by Lexi Blake
“Yeah, it’s going to stay that way until you’ve completed your training.” Wade put a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Come on. I’ll walk you out.”
They strode out of the room.
Michael looked at Kyle. “How did you manage to avoid your stepdad showing up for your first day of school?”
Kyle shuddered a bit. “Sean and I have decided to completely avoid even talking about this subject. Look, I know some of you have brothers and sisters who play here, but she’s my mom. My mother. I do not need to know anything.”
“You know moms can have sex lives,” Theo pointed out.
“Do you want to see your mom get spanked? For that matter, do you want to see her in a thong?” Kyle replied.
Theo grinned. “Absolutely not, but I will say yours looks spectacular.”
“I might need to vomit,” Kyle said with a groan.
Hutch looked up at him. “Anyone else back there?”
“Are you asking me if there’s anyone else you can threaten?”
“Yup.”
Kyle shook his head. “Nah. It’s almost time. I think we missed the first couple. And West isn’t her training Dom. I might have taken a look-see. Noelle’s paired with a guy named Jeff.”
Theo frowned. “Jeff? Are you talking about Jeffrey Sinclair?”
Kyle shrugged. “That sounds right.”
“Huh,” Theo began. “I’m surprised. I didn’t like him during the orientation. He was in the group I oversaw.”
Hutch didn’t like the sound of that. “What was wrong with him? He’s not an employee.”
“No, he’s a favor for a friend of Tag’s. Not a friend, exactly,” Theo explained. “But his dad has done some big favors for the company, and he thinks his son needs to learn discipline. He got through Kai so he must be solid.”
It was Michael’s turn to frown. “Kai didn’t have time to pair up this group. He let one of his partners do it because he and Kori are on vacation. They went out to see Jared and Sara for their little girl’s birthday. They go every year. Kai did the psych evals, but the new counselor did the pair ups.”
“She’s the family counselor, right?” Hutch didn’t like the idea that Kai hadn’t paired up the partners. Kai Ferguson had been in charge of that for years. It was important to pair up training partners properly.
“I’m sure she knows what she’s doing,” Michael assured him. “She would take into account what the trainee says she wants out of the class. I remember my training partner.” A smile hit Michael’s face. “I’m pretty sure we both said something about wanting to explore the lifestyle through tons of fairly casual sex. We were perfect together. She would high-five me after an orgasm. Sometimes I miss her.”
“You are not helping,” Kyle admonished. “Hutch, I think you’re fine. I’ve been hanging with her all week, and she talks about you constantly when you’re not around. She’s cautious. Keep up your I’m-the-best-boyfriend-in-the-world bit and she’ll come around. Now I would like to feel like I’m not stuck in a bad rom com, so I’m going to head out. You guys dry his tears, get him a glass of Chardonnay, and convince the man to chill. She’s still into him. I’ll make sure her training Dom isn’t too big of an asshole.”
“I’m not in tears, and at least you’ll know a big old ass when you see one,” Hutch shot back.
Kyle’s lips tugged up as he opened the door that led out to the hall and the stairs that would take him up to the dungeon level. “It takes one to know one.”
“Hey, she’s using her heavy braces.” He hadn’t even thought about that. “Can you make sure she gets upstairs okay? She might not want to use the elevator because no one else will.”
Kyle sobered. “Yeah, I’ll make sure she’s okay.”
“Thanks.” He hated the thought of her standing at the bottom of those steep stairs and wondering how she would get up them. She might not know where the elevator was. Subs didn’t get the same orientation that the Doms did. There was a reason for that. Doms were supposed to conduct a tour for their subs. It was a test to see how they treated their partners and how seriously they’d taken the initial class.
He wouldn’t be the one to show her around. He would be the dude she saw across the dungeon one day months from now. He would be the guy she waved at before going back to her friends.
He realized the room had gone super quiet, and when he looked over Theo and Michael were staring at him like he’d grown two heads.
Had he thought having a bunch of brothers would be a good thing? Because right now it kind of sucked. “I’m not going to cry.”
