Cole lay there, feeling her warm body and listening to her even breathing as she slept. His heart was lost to this tiny woman. He and Jeremy had to find a way to make her stay.
Chapter 9
“Did you talk to Steve today?” Cole speared the last piece of chicken with his fork and popped it in his mouth. Sara had made chicken piccata and a salad for dinner, and Cole had been starving. He and Sara had worked up quite an appetite playing Master and Slave this afternoon.
Jeremy studied his chicken closely. “I have someone looking into it.”
“I would have thought Steve would have known about it right away.”
“He had a lot of things going on today. It’s his first day back from a two-week vacation.”
Jeremy’s voice had taken on a sharper edge than normal. Cole gave him a look, but Jeremy avoided his eyes. Luckily, Sara was so busy trying to get a recalcitrant Jack to eat she didn’t notice the byplay.
“C’mon, Jack, one more bite? For Mommy? It’s okay, Cole. Jeremy will get to the bottom of it.” Sara gave Jeremy a dazzling smile.
“I certainly will,” Jeremy agreed.
Sara scooped Jack up in her arms and headed for the stairs. “I think he’s more tired than hungry. I’m going to start his bath and get him to bed.”
“Cole and I will take care of cleaning up, and then we’ll be up to read him a story.”
Once Sara was safely out of earshot, Cole turned to Jeremy. “Okay, what’s up? Steve should have taken one look at that account number and known what it was. He has an amazing memory for numbers.”
Jeremy nodded grimly. “Steve’s never seen the account and doesn’t know what it’s for. I called in Alex.”
Cole was glad he was sitting down. “You called in a private investigator? What the fuck for?”
Jeremy rested his forehead in his hands for a moment. “What if Scott was involved in something he shouldn’t have been? You know he liked to play poker before he married Sara. I’m concerned about this secret account. I also gave Alex the e-mail address Sara gave us where the statements were mailed. He’ll get to the bottom of it. Hopefully, it’s nothing. But I need to know why my late brother had secrets from his wife.”
Cole leaned back in his chair. “Are we sure we want to know? What do we gain from finding this out?”
Jeremy pushed back his chair and started pacing the kitchen. “What if Scott owed people money? I don’t want them to come after Sara and Jack. I can’t risk their safety.”
“Fuck, J. Sweet Mary, I never thought about that. I’m glad we have Sara and Jack here with us. We can keep an eye out for them.”
Jeremy nodded in agreement. “We just need to find out the truth. What was Scott doing in the final months of his life?”
* * * *
The wrist shackles held her in place firmly and at his mercy. The leg spreader held her legs open and her pussy vulnerable. She should have been frightened but instead was aroused. He circled her, studying her. His gaze raked over her body, held prisoner for his pleasure. He looked at her so intently she could feel the heat from his gaze. She could hide nothing from him.
“Who does this belong to?” His hand swept from head to toe, his face a scowl.
“You.”
“You, what?” He scowled further.
“You, Sir!” Her voice was thick with desire. Desire to be owned by him.
“That’s better, little sub.” He continued his perusal, making her squirm. Why didn’t he touch her?
“You are undisciplined. You must learn to obey me in all things and give your body over to me. Are you ready to do that, little sub?”
“Yes, Sir. Very much, Sir.” She tugged at the restraints futilely. She didn’t want to get free, but he was so handsome, her fingers itched to touch him.
He stood before her so tall and handsome. His shoulders broad and his abs a perfect six-pack. He had left his jeans on but taken off everything else. Her eyes were drawn to the large bulge in his pants.
“Stop that. You’ll bruise my property. From now on, you will care for your body respectfully, as it no longer belongs to you. You will eat nutritious food, exercise regularly, and drink no alcohol. Any pleasure this body receives will come from me and me alone. I, alone, will decide if you receive any pleasure. Your pleading and begging will have no effect on me.”
She licked her dry lips. She wanted to belong to him and only him.
“I live to serve you, Sir. Your pleasure is my only desire.”
