Hanging On 2: Surreal Neal [Awakenings 6] (Siren Publishing Menage and More) (21 page)

We finished up and for the first time ever, I hurried my ritual. I liked my hair fixed a certain way, but Sophia frequently said she liked when I left it alone. Today was as a good day to test that theory.

I found Neal alone in the kitchenette eating a banana and sipping coffee. He wore jeans, leaving his chest and feet bare. Droplets of water glistened from his hair and the middle of his back. “Where’s Sophie?”

He nodded at the patio, and I looked through the sliding glass door. She was sitting on a chair facing the ocean. A breeze acted as nature’s blow dryer, tugging at the ends of her wet hair.

I poured myself a mug of java. “Thanks for making coffee.”

He grunted.

“How are you?”

He shoved the rest of the banana into his mouth and pitched the peel into the trash. “That’s really not something you should ask until afterward.”

While I recognized the fact that he wasn’t new to being a submissive, and I was definitely new to topping him, I didn’t react well to his tone or the fact that he had yet to look at me. “You really do want a punishment, don’t you?”

He exhaled a long breath. “Discipline. It’s not the same thing.”

“How so?”

He shot me a long-suffering look and unbuttoned his jeans. Wordlessly he selected a paddle from Sophia’s bag and threw his jeans over the back of the sofa. Then he knelt with his knees spread, his head bowed, and the paddle on his upraised palms. I had the urge to take that thing and paddle his ass for ignoring me.

The heavy glass slid open, and Sophia entered. She rinsed out her mug and gave me a kiss on the cheek, all without seeming to notice the naked man kneeling next to the sofa offering her a paddle to use on him.

“How is discipline different from a punishment?”

She spread her hands as she thought. I loved watching the wheels turn in her head. It got her Italian heritage going, though where her father and brother talked with their hands, she and her mother both thought with theirs.

Finally she settled on a relaxed position. “It isn’t really, except in the mind of the people involved. A punishment is delivered for violation of a rule. Though it’s agreed-upon, it’s the purview of the Domme to decide and deliver. Discipline…it shows you care.”

One could argue that punishment showed caring. I decided to chew on the idea for a while because Sophia had work to do.

She stood in front of Neal, inspecting him and his choice. “How many?”

“Seven, if you please, Mistress.”

She took the paddle. “Bend over the arm of the couch. You’re going to need leverage. This is going to hurt. I want you to count.”

Last night, she hadn’t asked him to count. She’d wanted him to enjoy it. Today she wanted his attention focused on the act, not the sensations. It still didn’t settle my question.

She swatted him hard, also a difference from the night before because she hadn’t warmed him up. He counted seven. By the time she finished, his ass was a fiery shade of hot pink, though I doubted it would linger for long or bruise.

“There is some arnica on the counter in my bathroom. I’m going to make breakfast. I want you on the sofa, lying down with your head in Drew’s lap.”

He left and she turned to me. “You’re right. He does need some cuddling, but we can’t force it on him. Do you want an omelet? I noticed fresh veggies in the mini-fridge.”

“Sounds delicious.” I sat on one end of the sofa and grabbed the TV remote. In several interviews, people have asked me if I do all the cooking. Since I happen to be married to a great cook, I happily answer that I do not. I loved having Sophie cook for me almost as much as I loved cooking for her.

Neal came out a few minutes later—still naked—and sprawled on the sofa with his head in my lap. I let him be for a few minutes, the wet from his hair soaking into the cotton of my shorts, and then I began stroking his hair back from his temples.

He closed his eyes, let out a stuttering breath, and all the tension seemed to melt from his bones. I glanced over, caught Sophia’s eye, and gave her a thumbs-up. The stiffness in her shoulders vanished too, and I realized her nonchalant demeanor had been a front.

My heart ached for both of them.

As we were finishing up our omelets—stellar, by the way—I noticed that Sophie’s mind had turned to business matters. That meant she frowned and pursed her lips and checked the calendar on her phone.

“Mistress, is anything wrong?”

She shook her head without looking up. I took her phone away. She knew I hated when she was on that thing during meals, so she didn’t protest.

I fielded Neal’s question. “Sophia is working today, so she’s already thinking about all the shit she has to do. The inside of her brain is now one huge to-do list.”

He opened his mouth, probably to protest, and then closed it again. He took a sip of his orange juice. “What are Chef and I doing today?”

“You guys are checking out some of the excursions. And how about dropping protocol until tonight? I need an honest assessment of what is worth keeping, what needs to be overhauled, and what needs to be discontinued.”

“Okay.” He frowned. “That’s not what I pictured happening.”

Sophia carried her plate to the sink and rinsed it off. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to. You can spend the day however you want. If you want to hang out at the beach and ogle all the people, you can. If you want to veg here, you can. It’s your vacation.”

I took my plate over, intending to do my own dishes, but she took it from me. “Honey, I’ll do those.”

“I’m here. It’s fine. Kissing and teasing are allowed. No sex or coming until I get back tonight.” The hiss of the water covered the volume of her voice, so I knew Neal hadn’t heard.

“Are you renegotiating our terms?” We had arrived at some pretty rigid rules that we’d put firmly in the “non-negotiable” column.

She looked up at me, and I almost drowned in her big brown eyes. “Just with Neal. He’s going to need physical contact, and if you’re experiencing the same feelings I am, keeping your hands off him is going to be very hard. I’d rather you not spend the day trying to contain your feelings or feel guilty. For some reason, I’m okay with you fooling around with Neal when I’m not there. It just…he just fits us.”

I agreed with her, but I was still surprised that she would change things. “I had planned to talk to you about him.”

“Agreed,” she said. “We do need to talk.” She glanced at Neal, who was still working on his omelet. “Tonight, after he falls asleep.”

