by Reece Butler
Trey had almost made her scream last night. They’d wanted to stay with her, but had let her sleep. Neither of them wanted to trust their self-control that badly. They’d protected her, yet all day she’d treated them like they’d stomped on her puppy or something. And now this!
He’d spent years proving his competence and control. He’d finally been awarded one of the top responsibilities in the Valley. And now he might have lost it because he’d almost caused a bar fight. He could turn and walk away, keeping the icy calm exterior that had protected him for so long. Or he could face Katie while everyone listened in, and spill his guts. He exhaled, dropping his head to stare at his boots. They were the good ones he only wore for special occasions. Occasions like asking a pretty woman he cared about to dance, hoping she’d let him kiss her, and maybe more.
The whispers got louder. A few chuckles started. He had to do something!
“Well?” demanded Trey, keeping his voice down. “Time to shit or get off the pot.”
Sam dragged his eyes over to Katie. Dare still held onto her, but loosely. The son of a bitch had a smile playing around his mouth. She looked so damn good, but that dress! Just standing there she made all the blood head south where it had no business being. Not when damn near every one of his relatives was watching him—and smirking.
He could do this. It would not kill him. It might hurt like hell, and be a bugger to live down, but he didn’t want to disappear back into that empty gray fog.
“Whatever you’re upset about, I’m sorry it happened.” He held his breath while she took it in. She opened her mouth.
“Katie Winterbourne, don’t you dare say a thing!”
He turned. “Lila? What the—”
“Let me go!” Lila elbowed Jet in the gut and escaped his grasp.
“You’re already skating on thin ice for sneaking out dressed like that,” said Jet in a clear warning. “I suggest you set that sweet ass back in this chair.” He pointed to where she’d been sitting.
“Sorry, honey, no can do,” said Lila, slipping between the tables. “Katie’s new here, and needs some guidance from a woman who knows about big men who think they’re in charge.”
“Think?” asked Jet. The ice in his voice matched that in his eyes.
“Whoa, you’re not going anywhere!” Riley Adams held tight to his wife as Jane struggled to escape his lap.
“This pregnant lady has had three glasses of juice,” replied Jane, still struggling. “Keeping her from the facilities is not a good idea when she’s sitting on your lap!”
“Let her go. This is the best entertainment in weeks!”
“Mom, you’re not helping!” said Riley after Jane escaped his grasp. Travis grinned, cracking his fingers in obvious anticipation of providing punishment.
“Aggie,” warned Keith, staring across the table at her, “another word and you’ll be face down tonight, same as Jane and Lila.”
“Oh, goody!” Aggie shoved her chair back and stood up. She popped her fist in the air. “You go, girls! Show them who’s the boss!”
Jane and Lila had reached Katie. Dare lifted his hands free and took a step back, grinning down at the women. Aggie’s shriek filled the room.
“Put me down!”
Sam had seen his aunts tossed over their husbands’ shoulders all his life. Katie’s stunned expression proved she had not.
“What is he doing?” She watched, open-mouthed, as Keith, one hand on Aggie’s upraised bottom, the other holding her legs from kicking, strode for the front door. He smacked her well-rounded bottom when she struggled, causing another shriek and a few cheers. “Where’s he taking her?”
“Wherever he wants,” said Jane, shaking her head and sighing wistfully. “To do whatever he wants, however he wants.”
“We’ll explain everything.” Lila tugged on Katie’s arm. The two women hustled Katie into the ladies’ room before Sam could intervene.
“That was the last thing Katie needed to see,” said Sam bitterly. “She’s going to hightail it out of here first chance she gets.”
“I don’t know about that,” said Trey, far too cheerfully. “Lila and Jane will calm her down. Or even better, rev her up.” He lifted his head. “Hey!” he yelled over the chatter, “what does a man have to do to get a whiskey around here?”
“Show me a man and I’ll tell you!” yelled Dorothy back, just as loud. Cheers and jeers erupted.
“Make it two,” said Sam.
