liked to share women. They’d joked about having a threesome more than once, but as hot as they were, Quin was more like a brother to her, not that she had one to judge by.

  They’d also offered to show her around the club they went to back east, but she’d turned them down and they never pressed. Although once, on a late-night surveillance stakeout, the case before the one that went south on her, a tired and punchy Quin had insisted that a good going-over by a Dom who knew what he was doing would do her a world of good. Sex, he insisted, was optional. It was the endorphins or adrenaline or something that he insisted would give her a sense of peace or pleasure. It didn’t make a lot of sense. They’d both been up for more than forty-eight hours and were counting the minutes until their relief came. Quin had never brought it up again.

  Nick ran her fingers over her battered e-reader. She never told Quin, that she’d Googled the subject during her enforced vacation. She was bored, she’d justified to herself. At first the descriptions and photos had freaked her out, and for the next few days, she had studiously avoided BDSM.

  But she’d been drawn back to it. She had clicked and linked and read and read some more. Then she had downloaded her first novel. And then a second, and then a third. Now she had to have over a hundred books on the e-reader, books about Dominance and submission, ménages, and D/s ménages. She fantasized about being spanked, restrained, and being able to give up control for even just the length of time it took to make love or fuck or scene or whatever the hell it was called. It represented a chance to just be free in an off sort of way. She’d thought about talking to Quin about it, maybe telling him that she’d changed her mind and wanted to visit his club to try a scene or something with him and Doc, but it was too late for that. The two of them and Micah Durrance’s sister were happily living together in Satisfaction.

  Satisfaction. What a name for a town. She was sure they’d heard all the jokes, especially in conjunction with the club. She wondered if she took the assignment if she’d uncover a little satisfaction of her own. She laughed out loud at her lame attempt at humor. She also admitted to herself that she was going to say yes to the assignment, but on her own terms. Even though she desperately wanted to find out what it would be like to submit, to give herself totally into someone else’s hands, she didn’t see how that would work for this assignment. Maybe if she could be a sub for Micah or Dace or both, it would work since they would know she was undercover, but that option wasn’t realistic. From Quin’s photos, it looked like they had themselves a sub, so that option was out.

  And she couldn’t pretend to be an unattached sub without actually agreeing to submit to one of the Doms in the place. She couldn’t just hang around the place and turn them all down. That left only one option.

  She was going in as a Domme. Besides, she was going in for a case, not pleasure. She would take charge, and if any man thought he could get her to submit, he was welcome to try. In fact, she wanted him to try, because deep down, she knew that maybe Quin had seen something she hadn’t ever acknowledged to herself before. She’d been on her own since she was eighteen and had aged out of foster care. She’d always taken care of herself because there was no one else to do it for her. The thought of giving that kind of power to someone else was thrilling and scary, and she’d never met a man who she’d felt able to give that kind of surrender to.

  Maybe in Satisfaction, she’d find that man—or hell, men—to help quiet her demons. Maybe she’d even get up the nerve to try out a scene or two. In hindsight, she realized that if she’d been reading those Cherise Sinclair, Lexi Blake, or Tymber Dalton novels back when Quin was single and he and Doc had offered to take her to the club with them, she’d have jumped at the opportunity, although she would have felt weird playing with Quin.

  The more she thought about it, the more perfect it seemed. Too perfect? Had Quin trumped up a phony case to get her to Satisfaction and Whips and Spurs? If so, god bless him. She’d slap him upside the head, but she’d thank him, too. If it was a real case, even better. She smiled to herself. For the first time in weeks, she was excited about something. A chance to see the BDSM lifestyle up close and the possibility that there really was a perp in Satisfaction to collar. Now that was a win-win scenario.

  Nick leaned back in her chair and stretched. Then she got up and looked out the window. She didn’t need to listen to the weather forecast to know it was going to be hot and sunny all day. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the temperature was warm but not stifling hot, like it could be.

  It was going to be a nice day for a bike ride, a very nice day, indeed, but first she needed to go shopping. She needed a serious wardrobe update if she was going to look like a Domme.

  She paused, sniffed, and sighed. She needed a shower, too, a long one. Or, maybe a bubble bath would be in order. Yes, a nice long one with the latest Lexi Blake novel. All, in the name of research, of course.

  Chapter Two

  It was 10:00 a.m. and Micah was tired, so damned tired. It seemed like every day was a new headache. Whether it was the saloon’s liquor distributor coming up short on a delivery or arguments with the mayor about trash pickup, the problems never ended. And now this. He looked at the door of the employee’s entrance and sighed.

