by Fiona Archer
Kane’s curse was well matched by the tic in Alex’s jaw.
“Once we get you home, we’ll take care of you, Red.” Alex kissed one of her hands, his touch so gentle compared to the white-hot fury in the glare he fired at his employees, with Lacey being pushed down beside Kevin on the ground.
Laney objected. “She punched me. Where’s the concern for me?”
Caleb’s face held no sympathy. “Let’s see what the camera says, shall we?”
He played Olivia’s recording. Lacey and Kevin’s words damned them.
Kane faced Lacey, confusion filling his eyes. “Why?”
“She turned up and you both just forgot about me. It was all about her. I was just some employee.”
He shook his head. “Girl, we never saw you as other than an employee before Olivia was hired.”
Lacey’s lips took a petulant slant. “You didn’t give me a chance. That bitch turned your head. I wanted you for me. Just me.”
Olivia rose to her feet. “And I want a smaller ass but that’s not going to happen either. Life’s full of disappointment, Lacey. Deal with it.”
The younger woman spat at Olivia, but it fell short—just like Olivia’s reserve of sympathy.
Lacey glared at Olivia. “I don’t deal with disappointment.”
Olivia cocked her head to the right. “Since it looks like your future features you wearing outfits predominantly orange in color, I’m thinking you’ll get plenty of practice.”
“Right, you’re out of here.” Caleb nodded to the deputy who pulled Lacey to her feet and dragged her past shocked locals toward the parking lot. Kevin remained cuffed on the ground.
Caleb turned to Olivia. “I’ll need your statement, and I’ll have to take your phone as evidence. You’ll get it back tomorrow when I come for lunch. I’ll take your statement then, too. Okay?”
She wanted these two held accountable, so absolutely it was okay. “You bet. Do whatever’s necessary.”
Caleb cast Alex, then Kane, a look. “I’ll call you later with an update.”
“Appreciate it.” Alex rested his hand at the back of her neck, his touch firm, comforting. “We want to press charges, Caleb.”
With a grim nod, Caleb pulled Kevin to his feet, and then followed the same path as his deputy.
Hadn’t Kane once told her MacKenzies gave no mercy to those that betrayed them? God, she’d hate to be on the receiving end of their retribution.
Kane rubbed the back of his neck. “Henry managed to divert attention for the time being, but the perp walk to the car will destroy whatever he’s accomplished. Get ready for some questions.”
“I know.” Alex sighed, shaking his head as he glanced over at the crowds, whose attention was fixed on following Caleb as he dragged a protesting Kevin toward the parking lot. “We’ll deal with it as it comes. For now, just say it’s in the hands of the sheriff.”
Olivia’s heart shrank. So much for the day being a success. Soon the only thing people would remember would be an attempt by employees to create pandemonium and danger. Alex and Kane had moved mountains to get here today, fought exhaustion, and still gave their all to whomever came up to say hello. The whole team, from the grounds crew to the staff on the pony rides, had worked so hard.
She tried not to think about that as they made their way around to the crowd in front of the stage. Some people were looking toward the band, clapping and tapping their feet in time to the music that had just started up again.
But the majority watched the sheriff’s SUV as it headed along the private road that eventually led to the highway. Once the vehicle disappeared from sight, many turned and began talking to those around them.
The gossip had already started. She sighed. There was nothing she could do right now but put a positive spin on it. The intruder had been caught and another employee who assisted him was also in custody. Justice at work.
Alex was approached by a woman with two kids who each waved a shy thank you for the balloons and candy they’d received as door prizes. As he crouched down to hear the kids above the music, a feeling of unease flooded Olivia.
She turned to her left, searching through the crowd for some sign. First she spotted Wagner, whose satisfied expression should have infuriated her, but her gut told her he wasn’t her focus. Because…yes, there beyond him stood a man, tall, wearing a white T-shirt. His black hair was clipped short and a tribal tattoo covered one side of his neck. It looked like the inked design continued down under his T-shirt. He should have been watching the band but his icy blue gaze was fixed on her.
