by Diane Leyne
Feeling better about her decision, she exited the washroom. She felt a movement beside her. Connor and Liam had been waiting for her, damn them. And they had positioned themselves so she couldn’t dash back into the ladies’ room. Damn them again.
“So, we hear from Jake that you are going to be sticking around town.”
“Yes. Lindy and I made up. More or less.”
“Lindy and Cindy,” mused Connor. “What kind of parents give their kids rhyming names?”
“Actually, it’s Lindsay and Jacintha. But somehow they both got shortened.”
“Jacintha, huh? That’s definitely a mouthful. I can see why they shortened it. But I think we’ll continue to call you Cin. What do you think, Liam?”
“Cin works for me. And out sweet Sinner is going to have a bright-red ass after Saturday night. And if she thinks one spanking will be enough to make things up to us after what she put us through, she is sorely, and I mean that literally, she is sorely mistaken. She’ll be standing during meals for a month. Or”—his gaze narrowed as he looked over at her—“maybe she’ll be kneeling. I wonder if we were too easy on her. We talked about having her fully submit, but we really didn’t enforce it.”
“No, we were totally remiss with her training.” Connor looked at Cindy appraisingly. “I think someone is going to be spending a lot of time on her knees begging for forgiveness after what she put us through.”
“What did I put you through? I barely know you. And I’m not your sub. We agreed it was only for one night.”
“And whose fault is that? You told us you were leaving town, that all you wanted was one night from us. You knew that we had a connection worth exploring, but you decided to just use us for sex, and you wanted us to punish you so you could punish yourself over what happened with your sister.” Liam was angry and his tone showed it.
“Did Lindy tell you that? I didn’t lie exactly. I just wasn’t free to give myself to anyone on a long-term basis until I had things sorted out with Lindy.”
“No, Jake did. He’s her fiancé and, more importantly, her Dom. And by extension, he’s your family, too. And what you just said. That’s what you should have told us. Instead, you chose to fuck and run.” Liam glared at her before continuing. “We don’t like that. And since you’ve decided to stay in Seattle, we’ve decided that the ‘one night only’ clause is now invalid. Don’t you agree, brother?”
“Absolutely,” concurred Connor. “We are going to spend the week working on the perfect way to punish you. After Jake beats your ass, we’re going to have our turn. And it is going to be public. You may not sit for a week.”
“But that’s almost a week away. Until then, your interim punishment is to spend time with us seeing the city and getting to know us, without sex. And the no-sex rule is going to hurt us more than it hurts you, so you are really going to have earned your punishment Saturday.”
They turned to walk away, but paused at the door before going back onto the main floor of the club.
“Wear comfortable shoes. We’ll pick you up at noon, and there’ll be a lot of walking.”
She watched as they walked away from her, not waiting for her to reply. Then she realized. They were Doms discussing punishments and sex. With her. Maybe she did have a chance at happiness with them after all. She wouldn’t blow it this time.
* * * *
The week rushed by. She loved the job, and she was good at it. She loved dealing with the members, and she even loved dealing with the paperwork and administration and ordering. After the clinic, running a BDSM club was a breeze. With Duncan and Andie out of town for a few days, when things blew up because of an order that was delivered incorrectly, she stepped in and got things straightened out with the supplier, and from then on, she was the go-to person for everything from scheduling staff shifts to deciding how many towels they needed for the dungeon area.
And she and Lindy talked every day, even if they didn’t see each other. They didn’t mention Cindy’s upcoming punishment or the reason behind it. They just started talking like sisters. Life was good.
And every day, she spent some time with the twins, sometimes one-on-one and sometimes all three of them together. They took her to Pike’s Place Market to pick out fish and then made her cook it up for them. And they’d gone up to the top of the Space Needle and even taken a ferry to visit a nearby island. But there’d been no sex or talk of sex. The twins had determinedly kept the conversations away from sex. The one time she’d tried to apologize for running away, they’d refused to discuss the matter and threatened to walk away if she didn’t change the topic.
So, instead, they discussed books and music and movies, and she caught up on all the pop culture she’d missed by being out of the country for three years.
“So this Kardashian family. They are famous for being famous? Seriously?”
“Yup. The oldest sister first became famous for being a friend of someone famous and then she became famous for her big butt and a sex tape.”
“And for this, she got her own TV show?”
“The whole family got not just one show but several. And her and her sisters get paid big bucks for showing up at parties and club openings and the like. She’s a really big deal.”
“Now I think you are just playing with me. When I went away, reality TV was big, but it was mostly shows like Survivor and Dancing with the Stars, but now there are all of these real life housewives and celebrity diving? How bizarre is that.”
“Hey, don’t ask me,” laughed Connor. “I work evenings. I don’t watch these shows. I just know what I read in the supermarket checkout line.”
“Don’t you believe him,” contradicted Liam. “He spends all day Sunday watching hoarders and collectors and every sort of weird reality show you could imagine.”
Cindy expected Connor to deny it, but he just laughed and grabbed her hand.
