by Tara Rose
Racy Nights 9
Awakening Her Racy Passion
Ria Rodriguez wants to mend her gossipy ways, make up with former BFF, Marisol, and heal the rift she caused in the Racy, Indiana, BDSM community last summer. Sexy twin Doms, Wyatt and Trent Rohan, are more than willing to help her do that. But Ria’s romance with both Doms is complicated by a murder she witnesses. The mystery goes deeper than anyone in Racy first imagined.
Paramedic Trent Rohan is drawn to Ria’s impulsive behavior, but can he escape the heartbreak in his past and learn to love again? And can he share her with his twin?
Wyatt Rohan has been married to his job as a public defender. Ria is the first woman who has crawled under his skin and this far into his heart. Can he allow himself to love her? Or will she get tired of waiting and choose his twin, instead?
Genre: BDSM, Contemporary, Ménage a Trois/Quatre
Length: 73,536 words
AWAKENING HER RACY PASSION
Racy Nights 9
Tara Rose
MENAGE EVERLASTING
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Ménage Everlasting
AWAKENING HER RACY PASSION
Copyright © 2014 by Tara Rose
E-book ISBN: 978-1-62741-386-2
First E-book Publication: February 2014
Cover design by Harris Channing
All art and logo copyright © 2014 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
PUBLISHER
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www.SirenPublishing.com
Letter to Readers
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DEDICATION
To all Racy Nights fans, old and new. Thank you for making it possible for me to return to this series.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
About the Author
AWAKENING HER RACY PASSION
Racy Nights 9
TARA ROSE
Copyright © 2014
Chapter One
Ria Rodriguez had been working in Luke’s Bar for almost a year, and this was the first time she’d had to call 911. Her fingers trembled as she clutched the phone and told the dispatcher that Gerry Homer was lying in the alley behind the bar with blood gushing out of his abdomen. She made the call inside, and when her older brother, Luke, heard what had happened, he sprinted over to the table where Karen McCall, an ER nurse at Memorial Hospital, was having drinks with friends.
Ria followed Karen and Luke out of the bar and into the alley as the wail of sirens split the cold January night. Gerry was a local who drifted in and out of everyone’s lives in Racy, Indiana. He’d worked in a few local businesses from time to time, but mostly did odd jobs for people and lived off their handouts. Ria didn’t understand why anyone would want to stab him. He did no harm to anyone.
Karen glanced at her. “Get me a dishtowel or anything I can hold over this wound. We have to stop the bleeding.”
Ria ran back inside and pulled three dishtowels out of the drawer, then she crossed the alley and knelt next to Karen. As she handed Karen a dishtowel to place over the wound, Ria tried not to gag at the smell of blood. Even without medical training she could see that this was a bad wound. The towel was already turning red. “Is he going to be okay?”
Karen’s face was filled with concern. “I don’t know. That depends on what was hit.” Ria had never seen anyone with a heavily bleeding wound in their abdomen before. Karen changed towels, tossing the bloody one away from the body.
Ria tried not to stare at it. “What else can I do to help?”
“You did the best thing possible. You called it in.” Coming from Karen, that was high praise indeed. She was a former Army nurse who had served in Afghanistan, and was well known to all Racy residents as a tough cookie, but the best nurse any of them had ever encountered.
Luke stood over them. “Is he going to be all right?
Ria glanced up at her brother. “She doesn’t know yet. I can wait out here for the ambulance if you want to get back inside and let your customers know what’s going on.” Luke had owned this bar for years. This was its second location, and he’d only been here on Riverside Drive for seven months, after a tornado had destroyed the original location on Market Street last May.
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He gave her a curious look. “That’s a nice offer, but I’ll stay here. If I tell them what happened, we’ll have everyone outside. Are you okay? You look a little green.”
“I’m fine.” No one who knew her would think of her as a strong or brave person, but she wasn’t leaving Gerry’s side. She hoped they caught the bastard who’d done this, and soon.
The scream of sirens was loud now. “Here comes the cavalry,” said Luke. He sprinted toward the end of the alley while Karen switched towels one more time. As the ambulance navigated into the alley, Ria stood and moved away from the body so that she wasn’t in the way.
