Secrets Dispatched (12 page)

“What time is it?” Ross reappeared carrying a damp flannel and a towel once more. “Open up.”

Shane winked and opened her mouth.

“Don’t tempt me, kitten. You need your mouth washed out for your language yesterday.”

She shut her mouth hastily and opened her legs, strangely shy when Ross performed the oh-so-intimate act of cleaning her up.

“There you are. All clean and cozy.” Ross lifted her up out of the bed and stood her on the rug. This time it didn’t slip. Typical, it only played up for her. “Ten o’clock. Judging by the depth of the snow, I don’t see David and Jess getting back before mid-afternoon, if then. So what say you—we—go and get breakfast, and then talk?”

If he was trying to put her at ease, he wasn’t succeeding. “Nope. It’s snow angel o’clock. If you can find me some old joggers and wellies, let’s go and make snow angels and a snowman. Then we’ll talk and have breakfast.”
And hopefully he’ll know what to say.

“Should you?” Ross looked doubtful. “You know, just in case?”

“
Argh…
” Shane threw a pillow at him. “In case? What, that you get snow down your neck? Count on it if you go on like that. Shrivel your dick and need me to resuscitate it? Oh yes please, Sir, as long as you stop being a prick.”

Had she gone too far? Tough. It had to be said. Ross narrowed his eyes and stared at her. Shane knew a moment of worry, and the pulse in her neck throbbed its rhythm in double time. Then he gave a very reluctant sounding laugh.

“I was a bit, wasn’t I? Sorry, kitten, macho male moment. Bear with me. To my knowledge, I’ve never been a prospective father before.”

“We don’t know that you are now,” Shane said tartly. “And if you are, it’s not even peanut sized, so no need to get all gooey and daddified. I don’t want a Daddy Dom. I want a Ross one.” She stopped speaking and put her hand on her forehead. “Busted, but I’ve got to add, as long as you want me. But I need to know… Why did you decide not to play properly, Sir. I would have done it, you know. If you ask, I’m happy.”

“I know and I thank you. But we’ve time enough. I’d rather go slowly and have you with me every step of the way. Red was never my favorite color.”

Shane smiled. “Nor mine. So what now?”

* * * *

After a pleasant, cold and damp hour or so making a snowman, angels in the snow and bombarding each other in an impromptu snowball fight, Shane and Ross sat cuddled together on the settee in front of yet another roaring fire, sipping mugs of homemade soup as they listened to the crackle and hissing of the logs as they burned. The joint shower had of course ended in Ross taking Shane up against the wall, until she’d slumped in pleasure. A phone call from the absent Jess and David had confirmed the roads still weren’t open and it wouldn’t be until the next day at the earliest before they returned. As Shane had asked Ross not to mention her, he hadn’t, but the enforced wait was dragging and it grated on Shane’s ‘let’s get things sorted’ mentality. But the expression put up or shut up, stopped her moaning her lot. At least she was with the man she wanted to be with. She looked up at him and grinned.

“One word from you—well, okay not quite, but you know what I mean—and I go to mush.”

“Ha, some mush. You, my kitten, are the most ornery sub I’ve ever known and I love you for it. However, you’ve been so determined you need to see Jess first, I can contain myself for a few more days to let you do it. But then, watch out, I’ve a lot of Domming to catch up with.” He ran his hand from her forehead to her chin, and down her neck. The feather-light touch was enough to make her pussy muscles tighten. Of course, Ross noticed and grinned.

“I so love how receptive you are to my touch, kitten. If your talk goes as you want it to, Shane, will you think about perhaps being properly mine? Partner and sub, and maybe one day soon take it all one step further. Oh, I know we’ve really only just met, but in another way, I think I’ve been waiting for you all my life. Ever since I saw a scrubby school girl with scraped knees peeking at us all, and following us whenever she could like a tiny kitten with claws. Why do you think I did so much skinny dipping?”

Shane giggled. “You were so worth peeking at. Why do you think I spent so much time falling off my surfboard? Every time you hauled me back on, I got tingles. Okay, I wasn’t sure what they meant, but boy did I enjoy them. And once when I saw you jack yourself off, I thought… Well, if boys can, why can’t girls? That was when I discovered how my clit worked. So I have to thank you for introducing me to self help. It’s come in very…er, handy over the years.”

