Punishing for Pleasure (5 page)

Meri heard several different underlying emotions in Dex’s demand for an explanation, but the one that surprised her the most was hurt. It had never occurred to her that he and Ash might be offended by her duplicity. It wasn’t as if she had intentionally kept the information from them, and in truth, they likely knew they shared more than a little bit of the responsibility. They hadn’t been interested enough to ask questions, so why was
he
offended?
Well, I didn’t grow up in Texas without learning a thing or two about game-day strategy and every Cowboy
'
s fan knows
that
sometimes the best defense is a good
offense
.
She took a deep breath and looked out over the darkening sky, “Well, if you will think back, I’m sure you’ll realize you rarely expressed much interest in idle chit-chat. And I’m not sure exactly when I would have worked the details of my financial portfolio into the time we’ve spent together.”

She hadn’t intended to sound quite so snippy, and the sudden tension in the air told her it was time to tone it down a little. “I used my first and middle names on my club membership to fly under the radar as much as possible. I’m sure you can see why that was important. And I’ve used it before for travel because I don’t always take personal protection with me and security is sometimes an issue.”
And wasn’t that an enormous
understatement at the moment.
She had purposely tried to keep her reference to security challenges vague, but in her peripheral vision Meri had seen both men swivel their faces to her.

“Excuse me?”
Oh brother.
Ash’s voice had sounded almost menacing and suddenly Meri was grateful for the encroaching darkness. “You wanna run that by us again, pet? Because that sounded a lot like you’ve had some security issues and I don’t remember hearing them mentioned either. You really do seem to be racking up punishments at an astonishing rate.”

Dex leaned closer and asked, “Have you mentioned this to anyone? Anyone at all? Because I have to tell you, I have a bad feeling about this. That little pissant reporter was fed information by someone and you need to take
any
security issues you’re having very seriously. Just because your foundation does good work doesn’t mean you won’t make enemies along the way.”
And isn’t that a fact?
Damn, this conv
ersation is
sliding downhill fast
.

“Listen, I’m not discounting my safety, but I’m not going to get bogged-down with paranoia either. If I let every threatening email and security breach at the mansion get to me, I’d have become a recluse years ago.” Instead of easing their tension, her words seemed to have ratcheted it up even further. “I had planned to talk to Micah and Jax, but I haven’t had a chance to speak with them yet.” When she heard Ash growl, Meri shook her head and sighed. Obviously he was remembering they had all been together just a few days ago. Sighing, she added, “Yes, I know we were all at the gazebo recently, but I didn’t want to bring it up in front of everyone.”

This time Dex was the one who seemed incredulous, “By everyone, I’m assuming you mean the two of us?”
Oh brother, talk about a no-win question.
If I answer honestly, they’ll misunderstand. And if I lie
,
they’ll know.

Meri took another deep breath and looked up at the stars as if they might suddenly decide to shower her with a brilliant answer. “It wasn’t that I didn’t want you to know—precisely. It was more that I didn’t want you to feel obligated to help. And whether or not you are willing to admit it, it is exactly what would have happened.”
Hell’s bells and seashells, that’s exactly what’s happening now. And if they will just step back for a minute they’ll know it, too.
She might not have been looking directly at them in the bright light of day, but the energy vibrating around them was screaming overprotection. Meri wondered if all Doms were like this or just the ones in her circle of friends. Maybe it was those who were former military or former Special Forces who were also Doms, although she suspected that was a chicken and egg argument as well since every member of any branch of the Special Forces Meri had ever met, seemed to be a Dom. Sighing, she finally decided it was a question for Dan.

Only a few people knew how close she and Dr. Dan Deal really were. And even fewer knew their family connection. Dan’s mother and Meri’s mom were sisters, and when her aunt and uncle were killed by a drunk driver just after Dan started high school, the Lanhams immediately moved the young man into their home. Meri hadn’t even started junior high school yet, but she and her older cousin bonded quickly. He’d been her protector and best pal until he’d moved to college four years later.

Meri wished her sweet cousin would find a woman who deserved his affection. He was one of the nicest men she knew and even though he was a sexual Dominant, he didn’t seem the type of Dom who would want to control every aspect of his sub’s life. It wasn’t that he couldn’t be overly protective at times, because he’d certainly had taken her to task for some of the poor choices she’d made while in college. He’d always reserved his lectures for the mistakes he’d seen as
dumb
rather than dangerous. Dan had always encouraged her to push beyond what she thought she could do academically and professionally. She had often wished she had a dollar for every time he’d reminded her “the worst you can do is fail.”

