Kristen put down her laptop and took the seat facing the front of the pub. "Do you have any iced tea?"
"Yes we do, Sweetened or unsweetened?"
"Sweetened, please."
"Sure, I'll be back in a second. Oh, and the specials are on the back of the menu."
She smiled as the young woman walked over to the bar and placed her order. Cheerful little thing. Since it was a school day, it was obvious the waitress was out of high school, maybe by a year or two. And if Kristen had to guess, she was only eighteen or nineteen years old. As she stood at the bar waiting for Kristen's iced tea, one of the sexy six-pack leaned over and said something to the girl which made her giggle and blush. Kristen frowned. Seriously? The guy had to be in his mid-thirties and here he was hitting on a girl who was just over the jail-bait age. Well, no one said perverts had to be ugly. Kristen had the sudden urge to say something but she didn't know these people and the girl appeared to be enjoying the attention.
She was about to turn back to take her laptop out of its case when movement from the other end of the sexy six-pack caught her attention. Her breath hitched as her gaze met a pair of ice blue eyes. Master Xavier.
Oh. My. God! Kristen couldn't believe it. If Master Xavier was a real live person, this would be him. He had jet black hair, a little long at the neck, a firm jaw showing the start a five o'clock shadow and a body which almost had her glancing around to see if any of the few women in the pub had lost their panties. But it was those eyes, those amazing blue eyes looking right at her as if they could see her soul, which had her spellbound. She was probably drooling but Lord have mercy, she couldn't look away. When the man's right eyebrow arched in obvious acknowledgement of her stare, her mouth went dry and she shifted her gaze to the floor before looking up again. Despite his intense look, she thought she noticed the corner of his mouth twitch as if he was holding back a smile. Oh God, how she would love to see him smile and wondered how it would transform his face. If it was anything like the rest of him, she knew his smile would be devastatingly gorgeous.
Neither of them moved and her eyes worked their way back up to his, her pulse pounding in her veins. Just when Kristen thought she would drown without a drop of water in sight, those eyes disappeared as her waitress returned, her body blocking Kristen's view of the rear half of the bar.
"Here you go." The girl placed a glass of tea in front of her and took out a pad and pen from the small black apron tied at her waist. "Did you decide what you wanted?"
Shaking her head, Kristen tried to regain control of her senses and concentrate on the question. "Um...no. Can you..." She cleared her throat. "Can you give me a few minutes? I didn't look at the menu yet."
"Sure, take your time."
Anxious to see those eyes again, Kristen held her breath as the young woman moved away, only to see her Master Xavier look-a-like was once again facing the bartender. Disappointment ran through her as she took a sip of iced tea to quench her parched throat and picked up the menu. Without a sound, she tried to will the man to turn around again as her gaze flipped back and forth from the menu to the bar area. This time she refused to be blatant in her observation of him and kept her head bent forward. Anyone watching her would assume she was scanning the menu but her eyes kept shifting to view him out of the corner of her eye.
A few minutes later, her lunch order placed, Kristen resigned herself to the fact that the man was not going to turn back around. She pulled out her laptop, booted it up and got to work.
* * *
Devon "Devil Dog" Sawyer couldn't help himself. He was used to being a voyeur at the club but here at his friend's brother's bar, he almost felt like a creepy stalker. Despite the feeling, he still spent the better part of the last hour staring at the brunette's reflection in the mirror. Well, it was only fair since she had stared at him first. And yes, now he'd gone from creepy stalker to a childish grade-schooler.
He and his teammates were taking advantage of a slow day to eat lunch and watch a Tampa Bay Rays baseball game when he first spotted her watching his friend, Brody, talk to Jennifer. For some reason she frowned at them and Devon wondered what she was thinking. The guys were always joking around with Jenn, otherwise known as Baby-girl, and there was nothing wrong with it. If it wasn't for them, Devon didn't think their niece would have adjusted to living in Tampa as fast as she had. The past six months had been rough on her but it was obvious having her surrogate uncles around had helped her transition through the worst of it. Between them and the counselor Jenn was seeing, she was coming out of her depression and moving forward with her life. He was happy to notice she was smiling and joking more as time went by. She may have lost her parents without warning and had her world turn upside down but her uncles were determined to never let her forget they considered her family and she would always be loved and protected by all of them.
