by Robin Gideon
Jacob shook his head. “I cleared it with your boss. You’ve got the night shift off.”
Bobbi Jo’s first emotion was to resist. Jacob had no right to make decisions for her, and he sure as hell wasn’t allowed to speak on her behalf, especially when it came to earning an honest living—even if that honest living meant dressing in a manner she never would otherwise. The earlier kisses had now made her feel combative.
She looked at him for several seconds, studying his profile because he was looked forward, at the water ahead. She really wanted to hate him, but she couldn’t.
“You shouldn’t have told your brother what I did.” It was a quiet, achingly honest statement. “I made a mistake, but you made it worse by talking about it.”
Jacob turned slowly toward her. When he fixed his gaze on hers, the intensity she saw in his eyes, in his soul, was a little frightening.
“I told him that I thought I’d found the woman I’d been looking for. She’s a woman who doesn’t want me only because I own some oil wells and a fat bank account.” He put his hand on her shoulder. “It’s more than that. It’s not just sex, and it’s not just money. I can’t say why I know this is so, only that it is so, and I know it to the bottom of my heart.” He sighed. This obviously had been playing on his mind for some time. “Caleb then told me that he, too, had found the perfect woman. He believes you’re ideal for us for all the same reasons that I do.”
Bobbi Jo thought about the men talking about the sex they’d had with her, and it caused a shiver of anxiety to slither up her spine. Another perfectly good reason for getting the hell out of Williston and to a city like New York, where there was privacy. In small towns, everyone knows everyone else’s business.
The sound of footsteps drew their attention. It was Caleb climbing up the ladder to the flying bridge. Bobbi Jo looked into his eyes and remembered the incredible experience she’d had in his arms, feeling his strength, his domination, his intense virility.
“Need refreshers here?” he asked, holding an empty bottle of beer.
“Maybe you better. All the way around.”
Bobbi Jo started to say that she didn’t need another, and then she stopped herself. She was on a beautiful forty-foot yacht, on a beautiful lake, in beautiful weather, with two beautiful men.
I don’t always have to toe the line. What damn difference does it make if I have a couple cocktails?
The cocktails would weaken her resistance to the allure of the men. On a very conscious level, she knew this. What she wasn’t so sure about was whether she wanted to weaken her resolve to stay out of their arms. Her body and libido, she had recently discovered, could make decisions for her that might not necessarily be in her best interests. At least, not her long-term interests.
Caleb went below deck, and Bobbi Jo said quietly to Jacob, “It’s so lovely out here. So serene. I wish I had a swim suit. I could catch some sun.”
“You’re wearing a bra and panties. I’m sure they’re perfectly respectable. A bikini is just a bra and panties that’s meant to get wet. That’s the only difference.”
Bobbi Jo smiled at him and put her hand on his forearm. “Nice try, big guy, but it’s hard enough resisting you men without me stripping down to bra and panties.” She huffed a bit. “Besides, the bras and panties that I buy are much too expensive for me to ruin them willy-nilly. It’s one of my very few indulgences.”
“Give me half a chance,” Jacob said, “and I’ll buy you the most beautiful matching sets of bras and panties the world has ever seen. Hundreds of them. No! Thousands!”
Bobbi Jo closed her eyes. Oh, the tempting offers these men could make…and they had the money to back up their promises, to make their boasts as real as rain.
Caleb soon returned with two beers and Bobbi Jo’s cocktail. The men, she noticed, were inclined to drink beer early if they were going to drink alcohol at all, and then switched to cocktails in the evening. They were, she decided, sensible men—at least in some ways.
“Bobbi Jo would like to get some sun,” Jacob said to his brother. “There’s not another boat within two hundred yards, the sun is perfect, and there’s absolutely no reason in the world why she shouldn’t consider her bra and panties the equivalent of a bikini swim suit.”
Bobbi Jo saw the fire flare in Caleb’s eyes. He obviously liked the idea very much.
