by Diane Leyne
“I never even got to hit him!” Mal knew that Mike was angry and scared, too. He was pacing back and forth, frustrated because he was the only one who never got to hit Holtzman. “It’s not fair. You both got to hit him. Maybe it’s not too late to punch him before the boat leaves.”
The sight of her decking Holtzman was one he wouldn’t soon forget either. He was proud of his woman. Of course he was going to beat her ass black and blue so she’d learn never to hide anything from him and Mike again. But then they’d fuck her over and over and over again until the fear that he was going to lose her left him.
“Forget Holtzman for now. We have another problem to deal with.” He stared down at Rebecca, and he could see her eying him back apprehensively. “Pet, he’s been bothering you for days, and you didn’t tell us?”
“I thought I could handle it. It was only going to be for a few days. It’s just…”
“Just what?”
He could see her looking up at them, her eyes filled with tears she was desperately trying not to shed, and he felt like the knife in his gut was twisting.
“How did he even get here? I take a job thousands of miles away from home partially to avoid him, and then he shows up… How could I expect that…? And then I couldn’t seem to steer clear of him… We kept being thrown together.”
“If he bothered you so much, pet, why didn’t you tell us? Why did you confide in Brad instead?”
“Yeah, why did you choose him over us? We ought to paddle your ass but good for that.”
“I agree, Mike. And after we paddle it, you can fuck it first to make up for the fact that you didn’t get to punch Holtzman.”
“Thanks, Mal. But first I want to know why our woman didn’t turn to us when she needed help. We’re waiting, Rebecca.”
* * * *
Rebecca felt a shiver go through her as she realized both men were furiously angry. Mike never used her name. He always called her sweetie or honey or some other endearment or even Beca or Becs. Calling her Rebecca meant he was angry. She looked over at Mal, who had pasted a neutral expression on his face, but his eyes blazed with anger.
And jealousy. They were both jealous, she suddenly realized. Jealous of Brad? She couldn’t process that right now. Brad? He’d been so kind to her. Brad who had both a Master and a sub of his own? He was already getting so much sex that his dick would probably fall off if he tried to add another person to the mix. She’d talk to them about her feelings for Brad later, though. This talk of punishment wasn’t right.
“But I’m the victim.” She could almost hear the whining in her voice, so she tried again, summoning her own anger. How dare they even thinking of punishing her. “Damn it, Mal, Mike. How can you even think of disciplining me after what I went through? I repeat. I’m the victim.”
“If you told us about Holtzman in the first place, we could have avoided all of this. We would have protected you, but you didn’t trust us enough to tell us about Holtzman. So, really, this is partly your fault…in a way…” She looked up as Mike’s voice trailed off, his face going pale as he realized what he was saying.
“Excuse me. My fault? Seriously? You fucking jerk. If you think that, you are as much of an asshole as he was.”
“Hell, no, sorry, Becs. I didn’t mean it. Really. I’m just so freaked out by what happened and what could have happened. And I feel so damned helpless and it came out all wrong. Of course I know it isn’t your fault in any way, shape or form. Shit. Rebecca.” He knew he was babbling now, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. He had seen her face change when those stupid, stupid words had popped out of his mouth. They were more about him and how helpless he felt. He knew that it wasn’t her fault, but he wasn’t sure he would ever be able to convince her of that after his stupidity.
She just stood there for a moment, incredulous. Had he blamed her? He was babbling on now, trying to justify his words and apologize, and she found she was almost feeling sorry for him. Everyone knew what it was like for words to come out wrong and hurt someone by accident, but that didn’t take away the sting of what he had said.
“Yes, fine, Mike. You did not mean it. I get that. But you have to give me time. You cut me to the quick. I know you are sorry, but I need time before I can forgive you for them.”
All of a sudden she didn’t have to try to be angry. A red wave seemed to wash over her. She was so livid she couldn’t even begin to deal with the men she loved more concerned about her friendship with Brad than what happened with Holtzman. She must be misunderstanding them. They couldn’t be meaning to punish her for what happened, could they?
“Mal. I believe that our trial agreement ended with the inspection, and if I’m not mistaken, the inspection is over. We’re just waiting for the final report, which is, apparently, irrelevant since you two own the place. Mike, believe me when I say that this has nothing to do with what you just said.
“So no, as of now, you are not my Masters any longer, not unless we decide to extend our agreement, which I am not even sure I want to do any more. But before we talk about that, I have a few things I think we need to talk about.
“Firstly, I didn’t have all of the facts. If I’d known that you two couldn’t be fired, I wouldn't have been so stressed. He’d caused me so much grief at the university that all I could think about was getting through the inspection. You could have knocked me over with a feather when I saw him. How on earth did he even end up here? What are the odds?”
“You never did tell us the full story of why you decided on a year here at Libertine Island rather than working as a teaching assistant, but we never pushed and now we find out that not only were you harassed, but he’s the asshole who harassed you and cost you a teaching assistant position?” Mike’s voice went up an octave as he interrupted her. “I don’t know whether to go after him and pound him into the ground or shake his hand because without him we wouldn’t have met you. Of course, then I’d break his fingers and pound him into the ground for what he did to you.”