  He’d worked until four that morning and had planned on sleeping until at least noon but then he’d gotten the call from Trace, his chief bartender. At least the vandal had struck at the employee entrance, probably because it was out of sight of someone driving by. He, or she, had painted obscenities where only the staff could see them. He’d called it in and Deputy Andy Bentano had come out and taken pictures. Damn, why him? He could tell the man didn’t really care. In fact, the deputy had rather snidely insinuated that it was deserved, considering the kind of business it was. He’d taken a few pictures and made a few notes before shrugging and driving away.

  Micah had made a quick trip to the hardware store and picked up some primer and paint. He applied the primer and c
onsidered his options. He could go home and try to get some sleep or he could go in and get some paperwork done. He checked his watch. It was still only eleven thirty. Dace was planning on coming by for a drink later, but he still had at least seven hours to kill.

  His stomach growled. Maybe he’d feel better if he had some lunch. He decided to head over to Candy’s Diner and grab a bite. Everything always looked better on a full stomach, right?

  * * * *

  That evening at the Whips and Spurs Saloon

  Dace Lowe, sheriff of Satisfaction and the surrounding county of Kinsdale, looked over at Micah Durrance, proprietor of Whips and Spurs and one of his oldest friends. Hell, he thought, looking around the bar, he grew up with half the men in the bar, or rather the saloon. Micah had done the front, public side up like an old-time Western saloon with swinging front doors and spittoons. The waitstaff wore jeans and cowboy boots, and sometimes there was even live music.

  It was early on a Tuesday evening, so it was a relatively slow night for The Whips and Spurs, both in the front and likely the BDSM club in the back. Not surprisingly, things peaked Friday and Saturday nights. Sundays and Mondays were pretty slow, and then things ramped up until it was Friday again.

  It had taken Micah two years of hard work, but he’d made a success of the place. He was trying not to show it, but Dace knew he was terrified of losing it all.

  Dace looked around. He wasn’t happy to see Andy Bentano, one of his deputies, walking in and heading toward a table near the back with a couple of his buddies. They were generally loud, obnoxious, and hated by all the waitresses for the wandering hands and miniscule tips.

  When he saw Dace looking, Andy smiled and tipped his hat, but Dace knew it was done mockingly. When the previous sheriff had announced his retirement, Andy had figured he was a shoo-in for the job. He hadn’t counted on Dace. Hector Carmichael, the outgoing sheriff, had been a friend of Dace’s father and had followed his son’s career with interest. He was the one who approached Dace about taking over and had lured him back to Satisfaction. Andy still hadn’t gotten over being passed over, although he’d had sense enough not to run against Dace. He knew he couldn’t win since Dace was pretty popular and Andy’s ego couldn’t have stood losing. So he kept the job he loved, strutting around Satisfaction and all of Kinsdale County with his uniform and badge and fuming over what he considered was the unfairness of it all.

  He wasn’t a great deputy, but he wasn’t the worst either. He could have been a good one, but he let his resentment start eating at him, and lately, he’d taken to keeping questionable company. Dace recognized the three men sitting with Andy. Curt and Arthur were followers, hangers-on who were basically harmless on their own but would do just about anything to be in with the crowd. Garth Ford, on the other hand, was a big bully, just like his father before him. He was big and redheaded and had tried to crush Dace more than once on the football field when Dace was quarterback and Garth was a lineman, regardless of the fact that they played on the same team.

  His resentment had only grown over the years as Dace made it to college on a full football scholarship but had never had any interest in the NFL, whereas Garth would have given an arm and a leg if he’d been able to play pro ball, or even college ball. He’d ended up in a junior college and now worked at his father’s mill as some kind of a supervisor, which generally consisted of coming in late, harassing the female staff, and heading home early.

  Garth also hated Micah for banning him from the club. He’d come in once as a guest of a member and had not understood that being a Dom didn’t give a man license to abuse women. He’d been beating on one of the subs, and Dace had threatened to arrest him when he’d ignored her safe word and kept beating on her. Garth had threatened to have his father get them shut down, but he was also afraid of his father, who would definitely not have approved of his son visiting such an establishment.

  Garth Ford was one of the richest men in Kinsdale County. He had always been conservative, but ever since his wife died, he seemed to have gotten more so. He was a lifelong teetotaler, but only recently had started talking about taking the county dry. He claimed to be visiting The Whips and Spurs to keep an eye on the alcoholics and degenerates who patronized it, and maybe this was true. He’d certainly make Micah’s life miserable if he succeeded in making the country dry.

  The current mayor, Ren Davis, would never back such a plan, but he was up for reelection, too, and the elder Ford had money and resources to make both his and Dace’s reelection more difficult.

