by Golden Angel
Pieces of Stronghold
Book 3.5 of the Stronghold Series
By G. Angel
Published by G. Angel
Copyright 2015 G. Angel
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1 – Leigh and Jared
Chapter 2 – Will & Gina
Chapter 3 – Patrick and Lexie
Chapter 4 - Kate
Chapter 5 - Leigh & Jared
Chapter 6 - Text Messages
Chapter 7 - Olivia
Chapter 8 - Kate
Chapter 9 - Hilary and Liam
Chapter 10 - Leigh & Jared
Chapter 11 - Justin, Chris, & Jessica
Chapter 12 - Leigh and Jared
Epilogue - Jared & Leigh
About the Author
Acknowledgements
I have a lot of people to thank for helping me with this book. Marie for all her help with editing and the continuity issues that I occasionally struggle with (I swear, she remembers all the things that I can’t). Another Marie, for her incredibly close attention to detail, especially when it comes to commas, mixed-up words and my overuse of the word “that.” Katherine, for her ever-lasting support, encouragement and suggestions. Michelle for her comments and suppositions, which sent me in a different direction several times for this story, creating a much better and more satisfying plot than I’d originally had, with much more interesting character development. Sir Nick, for providing the much-needed male perspective.
And a huge thank you to Crystal, for the gorgeous cover art and promotional posters that I’ve been sharing.
As always, a big thank you to all my fans, for buying and reading my work… if you love it, please leave a review!
Chapter 1 – Leigh and Jared
The slap of palm to flesh.
Adam's low, sexy rumble as he barked out orders to Angel.
Angel's moans.
It sounded like the sexiest porno ever made; meanwhile Leigh's sex life was as dry as the Sahara ever since she'd decided to swear off men for a while. Yet, she was going to a sex club on the weekends and was living with two people who had some of the hottest sex on Earth - as far as she could tell. She was hearing enough of it. Why had she decided to stop having one-night stands again?
Oh yeah, because she always felt guilty afterwards.
Not because she thought she was doing something bad, but apparently she was really, really terrible at picking guys to have one night stands with. They always wanted more than the one night. What was with that?
Maybe there was something wrong with her that having a few one night stands hadn't bothered her at all. She considered it making up for lost time, once she realized that she and her ex-boyfriend, Michael, were really never getting back together. At least, not any time soon. Her stupid heart still made up ridiculous fantasies of running into each other, sometime in the future, maybe a year or two from now, and realizing that they were still in love. That all the people they'd seen in between hadn't meant a thing, and they'd fall into each other's arms and live happily ever after.
Yeah, she read way too many romances. Especially since she'd gotten her e-reader and no longer had to worry about people judging her based on the cover of the book she was reading. Having the e-reader was especially necessary for her right now since most of her things, including her books, were still in boxes either in the guest bedroom she was staying in or in the small storage unit she was renting. Going a day without reading would have killed her, especially now when she needed the constant escape into someone else's life.
Sometimes she wondered if having sex with several different guys, so quickly, had been her way of giving Michael the proverbial middle finger. They'd broken up a couple of times during their six and a half year relationship, always because he'd wanted to try dating other people. Since they'd been each other's firsts, he hadn't been able to bond with his friends over their various sexual exploits with different women. Sure, sex between her and Michael had been great, but it was still sex with the same woman all the time. That hadn't bothered her, but apparently it had bothered him.
For a while, she'd been afraid that if she wasn't with Michael, no one would want her. Because he'd been her first boyfriend. He'd had a couple of girlfriends before her, if he counted high school relationships that lasted a month or two. At least he'd known that other girls wanted him. Leigh was just every guy's good friend, never any guy's girlfriend. It had wreaked havoc on her self-esteem. Angel said it was because she was shy, and so the guys never realized that she was interested in them too, but if they'd really been interested wouldn't they have spoken up? Michael had. Then again, when she and Michael had first started going out, she'd found it incredibly easy to be herself around him.
When had that changed?
The muffled sound of a slap made her wince, even as her lower body throbbed in response. Angel was getting spanked again. She and Adam had been making out in the kitchen when Leigh came in, and although they'd stopped to say hello and ask how her day was, Adam had dragged Angel up to their bedroom about ten minutes later. Obviously to finish what they'd started. Leigh had come up to change into something that she could work out in, wanting to pound out some of her extra energy on Adam's treadmill, and unfortunately she couldn't help but overhear some of what sounded like fantastic sex. It didn’t just make her jealous… it kind of turned her on.
But if there was one thing she was absolutely not going to do, it was masturbate to the sound of her best friend having sex. No matter how sexy it sounded or how long it had been since she'd last had sex herself.
She really needed to find a new place to live.