She’d been in high school when she’d decided to run for a student government position at her posh private school. She had lost the election by a narrow margin and been devastated. Dan had been home that weekend and found her crying in her dad’s office. He’d listened quietly as she’d poured out her heart, ask her questions that she’d figured out later had gently led her to figure out all on her own what he’d known all along…that in the great scheme of things, this was a small bump in the road. He’d eventually donned her dad’s old felt Fedora and started singing the old Frank Sinatra classic, “Pick Yourself Up”. The words still echoed in her head whenever she felt like she’d failed.
So take a deep breath
-
Pick yourself up
-
Dust yourself off
-
Start all over again.

“I’m not sure whether to be pissed off or encouraged by the fact she isn’t answering the question.” Dex’s voice broke through the tune playing in Meri’s head and she frantically searched her memory hoping to remember what he’d asked her. “I know that expression, sweetheart. I’m fairly certain you didn’t even hear me ask you when you had planned to talk to Jax or Micah, so you might as well stop wasting all that energy searching your memory.”

Meri let out a breath she hadn’t even realized she was holding and felt herself sag. In the back of her mind, Meri wondered why she was fighting this battle when it was so obviously in vain. “I have a business trip coming up in a few days. My hope is whoever is doing this will lose interest and move on while I’m gone. I promise to call them if I’m still having trouble when I return.” Despite what everyone might think, her life really was incredibly boring. Even her weekly trips to the Prairie Winds Club had begun to dwindle under the mounting pressures of her career. And she’d also started worrying about trouble following her there as well. Quite frankly, the fear that someone else might be caught up in her mess was the stuff of nightmares.

“Well, pet, I think perhaps you need to start at the beginning. And don’t leave anything out.” Ash’s voice was pitched lower than she’d ever heard it and sounded even more menacing than his usual Dom-voice, and just the sound of it sent a shiver of apprehension up her spine. And if the two of them thought they were
miffed
before, they were going to be positively livid when she told them about the trouble she’d been having recently.

*****

Ash’s jaw was ready to crack under the strain—clenching his mouth closed might be keeping him from spewing curses like the sailor he’d been, but it was going to cost him a fucking fortune in dental work. The more Merilee Lanham talked, the more difficult it was to keep from asking the most basic question,
Why haven’t you asked for help?
Of course that question would lead to a hundred others, including
What made you think this would just go away?

He and Dex listened as Meri recounted how she’d started getting text messages to her private cell phone the day after her parents left for South America. The messages hadn’t been particularly threatening in the beginning, but they had been fairly frequent. When she didn’t respond, the sender had begun including photos of her that had been taken during unguarded moments. A few had shown her walking from the parking garage to her downtown office, others had been taken during her quick lunch breaks. She’d known they were current pictures because she’d recognized the clothing she’d worn on the days she’d eaten in specific locations. Once she started watching for someone taking her picture, they’d abruptly stopped.

“I really thought it was over, because I hadn’t gotten anything for a couple of days…but then I started getting emails to my personal account.” Ash was watching her closely or he might have missed the small shiver that moved through her before she continued, “This time the pictures were taken from a distance, enough so some were a bit grainy. You know, like they’d been taken using a high-powered zoom lens. One showed me driving through the gates at Prairie Winds and another was taken later that night when I’d been standing out on the terrace behind the club. There were more over the course of several days’ activities, but you get the idea.”

“Is this why you haven’t been to the club much in the past few weeks?”

For the first time since they’d started talking, Ash saw a very real sadness move through her expression. Thinking back, he could only recall one other time he’d sensed anything other than a positive vibe from Meri and that told him a lot about who she was at her core. “Truthfully, that is a part of it but not all. My responsibilities at the Foundation are growing faster than my ability to acclimate and delegate…and with my dad gone, well, things are even more insane than usual.”

One of the things Ash had noticed was the fact she appeared to have lost weight—not a lot, but enough to let him know she was probably stumbling into her home late at night when she was far too exhausted to do any more than fall into bed. If she belonged to them, he and Dex would make damned sure she took better care of herself.
For a sadist you seem to be getting pretty fucking sappy.
Shocked at the direction of his thoughts, Ash decided talking to himself probably wasn’t really a bad sign until he started carrying on both sides of the conversation.

Ash had the feeling she hadn’t told them everything yet and when he looked over her head at Dex, he saw the almost imperceptible shake of his head. Obviously Dex had the same idea, so they would just wait her out. It was several long minutes before she finally continued, “There was a breakin at my home a few days ago. I’d sent the staff all home because I was just
done
, you know?” They waited while she took a couple of deep breaths and sighed. A part of him wanted to shake her until her teeth rattled, but there was also a small part of him that understood exactly what she was saying. He’d felt much the same way after missions that hadn’t gone well. “Have you ever been so tired and lonely that all you wanted was to be alone and drown it all in alcohol?” When they’d both snorted and nodded in understanding, she went on, “Well, that was where I was that day. Anyway, the perimeter alarms are the oldest of the security on the estate, so they went off just a few seconds before the house alarms started wailing. I didn’t hear my phone ring when the security company called because I was soaking in a bubble bath, and while I was busy scrambling for a robe, I slipped and fell.”

