by Cara Adams
And none of these thoughts were helping him even the tiniest bit to work out how to get to know Karen.
* * * *
At first Gus had thought all his problems would be solved if he only punished male submissives, but after the dungeon session with Toby and Karen, he’d known instantly that plan wouldn’t work either. The idea was logical, but his emotions were far from logical, and his heart was telling him that if they were to become a threesome he had to be faithful to both the others. Even though he was straight and wouldn’t ever have sex with a man, simply punishing them and arousing them felt wrong now.
Over and over he told himself he was just like a nurse, counseling people, helping them overcome their stress and tensions, but it didn’t feel right and he couldn’t do it.
He texted the manager to say he needed a couple nights off work, and the manager replied he was fine with that. But a couple nights wasn’t going to be a long-term solution. He would need to find a new job and a new apartment, and that sucked big hairy donkey’s balls. He’d been very happy here. The job suited him perfectly. Now he was going to have to try to find a job as a bouncer somewhere in the entertainment district and hope his imposing size would make up for the fact he had very little experience at the job.
Gus booted up his laptop and searched the job ads, surprised to find three clubs wanting bouncers. Two of them specified absolutely no links to other organizations, which he supposed meant organized crime, so he was good there, although it did make him wonder how safe the clubs would be.
He sent off e-mails to all three places then went out onto the roof to do an hour’s tai chi. Gus’s routine was solo and without a weapon, but he found it centered him, freed his spirit, relieved stress, and gave him a general sense of well-being, apart from the obvious health aspects of the exercise. By the time he came inside and showered, he was feeling relaxed and ready to face the day.
After his shower he checked his e-mails, and one of the clubs had replied, asking him to come by that afternoon for an interview. This gave him another problem he hadn’t thought of. How did he obtain a reference without telling his boss why he was leaving? Damn, this was going to be more difficult than he’d imagined, and he’d never assumed it would be easy!
Gus went out onto the roof to pace. His options were pretty limited. He got on well with the manager of the BDSM club. The man was fair and reasonable. He hadn’t asked any questions today, had just accepted Gus knew what he wanted and had agreed, and that typified the manager. If a worker behaved well, the manager treated him well, end of story.
But how would he feel if Gus tried to explain why he was leaving? For a relationship that he didn’t even know yet if it was possible, a relationship that didn’t exist and might never exist.
Yeah, the boss wasn’t going to buy that at all. He’d say stay working and see if the relationship comes into being. But Gus simply couldn’t do it. Logically he knew it wasn’t cheating, but to him it seemed like acting disrespectfully, so the answer was no. If a relationship was ever to develop, he wanted to come to it with clean hands.
Gus paced faster and faster. Down one side of the roof, around the heating and cooling vents, back up the other side of the roof. Around and around he went, but no solution came to him. After half an hour he was hot, sweaty, and needed another shower. Well, fuck. I’ll just have to hope I don’t get asked for a reference yet.
This time after his shower, Gus sat quietly at the laptop Googling the club and the manger’s name, anything he could think of. No red flags were raised in his mind, and he thought of a few useful things he might be able to say at the interview. Likely they wanted three or four bouncers, so he might be taken on for a trial period working in tandem with another man. At least then he could pick up some clues from his partner.
Of course, even if he got the job as a trial, he’d have to leave his apartment and find somewhere else to live. Then if he failed the trial, he’d be in real trouble. Well, it’s too bad. I’ll give it my best shot and see how it goes.
* * * *
Karen was having a blast. This job for the Alpha was so much fun, interviewing everyone associated with the clinic to hunt for clues as to why George wanted the property. Since the people she was interviewing worked at the clinic, that meant her days were free to relax, to swim in the pool, to run on the track, to spend time in the gym, and to shop until she dropped. In the evenings she met people mostly over a meal somewhere, and they talked and talked and had a great visit together. Of course, mostly she had nothing new to add to her files on George, but occasionally someone had a snippet of an idea and these she carefully noted down. But truly, it was mostly fun.
This night she was visiting with Oscar, Danny, and Ambrielle. She’d just finished eating the most divine tiramisu and was inhaling the last of the scent of Kahlua, when she forced her mind back to an area they’d touched on earlier, but not really covered.
“Oscar, you said you’d been responsible for watching George at times here in your grandparents’ house when you were all here on vacation. What sort of things did he like to do? Maybe that will give us an idea as to what he might be interested in.”
“I suppose he’d have been five or six by then, so I’d’ve been thirteen or fourteen. He was just a regular kid. One year he had a big red rubber ball and we played a million games with it. I’d throw it to him to catch, or I’d bowl it to him to hit in a kind of baseball game. We’d walk down to the lake on hot days and paddle in the shallows or climb on the rocks. Really, there was nothing unusual. We were just kids, basically.”
“Yeah, that sounds no different from the sort of things I did with my cousins at family gatherings,” said Danny, nodding.
“Was there any part of the house or gardens he seemed to like better than any others? Some area that fascinated him?” Karen realized she was being persistent, but she was supposed to get some information. If there was even any information to get.
