Sophie Oak - Siren Beloved

She didn’t try to stop the tears in her eyes. She let them fall. They felt strangely good, purifying almost. “I want to.”

He reached out and held her hand. “Then that’s a good step. We can keep talking, Lexi. I’m going to allow you to meet with Master A because I truly believe you need this. I believe Lucas needs it as well. The Master has said he is willing to include Lucas in the session if you would like. Julian is negotiating the contract with Master A. I assure you that he’ll put in clauses to protect you. You and Lucas will have a chance to read it and sign off on it. You understand that everyone in this club has your best interests at heart, right?”

She did know that. Her stepfather loved her. Julian did, too, in his strange way. She belonged to Jack’s family and was friends with Julian’s loves. She was Julian’s family, too. “I know they do. I just worry about how they might show their love. They can be a bit overwhelming at times.”

Leo’s grin spread across his face. “See, pure sanity right there. Just keep that in mind, and we’ll all get through this. Let’s meet here at this time tomorrow, and we can talk through your experience tonight.”

Leo bounced on to his feet and walked to his day planner. He made a note while Lexi got out of her chair.

“Leo?”

“Yes?”

“Is that stuff about your mom really true?” It seemed too perfect. It had been exactly the right thing to say to her.

He turned a picture on his desk around and showed her. There was Leo and a man who looked slightly younger, but awfully like him. In the middle of the men was a petite woman with her steel gray hair in a long braid. There were mountains behind them, and they smiled for the camera. “This was taken when my brother was last on leave. My mom’s new boyfriend took it. Now there’s an insane person. Well, he’s from the next town over. Everyone in that freaking town is butt-fuck crazy. I’m totally moving there one day.”

Lexi took a deep breath. Maybe everyone was a little crazy. Maybe she just needed to talk. Not about everything, but some of it. She really did feel better. She walked to the door and started to open it.

“And, Lexi, one day we’re going to have to talk about it.”

She turned at the dark sound in his voice. “Talk about what?”

“What you lost, Lexi. You lost something, and it was so much more important than a fiancé or your sense of security. What you lost haunts you every moment of the day, and it will continue to do so until you talk about it. I’ll be here when you’re ready.”

She walked out the door, her sense of calm utterly blown. She would never be ready to talk about it. Not ever.

Aidan stood next to Julian, looking out over the dungeon. Preparations were being made. All over the atmospheric space, the staff was cleaning and checking the equipment for safety. Julian was still dressed in his day suit, but Aidan knew that soon the businessman would trade in his thousand-dollar tailored suit for a pair of leathers. Aidan would do it, as well, with one exception. Aidan would cover his face with a mask. Neither Lexi nor Lucas would recognize his ravaged body, but they would probably still remember his face. He’d like a chance to work on them before he got slapped or punched.

“You practiced?”

Aidan nodded. “Yes. I worked with the six-footer, but I would prefer to use the four-footer. It’s more accurate.”

“I think you should consider something a bit more creative in your punishment this evening. The whip can be intimidating, but it’s not very intimate. I believe Lexi will be perfectly amenable to a whip. After all, she and Lucas perform such scenes every weekend. She takes the whip, cries, he holds her, and they begin the cycle again. I didn’t bring you in so they could add a third person to a cycle of behavior that isn’t working for them.” Julian slanted him one of those glances that made Aidan feel like he was five years old and being called to the principal’s office. “Have you given any real thought to this?”

Aidan got his meaning. Come up with something fast, or I’ll call this off. Luckily, he had a little fantasy in his head. It was really an apology and an attempt to bind them all together. It was what he should have done that night years before. “Edging. I’ll do a little edge play and some spanking. I’ll have her begging by the end, and I’ll make sure Lucas is involved.”

“Excellent.”

Aidan’s blood was thrumming through his veins. Edging? He was the one on edge, and he had been all day. Two hours to go.

Leo strode into the room. Like Julian, he was in day clothes, but unlike his boss, he stopped and talked to practically everyone in the room.

“Such a chatty Dom,” Julian said with a long-suffering sigh. “Leo! I don’t have all day.”

Leo grinned and shook hands with one of the cleaning staff before his long legs ate the distance between him and Julian. “Of course you do, Julian. You’re the boss. You have all the time in the world.”

“Naturally. Now, tell me if Lexi is going to be here tonight.”

