by Mari Carr
“No.” She grabbed roughly at his arm before he could swing again. “Colt, no.”
He looked down at the jerk on the floor. “You’re under arrest.”
The man stumbled to his feet, wiping blood away from his mouth. When he looked at Colt, his face was snarled with rage. “For what?”
“Assault and battery. Attempted rape.”
“Colt,” Kylie cried as the man laughed humorlessly.
“You can’t arrest me for any of that. She asked me to do it. She asked for it all.”
He drew back his arm to strike again, but she held tight. “Colt, I mean it. Stop now.” Her voice was stronger and it caused him to turn around. “What Scott said is true. Just let him go. I’m not pressing charges.”
“Kylie?” His heart felt lodged in his throat as he took in her tear-stained face.
“Let him go,” she repeated and Scott’s cold laugh assaulted his ears again.
“Told you so. She likes it rough. Don’t you, sweetheart?”
He turned so quickly Scott never saw it coming. Colt’s fist connected with his jaw and laid the man out yet again.
“Jesus Christ,” Scott shouted. “I’m the one who’s going to file for assault, you fucking asshole.”
“Get out.” The words came from between his clinched teeth and his fury was barely contained. The man must have sensed the danger as he gathered up his belt, jacket, and shoes and ran out of the room without another word.
She dragged in a shaky breath as she leaned back against the headboard and he watched tears form in her eyes.
“What the fuck just happened here?” He struggled to contain the rage that was clogging his chest.
She refused to meet his gaze or answer his question, so he repeated it as he dropped down to sit next to her on the bed. When she failed to answer a second time, he placed his hand on her chin and lifted her face until she had no choice but to look into his eyes.
“I’m not going to ask you again, darlin’.”
“It was a misunderstanding. Everything is fine now. Really. You look beat, Colt. Why don’t you go on to your room?”
“Are you crazy? Did you bump your head? I’m not going to bed until I get some goddamn answers.”
“Nothing happened here.” At his angry look, she seemed to rethink her words. “I mean, I think things just got a bit out of hand.”
“That man had you tied up and was beating the hell out of you, Kylie. I’d say things were more than a bit out of hand.”
“It was a mistake, that’s all.”
“He said you asked for that beating, but I happen to know for a fact, my best friend has more intelligence than that.”
She bit her lip and a tear escaped her lovely brown eyes before she could swipe it away.
“Aw hell, darlin’, please don’t cry. I’m right here and I won’t let that man touch you again, I swear it. I’m just trying to understand—”
“I did ask him for it.”
He studied her face for a moment, sure he’d heard her wrong.
“Look at me,” he demanded.
When she complied, he repeated her words in his question. “You asked him to beat the hell out of you?”
“No,” she cried, “of course not. We…we were starting to get intimate. He seemed like a decent man—” Colt snorted at her words, but she continued anyway. “I mean we’ve been going out for a few months and I thought I could trust him. He asked me what I liked…I mean in bed, and I told him—”
She stopped talking and tried to look away.
“You told him what?” He refused to let her escape and held tight to her chin, forcing her gaze to meet his.
“I told him I’ve always wanted to be tied up and spanked.” Her words were no more than a whisper, but they resonated in his head like a cannon.
“You didn’t like what he was doing, Kylie. Regardless of what you asked for, I’ve got eyes in my head and I know he was hurting you.”
She shuddered and closed her eyes tightly before responding. “You’re right,” she conceded. “I hated what he was doing. It hurt, but he wouldn’t stop, no matter how many times I asked him.”
“Then why the fuck didn’t you let me arrest the bastard?”
“Because I asked him to tie me up. Christ, can you see me sitting in front of one of your friends down at the precinct stating my case? I asked him to do that to me.”
