by Brandi Evans
"Bree." My name escaped his lips on a trembling sigh. "My Bree."
He buried his face into the crook of my neck and inhaled deeply, breathing me in as if making sure I was really there and not a figment of his imagination.
Closing my eyes, I gave in to the safety his embrace afforded and began shaking. At that moment, I wished for nothing more than for the rest of the world to disappear until I found my center again. I was so fucking tired of being off-kilter all the damn time.
I wasn't sure how much time had passed when Max finally pulled back. He examined me with his eyes and his hands. Gentle palms ran over my face, my shoulders and my arms before settling back on my cheeks.
"I'm okay," I assured him, even though okay was about as far removed as I could possibly be. "He wasn't there. He didn't hurt me, but Max…" I clamped still-trembling fingers around the cotton of his shirt. "I'm freaked the fuck out."
"That makes two of us. Garrett and I were just about to leave the house when Scott sent out the alert. I thought, for just a moment, when I was waiting to get Scott's relayed information, I thought Théo—" He dragged me back into his arms. "Goddamn it, Bree, I thought I'd lost you."
I clung to him. It was all I could do. What was it Garrett had said yesterday?
He was utterly lost in his guilt. I honestly think we would have lost him, too, if he'd have lost you.
I felt the sudden urge to reassure Max of things I had no control over. "I'm not going anywhere, Max. Ever. You're stuck with me. Even if you break up with me, you won't get rid of me. I'll stalk your ass. You're not getting rid of me. You got that?"
He chuckled, but the sound was still harsh. "God, I love you, Bree. So much."
Before I could respond, Scott cleared his throat.
After one more hard squeeze, Max tucked me securely against his side and turned to his head of security. Scott's dark eyes were nearly unreadable as he held out the envelope, already wrapped in a plastic bag.
"As requested, we've contacted Detective Inspector Dayton, and he's on his way. But I suggest you read the letter before he gets here. There's no sense being surprised by the contents."
Max took the letter. "Yes, of course. We'll do it right now."
We. I turned into Max, pleased at his inclusion. In this, at least, he wasn't shutting me out.
Scott reached into his suit pocket and produced two pairs of latex gloves. When Max took them, Scott nodded. "I'll keep the inspector busy until you give the word, sir."
"Thank you, Scott." Max turned so we faced Karen and Garrett; their embrace mirrored ours. "Bree and I need a moment. We'll find you soon."
"Go," said Garrett.
"Yes," Karen echoed. "We're not going anywhere."
Max and I walked into the house, arm in arm. He led me to the furthermost corner of the house and into a room I'd never set foot in but recognized. This space looked like his home office in Dallas.
"Is this…" I turned in a slow circle. "…your office?"
"Yes." Without elaborating, he sat me on the black leather sofa on the right side of the room and then handed me a set of gloves. "Put these on."
I obeyed, and he did the same. I doubted having gloves on would make a difference in the long run. Théo had sent this; we both knew it.
Max carefully opened the envelope. The stationary inside looked old. Colorful, embossed flowers decorated the corners.
Max exhaled sharply, and I turned to him. His lips were drawn tight, and little twitches showed at his jaw. He was pissed.
"Max?" I questioned. I kept my voice soft. I didn't know how he'd react with that kind of rage boiling inside him.
"I bought this stationery for my mum. That fucking bastard was in, he was—" His voice cracked, and he swiped a hand over his face. "If I ever get my hands on him, I'll fucking kill him."
Not if I killed the bastard first.
I scooted closer to Max and looped my arm through his, and together, we began reading.
Hello, ma chére.
I hope this letter finds you well on the road to recovery, but not too well. I must say, I was utterly torn up when I heard you'd only lost a kidney during our tousle—and not your life as I'd intended. But alas. Those are the breaks, I guess. But don't worry, ma chére, your death is coming very soon. I've made sure of it.
Max took my hand, his grip fierce. I wasn't sure if he was trying to reassure himself or me. He'd been the one to find me bleeding and unconscious after Théo's last attack.
