“Maybe you should have mentioned that sometime before now.” She tried to pull away because she really, really wanted to melt into him. She wanted to believe everything he said. Her heart hurt too much.
“And drag you into my world? Baby, when we first met you, Gideon was still trying to please his family.” He was practically pleading with her. She wanted to be cold as ice, but Reid had a way of melting her. “I was in the closet with him. I didn’t want you to be there, too. I have another confession to make. I’m a switch. Gideon is my Dom, but I want to be yours. I want to be your Dom so bad I dream about it at night. Do you have any idea how much I want to dominate you?”
“Don’t bother.” The sharp bark split the chilly air. She looked up and Gideon was striding toward them. He didn’t look like a man who was pining for her. He looked dangerous. He was a predator, and she was in his sights. Her first instinct was to run from the look in his gray eyes.
“Don’t. He’ll just chase you down, and it will be so much worse,” Reid murmured as he held her. He looked at Gideon. “I thought we were going to talk to her.”
“Talking won’t work,” Gideon spat out as he kicked his way through the snow. “We’ve tried it your way. It’s my turn. I’m the Dom in this relationship. I’m going to start acting like it. You wanted me to stop hiding who I am; well, get ready because you might not always like the real me.”
He reached for Jessica and only then did she see the length of rope he held. In no time flat her wrists were held together while Gideon bound her neatly in a few quick moves. Jessica fought the rope holding her, but it was tight. Gideon was an expert.
“What are you doing?” She pulled on the bindings. Gideon kept a hold of a longish length. He wound it around his fist.
“Taking what’s mine,” Gideon stated through clenched teeth. “I’m done playing, Jessica. I fucked up, and I apologized. I was willing to try the whole wooing you thing, but you didn’t obey me. You were supposed to stay in your room.”
“This is my fault?” she asked, indignation plain in her voice.
“Hell, yeah. You don’t get the way this works, baby. I’m the Dom. I give the orders. You follow the orders.” He looked savage in the moonlight. The snow amplified it and made it seem almost like day outside. “Reid might play your Dom, too, but never, ever forget that I am the head of this freaky little household. Reid minds me. Well, he is sure as hell going to start minding me. If this is going to work, the two of you need to get with the program. No more topping from the bottom. Now, you disobeyed a direct order given for your safety.”
“That was for your safety,” she shot back as she worked the rope on her hands. It still didn’t budge. She tried to pull away. She didn’t want Gideon to know how aroused she was at the thought of being dominated by the both of them. “You didn’t want me to find out about you and Reid.”
“You don’t have a collar,” Gideon explained. “It isn’t safe for you to be around a bunch of Doms without a collar on.”
“Don’t be so dramatic, Gideon. I spent time alone with Erik, and he didn’t hurt me.”
The air seemed to still as Gideon took that in. She bit her lip and wished she could take the words back.
Reid stepped in, a stern look on his face. “What did you say?”
“Nothing,” Jessica managed to whisper. If they were pretending to be outraged at the thought of her with another man, they were really good at it. Gideon looked like he was ready to kill someone. What if they were telling her the truth?
“Wrong answer,” Gideon declared and then simply turned and started to walk away. Unfortunately, he kept a firm hold on the rope binding her and it pulled her along. She stumbled forward and found herself being dragged on her ass through the snow.
“You fucking Neanderthal,” she shouted as she tried to right herself. Her heart was pounding. She was ping-ponging between righteous anger and the fragile hope that she might, just might, be able to have what she wanted. She felt swamped with emotion, and rage seemed the easiest choice.
“You’re the one who didn’t obey,” Gideon replied over his shoulder. He was pulling along with no obvious struggle. “Get her feet, Reid.”
Reid picked up her ankles, and she found herself dangling as they carried her up the steps.
She was suspended, completely dependent on their strength to hold her up. “You can’t do this. There are people in there. They’ll stop you.”