“Adam Sinclair, Mr. Rand,” he said, reaching around her to shake the old man’s hand. “Yes, I’m the one who called. Thank you for agreeing to see us today.”
Sarah turned away from the man she’d only known as “Po” and looked at Adam, puzzled. “Adam, you…?”
“Sorry, sweet pea, I know I’m way out of line here, but you needed to know what happened to everyone who disappeared after your mother died. You need to close the circle. I located Mr. Rand, here, and asked if he would mind seeing you.”
“Please call me Paul. Naturally, I said I would be delighted,” the elderly man assured Sarah. “It’s not every day I get such fine company. When your husband, here, told me you never knew what happened to us, I couldn’t believe your father hadn’t told you. Both Pa and I got jobs on a horse farm in Kentucky the very next day after the Judge let us go. Best thing that ever happened to me, ’cause that’s where I met my wife, Annabelle.”
As if on cue, an attractive woman, considerably younger than Po, probably in her midfifties, emerged from the house carrying a tray filled with tall, frosty glasses of lemonade and a delicious-looking golden-brown bundt cake, drizzled with lemon glaze and sprinkled with confectioner’s sugar.
“Oh, here, Mrs. Rand, allow me.” Immediately Adam stepped forward to take the tray from her hands. He carried it over and set it on the round, cloth-covered wicker table at one end of the porch.
“Why, thank you, young man, how kind.”
“My pleasure, ma’am.”
“Annie,” Po said proudly, “this here is Miss Sarah, the old judge’s daughter, and her husband…”
“Adam Sinclair,” Adam supplied without correcting him, taking Annabelle Rand’s hand and lifting it to his lips. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Rand.”
“Aren’t you a dear,” she said, a deep blush pinkening her flawless café-au-lait skin. “But, please, call me Annabelle.” She was dressed in slacks and a cotton blouse, with comfortable-looking, low-heeled shoes on her feet. “Come sit down,” she said, indicating the four chairs placed around the table. “Let’s have some refreshment while we catch up.”
They all sat as Annabelle served generous slices of her homemade lemon curd cake, still warm from the oven. “It’s such a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Sinclair,” she said, smiling at Sarah as she handed her a plate full of cake.
“Please,” Sarah admonished before she could finish, not bothering to correct their assumption that Adam was her husband. Because, after tonight, in a way, he would be. “Call me Sarah.”
“Miss Sarah,” the older woman insisted, “my husband and father-in-law have talked about you often. About what a sweet child you were, and how much you loved to help them groom the horses from the time you were just a toddler.”
“I loved being in the barn,” Sarah agreed around a bite of delicious lemon-flavored cake with a lemon curd filling. “I loved the smell of hay and the sounds the horses made. Sometimes Sam’l would play the fiddle and Po—I mean, Paul—I mean your husband—”
Everyone laughed. “You can still call me Po, child,” he assured her.
“Well, Po would play the harmonica and I would dance for them.” She laughed. “I had just started taking ballet lessons and I had my entire life planned out. I was going to be the next Anna Pavlova and take the dance world by storm.” Her eyes shone with the memory. “I was three.”
At everyone’s laughter, she turned to Po. “And how is your father? Well, I hope.”
“Oh, he’s just fine,” Po said with a laugh. “He’s in Aruba—on his honeymoon with wife number five! He’s eighty-two and walks better than I do.” He grimaced as he gestured toward his lap. “Hip replacement two months ago.”
“Only two months!” Sarah exclaimed. “You’re walking extremely well, then.”
“Oh, I do my physical therapy every day.”
“When I make him,” Annabelle laughed. “Samuel will be so sorry to hear he missed your visit today, Miss Sarah,” she went on graciously. “He thought the world of you. He always felt real bad about not bein’ able to say good-bye to you.”
As they ate and talked and laughed, Sarah felt the tight knot of guilt she’d unwittingly carried around for so many years start to loosen its tangled threads. As her soul eased, she stole a glance at Adam, to find him watching her carefully. Thank you, she mouthed silently.
