“She was too good for that damned place. Too good to stay there. She should be on the stage somewhere.”
“You didn’t wonder why you never saw her gracing an album cover?”
“No, but you and I both know she didn’t necessarily want the spotlight. I figured she’d joined a group I’d never heard of.”
“You were afraid to find out. Admit it. You believed she’d go far because you loved her and had to let her go. You wanted the best for her.”
“I doubt she found it in Divine. Hank said she’d divorced.”
It was Ivan’s turn to put down his spoon. “I didn’t know that. Hell, you must’ve had one hell of a reunion with her then.” The spark of envy was uncomfortably familiar, even after thirty years. The only time he’d ever been jealous where his brother was concerned.
“No. She ran.”
“What do you mean ran?”
Samson made a fingers walking gesture toward the door. “She ran. It means exactly what I said.”
Ivan scowled at him and shook his head as he stirred his soup. “You gave her the steely-eyed Dominant stare and scared her off, didn’t you?”
“Fuck. What the hell is that, anyway? I looked at her, yes. How could I not? She’s gorgeous—”
Ivan held up a hand to halt his twin brother before he could get rolling. If ever two men were less alike in temperament, he wanted to meet them. “You remember what most of the men in her family were like? Talk about dominant and demanding.”
Samson paused with the spoon halfway to his lips, and then his shoulders slumped. “Shit.” He glanced at the workers rushing around the kitchen in concerted movements and rubbed his hands over his face. “I haven’t seen her in thirty years. I suppose I could’ve used a different approach.”
“Your favorite John Wayne quote comes to mind in times like these, brother. ‘Life is hard. It’s harder if you’re stupid.’ You should’ve tucked all those dominating tendencies of yours away so you didn’t intimidate her. So are you ending your embargo of all things Divine if it includes the now single Cassie Resendez?”
“Resendez,” Samson said, a frown forming on his face as he took another bite. “Joseph told me that was her last name. I recall only one Resendez family from Divine.”
Ivan chuckled, but it wasn’t a happy sound, and focused on his next spoonful of soup.
“No. No fucking way,” Samson said, his voice gravelly with dislike. “Bill Resendez?”
“Yes, but she’s single now.” If he’d known she’d divorced before today, although he might’ve been tempted, he would’ve let Samson know. Samson had fallen for her the moment he’d set eyes on her the first day of their freshman year. He didn’t have a prior claim on her like Samson did. But he’d adored her just as much back then.
“All these years, I imagined she was happy. That was the only reason I never went looking once I got back to the States. Years had gone by. I couldn’t just butt into her already established life.”
“I’m just as guilty,” Ivan said, taking out his smartphone. “I wanted her to be happy, even if it was in Divine, married to that fucking asshole.” While Samson finished off his soup, Ivan flicked through the apps and then started a search. He smiled when he found what he wanted—her gorgeous, beaming face on Facebook. She was standing next to a stunning wedding cake she’d evidently created, displayed atop a glass bakery case.
Samson cleared his throat. “What are you doing? What’s that goofy look on your face?”
Ivan shrugged. “Taking action for once. You just want to give her steely-eyed looks guaranteed to intimidate.”
“Cassandra took me by surprise, damn it. What were you doing?”
“Sending Cassie a friend request on Facebook.”
“Good luck with that. She probably doesn’t want anything to do with us.”
Ivan blinked and then scoffed at him. “Why in the world would you think that?”
“After all this time of never checking in and everything we went through back then? She’d probably like to continue on with her life without dredging all that up.”
His phone chimed as he was about to shut it off, and he grinned at the notification that’d just popped up. “Actually, she just accepted my friend request.”
It was Ivan’s turn to be on the receiving end of the steely-eyed stare. “What were you doing, sending her a friend request?”
He waggled his eyebrows. “Jealous? I should’ve done it before now. It’s a friend request, not a date request. I think I’m getting past dating age, anyway,” he said, rubbing his knee, which had started to ache because he’d been sitting.
“You liked her back then.”
“That baby was put to bed thirty years ago, brother. She was yours. End of story.”
