Initiative

  And she couldn’t lose either of them. Not until she got to talk to them, to see what they wanted.

  It certainly felt like Grant was staking a claim on her. Had it been any other person—other than Darryl, of course—she would have told him to go fuck himself. She was no pushover.

  This was Grant. He didn’t have to win her over or win her heart. He had it. He’d owned it in high school, both of them had.

  They had the elevator car all to themselves as they rode upstairs. Her mind spun fantasies of Grant and Darryl kissing her right there, risking the door sliding open and someone witnessing them in the middle of trying to set the car on fire via body heat and passion, but no.

  And it was even more sexy, somehow, the anticipation.

  As they approached her room and she had to let go of their hands to fish her key card out of the name badge holder, Grant simply held his hand out, palm up.

  She needed no order. She dropped the key card into his hand and watched as he opened the door for them, holding it open and indicating for her and Darryl to go ahead.

  Inside, he didn’t speak at first. He closed and locked the door, flipping the security bar and deadbolt. Then she noticed he checked the little cover over the viewfinder to make sure it was in place.

  He turned and walked over to her, staring down into her eyes for a long, silent moment.

  “You know what we are,” he quietly said.

  She nodded, her mouth suddenly dried and parched and devoid of spit.

  “Say it.”

  Heart racing, she had to swallow a couple of times to finally form the words. Her voice sounded weak even to her as she said it. “You’re Darryl’s Master. Or Dominant. And he’s either your submissive or slave.”

  The eyebrow slowly arched. “Master and slave. Whose collar is that on your wrist?”

  She fought—and lost—against the tears. With her eyes closed, she clutched her right wrist with her left hand, holding them against her chest. “My husband’s.” Pain slammed into her heart as she struggled not to let her renewed grief take her legs out from under her.

  He stepped closer, his hands gentle on her shoulders. “Look at me, sweetheart.”

  She forced her eyes open again. Grant’s face appeared blurry through her tears.

  “What were his last orders to you?”

  She was aware of Darryl walking to the bathroom and bringing back several tissues, which he pressed into her hands. “We’d talked…before. He’d always said he would want me to move on. And he left a letter with Ed. Our attorney. Well, two letters. One for me when John died, and one that Ed’s supposed to give someone if I get married or seriously involved with someone again.”

  Grant’s brow furrowed. “I don’t suppose your attorney’s Ed Payne, is he?”

  Shocked, her eyes widened. “You know him?”

  Darryl snorted. “Sweetie, he’s my divorce attorney. And he happens to be kinky.”

  She looked at him. “Seriously?” She’d been to his house and had dinner with him and his wife and had never even suspected.

  The men nodded.

  Well, what the hell. Why not? It seemed dreams could come true, so why not a kinky attorney?

  “There’s no one in your life romantically?” Grant asked. “Since you lost him?”

  “No, Sir. Just my husband.” It was too easy to call Grant that, to let it slide from between her lips.

  It would feel wrong not to call Grant “Sir.”

  And she wasn’t a woman who would call just anyone “Sir” in a kinky context.

  “No one you’ve submitted to or played with? No one whose protection you’re under that we need to talk to?”

  “No, Sir.” Her tears came as a flood and she was unable to stop them. “Please, Sir,” she whispered. “If you don’t want me romantically, I get it. I know you’re gay. But please consider letting me be your submissive.” The words tumbled out of her in a rush, her fear that he’d reject her almost making her sick. “I hurt so bad and I’ve been alone and—”

  “Shh, sweetheart.” Like that, she was in the men’s arms. They wrapped themselves tightly around her as she sobbed against Grant’s shoulder.

  Hell, a replay of countless tears she’d cried on both of them in high school. Usually because of her parents.

  They stood like that for she didn’t know how long, as the torrent overflowed her mental defenses and finally destroyed them.

