by Sophie Oak
Logan’s eyes went wide, and he shoved the bag at him. “Dude, don’t you even start that shit.”
“I said the same thing.” Kitten grinned up at him. “Sir is a good matchmaker.”
Kitten was quite liberal with the praise.
Logan glared down at Georgia. “If you pull one stunt here, I swear, I’ll have that ass over my knee. I don’t care what your brothers do. They left you in my care. You’re going to follow my rules, and if you ever lock me in a room again, your ass is going to be red.”
Georgia growled right back. It was kind of cute. “I locked you in the bathroom because you were an unreasonable prick. And what is your fascination with my backside? It’s a perfectly fine color. If you lay a hand on it, I will call the police.”
The police would probably forgive Logan after spending more than two minutes with Georgia. Chase had never seen a man willing to deal with Hurricane Georgia. Yeah. He was a good matchmaker. Especially since pawning Georgia off on Logan meant he could know she was safe.
A vision of a little girl with a sweet smile and cotton candy hair clouded his vision. He would fucking kill anyone who touched her.
Damn Nat. He needed to fuck her and then all this mushy shit would go away. Yeah. Once he’d been inside her, he would see she was just like other girls.
He was smart enough to call bullshit on himself. Nat was unlike anyone he’d ever met, and he was getting really fucking worried that she might be the one and she couldn’t stand the thought of taking a collar. He was far from stupid. She was deeply disturbed at the thought of a true D/s relationship, and he wouldn’t be able to accept less.
Ben could. Ben could make her happy. Ben could modify his needs.
Chase sometimes hated Ben.
Logan’s lips quirked up in what Chase liked to think of as an alpha smirk. He rather thought Logan wouldn’t have ever found his alpha male if the aforementioned trauma hadn’t happened. He likely would have remained a happy-go-lucky guy who would have eventually fallen for some pretty pussy and been content to be led around by his dick for the rest of his life. Now Logan had to deal with his hard self, the same self Chase had never had a choice but to acknowledge.
He’d been born a prick.
“Do you have my bag?” Impatient. He couldn’t even wait to see if he could throw his sister at an approved suitor. All he could think about was the fact that his little piece of sugar was waiting on him. Was waiting on his ropes and his flogger.
He wanted to shop for her. Suddenly his kit, painstakingly put together over a decade, didn’t seem worthy. He hadn’t been thinking of her. He’d been buying the best, but Nat needed what would work for her. He didn’t know if she liked deerskin falls on her floggers or cowhide. He didn’t know what kind of paddle made her sub faster. Did she like the sting of a flogger or a thud? Did her little nipples respond to alligator clamps or clover clamps?
It bugged the shit out of him that he didn’t know. It fucked with his head that someone out there might know what Nat needed.
Logan sighed a long breath and handed over a small, inauspicious leather bag. It held the whole of Chase’s kink collection. Deerskin flogger, cowhide flogger, four-foot whip, candles for wax play, knives, silk rope, jute rope, nipple clamps, paddles, canes, crops, nothing that meant a goddamn thing because they hadn’t been selected with her in mind, and it was all he had and he felt so fucking inadequate.
“Thanks.” What the fuck else could he say? He grabbed the bag. He didn’t have time to deal with his sister’s damage. Georgia was a pain in his ass. He loved her, but she created her own drama and she kind of loved it, so she was never really willing to let it go. “You guys are staying here tonight. Dinner is in two hours. Your room is on the second floor. Kitten, you and Georgia have to share. Second door on the left.”
Kitten pouted. “Can’t I stay with Master Logan? Kitten likes to cuddle.” Her face fell. “Sorry. I like to cuddle. It’s so hard to remember.”
It was hard for Kitten to remember to refer to herself in the first person rather than the third because she’d been deeply abused by a horrible man. Some submissives needed it. They loved to be simply a servant to their Dom, fulfilling their deep love for service. There was nothing wrong with it when it was a choice. Kitten hadn’t had a choice. She’d been a twenty-one-year-old girl when she’d been kidnapped and tortured into thinking she wasn’t a human being but a possession.