“He’s not worth it,” Mal interjected. “I was talking to Joshua earlier. The man talked about a sabbatical and was trying to get a job at the university where Joshua and Damon teach, but it wasn’t going to happen. No one might have been able to prove anything, but word was out and no one was going to hire him.
“He’d even been trying to wrangle a job from Damon, but Andie told Damon that she thought he was creepy, so that ended that.”
“How did he even end up in the evaluation group?” That had always puzzled Rebecca.
“He’d been visiting the university up in Seattle, as I said, talking about a possible job. He’d gone to the Sociology Department to meet a friend for lunch, and that’s where he ran into Joshua. Seems he saw a copy of the draft brochure, and I guess he must have noticed your photo. Joshua had a copy because he had agreed to let us quote from his book and he was proofing it. Anyway, Holtzman managed to talk himself into a place on the team. Something about how all the evaluators were bringing their own subs and it would be good to see how the staff reacted to a single Dom. With a fellow sociology professor vouching for him, one thing led to another…” He shrugged.
“He saw my photo in conjunction with the resort. In a brochure? How the hell did my picture get into a brochure for this place? I never posed for any photo, and I damned well never authorized that.”
She saw Mike go pale. He pulled her tightly to him.
“Oh my god, baby. It was all my fault. I had that photo from the summer where you were in that yoga pose with your butt sticking out and, well, I was using it as my laptop wallpaper and Andie saw it and asked if she could use it in a mock-up of the brochure to show the design folks what she wanted. They were supposed to crop it so your face was obscured or have a model recreate the post.” He looked down. “I’m sorry. The photo was so cute. When I saw it in the brochure… I know I should have told you about it or tried to put a stop to it, but everyone just loved that photo of your butt and your cute wink and…”
&
nbsp; “The big bad Dom wussed out?”
“No, sugar. Mal’s the big bad Dom. I’m the hot, cute Dom.”
“Who wussed out.”
“Who wussed out.”
Rebecca wanted to soften, but he hadn’t suffered enough. Neither of them had, so she kept her expression stern.
“Mistakes happen, Mike. But it has to come out of future copies.”
“It was such a hot photo. I know why Mike and Andie wanted to use it. But I’ll personally make sure it’s out of all future printings, Rebecca, and we’ll recall all the copies of the current brochure and replace as many as we can. But, Mike, that was an innocent mistake.” Mal pulled her away from his brother to hold her tight.
“What I did was worse. I did notice that you didn’t seem to like Holtzman, and I am the one who arranged for her to do that personal training session with him. I thought it would be a chance for her to learn to deal with difficult customers. When you work with the public, you can’t just deal with the ones you like. After all, we aren’t going to like everyone. I had no idea that it was more than just him being difficult. I’m sorry, pet. If I’d known the reason why…”
“I saw your dislike of Holtzman, too. That’s partially my fault, too. When Mal proposed setting up a training session with Holtzman, I–I didn’t argue.”
“Did either of you stop to think about the fact that I’ve been teaching yoga and doing personal training for years very successfully.” She paused, looking over at Mike.
“Mike, you’ve even seen me deal with difficult clients. You know that I can handle myself and stay professional. And you had to have seen the depth of my revulsion. I tried to hide it, but even Brad noticed and…”
She paused and looked at Mike and then Mal. And then she knew.
“Brad. He’s the key, isn’t he? You two really are crazy, insanely jealous of Brad. Aren’t you? Aren’t you?”
They both refused to meet her eyes.
“Damn you. You stuck me with Holtzman as a punishment. You were jealous, and instead of handling it like adults or even like Doms, you acted like jealous children and punished me. Was it Brad you didn’t trust, or was it me?”
“We trusted you, sweetheart.”
“Then why did you punish me?”
“We didn’t…I mean, Brad, we couldn’t.” Mike stumbled on his words.
“Let me spell it out. You couldn’t punish Brad because he has a Dom who wouldn’t go for it because you had no real reason, so you settled for punishing me.
“Well, let me tell you something, boys, Brad was nice to me. Really nice. And he saw the problems I was having with Holtzman and went out of his way to help me. But if you can’t see how madly in love with Damon and Kris he is, then you are blind. He was kind to me. He was a friend.”
“You always seemed so happy and relaxed with him. You smiled all the time, and after you did that training session with him, all you could talk about was Brad this and Brad that. Brad, Brad, Brad. I saw red.” Mal looked pale.
“I thought Doms were supposed to look after their sub’s needs.”
“We were trying to push your limits…” Mike’s voice was tentative. “Trying to help you learn to deal with difficult clients…”
“Bullshit. Bull-fucking-shit. You weren’t pushing my limits. And the ‘difficult client’ excuse, Mike, we’ve already covered that. You’ve seen me deal with difficult clients. The two of you were punishing me because you were jealous of Brad. You weren’t training me or correcting me or pushing my limits. You weren’t even punishing me for something I did. You were punishing me because you both felt jealous. That’s just not right. You saw that I enjoyed spending time with Brad, so you deliberately made me spend time with someone you knew I didn’t like.”
“How were we supposed to know that Holtzman had been harassing you in the past? Rebecca, we didn’t know.”
