Just a Taste [Merricks, Montana 4] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour)

by McKinlay Thomson

  Hawk had crawled in on one side of her and Wolf on the other. No words were spoken and Emily quickly drifted off to sleep in the arms of her men for the first time ever. It had felt so good to be surrounded by their heat, their legs entwined, and her head resting on Hawk’s shoulder with her butt spooned back against Wolf. She hadn’t slept that well in years.

  When her alarm had gone off on her mobile, she dragged her tired body from the comfort of their arms and bed and rifled through the chest of draws to borrow some sweats. She wasn’t sure whose room she was in, so she didn’t know whose clothes she was borrowing, but either way they were way too big and she had to roll up the sleeves and pant legs.

  “Where are you sneaking off to?” Hawk had asked, and she had jumped, surprised. She hadn’t realized he had woken.

  “I have to go to the bakery,” she’d told him. “I always get up this early.”

  “I’ll walk you there,” he told her and pushed back the covers and rose in all his naked glory. Emily had to make herself stop staring and Hawk had chuckled at her. The jerk had known how he affected her and had done it on purpose.

  “I’ll be fine,” she’d said, and she flinched at the dark look he sent her.

  “It is pitch-black outside,” he said. “You are not walking the streets alone. What kind of man would I be if I let you wander the street in the dark alone?”

  “A dead one,” Wolf said from the bed. “Emily, Hawk is walking you home. Don’t argue with your Doms.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” Emily replied, smiling. He had called himself and Hawk her Doms. That was a good sign. It meant that he wasn’t going to reject her again. Not right now anyway, but if experience had taught her anything, Wolf ran hot and cold.

  Hawk wacked on some pants and had shown her the way to the door. She had to wear her high heels, and so the walk back to the bakery had been slow and she had to hold on to Hawk’s arm for support. They had talked the whole way home, about anything and everything, but neither one had mentioned the auction and what had come after it.

  The kiss Hawk had planted on her once he had walked her inside her apartment had been sweet and gentle and held none of the passion from inside the club, but that didn’t make it any less amazing. It left her sighing, something she had been doing ever since.

  Hawk had made her promise to meet them back at his place for lunch and Emily had quickly agreed. She needed to know what happened next and what they expected of her, and she had some expectations of her own.

  So here she was, sighing and kneading her dough to take to impress them and falling further and further behind on today’s prep. She still had the knot rolls to pull out of the proofer and the cannoli to fill, and she hadn’t even started on the meringue for the lemon tarts.

  Maybe she needed to call Caroline in, but she felt terrible calling her this early on her morning off. She could be snuggled up in bed with her mystery lover and Emily didn’t want to interrupt the little time they spent together. Maybe the guy was married and that’s why Caroline had to keep it a secret. How horrible for Caroline. How horrible for the wife.

  Emily pulled her thought back to the problem at hand. Caroline’s possible philandering lover was a thought for another time. If she didn’t call Caroline in then she might be late in opening. She had a reputation to protect and a business to run, so Emily made the decision. She pulled her mobile from her pocket and dialed Caroline’s number and waited for her to pick up.

  The conversation was brief and Caroline promised to shower and be at the bakery as soon as possible. She placed her phone back into her pocket and went back to work. She needed to stop mooning over two hot ex-marines and put her head back where it belonged.

  Emily put her dough in the loaf pan and placed it in the proofer to rise. She moved to the cool room to get the ingredients for the cannoli filling and carried them back to the bench. Emily quickly went back for the empty shells and returned to her spot.

  She had just placed the tray of shells on the bench when an enormous crash rang through her quiet shop. Emily squealed in fright. It sounded like the whole front window had exploded. The smashing of glass was a sound that was easily recognizable.

  Emily picked up her rolling pin and held it up as a weapon. Just in case, she told herself and slowly made her way to the front of the shop. She peeked around the doorway and into the dark interior of the shop front. She could see the broken, shattered window, but the shop itself appeared empty.

