by Abby Blake
* * * *
Two weeks later Cam watched from the doorway as Maya slept in Derek’s arms.
It had literally taken days to get through the official police process of making a statement, but the good news was that the overwhelming amount of evidence most likely negated Maya and Elise’s need to testify in court. The gang had been under police surveillance for quite some time. The drug charges were enough to send the man and his son and at least a dozen others to jail for a very long time. Throw in the myriad of other crimes the police had been able to trace back to the street gang, and it was going to be many, many years before any of them would see freedom.
It didn’t stop Cam from worrying about Maya’s safety though. He’d vowed to stay close until the threat against her was neutralized, but was it possible that she was in even more danger than before? Maybe he should start making plans to stay here permanently.
He shook his head, leaned against the doorjamb, and tried to view the situation objectively.
The lead officer on the drug raid had been adamant that Maya and Elise were no longer in any danger. They were very literally a very small part of a massive investigation. Even without the women’s testimonies the DA expected the same outcome.
So testifying, or staying quiet, didn’t affect Maya’s safety one way or the other. Being a police officer, Derek was in the best position to monitor the situation, and if anything did change, he had an entire network of police officers, ex-SEALs, and Doms he could call on for help. Cam had no doubt that Derek would call him back into bodyguard duty if the situation required it.
But unfortunately that left Cam with the uncomfortable realization that he was now staying because he wanted to. It didn’t seem fair to Maya or Derek that he was still hanging around. The sex was still amazing, seriously kinky, and teaching him a side of himself he’d never before guessed was inside.
Yet, despite the fact that Maya and Derek both made him feel like he belonged, it didn’t change the fact that Maya loved Derek. The last two weeks had been a bittersweet torture of watching them both fall deeper in love.
“Cam?” Maya said sleepily as she tried to sit up in bed.
“Go back to sleep, Maya. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“Why are you awake?” she asked, clearly ignoring his instructions. A part of him considered spanking her ass for talking in the one room that, as their sub, she’d promised not to, but he didn’t want to wake Derek. Unfortunately, Maya’s words did that for him.
He glanced at the other man and realized the cop was watching him with eyes that saw way more than most people. Cam plastered on his trademark cocky grin hoping that it would convince Derek that all was well. But Derek slid out of Maya’s embrace, dragged on his jeans, tilted his head toward the door, and a moment later they stepped into the hallway.
“What is it?” he asked without preamble. Only Logan had been able to see through him the way Derek did, yet he’d known the other man for years, not a handful of weeks like he’d known Derek.
“I think I should head home.” They weren’t exactly the words that he’d meant to say, but a quick glance at Derek’s concerned expression convinced him that they were probably the most sensible. He couldn’t hang around this loving couple for the rest of his life hoping that Maya would one day learn to love him. It wasn’t fair on any of them.
Derek gave him a curious look, but simply nodded his acknowledgement.
For some reason that just pissed Cam off. “I…ah…have to get a job, find a place to live, maybe figure out some plans for the future,” he hastened to explain, which pissed him off even more. He was the third wheel in this relationship. He didn’t need to justify his actions to anyone, but for some reason he felt compelled to explain his reasons to Derek.
Derek just nodded again, and when Cam opened his mouth to say something else, Derek gave him another of those concerned expressions.
“Maya will be disappointed.”
Cam acknowledged the man’s words with a curt nod. It wasn’t his intention to disappoint Maya, but now that she was safe he couldn’t really justify hanging around any longer. A small part of him admitted that he was also worried that the longer he remained the harder it would be for him to walk away. But as much as he wanted to stay, he knew that eventually he would want more from Maya, and he refused to hurt the woman by demanding more from her than she was able to give. He turned to leave, but the cop’s next words stopped him in his tracks.
“Didn’t pick you for a coward.”
Cam turned back to angrily face the accusation, but couldn’t find words to deny what was in some ways true. His silence damned him, and Derek dropped all pretense of being calm and became very serious. “If you can’t give her your heart, then she’s better off without you.”
