Zurlo, Michele - Two Masters for Samantha [Awakenings 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (21 page)

She fumbled for it, not bothering to check the number. Amanda, her sister, was supposed to pick her up from the airport, and her mother had a knack for knowing the moment Sam arrived home from one of her trips. It was likely either of them.

“Hey,” she said affectionately, her mouth stretching into a wide smile.

“Samantha? This is Alexei.”

Sam froze, dropping her bag to the floor. For ten days, she had wondered about him and Stefano. They had asked to see her again. Samantha didn’t know if she wanted the kind of relationship they offered. She didn’t know how she would be able to face the world with a man on either arm. Doubts about their sincerity surfaced every now and again, ruining parts of her trip until she had pushed away all negative thoughts and focused on the moment, nothing else.

“Samantha? Are you there?”

She realized she hadn’t answered him. “Sorry,” she said. “I was expecting someone else.”

His tone cooled, and his voice tightened. “Were you?”

Samantha was savvy to his tricks. She wondered why he felt the need to use them, but she refused to respond with an explanation. She wasn’t his submissive. Yet. “How are you, Alexei?”

“Answer the question, Samantha.”

She laughed at his Dom voice. It used to send her into peals of giggles when Jonas had spoken like that to Helene, his ex-wife, or when Ellen used it with her husband, Ryan. Surprisingly, Jonas didn’t use it with Sabrina. Not in front of anyone else, anyway.

“I already did,” she pointed out. “I told you I was expecting someone else before you even asked. I’m not into repeating myself. Now, are you going to answer my question, or did you want to just tell me the reason you called?”

Grabbing the handle of her suitcase, she extended the pulley handle so it could roll behind her. Knowing Amanda, she was waiting in the pickup area. It would be rude to keep her.

She heard a loud exhalation that told her Alexei wasn’t enjoying her brand of banter. The exit was near and he hadn’t said a word. “Look, I only have a minute. Did you want to call me back later?”

Putting the responsibility on him was a power grab action, but Sam didn’t care. She didn’t know yet if they were playing a game. The double doors swished open in front of her. Sounds of cars and buses assaulted her ears.

“We want to see you again. Have you thought about our proposal?”

He said exactly what she wanted him to say. They hadn’t reconsidered their offer. That threw her. In the back of her head, she’d entertained the nagging suspicion that time and distance would dim their desire to see her again.

“Samantha? Did you hear what I said?”

She cleared her throat. He was calm and in control. This didn’t bode well. She bit her lip and scanned the line of cars for Amanda’s SUV. “I heard you.”

“And?”

She inhaled sharply, violently, suddenly aware she hadn’t been breathing. Amanda’s car screeched to a stop at the curb in front of Sam. “Lex, my ride is here. I have to go. Can you call back later? Around six?”

* * * *

Alexei stared at the phone. The screen read “disconnected.” Stefano’s plan to wait her out hadn’t produced results. In seven days, neither of them had received a single message from Samantha.

The phone call hadn’t gone at all the way he expected. She had been genuinely surprised to hear from him and downright shocked when he asked about her decision to see them again. Perhaps the fear that woke him at night, the fear she had her fill of them, wasn’t unfounded.

Was that impatience in her voice when she said she didn’t have time to talk? Or was it uncertainty?

He slid his phone into its sleeve and threw it on his desk. He was working out of the
Miami
office this week. Stef was in
New York
, due home later this evening at the exact time he was supposed to call Samantha back.

He sighed. It was best to say nothing. Stefano would find out soon enough that Lex hadn’t followed their plan.

* * * *

The phone rang at five. Samantha had declined Amanda’s invitation to have dinner at her house. She’d be spending the next ten days with her beloved family. This was likely going to be her last chance to work on her art without distractions. Plus, she had an amazing amount of laundry to do before Amanda picked her up in the morning.

However, convincing her sister to leave her alone was proving difficult. Amanda had called twice and she had texted pictures of the food preparations six times. She glanced at her phone with every intention of turning it off, but the unfamiliar number made her hesitate. It was the same area code from when Lex had called earlier. She had been so nervous and caught off-guard that she hadn’t quite known what to say to him. She hoped he wasn’t upset by her abruptness.

Swallowing her trepidation, she answered.

“Sammy? Hey, it’s Stefano.”

She knew who it was. They were tag-teaming her. This was the trouble with dating brothers. Dating? No, not dating. Not yet.

“Hi, Stefano.” She thought she did a great job keeping her tone light. “How are you?”

“Great. I’m about a half hour from home. It’s been a long, long trip, but the Galens were receptive to our plans for merging some operations. It should prove sweetly profitable for both our corporations. But you didn’t really want to know about that, did you?”

Samantha laughed. This wasn’t the conversation she expected to have with Stefano. “I have no idea what you’re talking about except in the most general terms. I’m glad things are going well for you.”

“How are things going with you, Sammy?”

“Fine. I just got back from
Alaska
this morning. I’m knee deep in laundry and sorting through a huge pile of mail. My plants survived. The kid down the hall waters my jades for me and picks up my mail for the bargain price of five bucks a week.” She sighed. “And I’ll be doing the exact same thing again in ten days.”