Devon studied the five men who were like brothers to him–although his older brother Ian, on his immediate left, was the only one who he was related to by blood. The others were brothers of his heart. They had gone through hell and back together and, by some miracle, survived with only a few battle scars. They always had each other's backs and it was rare if a day or two went by without seeing each other working at Trident, hanging out here at Donovan's or playing at The Covenant, unless they were away on an assignment.
Brody "Egghead" Evans, standing at the end of the bar where Jenn picked up her bar orders, was the joker and flirt of the group as well as their resident tech-geek. The man could put most computer hackers to shame and despite the FBI's best efforts over the years to recruit him, Brody preferred to stay with his team, first with the SEALs and now with Trident Security. Marco "Polo" DeAngelis, their helicopter pilot and communications specialist, was sitting next to Brody, talking trash about his buddy's beloved Dallas Cowboys. Marco had been born and raised in Staten Island, New York and was a life-long Giants fan. And as he told it, no self-respecting Giants fan would pass on a chance to rank on a Cowboys fan. That was the only bad blood between the two men; otherwise, they were best friends having known each other from basic training, through SEAL training to being on the same team. Hell, they tended to be so joined at the hip they even left the Navy at the same time to join Trident, so to their friends it came as no surprise when they shared their women on occasion. The duo was pretty popular with the submissives at the club.
He watched as Brody glanced over at the brunette and nudged Polo while titling his head in her direction. The other man looked over his shoulder then grinned at his ménage partner. “Sorry Egghead, but I’ve got plans with my sister tonight. Some other time.”
Devon was surprised when his tense body relaxed. He hadn’t realized his muscle had gone rigid at the thought of the two men hooking up with the woman he’d been eying for the last hour or so.
Next in line of teammates was Tampa native Jake "Reverend" Donovan, their sniper and younger brother of Mike, the owner of Donovan's, who was tending bar for the afternoon. While Mike had learned the bar-restaurant business from their father and took over the pub upon the old man's death a few years ago, Jake had signed up for the Navy the afternoon he graduated from high school. From what Devon understood, the relationship between Jake and his father had been destroyed during the last semester of Jake's senior year following an argument. Forgoing the football scholarship to Rutgers everyone expected him to accept, Jake ended up going to basic training. Devon didn't know for sure what caused the deep rift between the two but he had a feeling it was over Jake's sexual orientation. It didn't bother Devon or any of the other guys that Jake was gay but with the "don't ask-don't tell" policy which had been in effect for years in the military, it wasn't something they talked about while in the Navy. After the military, Jake was more comfortable keeping his personal life to himself and the rest of them respected his decisions while still letting him know they supported him. Hell, Devon suspected his younger brother, Nick, was gay and it didn't bother him at all. Ian, Devon and their friends all had
their individual kinks and perversions so who were they to judge anyone else.
Jake was talking to Boomer sitting on his other side and they seemed to be having an argument over something trivial. Boomer’s head whipped around to stare at Ian with a look of disbelief on his face, and Devon overheard his question. “You topped Savanah McCall? What the fuck? How come I didn’t know this?”
Ian shrugged his shoulders but the smile on his face told their explosive and demolition expert the rumor was true. The Boss-man had a D/s relationship, brief as it was, with the thirty-year-old supermodel who was still hot enough to grace the current cover of Sports Illustrated’s annual swimsuit edition. “Before your time, Baby Boomer. She was still a struggling model when I met her many years ago.”
“Holy shit and damn! As usual, I bow to your greatness.”
