Bind Me Close: 3 (Knights in Black Leather)

by Cerise DeLand

  She shrugged, drawing patterns on her moist mug. “I was engaged once. It didn’t work out. He was…bossy. Controlling. Arrogant. And though he was engaged to me I learned he was sleeping with other women. A lot of other women. He talked a good game to me about loyalty and fidelity but he didn’t follow his own rules. I called it off. And I haven’t found anyone I’ve been attracted to since them.” Except Wade. And maybe you.

  She smiled at him. “And you? How old are you? Why isn’t a sweet guy like you married? And why are you here in Bravado where few single women live?”

  “I grew up in Bravado. My roots are here, back five generations. My friends are here, my real, honest-to-goodness friends who know me best, who understand me and my needs.”

  He paused at the last word and she tipped her head in question at his delay.

  He set his jaw, tension making a muscle jump in his cheek. “We have a club in town. Anyone told you about that?”

  She sat back and examined him. Handsome man. Tanned and fit. A prize for any woman. “Sam and Cara told me a bit. I’m to go with them Friday night.”

  “It’s a BDSM club. Private. Know anything about those?”

  She shook her head. “Very little.”

  “Many of the men in town belong. Subscription only. Women invited all the time because we have so few.”

  “Married women too?”

  “Some. Those who want to and whose husbands consent to share their experiences. We have no controversies because we ensure that those who go want to play.”

  “Play.” She liked how the word conjured an image of sexual excitement. Fun. “What kind of play?”

  “Ropes, floggers, fire play, wax. You name the kink or fetish. Others come only to watch or exhibit.”

  Exhibitionism. My dream that I told Wade about. Her pussy gushed at the concept and her eyes drifted closed.

  “We welcome all who might be interested. Even in just observing.”

  “We,” she repeated his word and looked him over. Yes. “You belong.”

  “I do.” He twirled his mug on the wet table. “I’m no Dom. I don’t do pain for anyone. Not me, not another. I like ménage.”

  “Ménage,” she whispered. The word evoked a ripe vision of her naked before a crowd of onlookers with Wade…and Giles. She leaned toward him, fascinated by this aspect of the gentle doctor’s character, dying to know more. “You…um…do this often?”

  “When I find a woman who appeals to me and who gets off on the idea.” He examined her face. “Are you thinking you might?”

  She laughed, shy and tense, aroused and oh so intrigued. “You can read my mind. I cannot tell a lie. I might!”

  “Good. Let’s get to know each other better and go dancing. Then I’ll take you to see the picture of Willow Talks. We’ll check each other’s radar and decide where we are and what we might like to do.”

  She arched both brows, her body reacting to the possibility, her pussy swelling and her nipples beading. Was she attracted to Giles as much as Wade? Or just the idea of ménage and exhibitionism? “I’m afraid I feel like a wicked woman sitting here, getting to know a man so that we can decide if we’re going to…” She couldn’t say it.

  “Willow, if we want to get together I’ll say we’re making love. Not that other four-letter word.”

  “No.”

  “Fucking is for fools who don’t really know how to treasure a woman.”

  “Or a man.”

  “Right.”

  Oh, Giles Benedict was saying all the right things. Making me wet and willing to let him inside me. “And how do you know if the other man…or the other woman…knows how to make love?”

  “I learn.”

  “How?”

  “I watch other men make love to their partners. I watch the women. I see how they relate to each other. What they need. What they want. What they lack and what I might contribute to make the threesome a really fun romp.”

  “Is that what you’re after? A romp?”

  “Until the right woman comes along for me, yeah. I want to give a good time and get one.”

  “Don’t you ever just want a woman to yourself?”

  His hazel eyes locked on hers and he grabbed both her hands and held. “I do. I always start that way. It’s best to learn the rhythm of a woman’s needs before you take her on a stage with another man and show her off.”

  Willow sat back, stunned. Was this her dream come true? “A stage? All three of you?”

  “Have I totally alienated you?”

  “I…I…have to say no. You haven’t.”

