Bind Me Close: 3 (Knights in Black Leather) (20 page)

If she agreed to this she might disappear inside him. That
was how deeply she cared for him. And it shocked her to her core. Shaking, she
had to find some way to maintain even an iota of power in their relationship.
“What about the…display. With Giles?”

Wade’s face crumpled in frustration…and was that fear? “I
can’t do that.”

She caught her breath. Oh, god. He was going to leave her to
be alone in the world again. Without a lover, a man to cherish. Just after
she’d found him too. Christ, life was a bitch.
If you love me, what prevents
you from giving me what I need?
“Why not?”

He bit off a curse. “I don’t share my women.”

A memory niggled at the back of her brain. His wife had left
him. Liking the Bravado way of ménage, wanting more men in her bed than Wade
could tolerate. “Not ever?”

“Not my subs.”

“I see.” Every cell in her body rebelled from what she knew
she must do. “Well that’s that, then.” On quaking legs she walked around him to
the door. She yanked it open. Why was she always ushering him away from her?
Tears obscured her vision as she faced him. Her throat clogged with a sob and
for the life of her she couldn’t form the word goodbye.

He gaped at her. “You’re asking me to leave?”

“Yes. Telling you to go.”

“Willow.” Her name was a plea on his lips. “Don’t do this.”

She glanced away, her eyes toward the dark expanse of her
future without him.

He stood frozen for a long minute. “If you change your mind
you know where to find me.”

How many kinds of fool could he be? A horse’s ass. A cretin.
A clown to sit there nursing his broken heart with too many beers and too little
common sense.

He glanced around his kitchen. He’d lived here alone without
a good woman so long it was a wonder he still knew how to talk to one, let
alone romance one. He had nobody to talk to at night when he came home. No one
to laugh with. No one to debate with. No one to take into his bed and treasure.
No Willow.

He struggled up from his chair and did a drunken man’s glide
out to the deck. The air was moist, the breeze out of the western desert thick
with the August heat. The black sky held a thousand tiny pinpoints in the
velvet night. The moon was shrouded, obscured by a veil of a few clouds.

“Like my life.” Why did some men find a woman and keep her?
Like Case Turner who had refused to share Samantha—and won her heart.

Why can’t I be more like the MacRae brothers who managed
to share one woman among the three of them and suffer no problems of ownership
or envy? What am I missing that I can’t bring myself to do the same?

“And why didn’t Willow want to belong to me alone?” She’d
loved what had happened there on that stage.

He raked his hair with both hands. She was a traditional
woman in so many ways. Did he not know how to appeal to her heart? Or did he
only appeal to the needs of her body?

And how the hell was he going to get her back?

Inside, the phone rang and he turned on his heel to answer.

“Hello? Yeah? Who?”

The counselor for his kids babbled on about a doctor and a
hospital while Wade’s blood pressure jumped the charts. “Stop. Repeat that,
please. We have a terrible connection.”

“Your daughter, Mr. Saxon, fell from a jump line. She broke
her wrist, we got her to a doctor right away, x-rayed her and put her in a
brace. Just to make sure she’s good, you know. She was in pain but she’s got
medication and doing fine.”

“Okay. I hear you. What meds does she have?”

He told Wade the name of it and dosage.

“Good. Sounds safe. Is she there? Let me talk to her.” Wade
paced before the fireplace as the camp counselor told him to hold on while he
walked with his phone in hand.

“Hi, Daddy. Mr. Houghman said he told you what happened.”

“You sound dopey. Talk to me. Are you okay? Really? Those
foreign doctors and hospitals. God knows what they do. Do you need anything?”

“No, I’m fine, resting, got a brace on my hand, that’s all.
Honest.”

“You need to come home.”

“No, Dad. I’m good. Really. In fact now that we’re talking I
want to tell you—”

Her tone sounded ominous. “Come on home, Jenn Bear. You’re
hurt and—”

“Dad, I will not come home. I’m not finished here. I want to
stay. Work.”

“There’s only another week and then you—”

“Now listen to me, Dad. I am not your Jenn Bear. I am not
one of your lockups.”

“Jenn Be—Jenn, stop this. You need to come home.”

“Really, Dad. I have another week’s classes to teach for
this session and then I want to stay and teach the next semester in the local
school.”

He had never heard her so adamant. “I’m sure they have
others who can do that work. You need to finish your degree.”

“I’ll do that when I come home in the spring.”

“No, Jenn.”

“Hold on. I am not one of your subs you can boss around.”

“Jesus.” How in hell had she learned about that? He shook
his head, knowing it didn’t matter who had told her. Many in town knew what
occurred at the Bravado Club, so why not the older kids? “Who said you could
talk to me like that?”

