The Sister (The Boss Book 6)

by Abigail Barnette

  ****

  El-Mudad had told us not to wait up for him, but I was surprised that he wasn’t back by the time Neil and I went to bed at midnight. When I woke at around two-thirty to pee and he wasn’t in bed with us, I wandered through the apartment to see if I could find him. I held my breath as I walked down the hall; I hated being near Emma’s room, but blue light flickered from within the home theater.

  The penthouse boasted a miniature movie-theater with a state-of-the-art projection television and red velvet upholstered seats that surrounded a large bed made up with a matching red-velvet cover. Neil had built it for Emma to have sleepovers with her friends, but we’d put it to a much different use in past years.

  El-Mudad sat in the front row of seats; they were positioned six-across, and he’d taken one directly in the center. The Transporter played on the screen.

  “Hey,” I said quietly as I entered, finishing the knot on my robe belt. “You’re up early.”

  He startled then relaxed. “I wasn’t expecting anyone to be awake.”

  “Not sleepy?” I didn’t want to ask him what time he got in. I didn’t want to sound like a jealous girlfriend.

  “I helped myself to dinner.” He lifted up one of the aluminum pans the caterer had left behind.

  I took a seat beside him. “I thought the salad was good.”

  “Did the evening not go as planned?” he asked, setting aside the pan, again, and looping an arm around me.

  “I suppose it could have gone worse.” And it could have. “Everyone could have died from poisoned leek soup.”

  He made a grim noise. “I’m sorry it didn’t go as you’d hoped.”

  I shrugged. “What about your night?”

  “Lovely. I haven’t seen Grace for years.” He watched my face carefully. “I didn’t fuck her.”

  “I know you didn’t. I trust you.” And I did. Neil and I both did. But for some reason, we’d been a bit jealous. “How do you know her?”

  “She used to date my wife. It was nice to catch up with her. Compare battle wounds,” he said, still sounding defeated over the subject.

  Two reactions warred within me: sadness that he’d been through such a painful experience, irrational jealousy that a new romance with us wasn’t enough to heal him. I forced the second one away.

  I leaned my head on his shoulder. “Neil was divorced. Have you talked to him about it?”

  “No. I knew he was divorced, but…” El-Mudad paused. “You never want to hear about your partner’s ex, do you?”

  “Good point.”

  “Sophie…” he began softly. “Did you make a decision? Or did tonight end things?”

  Was that trepidation I heard in his voice? “I made a decision. There was just some friction. I haven’t told them, yet.”

  He didn’t say anything but nodded and pretended to be interested in the movie, again.

  “Did you want to know what I decided?” I prompted.

  He shifted uneasily. “Only if you’re comfortable telling me.”

  “I’m going to do it.”

  “Ah.”

  I didn’t like tense silences. I sat up to face him fully. “You don’t want me to?”

  “The choice isn’t up to me,” he said, trying too hard to sound detached. “It’s up to you, and Neil. I won’t overstep my bounds.”

  “You’re not overstepping anything,” I argued. “If you’re going to be our boyfriend, you’re going to be our boyfriend. You’re allowed to have an opinion, just like I’m allowed to ignore it.”

  He sighed and spoke reluctantly. “I worry about you. The surgery. The risk. Not just because if something went wrong, if Neil lost you…” El-Mudad looked down at his hands, which lay helplessly open on his spread knees. “But because I couldn’t stand to lose you, either.”

  My heart stuttered. “You won’t lose me. It’s a very common, very safe surgery.”

  “So is gallbladder surgery. But that’s how my mother died,” he said quietly.

  “I didn’t know.” That didn’t stop me from feeling guilty. Because even though it would bother him, I wasn’t going to change my mind. “How old were you?”

  He waved a hand. “Twenty-four. I was an adult, not a small child.”

  Why did we need permission to let our grief be important to us? It was something I still struggled with after Emma and Michael. My father’s death had reopened some of those wounds, especially since I wasn’t sure if I was even allowed to grieve him, when I should be angry enough to not care that he’d died.