“Why?”

She laughed at Stefano’s confusion. “Because I leave tomorrow for
Kentucky
. My family does a vacation together every year at this time.”

“Oh.”

Samantha opened the utility closet that housed her washer and dryer. It had gone quiet, indicating the end of the dry cycle. She folded the clothes onto her kitchen counter and decided to get to the point. “Look, Stefano, I know you want to see me again, but I’m just not sure what I’m getting myself into with the two of you.”

Silence greeted her statement, followed by a soft chuckle. “What do you want to get yourself into, Sammy? We’re versatile.”

She folded panties and hung a shirt on a waiting hanger. “I’ll admit to being a masochist, but I don’t think I’m the kind of submissive you guys want. I’m not subservient.”

“Oh, honey, yes, you are exactly the kind of submissive we want. You’re beautiful and sensual and completely sexual. You’re so responsive. We barely pinked you, Sammy. I could make you come from the touch of the whip alone.”

Damn right he could. Samantha remembered the sweet sting of the cat and the amazing way the heater set her skin on fire. Her body tingled, yearning to have that again. “I don’t think I’m slave material, Stef. I have a life, and I like my life.”

Sam heard the gears of his thoughts churning. It came across the line as static.

“I’m just not the wait-at-home-naked kind of woman. I like my freedom and my clothes.”

Stefano sighed. “I know you’re not, Sammy. We’d like to train you, though. We’d like to help you figure out what you do and don’t like. How about you come down for a long weekend and try it out? I’d love to show you our playroom.”

Samantha was familiar with the concept of a playroom. Ellen had one in her basement. Though Sam had seen the different kinds of spanking benches and restraint tables, she didn’t have a full understanding of their various functions. The idea of being bound to one of those devices and totally at the mercy of Stefano and Alexei titillated her. Already her cream was collecting in the thin cotton of her panties.

“You don’t have to make a decision right now,” Stefano said. “In fact, I want you to take time on your vacation to think about it. Are you alone?”

She folded a pair of socks and modulated her tone to be teasing. The conversation was getting a little serious, and it made her nervous as all hell. “Why? Were you thinking of coming over to demonstrate to me how easily you can master my body?”

Stefano laughed. “If I weren’t in
Miami
, Sammy, I would head to your house right now and show you how much you need a Master in your life.”

She snorted as she started the next load in the dryer. Stacking her clothes neatly in the laundry basket, she carried them to her room. Some of them went into her suitcase. Others found themselves back in drawers.
Kentucky
wasn’t going to have the colder days an Alaskan summer experienced.

“You have a high opinion of yourself, Stef.”

“Answer my question, Sammy. Are you alone right now?”

“Yeah,” she said, flopping down onto her bed. So many days had elapsed since she last slept in it that the mattress felt foreign under her back. “I’m alone. I’m lying across my bed. You want to have phone sex? I’m wearing sexy underwear. Black lace panties. It’s not quite a thong, but it’s not much more that one, either.”

She didn’t add that she was wearing her black lace panties because they were the only clean pair she had. Now that the first load was done, she had several more pairs available.

“Let me pull over,” he said, his voice thicker than it had been moments before. “Are you wearing a bra?”

“No,” she laughed. “These bad girls wanted to be free this afternoon. If I tied you to my bed, Stefano, I’d torture you by rubbing them in your face. I’d trace your lips with a hard nipple and tease the hell out of you.”

“Would you make me beg to suck them, Sammy?”

Pushing her white cotton T-shirt out of the way, she traced her areola. Her finger circled lightly, closer and closer to the nipple.

“You’re already begging,” she said. “What do you like about my breasts, Stefano?”

His ragged breathing told her so much.

“I’m going to warm your ass, Sammy. You’re earning a punishment right now.”

Her answering laugh was husky to her own ears. “I didn’t agree to be your slave, Stefano. I agreed to have phone sex with you.” She pinched her nipple, tugging at it sharply. The pull echoed deep in her pussy, a single wave of pleasure traveling between the two points. “Would the punishment include spanking? You have wonderful hands.”

The low answering growl had her laughing. This was going to be fun.

“Sammy, I can honestly say that not a day goes by that I don’t think about getting my hands on your ass. In my fantasies, you’ve already earned dozens of punishments.”

Though she laughed, his tone had a knot forming in her chest. “You’re not the kind of Dom who punishes his subs just for fun, are you?”

“When my slave is a masochist, yes, I would. Isn’t that what you want, Sammy? You want me to tie you down on my spanking bench, turn your ass pink until your cream drips down your thighs, and then fuck you slowly until you’re begging for an orgasm? You can’t begin to comprehend how beautiful you looked the other night, Sammy. You can’t understand what watching your body writhe and welcome each flick of the whip did to us. I’ve masturbated to those memories for seven whole days now.”

The smooth silk of his voice seduced her, and the picture he painted had her pushing the band of her sweats until they slid from her body to fall in a heap on the floor. She rummaged in her nightstand for her vibrator.