Dex heard her soft laugh and saw her shaking her head, but the moonlight was bright enough he saw her eyes had filled with tears and knew how frantic she must have felt. “Hell, on my best day I can be a klutz, but that night was even over the top for me. I’m still wearing long sleeves to hide all the bruises, and we won’t even talk about the other places that are black and blue. Anyway, by the time the police arrived, there wasn’t anyone to be found and nothing was missing that I’ve been able to find. The only thing
wrong
was there was a small bouquet of m
onkshood
laying in the center of the dining room table.”

“What the fuck?” Dex’s confusion echoed Ash’s own bewilderment.

“See? I didn’t know either, but one of the female officers Googled it and evidently it means ‘You’d better watch your back’. Who knows that kind of thing? I mean really, what kind of sick piece of navel lint sits around figuring out something like that?”

Meri finally reluctantly conceded the situation had gotten out of control and she needed help, and despite the fact he’d found her reference to her stalker as a piece of lint amusing, Ash found himself barely being able to hold back his anger. And finding out Parker Andrews had been one of the officers called to her home the night of the breakin hadn’t done anything for Ash’s good humor either. He planned to have a nice long chat with his fellow Dom about the importance of sharing information.
Well, fuck!
At least he had planned to have a come-to-Jesus meeting with Master Andrews until he realized neither he nor Dex had any real claim on Meri. Even though they had been playing with her exclusively since they’d met, they hadn’t made any public declarations—hell, they hadn’t even made a private commitment to her. For just a moment Ash wondered how that had impacted her decision to try to handle this situation on her own.

Ash wasn’t the “people person” Dex was, but he felt certain her submissive training would have kicked in if she’d felt more secure in their relationship. At the very least she would have called them after the breakin because she had to know Parker Andrews would eventually share the information. It didn’t seem to matter how he looked at it, the bottom line was, Ms. Lanham wasn’t solely responsible for this mess. And somehow, punishing her for a situation they’d helped create just didn’t seem right.

Dex’s question broke through his musing, “Any idea who might want to hurt you, sweetheart?”

“Well, if you are asking me if I have any enemies, I can only think of a couple of people who really dislike me. But would it be enough to want to really hurt me? I just can’t see either of them going that far. I mean, they would both lose everything if they were caught and I honestly think their egos would stand in the way of that. Not to mention they’d see it as beneath them to have to do anything
dirty
themselves, and hiring someone else sets them up to be blackmailed later.”

The last fragments of daylight had finally faded from the sky, but Meri’s face was illuminated by the full moon, highlighting her perfect features and giving her skin a soft glow that made her look almost ethereal. Even in the dim light, Ash could easily see her wrinkled brow and knew she was trying to decide how much more information to share.

“Let me help you out with your decision, pet. Spill it all—don’t hold anything back, even if you think it is something we really don’t want to hear. We can’t help if we don’t have all the Intel.” Ash hoped she’d make the connection between their ability to help and their former jobs as Navy SEALs. Having all the available information usually meant the difference between success and failure. And when failure means people die—you have to develop a very high regard for those who supply your Intelligence. He saw her draw in a deep breath and could almost feel the last bit of fight drain away as she resigned herself to telling them everything. Just as she opened her mouth to speak, her phone starting vibrating and then ringing in his pocket.

“That’s my dad’s ringtone. It overrides the vibrate only setting. He wasn’t supposed to call until Sunday night, so I need to answer that.” Ash reluctantly handed over the jiggling device and listened as she greeted her father. “Hey, Dad, what’s up? Is everything all right?”

Ash could hear her father’s rapid-fire words, but was only able to make out a few. The longer Meri listened the more visibly upset she became, she was quickly on her feet and moving toward the pickup. She’d forgotten her shoes and Ash knew from experience the rocks they’d spread on the road had to be shredding the bottoms of her delicate feet. He grabbed her shoes and struggled to get to his feet, biting back the urge to curse out loud at the pain that shot up his forearm when he pressed against the dirt to stand up. Dex was already on the move and scooped her up without ever missing a step, his long stride eating up the last few yards between them and his truck in a couple of seconds.

As the motor caught, Ash heard Meri repeat the fact she was safe and her promise to call her dad with an update on Tony as soon as she found out his condition.
Tony?
The man I tossed her keys to when we left the hospital? What could have happened to him in such a short period of time that would have her dad calling from South America?