by Leah Brooke
Ryder’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully, his hands clenching into fists on the table. “So that’s why you want to take those seminars—to please a man who cares about nothing but coming?”
Alison waved a hand dismissively and reached for another fry. “That’s all of them. Look, this is none of your business. Just fix my truck so I can be ready to leave when I have to.”
The men she’d met since coming to Desire just reminded her of her own shortcomings and made her more determined than ever to learn what she needed to in order to have the upper hand in her next relationship.
Damn, she really wanted that beer now.
Dillon slammed his beer mug down on the table, drawing the attention of the men watching the game. He clenched his jaw and waited until the others looked away again, bending low.
“You made it my business when you came on to me in the hotel parking lot. Aren’t you looking for someone to practice on while you’re here?”
She hadn’t thought it possible for her face to burn any hotter, but she’d been wrong. Sneaking a glance at him, she reached for her ginger ale, forgetting that she’d already finished it.
Each second of the long silence that followed strung her nerves tighter and tighter.
When Dillon finally spoke, his voice low and intimate, she couldn’t quite hide her shiver.
“I think you’re lying to yourself. There’s nothing wrong with having needs, Alison.”
She had to get out of here. Pushing against him, she kept her eyes lowered. “I already told you that I made a mistake. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
With a firm, but gentle touch, Dillon settled her back in her seat. “Stop jumping around before you hurt yourself.”
Dropping her head in her hands, she wondered what her chances were of getting out of this booth anytime on the near future. “I wasn’t thinking. I’d taken the medication, and my brain went on vacation. I just wish my mouth had done the same.”
Looking up through her fingers, she nearly groaned at the looks of intense interest on both of their faces. She didn’t want to interest them. She thought they’d be bored out of their minds by now and would have moved on to someone easier, someone less…damaged.
Knowing that interest would never last, she straightened and placed a hand on Dillon’s forearm, trying not to notice the hard muscle shifting beneath her fingers. Snatching her hand away, she unobtrusively rubbed her tingling palm against her thigh.
“Please let me out. Call me at the hotel when you know how much it’ll cost to fix my truck.”
She didn’t know what she’d do if it cost more than what she had in her checking account.
Dillon didn’t budge. After shooting a look at a stone-faced Ryder, he frowned down at her. “You’re not planning on making that offer to anyone else, are you?”
The rough edge of fury in his tone made it clear what he thought of that.
Not about to let either one of them intimidate her, well, not about to let either one of them know they intimidated her, she sighed and fisted her hands on the table, inwardly wincing when she saw that she’d shredded her napkin into tiny little pieces. She kept her attention on the paper, her hands shaking as she gathered it into a little pile. “I keep telling you that this is none of your business. Let me out. I want to go back to the hotel.”
Ryder sat forward, capturing her hand in his and folding his around it. “Look at it this way. You have the chance to have two willing, able-bodied men to practice all of your new sexual talents on.”
Lifting her chin, Alison glared at him, trying not to imagine what it would be like to have Dillon and Ryder letting her have her way with them.
She liked them, damn it, despite her determination not to. She’d already fallen under the spell of Dillon’s tender strength and knew in her heart that he would make the perfect lover. Even now, with his thigh touching hers and his hand caressing a wide pattern on her back, her entire body tingled with awareness, and she had to fight her desire to lean against him.
Damn, he drew her, his chest and arms strong and inviting. She found herself having to make a conscious effort to resist him.
Swallowing heavily, she licked her dry lips, drawing a deep breath and working up her courage before glancing at Ryder. Catching the hard glint in his eyes and his knowing grin, she yanked her hand out of Dillon’s and reached for her purse, cursing when she realized she’d left it in the hotel room. Grabbing her jacket, she looked for a way out.
“I don’t appreciate being made fun of. I already told you I made a mistake. Just leave it at that.”
Dillon shot a warning look at Ryder. “No one’s making fun of you, Alison. We take pleasure very seriously here in Desire, but even if it doesn’t appear that way to outsiders, we value honesty and fidelity even more. The women at the men’s club are available for the men who are members, and we take a lot of pride in being able to sexually fulfill them. The women love it because they’re protected and get to live out their fantasies. In the women’s club they sometimes have men there that the women can experiment on and try out all the new things they’re learning.”
Alison nodded quickly, wanting this conversation to be over. “That’s fine then. If I need to practice, I’ll do that.”
Ryder sat forward, his grin gone. “No. You won’t.”
Alison raised a brow at his arrogance. “Again, none of your business.”
Shooting his friend another one of those looks, Dillon shook his head before his expression cleared, and he smiled down at her. “Wouldn’t it be better to let us help you? We can guide you, and you’d have two men to give you the attention you could never get there. We’ll be available and willing to answer all your questions.”
Looking from one to the other, Alison narrowed her eyes, not trusting them at all. “Why?”
Ryder grinned. “I’d love to get my hands on you. And my mouth. I’ll bet you’re as sweet as pie. I’d like to get my mouth on that soft pussy. Once I did, you’d want more. We could take you together and give you more pleasure than you ever dreamed of.”
