Taming Her Racy Ways [Racy Nights 5] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Read online

  He draped the flogger over the bench and put his hands on her shoulders. Being this close to him was torture. All she suddenly wanted to do was beg him to use that flogger on her bare ass. She was in deep, deep trouble here.

  “What happened?” he asked quietly. There was no hint of anger or disappointment in his face or his voice, and that confused her.

  “We made love. And he…” She bit her lip. Why had she almost told him that?

  “What did he do to you, Marisol?”

  “He spanked me. A lot. Put me over his knee and spanked me hard.” It felt so good to finally have it out there.

  The barest hint of a smile graced his full lips. “And? How did it feel?”

  She swallowed hard. “I loved it.”

  “Thank you for telling me.”

  “You’re not upset?”

  “No. But tell me why you aren’t sure where things stand now. Is it because of how his parents feel?”

  “Yes.”

  “Marisol, do you still have feelings for Rafe?”

  That was a tough one to answer. She could barely figure it out herself. “Ellis, I’ve spent eighteen years thinking about the four months Rafe and I dated. I never thought we’d so much as go out again let alone do what we did on Friday. But I also never envisioned a reality like this one. I guess I didn’t realize how deep their resentment went, or that it would apply now, when we’re both adults.”

  He nodded slowly. “Families can complicate things to degrees we don’t even understand at times. And how about the reality of finally making love to Rafe? Did it live up to your fantasies?”

  Ellis had cut to the heart of the matter even before she’d been ready to admit that to herself. “The sex was great. It was incredible, actually. But afterwards…no. My fantasies didn’t include him barely speaking to me because his parents are still pissed off about something that never happened.”

  “Reality is almost never as perfect as our fantasies.” There was a sadness to his voice that she didn’t understand.

  “So what happens now, Ellis? What do I do?”

  “I don’t know, Marisol. That’s up to you.” He brushed a finger over her hair. It was only a soft touch, but it sent shivers down her spine. “I don’t want our day to end here, Marisol. I hope I haven’t misinterpreted your reactions in this room. I think you have other fantasies that have nothing to do with how you felt when you were fourteen, and I’d like to give you the opportunity to experience something you’ve always wanted to try. But not here. We’ll have more privacy at my house.”

  And what would she tell Rafe when she heard from him again? Would she hear from him again? She’d checked her cell phone every hour since lunchtime. Rafe hadn’t called or texted. She wanted desperately to believe that was only because of how his parents felt, but what if it wasn’t? What if the reality of their finally making love hadn’t meant as much to him as it had to her? She didn’t want to believe that, but she was very confused right now.

  “Tell me what you’re thinking, Marisol.”

  “I’m so confused, Ellis.”

  He touched her face, and Marisol’s breath caught in her throat. His skin was so warm. She wanted to know what it felt like to have that kind of warmth all over her body. “What exactly has you so confused?”

  There was no harm in telling him now. “If having sex with you would be cheating on Rafe.”

  “Has he left you with an understanding that you’re dating again?”

  She shook her head. “No, not really. He said he wants me, but he isn’t going to defy his parents. I told him that and he didn’t disagree.”

  “Has he asked you not to see others, or told you he doesn’t plan to?”

  “He was jealous that I was going car shopping with you today, but we didn’t discuss anything other than how upset his parents are.”

  “It doesn’t sound like you actually have a relationship with him again, Marisol. Is that your take on it?”

  Was it? She didn’t know. “I guess so.”

  “How can you cheat on someone with whom you don’t have a relationship?”

  “You can’t. Not really.”

  Ellis surprised her by pulling her into his arms. His embrace was more warm and tender than lustful, but Marisol’s body trembled at being this close to him. He was hard and muscled, and she couldn’t help but notice his bulging erection. “Will you do something for me, Marisol?”

  Anything. “What it is?”

  He pulled away and looked into her eyes. “I’m going to leave the room for a few minutes. Will you call Rafe and see if there is any change in how he feels?”

  “Why do you want me to do that?”

  “Because I want to take you back to my house but I won’t feel right about doing so unless you have a clear answer from him on where the two of you stand.”

  Oh wow…he was the perfect gentleman. Marisol was stunned into silence.

  “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  She watched him climb the three steps, open the doors, and close them again without another word or a backward glance. Marisol punched in Rafe’s number, and he answered on the third ring. “It’s me.”

  “Did you find a car?”

  “Well, I have several possibilities.”

  “So what do you want me to do about yours then? I’ve been waiting all day to hear from you.”

  Marisol bit her lip to hold back the tears. That was what he’d been thinking about all day? Her fucking car? “Fix it. Then if I decide to buy a new one I’ll be able to use it for a trade-in.” She hadn’t meant for her voice to come out so sharp, but she’d been devastated by the coldness in his.

  “Okay.” There was a few seconds of uncomfortable silence during which Marisol wasn’t sure what to say. “How are you?”

  “I’m all right. You?”

  “Fine.” He didn’t sound fine. He sounded like she was the last person in the world he’d wanted to hear from.

