Turning the Tide (Eastern Shore Swingers, #5)

by Phoebe Alexander

  “You sure you’re up for this?” Bry asked, pulling him aside before the appointed start time. A sizeable crowd of twenty or thirty people had begun to congregate in the dungeon and out in the hallway where a window looked in on the action. Bry was already wearing his microphone, though it was switched off. He seemed to be in all his glory imparting his vast BDSM knowledge to the club members.

  “Yeah, I’m okay, sorry,” Luke apologized. “I’ve just had a long week. And it’s a short week. Isn’t that how it goes?”

  “I know how you feel, man. Okay, we’re going to use someone from the audience for you to practice your ropework. Does that work for you?”

  “Sure, whatever you want to do.” Luke scanned the faces of the people, mostly couples, who had gathered for the workshop. He knew he wasn’t going to see Connie, but maybe Casey would show up with her boyfriend. He had spotted Leah earlier heading downstairs from her office, presumably to go home. But he hadn’t noticed anyone else from The Factory staff. Surely someone else was here. Maybe Calvin and Paisley. Maybe he could hunt down Calvin after this was over and find out if he’d learned any more about Barbara. Was she really in Washington DC with Chloe, or was she still in Delaware?

  Bry called the workshop to order and introduced their topic for the evening. He could be a bit long-winded, and Luke’s mind wandered over a speech he was preparing to give to Connie when and if she would speak with him. His next step would be to show up at her apartment and camp out until she would talk. He was even considering doing just that after the workshop ended. The thought of going back to his empty house was unbearable.

  “So, can we get a volunteer from the audience for Luke to learn knots on?” Several hands shot up. “Yes, preferably female.” Bry laughed as he scanned the crowd for raised hands. “Sirena? You up for this?”

  The leggy blonde parted the standing-room-only crowd outside the door and glided into the room beaming her radiant smile. Luke gulped. For some reason, knowing he had to tie her up made him more nervous than if it had been a total stranger who volunteered.

  Bry helped Sirena get positioned on the bench while Tam brought out a plastic tote filled with ropes. Bry went over some safety procedures, including showing the safety scissors that could be used to cut the rope in an emergency. He brought out a length of bright pink rope and explained it was made from hemp and what the pros and cons of that particular fiber were.

  Luke wished he wasn’t so distracted. He was going through the motions. Sirena gave him a thoughtful look, as though she was trying to figure him out. He wasn’t sure how much of the conversation she’d overheard at the Memorial Day barbecue a few days before.

  “You ready?” Bry asked, nudging him on the shoulder. Luke’s head popped up from where his focus rested on Sirena’s lovely backside, but he wasn’t looking at it so much as spacing out. “We’re going to do a single column tie first.” He pointed to the tub of rope lengths, some of which were short. “Tam, pass those out, that way everyone can learn at the same time.” She went through the audience distributing the lengths of rope.

  Luke was surprised how much time and effort went into rope bondage. Even after he’d finished with Sirena, it didn’t look nearly as sophisticated as it seemed when he was making the knots.

  “Would you all like to see something more complex?” Bry asked, and the crowd cheered in response. Tam helped Sirena get untied and then surrendered herself to her husband’s capable hands. It took some time, but Bryan managed a beautiful multi-colored pattern across Tam’s front and back with her hands bound behind her.

  “As you can see, it takes some practice. Does anyone have any questions for us?” Bry surveyed the audience as Tam began to collect the lengths of practice rope.

  Luke felt as though he’d been dismissed from service. He wondered if Connie would ever let him try the knots on her. I’ll have to practice them soon, or I’ll forget this whole lesson, he reflected as he turned to thank his teachers for the instruction.

  “Next week we’ll do some more complex knots,” Bry said. “If you want to bring a partner you feel comfortable with, feel free. Otherwise, you’re free to practice on Tam.” He seemed to have picked up on his nervousness around Sirena.

