Siren in Bloom

Chapter Two

Shelley McNamara stared out the window at the city streets. The Dallas skyline rose all around her like some giant enfolding her in its arms. She’d grown up in the country with wide open spaces and nature all around her. She’d thought she would hate it here, but she loved the city.

It had been right to come to Dallas. She’d needed the change, needed to get back to work. But was she making a horrible mistake with the rest of it? She was waiting, counting down the minutes until she met with this man, this Dom who would guide her.

“Getting nervous?” Danielle Lodge-Taylor asked. She walked through the hallway of the penthouse she shared with her husbands. She glanced over at the new furniture that had arrived just hours before. “This is so lovely. Oh, Shelley, it’s beautiful. What a transformation.”

Shelley smiled. “I’m glad you like it.”

“The old room was elegant, but there was no warmth to it. I think Julian told the last designer to just buy the most expensive stuff possible with no regard to comfort.”

Shelley was happy with the results. Decorating this glorious penthouse had been her reason for living for the past several months. It had been the perfect project to sink into while she made the transition from angry widow to something…more. “I think this has a much warmer feel to it. I’m anxious to get to work on Julian’s office.”

“You’ll do a fabulous job,” Dani assured her. “Now, I’ll ask again. Are you getting nervous?”

The gorgeous blonde smiled as she took a seat, carefully lowering her very pregnant body into the chair.

Pregnant. Shelley was almost thirty. She’d thought for sure she’d have kids by now. Of course she also thought she would be happily married. Unfortunately, she’d picked an asshat, douchebag, drug-dealing, blackmailing son of a bitch as a husband.

“Oooo, you were thinking of him. I’ve come to think of that as your ‘I hate my ex’ face.”

Shelley smiled. She couldn’t help it. Something about Dani eased her. In the time she’d been at The Club, her friendship with Julian Lodge’s wife had blossomed into something she held very dear. “Sometimes I wish I had been the one to shoot him.”

“I know the feeling,” Dani said. “It would have given you closure. But he’s gone now. You know if you let his memory hold you back, then he wins.”

This was an old argument. Since she’d come to work for Julian two months before, she’d heard a lot of this from Dani. She’d poured her heart out to the gorgeous blonde and found a willing ear and a stubborn mouth. Dani was firmly in the “move on” camp. She’d been the one to finally convince Shelley she should give BDSM a serious try. “I know, sweetie. And yes, I’m nervous. Terrifically nervous. Even though we’ve talked and sent a bunch of e-mails back and forth, it’s different to meet him in person. Were you this nervous before you met Julian?”

Dani’s mouth came open slightly, and she shook her blonde hair. “Oh, I didn’t meet him the way you’re meeting Master Wolf. This is very traditional. My meeting with Julian was not. I met Julian when I jumped into his car as I fled my wedding to a man named Jimbo.”

Shelley couldn’t help the giggle that escaped. She still had a hard time reconciling the elegant, educated woman in front of her with the redneck girl she claimed to have been. “Jimbo?”

Dani nodded. “Jimbo Smart. It’s a misnomer. And he’s now married to my sister. They both work out at the spa I opened. I saw him earlier, you know.”

“Master Wolf?” God, she was so curious. Master Wolf. Who was named Wolf? She had to wonder if it was a nickname. She would feel more comfortable with someone named Bob or Randy. Why wasn’t any damn Dom named Master Bob? No, they were Julians and Wolfs and…Leo.

“Yes, I meant Master Wolf,” Dani said.

Dani didn’t seem to have noticed her mental drift off. Shelley was happy she didn’t have a “pining for Leo” face.

“And?” Maybe he would be ordinary looking. Or much older. A nice man who would lead her on this journey but who wouldn’t tempt her. Yes. She could use a friendly, kind mentor.

Dani’s eyes lit up. “Don’t you ever tell Julian I said this, but I think my eyes just about popped out of my head. He’s gorgeous. I mean it. I drooled a little.”

“Are we talking about Wolf?” Finn Taylor asked as he walked into the room. His hand was on his tie, pulling it off. He set his briefcase down. Finn Taylor was Dani’s other husband. Suddenly Shelley found herself surrounded by happy ménages.