“My heart?” Cam asked, bewildered. “She has my heart. She’s always had my heart. For fuck’s sake, Derek, can’t you see that me staying will only mess things up for you and Maya in the long run?”
Cam hadn’t meant to confess so much, and his need to escape the revealing conversation nearly had him running for the door, but again he was stopped in his tracks, this time by Maya’s quiet voice.
“You love me?” she asked in a strangely hopeful tone.
“I’m sorry, Maya. I know you love Derek.” Horrified to realize the blurriness of his vision was due to tears, he slammed his eyes closed and tried to regain his emotional balance. When Maya moved into his arms, he couldn’t help but hold on tight.
He stood there in the hallway, clinging to the woman he loved, trying to find the courage to walk away and do what was right. He sensed Derek leave them alone, but still he couldn’t find the strength to walk away. He loved Maya. For the first time in his life he was truly, utterly, head over heels in love with a woman. Yet she belonged to someone else.
Silently he cursed the fates who’d brought him into her life, but knew he’d never stop loving the woman, no matter the time or distance apart. But then her quiet words, spoken over and over, finally reached his brain, and he wondered if he’d heard her right.
“You love me?” he asked, echoing her earlier question.
“Of course I love you,” she said with a watery smile. “What do you think this relationship has been all about?”
“But what about Derek?”
Maya gave Cam a worried look. “I love him, too,” she confessed quietly.
Cam nodded in acknowledgement and just hugged the woman harder. He could live with that. In fact it seemed rather fitting. The three of them together made a cohesive whole, and now that he knew that Maya loved him as much as he loved her, he realized something he’d known all along—this was where he belonged.
“Well then,” he said, trying to find solid footing on mushy, emotional ground, “I guess it’s about time I got myself a job.”
“Guess so,” Maya said and then proved that she knew him better than he knew himself. “I hear they still have a vacancy over at the youth center. There are plenty of kids like Elise who could really benefit from knowing someone was there if they needed help. And, you know, being able to disarm the occasional knife-wielding drug dealer would look good on your résumé.”
Cam laughed quietly and glanced over Maya’s shoulder to see Derek standing there watching them with a wide grin. “Now that we have that sorted out,” he said, holding up a ball gag for them both to see, “how do you suggest we punish our naughty sub for talking when she didn’t have permission?”
Maya shivered in his embrace, but he knew his woman well enough to know that was a shiver of excitement. She pulled from his arms, grinned wickedly, and then turned and ran into the bedroom.
Cam was right behind her.
Epilogue
Three months later…
Maya tried to drag in a deep breath, but it didn’t really help still the butterflies beating frantic wings inside her belly. She attempted to turn her thoughts to something else, hoping that going over tomorrow night’s menu, or remembering the wonderful
compliments her customers had given her new chef, would help settle her nerves. She even replayed the news she’d gotten this morning about how her old chef was now doing solid jail time thanks to his links with organized crime and his pathetic attempt to scare her into selling the restaurant at well below market value. But none of it worked. In fact the butterflies seemed to have turned into bats and were twisting her stomach into knots.
She wasn’t an exhibitionist. She’d never had any sort of inclination to strip in front of a crowd of people and let one of her Doms beat her to orgasm, but somehow here she was. She shivered when she caught sight of Derek’s collection of leather floggers. She usually enjoyed this at home, but sure as hell didn’t like the idea of having an audience.
Cam had already fastened the cuffs around her wrists and ankles and moved her into position against the St. Andrew’s Cross. He slowly and methodically checked and rechecked her bonds as he clipped her cuffs to the rings on the wood. He pressed a soft kiss to her lips as he cinched the lumbar support around her waist.
“Relax, sub. Pretend it’s just the three of us.”