  “Thank you. I look forward to it,” Luke said, trying to sound enthusiastic, but he wasn’t as interested in learning the domination techniques if he didn’t have someone to dominate.

  He headed down the hallway and into the lobby, where he was surprised to see Connie sitting on one of the leather loveseats. She couldn’t have heard him approaching but glanced up as though she’d sensed his presence. His heart jerked to attention and began to pick up its pace. Maybe I conjured her up with my thoughts. If only it actually worked that way, he mused.

  “We should talk.” She stood to face him after delivering the three simple words.

  He nodded. “Let’s wait for everyone to leave. Is Casey here?”

  “No, but Sirena is, and Paisley too. They said I can lock up after we leave if they’ve already gone.”

  Once again, The Factory was their refuge. Luke glanced around at the steampunk décor and the exposed pipes painted in neon green, teal and purple. The bronze chandelier over their heads was turned up to its full illumination. He’d never noticed all the colors in the lobby before because everything was always dim.

  “Where shall we go?” He would have suggested the dungeon, but he was fairly certain Bry, Tam, and some workshop attendees were still lingering behind after the lesson.

  “We can go up to Leah’s office,” she answered. “Paisley said that was okay.”

  Moments later he found himself in the same space where Bry and Tam had asked him to be part of their BDSM workshop series. Leah’s office was homey with a small sofa and full bookcases. There was also a plastic laundry basket full of baby toys, which were a strange sight to see in a swing club. Connie carefully lowered herself onto the sofa as though she were in pain, or was hesitating—and Luke assumed it was the latter.

  “I’ve had some time to think and straighten things out.” She folded her hands in her lap and looked at him sincerely, but her expression didn’t give away any clue as to the direction of those thoughts.

  He remained silent, wanting to give her time to work through this. He wondered if she’d been rehearsing a speech to give him like he had to give her.

  “I was pretty shocked when I got the email from Jim yesterday,” she confessed. “I didn’t understand what was going on at first—I thought Jim had discovered us. But then I saw that Jasmine was implicated. I thought, ‘what the fucking hell?’”

  “I can imagine,” he interjected and instantly regretted speaking at all. “Sorry, go on.”

  “My first instinct was to call Jasmine and find out what she had to say.” Connie took a deep breath as though she needed to gather strength to express her next thought. “And so I just point-blank asked her what the email was about, and she blurted out that you two were sleeping together. She sounded nearly giddy about it. When I tried to press her for more details, she said she wasn’t ‘at liberty to say.’ It sounded like she’d been coached to give that response, and I wondered if you’d told her to say that.”

  “Oh my god, seriously?” Luke couldn’t contain his anger now. How dare Jasmine lie about him like that!

  She ignored his outburst and continued, “When I passed you in the parking lot, I was surprised to see you. Jim’s email made it sound like you weren’t coming in at all. I didn’t want to have it out with you there because of the cameras, and I also wanted to talk to Beverly first. I knew she would have a better handle on what was going on. And I wanted to see what Janet and Yolanda would say too. Jas and Yo are pretty tight, and I figured I could tell from the way Yo was acting what kind of truth there was to this whole thing.

  “But then we were so busy—the day after a three-day weekend, of course—I barely got a chance to talk to anyone. I finally did get to speak with Beverly today. She said she didn’t buy any of it and though
t Jasmine was being paid off. But then I heard Yolanda say they have video evidence.”

  “Video evidence?” Luke repeated. “Well, there’s no way in hell that’s true.”

  She just stared at him, and when he glanced down, it appeared her hands were trembling ever so slightly, but trembling just the same. He hated what this had done to her. He hated that he’d put her in this position.

  “What’s going to happen?” her voice wavered as a quick glimpse into her inner fears was doled out.

  He wanted to take her into his arms, hold her, reassure her things would be alright. He wanted to make love to her. He wanted to tie her up, give her secure boundaries around her so she knew she’d be safe. It seemed ironic that would be the methodology, but he knew it would work. First, he wanted to use his words—if they even meant anything to her at this point.