  He grinned, ear-to-ear. “Let’s eat and dance. And see if we want to do other things.”

  * * * * *

  The Two Step was a huge tin-roofed dance hall on the outskirts of town. With a parking lot that held at least two hundred cars and trucks, the place was jammed. Wall-to-wall women in jeans or miniskirts and men in their big-brimmed Stetsons and Gambler hats held up the bar that extended the full one-hundred feet of the side. The loners who hadn’t yet found a woman to talk to gripped sweating beer bottles, their elbows to the polished oak while they hooked one boot on the bar rack and watched those fortunate enough to find a female.

  As Willow and Giles strolled in a band played a Western waltz and dozens of couples made their way round the sawdust-strewn floor. For August the air was thick with the smell of hops and perfume even though the air-conditioning was whirring away.

  Giles led her to a far high table for two where they both stood watching the dancers.

  “There’s Samantha and Case,” Giles told her. “Near the fiddler. Case sees me. Bet they’ll be over to say hello.”

  The bartender appeared at their side and Giles ordered up two more Dos Equis. “Unless you want something else?”

  “No. Beer is best to dance by.”

  “Agreed. Hey there, Sam how are you?”

  Sam headed for Willow and hugged her. “Heard you had a good go today at the house.”

  “Hi, Sam,” Willow greeted her and gave her a squeeze. “I did. Learned a lot. I’m very grateful.”

  Case glanced at Giles, a feigned grimace on his face. “She’s family and she still says she’s pleased. Have you told her any of the tough stuff yet?”

  Giles chuckled. “I’m breaking it to her gently. Don’t want her running off into the woods all scared of us, do we?”

  “If you mean have I discovered that you, or we, have gamblers and cattle rustlers in our past, I’m good. After all, how much worse can it be?”

  The three looked at one another.

  Sam shook her head. “This isn’t my family, boys. You better tell her.”

  “One of Giles’ and my great-uncles was a bank robber.”

  Willow rolled her eyes. “Terrific. Was he sent up the river?”

  “Yeah, but he escaped. So far as we know,” Giles said as the bartender put a couple of beers on their table. “We have a poster that shows that he joined up with Buffalo Bill’s traveling sideshow.”

  “What did he do for the show?” she asked.

  Case looked pained. “He put apples on his head and let the customers shoot them off.”

  “That’s awful!” Willow put her hands over her mouth.

  “Yeah. He…ah…didn’t last too long at that job,” Case said, chuckling.

  “He died?” Willow was incredulous.

  “Well. Let’s say he became disabled early in his employment.”

  “Ouch. Do I want to know how that happened?”

  “Suffice it to say that one of his old gang caught up with him, was angry that he had left the fold, and proceeded to prove it by missing the apple.”

  Willow’s mouth dropped open. “Did he get arrested?”

  “He?” Giles cleared his throat. “Ah. No. It was a she who did it. A woman who rode with his gang and who had suddenly acquired a bad aim. She sent a dart through his private parts.”

  “Oh! God!” Willow was chuckling with the rest of them.

  “He l
ived but not for long. Died of infection.”

  “That is just hideous,” Willow said, a hand over her mouth. “I must not laugh. What was his name? I need to put him on the expanded genealogy chart I’m making.”

  “Long John Paul Benedict,” Giles said.

  “Long in the saddle but not long elsewhere,” Sam offered.

  “Okay, enough of that!” Giles cut the air with a hand. “Willow and I are doing this line dance. Are you two joining us?”

  Giles Benedict could dance with the stars. He was that coordinated, that rhythmic and stylish. Better yet, he had the stamina of a prize bull. After a line dance, a Cotton Eye Joe, a jitterbug and a nice slow waltz, Willow had had her fill.

  He took her cue and her hand to lead her off the floor back to their table.

  “I’m melting.” She was dripping with perspiration.

  “Had enough?” His brows arched and his eyes twinkled. “Shall we go?”

  “Yes.”

  “To my house?”

