Jordan said, “What’s your name, sweetheart?”
“Jillian, Sir. And I do apologize for running off at the mouth. It’s been a bit of a stressful day, here.”
“It’s all right, Jillian, since I
did
call and interrupt your evening. I’m Jordan Fitzpatrick, by the way. Actually, you sound like a woman who’d get along well with Chastity—my sub, who is also my wife.”
“I definitely think they’d hit it off,” David said.
“Does Christopher know that Daisy has contacted you?” Robert held out his hand, and Jillian did as he silently bid and went over to him.
He pulled her down on his lap. David wanted to grin when he saw the way his brother was stroking her arm as he focused on the conversation with Jordan.
“As it happens, he and I had a rather involved conversation about a month ago, when he flew in to O’Hare on business. So I can tell you that he will not be displeased with what Daisy has planned. I’ll call him myself in a few minutes to give him a heads-up. I just wanted to check with you, first.”
“Why don’t you tell us what Daisy has in mind, Jordan, and we’ll tell you if there’s anything we can do?”
They all three listened as Jordan gave them a brief history that involved Daisy, and another man, Rory, who was also a sub, and lover, of Christopher’s. David didn’t have to wonder too hard to realize that Lyon’s family was similar to Jordan’s own. The only difference was that for whatever reason, Chris’s lovers were no longer with him.
Then Jordan explained the plan Daisy had come up with.
“Pretty gutsy,” David said, “and clever.”
“Clever,” Robert agreed. “Do you think it will work?”
“Yeah. Once Chris found out that Rory and Daisy
had not
settled down together the way he thought they had, he admitted to himself—and me—how much he wanted and needed them both. So if he really can swallow his pride, I think they have a good shot at resolving the situation. Is there anything you can do to help out?”
David thought of his cousins, Josh and Alex. He’d heard about the way Grandma Kate had more or less accomplished the same thing when they’d screwed up with Penelope.
“The cabin,” Robert said.
“I was just thinking the exact same thing.” David chuckled.
“Just give us a few minutes to check on availability, Jordan,” Robert said. “When do you think she’ll arrive?”
“I just put her on a plane a couple of hours ago, headed into Houston. I’ve arranged for her to have a car, and given her directions to Lusty. Hell of a name for your town, by the way.”
“Trust me when I say the residents have earned the name, time and again,” David said.
“That’s kind of the town motto,” Robert said. “I’ll call you back in a bit.”
“Good enough. Thank you, Robert, and you, too, David. I appreciate it. Jillian, it was nice to meet you. If your masters bring you to my city and my club, there’s a playroom you might enjoy. It’s called the schoolroom, and while Mistress Bev is in charge of it, she’s open to allowing Doms to bring their subs there…for a lesson or two.”
David could see that Jillian didn’t quite know how to take that. He figured that was fine. After all, there was something to be said for maintaining an air of mystique in any relationship.
* * * *
Jillian’s apartment door closed behind her. Robert set his hands on her shoulders and squeezed suggestively.
Her eyes widened as she finally understood what David had meant when he’d kissed her cheek, told her to have fun, and shooed her out the door.
“Private time?”
Robert nuzzled her ear. “Mmm, yes, if you like.”
“Oh, I definitely like.”
He slid his arms around her and gently pulled her closer. A delicious kind of shiver ran through her body. This was more than just physical pleasure. How could she describe the pure, soul-deep bliss of being
held
? How many times had she longed for just this? How many times had she, even while still married, cried herself to sleep, lonely for the sensation of two arms wrapped around her, simply holding her?
When she’d married Neil, she’d told him, nearly every day, how much she needed, wanted, hell, loved to cuddle. And in the beginning he had done that for her. Not every time, but sometimes. His attention to her emotional needs hadn’t lasted long, though.
She’d spent most of the last fifteen years completely bereft of affection.
“Come back to me, sweetie.”
“I’m sorry.” She knew he heard the catch in her voice, but she couldn’t help it. She snuggled more deeply into his arms and sighed. Closing her eyes, she reached for calm, not really surprised when it came easier than it ever had before.
“Don’t apologize, Jillian. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” She turned in his arms so she could show him that she really was all right. “I was just having a moment.”
“You’re allowed.” He kept his gaze locked on hers as he lightly ran his hands up and down her arms. “We’ve only really just begun this journey, the three of us. We can’t expect you to completely forget what came before us overnight.”
“I’d like to. There are times when I’d just really like to do exactly that. Sometimes I think if I could just forget everything except Brandon…” She let the thought drop off, because it was a pointless line of thinking, really.
“I think we all feel that way at some point or other. I think all of us have regrets, Jillian. You can’t really live life and not make mistakes here and there.” Robert urged her closer, and smiled down at her. More than simple attraction glowed from his eyes. Gazing up at him, she saw something she’d rarely seen before, and never once from Neil. She saw respect.
“The secret,” he whispered, drawing her even closer, “is to not let those mistakes define you.” He leaned in to her and closed his lips over hers.
Jillian sank into his kiss, relishing the flavor of his mouth and the solid feel of his muscles under her hands and pressed close to her body. There was nothing tentative about the way Robert Jessop held a woman close and absolutely nothing “half measure” about the way he kissed, either.
His tongue swept into her mouth using a hungry, pulsing rhythm that reverberated deep inside her body. His hands cupped her face, and she felt surrounded by him. His mouth commanded hers and she felt every bit of herself devoured by every bit of him. She drank him in as if only he could quench her lifelong thirst. Her nipples hardened, her clit quivered, and moisture dampened her panties.
