by Lynn Stark
“Are you okay, baby?” a deep male voice asked. Marley turned around to see Grayson walking quickly toward her.
Marley smiled up at him, glad to see the tall, handsome sheriff. “I’m fine. The bear didn’t pay any attention to me.”
“Did you have food in there?”
She grimaced. “Dog biscuits. We missed them this morning. They were on the front seat.”
Grayson laughed. “Clever. Spread the responsibility around evenly.”
“I try. How’s your day going? And why aren’t you at home enjoying your day off?”
“I was called because my woman was being threatened by a huge, saliva-dripping beast.”
Her arched brows shot up. “Really? I haven’t seen Roarke in hours.” Grayson laughed at her joke, hugging her. She loved the feeling of security she got from his arms around her. “They called you because I called about a bear in the parking lot?” she asked seriously.
“After what happened with my former secretary, neither you nor anybody else will be able to get a hangnail without me being informed of it. Everyone wants to keep their job.” He looked her over from head to toe. Marley felt herself blush. When she was in makeup, with her hair styled, and wearing the suit, she felt all grown up. What did he see? Whatever it was, it seemed to please him. “You look like a model,” he told her, heat flaring in his green eyes.
“I’m too short to be a model.” She was only five foot six in her stocking feet. The shoes added another couple of inches, but she was still many inches shorter than Grayson. He made her feel small, fragile, and protected when she was near him. That was a good sign, wasn’t it? “Now that they have the bear,” she said, steering the conversation away from her, “what will happen to it?”
“He’ll be taken out to a wilderness area and released. They’ll make the whole experience as unpleasant as possible. Hopefully the bear will get the message and not want to come back around town.”
“He’s very fat. He’s had a good season feeding.”
“And he’s making that final push, eating everything he can, before he goes to hibernate. Getting him away from town will help him find someplace where he can tuck in without being too close to humans. You should have been at the house the day I wondered why Bailey was barking at something under the porch. Now, mind you, I’ve lived here all my life. But it just never occurred to me that there was a black bear doing its Sleeping Beauty impression under there. I crawled under, its eyes opened, and I got the hell out.”
“And?” she asked when he left it there.
“And it came out in the spring, I fixed the porch where it had squeezed in, and haven’t seen it since.”
Now that the bear was gone, people were showing up to look at the damage the critter had done to her SUV. After getting her personal belongings out of it she was relieved when a flatbed car hauler came in, courtesy of the sheriff, to take it to a body shop for repair.
“I’ll take you over so you can talk to them about the repairs.”
“Thanks, I’d appreciate that.”
By the time they had arrived at the repair shop, spent half an hour there arranging a suitable replacement she could use for a few days, then back to Grayson and Roarke’s house, she was beginning to believe she had imagined the men had any interest in her.
Grayson was acting like just any old friend, a very platonic, very uninterested-in-sex-with-her kind of friend. He didn’t touch her, didn’t tease her with any little sexual innuendoes, nor did he give her any more of those hot little looks she had begun to associate with both men. By the time she had greeted Roarke and gathered her belongings, she was really beginning to wonder if she hadn’t imagined anything sexual between her and the men. It sucked.
If they had been interested before, they sure weren’t now. Unable to identify how she was feeling, Marley politely declined their offer to join them for supper, loaded her dogs into a vehicle they didn’t want to get into, and then headed in the direction of the Redford mansion on the other side of town.
Of course, she drove by the house she hoped would be hers very soon. She parked out on the curb, admiring it. Two stories of pure charm, with a turret, gables, and a porch which just called out for people to sit on it and visit with one another, it sat on a very large yard. Though it had been cared for, the house still needed work. And it definitely needed to be painted. There were four other Queen Anne style houses on the tree-lined street. They were all painted in bright colors, so she knew hers would fit right in. The dozen or so other houses were a mix of styles, some being Craftsman, others Prairie, even one midcentury modern, which was low and angular.
“Well, this is it. How do you like your new home?” Barney saw a squirrel and barked, drooling down the window. Martha woofed quietly, her heavy tail banging against the rear window as she anticipated getting out of the borrowed vehicle and taking a run. “We’ll come look around in a couple of days.”
The fence around the property, a four-foot-high picket, would have to be replaced. Colt had told her she could do so without applying to the improvement board, as long as she made an exact replacement. There was a well-groomed hedge behind it, so it wouldn’t be easy for her dogs to make a total nuisance of themselves to people walking along on the sidewalk.
Oh, it was going to be a very difficult two weeks. She was an action kind of person. She didn’t like sitting around and waiting for things to happen. Thank goodness she didn’t have to wait for the usual negotiations, the financing hassles, and a seller to move out. But two whole weeks of waiting?
Laughing at herself, she pulled away from the curb. Fourteen days of waiting was not going to kill her.