Nat rode a fine line. She needed the submission. It was a part of her soul, but she’d been brutalized into thinking it was bad. Was he the Dom to bring her back from the edge? Or would she just need Ben?
Logan put a hand on her shoulder. “Honey, you’re too sweet to just cuddle with. Don’t tempt a man.”
Kitten flushed, her body straightening with a pride she hadn’t had before. Yeah, Logan was becoming a good Dom. He was on his way to being a great one. “Thank you, Sir. But you’re right. Kitten—I need to wait for my Dom. I believe you have another sub to handle.”
“I’m going to find my room.” Georgia turned on her heels. “You better not follow me or I’ll lock you up somewhere again.”
“You better think about that, brat.” Logan followed Georgia up the stairs, carrying three bags on his broad shoulders.
Kitten looked up at him. “Do you think this is a good idea? Taking Nat into a situation like this?”
He sighed. It had been plaguing him for days. “I’m going to watch out for her.”
“I know. I worry that she’s not ready.”
So was he. “Well, we haven’t exactly figured out how to get invited to this club. We’ve spent time in every seedy bar on the highway and nothing yet. So we might not have to worry about it.”
There was a part of him that didn’t give a shit about finding who killed Stan Kirkman. The missing girls were another story.
Kitten turned to Chase, her face softening. “You could be very good for Nat.”
Chase rather preferred the cowering Kitten in that moment. “I don’t know about that.”
“She grew up in the lifestyle.” Kitten leaned back against the wall, her whole body relaxing. Chase had been her caregiver for months and months after she’d been rescued, but she’d never relaxed until now. For the first time in their long relationship, she was talking to him like a friend. “I didn’t. Finn and I grew up here. We were raised in a very small, conservative town. When I was taken, it was a rather surprising experience.”
“You were kidnapped.” Chase needed her to acknowledge the brutality of the crime against her. She always tried to soften it. “Not taken. Nat was kidnapped.”
Kitten nodded. “Yes. We were assaulted. Hawk was quite vicious. He had many slaves before me. I’ve often wondered what he did with them, but the evidence that they existed was there. Sometimes he would mess up and call me by another name. Then he would hurt me for his mistake. I’ve thought a lot about it lately. I think he was going to do something with Gretchen and perhaps Natalie. He said Gretchen was too old. Gretchen told me once she remembered two other slaves. Nat and I found pictures of them. I think he killed them. No one found them.”
Chase hugged Kitten. Logan had disappeared and that meant it was his job to console her. He remembered a time when he’d been vaguely attracted to Kitten. She was nice looking and so submissive it hurt. He’d thought briefly about how she would be an easy sub. She would do what he said and never challenge him. He hugged her close, but more because he knew she was Natalie’s friend. He’d been utterly changed in the freaking course of a couple of days. “It’s all right, Kitten.”
“We remember their faces.”
Chase looked up, completely startled. Nat stood in the hallway, her face pale, contrasting to the lovely shade of her hair. Chase took a step back. He knew it was stupid. He was only trying to console a friend, but couldn’t stand the thought of Nat feeling bad.
Nat frowned at him, crossing the space and taking Kitten into her arms. Her right hand came out, silently requesting he complete the
circle around Kitten’s body. Kitten sagged against Nat.
“He was going to sell you. I overheard him talking. He’d found a Dom who was willing to pay a lot of money for you.” Kitten’s voice shook. “It’s why I stole the knife. I didn’t want to lose you.”
Chase let his hands go around Kitten, wrapping around her until they found Nat’s waist. His eyes met hers over their mutual friend’s body. He held them for a moment, the revelation that she could have been killed settling in. Her unique essence would have been snuffed out forever. He wouldn’t have known her. He wouldn’t have ever kissed her or spanked her or had a chance at a future with her.
She gave him a tremulous smile. That was his Nat. She’d been told something terrible, and she tried to fucking make him feel better. His hand found her hair.
