The men all laughed at that, but only Greg knew just how low the odds of his best friend and business partner settling down with one woman were. He had rebounded faster than Devin after the fuck-up that prompted them to leave the Bureau five years shy of full retirement. Taking a smaller pension had been a small price to pay for losing a protected witness but, unlike Devin, Greg refused to let one failure keep him from having an open mind about the future.
“As delightful as we find your wife, there hasn’t been a relationship either of us has envied,” he answered for both himself and Devin. “Who would indulge the girls’ fantasies of submitting to two men if we split off and restricted ourselves to one woman?”
A wry grin twisted Caden’s lips as he pushed his chair back and stood. “I can’t wait to see which one of you caves first.” Looking toward the front doors as they opened, a smile stretched his leathered face, softening his gaze. “And there is my lovely, pain in the butt wife now.”
Grayson shifted the toothpick he was chewing on to the corner of his mouth as his lips curled. “What has Sydney done this time?” he asked, keeping his gray/green gaze on his wife as she and her friends headed toward their table.
Caden fisted his hands on his hips and shook his head in mock disgust. “I should know better than to ask her to do anything except cook, but we brought in a newborn who lost its mama overnight and needed hand feeding.”
Greg and Devin might still be new Masters in the club, but in the eighteen months they’d been members, they’d heard enough rumored stories about Sydney’s penchant for spoiling animals to know she’d taken her husband’s instructions a step further than he wanted.
“And?” Dan prompted as Nan settled on his lap wearing an eye-catching tight, leather dress with crisscross straps down the sides. All the Doms enjoyed the slender brunette’s taste in fetish clothing.
“And I returned at lunch to check on the calf and was he in his stall in the new calving barn? No.” He shook his head. “How the hell she managed to get him into the mess hall is beyond me, but there he was, lying on a pile of blankets in front of the fireplace, all snug and content, with the dogs guarding him.”
“I couldn’t leave him alone out there,” Sydney said, padding up to her annoyed husband with Tamara and Avery joining Connor and Grayson. “There are no other calves in there right now, and he was missing his mom. Really, Caden, have you no heart? At least there he could see me in the kitchen and know he wasn’t alone.”
Caden blew out a breath, as if giving up trying to reason with her. “That’s okay, darlin’. I felt better after you spent ten minutes over my lap. Come on. You can help me behind the bar.”
Maybe Greg hadn’t been totally honest a few minutes ago, he pondered, watching the couple walk hand-in-hand across the hardwood floor to the circular bar in the center of the converted barn. Surely that wasn’t a pang of envy tightening his abdomen. Like Devin, bachelorhood suited him just fine, or, it had until they’d joined this club and witnessed the downfall of each of their friends in the last year and a half. But ever since he and Devin helped Dan coax Nan back into the lifestyle she loved after a traumatic experience rendered her incapable of embracing the erotic pain she got off on, he’d been as discontented flitting from submissive to submissive as Dan was during Nan’s long, unexplained absence. Watching how the lawyer had taken advantage of his and Nan’s close relationship, both here at the club and outside this sex-charged atmosphere, to aid her in healing before resulting in their now fully committed relationship had started him on contemplating the merits of such a bond.
“You look good, Nan,” he said now, pleased to see the shadows haunting her gold eyes were fading more and more with each day that had passed since she’d returned from testifying against the bastard who had abused her. That sexy dress conjured up the feel and taste of her soft skin as she had writhed in bondage.
“Thank you, Sir.” She leaned against Dan, her face flushing with arousal as her fiancé slid his hand up the inside of her bare leg, her thighs falling open to give him unfettered, unabashed access to wherever he wanted to go.
“Putting that asshole away for twenty years agrees with you,” Devin remarked as he pushed his chair back and stood. “But since your Master has gone all possessive of you lately, I’ll excuse myself.” He looked toward Greg. “Coming?”
Nodding, he rose as Connor nudged Tamara up, saying, “I’ll take the first shift monitoring upstairs. You’re with me, sweetie.”
Greg smiled as Tamara narrowed her eyes at Connor’s back as he tugged her toward the stairs leading up to the loft. Everyone knew how it irked her when he called her sweetie, which, of course, was why he did it. “One of these days, his teasing will land him in more trouble than he’s aiming for.”
“Can’t tell him that.” Grayson hefted Avery over his shoulder and smacked her upturned butt then lifted a hand to them as he strolled toward the spanking benches near the back.
“We’ll catch you two later.” Greg turned to ask Devin what, or who he had in mind for tonight when his phone buzzed from his back pocket with an incoming call. Pulling it out, he checked the caller I.D. and glanced at Devin with a cautious expression. “It’s McAllister.”
“No.”
Devin’s quick, unequivocal reply didn’t surprise Greg. “You don’t know what he wants. Maybe he’s just checking in.” Even Greg didn’t believe their ex-boss at the Bureau would call just to chat, but he wasn’t as opposed to talking with Jordan as much as Devin.
“He’s not. The answer’s no,” he bit out, tightening his jaw.
The phone buzzed again. Ignoring his friend’s glower, he brought it to his ear as he strode toward the back doors for a quieter place to talk. “Hello, Jordan,” he answered as he opened the glass slider and stepped out into the cool, September evening air. “To what do I owe the pleasure of hearing from you again?”
Chapter 2
If possible, Devin would slam the sliding back door shut as he followed his soon-to-be ex-friend and partner outside. He was so annoyed with Greg for answering Jordan McAllister’s call he didn’t even spare an appreciative glance toward the two young women enjoying the bubbling hot tub. The nip in the air, a hint fall was sneaking up on them fast, did nothing to cool down his hot temper.
“I’ll have to discuss it with…”
“No,” he interrupted Greg, refusing to hear what favor their ex-government boss wanted from them.
Greg glared at him but his annoyance didn’t come through his smooth reply. “Yeah, you heard right, but if I agree, he can just ignore her. I need to think about it. I’ll call you back in the morning.” He ended the call, leaned against the rail and crossed his arms. Looking toward the hot tub, he stated with polite firmness, “Give us a few minutes, please.”
“Sure, Master Greg.” Mindy, a regular at the club, and her friend, an attractive redhead Devin didn’t know, both stood and stepped out of the heated water.
Devin snatched two towels off the bench and tossed them over to them, the water sluicing down their naked bodies distracting him for a moment. He might be pissed, but he wasn’t brain dead. He waited until the door closed behind their towel-wrapped forms before rounding on Greg again, who still lounged against the rail, giving him that look, the calm under the surface but annoyed mien Devin knew only too well.
“We retired early for a reason,” he reminded Greg, moving to stand next to him, facing the night-shrouded trees several feet from the deck as he leaned his forearms on the post. “We swore we were done, and agreed to start over without looking back, without regrets.”