But wondering why Roarke and Grayson had suddenly turned into best buddies instead of potential lovers just might, Marley thought with a curious twinge of sadness over the possibility. What she felt about their lack of interest made her completely forget her own determination not to get too involved until she had settled some things in her life.
She wanted to be with her hot, macho lawman and her dark, fallen angel.
Chapter Eight
“I don’t think I’m going to be able to hold out,” Roarke confessed to him during supper. “She was looking at us like we had turned into people she had never seen before.”
“Yeah, I know,” Grayson confessed, sounding no happier than his partner. “I don’t have a clue how to do this. If we just keep it to kisses and hugs, she’s still going to know something’s up. Now we’ve treated her like she had some disease and I don’t know how to go on from here. We can’t be blowing hot and cold.”
He stabbed a meatball with his fork, and then slid it around in the sauce. Roarke was a fantastic cook, which was why he ended up doing most of it. They both preferred his cooking.
“We should have dated more women.”
“We need a do-over.” He dropped his fork onto the plate. “How are we going to fix this?”
“How are we going to fix something we don’t know how we screwed up in the first place? We screwed up from the very beginning. We came on too strong.”
Grayson knew his voice was filled with confusion. He’d never had to court someone before. Hell, he’d never dated anybody before. With Roarke, he had just waited until the other man was old enough for what he had in mind. That and to discover whether Roarke was gay or not. It had come as a big relief when the younger man returned his first kiss with unrestrained fire.
“And now that we’re not acting like horndogs any longer, Marley doesn’t know what’s going on with us.”
Roarke looked completely miserable as he sat across from him. Grayson wanted to pull him into his arms and kiss the sadness off his face. That might have worked before for some things, but he doubted it would for this.
“Maybe we should talk to Colt.”
“He’ll just tell us what huge fuckups we are. Do you really want to hear it?”
“I’ll listen, if he adds something useful.” Grayson got up from his chair and picked up the plate. He to
ok it to the fridge and shoved it inside. “Okay. Let’s go see him.”
The dogs were put in a room off the kitchen. There was no way they could trust Chug to be left to his own devices. He had only just graduated to being left out of his crate while they were gone for short periods of time. They made sure he had his favorite chew toy and the puzzle ball filled with treats, which would dispense if he rolled it just right.
Talking to Colt shouldn’t take them long. How long could it possibly take their friend to tell them they were idiots?
Once they were at the club, however, they found themselves diverted from their mission. Shock rocketed through them as they saw Marley sitting at a table watching a very provocative pair of male dancers on the stage, a beer on the table beside her.
Colt’s club had several levels. This one was for those just wanting a little spice tossed into their day. There was music, male and female dancers, in various combinations, as well as provocative interaction between the entertainers and the audience.
The next level was on the second floor. It was for people wanting to engage in sexual encounters. It was basically one big room with beds, couches, swings, and benches, and a stage at one end. Anyone could enter the room as long as they were a member of the club. Once inside, just about anything could happen. There was always someone there to monitor the activities, but they never interfered unless it appeared someone was not following the strict rules. And rule number one was that no one would be forced to participate with another.
Grayson knew there were rarely any problems inside the club. Troublemakers were dealt with swiftly and harshly by Colt. He didn’t tolerate the actions of a few who could easily ruin it for the rest of the members. If there was an assault, Grayson was called.
The third floor was very like a hotel. There were eight private, luxury bedchambers, all of which were constructed down the center of the building, each separated by two narrow rooms so an unseen audience could look into them from all four sides. Even the doors had sliding panels. Anyone walking down the hall could simply stop in front of an occupied room, slide the panel back, and watch whatever was taking place inside. Needless to say, the rooms were very popular by those who loved to perform sexually in front of others, as well as those loving to watch. The rooms were booked months ahead.
The fourth level was the BDSM portion of the club and it was within the solid walls holding up the building. It was dark, mysterious, playing very much into the lifestyle, and had rooms where scenes could be played out by a Dom and his submissive. These rooms were also monitored, but most of the action happened out in the main room where the D/s scenes would be performed in front of an appreciative audience.
“What do we do?”
Just as Roarke asked, Marley glanced back and saw them. They saw her frown before she smiled. Obviously she didn’t know how to take their presence in the club. Not any more than they could comprehend hers.
Knowing they couldn’t avoid her, and wishing they had gone straight to Colt’s office without going through the club area, they went to the table.
“What are you guys doing here?” she asked over the throbbing music, then motioned for them to sit in the extra chairs at the table.
A topless server of the female variety came over, smiling warmly at them. Like many working in the club, they had grown up with them. Sometimes it was just weird, like now. Grayson tried not to stare at the woman’s gorgeous tits. And they were gorgeous. And real. He liked the real variety.
“What can I get you guys?” Bambi asked cheerfully, not in the least bothered by their blatant stares.
“Whiskey,” Grayson told her, finally averting his eyes. They landed on Marley’s amused face. “You, Roarke?” he asked, nudging his lover in the shoulder.
