Siren Unleashed, page 15
part #13 of Texas Sirens Series
“Don’t worry about it. She’s staying with us.” He wasn’t about to allow her to stay here again, alone with her baseball bats. He wondered what Mrs. Stanley Furniture King had been doing last night.
Cody’s eyebrows rose. “Does Nat know she’s moving?”
“She should.” If she didn’t, she would soon. He didn’t actually intend to ask her. She’d requested his services as a Dom the night before. He was going to take her seriously. Likely far too seriously.
Ben stepped up. “I think we can all agree that someone isn’t happy with Natalie. She needs protection. First her client was murdered, and in a way almost certain to bring suspicions on her, then this happens? She can’t be foolish enough to think she should be alone.”
Foolish? No. Stubborn was an entirely different story. Still, he thought she might be less stubborn than he would imagine. It wasn’t like she was attached to the place. Her apartment told the story. Two years here and she hadn’t personalized anything. Even her now-broken dishes were a plain white ceramic he would bet she’d bought at a big box store. “She didn’t bring anything from her old life with her, did she?”
Cody stopped, his phone in hand. “Excuse me?”
Ben’s face fell. “Damn. What my brother is asking is how much stuff did Natalie bring with her when she moved in here? Like the pictures on the walls. Did she bring those?”
Chase could answer that. “No. She either got them from storage or they were already here. I noticed they come from the same artist who did the prints in the hallways to the guest rooms.”
The paintings were bland, the kind of thing that wouldn’t put anyone off and seemed rather soothing if emotionless. It wasn’t the kind of thing an artist would choose for herself.
“Uhm, Gaby brought them up,” Cody explained. “We had a few left over and Gaby couldn’t stand how Nat didn’t have anything on the walls. Come to think of it, Gaby took both Nat and Gretchen out to shop for stuff. They only had their suitcases. No furniture or kitchenware. All the books and the TV were bought after she got here. And that TV was secondhand. I think she got it at a garage sale.” He nodded grimly and stepped outside, putting the phone to his ear.
“I read through her file again last night. And I called Finn.” Ben sighed, crossing his arms over his chest. “She was missing for a while. Her parents were forced to pack up her apartment. Why wouldn’t she get her stuff out of storage?”
“She left it all behind. I wonder if it’s still in storage or if she got rid of it.” She hadn’t been ready to face her old life. She’d gotten a degree in art and the fact that there wasn’t a single sketch pad or canvas in the whole place made Chase ache in a way he would never have thought he could. He frowned. “I don’t know that I like having feelings.”
Ben gave him an odd smile. “Welcome to my world, buddy. It’s going to be fun to watch you deal with this shit for once.” He sobered a bit. “Seriously, Chase, I want you to be sure about her.”
Because she was fragile. She was delicate. She was on the cusp of reemerging into the world. It scared the shit out of him. He’d chosen his lovers with care before, for their ease and lack of long-term need. Natalie was different. He’d known it the minute he’d looked across the dungeon. He’d seen that pink hair and his world had shifted from a flat vision of black and white to a vivid 3-D Technicolor that he didn’t completely understand. He could walk away now and live the rest of his life in the meager comfort of knowing that his heart was meant to pump blood through his body and nothing else. Or he could finally try to figure out why Julian looked at Dani and Finn, that odd light in his eyes. Julian had changed, becoming more than he had been before he’d found Finn and Dani.
Natalie could make him into something more.
“I’m serious, Ben.” He looked at his brother, hoping his will shone through.
“Be sure because this girl needs some help. She might be better at hiding it, but she’s just as damaged as Kitten.”
Chase didn’t like the way Ben was talking. “She’s more than a mental disorder.”
Ben’s face went the red he got when he was genuinely pissed off. “I never fucking said that. I said we have to be careful with her.”
They had two different versions of the word. “I think everyone has been very careful with her. I think she’s been treated like she’s made of glass, and maybe she needs a firm hand again. There was a reason she was interested in D/s in the first place.”
Ben softened a little and sighed. He scrubbed a hand across his face. “I don’t know.”
