Siren in Bloom

  “Yeah, that should be a pleasant conversation with Ma.” He felt unaccountably better. If Leo had shrugged and said go for it, he would have known it was all over. But he hadn’t, and seeing that Wolf intended to put his little sub on display as often as possible, Leo wouldn’t stand a chance. He would come after Shelley.

  The only question was, would he accept Wolf as his partner?

  It was a dangerous game he was playing. Wolf knew that. But he didn’t have another choice. The minute he’d figured out Shelley and Leo’s deep connection, he’d known it was only a matter of time. He was crazy about Shelley. He loved his brother. He wanted the best for both of them.

  And he wanted the best for himself.

  “I’ll stay at Shelley’s tonight. I don’t like the idea of her being alone until we figure out if the robbery was random.” Wolf glanced at himself in the mirror. He didn’t look terrible, but he could use a good night’s sleep. He probably wouldn’t get it on Shelley’s couch, but he also wasn’t going to press his luck.

  She was probably in some serious deep scene dive. He’d seen it before. She’d been caught up in the adrenaline of the scene, and now she would be thinking about the fact that she’d been naked. He would have to calm her fears by taking it slow.

  But he didn’t want to. He wanted to take her back to her place and shove his cock deep inside her.

  “Dear god, Wolf, can’t you control that thing?” Leo asked, his eyes rolling.

  Yep, he had an erection again. “Nope. Little Wolf is very upset, but there ain’t a damn thing happening to you tonight, buddy.”

  A smile finally broke over Leo’s face. “It’s good to know you still talk to your cock.”

  “Hey, sometimes it’s been my best friend.” It was an old joke between them. One they had started when Wolf was twelve and had gotten caught in the middle of math class with an erection because Penny Wells had worn a V-neck for the first time and she’d magically grown breasts over the Christmas break.

  “Go and take care of her.” Leo looked weary. “Call me if you need me.”

  Wolf started out the door.

  “And Wolf?”

  He turned. His brother’s eyes opened and a sad smile crossed his face. “I’m glad you’re here. We’ll work this out. And god, don’t bring Ma down on me.”

  “I promise nothing.” Wolf walked out the door, pleased with the way the evening had gone.

  * * * *

  She stood right outside the women’s dressing room. She practically cringed every time someone walked in or out and gave her a little smile.

  Were they smiling because they were friendly or laughing because they’d seen her ass? It had seemed so hot at the time, but now she was thinking about the fact that her ass wasn’t as perky as it had been. And she’d never actually gotten a mirror out and looked at her pussy. It could be hideous.

  And Leo had seen her. God. She’d spread her legs in front of Leo Meyer and writhed on his brother’s lap. When she went wild, she really went wild.

  “Hi, Shelley. Great scene. Very hot.” Marcy, a sub who also worked at the bar, said as she walked up. “My Master was impressed. He shoved me onto a sawhorse and, wow. That was some of the best quickie sex I’ve ever had.”

  Shelley felt her cheeks go up in flames. “Glad I could help.”

  Marcy had a pixie-like bob that shook slightly as she spoke. “I always thought you would end up breaking Leo’s self-imposed exile, but, hey, his brother is even hotter. Although he’s a little informal for my tastes.”

  Yeah, high-fiving wouldn’t make everyone take Wolf seriously. “He’s different.”

  “Oh, yeah. I’ll say.” Tara, a regular who attended with her husband, agreed. She was a cute redhead who had very patiently answered many of Shelley’s questions when she’d first been interested in the lifestyle. “I just wish he’d managed to get his leathers off.”

  “I heard that, sub. That’s ten,” her husband called out. But he was wearing a grin on his face as he slapped her ass. “Come on, baby, give me another ten.”

  “Wolf Meyer is hot.”

  “Oh, yeah. Now I’m getting the crop out.” Tara’s husband kissed her cheek and strode into the men’s locker room.

  It was that sort of easy relationship she wanted. Tara didn’t look like she would be sitting around terrified someone was making fun of her cellulite. Tara seemed deeply secure in her relationship, and Marcy looked perfectly happy to have just had some amazing sex.

  “I hear you’re getting all the little subs in trouble, love.”