She shivered, as if feeling the coldness of his stare.
“Okay, sweetie?” Kane, standing on her right, slid his arm around her waist, giving it a squeeze.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” She smiled, bumping her head against his chest. But when she looked back over her shoulder, the man was gone.
Had she imagined seeing him?
It had been a crazy day. Maybe her paranoia levels were tripping. She needed to get a press release out giving the lodge’s message on the latest events. Then, just maybe she could have some quiet time with her guys. She snuggled closer to Kane and smiled at the idea of the night ahead of them.
Chapter Twelve
Some four hours later at Alex and Kane’s private retreat, Olivia silently cursed all Doms everywhere. Naked and huffing for breath, she struggled against the cuffs and straps of the bondage chair. What kind of an insidious device was this? Her arms were cuffed behind the padded back rest and her legs spread wide, each thigh resting on padded slats that formed a V at the base of the chair. Both ankles were secured by inbuilt lined cuffs at the bottom of each padded leg rest.
Kane, sitting in a dining chair next to her, sipped his beer. “Sweetie, struggle all you want but you’re not getting loose.” He ran a finger over the edge of the leather strap securing her waist to the chair. “Nice, snug fit.” The devil’s lips twitched at her loud huff.
More straps held her thighs in place, plus one more on the top of her chest that went under her arms, forcing her shoulders back against the cool leather.
Naked. Tied. Helpless. Air brushed over her exposed pussy. Nothing was left hidden from her Doms. She both hated and loved that fact. Had they guessed that? She winced. Of course they had. This wasn’t their first tie down.
She concentrated on the knots in the polished red cedar that made up the top of their dining table. Another hard tug at the leather cuffs proved futile. She was caught and staying that way. At least until her demon Doms set her free.
Alex dragged his chair closer to her. “Red, how fortunate you told us you can’t work chopsticks. Don’t you like the alternative uses we found for them?” He tapped the corner of the chopsticks used to clamp her right nipple, forcing the slim bamboo to tip down one end. A burst of fire radiated out from her nipple across her chest.
She clenched her teeth, damning them a thousand times in her head.
When the guys had told her they had ordered Chinese food for dinner, she had thought it funny to admit she couldn’t use chopsticks. Oh, they’d laughed, too. Then when they had her strapped into their kinky-ass chair, the bastards had used them to clamp both her nipples, and broke a set in half to clamp her clit and hood, too.
“Definitely prefer this use.” Kane’s hand reached between her legs.
Her gaze locked with his. Hers pleading. His gleaming with wicked intent. She held her breath. He glided his fingertips over her labia, slick with her desire. Maybe he wasn’t going to torment her there. There was nothing she could do but—
Kane coated his thumb with her wetness, then gently tapped her pulsing clit, once, twice, each time sending a hot flurry of fiery licks that shot deep inside.
“Aaahhh.” She jerked her legs on reflex, but the thick cuffs on her ankles held her tight.
“Open up, sub.” Alex fed her more of the Mongolian beef. Of course he used his own damn chopsticks. “Tasty, don’t you think?” He ate a portion himself, and then fed her
some sticky rice dipped in the spicy beef sauce.
The flavors filled her mouth, giving her a brief distraction from their torture.
“The beef’s good, but this crispy lemon chicken is delicious.” Kane popped a morsel of the chicken into her mouth, then some into his own.
“Drink?” Alex held up a glass of soda with a straw.
She sucked hard. The coolness refreshed her mouth and provided a small boost to her resilience against this double Dom attack.
“Want some more?” Alex lifted the small ceramic bowl in front of him.
“No thank you, Sir.” Blame it on nerves, or the fact they’d made sure she had eaten plenty, but she was done.
Alex set the bowl down. “Then we’ll review your homework.” He reached for her pink leather notebook.
“Let’s make this interesting.” Kane clicked a remote.