“You didn’t have a problem with her until you knew who she was.”
His brother’s eyes widened slightly. “Finding out that the woman I just slept with had been kidnapped and forced into slavery does affect me, Chase.”
And it affected him, too. “But she wasn’t a victim when she was riding your cock. She was a woman who knew what she wanted.”
The beginnings of a smile broke over Ben’s face. “Yeah. She knew what she wanted.”
“Me.” Chase had to admit it was fun to dig that particular knife in.
Ben shoved up his happy middle finger. “Look, I get it. She’s trying, but she’s also fragile. Are we in this together or not?”
He was still worried that Ben would come out on top. Natalie had been through a lot. She needed him now, but what would happen when she inevitably moved on? Would she love Ben’s easy affection and put up with his obnoxious brother because they were a team?
He turned and looked out the window. Yep. He fucking hated feelings because now he was well aware that he didn’t want a life that didn’t include his brother. He’d never thought about it, the future a hazy thing he didn’t need to worry about, but he was thirty-five. If this wasn’t the future, then maybe he didn’t have one. And when he really thought about it, he couldn’t imagine a life that didn’t include Ben.
He needed Ben in ways he wasn’t sure Ben needed him.
“I hope you don’t shut me out, man. Because you’re right. She made the connection with you,” Ben said quietly. “I really like this girl. Maybe that’s coming from you. Maybe I’m picking up on your emotion, but I don’t give a shit. This feels good. This feels right.”
“I want to go after her.” He turned to his brother. “I want her. I don’t intend to leave this place without her.”
Ben smiled, a broad show of even teeth that was slightly predatory. “Excellent. Then we’re in agreement. We need to figure out a way to take that little piece of sugar down.”
“First we need to figure out who wants to ruin her life.” He’d walked every inch of the tiny apartment and hadn’t come up with anything other than the shoes. Even if the sheriff had given a damn, he doubted the perpetrator would kindly show up in the AFIS database. A career criminal would likely have been smarter than this chick. “I want to put some surveillance around the building.”
“Gaby might not like that,” Ben pointed out. “According to Cody, the employees here value their privacy.”
Chase shrugged. “I didn’t intend to tell them, so they’ll still think they have privacy.” Ben needlessly complicated things with morality. “I’m not intending on spying on them. I just want to see who keeps watch on Natalie’s door. I’ll have Logan do it. He would probably enjoy the time away from babysitting Georgia.”
He turned back to the window. She had a decent view of the courtyard. Even this early, a few families were out by the pool, including Callum Reed and his two kids. The big bad Dom didn’t look so nasty today. It was hard to look truly intimidating with a small toddler girl clinging to his back and shouting, “Give me a ride, Daddy.”
A vision of a little pink-haired girl running with her arms outstretched assaulted him.
Good god, he was going soft.
“We’re not letting our daughter get pink hair,” Ben said, his voice choking up a bit before he laughed. “You really are in deep, aren’t you?”
He was. And he was right about Natalie. She wasn’t a victim cowering in her room because she hadn’t stayed where they’d put her. He frowned as he watched Natalie stride through the courtyard, her head down like a charging bull. She glanced up briefly, seeing Cal and then hurrying along.
“Little brat. Logan is in so much trouble. Do you think the ladies tied him up so Natalie could get away?”
Ben grinned, looking down at her. “Georgia might have tried, but Kitten would never tie him up. I’ve heard he gives the best spankings.”
Kitten tended to think whoever was her current Master gave the best everythings.
Nat stopped, her whole body halting and nearly pulling back as another form walked in from behind one of the retaining walls. Big and well built, the man’s arms came up as though in greeting. Chase couldn’t see the man’s back, but he could tell the fucker worked out because asshole wasn’t wearing a shirt. Just a pair of board shorts that sat far too low on his hips.
Why bother wearing shorts at all? The fucker’s ass cheeks were nearly poking out. And he was interested in Natalie. Every muscle in the man’s body screamed “hey, fuck me.” Chase wasn’t an idiot. He knew when a peacock was showing off, hoping to get some action. He’d made a long study of the mating habits of various animals, and this was how the douchebag found a mate.