  Emily sucked in a depth breath and reached around the doorway and flicked the switch. The room flooded with light and Emily peeked her head in once more. It was empty, so she slowly made her way around the counter and closer to the broken window.

  She was acting like a coward, but she didn’t care. Brandishing her rolling pin, Emily looked over the damage to her shop. The whole front window was shattered and sharp broken bits of glass were scattered over the floor.

  Her insurance would cover it, but she would still lose a day’s sales until it was fixed. How had it happened? Emily looked around the floor for evidence and spotted a large rock near her counter. It had paper tied to it with string and Emily wasn’t sure whether to touch it or not.

  “What the hell happened here?” Caroline asked, walking from the back of the bakery. Emily looked up at her friend. She wore a stunned look of shock, and Emily knew it probably matched her own shocked face.

  “Someone threw a rock through my window,” Emily told her. “It’s over by the counter. I don’t know if I should touch it or not.”

  “Why would someone do that?” Caroline asked. “That is a horrible thing to do.”

  “I believe that someone has it in for me,” she replied.

  “What are you talking about?” Emily looked at the destruction on her floor and then back at her friend. She didn’t know about the sugar incident or the cinnamon or the milk.

  “Let me call the sheriff’s office,” she said. “Then I’ll fill you in.”

  Emily pulled her phone from her pocket and dialed the number for the sheriff. She quickly explained what happened and hung up. They were going to send over a deputy to make a report and collect evidence, so Emily was to sit tight.

  She wondered briefly if she should call Hawk and Wolf, but they would just make a big deal out of this and she didn’t want to start fighting with them. Their relationship was so new and she didn’t want Wolf using it as an excuse to shove her to the side again.

  The same could be said for her brothers. If she called them, they would probably move into her living room for protection or worse, try and force her to move back home.

  No, she was a big girl and could handle this on her own. She wasn’t some damsel in distress needing a man to take care of all her problems. She would make the report, and when the stores opened she would contact someone to get her window fixed. Everything would be handled and she’d still make her lunch date with Hawk and Wolf.

  “The rock has something on it,” Caroline said. “Don’t you want to know what it is?”

  “Yes,” she replied. “But it’s evidence and I didn’t want to tamper with it.”

  “I’d check,” Caroline said. “You know what the men in this town are like. If you don’t look now, you are likely to never find out. They would say they were just protecting you by not letting you see.”

  Caroline did have a point. The men of this town were crazy stubborn about stuff like that.

  “Fine,” Emily said. “Let’s do this.”

  “I’ll go grab some gloves,” Caroline said. “You know, like they do in those cop shows.”

  Emily waited while Caroline ran to the kitchen and grabbed some gloves. She slipped them on and gingerly made her way across the broken glass to the rock. She wasted no time picking it up and removing the rubber band holding the paper to it.

  Emily put the rock back down and took the paper over to Caroline and gently unfolded it. Two words were scribbled in messy writing across the plain white piece of paper.

  “Emi
ly?” Caroline asked. “What does it say?”

  “It says, Mine, Bitch,” Emily replied confused. What was theirs? She was obviously the bitch, but what could she have that someone else wanted? She had her bakery and her apartment and that was it.

  Whoever this person was, they were escalating in their attacks against Emily. She needed to start being more vigilant and pay more attention to what was going on around her. She would also start locking the door and maybe invest in some camera for the shop.

  She didn’t want to do it, but it looked like she was going to have to. She had always felt safe living in the middle of town and never saw any reason not to, but now she felt like her world was crashing around her and all because someone wanted something she had.

  Emily looked up as blue and red lights flashed through the broken window. The deputy had arrived and she would need to make statements and file another report.

  Emily sighed and this time it wasn’t a good sigh. She was tired and scared and wanted to be back in bed with Wolf and Hawk. That wasn’t going to happen anytime soon, so Emily turned and went to heat up the coffee machine. She was going to need a lot of it to get through today.