Although they had all served on the same team for several years, Ben ‘Boomer’ Michaelson ended up staying in the Navy for another two after the others retired. He only rejoined them a few months ago following a close call with an RPG which almost cost him his left leg and landed him in the hospital for three months. Even though he now sported an artificial knee, the doctors had been fortunate to be able to save the limb but it'd been touch and go there for a while. After recovering, he was ready to switch to a career which had a lower percentage of people trying to kill him with projectiles.
Boomer was the youngest of the group at thirty so sometimes, to bust his ass, they called him 'Baby Boomer'. But they only resorted to that when they wanted to rile him up since you didn't want to piss off the guy carrying the explosives too often. Boomer came from a long family line of military men and his father had been a SEAL before him.
Devon looked up as his brother got up from his stool. "Going somewhere, Boss-man?" Even though they co-owned their businesses fifty-fifty, Devon referred to his older brother as the head of the company, since Ian had outranked him in the Navy and been their team leader.
Ian gave one of his usual grunts as he threw some money on the bar. "Yeah, I want to run back to the office and handle a few things before heading to the club. Are you going later?"
Devon glanced at the brunette's reflection in the mirror again before answering. "Not sure yet."
Ian took a quick look over his shoulder toward the booths behind him and then turned back to Devon with a knowing smirk on his face. "Uh-huh."
Devon chuckled as his brother clapped him on the shoulder. Telling the others he would see them later, Ian headed to the door, giving Jenn a peck on the cheek as he passed her. Through the mirror, Devon noticed the current object of his lust frowning again as she watched Ian kiss his niece on his way out. He groaned to himself as he realized she was most likely thinking they were a bunch of perverts, hitting on a pretty teenager who was young enough to have been fathered by any one of them. Well, maybe not Boomer since the guy would have been around ten or eleven at the time of conception, but without asking him, Devon couldn’t be sure.
Yes, a lot of people would call him a deviant–huh, Devon the deviant...now that was pretty funny–if they knew about the kinks he and his friends enjoyed. And yes, in the past, Devon had been with a lot of nineteen year old girls but he had been in his teens and early twenties back then. That pretty much ended when twenty-seven year old Ian introduced him to the BDSM lifestyle at the age of twenty-four.
For the first few years of Devon's Navy career he was stationed on the west coast while Ian was based out of Virginia. They only ended up in the same place after Devon graduated BUDs and was assigned to Ian's SEAL Team Four. A few weeks after their reunion, his brother brought him to a private sex club for the first time. The club was about thirty minutes from the base and a few of the guys were frequent visitors whenever the team was on U.S. soil and off duty. Ian had been in the lifestyle for a few years and recognized his brother could benefit from the control which came with being a Dom. Despite the five and a half years since their eighteen year old brother, John, had died, Devon had still been struggling with his grief.
He took to the lifestyle like a SEAL to water and spent his first few years learning from Ian, other Doms and several experienced submissives who took pleasure in teaching a new Dom to be...well, a Dom. Ian always stressed it was the best way to become a good, responsible Dominant. In fact, the motto of the BDSM community was 'safe, sane and consensual.' An inexperienced Dom playing with an inexperienced submissive was a recipe for disaster and the chances of the submissive being hurt physically or psychologically increased dramatically. The last thing Devon or any respectable Dom wanted was to hurt an innocent submissive beyond what they needed.
As he got older, he continued to lean toward experienced subs which meant he didn't often play with women under the age of twenty-five. It didn't mean there weren't older newbies, but it was more likely the submissives had done some experiment by that age and were familiar with the dynamics of BDSM. The more experienced subs were aware not to confuse play-time with being something more than what it was. He had seen it happen over the years to other Doms with subs new to BDSM. No matter how many times it was explained to them that just because a Dom played with a sub a few times, it didn't mean they were in a traditional "boyfriend-girlfriend" relationship and he witnessed many a young, new sub get their heart broken as a result.