Nat smiled, beaming at the man. She freaking lit up the world when she smiled. Chase found his stupid ass smiling along with her when he should be ready to kill.
“Who the fuck is that?” Ben asked, puffing up like he was about to start a fight.
At least he wasn’t alone. Ben pulled him right back into assassin mode. “He’s the asshole we kill next. I think we should make an introduction.”
Ben’s face went fierce. “Yeah. I don’t like to kill people when I don’t know their names.”
He liked having his brother at his side. Maybe this could work. He turned and walked out, knowing Ben had his back.
* * * *
“Hey.” Nat stopped in her tracks as Tate walked from behind the hallway that led to the single-male portion of the building.
Tate grinned, his all-American hotness rolling off him. He was wearing a pair of swimming trunks that showed off his ridiculously toned body. Tate Evans had a six-pack and pecs that would make an athlete blush, but all Nat could see was the Dawson brothers’ bodies. There were two of them. It kind of kicked Tate’s ass. Tate might be hot, but he didn’t have a superhot clone of himself.
“Nat. I was thinking about you all morning. Gretchen said something happened at the spa. What’s going on? Do you need some help?”
Yeah, Tate wasn’t the most aware of the Doms. “Uh, I had a client murdered on my table, so yeah, it’s been a shitty couple of days.”
Tate’s gorgeous green eyes went wide. “Seriously? That sucks, dude.”
And he called her dude. A lot. “Yep. It sucked. For me and him. Probably more for him.” Especially since Stan’s death led her to an awesome spanking and the first orgasm of the last several years. Though it had led her to inevitable heartache as well. And two Doms who would be pissed that she’d snuck out. “Hey, have you seen a set of twins hanging around?”
Hopefully they had moved on to something past her apartment. Now that she was standing here, she was wondering if she hadn’t made a bad choice.
Tate stopped, his sensual mouth hanging open. “Uh, no. But seriously, some dude died? God, the way Gretchen was talking I thought you were freaking out over a hangnail or something. Are you okay? Hey, if you need to talk, I’m here. And what was up with you and the tourist last night? Damn, Nat. I thought you would come to me.”
His whole body had gone into sad-puppy mode. Tate was that Dom who only went into Dom mode when he had a pair of leathers on. In the past, he was exactly what she would have wanted in a Dom partner. He was the dude who wanted to slap an ass on a Saturday night and on Sunday have his girlfriend tell him what they were doing.
He was a bit like Ben. Well, not totally. Ben would never be happy giving up control, but he could handle it. Chase would be a challenge. Why the hell did she suddenly need both? “Tate, we’re friends.”
His lower lip came out in a sexy pout. He put a hand on her shoulder. “I want to be more.”
She’d been avoiding this for months. “I thought you were working with Gretchen.”
Gretchen was crazy about Tate. Gretchen had been subbing for him since the first night he’d started work a couple of months back. She wasn’t wearing his collar, but that didn’t matter to Gretchen. She was head over heels, and Nat wasn’t about to screw that up even if she had been interested in the Dom. Tate was gorgeous in an all-American surfer way. He didn’t have anything on Chase and Ben. Chase with his insanely hot geek intelligence and Ben’s soulfulness. How could she even look at Tate when she couldn’t get them out of her head? Even when they were really pissed at her in her head.
“Gretchen is a nice girl, but I’ve made it plain that we’re not compatible,” Tate explained. “I’ve tried, but the chemistry isn’t there, you know. I talked to Gaby the other day about trying to find her a permanent Dom. I like play, you know that, but I need a real partner.”
She felt a sudden need to defend her friend. “Gretchen could be a partner.”
Tate shook his head. “She can’t. She wants to be a slave, Nat.”
Nat nearly shuddered at the word. The whole idea of being a slave, turning over her power, now seemed foreign to her. She’d never been a slave. A sub, yes. It was in her nature to submit in some aspects of her life. But she knew what true slavery was, and the thought sickened her. “Gretchen isn’t like that.”
