by Lexi Blake
“I was always terrible at hiding anything at all. I think I might have been born without the patience to prevaricate.” It had gotten her in trouble on many occasions. “I’m afraid I can be a bit of a brat.”
Jack Barnes was firmly in the lifestyle. Lexi wrote lifestyle romance novels. It only made sense that Lucas was in the lifestyle, though she couldn’t figure out if he was a Dom or a sub. He didn’t seem to fit either title completely.
“A little brattiness never hurt anyone. Sometimes it’s the only way to get what you need.” His handsome face grew contemplative. “The question is what to do when the brat loses interest.”
A deep sympathy welled. She knew that feeling except it was her Dom who seemed to be losing interest. “It’s funny. I thought once I’d gotten that man to collar me and put a ring on my finger that the rest of it would be a breeze.”
“You too, huh? It must be something about the whole wedding thing. Watching someone else starting a life makes you think about the state of your own marriage. It makes me think about a lot of things. I watched my parents be utterly miserable for most of their lives. Oh, my father wasn’t unhappy. Marriage made it easier for him to cheat. My father wouldn’t have been truly happy without someone to cheat on.”
Jen knew the feeling. “My mother kind of rambled through life. She wasn’t a bad mom. She just never settled down. We lived all over the place.”
“When the going got tough, she got going, huh?”
God, she didn’t want that life for this baby. She wouldn’t have it. She would do what she needed to do in order to make sure her baby had a stable home and family. And that meant Stef couldn’t pull away every time he got scared. Babies were scary. Kids were even scarier. Kids didn’t necessarily follow the plans their parents set out for them. Stef couldn’t always be in control. It was easier for Jen. She’d accepted that control wasn’t an option a long time ago. “Yeah, I don’t know that she honestly knew who my dad was. She always said he was a military man, but she never gave me a name. The father’s name on my birth certificate is mysteriously missing.”
She wasn’t sure why she was being so open with Lucas O’Malley, but he seemed easy to talk to and they seemed to have many of the same problems. All around them people were happily talking and toasting the bride and she and Lucas were the only two who were standing apart. And she was the hostess.
Though Nell seemed to be doing a fine job. Her friends picked up the slack. While Rachel and Callie dealt with the chaos that tended to follow Cassidy around, Nell and Holly were making sure the guests all had what they needed. Holly was walking around the lawn talking to all the guests. She was wearing killer heels and a smile that went on for days. Nell was dealing with the caterers. God, she hoped Nell wasn’t convincing them to change her crab dip for tofu, but it was wonderful and it left her with a whole lot of time to think. And she thought way too much.
It felt good to talk.
“I know where you’re coming from. Not that I didn’t know who my dad was, but the rambling part.” Lucas seemed to relax as though he was happy to have someone to talk to as well. “I spent a lot of time in various boarding schools. I was very good at getting kicked out of them. It was all an attempt to get my parents’ attention. It didn’t work. They had a list of schools. I got sent on to the next one. I didn’t stop trying, though. I finally did something shitty enough to get someone to notice me.”
“Who?” She was curious. His story wasn’t far from her own. She’d acted out trying to get Stef to notice her.
A smile curved his mouth up. “Jack. I tried to blackmail Jack. He threatened to kill me and bury my remains all over the ranch and I very nearly crapped my pants.”
She shook her head, laughing at the thought. Lucas O’Malley was a brave man. “I can’t imagine anyone threatening Jack. I have to admit, Stef can be intimidating, but Julian and Jack are a one-two punch.”
“Oh, I threatened Julian, too,” Lucas admitted, his eyes soft with the memory. “Julian didn’t do anything so gauche as tell me how he was going to kill me. He would have simply had me brutally murdered by a well-paid contract killer so he wouldn’t have to get his suit dirty. Lucky for me, Jack likes a challenge.”
“He took you in?”
“Oh, yes. It was the first time my bad behavior got me the attention I wanted and it was pretty much the last time I behaved poorly. Jack’s been more like a father than a brother to me, though he’s not that much older. I learned everything I know about life and love and making a home from Jack Barnes. I married his stepdaughter.” His eyes had gone wistful. “She’s trying to make everyone proud. This was her dream, you know. Jack or Julian could have made it easy for her, but she wanted to do it the hard way. She wanted to earn it.”
