by Cara Adams
* * * *
Leticia’s shoulder was aching by the time her room was all packed up and emptied. She thought she’d hidden the pain until William turned to her and said, “Leticia, you’ve done too much. Your shoulder’s hurting you, isn’t it, sweetie?”
“Just a bit. I’ll sit and watch you two pack up Oliver’s things.”
Oliver turned to William and gave him a piercing look. “Should it still be strapped up? Did she take the support off too soon?”
Now the piercing looks were on her. She remained still, used to her father staring at her like that, as if he was weighing up everything about her. But whereas he never seemed content, William smiled at her.
“No, she’s not holding it incorrectly. All she needs is a couple Tylenol and a rest. But you need to take it easy for the rest of the day, Leticia. No more lifting, okay?”
“I’m good with that plan.”
Once they left their own tiny apartment, William swept her up into his arms and put her in the wheelbarrow then began to push it toward the apartment Oliver shared with some other unmated panthers.
“Won’t that jolt her worse than walking?” asked Oliver.
“I’ll avoid the bumps,” said William.
“There’s no need to fuss. I’m fine, really.”
She thought for a few minutes then remembered something Oliver had said.
“Oliver, you said we should talk about adding a module to the apartment so it’s big enough for us. What sort of things did you have in mind? How will it work?” That should give them something to think about other than her.
“Likely we need to talk to JB about exactly what type of modules are available, but first I thought we should discuss what we want. Carey left the apartment because it was way too small. Which it truly is. Besides, living in the main house is best for them because Larry needs to be close by all the time as business manager. That’s not a nine-to-five kind of job. But it could work as the basis of a house for us. We just add what else we need.”
“Like a bathroom big enough to shower in?” asked William.
“And a kitchen I can cook in,” added Leticia.
“Gotta love a woman who wants to cook,” said William. His voice was full of affection for her. She couldn’t see him because he was pushing the wheelbarrow she was sitting in, but she could almost feel him smiling at her back.
“That’s the kind of thing I meant. What else do you need, Leticia?” asked Oliver.
“I was going to say a basement to store all our boxes in, but that’s going to be too hard, isn’t it? And really, our boxes are fine in the storage barn where they are already. Maybe what I should say is that I’d like to go through my boxes and pull out some things to use. Soon we’ll need to get some of our winter clothing out anyway, so we can do it then.”
“You don’t want a library or a sewing room or something like that, Leticia?” asked Oliver.
“Autumn is the one who makes and sells craft. I know she often has to go to her own stored boxes looking for the right-size knitting needles or some fabric in a color she knows she has or whatever. But not me. Craft is definitely not my talent. And most of my books are electronic and stored on my terabyte hard drive, so they don’t take up much space. A dining table and a few more comfortable chairs to relax in and I’d be happy I think.”
“What about you, William?” Oliver asked.
“A fifty-inch plasma-screen TV? No, seriously, I’ve got a small bookshelf with my medical textbooks and some favorite novels and an armchair, and apart from my clothing that’s about it. I used to have a cross trainer, but I never used it so gave it to one my friends at the hospital.”
They’d arrived at the apartment Oliver shared. “It sounds about as if we need a large bathroom and a proper, fully equipped kitchen and not much else. I’ll talk to JB, but if the new module could be added somehow beside the bedroom any excess space would give us a larger bedroom, which could only be good.”
Yes, that sounded good to Leticia. She followed them inside but ended up sitting in the living room talking to some of the panthers while the rest of them quickly helped Oliver pack and walked them back to their own home.
“Would you like me to make coffee, or would you prefer a cold drink?” Leticia asked. Suddenly she wanted to know their preferences. She couldn’t even remember if they took cream or sugar in their coffee.
“Water sounds good,” said Oliver.
“I’ll have that, too. I’d really like a beer but not so close to when I have to go to work,” said William.
“There’s very little alcohol around here anyway. They say it’s not good to mix with BDSM.” Leticia was remembering what Jubilee had told her.
“It doesn’t mix with my job, either. We see some accident patients where someone has gotten drunk and done stupid things,” said William.
“How do you both feel about BDSM?” asked Oliver.
Leticia waited for William to answer first. She knew he’d been to some of the events at Carnal Connections whereas her first experience of watching BDSM had been at Serena and Verity’s twenty-first birthday party.
William seemed to be remembering something good. There was a slightly wistful look on his face and his eyes were unseeing. He said, “Oh yeah. I’m good with BDSM. It’s very freeing for the sub. The world shuts down and encloses you like a glove. It’s just you and the punishment. Letting go without losing yourself. The dynamics of the exchange of power. Trusting your Dom to heighten your sensations and bring you to a perfect release.”
Leticia hadn’t really thought about it like that before, but everything he said meshed with what she’d seen and heard from her friends.
“Leticia?”
She spoke slowly, putting her thoughts into words as she went along. “I think one of the reasons my father was able to treat me as he did was because I remembered when he loved me. When what he said was true. When I’d trusted him and believed in him. It took me a long time to understand that things had changed. That what he said was no longer right. I need someone to trust, to free me and guide me. But it has to be someone I can love and believe in. I’m prepared, for the next three months, to put my trust in Oliver.”