  “Losing a parent is still traumatizing,” I said, hope he knew that he could talk about it to me if he needed to. I had no idea how long that grief took to process. “But so would be losing a child. A teen daughter?”

  Using his children as a weapon against him in the argument felt a little low, but like Neil, it gave him a reference point.

  “I support any decision you make,” El-Mudad promised. “But I can support you without being happy that you’re putting yourself at risk.”

  “You weren’t going to tell me that, though?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “No. Because I’m afraid of crossing a line and ruining what we have. Do you remember that I told you that you were Neil’s north star?”

  Goose bumps raised on my arms at the memory. At one of my lowest points, El-Mudad had been there to lift me up and reassure me. During that week, I’d trusted him almost more than I’d even trusted my best friend. He’d rescued me from depression and heartbreak and stayed by my side until I was whole, again.

  He went on. “You’re both mine. I have guided so much of my life by a course I set the moment I fell in love with you. With both of you. Now, I feel as though I’m reaching a destination. I can’t take the chance that I won’t find my way to you.”

  I rose on my knees and took his face in my hands. “You’ve already found your way to us. And we’re not going to lose you, either.”

  His eyes searched mine. Then, he leaned in and kissed me. His cheeks were stubbly beneath my palms, against my face as his lips wandered down my jaw.

  “Is Neil asleep?” El-Mudad whispered, his tongue tracing the curve of my ear.

  “He is. Should we wake him up?” I wondered aloud.

  “No. Let him sleep.” El-Mudad stood and slipped his arm beneath my legs to boost me up, to cradle me against his chest. “We’ll go to bed. If he wakes up, he’s welcome to join us.”

  “Oh, my god, that’s so bad.” I giggled.

  But I didn’t stop him.

  Chapter Eleven

  The marble floor was cold and cruel under my knees. I didn’t know how long I’d been sitting there, waiting for them. Every second stretched beyond time, endless, mindless, until all that remained was me, kneeling in the darkness, my hard nipples tormented by the tulle of my black Marchesa V-neck gown, my diamond collar heavy around my throat.

  It wasn’t dark in the Pavillon’s center room—just behind my blindfold. I knew that beyond, warm candle-like light filled the octagonal space. And I knew they were there, my Sir and El-Mudad, watching me. Circling me. Considering what they would do to me.

  They’d likely planned it out already, of course. Tonight was El-Mudad’s last night with us, and Sir did not like to disappoint guests.

  He finally spoke, his voice deep and serious. “On any other night, Sophie, I would offer you as a gift to my friend. I would let him use you temporarily. But tonight, it won’t be quite so temporary.”

  Heat flooded my belly. Of course, we’d discussed all of this before. The change to our sexual relationship, the new roles we’d all agreed upon and were eager to try out. El-Mudad was a switch, able to perform and desiring the roles of both Dom and sub, depending on the circumstances. Because of this, there would be some adjusting and arranging. Neil wouldn’t concede his total ownership of my submission, but he was willing to share. Though I wasn’t yet sure how I could handle the idea of someone else submitting to my Sir, I was sure that the only person I’d be willing
to try it with was El-Mudad.

  We’d tried to talk over and preemptively solve any problems we anticipated, and everything had felt right. But that had been Sophie and Neil and El-Mudad drinking our morning coffee on the beach. It was so much different when it was happening, when the platinum of my collar still felt cool against my skin and I’d been deprived of the privilege of one of my senses at their will.

  Their will. Not just my Sir’s will.

  “Have you decided what she’ll call you, yet, El-Mudad?” Sir asked, his footsteps stopping just beside me. I swayed on my knees, hoping that millimeter of movement would bring my body into contact with his, however brief.

  It didn’t, and his hand connected with my face in a sharp slap.

  “You were told not to move.”

  That was something else we’d discussed at length. How far we would go, how hard they would push me, what I thought I could handle and what I wanted to experience. The sting suffused my entire body with a wash of anticipation; it wouldn’t be the only pain I felt.