“I can understand that. I paint, too. I’m not as ambitious as Stef, though. I do it for myself. I don’t care if the world knows I can paint. But Stef does. He won’t admit it, but art critics get to him. I can imagine it’s the same for reviewers with your wife.”
“Oh, Aidan ordered her to stop reading them a long time ago. She can have ten great reviews and one bad review, and guess which one she remembers? No, I want her to have her career, though I wish she would take a breath every now and then.” The longing was right there in his eyes as he watched his wife.
“Do you ever feel like she doesn’t see you anymore?” It was how she felt about Stef.
“That’s a good way of putting it.” Lucas’s face settled into a grim mask. “And I spent most of my life trying to get someone to see me. I guess I never thought she would stop looking.”
“Lucas?” A tall, ruggedly handsome man with dark blond hair stood in the doorway, a concerned look on his face.
Lucas’s expression cleared and the sexiest smile crossed his face. “Hello, Master.”
God, she needed to visit Texas more often. All of the threesomes here were about the girl. Texans seemed to be more open in their sharing practices. Despite the fact that she loved her husband, she couldn’t say that the idea of two hot guys going at it didn’t do a little something-something for her libido.
Lucas’s Master joined him, putting a familiar hand on his partner’s shoulder. “Do I even need to ask where our sub is?”
Switch. That answered her question. Aidan O’Malley was the Master and Lucas was the switch and Lexi was the well-topped sub.
“She’s busy. But it’s fine. Everything is fine. Aidan, please meet our hostess, Jennifer Talbot. She’s married to…”
“Stefan Talbot,” Aidan finished, offering a hand.
Jen shook it. “That’s my man. Are you staying out at the G?”
“Yes, my brother is Bo O’Malley, Beth and Trev’s partner,” Aidan explained. “They’re hosting us. We’re ranch people so we’re certainly used to being around cows. It’s nice to meet you. Thank you for throwing this party for Shelley. We’ve been more than pleased with the hospitality. But now we have to go to the men’s reception. It’s at someplace called Mountain and Valley. The invitation said it was clothing optional. That was a joke, right?”
Oh, what she wouldn’t do to be a fly on that particular wall. The men were having their pre-wedding party at the naturist community. “Nope. It’s a nudist resort. Expect to see a whole lot of man parts. Didn’t Mel organize it?”
Aidan nodded. “Yeah, uhm, is he a comedian or something? Because the invitation said no aliens allowed.”
“Oh, he’s serious about the aliens,” Jen replied. “Don’t even joke about them. Apparently he gets probed on a regular basis, and some of them aren’t very gentle, if you know what I mean.”
Aidan stared at her like he was trying to figure out if she was teasing him. Jen kept her face perfectly serious. Doms were fun to fuck with.
Aidan shook his head and turned to Lucas. “All right, then. Let’s get going.”
He said good-bye and stepped out.
Lucas bit back a laugh. “Doms are fun to tease, aren’t they?”
Jen smiled. L
ucas would be a great friend if he lived in Bliss. “I couldn’t help it. Though Mel really won’t take well to pro-alien talk. Just say you’re against them and you’ll be fine. And don’t drink the tonic. It’s rotgut whiskey. Mel makes it himself. It’s been known to get a man shit-faced in three sips.”
Lucas sighed. “Thank god. Something’s going right today. I could use some shitfacedness.” He reached out a hand gallantly. “It was lovely to meet you, Jennifer. And if your husband isn’t paying attention to you, perhaps it’s time to turn the tables on him. If he won’t listen, make sure he has no choice except to. It’s certainly what he would do to you if he’s half the Dom I’ve heard he is.”
Lucas walked away as his words sank in.
Oh, she’d been thinking about talking to the wrong friends. All her friends would do was hold her hand and curse Stef’s name.
But Stef’s friends…they were another story altogether. They could be complete bastards, and that might be what she needed.
