The Dom Unites Wolf and Panther [Unchained Love 5] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (2 page)

“Yes, I do. Don’t Universal Studios and places like that actually run real tours?”

“Oh yes, but they have all sorts of exciting things happening. Buildings falling down, stuff like that. Nicholas and Curtis’s movie studio is really small. I think they said they’ve only got the two big sets indoors, but each can have several different scenes set up simultaneously. And outdoors I’m not sure what’s there. I think, again, it’s just wooden sets they change around or repaint for different things they’re filming,” said Autumn.

“I do recall Gaynor riding a motorcycle through a mall with people pretending to be shoppers. Maybe you’ll see that set. You can tell me all about it tomorrow.”

“Hi, Leticia. Hi, Autumn.” Autumn’s breath hitched at the sight of Curtis. “Sex on a stick” was the only way to describe him. Hastily, Autumn dropped the pot of nail polish she’d just used into her purse. It was a huge purse, and people often laughed at her for carrying it, but really, she could fit anything she thought she might need inside it as well as whatever knitting project she was currently completing. Knitting was her job as well as her hobby. Autumn worked for a yarn company making the display items for their catalogues and website, which meant she did a lot of knitting but also all kinds of other crafts involving various uses of yarns.

“I know Oliver hates you being left alone, Leticia. Where do you want to go now? We’ll walk with you there before leaving,” said Autumn. They’d been waiting in the communal sitting room in the main building where Autumn often set up her craft projects to work on.

“Our house renovations aren’t finished yet, so Oliver doesn’t really like me being alone there, either. Maybe the barn? There’s sure to be people to talk to there.”

“That’s one of the great things about living here. There’s always someone to talk to. You don’t have to be alone unless you want to be,” replied Autumn.

“Do you think you could be happy living somewhere other than here?” asked Curtis.

Autumn guessed this was not an idle, casual question, so she answered it more fully than she might otherwise have done. “I think people are more important to me than places. I was happy living on the farm until that became too small and not really safe. I’m happy living here. If I had friends and family around me, I expect I’d come to be happy almost anywhere.”

Leticia nodded. “It wasn’t until I couldn’t just talk to people when I wanted to that I understood how important people are to me, too.”

Autumn couldn’t think of anything really kind to say about the way Leticia’s father had treated her, so she was glad they arrived at the main barn the community used as a gathering place just then.

There was a board game spread out on a coffee table, and Jill, an older human woman who’d lived at Carnal Connections since the BDSM community first began, waved to Leticia to come over and join them. “Bye and thanks,” said Leticia as she entered the barn.

Autumn slung the strap of her purse higher up on her shoulder and faced Curtis. “So, where are we going?”

“It’s a secret. But you do look good enough to eat,” Curtis said, dropping a soft kiss on her cheek.

Very naughtily, Autumn let her gaze quite obviously drift over his cock. It was a nice long, hard ridge in the front of his dress pants. “Uh-huh. I can see a snack that looks ready to eat, too. However, I was thinking about a more nutritionally correct supper than that to begin with.”

“I’m glad you said ‘to begin with.’”

“And I notice you didn’t answer the question.”

“It’s a surprise,” said Curtis.

Autumn gave up on trying to get an answer. Curtis was a Dom after all, and Nicholas was a wolf, which was almost as bad when it came to eliciting a straight answer to a question they didn’t plan to respond to. Mentally, she shrugged. She’d find out soon enough. She liked these two men very much. So far they’d spent a few evenings together and she’d been very happy with the orgasms that had resulted. She knew they wanted more from her than a casual date and she was coming to think that’s what she wanted herself. But could a panther—well, a half-panther—and a werewolf really ever have a happily ever after? Somehow Autumn thought a happily ever after was way too much to ask for from a werewolf and a Dom. Some good orgasms, however, should be perfectly doable.

Besides, she enjoyed her freedom. Nicholas had the prime management role with the movie studio and had quite the take-charge attitude. It was he who’d bailed Omar and a number of others out of jail after the basketball match fiasco when some rogue panther people had tried to kidnap Ramona.