Not for the first time, I wondered if the incident had caused Max to suffer from his own form of PTSD. If our roles had been reversed, I couldn't imagine how I'd have reacted.
I continued reading.
I have your death beautifully planned, ma chére. Things, however, are taking much longer than I'd anticipated. Max has smartly kept you from my reach, but it's a temporary inconvenience. I just needed to find the right, shall we say, motivation for him to risk bringing you back into the open, but I think I've found just the thing. I'll know soon enough. If I'm right, I'll be seeing you soon, ma chére, and this time, you won't slip through my fingers. Give my love to Max, would you? And please, tell him I'll be coming for him next.
"Motherfucker!"
Max shot to his feet with the force of a rocket launching into space. His hand ripped from mine. If he'd been holding anything of substance, I was pretty sure he'd have thrown it. Max had a temper, and I'd seen him destroy more than one cell phone when enraged.
He stalked to the long, sleek desk on the opposite side of the room and pressed his fisted hands to the surface. I'd seen Max like this before, brimming with so many violent emotions they consumed him from the inside. Giselle had been the catalyst last time. She'd threatened me, and now, Théo was threatening me. But in his note, however, I wasn't the only person he'd threatened.
"He killed your mom." I spoke the words softly, trying them out and doing my damndest not to picture my mom in her place. "I want a protection detail on my mom. Just in case."
"She's already got one." His words balanced on a razor's edge.
"Since when? You never said anything to me about—"
"Since we left the funeral home. She's fine, by the way. I sent security to watch Chad and Aimée, too. Viv and Trisha, as well, anyone close to you or me that I thought might be caught in Théo's crosshairs. I just wished I had thought of doing that sooner. I was so fucking focused on keeping you safe that I got tunnel-visioned. Not that I regret everything I did to keep you safe, Bree. Not one fucking bit. I just wish I'd have been able to see past my fear of losing you. If I had, I might have been able to save my mum."
He slammed his right fist on the desk, and something cracked. I prayed it wasn't one of his bones.
He turned to me, a man very much on edge. "There's something I need to tell you, my sweet. I should have told you yesterday, but the threat wasn't substantiated then, and I didn't want to worry you. It's no excuse. I know that. All I can do is hope you forgive me."
I sat up straighter but remained seated. I knew what he was about to tell me, and I almost said as much. In the end, I held back. I didn't want to tell him I'd been eavesdropping on what, no doubt, had been a painful, intimate moment between friends. Did I wish he would have told me the second we pulled away from the funeral home? Of course, yes. But a lifetime of avoidance and secret-keeping didn't change overnight.
He was telling me now, though, less than twenty-four hours after he'd learned of the news. And I hadn't asked for it; he was volunteering it. Extenuating circumstances had forced his hand, but in the past, even that hadn't made him tell me what he didn't think I needed to know. I took this for the miracle it was; growth was growth, no matter how slow.
He told me what he'd told Garrett the night before—only with more frantic worry in his tone—and I responded by asking many of the questions Garrett had asked. Their conversation had been full of maybes and ifs, but ours was not. Théo was here. He'd attacked Max's mother. He had epic revenge on his mind.
&n
bsp; "What's our next move?" I emphasized 'our'. I needed him to know we were in this together.
"First things first. I plan on getting you the hell out of here and back home where it's safe. Then, I'll come back here and deal with—"
"But what if running me back to Dallas is exactly what he expects you to do? What he wants you to do. For all we know, he could already be in Dallas waiting for us."
Max stilled, and he examined me cautiously. He hadn't thought about that. He'd gotten tunnel-visioned again. What was that old saying my mom used to use when I'd get so focused on something that I'd miss the obvious? Oh, yes. I remembered.
I pushed to my feet and moved to stand directly in front of Max. "You can't see the forest for the trees. Don't let Théo use that to his advantage."
"I have to keep you safe, Bree. Whatever that means. Whatever I need to do. I can't lose you."
