“Sasha? Oh, I’m sure it’s all right, Ian. I’m sure Felicity won’t chain you up and perform a forced orgasm on you.”
Forced orgasm? Rowan’s coming up with all sorts of things I’ve never heard of. “Right. Just because she used to be a Dominatrix for a living doesn’t mean it’s her lifestyle. She owned the club, after all. People who get paid to do that aren’t all in the lifestyle. The girls were saying that Felicity only left their home in Charleston for Stockholm after her husband died. Maybe his death affected her. We shouldn’t pick on her.”
“Yes. She went to Europe, sort of lost it, I believe. Was overwhelmed by grief. Couldn’t handle losing him. I don’t dare imagine that happening to me, losing Sasha, and I can commiserate with Felicity. It shows she’s capable of deep feelings, something I never thought terribly possible until I met Sasha.”
That was as good an opening as Ian could hope to get. “Right. Now about this Perry Donovan bloke.”
“What about him?”
Ian had no choice but to barge ahead. He could only hope Rowan would get so drunk he wouldn’t recall this conversation tomorrow. “I know that you’ve been known to…to dabble in some nancy activities now and then. When you’re out in the field, of course.”
Rowan had a warning, cautious tone. “Yes…”
“I was just wondering if you were…dabbling with Perry, as well.”
There was a brief silence where Ian just wanted to sink down into the bowels of hell. Rowan’s pupils contracted into pinpoints and his brow furrowed. Ian had seen this mask of rage when Rowan had been thinking about some target or other, some kidnaper, rapist, or crazed bomber. Ian had never seen it directed against him, however. A litany of all the creative methods Rowan had of murdering someone started running through Ian’s head.
“Yes,” Rowan at last said, and a huge cloud was lifted from the room. “We dabble, the three of us. It’s quite a…gratifying lifestyle. And you’d be surprised how the local townsfolk at Bird in Hand are accepting of it. We’re all three very committed to each other, but of course we can’t legally marry Perry.”
A thousand questions assaulted Ian’s brain. Why didn’t he choose to dabble with me? What’s wrong with me? I work out. I lift weights. Ian liked to see himself as a Superman sort of bloke. Mild-mannered by day, eighth wonder of the modern world by night. At least, he wanted to be. Instead, Ian just smiled tolerantly. “He seems like a nice fellow,” he said lamely.
“He’s amazing,” said Rowan, dreamy-eyed. “I love him just as much as Sasha, only in a slightly different way. You’ll come to see that in the next few days.”
Since Ian couldn’t imagine the situation becoming any more uncomfortable, he excused himself to deliver Cass’s drink and went to the bathroom.
Squiring Felicity around might be the closest Ian would ever get to intimacy with Rowan. They might, in some remote alternate universe, shag two sisters. That would make him feel closer to Rowan. Why had he never realized the extent of his man crush on Rowan before? He could have made some vague pass, all those times they had sat around his cave drinking whiskey, playing chess, Manhunt, or practicing “throwing some sticks” at paper targets with their compound bows.
As Ian washed his hands, he realized he was just being absurd. He merely admired Rowan greatly and was upset that he was losing his best friend in DC. Sure, Ian had his nerdy World of Warcraft friends, and the friends he met at the gym for handball, but being with Rowan gave him the sense that life was worth living. He could live vicariously through Rowan’s adventures. When Rowan told him a story about nabbing a suicide bomber, Ian felt almost as though he’d lived the adventure himself. Without Rowan his life would consist of one balance sheet after another. The high point of his year would be April 15. He’d get an adrenaline rush from extending a tax deadline.
So Ian emerged from the loo feeling as though he owed Rowan an apology. He shouldn’t have tried to delve into Rowan’s personal life like that. It was none of his bloody business. His problem was that for years he had longed to bust out and get wild like the operatives constantly did. It was an everyday thing for them to race through an outdoor farmer’s market knocking over banana stands, vaulting over pyramids of watermelons, dodging the ninja stars the targets threw at them. He had chosen to work at Hawkeye Corp. out of all the Fortune 500 companies that had made him offers after university. He imagined that, although the paperwork would be the same dull chore at Hawkeye, at least he’d work against a backdrop of spying and surveillance. Part of that had come true in the past sixteen years. As CFO, he oversaw the accountants who purchased the operatives all of their spy gear. And his company letterhead had a bull’s-eye logo on it. That was about the extent of the excitement.
