Leather & Lace: Trident Security Book 1 (16 page)

"It does take a while to get used to. When I first started taking Kay to clubs, it flustered her more than the actual scenes. Causal conversation is hard when you're trying not to stare at a chick's who-ha and jugs or a guy's junk."

They all burst out laughing again, drawing even more attention to themselves but they couldn't help it. Will was almost crying. "Who-ha and junk? Are those actual medical terms, Doctor? Yes, Mrs. Smith, your son playing with his junk is normal and your teenage daughter's who-ha hasn't been popped yet but she needs to get a bra for those jugs."

Kristen almost fell out of her chair because she was laughing so hard her cheeks and stomach ached. The others were just as bad. It took several minutes to get themselves back under control because they couldn't look at each without losing it again. She waved her hands in front of her tear-filled eyes. "Oh my God, Will, you did not just say that."

"Of course I did sweet cheeks. It's what I'm here for...to look good for the men and to be a comic relief and fashion stylist for my girls. Now get back to the juicy details, like why you're still wearing his collar. I may not be into kink," he pointed to her neck, "but I do know what one of those means."

"You fucking bitch!"

Startled, Kristen and her friends looked up to see a very pissed off woman standing over her. She was shocked when she realized it was the red-head whose butt she'd kicked last night. Heather or Melissa–she wasn't sure who was who. Either way, Kristen wasn't going to stay in a vulnerable position so she stood, as did Roxy and Will who were sitting on either side of her, while Kayla looked on from her seat tucked away in a corner.

"Because of you I lost my membership to the club, you bitch."

There was pure venom in her words and rage in her eyes but Kristen refused to back down even though they were making a public scene. She'd bested the woman the night before and she would do it again today. She kept her voice calm, which was sure to piss the red-head off even more. "No,
you
lost your membership because
you
and your cohort were bullying a sweet, innocent girl who was too afraid of you to stand up for herself. It's what bully-bitches like you do. But I told you last night and I'll tell you again...I'm not afraid of you so if you want to try to take me on, I'll be more than happy to drop you on your fugly face again."

She took a step forward but Roxy was quicker and moved in front of her, facing the woman who had interrupted their brunch with her rudeness. If she hadn't learned Roxy was a BDSM top, Kristen may not have noticed the authority in her voice but now she clearly recognized the low don't-fuck-with-me-or-you'll-regret-it tone of a Dom/Domme and she knew she'd never want to be on the good doctor's bad side. "Heather, I don't know if you remember me, but your friend, Scott, is an associate of mine from the hospital. And I doubt you want me to have a conversation with him over your behavior today because from the sound of things, I'm sure he's already angry with you. Now I suggest you leave or I'll be calling Scott faster than you can say 'yes, Ma'am.' Do I make myself clear?"

Kristen watched as Heather paled more and more with every word Roxy spoke. The Domme doctor was a healthy size ten and five-eleven in her low heels so she could be daunting when she wanted to be. She towered over the now-very-intimidated sub who Kristen expected to either pass out or pee in her pants. Without saying anything more the woman spun around and tore out of the restaurant leaving two other women to take off after her, obviously confused about what just happened. Roxy turned and looked at Kristen, her eyes gleaming with mischief. "Oh, girl, I can tell you haven't gotten to the good parts yet and I can't wait to hear them."

As the three of them sat back down, Kayla batted her eyes at her wife and crooned, "I love when you go into your protective Wonder Woman persona. It's such a turn on." She then looked at Kristen while flagging down their waitress at the same time. "Start dishing girl, this is going to be good. Waitress, another pitcher of mimosas, please."

At a quarter after seven that night, Kristen was slicing tomatoes in Devon's kitchen for a salad she was throwing together. Across the island from where she worked, the man's broad back was turned to her as he sautéed a skillet filled with penne ala vodka. He was handsome, a good conversationalist, an even better Dom, incredible at sex and now, he cooked! What more could a girl want?

She hadn't eaten anything since noon and now her stomach was growling. The rest of brunch had been uneventful as she recapped for her friends the remaining details of her date. She told them enough to satisfy their curiosity but still kept many of the details to herself.

She felt so at ease with Devon as they prepared then ate their dinner and it felt like they'd known each other a lot longer than they actually had. He talked about his day taking care of the security of a king and some spoiled princess from a small country in Africa and she told him about her brunch at The Gallery, complete with the run-in with Heather. At first he reacted as if he wanted to commit murder but calmed after she explained how Mistress Roxanne had taken over. "Roxy's wife, Kayla, told me they applied for membership at The Covenant a few months ago. They currently go to another club, I think she called it 'Heat,' but since Roxy is a pediatrician, Kayla said they wanted the increased privacy your club provides."