Butterflies took flight in her stomach at the thought of those wide shoulders between her legs, that silky brown hair tickling her inner thighs. Not wanting him to know how his words affected her or how the erotic intent in his sparkling green eyes sent her pulse racing, she struggled to keep her face blank.
“I thought you preferred to go to the club and beat up on women.”
Ryder’s brows went up. “Beat up on a woman? Are you nuts? Honey, any pain I give a woman is designed for pleasure.”
Alison smiled sarcastically, while her insides twisted. “Pain for pleasure. That’s a good one. I’ll pass.”
Rubbing her shoulder, Dillon tilted her face to his, the hard glint of fury in his eyes sending a chill down her spine. “Even though you don’t know us very well, I’d hoped you understood us better than that. Beating a woman is inexcusable. That’s not the kind of pain we’re talking about. Haven’t you ever played in the bedroom? Experimented?”
God, she’d wanted to, but Danny got insulted the one time she mentioned it and accused her of criticizing him, which she found rather ironic.
Going on instinct, and lost in the tender indulgence in Dillon’s eyes, she told them the truth. “I wouldn’t know where to begin.”
Running his thumb over her bottom lip, Dillon stared into her eyes, his smile tender and amused. “There’s no such thing as doing it wrong. What works for some people won’t work for others. That’s the fun of learning your partner.” His voice dropped, almost as though he was thinking out loud.
“You experiment and over time learn another person as well as you know yourself, that is, when you’re with a person you care about—someone more than a one-night stand.” Shaking his head, he released her and sat back, reaching for his beer. “A big part of that is play. Anytime there’s something you’d like, all you have to do is say so, but I don’t want you worrying about that now.”
Pushing the mug aside wit
Ryder reached out a hand and trailed it down her arm to her hand, which he cradled in his in an affectionate move she never would have expected from him. “I would love to teach you how to play. There’s no reason to be embarrassed, although I love to watch you blush. My cock is hard as a rock just knowing that we’d be the first to show you that part of sex. Tell me something, Ally. Have you ever been spanked?”
The low, deep cadence of his tone seduced her into leaning closer, until the meaning of his words penetrated the sensual fog.
Yanking her hand from his, she licked her lips and reached for her empty glass, shifting in her seat as Ryder yelled an order for refills over his shoulder.
When he turned back, his eyes no longer glittered, remaining flat and assessing.
“So, Ally, you never played before. Wouldn’t you like to know what it feels like to be spanked?”
Lifting her chin, she caught several of the men at the bar looking her way, one in particular eyeing her strangely. Uncomfortable at the interest, which seemed more suspicious than romantic, she automatically turned toward Dillon.
“I’ve been spanked before. Once. It hurt. I didn’t speak to my daddy for days, and he never did it again.”
Dillon’s eyes danced with amusement.
“That’s not the kind of spanking I’m talking about. In Desire, a spanking is punishment for a woman who disobeys her men or jeopardizes her safety.”
At a call from the bar, Ryder slid out of the booth and leaned over the table. “Spankings are also a form of play. The only difference is that with the punishment spanking, you won’t get to come.”
He walked away before she could respond and came back only seconds later with fresh drinks.
“Well?”
Alison snorted inelegantly, taking the drink from Ryder with a murmured thanks and ripping the paper from the straw. “Nice. Beat up on your women.”
Ryder leaned closer and pushed her drink aside before sliding his hands up her arms and slowly pulling her toward him until their noses almost touched. His hooded eyes held a decadent danger she wished she had the courage to explore.
“Darlin’, if I had your naked ass—”
With a gasp, she looked around to make sure no one had overheard and tried to pull away. “Naked?”
He held her easily, his grin pure sin. “Naked. If I had your naked ass over my lap and spanked you, I wouldn’t let you up until you were drenched with your own juices and begging me to fuck you. We don’t give spankings to hurt. They’re designed as a reminder of who’s in charge.”
“In charge?” Alison pulled her arms from his grip and huddled into the corner of the booth. Crossing her arms over her chest, she rubbed them against the sudden chill.
“You men are all the same. Bullies and always having to be in charge. That’s one of the reasons I’m taking the seminars. Women who are good at sex have men eating out of their hands. Men are pigs. Just because you’re bigger—”
Dillon leaned over her, crowding her space. “And stronger. We protect our women. We can’t do that unless we’re in control. Face it, Alison, in general, men are better equipped to protect women than the other way around. It doesn’t have anything to do with not respecting women. It’s because we absolutely cherish our women that we’re so determined to protect them. No matter what it costs, or how much we have to argue about it. A woman’s safety is very important to men here.”
Astounded at the passion and caring in his tone, she looked over at Ryder to see him nodding, his expression somber.
Wrinkling her nose, she laughed. “Yeah, well, maybe hundreds of years ago—”
Sitting back in his seat, Ryder nodded once, looking very much like she pictured an outlaw from the old west would look. From his long hair, to his sharp, unwavering gaze, to his long, lean build, he would look right at home with a six-gun on his hip.
“The laws of this town were created over a hundred years ago, with women in mind. Those women appreciated the protection, especially when the lack of women out here made it almost necessary for men to share their women.”