“Who said I can’t? You?”

“Whoa there, little girl.”

“My name is Jennifer. I’d be obliged if you remembered that.
I’m my own person. And I’ll be happy to remind you that I am nearly twenty-one
and you cannot push me around.”

“I’ll come down there and get you myself.”

“You just try.”

Christ. What was wrong with women these days? “Let me talk
to your brother.”

“No.”

“Jenn.” He used her name as a threat.

“I don’t care, Dad. I won’t pass the phone and I won’t let
you corral Matt into strong-arming me. You do that all the damn time and I’m
sick of it.”

Whoa.
“Jenn—”

“You think you control the world. You don’t. You can’t. I
want to work here. I will. I’m hanging up now.”

“Wait!”

“No, Dad. For years I’ve waited for you to grow up. Thinking
I was like my mother and needed to be herded and manipulated.”

His own daughter blew his mind. He worked at words. “You
can’t mean that.”

There was a long silence on the other end. “You treat Matt
like a man. You treat me like your chattel. I won’t have it any longer. If you
need someone to control try your horse. Not a woman. Bye, Dad.”

“But Jenn—”

“I’ll call you again next week at the end of the session and
maybe by then we can have a calm conversation. Love you, Dad, even if you can
be an ass. Bye.”

He stared at the receiver. Bad enough he had female trouble
from Willow, now he had it from his own daughter.

He sank to a chair. First thing tomorrow morning he’d call
the administrator of that mission group and see just what transportation he
could arrange for Jenn to come home. If she got on the plane. If he didn’t have
to go down there himself and ho-tie her to a propeller.

But in his heart he knew he shouldn’t even try. He couldn’t
risk that she’d hate him for the attempt.

Maybe she had a point too. One he should remember if he
wanted Willow to live with him. Love him.

* * * * *

“What do you mean you refused him?” Skye widened her big
baby blues at Willow the next afternoon.

Beneath her breath Willow cursed. She’d spent a ridiculously
long sleepless night, fighting her own desire to drive out to Wade’s and
surrender her body, her heart, her goddamn freedom just to have him near her
again.

Skye startled at Willow’s use of four-letter words. “Really,
Sis, you don’t need to do—”

“Sorry! I’m sorry, Skye. I can’t just go and live with him.”

“Like you’d be the first woman in the whole wide world to do
that, huh?” Skye flipped her dark-brown hair over her shoulder as she flounced
away and plunked down into the sitting chair in Willow’s rooms. Crossing one
long leg over the other, her sister flashed her brilliant-blue eyes at her.

“No, but I’ve never let a man lead me so completely.”

“Yeah. We know why too.”

“Because I never found one I liked enough.”

“Because you damn well never found one strong enough.”

That socked the wind from Willow.

“Hit the nail on the head, have I? Right. Well. So now
you’ve found one and you’re not so concerned about burning your bra as you are
afraid. Afraid to give in to a man’s desire for you. Like it’s all so
fulfilling to live alone, to find a job, keep one and never have children or a
big family. Good for you.”

“I didn’t glorify living alone. Without love or family or—”
A
man to heat my bed and my heart.

“So what is the deal here?”

“Why are you so mad?”

Her sister shook a finger at her. Christ, a college degree
had transformed the girl into a harpy. “Do not change the subject to me.”

“I’m just trying to explain.”

“Well, you’re not. What holds you back from running right
over there and making him your own? Not me coming here to live, I hope.
Assuming I get hired.”

Willow tried to dial the argument down a notch. “I did
consider that if you got the job here and if I decided I wanted to live here
too, that we’d live together. Get an apartment. Be a team, a family like we
were before you went to college.”

Skye grimaced.

“What? You wouldn’t want to live with me?”

“Near you, yes. With you, no.”

Willow blew out a breath. “Wow. You have changed. What gives
that suddenly you don’t like your own sister?”

“I like you. I love you. I just don’t want more of you.”

“Why not?” God, she was asking that question of a lot of
people lately.

“Because I like my own place. My own life. My own
preferences.”

“Preferences?” Willow shrugged, clueless. “Like what?”

“Oh, no. Not sharing that.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” Skye said very carefully, “they’re not the usual.”

“And you think I would disown you for something different
or…or…unusual?”

“Not disown, no. But you’re a straight shooter and I’ve
developed a taste for a bit of spice.” Skye rolled a shoulder. “Plus, I’ve
heard rumors about Bravado.”

Wow. What precisely did Skye know? That the men were eager
for young women. That the population was definitely lacking in the female sex.
That she could have more than one man in her bed and the locals wouldn’t bat an
eyelash? Dear heaven. Would a sexual behavior that was good for herself be good
for her little sister? And why should she judge that? She couldn’t. Shouldn’t.
Wouldn’t. “I see.”

