Hanging On 2: Surreal Neal [Awakenings 6] (Siren Publishing Ménage and More)

by Michele Zurlo

  “You guys are checking out some of the excursions. And how about dropping protocol until tonight? I need an honest assessment of what is worth keeping, what needs to be overhauled, and what needs to be discontinued.”

  “Okay.” He frowned. “That’s not what I pictured happening.”

  Sophia carried her plate to the sink and rinsed it off. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to. You can spend the day however you want. If you want to hang out at the beach and ogle all the people, you can. If you want to veg here, you can. It’s your vacation.”

  I took my plate over, intending to do my own dishes, but she took it from me. “Honey, I’ll do those.”

  “I’m here. It’s fine. Kissing and teasing are allowed. No sex or coming until I get back tonight.” The hiss of the water covered the volume of her voice, so I knew Neal hadn’t heard.

  “Are you renegotiating our terms?” We had arrived at some pretty rigid rules that we’d put firmly in the “non-negotiable” column.

  She looked up at me, and I almost drowned in her big brown eyes. “Just with Neal. He’s going to need physical contact, and if you’re experiencing the same feelings I am, keeping your hands off him is going to be very hard. I’d rather you not spend the day trying to contain your feelings or feel guilty. For some reason, I’m okay with you fooling around with Neal when I’m not there. It just…he just fits us.”

  I agreed with her, but I was still surprised that she would change things. “I had planned to talk to you about him.”

  “Agreed,” she said. “We do need to talk.” She glanced at Neal, who was still working on his omelet. “Tonight, after he falls asleep.”

  After she’d given us both thorough good-bye kisses and left, I tossed Neal’s jeans to him. “Put these on. You’ll need a shirt and shoes too. We’re going riding.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Drew

  He bought a sombrero. Sitting astride the large roan horse, he looked like a model trying to be a cowboy. The jeans and boots looked good on him, as did the faded marigold shirt. The sombrero should have given him a ridiculous appearance, but it managed to make him look like hotness incarnate. While he didn’t give off a cowboy vibe, he did radiate sex. If a passel of photographers had been tailing him, I wouldn’t have been surprised.

  The surly, grumpy man who’d mouthed off to my wife that morning was gone. Back was the affable, quiet man with a slow grin and quick reflexes.

  “Relax your knees,” I said. “Or you’re going to be really sore, and not for the right reasons.”

  The horseback riding excursion had been canceled due to lack of interest, but I managed to secure a guide for a private tour. I liked it better this way. I got to have Neal all to myself, and I could ask the guide anything and not have to worry about how the guests might react.

  “What’s on the other side of the island?” I raised my volume so that the guide would know I was talking to him.

  Sutter turned around, almost swiveling 180 degrees in his saddle. “Last owners cleared a bunch of land about five years ago, but they started squabbling and the contractors quit. Nothing ever got built.”

  “Where do the employees live?”

  “They stay in the main building for three or four months, then they go home for a month or two. Some come back, most don’t. Those like me who do business with the resort live on nearby islands. You can’t bring a family here.” He turned back, laughing as if I had suggested that Elysium was appropriate for children.

  That did get me thinking. If Sophia was going to be an owner, she was going to need to visit often. The same went for Sabrina, Ellen, and Samantha. While Sophie and Sam didn’t have to worry about little ones, Sabrina and Ellen had families, and I knew neither of them would want to spend all that much time away from their kids.

  “Sutter, how much land was cleared?”

  “Ten, twenty acres?” He shrugged. “I heard they were going to put a mansion up there, and then I heard they were going to expand the resort. Lots of rumors, no building.”

  I added looking into building a few houses and apartments to my list. When I talked to Lex and Stef, I would press for that as a condition of proceeding with the sale. Being in business had taught me a lot, but one of the biggest lessons was that the service industry ran better when employees were happy and turnover was kept to minimal levels.