Vibrations started deep in her pussy and back end. Her pulse shot up a gear as the thrumming of the vibes flowed outward, shooting tiny throbs over her labia and along the underside of the bamboo clamp where it met her skin.
Her clit throbbed with need. She held back her desperate whimper, refusing to give them the satisfaction of hearing her desperation.
Kane’s deep laugh added extra spice to her torment. “I like it when you fight us. There’s something rewarding about bringing a reluctant sub to complete surrender.” He leaned in close, his mouth an inch from her ear. “Give it your best shot, sweetness. When you fall, we’ll be there to catch you.”
His mouth closed over hers, filling her senses with all that was him under the firm pressure of his lips. When he broke away, she unconsciously tried to follow, only her bonds keeping her in place.
Alex ran his knuckles along the inside of her thigh, drawing her gaze. “Kane tasked you with listing the pros and cons for allowing a man to dominate you.” He flicked to the first note. She’d decided to keep this notebook purely for BDSM research, thoughts, etc. Her homework exercise was her first entry. “I see you’ve drawn arrows between each pro and con.”
She met his amused gaze. “I like method with my lists.”
“Order, methodology, predictability. They’re all important to you.” Alex glanced at her before turning back to read further.
“I like knowing what’s happening now and what’s in store for me. It’s an essential part of my professional life. You can’t run the office of a high-powered CEO any other way.” Did she sound defensive? Something in Alex’s statement pushed her to clarify her reasons.
“And that’s carried over into your private life.” Kane ran a finger down the outside of her arm. “We’re making observations here, Olivia. Not judgments.” His eyes held a gentle rebuke.
The fact he felt the need to remind her made her pause. “I’m sorry if I reacted hastily, Sirs.” She glanced at both Doms.
“Apology accepted, Red.” Alex gazed back at her notebook. “Your first pro statement’s an easy one. You wanted to try something different, naughty, outside of your safe zone. Your con is the unknown can bite you on the ass.”
“I prefer spanking to biting, but it does have its place.” Kane’s grin showed his teeth were plenty capable of the latter.
“I know it’s pretty generic, but I was warming up to the subject.” She wiggled in the chair but couldn’t move an inch. Those freaking vibes. “And new stuff can be scary.”
Kane nodded. “Depending on who you experiment with, it can be. That’s why choosing the right Dom is imperative to ensuring your BDSM experience is fulfilling. Same goes for the Dom in finding the right sub.”
“Let’s move on.” Alex read from her notebook. “Number two. Being dominated makes you feel wanted and sexy, desired by someone who wants to take care of you. Then you warn of the huge gamble you take trusting that person not to let you down.”
Hearing Alex’s masculine voice say her thoughts out loud was both embarrassing and confronting. But they were her words. She should honor them.
Alex sat back in his chair, his expression contemplative. “You felt uncared for during your marriage and further betrayed by his infidelity.” It was a statement, not a question. Still, she felt the need to explain.
“I learned to take care of myself, do everything, and therefore avoid disappointment and protect myself against lies.”
Do the things Alan had never had time for. Like changing flat tires or arguing with a plumber who refused to fix a faulty repair.
And the last betrayal, the baby? Her chest constricted. She looked down at the rug beneath her, blindly taking in the pattern of the western design in its reds, browns, and creams.
Kane rested a hand on her knee. “But you think that if you give up control, to fully experience a man’s domination, you’ll be weak when the inevitable disappointment happens. You’ll expect someone to be there, but they’ll leave you vulnerable.”
Her throat felt tight. How many times had she watched colleagues talk about their husbands and boyfriends buying them flowers, taking them out for dinner to make up for when they’d had a bad day?
“When you were together, you confronted your ex? Asked him to support you?”
Confronted? That was too hard a word. “I asked, got sick of asking.” She had dreaded that pinched look on Alan’s face, the open frustration when she’d tried to explain she wasn’t being whiney or demanding in expecting some support. “Confronting him wasn’t my style. I doubt it would have done any good.”
Two pairs of eyes studied her before Alex read out the next item.
