by Cara Adams
“Agreed. But there isn’t as big a rush as we thought. The Alpha is inviting all four women to stay here free of charge for another week to make up for the hurricane. He wants Piper to come to the big house tomorrow morning and talk to her employer and her travel agent.”
Ryder gave a huge grin and high fived him. “Another week? That’s really good news.”
Zac wondered if he ought to wait until Eliot had arrived, but there was the worry that Piper would wake up first. “I love her, Ryder. I want us to mate her.”
Ryder turned and looked at him. “I heard you say that. It’s a big step, little bro. There’s no turning back from it.”
“I know that. But I also know what I feel for Piper is something I’ve never felt for any woman before.”
Ryder nodded. Zac wished he’d say what his own feelings were, but it was like Ryder to wait and let Eliot have his say first.
Ryder had just finished loading the second backpack when Eliot appeared.
“Is everything still good at the house?”
“Yes it is.”
Eliot was smiling happily, so Zac guessed that meant all the plants were doing fine, but they already knew that. Still, Eliot always had taken a close interest in the crops. They were his responsibility after all.
“I want to mate Piper. I love her,” Zac said.
“And the Alpha has said the four women can stay here an extra week, so there’s not such a rush to make a decision,” Ryder added.
“I’ve already made my decision. I knew even before Zac said he loved her. I want her as well. I’ve thought and thought and there isn’t one single thing about her that would make me say no to a mating with her. As well as that, I know how we can fix the problem of our house. Well, I think I do.”
“What do you mean? I’ve already suggested adding a second story of crops. Well, a second story isn’t quite correct. It’s more a partial mezzanine floor,” Zac said.
“Not that. Remember the draft in the man cave? Remember how I always told Dad I was sure it was a passageway into another cave and Dad just told us we were imagining it and he shoved that huge old chest of drawers in front of it to block the draft?”
“Is there another cave?”
“Even if there is, it might be too tiny to use or slope down abruptly or something,” added Ryder.
“I pushed the chest of drawers aside. And let me tell you it wasn’t easy. That thing is as heavy as lead and crammed with a million pieces of junk. We really need to declutter that cave and toss out our trash.”
“Get to the point, Eliot,” Zac said. He wished he knew if his brother was just teasing them or if he really had looked. But if they could have seen into another cave they’d have done that in childhood. They’d have known all about it long before now.
“I used a crowbar to bash a hole where I felt the draft and then shone a really bright light through the gap. There’s a space there. I’m sure of it. I know I’m right and there’ll be another cave. I’m not saying it won’t need renovating. For a start we’ll have to add walls and a floor. But it means we can extend our living space. We turn our bedroom into a bedroom for the four of us. We declutter the man cave, and we extend into however many more caves there are to make more space. Problem solved.”
Zac jumped up and hugged Eliot. “Hell, yes! That’s great!”
And then his heart dropped. Ryder hadn’t said yet whether he wanted to mate Piper. Unless it was a unanimous decision it couldn’t happen. And Piper didn’t even know about any of it yet.
Fuck! Was Ryder going to kill their plans stone dead?
* * * *
While Eliot bubbled over with his plans and ideas, Ryder carefully loosened the knots and tension in his back and shoulders, stretching and wiggling each muscle group one by one. As soon as Zac had said he loved Piper, Ryder had panicked. Such a decision had to be unanimous. Panther matings were only legal if everyone involved consented. Ryder hated things happening before they’d had a chance to talk about them together and weigh up all the pros and cons. Zac shooting off his mouth like that had scared the shit out of Ryder. Fortunately Piper hadn’t even seemed to notice. Likely she was too tired right then to take in the dangerous words.
“Ryder? Earth to Ryder?”
He became aware his brothers were looking at him yet he knew neither of them had asked him a question. He’d heard their chatter and nothing required him to reply.
“What?”
“Eliot and I both said we love Piper and want to mate her. We’re waiting for you to tell us your feelings.”
Two sets of identical green eyes stared at him. If it wasn’t for the different hair color, he’d have thought he was looking into two mirrors.
“Yes, I want her, too, but we can’t just blurt it out like that to her. We need to ask her nicely. Romance, girl stuff, flowers, candy, all of that.”
“Get real, Ryder. We’ve just had a hurricane. The closest flowers to here are likely over the border in Tennessee,” Eliot said.
“Well you know what I mean.” Ryder hoped he didn’t sound grumpy. He was trying to think and all this talk was preventing him. They had to plan what to do next before they discussed it. Throwing out the trash in the man cave sounded sensible. Likely they should have done that years ago when their parents moved to the mainland. Finding a new cave was hopeful, but there was no guarantee it’d be of any use to them. Although even a new storage area might be good. Their storeroom was tiny and really little more than a piece of wall with floor to ceiling shelves. Genuine storage space would be good and then the man cave could become a proper living room suitable to share with a woman.
“We should cook a proper meal and sit at the dining table, with Mom’s lace tablecloth, and linen table napkins, and the good china. We need to chill wine and serve it Grandma’s crystal goblets and wear nice clothes.”
“Uh-huh. Likely you’ve forgotten the dining table is underneath a million things in the man cave,” Zac said.