“My turn.” He led her toward his truck. “You get her tomorrow.” He waved at his brother. “Liam doesn’t appreciate modern art, so I try to avoid bringing him anywhere near galleries since he has zero appreciation for art. Sometimes I can’t believe we are related.”
Over the next four hours, they walked through six different galleries while Connor tried to explain the nuances of modern art to Cindy. She rapidly came to the conclusion that she definitely sided with Liam in this argument. Modern art still all looked like random splatter to her, but he loved it, so she listened and learned and found she loved that he loved it and if he wanted to take her to galleries she’d happily trail after him because he enjoyed it. She even ended up buying a small picture at the last gallery they visited. She didn’t know it, but it was one that Connor had done and it thrilled him that of all the painting she’d seen, his was the one she wanted.
Connor watched as she paid for the painting. He’d tried to give it for her but she’d refused. He respected that. But he wanted to treat her. He also knew that she didn’t really get modern art and that she’d humored him by coming to these galleries, but he saw how relaxed and happy she looked and knew that she’d enjoyed the day as much as he did.
And when she looked at him while he’d lectured her, he’d wanted to lean down and kiss her hard, but he controlled himself because he knew that he if he did that, he wouldn’t be able to stop there. It was just as well that their outings had all been in very public venues. If they were alone together, either with or without Liam, he knew that he wouldn’t be able to keep his hands off her. As it was, he held her hand tightly as they walked and talked.
He’d been amused to find out that her favorite art was “floral.” He tried to explain that floral really wasn’t a type of art, but then he relented and took her to the Ross Gallery because he knew that the show there was art related to nature, which he had figured she’d like and she had. He wondered what she would think when she got it home and saw that artist bio on the back and realized it was his?
After the gallery, he took her back to Serena’s and gave her a quick kiss before
leaving. Work didn’t stop just because he was falling in love, and he had to get to the club to get it ready for opening, but he walked away from Cindy with a bounce in his step. When they first met, he’d been attracted to her from the moment he’d laid eyes on her, but he’d never admitted to Liam that he’d also worried if it was just lust and that when he got to know her, he might be disappointed. But the more time they spent together, the more he knew that he’d been right about her. She was the one for him, for them.
* * * *
The next day was Liam’s turn. The three of them had brunch and she had already learned that Liam was a math geek. He was fascinated with numbers and had even been a “mathlete” in high school.
Now she learned he also liked modern design with all angles and steel and glass. He took her on an architectural tour of Seattle. At first she thought it seemed like fun until she realized that he had no interest in the historical buildings and wanted to spend all their time admiring buildings that looked like they’d been designed to look like they’d fit into a Star Trek episode. He didn’t just talk about the architect who designed the buildings either. The engineering and math behind the designs is what fascinated him.
So she listened and learned and realized that the brothers weren’t all that different. They both loved modernity and clean lines and interesting materials. They just expressed it differently.
She hadn’t really looked closely at their home that one night she’d spent with them. She’d gotten an impression of warmth and comfort and didn’t remember seeing any modern steel and glass furnishings or paint splatter art. When she hesitantly asked Liam, he laughed and told her that their mother was an interior designer and had insisted on decorating it because she was afraid that they’d come to blows, since Liam hated Connor’s taste in art and Connor hated Liam’s taste in furnishings.
Liam enjoyed Cindy’s bewilderment that two men who loved such modern art and design had such a traditional home. And he also loved that she didn’t think it was weird that they’d asked their mother to decorate their home. They were close to their folks and it would have been a deal breaker if Cindy couldn’t handle that. It wasn’t like they saw their parents frequently. Now that the folks were semiretired, they spent their winters down south, but in the summer, they usually had dinner together every week or two.
When he’d mentioned her joining a family dinner, she’d at first seemed thrilled and then she’d retreated emotionally as she let her fears take over. He and Connor would have to tread carefully and make sure she knew that they believed in her. She may have been thoughtless and selfish when she was younger, but now she was beating herself up over it all too much and he hoped that when she took her punishment, she could let it go and move on.
He wished she could see herself the way he did. She had spent years trying to atone for her mistakes. And now she was here to face them. Sometimes she slipped into old habits, but she sincerely had tried to change and to face her mistakes. How many people ever had the courage to do that? It made him realize just how much he admired her as a person and want her even more.
* * * *
On the last day, they let her choose the venue. She picked a picnic in the park. Rather than a hike and a lecture, she wanted to talk, so she packed up a big basket and the three of them headed back to nature.
They drove to a small conservation area outside the city, near Mac’s place, and ended up sitting by a river watching it run by and just talking. There was so much about them that she wanted to know. She learned that Liam was twenty minutes older than Connor and never let him forget who the older brother was. In return, Connor constantly reminded “big brother” that he was one-eighth of an inch taller.
As they talked, she also found out just how well educated the twins were, with Liam’s MBA and Connor’s art degree. She learned that he’d done all of the paintings that decorated the club and realized that he’d also done the small painting she’d bought. She smacked him hard on the arm when she’d figured out the painting was his and then teased him that he should have given her a “sleeping with the artist” discount.