She had at least a dozen smart-ass comebacks for that order, but just like in her bedroom, she was forbidden to talk in Viper’s Dungeon, so she held her lips shut and frowned instead. Cam laughed quietly, threaded his hand through her hair, and forced her to accept his tongue in her mouth. She moaned around the invasion, and despite her nerves felt a gush of liquid pulse from her pussy.
She shifted slightly, now doubly embarrassed to be aroused and on display. Cam and Derek had consented to let her wear a skintight bodysuit, rather than be naked, but it didn’t change the fact that they fully intended to make her come in the middle of a room full of people.
Despite how well they knew her body, Maya worried that she was going to disappoint them. She could barely hear Derek’s voice over her pounding heartbeat as he explained to other Doms the best approach for bringing a reluctant sub to orgasm in public. She knew Derek was considered an expert in this field of BDSM, but still she had to wonder if he’d finally met his match. Not that she wanted to embarrass him. That was the last thing she wanted. Hell, just the thought of disappointing him in this way sent her gasping for air.
“As you can see by Maya’s increased breathing rate, my sub is very worried that she is about to disappoint me. At this point it is very important to reassure your sub. Orgasm is unlikely to be reached if your sub is expending all of her energy on a panic attack.”
Maya wanted to poke her tongue out at him. She was nervous, but she was not about to panic. Cam moved in front of her, grabbed her nipples between finger and thumb with both hands and squeezed really, really tight. Fuck, she was gasping for air still, but now for a whole different reason.
“I’ve found it most effective to distract a nervous sub before panic sets in,” Derek said with an obvious smile in his voice.
Cam deftly attached the G-clamps to her sore nipples and screwed them both just a little tighter than usual. Even through the thin spandex material her breasts throbbed with her heartbeat, sending pulses of warmth straight to her clit. She could feel the little bud swelling and pressing hard against the material of her skintight suit. Her anus clenched in reaction, the squeezing around the plug Derek had put there earlier setting alight all sorts of delicious sensations.
Maya closed her eyes, trying to slow down her heart rate and ignore the fact that she was turned on in front of a room full of people. To be completely honest she hadn’t expected to feel even this much arousal, and she felt a tiny trickle of relief that she just might be able to do this.
But then she glanced up from under her eyelashes and saw Viper and Bianca watching and wanted to crawl into a hole. Her friendship with them outside the club was so normal that it felt weird to be exposed this way in front of them. She might not have been naked, but the bodysuit did nothing to hide her shape. It very literally hugged every curve, pulling tight between her pussy lips and up the crack of her ass.
“Maya, look at me,” Cam said in that tone of voice that she always instinctively obeyed. He smiled when she looked up. “Derek and I both believe you’re ready for this, but it’s okay to use your safe word if you need to. Neither of us is going to be upset.” He reached over and cupped her face with his large hand, caressing her cheek as he watched her closely. “We both love you, sugar. You don’t need to do this if you truly don’t want to.”
She closed her eyes, soaking in the warmth of his caring. Maya gave him a small smile, shook her head, and refused to use her safe word. Just knowing that they wouldn’t be upset if she failed, made the trying just that slight bit easier to cope with.
“Good girl,” Cam said as he pressed a kiss to her slightly sweaty forehead. “Come for me.”
The unexpected vibration against her clit had her jolting away, but Cam merely wrapped a big hand around her hip and held her in place. A moment later a second vibration came from the plug in her ass.
She moaned, the incredible sensations overriding every thought in her head. She shook all over, the rings on the cross clanking against the clips on her cuffs as she shook with wild abandon. Heated waves of ecstasy flowed over her, around her, through her, the insistent buzzing in her most sensitive areas sending her into overload. Gasping, panting, jolting, Maya tried to catch her breath as the orgasm finally loosened its grip and let her come down. But then Cam dragged on the chain attached to her nipple clamps and she screamed and climaxed once more.
Over and over and over pleasure bounced through her system, her mind a complete blank, the only elements of her world the delicious sensations swirling inside her.