  * * * *

  Wolf ran down the back stairs of Silk Ties and through the back door. When Blake had rang and told him that someone had thrown a brick through Emily’s bakery window earlier that morning, he had gone into instant command mode. He barked orders at his staff and called for Hawk to prepare to leave.

  Unlocking his SUV, he jumped in and started the ignition. He honked the horn loudly and buckled himself in. Hawk was taking forever and it was grating on the little patients Wolf had left.

  Wolf honked impatiently again. Hawk needed to hurry or he was going to leave him behind. All he had needed to do was chuck on a pair of boots and haul his ass down the stairs.

  Why hadn’t Emily called them straight away? It wasn’t because he hadn’t had time to lay down the rules yet. She should know town policy concerning women and their safety. Therefore, she should have known to call them straight after the sheriff.

  If she hadn’t called them, then she should have called her brothers. He knew that wasn’t likely to have happened. Emily was too damned independent. That was going to have to change.

  She had gone to that auction to grab his attention and force him into a relationship or lose her. Well, she had his attention and as his submissive and his woman, she needed to play by the rules. His rules—and when it came to her safety, it was non-negotiable.

  Hawk finally came out the backdoor and jumped into the passenger seat. He threw the SUV into drive and took off toward the bakery.

  “Settle down, Wolf,” Hawk said, “or you are going to wreck.”

  Wolf didn’t bother to answer, but did give him a look that suggested Hawk should know better. Wolf never had accidents. Even under heavy fire and surrounded by the enemy, Wolf had always been able to remain in control of his vehicle and get his unit to safety. He wasn’t about to endanger innocent lives now.

  “What was Emily thinking?” Hawk asked. “She should have called us. This has to be related to the sugar incident.”

  “We don’t know the details yet,” Wolf replied. “But it looks that way. Someone has it out for Emily and we need to know why. Once I find the little bastard, he is going to regret his actions.”

  Wolf may have pushed Emily away and he may have said some harsh words to do it, but that didn’t mean that he hadn’t cared. Even if last night had never happened, Wolf would still try and find who was out to mess with Emily and take the bastard down.

  No one touched what was his. Not if they wanted to live, and Emily had always been his. He just didn’t want to admit it. He had pushed her away so she didn’t get hurt, but he could see that had been a mistake. She still might get hurt when she discovered what he was really like and what he would expect of her as his submissive.

  He had been running away from his attraction to her, but last night had forced him to open his eyes. She was willing to go to extreme lengths to change his mind and he was proud of her. Oh, he wouldn’t let her get away with that kind of behavior in the future, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t delighted by her actions last night.

  He had thought she would run screaming her safe word the moment he started to redden her full bottom, but she hadn’t and had even let him cuff her to the wall and fuck her senseless. He hadn’t gone easy on her at all. He had taken his pleasure and demanded hers in return, and Hawk had been just as hard and demanding as he was.

  Wolf pulled the SUV into a free space and they both exited. He didn’t wait to hear the locks click into place, but just took off toward the bakery. He could see the damage to the window as he approached. It had been boarded up, but one whole panel of glass had been knocked out.

  Hawk opened the unlocked front door despite the closed sign hanging in the window and they both entered. The shop front was empty, but he could hear the radio playing in the kitchen out back.

  “Emily,” he called. He didn’t want to walk into the kitchen and scare her. “You back there.”

  “Yes,” she replied. “I’m in the kitchen.”

  He followed Hawk into the kitchen and watched his friend pull Emily into his arms. Emily didn’t hesitate and fell against Hawk, burying her face in his chest.

  “Are you okay, babe?” Hawk asked. “You didn’t get hurt?”

  “No,” she replied. “I was in the back kitchen when it happened. Scared me though.”