She was also shocked to find that Liam had been a rising executive in Mac Whelan’s organization before he quit to start Club Libertine with his brother. He was such a great executive, in fact, that Mac Whelan had become one of the Club’s biggest investors and one of the twins’ best friends.
He was a supporter of Connor’s art as well, and he had several of his pieces hanging in the Whelan Corporation head office.
On the way home, they passed a small fair and stopped to check it out.
They ended up riding a carousel and ate cotton candy and soda. The men were concerned with her thinness and were constantly trying to feed her. And she loved it. She felt cared for.
But they’d kept their distance physically, doing no more than holding her hand when they were walking over some rough ground one day when they took her hiking, but other than chaste pecks on the cheek when they brought her home, she might have been dating eunuchs.
But her big sister had been right. For all the passion and lust at first sight, it was important to get to know each other outside of the bedroom if there was going to be a chance of the relationship working. She was relieved to find that she liked them as individuals as much as she was attracted to them. And their wonderful relationship with each other made her laugh and made her envious, too. Hopefully, she and Lindy could be that close. It wasn’t that they didn’t argue. They bickered with each other all the time, and she found that she was drawn into their arguments, sometimes taking one side and sometimes taking the other.
Sometimes it was them against her as she pushed back at what she called their “force feeding” and they complained that she wasn’t eating enough or tried to persuade her that long, loose clothing that hid her body from other men’s eyes would be a great plan.
She responded by wearing the skimpiest clothing possible when they took her to the gym to help build up her body tone, training her together, resulting in the other women in the club’s jealous looks, and Cindy had not one but two hot men guiding her.
And the brothers were horrified when her top had ridden up during one exercise and exposed her bullet wound. They’d noticed the scar when they made love to her, but in the darkened bedroom, they hadn’t realized just what it was. In the bright lights of the club, they could see the entrance and exit scars and almost caused a scene in the club when they realized what it was.
Liam ran his hand over the front of the scar while his brother touched the exit wound. He looked down at Cindy and the embarrassment on her face. Rather than milking her injury for sympathy, she seemed downright embarrassed that they’d seen it.
“I’ve never met anyone who’d been shot before. I don’t like it, not one bit.”
Cindy looked up at him, fearful.
“If you ever let yourself get shot again, I’m going to paddle your bottom good. You could have died.”
He felt himself go pale and sit down abruptly on the bench, pulling her to him and pressing his lips to the scar.
He could see she was embarrassed by the display in front of the other people at the gym, but luckily, at that hour of the day it wasn’t very crowded.
“I’m fine. Barely even a scar.” Cindy’s tone was reassuring as she stroked his hair. Connor pressed against her from the back. “It was just a flesh wound.”
“Connor, ‘it was just a flesh wound,’ she says. Does that reassure you?”
“Nope. Not one bit. Did they catch who did it, honey?”
She shook her head.
“It was kind of a war zone. There’s no way of knowing just who did it.”
“Kind of a war zone? What the hell were you doing in a war zone?”
“Penance.” She pulled away from them. “Time for a shower. I don’t want to be late for work.”
Liam watched her hurry away, realizing that there was a lot about Cindy that they didn’t know. He thought back to their conversations during the
past week. She’d spent a lot of time quizzing him and Connor but had neatly dodged their questions. Or maybe they hadn’t pushed hard enough. She’d told them funny stories about her life, especially stories about the mistakes she’d made, but she had never said much about the last three years, other than to say she’d been involved in charity work.
“Connor, she keeps trying to pretend to be superficial, but our Cindy is one hell of a woman.”
“Yeah, she keeps beating herself up for old mistakes, but I’d say she’s punished herself more than enough. Maybe we should tell Lindy to cancel the public punishment.”
“No, I think she needs this. I think she needs to publicly atone to show Lindy the type of person she’s become and to officially be able to start over.”
“But Liam, Jake is known as the Master of Pain.”
“I know. But Jake won’t hurt Lindy’s sister more than she needs. If he holds back too much, she’ll feel like she’s avoided paying her debt to her sister, and she won’t be able to move on.”
“You are right, bro, but I hate the thought of her being hurt again. Damn it, she’s been shot. Isn’t that enough?”
“I feel that way, too, but it is clear that she doesn’t and that’s what matters most. But if someone has to whip her, I’m glad it’s Jake. You know that he’ll be careful. She’s going to be his sister-in-law.”
“You are right, big brother, but it doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
“Me neither, but we’ll be there to care for her afterwards. Whether she knows it or not, she belongs with us, and Saturday night, we show her.”
Chapter Nine
As the days passed, Cindy found herself dreading Saturday. What if after her punishment, the twins didn’t want her anymore? But if that was the case, why were they spending so much time with her? Or maybe that was part of their diabolical plan, make her fall in love with them and then reject her. That would be a fitting punishment she deserved. But things were going so well with Lindy. She went back and forth and around and around until she thought her head was going to explode.
