by Avery Gale
Kat had started to calm, she had always known Alex’s voice had had the ability to sooth her, its deep timbre and measured cadence was a balm to her soul. He was rubbing his hand in small circles ever so lightly at her lower back, and she felt the tension draining from her taut muscles. She knew Cal was more than she could fight alone, she had never been able to understand his obsession with her, he could have his pick of women, why did he want her? She finally laid her head against Alex’s shoulder and let him wrap his arms around her, she hadn’t realized how much she needed to just be held, the comfort of his embrace was really all she could think about at this moment, everything else was just too much.
Colt turned his attention to Jenna. “You will need to stay inside at all times, unless you have a security escort. This is nonnegotiable, Jenna, so don’t even try any of your shenanigans. Don’t give me that wide-eyed, innocent look, it won’t work. I know you too well, princess. And don’t think we won’t know, we will, and there will be consequences for noncompliance.”
Zach stepped forward then and said, “We have a special event for The Club this weekend. There will be a lot of guests coming and going. We have stepped up the security protocols, but there is always the chance Robertson can get to someone that has already been cleared to attend. You both need to remain inside the house and away from windows at all times. We don’t want any of the guests knowing either of you are here.” What he didn’t say was that none of them wanted either Kat or Jenna to see any of the activities either. Not that they didn’t both know what kinds of things happened at The Club, but they certainly weren’t seeing anything without their men being with them. And even though Jenna and Colt might not have accepted it, it was clear to everyone around them that she belonged to him.
* * * *
Jenna was pissed, well and truly off-the-chart angry. “Consequences for noncompliance?” What the hell? Who did Colt think he was talking to, one of his underlings? Damn, even Zach had just waved a red flag at her, and he was usually the reasonable one of this group of Neanderthals. But he’d just made spying on their big weekend her number one priority, the big idiot. They must be planning one hell of a party if they didn’t want either her or Kat to see what was going on. Giving them her sweetest smile, she demurred. “Okay, we’ll do whatever we need to so that we’re safe. We don’t want to make it any more difficult for your security staff than it needs to be, that’s for sure.” Right, we don’t want you to think you need to assign extra bozos to babysit us. Hopefully, you’ll think we’re being cooperative and won’t send your best guys, and we’ll be able to work around them.
Not one single person in the room believed Jenna’s little performance, Oscar-worthy as it was. Christ, the woman would test the patience of a saint. Colt leaned forward, deciding that letting her think she’d pulled one over on them would work in their best interest.
“Thanks, we appreciate your cooperation. We’ll be assigning staff to the house, but it will be a relief to know we don’t have to worry about you trying to work against us.” Touché, sweetheart, two can play your game.
Sliding an arm beneath Katarina’s knees, Alex picked her up as he stood. “Jenna, you go ahead and get something to eat, then Colt will bring you up to Katarina’s suite if you want to say good night to her before going to your room. I think she is done for this evening; we’ll take her up and make sure she gets into bed. She needs to rest, as she is still recovering both physically and emotionally. I don’t want her overdoing it, her health and safety are our priority.” Before Jenna or Kat could voice any protest, he turned and strode from the room. Zach followed them up the stairs and down the long hallway.
Kat’s suite was really a moderately sized apartment that included a sitting room, a small kitchenette, an enormous bathroom along with a huge bedroom featuring a bed that had been designed to be comfortable for two very large men and Kat. The suite took up the entire end of the second floor of the mansion wing and featured an outdoor deck, complete with a hot tub and outdoor bar and fireplace. The deck wrapped around two sides, offering a panoramic view of the mountains that remained snowcapped year-round. The view of the surrounding forests looked like something from a travel brochure, and they knew Kat had noticed that the deck offered great views of the newly renovated gardens, allowing her a chance to enjoy the view of the landscaping and beauty of The Club’s newest feature without her being privy to all the activities occurring there. It wasn’t that they wouldn’t be having their own fun with her in the gardens, but confidentiality was one of their Club’s hallmarks, and who knew what a visitor might be able to see from the deck someday. Alex and Zach had both shuddered at the thought of any breach of security, and his brother as well as the architect who had done the designs was a Club member, so Zach had understood the brothers’ security concerns.