The smile she gave him sent his heart soaring with relief, and he answered it with one of his own. Thank God, she wasn’t angry with him for snooping into her private life. He’d taken a huge risk going behind her back to find Paul and Samuel Rand. And an even greater risk by bringing her here. This could very easily have turned into a goat-fuck of major proportions. Grabbing her hand, he lifted it to his lips before placing it on his thigh and covering it with his own.
Paul and Annabelle Rand looked at each other and grinned. “Mother, I believe we have us a pair of newlyweds here,” Po said.
“You’re just now figurin’ that out?” his wife asked incredulously, with a wink at Sarah as she stood to clear the table.
Sarah’s smile faded as she turned back to Po. “Do you know what happened to the horses?” she asked.
“I do,“ Adam said, taking her hands in his. “Hyperion won the bronze medal in the cross country event at the Sydney Olympics; he lives on a farm in upstate New York. Gadfly is retired and lives near Roanoke. Her owners say you can come visit her any time you want.”
She stared at him in awe. “How do you know all this?”
He shrugged. “I’m an investigator. I investigated.”
“And Princess? Do you know what happened to her?”
Adam’s smile was so broad, his face could hardly contain it. “That, my love, is part of today’s surprise,” he said, sliding sideways out of his chair and pulling her up out of hers.
Sarah‘s eyes widened. “She’s here? Princess is here?” She couldn’t contain the bubble of joy welling up inside her.
Paul and Annabelle Rand both laughed as they stood to join them. “She’s right out back,” Po said. “When the broker came that day to pick up the horses, he didn’t want a fat little pony, so Pa and I just sort of…” he scratched his head. “Well, I guess you could say we stole her.” He gave a cackling laugh. “Just stole her right out from under your father’s nose! We’re horse thieves! You hear that, Annie? You’re married to a horse thief!”
“Shush!” Annabelle hissed, elbowing him in the ribs. “You just hush up with that kind of talk. You’re no thief, Paul Rand. You never stole a thing in your life.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it, Mrs. Rand,” Adam said as he and Sarah joined in the infectious laughter. “I doubt the judge will be pressing any charges.”
“Annabelle,” the woman repeated graciously as she led the way down the steps, heading around toward the back of the house.
“We just couldn’t bear to think of her goin’ to the glue factory,” the old man continued, as they climbed an old, rutted cart track that led up the hill behind the house, going slowly so he could keep up, “so we stole a trailer to put her in and took her with us to Kentucky. We told ourselves that since your Pa wasn’t gonna have horses no more, he didn’t need the trailer no more neither. A year later, we sent a letter to him, tellin’ him where Princess was, but we never heard back, so we just kept her. Our new employer’s children and grandchildren loved riding her.”
They crested the rise and Sarah saw a large, fenced-in pasture sloping down away from them, surrounded by cornfields. And standing there, placidly munching hay about twenty feet from the weathered wooden fence was a Shetland pony. Tears stung Sarah’s eyes. “Hello, Princess,” she said softly and the pony’s head jerked up. Ears flicking, she pawed the ground, looking uncertainly at Sarah.
Po produced an apple from his overalls pocket and gave it to Sarah. She slipped through the slats in the fence and took a few steps into the field, holding out her hand. “Come here, girl,” she crooned. Whickering uncertainly, the pony continued to
stare at her. “It’s okay, Princess, it’s me.”
She wasn’t as fat as Sarah remembered, and she had quite a few gray hairs in her mane and muzzle but in all other respects she was the same. The pony broke into a trot, making a beeline toward Sarah and the apple. After lipping the fruit from Sarah’s hand, she butted her head against her side, like a big dog, practically knocking her off her feet. Laughing and crying at the same time, Sarah threw her arms around Princess’s neck and hugged her, patting her neck and kissing her face as the Shetland chewed noisily.
For the next half hour Adam and the Rands leaned on the fence, watching Sarah cavorting with her pony. When they finally left, the back seat of the Land Rover was piled high not only with shopping bags full of clothes and shoes, but also half a dozen bushel baskets filled with sweet corn, tomatoes, snap beans, yellow squash, okra, lettuce, radishes, carrots, and cucumbers, all freshly picked from the Rands’ bountiful garden.