“Don’t whine. It’s unbecoming. Brad didn’t know either, and it didn’t matter. He read the situation and took my side even without knowing the details. Do not try to tell me you were trying to help me in any way, shape, or form. This was all about you two and your insecurities. You haven’t even properly apologized for what you did to me or how you wronged Brad. Or, more importantly, why you did it. How am I ever supposed to trust you again?
“The photo in the brochure wasn’t really a big deal. It was just bad luck Holtzman saw it. Making me interact with Holtzman, I could even eventually forgive that if you did it for the reasons you claimed. What I’m having trouble forgiving is that the both of you let your jealousy rule you, and then you lied to me. You were supposed to be my Doms. You were supposed to protect me. And, instead, I almost get raped. It was only luck that he didn’t.
“Say, how did you end up coming to my rescue in the nick of time?”
Mike looked like he was going to be sick, and Mal looked like his dog died.
“Brad.”
Mal’s voice was so quiet she almost didn’t hear him at first.
“Excuse me?”
“Brad. It was Brad. He came up and told us you went back to the cabin and that he was worried about you. He told us that if we didn’t go check on you, he would.”
They looked up at her, shocked expressions on both their faces as they realized just how much they owed Brad. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Maybe it was time for the sub to take control.
“I’m tempted to just hitch a ride back to St. Maarten just to get away from you two block heads.”
“I forbid it!” She was surprised that it was Mike who was trying to lay down the law.
“Try again.”
“You get your ass back to our cabin, now. Or I’ll whip it good.”
“I don’t think so.” She looked from one to the other, her expression sad, and then she very clearly and deliberately added a single word. “Red.”
“Excuse me?”
“What?”
Mal’s tone was outraged. Mike just sounded like he thought he’d misheard.
“You heard me. I said red.”
Chapter Seventeen
Rebecca saw the devastated look on their faces and had to force herself not to take her words back. What they’d done, she hoped they could get past it, but right now, she needed to be alone to think. It was all too easy just to give in to them and pretend it had never happened. But they’d, to quote that old song, “done her wrong,” and she needed to know that they understood why she was so furious and that it wouldn’t happen again.
They were supposed to be her lovers and protectors. Doms, they told her, took care of their subs. She wasn’t mad about the brochure, even though they both should have known better. Even pushing her to spend time with Holtzman would have been horrible but understandable if they really were trying to teach her how to deal with difficult clients.
But to punish her for their own irrational jealousy of Brad? Would they be like that in the future if she made friends with another visitor? What if she made friends with male staff members? Would they feel the need to punish her over that, too?
Rebecca had loved every minute with the brothers, not counting the last few days with Holtzman, but it was clear that there was a lot about the men she didn’t know, starting with the fact that they weren’t just her bosses, they were the bosses. They had lied to her by omission. All that crap about honesty they kept talking about, and they withheld important information from her.
She turned and walked back toward the main building. The men started to walk with her, but she stopped them.
“I’m going to spend the night in the staff quarters. I’d appreciate if one of you would pack my small bag with a few things to wear. I need to be alone right now and would appreciate something to wear and my toothbrush.”
They hesitated.
“Fine. I’ll ask Brad.”
“No, Rebecca. It’s not that. Damon’s right. You shouldn’t be alone. I think you should go stay with him and his subs,” Mike suggested, his tone hesitant.
Rebecca stopped and turned to look at Mal to see what he thought.
“I agree. Damon and Kris and…him, they’ll look after you if you won’t let us do it.” Mal gritted the words out, his jaw clenched, clearly wishing there was another alternative.
“Please. You need someone right now.” Now Mike’s voice was pleading.
She looked from Mal to Mike and back again.
“And you’d be okay with me staying with Brad?”
“No, I’ll hate every minute of it, but I’d hate it more if you were alone.” Mal’s voice sounded strained.
They were not far from the cabin that Damon, Brad, and Kris were sharing. In fact, it was much closer than the main building. She was walking down the path and then knocking at the door in a matter of minutes. She could hear Mike and Mal following behind her close enough to touch, but they stayed off the veranda when she walked up the stairs and knocked on the door.
* * * *
The porch light was burning and the door opened before she finished knocking. Mike felt his gut twist as Brad pulled her in the door and into his arms while Kris walked out onto the veranda and down the steps to where the brothers waited.
“I’ll walk back with you and pack a bag for her.”
“We’re not letting her get away from us. We fucked up royally.”
“That you did, Mike.”
“But we aren’t going to do it again. We love her.”
“Have you told her that?”
“Well, no, not exactly.”
“How do you not exactly tell someone you love them?” Kris emphasized the words with air quotes as she stared down Mal and Mike. She may have been a sub, but she was also an investigative journalist. She made Mike feel like she saw right inside him and that she didn’t like what she saw.
He saw her turn her gaze to his brother. Mal’s shoulders were slumped, and he refused to meet Kris’s eyes. He turned away and led the way back to their cabin. Kris followed them in as Mal walked to Rebecca’s closet. Mike got her bags and then started opening drawers as Mal sat dispirited on the giant king-sized bed they had been sharing.