Oscar shrugged. “A year or two after that Grandpa became ill, and I used to help Grandma by doing some of the yard work. You have to remember George was a lot younger than me, but he showed no interest in helping in the garden. He didn’t get involved in raking the leaves, or weeding, or pruning, nothing like that. Likely it was because he was so young, though. But whatever, he certainly wasn’t into horticulture at that age.”
“What did he do while you were weeding, pruning, and raking?” asked Ambrielle.
Karen grinned. She’d always known Ambrielle was damn smart. That was a very telling question. It would nail down George’s attitudes absolutely precisely.
Oscar smiled. “He was a typical kid, exactly like I would have been at his age. He always wanted to kick the piles of leaves over and play in them. I finally figured out to make one pile for him to play in and all the rest I collected up and put in the trash, then I did his pile last. Usually by then he was bored and had wandered off somewhere else anyway.”
Karen laughed. Yes, it was a typical kid thing, and it made George sound more human and less of a disaster. But it also showed that Oscar had been very patient and caring for a young teenager, as well as quite clever to come up with a good working solution. Yep, it told her something important about them both.
Unfortunately, it didn’t help her figure out why George wanted the damn property. It wasn’t to kick over piles of leaves, that was for sure.
She was running out of people to interview, all the leads she’d gotten had gone nowhere, and she hated to be a disappointment to the Alpha, but that was what was going to happen. She had zip, zilch, nothing, nada, a blank screen.
She also had no ideas on how to get to know Toby and Dom Augustus better. Maybe it was time to work on that project for a day or two instead of this one. After all, she could always say she was letting the ideas for this one percolate in her brain while she planned how to get into Dom Augustus’s pants again. She needed something social. An event she could invite them both to attend with her. But what? That was the big question.
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* * * *
Toby had always been solitary. This idea of desperately wanting to be with another person was very new to him. Even now he was living on Quinn’s farm, he didn’t spend much time with Quinn, Rainer, and Wynter. Just as his mother’d had to work to support them when he was small, and he’d been left alone all day from quite a young age, so, too, Quinn and his partners worked, leaving him alone on the farm.
Until now, this had suited him perfectly. He thought his own thoughts, did his chores, then flew, or sat in a tree, peacefully being himself.
Except now he wanted more.
Toby found himself stomping grumpily as he swept out the barn, and filled the dogs’ water dishes. Even when his morning chores were done and he was free to transform, he was unsettled. He didn’t want to perch in his favorite live oak tree, or one of the Norfolk pines. He swooped around for a while but couldn’t summon the energy to seek out some updrafts to glide in. He settled on the highest point of the roof of the house, watching over the countryside, fluffing his feathers crossly, and muttering to himself.
“Stop acting like a lovesick teenager and decide what you truly want,” he told himself.
Hmm. Good point. What do I want?
Toby sat there while the sun rose high in the sky, and stayed on the roof as clouds flew from one side of his view to the other. Finally, as the air cooled and evening arrived, he stood and stretched, flew to the farthest barn, and changed into his clothes. It was very simple. What he wanted was Karen. To get Karen, he understood that likely he’d have to be in an association with Dom Augustus, and that was reasonable. He was very definitely a submissive. Having his own personal Dom, especially one as caring and inventive as Dom Augustus, was fine by him, especially if it meant he’d get Karen as well.
On the other hand, that made it imperative he tell them both that he was a hawk. And if there was one thing his mother had taught him never to do, one secret above all others that must never be shared, it was the secret of his heritage.
Toby had never told anyone he was a shape-shifter. When it seemed likely people may have guessed, or even had the faintest hint of it, he and his mother had always left the area, disappearing as far and as fast as they could go. Sometimes leaving everything behind and flying away. At other times, packing in the middle of the night, pushing the rent money under the building manager’s front door, and fleeing on a Greyhound bus.
He hadn’t even told Quinn. Quinn had guessed, and Toby had known he was safe and not run away. He wasn’t sure if Quinn had told his partners or if they’d guessed as well. Toby had to acknowledge that if they never saw the hawk and the man at the same time, the message would become obvious sooner or later.
So, how was he going to tell Karen and Dom Augustus? How did one go about such revelations? He hardly thought the middle of the next dungeon scene would be appropriate. He supposed he could just say nothing and shape-shift, but what if they were appalled and it made them hate him? He was so happy on the farm. He didn’t want to run away again. He wanted to stay and get to know Karen properly.
Well, hell. I’ve spent the whole day thinking, and I still don’t know what to do!
Chapter Four
It’d been so long since he’d dressed for a job interview, Gus wasn’t sure what to wear. Did he do the old-fashioned thing and wear a suit and necktie with shiny dress shoes? Or should he dress to show off his muscles and solid build, giving his potential employer a close look at his assets for the job?
For a brief moment Gus almost considered texting Karen to ask her opinion. After all, women were supposed to be good at these sorts of things. But then he told himself to be sensible and just get dressed and go. So he went for traditional and hoped that was the correct decision.