  “I’m sorry, Sir,” I whispered. No matter how aroused I was, no matter how much I knew in the back of my mind that this was all a game we played, I still wanted to please him. Knowing that I’d displeased him hurt more than the physical punishment.

  “What did you call me?” El-Mudad mused aloud to Neil. Years ago, Neil had consented to sub for El-Mudad. It had been light play, owing to Neil’s past trauma, but the idea of my Sir being ordered to his knees struck me as impossible and impossibly arousing at the same time.

  There could even be some of that in our future. When we discussed the roles we would take together, Neil had been direct and honest about not being open to letting El-Mudad Dom me without his involvement, but he hadn’t shot down the idea of submitting to El-Mudad.

  “I believe I called you Monsieur,” Neil replied, a note of amusement in his voice.

  “Then, she shall call me that, as well,” El-Mudad said from somewhere behind me. The sound of his expensive shoes on the polished floor told me where he was, but I felt his approach more than heard it.

  The air around me changed, filled with the scent of his cologne and the heat of his body. His clothes rustled as he leaned down, and one finger hooked beneath my chin to lift my face. Though I couldn’t see him, I imagined that I somehow met his gaze. His thumb brushed over my bottom lip.

  “Say it.”

  “Monsieur,” I breathed, and almost cringed at how clumsy it sounded on my mouth. But if that’s what he wanted—if that was what Monsieur wanted—then it was what I would call him.

  A different hand, bigger, replaced Monsieur’s. Where his touch was elegant and gentle, Sir was commanding and cruel. He gripped my chin and touched his thumb to my lip the way Monsieur had, but roughly smeared my wine-red lipstick across my mouth.

  “But she made herself so pretty for us,” Monsieur said with a disappointed sigh.

  “Tell him why you made yourself so pretty,” Sir ordered, and I could see his smirk in my mind.

  “So that you could mess it up, Sir. Monsieur.”

  “I think we could make her very messy, indeed, can’t we, Monsieur?” Sir asked. Hearing him use the title sent a thrill through me. The more distance they put between themselves and who they were outside of our game, the more impersonal and, frankly, frightening this could feel for me.

  “She’s trembling,” Monsieur observed. “Are you not looking forward to that, little one? Are you afraid of what you’ll see when we’re finished with you? Sweat, tears, cum dripping from your mouth and your cunt…”

  I moaned.

  “You’ve struck a nerve.” Sir chuckled darkly. He released my chin, his hand sliding along the curve of my jaw and into my hair. He gripped a huge handful and pulled; I lifted up slightly to follow it, and he tugged, again. “On your feet.”

  I stood, grateful for the reprieve from the floor but aching from the position I’d held. That at least gave me some idea of how long they’d forced me to wait.

  Sir stood so close to me that his shirt brushed against my nipples, the legs of his trousers against my knees. He didn’t let go of my hair or relax his hold on it. “Where should we start?”

  I held my breath. Though we’d discussed rules for the scene, I rarely wanted to know ahead of time what was actually planned for me. Neil knew my limits and knew that I would tell him in advance if there was a particular activity I wasn’t comfortable with. It was a perfect arrangement; he could surprise me, and I could be safely afraid or titillated, while we both knew I was perfectly safe.

  “The machine room, I think,” Monsieur said casually, as though he were ordering something off a menu. “Is there a bench there?”

  “There is,” Sir confirmed.

  “Wonderful. Let’s bend her over it and use the machine to fuck her. To get her warmed up,” Monsieur added.

  “Shackles?” Sir asked.

  “Of course.”

  Sir handed me over to Monsieur with a quick shove that almost toppled me from my feet, forcing him to catch me. With the blindfold on, I felt helpless, and Monsieur’s strong arms around me were the only point of stability and reassurance I had. Oh, there would be definite advantages to having two Doms.

  He guided me into the machine room and stood behind me, running his hands down my arms to position them. They encountered the textured leather of the waist-high bench, and he gently pushed me down to bend over it. My feet stayed comfortably flat on the floor, so that my weight wouldn’t rest entirely on my chest against the bench.