  God, he was so damn sexy. Wolf stood in the entryway to the locker room wearing a perfectly respectable pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and a light leather jacket that he somehow turned into something ultra sexy. His broad shoulders filled the entryway, but she was caught on his male-model-worthy smile. She sighed.

  And so did Tara and Marcy.

  Tara leaned over and gave her a hug. “I’m going to change before I really get in trouble. I’m into Darin for double digits with a crop already. If he catches me mooning over the new Dom, he just might attach a TENS unit to my pink parts.”

  “God, and you’re running from that?” Marcy asked, giving Shelley a little wink before she followed her friend.

  “I’m glad to see you’re getting along with the other subs.”

  He looked so self-satisfied that Shelley had to wonder just what he’d overheard. “They were sympathizing with me because my Dom is so sadly unattractive.”

  His grin grew. “Is that right? Poor Shelley. Well, I’m the lucky one because all anyone can talk about is just how hot my sub is.”

  How did he do that? One minute she was vowing to never be naked again and the next she was perfectly willing to throw off her clothes as long as he took her.

  “Come on, sweetheart, I’m going to take you home.”

  The evening was ending already? “I thought we were going to have a drink?”

  “Fet wear only in the bar. I thought we could stop somewhere vanilla. If we stay here, we’ll have to talk to other people, and I would like to focus on you. And then I can get you drunk enough that you don’t fight me when I tell you I’m sleeping on your couch tonight.”

  He was what? “Wolf, why would you sleep on my couch?”

  “Because you got mugged and you might have nightmares?”

  The truth hit her with all the subtlety of a runaway train. “You think it was a setup. You think he knew who I was. Why would he steal my laptop? Oh, god, he was looking for information.”

  It was happening again.

  “Hey.” Wolf reached out and grabbed her hand. “I’m just being paranoid. As a man who used to fight some of the worst human beings and terrorists in the world, you have to just understand that I sometimes see the glass as half empty and maybe there’s a bomb at the bottom of it.”

  But what if he was right? It had always been there in the back of her mind. The press had reviled her for months. It didn’t matter that she’d been cleared. She’d been the one who had unwittingly placed the cameras that had caught the blackmail material Bryce had used on her clients. For months, she’d received nasty phone calls and e-mails calling her every bad name in the world. After a year, it had quieted down, and she’d hoped it was over.

  What if it wasn’t over? Her son-of-a-bitch husband was never going to let her go. He still had a hold on her, even from beyond the grave. She was going to have to give up another man she cared about.

  She shook her head. “No. You should stay here. You shouldn’t get involved in this.”

  Wolf took a step forward, his lips curving into a little snarl. “What did you say?”

  “She said you should leave her alone, Wolf. She obviously wants to be assaulted.” Leo was suddenly beside him, the Meyer brothers taking up all the available space.

  She found herself pressed against the wall. “I’m just trying to protect him.”

  Leo snorted a little and slapped his brother on the back. “This two hundred and twent
y pounds of pure Navy SEAL?”

  “He isn’t a SEAL anymore,” Shelley pointed out. He could be out of practice.

  “Once a SEAL, always a SEAL, love.” Wolf’s tight smile seemed predatory.

  And Leo’s matched him. “So you think you’re going to be able to handle this better than Wolf?”

  He was willfully misunderstanding her. “I think Wolf shouldn’t have to handle this.”

  “I disagree, and I damn sure think he disagrees. I watched him bring you to orgasm not half an hour ago. You had your legs spread wide for him, and you gave him everything he asked for. He owes you his protection.”

  “He doesn’t owe me anything,” Shelley insisted. The last thing she wanted to do was to bring Wolf into her nightmare. It wasn’t fair. He hadn’t done anything wrong, and he could get seriously hurt if he got involved. She couldn’t live with Wolf getting hurt any more than she’d been able to handle the thought of Bryce hurting Leo.

  “Then you were using me?” Wolf asked, his eyes stony.

  “I told you,” Leo said to his brother in his first sign of sibling solidarity. Naturally it was against her. “She did the same thing to me. When she no longer needed me, she told me to get out of her life. At least she gave you some sort of excuse. She just told me to leave.”

