Three-Part Harmony (16 page)

As he launched into a string of statistics and superlatives, Dasha gulped back a softball-sized lump—then gave up on fitting in any hope around it. She forced herself to listen to Dad, to insert the proper “ooos” and “ahs” at all the right places in his sentences…to be the ideal political daughter she so often wasn’t.

Damn it, what was wrong with her? Did she think her ridiculous pop-princess drama was more important than the work he was doing, the lives he was changing? So she had a wingnut who’d made her his latest obsession; wasn’t that practically a rite of passage for her world?
Her
world, not his… Worse, a world outside the acceptable options for a senator’s kid. She should be with him on that plane. Or if not, then in a St. John suit and pumps somewhere, opening a hospital wing or busting a bottle on a ship or…

Anywhere but here. Not here, helpless and wordless and worthless.

Again.

She tugged her hair into her face, hiding from the stare she already felt from David. He’d be able to see those thoughts on her face; she was certain of it. Right away, he’d see the doubts that snuck back in like mooching old friends, slinking in to camp out in the kitchen of her mind and scarf a free meal of her soul, courtesy of her insecurity.

“…so what do you think about that, darling?”

The question from Dad caught her off guard. But she’d caught enough to hear about a music education program being part of their Save-the-Iraqis miracle package. “That’s…great, Dad. Really. Awesome job. I mean it.”

“I know you do.” But his tone was now more fake than it was in “Songbird” mode. “And your support means the world to me. You know I support you too, Dasha.”

Then make the plane bypass Dulles and come here and be with me. I need you, Daddy. I’m scared. I’m so scared.

“Yeah,” she got out. But little else. The disappointment layered atop David and Kress’s bombshell. Dad wasn’t about to change his flight plans. He’d barely altered his schedule to get in the call. After he hung up, he’d go back to concentrating on changing lives and helping people, confident enough in Kress’s credentials to know they’d find the bad guy and keep his little girl safe.

The trouble was, she felt everything except safe right now.

With a wince, she wondered if she ever would again.

“Songbird mine, we are going into landing mode and they’re making me turn you off.”

“Okay, Dad.”

“Tell that Agent Moridian to keep his eyes on you.”

She glanced up to find Kress doing just about that. His gaze, now the roiling green of an early-stage tornado, made a perfect match to the gray thunderclouds in David’s stare as they stood together in the doorway.
Perfect. Not.

“Right.” She dipped her head away from them, indulging one last shred of hope. “Hey…Dad…I love—”

A trio of beeps blared in her ear.

For a long moment, she stared at the dark screen.
Just like always.
And just like always, she willed for the thing to light up again. She yearned to hear those wonderful words in her ear.
Darling, how could I be so silly? I love you too, Dasha…

They didn’t come.

The next words with real volume came from the doorway behind her. Kress issued them, his tone now a bite of gothic sarcasm. “Was that a whole new shit-pile of weird, or am I high?”

“No,” David replied. “You’re wired fine.” He chuffed without humor. “That’s about par for the course when the senator calls.”

“But it’s like she gets a personality transplant. Right into the Land of No-Spine.”

“Duly noted. About three years ago.”

“But it’s wrong! The guy’s her
father
. Why doesn’t somebody set the man straight?”

“You think I haven’t tried?”

Dasha still didn’t turn. She didn’t need to. She could clearly envision David’s face anyway. Tension dug into his broad forehead, and his jaw was a hard line of pissed-off. In an equally tight tone, he went on: “The regrettable news is, our girl inherited her stubborn streak from Daddy. Whenever I say anything, the man calls me an old woman, says I’m stressed about nothing. He says Dasha hasn’t voiced anything to him, so all must be well in Oz.”

“And that’s where new-personality girl comes in and doesn’t say a fucking thing.”

“You’re getting it now, Toto.”

“Shit on burned toast. That’s a mess.”

“Amen.”

There was a long pause, but Dasha knew the guys hadn’t stopped communicating. She finally put her phone down and dared a peek out from the chair, half expecting to see them gesturing in American Sign Language. Instead, those twin stormy stares still confronted her. Now they also rocked matching postures: legs planted, arms crossed over the snug shirts encasing those well-honed chests. Crap. If she wasn’t drowning in fear and frustration, she might’ve counted herself a lucky woman just for the view.