  “Have you talked to your parents today?” She hated to ask, but she had to know.

  His sigh into the phone was audible. “Nothing has changed, Marisol.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ll let you know when the repairs are done. It shouldn’t be more than a few days.”

  “Okay. Thanks.” Why did things have to be this way? Had she been right this morning? The fantasy she’d built up in her mind all these years was nothing more than a pipe dream? How could that be? And yet, here was her reality, coldly blowing her off on the phone. She couldn’t deny it any longer. She and Rafe were not back together, and right now it appeared there was very little hope that they ever would be.

  “Did you need something else, Marisol?”

  She brushed away her tears. “No. I guess not.”

  After she disconnected the call, she stared at the cell phone, willing him to call back. He hadn’t said anything about Ellis or asked where she was. Was that because he didn’t care, or was it because he suspected she was still with him? How would she ever know?

  She put the phone back into her pocket when Ellis came into the room. He closed the doors behind him and stood on the top step, a question in his eyes. Marisol walked up to him and took his hand, surprised to find it cool and slightly damp. Why would he be nervous? “Let’s go to your house, Ellis.”

  * * * *

  Rafe threw his cell across the room after he disconnected the call. Luckily it landed on carpet and didn’t break. He retrieved it and his finger hovered over the keypad, but he would not call her back. There was no point in doing so. He couldn’t be with her unless he basically spit in his father’s eye and watched his mother give him the cold shoulder for the rest of his life.

  This had been the longest day of his life. He’d gone to the garage at six in the morning after not sleeping all night, groggy and pissed off at the world. He’d snapped at everyone who tried to talk to him, including his father, who’d backed him into a corner and told him he’d fire him if he didn’t stop acting like such an asshole.<
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  Rafe resisted the urge to tell his father to shove it up his ass. No job was worth this, but considering half the town was in a state of barely controlled chaos right now, he needed to hang on to what he had. Luke had been hanging around the garage all day, blabbering on about the empty space on Riverfront Drive where he might be able to open his bar until they could rebuild it on Market Street. It was all Rafe could do not to tell Luke he didn’t give a shit right now about the damn bar.

  When Luke had asked Rafe if he knew where Ellis was, as he needed to talk to Ellis about the liquor license for the new place, Rafe’s first impulse had been to snap his brother’s head off. Instead he’d asked him why the fuck he thought he’d know where Ellis McCree was?

  Luke had looked totally confused and asked him what the hell was wrong with him, but Rafe had merely stormed out of the garage and taken a walk down to Market Street. That had proven to be a huge mistake.

  The destruction seen in the light of day was far worse than it had looked on Friday night. All the large blue tarps in the world couldn’t cover the beautiful old brick buildings that were now missing partial walls and roofs. They couldn’t hide the sight of several apartments, torn open as though God himself had simply reached down and ripped apart the building at the seams.

  Belongings were still where their owners had left them in some of the exposed rooms, and piles of discarded debris lined the street. The few businesses that had survived without damage had handwritten signs in the windows notifying customers of a change in hours, of the fact that there were public restrooms available inside, or of where the owners could be reached in case of an emergency.

  Looking into the haunted eyes of the workers and people milling about caused shame and fresh guilt to wash through Rafe. He was acting like a spoiled child. He had a place to live and a job. Some of these people had nothing. His own brother had lost his business, at least temporarily. Marisol had no job until they could get the courts up and running again someplace else. What the hell was wrong with him?

  He should be here, helping, or at the very least back at his father’s garage, doing what he got paid to do. And as far as Marisol was concerned, he should be doing everything possible to hold on to her, not push her away. He’d waited all day to hear from her, but had he called her? No. He’d been too busy sulking as he imagined her with Ellis. What an idiot he was. If he pushed her away now, he’d lose her forever and he’d have no one to blame but himself.

  “Rafe?” He turned at the sound of Annalise’s voice. “Hi there. How are you?”

  Dustin Alexander stood next to her. “Oh, hi. I’m about the same as everyone else I guess. You two okay?”

  “Well, Dustin and I came back to see if I could salvage anything from my apartment, but there isn’t anything left. I’m just grateful that I took Shadow to Chad’s house a while ago since I was hardly ever in my apartment anymore. Guess that was fate, you know?”

  Rafe glanced up at the top floor of the building Annalise used to live in. It was gone. If she hadn’t taken her cat to Chad’s house, it would be dead. And if she’d been in her apartment when the tornado struck…

  “Is the animal clinic all right?” he asked Dustin.

  “Yes. Riverfront Drive was barely touched. Isn’t that weird? It’s only a mile down the street, you know?”

  “Yeah, weird. Tornadoes do that I guess.”

  “I’m glad we ran into you,” said Annalise. “Do you know where Luke is right now? I keep leaving him messages, but he hasn’t called me back. He left me a cryptic voice mail earlier. Something about a possible new space for the bar?”

  “Yeah. He thinks there might be an empty space on Riverfront, but he’s trying to reach Ellis to ask about transferring the liquor license before he gets his hopes up.”