But by the time he returned to Adrian’s palatial living room, the mood of the entire party had changed.
The lawyer had returned with Felicity McQueen. She stood tall in the center of a crowd. It was like in those movies where everything else melted away from the center of attention in a psychedelic haze. Felicity would have been taller than most women, but she added inches by sweeping her carrot-red hair into an updo. She wore a simple seafoam green cardigan like something from the prim 50s, but oh how she filled out that cardigan. Her pillowy breasts rose buoyantly from a bra that was an engineering miracle. The U-neck of the sweater didn’t expose much flesh, but in silhouette it clung to her hourglass figure like moss.
Were it not for that va-va-voom figure, Felicity might have looked like the girl next door. She didn’t look a bit jaded or world-weary with her perky features, trim black slacks, carefully applied red lipstick, and furry boots. Although of course, along with every other man in the room, Ian was picturing her wearing a form-fitting cop’s uniform and crotchless pantyhose. He looked for the outline of a nipple ring on the sweater.
“There’s the gal you’re going to squire?” Ian just now noticed Rowan standing next to him, gaping like an ape with his hands dangling at his sides. “You’ll be the envy of every man in McQueen Valley.”
Maybe he would finally get a bit of an adventure after all.
Chapter Two
Felicity was nervous.
Funny, she hadn’t been this nervous in years. When she donned her fetish outfit and dominated clients, she felt safe and secure in her role. When she “forced” a man to lick her spiked boots, she was in control. When she was Mistress Klara commanding men to crawl on all fours, her power flowed, and her body hummed with energy.
But being Miss Felicity McQueen didn’t feel comfortable. It was a strange fit, Klara and Felicity in the same body. She felt awkward in the green sweater. She felt fat in the skinny pants she’d picked up in Charleston before coming to Utah. And she knew the thought foremost in everyone’s mind as she stood in the middle of the—was it Brooke’s?—living room. “What would she look like all done up in a patent leather bondage outfit?”
She had emailed Xandra a couple of years ago from Stockholm. She thought she was being sly by attaching a vanilla photo of herself, not realizing until later she had left a nipple clamp on, and it showed through the sweater. Of course Xandra had asked her all sorts of questions about it that Felicity thought she had deflected intelligently. But then she had told her father she owned a place called The Fat Shaft, someone had googled, and…the rest was history. She could be eighty and people would still label her as the BDSM Dominatrix.
She was branded forever. It was only a matter of time before someone asked her if she ever got a scout badge for knot-tying. She tried to tell herself she was being overly paranoid, but she knew people didn’t give a flying fuck about the weather in Stockholm. She was having a hard enough time sorting out her sisters and their new husbands from all the other strangers, and now apparently there was a stepbrother she had never heard of.
But the goofy guy named Doug Ostrovsky seemed nice enough. “Your grandfather, Sam McQueen, had a sister, Wanda, who married a guy named Bob Burns,” Doug tried to explain.
“It’s a whole
complex family tree,” Sasha said smoothly. Felicity had always envied Sasha, how cool and responsible she had been after their mother had died twenty years ago. It was natural that she had become a medical doctor, the medical examiner for Charleston, and now was apparently operating a concierge medical practice in southeast Utah. “But basically, Doug has worked at the Triple Play forever, but didn’t inherit the lodge because he’s not related to Wanda by blood.”
“That’s why I got the lodge,” Xandra said, “but I gave Doug the ranch portion of it.”
“So basically,” said Brooke, “my husband and I work for Doug now, since we run the ranch.”
Doug leaned in confidentially and spoke from the corner of his mouth. “Wanda married Bob Burns, but it’s common knowledge they both boffed another buckaroo for a decade or two.”
Sasha added, “Thus the name of the lodge, the Triple Play.”
