“No. We figure it’ll be easier for the three of you to talk if we’re not here. We’ll be back to fetch you in a couple of hours. That should give you enough time to eat and get to know each other.”
Kylie nodded. “Okay.” Her eyes followed them as they left the restaurant before turning back to find the two women eyeing her with amusement.
“What?”
“Oh, dear girl, you’ve got it bad,” Leah said, shaking her head in commiseration. “But don’t worry, they’ve got it just as bad, if not worse.”
“Impossible. I only met them yesterday, for God’s sake!”
“Doesn’t matter,” Sarah said. “It’s either there or it isn’t. And trust us, Kylie, it’s definitely there.”
“What is?”
“The connection,” Leah explained. “Doms and subs connect on a level that is instantaneous and recognizable. It feels like”…she groped for words…“I don’t know, coming home is the only way I can think of to describe it.”
Kylie just stared at her in wonder. “That’s exactly how it feels,” she whispered. “I took one look at Simon and just…knew somehow. It was like I’d been waiting for him to find me all my life.”
Sarah and Leah exchanged a glance. “Yup,” Sarah said. “That’s the way I was with Jesse and Adam.”
“And me with Raven,” Leah added. “Oh, I fought it for a while, determined never to submit to any man again—”under the pretext of placing the linen napkin in her lap she leaned toward Kylie confidingly—“I’d been in an abusive marriage before.” She straightened. “But Clay was patient and I finally had to admit what I was. A sexual submissive.”
“It was different with me and Jesse,” Sarah explained, “I’d been in love with him since I was thirteen. But he had disappeared and I had despaired of ever finding anyone I loved as much. That led me into an abusive relationship. My problem was not with Jesse, it was with Adam. When I realized that they expected to share me, it took me a while to come to terms with that.” She grinned. “Like, maybe, half an hour or so.”
Kylie and Leah both laughed.
“I hope you don’t mind, Kylie,” Sarah said, reaching into a shopping bag beside her chair and pulling out a wide-brimmed straw hat with a black velvet ribbon around it and decorated with a colorful selection of spring flowers. “But we got this for you. Leah and I figured that this was something your guys wouldn’t think of and we wanted you to have it to commemorate the day you claimed your submissiveness.”
“Oh, it’s beautiful. Thank you both so much.” Kylie took the hat and placed it on her head, with the two black velvet streamers hanging down her back. She felt…elegant. Not something she’d ever felt before, although she’d worn hats before. To church. Her father had insisted on it, citing Bible verses exhorting women to keep their hair covered. Those hats, mostly dating back to World War II, had been rescued by her mother from church rummage sales and were hideously inappropriate for a child. As a result, she’d grown up hating hats. But this one? This one was beautiful and it made her feel elegant and sophisticated and properly attired for a Victorian afternoon tea.
Leah and Sarah both leaned over and patted one of her hands. “You look lovely, Kylie.”
A waitress, formally dressed in black slacks, a black apron and cummerbund, and a white, pleated-front shirt with black buttons and a black bow tie, approached carrying an embossed sterling silver tray loaded with china plates and tea cups. She set the tray on the valet stand and placed a plate and a china cup with a delicate floral pattern at each place. She set a smaller plate above each dinner plate. Then she held out a smaller sterling silver tray, offering each of them hot, damp, lemon-scented towels for cleaning their hands.
Sarah laid her linen napkin across her lap, “After Caleb asked if I would mind talking with you, I took the liberty of calling and ordering the Victorian tea. I’ve had it before and it’s absolutely scrumptious.”
“Not at all,” Kylie replied, doing the same with her own napkin. “It sounds delightful.”
The waitress placed a hand-tied gauze sack filled with loose tea into a china teapot and poured scalding hot water into it. While the tea was steeping another waitress carried out a heavily-embossed, antique, sterling silver, three-tiered cake stand and set it at the empty place on the table. She placed a sterling silver caddy containing glass jars filled with two kinds of jam and a bowl of what looked like thick cream on the table next to the cake stand. “Good afternoon, ladies,” she said, “I’m Naomi and that is Miranda. We will be serving you today. On the bottom tier, as you can see, are our sandwiches. The open-faced half-moon sandwich is smoked salmon with dill butter on sun-dried tomato bread. Clockwise from there is a roast ham and chopped watercress finger sandwich with basil butter on rye bread. Beside that is our cucumber and cream cheese. The pinwheel sandwich is egg salad with diced black olives on whole wheat bread, rolled in crushed almonds. The triangle is my personal favorite, cinnamon cream cheese on date nut raisin bread. The clam shell tarts contain chicken curry salad with shredded coconut and finally, on the mini-buns is our shrimp salad with red cabbage and cashews.