  To see his picture of Willow Talks, yes. To follow other pursuits? To get to know him better? Why not? She was free.

  “Yes.”

  As they passed the doorway to the parking lot, to one side, as she whirled to wave goodbye to Sam and Case, Willow noticed one man at the bar. His foot hooked on the rack, his blue eyes forged to her, Wade Saxon stood drinking a Coke.

  Willow’s eyes met his. She nodded.

  But he didn’t.

  Sorry he had seen her, mad at herself that she was sad, she kept up with Giles, who evidently hadn’t seen his distant relative, the sheriff.

  And Willow wished she hadn’t either.

  Chapter Ten

  Giles drove for half an hour or more before he turned off the two-lane road into a driveway. They hadn’t talked much, only about the evening and food. That was fine by her. She was tired of stories and drama. Tonight she’d had a wonderful time with Giles and now she struggled to keep it that way. Wade shouldn’t have the power and she must not give it to him to destroy her nice evening with another man. He did not own her. Did. Not.

  “Gee. This is beautiful,” she ooed and ahhed over the striking modern house before her. All glass and steel, Giles’ home looked like something out of Architectural Digest. He flicked a button on his dash and one metallic panel in the hillside opened for him to drive inside. “I expected to see a ranch house.”

  “I know. Shocking, huh? I had it built when I moved here. The old family homestead was in terrible shape. Would have cost me more to renovate than to tear down and rebuild. So I built what I like. It’s totally eco-friendly too. I have a rain collector, sun panels and geothermal units. Warm in our rather short winter, cool as a cucumber in the summer. Come on in and let me show you around.”

  “Do your parents live close by?”

  “Nope. They’re snow birds.”

  “Snow birds?” she asked as he came around the hood of his car to open her door for her. His garage was so sleek and clean she could have eaten off the floor.

  “They go north in May to Cape Cod. My mom comes from Back Bay and always hated the Texas summer heat. They have a condo and stay until October when they fly down and live in Corpus Christi for a few months. My brother Dirk and I see them every weekend when they’re here. And of course they’re always onboard for the huge Thanksgiving feast. Do you know about that yet?”

  As he opened the door for her she realized she was walking into an elevator and when the door swished shut she was suddenly at the opening to another floor.

  “No, tell me about it,” she said as she followed his lead through a magnificent living room with a red velvet sectional next to an equally ultra-mod kitchen with steel cabinets, built-in fridge, wide gas range and a tall wine cooler.

  “On Thanksgiving every year,” he told her as he took a bottle from the cooler and began to open a white wine, “all the Bravado relatives—and I do mean all—get together either at the MacRae or the Turner ranch for a reunion and dinner.”

  “That must be a gigantic affair.”

  “It is. Everyone brings something. The host does all the work of putting up tents and chairs and tables. We number about two hundred in a good year.”

  “My head hurts to think there are that many of us.”

  He grinned.

  “What?”

  “You said ‘us’.”

  “Hmm. Guess I did. You all are getting to me.”

  “A good thing.”

  She put her purse down, accepted a glass from him and considered his words. “Why is it a good thing?”

  “To have a lot of people who care about you?” he asked, as though she had to be kidding.

  “Do they? Really?”

  “Your contemporaries do, yes. The younger members of the family are carefully taught. So that by the time they are my age and yours they value it.”

  “So much they come back and build big, fabulous houses when they could live and work anywhere else in the country.”

  “Exactly.” He held up his glass and touched the rim to hers. “To you. And your new extended family. Long may you love each other.”

  “You assume they’ll like me,” she said as she sat in a tall stool at his kitchen island.

  “I know they will.” He began to dig items from his refrigerator. Cheese, pickles, a small salami. “Why would you question it?”

  She rolled a shoulder. “I’m part Comanche. Me and mine caused you and yours a lot of trouble and heartache and pain. I might be unwelcome.”

  Unmoving, he stared at her. “That was yesterday. More than one hundred and fifty years ago, Willow.”

  “Still.” She sipped her very smooth white wine. “People haven’t forgotten how to be prejudiced.”

