Replay Set 1: Viking Raid, Triple Play, Honour Bound

by Nia Farrell

  Her salary from the junior college barely managed to pay their bills and student loans. Before Replay, Rowena had been virtually unemployed. A degree in English hadn’t helped her get a job, and busking—playing guitar and singing as a street performer—only earned pocket change. With their parents in poor health, they’d had to hire a caregiver when the folks refused to move to assisted living. And they could forget the boys. They were no help, emotionally or financially. Of course, their dad had seen to that, alienating them from early childhood on, doting on his darling, talented girls who shared his love of music and finding nothing but faults with his sons. One brother was an alcoholic. One brother was gay. One brother was both of those and yet seemed the least bitter of the lot.

  Breanna shifted in her seat, wondering what Brad and Michael would think if they knew what she had up her ass. They’d probably offer to buy her a shot, even knowing that she didn’t drink. She couldn’t, not when she’d seen what it did to their father, and especially not when she remembered how their mother suffered because of it.

  She made certain that Gunnar understood forced drink was a hard limit. That, and abusing religious objects during the scene. She could tell from the look on his face that he hadn’t considered that an option. He seemed as repulsed by the idea as she was adamant against it. After their visit to the kitchen, they had returned to Sir Piers’s office and revisited the terms of the signed contract. After discussing how they would handle a wig malfunction, she amended it to add hair pulling to what she would consider, things that he swore they would do.

  Gunnar’s explanations had cemented her understanding and convinced her that she was right to allow him those options. He was patient and thorough, and when she left, he’d said that he looked forward to seeing her soon.

  Tonight, she and Rowena would be in the king’s banquet hall, playing for Henry VIII and his band of revelers. An out-of-state BDSM club had booked an orgy and wanted period music to help set the atmosphere. To round out the ensemble, they’d gotten their friends Jon and Don—or Donjon, if they wanted to poke period fun at the partners—to add a lute and a bass viola da gamba to Breanna on the virginal, hammer dulcimer, and harp and to Rowena on recorders and nyckelharpa. A merry quartet for a band of sexual merrymakers.

  Breanna lubed up the next size plug and wondered what she should fix for dinner.

  One broiled chicken breast topped with sautéed avocado, Roma tomato, and mango, with a side of diced red potatoes later, she tuned her Gothic floor harp and worked on the piece she’d been composing. She was happy with the introduction and first movement, as well as the dramatic finale, but the sagging middle needed punched up or it was going to put people to sleep. Rowena, seeing what she intended, popped in earbuds, turned on her MP3 player, and headed outside with a sketchbook, more likely to laze in the shade than to actually work in the yard or the garden.

  Genetics had made them identical twins, but most of their similarities stopped there. Breanna was the worker bee; Rowena was the playgirl. Breanna strove to achieve better things; Rowena seemed content to dream her life away. Conformist and free spirit, they were like water and wind, elementally different for all that they looked alike. But they were family—a family of two, it felt like most days. Tonight they would play with another family of two, and they would all make beautiful music together.

  She’d already packed hand drafted copies of sheet music and four period-appropriate music stands, and had set them by the travel cases for their instruments. Toting a harp and dulcimer was one thing. Transporting her virginal, which she was still paying for, was something she preferred to avoid. When they’d negotiated their contract, Breanna had pressed for—and gotten—Sir Piers to buy several centuries’ worth of reproduction and original keyboards: a medieval organ, a virginal, a clavier, a harpsichord, and an upright piano suitable for both a Wild West saloon and a Prohibition speakeasy. She was grateful that Replay’s virginal would be ready and waiting tonight.

  When they arrived at the resort, Jon and Don were just unloading. From the looks on their faces, you’d think they were naughty little boys, about to sneak a peak in their sister’s bedroom when she and her boyfriend were supposed to be doing homework. They’d known each other since Breanna and Rowena were sixteen and just starting to perform at Ren fairs. It had been one of the milestone summers of their lives. During the break between their early graduation from high school and their first year of college, Rowena had blazed a path through the Knights of the Crimson Saddle, the King’s Court, and the live steel swordsmen, while Breanna had dodged the salty pirates, kilted Highlanders, and helmeted Berserkers who mistook her for her twin.