When they’d decided to build a BDSM club, they’d looked at several local sites before deciding that adding it as a second wing to the existing mansion gave them some unique advantages. The second wing provided an enclosure, a protected area that they had been able to turn in to a garden paradise. It was butted up against the forest on two sides, which provided shelter from Mother Nature as well and a beautiful backdrop to the gardens. The pools and streams were heated by naturally occurring hot springs in the area, and the constantly circulating water kept the temperature in the gardens at a tolerable level, even in the most extreme weather, and during the summer, it felt almost tropical.
The road leading up to ShadowDance was the only access for regular vehicles and they had improved on the security measures their father had implemented years ago; now, no one using that road was able to get within five miles of the front gates without everyone on the security team knowing they were approaching. Each member of the security team was assigned an electronic marker, and each carried a small, state-of-the-art handheld device that not only showed the location of everyone who was tagged but also showed any hostiles. Anyone who wasn’t supposed to be there was considered a hostile until proven otherwise. Hell, they’d known Jenna was on the road long before she’d called to say she was approaching the front gates.
* * * *
Both Alex and Zach knew it was going to be difficult to convince Katarina and Jenna of the importance of them being completely compliant with the restrictions they were being forced to follow. But they had learned at an early age about the importance of security from the Lamont patriarch, Daniel Lamont. Their father had always known his family was a security risk. As a well-known, wealthy entrepreneur who seemed to have a Midas touch, their dad had known other businessmen in his business and social circles whose wives and children had been targeted because of their families’ wealth, and he’d taken what many had seen as extraordinary measures to ensure the safety of his own family. As result, Alex and Zach had gotten a head start on their knowledge of surveillance technology, and that had been very useful when they’d earned places in the Special Forces teams.
Their parents now lived in a beautiful condo in Denver, when they weren’t traveling the world, but they both still made themselves available any time any one of their children needed help. All three of the Lamont children felt like their parents had more than earned this time, and none of them liked to impose if it wasn’t absolutely necessary.
Alex couldn’t help but smile when he thought about how his father had always worshipped their beautiful mother. Catherine Lamont was a gorgeous former model with a keen mind for business that was always a shock for the vast majority of people because they almost always underestimated the beautiful blonde. It was a mistake they usually regretted quickly, and she’d always managed to use their lapses to her advantage. Catherine Lamont had been a huge factor in her husband’s success, but more importantly, she’d always openly returned her husband’s devotion. She had never felt stifled by his efforts to shield her, even when she’d been criticized both personally and professionally for not setting a good example as an “independent women.” Their parents’ obvious love and respec
t for each other had set a high standard by which Alex, Zach, and Jenna would always measure their own relationships.
When Alex had spoken to his father earlier today, he’d been thrilled that his sons were finally going after the woman everyone else had always known was perfect for them. His sage advice was that demonstrating love in a thousand small ways always outweighed garish displays. Alex had vowed to himself yet again that he’d spend his life making sure Katarina was showered in the kind of love and attention he’d watched his father bestow on his mother and that it would be his duty and privilege to make sure she was always safe, and that she felt confident and secure enough to explore every facet of her sensuality. Yes indeed, from the looks of things, the next sixty or seventy years might not always be smooth sailing, but they are never going to be dull.