“Since when do you drink the hard stuff?” demanded Trey.
“Since Katie blew up my life. Beer just won’t cut it tonight.”
“Women! You can’t live with them—” yelled Houston, Lila’s other fiancé.
“And life’s not worth living without them!” replied Travis, Jane’s younger husband. “I’ll buy you a whiskey, Sam. About time you joined the living.”
Chapter 16
Katie’s damp thighs rubbed sensuously against each other as she followed Jane and Lila. The chain strap of her purse was so long it banged against her bottom with each step. Just like Sam and Trey’s hands might later.
She hadn’t realized how aroused she’d get from a pair of cavemen pounding on their chests over her. Strong, muscular chests which she’d leaned against and danced with all evening. Sam had done the gorilla thing because he wanted her. After being ignored or pushed aside for most of her life the attention was both thrilling and arousing.
If he wanted her this badly, why had he dumped her on the bed and walked out, hauling Trey with him? Because if there was one thing she knew, it was that Trey would have wanted to cuddle against her all night. She’d found the box of expired condoms stuffed in the trash. She’d been too furious at the time to think, but it was an explanation for why they’d left her alone. Maybe they couldn’t trust themselves to sleep beside her without needing condoms?
When Lila and Jane had walked in the Roadhouse it erupted in wolf whistles. The two women had posed, turned like models, then stepped aside to reveal Katie. The room had gone silent until Dorothy announced that Katie Winterbourne was working at the Rocking E and, due to Stella Elliott’s injury, would be responsible for food during the haying. She’d received cheers, much to her surprise. She’d barely sat when she’d been swamped by men. Handsome, tall, muscular men who knew how to dance. So did their parents, who’d welcomed her as well. She’d had a great time until Sam and Trey walked in.
It was flattering to be wanted, though there was a strong undercurrent of sexual tension. Strangely, it was the married ones that had her wondering what was going on. She’d overheard comments that matched some of what she’d read in Marci’s books, about getting spanked, and tied up, and punished. She’d told herself it was her overactive imagination until Keith Adams carried his screaming wife out the door. It was one thing to read fiction and fantasize over it. Seeing it happen in front of you was a shock.
“What just happened out there?” demanded Katie as soon as the door hit her bottom, closing out most of the raucousness.
“You were slow-dancing with Dare McInnes, the Valley’s undisputed playboy now that Trey’s hung up his spurs,” said Lila. “That shot Sam’s blood pressure sky high. And then you demanded a kiss from Dare.” She raised her eyebrows. “Didn’t Sam give you the reaction you wanted?”
Katie waved the question away. “I meant Mr. Adams throwing his wife over his shoulder and hauling her outside. You said he’d do whatever he wanted to her.” They both looked at her blankly. “You don’t have a problem with that?”
“I thought you read Aunt Marci’s books?” said Lila.
“That was fiction!”
The two pregnant women shared a snicker. “It was just as much a surprise to me when I first got here,” said Jane. “I now enjoy the attention two demanding men can provide.”
Part of the reason Aggie being tossed over her husband’s shoulder bothered Katie was that it both frightened and aroused her. It was dangerous to lose control in a family who attacked any weakness, so f
ear of it made sense. Her arousal at the possibility was less easy to explain.
“Aggie has been pushing my fathers-in-law, especially Keith, since they got back from Europe,” said Jane. She cleared her throat. “The trip was a very belated honeymoon. Now that they’re back, Keith and Donny have spent a lot of time working rather than playing. Aggie wasn’t pleased about it, so she pushed Keith. If you hear her screaming—”
“Screaming?”
“—it won’t be a complaint.” Jane primly pressed her lips together.
The women in the erotic ménage books often screamed when they had an orgasm. Fictional women got amazingly intense orgasms. At least she’d thought it was all fiction until Trey put his tongue and fingers on her and the world had exploded. When she touched herself, which she only did when securely locked in her own bedroom, she made sure not to make any noise. She’d be mortified if anyone noticed. Yet last night she hadn’t cared that the kitchen light was on, there were no curtains on the window, and Trey had spread her on the table like a Thanksgiving feast.
