by Diane Leyne
Caleb had considered tracking down Carter’s brothers Dalton and Chris while he was on carrot duty until he had seen who was on potato peeling duty. He had to smother a chuckle under the baleful eyes of the other two Hayes brothers, who were elbow deep in potato peelings. It seemed that Carter had his brothers temporarily under his thumb as well.
Unfortunately for Dalton and Chris, when they paused to stare down Caleb, Carter walked in to see how his slaves were doing. Seeing them taking a break, he lost it for a second, and while his brothers were kowtowing to him, Caleb had made his escape. Luckily, as the island doctor, there was only so much revenge they could get on him, but he would watch his back for a while. The look that Chris had shot him over Carter’s shoulder had promised retribution as Caleb slipped away.
He decided that discretion was the better part of valor, as the saying went, and that it would be a great time to reorganize the clinic. He hadn’t been a part of the staff when the resort was being organized. Originally they’d looked for a doctor, but it was not easy to find one, who, even if not actually in the lifestyle, was knowledgeable and comfortable around it. They’d ended up hiring a nurse, and she’d done a great job getting things organized, but when she found out she was pregnant, given that she’d had several miscarriages, both she and her sub had decided that living on an island wasn’t a good idea. Caleb had heard that things were going well so far, which was good news.
But at her pregnancy, the owners of the resort had decided to try again to find a doctor for the island. He’d gotten the e-mail a few days before his injury. He’d looked at it wistfully, but then deleted it knowing that nothing would be able to tear Reynaldo away from Miami. Rey was a cop and a damned good one. Caleb was proud of him and all that he had accomplished. But there was always a price to pay when one was a good cop. There were a lot of people very unhappy with him. It wasn’t Rey’s fault that a brother of one of these people decided that the best way to get revenge on Rey for sending their sibling to prison for thirty years by shooting the man he loved. Not that Rey had shared this with him. Caleb had to get this information from Rey’s partner Joe.
Caleb had only been in the hospital for a few days. Lying in a hospital bed, Caleb had had a lot of time to think. There was no way he was going back to that clinic. He was done. Whenever anyone mentioned the clinic he found that he had trouble breathing and his hands started to shake. He couldn’t face one more act of violence, and he’d forever associate that place with the gunman. Whenever someone from the clinic stopped by and told him how much they were looking forward to him coming back, he found that it was like a thousand pound weight was sitting on his chest and he could feel his blood pressure rising. He sent in his resignation by email two days after the shooting.
Hell, he really wanted to be done with Miami, too, but he knew for Rey, it was home and he wasn’t sure what to do.
Rey had brought his cell phone and laptop to keep him occupied. He’d barely seen Rey those three days, as he had been obsessed with finding the perp. Caleb retrieved the e-mail that he’d deleted about the job on the island. Each day, he had looked at it for hours, following the link to the resort website and looking at each page carefully. He saw the relaxed lifestyle, the wonderful facilities, and the fully equipped playrooms. He and Rey hadn’t been to the Club in months. Rey was working six or seven days a week, often at night or on weekends. Caleb also had a full schedule, working at the hospital and volunteering at a clinic in a poor area that was underserved by doctors.
He loved his work, but he didn’t love Miami anymore and wasn’t going back to the clinic anymore, not that Rey knew. Rey hadn’t been around long enough for Caleb to tell him about that, or about anything. After three days, Caleb had been fed up and checked himself out of the hospital. His first night back in his own bed, Rey didn’t come home all night. Caleb had lain awake, and each sound, each siren, each bump in the night was like a knife in his wound. It was like coming home from the war again, but worse, because this was more personal.
One week after the shooting, Rey and his long-time partner on the Force Joe walked into their home. Rey’s long, beautiful hair that he normally kept neatly tied back was hanging lose and dirty, his clothes were torn and bloody, but he had a smile on his tired face.
“I got him, Caleb. I got him.”
“He’s in jail.”
“No. He’s dead.”