Her tears fell freely now and his heart froze at the sight. He’d never seen her cry. Not in all their years together as roommates. She was a tomboy, to be sure, and was most at home in a room full of itching, cussing, drinking men. She watched football and hockey with the same rabid enthusiasm as him and her language would make a sailor blush. She owned one dress that he’d ever seen and she’d only worn that for a funeral. She’d never had a manicure and she cut her own hair, usually in a snit when it finally drove her so crazy she had no choice.
“Kylie, why?”
At his question, he watched her tears evaporate and the same tough exterior he’d grown used to reappear.
“I’m tired, Colt. I think I’m going to go to sleep.”
“Kylie—” He started to repeat his question, but she cut him off.
“Don’t. Don’t ask me. Please, leave me alone.”
He considered her request as he studied her face. He knew her well enough to know she wouldn’t say anything more on the subject. Not tonight, not tomorrow, probably not ever.
“Roll over.” His words were harsh, but he wanted her to understand she could deny him the truth, but she would not deny him this.
“What?”
“You don’t want to talk—fine. You want to be left alone—fine. But I’m not leaving this room, darlin’, until I’ve seen for myself, with my own two eyes, that you aren’t seriously hurt. Now we can do this the easy way or we can do it the hard way. Roll over.”
The seriousness of his expression must have convinced her refusal was futile. She smiled slightly and tried to cajole him out of his anger. “You’re just trying to sneak a peek at my ass.”
When her half-hearted joke failed to produce a response, she sighed heavily and rolled over. The blanket covered her and he had to reach up to pull it down. When he did, it took all the strength in his body not to chase down her so-called boyfriend and kick the shit out of him again.
“It doesn’t hurt.” Her words were muffled by the pillow, but he could read the lie inside them.
He reached out slowly as if to touch her, but Kylie must have read his intent as she flinched away quickly, pulling the blanket back up. “I’m fine. Good night, Colt.”
He narrowed his eyes at her dismissal, but rose to leave.
“I’ll fix your door tomorrow, darlin’.”
She didn’t answer, so he didn’t say anything more. Besides, he had some thinking to do and a phone call to make. It was nearly one a.m. and Heath would cuss him out for waking him up, but he didn’t give a shit. The time for action had come and serious changes were on the horizon for Miss Kylie Halston.
Chapter Two
It was early Friday afternoon when Heath let himself into the house and dumped his suitcase by the door. Colt was obviously waiting for him and hollered from the living room.
“I’m in here.”
Heath walked into the room to find Colt sitting on the couch with his feet propped up on the coffee table, nursing a beer.
“Bit early to be drinking, don’t you think?”
Colt gestured to a second bottle near his feet. “Brought one out for you. It should still be cold.”
Heath smiled as he grabbed the bottle and dropped down into the recliner. He loosened his tie and took a deep breath. “Damn, it’s good to be home. I hate hotels and airports.”
When Colt failed to respond, Heath looked around. “Kylie still at work?”
“Yep. She should be back in a couple of hours.” Colt took a swig from the bottle. “Gives us time to decide how to deal with her.”
Heath started scraping at t
he wrapper on the bottle. He was still in shock over his friend’s phone call four nights earlier. Colt’s recitation of Kylie’s date from hell made his blood run cold.
“I’ve been thinking about it for days and I’ve decided it was that fucking Tequila Truth question of yours that started this mess.” Colt pulled his feet down to the floor and leaned forward. “That damn sex fantasy question. I’ve watched Kylie flirting with dangerous situations more and more these last few months and I know it’s all because of the seeds we planted. Hell, you had to pull her out of that sex club over the summer.”
Heath nodded. “As hard as she kicked me, I’m surprised she didn’t leave me with a permanent limp. She didn’t appreciate getting yanked out of there like a naughty teenager.”
“I don’t give a shit whether she appreciated it or not. You were right to do it. She could have been hurt in a place like that.” Colt ran a hand through his shaggy brown hair, a sure sign he was frustrated and pissed. “She’s not being careful. She’s messing around with things she doesn’t know anything about.”