  He hadn’t been willing to discuss this for almost a year and a half, but he brought it up now? Frustration threatened to overtake Shelley. “I had a reason. God, Leo, I tried to explain that to you. I didn’t want Bryce to hurt you.”

  Leo’s eyes rolled. “Yes, Bryce Hughes, who I outweigh by forty pounds of muscle. Bryce Hughes, who ran away from a bar fight. Yes, he was going to take me out. Bullshit. It’s a ridiculous argument, and it won’t fly.”

  “He had guns, Leo. I found them that day.” She could remember how terrified she’d been when she’d opened the drawer to Bryce’s desk and found his gun. All she’d been able to think about was Leo taking one of those shiny bullets.

  “Yes, dear, because no SEAL ever had to deal with guns.” Sarcasm dripped from Leo’s voice.

  Wolf pulled at the side of his jacket, and sure enough, there was a gun in a shoulder holster. “Shelley, I have a permit to carry concealed. Julian made sure of it before he hired me. Besides being one of his resident Doms, I’m also considered a trained bodyguard. Finn has worked some controversial cases in the last few years and a rich man’s wife is always a target.”

  She turned to Leo. She’d never imagined that he would be walking around Dallas with a gun. “And you?”

  Leo stood, his legs apart in a stance she was sure had once terrorized new recruits. “I don’t carry in The Club, but when I escort Dani or Finn or even Julian himself somewhere, I carry. And, sweetheart, that day you dumped me, I had two SIG Sauers and a sniper rifle in my truck. I also do some training work with Dallas SWAT.”

  Wolf turned to his brother. “Are you seriously telling me that you don’t have a weapon on you?”

  “Well, I don’t have a gun on me right this second.”

  “And if I checked your boot?”

  “You might get your hand sliced up,” Leo admitted.

  Shelley stared for a moment. The world seemed to have tilted slightly. “You have a knife?”

  Leo tapped his boot against the floor. “More than one, if you have to know. And I had more than one on me the day you dumped my ass. It was only my remarkable patience that kept me from killing your asshole husband the night before in a bar fight. I thought you might have been angry.”

  Had she made a terrible mistake? Was she making one by trying to protect Wolf?

  “I’m going to make this easy on you, sweetheart,” Wolf said. He crossed his arms over his chest in a show of mulish stubbornness. “You don’t get a choice in this. I am going to take you home. I am going to stay on your couch. And I am going to bring you back here tomorrow. If you want to safe word me, go on. I won’t be your Dom anymore, but until I’m certain that you’re safe, you won’t be able to get rid of me unless you call the cops and have my ass hauled to jail.”

  “I’m not calling the cops.” Tears blurred her vision. She’d given up so damn much, and now Leo was standing here telling her it had all been for nothing. If she’d gone with Leo that day, would things have turned out the same way? Or would Beth and Bo have been in an even worse position?

  Misery washed over her. Regret.

  “I’m glad to hear that,” Wolf said, his voice softening. He reached out for her, his big hands enveloping hers. “Shelley, this is what I want. This is who I am. I want to protect you. I want to be the big badass who stands in front of you. It’s all I’m fucking good at.”

  “You’re going to have to work on his self-esteem, Shelley,” Leo said. “But he’s right, and if you try to get away from him, I’ll call your brother in. How do you think Trev will handle this? He’s trying to settle in and now Beth is having a baby. Do you really want him to have to leave his new ranch and his pregnant wife because you’re too stubborn to accept protection?”

  “Damn it, Leo, stop being so hard on her,” Wolf complained, pulling her close. “She’s had a rough day. She’s not going to call the cops.”

  But Leo’s words had formed a hard knot of guilt in her belly. Wolf hugged her, but she simply stood there in his arms. She’d been so happy when she’d heard Beth was pregnant, but there was a nasty kernel of envy in there, too. Trev had done everything wrong and still managed to build an amazing life for himself. She’d sacrificed everything for the people she loved and she was alone, and it seemed she always would be.

  “I’d like to go home now.” The words came out in a flat monotone. “I think I just need some rest. Wolf can stay on my couch.”

  “Shelley, baby, don’t be so glum,” Wolf cajoled. “I really can protect you.”