Why wouldn’t he want me to strip down to my bra and panties? He’s already had sex with me, and he knows that I know just how magnificent he is at sex. But fucking and making love aren’t close relatives. The more involved I get with these men, the more it’s going to hurt like hell when I pack up my car and leave Williston forever.
“Would it really be so bad to have Caleb and I pamper the hell out of you for the rest of your life?” Jacob was at the top deck’s large, stainless steel wheel guiding the boat downstream as it drifted. “We can pamper you in ways that you can’t imagine, and I’m not just talking about sex.”
“It was because you never asked for anything,” Caleb said, stepping in smoothly. He was close enough now that his left arm touched Bobbi Jo’s left arm. “Since you never asked for anything other than to make us very happy men, we think that making you a very happy woman is just balancing out our karma.” He looked away, clearly not comfortable with his next statement. “We owe you, don’t you see? You don’t owe us anything.”
Bobbi Jo shook her head. “I can’t listen to this.” She started to walk away.
Bobbi Jo was shocked when Jacob, even though he had busted ribs and still had a bandage around one wrist where the thieves and brutally stolen his wristwatch, grabbed her firmly by the upper arm, and turned her directly toward him.
“That’s where you’re wrong,” he said sharply, dictatorially. “We have something important to say, so you will listen.”
Bobbi Jo tried to pull her arm out of his grasp. She accomplished nothing. A moment later, Caleb grabbed her other arm with such force that she dropped the cocktail glass, the thick base hit the toe of Caleb’s cowboy boot and therefore did not shatter on the polished teak wood deck.
“Stop it!” Bobbi Jo said defiantly. “I’m not going to listen. I’m just not. And while it’s flattering as all get-out that both of you want me, all of us realize that nothing permanent can come of a situation like that.” She squared her shoulders. “I’m not the kind of girl who gets passed around from one guy to the next. And that’s exactly what you’re asking me to do.”
Jacob turned to his brother and said, “Hold her tight.”
Bobbi Jo watched, horror-stricken, as Jacob unbuckled his braided leather belt, and then removed it from the loops of his jeans. Bobbi Jo felt a momentary stab of fear go through her. The look in Jacob’s eyes was something she’d never seen before. There was a fire in his eyes that was burning hotter than the sun.
“What are you doing?” Bobbi Jo’s words came out as a whisper, even though she’d meant to shout.
Jacob pinned her left wrist to the big, round stainless steel wheel of the yacht, and then quickly looped the braided leather belt around her wrists and the wheel several times before buckling the belt.
Things were happening so fast that Bobbi Jo didn’t even realize that Caleb was doing precisely the same thing to her other wrist. She was trussed up tight in a matter of seconds, her arms outstretched and bound to the yacht’s wheel with supple leather. Eerily, Bobbi Jo wondered whether these men had experience at doing things like this—tying women up quickly to make them defenseless. Their movements seemed a little too coordinated, to without-a-hitch, for this to be their very first experience at tying a woman up with their belts. And how curious it was, Bobbi Jo now noted, that they both wore braided leather belts, so that the prong could be slid through anywhere, allowing the belt to cinch securely around a big man’s waist…or a slender woman’s wrists.
Bobbi Jo was far too cynical about life to believe in coincidences.
“You can’t do this to me,” she said, quietly, and with nowhere near the
sincerity she had hoped for.
Jacob smiled, and then winced as he touched his ribs. “Technically, I think we already have.”
“Hell,” Caleb said as he began removing his necktie, “we’ve hardly started.” His gaze bore into Bobbi Jo’s. “And we’re not stopping until you say ‘yes,’ to everything we propose.”
Bobbi Jo turned her face skyward and felt the warmth of the sun. She also felt the leather belts surround her wrists, securing them to the wheel, her arms outstretched.
“This can’t get worse,” she whispered.
Then she felt Caleb looping his necktie around her ankles, and tying them together.
“Things,” Caleb explained, his tone both patient and faintly mocking, remaining on one knee in front of the thoroughly trussed Bobbi Jo, “are only going to get better.”