He took my right hand and rubbed his thumb over the ring he'd given me. When he'd given it to me, he'd told me he wanted to marry me, but he'd held off on asking the actual question. He'd said there were things about him I needed to know first. Until last night's overheard conversation, I hadn't thought anything he might tell me would send me running. Now, I wasn't quite as steadfast in that belief. Oh, I wanted desperately to believe it, but the sheer panic that had woven through his words had shaken me.
To the core.
Right now, though, the man I loved was hurting. What I may or may not do in response to something I didn't know didn't matter. Nothing mattered more than comforting Max.
I drew the pad of my thumb over his bottom lip. "I love you."
"And I love you."
"Do you want to know where I feel the safest?"
He nodded.
I took him by both wrists and tugged until his arms encircled me. "Right here." I pushed onto my tiptoes and let my lips graze his. "Right here. When your arms are around me, nothing else, no one else can touch me. Given everything that's going on, I wanted you to know that."
"Bree…"
Max took my lips hostage in a hot, desperate kiss that had me melting into him. I might be scared shitless, but if being with Max had taught me anything, it was how to deal with turbulent emotions.
I broke our kiss. "Take me to bed, Sir. I need you inside me, fucking me until we're both too spent and too exhausted to think a second longer. Then, and only then, we'll go to sleep for as long as we can. When we wake up, we'll come up with a plan to deal with Théo."
"I want to, little sub. You know I do but—"
"No buts. Haven't I already proven I'm not gonna break? If I do, it won't be from this, from my Dom having his way with me."
That did the trick.
He slammed his mouth against mine, grabbed the backs of my thighs, and lifted me against him. When he started walking, I wrapped my legs around his waist. At first, I thought he was carrying me to Garrett and Karen's bedroom, but we weren't headed in the right direction.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
"To the dungeon, little sub. I'm taking you to the dungeon."
Chapter 7
Whoa.
I stumbled forward, taking in the basement dungeon, its walls painted in murals I recognized as Karen's work. She'd kept the palate dim, the images impressionistic. Dark figures welded whips; light ones welded floggers. Dark and light? Max and Garrett? I'd have to ask her.
An enormous, wrought-iron-framed bed sat in the corner. The sturdy metal would, no doubt, be perfect for attaching all configurations and types of restraints. To the left was a wall of toys hanging on hooks. Beside the wall of toys were several sets of cabinets that probably held a myriad of more toys that would leave me breathless.
The dungeon's entrance had been hidden behind a bookshelf in the library. I'd liked that. I'd especially liked the book he'd pulled to trigger the door—Brave New World. It had been the same book he'd been reading the first time I'd woken in his bed, the morning after he'd plunged me into his incredible world of BDSM and sex without limits.
"Do you have a hidden dungeon like this in your home that you haven't told me about?"
"Our home," he corrected. "And no. By the time I'd built it, I'd given up on ever finding a sub I'd want to truly share the space with."
In other words, he'd given up on finding love.
Max. My sweet, broken Max.
I turned to him and pressed a suddenly trembling hand to his cheek. This tortured man, with his secrets and trust issues, had retreated inside himself. Somewhere between Giselle and Gina, he'd given up on love, even though part of him, I imagined, had always yearned for it.
"I love you." What else was there to say? I only hoped they'd be enough.
"And I love you. So much. I hope you never doubt that, even when I'm being an ass. Especially when I'm being an ass."
"Always."
He took my lips in a kiss brimming with need and yearning. Arms locked tightly around me, he pushed me deeper into the dungeon he'd built, pushed me until the backs of my legs met—something. I turned to find myself standing beside a sawhorse.
My lips turning up, I touched the long beam between the two A-frames. The first time we'd visited Restrained Fantasies, he'd fucked me while I'd been bound to one of these. Unlike the one at the club, however, the padding covering the center beam of this one was plush and thick, comfort as well as aesthetics.
Max wrapped one arm around my middle, the other over my collarbone. "You're remembering it, too, aren't you, my sweet? The last time I had you tied to one of these."
