Private Pleasures [The Doms of Sybaris Cove 8] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Read online

  The Doms of Sybaris Cove 8

  Private Pleasures

  Doms Rey Raleigh and Felipe Durante let Mattie Cayenne get away. She left the island to pursue her degree in veterinary medicine, and then she married. But now she’s home again, and they have learned only part of the truth about the abuse she suffered.

  Mattie Cayenne never had any intentions of returning home. She watched her uncle abuse her mother while he lived with them, and then man she met and married in Alabama, Clay Hale III, turned out to be an abuser as well. It took Mattie years to escape him, his family, and his attorneys.

  Through a stroke of luck, Mattie now owns the local animal hospital on Sybaris Cove, and the two men she let get away are back in her life. But can she heal from the abuse in her past, even with Rey and Felipe’s patient, tender love? Or will her past always haunt her?

  Genre: BDSM, Contemporary, Ménage a Trois Quatre

  Length: 40,452 words

  PRIVATE PLEASURES

  The Doms of Sybaris Cove 8

  Tara Rose

  MENAGE EVERLASTING

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  IMPRINT: Ménage Everlasting

  PRIVATE PLEASURES

  Copyright © 2015 by Tara Rose

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-63258-776-3

  First E-book Publication: January 2015

  Cover design by Harris Channing

  All art and logo copyright © 2015 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  Letter to Readers

  Dear Readers,

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  This is Tara Rose’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect Tara Rose’s right to earn a living from her work.

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  DEDICATION

  To all the veterinarians who take care of our pets. Thank you.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  About the Author

  PRIVATE PLEASURES

  The Doms of Sybaris Cove 8

  TARA ROSE

  Copyright © 2015

  Chapter One

  Mattie Cayenne had never taken care of so many exotic animals as she had in the first month after taking over the Cove Veterinary Clinic from Ramon Angelis, who had retired and moved to Florida with his family. While she was thrilled both to be back on Sybaris Cove with her parents and other family members, and to finally own her own clinic, she questioned the wisdom of so many people in such a small space owning lizards, reptiles, and snakes. What did they do with the babies?

  She’d been working for others since graduating from the University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine three years earlier. This was a chance not only to operate her own business, but to get away from the constant reminders of Clay. Her divorce had dragged on for more than two years because Clay’s family had enough to cash to keep it tied up in court, but not enough brains to realize that she wasn’t going to change her mind and return to her abusive husband.

  She examined the third iguana this morning, and then took a quick break outside behind the building so she could breathe in the island air she’d missed so much. It was the second day of a new year, so it wasn’t exactly warm outside, but neither Georgia nor Alabama had ever smelled like this. Especially not Madison, Alabama. It smelled like its closest neighbor, Huntsville. That and money—lots of money. But cash couldn’t fix what went wrong behind closed doors.

  Mattie closed her eyes and let the fragrance of the ocean air fill her senses, pushing away the horrible memories. You could smell the ocean from just about anywhere on this island, and that had been what she’d missed the most. That and the flowers, in bloom all but a couple of months a year. And the sound of insects at night, except when it was as cool as it was now. But it would soon be warm again, and the island would be alive with color and sound. Located approximately one hundred miles off the coast of Louisiana, Sybaris Cove contained a mix of plants and birds from the mainland and Caribbean islands.

  She was home, and she was free. Free to heal, free to reconnect with old friends, and free to run this clinic in a way that would make Dr. Angelis proud and happy he’d sold it to her.

  Mattie went back inside, and Tessie Ephraim, her receptionist, told her the next patient was ready. “Another lizard.”

  Mattie laughed. “Does anyone on this island own a cat or a dog?”

  “Not very many. Wait until summer when people start bringing in crabs that they think they can keep as a pet, or half-dead fish they found on the beach.”

  She shook her head. “Thanks for the warning.”

  “Doc Ramon once wrote someone a prescription for Cajun spices. He told them to take the fish to the barbeque in their yard, and sprinkle some of the spices
on it once the coals were good and hot.”

  Mattie laughed until her sides hurt. “I’ll have to remember that one.” Taking the chart from Tessie, she glanced over it before heading into the exam room. Her heart pounded as she read the name of the owner of “Bruce,” a male agama who was two years old.