  The four of them loaded Replay’s handcart with everything they’d brought and followed Samael to the banquet hall where they would play. The male sub was beautiful and bi, an exotic mix of Caucasian, Native American, and Filipino.

  From the employees’ access hall, a freight elevator took them to the minstrel gallery level. The chairs were in place, exactly as Breanna had directed. Rowena set up the music stands and Breanna added reams of sheet music to each one, placing another set on the virginal that stood ready to be played. She stroked the instrument with her fingertips, already hearing the songs she would coax from it.

  With the rest of the instruments uncased and a first tuning done, it was time to get into character. The garments worn here were not to be called “costumes,” unless you wanted punished or were participating in a masque. So saith the black-clad wardrobe mistress, Jewell Fraser, a twenty-eight-year-old Domme, tall as an Amazon, with short spiked burgundy hair. Each piece was meticulously researched and intricately handmade, using primary source documentation, period construction techniques, and fabrics, trim, and accessories appropriate to the time portrayed. Tonight would be their first time in Tudor gowns, and Breanna was excited.

  Their dresses were plainer than those worn at court, of course, appropriate to musicians, who would have been mere hired help. Their gowns were summer weight wool, dyed garnet red, with simple embroidered details on the bodices that coordinated with the men’s jackets, doublets, and hose.

  During their fittings, she’d reminded Rowena to not lace her corset too tightly or she wouldn’t be able to play her recorders. Breanna found her own breath stolen when she opened the hallway door and saw Gunnar standing nearby, talking to Sir Piers.

  She’d never seen him in street clothes. Denim jeans hugged his muscled thighs, and a dark blue fitted t-shirt outlined the contours of his sculpted pecs and washboard abs. She’d seen his chest before, the night she’d accidentally stumbled onto the Viking raid. Once the whipping had warmed Gunnar up, the Dom had stripped off his kyrtill and undertunic, baring every magnificent inch of skin down to his waist. The man defined ripped.

  She had envied the woman on the bench, her skin adorned with pink stripes from his flogger. Hearing her moans of pleasure, Breanna had imagined him marking her like that. More than that, she had wondered how he would look, moving in and over her. Ye gods, he was gorgeous, with a physique that had once graced the cover of a romance novel. He’d sold himself for charity and donated the proceeds to the local veterans’ fund for PTSD assistance dogs.

  She and Rowena worked with the same group, teaching guitar to veterans with PTSD and introducing them to the therapeutic value of music. Marcus Vos, an ex-Navy SEAL who attended the veterans’ center with his new service dog Rex, had told them soon after that Replay was looking for musicians.

  Right now, Breanna could feel the cadence of her heartbeat quicken, could almost hear her blood singing a solo that desperately wanted to be a duet. With the others behind her, she forced herself to move. Keep it light, she told herself, refusing to let herself smile with the pleasure of seeing him. Don’t let him know how much he affects you. As much as they preached that subs held the power, it didn’t yet feel that way to her. Not that she wanted to top from the bottom. On the contrary, she fantasized about being totally at his mercy.

  Gunnar was discuss
ing tomorrow night’s special event with Replay’s owner when he saw two couples in Tudor clothes approaching. “Good evening, Sir Piers, Sir Gunnar,” the first woman said politely, pronouncing his name as it should be, wrapping her tongue around the “r” and smiling shyly.

  Breanna? He was a little surprised that he didn’t immediately recognize her, but the change in her appearance was so dramatic, it was like she was a different woman.

  That, he thought, was something he could get used to.

  The Dark Ages garb worn in the mead hall was far from fitted. The garnet wool dress she wore tonight had a neckline that revealed the soft white swell of her breasts. The bodice clung to the curves of her corseted waist and the tempting flare of her hips. If she were nobility, she’d wear a skirt yards fuller and shaped by a farthingale. Unless he missed his guess, she had a bum roll tied on beneath her layers of petticoats, making her hips even more enticing than they were.

  Noticing his appraisal, her twin sister grinned and winked at him. The two men behind Breanna smiled, too, and barely managed not to drool. Dismissing them as no threat, Gunnar turned the full force of his appreciative gaze upon Breanna.