She surged to her feet. “You both want to stop talking about ‘the mess’ like she’s not sitting right here?”

David’s jaw flexed harder in reaction. But to her surprise, half a smile played at Kress’s lips. “Well. Somebody needs some discipline.”

“Also duly noted.” When David simply shrugged with that, she was certain her eyes bugged again. He aggravated the effect by dipping a knowing nod at her. “And as I said, working on it.”

“Well, if it were me…”

The rest of the sentence hung unsaid in the air, though Dasha wondered if that was the case. It really did feel like the two had some secret language going on, activated the second Kress had used the magic word.
Subbie.
In the minutes since then, all their actions felt different, a change she’d been willing to ignore—but now, a shift she couldn’t ignore. Not when David stepped forward, braced his stance, and challenged, “Yeah? What
if
it were you?”

Silence stretched. But not the energy between all of them. Kress and his grin suddenly found the carpet interesting. David caught her stare and held it, as if assessing where her mind was really at right now, then determining it for himself to the last, frightening detail.

Then smiling himself.

It was a smile she’d never seen on his Greek-god mouth before. If he was Zeus back in Miami, then he was certainly Eros now, the broker of love and passion. And sex. Dark, forbidden sex.

When Kress lifted his own head again, he channeled the exact same energy. They both took her in from head to toe. Dasha gripped the back of the chair she’d just left and forced down a breath. Like that stopped the wild escalation of her heartbeat. Something strange but tangible had shifted the very air in the room. The threads in the air were now wires, and they’d restrung the sensual power grid in the room. Where once there was a loop, now there was a triangle.

It terrified her.

It entranced her.

Kress finally broke the silence with a quiet question. “You said you’ve tried spanking?”

The ball in her throat erupted on a choke. She stared at David and voiced the unthinkable. “You…told him?”

“Hush.” It carried the same strength as Kress’s voice, but it wasn’t a request. Not by a long shot. “Your secrecy and security are the most important things to me, D. I’ve been consumed with ensuring both over the last week.”

“I know,” she answered fast. “I do know, David. And I—I’m grateful. But—”

“So do you think I’d deliberately talk about us to another if he didn’t place equal importance on your well-being?”

She lowered her gaze. Closed her eyes. And behind her lids, once again saw Kress slamming her to that stage. Throwing himself on top of her. Knowing it might’ve gotten him killed because of her. And then, the mind-bending kicker: she knew he’d do it again. Without hesitation.

“No, Sir.”

“Hm.” The injection from Kress was laced with approval, though he directed it at David, who now paced toward her.

“Kress and I have had a lot of time to talk this week,” he said as he did. “And since the subject was often our mutually favorite subject, your sanity and safety, we’ve discovered we have…similar viewpoints on some things.”

It took her a few long moments to respond, mostly due to the hand he now lifted to her nape. He didn’t place it there for a massage either. His hold was firm, almost too tight. And she loved it. Craved that connection of pure strength. The command of it rippled through her body, making her capable of giving him just one word.

“Oh.”

Oh?

What was wrong with her? Misgivings whirled and attacked again. This had nothing to do with her shortfalls as Senator Mark Moore’s daughter. This had everything to do with the chip in her brain that was clearly, irrevocably,
wrong.
Because, as David coaxed up her head in time to see him motion Kress closer, all she could feel was thrilled…needed. As the agent stepped closer, the ink-dark pupils in his eyes showed nothing but desire, fixation.

Kress stepped forward, then grabbed one of her wrists, locking her in his hold. The only reaction she could scrape was a surrendering sigh. She barely held herself back from adding another monosyllable to it.

Yes.

The world, and all its lunatics, insanity, guilt, and insecurities, began to fall away.

If this was wrong, then maybe she didn’t need to be right. Ever again.

Kress’s rugged face, framed by those unruly brown waves, hardened in all the right places. “So you’ve been hiding your real feelings from Daddy,” he stated. “Holding back from telling him what you really feel because you’re afraid you’ll hurt him?”