  Reynaldo Raleigh, known to everyone simply as Rey. It didn’t surprise her that he had a rare lizard for a pet. That wasn’t why her pulse suddenly raced. It was because he was one of two men who took center stage whenever she mentally listed her regrets at having stayed away from the island for so long, or having left it at all.

  Once upon a time, Mattie had visions of white picket fences and cookie baking with Rey or his best friend, Felipe Durante. It wouldn’t have mattered to her which man she’d ended up with. She’d even had fantasies of being with both. But life had thrown her a few curve balls since those daydreams, and now they were probably each married with kids. No way two gorgeous men like them had remained unattached. Especially not on this island, where the Durantes and Raleighs were practically royalty.

  She’d never dated either one but they’d been friends. Not dating them had nothing to do with them being descended from those two families. It had to do with her home life, of which those two knew nothing about. But they were also the two among her former friends who had made the most effort all these years to keep in touch with her.

  Only a handful had bothered to try, although she didn’t fault anyone for losing contact. She’d had more to do with that than any of her friends from the island. Even when she had e-mailed Rey and Felipe back, her words were guarded in case Clay read the e-mail.

  She took a deep breath and steeled herself, then opened the door. Rey was just as beautiful as she remembered, and at first glance she swore he hadn’t aged a day. The same brilliant, slightly lopsided grin split his face, setting off eyes as blue as the Gulf of Mexico on a summer day. His blond hair was perhaps a shade darker than she remembered, but he still wore it longer than most men did these days.

  He was dressed in jeans and a sweater, which was standard casual wear for most employees of Phoebe’s Playthings. She’d heard through the grapevine that he and Felipe had both made it all the way to an assistant vice president of sales position now. Almost all the Durantes and Raleighs worked for the fetish shop conglomerate that Emilio Durante and Daniel Raleigh had started in 1979. And those who didn’t ended up wishing they did because their families gave them such grief for their different choices.

  “Matilda Cayenne.” His gazed raked over her without the least bit of restraint. She remembered that about him, too. That rogue, confident personality. It was part of his charm, and the only reason he’d ever been able to get away with using her given name, which she hated. “Excuse me. Doctor Matilda Cayenne. You look the same. I swear we just walked out of biology.”

  She laughed, more from nervousness than the belief that she hadn’t aged since tenth grade. “Well, let’s hope we don’t have to dissect Bruce there.” She nodded toward the lizard, who looked way too calm in Rey’s hands. “What’s going on with him?”

  “I wish I knew. He won’t eat, he’s listless, and I haven’t seen his bright red colors in weeks.”

  She frowned, then took the agama from Rey and placed him on the exam table. “Did you bring a stool sample?”

  “Mine or his?”

  This time, her laugh had nothing to do with nervousness. “You haven’t changed a bit.”

  “That’s a good thing, right?”

  “We’ll see.”

  He pulled out a small cardboard container, wrapped in two plastic bags, and handed it to her as if it might be radioactive.

  “You don’t have to be afraid to touch it.”

  “Easy for you to say. Do you know what he eats?”

  “I hope it’s an insect mix that you buy from here.”

  “It is. I swear. I’ve done everything Doc Ramon told me to do.”

  “All right. Be right back. I’ll take a look at this under the microscope, and I’ll send in a tech to get some blood from Bruce.”

  “Will that hurt?”

  She grinned. “No, and it won’t hurt him, either.”

  “Touché.”

  Mattie took several deep breaths as she worked, only to calm herself down. She hadn’t noticed a wedding ring on Rey’s finger, but that didn’t mean anything. She’d never asked him or Felipe in the few e-mails she’d exchanged with them over the years whether or not they’d settled down. It struck her how out of touch with everyone she was. A girls’ night out to gossip about the Raleigh and Durante men was definitely in order.

  When she didn’t find anything amiss in Bruce’s stool, she examined a drop of blood under the microscope, and then returned to the room to do her exam while she waited for the machines to look for anything odd in the lizard’s blood.