“The cream cheese may be my favorite, but, trust me, they’re all to die for. There’s one of each for each of you, but we’ll be delighted to give you more of any that you particularly like. The middle tier contains plain scones and cheese scones with savory herb butter. The jams for the scones are homemade strawberry and wild mountain blackberry and the cream is authentic Devonshire clotted cream.
“The sweets on the top tier are made right here in our own kitchen by our award-winning pastry chef. We have key lime tarts, passion fruit cheesecake, black cherry mini-cupcakes with pistachio butter cream frosting, blackberry macaroons, and chocolate mint brownies. There is also a chocolate parfait with heart-shaped hazelnut shortbread cookies. If you discover a particular favorite, please feel free to ask for more. Enjoy your meal.”
Naomi stepped back and Miranda stepped forward, picking up the tea pot. “Our first tea is a Chinese green tea blended especially for Granny Grace’s Tea Shoppe.” She filled each teacup, then placed the pot, a pitcher of milk, a bowl of lemon slices and a bowl of sugar cubes with serving tongs on the table. “Enjoy your tea, ladies. We’ll be right here, so please ask for whatever you need.”
Both servers took up a stance against the wall, on either side of the valet stand.
“Go ahead, Kylie.” Sarah reached for a sandwich and proceeded to load her plate with one of each, with Leah and Kylie close behind. “Try the egg salad pinwheel first, it is so yummy.”
Kylie took a bite and closed her eyes in bliss. “Oh. My. God. Sarah, you’re right. That is pure heaven. Creamy and crunchy and so delicious.”
As the three women worked their way through the sandwiches, they talked about their work. Sarah was the County Attorney for Marshall County, which included Passion Lake. She lived around thirty miles down the highway in the town of Marshall’s Creek, founded by her ancestors in the mid seventeen hundreds. Her husband Jesse was the police chief, and her other husband, Adam, had his own hi-tech security company. Leah was an artist with a PhD in Art History. She owned a gallery a little farther down Main Street that specialized in all sorts of fabric art, including sculpture and items of clothing. Kylie could hardly wait to visit it, even though she knew she’d never be able to afford any of it. When they asked Kylie what she did, a feeling of total inadequacy swept over her. Avoiding their eyes, she bit her lip and practically mumbled, “Oh, I’m just a plain, ordinary bookkeeper.”
“Oh, my God,” Leah exclaimed. “I so need someone to take a look at the gallery’s books. Books,” she scoffed. “I say that like there actually are any. My accounts are such a mess, just a bunch of cancelled checks and receipts in a shoe box. I’m totally right-brained and can’t make heads nor tails of it.” She put her hand over Kylie’s. “Can I hire you? I mean, like, yesterday?”
“Well…” Kylie thought for a minute. “I can at least take a look at what you’ve got
and set up a system for you.”
“For which I will pay you handsomely,” Leah promised in a heart-felt voice. “If you can actually do anything about it, you are a miracle worker.”
“You know, Kylie,” Sarah said, “you could have a business card made up, offering your services. Many of the businesses here in Passion Lake are new, and when they’re finished turning the old, historic cotton mill into a shopping center, you’d probably find more than enough clients to set yourself up in business.”
“Sarah, what an excellent suggestion,” Leah exclaimed. “Who does your books at the Club?”
“One of our house subs, but she hates it and tends to put it off.” She looked at Kylie. “My husbands and I built a BDSM club at Marshall’s Hill, my family’s ancestral estate. The club has only been open for a couple of months and we don’t have a bookkeeper. Would you be interested?”
Kylie was flummoxed. “You guys don’t know anything about me. How do you even know you can trust me?”
