by Avery Gale
Springing to her feet before Zach could stop her, Kat’s excited words bounced around the room, “Yes, this is Mia. Why do you have her picture? Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” Then looking at Alex, she continued, “Alex, this isn’t fair. You all know what this is about and you aren’t telling me. I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.” She was getting well and truly pissed off, and the more she talked, the more obvious her upset was becoming. She knew her doctor had cautioned her against becoming overly distraught, because her blood pressure was hovering close to what was considered too high, but she was really frustrated. They were keeping something really important from her, and she didn’t understand why.
* * * *
Zach moved to stand in front of his and Alex’s sweet wife and clasped her soft face in his hands. He looked straight into her lovely eyes and saw that they were fast turning from their usual Caribbean blue to a deep sapphire. That change only occurred when she was deep in the throes of passion or when she was angry, and he didn’t have any question about which was the cause now. “Kitten, Mia is a nickname Dylan used to call his DEA partner, um, and well, she is also his ex-wife. Her real name is Melita Sanchez. Now, let’s get you upstairs to rest, okay? You are getting too wound up, and I’m worried about your blood pressure. We don’t want anything happening to you or the baby, now do we?” Zach knew that Kat had instantly become boiling mad at his patronizing tone. Damned dominant men are going to be the death of me yet. He’s really going to go there? “Of course I don’t want anything to happen to the baby, and I’m only mad because you are treating me like a fragile piece of glass, and it’s damned annoying, I’ll tell you. Now stop patronizing me and tell me what the fuck this is about.” Boy she was on a full roll now, damn them anyway.
Alex pushed off the front of his ornately carved mahogany desk and stepped toward her. “Katarina, language. And that is one, love. Now, we will catch you up at dinner. Go upstairs now and get some rest.” At her narrowed eyes, he added, “Don’t defy me on this, Katarina, you won’t like the results, I promise you. Let Zach take you upstairs, and perhaps you can sweet-talk him into one of his foot massages you are so fond of.” He’d leaned forward and was speaking directly to her. He kissed her on the very tip of her nose and then placed his hands on each side of her heart-shaped face and smoothed his thumbs over her soft cheeks. Taking just a second to look at her again, his expression softened, and he brushed a soft blonde curl behind her ear before he ran his hands down her arms and enfolded her small hands in his. He raised them both and kissed the backs of her hands in a sensual caress of his lips, his eyes full of lust and promise, before handing her off to his brother. As Zach led her from the room, Alex had to stifle a chuckle at her mutterings. Oh yeah, dinner is going to be a fiery occasion this evening.
Kat had always “processed out loud” or at least loud enough to get her into trouble on many an occasion. On the way out of the room, she was muttering to herself about blasted men and their overinflated egos and senses of entitlement. Zach looked over his shoulder at his brother, grinning. He knew it was going to take him quite a while to settle her back down, and he fully intended to enjoy every minute of the process.
Chapter 13
Alex turned to Dylan and asked, “When is the last time you saw her?” He knew his friend had never gotten over losing Melita, even though Dylan had never said exactly what had caused their split, it was obvious it hadn’t been something Dylan had wanted. Alex watched as pain reflected in the sheriff’s eyes, and Alex knew he was working to swallow down the emotion before he answered.
“The night before I moved back to Climax, we had dinner and were sitting on the terrace talking as we often did. Suddenly she slid divorce papers over to me and told me she just couldn’t give up her career ‘at this point.’ I knew she was working on a case involving a suspected sex trade operator. She’d lost a good friend in college when the woman had answered an ad about living abroad. The ad sounded a lot like what most sex traders set up, you know the script. ‘Live in exciting places for free, all you have to do is perform light household duties or be a nanny, etcetera.’ Her friend was found a few weeks later in an alley behind a brothel in Paris.” Sighing, he added, “She’d been beaten and raped to death. Mia never got over the anguish or her anger at the injustice she’d felt when the crime was basically swept under the rug and overlooked by authorities both here and in France.