That was when Caleb noticed the blood on Rey’s clothes. He’d been frantic until Rey reassured him that the blood was not his own before heading into their bedroom, shutting the door firmly behind him. Caleb’s heart nearly stopped when Joe had described what had happened, including how Rey had been forced to shoot the guy when he got the drop on Joe. He swelled with pride when Joe told how Rey had then performed CPR until the ambulance had come, but it was too late.
They’d spent the night, first at the hospital and then being interrogated, making sure that the shooting was justified. It seemed pretty certain that there would be no problems with the necessity of the shooting. There had been half a dozen witnesses and all agreed how Rey did the only thing he could.
Joe had left, and Caleb had found Rey in the shower scrubbing and scrubbing. He was pretty sure Rey was crying, but the macho cop could never let anyone, not even the man who loved him, see that sort of weakness.
Caleb had tried to talk to him about the job on the island. They’d laughed about it before talking about if things were different, but Caleb now thought things were different. He’d been shot. Rey had gotten lucky in that he hadn’t been hurt, but he’d had to kill a man. That changed a person and added a heavy burden no matter how justified.
When Rey wouldn’t even consider a permanent move to the island, Caleb had tried to convince him to use some of the vacation time that he’d banked to go away for a few weeks, maybe to the island or maybe somewhere else if that was what Rey wanted, but Rey refused to even take a day off work.
When Caleb had talked to Joe, asking him for his thoughts, he’d found out that Rey had been encouraged to take a few weeks off because of his traumatic experience and had refused. That had been the last straw for Caleb. He’d sent in his résumé to the Libertine Island folks and they’d replied almost immediately. Duncan Rider was running the place, and he and Caleb had actually met a few times over the years. Duncan called him within an hour of receiving the résumé, and they talked for another hour as Duncan described the resort and what he expected.
Duncan had offered him the job at the end of the call, and Caleb had accepted it. They arranged for him to start in a week. Caleb sent in his resignation to the hospital. He had a twinge of regret and guilt over quitting the clinic, but he knew he would never be able to go back to the place where he’d been shot, even if the shooting hadn’t been related to the clinic.
He got all his ducks in a row. He’d come up with a plan for Rey to join him full time and another plan for Rey to come out for a month and visit regularly after that. He’d paced. He’d cooked Rey’s favorite dinner. He’d fallen asleep after midnight, the food congealing in the pans when Rey didn’t return home.
Caleb had fallen asleep on the couch, waiting. He heard the sounds outside the door first, the laughing and stumbling of a couple of inebriated men. His heart began pounding. Was it someone come for revenge?
Then he heard the sound of the key in the door, and Joe dragged Rey’s drunken ass in with him. Caleb had tucked him into bed and then begun to have second thoughts about his decision.
He’d tried to talk to Rey about it that night after Rey sobered up and then the next day and the next. Finally, he realized that Rey didn’t want to talk about leaving Miami or talk about any possible PTSD from the shooting or, especially, talk to Caleb about his own PTSD. Finally, they day of his flight to Libertine Island came, and he and Rey still hadn’t had a proper conversation about it.
Caleb had two choices, stay or go. He grabbed Rey as he was about to walk out the door.
“Rey, we have to talk. I can�
�t stay here anymore. You can’t stay here anymore. It’s toxic for both of us.”
“This is my home, Caleb. I’m not leaving Miami.”
“Rey, I can’t be here anymore. Look, you have lots of time off owing. We can go to Libertine Island. I’ll look after bruises and sooth rope burn, and you can fish and drink tropical cocktails on the beach and arrest people for littering, and we can be we again. We can use the playroom and have fun together again.”
Rey had just looked at him for a moment. “You do what you want. I give you permission. Stay. Go. What-the-hell-ever. Now move. I’m going to be late for work.”
And so he had left. He packed his bag and called a cab and went. And he’d been here almost four months. It was everything he’d hoped it would be and more. The location was amazing. The facilities were first rate. The resort was the last word in luxury. And there were no guns or gangs or violence except the consensual kind that ended in orgasms for all.