But she only wanted one man. Leo. And she could never have him.

“Yes,” Dani said, flushing slightly.

“Don’t feel bad, baby,” Finn assured her. He leaned over and brushed his lips across hers, his hand caressing her round belly. “That man is sex on a stick. Holy hotness. You would have to be blind not to notice him. I just get the feeling there’s something Julian’s not telling us about him.”

Dani looked up at her husband, her eyes narrowing. “Is he plotting again?”

“He’s always plotting, baby. I just haven’t figured this one out yet.” Finn sat on the arm of the comfy seat and turned to Shelley, his hand never leaving his wife’s belly. “Welcome to sub world, Shelley. Doms never let you in on their plots, so you have to be sneaky.”

“It’s called topping from the bottom. We’ve made an art of it.” She leaned her head back. “We’ll figure it out.”

“So he’s attractive?” Would she think so, or was she so caught up in Leo that no other man would ever quite do?

“Take it from a bi-guy, he’s gorgeous. I would guess he’s ex-military, but I think I see a little cowboy in there, too. And he was nice. I only talked to him for a minute, but I got a good vibe. Some Doms are real assholes, but he seemed like a genuine guy.”

And he would be her Master. Well, for training purposes. What was she doing?

Putting her life back together. She straightened her shoulders. She wasn’t going to sit around any longer. She’d moped for long enough. It was time for Shelley McNamara to figure out who the hell she was. She’d been Bryce’s wife. Before that she’d been Trev McNamara’s sister and her parents’ daughter.

It was time to find out if she could just be Shelley.

“When is your meeting?” Dani asked.

She glanced up at the clock. Too soon. Way too soon. Could she rethink this? Get out of this? She could just tell Julian Lodge that she’d reconsidered and realized that it was ridiculous to think she really wanted to get tied up and spanked and forced to call some stranger Sir.

Especially when all of her fantasies didn’t involve a stranger but a man she’d dreamed of every day since the moment she’d met him. She’d made horrible decisions that had led her to being forced to throw the only man she’d ever really loved out of her life, and she didn’t deserve a second chance. Not that he seemed to want to give her one. He wouldn’t even look at her. Two months and all she’d gotten from him was a cold nod as they’d passed each other in the hall.

As if she didn’t really exist. As if he’d never kissed her, never offered to take her away.

She needed to forget Leo Meyer.

“She’s got her ‘pining for Leo’ face on,” Finn whispered.

Shelley laughed. It felt so good to laugh again. It felt amazing to be able to laugh at her own ridiculous self. How many years had it been since she’d simply laughed without thinking about how her husband would take it? “I was really hoping I didn’t have one of those.”

Dani shot her a sympathetic look. “No, sweetie, it’s totally there. Are you sure you want to do this? Julian could talk to him. Julian is very good at manipulating people. If Leo was your trainer, I seriously doubt he would be able to keep his hands off you. It could bring you together.”

Leo had made it plain that it was over. She was self-aware enough to admit that she’d hoped she would walk in and Leo would fall all over himself to get to her, but that wasn’t what had happened. He wouldn’t talk to her. He would smile and make chitchat with all of the other employees. Leo Meyer was like the life of the party until the moment he realized she was there. Then he would shut down like someone had unplugged him.

She didn’t want that for him. “No. Maybe I should go somewhere else. I think I’m making Leo miserable. That wasn’t my intention.”

Finn leaned forward. “No. I don’t think Julian is going to allow you to go somewhere else. Come on, Shelley. You can’t cut off a piece of yourself just because Leo has a stick shoved up his ass.”

She shrugged. She had cut pieces of herself off for a really long time. “Maybe I’m not submissive.”

Lie. Her husband had used her general nature against her for years. It was why she’d been attracted to him in the first place. She was deeply attracted to a commanding presence. Bryce just hadn’t had the soul to back it up. She longed for a man who knew how to give back.

“Perhaps you aren’t ready.”