  Who was she kidding? She wasn’t strong enough to do this. Maybe other people were, but she wasn’t. Yeah, she’d put on a damned good act through necessity, but every day alone was that much more stress against her dam and now it’d finally burst.

  Grant said something to Darryl that she couldn’t process, and she felt him step away from them. When he spoke again, it was from the bedroom door.

  Grant picked her up and carried her into the bedroom, laying her on the bed, on top of the covers. Both men climbed in, sandwiching her between them. She realized Darryl had the whole box of tissues now and handed her more.

  They both kissed the top of her head. “Cry it out of your system, sweetheart,” Grant gently said. “We’re not going anywhere. Then we need to have a really long talk once you’re feeling up to it.”

  * * * *

  What does it say about me that what Chelsey did to me doesn’t hurt a fraction as much as watching Susie suffer right now?

  It was all Darryl could do not to cry over the pain she was obviously in. He sensed Grant was barely keeping it together. Her grief shimmered off her like heat waves rising from a Sarasota road in the height of summer. It killed him that she’d been here, literally living just a few miles from them, and suffering alone all this time when they could have been there for her.

  With her.

  Grant finally reached across her and tapped Darryl’s arm to get his attention, handing him Susie’s key card.

  “Please go to our room, pack our stuff, and bring it here,” he said. “I don’t want to leave her alone, and her bed’s bigger than ours, anyway.”

  Darryl nodded, not even sure if Susie was processing what they were saying. She clung to Grant, her keening cries viscerally painful to hear.

  No, they wouldn’t leave her alone ever again. Not unless she asked to be alone. She was their Susie, the girl he wished to hell they’d been smart enough to claim way back then.

  Then again, he hadn’t known things about himself that he knew now. Maybe it was for the best, coming together older, wiser, more informed and less frightened in most ways. The ways that counted.

  Darryl carefully got out of the bed and headed out. They were on the floor below Susie’s room. Fortunately, they hadn’t done much unpacking when they got there. It only took him a couple of minutes to gather their things, and the large rolling suitcase that was their implement bag.

  This is real. This is happening.

  When Grant had mentioned talking to her, Darryl had thought okay, maybe a couple of weeks’ worth of negotiations, some dating, sure.

  Not…this.

  She was a woman destroyed, shattered. How she’d held it together this long was beyond him, but that was their Susie. She’d always been good with the game face, even in high school. Even during the height of her parents’ divorce, he remembered sitting in her room with her when her parents had started in one time. She’d walked over and gently closed her bedroom door and tried to smile and pretend World War III wasn’t going on in the kitchen, and what was that last algebra problem again?

  Only when her father had stormed out of the house later, and her mother had slammed the door to the master bedroom shut behind her, had tears finally started slipping down Susie’s face.

  Grant hadn’t been with them that day. It’d just been the two of them, and he hadn’t said a word as he’d pulled her into his arms and let her silently cry on his shoulder that afternoon.

  Just one of many times.

  At school, though, no one would have ever suspected there was a problem. She only let her weakne
ss show with him and Grant, when the three of them were alone together. Only with the two of them did she feel safe letting down her defenses.

  How do we heal her heart after a loss like this?

  He didn’t know, but he damn sure suspected there would be a talk with Seth in their near future. If anyone knew about love and loss, it was that man. Seth would be able to tell them if it’d be appropriate for them to have Susie talk with Leah, who’d actually been through it on the widow end.

  Although what few details they’d heard about Susie’s husband’s death, it sounded like Susie had lost her husband in an accident, while Leah and Seth had time to prepare themselves for the sad inevitable ending.

  Whatever they had to do, no matter what, Darryl knew they’d help her.

  Whatever it took.

  Chapter Six

  After Darryl left, Grant rolled onto his side with Susie securely wrapped in his arms. She was finally starting to calm down a little, the worst of the tsunami of grief now dissipating. He wasn’t an idiot. Those weren’t the last tears she’d ever cry, but maybe with them as her safety valve she could finally start to heal instead of whatever stop-gap measures she’d slapped into place to try to survive day-by-day.

