Chapter 16
THEODORE
I make sure everything’s prepared for us by the time Desiree gets home. I told her to take her time because I knew she had a few errands to run after the spa, which gave me exactly what I needed to get ready for us.
Desiree has been walking around for the past month working, laughing, checking in on Lizzie and Jetta. Letting me touch her, kiss her, fuck her, hold her after. But there’s something she’s been keeping just out of reach, and I know my woman too well to pretend I don’t see it.
The morning after Bryce and Linden left our house, the concierge service erased them from the lifestyle in ways they probably still haven’t figured out.
Their profiles were gone, their contracts terminated, and permanent bans went out through every private channel the agency controlled.
Legal notices followed with security footage from inside and outside our home attached, in case either one of them ever tried that shit with Desiree, Lizzie, Jetta, or another woman tied to the network.
The concierge was serious about the service they provided.
For the amount of money they charged, they’d better be.
She told me she wanted time before we went back through the concierge.
I gave her that, and I’ll keep giving her that, because choosing Desiree means choosing the life she wants, the privacy she protects, and the appetite she refuses to apologize for.
I made her my responsibility when I chose to love her inside that life.
So if she decides she never wants another man in this house again, I’ll close that door and leave it that way.
But if that want is still in her, if she still wants another man while I watch, guide, correct, approve, and send him back where he belongs when she’s done using him, then nobody gets to make her treat that desire like something she’s forbidden to have.
I’ll be damned if anyone gets to take her power like that.
So this evening is a reminder. It’s about showing Desiree that what we built still belongs to us and we control our pleasure how we see fit.
Her gold-linked leash rests beside the black paddle with Honey engraved in the center.
The oil is warming, there’s a towel folded over the arm of the chaise, and the lube’s already within reach.
Her favorite teakwood candles burn on the shelves, not enough to choke the room, but enough to put smoke, cedar, and amber in the air before I ever put my hands on her.
Dinner is covered downstairs. I made the lamb chops the way she likes them, seared hard with brown sugar bourbon glaze and enough char on the fat to make her close her eyes at the first bite.
There’s crab dirty rice in the covered skillet, garlic butter folded through it, cayenne tucked under the richness, green onion still fresh on top.
She’s going to need this after I drain everything from her.
The security system alerts me to a vehicle in the driveway. A few seconds later, I hear the garage door open.
I head downstairs, ready to greet my woman, and find her standing near the entry table in the black dress she wore to Calming Luxe, skin glowing, hair pinned up, her body already deciding whether it wants to behave.
Her eyes drop to the paddle in my hand.
“Well,” she says. “Somebody’s been busy.”
“Shoes off.”
I see her eyes skip from my face to the paddle in my hand and back again.
“Don’t make me repeat myself.”
She looks at me a little longer, then steps out of her heels. One. Then the other.
“Take your shower and come straight to the Alpha suite when you’re done.”
Upstairs, past our bedroom, double walnut doors wait where most people would mistake them for a private sitting room if they ever made it that far. But nobody comes up here unless Desiree and I allow it.
The room was built for her, not copied from some rich man’s fantasy of control.
Wide plank floors. A deep green velvet chaise positioned beneath the smoked mirror she once pretended not to love.
A custom cabinet built into the far wall, every drawer lined in suede, every piece cleaned, wrapped, and returned to its place.
“Where else would I be waiting?”
“You could’ve just said you missed me.”
“I did miss you.”
Her mouth curves.
“Now I’m going to deal with you.”
“Anything else, Alpha?”
I step close enough to put the paddle against the outside of her thigh. “Don’t take too long. I’ve got everything prepared specifically to your liking.”
I let her walk away from me, taking the stairs like she doesn’t know I’m standing there with a paddle in my hand, watching that black dress pull over her ass with every step.
The shower turns on upstairs, and I use that time to make sure the final touches are right in the suite.
I go back to the room and close the doors behind me. Setting the paddle back down, I test the oil against my wrist. Everything is exactly where I need it, which means now there’s nothing left to do but strip out of everything and wait for her.
When I’m done, I’m naked in the center of the room with Desiree’s gold leash in one hand and my dick hard in the other.
Waiting turns into its own kind of punishment.