A smile spread over Felicity’s face. “Oh, come now! That sounds like one of those made-up stories people repeat just because it sounds good. Did you know this ménage guy, Doug?” She wanted to remain skeptical that anyone in Utah could be even slightly racy. Felicity didn’t want to let her guard down, to start trusting people. She would only be here a week, anyway, before returning to Stockholm. She had lived in Stockholm for eight years since Brad’s death. It was her life. These may be her sisters—and dubious stepbrother—but her real life was as Mistress Klara at The Fat Shaft.
“Sure did!” proclaimed Doug. “Ol’ Westy Ringhold was a top hand forever until he died in ’97.”
“He used to come into the Neon Cocktail—that’s the lounge at the lodge—and order boilermakers,” said a tall girl who seemed to be Sasha’s maid of honor. “That drink always confused the bartenders. We’re a five-star lodge, but can’t remember how to make a boilermaker.”
Felicity relaxed a bit as everyone laughed. She was relieved when Sasha’s fiancé Rowan led her to a long table before anyone could ask her if the burglar who robbed her BDSM club had left everyone bound and gagged. People in the vanilla world thought they were being so witty when they made cracks like that.
Waiters who had probably been borrowed from the lodge served appetizers, and Felicity was soothed when Rowan poured her a glass of red wine from a bottle on the table. They talked some inanities about how nice Sasha was, how Rowan had quit his job in DC to live in Utah, how he liked fly fishing with their brother-in-law, Nathan.
And then it came. Everything was going smoothly until the dashing, grizzled he-man casually asked, “So. Are you going back to Stockholm after the wedding?”
Felicity squeezed her eyes shut. I don’t want to discuss Sweden! I don’t want anyone talking to me about Sweden at all! “Yes,” she said, in an ultra-girlish voice. She tended to overplay things when emotional, so now her voice became soft, sweet, and pliant. “My whole life is there. I don’t really have anything in the States anymore.”
Having won that battle, Rowan pressed on. “You could if you wanted. Two years ago there were no McQueen women in McQueen Valley. Now there are three.”
“You must be very happy going from a life of excessive action to the serenity of this valley.”
“Yes, it’s very calming and serene here.” However, Rowan would not be distracted from his subject. “There’s something for everyone. Brooke works at the ranch and Sasha flies around visiting patients. You could find something you’re suited for out here. After all, your sister owns the lodge.”
Felicity was about to close her eyes again and pray for patience when another man sitting on the other side of Rowan leaned over his plate and said firmly, “She doesn’t want to talk about it, Rowan.”
Who was this guy? He had obviously been listening to their conversation. Felicity was already highly irritated and she, too, leaned forward, practically pressing her breasts into her bowl of celery and lobster bisque. She was all prepared to rip the intruder a new one, but her first glimpse of his angelic face stopped her cold.
He was an absolute angel sent straight from heaven. His aquamarine eyes were so light they gave him almost a crazed appearance. But his beautiful Roman nose turned up just so at the tip, and his shapely lips were made to be kissed. His spiky hair, dark at the roots, graduated to ash blonde at the tips. That would have been a very expensive coloring job, but Felicity knew it was natural on him. He was so beautiful she would have assumed he was gay, but she didn’t get that vibe from him.
And of course her first thought was that he would make a delicious bottom.
“Do you mind, Ian?” Rowan said rudely to the man. “We were talking.”
Felicity put her hand on Rowan’s forearm. “No, it’s all right. Your friend is right. I don’t want to talk about it. But I suppose everyone is going to keep asking me about it until I come clean.”
The two men waited with spoons poised in midair. A hundred guests clamored around them, but the men were utterly still. The soup in Rowan’s spoon even shivered as he eagerly waited for her response.
“Yes, I’m a dungeon mistress at a bondage club in Stockholm. And yes, I wear patent leather thigh-high boots, fingerless gloves, and I have all sorts of bustiers and masks. Go ahead, imagine it. The reality is probably better than your imagination can conjure up.”
She was surprised when the beautiful guy Ian, who looked rather mild-mannered and submissive, dared to say, “I doubt it. My imagination is coming up with a pretty amazing picture.”
