Teddy Bear Sir (The Sloan Brothers Book 3)

"They" say that I'm shy.  "They" don't know what the hell they're talking about.  Both of my brothers are outgoing and people pleasers.  They're the face of Sloan Enterprises, while I'm in charge of Research and Development.  It suits me.  I'm not shy, I'm observant.  There's a difference.  My brother Deacon is married to a wonderful, assertive woman.  They're a perfect match.  My brother Anton is busy chasing her sister, when she's not chasing him.  They'll work it out.

Me?  My name is Pierce Alexander Sloan, but certain women, and now one in particular, is allowed to call me, “Sir”.

I suppose I should start at the beginning.  If I’m going to tell you my story, I should probably tell you my whole story, for the sake of accuracy.

My family was never wealthy.  I learned the value of hard work and ingenuity at an early age.  My older brothers and I got an excellent education in the “real world” from our parents.  Then we applied it, along with our college educations, and conquered that “real world”.  Do you know how you know you’ve made it?  You make people nervous.  They talk about you.  Good, bad, it doesn’t matter.  You generate conversation.  They’re curious, so they make things up.  People that know you, correct them and add truth to the fiction.  Like I said, doesn’t matter.  People talk about you, keeping the myth and mystery alive.  The Sloans have most definitely, “made it”.

Deacon, my oldest brother, went to Harvard.  Leave it to Deke to choose style over substance.  The only time I can say that was not the case with him, was when he hooked up with Dorothy, his wife.  I loved that woman from the moment I met her.  Not “love” love mind you, best-friend, sisterly love.  She does that to you.  She makes you want to make her cocoa and tell her your secrets.  She’s fun and down-to-earth.  Easy to relax with.  Deacon is not, but she’s teaching him.  Her pregnancy with Brian is helping.  Brian is helping us all in very strange ways.  Ever since we learned the sex of the baby, he’s been Brian and the topic of a lot of conversations.

We’re all making plans around the little guy, especially us guys.  Indoctrination into all that is “Sloan” will be important, because his mother and aunt are crazy.  Having said that, I’m going off track.  We’ll get back to Brian because ultimately, he is what saved us.  All of us.

If you’ve kept up, then you’ll already know most of what I’m about to tell you.  If not, let’s go to school.

The eldest of my brothers, Deacon, went to Harvard to study Business.  He’s the face of Sloan Enterprises and he’s good at it.  He’s the consummate ass-kisser.  He knows what people want to hear, how they want to hear it, and how loud or soft to give it to them in order to close the deal.  If you’re intent upon climbing the corporate ladder, read my brother’s biography.  It should be christened the Business Bible.

The next brother in line to the throne, is my brother Anton.  You know how Prince William has Harry?  Well Deacon, has Anton.  He’s a loose cannon.  I’d tell you that he was basically harmless, but that would be a lie.  He’s dangerous.  Mostly to himself and anyone that cares about him, but that doesn’t excuse him.  He could care less what’s printed about him in the papers, and at times, that makes Deacon’s job extremely difficult.  Sometimes I think that if Anton wasn’t so good at Marketing, Deke would throw him and his Princeton education right out on his carefree ass.

While we’re on the subject of Anton, there is something else worth mentioning.  He’s going through a metamorphosis at the moment and it’s fun to watch.  He’s recently engaged to Dorothy’s sister, Melody.  Melody is another loose cannon and they often open fire on one another.  Case and point:  He slapped a tracking bracelet on her ankle while she was sleeping.  Seriously.  She woke up, whacked out, and laid into him.  He had reason to be concerned.  She’d done something foolish that turned dangerous, without telling anyone.  She spent three days in a coma and several more in the hospital.  Anton almost lost his mind.

When she went off the ledge over the ankle bracelet, he snapped and ended it with her.  He walked out and didn’t look back.  Oh he drove all of us batshit crazy, but he didn’t say a word to her.  She kept the damned bracelet on.  I know her.  I think she did it to prove a point.  She probably wanted him back as well, she’s insanely crazy about him (I have no clue why), and in the end it worked.  She’s still tracking and now she’s wearing his ring again.