Ross snorted. “Glad I was able to assist.”

She took a deep breath.

“Sir, however my talk goes with Jess, I’m yours. I just need to know she’s okay, and then I can let go of my past and move into my future with you.”

Chapter Twelve

“Do you ever get that weird feeling that you’re being dissected, discussed and hopefully not found wanting?” Ross asked the dark-haired man who stood next to him. “As in how Domly is your Dom, and how much brattiness can you get away with?” He nodded in the direction where two women sat together, glasses of wine in their hands and heads together, talking as fast as they could get the words out.

“As long as they’re not comparing dick length or stamina, I guess we can cope,” Ross said. “And if they’re swapping stories of how many times they come in a night or hit subspace, let’s hope to hell they’re equal.” Not that he and Shane had a lot of the subspace scenario for her to talk about.

Not yet.

“Yeah. And I’m a bit limited as to what I can demand at the moment.” David sounded distracted. “Oh shit, forget I said that.”

Ross nodded. “Said what? I didn’t hear anything.”

David punched his arm in a ‘thank you’ gesture.

“They’re cooking something up between them.”

Ross was sure about it. Every so often one of their subs glanced in the men’s direction and giggled. Several times Jess circled her hands in the air, as if she was describing something important and Shane nodded. Then they high fived each other and emptied their glasses before refilling them again.

“Scarily, I agree.” David tapped his fingers on the chair arm as he acknowledged the truth in Ross’ statement. His eyes crinkled as he looked at Jess. “Subs united should be banned—or at least supervised.” He laughed, and both women glanced toward their men, with similar expressions of brattiness and apprehension on their faces.

Ross winked and Shane’s worried look disappeared. She had never admitted out loud just how often she’d woken in the night, sweating and thrashing around, with the duvet twisted around her body. Or how she held onto him as if he were her anchor. He’d never pushed her to. The hollow cheekbones and the sunken eyes she’d sported were an indication of how worried she was and Ross had helped in the only way he knew. To be there, push her as far as he could BDSM-wise without breaking his promise and keeping her days—and evenings—busy.

It had been a tense few days, as the snow didn’t shift, and the farthest they managed out of the castle was to the woodshed. Ross admitted the return of David and Jess to the estate had been a relief—as had the news that this time they’d gotten away with a defective condom. Even though the way her body reacted made Shane cranky and out of sorts, he could cope with that. A massage and a climax worked wonders.

He’d pretended he hadn’t heard her whispered ‘one day’, when she told him that news. Although they had both promised, ‘no secrets’, some things had to wait to be discussed.

“Oh, ho, here they come.” David rolled his eyes as the women stood up and walked toward Ross and David. “At least they both look okay.” He’d confided his worry to Ross that chatting with Shane might not be the best thing for Jess, who would have some interesting news for them once Jeff and Kath were back from their holiday with their babies. Ross took this to mean more babies on the way.

Ross smiled as Shane walked up to him and sat down on a cushion at his feet. It wasn’t something he insisted on, but something she liked to do, and he wasn’t going to stop her. Even in jeans and T-shirt, the position suited her. She dipped her head and his cock twitched. The look of submission made him wish he could pick her up and carry her off somewhere private to show her how he felt toward her.

Mine.

“All right, kitten?”

“Oh, yes, Sir. Oh, and, Sir, Jess is happy for me to explain everything to you.”

To his left Jess sat on a low stool and put her head in David’s lap. Another hint of their changed circumstance? Normally she would also be on a cushion whenever they were in the club.

The day before Shane and Jess had met and chatted and Shane had then asked for them all to be in the club whilst she explained things.

“It’s sort of fitting, Sir, and I want to show you I’m okay. That I really meant it when I said Ross, will you be my Dom.”

Ross couldn’t deny her that. Truth be told there wasn’t much he could deny her, though he kept that nugget to himself. Shane was already enough of a minx.

“Are you sure, pet?” David’s voice was low and full of concern as he spoke to Jess. “You know…”

“Oh yes, Sir.” In contrast, Jess’ voice was clear and confident. “Let’s bring it out into the open here and now. Because it’s not just me that Poisonous Pete the Plonker affected. It was Shane and her family as well.”

