Chapter 7
She heard the men approaching the following morning and had enough time to slide loose jeans and a T-shirt on before they knocked on the door a little before seven. She’d been awake, but reading in bed.
When she opened the door, the smell hit her first — bacon and sausage, warm eggs, the sharp bite of melted cheese. Kenny was holding her cast-iron pan with a folded kitchen towel, steam curling from the top.
“Thought we’d save you the trouble of breakfast while we returned your pan,” Silas said, brushing past her into the kitchen. Boone followed with a plastic grocery bag she soon discovered held blackberry preserves, and a large stainless water bottle filled with coffee and heavy cream.
“What is that?” she asked, pointing at the pan.
“Biscuits, bacon, sausage, eggs, cheese — baked all together,” Kenny said. “Cut it into squares, plate it, done.”
Boone already had plates down, cutting generous squares and sliding them across the counter toward her. “You went through hell for another scene with us. If you’re still game, figured we’d talk about what comes next.”
“Right,” Kenny said. “Less about pain, more about power exchange. Protocol. Pain’ll happen if orders aren’t obeyed, but it isn’t the focus.” He smirked. “And won’t be fun pain, anyway.”
Silas poured her coffee, added the exact right amount of sugar, and handed the mug to her. “Wouldn’t mind seeing how you move when you’re in a scene that’s about control, not endurance.”
Her stomach fluttered. It was like the dream got better. “I could—”
She didn’t get to finish. The low rumble of heavy engines rolled up from the mountain. They all walked to the front wall and looked down. The highway far below was full of equipment being driven off trailers.
“Faster than I expected them to get to it,” Boone noted.
“We can eat on my front balcony and watch them,” Willow said.
The four fixed their plates, their drinks, and were on the way up when they saw two men walking up Willow’s driveway.
“Ya’ll go on up,” Boone said. “I’ll talk to them.”
“He’s right,” Kenny said. “He knows about moving earth. Knows the questions to ask.”
They all trooped up the steps and onto the front deck off her bedroom, and watched the heavy equipment get busy removing trees and debris from the road below.
When Boone made it to them, he told them, “They have one crew to stabilize the slide area, another to get the road below passable, and a third to put in another driveway off to the side, switchbacks, which is what should’ve been done to start with.
They plan to have it graveled by Tuesday.
We can drive down once they get the gravel packed to specs. ”
While they talked logistics, another man came up, the owner of the cabin, and he sat with them an hour, watching progress, apologizing for them having to survive without electricity.
When he was gone, the sheriff came to check on them.
When he’d left thirty minutes later, Silas said, “Nothing at all like the morning we had in mind.”
Kenny shook his head and met Willow’s gaze.
“Whether we get enough privacy for another scene here or not, I think I’d like to talk about inviting you to the pack lands.
The way my house is laid out, the upstairs is mine.
Pack members stop by all the time, but they come in the back door and never past the kitchen. We’d have privacy upstairs.”
Willow blinked. Pack lands. Kenny’s house. She wasn’t sure how she felt about it, but she had questions.
“Just you, or all three of you?”
He shook his head. “All three of us, and I have no idea how it might look…”
He looked to Silas, who said, “Yesterday was special. I’m not going to try to define it beyond that, but the three of us are in agreement we’d like to see where things go, if you’re amenable to seeing us more once we’re all back home.”
Her throat went tight with emotion. She hadn’t imagined those looks. This might not be just a one-off. She nodded. “I’d like to talk about how that might look. Yes.”
Kenny leaned forward. “House rules. Rituals. Consequences. If I had my way, I’d move you in upstairs next week, if I’m being honest. Logistically, I’d need a week or two to retrofit your ensuite bathroom, alter the plumbing so I can turn the hot water off in your bathroom when you haven’t earned the right to a hot shower, put in a fully stocked playroom. ”
Her breath caught — part panic, part want, part disbelief. A fully stocked playroom. Control of her hot water. A structured, rule-driven life like the one she’d only ever fantasized about. And he was talking like it was real. Like she could have it. Making plans to redo the plumbing.
Silas put his hand on Kenny’s knee and met her gaze. “Were you living with your ex? Do you have a place?”
“I have an apartment, but I haven’t been in it much for the past…” She blew out a breath. “Year and a half. Most of my clothes are at his place. No idea if he’s burned them or if I’ll be able to go get them.”