He nodded his head briefly. “So be it. The life you knew is no more. Your new life, as my love and my submissive, starts now.”
“Whew! This is one hot BDSM book.” Tori’s face was pink.
Sara couldn’t help but agree. The book was sensual and arousing without being overdone. “Yeah, very hot. This Dom is sexy. I can picture him in those jeans. They’d be tight and showing off his very bitable ass. Yowza!”
Brianne groaned. Her stomach was huge and her feet were propped up to keep her ankles from swelling. She looked ready to pop any minute.
“Stop it. I’ve been too huge to have any fun with Nate for a month. I’m huge and horny. I don’t know why I’m even reading this stuff. I must be a masochist.”
Noelle laughed. “You and Nate aren’t doing the dirty deed? It must indeed be a cold day in hell. You guys were my sexual heroes.”
Brianne scowled. Sara knew the Florida heat and humidity hadn’t put her in the best of moods. “It’s not for lack of trying on my part, believe me. Nate loves my pregnant belly and thinks I’m sexy as hell, but the way this baby is sitting, sex is uncomfortable. Not to mention every time I, you know, I feel like I’m going to go into labor.”
Tori’s brows knitted. “You know? You mean, have an orgasm? I don’t remember feeling that way.”
Lisa laughed. “Just goes to show you how strong her ‘you knows’ are with Nate.”
Tori laughed, too. “Good point. I don’t remember strong ‘you knows’ when I was pregnant.”
Lisa threw her e-reader on the side table. “So, Sara, when are you coming home?”
“We’re throwing a birthday party slash Fourth of July barbecue this weekend for Jack. I don’t really know when we’re coming back. Cole and Jeremy want me to stay the rest of the summer.”
Sara wasn’t sure if she ever wanted to leave. Cole and Jeremy liked to play sex games as much as she did. They were completely open-minded and nonjudgmental. There were still so many games they hadn’t played yet.
Noelle sipped at her flirtini. “We miss you, but at least we get to see you once a week thanks to Skype. But you won’t be here when Brianne has the baby. I doubt she’ll last more than a few days more.”
“Hey! I’m sitting right here. And God, I hope you’re right. I feel like a beached whale. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep. I can’t even have a cosmo to help myself sleep. I’m trying to convince Nate to take me to Busch Gardens to ride the roller coasters. I hear that will bring on labor.”
Tori shuddered. “And probably projectile vomiting, in your condition. I heard you should watch the movie Raging Bull.”
Lisa nodded. “I heard that, too.”
Noelle waved them off. “I heard that you should eat spicy food. That’s what my mom says anyway. She ate some habanero peppers and went into labor with my little sister.”
Brianne sighed. “Can we change the subject? I’m getting a little nauseous at the idea of eating spicy food. Sara, did you find out anything about the bank account Scott had?”
Sara shook her head. “No, but Jeremy has someone looking into it. He’ll find out what it was for.”
“Sara,” Tori said carefully, “how difficult is it to find out if it’s one of their accounts? I don’t mean to be tough on Jeremy, but this doesn’t seem like the mystery of the century. Is it one of their accounts or not?”
“It’s not that it’s difficult. It’s that the guy who would know just got back from a big vacation and he’s slammed trying to catch up. He’ll get to it.
I didn’t know about it for fifteen months, so a few days more isn’t going to make any difference. Besides, I’m sure it’s just some sort of business account. We never had any financial problems, so the money couldn’t have been ours to begin with. It must belong to the business somehow. You know how Scott was, he was always thinking about business. That was really his first love.”
* * * *
Jeremy carefully placed the hamburgers on the hot grill. It was a sunny and hot Fourth of July, and the backyard was full of guests. Sara was flitting around with Jack on her hip filling cold drinks and making party small talk. She looked beautiful today in a red-flowered sundress and her hair pulled back with a matching red hair tie. Jack was charming the guests and lapping up the attention. He spied Steve out of the corner of his eye making his way to the grill.
“Hey, boss. Why don’t you let me watch the grill? Alex is in your study. I think he has the information you’ve been waiting for.”
