Sophie's Surrender [Viper's Dungeon 4] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (21 page)

* * * *

“Where’s Sophie?” Alex asked as he came to stand beside Adrian.

He pointed his thumb over his shoulder and mouthed the word “bathroom.” Someone had turned the music on full blast, and when it was pounding, it was far easier to read lips and signals than to try and get a conversation heard.

“Is she okay?”

Adrian’s instinct was to nod in reassurance but he wasn’t one hundred percent certain it was correct. He knew that Penny’s “gift” had been a shock to Sophie—and if he’d known what Adam had planned he would have warned her—but he intended to explain as soon as they got home so even if she was a little confused right now she would be okay when she understood.

Alex looked concerned enough to follow her in despite knowing that privacy in the bathroom was one of Sophie’s hard limits.

He leaned close to Alex’s ear to shout over the music. “Gina’s in there. She’ll let us know if something’s wrong.”

Alex nodded, but no longer looked ready to barge into the room and grab their sub.

But when she finally did come through the door, she was so pale he took a step toward her. His heart leapt into his throat when she nervously backed away.

“Sophie?” he asked, still uncertain what to do. Considering that Alex still stood beside him, it was obvious he wasn’t the only one.

She shook her head and pointed to the door on the far side of the room—the one that led to the office area and connected to the apartment. He nodded, grateful that they lived so close. He stepped toward her, intending to lift her into his arms, but again she backed off.

Adrian had no idea where Malcolm came from but he scooped her into his arms, held her tight, and headed toward the apartment. Alex and Adrian were right behind him.

* * * *

Nausea gripped her again by the time they reached the apartment. She managed to mumble the word “sick” into the quieter space and Malcolm thankfully understood. He carried her into the bathroom and sat with her as she dry heaved over the porcelain bowl.

He patted her face with a wet washcloth, his touch comforting, caring, his loving attention making her ache even more.

“I’m sorry,” she finally whispered, the pain in her chest stalling the words that needed to come. She settled for an explanation that might have been true. “It must have been something I ate.”

“It’s okay, baby,” he said as he smoothed the washcloth over the back of her neck. “You’ll feel better soon.”

If only that were true. Her heart was breaking into a million tiny pieces. She didn’t expect to ever feel better again.

* * * *

“She’s finally asleep,” Malcolm whispered as Alex and Adrian stood in the doorway. They both still had that dominating presence that seemed to be so natural for them, but at the moment they were both looked nearly as pale as Sophie. “What happened at the club?”

It was possible that it was just what Sophie had claimed—a touch of food poisoning—but her reaction had been just a little too similar to the way she’d been the day her mother had died, and because of that Malcolm wasn’t willing to accept things at face value.

The fact that she’d backed away from Adrian rather than step into his arms was very concerning. When she was exhausted and vulnerable after a scene, she snuggled into them. It seemed likely she’d react the same way when she was ill, and not pull away as she’d done. Malcolm tried not to think of the way she’d stiffened in his arms when he’d lifted her up and carried her back here. Whatever had happened, it was affecting her deeply.

“She was disturbed by Penny and Adam’s scene,” Adrian said with a shake of his head. “We should have realized he’d plan something like that. We should have warned Sophie of what she might see.”

Malcolm nodded. It hadn’t been a beginners’ scene, but surely considering her own affinity for pain, Sophie would have understood what was happening rather than be offended by it.

“She looked a little pale when she went into the bathroom.” Adrian said carefully, as if he was replaying the events in his head, “but she looked a whole lot worse by the time she came out.”

“Gina was in there with her,” Alex said, his voice a low growl. “She’s been manipulating us for weeks. What’s the bet she said something?”

“What could she say?” Adrian asked quietly. “Even if Gina lied through her teeth, Sophie trusts us. She wouldn’t take anything a stranger said to her as the truth without checking with us first.”

“True,” Malcolm said, feeling certain that was correct. They’d sorted this issue out months ago. “Maybe it really is just food poisoning.” He’d feel better when she woke and explained, but right now he planned to hold on to that thought.

Sophie slammed the door of the oven and prayed for a miracle. She’d spent the last thirty hours dodging questions from three men who cared for her. The last thing she needed was grief from an inanimate object that she could happily smash.

The worst part was that she had no reason to be so angry. None of her men had made any promises. She’d been the one to assume they’d be faithful to her. Considering that she was having sex with all three of them, that was a rather unfair expectation for her to have.

She wasn’t being faithful to any one of them. Why should she expect anything different from them? But such a logical argument did nothing to heal her shattered heart.

She just had to decide if she could live with the idea of them fucking other women when she wasn’t around.

She dropped her head forward, unable to stop the flow of tears. As unreasonable and as unfair as it was, she wanted Alex, Adrian, and Malcolm all to herself.

Hell, she’d rearranged her business, her entire life so that she could spend more time with them. She hadn’t even told them she’d done it. She’d planned to surprise them next week and then dance into the sunset with all three of them beside her. Fuck, she really was an idiot.

“Can I come in?” Maya asked from the doorway.

Sophie startled at the quiet voice, but tried valiantly to hold herself together.

“Sure,” she said, wiping at her eyes and hoping that her face wasn’t too red.

“I brought someone with me,” Maya said, tilting her head toward the woman beside her when Sophie finally turned around.

“Oh…um…hi,” she said, feeling totally out of depth. Maybe she’d spent too much time alone in the past few years, but that really wasn’t an excuse for her lack of social skills. “Um, would you like some coffee?”