  As if reading his mind, she started up again, not waiting for him to answer her question. “Look...”

  When someone says “look,” they want you to try to understand something they don’t think you’re capable of understanding. It means they are about to spell out a truth they hold near and dear to their heart, and they’re worried you will reject it before it even comes off the end of their tongue.

  “I’m listening, Connie. I’m here. Tell me anything you need to say,” he assured her.

  “I already told you last weekend how I felt about you...how I’m beginning to feel.” A look of resolve firmed up her features as she clenched her hands into tight fists at her side. “But I will be the first to tell you I have trust issues. My ex ruined that kind of unassuming, naïve trust you have in your partner, the trust he’ll do what’s in both of your best interests. That he won’t screw you over.

  “Jack decimated me, okay? How do you think I ended up in California? Here I was with two young kids, made a total fool of in all the DC social circles where Jack was wining and dining, always schmoozing, always trying to drum up support for his political career. The whole time, he kept telling me he was doing it for us. He told me I was going to be a senator’s wife. He said someday I’d be First Lady.”

  Her eyes filled with tears, and one bravely marched down her cheek. “First Lady, can you fucking imagine?”

  Luke chuckled. “You’d make a great First Lady.”

  “He didn’t want me to finish my education, you know,” she said. “I earned my bachelor’s degree when I was twenty-two, but it was in psychology, and I couldn’t do jack shit with it.” She laughed at the pun with her ex-husband’s name. “I wanted to go back to school for nursing when my kids were little, and he tried to talk me out of it. ‘I need you by my side on the campaign trail,’ he argued.”

  Luke shook his head, trying to imagine where he’d be if Barbara had tried to talk him out of going back to school. At least she’d been enamored with the idea of him being a doctor, though she wasn’t thrilled about his chosen specialty. She was hoping for something more glamorous than “looking at boogers all day long”—that’s what she’d called it.

  “It’s a damn good thing I followed my instinct—and actually, Casey had a lot to do with it too. She encouraged me to go for it. Jack wouldn’t even take care of our children while I took classes. I had to hire a babysitter, whether he was in the house or not. What a fucking prick.” She nearly laughed, shaking her head at the memory.

  “Then, when I discovered he was cheating on me, it wasn’t like I found out he was fucking his secretary. No...no, it was more like this huge story broke, and suddenly the whole country knew Jack Stewart had fucked half the women in Washington.”

  He could no longer bear to be so distanced from her. “I’m so sorry, Connie.” He moved over to the sofa to sit beside her, taking her hand into his. “Please, you have to believe me: you are the only woman I’ve been with in ten years. Ten.”

  She stared straight ahead as the memories seeped out of her. “He wouldn’t even admit to it then. He still denied it. All of it! And yes, there was evidence. Not videos back then, but still photos. His opponent for whatever race he was running in at the time—senator, governor, fuck, I don’t remember—had hired a bunch of goons to follow him around. It didn’t take them long to collect the evidence, and he wouldn’t bow out! He still ran and threatened me if I left him before the election.”

  “Wow,” Luke interjected. He wasn’t about to say more, but he definitely understood what it felt like to be threatened.

  “So,” she finally turned toward him, “with all this going on with your wife, it really hits home. My mind has gone some places in the past few weeks I had forbidden it to go anymore.”

  He squeezed her hand. “I can imagine. But I hope you realize that I have more in common with you than I do your ex. I found out some news yesterday when I went to see Detective Mitchell.”

  Her eyes lifted to his, still watery. “What’s that?”

  “Jim and Barbara are working together,” he shared. “And not only that—they’re sleeping together too.”

  Her expression instantly changed, her eyebrows flying up, and her lips parting with shock as she scrambled for words. He cut her off before she could let them loose. “And he has photo evidence.”