  “Oh, that would be great. Well, if you see him before I talk to him again, just tell him that I’ll come back to work whenever he needs me to. And if he needs any help getting the new space ready, Chad, Dustin, and I will be happy to pitch in.”

  “Okay, Annalise. I will.”

  He watched them walk away, feeling worse than he did before. Annalise had lost her home and her belongings. She didn’t have a job right now. She could easily have lost her cat. And he’d spent the day brooding over a woman he’d watched from afar for eighteen years, and now expected to be at his beck and call simply because he’d finally made love to her. He was pond scum. He didn’t deserve Marisol. But he wanted her in his life, and he was determined to find a way to make this work.

  Chapter Eleven

  Ellis led Marisol upstairs to his private suite on the second floor of his home. It overlooked the side of the house without the garage, and was as secluded and private as he could have possibly made it when the house was built. She’d gawked at his decorating and furnishings as he’d led her through the foyer and up the staircase, and he’d made comments about a few things, but his mind wasn’t on material possessions.

  Once they were in his sitting room, he showed her where the guest bathroom was, and where she could find bottled water or other drinks if she wanted them, as well as snacks. He had a mini kitchen in this suite that he kept stocked.

  While she excused herself to use the bathroom, he phoned down to Sam, his chef, and asked him to send up dinner in about ninety minutes. He also asked him to make apologies to their houseguests, as Ellis would not be having dinner with them this evening after all. He wanted this time alone with Marisol, even if all they did was talk about her BDSM fantasies.

  He checked his cell. Among the calls he’d missed included one from Luke asking if it was possible to transfer the liquor license to the empty store on Riverfront Drive. Ellis sent him a text, telling him he’d call him about how to do that as soon as possible. It was an easy process, but Ellis didn’t want to make the necessary phone calls right now, and he wouldn’t feel comfortable talking to Luke with Marisol so close by. If she overheard him, she might start thinking about Rafe again.

  A quick flash of guilt washed through him. He should be concentrating on getting the businesses up and running again, not on seducing a woman who was clearly still holding a torch for the boy she’d dated in middle school.

  But he was so damn lonely. Faith Jasper, the sub he’d had for over ten years, had been gone for six months now, and Ellis hadn’t had sex in all that time. He hadn’t wanted to. Not until he’d spent the day with Marisol, that is. Very few people in Racy knew that he’d let his sub go. Ellis wasn’t one to air his dirty laundry in public. But lack of sex for six months wasn’t the only reason he wanted to seduce Marisol. He really liked her. She not only had a body that looked like it wouldn’t quit, she was also so damn easy to be with. He needed that right now.

  Marisol came out of the bathroom and stood in the center of the room looking so damn sexy it hurt. She also looked a bit lost and unsure, and his heart gave a strange lurch at the look of uncertainty in her eyes. It made him want to protect her.

  He rose and lit several candles, then turned off the lights so that the room was cast into a soft glow. “Dinner will be here in about an hour and a half.” He turned to face her. “Would you like a drink for now?”

  She shook her head. Ellis took a seat on the sofa. “Marisol, would you like to talk about anything in particular?”

  Again, all she did was shake her head. Clearly he was going to have to get bold here and just flat-out ask her. “Would you like me to get one of my own floggers and use it on you, so that you know what it really feels like?”

  He couldn’t help but notice the sudden change in her. It was more than simply the softening of her gaze. Her entire body appeared to shimmer, as if a strong shiver had suddenly raced through her. She licked her lips. “Would…would you stop if I didn’t like it?”

  A huge grin spread over his face before he could rein it in. His dick was rock hard as it was, but now it began to throb. “Absolutely. We’ll keep it basic, unless you want me to do something else.” He sincerely hoped she would.

>   “How will you know if I don’t like it?”

  “I like to use three safewords. Green means you love what I’m doing and you want me to step up the intensity. Yellow means something is making you uncomfortable or fearful. That can be anything from you having to use the bathroom, to me doing something you aren’t quite sure you can handle. It can also be something as simple as needing to move a limb to another position so that you’re comfortable. Red means I stop immediately, no questions asked.”

  Faith had never started using safewords until about two years ago, when things had begun to go south between them during play, and it took Ellis a while to figure out that was because she was bored with him, not because he was inadvertently pushing her past her limits. But the reasons behind why they’d finally called it quits after ten years had begun long before that. “Does that make sense, Marisol?”

  She nodded.

  “Do you have any other questions?”

  “Yes. Do I…I’ve heard people talk about calling Doms by certain names. What do I call you?”

  He grinned again. Her naiveté about this lifestyle was so endearing. He hadn’t felt this kind of excitement in years. He had the chance to teach her everything she wanted to know, and to give her the gift of making deeply buried fantasies come true. She might even discover she was more submissive than she believed. The last sub he’d trained had been Faith, and he could hardly have called it training. She’d already been experienced when he’d met her. “You may simply call me Ellis for today, okay?”

  “And what about sex?”

  “What about it?” Oh, please let her want to make love to me. That decision was entirely in her hands. He had to make sure she knew that.

  “It that an expectation tonight?”