  “We’re not leaving you, sweetheart,” he said. “I promise you. Never again. Not unless you tell us you want us to go.”

  She almost seemed to want to burrow inside him, as tightly as she had her body molded against his. “It hurts so bad,” she softly moaned.

  “I know, sweetheart. You haven’t had anyone you could really talk about this with, did you?”

  “No, Sir.”

  “And for the record,” he slowly said, hoping this didn’t mess things up, “I’m not gay. I’m bi. Darryl’s…homoflexible, given the right circumstances. You are definitely the right circumstances.”

  She finally looked up at him, her eyes red, nose puffy. “What?”

  “When I saw your bracelet earlier, he and I talked when we came back to our room to change after dinner. I wasn’t sure if you had someone in your life and you didn’t want to say anything in front of us because you didn’t realize we were kinky, too. I needed to know for sure first.” He palmed her cheek. “We have two options, so you’ll need to tell me—”

  “Yes.”

  He had to press his lips together to keep from laughing. She wouldn’t understand that she’d just channeled Darryl’s earlier response so perfectly that it nearly broke his heart.

  “You need to hear me out first, sweetheart,” he finally said when he knew he could get it out without laughing. “For starters, Darryl and I are a package deal. You need to be able to accept—”

  “Yes.”

  This time he couldn’t hold back the laughter. He pulled her close, feeling her tremble in his arms. “Are ya tryin’ to earn cane strokes?” he playfully teased.

  “No, Sir,” she said, now sounding a little less sure of herself.

  “Then may I please finish?”

  “Sorry, Sir.”

  Fuck. Despite the circumstances, he was now hard as a rock. Every time she said that phrase it turned his crank more than ever.

  “The non-negotiable points are that you must accept being with both Darryl and me. You can’t play with or have sex with anyone else unless it’s agreed upon by all of us.”

  At that she looked up. “You’d play with and have sex with other people?”

  Warning alarms sounded in his brain. “Darryl and I have had threesomes before, yes.”

  She looked so utterly heartbroken it nearly devastated him. “I…I mean, we never…Master never…” Renewed tears filled her eyes, her body suddenly tense, rigid in his arms.

  He hoped he was interpreting her distress correctly. “If one of your hard limits is that it’s only the three of us and no one else, we’re fine with that. But it goes both ways. It means the three of us are monogamous with each other, no outside partners. Play or sex.”

  Hell, that wasn’t a sacrifice at all, not with her.

  She immediately relaxed, nodding.

  He forced her to look up at him again. “Let’s start with your hard limits.”

  She sucked in a ragged breath. “Just…that. No one else. Just you two.”

  He forced a smile. “Don’t pull the ‘no-limits slave’ bullshit on me,” he teased. “If I went after your eyeballs with a rusty grapefruit spoon, I would expect at least a struggle.”

  Her face froze for a second before she finally laughed.

  He pulled her into his arms again. “There’s my girl. That’s better. That’s a good sound.”

  “If you try to tie me up upside down, I’ll throw up,” she said. “I can’t even do yoga positions where I have to be head-down.”

  Now it was his turn to laugh. “Then let’s not do that,” he said. “What else?”

  “I…I don’t know,” she finally said. “We never went out anywhere and saw anyone else…play. I don’t know what to tell you I don’t want to do. What else,” she added. “Other than I don’t want to share or be shared with anyone but you two.”

  “That’s fine. What did you two used to do?”

  * * * *

  Susie didn’t want to start crying again. Snot-sobbing—unless it was Grant’s fetish—wasn’t very sexy. “John used to like to tie me up and make me come,” she whispered, almost embarrassed to admit it, even to Grant.

  “And did you like that?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Excellent. I’m rather fond of forced orgasm torture myself.”

  Her eyes widened. “That’s a thing?”

