Siren Unleashed [Texas Sirens 7] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (17 page)

Her little apartment? The only place where she felt really safe? A sob nearly escaped her lips as she ran out the door toward Gretchen.

“You’re such an asshole.” Ben pushed past Chase, starting toward the lobby. Chris Linwood was meeting them at Nat’s apartment and had promised to leave a golf cart in the parking lot for them. If he hurried, he could leave his asswipe, selfish-beyond-all-compare brother behind.

Ben let the door swing behind him, kind of hoping it would hit his brother in the face. Chase hadn’t said a damn word, preferring to allow Ben to deal with all the fallout, including forcing Nat to stay behind until they decided it was safe.

Yeah, he’d let Ben be the bad guy on that one. He’d just fucking stood there watching everyone.

Now he simply walked behind Ben like nothing had happened. Like he hadn’t tried to cut him out. Like he hadn’t nearly broken Natalie.

Ben located the golf cart and everything was exactly as Chris had described it. The little key was in the ignition. He could see the employee quarters in the distance. Natalie’s tiny apartment was on the second floor with a view of the pool.

The cart shifted as Chase sat down in the passenger seat.

As much as he wanted to leave him, this really was Chase’s strong suit. He was an amazing investigator. He just didn’t have a functioning heart.

“I want to leave.” Ben forced the words out. It had been building for weeks, months, a good portion of his life really. Maybe it would be better to have half a life than nothing at all. He turned the key and the little cart sparked to life. He put it in reverse. “After this is done, I’m going to move. Without you.”

He’d only lived without his brother during those years in the Navy. And despite what Chase thought, those fleeting moments of joy had been punctuated with a deep sense that he was hollow on the inside without his brother. But after today, he couldn’t forgive him.

“I understand.” Chase’s eyes never left the road. “I’ll leave if you would prefer. You have more friends in Dallas than I do.”

This was what he got? He wanted a fight, and Chase gave him logic. Well, it was true. “Good. I’ll expect you out by the end of the month. And we’ll just split the accounts.”

“Sure.”

Goddamn him. “That’s all you have to say?”

Chase shrugged. “I deserve it.”

Somehow his honesty didn’t ease Ben’s anger. “Damn straight you do. You hurt her.”

“I know.”

The fucking golf cart puttered on. He wanted to drive recklessly. He needed some speed. He needed to take a curve at ninety miles an hour just to prove he could do it. But no. He got five miles an hour and shitty shocks. His head nearly brushed the top of the vehicle as he hit a speed bump.

“Well, I’m glad you know.”

Chase sighed. “Stop the cart. This is stupid. We could walk faster.”

Ben stopped the cart, slamming on the squealing brakes. “Feel free.”

He just sat there. “She’ll prefer you and I don’t want her to. I want her to like me.”

Ben’s head whirled around way faster than the golf cart could move. Chase sounded almost human. Vulnerable. “I think she likes you. She went looking for you.”

He just stared forward. “She won’t like me once she’s been around you for a while. She needed a Dom. She needed a hard-ass to spank her and get her to cry. I make little girls with pink hair cry. How long do you think that fascination is going to last? Not long, brother. She’ll want to take her perfectly nice boyfriend out with her. She’ll find friends and they’ll all hate me. I’ll end up being the second dick.”

Ben felt his anxiety. Fuck all, Chase was falling for her. Really falling for her. A spark of hope lit inside Ben. Natalie was a little ray of sunshine. Oh, sure, she had a black cloud over her head and might be headed to prison, but he would take the chance. “I don’t think she’s like other women we’ve dated.”

Chase had very precisely summed up their dating lives. At first the women they dated found Chase’s broody intensity fascinating and, in the end, they wanted Ben’s charm and ability to maintain a conversation that didn’t end in a fistfight. More than once Chase had been relegated to the bedroom.

But Natalie was different.

Chase’s head shook. “She’s just hurt right now. She’s broken, but she won’t always be. She’ll get better and she’ll want what everyone wants, a normal boyfriend. I don’t do normal.”

“Have you tried?”