"What's their last name? I'll tell Mitch to put their application at the top of the list. As long as there are no red flags, we'll have it approved within the next few weeks. It's the least I can do for the way she protected my sub."

Her heart did a little flutter when he said 'my sub.' She knew he didn't mean it as possessive as she thought it sounded by she still liked it. "It's London and thanks. That would be so great. They're a really nice couple and I know they'd appreciate the gesture."

"There's nothing to appreciate. It's my way of thanking them."

They sat down at the dinner table with Devon at one end and Kristen in the seat catty-cornered to him. She picked up her fork and pointed it at him before digging into her meal. "So tell me more about your family since I told you about mine last night. You said your parents are Marie and Chuck Sawyer. Can I assume your dad's real name is Charles or Charlie?" Out of the blue, the name clicked in her brain. Her eyes grew wide and the fork slipped from her fingers and clattered against her plate. "Oh. My. God. Your dad is Charles Sawyer?
The
Charles Sawyer? I read an article about him in
People
magazine. He's like the Trump of the Carolinas and Virginias."

He laughed and shook his head in amusement. "Don't tell him that, dad doesn't get along with Trump. He thinks he's too egotistical."

She couldn't believe he was joking how his
billionaire
father–yes that was with a
B
–didn't care for another
billionaire
like they were two neighborhood guys who didn't get along. The man in front of her was the heir to a fortune which ninety-nine point nine percent of the population could only dream of. Holy crap! She picked up her fork again. "Didn't I...didn't I read how he and your mom were raised in middle-class families and he started with a small real estate agency?"

He took a bite of pasta, chewed then swallowed. "Yup, it's true. Two years before Ian was born, dad managed to buy his first apartment building out of a foreclosure. The man is shrewd, a quick study and some would say, extremely lucky. By the time I was three or four, he'd made some wise investments and owned a bunch of buildings and strip malls in both North and South Carolina and built his empire from there. He's the CEO of Sawyer-O'Toole, which is Mom's maiden name, but his staff and the board handle the day-to-day operations when he's travelling with my mom.

"Is that how you had the money to start your businesses? Oh, wait! There I go again, don't answer that." She had to stop putting her foot in her mouth because it didn't seem to have a filter around him.

"No, don't worry about it. We grew up comfortable, more comfortable than my parents did when they were young. But mom and dad always made sure we weren't spoiled. We did chores for our allowances and went to public schools. I told you how we worked in the poor countries my parents took us to. At fourteen, when we were old enough to get our working papers, we had to either get jobs or volunteer an average teenage work week at a non-profit organization. When we graduated from high school, we had to choose between a four year college degree, holding at least a 3.6 GPA or four years in the military. Dad had served a four year stint in the Army before marrying my mom and always said that's when he grew up and became a man.

"Dad set us all up with trust funds but we couldn't access them until we were thirty. At eighteen we started receiving a small monthly stipend which was only enough for bare-bones living expenses. If we wanted anything more, it had to come from an earned paycheck. Nick hasn't even gotten access to his full trust yet since he's only twenty-five. Anyway, Ian and I used part of our trust money to purchase this compound, start our security business, Trident Security, and the club. My father might have given us the seed money but he made sure we earned it over the years and knew what it was like to work hard for what we wanted. In the Sawyer family, life was not handed to you on a silver platter. My folks are the greatest and kindest people I know and they taught us what it meant to have pride in ourselves, our work and the world around us."

Kristen was impressed with his parents' dedication to raising their sons the right way. "Wow, I went to school with a bunch of spoiled kids who could've learned so much from your parents. Most of the kids nowadays expect everything to be handed to them with no work involved. So, you and your brothers all choose the Navy over college?"

Sadness clouded his handsome features and he swallowed hard. He seemed to be struggling with how to answer her. Not wanting him to be uncomfortable, she was about to change the subject when he stood, walked over to the entertainment unit and picked up the photo of the four brothers she'd been looking at the night before. "Ian went into the Navy right after high school but I chose college. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a business major, in fact. Ian's two years older than me. He was off saving the world while I was partying after classes. I still managed a 3.8 GPA my first semester, although, it might have been higher if my statistics class hadn't been so early in the morning."

He sat back down next to her and handed her the framed picture. He seemed to forget he'd told her who was who last night and pointed to each of the four young boys in the photo. "This is Ian right before he left for basic training. That's me, and the little guy is Nick who was about six back then. And this here is my brother John."

The odd tone of his voice when he mentioned John had Kristen studying the photo a little bit more. Devon and John each had one of their arms around their older brother's shoulders while Ian held Nick under his armpits so the boy's feet were hanging in mid-air. All four of them were mugging for the camera. "He looks exactly like you. Are you twins?"

