Writes of Submission (22 page)

She smiled at him as she stood up. “I guess the only thing any of us can do is to get back to work and wait to see how this plays out. Do you want her for yourself?”

Dante followed her into the kitchen, thinking about her question. “I’d rather have the poly thing,” he admitted finally. “It just seems like such a good opportunity—like a team. I’ve never thought of relationships like that before, but it really feels right somehow, you know?”

“It does,” Allie agreed. “You grow up thinking you’re going to fall in love and get married, right? Maybe have a couple kids, a career, take some nice vacations, but that’s it. When you find people you can be a team with, you realize it can be so much more than working in a cubicle and watching television every night. If everybody works together you can really accomplish some amazing things. Not that traditional families don’t, but having more people exponentially increases your resource pool.”

“Yeah, I see that.” Dante took the bottle of water she offered him, then snapped his fingers. “I almost forgot. The pics we put up and the blog post I had ‘Candee’ write about being here are really starting to generate interest. I’ve been monitoring your website and your hits have skyrocketed today. You should check your email. I’ll bet you’ve got a lot of info requests coming in.”

“That’s great!” Allie kissed him on the cheek. “Now go and relax for a little while. Lunch will be ready in an hour. You might actually want to check in on Nikki. I have a feeling that Kane is going to be backing off from that responsibility for a little while, so you will have to step up.”

Dante took the stairs two at a time. His elation seemed to be returning, at least in part. He still felt guilty about Kane, but the words kept replaying in his head. She loves you! She loves you!

Nikki was still sleeping, her face scrunched up as if she was having a slightly disturbing dream. Dante felt a little odd about going in without having been invited, but the situation was a little unusual—and she’d told Kane she loved him. Him, Dante. His brain was still buzzing with the excitement of that. The slight edge of worry about what would happen to her partnership with Kane threatened to take over his happiness, but he forced himself not to worry about it. They would cross that bridge later when she was feeling more coherent.

She mumbled a little in her sleep and he pulled the desk chair over next to the bed. Leaning over, he brushed the hair out of her face and whispered, “You’re okay, sweetheart. I’m here with you.”

Her head turned restlessly, but her eyes didn’t open. She murmured something and he leaned closer. “What was that, Nikki?”

“Kane?” It was little more than a whisper, but there was no mistaking the name. She’d asked for Kane. It occurred to him suddenly that maybe Kane had misheard her in the woods. Maybe she’d said she was in love with him, with Kane, not with Dante.

He sat back up and looked down at her unconscious form. There was no way of finding out for another day or two, when she would be feeling up to discussing it with one or more of them. Until then, he didn’t think he would be able to convince Kane of his theory.

He went to get his laptop and bring it back into her room. At least when she woke up there would be someone to get her a drink or help her to the bathroom.

* * * *

Kane forced himself not to slam the door of his room. He went to his desk and automatically opened the bottom drawer, looking for the bottle he’d stashed there before. But then he closed the drawer again. He’d been trying not to drink before dinner. Nikki didn’t seem to approve of it.

He should have known better than to try to do something like the bikes. It was bound to turn into a catastrophe. It always did.

It was just so unfair. Of course it was unfair. Nothing he ever did turned out right. He’d started writing romance trying to impress women with his sensitivity. But then the publisher had decided that he shouldn’t tell anyone who he was. Then he’d gotten interested in BDSM and found a mentor to teach him how to be a Dom. That just seemed to get him disliked by the first woman he’d decided to have a real relationship with. Sure, he had play partners, but Nikki was something special. She was his match intellectually, an extremely talented writer and a very beautiful woman. He’d begun to have visions of them spending the rest of their lives together.

He hadn’t even minded Dante hanging around. At first the other man had seemed like a threat, with his long blond hair and his surfer-dude looks and personality. But the three of them really seemed to be gelling into a cohesive unit, one that he was pretty sure wouldn’t be complete without all three of them.

But maybe he’d just been fooling himself. Maybe Nikki and Dante had been falling in love the whole time and he was the clueless outsider. She could have been indulging his annoying flirting for the sake of getting a start in romance writing.

He realized that he’d unconsciously reached down and opened the drawer again. Hell, what did it matter if Nikki disapproved? She didn’t love him anyway. He pulled out the bottle and opened it. If there was ever a time he needed a drink, it was now.

After the first couple of drinks, though, he put the top back on and returned it to its drawer. Drinking really wasn’t the answer. He’d just have to show her that he would be perfectly okay, even if she didn’t love him, too.

The story. He’d work on the story while she was down. It would still be published under both names. Oh, yes. He’d give her the start she was after. Even if he never saw her again, he could do that much for them. She’d shown him that it was possible for him to find somebody to love. Even if the three of them couldn’t be together, he would make sure she and Dante got a good start in the publishing world as well as the BDSM community. They deserved it.

He put in his earplugs, started the Arabian music that for some reason got his creative juices flowing, and flipped open his laptop. He had a lot of work to do.

* * * *

Nikki opened her eyes slowly. Her head was pounding and her whole body ached. She made a move to sit up and quickly collapsed back down, groaning.

A hand came to rest on her shoulder. “Take it easy,” Dante’s voice said from next to the bed. “You’re probably still pretty sore.”

“You think?” She rubbed a hand over her eyes to help her focus and squinted at him. “Sorry. Yes, I’m extremely sore, and I think my pain meds have worn off.”

“Not surprising.” He glanced at the clock. “You’ve been asleep for about four hours. Do you want some more, or would you rather eat something first?”

“I need to use the restroom. Why are you here, anyway?” She let him help her sit up.

“To watch over you, of course.” Before she could say anything, he bent over and picked her up in his arms.

“Hey!”