  Sutter dropped us by a waterfall. He placed a wicker basket on a rock, tipped his baseball cap, and said, “I’ll be back in an hour to collect you.” Then he looked at Neal. “Maybe two. I’ll make a lot of noise, scare away the tigers and birds.”

  Neal dismounted easily and looped the horse’s reins around a low tree limb. I did the same, catching him as he went to walk toward the pool at the bottom of the falls. “Have you ridden before or not?”

  “A couple times. Enough to learn the basics, not enough to have mastered them. Why? You wanna buy me a pony?”

  I couldn’t tell if he was teasing me or if he actually wanted a horse. Part of me wanted to offer his heart’s desire, but I wasn’t prone to making impulsive purchases. Buying Elysium for Sophia had been the first impetuous thing I’d done, and the process was not yet complete, so even the rashness of that decision was up for discussion.

  I gestured toward the picnic basket. We’d taken an abbreviated boat tour already that morning, and we’d been riding for almost an hour. “How about I buy lunch?”

  He seemed content with my response. “Then skinny-dipping?”

  I shook my head. “We’d better keep our clothes on.”

  “Right,” he said. “That arrangement you have with Sophia.”

  The whole morning we’d been together, he hadn’t once referred to her by her title, and I was glad. It meant he wasn’t in a submissive state of mind. I admit I liked it while we were having sex, but sometimes I wanted to be with him as an equal.

  I perched on a rock near the falls. The crash of water echoed through the small clearing that housed the wide stream. Neal sat next to me. For a little while, we watched the water and listened to the sounds of the forest.

  “How did you happen to fall in love with Sophia?”

  The question startled me from wherever my mind had wandered. I needed to eat. The falls were loud, and I motioned Neal away from them. Sutter had put the basket a nice distance from the water. The view was perfect, but the sound was a little muted, more conducive to conversation.

  I handed Neal a plate. “I fell in love with Sophia the moment I first laid eyes on her. It was meant to be.”

  He chuckled at my matter-of-factness. “You believe in love at first sight? Are you sure it wasn’t lust? She is seriously gorgeous.”

  I agreed with his assessment of her looks.

  “And completely unaware of it.”

  At this, I shook my head. “She knows she’s a hottie. It just doesn’t affect her. She’s not vain. That’s my job. And yes, I believe in love at first sight, or at least recognizing the person you’re meant to spend eternity with and accepting the fact.”

  The basket contained a pair of elegant sandwiches, fruit, water, and wine. Neal uncorked the wine. “And she felt the same way?”

  “Nope. Sophia is a cynic of the first order. She treated me like a spoiled rich playboy, which is how she saw me at first.”

  Neal eyed me speculatively. It could be that he’d made the same assessment. “What if she had turned out to be a bitch?”

  “Then I wouldn’t have been so attracted to her. I’ve been with my share of women who were spoiled and rich, who used me and wanted me to use them. Sophie wasn’t like that. She tried to be, but she wasn’t. Her heart is too big for her to be a convincing opportunist.”

  He took a healthy bite of his sandwich, chewing a lull into the conversation. The food was good, and I was hungry.

  “That’s what I like about her too. She’s a fantastic Domme, but she’s kind and caring at the same time. So many dominants are hard, calloused around the heart.”

  When
I’d met her, Sophie had been more than calloused—she’d been scarred. “Well, she’s had some tough breaks. She knows what it’s like to be hurt, but I think you do too.”

  He halted mid-bite. “What makes you say that?”

  “You have a wariness about you, a way of trying to stay one step ahead. You look at people like you’re trying to size up what they want from you. Sophie used to be like that.”

  He resumed eating. I poured him some wine.

  “And then this morning—you knew you were experiencing subdrop, but you tried to take care of it by yourself.”

  I handed him the wineglass. He twirled the stem between his fingers, watching the rich liquid coat the inside of the glass. “My old Master, Geordie, he hated when I dropped. I found that if I didn’t let myself get too deep into subspace, then I didn’t drop. Last night I let down my guard, forgot about what would happen. It’s been a long time since anybody got me to that point.”

