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22
Mare
Standing outside of the restaurant with my thighs pressed together to keep air from drifting up my skirt and over my naked lower lips, I asked myself not for the first time that night what the fuck I was doing.I’m just asking to be hurt again,I realized. Folding my arms over my chest, I shivered in my jacket. I’d been the one to leave, and I’d done it for a reason. Yet, there I was, waiting to be picked up by the very guys I should’ve been walking away from. What the hell was wrong with me?
A familiar black SUV pulled up to the curb. Instead of Ian behind the wheel as I reached for the passenger side door and popped it open, it was Jensen. He flashed me a rueful grin as I struggled to get in, holding down the skirt as I did so. “Heard someone earned herself a punishment tonight,” he said with a grin.
“Shut. Up,” I hissed back as I finally managed to get in without flashing my backside to the parking lot—even if it was empty, it was cold as fuck outside. “What took you so long? I clocked out and called Ian twenty minutes ago.”
Jensen’s smile faltered a bit. “There was a situation—don’t worry. It’s just work stuff; Archer’s handling it. Wolf needed a hacker, and Archer’s got friends…” He trailed off as he pulled out of the lot. “Like I said, nothing for you to worry about.”
“Okaayyy?” I drew out the word and let it be filled with all of the doubt I could muster, slapping a verbal question mark on the end in the semi-hopes that he’d give me a bit more. It didn’t work, but that didn’t mean the pieces hadn’t started to come together even further; their lives and careers quickly forming with each additional hint they gave me tucked at the back of my mind to confront them about later.
“Want to listen to some tunes?” he piped up a moment later, leaning forward and twisting the dial.
I rolled my eyes. If he wanted to keep their work a secret for now, so be it, but Iwouldfind out. Especially if they expected me to stick around. I already had a feeling about what it was that my guys did. We’d never gotten into that in the first few months of our relationship. I’d been too young, too naive, and too hung up on the mind blowing orgasms they’d given me. Eighteen and practically untried, they’d rocked my world, and I hadn’t looked past the shiny exterior. No, it hadn’t been until I’d been sitting on the stand in that courtroom, feeling their gazes on me, that I’d begun to really think. I’d been a sex-blinded idiot. When I’d been escorted past them and saw the way they’d tracked my movements, I’d known. Perhaps they’d known more about my father than even I had. That was a horrible thought that sat like a rock in my gut for the entire rest of the drive.
When we arrived back at the house, Jensen turned off the radio and climbed out of the car. I followed behind, silent. We approached the front door, but before we even reached it, it swung open. Ian stood there, his arms crossed over his chest and his booted feet shoulder width apart. He met my gaze and held.
“Hey, Boss man, she’s here. Pristine condition as promised.” I snuck a glance at Jensen, but he seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the exchange between Ian and me. I shivered on the steps, and Ian took that as his cue to move, standing to the side as we marched into the warm interior of the house.
“The bedroom, Mare,” Ian instructed, his voice low.
I didn’t need to ask what he meant. I looked over my shoulder at him, and he nodded towards the back of the house. After being on my feet for nearly twelve hours straight—a double-shift that had resulted in almost no breaks because of our short staffing issues—I didn’t even have the energy to fight him. I turned and headed for the hallway, following it back to the bedroom I’d woken up in the first time I’d been brought here.
I stopped in the center of the bedroom—the very one where Ian had spanked my ass. The first time a man had touched me, sexually at least—even if it had just been a spanking—since I’d entered Witness Protection. Oh, there’d been offers. From old bosses—I’d only been working at the restaurant for the last year and a half or so—and from new. I grimaced as I thought of Donny. The perv. He wasn’t dangerous, just fucking annoying. Being around him all day had made me tense. Hopefully, whatever Ian had planned for this evening would help me relax. There was no better way to de-stress than a good scene with him—punishment or otherwise, it always left me satisfied. I remembered when he’d first introduced me to his habit for control and all of the things that it entailed.
It was fluid—his dominance—but one thing never changed, and that was my worth. He never made me feel dirty. He never made me feel bad about what I liked. I’d been confused at first, curious and willing to try, and then that first orgasm after a night under his hand had opened my eyes. I liked that little bite of pain, reveled in it. He’d never actually hurt me. The things he did to me—the spankings, the hard nipple twists—it all sensitized my skin, made me hyper aware of everywhere Ian touched.
I felt more than saw Ian’s presence, a shadow at my back when I refused to turn and meet his eyes. He moved further into the room until his chest was to my back and he was pressed flush against me. I hadn’t realized how long I’d been standing in the middle of the room thinking about the past until I wasn’t alone anymore.
“Are you ready, Mare?” A shiver stole down my spine at the low note in his voice. “Are you ready for what I’m going to do to you?”
“You can’t do anything without my permission,” I pointed out, proud of how steady my voice sounded. Inside, I was a fucking wreck, but I was ready. Ready to cave and do anything his nasty little heart desired as long as I got mine in the end. He could spank me, whip me, fuck me into submission, and I’d lap it up because I had been completely and utterly honest with him earlier. I trusted him. Completely. The three of them were the only people on this Godforsaken earth that I trusted and cared about. But for Ian, this push and pull between us had always been about that little piece of me he craved. My submission. I’d given it to him once, but would giving in to it again be more trouble than it was worth? Could I truly walk away—if I had to—once I gave it to them? There was really only one way to find out.
“Of course,” he said, leaning close from behind. His breath touched the skin on the back of my neck as he gathered my hair in his fist and lifted it. Heat raced through my body, spreading through every limb. I felt like I was burning, but oh, what a delicious kind of pain it was. “But you’re going to give it to me, aren’t you?” He tugged on my hair, and my scalp lit up. The pain was barely a sting—a promise of more to come that made me eager to see what exactly they had planned for me.
“W-what makes you say that?”Damn it.I’d thought I could keep my voice even for a little longer, but as soon as he put his hands on me, I should’ve known the game was over. He was the King, and I was his Queen. I might’ve been more powerful in that he couldn’t take anything without my say so, but he wasn't above playing dirty to get what he wanted, and what he wanted in that moment was for me to submit. Because he knew he already had me, but this—the control was his real goal.
He chuckled, the reverberation of the sound moving from him to me as he pressed ever closer. “Because,” he breathed against my skin, “despite how you ran from me—from us—you want to be a good girl. You want to give in to me and come back. We’re your home, Mare. You don’t feel safe with anyone else.”
I was quiet for a moment, listening to his words. Despite the dominant edge to his voice, there was also a plea. As if he was saying,Come back to us, baby. Please don’t ever leave us again.The plea cut right through me. Since the time they’d come back into my life, my main focus had been their safety, and if I could run when needed … but right here, all I could hear was the pain in his words. They had missed me just as much as I missed them.
“Idowant you,” I assured him quietly. “I’ve wanted you ever since I laid eyes on you.” I pulled away, and he let me turn, his hand falling away from my hair. I faced him and stared up into those crystal-clear blue eyes of his. “I want you, Ian. I want all of you. I miss you. I miss how easy it was between us. I miss Jensen and Archer, and I want you in my bed, in my life again.”
His eyes flared as his lips parted and slanted up into a grin that resembled a cat who’d gotten the cream. “Then how do you ask for forgiveness, Mare?” he challenged. “How do you show us that you’re not going to leave again? That we’re not going to have to track you down across half the goddamn country?”