As a matter of fact, it caused Anton to do something that shocked us all.  I bet Deacon five-hundred dollars that Anton wouldn’t go through with the wedding.  “They”, whoever “They” are, came up with the phrase, “commitmentphobe” after meeting Anton.  I’m sure of it.  He sweats when he hears the Wedding March.  If someone starts singing Ave Maria in a church, he puts in ear buds and cranks Metallica.  Orchids and Orange Blossoms make him break out in hives, and he hibernates for the entire month of June.

Okay, I made that last part up.  But he IS that bad.  People say that Deacon was the “Lone Wolf” and to some extent that might have been true.  But when he met Dorothy, he was as docile and loyal as a beagle puppy.

Not Anton.  Even the magic of Melody couldn’t lure him in for ages.  Finally, it hit home when she smacked him with an ultimatum one night.  A switch flipped and right in front of the whole lot of us, he announced he was engaged.  He hadn’t even proposed yet.  And THAT my friends, is Anton in his purest form.  Getting the picture?

Fast forward several weeks.

Their wedding is this weekend.  We’re all flying out to Vegas.  They’re tying the knot (if Mel’ has a brain in her head, she’ll tie it on the back of a straightjacket), and then we’re off to Catalina Island for some fun and relaxation.  It’s a much needed break from the stress we’ve all been going through lately.  Ayla and I are almost at the breaking point and if we don’t find some common ground, I’m afraid it’s going to end and the ending won’t be pretty.  Let me explain.

Ayla came from an abusive and screwed up relationship.  Her ex, Anthony Marconi, is or was, a boxer.  I’ve only seen photos, but he’s a large man.  He’s also a Dom.  Ayla weighs maybe one-twenty soaking wet with a snowsuit and boots on.  She met him young and he indoctrinated her into his world as a Sub.  From the sound of things, he almost killed her.

They became engaged and she ran out on their wedding day, taking her brother with her.  That’s how they came to New York from Boston.  They started a new life and that was that.  Only it wasn’t.  Tony started stalking her.  A friend of theirs, Chase McCartney, is a Detective in Boston.  He’s been helping them keep an eye on things.  That’s how HE came to have a temporary residence in the city as well.  Tony started making his presence known.

He allegedly firebombed Austin’s bar, (that’s Ayla’s brother) the Cheeky Monkey, and he also supposedly trashed their apartment.  None of these have been proven yet, but he holds the honor of first in line of suspects.  The worst of his antics by far though, was his kidnapping of Melody.  He drugged her, handcuffed her naked to his bed, and then started threatening her with all kinds of sordid things.

He had no clue who he was dealing with.

As the course of events played out, one thing led to another and Mel’ was quite literally faced with his male appendage.  She opened her mouth (as she can never seem to keep the damned thing closed) and Tony made the fatal mistake of inserting said appendage.

Long story short, she was found battered and nude in Central Park with a mouthful of blood and a shit-eating grin, and he has yet to surface in an emergency room.  However if I may interject an opinion here, I think I’d have that looked at if I were him.  Embarrassing or not, as a Dom, he may need that in the future.

That hospitalization led to Melody wearing the ankle bracelet, and the rest of us anxiously looking over our shoulders.  Especially Ayla.

The very first time I met Ayla, I was in a strip bar that Anton had dragged us to for Deacon’s bachelor party.  The girls were dragged there by Melody who was hot on the heels of Anton.  He’d broken up with her, yet again, so that he’d be free to sample the wares of any obliging and unsuspecting pole dancer or stripper.  At this point, I have to ask the question, why does everyone constantly underestimate Melody?

I’ve been enthralled with her from the moment I met her.  Don’t confuse my emotions with love.  Although I’ve come to love Melody the same way that I love Dorothy, I’m enthralled with Melody because she’s not afraid to push my buttons.  It’s not that I generate fear, but I do command respect.  As I said in the beginning, people assume I’m shy because I’m the quiet Sloan.  It’s been speculated that I wear three piece pajamas to bed.  Yes, I’ve heard that one and countless others.  I’m fine with all of it.  I like being the “buttoned down” brother of the three.  It throws off suspicion.  Or it did until Ayla entered the picture.

Ayla took a job as Melody’s accountant and assistant.  Melody owns her own fashion house and she’s quite good at what she does.  That’s how I know that Ayla is good as well.  Melody would never have subpar intelligence in her circle.  She’s too shrewd for that.  Both Sean, her other creative genius, and Ayla are the cream of the crop.  They quickly became friends.

That friendship is what led her to be in Melody and Dorothy’s company on the fateful night of our meeting.