Emotions moved and swirled, like liquid shimmery colors on the palette called life, and Jillian was torn. Twin urges rose up inside her. Part of her wanted to rail against the cosmos that had seen her live so many years emotionally naked and alone. The rest of her just wanted to float on the bubbling joy of finally,
finally
finding what she’d missed all of her life.
Jillian needed to pull back, emotionally. How could she just dump all these emotions on this man, invest so much of her heart and soul into him and his brother? As he said, they’d barely gotten started. Oh, God, how could she believe for one minute that she could possibly—
“Don’t leave me. Please, don’t ever leave me.”
Jillian’s heart nearly ripped right out of her chest. Her heart, his voice. She hadn’t been the one to issue that ragged plea. It had been Robert, his lips lifted from her lips, his forehead pressed against her forehead as he gulped air and gave in to the feelings that assailed them both.
“I won’t. Not ever. I swear it.”
He trembled and she took his shaking into herself. He’d gone somewhere in his own mind, someplace she’d bet he rarely visited, and it was a place she knew, because she’d lived there. Jillian wrapped herself around him and held on tight. No more thoughts of pulling back whispered to her. No more illusions that this relationship was only new or tentative or temporary. That part of her that had always languished, that true server’s heart, rose up within her, filled with love for this man and his brother. In his way, Robert had been as wounded, and as needy as she. She understood that now, and so she said the only thing she could.
“I promise, Sir. I’ll never willingly leave you. I’ll be your sub for as long as you want me.”
She could never, ever pull back because here and now she had learned the truth. And the truth, rather than setting her free, had bound her heart and soul to this man and his brother—bound her more surely than the strongest of chains.
“Will you tell us about him, baby?”
Jillian had thought David might be asleep when she and Robert returned from her apartment. But he hadn’t been. He’d slid a latex glove on over his bandaged hand and used some tape to make sure it stayed put. And then he’d climbed into the hot tub. That was where they found him, head thrown back, body stretched out, looking like the perfect picture of relaxation.
She and Robert had both immediately decided a soak in the hot tub to be an excellent idea. Their private time had consisted of nothing more than that one hot kiss and then the intimate moments when they’d simply held each other.
Jillian sighed in bliss after mimicking David’s pose. His question made her tense slightly.
She opened her eyes and looked from him to Robert. Both men sat there, one on either side of her, seeming relaxed. That, she felt certain, was a ruse if ever she’d seen one.
Jillian might be completely new to this whole D/s dynamic, but at its base, she thought the arrangement very basic and logical. After all, it was a relationship dynamic, which involved people, and people had their quirks and their tells. Twin people sometimes communicated eloquently without words.
“There really isn’t much to tell. It’s not like I was in an abusive marriage, or anything.” And it certainly didn’t escape her attention that it had been
David
to ask that question—the very question she’d felt certain had been on Robert’s lips just after she had that moment back at her apartment, that moment when she’d allowed the past to choke her.
“We’d still like to hear about your marriage, and your life before you moved to Lusty. We’d also like to hear about Brandon. Consider it part of the whole dating and getting-to-know-you dance.”
Jillian tried not to laugh.
Now
, they wanted to get to know her? So far, David was just acting like her boyfriend, instead of her Dom. She had no doubt he’d change his tactics if she continued to put him off.
And why the hell was she putting him off, anyway? Sometimes Jillian didn’t understand herself.
Fine, I can tell them whatever they want to know
. She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know what I can tell you. I don’t think my story is particularly remarkable. In high school I met Neil Gillespie, who was the star of the track-and-field and football teams. He had a flock of beautiful girls who followed him everywhere he went, like his own personal entourage. I don’t think I ever found out what he even saw me. I really wasn’t much to look at in those days.”
“Jillian, you’re beautiful.” Robert’s quiet assertion, complete with a solid, non-blinking stare, sure did wonders for her ego.
“Thank you. But at seventeen I was more like the ugly duckling in that song by Jann Arden.”
“And Neil Gillespie picked you out from the crowd?”
She smiled at David. She could feel the tension from both men, but David seemed better at masking it. She thought that for the most part he’d mastered the art of letting stress roll off of him.
Actually he’s mastered hiding his inner Dom
. What a strange moment for an epiphany, yet Jillian knew it was true.
“He did. He had short little relationships with one girl or the next, but at the beginning of our senior year, he was there, at my locker,
flirting
with me, for God’s sake. At first I thought he was just making fun of me in a weird jock kind of way. He’d recently broken off with a girl who was beautiful and rich, probably the most beautiful girl in the entire school. But he persisted, said he was serious about dating me. In the beginning, it was good.” She let herself think about that for a moment. She hadn’t revisited the beginning of her relationship with Neil in a long time. It had been good, and oh, how her heart had soared having such a cute and strong boyfriend. She frowned. She’d been a bit shallow at seventeen. “He didn’t even pressure me overmuch to have sex with him.” She shook her head as she recalled her own naiveté, and the cliché of losing her virginity in the backseat of his car.
But she had, and while she hadn’t found sexual pleasure in the act, she recalled feeling as if she’d given Neil something good and precious. And he’d given her something good and precious and even more valuable than gold in return.
Not a bad memory, really, for the conception of her son.
“But we did, eventually, and I got pregnant.” She blinked and looked at each man in turn. “He never hesitated. I told him I was pregnant, and he said we were getting married. We married about a month after I turned eighteen.”
Robert nodded to her. “He manned up—as he should have.”
Jillian grinned. “Agreed, but you have to know a lot of young men wouldn’t have. Everyone thought he’d have had a shot at a scholarship if it hadn’t been for me.”