He stared at her from across the counter. “How open-minded are you?”

She felt some of her new anxiety fade. “Consenting human adults.

If you’re not trying to coerce me into it, I probably won’t object.”

He smiled again. While she didn’t trust him, she had to admit that the way his lips curled softened his face and crinkled the corners of his grey eyes in a playful way. “Girl after our own hearts then.” He disappeared into the kitchen where she couldn’t see him.

Movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention. Mac had returned to the living room. He wore shorts and nothing else.

Almost nothing else.

Something in her heart fluttered at the sight of his bare chest. Yes, he had nipple rings, gold ones. She also realized his chest was completely bare, shaved. That wasn’t the unusual thing.

The custom-tooled leather collar around his neck with a small silver lock attached to the buckle caught her attention.

Sully stepped out of the kitchen. “And?”

Clarisse looked at him. “And what?”

“Not you, sweetie.” He looked pointedly at Mac.

Mac knelt on the floor. That’s when the situation hit her.

Whatever their relationship, Sully was in control, not Mac, regardless of what she’d witnessed on the boat.

Sully walked over to Mac and stood beside him, brushed his hand through Mac’s blond hair. “Mac and I have a complex relationship.

I’m his Master, he’s my slave.” Sully’s hand remained on Mac’s head, his fingers twined through his hair. “So we’re partners, lovers, and more than that. It’s consensual. We’ve lived this way for several years.”

As she stared at them, trying to decide what to say, she watched Mac lean in, close his eyes, and rest his head against Sully’s thigh.

She realized both men wore matching bands on their left hands, like wedding bands.

“It’s okay, Clarisse,” Sully assured her. “You can freak out now if you want.”

“That’s not funny, Master,” Mac mumbled.

Clarisse noticed a change in Mac’s voice, like he’d suddenly relaxed.

Sully must have noticed her expression. “Sorry. I don’t want to freak you out, but since you’ll be living here, you need to understand who we are. Usually no one outside the lifestyle sees us like this. As you can see, he enjoys this as much as I do.”

Her mind whirled. She didn’t know what to say.

“What you witnessed on the boat,” Sully continued, “is just one aspect of what we do. I own the boat. Mac is the captain. I decided that as captain, we could play by his rules when I went out with him. I don’t get to go out with him all the time. Sometimes it’s fun for me to sit back and let him have fun. He enjoys topping on occasion. It mixes things up.”

Clarisse stared.

Sully gave her a moment, obviously realizing she was still processing information, before he continued. “As I said, we will never expect you to join in this with us. Although if you were curious and wanted to learn more, we would be happy to answer questions or help you out. Hopefully, after a few days, you will be more comfortable with this. Of course, we expect you to not say anything to anyone about this aspect of our relationship.”

She nodded.

“Normally I would have told Mac we’d act vanilla. Under the circumstances, because you’ll be with us for the foreseeable future, I’d rather be up front about this from the start instead of hiding what and who we are.” He patted Mac’s head. “Show her to her room, get her anything she needs. Then you and I need to shower and get dressed so we can take her to visit Tad.”

He stood and flashed her a smile. “I already laid stuff out for you.

Come on, this way.”

He led her down a hallway to a bedroom. At first, she thought maybe they’d walked into the master suite. The house she’d lived in with Bryan hadn’t had a master bedroom this large.

Mac walked over to the bathroom door and flipped the light on. “I got you Epsom salts to put in the water. That’ll help with the soreness.

I put out towels and some shampoo and conditioner for you. I’ll get with you about a shopping list, things you like and want, so I can buy them next time I go. I also put a disposable razor in there, and some shaving cream.” He gave her an apologetic smile. “Don’t have any shaving gel, sorry.”

She felt numb, in a good way. “That’s okay. That’ll be fine.”

Anything to shave and quit feeling like a filthy Sasquatch would be a blessing.

“Just leave your dirty clothes and the towels on the floor for me,” he said over his shoulder as he walked out.

“What?”

“I do the laundry,” he said from the bedroom. “And most of the cooking. The cleaning.” He paused. “I need to talk with Sully. He’ll probably want to let you do some of it. Anyway, we can work that out later. Tad’s going to be so glad to see you. He’s really missed you, talks about you all the time.”