Chapter 16
Kat sat on the floor of the sitting room in her suite watching the fire in the stone fireplace flicker while she sipped the mega-margaritas she and Jenna had made and considered just how they were going to escape the prison they’d been locked in. Hell, the Feds’ most secure facilities didn’t have much on the lockdown Alex and Zach, along with Warden Colt, as Jenna had nicknamed him, had imposed on them. In the back of her mind, Kat knew the margaritas were probably a bad idea, but at this moment, she was so frustrated she just couldn’t seem to make herself care. Jenna had always had a much higher alcohol tolerance than she’d had, and Jenna’s was lame compared to most people. They’d gotten in quite a lot of trouble over the years, and the worst of it had always seemed to be after consuming various umbrella-decorated fruity concoctions that seemed to sneak up and bite you in the ass when you least expected it. Damn, this had to be the best margarita she’d ever had, but somehow her glass always seemed to be empty…odd that.
“I don’t know, we maybe should take it easy with these,” Jenna said, holding up her now-empty glass. “But then again…well, shit, would you look at that, mine is empty, too. No worries, we made plenty. Here, I have the pitcher right here, give me your glass.” Filling both of their glasses with the showmanship of a world-class bartender, she said, “Wow, did you see that? Damn, I’m good, you should be congratulating me for only spilling a little on the carpet. Shit, I’ll have to remember to clean that up before Alex sees it. He’s so anal about that stuff. So, whadda ya think our odds of breakin’ outta this joint is, I mean are?” Jenna didn’t pause long enough for Katarina to answer. “Frack, maybe I’d better watch my margarita intake a little closer, that didn’t really sound like me. And did somebody just tilt the room to the right?”
“Blast if I know, did you see they have two yoyos out on the deck and outside the door? And who knows how many others are hiding in the house. Damn and double damn. Ya know, I wasn’t all that keen on spying on their damned party until they banned us. Just who do they thing, I mean think, they are tellin’ us whad, oops, what we can and can’t do anyhow?” The indignation that she’d intended seemed to be negated by the giggle she’d let out. Oh well, Jenna knew she’d really meant to sound righteous—damn, that was funny…righteous…what a funny word. She fell in to a fit of giggles that soon had Jenna giggling, too. It took them several minutes to get themselves back under control.
“We need to work on our ’scape plan, we can do this...probably. We’re smart woman, those Barney wannabes got nuttin’ on us! Hell, I’ll bet Alex plus two didn’t even give ’em any bullets. Hell, Zach used to be the sweet one and now he’s acting just like Alex, that really sucks, I tell ya’. And that Colt is a whole new level of grim. He doesn’t like me, you know? Have you ever actually seen him smile? Maybe it’s some sort of genetic defect. He might be bigger than me but I’m mouthy and fast, and that’s almost as good as all that fancy-assed training he’s had, right?” Kat’s words were followed by another chorus of giggles before they finally seem to recover a bit. “Yeah, sister, we can outsmart ’em…don’t ya think? I mean really, just because they fought against terrorists, that doesn’t mean they’re smarter than us!” Somewhere in the very back of Jenna’s mind, she knew they were so busted, but it just didn’t seem as important as it had an hour ago.
* * * *
Listening to the woman discuss their plans to spy on The Club’s Beach Party, the guys in the security monitoring command center, known as the Crow’s Nest, were having a great time eavesdropping and watching as the women hatched a plan that would have been doomed to go down in flames even without their alcohol-fogged thinking. There were always at least two people working the bank of monitors in the Crow’s Nest and usually three during events. The Club’s security center was Mitch Grayson’s domain, he was considered the lead for most events, and this evening was no different. He’d been calling Alex, Zach, and Colt with regular updates, well, when he could do so without letting his amusement at the women’s antics show in his voice.
Grayson had been instructed to place monitoring equipment in the sitting room for this evening, it seemed Alex and Zach knew their sister and Ms. McKay very well. They’d said they were sure the two wildcats as they’d referred to them, would not be easily contained. And as entertaining as this had been, their increasing inebriation was starting to cause some concern, it was probably getting close to time to call in the cavalry.
