by Nia Farrell
Whispering in Old Norse, Gunnar gathered her up and carried her to a bench against one wall, where he held her in the circle of his embrace, stroking her face, her hair, her body, kissing her gently, keeping her head turned away from her sister, who was receiving aftercare from her partners.
Breanna pushed away from him, enough to meet his gaze. In his eyes, she saw the concern that she expected and something else, something more—a tenderness that gave her hope. Reaching, she touched his face, his stubbled chin, the corded muscle of his neck, lowering her hand until it rested over his heart. “Tha gaol agam ort,” she whispered, telling him again that she loved him, willing him to feel it despite the language she must use.
A voice called from the other side of the room, demanding his attention.
“She is yours. Do what you will.” Gunnar answered in perfect Scots Gaelic, smiling when he saw the pure shock on her face. “I am keeping this one.”
He repeated his words in Old Norse, then picked her up and carried her off the set, not stopping until he put her down in the janitor’s closet that they once had shared. This time he turned on the light, needing her to look at him, waiting for her to speak.
Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh God. He knew. Gunnar—multilingual Gunnar—had understood everything she’d said! But what he’d said—
She wanted to think…wanted to believe….
“What do you mean, you’re keeping me?”
Gunnar lifted her hand and pressed a kiss into her palm, curling her fingers to keep it there and engulfing her small fist with his own. “Such a busy mind,” he murmured, rubbing her fingers and smiling softly, encouragingly. “Tell me what you’re thinking. What do you want it to mean?”
“I hope,” she whispered, “that you want me for more than the contract, for more than a scene.”
Gunnar nodded. “I want us to get to know each other better.”
Breanna couldn’t help it. She giggled. The man had just taken her three ways to Sunday, had touched every inch of her body he could possibly reach, inside and out.
He gave her a knowing grin. “Mating is not dating—although if that happens in the course of our evenings, I can promise that you’ll not be left wanting…unless you need to be punished,” he added with a mischievous smile, before his expression shifted from playmate to serious Dom.
“You’re new to this lifestyle,” he said, “and we have a lot to learn about each other. I can’t tell you how proud I am of you, how privileged I feel that you chose me to be your first, but if I have my way, sweetheart, I’m going to be your last, your one and only. It may take weeks, or months, or years, or the rest of our lives, but I’m willing to see where this goes.”
Breanna put her hand on his chest and felt the beat of his heart. “I love you,” she told him in Gàidhlig and in English. “And if you ask me, I say we raid the wardrobe room, find some clothes, and take this home. What say you, Milord?”
The smile that Gunnar gave her said it all.
Epilogue
Breanna nearly jumped to see the sandals of a Praetorian Guard by the cushion where she sat playing. He shouldn’t be this close. No one at tonight’s Roman orgy was supposed to get past her Nubian guards.
She took a breath and refocused on the music, multitasking as she let her gaze drift up past a pair of shin guards to the sculpted muscles of two deliciously familiar hair-dusted thighs. In the six months since her twenty-second birthday, she’d memorized every sinewy inch of Gunnar’s magnificent body.
She didn’t know if Praetorians wore clouts girding their loins or if he was commando underneath his uniform. She did know that he was happy to see her, and saucily winked her approval.
“How many more songs in this set?” he murmured, not even trying to disguise the hunger in his eyes.
“Speaking English? Breaking character?” she asked, keeping her voice to a whisper—although what she really wanted to know was what had him so hot and bothered. The alpha wolf clearly did not want to share. “If we’re not careful, Sir Piers will notice.”
“Damn Piers. Tiberius. Whomever. You were supposed to be off tonight.” Gunnar growled and tossed a pissy look over his shoulder. “He let her off.”
“Only because she’s role-playing.”
Her sister had had Sir Piers negotiate a contract for Rowena’s presence, on her terms, when the billionaire paying for this party seemed to think he could just buy her twin’s time for the night. Everyone seemed to want her these days.
Their birthday was a milestone for both of them. Breanna had officially begun her relationship with Gunnar, and Rowena had emerged with an idea of how to finally use her English degree. Adopting a pen name, she started writing a blog and had put up dozens of posts that went viral. When turning down a date with a late night talk show host catapulted her into the national limelight, she drew the attention of a number of literary and talent agents, eventually signing with two Doms who were here with her tonight. The last time Breanna had dared to look, her sister was holding court with them and a switch assistant, the three men portraying a senator, a general, and his Briton captive.
Eying Rowena, the Nubians looked grumpy, but the billionaire paying for the party appeared up for the competition.
The two agents didn’t seem threatened. A Naughty Girl’s Guide for New Submissives was about to become a book, and movie rights were in negotiation. The ungodly advance from her publisher and signing for a weekly appearance on local cable TV had Rowena Campbell aka Regina Wright and her agents singing all the way to the bank.
“Please, Gunnar. Go away before you get us both in trouble.”
He didn’t budge. Stubborn Dom.
“But we had plans to play, too,” he groused.