“I want to live here. Work here. Play here.”

“Right. So you don’t want to live together because you might
like the ménage lifestyle?”

“Got it in one.” Skye beamed at her. “Shocked?”

“Yes. A little. A lot really. I never thought that you’d go
for that.”
Never thought I would. And would keep it up too if I hadn’t
fallen for Wade like a ton of bricks.

“It might not be good for you but I have a right to find out
if it is for me.” Skye brushed a crease from her white cotton slacks. “I’ve had
a few men in my bed. Each had as much life to them as a funeral director. I’m
entitled to more. Better. So are you. And if Wade Saxon gave it to you what are
you waiting for?”

Willow shrugged. “You don’t understand all the issues here.”

Skye lifted both hands and let them fall to her lap. “So
tell me already.”

“Wade is a Dominant.”

Unfazed, Skye blinked. “Is that so,” she said with
appreciation in her voice.

“It is. He hasn’t shown me much of it but what he has shared
with me, I…”

“Liked?”

Willow nodded. “I did.”

“Well, there you go. That should settle a lot of your
unease.”

“How so?” What was wrong with her? She was letting her
little sister lead her to a conclusion she already knew in her heart was right.

“If you liked what he shared then he’s easing you into it.
Seeing how much you can take. How much more you want. I’d say he’s damn
considerate. And if he’s as hunky as you say, and charming, and a good family
man, well, then what the hell is your problem?”

Willow gulped. “I flinched. I demanded he do the one thing
he hates.”

After a long minute, Skye asked, “Going to share what that
is?”

“Yes. I asked if he would participate in threesomes.”

“A ménage?”

“Yes. And he said he couldn’t ever do that.”

“Where you egging him on or do you really want that?”

“I did it to keep some power for myself.”

“Not because you want other men.”

“Right.” Willow examined her sister, bold and beautiful in
the far chair as she lifted her brows in question. “I’d really love to be
Wade’s woman.”

“His sub?”

His lover. “His everything.”

“Well there you are, then.” Skye rose from the chair and
stepped toward the door. “Time for you to go to him.”

“You think it’s that simple?”

“Sounds like a three-sentence apology to me.”

“Three sentences, huh? Like, I’m sorry. I want only you.
Make me yours.”

Skye nodded repeatedly. “Time’s a-wasting, girl. Do I kick
your pretty ass out this door or do I drag you there?”

* * * * *

Chuckling, Willow walked arm in arm out to the parking space
with Skye. “I don’t know if I’ll be back tonight. So just tell the receptionist
that you’re taking my room for the night. Jeez, what is that sound? A
stampede?”

Skye turned toward the plain and cupped a hand over her brow.
“A horse. Maybe two or—”

“Good grief.” Willow gaped at the sight before her. Headed
straight for her was a tall cowboy dressed in buckskins and yelling like a wild
banshee. Behind rode four more cowboys, all yipping like coyotes, their faces
wreathed in smiles. “Wade?”

“Wade,” Skye said with a sigh. “Our main man. With who
else?”

Willow snorted in laughter. “The three MacRae brothers and
Case Turner.”

“Our long-lost relatives, right?” Skye asked as the men
approached across the tall grassy plain, showing no signs of reigning in their
mounts as they neared the B&B and civilization.

“What are they doing?” Willow asked, concerned that the
riders would charge right over them if they kept on the same path.

Skye chuckled. Then stepped away from Willow. “I’d say
they’re having fun.”

“Fun?” Willow shot a glance from Skye to Wade and his
buddies. “What the hell are you boys— Ooof.” The breath leapt from her lungs.

Before she could say squat, Wade had her by the waist,
lifting her, hoisting her with one meaty arm up beside him as he continued over
the parking lot, up to the plain and back the way he came.

She yelled at him, screamed at him. “Put me down. Ohhhh!
Wade!”

But he either didn’t hear or didn’t want to and she was
terrified.

Terrified he’d drop her and good Christ, she’d roll and
bounce and wind up diced and broken as mincemeat.

He slowed, then with his other arm hauled her up over his
saddle and spanked her ass. Good. And. Hard.

She wriggled. She complained.

She lost her voice and her breath as he paid her no heed and
just kept riding.

“Where are you going? Wade, for godsakes.”

He caressed her ass cheeks.

Damn man. What the hell was wrong with him?

He kept riding. Her ribs ached, her stomach was tender. Her
heart swelled with pride. She knew what he’d done and she had to smile. Had to
love him all the more. Who knew a man could think of this?