“Why didn’t you confront us, Alex?” Jeff asked.
“I tried, Jeff. That same night you both came home and acted like bears with sore paws. I’d made a nice meal and set the table with candles. I hoped we would talk it out over dinner, but you were both short with me. You kept looking at me, then at one another, and put me off. Surely you remember that.”
Jeff dropped his head to the mattress and closed his eyes. “Fuck me, Devon. That bitch had impeccable timing. We’d just run into her and Stephan at JOY.”
“She said she had met you both at JOY!” Alex exclaimed. “But that had to be after she came to see me. How could she have thought those details wouldn’t have come out? Except, we didn’t talk, did we?”
“Oh, honey,” Devon said, grimacing in memory, “we had just taken a metaphorical shot to our balls from Stephan. We aren’t Doms, Alex, at least not in that sense,” he added in response to her snort. “We have played, but never wanted anyone forever, Alex, not until you. We couldn’t deny how we felt about you.”
“We were both feeling vulnerable, Alex, and furious with ourselves and with you for not asking us for what you needed,” Jeff added.
When she would have protested, Jeff continued, “We know now that Melissa set it up, playing the odds. Stephan protests his innocence, but we think he sensed the truth all along and wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to play with you. He probably thought he could steal you from us,” Jeff concluded grimly.
“You said you were on double shifts for three days after that, guys, and so I couldn’t get five minutes with you to talk. I tried writing you a letter, too.”
Devon said, “We found that draft in your things, Alex, after you left. It started us looking at what happened. We talked with Melissa and Stephan, and she gave it up. I still don’t know why she told us, except maybe she thought more sacrifice would bind her to Stephan. He sure took advantage to indulge that pain slut afterward.”
Alex shivered.
“Cold, honey?” asked Devon.
“No,” she replied. “I was just remembering how he hurt me that night.”
Chapter Twenty
Devon swallowed and inched closer to her. He stroked her in helplessness as she visibly relived the events she had locked away. He knew that Jeff had the same difficult time watching Stephan flog her that night, switching from a single to a double tail. She’d accepted being tied to the cross, naked and exposed when Jeff had removed the robe. Devon himself had blindfolded her and both had secured her hands and feet. It had nearly destroyed their control, wanting to take the whip from the Dom’s hands and beat him to death with it. But they had held themselves back as Alex made no sound, hadn’t called out to them, hadn’t used her safe word. They thought she had wanted the attention and couldn’t understand why she hadn’t ever slipped into sub space, for her body never relaxed, never stopped holding itself against the repeated strikes. Her back, shoulders, thighs, and buttocks had raised welts and reddened to such an extent that Jeff told him later that he thought he had actually felt her pain in his soul. It was later that they remembered she had never been offered a safe word, probably not an oversight on Stephan’s part, but inexcusable on theirs.
When Stephan had fucked her with the dildo in fierce, controlled thrusts, Alex had thrown her head back and bit her lip, remaining mute against the assault. Devon had slapped the dildo from Stephan’s hand when he had planned to shove it up Alex’s ass. Even when Stephan turned his attention to her breasts, releasing the cruel clamps he had chosen to allow the blood to return in streaming agony to her nipples, even when he had flogged them, Alex had made no sound. Even her sobs had been silent. Devon had tried to translate her reaction into passion but came up short. It was only training and engrained respect for Stephan as a Dom that kept them from interfering, allowing him to continue and try to give Alex what she had said she craved.
It was only when she was released to kneel in front of Stephan, his cock thrusting at her mouth, that Devon saw the blood she had drawn from her bottom lip with her teeth, crimson fluid beading, coating her lips and dripping to her chin. He had stepped forward to interfere, to stop the scene, Jeff right beside him, when the bell went off and the overhead lights outside of the scene flashed on.
All hell had broken loose, a coordinated stream of explanation and orders. There had been an explosion and some kind of attack at the airport, and nearly every man in the place and a few women were called to duty. They had only taken the time to put Alex on a bed and cover her, leaving her to be taken care of by Alistair, the Club manager. Alistair had cleared out the Club and secured it before returning to Alex’s room. He found it empty and no sign of her anywhere. He concluded she had left the building before the lockdown and called Devon before turning to the security cameras.
It was nearly twenty-four hours before Devon and Jeff were released from duty and picked up the voice message from Alistair. They had raced home, charging through the front door, realizing the security system was still activated. Alex wasn’t there. As one, the men climbed into their SUV and headed toward the Club, not talking, not wanting what they suspected to be real, avoiding saying anything that would make it so. Alistair met them at the door in response to the frantic pounding. He escorted them to the security office and showed them the footage from the cameras. Jeff watched Alex move unsteadily from the little bedroom, making her way down the hall, clearly in pain. Devon barely moved, his eyes fixed on her painful efforts to get the black coat on. She never looked up, her head bent forward, and she never looked back as she drew the door open and shuffled through it. Jeff turned and punched the wall then cradled his head in his hands, the bloody knuckles counterpoint to his agony.
Devon asked for the footage of the alley, and they watched their love head down the alley and disappear into the street. Alistair wordlessly passed over Alex’s collar, and tears of pain and rage stood in both of their eyes.