He was never going to let her go. He was never going to allow a single other human being on the face on the planet to hurt her. Not for a second.
“It’s all right, Kitten. I’m fine. No one can hurt me now.” Nat’s eyes held his.
He made his silent vow. He would find a way to keep her. He would be a better man.
* * * *
Nat followed Chase up the stairs. The playroom. Up until now she hadn’t been in this room because Ben and Chase had insisted on taking things slowly. The demonstrations she’d witnessed had taken place in Jack Barnes’s bedroom, a huge, gorgeous monstrosity with places for all three of them. They had made it work, Jack and Abby and Sam. They were happy. And Sam and Abby had happily had their asses spanked. Watching them get tied up had been hard though.
And now she was going to the playroom because it was time to move on.
She’d known it existed, but she’d carefully avoided it every time she’d been here. Jack Barnes had offered to show it to her a long time ago. Nat wasn’t dumb. She’d known what Jack was trying to do. He’d been like Cal and all the other Doms, attempting to gently herd her back into the lifestyle because they thought she needed it.
She thought about her visit with Janine. Her therapist wasn’t particularly happy about the whole “going undercover” thing, but she’d told Nat that she was thrilled with her stubbornness and courage. Two days of talking about trust and the need to move on and Nat was giving it a try.
Her heart was thumping in her chest, getting faster with every stair she climbed. What the hell was she doing? She couldn’t go undercover. It was stupid. Someone hated her and she was going to catch a killer? She had a degree in art. She was a massage therapist. What the hell did she know about investigating anything? She could barely do a Google search.
But she knew D/s. And this person was obviously connected to an underground club.
“Are you all right?” Chase turned at the top of the stairs, his hand on that bag Logan and the girls had come here to bring him. His D/s bag. Full of toys he wanted to use on her. How would she handle that? He probably had rope. He would want to tie her up. She couldn’t do it. She just couldn’t. Her feet moved of their own volition, finding the step beneath her, taking her further away.
“Natalie.” Chase sounded a little weary, emotion heavy in his voice. He sounded like Ben. If she hadn’t known damn well who was with her, she would have sworn it was Ben. But it was Chase who sounded so deeply sad. Even those normally narrowed eyes were round, the pain evident. “Go find your room, sweetness. I’ll talk to Ben. We’ll work this out. You don’t have to do anything. I’ll take care of you. Ben and I will make this thing go away.”
And then they would head back to Dallas because they needed a submissive. She’d been thinking about it for days. If Hawk hadn’t been a righteous prick criminal massive douchebag, she would still be bottoming happily. She would have waited. She was picky, never taking a collar because it wasn’t right.
Chase was right. Ben was right. She was the one who was wrong but only because some arrogant asshole had fucked up her life, and if she never ever took it back, then he got to win.
Tears blurred her eyes. Chase’s whole body sagged. She would bet her life that he’d never let a sub manipulate him, but he softened every time he was around her. “Cotton Candy, you’re killing me. Just go back to your room. You don’t have to do a thing. We won’t touch you.”
He meant they wouldn’t spank her or tie her up or make her come. And they wouldn’t really touch her at all because both he and Ben needed a D/s connection. It was who they were. It was who she’d been so long ago. It was who she’d been born. Deep inside she’d been submissive sexually, needing what came from giving up power when it came to sex. Before she’d been abused, she’d been able to accept herself without a single condition. She’d simply been Natalie.
Who the hell was she now? Was she a woman who allowed two beautiful men to walk away because she wasn’t brave enough to try?
She sniffled. She hated the fact that she was so close to tears. “I’m scared, Sir.”
Nat used the polite name because she wanted him to understand she was invested in this endeavor.
He closed the distance between them, his hand touching her hair. “I don’t want you to be scared of me. I can’t fucking stand the thought. I would rather walk away and just let Ben have you than you be scared of me.”
“It isn’t you. It’s the whole thing. I want this part of me back, but I’m terrified that it won’t work. I think I’m broken, Chase.”