Sarah was silent until they reached the end of the long, rutted driveway and Adam pulled out onto the blacktop country road. Then she turned to him, eyes filled with happiness. “Thank you.”
“You’re not angry with me?” he asked uncertainly. “For sticking my nose into your private affairs, and going behind your back?”
“No. I probably should be, but I’m not. You only did it to help me. And you did help me. You saved me from a lifetime of doubt and regret. There’s no way I‘ll ever be able to repay you for what you’ve given me today.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively. “I’m pretty sure I can come up with something.”
She laughed. “Maybe we’d better stop by the emergency room on our way home and get my heart checked out. I’m not sure I’m going to survive this.”
* * * *
“Now where are we going?” she asked again nearly an hour later when it became obvious that they were headed east, toward Norfolk, and not toward home.
“Sidonie’s,” was his cryptic response.
“Who or what is a Sidonie?”
“Sidonie is a friend of ours who owns a specialty shop just outside of Norfolk. You’ll need clothes to wear when you’re not at work.”
She blushed. “I thought you guys were going to keep me naked,” she said, only half teasing.
“Only at home,” Adam chuckled. He wasn’t teasing at all. “Not to the grocery store or the movies or out to eat, or anywhere else we need to go.”
“I have enough jeans and tops to get by for a while.”
“No jeans,” Adam said firmly. “We want easy access to all parts of that delectable body of yours.”
There was that we again. And the reminder that her body was no longer her own. Goose bumps slithered down her spine, making her shiver. Her jeans were soaked and there was no hope of hiding the scent of her arousal. It pervaded every inch of the space she occupied. Holy Moley, what was she doing? She was about to become the willing sexual toy of two Dominant Alpha males. Did she really want this? What could she possibly be thinking? How could she possibly go through with this?
She was just about to voice her concern when Adam pulled in between two old brick warehouses and parked. The ornate metal sign on one of the buildings said simply, Sidonie’s.
In addition to an astounding array of short, sexy dresses, skirts, tops, and lingerie, Sidonie’s also sold a wide variety of corsets and fetish outfits made of both latex and leather. The upstairs of her two-story shop featured a vast selection of floggers, whips, canes, spreader bars, dildos, and other instruments of erotic torture, all arranged in artful patterns on the walls, like the shields and weapons adorning the walls of Medieval castles.
Sidonie herself was a statuesque Dominatrix dressed in black, thigh-high PVC platform boots with six-inch stiletto heels, a black thong and a black leather shelf bra that held up her ample breasts like two ripe melons on a platter. In her hand she held a thin, whippy riding crop. When she saw Adam, she let out a high squeal and clomped over to greet him, her fleshy breasts undulating like waves on a pond.
Adam extricated himself from the woman’s exuberant hug and pulled Sarah forward. “Sarah, this is Mistress Sidonie Lavallier. She and her husband, Michel, own this shop as well as the bondage club next door.”
Mistress Sidonie held Sarah by the shoulders as she ran an assessing eye quickly up and down her body. Boldly Sarah did a little assessing of her own. The woman’s lips and grotesquely long fingernails were bloodred. Her shiny, coal-black hair was pulled back so tight, it seemed to tug the corners of her green eyes upward, giving her sharp-featured face an almost feline appearance. Her black eyebrows were penciled on, her skin was smooth and unwrinkled, her expression hard and severe. It was impossible to guess her age.
Placing the tip of the riding crop against Sarah’s cheek, Mistress Sidonie circled her slowly, stroking the folded leather flap down her neck, across her collar bones, then around and between her breasts, before giving her nipples a couple of light slaps that left Sarah’s flesh tingling. “Vous,” she barked, snapping her fingers sharply. “Tournez-vous. Maintenant!” When Sarah hesitated, the dominatrix slapped the crop against her hip. “Se penchez et s’emparer des vos chevilles. Montrez-moi votre âne!”
What? Show my what?
“Turn around, love, and bend over, hands around your ankles,” Adam translated unnecessarily. Sarah had minored in French in college and had no difficulty understanding every word. She simply hadn’t believed her ears.
Red-faced with humiliation, she bent forward, mortified to feel the older woman’s hand stroking the curves of her buttocks. She was extremely glad she was wearing jeans and not a skirt. Otherwise this stranger’s hand would be on her bare ass. Holy Moley!