With that, he walked out and softly closed the bedroom door behind him, leaving her feeling guilty as hell.

Uncle Tad was her only living relative besides a few distant cousins she didn’t even know. She should have stood up to Bryan, kept in better contact. He never should have had to go through this alone.

Well, bitching and moaning wouldn’t get her there any sooner.

She sorted dirty clothes from clean ones in her bag and dumped them in the bathroom. That didn’t feel right though. She felt guilty again, this time over saddling Mac with her laundry. She tried to tidy the pile a little.

Must be exhaustion.

She gave up, stripped, then turned, and studied herself in the bathroom mirror.

What a mess.

Turning, she saw the huge purplish-green swaths of bruises around her kidneys in addition to all the others.

That dealt the final blow to her psyche. She burst into tears, loudly sobbing. How had she let her life get so out of control as to reach this point? What was that stupid line, relying on the kindness of strangers?

Had she really sunk to that?

A knock sounded on her bedroom door. It opened a crack and Sully softly called to her.

“Clarisse? Are you okay, honey?”

Mac had even hung a robe on the back of the bathroom door. She grabbed it and pulled it on. “Yeah,” she called out as she sniffled. She wiped her face with her hands.

“Is it safe to come in?”

“Yeah.” She walked out to the bedroom.

He stuck his head in. “Are you really okay?”

She started to say yes, then burst into tears again and crumpled onto the end of the bed. He walked in and sat next to her. Despite her earlier hesitation, she let him put his arm around her as she cried against him. Mac appeared in the bedroom doorway.

“We promise he won’t hurt you again,” Sully quietly said. “I swear.”

“I’m sorry. I…it’s just that…it’s horrible. I look like a punching bag.”

“I’m going to make a suggestion. Please keep in mind I was a cop for over ten years.”

“Okay.”

“Did anyone get pictures of your injuries? Did you go to the hospital?”

“My friend Raquel took some. The cops took some. I don’t remember if the hospital did or not.”

“Do you want me to take another round for backup? Just in case you need them later?”

She didn’t want to, even though she knew it was a good idea. But she feared the file and the evidence getting lost and Bryan getting off, no matter how much they had assured her that wouldn’t happen.

He continued. “I can give you the roll of film to have developed. I don’t even have to see it after I take them.”

She took a deep, shuddering breath. “It’s probably better someone else has them. In case.”

Mac stepped into the room. When he spoke, his voice dropped in anger. “I’m telling you, if your boyfriend shows up, we’ll fucking kill him, I swear we will. We won’t give him another chance to hurt you.”

Sully flashed him a look that obviously meant shut up. “I’ll go put in a fresh roll of film. We can do it right here. Mac will get you a large towel so you can stay covered.”

She nodded.

He gently patted her thigh before leaving the room.

Mac fetched a large towel from the bathroom and turned on all the room lights. She felt touched that he held the towel and averted his eyes as she slipped the robe off and pulled the towel around her.

When he saw the bruises on her thighs, he sucked in a sharp breath.

“Son of a bitch,” he whispered. “That motherfucker.”

She couldn’t meet his gaze. Instead, she kept her eyes on the collar around his neck. “They don’t hurt as much as they did the other day.” Then again, she suspected her exhaustion had masked a lot of her pain.

Sully walked in while adjusting the camera and pulled up short when he saw her bruises. It shouldn’t have shocked him, considering what he’d seen as a cop, but it did.

A surge of rage welled inside him. The asshole that did this to her would not get away with it. It pissed him off that any man would do this to a woman.

It brought back his own nightmares.

She lifted her gaze to him, briefly, then her focus skittered away again. He took a deep breath to steady his voice.

“Let’s start with your back. Sit on the bed and you can let the towel fall open, okay?”

She nodded. Mac stepped back, holding her robe ready to put on her as soon as they finished.

Bless Mac’s heart. Sully could easily see where this would lead Mac if she spent any length of time with them. Wanting to prevent the past from repeating itself.

Sully took the pictures, fighting through his own anger as he saw the bruising on her back. The digital readout on the camera confirmed the shots. He would save a backup of each picture while still committing them to film. He did each arm, then her legs. He focused on her sweet blue eyes through the viewfinder.