Jeremy was silent for a moment. He hated that he had to call in Alex and wondered for a moment if he shouldn’t just let things be. But he knew that he couldn’t go on wondering. The last few days, although heaven with Sara, had been difficult.
Jeremy didn’t want to lie to Sara. Luckily, she hadn’t asked him again about the bank account. In a way, it only made him feel even worse. The reason she hadn’t asked was she trusted him to take care of it.
Things had been so amazing between the three of them. Jeremy and Cole had been delighted to learn that Sara was sexually adventurous. She was playful, sweet, sexy, and creative. After he had found out she had played Master and Slave with Cole, he had made her promise to play a game of Pirate and Captive Slave with him. She had readily agreed and even thrown in a few more game ideas of her own.
“Did he tell you what he found?”
Steve shook his head. “Nope. None of my damn business. If you need me to do anything, just let me know. But otherwise, I’m on a need-to-know basis.”
Jeremy felt relieved. Steve was like family, but this was pretty personal.
“Thanks, man. I’ll head back there now.”
Jeremy glanced over at Sara talking to the neighbors. If he hurried she’d never miss him.
* * * *
Jeremy snagged Cole’s arm and pulled him toward the office. “What? Where are we going, J? Are you in the mood now?”
Cole playfully grabbed at Jeremy’s ass but froze when he saw the look on his face.
“What’s going on, J?”
Jeremy pulled him into the office, and Cole didn’t need to wonder what was going on anymore. Alex was sitting in a chair, holding a folder.
He tugged Jeremy down onto the love seat with him. If it was bad news, it was best to take it sitting down.
Alex set the folder down on the coffee table between them and flipped it open, scattering photos. Cole couldn’t resist the urge to pick one up. It was a picture of a pretty teenage girl. Cole wasn’t good at guessing ages but she was maybe sixteen or seventeen.
“I’m not sure where to begin, but I guess I’ll start with the bank account. Your brother, Scott, had been paying two thousand dollars a month for four years before his death to a bank account in Champaign. That account belongs to Carrie Stewart. Does that name ring a bell, Jeremy?”
Jeremy shook his head. “No, should it?”
“Not necessarily. You might have some memory of her. She was Scott’s high school girlfriend his senior year.”
“I was already at college by then. Scott had a lot of girlfriends over the years until Sara. Why was Scott giving her money, for God’s sake?”
Cole could feel the tension in Jeremy’s body. He rubbed Jeremy’s hand with his own, trying to calm him down.
Alex sighed and held up the picture of the teenage girl. “This is Stacey Parker. She’s eighteen years old and heading to the University of Illinois in the fall. A pretty girl, isn’t she? She’s Carrie’s daughter.”
Alex pushed the photo in front of Jeremy. “And she’s Scott’s daughter. If you look, you can see the resemblance.”
Jeremy’s eyes widened in astonishment. “His daughter? Scott had a daughter and never told anyone? I can’t believe that. Scott couldn’t even keep Christmas presents a secret for a few days. He was the worst liar in the world. There’s no way he could keep this a secret. You’ve made a mistake, Alex.”
“I wish I had, Jeremy. I talked to Ms. Stewart, now Parker, myself once I knew the basics. It seems she got pregnant before graduation but didn’t realize it until afterward. By then, Scott had gone off for the summer to Europe, and her parents shipped her off to a relative to have the baby. She intended to put the baby up for adoption but at the last minute changed her mind. At that point, she didn’t want to tell Scott. She just wanted to move forward. She met a young man, and they married shortly after. He raised Stacey as his own until the couple divorced about ten years ago.”
Alex picked up a few more photos and placed them in front of Jeremy. “Ms. Stewart never intended to tell Scott about Stacey. But Scott was visiting town about five years ago when he ran into Ms. Stewart and her daughter in a store. He instantly recognized his old girlfriend, noticed her daughter looked so much like him, did the math, and well, Scott was never stupid. He realized Stacey was his daughter.
