Lora_Leigh_Bound_Hearts_4_Wicked_Intent[1].pdf (15 page)

feel of the nervous tremors shuddering through her body.

“Tally.” Terrie’s eyes were wide as she glanced at her husband, then back at her

friend as she stepped to the landing. “Hon, what happened to you?”

Tally swallowed tightly. “I really need a drink. Something strong.”

She turned and moved quickly for the bar in the large living room. The forest green

and cream toned room was unlit, the faint glow of the rising sun outside the only

illumination she used to light her way.

“A drink?” Terrie exclaimed as she rushed in behind her. “Tally, its barely six-thirty

in the morning. You never drink before evening.”

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She pulled the whisky decanter from the back of the bar, grabbed a shot glass and

was preparing to pour when Jesse caught her hand. She stilled, swallowing tightly,

fighting the overwhelming urge to attack.

“Tally, this won’t help,” he said gently, setting the decanter back on the bar as he

pried the glass from her other hand. “Whatever happened can’t be that bad.”

She stilled the snarl that trembled on her lips, though her teeth snapped together in

fury. Rounding on him, she clenched her fists in the edges of his shirt as she jerked at it

hard, watching his eyes round in surprise as he bent to her involuntarily.

“I can still hurt you, Jesse,” she snarled into his narrow-eyed expression. “I am to be

feared. In all ways. At all times. Is this understood? You are not safe from me. Never

think you are.”

Jesse had suffered through tar thick coffee, stale doughnuts, mouse traps in his desk

drawer, thumb tacks in his chair and any number of nasty little surprises for attempting

to put her in her place in the past. His arrogance had been a complete pain in the ass.

Training him had not been easy and she would be damned if she would lose ground

with him now.

“Of course, Tally.” She saw that worried little glimmer in his eyes even though his

attempt at sarcasm was sufficient to fool his wife.

Nodding sharply, she released him but didn’t return to the liquor. She needed a

clear head to get through this.

Breathing in deeply, she fought to still the tremors in her stomach, the nerves that

caused her hands to shake and made her heart beat a frantic rhythm within her chest.

Terrorizing Jesse always seemed to help restore her balance. If she could master him,

surely she could master Dev and Lucian. Couldn’t she?

“Tally, are you forgetting that’s my husband?” Terrie asked her, though laughter

lurked in her voice as she watched the byplay in interest.

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Tally breathed in deeply. “Yeah, well, he was my problem first,” she reminded her.

“I have years of his torture to make up for. He could have scarred me, you know,

working for his depraved ass.”

“Scar you?” Jesse snarled from behind her. “My depraved ass? At least my brother

has his own wife.”

“And you brought in Lucian when you knew I disapproved.” She turned to him

sedately, her voice cool, sarcastic. Now here, she was on even ground. “You, my friend,

deserve pain. But I’ll be nice since Terrie is a friend of mine.”

Yes, that returned her sense of generosity. See? She told herself soothingly, all hope

was not lost.

Jesse snarled silently, glancing at his wife as she fought her laughter. “Deal with

this crazy woman,” he snapped, pointing his finger at Tally as she arched a brow

imperiously. “I’m going to shower. I want her gone when I get back.”

He stomped from the room and up the stairs, his muttered curses drawing a small

smile to Tally’s face.

“I love it when they fear me.” Tally sighed in satisfaction. “It just seems to make my

day better.”

“I take it Lucian and Dev weren’t too frightened of you?” Terrie asked as she

headed for the kitchen, motioning to Tally to follow her.

Tally frowned at her friend’s back. That parting shot had to be in return for

reminding her husband of his place in the scheme of Tally’s Perfect Order. There was

no other explanation.

“I need coffee if I can’t have whisky,” Tally said, following her. “Then I have to

leave. I just know those two think they can handle me now,” she sneered, thinking of

the satisfaction that filled them as she had screamed beneath Dev’s thrusting cock the

night before. “I’m certain Jesse called them as soon as he escaped. I knew he couldn’t be

trusted.”

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Lucian disconnected his cell phone slowly after the brief discussion with Jesse. At

least he knew where Tally was, knew she was safe. His jaw tightened in irritation at

Jesse’s furious refusal to discuss her, though.

“If you want to discuss that viperous little witch then call my wife,” he had snarled.

“Maybe she can talk about her reasonably.” Which meant Tally was there, at least. And

evidently, she had once again struck the fear of Tally into Jesse’s heart. She was one of

the few capable of it.

Across the room, Dev stared out into the steadily growing morning, silent, pensive.

“The woman is a pain in the ass,” Dev finally snorted. “You would make us fall in

love with a control freak with commitment issues.”

Lucian winced, but grinned. He wasn’t pleased with Tally right now, to say the

least, but he wasn’t exactly worried either.

“And she thinks we’re depraved perverts with sharing issues,” Lucian reminded

his brother with a laugh. “At least she’s rational and safe. We can deal with the rest.”

He controlled his laughter as Dev turned back to him with a frown. “That woman is

never rational,” he grunted. “Snide, mocking, psychotic maybe, but never rational.”

“And we are?” Lucian was having a hard time containing his amusement. “Maybe

it takes someone just slightly off center to appreciate the relationship she’s stepping into

here, Dev. Give her time, she’ll be her normal self soon.”

“Yeah, that’s what worries me.” Dev tucked his hands into his jeans and shook his

head in exasperation. “Hell, she almost scares me.”