  Piers smiled and acknowledged them individually. “Breanna. Rowena. Jon. Don. I look forward to hearing you play tonight.” To Gunnar, he added, “They’re entertaining Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn.”

  “Are you…are you coming?” Breanna asked him, her cheeks grown suddenly pink.

  “I might,” he conceded, watching her exhale softly, clearly wrestling with what that meant: join or view? “Sir Piers is the king’s counselor tonight.”

  She bit her lip then, as if to keep from asking his intentions, and motioned for Rowena and the men to go on without her. Piers excused himself and went to get dressed for the night.

  Breanna remained where she was, glued to the spot and adorably flustered, with a keen, uncomfortable awareness shining from those incredible whiskey eyes. The two of them were alone in the hall, but someone could come along at any minute. Gunnar nearly smiled. If she thought the threat of being caught was enough to keep him from touching her, she was oh, so very wrong.

  “If you do,” she chattered nervously, “you may glimpse the top of our heads in the minstrels’ gallery. We won’t see anything but sheet music.”

  “You won’t peek?”

  Her eyes widened when she heard one thing and went 180 degrees with it.

  Liking where her mind went, Gunnar followed. “I could make you,” he murmured, stepping closer. “Make you peak. Right here. Right now.” She closed her eyes when he reached to smooth a wayward wisp of hair from her face. “Pretty,” he crooned. “So pretty. It won’t take long, pet. You’re halfway there.”

  So was he, lifting her skirt as he backed her into the wall.

  “Gunnar,” she breathed, cherishing his name.

  Thankfully, Tudor women didn’t wear panties either. He slid his hand up the inside of her thighs and cupped her sex, curving his fingers and pressing in deep. Her flesh was already creamy. He stroked her swollen folds, coaxing more moisture from her core. Her head dropped back, and she stifled a moan.

  “Say my name,” he ordered.

  “Gunnar, please. We shouldn’t. I can’t.” Casting a troubled glance down the hallway, she let the fear of discovery pull her attention away from him.

  “Unacceptable,” he growled, making her gasp when he thrust a finger inside her and found her clit with his thumb. He nearly smiled when he felt the plug. It made her pussy that much tighter when he started stroking inside it. “We should. You will. I really should punish you for thinking differently. I should turn you over my knee and spank you until your cheeks are cherry red, or put you on a St. Andrew’s cross and whip that soft white skin of yours. Clamp your nipples and your clit and bring you to the edge, time and again, but because you’ve been bad, deny you your pleasure and take mine instead.”

  He stilled his thumb and pulled his finger out until just the very tip was inside her.

  Breanna moaned in frustration. “I’m sorry,” she whimpered. “This is so new. I’m learning. Please. I don’t want to disappoint you. Please, Sir. I need...I need…”

  “Fucked,” he said, shoving in a second finger and pistoning as deep as her tight virgin walls would let him. “Fingers tonight, but soon…soon, you’re going to give me that mouth and this pussy and that fine ass of yours.”

  “Yes,” she moaned. “Yes. Please…”

  He pulled out and stepped away from her, letting her skirts drop to the floor. Her eyes flew open, and she stared at him in confusion.

  “Fingers,” he said simply.

  Fingers. Hers? Oh, God. Surely he didn’t expect her to touch herself—to masturbate for him here, in the hall? Breanna watched his mouth shape a dark smile. One blond brow raised. Dear lord. He did.

  Footsteps sounded around the corner, giving her a reprieve, but only for an instant. Next thing she knew, Gunnar had grasped her wrist and was dragging her down the hall, checking doors until he found a janitor’s closet that he pulled her into, after him.

  Oddly, he didn’t turn on the light.

  “This is what it would be like if I blindfolded you,” he told her. “Take away your vision, and every other sense is heightened. Fingers, Breanna.”

  The darkness made it easier to lift her skirt and use one hand to spread herself. She inhaled a tremulous breath and started stroking herself with the other, acutely aware of Gunnar, remembering her favorite fantasies of him. She didn’t tell him that she had a hard time getting off with just her hand. It usually took the vibrator that Rowena had given her for their eighteenth birthday, when she’d refused to celebrate it with a bang. Not this time. This birthday she’d finally learn what Rowena had known for years.