But he was lonely. He had made friends, but most of them had partners and most of the guests came with partners, so he was the only one to go to bed alone. And then he met Jen. She was smart and funny and, of all things, female, but he found that he was attracted to her. She was vaguely in the same field as Rey, being a lawyer to his cop. But she was as physically opposite as it was possible to be, even excluding the gender issue. Rey was tall and muscular with bronze skin and long dark hair and eyes that looked almost black. She was average height and on the thin side with pale coloring. But she was smart and funny and a sub that had lost her Dom to violence. It was a car crash and not a bullet, but it was still violent and sudden and had changed her life without warning.
Last night had been special. He thought she felt the same. He’d woken up early, and all he’d been able to think about since he woke up was Jen. Last night, he’d walked her back to her room and left her at the door after kissing her good-bye. Tonight he knew that it would end differently if he wanted it to. She wanted him. She needed what he could give her. He knew he felt the same way about her. They were both people who had lost the ones they’d loved to violence. Rey, unlike Hank, was still alive, but he might as well be as dead as their relationship.
Caleb wasn’t looking to replace Rey, but to have the satisfaction of giving Jen what she needed and then to sink his cock inside her and get his own release with another person instead of alone. He needed that. He needed Jen and he thought that she needed him too. He headed off to the toy store to get some floggers. Tonight they’d both get what they needed and they would fall asleep in each other’s arms and maybe both of them would get some peace.
Chapter Five
As a bridesmaid, Jen sat at the head table with the happy couple as well as Rebecca and her two men, Maggie, and Duncan and Andie. Jen had hoped that Caleb would be drafted to even out the male-to-female ratio, but it was another of the Hayes brothers, Chris, who was sitting with Maggie and they appeared to be looking at architectural drawings. Carter was occupied with the food but not so occupied that he didn’t come out and glare at his brother a few times.
She spied Caleb at a table on the right along with the third Hayes brother, Dalton, and a couple of people she didn’t recognize. It seemed like almost everyone in the resort was there, and Carter had the event organized with military precision. She wondered idly if he had been in the army because the way he ordered his staff around sometimes seemed more army-like rather than Dom-like. She was glad she wasn’t working for him or submitting to him. She watched his staff closely, thinking they must be about ready to mutiny, but surprisingly they all seemed more amused by his tantrums than intimidated. Either he’d hired an entire staff of masochists, or he really was a great leader when he wasn’t losing it.
Jen also wished she could see Aly better. She’d been over at Aly’s cabin earlier with Maggie when Max arrived so he could help her into her chastity belt. She’d vowed eternal revenge on her friends as she’d been led into the bedroom. When they saw her again an hour later, walking up toward where the dinner had been laid out in the main dining room, she’d been walking very carefully, with an odd gait, so clearly Max had inserted the vibrators.
She’d stopped to glare at them before taking her seat but then had stopped abruptly, her body suddenly tense. Jen had smothered a grin. It was clear that Max was playing with the remote control, and he felt no need to hide his glee.
“Ladies, I can’t thank you enough for this wonderful toy. I know it will give me many, many hours, days, hell, weeks and months of pleasure!” He helped Aly into her seat and then tenderly rubbed her back to help sooth her from the torment he was creating.
A few minutes later, Aly’s body suddenly slumped. She was breathing hard as he continued to rub her back. Turning, she looked over at her friends. “You are both dead, do you understand me? Dead. And tell Rebecca that I will kill her, too, once I can move again. I think this torture device melted my bones.”
Then she leaned over and kissed Max. Jen felt happy and a bit envious. They were so in love. They’d known each other for years before they started dating. Hell, she, Aly, Maggie, and Rebecca had known each other since they were kids, and Max was Maggie’s older brother, so they’d known him almost as long. About two years ago, Max and Aly had started dating. It had all ended badly six weeks later followed soon after by Aly taking a one-year assignment overseas as a journalist embedded with Doctors Without Borders.
