Sophie's Surrender [Viper's Dungeon 4] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (8 page)

“Sophie!” he said in a sharp warning tone. He’d never spoken to her like that. It was the voice he used when dealing with bratty subs and idiotic Doms. It wasn’t the way he’d ever wanted to speak to the woman he still loved, but the not knowing was making him irrational.

If she didn’t answer him in the next half a second he was driving over there and confronting her face-to-face.

“I–I’m sorry, Malcolm. I shouldn’t have blamed you.” She took a deep shuddering breath and let it out slowly. He recognized her attempt to calm down exactly for what it was. At the end of their marriage she’d done the same thing during nearly every conversation. It pissed him off. He wanted honest emotion, not tightly controlled rationale.

“Sophie, what happened?”

He almost winced at the command in his voice and was really surprised when she started to answer instead of hanging up the phone with angry finality.

“They…um…I spent the night with them. I didn’t know Alex owned Viper’s Dungeon until this morning.”

“Did they hurt you?” Malcolm asked, the memories of watching both Alex and Adrian dealing with subs in the Dungeon combining with his ex-wife’s fear of all dominant men making him want to snap his bosses into tiny little pieces.

He might have been able to contain his rage if Alex hadn’t chosen that moment to walk past his office door.

“I’ll call you back.”

* * * *

Alex was suddenly really glad for his martial arts training and quick reflexes.

Malcolm Richards—employee, very large, highly trained Dom, and a man he thought of as a friend—looked ready to kill him. Alex held up his hands in supplication. Whatever the problem was they were both old enough to settle it without throwing punches…he hoped.

“What did you do to her?”

“Her?” Alex asked, his thoughts immediately turning back to Sophie and her fearful response when she’d learned he and Adrian owned Viper’s Dungeon.

“Sophie,” Malcolm practically growled. His tone of voice was a damn good reminder why he was the head of security here. “Sophie Richards.”

Oh shit! Richards? Malcolm’s sister? Cousin? Some kind of female relation? It was a fairly common family name and until this very moment Alex hadn’t put two and two together.

“Adrian and I spent the night with her,” he said, figuring that it was best to get the whole story out there as quickly as possible. “She’s very special to both of us. We have no intention of hurting her.”

“Too fucking late,” Malcolm said, his fists clenching and unclenching as he tried to control his temper. For a man who was usually tightly controlled and very much in charge, it was an interesting thing to see him struggle with his rage like this. It was also a little unnerving to be the target of the man’s wrath.

Alex wouldn’t go down without a fight, but they could do each other a lot of physical damage if this conversation spiraled out of control.

“What happened?” Alex asked, trying to keep his voice calm. Considering that every muscle in his body was tensed for a fight, it took way more effort than usual. “Did Sophie call you?”

Malcolm closed his eyes and took a couple of deep breaths.

“No,” he said, his fists still clenching and unclenching. “I called her and she accused me of setting her up.”

“Why would she think that?” Alex asked, trying to relax his muscles as Malcolm’s obvious attempt to calm down seemed to lessen the chances of a physical altercation.

“Because Viper’s Dungeon is why she divorced me.”

“She’s your ex-wife?” This was bad, really, really bad. Every member of the club knew Malcolm was still in love with his ex-wife. The fact that it was Sophie somehow didn’t surprise Alex. After only one night he wasn’t willing to let her go either.

Malcolm took a step back and leaned against the wall. He folded his arms and shook his head, staring at the ground as he finally began to explain. “She hates the idea of being a submissive. She never even let me explain the lifestyle I wanted for us both. She just walked away.”

“I’m sorry,” Alex said. He wasn’t apologizing for wanting Sophie. He was only sorry that Malcolm knew what it was like to love the woman and not have that feeling returned. “I doubt it helps, but she pretty much did the same when she learned about me and Adrian. The three of us had an amazing night together, the type of night we hoped might lead to something more permanent, and with a few words it was over.”

“So you’re walking away from her? You’ve had your fun?” Malcolm’s anger was back full force and this time Alex didn’t need an explanation why.

“No, we’re not walking away. We’re giving her space.”

Malcolm shook his head, calming down a little. “It doesn’t work. I’ve given her five years of ‘space.’” He practically spat the word. “She thinks being submissive will make her a sex slave.”

“She’s too independent to be a slave,” Alex said as confusion swirled through him. It had seemed obvious to both him and Adrian that Sophie would only ever submit in the bedroom. She was a strong-willed woman and she would never be happy being told what to do in her day-to-day life.

“I know,” Malcolm said quietly. “But she’s also stubborn enough to not listen.”

“So where do we go from here?” Alex asked.

Malcolm shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“She’s naturally submissive in the bedroom.”

Malcolm glared at him angrily but nodded in agreement.

“If she’s not going to listen, maybe it’s time to show her what our lifestyle is about.”

“Good luck with that,” Malcolm said sarcastically. “You’ll never get her to step foot in this place voluntarily and if you even think about forcing her, I won’t even bother to try and stop myself from ripping you in half.”

Alex smiled. He had no doubt that Malcolm meant every word, but it also proved that he was as protective of Sophie as he and Adrian felt. This wasn’t a territorial “she was mine first” reaction. They were the words of a man who truly cared for his ex-wife.

“I was thinking more along the lines of introducing her to Emma and Maya, perhaps even Bianca if it’s not too soon since the baby’s birth. I think they’d be willing to help us all find the path to true love.”

Malcolm grunted, but didn’t say anything. It wasn’t until that moment that Alex realized he was already thinking of Malcolm as part of the relationship with a woman he and Adrian both adored. Sophie had already accepted two men in her bed at one time.

Perhaps she would consider three.