  Rey wasn’t alone in the room when she walked in. Felipe Durante was with him, and both were stroking Bruce and talking to him as if he were a frightened child. How lucky was she that both men she’d spent half her teen years fantasizing about had brought in the same lizard this morning?

  Felipe glanced up and smiled. “Rey wasn’t kidding. You look wonderful, Mattie. It’s good to have you back on the island.”

  “Thank you. It’s good to be back.” You look wonderful, too. You both do. Felipe had the same unusual colored gray eyes as most Durante men, and dark hair. His, too, was a bit longer than most wore it, but on him it worked.

  “Nothing I can see wrong in his blood or stool, and his heart rate and reflexes are normal.” She asked Rey about Bruce’s living quarters, and it sounded as though he was indeed doing everything right. “What about other agamas? Do you have him housed with another male?”

  Rey shook his head. “He’s alone.”

  Mattie frowned then glanced toward Felipe. “Tessie tells me you have a female agama, right?”

  “Yes. Her name is Babs.”

  He said it like he was as proud as pie that he’d named her that, and Mattie chuckled. “I see. And how is Babs doing?”

  “Not too well. In fact I was going to bring her in today, too, but I thought I’d see what you said about Bruce first, in case it was the same thing going around.”

  Mattie could barely hold her laughter in check now. “She lives alone, too?”

  Felipe nodded.

  “What’s going around is a lack of extracurricular activity.”

  They stared at her, not understanding.

  “Guys, these lizards need company. Of the opposite sex. They don’t thrive otherwise.” Kind of like people.

  They exchanged a glance. “So, you’re saying we need to hook up our lizards?” asked Rey. His voice betrayed the fact he thought she was joking.

  “Yes. As in permanently. In fact, the males like to have two or more females around. That’s how they live in the wild.”

  The two exchanged another glance. “That seems to be going around here, too, lately,” said Felipe.

  She frowned. “I’m not following you.”

  “We have seven triads on the island now, as in ménages. Two Doms and a sub.”

  It was no secret that most of the people on Sybaris Cove lived a BDSM lifestyle, although Mattie had no experience in that area. What Clay had done to her was not even close to consensual. But Felipe and Rey didn’t know about any of that. No one did. She hadn’t even told her parents the whole story.

  She picked up Bruce and held him at face level, mostly to judge the color in his eyes, but also so she could avert her gaze from Rey and Felipe for a moment. “Do you hear that, Bruce? The humans on this island are getting more action than you. Tell your owner and his best friend to let you share an aquarium with Babs. Of course, they’ll have to decide who gets to keep you both, until you and the little gray lady make them some new agamas, that is.”

  When she handed Bruce back to Rey, the men watched her with nearly identical expressions of humor and thoughtfulness. She tried her best to put on a serious
face. “They need company. That’s all that’s wrong with them.”

  “Just like people,” said Felipe, giving her a long look “How are things, Mattie? We’ve heard all sorts of unhappy rumors.”

  I’ll bet you have. “I’m home, and it’s where I want to be.”

  “Have you seen much of anyone you used to hang out with since you got back?” asked Rey.

  “Not really. I’ve been busy with paperwork for the clinic.” Liar. You’ve been avoiding everyone.

  “Well, then how about having dinner with us tonight? Lady of The Night is still a popular place. I’m sure everyone would be happy to see you out and about, and we’d love to catch up with you.”

  She hesitated too long, because both men looked as though they wished Rey hadn’t asked.

  “Just three old friends out for a night to catch up,” said Felipe. “Nothing else implied.”

  Once upon a time she’d have given her right arm to go out on a real date with either of these men. Now, she wasn’t sure she’d ever trust another human male enough to do more than have an innocent dinner. Fate was a cruel bitch.

  But these men weren’t Clay. She’d known them her entire life, just as she’d grown up with almost everyone else on this island. There was no harm in sitting at the local watering hole to eat fried Cajun food more delicious than anyone on the mainland could make it.

  She smiled. “I take it neither of you have a wife or a sub to rush home to, then?”

  Felipe snorted. “Ah, no to either. We’re both pathetically alone right now.”

  The sadness in his voice, despite his obvious attempt at humor, tugged at her heart. “I’m sorry to hear that.”