“What will he do to her?” she asked.
“Whatever he—”
“I got that,” said Katie, breaking into Jane’s repeated comment. “I mean, how does this Dominance and submission thing work?”
“How much do you know about BDSM?” asked Lila.
Heat immediately flashed over Katie’s body. “Just what I read in your aunt’s books,” she admitted.
“And?” prompted Lila. “Did you enjoy what they did? Want the same thing?”
“Yes, I enjoyed reading about it,” she admitted. “I like that the heroes respect the women, though they dominate them. But it’s fiction.”
She’d learned about kinky things in one of her abnormal psych classes. It had not prepared her for what she’d read in Marci’s books. The heroines had knelt naked on the floor beside their men, or waited on their hands and knees, back arched and knees wide apart so their nether parts were available. They were spanked, flogged, and had other things happen that she didn’t want to think about in front of others but made her hot and wet.
“This valley is full of Dominants, including our husbands,” said Lila.
Katie noticed color on Lila’s pale cheeks and, looking closer, the same thing on Jane’s.
“You two are embarrassed by this as well,” she said accusingly.
“Not embarrassed for admitting we enjoy it,” said Jane, fidgeting. “It’s more that I’m unsure what you’ll think about me now that you know.”
“It’s new to both of us,” admitted Lila. “I’ve seen it all my life but never accepted it for myself until recently. I thought women were weak unless they took care of everything without help.”
“My father treated me as a possession,” said Jane in a near-whisper. “I’m the last person you’d think would want this. Yet I feel protected rather than controlled because Riley and Travis do it with love.”
“It’s not all about what they want, though that’s a large part of it,” said Lila. “They give me what I want, and will enjoy.” She flashed a wicked smile. “Sometimes they go overboard and we have to remind them how lucky they are to have us,” said Lila. “Which is what we’re doing tonight.”
“We submit to our men,” said Jane, “but it’s our choice to do so. If Aggie didn’t want Keith touching her one word would have stopped him.”
Katie had read about safewords. They were often like a stoplight, using green, yellow, and red. She nodded her understanding.
“You’re awfully quiet,” said Jane. She patted Katie’s hand. “Are you upset about this?”
“What Jane is politely asking,” said Lila drily, “is, are you afraid of facing the truth that the idea of submitting to a dominant man or two makes you hot? We can tell it’s true, but if you want to pull an ostrich and stick your head back in the sand—”
“Don’t be so harsh,” said Jane to Lila. “Katie’s had a rough time.”
“All the more reason to have fun now.”
“Fun?” Katie shook her head ruefully. “I don’t really know what that word means.”
“Does everyone else in your family have the same attitude as this stuffed-shirt uncle of yours?” asked Jane. “Not that we’re trying to be nosy.”
“My grandmother is CEO of our family company, though she is getting old. The main focus for everyone is work, stomping on others to get ahead. That means if you’re not working, you should be, and whatever you do to get ahead is right if it works. Uncle Walter is the oldest, meanest, and slimiest of them all.”
“One uncle doesn’t determine your whole life.”
“Unfortunately, when my grandmother steps down—”
“Don’t tell me that stick-in-the-mud, misogynistic so-and-so takes over the company?” Lila groaned, rolling her eyes when Katie nodded.
“Do you intend to work for them?” asked Jane. “You’re a caring, thoughtful person. It would be soul-destroying for you to work there.”
“I’ll fulfill my assignment as best I can. If Uncle Walter takes over, well…” Katie shrugged. “I won’t hide in a corner anymore.”
“Does anyone in your family know you’re here?” asked Lila.
“Only my grandmother. I send updates to her private e-mail account.”
“So your uncle can’t track you down and find out what you’re doing?”
“No, thank God!”