“I need to make a few phone calls.”

* * * *

Sophie pulled the car into her usual space and tried really hard to find the enthusiasm she’d once felt each morning. She loved baking for the shop, but a part of her had also imagined baking for her family. Special birthday cakes, children’s parties, family milestones, and celebrations had always been a part of her dreams for the future. But with her track record for choosing the wrong men, those dreams seemed further away now than ever.

Her breath caught in her throat when she noticed there was a man standing where Adrian usually waited, but it took another half a second to realize it wasn’t him. She sat in the car, squinting into the dim light and hoping to hell she wasn’t about to be mugged or worse.

Thankfully, he stepped closer to the light and she finally recognized her ex-husband. It was so silly but the disappointment that Adrian wasn’t here combined with the residual fear of not recognizing Malcolm at first, the worry that she’d done the wrong thing by kicking Adrian and Alex out of her bedroom, and the love for her ex-husband that had never truly gone away all rolled into a ball of misery at the pit of her stomach.

She didn’t even realize she was crying until Malcolm stepped closer and opened the door to her car.

“Baby,” he said as he undid her seat belt and lifted her into his arms. She clung to him the way she’d done in the early days of their marriage when she’d been so in love with him she couldn’t see straight. “Don’t cry, Sophie. We’ll find a way to make everything okay.”

She opened her mouth to say that nothing would ever be okay again, but managed only to cry harder. She knew she should insist that he put her down, that leaning on him this way was terribly unfair, but couldn’t form the words. He was a caring, loving, giving man. How would he ever move on to the type of relationship he wanted when he still felt responsible for her?

“I’m sorry,” she said, trying to stop herself from crying.

“It’s okay, baby,” Malcolm said as he cradled her close. “Sometimes it’s necessary for a woman to cry.”

She’d spent her whole adult life trying not to be so stupidly emotional but it felt nice to know Malcolm didn’t think she was attempting to manipulate him with her tears. “Only women?” she asked as a small measure of calm flowed through her.

“Mostly,” he said as he carried her to the back door of her shop. “Men tend to prefer hitting things, but either way it’s cathartic. Bottling the emotions away is not healthy for either sex.”

“Do you hate me?”

“Never,” he said as he put her on her feet and reached for the keys. He had them inside the store in no time, his warm hand wrapped around hers as he led her to the coffee machine. “I was going to suggest you sit down while I make a pot of coffee, but I honestly have no idea what to do with that thing.”

She laughed, despite her misery and lack of sleep. “I need to keep moving anyway. I think if I sit down I might not get back up for several hours.”

“Do you have someone you can call to take over?”

“No,” she said with a tired smile, “but lately I’ve been thinking about maybe hiring someone else.”

“You’ve been here four years, six days a week, and haven’t taken a single day off?”

She nodded, but turned to the coffee machine, too cowardly to see his reaction. If they’d still been married, she might have hired someone to help a long time ago so that her shop was her livelihood, not her life, but with nothing else to do it seemed silly to arrange time off.

When he didn’t say anything, she finally plucked up the courage to look over her shoulder at him.

“This is really why you left me, isn’t it?” he asked as he stepped up behind her and wrapped an arm around her from behind. “You expected that as my submissive that I would try and tell you how to live your life, and when you could and couldn’t work. Maybe even order you not to work.”

“I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “I suppose that was part of it. I was young, just finding my feet as an adult, and I saw what you wanted for us as a threat to that.” She shook her head, leaning back against him even though it was probably the last thing she should do. “But I think it was that I was so crazy in love with you that I probably would have done anything you commanded that scared me the most. I didn’t want to be like my mother—loving a man so hopelessly that she was blind to his faults.”

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them. Malcolm was nothing like her stepfather—not one iota. Comparing the two men was a horrible insult to a man who’d done nothing but love her.

He stayed quiet, perhaps trying to find a diplomatic way to tell her how very wrong she was.

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “That came out all wrong.”

“But I think I understand anyway,” Malcolm said, resting his chin on the top of her head. “I didn’t do a very good job of explaining what I wanted either.”

He held her close for a while, seeming to need to hold her as much as she needed to be held. Considering that they hadn’t actually touched each other since the divorce, it was surprising how familiar his embrace still felt. Unfortunately all that did was make her feel guilty. Intellectually she knew she’d done nothing wrong, but it seemed her emotions didn’t give a damn when it came to logical thinking.

“I’m sorry about Adrian and Al—”

Her words cut off when he turned her to face him. She didn’t really want to look at him at that moment. The soft touch of his hand against her cheek made her want to cry all over again.

“Don’t ever apologize for that, baby. Alex said he and Adrian wanted more than one night. They wanted to begin a true relationship with you but when you found out about them owning Viper’s Dungeon that you freaked out.”

She half giggled, half sobbed at the rather apt description of her behavior.

“Did they do anything that frightened you? Anything that you wouldn’t want to do again?”

“No,” she said, feeling her face heat with embarrassment. This didn’t feel like an appropriate conversation to be having with her ex-husband, no matter how long they’d been divorced.

“So it was only the fact that they own Viper’s Dungeon that scared you?”

She shrugged. Put that way it sounded like she was jumping at shadows.

“Sophie,” he said, lifting her chin so that she had no choice but to look at him, “they sensed what I’ve always known. You’re an independent, self-confident woman who’s in charge of her own life. They wouldn’t take that away from you.”

“But isn’t that what being submissive is all about? Letting someone else take over the decision making?”

“Basically that’s exactly what it is, but not everyone lives it full-time. Most of the subs at Viper’s Dungeon are only submissive in the Dungeon. Outside of it they’re confident, independent women just like you.”