“Christ, Alex, I tried to talk her out of the divorce, I told her to keep working, and when she was ready, I’d always be here waiting for her. She insisted that wasn’t fair to me, that I was too good to be left waiting like that, and she knew I wouldn’t touch another woman unless I was really free to do so. I finally signed the papers, and I was sick about it, but I really didn’t see that I had any choice. She never would look me in the eye and tell me she didn’t love me anymore, she just kept saying it wasn’t right to keep me tied to her, always trying to emphasize that it wasn’t fair to me. Fuck, you know I haven’t taken a sub any time I’ve been at The Club, hell, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve even taken a woman out for a meal, and I haven’t fucked one since that last night with my wife. I always wondered if she wasn’t trying to protect me from something, you know, like if we weren’t married, the bastards she was chasing wouldn’t be able to use me as leverage against her.” Leaning back in his chair, Dylan said, “I’ll contact my old boss at the DEA and see what he knows. Even though he knows we aren’t still legally married, he knows how it ended, so I’m hoping he’ll share whatever he knows. Christ, this is my worst nightmare come to life. I wanted her to be happy and fulfilled, but I wanted her safe, too. Was that so wrong?” Pushing his hand through his shaggy, dark-brown hair, he looked to Alex like a man whose heart hadn’t even close to healed, and now it was being battered again.
“I’m sorry, my friend. Of course, you know everything we have is at your disposal. Is there any chance she would try to contact mutual friends or try to make her way to you if she was in trouble?” Alex thought there had been plenty of time for her to make that contact, but he felt he needed to ask.
“I don’t know. Maybe. But this feels darker to me. I’m going to head back into town and make some calls. Can you let Grayson know I might be asking for his help? I know he has computer skills and access to resources that I can’t utilize.” Dylan smiled because they both knew the other man could hack into just about any computer in the world in a matter of hours, hell, Alex and Zach had laughed about how the damned geek had broken into the Pentagon’s top-secret levels in under an hour just to prove to their commander it could be done.
They’d made their way to the front door of the house, and Dylan patted his friend on the shoulder as he spoke. “Absolutely, I’ll let him know to expect your call and to help you in any way he can.” Just then, Alex’s phone rang with the tone assigned to Colt Matthews. “I need to take this, keep me posted on what you find out.” Dylan turned to leave just as Alex opened his phone and said, “Talk to me.” Smiling to himself, Dylan thought, You can take a man out of the forces, but you couldn’t take that soldier mindset out of the man.
* * * *
“I want to talk to you face-to-face about this, but I don’t want you coming out here, and I’m not going to leave Jenna alone here, so it’ll have to wait a few days. She’s okay, it was a tough afternoon for her, but I’ve gotten through her first layer of defense, so that’s something anyway. I know you want details, but right now, you’re just going to have to be patient.” Colt felt awful for stalling Alex when he knew both Jenna’s brothers were worried about what might have happened to her and what part they’d played. Even if it had been unknowingly, they had still put a sexual predator in the house with their teenage sister. When they found out all the details, they were going to be completely guilt ridden, and Colt wanted every bit of information he could gather before he had to tell them everything she’d endured.
“Fuck this, Matthews, tell me what’s happen
“It was an emotional afternoon for her. You know how it is with subs when you break through a barrier, there is always an emotional catharsis that accompanies that, and it’s exhausting. She’s fine, she’s resting now. I’ll call you back in a day or so when I have all the details. Christ, Alex, for a Dom who is always preaching patience to the subs he’s trained as well as all the Doms he’s mentored, you sure don’t practice what you preach. I’ve got to go, I’ll be in touch.”
Alex stared at his phone, dumbstruck that Colt had disconnected. Goddamn it! Doesn’t being the boss mean anything to people anymore? Shit, he’s not the team leader anymore! Alex knew better than to call Colt back, hell, he knew perfectly well he’d be sent directly to voice mail. He walked back into his office and sat in his oversized leather chair and stared out the floor-to-ceiling window. He was so lost in thought he didn’t even hear Selita walk into the room.