"A lot of people got us confused, but no we weren't. We were Irish twins though, since he was eleven months younger than me." She noticed the past tense he was now using. "And Nick was a surprise. Anyway, John and I hung out with a lot of the same people since we were so close in age but he was a year younger in school. During high school we partied like most kids, finding ways to get beer and liquor without getting caught. I knew he was drinking a lot on the weekends, but hell, we all were. For the most part, we managed to keep our parents from finding out but there were a few times we weren't as careful as we thought which resulted in getting grounded. When that happened, Mom would give the housekeeper a few days off with pay and we had to clean the house for her, while completely hung over. I didn't know which was worse, the sound of the vacuum on a pounding head or cleaning the bathrooms which five guys used." He let out wry chuckle and shook his head at the memory. His meal forgotten, he took a deep breath and continued. "Anyway, John got hooked on alcohol and I never knew it. None of us did. I didn't think a seventeen year old kid could be an alcoholic, but I was wrong.

"I'd returned to college for my second semester. Christmas and New Year's had been great. Ian couldn't make it but was able to call home from somewhere overseas, I forget where, on Christmas morning which, of course, made my mom and Nick's day. I was back at school, getting settled into my new classes, hanging out with my friends again. I'd hooked up with this girl right before vacation and we picked right up were we left off. We were making out in my room one Friday night after a few hours at a local bar. There was a knock at my door. I had her half-dressed and we were laughing and having fun like normal nineteen-year-olds, so I yelled at whoever it was to fuck off. The knocking turned into pounding and I got up to open the door and tell whoever it was to take a hike. It was my dad and my Uncle Dan, Mitch's dad. The look on their faces...I assumed it was Ian but it wasn't. It was John.

"He'd ditched school that morning after mom, dad and Nick left for work and school. I don't recall why but the housekeeper was off that day, too. Dad forgot something in his home office and swung by to pick it up at lunchtime. He found John on the kitchen floor with one and a half empty bottles of vodka. He drank so much he passed out, then vomited and aspirated. There was nothing the EMT's could do. We found out later his blood alcohol level was four times the legal limit. Here I was having a great time, partying at school and making out with some girl, trying to get into her pants, while my kid brother was on a medical examiner's table."

Sometime during his story Kristen had moved her chair closer and now had one hand on his. "It wasn't your fault. Alcoholics are usually pretty good at hiding their problem. John obviously hid it well so you can't blame yourself."

"Part of me knows that now but part of me will always carry the guilt of knowing my brother was spiraling out of control and I didn't stop it. I saw he'd been drinking a lot over the winter recess but I refused to admit he had a problem. Anyway, it took three days to get Ian home from the middle of nowhere and then we went through the whole Irish wakes and funeral. The night of the funeral, a few family members came back to the house after the service and restaurant get-together.

"I don't know why but I hadn't cried at all the entire week, I guess I was numb. I was sitting on the patio with Mitch's older brother, DJ–Dan Jr.–and Ian came out with a couple of beers for us. I took one sip, maybe two and threw up all over the place. Once there was nothing left in my stomach, I dry-heaved for almost an hour, and then I broke down and cried. Ian sat on the grass with me and didn't let go of me until I got myself back under control. I haven't touched a sip of alcohol since." Devon took a deep breath and was horrified to realize a lone tear was falling down his left cheek. Kristen took her hand off his arm and wiped it away with her fingers. "I can't believe I told you all of that. My team knows the basics of what happened but I've never told anyone the whole story."

She leaned forward and brushed her lips against his before sitting back again. "I'm honored you told me. I'm sorry you had to go through that. I don't have any brothers or sisters, but if I did, I don't think I would've survived the same kind of loss without having a complete breakdown."

A little embarrassed about crying in front of her, he stood and began to clean up from their meal. "Well, for a while there I didn't think I would survive, either. I didn't go back to school after the funeral. John had wanted to follow Ian into the Navy. Since he couldn't, I guess I thought I should go in his place. Whatever the reason, it was the best decision I ever made and I've never regretted it. The Navy gave me a purpose and a way to control the guilt I felt."

Following him into the kitchen, she began to put away the leftovers in a container he handed her while he tackled the dirty dishes and pots. "Is that why you started playing in the lifestyle? For the control?"

He nodded. "Ian thought it would help me get past it and in some ways it did. At least it gave me an outlet to release the grief which had built up over time."

They finished cleaning up in silence and the domesticity of their actions had her suddenly longing for something more. Something she swore she didn't want and Devon told her he couldn't give her. Something which would last a lifetime. But she wouldn't have a lifetime with him. She would only have this weekend.