Four words proved just how submissive she was. Not the words, but the way Julian Lodge said them. She turned and found Julian standing in the doorway, his eyes pinning her where she stood.

Julian Lodge was one amazing-looking man, but it was his presence that moved her. And Julian Lodge knew how to love his partners. She wanted what Dani had found. Hell, she wanted what her brother had. Trev had found himself in this place. This place and the man in front of her had transformed her brother from an addict who thought only of himself to a man she was damn proud of. Trev had gotten over his guilt to become the kind of man who everyone relied on.

“I am ready, Sir. I’m sorry. Sometimes I let the past weigh me down.” But she couldn’t drown under it. She couldn’t.

Julian’s face softened. “I understand that. I truly do. Would it help at all if I told you I think Leo is just being stubborn?”

“No. He has his reasons to be stubborn. Please, if he’s against this, let me know. I’ll finish my work here and I’ll go. I owe that much to him.”

“He’s agreed. And he’s agreed to my choice of Dom.” It was said with the slightest tightness to his tone. Shelley had to wonder exactly what had happened. “Let it go, dear. Everything is in place for you. Leo will be fine. He’s excellent at seeing other people’s issues, and not so good at seeing his own. But he is dear to me. I can’t force him to do something he doesn’t want to. I know he will never believe me, but I truly selected this Dom because I think he’s what you need. And I believe you will be good for Master Wolf. He’s different.”

“Good,” Shelley said, her mind made up. She would meet Wolf. She was deeply intrigued by the man. He’d seemed smart and funny and sweet over the phone. A little like Leo. She would be grateful for all of the amazing gifts Leo had given her. She loved him. Loved him deep and true and forever. She would go to her grave with Leo Meyer on her mind, but she wasn’t good for him. Maybe Julian was right. It would be good to bring some joy to someone. “I’m looking forward to finally meeting him in person, Sir.”

Julian smiled, a little uptick of his lips. “Excellent, because he’s ready to meet you. Please find something appropriate to wear. The jeans and paint-splattered T-shirt are fine for working on the nursery, but I expect your new Master will want something a bit more feminine.”

Shelley looked down at her clothes. She’d brought a little bag with her best slacks and a pretty silk shirt. It was professional with a little hint of sex appeal. She hoped it hadn’t wrinkled. She’d spent the day with the painters working on the mural for the baby’s room before the furniture had arrived. She must look horrible, and she didn’t have much time.

“Stop panicking,” Dani said, hoisting herself up. Julian and Finn both hurried to give her a hand. “Guys, I don’t need a crane to get me out of a chair. Not yet.”

“Danielle, you will allow your men to help you.” There was no mistaking the command in Julian’s voice.

Dani softened, letting her husbands pull her from the chair. She went up on her tiptoes and kissed Julian. “Yes, Julian.” She turned to Shelley. “Come on. We’ll get you all gorgeous for Master Wolf. I’ll dress you up since I can’t dress myself up anymore. I have a ton of beautiful clothes I can’t wear since none of them were made for a woman who swallowed a watermelon.”

“That’s ten, Danielle. I can spank you without harming our baby,” Julian promised.

“He’s been practicing,” Finn said with a smile. “After this, he can write a book. The Dom’s Guide to Maternal Discipline or Getting Your Freak on With Child.”

Julian sighed. “Your sarcasm grows by the day.” He sank a hand in Finn’s hair before kissing his partner. It was a sweet kiss of deep longing. When Julian let Finn go, he stared down. “Sex on a stick? Really? Holy hotness?”

Finn grinned. “It was all a lie, Master. I didn’t want Shelley to know the new Dom was really hideously unattractive.”

Julian laughed, ruffling a hand through Finn’s hair. “You keep it that way, Finn. Go on, ladies. Finn and I will have a drink while we wait. I’ll walk you down, Shelley. Master Wolf would like to go over the full contract before you both sign.”

She was going to sign a contract with a man. A contract that detailed all the things he could do to her. It was weird but exciting. She was starting a new chapter in her life.