  “We’re not prejudiced. Not in this town. If anything I would say we’re happy to dispel the problems of the past. Make up for them.”

  “Really, can you? Fancy is dead. Blade too. Willow Talks, gone as well. Who knows how many others suffered because Bull Elk stole Fancy?”

  “Have you suffered?” he asked, sitting down next to her. He tipped up her chin. “Tell me.”

  “Sometimes I wonder if people know and make assumptions about me because of my looks.”

  “In Boston?”

  “Anywhere. Even in Lawton among my own tribesmen and women, I wonder.”

  “You only are different if you think you are. If you feel you are. Here in Bravado for sure.”

  “Others can oppress you with their subconscious feelings,” she told him, looking up into his endearing hazel eyes and loving their soft beauty. “Their aura can envelope you, swallow you up. It puts you on guard, it can make you fear that you’ll be absorbed. You become this mighty force, looking fiercer than you are or intend to be. It’s transforming for people to make assumptions about who you are and what you are.”

  “No one would do that here. No one among our families. We are too ordinary to give ourselves airs and become bigots. Promise.” He leaned forward then and touched his mouth to hers. He tasted of crisp white wine and sweet man, and she let him give her little kisses. His gentleness persuaded her to invite him to give her more and she sighed into him.

  He put away his wine, took hers and discarded it somewhere then took her in his arms. She came up against him, happy to be so near him. He felt so good. He was rock-solid, sinew, strong bone and supple flesh. And she liked him, liked rubbing against him, her breasts drilling into his chest.

  He groaned and took her down to her back then settled himself on top of her. He tangled his legs in hers, his rigid package against her mound. And as he nestled deeper into the hollow there, he spoke against her ear. “I like who you are. All that you are. You’re so beautiful. All this ink-black hair and striking oval face. The eyes.” He pulled back to brush her hair from her cheek and gaze at her. “Your eyes just make me want to fall into them, see who you are inside, feel who you are. Explore and give you what you’ve always wanted.”

  She smiled. Were all the men here in tow
n such romantics? She’d have to beware of that. “You are making me blush.”

  He caught her face with both hands. “I want to do more than that.”

  Captured by his spell, she needed to run, wanted to stay.

  His mouth curved in a carefree smile. “Yes, I want to discover what you say, how you taste, how you quiver when I make love to you.”

  “I shouldn’t want to.”

  “Why?” he asked so temptingly she wanted to cry out and hug him close.

  “I can’t have you thinking you could have me easily or…”

  He tapped one fingertip on the crest of her lower lip. “Or what?”

  “That you can have me because I am the new available woman in town.”

  “But you’re not in town, are you? You’re here visiting. Working. And I am not interested in making love to you because you are…shall we say…a tourist?”

  She laughed hard and he did too.

  “See?” he asked. “I can be honest even here when you have me in a compromising position.”

  “I have you?”

  “Don’t you? You decide if we go on from this position to something more intriguing. I’ll need to know soon if we’re just friends or only relatives or maybe red-hot lovers.”

  She giggled over that. “I am not the kind of woman who falls for any man easily.” Yet I’m doing that. Here. With Wade. Now you. “I can’t figure it out.”

  He drew patterns on her cheeks with both thumbs. “Maybe you’re comfortable with us. Maybe we offer you a mirror to yourself. One you’ve never known existed. One you never searched for until now.”

  “That makes this sound rather metaphysical.”

  “Woo-woo, I’d call it.”

  She hooted in laughter. “No karma or reincarnation for you, huh?”

  He shook his head. “Genetics. My genes like yours. Yours like ours.”

  A lot of yours. “Maybe so.”

  “You like beer better than wine. Yes, I can tell by the way you drank it and that is a very fine Chard from Napa. Now just why do you think you prefer hops to grapes?”

  “Genes? Oh come on.”

  “You like the summer, hate winter.”

  “But horses don’t like me. Now really. If I were merely a bowl of genes why don’t I like horses?”