“Cette fille d’esclave est très belle, Adam,” the Dominatrix finally pronounced in a voice almost as catlike as her appearance. Sort of a cross between a plaintive meow and a nasal purr. “Mais elle a besoin d’apprendre le comportement correcte. Est-elle le votre?”
“Elle n’est pas esclave, Maitresse, ” Adam corrected her. “Néanmoins, elle appartiens à Jess et a moi. Present, Sarah.”
Sarah straightened and assumed the subservient position.
“Ah, je vous l’envie.” Mistress Sidonie stroked a hand tipped with those lethal-looking, two-inch-long, red-lacquered fingernails down Sarah’s arm. It took all her effort not to flinch. “J’aimerais l’emprunter quelques temps.”
Whoa! Sarah stiffened. This woman wanted to borrow her? As if she were a library book or—or—a torque wrench?
“Avec votre permission, bien sur,” Mistress Sidonie continued in that throaty purr.
Sarah sucked in her breath, getting ready to speak, but Adam’s hand on her shoulder kept her silent. He sketched a slight bow and shook his head regretfully. “Je suis désolé, Maitresse. Nous ne partageons pas nos jouets.”
Oh, thank God! Sarah breathed a sigh of relief. They weren’t going to turn her over to this hard-looking woman, who was eyeing her as if she were lunch.
“Moi aussi, je suis désolé.” Mistress Sidonie’s disappointment was evident in her face as she continued to look Sarah up and down, before turning her head and hollering, “Yvette!”
A young black woman approached, wearing nothing but a studded leather collar around her neck and similar cuffs around her wrists and ankles. She assumed the Present position and lowered her head, looking at the floor. Her satin-smooth skin was the color of rich milk chocolate. Her large, pointy nipples were swollen and nearly purple from the equally-large clamps pinching them. A heavy silver chain swung back and forth between them.
After listening to the rapid-fire instructions from her Domme, Yvette lifted her head and smiled at Sarah. “Please come with me,” she said and started walking toward the rear of the store. Startled, Sarah followed her past racks of clothing to the dressing rooms that occupied the back wall of the store. “Please undress,” the girl said, ushering her inside one of the cubicles. “I will bring Master Adam’s selections in for you
to try on.”
Master Adam’s selections! Sarah gulped. Holy Moley! He’d already chosen her entire work wardrobe. Apparently he and Jesse were never going to allow her to pick out her own clothes anymore! Biting her lip, she stood frozen to the spot, feeling suddenly lost and uncertain. Could she really go through with this? Could she really give herself to two very large, very dangerous ex-Navy SEALs who would demand nothing less than her total surrender? Could she continue down this road and still retain even a glimmer of herself?
She took a steadying breath. Okay, okay, no need to panic. There’s still time to back out. She was about to turn and run when the door opened. Adam stood there, his arms piled high with colorful dresses. His gaze met hers in the mirror and his smile faded instantly. Throwing the garments on the bench, he stepped inside. Without a word, he pulled her into his arms.
It didn’t even occur to her to resist. And when she realized that, she knew she was lost. She knew she belonged to two hot, sexy men, body, heart, and soul. With a sigh, she leaned against him, putting her arms around his waist, resting her cheek against his chest.
For a long time, he just held her, rocking her gently back and forth. “Having second thoughts, sweet pea?” he finally asked. At her jerky nod, he sighed. “I was afraid of that. I told Jess we were pushing you too fast.” Holding her by her upper arms, he sat on the bench, scooting the dresses over with his hip as he pulled her to stand between his legs. His warm hands slid down her arms to grab her ice-cold ones, shaking them gently. “You don’t have to decide this today, sweetheart. We’re not going to force you to do anything you’re not ready for.”
“It’s not that.” She looked at him, her eyes flickering with the chaotic turbulence of her emotions. “In five days, my entire world’s been turned upside down. I’ve gone from being in total charge of my life to being in charge of”—she gave a shaky little laugh—“well, nothing. Everything’s changed so much, including me. Especially me. I’m not the same person I was before.”
Loving Sarah (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 25