A couple of months ago, concern about some anonymous letters about Rebecca being held at a BDSM resort against her will by two Doms had prompted her to investigate, and the only way she could get on the island was by approaching the only person she’d known in the lifestyle, Max, and coming here posing as a couple. She didn’t know the details about what happened, but they’d clearly worked out their issues and were now about to tie the knot as well as do a formal collaring ceremony afterward.
Jen was looking forward to it.
And it was funny, she realized. When she was with Hank and heavily involved in the lifestyle, she’d hidden it from her friends, afraid of being judged. Over time, she’d run into Max periodically at clubs, so she knew he was in the lifestyle, but neither Aly nor Rebecca had ever expressed any interest and now they both had permanent Doms.
She couldn’t help but be a little envious. She and Hank had been so happy together. She’d almost worked up the courage to tell her friends that Hank wasn’t just her boyfriend, but her Master, when a drunk driver ended his life. The pain she’d felt had been so strong that she didn’t know, at first, if she could go on without him. He’d been her life. But he wouldn’t have wanted her to stop living because he was gone. He’d loved her strength and had encouraged her to follow her dream to become a lawyer and had ordered her to return to school to get her law degree. He may have wanted a slave sexually, but in all other facets of life, he wanted a strong partner. So she’d graduated, but she had changed her major to corporate law. She had wanted something dispassionate. She didn’t want to have to deal with people and their problems. She wanted do research and then give logical, reasoned, compelling arguments in the courtroom. And she’d succeeded beyond her wildest dreams, but it wasn’t satisfying.
When she’d encouraged Aly to team up with Max and go undercover as a sub, it was partially to help her friends get back together, but she had to acknowledge that it was also partially to be able to live vicariously. She missed having a Master to come home to, someone who would sooth away the stress of the day, flogging it out of her if he had to until all the worry and stress just slipped away and all she could do was feel as he fucked her six ways to Sunday, and she came over and over and over.
And usually he trussed her up so thoroughly that she couldn’t even move, and it was heaven. She was his, and she trusted him absolutely. Hank may have been a bit of a sadist, but she was a bit of a masochist, so she needed some pain. She knew that while he might push her limits, he would never give her more than she could handle. They’d been perfect together from day one, and she had thought that
they would grow old together.
But he’d been gone for five years, five years that she’d been existing, not living. Gone was the free spirit who had been going to change the world, and in her place was an automaton who went to work and home and out with friends, but just felt like she was going through the motions. She’d tried dating after a few years. She’d dated vanilla, but could barely work up the enthusiasm to even kiss them good night. She’d gone to the clubs. A couple of times a year she’d gone to a Master she trusted, such as Jake at Club Libertine in Seattle, to feel the physical pain she needed to feel in her body in order to release the pain she felt emotionally. She never had sex with the Masters she played with. She went to them for the physical release that pain could give her, but that hadn’t been enough lately.
Quitting her job had felt freeing and had been the scariest thing she’d ever done. But it was the right thing. And now she was going to do another scary thing. She was going to let Caleb flog her tonight and then make love to her. He was the first man that she really felt she could care about, and the fact that he was gay and probably just experimenting scared her. She knew that a relationship with him probably wasn’t in the cards, but it seemed to be something that, right now, they both wanted and needed. It would help heal them both, so it would be a good thing.
Whenever she looked over at him, Caleb was staring at her, studying her, his expression serious. He smiled when she caught his eye, and she shivered. Tonight she would kneel before this man and offer him the use of her body for the night. She hoped he would want more. She already knew that she wanted more from him. Maybe it was an unfair expectation, but for whatever reason, he was attracted to her, and she was going to see where that led.
* * * *
It seemed to Caleb that the night wasn’t ever going to end. Carter had gone a little crazy in the kitchen, and the rehearsal dinner was going to be five courses long. He didn’t know if his stomach could handle tomorrow night’s wedding supper, where he was sure Carter was planning on outdoing even this feast.