After one quick phone call to Rye Harper, she knew she’d made her play. One way or another she and Stef would have it out today.
She took a deep breath, calming her nerves, and looked out across the lawn. Lucas and Aidan were walking toward the drive. Lucas tried to get his wife’s attention, but she gave him a dismissive wave of her hand. Even from her place on the balcony, she could see the way Lucas’s shoulders slumped and anger flushed on Aidan’s face.
Lexi put her phone to her chest and said something to them. She took a few steps toward them and then looked back down at her phone.
Lucas walked away. Aidan said something and followed him.
Lexi brushed away tears, but she answered the phone anyway.
Lucas might have solved her problem. Perhaps it was time she helped him. She caught a glimpse of metal as the light shone in the right place to illuminate the party crashers who were hiding in her bushes, no doubt listening in on all kinds of interesting conversations with one of their ingenious and slightly evil inventions.
Yes, a hint of devious genius was called for and the Farley brothers were always up to the task.
She marched right across the lawn, and sure enough, there they were. They were hidden in her barberry bushes. Bobby and Will were hunkered down, a computer in one’s lap. They were perfect twins, and Jen didn’t even try to tell them apart. They talked quietly, but they had a friend who didn’t know how to be quiet.
“If you want to know what people are saying, why don’t you ask them?” Olivia Barnes-Fleetwood asked.
The one Jen thought of as Bobby hushed her. “Keep your voice down, kid. This is a secret mission. And adults never tell you the truth. When you ask what’s wrong, they always say nothing and it’s always a lie.”
“I’m not a kid,” Olivia shot back. “I’m eight. That’s practically a teenager and being a teenager is practically being an adult. I’ll be nine in four months so I can’t be a kid.”
Oh, dear. She knew that tone of voice. It was the tone of voice she’d used all through her childhood when she’d had a crush on someone and was trying to get his attention. Hell, she’d used that sassy voice on Stef back before she’d gotten him to give in.
“Yeah, well, uhm, shouldn’t you be out at the party? Isn’t your mom looking for you?” Will asked in a soft tone. “We’re kind of working here. We’re getting paid to record conversations that may or may not reveal the presence of aliens.”
Poor Shelley. Jen wondered briefly what Cassidy was paying the boys, but they likely would have eavesdropped for free. It was kind of their hobby. They were the only kids their age for miles around. She was so happy her baby would have Paige and Charlie and Zander.
“I know all about aliens. I saw one once. It was at our ranch and it took a couple of our cows,” Olivia proclaimed.
Whatever Cassidy was paying them, Jen would pay more, and she had a new job for the twins.
“All right, playtime’s over, boys.” She got a genuine thrill when the boys nearly jumped out of their skin. She was going to love motherhood.
Bobby scrambled out, laptop in hand. “Sorry, Ms. Jen. Uhm, we didn’t know there was a party going on. We were working on a new science experiment.”
“In my barberries, Bobby?”
Olivia wormed her way out. She looked like her momma, with auburn hair and green eyes. She was going to be gorgeous one day. “He’s Will.”
Will shrugged. “She can actually tell us apart. It’s kind of weird.”
Olivia shook her head. “It’s not hard. They’re very different. And they were performing an experiment about leaves for school. Do you want to make them flunk their science class? That’s awfully mean of you. I was helping them.”
Olivia would make a great accessory some day. It was a bold play that would have worked on a lesser woman. Jen had to give the kid credit.
Bobby crawled out. “She’s not going to buy it. She was probably listening. Look, Ms. Jen, if we didn’t do it, Cassidy was going to call the NSA, and we’ve already been in trouble with them over our very innocent hacking of their web site.”
Will grinned. “He bet me I couldn’t do it.”
“I was totally wrong,” Bobby admitted. “He did it really fast, and it made some people mad. And now our parents are ticked because we’re apparently on some sort of watch list. When we tried to go to Tampa to see mom’s sister, we all got patted down and questioned. I think that was what Mel meant by probing except it wasn’t an ET. It was a hairy dude from the TSA.”
Will shook his head. “Dad didn’t like his probing.”