* * * *
Ordinarily the suite only had perimeter-monitoring devices out of respect for her privacy, but Kat knew full well Alex and Zach would have stepped that up for tonight. They were not only worried about the two of them getting out of their gilded cage; she knew they were even more worried about who might get in. On any other day, that might have been valuable information, but right now, Kat was feeling like it just didn’t really matter all that much that there might be “bad guys” out there. Why were there bad guys after her? Damned if she could remember, she’d probably just dreamed that part. Looking over at her best friend, Kat noticed the room seemed to move pretty fast when she turned her head too quickly, what was that about anyway?
“Ya know, I’ll bet we could go down to the big kitchen and get some munchies, I’ll bet they’d let us do that, doncha think? And that would get us closer to the gardens, damn and double damn, but I want to see what Pervs-R-Us has going on out there.”
* * * *
Kat and Jenna got to their feet and each had to grab onto the mantle to keep from toppling into the fire. Grayson sighed and hit the button on the console that would connect him to all three men he’d been reporting to throughout the evening. Yep, definitely time to bring in reinforcements.
Chapter 17
Hitting the button on the side of his headset, Colt just said, “Talk to me.” He’d been standing right next to Alex and Zach and seen their com-units blink at the same time as his and he knew full well the only person who would be interrupting all three of them was Grayson.
“Boss, they’re on the move, well sort of…”
“What the fuck do you mean by ‘sort of’?” Colt barked in to his unit.
“Well, they’re pretty toasted, when they got up off the floor they both had trouble maintaining position, sir.” Mitch found himself reacting predictably to Colt’s tone, which always put the entire security team right back in to their military mind-set, causing their communication to become formal and cryptic as a result. Alex and Zach had commented that they had both noticed the same response in themselves and they all three assumed that as long as they were still “freelancing” for Uncle Sam, the habit wasn’t likely to fade very quickly.
“Well, fuck!” they all three responded at the same time, bringing a smile to Mitch’s face that he was grateful they couldn’t see. “We’ll be right up. Make sure they don’t leave the suite.” Colt disconnected before Grayson could even respond. Watching the video feed, Mitch watched as they turned as one, they all took off for the suite. He could see they were bracing themselves for the confrontation they had to know was coming. They’d made it just a few steps when they heard a rifle shot and the shattering of glass followed by the heart-stopping scream.
* * * *
“Holy shit, what was that?” Jenna turned when she heard shattering glass and stumbled to regain her footing just in time to watch Kat’s eyes go wide as she sank to the floor. Jenna watched in horror as blood spread across Kat’s chest. She heard a scream and realized it come from her because Kat was sprawled on the floor and her eyelids were slowly drifting closed. Jenna finally got her feet and moved to Kat. She was crouching low and covered Kat’s body with her own just as the door to the suite crashed open and men dressed in black came in from the hall as well as through the now-shattered glass doors leading to the deck. She batted away hands that tried to move her out of the way, but soon felt strong arms wrap around her waist from behind and lift her away from Kat’s side. “No, she needs me. Put me down, you oaf! Somebody call my brothers! Oh my God, Kat! Don’t you dare die on me! I just got you back…Don’t you dare leave me again!” Jenna was nearing total meltdown when she was turned and came face-to-face with the grim expression of Colt Matthews.
“Goddamn it, Jenna, settle down. Stopping fighting me and stay back, so we can help her. Stay put, we need to secure the area and get to Katarina. Let us work, please!” Colt’s words might not have had any impact, but his heartfelt “Please!” had stunned her into silence.
Okay, things were even worse than she thought, if he’d actually said please. Jenna stayed in the chair where Colt had put her. She knew if she really wanted to help her friend, she needed to stay out of way and let the professionals do everything they could to save her. Even though she still felt a bit foggy, she was a whole lot more sober than she’d been five minutes ago. Holding herself perfectly still, she started praying to a God she hadn’t talked to in way too long. She made all the usual promises, including vows to try to follow instructions given by the security team, well, at least until after Kat was safe.