The Shelley chapter. She followed Dani. There was no way she started her new life in a dirty T-shirt and jeans. She would walk into it with her head held high and hope in her heart.

And her love for Leo would always be there, but in the background. She would go on. She would find someone who needed her.

These were her baby steps, and she would take as many as she had to until she found her peace.

Senator Mitchell Cross stared at the man in front of him. He was a fit man, though Cross doubted he got his physique in anything so tame as a gym. His eyes were a cold, flinty gray, his hair cut in a precise military style. He wore simple, generic clothes, khaki pants and a T-shirt, well-worn boots. But it was very easy to picture him in fatigues. Steve Holder looked exactly like what he was. A mercenary.

Of course, he was a mercenary with several government contracts that could blow up in all of their faces. He was far more dangerous than just his well-trained ability to kill a man.

“You say you know this man?” Cross slid a picture across the desk toward the soldier of fortune. And fortunate he was. Holder was a millionaire because of under-the-table deals he’d made with Cross himself. He had a lot to lose, too. It was precisely why Cross had called the man in.

Holder stared down, his expression closed off. He had a long scar running down his face beginning at the side of his left eye and running down to his chin. Cross wouldn’t like to know what had happened to whoever had given him that scar. “I served with Lieutenant Leo Meyer for about two years. He was in my SEAL unit.”

Before Holder had stopped serving his country and started serving himself. Cross couldn’t blame the man. The Navy paid shit. So did the Senate. $174,000 a year barely paid for his wife’s cocaine habit, much less for his mistress. And his investments were drying up. Old money wasn’t what it used to be. He’d had to set up a nice little network of lobbyist money and selling favors to men like Holder in order to keep up a proper standard of living.

Shelley McNamara Hughes could bring down his entire house of cards.

“Were you close to him?” Units like the SEALs tended to forge strong bonds between the men who served in them.

Holder shoved the picture back toward him. “As much as I got close to anyone. But we weren’t on the same squad. We were in the same platoon, but sure, I knew him. He was a little younger than me, but he was a solid sniper. I heard he went back to school after he left. That didn’t surprise me. Meyer was a do-gooder. He was one of those true believers. He was obnoxious, but he didn’t know I couldn’t stand him. There was an incident with a translator in Afghanistan. He left the unit after that.”

“Really?” Maybe there was something he could use against this guy. It would be so much easier if this Meyer guy was dirty.

“A girl he was fucking got killed. She worked as a translator in the area. It wasn’t smart to get involved with the locals, but it didn’t seem to bother Meyer.” Holder sat back in the wing chair. He could have been talking about the weather for all the emotion in his voice. “She was butchered. He found the body.”

Cross was interested in that. “Did he kill her?”

Holder shrugged. “Who knows? The Navy didn’t think so. Look, it was fucking Afghanistan. Do you know what the locals do to a woman they decide is a whore? They can still legally stone a woman in that part of the world. She could have been killed because some Taliban freak caught her with a man who wasn’t her husband or because they didn’t like her working for the Americans or because she looked at someone wrong. Who the fuck knows what those people think. The Navy cleared Meyer, but he wasn’t the same, and when his time was up, he left. I lost track of him.”

“He wasn’t someone you tried to recruit?” Cross had heard that Holder and his company liked to recruit as many Special Forces soldiers as possible.

Holder waved him off. “Nah. He left. He went back to school. He wasn’t a viable candidate, though I hear his brother just got his walking papers and he didn’t want to leave. I’ve talked to him. The last time I spoke to Wolf Meyer, he was still trying to get back in. He would be an excellent addition, but his brother makes me nervous. What does he have to do with the fact that you let some asshole bug your office?”

He hated the superior way Holder looked at him. But it was the truth. Fucking Bryce Hughes had been a blackmailing son of a bitch. Bryce Hughes was the reason Cross was in this position. He’d been a discreet drug dealer. Bryce had been smooth, friendly even. He’d given the senator a good deal and even offered his lovely wife’s design services.

Which was exactly how he’d gotten caught on tape fucking his mistress on his senatorial desk. It wasn’t that particular episode that worried him. It was the fact that he’d made a deal with White Acres Security that effectively sold out US interests in the Middle East.