“I don’t know. You kind of look like you’re going to,” Michael said, a note of horror in his tone. “I’m wondering if I can flee the room before the first tear falls. If I make it out before it hits his cheek then I’m not it, right?”
Hutch flipped Michael the bird. “Asshole. I’m not crying and I’m not sitting around listening to sad love songs in my car and then saying it’s all a mistake that the freaking love station is programmed into my satellite radio.”
Michael frowned. “It came with the car.”
Theo put down his controller. “Sure it did. Look, don’t worry about…it’s Noelle, right?”
Hutch nodded. “Yeah. She’s got some mobility issues, and getting attacked in her place of business didn’t help. She usually uses a cane, but she’s been in forearm crutches for a couple of days until her muscles chill out. Normally I wouldn’t worry at all because Noelle’s adaptable, but she doesn’t know this place.”
Michael turned Theo’s way. “Who is he?”
Theo sighed, a long-suffering sound. “He’s who you should have been if you wanted your relationship to work.”
“Ow.” Michael put a hand on his chest as though Theo had wounded him. “But maybe fair. I wasn’t as thoughtful as I should have been.”
“Because you weren’t in love with Tessa and she wasn’t in love with you,” Theo replied. “You were both impatient. You see your brother with his wife and two kiddos and you want that for yourself, but you can’t force it. The same way Hutch can’t force Noelle to see that he’s right for her.”
“I’m not trying to force her to do anything.” He hated this, hated that she was out there and probably looked gorgeous, and he wouldn’t be the man who greeted her. He wouldn’t be able to make sure the man who did treated her with respect. He didn’t have any rights at all where Noelle was concerned and that hurt.
He was a man who’d avoided responsibility for the most part, and now that he wanted it, he couldn’t have it.
“You can’t force her to do anything, but you can make her world so comfortable she doesn’t remember how she got along without you,” Theo advised.
“That’s what I’m trying to do. Kyle’s right. I feed her every day. I watch TV with her. I rub her feet, and every night she runs to her bedroom.”
“She runs to it?” Theo asked.
Hutch nodded. “Yeah. I think she’s afraid I’ll do something I shouldn’t.”
The idea that she might be afraid of him hurt more than anything.
“Or she’s scared she’s going to jump you,” Theo offered. “Does she seem comfortable around you before it’s time for bed?”
“Oh, yeah. She has no problem hanging out with me until Kyle is solidly in his room. Then it gets weird. Even though Kyle pays little attention to us at night. He comes and goes between the living room and his room.” Kyle wasn’t impressed with their taste in TV. He ended up watching sports on his laptop, and Hutch had heard him mention several times that this was a boring-ass assignment when he talked to his brother at night.
Boring was good. Boring was safe. Boring meant no one was shooting at them or choking out Noelle. Boring gave them time to research and try to understand why anyone would want to hurt her.
“Then Kyle’s right and you should be patient. She’s not going to take one look at this Jeffrey guy and forget you exist,” Theo said. “You need to give her a couple of days. The
class is once a week, and there won’t be a ton of homework tonight. And hey, you’ll be right there when he comes over to do homework with her. You can scare the crap out of him then.”
Actually, that wasn’t a bad idea. “What am I supposed to tell him? If he comes to her place, we risk him running into the people in the building who believe I’m Noelle’s boyfriend.”
Michael seemed to think about the problem. “This doesn’t work. She can’t take the class while she’s the object of an active investigation. I don’t know what Tag was thinking.”
He could shut this shit down right now. He could claim it was far too dangerous, and she would have to wait until they had another class if she insisted on doing this with a group. And then Noelle wouldn’t get what she needed. He didn’t understand it, but she seemed to need to be here. She needed to do this on her own terms. “I’ll make it work. I’ll ensure all the homework is done here at the club, and Noelle and I will come up with something to tell him. Maybe we can let him know I’m investigating something for her.”
“Big Tag might not like telling this guy anything at all,” Michael pointed out. “You shouldn’t say a thing until you run it by Tag.”