Bobby shuddered. “Yeah, I could avoid it for the rest of my life. I’ll stay here in Bliss. So we were kind of hoping to keep the whole town off the radar by helping Cassidy out. Here’s the good news—unless aliens are really into shoes, I think Leo and Wolf’s girl is okay. I heard aliens actually struggle with their arches. She’s wearing crazy heels, so I think she’s a regular human girl.”
“With nice cans,” Will said with a grin.
God, they’d finally discovered girls. Olivia took a moment to thrust her completely flat chest out. It was good to know the younger generation was already well on their way to being a soap opera all on their own.
“Stop looking at my guests’ cans and put your thinking caps on. I have a mission for you.” Lexi was Olivia’s sister. Maybe she shouldn’t talk about her plans in front of her.
Olivia shook her head, and while it was easy to see she got her smile from her biological dad, Sam Fleetwood, it seemed she’d inherited Jack Barnes’s stubborn will via osmosis. “I am sorry, Ms. Jen. They’re going to work for me. I’m going to pay them my allowance to get them to cut off my sister’s cell phone. I tried to steal it, but she keeps it too close. Whatever job you have for them will have to wait because my sister is going to ruin her life and I have to save her.”
Jen smiled and held out a hand to the kid. She hoped her son was as devious as this girl. “Oh, Miss Olivia, we’re going to get along just fine.”
* * * *
Stef looked around the lawn and sighed. He wondered what Jen was doing. The women’s reception and the men’s gathering were scheduled for the same time in the day, but he hoped Jen was having more fun than he was.
This was supposed to be a fun day. He didn’t have any problem with the fact that everyone was naked. He preferred it. It wasn’t like he enjoyed watching a bunch of dudes walk around with their junk hanging out, but he actually didn’t have a problem with nudity. It felt nice. He’d started coming to Mountain and Valley when he was eighteen. He and Max and Rye had met a woman who lived there and been introduced to the nudist lifestyle.
He looked across the lawn and found the man who had introduced him to the BDSM lifestyle.
Julian Lodge wasn’t naked. He was wearing his customary three-piece suit and his hair was slicked back, not a strand out of place. At his side was a man with dark hair and a ready smile. He was naked, and every now and then Julian would stare down at him, pointing o
ut the differences between Julian’s threesome and the ones Stef was surrounded by. Julian was interested in Finn Taylor’s nudity while the Bliss partners sort of completely avoided looking at each other’s junk.
At least Julian was honest.
And he’d been through what Stef was going through.
He found himself crossing the space between them without thinking it through. Julian had been his mentor. Stef had been going to The Club in Dallas from the time he’d been eligible to have a membership. Julian had taken him under his wing. He’d spent long hours discussing the philosophies and realities of D/s. Maybe it would be good to be around Julian when his whole damn life seemed out of control.
Julian held out a hand. “Stefan, it’s good to see you. I find it interesting that I’m staying at your house and you seem to manage to avoid all of us.”
Or maybe not. Julian was damn good at making him feel like a five-year-old who had fucked up. He shook the outstretched hand. “Sorry. I’m working on a project right now. It’s taking up a lot of my time.”
Julian’s head shook slightly. “Yes, I’m sure you’re always working on a project. Finn, love, would you mind grabbing me a cocktail while I talk to Stefan?”
Finn grinned up at his Dom. “Of course, Master. Would you like a beer or the stuff from the still?”
Julian shuddered lightly. “Are those my only choices?”
It might be fun to watch Julian attend a Mel-sponsored event. “The tonic is something Mel makes himself. It keeps away the aliens.”
“Yes, your people seem to be very distracted by aliens. I noticed that when I walked in and was frisked for alien technology. They seemed disturbed that I wouldn’t disrobe. I don’t disrobe unless I want to. You understand that, correct? I will not be talked out of my clothing because some insane person wants to make sure I don’t have extra parts.”
Dear god, he needed to get Julian together with Mel. “I think you’ll find Mel won’t care as long as you pass his tests.”
“I already swallowed a beet tablet. I took it because I can use the vitamins. This place is strange, and I’m not sure I like it.”