Adam and Angel had been absolute saints, allowing her to stay with them, and both of them assured her that it was for as long as she wanted. She even believed they meant it. Not that she expected anything less from Angel, they were more like sisters than best friends, but she'd been surprised at how welcoming Adam had been. Living together had been kind of a crash course in getting to know each other really well, really quickly, but surprisingly it worked. He treated her like a kid sister, and she felt more comfortable around him than she would have ever imagined, especially considering that when she'd first met him he'd intimidated the hell out of her. Just like most of his friends.
They were all big, bad Doms, the kind she'd read about in books and hadn't believed existed in real life. Go figure Angel would find herself in the middle of sexy, protective tyrants. She always drew men's attention, even if she tended to class herself as their friend rather than a romantic possibility. With Adam, though, Angel had fallen hard and fast.
Leigh was happy for her, she really was, but it had been hard to see Angel falling in love while Leigh's love life was crumbling around her like a stale cake which had been left out for too long. That it was almost Christmas only made her more depressed… this would be the first Christmas in years that she wasn’t celebrating it with Michael. Wasn’t opening presents with him, wasn’t seeing the expression on his face when he opened his or affectionately showing him her appreciation for hers… She was even kind of sad about missing out on the yearly finagling to make sure that they could make both families’ Christmas dinners. Listening to Adam and Angel deciding whether or not they were going to travel to visit any of his family members or stay in the a
rea and celebrate with hers had brought up the strangest ache in her chest.
On top of the emotional holiday stuff, it also didn't help that Angel was doing things in private that Leigh had only fantasized about. Okay, Angel and Adam took it a little farther than Leigh would ever want to go with a man, but if there was one thing Leigh had discovered about herself, it was how much of a voyeur she had in her. Going to Stronghold, the BDSM club that Adam and his friends belonged to - heck that one of them owned - had been integral to that self-revelation.
Another moan made her realize that she was standing in the middle of her room, still within hearing distance of Angel and Adam. Yikes. Changing as quickly as she could, she got out of the room and was heading down in the hall in less than a minute. Sometimes she could get so lost inside her own head when she was thinking, she didn't even notice how much time was passing. It wasn't necessarily a good thing. More than once she'd caught people staring at her when she came out of one of her little reveries in public. Probably because she didn't exactly remember to keep her face blank, so her expression reflected every thought going through her head.
As she filled up a water bottle in the kitchen, her phone chimed.
Joke of the day! They were always stupid, but they made her smile, and she needed that. She'd needed it more a month ago, but it still helped. She thought that by now she'd be done mourning the end of her relationship. Some days she was, and she felt good and hopeful and like she was okay on her own. Other days, she still had trouble getting out of bed, because the air around her seemed black and so heavy that she couldn't move. And some days, the only thing that kept her going was the thought that one day he would realize what a huge mistake he'd made, that she was the best thing that had ever happened to him, and he'd come crawling back with apologies, and he'd finally treat her right. The way that he'd treated her the first few years of their relationship.
With Angel and her therapist's, she did recognize that Michael had changed. That, by the time he'd broken up with her, he wasn't the man she'd fallen in love with. But that didn't mean that man was gone. Sometimes she still saw glimpses of him, when they'd talked. Not that they'd talked for the past couple of weeks, after their last argument.
He'd been pretty pissed about her going on a date. Probably because he hadn't had one since they'd broken up. She'd told him that if he didn't want her to go, she wouldn't. All he had to do was say the word and promise that he wouldn't date anyone else either.
Apparently, that wasn't what he wanted.
Nope. He wanted to be able to date, but he didn't want her dating anyone else. When she got pissed off and pointed out how hypocritical that was, he didn't have a defense, but he didn't change his stance either. Leigh told him to stop calling her until he was ready to say the word. She hadn't heard from him since.
Surprisingly, it hadn't hurt as much as she'd thought it would. Maybe because she was just becoming numb to the constant back and forth he'd been playing with her emotions since their breakup. There was only so much pain a body could feel before additional pain stopped mattering.
Ack. She was doing it again. Standing in the middle of the kitchen with her phone in her hand, scowling so fiercely it was amazing that she didn't break the glass in the cupboard she was staring at. Her reflection looked furious. Good for her. Anger was better than sadness. Easier to deal with too.
Pressing the button on her phone, she read the joke of the day. Her lips curved into a smile as she giggled. This one was bad. Really, really bad.
A few swipes and she typed in the start of the joke and clicked Send.
What time does a duck wake up?
Before her water bottle had finished filling up, she'd gotten a reply.
I don't know.
Giggling harder now than she had when she actually had received the joke text, she typed in the answer.
The quack of dawn!
She was going down the stairs to the basement and the exercise room when her phone rang. Glancing at the screen, she blinked in surprise and grinned, a little butterfly of excitement fluttering in her stomach.
"Hello?"
"The quack of dawn. Seriously." Jared's rich, deep voice was heavy with amused mockery.
Leigh laughed. "Aren't you at work?"
"Yes."
"And you called me to scold me for a joke?"
"It's a really bad joke."
"You laughed and you know it."