“Then I should talk to Noelle because we didn’t discuss this before.” He stood up. Why hadn’t he thought of this problem? Because he’d been too busy denying that she would actually go to the class. Because he’d been thinking of himself and not the case at hand.
“You’ve still got about ten minutes before they start the class.” Michael picked up his controller again.
“Don’t fuck it up,” Theo advised. “When you come back we can order some pizza and play some more, if you want. Back when I was chasing after my wife, it always helped to take out my frustrations in video games.”
Hutch wasn’t sure he would be able to concentrate on a game right now, but it wouldn’t hurt to hang out with friends and get through the next couple of hours. He rushed out. He would find Kyle and Kyle could talk to Noelle so she didn’t feel like he was trying to disrupt her class.
It would be better if he didn’t look at her because then he wouldn’t be able to think about anything but her boobs. They would be gorgeous in a corset, and he hoped she was wearing a miniskirt because if this Jeff asshole saw her in a thong he would likely be hard to lose.
He took the stairs two at a time and then realized he was going to be lucky for once on this shitty day. Kyle stood just outside the dungeon talking with the Domme who now ran Sanctum—a lovely woman named Lea—and a dark-haired man in leathers Hutch didn’t recognize.
“What exactly are you saying, Jeffrey?” Mistress Lea’s voice had gone icy cold, and it stopped Hutch from calling out to Kyle.
Something serious was going on.
“I’m saying I didn’t sign up to coddle some disabled chick,” the man said, pointing back toward the dungeon space.
Kyle looked up and caught sight of Hutch. “Fuck. Lea, we have a problem.”
“Why is she here?” Jeffrey asked, ignoring Kyle. “What can she do? She couldn’t even get up the stairs without help. I’m not spanking some girl who can’t even walk right. No way.”
“Hutch,” Kyle began.
But Hutch wasn’t listening. Hutch saw fucking red and the rest of the world fell away.
* * * *
Noelle couldn’t stop looking around Sanctum. It was crazy that she was here, and she was wearing a purple corset and a miniskirt, and there was a human hamster wheel that supposedly lit up when a sub was running on it.
It was crazy and she was stupidly excited.
Only one thing held her back from one hundred percent bubbling over with enthusiasm.
Hutch.
He’d stood outside the women’s locker room when he’d dropped her off and given her the saddest smile.
I hope you have a wonderful time tonight. Whoever they put you with…he’s so lucky, Noelle. Don’t forget that.
Then he’d turned and walked into the men’s locker room across the hall. She wouldn’t see him again until the class was over and she’d gotten back into her slacks and blouse and she looked like regular old Noelle again. It felt like she was withholding something from him, but that wasn’t what she’d meant to do.
Would he like the way she looked now? Would he stare at the way the corset forced her breasts up and how small it made her waist look?
“Did you find the elevator?” Laurel Daley Bradford was dressed in a crimson corset and tiny shorts. She was her stepmom’s sister, and apparently she’d taken on a teaching role at Sanctum. A long-time sub, she had a son with her husband, Mitch, who practiced law here in Dallas.
“Yes. Erin showed me.” She’d been greeted by Erin Taggart, who’d explained she was acting as a mentor to the new subs along with Laurel. She’d also been cool about whatever Noelle wanted to do with the stairs. When Noelle had chosen the elevator, Erin had sighed in what seemed like pure contentment and gone up with her, cursing her brother-in-law because he’d never had to go up those suckers in a pair of five-inch heels. “I can make it up if I’m on a cane, but these babies make it a little more awkward. I should be back on the cane next week.”
Because Hutch was taking such good care of her. He made sure she rested but somehow managed to not make her feel self-conscious about it. He never demanded. He persuaded, like if she would let him do this thing for her, it would make him happy.
Going to bed without him was getting harder and harder to do.
But she knew what he wanted. He wanted her to give up the class and focus exclusively on him, and then she wouldn’t have this crazy, excited feeling that she was going on an adventure, that she was exploring with people like her, people who didn’t know everything, who were on her level.