Selita watched Alex stare outside, and thought about how people tended to forget about household staff. They didn’t worry that things they said made it down the hallways and around corners. And while her “two boys,” as she considered Alex and Zach, were always careful to make sure they sheltered their wife, they weren’t nearly as careful about making sure she was out of earshot. She finally cleared her throat, and when he turned to her, she asked, “Alex, I can talk to you for a few minutes, yes?” When he nodded and started to get to his feet, she held up her hand to stop him. “I just wanted you to know that I be worried about your sister for a long time also. She not the same after I had to be gone and that soldier boy who think he an ocean rider was here alone with her. She only would wear long sleeves and high turtles for weeks, very strange. And she not her usually popping self. I’m glad you are having Mr. Colt try to get the story, I tried to ask her questions then, but she think I’m a busy body of woman and tell me no more questions.”
While Selita was talking, Colt was trying to figure out the messed-up slang and still listen to what she was telling him. Damn, it was like trying to decode the message as it was coming in. Let’s see, “ocean rider,” shit, surfer? “Turtles” probably meant turtlenecks. “Popping”? “Selita, I think I was with you up to ‘her usually popping self.’ Umm, think you can help me out with that one?” Smiling at the older woman, he knew Jenna and Kat had always loved listening to her butcher common American expressions and slang, trying to decipher it all, but honestly, it had always just not seemed worth the effort to him and Zach. They’d always been happy to just let her rant, nod, or shake their heads based on her tone and call it good.
“You know, popping, like in soda? Those little things that tickle your nose!” She looked at him like he was a dimwit.
“Aha…you mean she wasn’t her usual bubbly self?”
“That’s what I say, right? Were you even listening to me?” Uh-oh, now she was sounding indignant.
“I appreciate you telling me. And I agree, we’ve been worried about Jenna for a while. Did Mom and Dad ever know she’d been alone with Ted Scott?”
“I tell them I had to be gone that night, but not until after they got home later that week. And by that time he was gone.” She had started twisting her hands together, clearly worried that she’d somehow caused whatever had happened to his sister.
“Not to worry, we’ll get it all worked out. Please don’t let it trouble you. Jenna will be fine. As I’m sure you have heard, Colt Matthews has some pretty strong feelings for our little sister, and you can rest assured he plans to take very good care of her, okay?” She nodded, clearly relieved, and when she would have turned to leave the room, he stood and walked around the desk and hugged her. “Please don’t ever doubt how important you are to each and every one of us, Selita. You are a valued member of this family, don’t forget that, keep it etched in your heart, all right?” She looked up at him and smiled, big tears pooling in her dark eyes. She wrapped her arms around his waist and hugged him tightly before turning on her heel and scurrying from the room.
Alex walked slowly up the stairs. He was undecided about how to proceed with the questions about Jenna. On the one hand, he felt he owed it to his parents to let them know what they suspected and make sure they were aware of the fact that there might be a lot of fallout to follow, but on the other hand, he trusted Colt completely, and if he said he was handling it, then he was, it was that simple. He’d talk it over with his brother in the morning, and they’d decide what all the options were. But for now, he needed to get upstairs to his wife. It humbled him that just holding her could bring such peace to his soul, and besides, why should Zach be getting all of her attention? Smiling to himself, he turned and started taking the stairs two a time.
Chapter 14
Jenna woke up and saw that Colt must have turned on the small bedside lamp so she wouldn’t awaken in the dark. She wondered how long she’d slept, and before she had ever even moved, she heard him say, “Come to me, pet.” Startled, Jenna turned to see him sitting in a wing-backed chair in the corner of the room.
“You scared me. Why are you sitting over there? Were you watching me sleep?” Jenna still didn’t move, she had gone to sleep knowing she needed to keep some distance between them. Her fear was that her heart was going to be shattered beyond repair when she had to leave ShadowDance Mountain and Colt went back to all the other women she knew were available to him at The Club.
“I gave you an instruction, pet, and I expect you to follow it. Come here now.” The authority in Colt’s voice sent a zing of arousal through her as she scrambled to get out of the bed and pad, completely naked, to stand directly in front of him.
“You are so very beautiful, pet. But you must learn to obey immediately and without hesitation. A slip like that at The Club will most certainly get you punished.” He had begun running his hands up and down along her sides from her waist to her knees. It wasn’t an inherently sexual touch, but it was intimate and sensual beyond measure. “And I don’t want you at another man’s mercy. You belong to me, only me, love, don’t forget that.”