Stunned, Alison turned to Dillon for confirmation, her jaw dropping when he nodded.
“Are you saying that—?”
Reaching for his beer, Dillon inclined his head.
“This town was founded by two brothers who loved the same woman. They didn’t want her to be subjected to ridicule, so they used their poker winnings to buy this whole place. They lived here with her, and since they were the bosses, they could make any damned rules they wanted. Women were scarce, and they made it possible for men to share them, but it only worked if the women were protected. Hell, women wouldn’t have even dreamed of coming out to a place so primitive if they hadn’t been assured they would be protected.”
“What about love?” Stunned at what had just popped out of her mouth, she waved her hand and reached for her drink. “Forget I said that. I don’t know where that came from. Blame it on the lingering effects of medication and exhaustion.”
Gripping her chin between his thumb and forefinger, Dillon leaned in closer. “You’ll never find men who love their women as deeply as the men in Desire do. Our women are the most important things in the world to us, and we’d do anything to make them happy.”
Alison tried to pull out of his grip, but couldn’t. “Yeah, like spanking them.”
Dillon shrugged. “If necessary. It keeps them safe. A woman would think twice about doing something that may put her in danger if she knows her husband, or husbands, would put her over their laps for it.”
“Excuse me.”
Startled, Alison looked up to find a man standing next to their table, the man who’d been sitting at the bar and staring at her suspiciously.
As tall as Ryder, he had the same black hair as the bartender, but instead of blue eyes, his were a deep, dark chocolate brown. The trace of concern in his smile made her uneasy.
Taking her hand in his, he shot a look at Dillon, one that Alison couldn’t hope to understand. “Hello, my name’s Devlin Monroe. I hate to interrupt your conversation, but I really need to speak with Dillon or Ryder for a minute.”
Smiling her most winning smile, one she hoped didn’t look as fake as it was, she ignored Dillon and Ryder’s dirty looks. “Hi, I’m Alison. Do you think you could help me get out of this booth? These two don’t seem to understand that I need to go.”
Devlin shook his head, releasing her hand. “I’m sorry. Dillon and Ryder are good men and wouldn’t hurt you for the world. If they did, I’d get involved and gladly beat the hell out of them or anyone else who did.”
Ryder frowned. “Hey, Devlin. What the hell’s going on? What do you need to talk to us about?”
With another look at Ryder, Devlin turned away. “I’ll be at the bar.”
As soon as Devlin left, Ryder shared a look with Dillon. “I’ll go see what he wants and get us some more drinks.”
Alone with Dillon, Alison thought this might be her best chance of getting away. “Look, I really do want to go. I’m tired, and I want to get an early start in the morning. Do you know of anyone around here who’s hiring?”
Dillon’s brows went up, and although she could see he gave her his attention, he slid several glances toward the bar where Ryder and Devlin stood talking.
“So you’ve decided to stay here after all?”
Alison shrugged and looked to where Devlin stood next to the bar, working busily on his laptop, his face a mask of concentration. “No, I have to leave, but I didn’t count on the truck breaking down. I could use some money. I have a feeling the repairs are going to wipe out my account, and I’m going to need money to move on after…afterward.”
If she didn’t go to jail.
Dillon pushed his and Ryder’s empty glasses aside before eyeing her thoughtfully. “As a matter of fact, we’re hiring.”
Wary now, Alison glanced toward the bar where Ryder and Devlin were deep in conversation, getting a funny feeling in the pit of her stomach. It didn’t look like a friendly conversation, and she had a strange feeling they were talking about her.
“Hiring for what?”
Shrugging, Dillon gathered their now-empty baskets of food and stacked them. “For the garage. Ryder and I love working on just about any type of vehicle, but we hate doing paperwork. We have to stop working every time the phone rings, which can be a pain. You can work for us. You can deal with the phone, call in orders for parts, and help deal with filing away paperwork. Billing. Stuff like that.”
Not quite trusting him and a little concerned at the look on Ryder’s face, she shifted uncomfortably in her seat, suddenly finding it difficult to breathe.
“Are you serious about this, or are you playing with me?”
Dillon leaned close, sliding a finger under her chin, turning her attention from the two men at the bar to him. “If I was playing with you, Ally, you’d know it.”
His eyes narrowed, moving over her face. “What’s wrong with you? You’re really pale.”
Wanting nothing more than to get away from his scrutiny, she nudged him. “I have to go to the ladies room and put some cold water on my face. Let me out.”
Apparently distracted by Ryder’s loud curse, Dillon slid out of the booth, shooting Ryder a questioning look as he stepped aside.
Taking advantage of the fact that his attention had been diverted, she hurriedly slid out of the booth and started toward the back of the bar, surprised when the men watching the game cleared a path, moving aside and lifting their feet out of the way without any grumbling at all.
In fact they smiled at her.
Passing the bar, she looked up in time to see Ryder lift his head, the fury in his eyes unmistakable. She stumbled, catching herself before she fell and turned away, not wanting to see the pity she knew would follow.
He knew.
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