Lucian laughed at that. Tally terrified damned near every man she knew. She could

cut them off at the knees with a look, or unman them with a few carefully chosen

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words. She would challenge them, amuse them, infuriate them to no end and he found

himself looking forward to it, as he did nothing else.

“Let her get her bearings.” Lucian finally shrugged. “A day or two and she should

begin to see that the loss of control isn’t as big an issue as she thought it was. She’ll

want more then. Tally’s adventurous, Dev, and she’s had a taste of satisfaction now.

She’ll be back.”

Dev hesitated as he moved from the window, heading to the doorway. He looked

over at Lucian with brooding reflection as a grimace crossed his face.

“Yeah, but which one of us will she hurt when she does?” he grunted. “She likes

Jesse, admits she does, and she has him terrified of her. That’s not a good sign, Lucian.”

Lucian laughed at this as he slapped his brother on the shoulder and they headed

out the door. “No, simple pain would be too easy for her. Castration would be more

Tally’s style. Maybe we should hide the knives for a while.”

“Or keep her restrained,” Dev growled. “I liked her much better tied down and at

our
mercy. Being at Tally’s mercy would be scary.”

Lucian restrained a shudder . “Don’t even think like that.” He couldn’t imagine the

horror of it. “Hell, I’m going to work. Let her pout it out and come looking for us. I’ll be

damned if I’ll chase after her any further.”

Dev grunted. “Yeah, with a knife. Watch my back, brother, and I’ll watch yours;

otherwise, we could both end up sacrificed to sweet Tally’s fury.”

“Or her lust,” Lucian murmured, and that was part of what he was fighting for.

They had her love, he knew that to the bottom of his soul. All they had to do now was

ensure the surrender she had made the night before.

Going to their respective cars, they pulled out of the parking lot and headed back to

the large house they owned outside of town, but in the opposite direction of the Wyman

home. There was plenty to do while they waited on Tally to accustom herself to the

events of the night before. Jesse suggested going after her, giving her no time to regain

her balance or her strength. But Jesse was uncharacteristically wary of Tally. He swore

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she would make an excellent serial killer. There were times Lucian almost agreed with

him.

* * * * *

“So, are you going to let them get away with it?” Terrie’s voice was amused yet

filled with all the loving concern of a true friend.

There were few people Tally allowed close enough that she called them true

friends. Terrie was one of those people, unfortunately. True friends knew your past,

your secrets, your foibles and faults. Most of which had been revealed through more

than one night of drunken revelry after the death of Terrie’s first husband.

Tally propped her chin on the palm of her hand and regarded the other woman

seriously. “Sister Redempta said vengeance is a sin,” she reminded her lightly.

The good sister had a face like a prune with squinting, hard hazel eyes that sent

shivers of dread chasing down the spines of all the good little girls at St. Augustine’s

Academy.

Terrie snorted. “I remember your reply to that one, my friend.”

Tally cleared her throat and affected an innocent look. The sister had been rather

offended when Tally informed her that since she was Satan’s spawn, Vengeance could

be her middle name and she would practice the art on the nuns of the academy the

minute she came into her full power.

Not that Tally had gone unpunished. That damned wooden ruler with its metal

sides had lashed her bare butt for what seemed like hours. She had then been locked in

her room for a total of two weeks, during which time the nuns who brought her food

and took her to the showers were forbidden to speak to her.

“She broke me.” Tally sighed. “I didn’t think she had, but she did.”

She ignored Terrie’s surprised look.

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“Tally, you’re the strongest person I know.” She shook her head in confusion.

“How could you ever imagine you didn’t win over that old bat?”

Tally sighed somberly. She lifted the cup, playing for time as she sipped from the

warm brew and gathered her courage to face things she had only just realized herself.

“I never truly orgasmed until last night, Terrie,” she finally said, lowering her head

to avoid her friend’s gaze. “I would freeze up, lose the intensity, but it always ended the

same. I could get off, but I couldn’t orgasm.” She knew her friend could understand the

difference between the two.

“Until Lucian and Dev?” Terrie asked. “It’s different when you’re with someone

you love, Tally.”

Tally swallowed before licking her lips nervously. Yes, it was different when you

loved, when you felt loved. For all their dominance and rough play the night before

Tally had felt the difference in Lucian and Dev.

“Everyone I’ve ever loved has been horrified by me.” She tried to smile as though

unconcerned, but she felt the warning tremble of her lips. “The sisters told my parents

about catching me with what’s-his-name.” She frowned, trying to remember the boy’s

name and couldn’t. It didn’t matter, she remembered the event well enough. “They still

remind me of their shame at being called into Sister Redempta’s office and being

informed that I was caught allowing
some nasty little boy,”
she affected the sister’s tone,

“to put his mouth in my private places and daring to beg him to do other disgusting

things to me.”

The truth was, she had been begging him to push his finger deeper up her ass as his

tongue whipped at her clit. Damn, she had been close when that evil old bat had

thrown the door open to the gardener’s shed and interrupted them.

“You parents are prudes, Tally. You’ve always admitted that,” Terrie said softly.

“How did that break you?”

“Because, they allowed the sisters at the academy to punish me as they pleased.”

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She shook her head. The whippings had been the worst, the lectures, the silence

from the other girls because they were forbidden to talk to her. She had endured nearly

a year of it before she was able to leave.

Looking back now, Tally realized that her defeat had begun long before that day.

Slowly, insidiously, the academy had wreaked havoc on her growing sensibilities;

turning her into the mocking, cold-hearted bitch others accused her of being.

It wouldn’t have been such a terrible thing if she hadn’t already been uncertain of