by Lainey Reese
“Good evening, sir, ma’am,” the hostess greeted them as they approached her glossy podium. “Do you have a reservation for tonight?”
“Yes, we’re meeting some friends. I see them over there; we’ll seat ourselves,” Faulkner told her politely, barely stopping as he made his way. Shy took a deep breath and told herself to relax.
Then she got a look at the table they were headed toward and almost chickened out.
These people all looked like movie stars. The men as well as the women. She reminded herself that they were just people; no more special than her or anybody else. No matter if they all looked like they could buy and sell entire cities and spent their days sipping mimosas on yachts.
“Hi.” One of the women popped up from her seat with a beaming smile and wrapped Shy in a hug before she knew that was her intent.
Cheyenne felt more at ease instantly.
“I’m Riley. I’m a hugger, so if you’re not”—she pulled back to grin at Shy and there was an irresistible twinkle in her eyes—“sorry ’bout that.”
“No.” Cheyenne was quick to reply with a matching grin. “Hugging is good. I’m all for a good hug to break the ice.”
And it was true. As simple a gesture as it was, it had worked. Shy was more comfortable now.
“Yay.” Riley slipped one hand around Shy’s waist, then pointed out each person in turn as she made the introductions. When she finished, she gave Cheyenne another heartwarming hug and took her seat between her two husbands.
Wow. Two. Hat’s off to the spunky little brunette. Cheyenne had her hands full with just one man; and she didn’t think she had it in her to take on two.
Shy cut her eyes toward her husband. He was compelling and handsome and his time in the military had honed him into a fierce and steadfast man that she had—from the very first—trusted implicitly. Thank God there weren’t two of him. She’d never be able to keep up.
“I’m so excited for tomorrow.” Terryn, the stunning redhead on her right, gushed, then reached out and gave Shy a friendly hand squeeze as soon as she was seated. “Riley and I have been brainstorming all our favorite places. Tell us, are you a shopping kind of girl or a monument type?”
“This is important information,” Riley added with a look so solemn you’d think she was talking about world peace. “Your answer will determine which routes we take.”
Shy laughed a little and gave a shrug.
“If shopping is your thing, then we are going to spend a lot of time in the biggies, you know? Saks, Bloomies, Soho and the Fashion District. But if shopping is not high on your priority list, then we can do stuff like the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State. And Times Square, of course. But that is always better at night.”
“Little one.” Trevor snagged one of Riley’s hands and brought it to his lips. “Let the woman have a chance to order before you start in.” He kissed her trapped fingers, then brought their clasped hands to his lap before turning to talk to Shy.
“You’re in for a treat. Her questions actually have a legitimate purpose. Nobody loves this city like our girl here and she will tailor your route tomorrow to fit exactly to your interests.” The affectionate pride he felt was plain on his face and Shy found it charming as hell.
“That’s good to know actually,” she told him with a smile. “Thanks. As for shopping, I’m a girl. I like shopping, but I really want to see everything. Can we fit in shopping and the other stuff or will that be too much? I don’t want to be a bother or take up too much of anyone’s time.”
“Oh, don’t give that a second thought,” Brice, the detective who looked like Superman without the tights, told her. “These two have not been off the phone since we told them about you. It’s like Christmas came early.”
“You know it,” Terryn said.
“You got that right,” Riley said at the same time.
“Okay, got it.” Cheyenne laughed and held up her water glass in a salute. “I will quit second guessing my good fortune and just wallow in it instead.”
The girls lifted their own glasses and gave hearty “hear hears” and Shy felt the rest of her lingering apprehension melt away.
Pleasantries were exchanged—questions like, “Do you have kids?”
To which she answered, “Yes, one girl, Taylor. She’s staying with our close friends, Tex and Melody, while we’re away. How about any of you?”
Both women were mothers as well. Riley had two—one with each of her men—and they were trying for a third while Terryn and Brice just had one daughter so far.