Colt’s words sent a shiver through Jenna that she didn’t even try to hide. “But just for this week, then I’ll go back to work and you’ll go back to The Club, and I’ll be…” Jenna couldn’t even finish her sentence, it was just too sad to think about right now, and she was determined to not let worries about things she couldn’t change cloud the chance she had to make great memories right now. She was standing naked in front of the man whose touch she had craved for so long, and she wasn’t going to spoil a single minute of it.
* * * *
Colt looked deep in Jenna’s eyes as she spoke about having to leave and could see it was clearly not something she was looking forward to. But she seemed determined to limit this to a week. He wondered if she really thought he was that much of a player that he’d bring her here to fuck for a week and then just turn her back to her old life as if he’d had his fill of her. Christ, he didn’t even want to think about her having that low of an opinion of him. Had he not made himself perfectly clear where he felt they stood with each other? Hmm, apparently it was time to step up the game a bit.
“We’ll discuss your week limitation more later, princess. But right now, I’m in the mood to play a bit, and I believe Mitch would like to get to know you a bit better before we teach you a little more about our lifestyle.” With those words, he looked past her to his friend, who was leaning against the doorframe where he had been since Jenna had moved to stand before Colt.
Jenna jerked her gaze to the other man and immediately began moving her hands, trying to cover her breasts and bare cunt. “Oh my God, Colt, I don’t have any clothes on, please, let me go get something to wear. Oh shit, this is so embarrassing. I didn’t even hear him come to the door. How long has he been standing there?” Then turning to Mitch, she asked, “How long have you been standing there Mitch? When did you get to the cabin? Jesus, this is so weird, please, can you step outside in to the hall for just a minute so I can get dressed?” She knew her face was flame red, she felt like an inept teenager rather than a highly trained geologist and accomplished oil company executive.
Mitch pushed himself from his casual pose in the doorway and moved toward her in slow, measured steps. “No can do, darlin’. I’m here to help with your training. No need to be embarrassed about your beautiful body, Jenna, you are a smokin’-hot babe. Personally, if you were my woman, I’d keep you naked every single chance I got.” He’d stepped close and began slowly running the backs of the fingers of one hand down from her temple, down the side of her face to her neck and shoulder, and then down the entire length of her arm until his fingers encircled her wrist. His hold wasn’t tight, but it communicated clearly that she wasn’t going anywhere.
Mitch watched the base of Jenna’s throat and saw her breathing had accelerated as had her pulse. Well, I think Colt’s little sub is going to enjoy a ménage more than she believes she will. Seems she is more like her older brothers than we might have believed. Mitch kept his hand around her wrist, just enough restraint to give them an indication of how she was going to handle bondage. So far so good, sweet thing. God, I can’t wait to sink my throbbing cock into your hot body. Jesus, how did Matthews get so lucky? Fuck, if I could just get Rissa to react like this, I would think I’d died and gone straight to heaven.
Mitch slowly pulled Jenna so that she was just inches in front of him. She could feel the warmth radiating off of him, and immediately she felt goose bumps wash over her skin in a tidal wave of sensation. “I want to touch you, Jenna. I want to get you accustomed to my hands stroking this magnificent body before Colt and I shoot you into the stratosphere. I can smell your arousal, you know, you can’t deny the attraction and allure of having two men catering to your pleasure. Move your legs shoulder-width apart.” When she complied, he continued in a low, compelling voice that held her in its velvet grip. She felt Colt move in behind her. He was running his callused fingertips softly over her lower back and the rounded cheeks of her ass. He circled the dimples at the top of her curved ass, pressing slightly on the erogenous zone he knew was a hot spot for her. “You are loving our touch, aren’t you, darlin’? I love watching your eyes dilate and cloud with lust, and seeing the evidence of your pleasure is a huge turn on. I can’t wait to run my tongue through that sweet nectar I know is coating you sweet cunt.” Jenna had never liked that word, thought it sounded demeaning, but somehow, the way Mitch had spoken it had almost sounded like a prayer, and she felt herself flood the fingers he was running through her soft folds.
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