“You’re right about the game exacerbating the problem, but you’re not going to heap all the blame for this at my damn door. This is our fault—together.” Heath stressed the word our. “We’ve always treated her like another one of the guys, never holding back our locker room talk. It’s no wonder she’s interested in doing a little experimenting. The way we go into fucking detail about every climax.”
“Thing is, Heath, we haven’t done that in months. Not since your twenty-fifth birthday party.”
He and Colt had been shaken to the core by Kylie’s sex fantasy, both imagining themselves in starring roles. Ever since then, they’d shied away from sharing their bedroom escapades and Heath wasn’t sure he could explain why. He felt, at least from his point of view, he was being unfaithful to Kylie somehow, which was utterly ridiculous considering he’d made no promises to her.
Heath leaned his head back and sighed heavily. “Well, maybe it’s up to us to give her what she wants.” He studied Colt’s face closely as he spoke, trying to gauge his friend’s reaction. He didn’t think Colt would be opposed to the idea and even suspected his friend had been considering the same thing. Since Colt’s phone call, he’d certainly had plenty of time to think about the two of them taking Kylie to bed and fulfilling all of her sex fantasies. “Think about it, Colt. One weekend with no-holds-barred where we give Kylie everything her little heart desires.”
Colt leaned back in his chair and as the minutes dragged on, Heath worried that perhaps Colt’s mind hadn’t been wandering in the same direction after all. His worries proved unfounded with Colt’s next words.
“Well, I’ll tell you right now, if she agrees, I intend to get a promise out of her that she’ll let us meet all of her boyfriends in the future on the first damn date.”
“That’s a good idea.” Heath was relieved by Colt’s agreement. However, he was less confident about securing Kylie’s. “You think she’ll go for it?”
“Think about it, man. Kylie is stubborn as hell when it comes to getting what she wants and in this case, she wants to explore her sexuality. Problem is she doesn’t know how to go about it so she keeps trying all these damn stupid, dangerous things. She’s dating assholes simply because she thinks they’ll be more amenable to playing kinky bed games. She went to that damn sex club—alone, for God’s sake. She’s too innocent to see she’s going about it all wrong. What would have happened to her if I hadn’t come home early the other night?”
Heath repressed a shudder at the thought that had been haunting him since Colt’s phone call. One of the things he loved best about Kylie was the unabashed, enthusiastic way she approached life. She held back nothing. What you saw was what you got with Kylie Halston. She lived with two men regardless of what society might say about it, simply because she preferred the company of men. If she saw something she wanted, she went after it because, as she was fond of saying, she didn’t intend to have any regrets at the end of her life.
“There is one thing that’s been bothering me, Colt. One thing that almost stopped me suggesting this whole idea. We’ve never shared a woman. I don’t give a damn how experienced we are, we’ve always operated solo. We could hurt her even worse than that prick from the other night.”
Colt grinned as if he’d expected this argument. “We won’t hurt her, Heath. I’d rather cut off my left nut than hurt that girl and I know without a doubt you feel the same way. She’s our girl. She has been since the day we met her. Besides, buddy, you are the only man in the world I’d share a woman with.”
Heath considered his words. Damn cop was right. Kylie was their girl and if he’d ever been tempted by the prospect of a ménage, Colt and Kylie were the only people he trusted enough to try it with.
He and Colt had been best friends since elementary school and Colt knew him better than his own mother did. Then Kylie drifted into their lives the year they all turned eighteen and something had clicked.
Nevertheless, he still wasn’t sure he should have initiated this conversation, regardless of Colt’s enthusiasm for the idea. His true concern had very little to do with sex and more to do with Kylie’s response. “She’ll resist us. Turn us down flat.”
“At first maybe, until she realizes what we’re offering her.”
“We’ve skirted around the sex thing with her in the past, Colt, and she always says the same thing. She’s not about to ruin friendship for sex.”