Curtis was a Dom, through and through, wanting to guide and direct every step of their time in the bedroom. She wasn’t at all sure she wanted either of them Dominating her, far less two of them trying to order her around and control her life. She liked her freedom and her life just as it was, thanks very much. Although a bit of bossing in the bedroom was fine by her. But only in the bedroom. She wasn’t going to wear a collar, not even such a pretty collar as Ramona’s or Jubilee’s. She wasn’t even going to wear a wedding ring, far less call anyone Master, or Sir, excerpt in some bedroom play, perhaps.

Nicholas was leaning against a bright-green SUV.

“I’ve never seen this car before,” she said, blinking at the auto enamel.

“Yes you have,” said Nicholas, opening the door for her to get in.

“There’s no way I’d have forgotten this color.”

“Exactly. It’s the same white SUV, just painted with water-based paint that’ll wash off in the rain or the carwash. So much cheaper than buying a new car. Couple of hours with a paintbrush and a big can of paint and ‘
Voila
! New car,’” said Nicholas.

“What a nifty idea.”

Curtis leaned against her. “Oh, yes. We’re full of nifty ideas. Got a few of them lined up for tonight.”

Autumn gave a little shiver. Oh yes. She was ready to experience some of their clever bedroom ideas tonight. Her panties dampened and her belly clenched hard at the thought. They both knew how to rev her engine and send her pulse racing from zero to one hundred in no time at all. She could still hardly believe that two such handsome men were interested in her. Two men!

Nicholas Sullivan was in his late twenties. A slightly stocky man who was maybe five foot eleven tall, he had curly brown hair and amber eyes. As a wolf his fur was dark brown, but not as dark as her panther’s, which was very nearly black.

Curtis Cole was thirty years old, with reddish-brown hair, blue eyes, and a tall, lean build with long arms and legs. And long fingers, too, which he used to great effect on her body.

Autumn was interested to see they drove to the movie studio. She’d been to their offices of course, if the tiny rooms they had there by the main entry could truly be called offices, but she’d never been anywhere else, mostly because she was dropping something off or meeting Ramona or maybe Gaynor.

Occasionally, she’d even felt pangs of envy of Ramona being with Curtis and Nicholas all day, except that Omar had always made it very plain Ramona was his, and Ramona had been equally emphatic she wanted both Omar and JB, the human builder at Carnal Connections.

The movie lot was not as large as it appeared. It was deceptive, because filming that appeared to show endless distance actually showed painted wooden backdrops, and scenes were cut to hide any parts of other buildings or scenery that didn’t belong in that shot. There were two largish buildings, long, flat wooden rectangles that were used to shoot indoor scenes. But the back walls of each of them had scenery painted onto them. One was trees and a distant mountain, the other a city streetscape.

Add in a few wooden painted scenery boards and different movie scenes were instantly created. Rather like the SUV painted bright green, nothing was quite what it seemed. Outside even the parking lot was dirt so that it could be used for all sorts of different scenes. Autumn knew they had several enormous, heavy plastic mats that looked like roads or stone flooring so they could lay them on the ground for different movies.

Nicholas jumped out to open the gate into the movie property then closed it behind them while Curtis drove up to the first building. Nicholas opened a roller door and Curtis drove inside. “We can’t risk the car getting rain on it until we’ve finished filming,” he explained.

Autumn nodded. That was the downside of painting in temporary paint, she assumed. She stared around her excitedly. So what did a movie set look like? Well, this area was a bare concrete floor with a door to the right and movable walls blocking her vision ahead of them, although she could see a lot of big lights on wheeled stands towering over the partitions. Well, that made sense. Everyone knew movies needed high-quality lighting. Unless they were filming a spooky night scene, she supposed.