  I may not have recognized what had been going on, but I knew about the concept on an academic level. Hanging around with a bunch of dominants didn’t leave one in the dark about those things for long.

  “He’s the one who took you to Brazil?” At his nod, I continued. “Tell me about him.”

  As he swirled his wine, I wondered what thoughts swam in his head. Many emotions washed over his face—from wistfulness to bitterness. Finally, he sighed.

  “Master Geordie was exciting. He was older than me, wealthy and worldly. He swept me off my feet and showed me how wonderful it was to give myself over to a Master. I loved him, and I thought he loved me.”

  My chest constricted as I sensed a very bad end to this story. I was right.

  “I was nineteen, had a year of college under my belt. He convinced me to leave everything. My dad tried to talk me out of it, but my decision was made. I wanted to go to Rio with my Master and serve him.” Neal looked up, his gaze meeting mine. “I wanted nothing more than to make him happy.”

  Since I felt the same way about Sophia, I knew what he was talking about, but I knew better than to interrupt.

  “Things were fine until he brought a woman home.” Neal’s eyes took on a faraway look, sadness mixed with regret. “I thought he knew I was bisexual. Why else would he bring her into our bedroom?”

  I felt a little sick. More than one story that Sophia, Ellen, or Ryan had told me came back with a haunting reality. Neal had a few scars, but no more than anybody else. I hoped he’d achieved them the normal way—falling off his skateboard or getting checked in hockey.

  “We argued afterward.” He shook his head, but he didn’t go into detail. “The next morning, he sent me on an errand. When I returned, he’d packed up and moved away.”

  That wasn’t what I’d expected to hear. It was vindictive and cruel, not at all how a Dom should behave. “He punished you for finding the woman attractive?”

  Neal sipped more wine. “He tried. I objected, called a time-out so we could talk, and that’s when we got into a huge fight. Not only did he have a problem with the fact that I find women attractive, which he said was cheating, he also accused me of not being a true submissive.”

  “Because you wouldn’t let him walk all over you.” Sophia prized strength and independence in her submissives, and I wholeheartedly agreed. It was difficult to respect someone who had no backbone. “That’s amazing. What did you do after that?”

  He shrugged, but I could see the weight of the world holding his shoulders down. “The apartment had been rented. He didn’t pay the rent, and two days later, I was out on the street.”

  I struggled not to react. The anger running through my veins had no place in his life, and I had no right to react vehemently while he was sharing the outline of his painful past. Sophia had been devastated when I’d found out she’d been raped, almost as if me knowing had been worse than the actual event. I’d been angry at the fucker who hurt her, but showing that emotion would have alienated her and chased her away.

  Knowing a little of Neal’s story—that he started off washing dishes in a kitchen—made this easier to hear. I knew this was the low point. “For how long?”

  “Not sure. On and off for a few months. Summer in Rio is warm, so it wasn’t too bad. I ended up working in two different kitchens. One was a breakfast place and the other focused on dinner. I kept busy, worked my way up, and soon I was cooking.”

  “That’s when Deke found you.”

  Neal laughed. “Yeah. At first, I thought he was stalking me. He showed up for every meal and kept asking to meet the chef. After four days, he finally told me who he was and asked if I’d be interested in working for him in Atlanta.” He lifted his deep blue gaze and nailed me with a meaningful look. “And he introduced me to you and Sophia.”

  The significance of the way he was looking at me combined with my need to bring Neal into our lives in a more permanent way. I know I should have waited to ask him this, but the words tumbled out. “Neal, I want us to take Sophia at the same time. Have you done that before?”

  He shook his head.

  “Neither have we.”

  His brows lifted. “What made you decide you wanted to try it?”

  I shrugged. Telling him that having him in our lives had changed everything probably wasn’t the best way to keep him close. He’d been hurt, and he was definitely slow to give his trust. We had a lot to prove to him.

  “Does Sophia know you want to double-team her?”

  “Yeah. She said she’d think about it.”