The paramedics emerged, and Ria swallowed hard when she saw Trent Rohan. The man and his identical twin, Wyatt, were the two most gorgeous men in Racy, at least as far as Ria was concerned. She’d exchanged all of ten words, if even that, with both men her entire life, but that hadn’t stopped her from fantasizing about them.
Wyatt was a public defender who worked with Ria’s friend Bonnie Kowalski, and Trent had returned to Racy about six weeks ago, along with a new scar under his left eye that hadn’t been there before he’d left. Ria had been trying to find out why he hadn’t been living in Racy for the past few years, but Bonnie said Wyatt was being very secretive about it.
Trent gave her a long look, and Ria’s heart nearly stopped. Both he and his twin had dark hair and piercing blue eyes. In this light, Trent’s eyes almost looked silver. “You okay?”
She nodded then watched him kneel next to Karen. “What do we have?”
“Deep stab wound to the right upper quadrant. From the amount of blood I’ve sopped up, I’d say he has a bad liver lac or his hepatic vein was hit.” They both glanced up at Ria. “Did you actually see him stabbed?” asked Karen.
Ria nodded. “Yes, but I didn’t see the man’s face. He stabbed Gerry and then ran toward the river.”
“Did you see the weapon?” asked Trent.
Ria shook her head. “No. Gerry made a strangled sound and then he fell.”
“Did this man see you?” Trent’s voice was full of concern.
“I don’t believe so, but it happened too fast for me to be sure about that.”
Trent nodded a few times, and then Ria watched as he and the other paramedic, whose name escaped her right now, started an IV and did other things that she’d only seen on TV shows. Karen helped as well, and their calm and skillful movements amazed Ria. Would she be that methodical and controlled in the face of such an emergency?
By the time a police cruiser pulled into the alley, her stomach felt queasy and she was sure she was going to cry. She hoped Gerry didn’t die. This town had seen enough tragedy in the past year, and Gerry hadn’t done anything to deserve this.
“Ria called it in.” She turned toward Luke’s voice to watch detectives Harrison Kelly and Sean Brennan advance toward her, followed by Luke. She knew both Harrison and Sean. Harrison was one of Gina Santori’s Doms, along with Racy’s mayor, Zach Kincaid. Sean was a Dom to Julie Carruthers.
Ria wasn’t against the BDSM lifestyle, or the triads that seemed to be very popular in Racy, but she’d felt uncomfortable around Sean ever since last summer, when she and her former BFF Marisol Santiago had had a terrible falling out. It was an awkward situation because Julie’s other Dom, Maddox McCree, was a cousin to one of Marisol’s Doms, Ellis McCree.
Complicating that mess even further was the fact that Marisol’s other Dom was Ria’s oldest brother, Rafe. It had been Ria who had outed them to her parents, and that had, in turn, caused a rift in the family that most of the BDSM community, as well as her parents, still hadn’t stopped talking about.
Ria knew it was killing Luke to go through this as he was in the lifestyle as well. Luke, along with Chase Taylor, was a Dom to Alexa Monahan. Luke felt torn on the best of days, and Ria was surprised he hadn’t fired her by now.
Sean gave her a look that was all business. “You called it in?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“How did you know it had happened?”
“I was in the back washing dishes and I heard shouting out here. I—”
Sean cut her off. “What specifically did you hear?”
“They were just words.”
“Could you make out any of them?”
Ria thought for a second. Had she heard anything specific? “Yes. I did hear something. A voice said ‘I know you have money.’”
“Whose voice?”
“I don’t know. I thought I recognized it but now I can’t place it.”
“Male or female?”
“Male. Deep and gravelly. And he had a weird accent. It wasn’t Gerry’s voice. I’ve heard Gerry speak before.”
Sean and Harrison exchanged a quick glance. “What kind of accent?”
“I don’t know.”
Sean nodded. “Okay. Did you hear either man say anything else?”
“No. As soon as I heard the shouting I came outside, and that’s when I saw a man stab Gerry and then run that way.” She pointed west, toward the Iroquois River.