“Believe me, it’s much easier this way. And since you’re not going to be in any shape to work out for a while, I have to get my exercise somehow.”

He carried her into the bathroom and put her down carefully in front of the toilet. She sighed, holding on to him as she twisted herself into the correct direction. “Okay, I think I’ll be all right here.”

Dante raised his eyebrows, his hand still on her elbow.

“You can leave now.” She made a shooing motion.

“Are you sure you don’t need help?” He grinned at her, obviously waiting to see what she’d do.

She knew it was silly. They’d already had sex, for God’s sake, but she was mortified at the thought of using the toilet in front of him. She toyed with the idea of asking him to at least turn around, so he’d be close if she fell or anything. But that seemed almost as ridiculous as making him leave. Was she afraid that he would be turned off by the sight of her performing bodily functions?

Her head began spinning again and she gave up, holding out a hand to steady herself against him. “Okay, but just for the record I’m not particularly comfortable with this.”

“Why not?” He held her shoulders as she lowered her pants and eased herself down onto the seat. “It’s not like we’re not—involved. Aren’t we?”

It was incredibly stupid to be sitting on a toilet in front of a gorgeous man discussing whether or not they were in a relationship. Especially when the room was spinning around her and her body felt as if she’d spent the morning in a cement mixer.

He waited until she finished and rearranged herself, then helped her hop over to the sink so she could wash her hands and face. When she was done, he scooped her up again and took her back to bed.

“Well?” He sat down on the edge, arranging her pillows and covering her back up.

“Well what?” She still hadn’t decided exactly how to answer his question. She wasn’t sure if his definition of “involved” included Kane or not, and if it meant relationship or play partners. Either seemed possible, although she couldn’t imagine either one of the men settling for her when there were so many other options out there.

“Well, do you want food or pain meds first?” He poured a glass of water for her from a pitcher she hadn’t noticed on the desk and made her take a sip. “I’ve got a sandwich, some cookies, a piece of chocolate, orange juice, some mixed fruit, crackers, cheese, granola, bananas… Does any of that sound good?”

She lifted her head and noticed that there did indeed seem to be some kind of buffet lined out on her desk. “Where in the world did all that come from?”

“I didn’t know what you’d feel like when you woke up,” he explained. “So I tried to get a selection of everything I could think of. Allie said I couldn’t bring ice cream, because we weren’t sure how long you’d sleep, but there’s some downstairs. I could run and get it for you.”

She stared at him. “No, no. That’s fine. You’re really sweet to go to all this trouble. Maybe a banana?”

“One banana coming up.” He beamed as if she’d told him he won the Nobel Prize. Instead of just handing it to her, though, he peeled it and sliced it onto a small plate, laying it carefully on the bed next to her. “Here you go. Would you like to sit up some more? I can get more pillows.”

“No, that’s okay.” She ate a piece, mostly to please him. He seemed so anxious to wait on her. That was odd. “So have you really been sitting here the whole time? At least when you weren’t transferring the contents of the pantry onto my desk.”

He grinned. “Yes. I brought my laptop in and I’ve gotten a lot done. The blog that Kane wrote about the food party has been getting a lot of attention.”

“That’s great.” She popped another piece of banana in her mouth. “He’s such a good writer.”

“Yes, he is.” Dante’s face became serious and he moved back to his chair, leaning forward with his arms on his knees. “I want to talk to you about him.”

Uh, oh. Here it came. Nikki put the plate on the desk and gave a small sigh. This was where he told her that either he just wanted to play, or Kane was secretly married, they didn’t think her writing was up to Kane’s standards, or something. Her euphoria from the other night was bound to get shot down one way or another.

“First, the question from the bathroom.” He flashed a quick smile as he handed her a couple of pills and the glass of water. “Are we involved?”

Nikki took the meds, wondering frantically how to answer. She wasn’t sure how either of them were feeling, about her or about what they’d done together. It just wasn’t fair asking her to answer first. She finally settled on throwing the question back at him. “I don’t know. Are we?”

He frowned. “Do you want to be?”

Surely he wouldn’t ask that if he was going to turn her down. Would he? She nodded slowly, although the action started her head throbbing again.

“What about Kane?” He sounded a little more tentative now.

“I don’t know how Kane feels,” she began, trying to sort through things in her mind, even though her brain seemed to have turned to oatmeal. “He always seems to be laughing at me.”

Dante pursed his lips. “He does kind of have that aura. I’ve met people like that. You’re never quite sure what they’re really feeling, or if they’re taking you seriously or not. But I think you’re underestimating Kane. He has a big heart.”

Sure he did. She sighed. “I’m just not sure I can deal with the whole submission thing, you know? I mean, it’s really hot to read about, but I’m not sure I could handle it in real life. Why should I let him dictate everything I do?”

Dante considered it. “Maybe that’s something you should talk to Allie about. She seems to have the whole lifestyle thing dialed in. It sounds like it should be a bad thing, but I don’t think it really is. I mean, everybody has to be submissive sometime. It’s not a bad thing. By being submissive to my mentors I’ve learned how to do my job well. It would have taken a lot longer to try to figure everything out on my own.”

“But once you learned your job, you don’t have to be submissive anymore.”

“Sure I do. I have to play at being submissive in my job all the time. These authors I deal with—no offense—they’re the big dogs. I’m just an employee of the publisher who’s there to increase their level of success. Even when I know ten times more about marketing, I’m still just there to serve them.” He picked at the quilt on her bed. “Even Kane has to be submissive, though. Think about it. Why do you think he’s pretended to be a woman all these years? The publisher has never let him be open about who he really is. He’s never gotten the public recognition for his writing that he deserves. Granted, I think we’re going to be able to change that now. But they’re the ones who get to make that call, not him.”