The room was totally silent when she finished. Both men were staring at her. Then Oliver nodded decisively. “Okay.”
Soon it was time for William to go to work. “We’ll meet you at your apartment when your shift finishes and I’ll help you pack, then we can figure out where we want to put everything for the time being,” said Oliver.
William nodded, seemed undecided, then crossed the room to kiss her forehead. “I’ll see you both later then.”
“Bye for now, William,” she said, watching him go.
“I need to go talk to JB. Who do you want to spend time with while I do that? Or would you rather take a nap?” asked Oliver.
Leticia stretched cautiously. She probably ought not dig or weed today. Likely she’d used her shoulder enough already. “Ramona, Gaynor, Serena, and Verity will all still be at work. I’ll find Autumn and sit with her while she works.”
“Where will she be? In the barn? I’ll walk you over there. I don’t want you to ever be alone.”
“I know. Let’s go then.” Leticia walked beside him. When would she ever be safe again? Her life was getting better, but it was by no means normal. She still couldn’t quite get used to the fact her own father, who had guarded her so carefully, would be visiting with and talking to the rogue panthers.
He was, Leticia, I saw him.
Her head snapped round to look at Oliver. She could have sworn he’d spoken to her, but he was looking straight ahead and paying no attention to her. Well, that was weird.
Chapter Four
David was sitting with Sam beside the campfire in the clearing. Their booted feet were resting comfortably on the stones edging the fire pit. Being so close to the fire they were comfortably warm even though the sky was gray, the wind chilly, and winter was fast approaching.
D
avid’s pack was in tatters. Well, actually it was more a case of “Pack? What pack?” He’d had a normal life as a child, growing up with his younger brother and sister in a small but happy pack way up in the Rocky Mountains. His father had been the Alpha’s second-in-command and their lives had been good. Then one of the younger panthers had challenged the Alpha. Although leadership contests these days were mostly won by words, in this case the younger man had kept confronting the Alpha until there was a fight, which left the Alpha badly wounded.
His own life had been a shit fest ever since. The new Alpha had told his family to leave the pack because they were half-breeds and the pack would no longer tolerate such mutants. In vain did their father point out that he was a full-blood and his children three-quarters. The new Alpha wasn’t listening, and when his mother told his father they should just leave because it wasn’t anything to do with her being half-human but rather that they’d supported the old Alpha, his father had turned on her, blaming her for all their troubles.
David had tried to support his mother only to have his father tell him he wasn’t his father. That David had been born before his parents had mated.
His mother and siblings had headed south, looking for another pack. David wasn’t wanted by any of them. Not his pack, not his family. Alone, he’d headed east and just kept going. In Indiana he’d met some other lone panthers, including some part humans, and he’d formed his own pack. By the time they’d reached Ohio some humans had joined them, looking for a tribe, a pack of their own.
At first David had been thrilled, planning to make his pack a force to be reckoned with. Then had come more trouble. Months ago Drew had come up with a clever idea for their success as a pack.
“We have to mate with pure-blood big cats or our shifting gene will die out. I know of a pack with cougars, panthers, and a puma,” said Drew, who was half-panther.
“But why would they accept us? Why would they let us join them just to marry their women?”
“We aren’t going to join them, David. We’ll steal the unmated women and mate them ourselves. Then we’ll be really powerful. You’ll be a real Alpha then with a pack that will last for generations.”
That’s what David had wanted, and he’d focused only on that. He’d worked so hard to steal a bride. But every time he was close to success his men either did something stupid or ran away in fear. All the humans had left him now, apart from a few who were in jail along with two panthers. He was almost certain the last two half-panthers, Drew and Charlie, had left as well. They hadn’t been back to the campsite for days, and this new panther, an older man who was part of the pack he’d attacked, was sleeping in their tent and using their things.
“Sam, I don’t understand why you’ve left your pack to join me. Once I had a pack, a good pack, but most of them have left now. Some in jail, and Drew and Charlie haven’t been back in a while. Likely they’ve left, too. So why are you still here? I have no pack, no power to help you anymore.”
“My daughter is mine. My little princess, my Leticia. They’re all against me, misleading her, taking her away from me. All I need is a place to stay, here with you, until I get her back.”
“What will you do when you’ve gotten her back though? Where will you go?”
“That doesn’t matter. I just need to get her back. She’s mine.”
That didn’t sound like Sam had much of a plan, either. Likely he’d end up in jail right there with the others. David shrugged. He didn’t give a fuck about Sam or his daughter. His own projects were more important. He needed a plan he could manage totally alone, relying on no one. They’d all let him down. They were all hopeless and useless. But he didn’t need them. He’d traveled from Colorado to Indiana alone, and he could do it again. Or go somewhere else. He’d been thinking about Florida lately. Maybe he’d snatch his bride and go there.