“How do you know it was a man?”
“It looked like a man.”
“Did you see his face?”
She shook her head. “He was tall, wearing a man’s leather jacket, jeans, and boots.”
“Did he see you?”
“I don’t know. I can’t remember.”
“How do you know he stabbed Gerry? Did you see the weapon?”
“No. I saw him shove his left arm toward Gerry, and then Gerry made a strangled sound and fell.”
Sean and Harrison exchanged a look. “Are you sure it was his left arm that moved?” asked Harrison.
“Yes. Positive. Why? Does that mean something?”
“It means we’re looking for a left-handed assailant, which narrows down the field a bit.”
Sean was already advancing toward where Trent and the other paramedic were loading Gerry into the back of the ambulance. Ria followed him. “Is he going to be all right?”
Karen had retrieved the bloody towels, and Ria was glad to see she now wore gloves to hold them. “Not sure yet.”
“Do you know him well?” asked Trent.
Ria had to swallow hard again. It was difficult to look into this man’s eyes without losing the ability to speak. “Not really, but everyone in Racy knows who he is. He’s harmless.”
“They’ll do everything they can to help him.”
“Thank you.”
As he and the other paramedic climbed into their seats and backed up the ambulance, Karen walked toward the building with Luke and the two detectives. Ria stood aside and watched the ambulance drive away, and then she went inside and stood next to Luke. “Can I help in any other way?”
“No. Sean and Harrison are going to poke around in the alley for clues.” Either Luke or Karen had placed the towels in a plastic bag, and now Luke held it out toward Sean. “Do you want these?”
Sean took it. “Sure.” He glanced at Ria. “Is there anything else you remember? Even something that seems insignificant to you might help us.”
“Nothing. Sorry.”
“Thanks for calling it in.”
When he and Harrison went back outside, Ria returned to the dishes she’d been washing earlier. Her mind drifted toward the image of the dark, spreading stain on Gerry’s shirt, and it was then that she realized he hadn’t been wearing a coat. Would Sean or Harrison need to know that? Probably not. Then again, it was no more than twenty degrees outside. Why hadn’t Gerry been wearing a coat?
She glanced around for Luke or Karen, but they must have gone back into the bar, so she opened the back door. Another police cruiser had arrived, and now there were four officers with flashlights in the alley. They’d turned the cruisers toward the spot where Gerry had been so that their spotlights pointed into the alley. Ria called to Harrison and told him that Gerry hadn’t been wearing a coat, but all he did was nod, so she went back inside.
Gradually, her thoughts drifted back to Trent
. There was something so sexy about watching him in his dark blue uniform performing his paramedic duties. He’d worked for the hospital before leaving, and she was glad to see they’d given him a job again, but curious about why he’d been gone at all. What must it be like to save lives? What must it be like to have any meaningful job? Ria dried her hands and sat down at the tiny table. She was alone back here, and that was fine. She wasn’t ready to go out into the bar just yet.
What the hell was she doing with her life? She was thirty-three years old and she waited tables in a bar. And she wasn’t even very good at it. Luke had banned her from cooking because when the bar had been on Market Street she’d done some cooking for him, but everyone complained about how bad her food tasted. They’d been right. She was a terrible cook. When Luke reopened the bar here on Riverfront Drive in June, Ria had been reassigned to server and dishwasher.
She didn’t have any skills. Not like Bonnie who was an attorney, or her other good friend Leela Williams, who was the clerk of courts. Marisol was a court reporter, Ellis was the city building inspector, and Rafe worked in the comptroller’s office at City Hall. Everyone she knew had cool jobs and marketable skills. Most of them also had college degrees. She hadn’t even been able to keep a sales job at a department store because of her big mouth and gossipy ways.
Was this really what she was supposed to be doing with her life? Washing dirty glasses and bringing her friends burgers and pitchers of beer five nights a week? And mooning over a paramedic who barely glanced at her? She’d lost the best friend she’d ever had because of her inability to keep anything to herself for longer than two minutes. What would happen to her in ten years? Twenty? Who would be left?