She looked back to Kenny. “Silas is trying to keep you from freaking me out, but keep going, please.”
She wasn’t sure if her voice sounded strong or desperate. Both felt true. She wasn’t ready to promise anything, but she absolutely wanted to hear what he had to say.
“A set schedule when you aren’t working.
Service all three of us every morning, one at a time.
I wake first, and I prefer to fuck a throat first thing in the morning.
The other two will use you however they want, as they awake.
” He sat back, easy and calm, like he hadn’t just offered her a fantasy so intense it made her thighs press together.
“What do you see as the ideal way to fill your days when you aren’t working?”
It wasn’t hard to answer since it’s what she’d done for James, but without the kink.
“Fix breakfast, see you off to work, work out, maybe have lunch with you if it fits into your schedule, do the grocery shopping, handle my continuing education bullshit as it comes up, cook dinner, and then just generally be of use in the evenings.” Her voice stayed even, but her nipples tightened and her thighs squeezed together.
“What kinds of rituals would you put into that?”
“No clothing upstairs, loose dresses without underwear downstairs.” He lifted a brow. “And if you’re ours, you’ll learn orgasm control, and you’ll be punished if you have one without permission once you’ve been properly trained.”
And fuck, her body didn’t just betray her — it prostrated itself. Her clit throbbed so hard it felt like it had its own heart pumping away inside of it.
And her scent gave every bit of it away.
She pursed her mouth, trying not to squirm. “I want to say no to that, but clearly, my subconscious thinks it’s hot.”
“If we’d done a scene today,” Boone said, “you’d have learned ten positions, some difficult to hold, others all about grace, and you’d have moved between them as named, punished every time you hit ten errors.”
The images slammed into her: training, discipline, repetition. Earned approval.
Boone looked at Kenny, who said, “I don’t punish masochists with enjoyable pain.
No spankings. In my world, tardiness is punished, sloppy service is punished, a wandering mind is punished.
I don’t expect perfection in everything, but errors above a certain watermark will result in consequences, and whether the discipline will be physical, psychological, or a combination of the two will be entirely up to us. ”
He tilted his head. “Whatever it takes to shape you into what we need, to break you into our rules, to train you to our requirements.”
Fuck, but that’s what she’d wanted from James. A system. A path. Expectations that mattered. Consequences that meant something.
And her day planned out. No surprises. Orders to follow, pleasure to provide.
Her voice came quieter this time, edged with hunger. “What would a typical true punishment be?”
Kenny sat back. “Nettles in your underwear and bra. Kneeling on dry rice. Writing lines with a pepper-infused butt plug in your ass. A soapy enema. Mouthsoaping. I find that for certain offences, those last two work well in concert together.”
She swallowed, her thighs tensing at the imagined heat of pepper oil prickling between her butt cheeks, the phantom taste of bitter soap coating the back of her tongue. “Yeah. I can see those would get someone’s attention.”
Kenny smiled.
Silas leaned forward, his voice casual and a little smug. “If we’re talking about for-real shit now, then it’s time I stop pretending.”
He waited until she looked at him. Let the silence stretch.
“I’m a sadist. No sugar-coating it. I’m going to hurt you.”
Willow froze. Not entirely fear, but like her body couldn’t quite process the blunt force honesty of his words. Her stomach fluttered. Part of her wanted to run, but a darker part wanted to kneel.
“I’ll want your obedience, yeah. But that’s not the end of it.” His voice dropped lower, slower. “I’ll want to tie you down and hurt you. Not once. Not a scene here and there. Over and over again. Not because you’ve done something wrong — but because I want to.”
The words hit like a gut punch. Her pulse went wild.
His gaze didn’t leave hers. “Eventually, we’ll play without a safeword. I know that won’t happen next week. But that’s the goal. You’ll cry real tears. You’ll beg for the pain to stop.”
He tilted his head, lips curling in something between a grin and a threat. “But it won’t. Not when you think you’ve had enough. Not when your voice shakes or your eyes plead. It’ll stop when I’m satisfied. Not a second before.”
Willow couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Heat and terror and arousal crashed together inside her like a fucking avalanche — or a damned landslide. She could feel her skin flush from the inside out, like her whole body was blushing.