“Actually,” the blonde woman said, “it’s a flying visit. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Sophie turned her attention to Maya, uncertain why a stranger would visit her shop to check on her well-being. It took Maya a moment to realize what Sophie wasn’t asking out loud.

“Oh,” she said, rolling her eyes in a self-deprecating sort of way, “Sophie, this is Penny. Penny. Sophie.”

“Penny from Monday night?”

The woman smiled briefly, but then gave her a concerned look. “I noticed that you seemed distressed by the scene Adam and I played. I asked Maya to introduce me so I could to assure you that I’m fine, and that I enjoyed every moment of it.”

“It’s pretty easy to forget what it’s like to be a newbie,” Maya said with a half smile. “After a while we sort of see things through different eyes.” Maya tilted her head to the side and assessed Sophie’s face. “But now I’m wondering if that’s the only thing that upset you the other night.”

Sophie shook her head, whether in denial or admission she wasn’t sure, but when the tears started to flow again, she had two women urging her to sit down. They sat beside her and patiently let her cry things out.

God, she hated crying, but it seemed she’d done an awful lot of it lately.

“Sorry,” Sophie finally managed to say as she wiped her face yet again.

“Don’t be,” Penny said in a friendly tone. “We’ve all been there. Sometimes a girl just has to cry.”

“I don’t know how you two do it.”

Maya gave her a startled look. “Do what exactly?”

“Share your men with the rest of the club. I mean I know it’s part of the lifestyle. Well, I mean, I know
now
that it’s part of the lifestyle but I’m not sure I can live with it.” She was shaking her head, ready to ramble some more when she realized both women were looking at her with shock on their faces.

“I don’t
share
my husbands,” Maya said, her tone suggesting she’d maim any sub who tried.

“Neither do I,” Penny said very deliberately.

“But the other night?” Sophie asked, feeling thoroughly confused.

“Okay, well I kind of do, but not in the way you think. Adam and I belong to a very small, very well-established swingers group. Six men, six women. We’re all very close friends and share an emotional connection. We swap Doms all the time, but we never share outside of the group.”

“Oh,” Sophie said as yet another thing that hadn’t occurred to her filtered into her brain. “I suppose it’s different for Alex, Adrian, and Malcolm since they all work at the club.”

“You think they’re being unfaithful to you?” Maya sounded shocked, perhaps even pissed at her for suggesting it.

“I spoke to a woman last night. She told me all about the ‘sessions’ she’d had with my men in the past few weeks.”

Maya squinted her eyes and sucked air through her teeth, her expression one of distaste. “Tall blonde in need of a good feed?” she asked irritably.

Sophie nodded slowly. “That could probably describe a lot of women,” she offered, worried that she might be lining the wrong woman up in Maya’s sights. Her friend seemed angry enough to smash an oven, too.

“Not at our club it doesn’t,” Penny said, shaking her head in a way that suggested they should have realized what was going on. “Gina has been causing trouble for a good long while.”

“That was Gina?” Sophie asked in shock. “The woman everyone has been worried about? The one who has been spending hours upon hours ‘talking’ to
my
men?”

Penny smiled. “Now that’s more like it,” she said to Maya conversationally. “You were right. She is definitely one of us.”

Maya grinned and nodded, and then turned her attention back to Sophie. “Everyone at Viper’s Dungeon has always known Malcolm is still in love with his ex-wife. I don’t believe for a moment that he would ever be unfaithful to you now that he has you back.”

“The same with Alex and Adrian,” Penny added.

“Sophie, they’re good guys, and they’ve never been happier than they are with you. I guess the question is do you love them enough to trust them?”

Sophie closed her eyes as realization crashed through her.

She hadn’t trusted her men.

She’d listened to a woman who had her own agenda and then backed it up with circumstantial evidence and half-baked theories.

She pursed her lips and gave the two women a pained smile.

“Just one question. How much does the cane hurt?”

* * * *

“She’s pulling away from us,” Malcolm said as Alex and Adrian walked into his office.

Alex rubbed a hand over his forehead, nodded, and then turned to his brother. “Did she say anything this morning when you dropped her at work?”

“Nothing unusual. We had coffee. Chatted about unimportant stuff, and when I asked about her stomach she said she was fine, but very busy.”

“She said the same to me,” Alex said. “She said the vomiting was just an upset stomach, but I saw your reaction Malcolm. You think it’s something more.”

Malcolm nodded, not denying what he’d believed he’d seen.

Adrian grimaced and shook his head. “I can still see the way she flinched away from me. It’s definitely more than a stomach thing.”

“Could she be pregnant?” Alex asked with just a little too much hope in his eyes. “Would she try and hide something like that from us?”

“I don’t know,” Malcolm said, shaking his head tiredly. “I haven’t discussed the future with her. Maybe she thinks we’d be upset.”

“But we all know the proper way to use condoms,” Adrian said, perhaps looking just a little bit pale. “It certainly lessens the chance of an unplanned pregnancy, so maybe it’s not that.”

They may have been dating Sophie for several months now, but between their work hours, the demands of her shop, and the simple fact that there was three of them, the relationship was probably newer than what it felt.

“I just wish I knew what to do to get her to talk to us.”

“You could try a cane,” a soft voice suggested from the doorway.

They all turned to see Sophie standing there, her head bowed, her demeanor that of a submissive who knew she was about to get punished. Cooper was standing behind her, the wide grin on his face fucking annoying. He winked and then turned and walked away, apparently quite pleased that he’d been able to give Sophie a chance to listen in on their private conversation.

“Sophie?” Adrian asked without leaving his seat. Just like Malcolm he was resisting the urge to crowd her, obviously worried about scaring her away.