Sarah laughed, then her face sobered. “We trust you because Caleb, Simon, and Ash Rafferty trust you. And we trust Caleb, Simon and Ash. But more importantly, our Doms trust Caleb, Simon, and Ash.”
“Trust is a really huge deal with these men,” Leah added. “And by ‘these men’, I mean Doms. Not just between them and their subs, but between each other. Many of them were in the service together, special ops, so their lives often depended on that trust. In our case, both our lives and our happiness depend on that trust.”
“Did you know you were submissives?” Kylie asked. “I mean, before?”
“No,” they said in unison, both shaking their heads. “But our men knew.” Leah laughed. “It’s like they have some kind of radar. Or ‘spidey sense’, or something. They can spot a sub at ten spaces, even if she is in total denial.”
“So, if Caleb, Simon, and Ash say I’m a natural sub…”
“Then you’re a natural sub,” Leah and Sarah finished for her, laughing.
Naomi approached. “Can I bring any of you another of our delectable sandwiches?”
While both Leah and Sarah demurred, Kylie asked for another egg salad pinwheel. “You were right, Sarah,” she said, picking up one of the two Naomi put on her plate. “These are irresistible. I’ll have to make them for my guys. Only on slabs of bread the size of skateboards with filling three inches thick.” She shook her head. “I never saw anybody eat like those three.”
Sarah giggled. “Yeah. Jesse and Adam can pack it away, too.”
“You should see our ranch hands eat,” Leah laughed. “Five men can go through enough Katie’s Barbecue to feed twelve.”
“You have a ranch?” Kylie asked.
“Yeah. A horse breeding ranch. Hey, Kylie, there’s another client for you. Every time I hear cussing and shouting coming from the office, I know Clay’s trying to do the books. You’d be doing me a huge favor.” She leaned in. “Seriously.”
Sarah laughed. “You’re not even going to need a business card, Kylie. You’ve already got three clients right here at this table. Before lunch is over, you’ll have all the business you can handle.”
Kylie finished the second egg salad sandwich and Naomi whisked the plates and cups away. Miranda brought a fresh pot of tea while Naomi set another plate in front of the three women and another cup and saucer. “This is our jasmine tea,” Miranda told them as she poured the fragrant brew into their cups. “You will find it is a perfect accompaniment to our lovely scones. The plain ones are unbeatable when eaten with a little clotted cream and strawberry jam. Enjoy, ladies.”
Kylie broke off a piece of her scone, spread some clotted cream and a bit of the wild mountain blackberry jam on it and put it in her mouth. A beatific expression crossed her face. Oh. Migod. This is one of the best things I have ever eaten! Most of the scones she’d ever had had been dry and tasteless. But this? This was light, buttery, melt-in-your-mouth goodness. No, Miranda was right. This is perfection. Compared to the culinary prowess that went into this meal, Brad Sullivan was a talentless hack. “I’m so glad you ladies agreed to this,” she said, preparing another bite of scone.
Sarah swallowed her bite. “When Caleb called, he said you had some problems with D/s that we might help you with. What did you want to know?”
Kylie spread her hands. “I don’t know. Everything? They had me read a couple of Internet sites, but they were confusing, talking about protocols, power exchange, stuff I’d never heard of before. They want to discuss with me a bunch of things and I’m supposed to tell them which ones I want to do or might be willing to consider or absolutely won’t do under any circumstances. I don’t know what to think. And what the hell is a power exchange? It just sounds like control to me. My father was a fundamentalist preacher. Very controlling. It’s taken me ten years of intensive psychotherapy to come to terms with what he did to me.” She bit her lip and looked down at her plate, unwilling to say anything further on the matter.
Sarah stopped in the act of spreading strawberry jam on her scone and lifted her knife. “What’s really scaring you, Kylie?”
“This is all happening so fast,” Kylie wailed. “I’ve only known them for twenty-four hours! What if this is all one huge mistake? What if they’re wrong? What if I’m wrong? There are three of them and only one of me. And they’re so…big.”
Sarah and Leah laughed. “Yeah, that’s the first thing you notice about all these men. They sure are big.”
Kylie bit her lip. “And intimidating.”
Sarah frowned. “Do they scare you, Kylie?”