  She felt her body quicken, heard her breaths and Gunnar’s grow sharper, shallower as she struggled toward the peak. God, if only he weren’t so stubborn. If only he’d help out, throw her a bone, lend her a hand. Give this girl a break. Come on, Gunnar!

  The fabric of her skirt rustled when she brought one hand to her breast. She squeezed it, squeezed the other side, pushed her hand down the low neckline, caught a nipple between two fingers, rolled and pinched it. Close. She was so close.

  “Oh, God. Oh. God.” Clenching her teeth, she pushed with her pelvis and went rigid while her womb spasmed and the walls of her vagina tightened and squeezed and moisture flooded her hand. The next thing she knew, Gunnar was there, his mouth on her sex, his tongue lapping her juices, and she just about creamed again.

  “Gunnar,” she begged. Earlier, she had seen the warmth in his eyes that she cared enough to get his name right, after internet research and practice. She couldn’t see him in the darkness, but she felt his appreciation in every stroke of his tongue. He grabbed her buttocks and held her tight against his face, feasting on her like a starving man at a banquet.

  Banquet. Shit.

  “Gunnar…Sir...” No. Stop. Focus. Thankfully, Breanna caught herself in time. Damn it, they could start with three musicians. She needed to focus on Gunnar and what he was doing to her, the gift he was giving her. He had opened his mouth and fastened it over her clit, and he sucked until she was melting again. When the floodgates opened, her knees went weak. She would have fallen if he hadn’t held her.

  She shuddered one last time, heard him inhale deeply, felt him press his lips to her curls in a silent benediction. He rose to stand before her in the darkness, his breath heavy with want or need or lust or desire. She waited, wordless.

  And then, he kissed her. Oh, God. Towering over her, he cradled her face in his large hands and bent down, angling his head for the perfect alignment of his lips on hers. He kissed her. A soft brush of a mouth that smelled of her, tasted of mint and of her, that had demanded another orgasm and now shared it with her, lips parting, tongues tangling, stroking, mating. It was unlike any kiss she’d experienced. By comparison, they’d been mere boys. Gunnar was a thirty-year-old man in his prime. Six-and-a-half feet ta
ll, with Viking blood, he plundered her treasures like the Northman he was. It lasted forever and was over much too soon.

  “Gunnar,” she whispered, coming back to full, cruel awareness. They’d gotten dirty in the janitor’s closet and now she had to go. “Thank you,” she told him. What else was there to say?

  He touched her hair and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Pet,” he murmured. “I will see you Wednesday. And Breanna, if we do meet in the time between, this won’t happen. I won’t get you wet, and you are not to masturbate. When the time comes, I’m going to make you scream.”

  Chapter Five

  “So tell me,” Rowena demanded. She’d been dying for details since last night, when Breanna had taken her seat in the minstrel gallery thirty minutes later than the others. Gunnar had been right. She was nearly halfway there—except that she’d had to finish herself. Cleaning herself in the nearest ladies’ room had taken just as much time.

  Jon and Don had just smiled. Knowingly. Smirking, smarmy bastards. She hoped they had penis envy.

  Breanna had ignored the three of them and focused on the music, trying to lose herself in it and only partially succeeding. Last night was the second time that Gunnar had plunged his fingers inside her. The third time that he’d made her come. The third time he had denied himself the same pleasure. A better man than I, Gunga Din.

  Somehow she’d managed to make it through the evening’s performance. It was a miracle she hadn’t missed more notes. Better that than wrong ones, she supposed. Only someone familiar with a piece would even begin to notice.

  She hadn’t been kidding when she told Gunnar that they wouldn’t see what was happening in the banquet hall with Henry VIII and his courtiers. They sat just out of sight and performed the music of the era. A mix of dance tunes, robust and lively and stately, with an occasional soulful ballad. Having played together before, they knew each other’s styles and strengths. It was their own dance of individual musicians becoming a harmonious unit, the four parts merging, meshing, notes circling each other, winding, twining, spiraling, weaving above and between and below. Despite that she wasn’t playing her very finest, it was still good, and she knew it. Beyond the hum yet vibrating in her core, she could feel that much, at least.