Samson leaned on the arm of his chair and crossed his ankles. “You remember those rumors that used to go around town while we were growing up?”
“Which one? There were so many. Take your pick. The one about Hank doing it with Dorene Lester in the field house and getting caught by the coach? Or the one about Chance and Clayton Carlisle getting caught smoking weed down by the creek?”
Samson scowled. “No! Fuck that penny ante shit. And the rumor about Chance and Clayton was untrue. It was their cousins who came to visit from out of town that Jack Warner’s dad caught down at the creek sharing a joint. And Dorene Lester was with them. That girl got around. But no, that’s not the rumor I’m talking about. I mean the stories we used to hear about marriages having more than the usual number of partners but they were keeping it under the table.”
“Wow, I guess our family wasn’t the only one that had rumors going around about them. Yeah, I remember.” He was afraid to hope or even think of the possibility.
“Joseph is friends with several couples that are really ménages. That stuff hardly raises an eyebrow in Divine now, evidently.”
“Seriously? How did I not know this?”
“Remember Jack Warner, Ethan Grant, and Adam Davis?” At his nod, Samson continued. “Jack married a local girl, and they’re a foursome.”
“No shit?”
Samson nodded, his fingers tapping the arm of his chair as he shifted so he could extend his knee a bit. He suffered from stiffness in an old injury as well. “She comes to the club with Ethan every so often. Pretty and curvy.” Samson smiled and made an hourglass motion with his hands. “She’s sweet, too. Looks at Ethan as though he’s a god.”
Ivan chuckled. Samson’s appreciation of an hourglass figure was a quality he shared. “Is that so?”
“Kids, too. And they aren’t the only ménage by any means.”
“Hmm,” Ivan murmured, unsure what else to say as he imagined three men sharing one woman without killing each other out of possessiveness. “I can’t imagine that working very well.”
Samson shrugged a shoulder. “According to Joseph, it’s not Ethan she’s married to. It’s Jack Warner. And you remember Adam Davis. They were pretty close growing up. They must make it work because they’ve been together a few years.” He rubbed his fingertips over his beard.
Ivan asked as he leaned forward, “Are you saying you can see yourself in a similar setup?” What exactly was he asking?
“The high school reunion is coming up again.”
“I know. I got the talk from Hank, too.” Ivan didn’t have to ask. He knew Hank had called Samson, too. They’d all been thick as thieves in high school, and with Hank having been the senior class president, it was his job—and in his nature—to try to round up the troops every five years. “You saying you’re tempted?”
“By the reunion? Not hardly. I could give a crap who’s getting gray or who’s gone bald or declared bankruptcy. Cassandra goes to all the reunions, man.”
“Now you know she’s still there, and she’s single again, what are you going to do?”
Samson leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “It’s not a question of what I’m going to do. It’s a question of what we’re going to do.”<
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Holy. Shit.
Chapter Three
“Whatever you do, Samson, don’t give her the steely-eyed dominant stare. And what are you? A nervous thirteen-year-old girl calling her BFF for pointers on how to act around the boy she likes?”
Samson had called Ivan while waiting for Joseph and Bunny’s wedding to get started to let him know Cassie was in attendance. Samson watched as the woman of their dreams entered the hallway outside the suite Bunny had been holed up in for the last two hours.
Samson scowled at his phone and then put it back to his ear. Chuckling silently, Jack Warner looked over at him and lifted his chin inquiringly at the phone. Samson shook his head and looked down at the floor. “Lower your voice, man. I just wanted you to know she was here. I guess she’s one of Bunny’s bridesmaids or attendants. I didn’t know they were that close. Shit.” He wasn’t smooth like his brother, and the first thing he’d thought when he’d laid eyes on her was to call Ivan.
“When you get a chance, just slide on up to her and start a conversation with her. Don’t give her the stare.”
“What stare?”
“The one you give people who you want to do your bidding. Probably the same one you use when you want to beat on one of your poor masochists.”