  That was the thing he hated most about being sheriff—the politics. If he made an unpopular decision, he knew that it could cost him his job, but he’d decided long ago not to let that stop him. And so his popularity with voters waxed and waned with the prevailing wind. He knew that Ford had wanted his support when it came to shutting down The Whips and Spurs, both sides, and that if he wanted to keep his job should Ford win, he should agree, but Dace wasn’t going to let them dictate his life. Micah was his best friend, and he’d spent many enjoyable hours in the club playing with willing subs. He wouldn’t let a narrow-minded bigot try to tell consenting adults what they could and could not do in the bedroom or the playroom.

  Dace sipped his beer. He was off duty but still in uniform. His weapon was locked securely in his vehicle, though. It didn’t pay to drink and carry a loaded weapon, even if you were sheriff. Besides, not only was there rarely trouble at The Whips and Spurs, apart from these stupid mischief incidents, but Micah had installed state-of-the-art security, including manned surveillance in both locations. There were also a couple of guys who worked as dungeon monitors in the club and doubled as bouncers on the bar side when there was potential trouble. No one messed with those guys. Not all of them were big, but they could all be scary. If there was any trouble, they could take care of it. Dace wouldn’t even have to cuff the troublemaker. The Whips and Spurs, like any good BDSM club, could supply their own. He’d just have to read them their rights and haul their asses to jail.

  In addition to the bouncers, Micah or Trace, who currently manned the bar in the public saloon area, were well-known for not putting up with any nonsense. Even the waitresses, in their Western garb of boots, jeans, plaid shirts tied at the waist, and cowboy hats, could look after themselves if any of the patrons got grabby, not that this was usually a problem midweek when things were quieter and it was mostly locals in the bar. It was usually more of an issue Friday or Saturday nights when the college students showed up and made passes at the staff. Sometimes they even tried to visit the club in the back, but if they weren’t members—and the vast majority of them were not—they didn’t get past the first security checkpoint. The club was shockingly expensive and screened members very, very carefully.

  Up until recently, Micah’s sister, Jules, had helped run the place, but she’d recently left to concentrate on her art. She had been a full-time graphic artist before moving home to help Micah, but now that he’d gotten the business established, she was working hard on a one-woman show that was scheduled in three months in El Paso.

  She also now lived with her two husbands, Dr. Blake Adams, a veterinarian, and Quin Redekker, who’d recently taken over as ranch foreman out at the Double S, and they also took up a lot of her time.

  Micah had promoted Cara to oversee the saloon waitstaff, do the scheduling and such, but she’d recently broken an ankle, and they were shorthanded again. Tonight was quiet, but he knew that Micah was going to try to struggle by until she returned. She was a damned good waitress and supervisor, and she was good with the Doms and subs in the club even if she didn’t participate herself. It wasn’t her fault she had had a fluke accident coming down the steps of the apartment where she lived over the restaurant that his sister, Candy, owned. Candy’s Diner served the best food in Satisfaction, if not all of Kinsdale County, and just thinking about it made Dace hungry.

  Cara had gone to stay at her family’s place in Kinsdale town while she recovered, and the apartment was em
pty again as far as Dace knew. He’d have to check with Candy. He had a possible short-term occupant for it, if it was. It all depended on whether Micah would go along with Quin’s plan.

  Dace finished his beer and signaled to Trace he’d like another. There were two waitresses working tonight. Of the two, Daisy was his favorite. She was in her late twenties, he figured, with short blonde hair in a pixie cut and a ready smile. She flirted shamelessly with him, but he knew she flirted with all her customers. She never went out with any of them and never took it seriously when a customer flirted with her. He’d never even seen her in the club with anyone. Too busy with school to date even, or so she said. She was a full-time student by day, working on her PhD in French Literature, and had no time for a man or men in her life. She’d been working for Micah for almost a year, but sooner or later, she’d graduate and they’d have to find a replacement.

  Leah, on the other hand, was a local girl, young and pretty with long dark hair. She took the flirting seriously, and he’d really backed off so she wouldn’t get the wrong idea. She was in her early twenties, legal to serve alcohol—he’d seen her ID—but she looked younger. And whereas Daisy was waiting tables to fund her education, Leah had no other ambitions, not that there was anything wrong with that. He just wasn’t attracted to her. He didn’t want to hurt her feelings, but if she didn’t get past her crush on him, he was going to take some action, maybe talk to Micah.

  It was awkward, though. He’d known Leah a long time, and he’d hate to say anything that would cost her her job, but if she couldn’t keep things professional, he’d have to talk to Micah. Or maybe not. He watched Micah’s expression as he glanced up and noticed Leah was heading over to their table. Leah had been flirting with Micah lately, too. Dace had, at first, been relieved that she’d moved on from him, even as he felt bad for Micah, but then he realized she was now crushing on the both of them. She’d probably seen them play together with subs in the club and was hoping they’d play with her. He sighed and looked up, catching Daisy’s eye.