“I don’t need your sarcasm, Holder. You’re involved in this, too.”

The tape in which he proved he had problems with premature ejaculation would only get him voted out of office at the midterm election. The second tape, if it existed, could get him brought up on treason charges.

“I wasn’t the one who was friendly with a blackmailer. I thought the fucker died.”

“Oh, he’s dead. He owed a Colombian cartel some cash, and they don’t give extensions. Fortunately, he’d hidden a lot of his blackmail tapes.”

“How do you know he hid them?” Holder asked.

“Because if they had those fucking tapes, we would both be in jail.” Cross took a deep breath. “Look, I can’t be sure the tape even exists. I only know that we had a few meetings during the same time that Hughes was bugging this office.”

He had to find that fucking tape, and only Shelley Hughes could give it to him. Despite the fact that the cops had cleared her of her husband’s wrongdoing, Cross had to make sure she didn’t know about the White Acres deal. He had to.

And it looked like Leo Meyer might be involved.

Holder’s expression didn’t change a whit. “Where does Meyer fit into all this?”

“Leo Meyer is employed by a man named Julian Lodge. Lodge runs a business that caters to men and women with certain proclivities.” Cross tried to put it delicately.

Holder’s eyes flared. “What? He’s a pimp? Meyer runs girls? Are you fucking kidding me?”

“No. It’s a BDSM club.”

Holder sat back. “Bondage and shit. Yeah, I can see that. So what does he do? Spank women for a living?”

Cross didn’t know and wouldn’t give a shit if Meyer didn’t figure into Shelley Hughes’s life. “I don’t know. I have some friends who are members. They say Leo Meyer is the big guy at The Club. According to my sources, Shelley Hughes is working for Julian Lodge and has a past with Meyer.”

“So you want me to look my old buddy up and see what I can find out. I can do that. But, Senator, the next time you treat me like your fucking lackey, I’ll show up at your bedside with a knife to your throat, and no amount of security will keep me out. Don’t think for minute that I’m your employee.” Holder stood up, his ridiculously intimidating six-feet-five-inch body towering over Cross.

He swallowed and then nodded. Fuck, he hated this shit. He never should have taken the Armed Services Committee post. He should have gone for the cushy Veterans’ Affairs job. Then all the soldiers he would have to deal with would be old fuckers in wheelchairs and sad sacks who had gotten their limbs blown off for their country. But, no, he wanted the big job. He forced himself to stay strong. After all, he was the elected official here. He wasn’t without power. “I understand. This is for both of us. We’re both at risk here.”

Holder put two hands on the desk and leaned forward, the scar on his face whitening as his expression tightened. “Yeah, well, I’m not the dipshit who invited the blackmailer’s wife to decorate my office. Now what’s the name of this club?”

“The Club.” There wasn’t a website or a listing in the phone book, but he had an address.

“Seriously? That’s the dumbest name I ever heard.”

“Lodge believes in simplicity.”

Holder straightened up with a derisive snort. “He sounds like an idiot.”

“He’s a rich idiot with a lot of important connections. Meyer has a listed phone number, and I e-mailed you the address of the building The Club is in. I’m going to go to The Club with a colleague of mine in a couple of days. If you can gather whatever intel you can on what Shelley Hughes is doing in that club, what her relationship is with Meyer, and where she’s living, I would be deeply grateful.”

Holder nodded, turning without saying another word. He crossed the office in a few neat strides and opened the door. The door closed behind him, and Mitchell Cross could breathe again. His brain ached and his stomach was in fucking knots. He hadn’t gotten into politics so he would have to deal with the trash of the world. Yet here he was.

And now he had to basically go undercover in a BDSM club. Fuck. Fuck. Fucking fuck. He was supposed to be relaxing, but he had to play bondage games because apparently his former drug dealer’s widow was some kind of a pervert freak.

He put his head in his hands. If he survived this crisis, he was going to get clean.

But until then…he opened his drawer and found his small stash of cocaine. Until then, he really needed a little relief.