“Good! Forget about those so-and-so’s,” said Lila briskly. “You are going to have fun while you’re in Climax. That means having hot, wild sex with two men who can’t keep their eyes off you.” She winked. “Or hands, lips, and every other body part. And we’re gonna do what we can to make sure you enjoy yourself.”
“We sure are. Now get out of the way so I can take care of business,” said Jane. “I wasn’t joking about the juice.”
“I suggest you pull off that thong,” said Lila. “No one will know but you, and it will make you feel extra frisky. And when the time comes, you’ll be ready.”
Go without panties? Yes! Katie yanked it off then wrapped it in paper towels and stuck it in her purse. She patted her face with cold water. Since her chest was easily accessible she did the same thing there.
“I like the kitten and rope wallpaper and the barn-board walls,” she said, admiring them. She hadn’t noticed much the morning of her arrival.
“It’s an in joke,” said Lila. “Some of the women have pet names of ‘kitten,’ and the men like to play with rope. And I’m not talking about using a lasso, either, though they can do that, too.”
An image flashed into Katie’s mind from one of the last scenes in the book she’d almost finished. Would Sam put leather cuffs on her wrists and ankles, tie her hands above her head, and spread her legs before taking a flogger to her?
Katie shivered in anticipation.
Chapter 17
“Uh-oh.”
Katie, hearing the worry in Jane’s tone, followed her gaze. She’d successfully avoided both Elliotts, mainly by sitting with Jane and Lila. Every time she glanced around, Sam had his full attention on her. And every time, her arousal had gone up a notch. When she caught Trey’s eye he would wink suggestively. The cousins grinned and waved, but none approached. She suspected it was because Sam glared if they even looked at her for too long.
Lila had gone off a few minutes ago, supposedly for juice. Katie spotted her talking to Sam. Since Lila was so much taller than herself, Sam barely had to drop his head to hear her over the music. Suddenly his eyes shot to Katie’s. He straightened, making the seams in his shirt tighten. His nostrils flared like the bull she’d seen and stayed well away from. A slow grin lifted the corners of his mouth, one way too full of satisfaction. She squirmed on her chair.
“Do you know what Lila said to Sam?”
“No,” replied Jane, “but whatever it was, he looks happy about it.”
“Well, I’m not!” Katie wiped her sweaty hands on the remainder of the latest paper napkin she’d shredded. There was a p
ile in front of her big enough for a couple of packrat nests. “He’s looking at me as if I’m a juicy piece of meat and he’s a predator who can’t wait to chomp on me.”
Jane laughed, her manner far more refined than Lila.
“What’s so funny?” demanded Katie.
“You expressed it perfectly.”
“What?” She flicked her eyes back to Sam. His look was even more feral.
“Your choice of words. Dominant men are at the top of the food chain, just like predators. And I bet he wants to get his teeth on you. And a few other parts,” said Jane slyly.
Katie’s nipples crinkled even tighter. She glared at Lila, who tugged on Sam’s sleeve. He bent over again, breaking the intense stare. Katie’s well-honed danger intuition went from “enemy spotted” to “attack imminent.” Sam’s eyes suddenly latched onto hers with definite intent. Abort mission! Battle stations! Commence evasive action!
“I’m taking you up on that offer of a bed.” Katie spoke to Jane without looking away from the source of danger.
“I hate to say this, but I can’t tonight. Aggie would be mortified if anyone outside the family heard her. Or saw her,” added Jane quietly, perhaps hoping Katie wouldn’t hear.
“Saw her?” asked Katie, facing Jane again.
Jane’s cheeks darkened. She looked at the table. “My fathers-in-law like it, ah, al fresco.”
Katie blinked. “Outside?”
Jane nodded. “Here he comes.”
Katie cursed herself for losing her concentration. She hunched her shoulders, knowing Sam approached but refusing to look. All her senses aimed backward, toward the danger. She felt him stop just behind her chair. He waited a few seconds, then leaned over. His hot breath brushed her neck. Whiskey and soap and a scent just enough different from Trey to tell them apart.