  “Holy shit,” she finally blurted out. “I thought she wasn’t able to...uh...do that?”

  Luke shrugged. “I’m starting to wonder if there’s any truth to her medical ailments.”

  “Surely with as many specialists as she’s seen, they would have found something after all this time. Something conclusive.”

  “Fibromyalgia. Lyme disease a while back. She does have a couple of messed-up vertebrae and some nerve issues, but nothing bad enough for surgery,” he reiterated. He scrubbed his hand down his face again. “But back to your question about what happens now... Well, I expect to hear from Jim’s lawyer any minute.”

  “Because you violated your partnership agreement?”

  He nodded. “It all came back to me when I was reading it the other night. When he and I wrote it, we were both younger, of course. But we’d both been married enough time that we realized a wandering eye could make or break our business. We didn’t want anything sullying our reputation in the community, so we both agreed that fraternization with employees is strictly verboten—and we were serious about the consequences, too. The penalty is walking away from the business with a small severance package.”

  “What?” The look of horror on her face was evident.

  “If I leave without being formally fired, I will receive a severance package,” he explained. “I just read through our agreement again yesterday, and I’m meeting with my lawyer tomorrow. But that’s the way I understand it.”

  “But you didn’t do what they’re accusing you of! Why would you walk away?” she gasped.

  “You don’t seem to understand my wife. She and Jim are working together, and her crazy family is probably involved too. They will make stuff up—will fabricate evidence—I have no doubt she’ll go to any length to destroy me.”

  Connie let out a breath as her gaze fell to the floor. Luke stood up and turned toward the door. He couldn’t do this. She was right—she shouldn’t be mixed up in this situation. It was even more messed up than what she’d been through with her ex.

  He was surprised when he felt her presence behind him, her arms wrapping around his waist. He whipped around to face her. “I understand if you need to back away, if this isn’t a good fit for you.”

  She shook her head. “It’s not that...exactly. I’m just—well, what happens if you leave the practice? Where will you go? I just moved here.”

  “I know.” He kissed the top of her head. It pained him to say what he needed to say. He’d walked right up to the Pearly Gates and was being turned away. He deserved it, that much he could not deny. “I guess it’s just not meant to be between us.” He extracted himself from her embrace and began to back toward the door again.

  “Wait, Luke, don’t go,” she pleaded. “I didn’t tell you that whole thing about Jack to say I don’t want t
o be involved with you. That’s not what that was about.”

  His brows furrowed. “It wasn’t? Sure sounded like it to me.”

  “No. It’s more that I’m fully admitting I have trust issues.” She laughed softly before turning her gaze to meet his, locking on to his dark brown eyes as her features grew serious again. “Is it weird that I trust you with my body? You could take me down to the dungeon right now, tie me up and have your way with me, and I wouldn’t have a single qualm.”

  Just the thought of that made his cock twitch. All he could see were those pink ropes wrapped around her beautiful limbs.

  “But when it comes to my heart—”

  She didn’t need to say any more; he understood. He could have her body, but her heart was a prize he had not yet won. He swept her into his arms where she surrendered to him, at least her body. His lips found hers, and he reveled in the taste of her desire as he calculated the probability that the dungeon was now free of people.

  Wordlessly, he took her hand and led her down the stairs. He would take her body, freely given to him. But he vowed to work on claiming her heart as well.

  SIXTEEN

  To be trusted is a greater compliment than being loved. – George MacDonald

  “So what’s the latest?” Luke asked as he sank into the familiar metal chair across from the detective.

  “Well...” He fiddled with some printouts on his desk, shuffling them like a deck of cards. “This is getting crazier by the minute.”

  “What do you mean?” How could it get any crazier? he wanted to add.

  He wished Connie was there to hear this, but she needed to go to work. She needed to keep her head down, not let Jim suspect they were involved. If they could manage to keep their affair a secret from everyone but Beverly, it would be a miracle. But they were certainly going to try.