“And she’s such a little hellion, I don’t know that either of us have the energy for another,” Brice told them with an affectionate laugh.
This was a topic Shy had no trouble discussing. As she and the others launched into stories of births and toddler antics the whole wonder of the evening just hit her.
There she was, West Coast small-town girl at a table in a world-renowned hotel having dinner with GQ men and runway-model women in freaking New York City. It was like a crazy dream and seriously already one of the best nights of her life.
Then her phone buzzed, alerting her to an incoming text.
“Yikes.” She grimaced as she fished it out of her purse. “I’m so sorry about this, guys. I have it off for everybody except Melody and Tex, so this must be about our daughter.”
To a chorus of “no problem” and “of course”, Shy unlocked her cell and read the headline.
She was confused because it said it was a text from Dude. She gave him a quizzical look as she tapped to open the message. He didn’t make eye contact, which was odd because somehow she knew he could tell she was trying to catch his attention.
It didn’t take her long to understand why he wouldn’t look her way.
Shy. I told you we were stepping things up tonight.
It starts now.
I’ve programmed my phone so that throughout the evening you will be getting instructions from me. You are to follow each to the letter, without comment or hesitation.
Shy gasped and looked again toward Dude.
“Is something wrong?” Terryn asked, obviously concerned.
She saw Faulkner bite back a grin even as he lifted his glass to hide the effort. The cad.
“Um.” She met Terryn’s gaze and tried to appear cool and calm as she answered, “Everything is fine. It’s not bad news.”
Cheyenne was pretty sure her face was fire-engine red and there was smoke coming out of her ears as she looked back to her phone.
I want you to excuse yourself from the table. Go to the restroom, take off your panties and bring them back to me.
Cue a giant gasp that she quickly disguised as a cough.
“Hey, I’m—” Cheyenne only fumbled a little as she took her purse off the back of her chair, draped it over her shoulder and stood. “It’s nothing serious. But will you please excuse me? I just have to—um—go to the restroom for a moment.”
“Oh! Potty break,” squealed Riley as she threw her napkin on the table and hopped to her feet. “Mwa!” She planted a kiss first on Trevor’s cheek, then Cade’s. “Be right back.”
“Thank God.” Terryn’s napkin surrendered to the table too as she stood. She ran a hand over Brice’s shoulder as she rounded past him. “I thought I was gonna bust waiting for one of you to say you had to go too.”
“You could have said you needed to go to the bathroom?” Exasperated, Riley gave the slender redhead a hip bump. “I totally would have come with.”
They all started on their way, and Cheyenne tried to appear as though she were listening to the conversation instead of what she was really listening to: the panicked squeal-ly voice in her head saying over and over “Omg Omg Omg Omg Omg Omg Omg Omg!”
“No, I know. I just didn’t want to be the one to break the moment. You know?” Terryn was saying, gesturing and looking toward both Shy and Riley. “Wasn’t it going really great in there? Like, the conversation was almost like one of the movie montages of what a dinne
r party is supposed to be. Don’t you think?”
“You’re right! It was so fun. I get why you didn’t want to interrupt. The energy around the table was really great.” Riley looked at Shy and asked, “Did you feel it too? I hope you weren’t uncomfortable this whole time. That would be awful.” Her lovely face blanched a little at that.
“No.” Shy laughed, reached out and gave her a little one-armed hug before they fell back into step together. “God, no. I was having a great time. In fact, just before my phone buzzed I’d been thinking this had to be one of the best nights of my life.”
They had reached the bathrooms and now stood in the beautifully decorated sitting room adjacent to the stalls.
At the mention of her phone, Shy tensed, hoping she hadn’t sparked an interest in the message that had sent her here in the first place. She’d never know how to explain it.
“So what are you supposed to do in here?”
Chapter 4
Shy froze and stared at Riley’s cheerfully inquisitive face like a deer fixated on headlights.
“Huh?” Oh, clever, Cheyenne. Real witty.
“You got instructions from your Dom. Right?” Terryn prompted, like she was telling Shy her bank had called.