This woman hasn’t touched me yet, hasn’t put her mouth on me, hasn’t given me one wet inch of herself, and I’m already standing here like this because I know what she’s about to walk into.
After about fifteen minutes, the shower cuts off and I hear her footsteps outside the room. No rush. Desiree knows I told her not to make me wait, and she still takes her time because testing me is one of her favorite ways to get exactly what she wants.
The knob turns, and in she struts, taking in all that’s waiting for her.
She’s wearing the robe I left for her, black silk loose around her body, belt barely tied, skin damp in the places the towel didn’t catch. Her hair is wrapped up, her face clean, her mouth ready.
Then she sees me.
Naked.
Dick bricked.
Ready.
Her eyes drop before she can stop them, and I let her look because she needs to understand what she did before she even opened the door.
“Oh.” She brings her eyes back to mine. “The leash before dinner? That’s bold.”
“Bold is taking your time after I told you not to.”
Her lips make their way upward.
“Down,” I tell her.
Smiling like the floor was her idea, she lowers herself to her knees, her teeth pulling her bottom lip in while her need to be nasty is itching to take over.
“Make your way to me.”
Crawling across the floor in that barely tied robe, she never looks away but takes her time because she knows exactly what it does to me.
When she reaches me, I kneel in front of her and bring the links to her throat. Then I fit them with two fingers between the metal and her skin. When it sits exactly where I want it, I let the leash fall down the center of her chest.
The gold is hers.
I stand with the end of it in my hand.
“Up.”
She rises.
“Honey is suddenly being a good girl tonight.”
Barely laughing under her breath, she says, “Don’t get used to it.”
I set the end of her chain over my wrist and reach for the belt of her robe. She watches my hands as I untie it. I peel the silk from one shoulder, then the other, and let the robe drop behind her.
I take my time because she deserves that from me. Every inch. Every curve. Every part Bryce’s bitch ass tried to humiliate because his ego couldn’t survive wanting her and still not mattering.
His dumbass.
Standing in front of me, all I can think of is how good God was when He made Honey mine to love so carefully and to fuck this hard.
“Position.”
She looks at the trestle.
Then back at me. “On my back?”
“On your back.”
She climbs on it, body bare against the leather, titties lifted, thighs parted just enough to prove she knows exactly what she is doing.
I move to the head of the table, taking the two other straps in both hands.
Looking down at her, I say, “Hands above your head.”
Stretching her arms above her head, she obeys, opening her chest exactly the way I want.
“Keep them there.”
“Yes, Alpha.”
With one firm pull from each hand, I breathe out, “I want her titties in your mouths.”
Lizzie and Jetta bend over Desiree, their fully exposed bodies framing hers, while they wrap their lips around her nipples, sucking them until their mouths are filled with her titties.
“Good girls.”
Honey grabs at them, one hand in Lizzie’s hair and the other at the back of Jetta’s neck, trying to pull them closer while her hips lift off the leather.
Hooking two fingers between her neck and the links, I pull at her, keeping her where I want her.
“Stay down, Honey.”
“Ah, shit. Just like that”
Silver-linked chains hang from their throats while they lean into my woman, sucking on her like they came here hungry for the privilege.
Desiree’s hands have been out of position too long.
I catch her wrists and press them back over her head.
“Stay where I put you.”
“Oh fuck, Alpha.”
“Word.”
She jerks under their mouths, but she doesn’t pull away. She lies there breathing hard through the shock of being loved with teeth and tongue by two women who came here for her.
“Rewind,” she says. Not as a stop but as an answer.
I look to the left. “Lizzie.”
Lizzie pulls off Desiree’s titty just enough to answer. “Rewind.”
I look to the right. “Jetta.”
Jetta lifts her head. “Rewind.”
“Good.”
This didn’t start tonight. The curiosity came that night after the anger, after the first hard conversation.
Lizzie asked directly because she doesn’t know how to circle a thing when she can walk right up to it.
Jetta took longer. More questions. More caution.
More need to know exactly where the exits were.
Desiree was reluctant at first.
And so was I.
Not because I doubted them. Because curiosity born after violation has to be handled carefully. Nobody was going from betrayal to a bedroom just because the idea made them scared and wet at the same time.