That all said and done, it didn't mean Devon didn't like to educate a newer sub from time to time, but he made sure he observed the woman at the club over several weeks before approaching her to negotiate a scene. He could make sure she wasn't the type to cling and get too attached to him. Attachments were not his thing. One or two scenes were all he would do with a sub before moving on to the next one. He did have a few favorites who he hooked up with more than others but he was careful to wait several weeks or months between scenes with the same sub. Lucky for him there were plenty of unattached subs at The Covenant for him to choose from.
The Covenant was an elite and private BDSM club Devon owned with Ian and their cousin, Mitch. After Devon and his brother left the SEALs, a little over three years ago, they settled in Tampa and started up their private security and protection business, Trident Security. When Mitch approached them about starting the club, they found a large piece of property with four warehouses which had been seized by the government after discovering it was being used to run an illegal drug operation disguised as an import-export company. It was on the outskirts of Tampa, far enough from any neighbors and was perfect for their plans so when the place went to auction they bought it for a lot less than the property was worth.
The fenced in property, complete with an armed guard at the gate, was surrounded by wooded areas and afforded them the privacy needed for the club as well as for Trident. With the government connections they'd made over the years, Devon and Ian's team did some contracted work for an assortment of alphabet agencies. They needed an office where no one would pay attention to their comings and goings as well as the occasional visit from federal agents. The first building on the lot housed The Covenant. From the outside, it was a blue metal and cement warehouse. On the inside, however, it was a fetish lover's dream.
The other three buildings, identical to the first on the outside, were separated from the club by a second fence. The first contained the offices and war-room where Trident was run from. Toward the back of the building was a garage, along with weapon, ammunition and equipment vaults. On the second floor, there were six spare bedrooms and bathrooms along with a rec room where the team could crash and watch the big screen TV or play darts and a game of pool.
The next structure contained storage areas on the second floor and on the first, an indoor shooting range, a gym and training room, and a panic-security room in case of an emergency. The room was similar to an old nuclear bomb shelter except it was above ground with reinforced concrete and steel walls and had been an unexpected find. The last building housed Ian's and Devon's apartments, although, like the other buildings, the outer façade gave no indication what was inside. When the renovat
ions were completed both had been more than pleased with the results.
Taking another sip of his cola, Devon went back to studying the brunette. Having been with many attractive women over the years–more than he dared to count–he wouldn't characterize her as a gorgeous woman, but more of a pretty girl-next-door. She was undeniably a woman who would get a second and third glance by most men. He wasn't a hundred percent sure due to the distance between them, but he thought her eyes were hazel. Her silky brown hair was pulled up in a ponytail and he wondered what she would do if he walked over and removed the band holding it in place, allowing the soft strands to fall around her face. His fingers itched to find out.
She hadn't been wearing glasses when she first sat down but had put them on before she began typing away on her computer. The glasses gave her a naughty librarian look he loved to see on a woman and he felt the semi-erection he had been sporting since he first noticed her swell a little more. Letting his eyes roam, he took in the heart shape of her face, her high cheekbones and those plump pink lips which would look fantastic wrapped around his cock.
Shit! If he kept this up he would be hard as granite and he hadn't even moved his gaze past her neck. Well, at least he hadn't in the last minute or two, and yup, now that the thought came to mind he was staring at her chest. She was wearing a V-neck short sleeved t-shirt which gave him a tiny hint of her cleavage, and from his vast experience with the female body he would guess she was a 36-C cup. Not too large or too small, just the way he liked them. He wondered if her bra was the same fire-engine red color as her shirt and the thought made his mouth water. Swallowing hard, he watched as she leaned back and stretched her arms over her head in an obvious attempt to work out the knots which had to be in her back and shoulders after typing so long. The movement thrust her chest out a bit and...okay, it was official, he was now painfully erect. He shifted to ease the pressure and knew if he had any hope of walking out of here sometime this afternoon without his dick leading the way, he had to stop staring at her.
Leather & Lace: Trident Security Book 1 Page 2