She shook her head. “No, that’s just it. With me they’re…wonderful. So tender and caring. I mean, they took me on without any thought for the inconvenience I’m causing. I mean, I have to be carried everywhere—even into the bathroom. But they act like I’m no bother at all. Like it’s no big deal.”
“Okay.” Scones gone, Sarah lay her butter knife across her plate and took a last sip of her jasmine tea.
Naomi cleared the table and placed yet another cup and saucer. Miranda approached with yet another lovely bone china tea pot and began pouring. “This is a white needle tea. I’m sure you will enjoy its subtle flavor.” Naomi returned with three plates, each filled with one each of all the delicious-looking desserts. “If you’re like me,” she said with a smile, “you want all of them.” She paused to let Miranda bring three chocolate parfaits and set one at each place. “Whatever you don’t eat will be boxed up for you to take home. And, of course, if you want more of any of them, just ask. You ladies enjoy.”
Kylie picked up her fork and cut off the tip of the passion fruit cheesecake. Her eyes closed so she could concentrate on the sweet/tart fruit flavor bursting on her tongue, being soothed by the rich creaminess of the cake. She actually moaned.
Sarah finished chewing her first bite of brownie. “Did they give you a safe word?” she asked.
“Yes. Rather, they gave me three. Green, yellow, and red.”
“Good. Those words are your protection.”
“Have you had sex yet?” Leah asked around a mouthful of key lime tart with whipped cream.
“Wow, you guys don’t beat around the bush, do you?” Kylie asked in amusement.
“Well, that’s one of the positive things about being in a D/s relationship,” Sarah acknowledged. “There’s no embarrassment, no false modesty, no euphemisms. Everything is out in the open, nothing hidden. Have you had sex yet?”
Kylie blushed. “Yeah.”
“So, what did they do?”
Kylie cleared her throat. “Well, yesterday afternoon I was telling them about how my father had made me terrified of exploring or even acknowledging my sexuality. And when I told them that I’d never had an orgasm, they carried me upstairs and”…she shrugged…“they gave me some. A bunch, actually. With their mouths. I’d never—um…They took turns. It was…” Her voice took on a dream-like quality. “It was the single most incredible experience of my entire life. Until last night.” She blushed again. “We h
ad…actual sex.”
“And how did they act?” Leah asked.
Kylie considered for a moment, reliving their tenderness toward her, their single-minded focus on her, their total dedication to giving her pleasure. It had been exhilarating. “Like they would have considered it a grave personal failure if they hadn’t given me pleasure.” She sounded surprised.
“Did they tie you up?”
Kylie’s cheeks heated. Again with the blushing? Really? She gave Sarah and Leah a sly grin. “Not yet. But that’s definitely on my wish list.”
“How about toys?” Sarah asked. “Have they used any of those on you?”
“You mean, like…vibrators?”
Sarah nodded. “Vibrators, butt plugs, gags, cuffs.”
“Not yet.”
“Oh, my God, you’re going to love the toys!” Sarah exclaimed. “Especially the remote controlled vibrators. You never know when they’ll turn them on and it’s sooooo hot!” She fanned herself with her hand. “And when they forbid you to move or react in any way and order you not to come…” She heaved a tremendous sigh, squirming slightly in her seat.
“Oh, my God!” Kylie whispered in awe. “Are you… I mean, right now?”
Biting her lip, and giving her a sly smile, Sarah nodded.
“She’s not the only one,” Leah added with a sly smile of her own.
Oh. My. God! Flummoxed, Kylie flopped back into her chair. Both of these women were wearing remote-controlled vibrators in their…pussies. She heard the voices of her men saying, Say it, Kylie. Pussies. For a moment she couldn’t breathe. Would her men make her wear those in her pussy? She had to admit it sounded absolutely awesome. In fact, she could hardly wait.
“Well,” she said when she finally found her voice again. “I think I would like everything except the gags. I can’t always breathe through my nose, but they promised to use only breathable gags on me.”
“If that’s what they promised, then that’s what they’ll do,” Leah confirmed. “Are they just Doms inside the bedroom?”
Passion's Fury (The Doms of Passion Lake Book 2) Page 16