Leave was requested and given. The two threw themselves into a very personal investigation. The initial cabbie was found and Alex’s picture retrieved from the ATM footage. She hadn’t looked directly at that camera, but it captured her swollen lip and the pain and exhaustion etching her features.
Walmart was less willing to provide their security tapes from that night, but a contact at the station and one in the chain’s own security department finally came up with them. Jeff and Devon viewed Alex’s slow, painful progress through the departments and were able to determine what she was wearing when she left. They hadn’t seen the pink hoodie, assuming that she still wore the trench coat, and lost the trail at the bus station. Only careful questioning of some of the regulars and staff elicited a similar description of a slender woman wearing a pink hoodie who might be Alex. The blonde hair was never noticed. The trench coat was in the lost and found, and Devon found the stains of dried hair color on the collar and shoulders.
They then knew what Alex probably looked like, but couldn’t find any footage of her leaving on any of the buses. It took nearly two days of poring over each frame until Devon noticed a flicker of pink, nearly swallowed up in the crowd, by the ATM. They found Alex had withdrawn the maximum amount for the day, and given that there was precious little left in the account, recognized the urgent need to find her before her funds ran out and she turned to the streets. Even then they knew she was going underground and would not turn to anyone familiar and thus make it easier to be found. What they didn’t know was why.
The trail went cold after that first push as Jeff and Devon searched the streets of their city, asking their fellow officers to watch for Alex in every restaurant, diner, and retail store. They contacted homeless shelters and put out the word with any person who would spread the word, making it very clear that the gratitude for finding her would be immeasurable. Jeff found the note after her computer failed to give them any hints. He has shaken out every single book she owned and finally lifted the desk blotter. They went to talk with Stephan.
The Dom received them in his home
, genial but somehow wary, too. Stephan had excused Melissa from the conversation, and her exit seemed too much like flight to their observant eyes. It hadn’t taken long to piece things together. Stephan had shown his carnal interest in Alex to Melissa, who had been feeling vulnerable in regard to his continuing interest. Melissa had sought Alex out, confiding her false knowledge of Jeff and Devon’s requirements. The timing had been impeccable, and only Melissa knew how she had become aware of their intent to shop at JOY for Alex that same day after work. She had cajoled Stephan into taking her to the adult store, having primed the pump by relating a titillating version of her conversation with Alex that afternoon.
Stephan’s patronizing attitude, followed by Melissa’s breathless confidences, swearing them to secrecy for the sake of friendship, about how Alex was craving exposure and fantasized about a scene with another Dom at the Club because they hadn’t provided it for her, had blindsided them and overcome their common sense. Their pride and egos felt battered, and both had gruffly acquiesced to Stephan’s calming suggestion that he would be pleased to stand in as the Dom Alex required. They knew his experience and skill would bring Alex to the height of ecstasy and accepted the necessity of giving Alex what she needed as part of their relationship.
Neither of them liked the idea. Hell, they hated it and didn’t dare express their feelings of possessiveness even to one another, for fear possession would take over and they would punish Alex for her desires. They could not do that to her and were prepared to see it through, no matter the cost to them. She had given them everything, and they owed it to her.
Dinner that night had been awkward, without the natural flow of conversation and teasing. Alex had withdrawn after her repeated attempts to engage them were rebuffed as they struggled to internalize how they had failed to recognize her change of heart from wanting only them and their kink. Devon knew now that her anxious glances had been a clear indication of a need to talk something important out with them, but once again their cursed male pride got in the way. The double shifts over the next three days had been a relief to give them a focus away from the swiftly approaching Friday night. They had fallen into separate beds late each day after a quick shower, leaving before Alex awoke, leaving them no time to talk. Alex had been recovering from a bout of flu, the antibiotics upsetting her stomach, and her illness had distanced them further, especially in bed, as they would never have been sexual with her when she wasn’t feeling well.
Looking back, it had been a comedy of errors, the embers of miscommunication slyly fanned by that master manipulator, Melissa. But it didn’t take away from the fact that Alex had tried to reach out to them. They hadn’t listened. What they didn’t understand was why Alex hadn’t stayed to talk with them afterward. Devon would have welcomed a temper tantrum then, making them pay for their stupidity and blindness. They knew her well, and how they could have thought she would have wanted that scene spoke only to some buried vulnerability in them both. That Alex might leave them someday, that they weren’t enough for her. They hadn’t trusted their sense of her, and worse, hadn’t trusted her. So they had paid for long months in the currency of emotional anguish and anxiety as a result of their own actions.
Both roused from their reverie when Alex began crying quietly again.
“Hush, sweetheart,” Jeff crooned. “It’s going to be okay.” He gently wiped the tears from her cheek.
“It’s the damn hormones. I’m like a leaky faucet.”
He rocked her in his arms while Devon stroked her back and the tears eased.
Devon put the painful facts into words. “You left us, not because you were mad at us, Alex, but because you thought you had failed us. You were ashamed.”
The tears returned, and Alex began to sob.
“It’s okay, baby. It’s okay,” Devon whispered. “You have no need to be ashamed. You have never failed us. We failed you.”