“And try out the teeth. I know.” They’d watched an old Bela Lugosi movie and thought they could have some fun acting out their own version. “Damn those rich men who think they can just fly in their friends for three nights of debauchery. Although I have to say, they are so much better looking than the last bunch.”
Fairly young, handsome, and fit, every last one of them. The alpha wolf ice man said nothing.
“Oh, Gunnar.” The special way that she breathed his name made him melt just a little. “That’s why you came?” How sweet. Her perfectly handsome, handsomely endowed Norse god of a man was jealous. He also looked ready to rip the head off the neck of any man who so much as looked at her.
At that moment, the billionaire who’d been talking to Sir Piers turned the full force of his gaze on her. Gunnar was already in alpha male mode, but she swore she felt his hackles raise and steel claws shoot out of his knuckles.
Oh, for Pete’s sake.
“Don’t be a Philistine,” she hissed. “He knows I’m off limits. I told Sir Piers I’d only provide music if he made it clear that I am not my twin Regina.”
Their P.I. friend Marcus had warned that the type of blog Rowena was considering would draw the crazies out of the woodwork. Even before it launched, they’d begun using their new professional names, Regina and Sabrina Wright.
“Master?” She used her lowest, sultriest voice, and the Dom in him responded.
“I’m uninterested, unavailable, and undeniably yours,” she reminded him gently, thinking back to the only contract they had signed, good for seven days and one mind-blowing night. After weeks of dating and hours of discussion, they’d come to another agreement, verbal but no less binding. When she’d said yes to moving in with him, he had fastened a diamond collar around her neck, a matching tennis bracelet on her wrist, and presented her with a chest—literally, an iron-bound, handcrafted wooden chest—filled with period-appropriate collars for dozens of eras.
The billionaire was still looking at her. At them.
So was Sir Piers.
“Gunnar, please go. I’m begging you.”
His answering smile promised that he could, and would, make her beg. “Break time, pet. Nubians, guard Sabrina’s space.”
He took the lyre from her hands and set
it down as he pulled her from the floor cushion. Sweeping her off her feet, he cast a challenging glance at the billionaire and carried her from the banquet room down the employees’ access hall.
Ten minutes later, she smiled and licked a bead of sweat from the muscled column of his neck. “One of these days, you’ll get that libido under control and I’m going to miss this closet,” she sighed.
“There’s room enough to build one in the basement,” he offered, hesitant to let her go just yet. “It could be done in time for Christmas. You haven’t told me what you want.”
“Milord, it’s still early.” She swore his chest puffed when she called him that. What would he do when she told him there were other things they were going to need more than a dungeon closet? “We have time to make lists. Play your cards right and we could do a big reveal—you show me yours and I’ll show you mine?”
“You sure you want to go there?” he rumbled. “Remember what happened last time?”
“Yes, Master. You came, you saw, you conquered.” She took his hand from her hip and kissed his hair-dusted knuckles. Unfurling his fingers, she pressed his palm against her belly. “And,” she said meaningfully, “it seems that you left a little something behind.”
Gunnar went still. The muscles in his throat worked soundlessly. “You’re sure?”
“Three tests and an Ob/Gyn say so.” She leaned back to meet his gaze. “Are you okay with it? I know we’d talked about ‘someday’ but not this soon.”
His answer was a smile that eclipsed his face, reaching from his lips to the depths of his beautiful, pale blue eyes. For good measure, he told her “yes” in seven different languages and showed her in another just how perfectly okay it was.
Replay Book 2
TRIPLE PLAY
by
Nia Farrell
Replay Book 2: TRIPLE PLAY by Nia Farrell
Copyright 2016 by Nia Farrell
Edited by Anita Quick and Anne Bright
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used without the written consent of the author, except for brief quotes in reviews. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or any other means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner of this book. Such action is in violation of the U.S. Copyright Law.
Unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.
First Edition September 1, 2016
Length 20,232 words/100 pages
Long Branch Books
Shattuc, Illinois
DEDICATION
This book is dedicated to the people in my life who were used and abused as children and who survived to become caring, considerate adults. No one knows your pain unless they’ve been there. Not everyone understands how common it is to think that it was somehow your fault. No one realizes that you’ve suffered in silence until you find your voice. All of us should marvel at the courage it took to finally speak your truth.
~ Nia
THE NATIONAL CHILD ABUSE HOTLINE for the USA, US Territories, and Canada is 1-800-422-4453 (1-800-4-A-CHILD)
Reporting child abuse varies by location. When the suspected offender lives with the child, the local Child and Family Services or Child Protection Services may be able to help. See U.S. Department of Health & Human Services/Administration for Children & Families/Children’s Bureau at https://www.childwelfare.gov/topics/responding/reporting/
If the danger is immediate, call 911 or the local law enforcement agency (city police, country sheriff’s department, etc.).
For more information, see the websites for
Childhelp http://childhelp.org and
Darkness to Light – End Child Abuse http://www.d2l.org
Chapter One
“Really? This Micheil Malcolm MacDonald thinks he can buy me?”