Melody spied Anton getting a rather enthusiastic lap dance and stormed the gates.  Pandemonium ensued and she ended up with a broken hand from punching a bouncer.  It’s a long story and it’s been told ad nauseum.  Suffice to say, Deacon protected Dorothy, and Ayla fell to me.  She had taken one look at me, told the sisters that I was a “Dom”, and the seed was planted.  When I pulled her from the fray and she called me, “Sir”, I should have corrected her or at the very least appeared shocked.  I did neither.  The seed took root.

That brings us to my relationship with Melody.  She took the Dom reference in stride and decided that if I was indeed a Dominant in the bedroom, then I probably wasn’t a very good one.  She started calling me “Teddy Bear” as a derogatory nickname and it stuck.  She’s the first woman to ever openly question my authority and it annoyed me at first.  Then I got to know her and it didn’t bother me as much.  It was always said with affection and at times when I needed the reminder that I was worthy of affection.  I came to look at her as a good and trusted friend.  For Christmas, she gifted me with a class in, “How to become a Dom”, that was offered from a local BDSM club.  She’s a friend with a dry sense of humor.

Then, the recent thing between her and Tony happened and I started looking at her in a whole new light.  I started to understand that not only could she talk the talk, that woman walked the walk.  She’s a force of nature and it would behoove my brother to remember that.

It also presented me with a unique opportunity.  One I could not pass up.  She now has her own affectionate nickname.  I call her, “Jaws”.  Pun intended.  It almost killed her.  It took me awhile to forgive her.  I kept thinking that if she belonged to ME, I’d of strapped that tracking device around her pretty neck.  Yes folks, I’d have collared her with a home incarceration device.  She’s lucky she ended up with the stupid Sloan.  But I digress.  We were talking about Ayla.

The night of the club fiasco, I took Ayla home.  With me.  That in and of itself is unheard of.  I do not bring strange women to my home.  I do not bring any women to my home.  My home is off limits to anyone that does not include family.  I do that for a reason.  I’m a Sloan.  I’m in the top fifty of the one hundred wealthiest eligible bachelors in the country.  I was educated at M.I.T. and I graduated second in my class.

What I’m driving at is this:  I’m not a fool.  I may have strange sexual proclivities, but I do not engage in those in my home.  To put a very crude and base spin on it, I do not shit where I eat.  There are clubs for that and if a woman prefers, we can go to her residence.  It’s not like I have several women or do this on a regular basis.  I don’t.  When it comes into play, I play somewhere else.  Plain and simple.

Ayla was different from the beginning.  No one had ever called me Sir before without being instructed to do so.  It rattled me to my foundation.  I needed to talk to her and get some things straight.  I needed to set some boundaries before things got out of hand.  She didn’t know me and I didn’t know her.  The wrong word in the wrong place could prove disastrous and I wasn’t sure I wanted to “play” with her anyway.  I tend to like my Subs...more submissive, for lack of a better word.  She wasn’t allowed to rattle me.  It wasn’t in my rulebook.

I know I’m skipping all over the place with my retelling of events, but it can’t be helped.  Whenever I consider Ayla or Melody, my mind is a jumbled mess of incidents and potential disasters yet to come.  I know I could walk away from this unscathed if I simply chose not to participate, but honestly.  Where’s the fun in that?  My life was a dull series of days and nights strung together until these two ladies entered in a whirlwind, sucking all of us in as they went along.  I’ve come to believe that my destiny is to see it through, regardless of how it ends.

Do you see how easily they distract me?  I was telling you about my relationship with Ayla.

Melody will tell you that Ayla is tall.  Ayla is not tall.  Melody believes herself to be tall, and we argue that point.  She says that she’s five foot seven.  I’ll tell you know, she’s five foot five if she’s an inch.  Ayla comes in at a little less than that.  I’m six-two and she comes to my shoulder.  Not quite a foot shorter, but not far off either.  Her hair is a long mass of auburn curls that she never seems to know what to do with.  Her eyes are a magnificent sky blue that reveals every thought and emotion she’s having.  At least to me they do.  She cannot keep a secret from me and I believe that’s the main reason I’ve hung in there as long as I have.  Her eyes and her voice.  Her voice is raspy sometimes and reminds me of warm whiskey and sex.  When she laughs, it’s low, slow, and honest to God I feel my body gravitating to the sound.