“We’re going to spend the rest of lives making it up to you, Alex, if you’ll let us,” Jeff added.
Devon flashed Jeff a warning over Alex’s head. He wasn’t giving Alex a choice and was furious that Jeff would even open that door. They had to assume that her love for them was still there, that she didn’t hate them.
Alex was silent, and Devon watched her carefully. He wanted her to think things through but was alert for any sign of her overthinking and going in a direction they couldn’t allow.
They had never stopped searching for Alex. It was a gift when an officer returning from a monthlong vacation called them to say that he thought he had seen Alex on a train in the early morning hours after that fateful night. He and his family had boarded the wrong car, and in traipsing through toward their quarters, he’d observed a young woman curled against the window. Working with runaways as he did, Dunk had immediately thought she was running, especially considering how the tears dripped from her face. But she was on a train, and the fare wasn’t cheap, so he’d adjusted his thinking to see her as a woman sad to leave her family, dressed in the ubiquitous clothing of her generation. It wasn’t until the next day, when he was rested, that the striking similarity to Alex that reflected back from the window struck him. He had gone to seek her out of curiosity, but there was no sign of her.
That information gave Devon and Jeff a time frame and a rough area to search, for no one remembered Alex at the station, and there was no record of a ticket issued in her name. They obtained a list of all the stations the train would have stopped in and queried local police with her description. A few false leads were all they received, and they assumed she had taken further transportation from wherever she got off. The disappointment, the crushing worry and guilt never lifted, and they slept together every night in the master bedroom with an Alex-sized space between them.
Nearly four months after she left, Jeff overheard a conversation that included the word whistle stops. He had dragged Devon away from his desk, explaining as they went to the station. The station manager grudgingly admitted that on occasion the train would actually stop in a place they were not scheduled to do so. It was rare because of the time lost, but sometimes happened if the engineer was granting a favour. They tracked the engineer in question down, and he confirmed stopping in the hamlet of New Bushnell so his uncle wouldn’t have to be picked up and driven back there from the next stop of Estonia. The engineer asked the porter, who agreed that he had let two people off early that morning, the engineer’s uncle and a slender young woman wearing a pink hoodie and clutching a backpack.
They took two weeks of their vacation time and headed out that afternoon, planning their method of attack. They easily found her apartment just by talking with the garrulous old men in the hardware store who were also happy to provide her place of employment to Alex’s nice fellows.
“I want to believe you. I want to trust you again,” said Alex in a small, quiet voice. “But I need time.” Her tone was flat in their ears.
“Rest for a while, Alex. We’ll talk more when you get up. A proper adult conversation, honey,” he claimed ruefully.
Alex obediently closed her eyes and within minutes had drifted off to sleep. Devon and Jeff tried to relax beside her but soon were slipping out of bed, covering her with the sheet. Finding their boxers on the floor and quietly putting them on, they shut the bedroom door and sat in the kitchen.
Jeff grabbed a couple of beers and cracked them open, handing one to Devon.
“Can’t say as I’m looking forward to that proper conversation, Dev. I know we have to have it, but…” He tapered off.
“Fuck you, Jeff. You’re way better at the soft stuff than I am. I’d like to fuck all that shit out of her, but I’m willing to try for her sake. And if it doesn’t work, then I’m going to fuck her,” Devon stated.
He brooded and watched the bedroom door.
Chapter Twenty-One
Alex awoke to a darkened room and major hunger. She recalled the events of the afternoon and realized the adult conversation would take place as soon as she got up. She got
out of bed and went to the closet to find her nightgown. Devon poked his head in just as she was pulling it over her shoulders.
“Take that off, Alex. We don’t want you wearing clothes around us. That hasn’t changed,” he ordered.
“Suck it up, Devon,” Alex answered him with a glare. “I’m going to be dressed for this conversation. I’ve learned a few things about tactics.” She preceded him to the kitchen and pulled a stool to face them across the counter. She wanted some space between her and their hands.
* * * *
Jeff looked at their girl, mismatched hair snarled from the sex and kink, no makeup on her beautiful face, thin, wearing the ugliest garment he had ever seen, and he wanted to grab her, run to a corner, and eat her up. He could feel Devon wrestling with strong emotion beside him, but then Devon took a deep breath and seemed to accept her condition.
“I want to finish my shift here. It’s the right thing to do. I need to give notice on this apartment, but that’s by the week. I want to have Dr. Owens do my first ultrasound,” she stated.
“Done,” said both men in unison.
“But I’m not,” she said with a toss of her head.
“I’ll move back with you, but I want my own room.”
Devon shook his head. “Not happening. You can have your own room to work in and keep your clothes like you did, but you are sleeping in our bed, every night. If you have nightmares, or get sick, or anything, we are going to be there for you. Period.” Alex glared at him and compressed her lips but didn’t argue. “I want to pick my own clothes,” she started.
“Whatever you want to wear, Alex, is fine with us. But please let us buy you sexy things,” asked Jeff.
“Okay. But I want to feel comfortable, and I’m afraid people saw me as a whore in those clothes I wore when I was out with you.”
Young, Allyson - Away (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 17