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Jessie could tell her cowboys were struggling to remain silent. Using only her eyes, she pleaded with the four to not take their eldest brother’s offer. Too much had happened to not go through with this now.
“Okay.” Austin turned to her. “Let’s do this.”
A sudden bout of butterflies filled her up. “I—”
“Quiet.” He glared at her with his dark, piercing eyes with a look that clearly demanded obedience.
His intensity flustered her, causing her to blink. She chewed her lip, holding back her words. Was it too late to run to the other brothers and forget Austin’s offer? No. Her four lovers stood right in front of her, ready to whisk her to safety away from Austin if she dared to give the signal.
What’s wrong with me? I’ve got to stop flip-flopping on this. Damn it, I’ve made up my mind. She doubted the harebrained scheme to seduce Austin would work. He didn’t seem the least bit interested in her. Still he’d agreed to give her a chance. That had to mean something. Didn’t it? She prayed his heart might be softened, though she held little faith. Besides, she couldn’t refuse the eldest Wilde brother’s proposition, no matter how scary it might be.
After he seemed satisfied with her silence, Austin turned to his brothers. “I’ll deliver her back to you in seven days.”
One week. That was all he’d agreed to spend with her, but during that time, Jessie would have no contact with the outside, including the cowboys she’d come to love. Austin Wilde would be her whole world for the next seven days…and nights.
“If she uses her safe word, she’ll be back in our arms even sooner,” Dallas growled as if he wanted that to happen. But Jessie knew better.
All her men, including Dallas, clearly hoped that she would be able to win over their brother. The weight of what she was doing hit her firmly in the gut. She’d never been with anyone like Austin before, and she wondered if her odds with him, no matter how long, would end in her favor.
Austin was a master Dom who lived the lifestyle twenty-four-seven. She wasn’t really sure that spending time with him might turn him around, but it was clear to her that being with him wouldn’t be like anything she’d experienced, even with the BDSM encounters she’d enjoyed with Dallas, Denver, Phoenix, and Jackson. That had been play. Austin Wilde didn’t play. What if she disappointed him? What if she just flat couldn’t handle what he wanted? Where would that leave the Wilde family? And what about me?
Austin stated flatly, “I know what I’m doing, Dallas. If she uses her safe word, then that’s that. I won’t go into this trying to force her to use it, but I do intend to push her boundaries.”
Then he shut the door.
The slam reverberated through the small room, separating her from her four protectors, his brothers. The sound reminded her of a cell door closing. What she’d feared and dreamed about had finally happened. She was alone with Austin Wilde.
Jessie looked at her warden, who lifted his black cowboy hat off his head. He placed it on the desktop and turned his six-foot-three, heavily muscled body to her. As intimidated as she felt, she couldn’t help but appreciate how male he was. Akin to his other brothers, Austin was incredibly handsome, but he had a male beauty with an edge that the others did not. He wore a dark, neatly trimmed goatee that made his features even more handsome. She feasted on his dusky, thick hair with her eyes until he ensnared them with his unblinking, dark orbs. Her mouth dried up like a desert.
Though it took much effort, she final
ly broke free from his commanding gaze. Not ready to look back at him, she scanned the room. This was the third office of Austin’s she’d visited. The first one was at Wilde Mine’s in-town buildings that were for show more than for work. The second one was at the mine itself and was much more utilitarian. And now, this one at the club was about half the size of the other two. It had a large mahogany desk, two wingbacks, a leather sofa, and not much else. Yet somehow, this room contained a side of him that was very private, unlike the other two offices.
She took note of the floor-to-ceiling bookshelf on the back wall behind his desk, and recalled what Denver had told her about the secret chamber behind those shelves. No other Dom besides Austin had ever seen it. What the hell did Austin have in that place? The eldest Wilde brother had only invited the most obedient subs there, and they weren’t talking. Jessie tried to steady herself for what might come next if he planned on taking her into that space.
Austin glared at her, as if daring her to fight back. “I’ll have your bag now.”
She gulped, finding him impossible to resist, and handed the purse over. Here we go. The big cowboy nodded but didn’t smile. She wondered what he was thinking, but he was completely closed to her.
Her four-cowboy get-out-of-jail-free card hadn’t been played. Had the other brothers left, or were they still on the other side of the door waiting for Austin to bring her out? Likely, they were. Jessie felt her lips curl up in a slight smile, though thinking it would be best if they’d already left. She wanted to make the men who believed in her proud.
Austin pointed, not to the wingback chairs meant for prominent guests, but to the black leather sofa that sat against the wall to her right, looking like an afterthought to the other decor. “Sit there.”
With her pulse pounding through her body Jessie walked across the room and took a seat exactly where he’d pointed—right in the middle of the couch. She sank back into its leather that hugged her bottom like a catcher’s lucky glove swallowing its owner’s fingers. She folded her hands in her lap and looked down at her own shaking fingers. She just couldn’t handle Austin’s stare at the moment. She wanted to try and gain some composure. She steadied her breathing, and her heartbeats slowed slightly.
Jessie looked up from her folded hands to find Austin’s intense fixed gaze back on her. She closed her eyes. When she opened them again, he was pouring the contents of her purse onto his desktop. He made neat piles of her things on the mahogany. His inspection of each item took time. Even her pens, which apparently she had seven of in her purse, he studied as if they were some kind of alien thing he was trying to document for science.
Unnerved by his actions, she asked, “Austin, are you looking for something in particular?”
He turned and narrowed his eyelids. “Quiet.”
She opened her mouth to refute him, but snapped it shut.
“Excellent.” He turned back to his research of her possessions.
His one word of praise filled her up to the brim. Jessie could not deny how much she craved his approval, though such desire might seem odd to some.
After what seemed like hours but was likely only a few minutes, he put everything except her phone back in her bag. He slid the purse to the side and put the cell in the top left drawer of his desk. He pulled out a key and locked that drawer.