"I am." I was surprised how breathy I already sounded. "Are you planning on fucking me here, too, Sir?"
A growl sounded within Max's chest, and the vibrations worked their way deep into my core. I shivered farther into his embrace, feeling safe and aroused in his arms. I relished the feel of him, loved the way I affected him with that singular word.
Sir.
He spun me around. I half expected him to grab me, to kiss me, to bind me to the sawhorse, but he did none of those things. Instead, he took three steps backward and crossed his arms.
"Strip, little sub, and do it slowly."
"Yes, Sir." I'd just grabbed the hem of my shirt when I remembered. "What about the cops? They're on their way."
"Right, the cops." He removed his cell from his pocket and activated the digital assistant feature. "Text Garrett. Tell the cops Bree and I will be tied up for the next few hours. Well, at least, she will be tied up."
A shiver pirouetted along my spine, and I ripped my shirt off.
"Slowly, little sub," he reminded. "Don't make me repeat it."
"Yes, Sir."
Keeping my actions languid was torture, which was, no doubt, his intention. Max and his mind-fucks. Why'd I love them so much?
I shimmied out of my jeans. Next went the panties and bra. When I was naked, Sir stepped forward and cupped my sex.
"Widen your stance, little sub. I have plans for this sweet cunt."
Swallowing down the lust suddenly trapped in my throat, I obeyed. Sir rewarded my submission by sliding two fingers inside me. When he drew the digits back out, he painted slow circles over my throbbing clit, working me just the way I liked.
"Sir…"
Without warning, he flipped me around and held me, my back to his front. He cinched one arm over my shoulders and returned the other hand to my clit. He rubbed the bud with languid strokes that released a storm of hormones flooding through me.
"Mmm."
I rested my head on his strong shoulder. Instinctively, I stepped wider, giving him more access. In reward, he worked my clit harder, faster. He manipulated my sex until I was pumping my hips uncontrollably against his hand, so desperate for release that I was ready to beg him to give it to me.
"Such a sweet, obedient little sub." His words were hot and steamy against the side of my neck. "Hmm, where oh where am I going to restrain you, little sub. Since we're already here, I could fuck you on the sawhorse. I already know how much you like that."
"Yes, Sir. Please. I'd like that very much." I was getting wetter and more desperate by the second.
"Or maybe I'll tie you to the St. Andrew's cross, go find a riding crop, and spank you until you're writhing and begging for my cock."
"Oh god, yes!" Not long after we'd become Dom and sub, Max had gifted me with a wine-colored riding crop. The first time he'd used it on me, I'd nearly come apart at the seams.
"Or better yet, little sub, I could tie you to that." Hand never stilling, he spun me so we faced a sex swing. The wide, wrought-iron frame spoke to sturdiness and had me picturing wild, frantic, and utterly brutal fucking, the kind that would leave me screaming and sore for days—in other words, the best type of sex.
My breath hitched, a combination of visual and physical stimuli. The first eddies of the climax Max so expertly primed teased through my belly. I dug my fingernails into his arm, where it pressed into my collarbones and held on.
The swing's thick padding was the same deep color as the crop he'd gifted me. Four cuffs, two for the ankles and two for the wrists, were the same hue. D-rings were strategically positioned throughout; oh, the positions Sir could put me in…
My climax tore through me. My thighs trembled. My breath hitched. My knees threatened to give out entirely. But Sir, oh my Sir, he was right there. Switching his stance, he took more of my weight as he stroked me faster, pushed me higher. He manipulated my pleasure until I was screaming.
"That's it, little sub. That's it. Keep coming. I want this sweet pussy dripping wet because I plan to be inside it all night."
He jammed his fingers inside me. The sudden jolt made my orgasm soar. Sensations overtook rational thought, so I did the only thing I could. I closed my eyes and focused solely on the pleasure, on the hand conjuring that pleasure, and most of all, on the man who controlled that hand.
My Sir.
When my pleasure finally ebbed, I let out a long, contented sigh and all but collapsed into Max's embrace. "I've missed this, Sir. So much."