  He took a deep breath and let it out. The leather collar around his neck rose and fell with the movement. Something in me constricted at that physical sign that he belonged to us. It was the same feeling I got when I looked at Sophia’s hand and saw her wedding rings. The constriction was also in my pants.

  “If it’s what she wants, then I’m willing, but I wouldn’t try to coerce or pressure her. It’s a lot for a woman to handle, and Dommes can be really touchy about positions that strip them of power.”

  I snorted. “She’ll be in charge either way. I don’t see where having her between us diminishes that.”

  “As long as she sees it that way. I hate the idea of hurting or disappointing her.”

  I hated it too. Moving slowly, I leaned forward and kissed him. I meant to be tender, and it started out that way. This was the first time in a long time that I’d kissed a man without Sophia around to watch. It was different, knowing that she consented and approved. I was free to enjoy the bliss that was Neal.

  When I pulled away, he regarded me with passion soaking his irises. “Were you supposed to do that?”

  “Yeah. Sophie said it was okay.” I cupped his cheek and zoomed in for another one.

  “She said you were highly tactile.”

  At this, I paused. I wasn’t “highly tactile” with anybody but her, and now, it seemed, with Neal. I wanted to feel his skin against mine. “With the right person.” That’s all I would concede.

  I took his wineglass and set it aside with mine, not caring if they tipped over and spilled into the grass. Then I eased him onto his back and stretched out next to him, propping myself up on an elbow. I played my hand over his chest, feeling his dips and planes through the soft cotton of his shirt. Every time I dipped lower, he caught his breath, but I was committed to keeping my explorations above the belt.

  He followed my lead, though I wasn’t topping him, and explored my upper body. Then he snaked his hand around the back of my neck and pulled me to him. Our tongues met, danced, and everything exploded. I found myself on top of him, touching, tasting, grinding my cock against his. He clutched my ass in his hands, groaned, and held me close.

  Wrenching myself away, I broke it off. I rolled onto my back and lay next to him, panting and trying to slow the beating of my heart and the throbbing in my pants. Next to me, Neal lay in a similar predicament. He slipped his hand into mine, and I held it. We stayed like that for the longest time, basking in a sense of togetherness, not moving until we heard Sutte
r making his noisy approach.

  * * * *

  We met Sophia at the main dining hall for dinner. Sometime during the day, she’d visited the suite to get a change of clothes. When I saw her standing on the wide dais of the entryway, my heart skipped a beat or two.

  Surrounded by Greek columns and pale marble, she stood out in stunning relief. Her rich, dark hair cascaded over her shoulders. She wore a red silk dress that wrapped around her body, highlighting her curvy hips and long legs. Thin straps held it up, and the dress definitely needed the assist because it dipped down almost to her navel. I fought an urge to hook my finger in the low vee and expose it.

  And I knew for a fact that she wasn’t wearing anything under it.

  The stone bench that Neal and I shared was hard and cold against my ass, and even that didn’t save me from popping a boner at the sight of my lovely wife.

  “Damn,” he muttered. “Please don’t ask me to stand up.”

  “That’s what your napkin is for.” I stood as she approached, never tearing my eyes from the vision coming in my direction. When she reached me, I took her hand, kissed the back of it, and then I pulled her into my arms. “You are unbelievably beautiful. I missed you.”

  Then I kissed her, not bothering to temper the passion rising in my belly. If she let me, I’d lay her across the table and show her how much I had missed her.

  She moaned, making a high-pitched protest sound of pleasure that meant she wanted me but wasn’t going to let me grope her with people watching.

  Reluctantly I released her. She slid onto the bench where I had been. Neal scooted over to make room, but he didn’t get too far. She greeted him with a scorching kiss that made me want to skip dinner. Having both of them naked right now would sate a more important appetite.

  I sat on her other side and unfolded a napkin onto her lap.

  She grabbed my hand, entwining it in hers. “How was your day?”

  “Good,” I said. “The excursions are fine, thought we might need more of them if we can boost attendance.”