Outsider (Exodus End 2)

“Don’t mess her up,” Logan called after them as the six chattering women made their way to the exit. “I like her just the way she is.”

“We won’t mess her up,” Aggie said, her ruby-red lips curling into a twisted smile. “Much.”

Reagan sniggered at the horrified look on Logan’s face. They all knew Aggie had a dark streak; she’d used it frequently in her former trade as a professional domin

atrix. If anyone was going to twist Toni into an unrecognizable form, it would be Aggie Martin.

“You and Aggie have a lot in common,” Myrna said as she wrapped an arm around Toni’s back and ushered her out onto the sidewalk. “You both have an inexplicable attraction to bass players.”

“Oh, you’re Jace Seymour’s girlfriend?” Toni asked, scrambling to catch up with Aggie. “Is it true that you used to be a prostitute?”

Aggie stopped walking—well, prowling, the woman never actually walked—and turned an icy blue-eyed glare on Toni. “Excuse me?”

Toni cringed. “I’m sorry. I read that somewhere. Was my source incorrect?”

Perhaps inviting the journalist along for a girls’ day out had been a mistake. Toni did tend to stick her nose where it didn’t belong.

“I was never a prostitute,” Aggie said, her voice so cool, Reagan expected it to frost the sultry New Orleans air.

“She just charges men to be her slaves,” Myrna said. “Isn’t that right, Aggie?”

Toni tilted her head to one side and then shook it after she’d had a moment to internalize Myrna’s claim. “The very definition of slavery is when one human is bought and owned by another, so why would anyone pay to be a slave?”

Reagan snorted. “So, so sheltered,” she said. “Let me explain it to you.”

She didn’t have to explain much. As the group of women walked down the street together, men literally tripped over their own feet when they spotted Aggie. Sure, there were those who were more likely to gawk at Jessica’s model-perfect beauty, but Aggie exuded sexuality that not many men could ignore. One guy walked directly into a light post as he watched her pass. Though no men noticed Reagan when she was with this group of ladies, she was content in the knowledge that she had two perfect men waiting for her back in her hotel room.

She pictured them as she had left them, naked, luscious, and entwined. Damn, she really shouldn’t have planned an outing on a rare day off.

“So men pay you to hit them?” Toni asked Aggie.

“Some do. Or did, rather,” Aggie said. “I’m finding new hobbies now that I’m with Jace. Let’s go in here.”

Aggie strutted into a sex shop, and the rest of the women followed. Toni’s feet seemed to have rooted themselves to the sidewalk, so Reagan had to pull her inside. She left her near the entrance, gawking at a leather hood and collar displayed on a mannequin. Reagan could practically see the questions churning through Toni’s thoughts. She was glad when Myrna took it upon herself to provide explanations. Nothing embarrassed the woman, not with that doctorate in human sexuality and her experiences teaching at a university. Reagan was sure that Toni could use a course or two in the subject. Though she was from Arkansas, Reagan had never in her life met a woman as sheltered as Toni. She had to wonder if Toni knew how to use the Internet, because, well, porn.

Reagan ventured farther into the store. She had a pair of cock cages to buy, and she mustn’t forget the gallon of lube her lovers had requested.

“Are you trying to keep those men of yours in line?” Aggie asked as she sidled up next to Reagan at a display counter. A clerk was demonstrating how to fit a cock cage around a flaccid penis and balls.

“Trying to keep them from fucking each other when I’m not around,” Reagan said.

Aggie smirked. “Why would you want to do that?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I’m afraid they’ll find enough satisfaction in each other and leave me hanging.”

“Are you really concerned about that?”

She stared down at the counter, her heart thudding. Well, she was buying cock cages, wasn’t she?

Aggie brushed the hair out of Reagan’s eye and urged her to look up. “Kitten, you have nothing to worry about. When you aren’t around, do you know what they talk about?”

“Lube?” she guessed.

Aggie laughed. “Maybe a little. They talk about you, hon. They’re both completely in love with you.”

“And with each other.”

“That too.” Aggie nodded. “Didn’t you want them to fall in love with each other?”

Reagan cringed. “Yeah. I was glad when they decided they have feelings for each other. It’s my issue, really. I still don’t feel like I’m enough for either of them.”

“I thought that was the whole point of this arrangement,” Aggie said.

“It is.” But Reagan didn’t like the way that arrangement made her feel. When all three of them were together, she felt content. Loved. But when she was alone with either of them or the two men were alone together, she felt somehow betrayed or that she was betraying one or both of them. It didn’t make a lick of sense to her. “I’ll get it sorted out,” she said. But in the meantime she was going to try out a pair of cock cages.

“I don’t mean to interrupt,” Toni said from behind them. Aggie turned to glare at the poor woman who was only a year or two younger than they were but seemed much less mature.

Toni licked her lush lips and pushed her glasses up her nose with the back of her wrist. “Um, Aggie, I’m really sorry I asked you if you were a prostitute. I feel terrible about it.”

“And how do you think your assumption made me feel?”

Toni sucked her trembling lower lip into her mouth. Oh no, she was going to start crying again.

Reagan wrapped an arm around Toni’s shoulder. “Never cry in a sex shop,” she advised. “It draws creeps.”

Reagan glanced around the store and discovered a waifish ghost of a man, dressed in all black, watching them closely. Reagan had no idea if he was interested in Toni—not likely when the lush sexpot that was Agatha Martin was standing with them—but she nodded toward the guy, and Toni’s eyes went dry and her lip stopped trembling.

“I am sorry,” Toni said to Aggie. “How can I make you forgive me?”

“Let’s see . . .” Aggie said, tapping her lush lower lip with one red-tipped finger. “Usually when one of my slaves displeases me, I make him lick his cum off the floor.”

Reagan couldn’t help but laugh at Toni’s wide-eyed, slack-faced expression.

“Actually, that’s not entirely true.” Aggie shook her head, sending long, silky black hair dancing about her shoulders. “I make them lick it up when I’m pleased with them as well.”

Toni resembled a gasping goldfish as she struggled to wrap her head around Aggie’s claim.

“Where did you find this one?” Aggie asked Reagan.

“She’s writing a book about Exodus End.”

“Yeah, I know that, but has she been living under a rock?”

Toni nodded. “Pretty much.”

“There you are,” Myrna said as she walked up behind them. She nodded toward Toni. “She wandered off when I was telling her the best way to make a man beg for his butt plug.”

Toni flushed. “Um, I appreciate the gesture, but Logan teaches me all he wants me to know about that kind of thing.”

“So he’s training you to be his perfect lover?” Aggie asked.

Toni nodded.

“And you’re okay with that?”

Toni smiled. “I’m grateful to him. I love him so much, I’d do anything for him.”

Aggie glanced at Myrna. “Doormat much?”

“Uh,” Myrna said. “It depends.” She turned to Toni. “Do you have any hard limits?”

When Toni merely stared at her, Myrna asked, “Is there anything you won’t let him do to you or refuse to do for him?”

Toni’s face lit up. “Oh, of course.” She shook her head. “No anal.”

“You won’t give anal or receive it?” Myrna asked.

“Give?” Toni’s face blanched as she apparently caught on to what Myrna was suggesting. “Neither!”

“You are missing out,” Reagan said. She was lucky in that Trey always made it feel good. She rarely let Ethan take her ass. He was too rough for her tender back door, but dear lord, the man could pound a pussy just right, and Trey craved rough fucking, so the sex always seemed

to work out right between the three of them. It was the emotional entanglements that she was starting to worry about.

“Isn’t it gross?” Toni asked. “I mean won’t you get poop on his wiener?” she whispered out of the corner of her mouth.