He took a long breath as he stared down at her. “I was born broken, sweetness. I was born not whole. I think you might fix me.” His breath hitched just a little, and she could see what this cost him. “Could you please try? For me? For Ben?”
She could have turned him away if he’d ordered her. She could have walked if he’d simply stopped and stared. But asking her? She couldn’t move. He’d asked with emotion in his voice and this was Chase, not Ben. Chase, who never had an emotion, felt for her. Chase, who likely never asked, had been sweet and polite. Chase could change, just a bit. Couldn’t she?
She wanted to. Couldn’t she try? For Chase and Ben? For herself?
“Please be patient with me, Sir.” She let her arms wind around his lean waist. God, she loved how it felt to hug him. Her whole body seemed to hum with the connection. She let her head find his chest. He was wearing a shirt but his heat came through the cotton. She leaned into him, for the first time in forever finding real comfort in another human being. She let a happy sigh take her, listening in to the heavy beat of his heart. She was close to him, so close. This was what she’d really missed.
“I can be so patient, Cotton Candy. You have no idea. I can wait for something I really want.” His chin rubbed against her hair. “Sex is going to be hard, though.”
She turned her face up to him. His deep blue eyes stared down. How could she have ever thought he was cold? “Sex? Why would that be hard?”
He sighed. “Sweetness, I want you so fucking bad. I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want you. I might get cranky, but I’ll wait until you’re comfortable.”
He thought she was asking him to wait for sex? “Chase, I was talking about the D/s stuff. Can you not have sex unless I kiss your feet? Shouldn’t we try a little sex since it will probably be on the table at this club thing?”
He growled a little, pulling her up, and suddenly her back was against the wall. Oh, there was that hot alpha male. She was deeply aware that with most men she would be screaming by now, but with Sir Dawson, she simply grinned, wrapping her legs around him.
God, how could she trust him so fast?
“I can fuck you anytime, sweetness,” he said, proving just how ready he was by rubbing his cock against her. “I want you to take me. I want you to take me so fucking bad.”
His hips moved, rocking against her. There was no damn question that the man wanted her. He and his brother were doing all sorts of things for her self-esteem. Was that what they would do for a sub? For their sub? She wrapped her arms around him, her legs forming a circle that held them together. “I want you, babe. But I want Ben, too. Be sure.”
It felt so damn right to call him babe.
His lips curved up. “I can handle it. I was being an asshole before. That’s something you’re going to have to be patient with. Asshole is my default state. I love your breasts. They’re perky. I think about them a lot.”
She snorted a little. She couldn’t help it. He kept her on her toes. He didn’t seem to have a filter, and she kind of loved him for it. He wouldn’t lie to her. It wouldn’t even occur to him to do it. “Uhm, I’m flattered.”
“If you’re done thinking about Nat’s boobs, we should probably get started on her training.” Ben stood at the door of the playroom, his voice a little forbidding, but a sweet smile played on his lips like he’d enjoyed the conversation he’d overheard.
Chase sighed. “He can be an asshole, too. Are you ready for this, sweetness? Because we can just get the fuck out of this town.”
He held her in place as though trying to let her feel his will. “I’m not supposed to leave the county.”
“I can have a new identity for you in thirty minutes. We can be on a plane an hour after that. Where would you like to go? Beach or mountains?”
He meant it. He would drop his whole fucking life and just walk out with her. She glanced up at Ben, whose face was a polite blank. He would want roots. He needed them. It was his function in life to ground those around him. If they went on the run, Ben might come with them, but he would never be happy. There was a core to Ben that needed the everyday life. It would be his gift to them.
She took a long breath, gathering her courage. “No. I want to catch this guy. I want to see if I can get this piece of me back.”
Chase set her on her feet. He put his forehead to hers. “Then get up there and get into position.”
She hustled up the stairs, feeling better than she had a couple of minutes before. She’d been scared, but two minutes of the Dawson brothers and she really wanted to try. It brought back her mom’s words of wisdom when she’d asked how to find a Dom.
When you find one who makes you want to bend, want to please him because he moves you, then you know to try.