After she’d given us both thorough good-bye kisses and left, I tossed Neal’s jeans to him. “Put these on. You’ll need a shirt and shoes too. We’re going riding.”

Drew

He bought a sombrero. Sitting astride the large roan horse, he looked like a model trying to be a cowboy. The jeans and boots looked good on him, as did the faded marigold shirt. The sombrero should have given him a ridiculous appearance, but it managed to make him look like hotness incarnate. While he didn’t give off a cowboy vibe, he did radiate sex. If a passel of photographers had been tailing him, I wouldn’t have been surprised.

The surly, grumpy man who’d mouthed off to my wife that morning was gone. Back was the affable, quiet man with a slow grin and quick reflexes.

“Relax your knees,” I said. “Or you’re going to be really sore, and not for the right reasons.”

The horseback riding excursion had been canceled due to lack of interest, but I managed to secure a guide for a private tour. I liked it better this way. I got to have Neal all to myself, and I could ask the guide anything and not have to worry about how the guests might react.

“What’s on the other side of the island?” I raised my volume so that the guide would know I was talking to him.

Sutter turned around, almost swiveling 180 degrees in his saddle. “Last owners cleared a bunch of land about five years ago, but they started squabbling and the contractors quit. Nothing ever got built.”

“Where do the employees live?”

“They stay in the main building for three or four months, then they go home for a month or two. Some come back, most don’t. Those like me who do business with the resort live on nearby islands. You can’t bring a family here.” He turned back, laughing as if I had suggested that Elysium was appropriate for children.

That did get me thinking. If Sophia was going to be an owner, she was going to need to visit often. The same went for Sabrina, Ellen, and Samantha. While Sophie and Sam didn’t have to worry about little ones, Sabrina and Ellen had families, and I knew neither of them would want to spend all that much time away from their kids.

“Sutter, how much land was cleared?”

“Ten, twenty acres?” He shrugged. “I heard they were going to put a mansion up there, and then I heard they were going to expand the resort. Lots of rumors, no building.”

I added looking into building a few houses and apartments to my list. When I talked to Lex and Stef, I would press for that as a condition of proceeding with the sale. Being in business had taught me a lot, but one of the biggest lessons was that the service industry ran better when employees were happy and turnover was kept to minimal levels.

Sutter dropped us by a waterfall. He placed a wicker basket on a rock, tipped his baseball cap, and said, “I’ll be back in an hour to collect you.” Then he looked at Neal. “Maybe two. I’ll make a lot of noise, scare away the tigers and birds.”

Neal dismounted easily and looped the horse’s reins around a low tree limb. I did the same, catching him as he went to walk toward the pool at the bottom of the falls. “Have you ridden before or not?”

“A couple times. Enough to learn the basics, not enough to have mastered them. Why? You wanna buy me a pony?”

I couldn’t tell if he was teasing me or if he actually wanted a horse. Part of me wanted to offer his heart’s desire, but I wasn’t prone to making impulsive purchases. Buying Elysium for Sophia had been the first impetuous thing I’d done, and the process was not yet complete, so even the rashness of that decision was up for discussion.

I gestured toward the picnic basket. We’d taken an abbreviated boat tour already that morning, and we’d been riding for almost an hour. “How about I buy lunch?”

He seemed content with my response. “Then skinny-dipping?”

I shook my head. “We’d better keep our clothes on.”

“Right,” he said. “That arrangement you have with Sophia.”

The whole morning we’d been together, he hadn’t once referred to her by her title, and I was glad. It meant he wasn’t in a submissive state of mind. I admit I liked it while we were having sex, but sometimes I wanted to be with him as an equal.

I perched on a rock near the falls. The crash of water echoed through the small clearing that housed the wide stream. Neal sat next to me. For a little while, we watched the water and listened to the sounds of the forest.

“How did you happen to fall in love with Sophia?”

The question startled me from wherever my mind had wandered. I needed to eat. The falls were loud, and I motioned Neal away from them. Sutter had put the basket a nice distance from the water. The view was perfect, but the sound was a little muted, more conducive to conversation.

I handed Neal a plate. “I fell in love with Sophia the moment I first laid eyes on her. It was meant to be.”

He chuckled at my matter-of-factness. “You believe in love at first sight? Are you sure it wasn’t lust? She is seriously gorgeous.”

I agreed with his assessment of her looks.

“And completely unaware of it.”

At this, I shook my head. “She knows she’s a hottie. It just doesn’t affect her. She’s not vain. That’s my job. And yes, I believe in love at first sight, or at least recognizing the person you’re meant to spend eternity with and accepting the fact.”

The basket contained a pair of elegant sandwiches, fruit, water, and wine. Neal uncorked the wine. “And she felt the same way?”

“Nope. Sophia is a cynic of the first order. She treated me like a spoiled rich playboy, which is how she saw me at first.”

Neal eyed me speculatively. It could be that he’d made the same assessment. “What if she had turned out to be a bitch?”

“Then I wouldn’t have been so attracted to her. I’ve been with my share of women who were spoiled and rich, who used me and wanted me to use them. Sophie wasn’t like that. She tried to be, but she wasn’t. Her heart is too big for her to be a convincing opportunist.”

He took a healthy bite of his sandwich, chewing a lull into the conversation. The food was good, and I was hungry.

“That’s what I like about her too. She’s a fantastic Domme, but she’s kind and caring at the same time. So many dominants are hard, calloused around the heart.”

When I’d met her, Sophie had been more than calloused—she’d been scarred. “Well, she’s had some tough breaks. She knows what it’s like to be hurt, but I think you do too.”

He halted mid-bite. “What makes you say that?”

“You have a wariness about you, a way of trying to stay one step ahead. You look at people like you’re trying to size up what they want from you. Sophie used to be like that.”