  Sir knelt beside me and took my ankle in his hand to steady my leg as he cuffed it. Eerie that I could tell it was him just from that incidental touch, one that I hadn’t realized I’d memorized.

  As he secured my other ankle, I heard the click of an electrical cord striking the floor. A deep, ticklish feeling washed through my pelvis in anticipation.

  “I can’t wait to see this,” Monsieur said. “I’ve imagined it, from things you’ve told me.”

  A hot flush suffused my entire body. They’d talked about me? About sex things?

  Sir bent close to my ear, his breath stirring the hair at my temples. “I do hope it’s all right that I’ve shared some of our secrets.

  “I hope you spoke well of me, Sir,” I whispered as a cuff cinched around my wrist.

  “He told me how beautiful you look,” Monsieur said, his soft fingertips trailing down my back over the lace of my gown. “How loudly you scream. How desperately you plead. He told me that, when you come, you gush all over the floor. And that he once made you lick it up.”

  The shame and perversion of that encounter rushed through me all at once, magnified by the knowledge that Monsieur now shared the secret. He knew, then, about Sir holding my cheek against the floor with his foot on my head. That he’d made me clean up every drop and suck my wetness from the machine’s dildo as punishment for coming without his permission. That he’d whipped me with my favorite weighted leather flogger until my ass had glowed red and tears had washed my mascara down my face.

  Not only had Monsieur heard about all of that, he’d one day participate in similar scenes. I imagined Sir pushing Monsieur’s head between my legs, forcing him to eat his own cum from my pussy in a similar punishment.

  My cunt spasmed, and my clit throbbed; with a soft cry, I came without them even touching me.

  “Oh, look,” Monsieur said with a cluck of his tongue. “I think she’s finished without us.”

  “She’s not finished until I say she’s finished,” Sir corrected him. “Isn’t that right, Sophie?”

  “Yes, Sir,” I answered without hesitation.

  “And are you allowed to come without permission?” he asked, his palm smoothing over my ass through the dress.

  My knees tensed. Should I anticipate a strike? “No, Sir.”

  His hand lifted, and I flinched. But it fell to the back of my head in a comforting touch. “But that wasn’t your fault, was it? Monsieur doesn’t realize the power his word
s hold over you.”

  “I find it quite interesting, though,” Monsieur said with a cruel chuckle. “Imagine if I kept you restrained for hours and talked of such things, barely touching you. Teasing you with a feather, perhaps.”

  “Or a paintbrush,” Sir suggested. “I know she enjoys those. I’ll have to show you the video, sometime.”

  The video that I’d made with my occasional casual hook-up, Gena. She’d used paintbrushes dipped in dyes made from water-based lube to color my clit and labia then pressed paper against me to create a print I’d given Sir for his birthday. The touches had been maddening and light, and though it hadn’t taken very long, it had been torment. That had been part of his present, too.

  “I look forward to it,” Monsieur said. “Now, shall we fuck her?”

  “Of course. First, we need to decide if that’s the dildo we’ll use. Do you think we need something…”

  “Bigger?”

  “Or perhaps with more of a curve. Like…” I heard a drawer open. We kept the attachments and things we might need—like lube or extra restraints—that would be inconvenient if placed in another room in an antique sideboard. Scissors for rope and even bolt-cutters for chains were within easy distance, as well. But I knew what Sir was getting.

  “In this position, if we slide it onto the machine just so…” he said, and my toes curled against the marble, “it will put more pressure on her G-spot. And that’s what makes her get so incredibly wet. Let me show you.”

  My skirt pushed up, and the round head of a large curved dildo nudged my labia then slid right on past. Sir drove the toy into me without any other preparation, and the exaggerated, non-anatomically correct shape of the thing shocked me. I knew exactly which one he’d selected, just from the feel of it—sleek, smooth, and hot pink. He knew how much I loved the color.

  He withdrew the toy and pushed it in, again, upside down so that the wide ball-shaped head pressed hard on my g-spot. He was right, it did get me wet. The sound of my pussy opening around the toy was unmistakable as he withdrew it.

  The smooth surface tapped my lips, and Sir commanded, “Clean it up.”