* * * *
By the time William got back to his apartment he was a nervous wreck. Oliver and Leticia had been alone together for hours and hours. Had they fucked? Had they talked and laughed and just enjoyed each other’s company? Or had they gone running as panthers with each other, maybe fucking in animal form, something he could never join them in doing? Had Leticia decided she was totally fulfilled with Oliver and didn’t need him anymore? Or had Oliver decided William was expendable, an optional extra Leticia could learn to manage without? It’s not like he could complain. Their relationship wasn’t legal under human law and even the pack wouldn’t expect them to try to keep together once the three months was done.
He wanted her so much, loved her so much. He was okay with sharing her, truly he was, and he had meant every word of the vows he’d spoken. But he didn’t think he could go on living if Leticia was snatched away from him now.
When he walked from the parking lot to the door of his building, feeling so sick with nerves he thought he might upchuck, there they were sitting on the stoop outside his apartment building, and Oliver was even leaning back against a luggage trolley laden with flattened cardboard boxes. And they were both wearing the bracelets he’d given them.
The light suddenly shone brightly in his world, the huge weight squeezing his chest stopping him from breathing disappeared, and William gave a heartfelt grin to them both. “Thank you for coming.”
“You helped us. Why wouldn’t we help you?” asked Oliver.
Oh, so it wasn’t love, it was just paying back a debt. Saddened, he turned and opened the door leading them inside and across the foyer to the elevator. “I usually take the stairs, but it’ll be easier to transport my stuff on the elevator,” he said.
“We came in JB’s truck so we could take your bookshelf and chair with us as well as all your things,” said Leticia.
“You remembered,” he said, once again smiling.
“Of course. We’re a family now, moving into our very first apartment.”
Well, that was better than just paying off a debt, and it seemed as though Leticia still wanted him at least.
“I’m so glad you’re wearing the bracelets I gave you,” he said.
“I like it very much. It’s so pretty and suits us all,” replied Leticia.
Oliver moved into William’s personal space and stared at him. “There’s something more behind that remark, isn’t there, William? Spit it out.”
William suddenly wondered if he was the one causing the trouble, if he was metaphorically shooting himself in the foot with his insecurities. “No, no. It was just an idle comment.”
He pulled his clothing out of his closet and piled it on the bed for Leticia to pack into a couple of boxes, while Oliver packed his books into another box. Then he and Oliver carried the bookshelf, his armchair, his TV, and the filled boxes out to JB’s truck.
By the time they got back Leticia was in the bathroom filling a couple of plastic bags with his toiletries, and his apartment was very nearly empty. His saucepans and plates filled another box, his food supplies yet another, and the apartment was bare.
“You really don’t have all that many things, do you? I reckon that’ll all fit into our apartment just fine,” said Oliver.
“Just the coffee percolator, the blankets from the bed, and the microwave oven, I think,” said William, looking around. He stripped the bed, rolling the bedding up to squeeze it into another cardboard box while Leticia grabbed his coffee machine.
“Do you have to hand your keys back in or something?” asked Leticia.
“I’m paid through to the end of the month, so I’ll keep them and come back in a day or so to give the place a really good clean. That way I should get all my deposit back.”
“I can do that for you. You have to work after all. I’m sure Jubilee would help me and maybe Autumn, if she’s not on a deadline.”
“Autumn? Deadline?” William was confused. Didn’t she just do knitting or crafts or something? How could she be on a deadline?
“Yes, you know, she makes the display items for a couple of craft companies.”
“I know she kni
ts things.”
“Oh, it’s a lot more than that. The things she makes are the ones they use for the photographs on their brochures and catalogues and on their websites, so every item has to be perfect. She almost went insane a little while ago because the fabric they sent kept bunching up when she tried to sew it. She ended up having to buy special really fine needles she could only thread by using a magnifying glass and putting nail polish on the end of the thread to make it fit through.”
“I never knew sewing was such a big deal. Although I have heard some doctors going ballistic when their favorite needles aren’t available, so I guess I should have figured it out.”
They all laughed as they carried the last of his possessions out to the parking lot. Feeling brave, William suggested, “Travel in my car, Leticia, and tell me what you did today while I was at work.”
William wondered if Oliver would say she should go back with him, but Oliver left it up to Leticia, and William’s heart sang as she climbed into his car. Once again the sun shone in his world. He would have a short time alone with the woman he loved, and then he’d be living with her. Life really was good.
* * * *
The next night Oliver was ready to teach his subs something about the BDSM lifestyle. He didn’t want to do anything too unusual just yet, so he’d planned the perfect scene for tonight. He knew William had dabbled a little bit in BDSM but thought likely Leticia didn’t really know much about it, apart from secondhand chatter. Anyway, tonight was the time for him to find out.
“Undress, my subs, then stand in front of me with your legs shoulder-width apart, your eyes down looking at the floor, and your hands clasped behind your backs.”
William gave him a quick glance from under lowered lids but began undressing without making a comment. Leticia stared at him for a few moments then also started taking her clothes off.
“This is how you always stand to indicate to me you’re ready to begin playing a BDSM scene. Do you understand?”