Chase finally turned. “I can’t, man. I know it annoys you, but this is who I am. Does it make a difference that I want to be better for her? I didn’t tell that Gretchen chick to shut up even though I wanted to.”

Ben was surprised. Chase almost always said what went through his head. He prided himself on it.

And Ben understood. Gretchen had been viciously obnoxious. She’d been crying when he’d entered the room, tears coursing down her face. She’d seemed almost haunted by what she’d seen. Nat had been forced to stop her own panic and emotion to try to calm her friend down. Gretchen annoyed Ben. “It makes a difference, man. Do you really think it will all work out if you keep her for yourself?”

Chase laughed, a humorless sound. “No. But she might want me for a little while.”

“Or we might be able to figure out how to work together. Did you ever think of that, Mr. Genius?”

“My IQ is only a few points higher than yours. Well, twenty. Who am I kidding?” He finally slid Ben a long look, his lips curving up slightly. “You really think she could care about me as much as you?”

He was so frustrating, but Ben did understand his fear. “I think she’s completely different from anyone we’ve met. I’m crazy about her, Chase.”

“Me, too.”

“Then we go after her together. And not that lackadaisical way we usually do. This is a serious girl.”

“I’ve already thought about taking her to Dallas. Before I was moving.”

Ben felt the world shift, and he sort of liked where he landed. Chase never thought long term. Never. When it came to a woman, Chase never thought past the next spanking, plugging, whatever his devious mind could come up with. The very idea that he could think about moving a woman to be closer to him was monumental progress. “You’re not moving, Chase. But you do have some damage control to do.”

Chase nodded. “I know. She was very upset. She’s already deeply interested in you.”

And progress came at a cost. Now he got to deal with Chase’s wounded ego. He wasn’t sure he was going to like emo Chase. “I think she’s interested in both of us. Can’t you see she needs us both? I don’t know that I’ve met a woman who needs two men the way Nat does.”

“Mia. Chicago.”

Ben groaned. “Dude, be serious. Mia was a nymphomaniac. Nat actually has problems.” In his mind a nymphomaniac was a good thing to be. “She needs a combination of tender and tough.”

“She needs to submit.” Chase sat back, his eyes thoughtful. “She wouldn’t take her clothes off for you last night, would she? When I got there, she was still dressed and she was on top.”

At least he was talking about the night before in a rational fashion. “She said she had to be on top. I suppose it makes her feel like she’s in control.”

“But she doesn’t want to be in control. Not really. At least not all the time. I started looking into her background last night. She used to be a regular at a Houston club. I called the owner last night and got in touch with some people who knew her.”

“You called people after midnight?”

He shrugged. “They’re club people. They were awake. Mostly.”

And if they weren’t awake, Chase got them up. His brother was an impatient bastard. “What did they say?”

“She was a happy sub. She’d only dated Doms. She played with them, but she wouldn’t take a collar because she hadn’t found the right man. Her parents are the mom and pop of the scene down there. Her dad founded one of the clubs, but she moved to Houston for college so she never went to the San Antonio club.”

Ben could understand that. The idea of walking into a club and seeing his father in fet wear made him a little nauseous.

“Yeah, me, too,” Chase said, obviously picking up on Ben’s line of thought. “But the point is, she was looking for a Dom. Maybe not seriously since she was so young, but all of her relationships prior to the kidnapping were based in D/s.”

Chase was right. “She won’t be really happy until she can truly submit again.”

“She needs it so badly. Ben, I don’t think she’s really cried yet. I think cutting herself was her way of crying.”

“You spanked her last night, right?”

“A little. And she cried. A little. Not what she needed. She did let me hold her though. She sat in my lap. And I got her clothes off earlier. Then I fucked everything up. Why am I being so fucking possessive? I’ve never been possessive. I don’t know that I like the feeling.” Chase frowned, turning to Ben. “It’s fucking with my head. I need to be thinking about this case and all I can think about is Natalie. We shouldn’t have left her with Logan. One of us should have stayed behind.”