“They’re not my ‘poor masochists,’ fucker,” he ground out as he walked a short distance down the hallway. “I only give them what they need, and I would think you’d know that by now since you know how to use Google. I’m not a monster.” Jack snorted in amusement and Samson stepped farther down the hall.
Ivan’s chuckle on the other end made him grind his teeth. “No, you’re a big, squeez-y teddy bear. You got all that growling out of your system now? Take a deep breath and…just smile at her. Offer to get her a glass of champagne. Dance with her. Don’t say anything about the past, and for fuck’s sake, don’t tell her you like to spank naughty girls.”
Samson grinned, imaging for a split second how her lush bare butt cheek would feel under his hand. “At least not yet.”
“Just never in front of me, okay?”
“She’s in a mansion housing a BDSM club, and she’s friends with several subs. I think they’ve talked. So it shouldn’t come as any big surprise to her. Fine, I won’t say anything about my sadistic tendencies, okay?”
“And I wouldn’t say anything about attending the class reunion. Just let her be surprised.”
“I wasn’t going to since you need to be with us before I say anything about…you know.”
“Right. So just establish you’re the nice guy she remembers and you’re still single. And try not to give her the impression she’s in your sights.”
“Our sights.”
“Whatever. I’m not getting my hopes up until I get a green light from her. I have to go. My ganache is thickening.”
Gazing at her delicious form from the rear, he admired the sensual sway of her hips and the graceful curve of her bare back and neck as she moved past a window. “That’s not the only thing thickening. Later.”
“Pervert.”
He slipped his phone in his pocket and followed at a distance, smiling when she cast a quick gaze behind her and spotted him, the pace of her steps increasing as she headed toward the stairs.
“Run…for now, chiquita,” he murmured to himself. The thrill of the chase curled tight in his gut, but he followed at a slower pace down the stairs. He didn’t want her to trip in those heels.
Her cheeks were flushed a moment later when she returned up the stairs, Bunny’s younger brother, Tristan, in tow.
“Is she okay? Did she change her mind about me walking her down the aisle?” the fifteen-year-old asked as he followed in her wake. She’d lifted the long skirt of her figure-hugging red dress so Tristan didn’t accidentally step on the hem, affording Samson a brief view of her shapely calves and ankles.
“No, she’s fine, Tristan. It’s nearly time to start, and she wanted you to walk her from the suite upstairs.”
“Oh, okay. She shouldn’t have to walk by herself, huh?”
“No,” Cassandra replied as she smiled at him and shared some of her sweet smile with Samson as they passed each other. Her scent drifted past him, flowers and vanilla, and he was seized by an urge to lick her.
Maybe after we tie her up and decorate her with buttercream frosting.
A little while later, Samson observed Joseph, standing at the front, waiting for his bride-to-be as she made her way down the aisle on the arm of her brother. Bunny had brought happiness and joy into Joseph’s life as his new little sub, and the emotion in Joseph’s eyes told Samson that, while Bunny might enjoy submitting to Joseph, it was he who was enraptured with her.
“Well done, my friend,” Samson whispered to himself when the ceremony concluded as Joseph took Bunny in his arms. He bent her back as he kissed her so she had to hold on to him. She came up bubbling with laughter, threw her arms around his shoulders, and hugged his neck as he twirled her around.
Sitting in the row of chairs directly in front of him, Cassie was brushing tears from her cheeks with the sides of her hands as she applauded. Samson thanked his lucky stars he had a clean handkerchief. He stroked her bare shoulder with the backs of two fingers to get her attention and held it out to her. She looked up at him with her teary eyes and blinked, so he gently blotted her cheek for her.
“Oh,” she said as she reached up and her hand made contact with his, holding the soft square of fabric. “Thank you.”
“Of course.”
Guests flowed from the seating toward the large white tent set up nearby, and she pointed at it. “I’m supervising the cake cutting so I’d better get in there. Thank you, for your hankie.” She sniffled and smiled at him, and he nodded. She looked back once as she hurried to the tent, and he chuckled.
“At least she wasn’t practically running this time.”