He chuckled, and she couldn't help but smile in return. Leaning against the bannister at the bottom of the stairs, she tried to tamp down the slightly giddy feelings that always seemed to swirl inside of her when she talked to him. They'd become friends pretty quickly, bonding over the fact that both of them had recently gotten out of relationships that had spanned more than half a decade. No one else in their groups of friends really understood what that was like... most of them thought Jared and Leigh were better off without their exes. Leigh didn't exactly disagree, but no one else seemed to get how hard it was or why she still missed Michael sometimes.
Jared got it.
It made her feel a special connection to him. She was also totally willing to admit that she had a crush on him. Having a crush felt nice. None of the guys she'd dated or slept with had made her feel all giggly and teenager silly like he did. It wasn’t serious feelings or like she actually thought anything would come of it, it was just an attraction coupled with the fact that she enjoyed his company. Got little bubbles in her stomach when she got a text from him. Immature, but also nice, and something she probably really needed right now. Thinking about Jared always helped distract her whenever she was feeling particularly depressed about Michael. There had been so little happiness that managed to pierce the bubble of misery she'd been living in, that she clutched at whatever she could.
"Admit it," she insisted, still grinning. "You at least chuckled."
"Yeah, okay I did."
"I knew it!" she crowed, pumping a fist into the air. Making Jared smile on a regular basis was one of her goals. As miserable as she was without Michael, Jared missed his ex, just as much, and he had the added guilt of having hurt her when he broke up with her. She could empathize, because by the time Michael had broken up with her, she'd had thoughts of breaking up with him; she'd known that he was taking her for granted and she'd finally admitted that she wasn’t satisfied in their relationship anymore. Of course, she'd hoped that instead of breaking up, he would have recognized that he needed to put more effort into their relationship and making her feel special and loved. Instead, he'd broken up with her first.
But she could imagine having gotten to the point Jared had. So she liked to make him smile when she could. It made her feel good to help him.
"You're like a five year old," he said, but it didn't sound like he meant it as an insult. Leigh took it as a compliment. It had been a long time since she'd felt this carefree. Michael had squashed her moments of loud brevity and silliness, wanting her to be more the model of the businessman's wife that he thought he needed. That was definitely something that was going to have to change if they ever got back together. There was no way she was going to squeeze herself back into that suffocating, little box that she'd put her personality into for him.
"Just wait," she told him, still grinning. "I bet I can find worse ones. And you'll laugh at all of them."
"I'm sure I will." Even though she couldn't see him, Leigh was pretty sure that he was smiling. She could hear it in his voice. "I have to get back to work. I'll see you Thursday?"
"Yep, I'll see you then, although we'll probably talk before then."
"I'm sure we will."
"Because I'm going to send you more jokes."
"Okay. Bye Leigh." She could practically hear the amused grin on his face.
"Bye."
It was amazing how just a short conversation with Jared could make her feel better. The need to run and run and run until she was shaking and exhausted was gone, but she still felt energized, so she continued on her way to the t
readmill. Especially because there was no way she was going back upstairs while Adam and Angel were still doing what they were doing. It was one thing to get hot and bothered watching people in the club. No one there seemed to care if their friends or strangers were watching; it was another thing when it happened at home.
******
Hanging up the phone, Jared shook his head, unable to wipe the silly grin off his face. Conversations with Leigh always left him feeling like he'd just taken a big breath of fresh air after being trapped inside all day. She was one of the most genuine people he'd ever met and, like Angel, one of the simplest people he'd ever met. That wasn't a bad thing.
Marissa had always been complicated. Dramatic. Demanding. Whereas Leigh was... easy. Light. Happy about the smallest things. Like sending him a joke that was so bad he'd had to laugh. He couldn't imagine Marissa ever doing something like that, or, if she had, taking such joy in it.
It was hard, sometimes, not to compare Leigh to his ex, because despite their differences, they engendered a lot of the same emotions in him. The desire to protect. To support. To care for.
But while Marissa had always been difficult to care for, difficult to make happy, Leigh was always looking on the bright side of things. Even when she was down. And she did get down sometimes, but half the time she'd cheer herself up while he searched for the right thing to say. All she wanted was a listening ear while she vented and an arm around her shoulders. Then she'd listen while he vented and end up teasing him out of any bad mood he managed to put himself in.
Still grinning, he walked back into the lobby of Stronghold, nodding at Will, who was standing by the door to the club.
"Thanks for taking over for me for a minute," he said, reaching out so that they could slap hands, acknowledging the small favor.
"Any time. Important call?" Will asked, curious. It was unusual for Jared to leave his post, other than to take a bathroom break. At the front desk, Freddy was actually leaning over, unabashedly listening in to their conversation while pretending to fix some of the Christmas decorations on the side of the desk. Little gossip. He was lucky that Jared had a bit of a soft spot for him; if Patrick saw Freddy trying to listen in, he probably would've reddened the little subbie's ass... or had Mistress Erin or Lisa do it for him.