Gretchen knew what it meant, too. She’d been with Hawk the longest. She’d been with him before he’d decided to go butt-fuck crazy and steal women to serve him.
Tate’s hand trailed along her arm. “I don’t know that she tells you everything, honey. Gretchen has some secrets. And I can’t help it. She’s not my type. You are. Nat, come on. Let me help you. You need a man. I can make your life easier. That guy from last night was just a tourist.”
“Tourist?” A sarcastic voice broke through the quiet afternoon. Nat grimaced because she knew that voice. Chase. “I assure you I’m a citizen of this particular country. You’re the fucking tourist, little boy. Get a green card. Fucking baby Dom.”
Maybe she hadn’t exactly thought this whole plan of action out. Ben followed his brother and they both had identical pissed-off expressions—furrowed brows, dark eyes, sensual mouths that turned down and might grow fangs at any moment. They weren’t slightly annoyed with her minor show of rebellion. There was a volcano underneath those men waiting to go off.
And she could stop the explosion. Sure, she’d been caught sneaking out of the last place they’d put her, and they’d found her talking to another Dom. It wasn’t logical because she didn’t belong to them so she shouldn’t have to follow their rules, and they shouldn’t care if another Dom horned in on her.
But there was absolutely nothing logical about any of this.
Tate proved he could do the alpha male thing without the aid of leathers. He puffed up, pushing Nat behind him as she tried to come up with the best way to soothe the savage Dawson beasts. Tate seemed intent on taunting them. “I don’t think you two belong here. This is the private employee quarters. You can get the fuck out or I can take you out myself.”
Ben was the reasonable one. He stepped forward, and Nat nearly sighed with relief. Ben would calm everyone down. “Yeah, you and what fucking army, asshole?”
Nat rolled her eyes. So much for Ben’s reason.
Chase smiled, obviously enjoying the skirmish. “I don’t think the baby Dom can add. One plus one is going to equal you getting your ass kicked. I don’t think baby brother here has killed anyone in a while.”
“A couple months,” Ben replied, his grin turning predatory. “But I shot that asshole. It’s been a long time since I killed anyone with my bare hands.”
“Far too long,” Chase sighed as though they were discussing Ben missing his favorite TV show.
“You two stop trying to scare him.” Nat attempted to move out from behind Tate.
“Your input isn’t welcome, sweetness,” Chase said, turning that frown on her. “Would you like to explain to me why you’re not where I left you? I believe my instructions were specific.”
“You aren’t her Dom.” Tate moved in front of her again, keeping himself between her and the twins. “You don’t talk to her that way.”
Ben’s face flushed. He took a step toward Tate. “Natalie, if you want to avoid me putting my fist through this asshole’s face, you’ll stop cowering behind him.”
“Cowering?” Nat was well aware she sounded completely shrill.
“If you aren’t cowering, then he’s keeping you from us,” Chase mused. “I don’t think I like that. Do you, Benjamin?”
Fuck, this was going to go bad fast. She looked around and sure enough, everyone was watching the current episode of As the Dungeon Turns play out right there in the courtyard. Cal was watching, his eyes narrowed, and any minute he was going to get involved and then everything would go straight to hell.
“I’m protecting her,” Tate declared.
“I don’t need protecting.” They were useless words because none of the alpha boys were going to listen to a damn thing she had to say, and Ben and Chase looked ready to kill. It was up to her. In her experience, it was always the sub who had to be the reasonable one.
And this sub knew that reason wouldn’t win the day.
She forced her way around Tate and walked straight to Chase Dawson. Georgia was right. He was the one she had to handle. Ben would fall in line. His eyes widened as she approached, surprise flaring briefly before he mastered himself and went back to his normal blank expression.
“Like I said, Tate, I don’t need protection. Not from them,” she finished as she wound her arms around Chase’s ridiculously well-defined torso.
She felt Chase’s sigh of relief as his arms came around her. A big hand cupped her hair, holding her to him.
“Natalie, think this through for two seconds,” Tate began. “You don’t know them. You know me. I’ve spent months and months getting to know you. I’ve been very careful with you.”