That sort of stopped her. She probably would have continued verbally berating her brother-in-law for having the nerve to question her career, but there was some calming quality to Ian’s beauty. “Believe it or not, but I like being the dungeon mistress at Fett Axel. And yes, that’s Swedish for ‘Fat Shaft.’”
Ian finally moved, smiling indulgently. “We thought it might have been an indoor archery range.”
Felicity had to lean farther into her soup bowl to see around Rowan, who had finally continued eating. “Really? What makes you think of archery?”
Ian just completely moved his soup bowl out of his way so his shirtfront would remain unsullied. “Rowan here and I often do archery—that is, at his old flat in DC, the place he doesn’t have any longer.”
“You have targets set up in the yard?”
Ian smiled secretively. He had such even, white teeth he must have bleached them. But somehow he didn’t give the impression as a guy who would be vain enough to bleach his teeth. He seemed unaware of his own beauty. “Targets inside his flat. He lives—lived—inside an enormous warehouse loft space, something right out of a mob movie. You’ve done archery?”
“Done archery? Why, I’m so good I even incorporated an archery trick into one of my scenes.” Felicity was even a bit proud when she said, “Yes, I do shoot an apple off someone’s head.”
Ian looked delighted. “What sort of bow do you have? How much weight do you draw?”
“I just received one of the new pink compound bows that can draw between ten and seventy pounds, so children and women are snapping them up. I had to wait for pink to become available, of course, because everyone wanted pink.”
“I’ll bet that makes for a more visual scene. So you’re an archer who practices at The Fat Shaft. That’s amazing.”
Ian’s eyes swam with what could only be called enchantment. Felicity knew he was enchanted with her because that happened quite often. There was something of a dichotomy between her ladylike appearance and her fiercely domineering persona that turned on the majority of men. Many men wanted to be dominated by a radiant, heavenly gal like her. There was something fun and kinky in being ordered around by a Barbie doll.
“No one ever really makes the connection between the shaft of an arrow and the name of the club because in Swedish it’s Fett Axel.”
“I like that even more.”
Felicity was mystified. She frowned, trying to sound out the words. “Why?”
“Fett? Fetish?”
Felicity exhaled with relief. “Oh! I’ve never made that con
nection before.”
She would have continued talking with the angelic Ian, but another friend approached Rowan. The man bent down low and said, “I hope it’s okay, but I told Victor Reznik to come over here.”
Rowan frowned. “Who is Victor Reznik?”
“Dr. Victor Reznik. That exotic animal biologist I was telling you about. I know, he came a day early. But he had to go to Blanding anyway to look at some ostrich that turned up in the middle of the street.”
Ian butted in. “Ostrich? Is this the same person who owned the kangaroo you were wrestling?”
The new fellow stood erect and looked grim. “Smuggler, not owner. Yep. I’ve been after this asswipe for a long fucking time. He’s been smuggling everything from lion cubs to orangutans through Mexico and up into Denver.”
Rowan asked, “Is he related to the guy whose shack we raided?”
“I don’t think so. That guy smuggled endangered species that weren’t necessarily desirable for pets. Like, who would keep an Amargosa vole for a pet? This guy smuggles animals people might want to keep in a cage, to show off.”
“Like lion cubs. Okay, yeah, I don’t mind. Show him some hospitality, give him dinner.”
The young blond guy went toward the front door. Felicity asked Rowan, “Who was that?”
“That’s my partner, Perry Donovan.”
“Partner as in…”
“Yes,” Rowan admitted, looking down at his empty soup bowl.
This information seemed to irritate Ian. He turned away and handed a waiter his bowl. Felicity repaid Rowan for not snooping into her affairs by not snooping into his, and she stood to go to the bar and order a martini. Bottles of liqueur behind the bar prompted her to ask the bartender to make it a melon martini.
“Do you know how to make a Boilermaker?”
The fine hairs on Felicity’s nape rose. Ian had such a lovely British lilt, like crystals melting in the air. He stood next to her, looking impudently delicious in his double-breasted suit.
Two Sirs, with Love [McQueen Was My Valley 4] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 2