Beyond monumental progress. Ben had to stop himself from actually tearing up. This was it. They both cared about the same woman. This was his shot. Chase would fall once and then never again. “I think you need me on this one. I know you’re the brains here, Chase, but I’ve been doing this for a while, too. Natalie is fine. Logan is used to being in charge of a large group of crying females.”

Logan had actually sent him a pitiful look as he and Chase had left him behind with a frantic Gretchen, a weepy Kitten, a somber Natalie, and a surprisingly selfless Georgia. Georgia had been calling for room service, ordering tea and coffee, and asking what she could do to help. For once, she hadn’t been forcing her way to the center of attention.

“Still. Something about this whole thing doesn’t feel right,” Chase said. “Hurry it up. I want to get back to her.”

Ben started the cart again, making quick work of the little road that ran from the main resort to the employee quarters. Chris Linwood was waiting for them. “Try not to piss this guy off again.”

“He’s way too invested in thread count. I don’t get that.” Chase hopped out as soon as Ben stopped the cart. “Where are the CCTV cameras?”

Linwood stopped. He’d been walking toward them, a hand out, but now he pulled back. Yep, Chase had that effect on people. “We don’t tape our employees.”

Chase looked around. “Do you have any security at all?”

Ben nearly groaned. This was why he hadn’t sent Logan with Chase. Someone had to make sure his brother didn’t get them thrown out of the resort. “What my brother is trying to ask is what is the security like? We both understand that this is a place that prides itself on discretion.”

It was a freaking sex resort. Did Chase honestly think they routinely taped the powerful people who came here?

Chris turned to Ben, ignoring the way Chase was studying the building. “We have several well-trained dungeon monitors. Michael is our veteran. He’s been working as a Dom for fifteen years. Tate is our newest addition. The staff includes a bunch of former Special Forces and some ex-cops. They know what they’re doing.”

“How do people get in and out of the resort? Do you use key cards?” Ben asked. The night before he’d had to show ID to get past the front gates.

“Yes. We have one road coming into the resort and it’s guarded twenty-four-seven. New guests are on a list and must show picture identification to get in. However, we have some members of the club who are local, and they have tags on their cars that open the gates.”

“I’ll need a list of those members,” Chase said, pacing up and down the front walk, taking everything in. “And I want the whereabouts of everyone with one of those tags on their cars.”

Chris went a little pale. “Yeah, it should be interesting to see you interrogate Jack Barnes.”

Jack Barnes. The king of Willow Fork. The only man in the world who gave Julian Lodge a run for his money in sheer ruthlessness. “I think we can all agree that Barnes didn’t do this.”

The last thing Ben planned to do was sit Jack Barnes down and force him to answer questions. Ben liked to keep his balls attached to his body.

Chase just kept on. “Barnes wouldn’t trash a girl’s place. He would just kill her. No. But Abigail might. What if sweet Abigail was having an affair with Stan the Furniture King and took exception to losing her lover?”

The look on Linwood’s face was priceless. He actually turned a little green. “You can’t accuse Abby Barnes of having an affair.”

Ben stared at Chase while the grin crossed his face. His brother loved to make people squirm. “He’s joking.”

“I am about Abby,” Chase admitted. “But this smacks of jealous woman. Stan was married, right?”

“Oh, yes. And Juliet didn’t like what went on here. She’s threatened to protest the resort a couple of times. She calls it a whorehouse.”

Ah, the uninformed and intolerant. “Is there any way she could have gotten in here?”

Chris started to lead them into the complex. The staff quarters were as lovely as the resort itself. Though set away from the resort, it boasted the same elegant lines. Chris led them through the Spanish-style arches and onto the patio. A swimming pool dominated the courtyard. “We decided that it might be hard to attract really good staff since we’re so isolated. So Danielle and Julian decided to make the staff quarters seriously posh. There are twenty-five apartments. Most of our staff lives around the area. These are the people we had to import. Our massage therapists, the Doms, the subs who work the dungeon. The specialized workers. Gaby and I both live out here. We have two of the family suites. There’s a pool, a huge media center, a gym, basketball court, everything else you would need to live out here. The parking facilities are in the back. Nat’s apartment is on the second floor.”