Nicholas opened her door and she stepped out of the car, slinging her purse over her shoulder, then followed Nicholas around the room divider and into the main part of the building. Several very large cameras on wheeled trolleys were parked in one area, then a living room set was ahead of her with a large red velvet sofa, a red velvet ladies’ fainting couch, and two red velvet armchairs. Between them, on a wooden coffee table, sat a big platter of fruit and another equally large one with a bowl of dip in the center and vegetable sticks surrounding it. An ice bucket with a bottle of wine in it rested on a stand on one side of the table.

Surely all this wouldn’t normally be here? They had to have set it up just for her. That was amazing and so sweet of them. The “room” was lovely and the food so well thought out. These men were truly wonderful.

“If we are starting here, are you going to show me more of the studio? All I’ve seen is the front office and here so far,” she said.

“We can do that now before it gets dark,” said Nicholas, drawing her hand through his arm. Curtis did the same on her other side, although her heavy purse bounced between their bodies.

“What’s in this thing? Do you want to leave it here?” Curtis asked.

“No, it’s fine. I feel naked without it.”

“Here, let me.” Curtis removed it from her shoulder and slung it over his own outer arm so he could be closer to her.

Together they walked slowly through the building. Most of the floor was bare concrete, but in a bedroom scene there was a thick rug on the floor, and in another living room scene the floor appeared to be wood. “Is that a removable wood floor, or is it fake?” she asked.

“It’s like one of those portable dance floors people can hire. It has to be real wood so people’s feet echo on it when they walk in high heels,” said Nicholas.

“Oh, okay, of course.”

At the far end of the building Curtis opened a door and they stepped outside into a Wild Western town setting. The buildings were just wooden storefronts, with struts supporting them from behind, but some had windows and doors that opened. The street was dirt, but on one side of it the buildings had a wooden boardwalk.

Only one hundred yards farther on, the street changed to be a modern city with tall painted buildings. Autumn stopped to look back, moving away from the men to get perspective. “That’s very clever indeed. You’d swear these buildings really were five or six stories tall.”

“It’s all in the way you paint the sets. And Raegan is damn good at painting sets,” said Nicholas.

“Raegan? Have I met him?”

“Likely you’ve seen him. Early fifties, gray hair. Our full-time staff is quite small. Mostly we just hire extras as we need them.”

“Yes, I know both Ramona and Gaynor love that they get to do all sorts of different jobs.”

They walked the length of the “street” then returned to the building, Autumn quite fascinated by the clever way such a small area seemed to be much bigger than it really was.

“Are you ready to eat now?” asked Curtis, leading her toward the “living room.”

“Absolutely.” Autumn sat on one of the armchairs and leaned forward to look at the platter of chopped vegetables. “This looks awesome.” Carefully, she chose a celery stick, dipped it in the sauce, and nibbled. “Yum.”

Curtis grinned. “So your human woman side prefers celery sticks to tuna?”

“Actually, that’s kind of interesting. I like fish as well as fruit and vegetables. I don’t dislike water either, although I’m not much on playing in the snow. Cold and wet are okay in small doses, but I’m not really into both at once. Do you sit and howl at the moon, Nicholas?”

Curtis laughed. Autumn just stared at him.

“I did that once for a dare. We went way out into the national park one full moon and climbed a hill. Then I sat and howled at the moon while Curtis laughed. Ten minutes later a group of campers appeared from nowhere asking what the fuck we were doing when they were trying to sleep. We hadn’t even seen their tents and thought we were alone until then.”

Autumn giggled. “Oh, what an awesome story. I love it.” She leaned over, dipped two carrot sticks into the little pot of sauce, and popped one in Nicholas’s mouth and the other in Curtis’s before helping herself to one.

Nicholas chomped his carrot stick and swallowed it in two bites then wrapped his lips around the end of Autumn’s food, sliding his lips ever closer to hers. She held on to the carrot with her teeth and tugged gently, but Nicholas wasn’t going to let go. She had two choices. To bite off her piece of carrot, or let his lips touch hers. She decided to withdraw, leaving the food in his possession.