  Leo took a step back. “And tomorrow we’ll all sit down and discuss it. It’s Saturday. We all have to have breakfast with the boss to discuss the weekend’s parties and scenes. We’ll discuss your situation. And we’ll put Ben and Chase on the case. It’s been forever since Chase got to hack something. He’ll be thrilled. It really will be fine. I won’t let anything happen to you. I didn’t before, and I won’t now.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” She looked up at Leo. “You haven’t talked to me for over a year.”

  Leo frowned and looked like he wished he hadn’t said anything, but Wolf’s face lit up.

  “Julian didn’t pay Finn, did he? You did. Finn was her lawyer.”

  Shelley thought her heart might break. Leo had paid Finn? “I thought he was doing it pro bono. Trev told me he was.”

  Leo wouldn’t quite look her in the eyes. “Finn would have done it, but I knew damn well that he wouldn’t be able to give it his full attention if he was still working on his other stuff. So I paid him to get you to the top of the list. Finn didn’t actually make the money. He used it to bring in the consultants we needed to hurry things along. Money is the only thing that talks, Shelley. If I hadn’t given Finn money to grease a few wheels, you would still be under a cloud of suspicion.”

  “Why would you do that?” He’d acted like he couldn’t care less whether she lived or died. He’d utterly ignored her, refusing to take her calls and making up excuses to not see her.

  “It doesn’t matter now. It didn’t matter then. But the point is this. I spent a lot of money making sure you were okay. I would prefer you didn’t blow it all by not allowing Wolf to protect you. And he can handle a few bullets. Half of him has been replaced by titanium rods and his skull is far too thick to ever let a bullet pass through it.” Leo turned and began to walk back into the locker room, retreating. “I’ll speak to you both in the morning.”

  Wolf grinned down at her. “Wow, he is such a coward. He ran back to the men’s locker room because he doesn’t think you’ll walk in there with half the Doms in The Club down to their bare asses.”

  “He’s right.” Her mind was reeling. What did any of it mean?

  Wol
f kissed the top of her head. “Well, it’s progress all the same. Now, let’s go get that drink. I could use a beer. There’s a store across the street. We’ll grab a six pack and head back to your place.”

  She stared at him. It seemed to her it was time to start training her Dom.

  He stopped, and she could see him thinking. “Or we could get a bottle of wine.”

  He waited as if hoping against hope he’d penciled in the right answer.

  “I would love a white, thank you.”

  “And a six-pack of beer.” He was back to grinning as he led her down the hall.

  Shelley looked back at the door Leo had disappeared behind. It seemed one of them was always closing the door on the other.

  * * * *

  Wolf took Shelley’s hand as he walked past the security guard.

  “Mr. Meyer? Do you want me to bring your truck around?”

  Wolf wasn’t sure why this guy needed to bring his truck around when he himself had two legs, but he figured it was a “Julian Lodge” thing and he should get used to it. The same young man had insisted on parking the truck when Wolf had driven in, so he guessed this was the new norm.

  He was going to have to start watching Leo and taking his cues. He’d been either in the Navy or on a ranch most of his life. He sure as hell wasn’t used to wealth and people doing stuff for him, but it seemed to be the way The Club ran.

  “Thanks, Nelson. We’re going to run to the store across the street. Just have it ready when we get back. Give us ten minutes or so.” It seemed silly to get into the truck, drive across the street, and then look for parking when they could just dash over there.

  But maybe Shelley didn’t want to walk. God, he was so out of practice. He’d spent the last freaking year of his life trying to get back into the Navy, fighting his discharge. He’d forgotten how to treat a lady.

  He’d high-fived her. He felt a little flush go through him. “I’m sorry about the high five. I was feeling pretty good. I’ll be more formal next time.”

  “Don’t you dare.” She stepped out of the garage onto the sidewalk. The streets were quiet at this time of the night, but there were a couple of restaurants and a bar that still seemed to be hopping. She turned her face up to his, her skin like alabaster in the moonlight. “Wolf, I want you the way you are. I really do. I get that you were in the Navy for a long time, but the man I’ve been talking to through e-mail and on the phone is one of the nicest, most charming men I’ve ever met. I can handle the occasional high five. And you’re obviously very smart, so I wish you would stop talking about yourself like that.”