By the time he’d shaved again, brushed his teeth, and gotten dressed, it was time to go. The club wasn’t very far from the BDSM club, still in the entertainment district but farther away from the river, closer to the theater precinct.
It had a basement parking lot, with a man on duty at the gate. Gus also noticed closed-circuit cameras at the gate and again at the elevator. Good security. But did that mean they often had trouble, or just that they were security conscious? Still, he’d checked the name of the club and hadn’t found any references to it being a site for violence. Unless they’d recently changed its name. He hadn’t thought of that. Damn. I’ll have to look again when I get home.
He rode the elevator up to the ground floor and walked over to the reception desk. A very attractive young woman was on duty and smiled at him. She was dressed in regular street clothes, not in a skimpy outfit, so that pleased him, too. It made him think this was a genuine club, not a front for a strip club. Of course, he’d be happy enough to work in a strip club if that was all that was available, but a regular club appealing to a wider clientele suited him better. Then he smiled inside. He worked at a BDSM club for fuck’s sake. Not exactly “regular clientele.” He really needed to get his head on straight here.
He smiled at the pretty woman while mentally comparing her to Karen. Nope, Karen was much more his style. “Augustus Grosvenor. I have a job interview with Mr. Raymond at 3 p.m.”
“Just a moment, sir.”
She pressed some buttons on her phone, nodded, then hung up. He’d been watching and listening carefully and she hadn’t said a word. Interesting.
“Someone will be here in a moment to take you upstairs, sir.”
“Thank you.” Gus stepped back from the desk, looking around carefully. There were big glass doors out onto the road, with a security guard standing at that entry. This foyer area was evidently a place where people lined up waiting to go in, as there were the kind of metal poles and red ropes that were used to control lines at airports and places like that. Right now, they were neatly in a group over by one of the walls, but it wouldn’t take more than a minute or two to turn them into a series of lines to discourage people from pushing ahead.
As well as the elevator he’d used to come up from the parking lot, there was a broad staircase up to the next level. Gus wondered if the main entry to the club was on the first floor. There didn’t seem to be any double doors here, and he’d expect the actual entry would need to be quite wide to allow crowds to move freely.
There was no bar or coffee shop or anything on this level, so he assumed all the action happened upstairs. In all four corners of the foyer against the ceiling were CCTVs. So plenty of security. With four cameras, it’d be difficult for anyone misbehaving not to be caught by one of them.
A young man ran down the stairs. To Gus’s relief he was dressed in a nice gray suit. Thank God he’d decided to wear a suit, not tight black jeans and a black wifebeater. Wow! That was a close call.
“Mr. Grosvenor? This way please.”
Gus almost didn’t move. He was so used to being called Dom Augustus, he nearly didn’t respond to his own last name. Quickly, he straightened his body and followed the man up the stairs and along a hallway to the far end of the building. Here there was another elevator. The man leaned forward, bent down, and swiped a badge hanging around his neck over an electronic light on the wall beside the elevator. When the door opened, the man ushered Gus in, then swiped his card again and pressed a button. Although Gus was watching, the man’s fingers moved so quickly Gus wasn’t sure what floor number was requested.
“So, what do you think of the chances of the Cincinnati Reds next weekend?”
Gus blinked. That wasn’t quite the question he was expecting. “Not bad. They’ve been playing well lately.”
The elevator dinged, and the man held the door for him, then they walked the length of the building again, all the way to the front of it, before turning right and crossing the width of the building. No wonder this young man was fit. If he did this a dozen times a day, likely he’d have walked a couple miles already.
At the front corner of the building was a pair of large double doors in a dark, shiny wood, possibly mahogany. The man tapped lightly then opened on
e door and ushered Gus in, following him and standing to the side.
A man of perhaps sixty with thinning iron-gray hair was seated behind a desk. “Augustus Grosvenor?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Take a seat. This interview will be videoed. Do you agree to that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. My partner wasn’t able to be here this afternoon, but if he has any questions he’ll let me know them. All right.”
“That’s fine, sir.” At least I managed to get out three words this time instead of two. Gus wondered what the young man was doing. He could feel his presence behind him, but likely back against the wall. He didn’t recall any chairs being there, but perhaps he simply hadn’t noticed one as he’d walked in. Or maybe the man was standing.
“My name’s Raymond. I own this club jointly with a silent partner. Every employee, no matter what their job or how few hours they work, is required to pass a police check. Is that okay with you?
“Yes, sir. My current employer has the very same policy.”
“Good. I noticed you didn’t say who you work for right now.”
“That’s correct. I haven’t told them I’m looking for another job.”
“Why not?”
Fuck! How am I going to get out of this! If I say I’m a Dom, he’ll have a pretty good chance of guessing where I work. We’re the only honest BDSM club in town. “I’m seriously thinking about commencing a relationship with a woman I want to know better, and my current job isn’t really compatible with a relationship.”