“Pete the…?” Ross looked from Jess then to Shane, who wrinkled her nose and raised her eyebrows.

“The Plonker,” Shane repeated obligingly.

“I guess I do need filling in, as you so elegantly put it, kitten,” Ross said. “Who on earth is Poisonous Pete the Plonker?”

“A wannabe Dom, who most certainly wasn’t one, who pulled in and caught several wannabe subs, including yours truly,” Shane said.

Ross picked up on one word that didn’t fit properly into her sentence. “Was?”

“Was,” Shane said firmly. “Sir, please don’t interrupt.”

He nodded and sat back in the chair as he played with Shane’s hair. Her whole body relaxed as she leaned onto his legs once more.

“And this yours truly was caught as well,” Jess added. “Gullible were us.”

“He took great pleasure in blindfolding and tying his subs up and leaving them, making them think he’d cleared off, when in fact he was in the next room or even, I believe at times, in the same one, jerking off to their cries for help. Fucktard, and I
meant
to swear,” Shane said fiercely. “I was lucky. I got away when he fell asleep, because his knots were crap, but my brothers rescued Jess when they went to sort him out on my behalf.”

“By then, his knots weren’t crap,” Jess said with feeling. “I know ‘cause I didn’t half try to get out of them. But the boys loosened them and now I know they stuck around to make sure I got away. But talk about knights in shining armor—well, okay, bikers’ leathers. They met up with me a few days later and told me they knew what had happened, that he’d done it before and wouldn’t ever again. Like I said, talk about naïve and a first class idiot. And telling myself that he was a clever, manipulative shit doesn’t help very much.

“I’ll kill the bastard,” Ross said and stood up to pace the room. “Where is the little worm?”

“You’re too late, Sir. Someone beat you too it. No names, no pack drill. I’m not getting anyone in trouble for helping him to rid the world of himself.”

“Then, well…let’s just say, they were more than mere men the way spirited me out of there, and telling me it was over forever helped me to get on an even keel. Mind you,” Jess lifted her head to grin at David, before she nuzzled his crotch unselfconsciously. “It took my Master to make me whole again.”

The look that passed between them was so intimate, Ross felt an intruder. Beside him Shane stirred uneasily. He glanced down at her. “Kitten?” he asked softly.

“Sir, I want that.”

He knew exactly what she meant, but he needed to spell it out and to hear her agreement. After what he’d heard, Ross was amazed Shane was even in the castle, let alone sitting as she was and talking about subbing for him. “All of it, kitten? Scening, playing, demonstrating in the club? Collar, marriage and all things attached?”
And children?

She bit her lip, swallowed heavily, and the skin over her throat rippled. “All of it, Sir. I’ve been given the chance to change my life—to have what I unknowingly longed for all those years ago. And they do say you have to kiss some arseholes before you kiss your prince.”

Epilogue

“Are you sure you want this, kitten?” Ross checked his scissors and knives were handy in case his quick release system failed, and stroked Shane’s cheek. “You can cry red and no one will think any less of you.”

Shane took a deep breath. She did want it—sort of. Or at least she wanted to try it. To get the first time, I’m a virgin at this showing-myself-off-in-next-to-nothing-in-front-of-an-audience stuff over. Letting Ross Shibari tie and rig her in private was one thing. That she’d come to love and hit subspace every time. However, to let him do it in front of an audience, notwithstanding one as small and intimate as his fellow Doms and their subs, even if they were all now friends, was something else entirely.

“I’m sure, Sir. Green, Sir.”
But please let’s get it over and done with before I throw up or something stupid
. It wasn’t the play she was worried about. It was letting herself go in front of others. For so long she’d kept a strict hold on her emotions, that even to Ross it had been hard. But to people who were in the lifestyle, who lived it… Well, that wasn’t as easy.

Ross took her chin in his hand. “You better mean it, kitten, or once we’re out of here I’ll spank you so hard you’ll not be even able to sit on a cushion in comfort.”

Shane giggled nervously. “Then if I have to lie on my tummy, it’ll make it easier for you to get to my arse then, Sir.”

“Brat.” He smacked the offending arse, which was covered only in Ross’ favorite scarlet thong. “Okay, I trust you, kitten.”

“And I trust you, Sir.”

“Then let’s make you fly.”