* * * *
Andy looked at the pawn broker and thought to himself that he should have brought a pistol to the negotiations. Maybe then he’d get a little respect, and more importantly, a fair price.
“This is a goddamned gold Rolex wristwatch. I looked it up on the internet. Do you know how much this fucking watch is worth?” Andy was almost quivering with rage.
“Yes,” the pawn broker said. “I do know what its legitimate value is. However, we’re not talking about legitimate value, now are we?”
“What the hell’s the difference?”
“The difference between legitimate and actual value is whether or not the Rolex was stolen, and whether anyone knows who the rightful owner is. That’s the trouble with very rare or even unique watches—there are so few of them that everyone who knows anything about the business already knows who owns what.” His eyebrows raised briefly before lowering once again in concentration. “You’ve stolen over your league this time, Andy. This is Jacob Blackridge’s Rolex, and if I buy it, I’m going to have a hell of a time selling it. Everyone will know soon enough that it’s stolen, which drastically reduces its value. I can sell it overseas, but that escalates my costs.” He set the watch down on a black velvet cloth on the glass case. “I’ll give you one hundred dollars now. If you don’t like my offer, don’t take it and see if you can pawn it elsewhere. Sure, you’ll get more money, but you’ll also get arrested for pawning stolen property. With me, at least you get a C-note and the police won’t be looking for you.”
“You’re a fuck,” Andy said softly, under his breath, feeling it somehow terribly unjust that he’d stolen something so valuable that it no longer had much value. “Now give me my fucking money.”
* * * *
Jacob looked around. He could see five boats, all small aluminum fishing boats. The closest one had to be at least five hundred yards away.
Sound travels well over water, he thought, but only if a man’s sitting quietly in his boat, all alone, listening carefully. Those guys are probably telling BS fishing stories. They’re not paying one bit of attention to this boat.
He looked at Bobbi Jo, tied to the upper-deck wheel of his yacht. He smiled, remembering that he only owned half of the boat. His brother owned the other half.
He’d never been so happy to be on the boat as this afternoon. Even with busted ribs that felt like they were on fire whenever he twisted his upper body, or he moved the wrong way. He took a sip of his beer, and was a little surprised to find that he had already drunk half of it.
He looked at his brother. Caleb was staring at Bobbi Jo with the same intensity that a starving wolf does a limping fawn. Jacob didn’t blame him.
He looked at Bobbi Jo and felt a rush of desire go through him. Busted ribs or not, his penis hadn’t been damaged by the muggers, and looking at the bound young blonde had awakened his libido in a heartbeat.
There was fire in her eyes, and that always turned Jacob on. Bobbi Jo had spirit. Right now, she wasn’t sexually aroused, she was just pissed as hell at him and his brother. It didn’t matter to Jacob. What mattered most was that she was passionately intense. Now it was his job to refocus that passionate intensity without dampening it.
He stepped closer. With her arms outstretched, and her ankles bound tightly with Caleb’s necktie, she couldn’t move much. When she struggled, her breasts trembled inside her blouse and the bra Jacob had yet to see. She was, he decided, much sexier when she was dressed as a civilian instead of a waitress working in a sports bar specializing in making sure the ninety-plus-percent male client base had sufficient eye candy to keep them buying endless amounts of beer and chicken wings and tipping extravagantly.
“I know you’re angry,” he said to her.
Her eyes widened. “Angry? You haven’t the foggiest clue of how angry I am.”
“We have to talk to you.” Jacob raised his hand, about to smooth a lock of honey blonde hair away from her eye, but Bobbi Jo turned her face away sharply. “Don’t be like that. We have to talk and if we’re to get anywhere, you need to keep an open mind.”
She turned her gaze toward him. “If you think tying me up is going to win you some points, you’re not nearly as smart as I’ve always thought you were.”
“A ménage a trios relationship isn’t as rare in this territory as you might think,” Jacob continued, trying to ignore the fact that his cock was getting harder by the second, denting the fabric of his jeans. “With the ration of men to women being what it is—“
“More than 20-to-1,” Bobbi Jo cut in smoothly. She knew full well how lousy the odds were for a woman to find happiness in Williston.