Ryder shrugged. “So we get it, and stack other stuff up. All we need are four chairs and the table. If we stacked the furniture, that should make enough room to get the table out.” Although he wasn’t totally sure about that. But there were quite a few old end tables and small chests of drawers they never used, except as a flat surface to dump stuff on. They could certainly be tossed out.
“Zac and I can carry these backpacks home and start clearing out the man cave now. We should be able to make space for the table and chairs before we have to start preparing a nice dinner,” Eliot said.
“With a proper dessert. Women like desserts,” Ryder added.
“I can make a chocolate cheesecake. Chocolate plus cheesecake should be a winner,” Zac said.
Ryder grinned. “I do want Piper. It just seems all too rushed. But another week should give us time to do everything right, as long as she wants us, of course.” And that was the problem. So far Piper had been a willing participant in everything they’d done. But that was because they’d been careful to read her contract and plan activities she’d signed up for. Mating them wasn’t on the contract and wasn’t just a box to check. It was their entire future, the lives of all four of them. Would Piper be interested in spending more time with them or was this just a once and done activity for her? Even though she said her manager at work was horrible, was she actually eager to return to her everyday real life? Well damn. Everything was on hold until he’d checked the house, seen the cave, and talked to Piper.
Ryder watched his brothers put the heavy backpacks on and head off down the trail. There was more packing he could do, but he didn’t want to disturb Piper by moving around in the dungeon, so he sat in the door way and thought some more about how they could demonstrate to her she was their hope for the future and the woman they all loved and needed.
* * * *
Piper woke and stretched. She was really getting tired of sleeping on the floor. It absolutely wasn’t what she’d expected when she’d come to the Caves of Correction. Of course,
she hadn’t expected a hurricane or the roof blowing off either.
I suppose I should be more gracious about being safe and healthy rather than cranky about having to sleep on the floor. Besides, it’ll be a story to tell everyone at work as well. It’s not like I’m going to share about ménage sex and BDSM.
She opened her carry-on case and sorted through it for clean underwear and a clean shirt. She still had one more pair of clean jeans, but both her sweaters had marks on the sleeves, so she chose the least spoiled one to put on and shoved the rest of her clothing back into the case. She hoped the men had a washing machine and a dryer at their house because being permitted only a single piece of carry-on luggage in the helicopter to come here meant she really needed to do laundry now. Even though she only had a couple of days left here she didn’t have enough spare sets of underwear to see her though.
She rubbed her hand over her naked throat. The men had removed the leather collar they’d put on her in the dungeon. Piper had spent a lot of time thinking about being a collared slave, and the idea of belonging to a Dom, or even to three Doms, appealed to her in a dungeon setting.
She wasn’t sure she’d like being told what clothing to wear or whether or not she could eat a meal, but from time to time she might enjoy that. There’d be a deliciously naughty flavor to going to work knowing she wasn’t wearing panties, or maybe she was wearing nipple clips or something like that. The very thought of it made her shiver with lust. Being forbidden to talk or something like that might be less pleasant. Well, it wouldn’t be possible at work. She wasn’t going to risk losing her job just for a sexual high. But the entire idea of collaring, of being a collared slave, was an exciting one.
Piper zipped her carry-on case closed, folded the blankets neatly, and walked upstairs. Ryder was sitting in the doorway looking outside. Without a roof, it was easy to know the sun was shining brightly and the day was warm. Likely she wouldn’t even need her sweater, so no one would know about the annoying marks on the sleeve.
“Hi, Ryder. What’s the time? This whole day has been weirdly upside down, but it’s still daylight, so I assume it’s still the same day.”
Ryder have her a big smile, his entire face lighting up and his eyes sparkling as brightly as any emeralds in a jeweler’s store. “It’s a little after five. Are you ready to walk back to my house? I know we’ve been doing a lot of walking lately.”
“Yes, but we also did a lot of sitting and I’ve just had a nap, so I’m good to go. Should we be taking the blankets and stuff back to your place?”
“Yes. We’ll need the bedding and we should take the towels to wash them as well.” Ryder jumped to his feet and she followed him back down stairs, helping him pack the blankets and towels into big black trash bags.
“We’ll go home now. Bring your carry-on with you. Can you manage it? I’ll take the linens.”
“Of course. It’s on wheels, but I can carry it when the path is too rough. It’s not heavy.”
Actually she supposed the path would still be covered in mess from the hurricane. It wasn’t likely sweeping the walking trails would be high on the list of things to do when there were houses without roofs to worry about.
To her surprise, the main east–west trail had been cleaned up. Large rocks had been rolled off the path, potholes filled with leaves and dirt, and larger bits of foliage brushed off the side of the path. That did surprise her, until she saw a group of four middle school children with yard brooms, a shovel, and a wheelbarrow working on one of the tracks. Then she remembered Eliot saying the kids had been allowed to do some of the boring jobs after the last hurricane. Clearing the trail might be a boring job, but it had made wheeling her carry-on possible at least some of the time, instead of having to carry it all the way, and she was grateful for their efforts.
“Thank you for your work. You’ve made my life much easier,” she called out, waving to the children.