  “Why didn’t you call us?” Wolf asked, walking closer and pulling her from Hawk’s embrace. He turned her to face him and looked down into her hazel eyes. They were red-rimmed from crying and it made Wolf angry. He didn’t like to see her upset.

  “I handled it myself,” she said. “Caroline was here and we called the sheriff and they boarded up the window for us.”

  Wolf pulled her into his arms when tears started to fall from her eyes. She felt so right in his arms and he wanted to hold her forever, but now wasn’t the time to explore those feelings.

  “Emily,” he said. “Last night you came to the auction and all but demanded to be our submissive. Am I correct?”

  “Yes,” she replied, pulling back and looking up at him. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “That means you want a relationship with us as well?” he asked. “And all the rights and privileges that go with it?”

  “Of course,” she answered. “I thought you understood that.”

  “Kitten,” he said. “I think the person that doesn’t understand is you.”

  “Hey?” she asked, confusion in her eyes.

  “If you are committed to a relationship with Hawk and me, as well as being our submissive, you should have called us immediately. It is our right and privilege to not only see to your protection and safety, but your happiness as well. We can’t do that, if you don’t let us help you when things go wrong.”

  “We know you like to be independent,” Hawk added. “But we are possessive men and we protect what’s ours. We don’t want to take away that independence, but we want you to lean on one us when things go bad as well as good.”

  “Oh,” Emily said. “I thought you wanted me to call you because of the whole town rule about women needing men to look after them.”

  That was part of it, Wolf thought. It was the reason she should have called them and her brothers as well. She was a woman living alone and it was dangerous despite what she thought.

  “Emily, tell me exactly what happened,” he demanded using his best commander’s voice.

  “I was working in the kitchen when a rock came through the window,” she told them. “I grabbed my rolling pin and went to investigate. They were gone, but the rock had a message tied to it.”

  “Emily,” Wolf said groaning. “Please tell me you didn’t go out there alone.”

  “Okay,” Emily replied. “I won’t.”

  Wolf felt himself growl at her response and was about to reprimand her when Hawk spoke.
>
  “What did the note say?” Hawk asked. Wolf wanted to know that himself.

  “It said ‘Mine Bitch,’” she told them. “I have no idea what they are talking about, though. I don’t have anything that someone else would want. Not that bad anyway.”

  Hawk smiled at her and Wolf could see the mischief in his eyes.

  “Yes you do, babe,” he told her. “You have us.”

  It certainly was convenient that the note was thrown through her window the morning after Wolf and Hawk had spent the night with Emily. There was only one person vicious and vindictive enough in Wolf’s mind to do something like this.

  “Candy,” was all Wolf said, and Hawk turned to him.

  “Candy?” Hawk asked. “Do you think she would go to these extremes?”

  “Yes,” he replied. “She has been known to do nasty things in the past.”

  If Candy did have anything to do with this, Wolf would make sure she was removed from the town and banned from every BDSM club in Montana and the surrounding states.

  “Just ask poor Holly,” Emily put in. “But I saw her at the auction last night.”

  “Did Cole tell you who won her?” Hawk asked. “She should have spent the night with them.”

  “But only until the end of the auction,” Wolf replied. “The window wasn’t broken until this morning.”

  Wolf would have to look into it. Until then Emily would be staying where they could keep a close eye on her. She wouldn’t like it, but she’d do it anyway. She had accepted them as her Doms, and it was about time he laid down his rules. If she balked, he would tie her to his bed and redden her ass until she relented.

  “Pack your things, Emily,” he said. “You will be staying with us until the threat has been eliminated.”

  “I can’t leave the bakery,” she replied. “I have the window guy coming and work to catch up on.”

  “Emily, as our woman—” he said, but she cut him off.

  “I will come over as soon as I’m finished here. I promise, but I have responsibilities and I can’t just leave them.”

  “I’ll stay here and help her pack when her work is done,” Hawk told him. “I’m not needed at the club until tonight.”