“Number one, we haven’t teased her about sex since the early days and number two, we all knew back then none of us were serious about it. It was playful talk after one too many beers. This time we’re serious and she’ll see that.”
“So how do you want to play it?” The more they talked about it, the more anxious Heath was to begin. The prospect of being able to take Kylie to bed was creating a serious tightness in his suit pants.
“We’re not going to play it at all.” Heath was confused by his words until Colt explained. “I think it’s time we let our natural impulses come out.”
Heath groaned. “Shit, we’ll scare the hell out of her.”
“Heath, think about it, man. We’re talking about all the fantasies we can squeeze into a weekend. She’ll know if we’re holding back. We’ll simply lay out the plan and let nature take its course.”
“We both lean heavily toward the Dom side, Colt. You don’t think that will present a big problem? Kylie’s way too independent to take orders from us lightly.”
“That’s just it. I’m not sure she wouldn’t love to be dominated in bed.”
“You think Kylie is a sub? How many beers did you drink before I got here?”
Colt shrugged. “It’s just a feeling I have. Besides, don’t forget, she wants to be tied up and spanked, not the other way around. She’ll love every command we give her. Dammit, it was your idea. Are you going to do this or not?”
Heath stood up and walked back toward the front door and his luggage. “Of course I am.”
“Good. Go unpack and then we’ll plan how to proceed.”
“Actually,” Heath confessed, “I did a little shopping while I was away. Come back to my room and I’ll show you all the stuff I bought for our weekend party.”
“Kylie won’t know what hit her.” Colt grinned.
Heath shook his head and held up his hand before Colt could state the obvious. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I got the damn pun.”
Chapter Three
Turning off the car, Kylie sat in the driveway and studied her house. She was surprised to find it flooded with light. She knew Colt had the weekend off and she expected him to be getting ready in his bedroom to go out on some hot date with the newest member of the Bimbo of the Month club. Heath wasn’t due back for a few more days, so she anticipated having the house to herself. She certainly needed the time to evaluate where she was going so wrong in her life. The episode with Scott still haunted her and she hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep since then. That, added to the fact the b
ruises on her ass were only beginning to fade, kept her irritable and on edge.
Her damn roommates had ruined her. All their talk about sex and bondage and toys and spankings and, oh hell, she felt like she’d spent the last seven years in a fog of sexual frustration. She wasn’t an innocent by any stretch of the imagination. Despite her lack of girly-girl genes, she dated fairly regularly, although she couldn’t recall having a real boyfriend since high school. Ever since she moved in with Heath and Colt, the men who drifted in and out of her life—and sometimes her bed—couldn’t compete. Her roommates were the yardstick by which she measured every man and sadly, every single one came up lacking.
She beat her head back against the headrest and closed her eyes. She’d love to rail at the two men causing her all this angst, but neither one of them had a clue how much they affected her. To make matters worse, the cocky bastards would have a field day with it if she told them. Teasing was second nature to all three of them and she could imagine the fun they would have at her expense with such knowledge. Despite all her sarcastic comments about their cavemen attitudes, she desperately wanted them. Both of them. That was the other problem. When she thought about sex with her roommates, both of them were present. Sure, some her fantasies involved one or the other, but always there was the knowledge that both of them were with her.
“Yeah,” she sighed. “Like that will happen.” She had no one to blame for her lonely state except herself. She’d rebuffed their flirting at the beginning, demanding to be treated like another guy and, as luck would have it, her demands were met tenfold for seven long years.
The front door swung open and she watched Colt step out on to the front porch.
“You gonna sit in that damn car all night?”
She grinned at his gruff manners. Colt was a true cowboy, born and raised on a ranch outside of Dallas. He moved with a slow, country grace that never failed to take her breath away.
Climbing out of the car, she laughed as she walked toward him. “Waiting for me?” She couldn’t help but be pleased at the idea, no matter how unlikely.
“You’re late.” His voice was rough and she got the sense he was angry for some reason.