Aidan felt his gut tighten. He hadn’t really considered the possibility that Leo wouldn’t clear her for play. “Lexi is sane. She’s not crazy.”

“Oh, she’s buckets of crazy,” Leo announced with a laugh. “Seriously, girlfriend has some problems, but nothing that would keep her from here.”

Aidan relaxed. He could handle that. Leo thought everyone was crazy in their own unique way.

“Did she talk to you?” Julian asked.

“In a sense. Did she get to the heart of her problem? No. It will take more than a little simple conversation to get her to give that up.”

“Give what up?” Aidan asked.

Julian turned to Aidan and seemed to consider whether or not he should talk. “I believe Alexis is hiding something. I don’t know if Lucas knows her secret, or if she’s kept it completely hidden. Jackson and Leo believe this as well. According to Jackson, she was sad and somewhat depressed by your departure, but she didn’t go into a deep depression until several months later. She was in a car accident in Austin. Lucas was the only one she called. Shortly after, she left her job at the newspaper and moved to Dallas. From what I can tell, she’s stopped writing all together.”

That made his heart ache. Lexi was always writing on something. She carried a notepad in her overblown bag so she would always have paper. She even kept a dream journal because she said she got story ideas while she slept. Aidan could remember all the times he would walk in with her coffee in hand to find her furiously writing. He loved those mornings. He would sit and strum his guitar, writing songs while Lexi wrote a new story. Lucas would show up on the weekends, and they would sit outside when the weather was nice. Just the three of them. They wouldn’t talk. They had simply enjoyed each other’s presence.

He couldn’t play anymore. He’d accepted that. But, by god, he would never accept that Lexi wouldn’t write.

“What happened?”

Julian’s shoulders moved up and down in a negligent shrug. “I don’t know, but I doubt it’s the car accident that truly troubles her. The other driver was at fault, and he walked away injury free. He was drunk. He pled out and served a little time in jail. He was caught violating his parole about six months after he got out and was sent back to serve his full sentence. So sad.”

Leo’s eyebrows rose on his head as he stared at Julian. “That’s what happens when a man gets a private investigative team following him twenty-four-seven.”

“I didn’t force him into the bar, Leo. I merely made sure my men called it in.”

Aidan kind of loved Julian Lodge in that moment. Still, he’d spent enough time in a hospital bed that the thought of Lexi being in pain just fucking killed him. He should have been there. He should have been the one she called, and then he would have called Lucas. He would never leave Lucas out. He knew now that he needed Lucas. “She was okay? What do her medical records say?”

Julian’s mouth turned down. “I asked her about it. She told me to butt out. As she is not my slave, I have respected her wishes up to this point. If I do something like buy her medical records, she won’t trust me. This is all about trust, Aidan. I’m risking Alexis’s trust by bringing you in, but we’ve reached a point where it’s worth the risk.”

Leo slapped Aidan on the back. “I think it will work. She seems more open than she has in months. Of course, I don’t expect it to be perfectly smooth, but I think eventually she’ll realize that both she and Lucas need you. You should probably start getting ready. Won’t be long now.”

Aidan said goodbye, trying to process everything he’d just learned. As he reached the elevator that would take him to his room, his cell phone rang. He punched the button code for the hotel portion of the building and pulled his phone out of his pocket. Dwight. He sighed. He was about to get a lecture.

“Hey, man, how is the ranch?”

Dwight Creely was his foreman. He’d also been Aidan’s friend in the Army. They had been in the same squad in Iraq. When Aidan had been injured, Dwight was the one who sat by his bedside. Dwight had taken some heavy fire during the mission that almost cost Aidan his legs, but he’d put it aside to check on his friend. When they were both discharged, Dwight had followed Aidan back home to help on the ranch Aidan had inherited, much to Bo’s never-ending dismay.

“Well, the boss is gone, so Bo is trying to run the show.” The complaint came out as a low rumble.

Aidan should have expected it. Bo hated the fact that their father had left the ranch to him and only left Bo some cash. Aidan had been ready to sign over a portion to Bo when Bo had walked out of the lawyer’s office and threatened to sue and hadn’t said a word to Aidan for a month and a half. Aidan was at loss. He knew Bo hadn’t gotten a fair shake, but he needed to keep the ranch whole if he was going to make it work. Bo, for his part, had made a nuisance of himself around the ranch, fighting with Dwight at every turn.