  He laughed. “Uh, yeah. It’s a very popular thing.”

  “Really?”

  He stroked her cheek. “Oh, sweetheart. You have no idea how much fun we’re going to have with you. Did he spank you?”

  Her face reddened. “Yes, Sir,” she whispered.

  “Why does that embarrass you to talk about?”

  “Because I’ve never talked about it with anyone else.”

  “When did he used to spank you?”

  Hell, now she was getting horny just thinking about it, whereas twenty-four hours ago, it physically hurt like hell in the bad way to try to think about it. “He would spank me before making me come.”

  “Does getting a spanking make you horny?”

  Heat didn’t just fill her face, it nearly made her dizzy. “Yes, Sir,” she whispered.

  “Good. It makes Darryl horny, too.”

  “It…does?”

  He nodded. “Yes. Very common reaction. Operant conditioning. You spank someone and immediately do orgasm play on them enough times, it doesn’t take long for the body to associate the pain with pleasure. Bare-handed? Paddle? Cane?”

  “What?”

  He leaned in and nuzzled her nose with his. A very brave thing, in her mind, considering she was a snot machine at that point. “What implements did he use on you?”

  “A couple. Paddles, bare hands. A spatula.”

  “Ooh, pervertibles. I like.”

  “What?”

  He laughed, the sound soothing her. “Oh, sweetheart.” He stared into her eyes, that look on his face. “You have nooo idea. And the two of us are going to have a hell of a lot of fun showing you things you never dreamed of before. But I have a few rules.”

  “Yes, Sir?”

  “No lying. That goes without saying. If we’re going to be monogamous, then that’s that. No cheating. If you decide you want out, you have to say so. And we’ll give you the same courtesy, although believe me, I strongly suspect that’s not going to be an issue for us.”

  He smiled, warming her heart. “We’ll ease you into things. Darryl and I both have to be careful because of our jobs. Unfortunately, we both have morality clauses in our contracts that they could use to fire us. We could fight it, but it’s better not to have to fight it in the first place. And we won’t do anything to mess with your job. Okay?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Darryl’s son comes to visit us and
stays over. He obviously knows nothing about this part of our lives. When he’s there, he has his own room, Darryl sleeps in another room, and I sleep alone. He thinks we’re nothing more than just old friends and roommates. He knows Darryl doesn’t make a lot of money, so he doesn’t question it.”

  “What about Rusty?”

  “Rusty and Eliza and our friends from gaming know some of the truth. Everyone in that group knows we’re a couple, and that we have to keep it a secret, and why. Not all of them know about the Master/slave stuff.” He smiled. “Rusty and Eliza are kinky, too. Only she’s on top.”

  Susan could believe it, if Eliza was still the same feisty woman she remembered from hanging out together. “Wow.”

  “I know, right? It’s hysterical to watch them scene.”

  “What?”

  “At the club.”

  Fear filled her. “Club?”

  “Do you trust me?”

  She stared into his eyes. “Yes, Sir.”

  “I want you to meet our kinky friends. You’ve spent the past two years isolated, when if you’d had a network of friends in the lifestyle, you could have been leaning on them.” He frowned. “Wait a minute. If Ed’s your attorney, why didn’t he tell you that? Didn’t he know you were kinky? You said your husband left letters with him, right?”

  “I don’t know why he never said anything. John dealt with him the most. And John knew how scared I was for anyone to find out. Maybe he asked Ed not to say anything to me.”

  “Well, we’ll have to talk to him.” He stroked her cheek. “Back to the rules. My word is law,” he softly said. “Outside of our jobs, and keeping things secret where we need to, you will obey me. I will have more rules, protocols for you to follow, and if you don’t, you’ll get punishment.”

  “What kind of punishment?”

  “Normally, I use a cane. On him, at least. That reminds me, he owes me five for getting pushy with me earlier. But we’ll start you off with a paddle.”

  A tendril of fear coursed through her. “How many hits?”