Once the wedding dinner had been served and the cake had been cut, the reception guests meandered back and forth between the gardens, the tent, and the lower floor of Hazelle House. The club itself was closed in honor of the bride and groom but would open for late-night pleasures once they’d left on their honeymoon trip. Unfortunately, Samson would be overseeing the club festivities along with Randall Butler, who was Joseph’s other trusted man. If he’d realized Cassie would be at the wedding, he’d have made other arrangements. Randall could handle the club on his own for one evening, but with two levels, the main club floor and the dungeon, it needed at least two people in charge besides the monitors. And it wouldn’t be right to beg off at the last minute just because he had a hot brunette in his sights.
Speak of the devil, Randall chose that moment, while he was standing at the bar in the lounge, to walk up with his submissive, and wife, Mona. With them were Hank Stinson, Travis McDaniel, and their beautiful bride, Veronica Stinson, also known as famed romance novelist, Veronica Benedict.
Hank sipped from a heavy crystal glass containing a couple of fingers of whiskey Joseph had poured for him from the bottle of Glenlivet XXV Hector had given Joseph as a wedding present during an earlier toast with his friends. Hank paused out of respect before swallowing and rumbling in appreciation. Hank had a built-in designated driver with Travis to get the three of them home, so the sheriff of Divine County was enjoying a well-earned night off.
Hank tilted his chin in Cassandra’s direction and then slid Samson a sidelong glance as they leaned against the bar and said, “Cassie sure does look pretty tonight. Busy little bee.”
“You noticed, too?” Samson said as he sipped from the remnants of his own glass, feeling mellow as he watched her chatting with her friends, taking a break from helping with the wedding. He’d found out she’d made the cake, and although he wasn’t a connoisseur of crème-filled-whatevers like his brother, he’d thought it was delicious.
Veronica kissed Hank before she joined Travis out on the dance floor, and Hank gestured discreetly at Cassandra. “What possessed you to leave her behind, Cutter? Despite what
happened with your folks, I figured wherever the service sent you you’d pack her up and take her with you. Keep her close.” He looked out toward the dance floor, obviously enjoying watching Veronica dance, and grinned. “It’s not good for a man to live alone so long. I remember what it’s like.”
“Of course, that’s no longer a problem for you.”
Hank sighed happily as he turned to face the bar and set his empty glass aside. He leaned in to speak so only Samson could hear. “I hope you don’t miss your chance. Bill did his best to follow in her father’s and grandfather’s footsteps.”
Samson tensed, his hands cranking into fists as he faced Hank. “How do you mean? Did he hurt her? Did you ever need to pay them any official visits?”
Hank shook his head. “Nothing like that. You remember how sneaky and manipulative that bragging bastard was. Being married to him wasn’t exactly a cakewalk, I’m sure. I’m glad she had the kids to see to. It wasn’t easy for her…or her mom.”
Samson gazed down into the dregs of whiskey in his glass. “I didn’t realize it was him she’d married until I talked to Ivan and he filled me in. Evidently he knew she was in Divine all this time, although he didn’t realize she’d divorced.”
Hank nodded, and Samson saw the muscles move in his jaw as if he was clenching it. “I delivered the divorce papers to her shortly after she’d gone into business four years ago. I think Bill wanted to hurt her just for spite there at the end. He requested I deliver the papers to her as early as possible during the day, but wouldn’t you know…dispatch needed me on one urgent call after another. By the time I got back over to the coffee shop, she was closing up for the day. Still hurt her. I saw that much. But at least Bill didn’t have the satisfaction of twisting the knife in front of her morning rush crowd.”
“Why would he do that, Hank? She doesn’t have a mean bone in her body.”
“Bullies secretly hate themselves, and when they see qualities in others they know they lack, they hate them for it. He’s always been a bully, and he enjoyed harming someone who was weaker and softer than him, taking pleasure in causing someone else pain.” Hank made eye contact with him and shook his head. “Not the same thing as what we do at all.”
How Cassie Got Her Grind Back [Divine Creek Ranch 23] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 3