“No one’s going to care if you’re on your cane or you need to use your chair,” Laurel explained. “This is a place where we take people as they come. It’s also a place where ex-soldiers come to play. You will see a whole lot of prosthetics here. It’s fun to figure out how to use the equipment. Kinksters can be incredibly inventive.”
She could see Hutch plotting and planning how to make every experience good for her. She would have trouble with some of the apparatuses because it would be hard for her to stay in position for a long period of time. But Hutch wouldn’t let that stop him if he wanted to spank her on it. He would adapt it to her needs.
Some of her excitement faded because she wished he was standing here beside her.
“Hey, sweetie, I’m not joking. This is a good place,” Laurel was saying.
She shook her head. “I wasn’t worried about being accepted. I met several of the other subs in the locker room and they seem great. I was thinking about something else. Someone else.” She shouldn’t have said that. “Please forget I mentioned it. I’m excited to be here. I was telling Erin how much I’ve been looking forward to taking this class.”
“Someone?” Laurel’s eyes went wide even as her voice went low. “Do you have a boyfriend? Lila didn’t mention a boyfriend. We should think about this if your boyfriend isn’t into the lifestyle. I know you don’t have to have sex to practice D/s but, honey, there’s going to be sex.”
Noelle shook her head. “No. I don’t. No boyfriend.”
But she had to admit that she might want one. The days with Hutch had been a revelation. They had pointed out how nice it was to have something beyond work to look forward to. He was even starting to charm Cara. He’d invited her to dinner the night before and then they’d played games. At the end of the evening Cara had grinned and told her she took back saying Kyle was hotter than Hutch.
Because Hutch was so much hotter, and it had everything to do with how he could make her feel.
“But there’s a guy you like,” Laurel prompted.
She wanted to talk, but Laurel was her stepmom’s sister, and her younger one at that. She’d come to realize Lila ruled the roost in the Daley family dynamic. Her younger sisters came to her for advice, and they would definitely repo
rt back to her if they thought something was up. Lila considered Noelle a daughter, and she would definitely want updates. “It’s someone at work.”
“It’s Hutch.” Erin moved in beside Laurel. “At least I hope it is because Hutch is acting like a mopey bitch, and everyone at the office knows it’s about his client. Well, most of us do. Li and I were talking about paying her to do Hutch so we can get him to do work without the sad puppy eyes. I asked him to run a couple of traces for me on a business guy in San Francisco named Noel and I swear he sat there and stared at the work order and actually touched the name on the page. It was the saddest most Hallmark shit I have ever seen. Please do Hutch, Noelle. Please.”
She felt her cheeks flame. She’d known he was going into the office while she and Kyle were at Genedyne, but he didn’t talk about it much.
Laurel sent the redhead a dirty look. “She’s new. You do not have to expose her to the sarcasm level at this stage.”
Erin shrugged. “She should get used to it. And seriously, it’s Hutch she’s thinking about.” Erin frowned suddenly. “Unless she’s into Kyle. Damn, girl. I don’t know that’s a good idea. Hutch is a great guy and he’s totally solid. Like we know Hutch isn’t going to explode at any moment.”
“It’s not Kyle,” she spat out and then realized what she’d given away. Well, there was nothing for it now. “I like Hutch, but I don’t know that it’s real. He’s intense, and I worry that he’ll figure out it can be hard to be around me.”
“Hard?” Laurel asked. “What does that mean?”
“It means I can’t take the stairs most of the time. It means I have to plan how I’m going to get around. I can’t simply walk into a building and go wherever I want to go. I know it seems like an easy thing to deal with but it’s not. What you take for granted, I have to spend time planning.” This wasn’t exactly why her other relationships hadn’t worked, but it was a part of it. There had been other factors, but somehow her legs exacerbated things.
Except Hutch didn’t seem to care. When they’d had sex, he hadn’t treated her like she was fragile. He’d fucked her hard and trusted her to tell him what she wasn’t comfortable with.