“Uh, beer. Anything you got.”
“Sure thing. Hey, Danny’s going to be dancing shortly. I’ll let him know you’re here.”
Both men groaned. Danny was another they had known since childhood. He made a point of dancing as provocatively as he could whenever he was working on the rare times they came in. It wasn’t a usual hangout. They came in once in a while to watch a show or do the down-and-dirty on level two. They enjoyed fucking each other in front of an audience from time to time. Thinking about that made him look at Marley. He wondered if, when they got this whole mess straightened out, if she would be willing to let them fuck her in front of others.
With his cock hardening at the thought, Grayson realized she was waiting for an answer to her question. How long ago had that been? He was glad of the dark atmosphere when he felt his cheeks heating.
“We come in once in a while. A couple times a month, maybe.”
“It depends on our mood.”
Marley nodded, looking back at the stage where the dancers were finishing their routine. The music had no sooner faded away than it began again, strong and thumping. Danny appeared, blue lights flashing over his hard body. Muscles rippled and flexed as he performed, his fully erect cock bouncing freely He grinned and winked at Grayson, causing him to bite back a groan.
“He’s going to rock your world,” Bambi laughed, placing their drinks on the table.
She sauntered away, her beautiful ass swinging back and forth, the cherry red thong she wore emphasizing the motion.
While Danny did nothing for him personally, he played along. When the man leaped powerfully off the stage, much to the delight of the audience, to dance his way over Grayson, he leaned back to look up into the grinning face. The look he gave his longtime friend warned him he better not get too carried away.
Grayson should have known better. Danny straddled his lap and began humping his stomach while holding on to his shoulders. It didn’t help when Roarke and Marley began laughing their asses off.
Pulling him close, he said in the dancer’s ear, “Wait until I see you driving around town in that piece of crap truck.”
“You wouldn’t,” Danny huffed but then grinned when Grayson slapped his bare ass with a hard hand. “If you ever get rid of pretty boy over there, give me a call.” He rubbed his stiff cock once and winked.
Roarke glared at the man as he leapt off his lap and began dancing around the tables, showing off his wares. “I’m not pretty.”
“Yes you are,” Marley and Grayson said together, laughing when he pouted.
Since she seemed to be relaxed with them here in the club, Grayson decided he would just let sleeping dogs lie. No point stirring anything up. They would relax, have some fun, and then they would talk. It would also prevent them from having to talk to Colt. They really didn’t want to listen to him telling them what they already knew. They were screwups.
“So, do you guys like Bambi’s breasts?” Marley asked conversationally, watching them closely.
“They’re okay,” Roarke said. “They’re a little big.”
Blue-green eyes turned on him. “What about you, Grayson? You seemed particularly fascinated.”
Now, how was he supposed to answer that? He was surprised Roarke had answered. The man could be such a wimp at times like these. It was like answering the question “do these pants make my butt look fat?”
“I’m not answering that.”
“Why not?”
“Because.”
Marley laughed. “Two nonanswers. What a coward.”
Grayson nodded and grabbed the tumbler with the whiskey in it. He sipped it, giving himself more time. He appreciated the smooth caress of the alcohol over his tongue. Colt served nothing but the best to his customers.
“I like the size of your breasts,” he stated out loud, then blinked in surprise. Where had that come from? He hadn’t even been thinking it. At least he hadn’t right at that moment.
“Thank you. Now, do you two want to tell me why you started treating me like I have some horrid communicable disease?”
Both he and Roarke shifted uneasily. They had both shared terribly intimate moments with Marley. They couldn’t get beyond that. Now that they had decided they had move
d too fast with her, they felt guilty as hell.
“Well, we just thought we should slow things down a bit, let you get to know us better and vice versa.”
“Don’t you think I can make decisions for myself?”
Shit, was she just going to ask trick questions all night? Grayson groaned inwardly and took another sip of whiskey, giving himself precious time to think of what the right answer was.
Roarke decided to jump in right then. He reached for her hand. “Sure we do, baby. But we know you’re going through some rough times right now. We just shouldn’t have been so pushy.”
“I could have said no at any time. If I don’t want something, I’ll let you know. The thing is, I’ve been going back and forth on this. You’re great guys and I do understand what you want from me. I tell myself I’d be crazy to let you go. Then there’s the other part of me that says I shouldn’t jump into something so big, so important, because I might not be making decisions with my brain, but my heart. If I make the wrong decision now, we could all get hurt more later on.”
“That’s it exactly, baby,” Grayson told her huskily, wishing they were somewhere private. The throbbing music was making it difficult to hold a conversation. Still, they might just need the neutral territory of the club to deal with this subject. He didn’t want to risk any of them closing down if they left, seeking more quiet and privacy. “We don’t want to rush you into anything. I’m afraid we’re pretty decided on what we want. There have been women in the past that we’ve considered. You’re the first one to really attract us, to touch something deep inside each of us. We can’t ignore that.”