Resisting the urge to toss the proposed contract in the trash, Rowena Campbell took another look, drew a deep breath, and framed her response. “Okay. Here’s my counter offer. Three nights of scenes with Regina Wright as an observer only. Make it plain, I will not join in, regardless of what happens around me. No kink. No sex. A hundred thousand per night, and I pick who comes to the scenes with me. Tell him it’s non-negotiable. Take it or leave it.”
She managed a wry smile and pushed the papers across the desk towards the man behind it, Piers St. Leger, full-time owner of Replay BDSM theme resort and her part-time boss. She and her twin sister Breanna had another year to go on their contract as period musicians, adding to the atmosphere of the history-based scenes performed here, but things had changed since they’d done their own scene six months ago. Soon after that legendary night, Rowena’s red-wigged alter ego Regina Wright had exploded onto the BDSM scene with her blog A Naughty Girl’s Guide for New Submissives. She had a book deal (done), a movie deal (in the making), a weekly television show on a local cable channel, and finally a life apart from her identical twin. Breanna was living with the Viking Dom who’d taken her virginity in the one and only scene the sisters had shared, and she still performed with Gunnar from time to time. For the most part, the couple preferred to have their sex offstage, at Gunnar’s home or in Replay’s janitor closet, away from other eyes.
Sir Piers’s eyes were calculating how Rowena/Regina’s dictates affected him. The billionaire who wanted her was willing to rent the entire resort. Both sides—SSC (Safe, Sane, Consensual) and RACK (Risk-Aware Consensual Kink). MacDonald was throwing his brother the birthday bash of a lifetime, with plans to fly in their friends and party like it was 33 A.D. Rome, 1920s Prohibition Chicago, and a third scene different from anything they’d yet done, a trip to Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland with Regina Wright as Alice.
She felt like she’d fallen down the rabbit hole when Sir Piers had texted her Monday needing a private consultation. Replay’s owner never called her into his office. She did her job, performed per their contract terms, and kept her other business private. He had no cause for complaints. She thought. Then he threw this at her, as if Replay’s continued success depended on her compliance and bending to the billionaire.
They both knew better. Replay had opened nearly one year ago. November 11th. Eleven eleven. Sir Piers had this thing for numerology. And astrology. And elaborately knotted jute rope. Bottom line was, his bottom line was healthy as a horse. Sir Piers himself was tall, dark, handsome, British, and dressed like Heathcliff most days. Rowena had a degree in English lit and for months had been after him to add fantasy and fictional role play, from Jules Verne/Steampunk to literary classics. Really, what Janeite sub wouldn’t want a Dom Darcy?
Rowena had argued that adding those scenes would expand his market even further, and Sir Piers had finally listened. She’d get to launch fictional play with the billionaire brothers, if and when MacDonald agreed to her terms.
“I’ll amend this and send for his consideration.” Sir Piers agreed without a word of dissent, choosing to respect her wishes where MacDonald was concerned, despite his vested interest. “When I hear back, you’ll be the first to know.”
Rowena smiled her gratitude and rose to leave. “Thank you for negotiating for me, Sir. I appreciate that you continue to guard my corner.” Usually with the pair of six feet seven inch brothers who played Nubian slaves at the Roman orgies, but this required Sir Piers’s personal touch. It was bound to be lighter than hers, where the billionaire was concerned.
Their little confab made her late for her wardrobe appointment. She expected black-clad Amazon Domme Jewell Fraser to spit pins.
“Sorry,” Regina said, daring to meet Jewell’s green eyes, narrowed over her black-framed reading glasses. “I told Sir Piers that we needed to keep it brief, but you know him.”
The
man who signed their paychecks was meticulously detail-oriented and methodical. Extremely thorough but never rushed. Never. His specialty was kinbaku, elaborate Japanese fetish bondage. He taught it to Doms and had a waiting list of subs vying to train with him, each one hoping she—or he—would be the one to break through, to make Sir Piers want to take a permanent sub, which was something that he’d so far avoided.
Jewell actually grinned. “Yes, I know how he is. Trouble is, he’s talking tea party, and we’re pinched for time. It won’t be hard to turn you into Alice, with that long blonde hair of yours, but I’m going to need measurements and fast to outfit the rest of the players. Sir Piers won’t let me start until the contract is signed and the deposit’s in the bank, and the only specs he’s given me are for the Mad Hatter and the White Knight, the Cheshire Cat, and the White King.”
Samael, an exotically handsome switch of mixed ethnicity who worked at the resort, was to be the Cheshire cat and Sir Piers would play the White King. “And the Hatter?” Rowena asked Jewell. “The Knight?”
“Billionaire brothers Micheil and Alexander MacDonald. Ya know, if the faces match the bodies, you might be tempted to scene again.”
She’d done a quick search upon leaving Piers’s office. The internet was her blessing and her bane. “They do,” Rowena admitted. “And I won’t,” she insisted. Adamantly. She’d gone through too much, had come too far. She’d play Alice on her terms. Mad Hatter MacDonald needed to understand that she wasn’t for sale. If he didn’t abide by the contract terms, she’d walk, regardless. She could live without his money.