“According to Ms. Stewart, she knew that Scott was married and madly in love with his wife. She didn’t want to be any trouble between them. She said she respected that Scott had other commitments. Scott insisted on helping financially. After all, she was a single parent and she could use the help. As time went by, Scott would come by more often to spend time with Stacey. She said he was a good father and Stacey grew to love him very much. They were devastated when they heard he had passed away. They both came to the services, they said.”
Cole shook his head in amazement. “Half the town was at the services. We were so shocked by Scott’s death I don’t think I could tell you who was there. It’s a blur.”
Jeremy’s jaw was tight. “That explains why Sara was saying that Scott spent so much time traveling for work. I was always puzzled by that. When she got pregnant, we arranged that Scott wouldn’t travel more than one week a month. But he was coming up here, wasn’t he?”
Alex nodded. “From the records I was able to find, he spent two weeks a month in Florida and two weeks here in Champaign with his daughter.”
Cole felt his anger rising, and he jumped up to pace the room. “And did he pick up where he left off with his old girlfriend? Was he unfaithful to Sara?”
Alex held up his hand. “Now wait a minute. From what I can tell the answer is an unequivocal no. Ms. Stewart said that it was very clear that Scott was in love with his wife. Neither of them had any feelings left for one another. I believed her as she hadn’t been all that starry-eyed over him as a teenager, either. She never wanted to tie herself to him by having his baby.”
“What about the money? Didn’t she wonder where the money was coming from even after Scott died?” Cole sat back down heavily. This was almost too much to take in. Jeremy’s brother had been living a secret life.
“She said she thought that Jeremy had set it up like some sort of trust fund that would go on even after his death. When she found out that Sara had funded the account last month, she tried to give me a check for the money. She said she never wanted to take anything from Sara.”
Alex leaned forward. “I didn’t take the check. They’re not destitute, but believe me, two thousand dollars is probably a lot of money to her.”
It was Jeremy’s turn to stand up and pace. “I need to think about this, Alex. I don’t want to leave them with nothing. It sounds like they’ve been counting on that money every month. This is Scott’s daughter. My niece, for fuck’s sake.”
Alex stood, leaving the file on the table. “I know you’ll do the right thing, my friend. I’ll leave all of this with you, and you can look through the evidence. I need to get back home now. My daughter is none too happy about my working today.”
Alex shook his head and headed for the door. “I wish I could, but Kaley has plans for us today. Happy Fourth, guys. Call me and we’ll have a couple of beers.”
Cole moved forward to usher Alex out but was waved off. “I know my way out. I’ve been here a couple hundred times. You two have a lot to talk about.”
Jeremy and Cole just sat silently for a while after Alex left. Cole didn’t even know what to say to his lover. He pulled Jeremy close, holding him for long moments.
Finally Cole lifted his head and looked into Jeremy’s eyes. “We have to tell her, J.”
Jeremy’s expression was pale and grim. “How do we do that, babe? Oh hey, Sara, the husband you adored and had a son with? Well, he was a big fat liar living a secret life. Fuck, that should go over great.”
“I don’t know exactly how we’re going to tell her, but we have to tell her. She has a right to know.”
Jeremy wiped his hand down his face. “I know we do, and we will. But, shit, not today. Let’s try to absorb what happened today and figure out a good time to tell her. I’m not afraid to say that I’m afraid of her reaction. What if she thinks we’re only trying to ruin Scott’s memory so she’ll move on and fall in love with us? Or worse, what if she thinks we really knew all this time and covered up for Scott? This is going to hurt Sara terribly. I don’t see any way that she comes out of this unscathed.”
“You’re right. Sara is going to be hurt. But she’s a strong woman, J. Your big brother instincts are kicking in, I can tell. You don’t need to protect Scott’s memory, and you don’t need to protect Sara. You can’t fix everything, J. Even you aren’t that powerful.”
Jeremy gave him a wry smile. “I sure don’t feel powerful at the moment. I feel helpless. We’re going to have to hurt the woman we love. You do love her, don’t you?”
Her Game, Their Rules [The Martinis and Chocolate Book Club 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 7