They all smiled and waved back at her before bending back to their task. She recognized the turn down to another track to the men’s house. There was a huge tree maybe ten feet off the path, but it was much taller than the surrounding trees so stood out in her mind as the sign of where to exit.
The land looked fresh and clean, the air was crisp and yet the sun was warm, and walking was a pleasure under the bright blue sky. Besides, recognizing some of the landmarks made her feel more at home. At home—that was a strange term to use for a place where she was on a week’s vacation, but it was how she felt. I even recognize trees now. I’m either at home or going crazy, one or the other!
There’d been a pleasant sort of background noise Piper hadn’t really noticed up until then—birdsong, a slight breeze ruffling the leaves on the trees, the quiet stomp of their booted feet on the dirt. But now she could hear a heavier banging, of wood on wood, and she wondered if it was someone repairing the damage to a home.
All the houses were hidden away among the trees. Walking on the island wasn’t like walking in her neighborhood, where the houses neatly aligned along the roads. Here they were few and far between, blending into their surroundings. But the banging was getting louder as she followed Ryder down the track. They turned onto a smaller sidetrack and up ahead was their house. Sitting out front was Eliot surrounded by the framework of what appeared to be a piece of furniture which he was breaking apart.
“I hope no one wanted that chest of drawers,” Ryder said.
“It’s the one where the bottom was broken in most of the drawers. They’re too flimsy to reuse, but the basic structure is usable for the plant bed framework,” Eliot said, swinging his hammer at the side panel of the woodwork.
Suddenly Piper understood. “This is to make the upper level of plant beds to increase your crops?”
“It’s a double benefit. It’ll get rid of some of the junk from the man cave as well. Most of the things in there aren’t wanted or needed and some of them were stacked there originally because they were broken and useless. It’s time to repurpose them,” said Eliot.
“That’s a great idea.” Piper smiled. She liked the thought of reusing old stuff instead of just burning it or turning it into landfill.
“Can I help?”
“Sure. Come inside.” Eliot laid his hammer down and straightened the pile of wood she guessed he planned to reuse, and she followed him inside, Ryder right behind her. She walked through the room filled with crops and down the short hallway that led to the bathroom, another room filled with plants, and what had been a closed door that was now revealed as the men’s room. A pile of bedding slats and deconstructed frames was stacked against one wall, and Zac was sitting on the bottom bunk unscrewing the bolts of the partly dismantled upper bunk.
“We’re going to use the wood to build more crop beds,” he said, wiping a dirty hand over his sweaty face.
She grinned at the smear of grime he added to an already dirty forehead and nodded. “It’s a good idea. Can I help you?”
“Are you hungry? Perhaps we should begin cooking supper instead,” Ryder said.
He dumped the trash bags of bedding and towels beside the piles of wood, so she parked her carry-on case there as well and followed Ryder back to the kitchen area.
He pulled steaks out of the freezer and put them in the microwave oven to defrost. “Why don’t you choose some vegetables you like?”
He handed her a large bowl and Piper wandered up and down the rows of food feeling like she was in store and could choose whatever she wanted without having to consider the cost.
She washed and chopped vegetables while Ryder prepared the food, and while it cooked they went down to the man cave and helped Zac and Eliot shift furniture around.
There was a hell of a lot of stuff crammed in what wasn’t a particularly big room, but gradually they removed old, broken, and useless pieces of furniture, and stacked the usable items against the wall in a neat tower. They ended up with a central space where a couch and two armchairs faced a TV resting on a heavy chest, and a dining table had fo
ur chairs stacked on top of it and was behind the couch.
“That’s workable. We move the couch forward to use the table and back again to sit on,” Eliot said, rubbing his hands on his shirt.
Piper shook her head at him. “I hope you people own a washing machine and a dryer. Your clothes are filthy, and I need to do some laundry as well.”
“Oh, we forgot to tell you. The Alpha said all four of our guests were welcome to stay here on the island for an extra week at no charge. Tomorrow he wants you to go to the big house and contact your employer and travel agent to sort out the details.
“Stay here an extra week? Really?” Piper could hardly believe such a wonderful thing. Another week with these men in this beautiful place would be perfect. But then she thought of her manager, Milo. Likely he’d go ballistic at her absence.
“I’d love that, but I don’t think my manager would agree.”
“Everyone knows about the hurricane. Would your manager really want to attract criticism for expecting you back at work under the circumstances?” Ryder asked.
“If he could get away with it, or blame someone else, he absolutely would.”
Then Piper stopped. She wanted to stay, so why shouldn’t she? She was entitled to two weeks’ annual leave, and she’d only taken one, so a second week was a legitimate request, not even touching on the issue of the hurricane.
“Are my friends staying on?”
“I don’t know. But the decision should be yours, not theirs anyway. We’d like you to stay,” Ryder said.
“Hell yes. Please stay for the extra week,” Zac said.
“We’ll find time to have fun as well as work,” Eliot added.
Piper laughed. “I’d like to help you in your work anyway. Damn my manager. I’ll stay.”
Zac grabbed her, hugged her, and pressed a kiss to her forehead. Eliot joined him hugging her back, and Ryder just stood there smiling.