“Good girl,” Cam whispered as he finally removed the vibrator from her clit. Even after the pulsating slowed and then eventually stopped in her ass, Maya continued to tremble as complete exhaustion took over. She wanted to growl at them for their sneaky tactics—they’d let her think Derek was going to use the floggers to bring her to orgasm—so Cam’s use of a vibrator had not only caught her by surprise, but had also circumvented the nerves that had grown every time Derek had touched the leather floggers.
Cam held her close as Derek helped him to undo her bonds. She barely registered that Derek continued talking to the gathered crowd, and the only words to make any sense were, “Thank you, sub.” Cam lifted her into his arms and carried her from the main room and into one of the private playrooms.
He laid her on her back in the middle of the bed, kissed her softly, and then moved to undo the nipple clamps. She sighed with relief, groaning quietly as the blood started to flow once more, and then moaned in appreciation as Cam ran his tongue over the aching buds.
Now that they were no longer being watched by a crowd, she wanted to be naked. She wanted to be with her men. Cam must have had the same thought because he tucked his fingers into the neckline of the outfit and stretched outward until he could ease it over her shoulders and drag it down her body. A part of her was embarrassed by how wet the crotch was in the material, but the emotion was quickly replaced by warm lassitude as Cam lowered his head and licked the wet lips of her pussy.
His tongue probed her swollen labia, his lips nibbling and suckling on the slippery flesh until she was writhing against the mattress, her exhaustion replaced with renewed arousal. Maya’s breathing faltered when she heard the door to the room open and then close, but her momentary fear was quickly forgotten when she realized that Derek had joined them.
He leaned over the bed, pressed a kiss to her lips, and then gave her a warm smile. “I’m very proud of you, sub. Everyone was very impressed.” Maya could feel her cheeks heating once more with embarrassment as she remembered that amazing orgasm. Maybe she hadn’t been paying proper attention in the past few months, but she hadn’t even known butt plugs came in a vibrating variety.
Cam flicked her clit with his tongue one more time before he crawled up the bed and pressed his wet lips against her own. “We have a surprise for you, Maya.”
She wanted to ask what
her surprise was, but the Dom-sub etiquette applied to the whole of the club, even the private rooms. There were no rules about frowning her annoyance though. Derek swatted her thigh, and she quickly changed her expression. Okay, there was the whole spanking part if they even thought she was being naughty, but she’d learned over the past months that sometimes a little pain was worth getting her own way now and then. Although it didn’t hurt that even just the thought of being spanked by one of her Doms was enough to heighten her arousal now, so the few punishments she’d received over the past month or two hadn’t exactly hurt.
Of course, since she was unable to speak, she couldn’t tell her Doms that.
“You look like the cat who ate the cream, Maya,” Cam whispered in her ear. “I suggest whatever you’re thinking you try to think of something else.”
The swat on her thigh proved that Derek heard every word Cam had whispered, but she tried to rearrange her expression anyway. “Roll over, sub. Head down, ass up.”
She did as ordered, quite familiar with the submissive pose that Derek seemed to love. He grabbed hold of the butt plug, wiggling it enough to make her moan. “Push out,” he said as he eased the plastic toy from her ass. Her muscles spasmed trying to adjust to the empty feeling, but the sound of lube being squeezed from the bottle had her heart rate jumping once more.
Thick fingers worked more lube into her ass, her clit already swelling once more. She whimpered as Derek lined up the head of his cock with her anus and pushed deep into her body with one smooth thrust. Her ass quickly adjusted, arousal burning through her as he lowered himself over her, caging her completely. She couldn’t have moved if she’d wanted to. Fortunately, she never wanted to.
Derek and Cam were the men of her dreams, the true loves of her heart, and hopefully, one day, would be the fathers of her children. She couldn’t imagine a future without them both by her side, and she vowed to make them as happy as they made her.
But then Derek rolled sideways, not stopping until she was on top of him, her back to his chest, his cock still firmly wedged in her ass. He kissed her neck as he ran his hands down her stomach, and then lower to ease her thighs wide apart.