No biggie. Happens every day.
“Is it something difficult? Do you need help? Or privacy? We could block the door for you—?”
She looked over her shoulder toward the door in question and Cheyenne felt her mouth drop open when Riley chirped, “Ooh! Good idea.” And ran to do just that.
“Wait,” Shy called out, flabbergasted. “What?” She looked from one beautiful smiling face to the next and felt a million questions bubbling up.
She was a bit surprised at the one that made it out first.
“Are you two in on this?”
Shocked laughter was her answer.
“Of course not,” Riley said. “But, we’re both subs too and we know a Dom maneuver when we see one. Right, T?” She nudged her friend with her elbow.
“Right,” Terryn answered with a wink toward Shy. “And we know the signs of a happy yet flustered sub.”
“Oh my God.” Cheyenne couldn’t find words. She’d known coming in that these girls were sexual submissives to their Doms. What she hadn’t realized was what that would mean for her.
Friends in the same position she was in. Friends who could offer advice and, more importantly, confidantes who shared the same experiences she did.
Her friends back home were more than sisters to her, and she knew she could talk to them about anything. And they would be open, supportive, and never judgmental. But they also couldn’t tell her what it felt like to be flogged. Or which kind of lubricant was the best for anal plugs.
These women could.
“Holy shit, guys,” she blurted. “I forgot you two knew about this stuff. Oh, thank you little fat baby Jesus.” They all chuckled as Shy flopped into a chair and rubbed a hand on her belly. “My stomach about dropped to my feet for a minute there. I didn’t know how I was going to tell you beautiful sweet girls that I had to go take off my panties and somehow slip them to my man when I get back to the table without anyone noticing.”
Dead silence. Then the eruption of laughter came from all three corners of the room. Terryn collapsed onto another of the lounge chairs while Riley clutched her belly and cried, “I gotta pee,” as she ran for the stalls.
It seemed to take forever for the laughter die down. Cheyenne pushed to her feet and turned toward the mirror to check to make sure her eyeliner hadn’t run or smudged since she had literately laughed till she’d cried.
“I suppose I should go get the first part done.” Small renewal of laughter from all. “God help me if I know how I’ll manage the second part.”
Then she turned into the stall closest to her. Just as she did, all three of their phones pinged an incoming message. They froze and stared at each other in panic.
“Oh shit.” That was Riley, and she had her face scrunched in what kinda looked like rebellion.
“You first?” Terryn asked, looking at Shy with her teeth bared and eyes squinted like she was comically braced for an explosion.
Cheyenne looked at her phone.
“It’s from Faulkner,” she told them. Their silence said they’d known it would be.
“It says: ‘You have not followed instructions. You took too long. Go back into the stall and look in your purse. There is a toy in there. Attach it and bring the remote along with the panties to me.’” Cheyenne couldn’t bring herself to look up. “‘Also take a belfie and send it to me. Immediately.’”
Shy whipped her head up in panic. “What the hell is a belfie?”
More laughter, and then Riley said, “You can see firsthand in just a second cuz it appears”—her voice went low in mock severity and she made air quotes with her fingers—“‘I’ve interfered with a Dom and his sub.’ Gah! So I now have to send a belfie too.” She said it in exasperation that was tinged with that smug feeling a woman only gets from knowing the love of a good man.
Or, in her case, two good men.
“Ugh. Make that three belfies to go, please,” Terryn said and tugged at her gorgeous hunter green leather dress. “Do you see how tight this dress is? Sadistic SOB knows how hard I had to fight to get this stupid cowhide on.” It was tight and lovely, and fit to her sleek figure like it was sewn on. She was a goddess of the forest with her auburn locks and nude heels. And Cheyenne thought to herself that if she had a dress she looked that good in, it wouldn’t matter how much trouble she went through to put it on. She’d put. It. On.
“Amen to that, sister.”
It was then that she realized she said that out loud and Riley gave her a high five.