“Third pro reads that it had been a long-held fantasy to be dominated. To feel the strength of someone who knows what they want and how to get it. Your rebuttal says giving away your power is giving away a piece of yourself.”
Alex stared at her words a few seconds before he put the notebook down. She swallowed at the line of determination in his jaw. “To give so much of yourself means you run the risk of being taken over by someone. You lose your own identity. Is that what happened, Olivia? Did you lose yourself in your marriage?”
The leather on the chair felt sticky against her back. “Why has this turned into some autopsy of my marriage?” She tugged hard on her cuffs. “I don’t appreciate this.”
“Too bad.” Alex grasped her nipple, pushing the bud against one of the wooden clamps. She hissed against the burn. He ignored her. “Everything about your resistance to dominance relates directly to your marriage, or more importantly, the dynamic the two of you grew into. The only way to break through that resistance is to confront it.” With one last hard squeeze, he let go.
Kane gripped her chin, his hold intensifying when she tried to jerk free. “Part of being a Dom is about making a sub face the truth in whatever situation that takes place. I’d say buckle up and hang on tight, but we’ve taken care of the buckles already.” Releasing her, he squeezed her breast, sending a wave of sensation straight to her nipple that rebounded back tenfold, stealing her concentration.
“Back to my question.” Alex resumed his inquisition. “Tell me the point where you felt you lost yourself.”
“I don’t know,” she blurted out. “I just know that at some point I felt”—she swallowed, the words stuck in her throat—“I felt less than before. It wasn’t some overnight thing.” Like when she’d stopped going to her nighttime pottery classes because Alan needed the car for client visits. In those early days, they couldn’t afford two cars. “It happened over time.”
Vacations, when they had them together, were always to his choice of destination. My clients go to the Bahamas, Olivia. I can’t spend my time on some road trip to Maine. Even the little things, like on the increasingly rare times they went to the movies together, the choice of film became his. It hadn’t always been that way. She couldn’t pinpoint the time when that had changed. But at some point, the pendulum of importance got stuck in Alan’s favor and stayed that way.
“I mean, it wasn’t that I didn’t have friends, goals, but at the beginning, we agreed that his career too
k precedence so that together we could succeed. I like to support those I love.”
“You felt the need to take care of him, to nurture, soothe him.”
She stared at Kane. “How did you know that?”
“You’re a service submissive.” He rubbed the callused surface of his hand from her knee up her thigh. “Subs fall under different categories—depending on who you’re talking to—but include slaves; bedroom subs that only submit in the room and can be alpha in other aspects of their lives; physiological subs, where the act of submission is the high; sexual subs, who just want the sensations from BDSM play; and finally service subs. Service subs are the unselfish nurturers who want to put the Dom’s needs first. That’s you.”
“Undoubtedly,” Alex agreed. “And when it came to your marriage, your need to take care of others, to give of yourself, crashed headlong with the innate selfishness of your ex.”
“I’m not sure that’s completely true.”
Alex’s gaze sharpened. “So you voiced your opinions. Fought for your right to have your say?”
She glared at Alex. “Yes, naturally.” Except…did she? “I mean, sometimes.” Of course she had, hadn’t she? The strap across her chest chafed her skin, as if unseen hands had tightened it a notch or two. “I’m done with this.”
The vibes switched up a gear. Her mouth opened, then snapped shut as she clenched her teeth.
Despite the softness of his voice, Kane’s steely tone held a clear threat. “Think carefully about your next words, sweetness.” His fingernail skimmed the outer edges of her labia. “If your face was anything to go by, you were having second thoughts on your answer earlier.”
Alex gripped her hair at her nape, turning her head toward him. “Concentrate your thoughts. Don’t think about pride or what you believe we should hear. Be honest.”
The hard, unyielding features of the man in front of her held little sympathy, but the flicker of insight in his steely gray eyes scared her more than any threat of punishment they could dream up.
Panic hardened her voice. “Are you calling me a liar?”