Dasha’s breath caught. Okay, maybe the world wasn’t going away so fast.

“I didn’t ask that for my health, Dasha.”

She gulped. And stammered, “N-no, Sir. I mean, y-yes, Sir.”

“I’m not your Sir. You can call me Kress.” His voice flowed now like water from an underground pool, shadowed yet fluid. “Now answer the question again, in a complete sentence. From what your
Sir
tells me, you know those pretty well.”

“Yes, Sir. I—I mean, yes, Kress. And…” She flicked a glance to David, who encouraged by squeezing her nape a little tighter. “Yes. I’ve been hiding the truth from my father.”

“Even after your Sir has told you that such behavior will harm your dynamic with him?”

Conflict raged again. David had mandated, in no uncertain terms, that honesty with Dad wasn’t an opt-out choice. Now she recognized the order for its necessity. She couldn’t keep hiding her feelings, and every time she submitted to him, she relearned that lesson in beautiful detail. The rocket fuel that powered them into sexual heaven was blended of pure honesty and trust—which she’d promised to give him. But she hadn’t kept that promise. Tonight, she hadn’t even tried with Dad.

Where did that put the trust of her Sir now?

“Yes,” she answered Kress, yearning to hang her head. Somehow, David knew that. He moved behind her and tunneled his other hand into her hair, positioning her head even higher with it. Forcing her to continue dealing with Kress’s ongoing, unfaltering stare.

“Even after he’s said that complete honesty is essential for your relationship?” he charged.

“Y-yes.”

“Were you thinking about all this when you were speaking with your father?” Kress’s own hold became a knot around her wrist. “Were you thinking of the trust of your Sir at all?”

That broke the dam. “I wanted to say more.” She let tears flow down her face and neck, not daring to lift her other hand to wipe them. “I wanted to be honest! But he was on a plane, and the press was with him, and—” She tried to at least shake her head. David didn’t give her an inch. “I-I’m sorry.”

David tightened himself against her back. He pulled her head into the crook of his neck. “I know,” he said into her ear.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

He pulled her against him a little more, sliding a hand to the valley between her breasts. “But you also know there must be discipline now.”

“Y-yes.”

It felt right to say it. She needed to have this, to make things right again between them. She hadn’t wimped on Dad on purpose, but letting David guide her, to make her better at the process next time, was a choice she
could
make now—no matter how scared she was about what would define discipline.

She needed to give him her trust in order to earn his once again.

“The punishment may take you past a few comfort points,” David stated. “Maybe more than a few.”

He likely felt her heartbeat react to that, increasing triple time. But he waited, his hand a steady pressure between the swells of her breasts. “Yes, Sir,” she finally replied. “I understand.”

“Very good,” David praised. As he did, Kress roped his hold around her other wrist. “Because we’re getting to the first point now.”

They moved in tighter, practically crushing her, and she felt tiny between their planes of masculine power. “All right,” she said, sounding timid and unsure and hating it but thoroughly unable to control it. Yes, these men were obsessed with protecting every cell of her body, but the heat radiating off both of them was so potent, so powerful, so overwhelming.

“Breathe,” David instructed, though lessening that possibility by nuzzling her neck with firm warmth. “And listen.”

“Yes, Sir.” Now she felt his pulse as well as hers, a thrum through all his muscles…and erection. She fell back against him, letting his energy wash through her, exposing her jaw for another of his commanding kisses.

“You must have surmised by now that I’d like Kress to assist with your punishment. I think he’s earned that right, don’t you?”

While he asked that, Dasha looked up to Kress. His features held the same protective intensity with which he’d always beheld her—only now, magnified by a thousand. As if she needed the impression reinforced, he shifted again, fitting the ridge between his legs into the apex of hers. She gasped. Dear God, even through their clothes, she felt the rough heat and huge length of him.

Lust tumbled from both men, filling her senses with its raw masculine magic. The elixir acted like a drug on her tongue. “Yes,” she finally answered David. “Yes, Sir, he has.”

Kress, his eyes now glittering, pressed even closer. Without warning, he whisked her arms above her head.