“You know he only did that because he wants to remind you of how much fun he had helping you get into that dress,” Riley teased.
“Yeah, well that part was fun.” She turned to Shy and opened her mouth like she was about to explain just how fun, but all three phones buzzed again and they jumped into motion.
“Wait!” Cheyenne cried out in a high panicked voice. “I still don’t know what the hell a belfie is!”
“It’s a selfie.” Riley popped her head out of the stall she was in. “Of your butt.” Then disappeared again. “Oh my goodness you guys!” she exclaimed. “This stall has a little bench and potted plant in here. Now, I know it’s a beautiful restroom in a fancy hotel, but sheesh. Who wants to sit and chill in a public stall, no matter how nice a stall it is?”
Shy giggled along with the other two and supposed she could understand why Riley hadn’t elaborated further or waited around for questions. Put like that, it was kinda self-explanatory. At least now she had a name for all those ass shots—as she’d always called them—she saw everywhere.
“Great,” she said as she blushed so hard her face felt like it was on fire. “Now I gotta figure out a way to take a picture of my own ass?”
“Wait.” Riley called from her stall and Shy looked over and saw her phone extended in both her hands as she apparently took her own photos. “Isn’t your guy still active in the military?”
“Yeah. He is.” Shy knew where this was going. “But it’s mostly radio silence while he’s gone and I don’t hear from him until he’s home.”
“Oh God.” The quiet in the room was instant and full of compassion.
“I couldn’t imagine. How terrifying.” Riley’s voice was soft and dripped with sincerity.
“What you must go through.” Terryn’s voice, too, was so earnest Cheyenne couldn’t take it. She wanted to dispel the sudden solemnity that had entered their carefree laughter on this once-in-a-lifetime type of evening.
“Guys, honest,” Shy hurried to reassure them. “I have a great family.” It hit her anew. This overwhelming love she had for the people who’d come into her life along with Faulkner. Her real family. “All of our husbands are SEALs. We hold each other up and help keep the worst of the downsides of this life at bay.”
&nbs
p; She marched back to her stall—the last empty one—and prepared to put all her worries and fears away.
This was their time. Like the freaking Goonies, she was not going to let anyone or anything interfere with their time. “Thank you both for asking. God, I can’t tell you what it means to me that you did. But, um…what was your point about him being military?”
“Well, even if not when he’s away, haven’t you sent him a belfie before?” Riley wanted to know. Shy heard only grunts and thumps from Terryn’s stall and she guessed the other woman must be fighting with her dress.
“No. Not of my butt. He has a couple pictures of it”—she couldn’t believe she was confessing—“but he took those himself.”
“It’s super easy once you get the hang of it.”
“Uh,” grunted Terryn, apparently still fighting with her dress. “Says the girl with an ass so round it’d make JLo jealous.” There was a huge sigh, then, “Thank God. Now I can pee.”
Cheyenne loved that even as she answered the call of her bladder, Terryn was comfortable to continue talking. Like friends. Like family.
“It’s trickier if you don’t have as big a target.” Flush. “But, it’s doable. You just have to really arch your back and get good at lining up your phone when you can’t see the screen. But there is the added benefit that it makes your ass look just as juicy as Riley’s.”
“Hey! Your ass is hot. I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Riley declared as she exited her stall and washed her hands.
“Oh, I know,” Terryn called out over the sound of the faucet. “I never said mine wasn’t good—I’m actually quite fond of it myself. I just said it wasn’t as round as yours and therefore, harder to belfie.”
“And therefore?” Riley made a sound that was the closest thing to a chortle that Shy had ever heard. “You sound like Z when she can’t switch out of lawyer mode.”
“Right?” Terryn laughed too and Riley explained.
“Ziporah—Z for short—is our friend and part of our circle, I guess you could call us. She’s an assistant district attorney for the city and sometimes, when she’s especially overloaded with cases, it’s like she doesn’t know how to speak in words that have less than five syllables in them.”