“We want to take you for a train ride.”
Jacob saw Bobbi Jo’s face contort with confusion. “A train ride? What the hell for?”
“It might explain some things for you that right now seem too farfetched to be believed.” He caressed her cheek with his fingertips, and she turned her face away. Tied up as she was, it was all the resistance she could put forth. “There’s a new trip tomorrow. Caleb thought we’d escort you.”
“Escort?”
“It’s an invitation-only arrangement.” Jacob chuckled lightly. “Mrs. L wouldn’t have it any other way. She’s always in charge of everything and everyone within the sphere of her influence.”
“Mrs. L?”
“You’ll meet her. She’s…um…she’s good at explaining things to young women such as yourself.”
Caleb added, “She can make the unimaginable seem commonplace. It’s an amazing gift she has.” He tried to kiss her mouth, but she turned her face away. “The Traveling Society of High Entertainment is very, very exclusive, and without Mrs. L’s seal of approval, nobody becomes a member. They don’t even get an initial invitation.”
“Like he said,” Jacob said, stepping a little closer to Bobbi Jo. She tried to pull her wrists free from the belts that bound her to the yacht’s round wheel. “An invitation from Mrs. L can mean a lifetime of pleasure with like-minded people. But if you don’t make the grade, you’ll only see the train from the outside, never from the inside.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bobbi Jo said, struggling a bit more forcefully against her bindings. “I don’t even want to know what you’re talking about.”
Jacob smiled, taking Bobbi Jo’s face in his hands. Though she struggled, he kissed her full on the lips, and felt the woman’s determination to resist begin to slip.
“My brother and I are going to do everything possible to convince you otherwise.”
Chapter 10
Jacob felt a flush adrenaline go through him, and it was unlike anything he’d ever before experienced. He had played the role of the Dom many times before. He had, and so had his brother. But they’d always played the roles individually, never as a team, never in coordination with each other. They had never shared a woman.
Now, it seemed, that was going to change. But just how much would it change…them. As the older of the two, he had always played the role of the commander general to Caleb’s always-loyal second-in-command. With Bobbi Jo now in the mix, would Caleb resent that secondary position? Jacob hoped like hell he wouldn
’t, but it wasn’t something he could be sure of. For all the sexual adventuring Jacob had done in his life, he was getting into murky territory he truly didn’t understand.
And he didn’t understand it because of his heart. Bobbi Jo was young, beautiful, and apparently, quite willing and open to experience new things. All to the good. But Jacob had always had a possessive streak in him, and he knew Caleb did as well. They weren’t the boys who shared well with other children during recess hour when they were kids in elementary school. Somehow, someway, they always ended up with the lion’s share of whatever the spoils were. Jacob and Caleb always came out on top.
They always had. Even as children.
Jacob had, from the beginning, believed that in life there was only one winner, and everyone else were losers—varying only by degrees.
But could he share Bobbi Jo with Caleb, and not see his younger brother as, in the very least, some degree of loser? And if he shared her, wasn’t he some form of loser as well?
This is getting one hell of a lot more complicated than I ever dreamed it would, he thought as he looked at Bobbi Jo trussed up securely to the top deck wheel. If I was really as smart as I sometimes think I am, I’d never have gotten myself into this mess.
He looked at Bobbi Jo. The fire in her eyes was blue, and burning hotter than he could ever before remember it. She was mad about being tied up, but what she was really furious about was that she hadn’t been consulted ahead of time about arrangements for the future. Decisions had been made about her life, yet nobody had asked her opinion. That’s what really cheesed her off. Getting tied up to the wheel with her arms outstretched and her ankles tied together…well, that was probably a double-edged sword, Jacob figured. There was a part of her that was mad as hell at being overpowered, but there was another part of her—a part that she kept hidden from everyone, even from herself—that got really turned on my being so completely dominated and bound.