Roses and Chains (11 page)

Authors: Delphine Dryden

Roses and Chains

Chapter Twelve

Pillows.

Mara was aware of pillows, softer than those on her bed, stacked up behind her.

She opened her eyes and blinked at the candlelight, the pink and red and golden shades that slowly resolved into a room.

She was on the Roman orgy couch, propped up at one end with a mound of the

multicolored throw pillows. And she had one leg wrapped over one of Delia’s legs.

Delia was lying next to her, looking as sound asleep as any fairy tale princess. A few long strands of blonde hair had worked loose from her braid and now clung to the

pillow her cheek was resting on. Pink pillow, pink cheek, golden hair.

Mara carefully tucked the errant hair behind Delia’s ear. Then she was taken over

by a stretch that she gave into completely, catlike. Bones and muscles grumbled

companionably and then felt as if they were popping back into place.

“Mmm.”

Her hand flew to her heart at the sound. But it was just Master Daniel. He was

perched on the opposite arm of the long lounge, his feet on the seat, his elbows resting on his knees. It looked as if he’d been watching them sleep.

She took a few seconds to drink him in. Jeans with faded spots worn into them by

use rather than fashion. No shoes. No shirt. He’d put his glasses back on, which made her realize she couldn’t remember exactly when he’d taken them off. Only that when

she’d watched him come earlier, his long face transformed into something almost

frightening but beautiful in its extremity, he hadn’t been wearing them.

His hair was a mess. Even his beard somehow looked rumpled. She’d rarely seen a

guy look quite so freshly fucked.

“You can keep stretching if you want.”

Delphine Dryden

“I’m good, thanks.” The scene was over. She wasn’t sure how she knew, but it just

was. He was no lifestyle Dom. He no longer had his Master hat on.

“We missed you last night.”

It took Mara aback. “You saw me last night. Remember?”

“No, I mean afterward. In the car, at home. It felt strange. Like…like we were

leaving you behind.”

She didn’t know what to say. A hope she didn’t feel entitled to raged sudden and

fierce in her heart.

“Nggg.”

Delia lifted her head and looked around her with all the clarity of a college kid the morning after a three-day-weekend bender. Her eyes took in Daniel, then Mara. After a moment she let her head fall back down, closed her eyes and snuggled closer to Mara’s side.

“We’re keeping the magic pixie, right?” she murmured.

Mara cracked up. Daniel displayed a bit more control.

“She’s not a puppy, Delia. We can’t just take her home like we found her in a

parking lot.”

“Parking lot, bondage club. You say potato…” Mara wasn’t one to quibble over

details like that.

“Mara, we would both really like it if you came home with us tonight.”

She tried to picture their home, their cute suburban couple house, and found she

couldn’t. Cute suburban couples didn’t bring home girls they met at bondage clubs. So it was hard to imagine what the whole thing would look like, her being at their house.

But that didn’t mean her mind didn’t have room to grow. It didn’t mean she couldn’t

learn to handle the consequences of having that rich, ferocious hope fulfilled.

“Maybe just this once.”

Roses and Chains

Epilogue

It wasn’t a very smart precedent to set, subverting a fellow sub just days after their double-collaring. But in Mara’s defense, she had finally convinced Delia to try

something Daniel had never gotten her to do. Not in years of dating and marriage. And it had only taken
Mara
two months.

That was the first thing that came to her mind, anyway, when Daniel opened the

door and found the two of them together. Naked except for their collars and sprawled out with their equipment on the bed.

She cast a longing little glance at Delia as they stopped what they were doing,

wishing they’d had a chance to finish before he caught them. They had been so close.

But there was always next time.

Daniel took his time, loosening his tie and taking off his jacket, hanging it on a

hanger in the closet, clearly choosing his words carefully before expressing himself to the two recalcitrant submissives who now knelt side by side between the bed and the

wall where the big-screen TV was mounted. The graphic computer feed currently

displayed on it was paused in mid-action, as was the content on the screen of Mara’s laptop.

At last, jacket and tie neatly put away, shirt sleeves rolled up, the Master made his way back to the bed and stood looming over the two women, staring from one to the

other in stony silence.

Delia broke first. She hated the waiting, and he knew it. “Master, we’re sorry, we

were just—”

“I didn’t give you permission to speak, sub.”

“Sorry, Master.”

Delphine Dryden

Mara wanted to grab Delia’s fingers, squeeze them, tell her it would be okay. But

she sat with her own hands clasped neatly behind her back, unmoving. She had never

minded waiting, as long as she knew it would be worth her while in the end.

“I’m disappointed in you, Mara. I know you were the one behind this.”

“I’m sorry, Master.”

“You will be making it up to me in the dungeons later.”

“Understood, Sir.”

Daniel had to nudge some equipment and other stuff out of his way with his feet to

clear space by the bed, so he could sit at the foot of it and continue his looming more comfortably.

The empty potato chip wrapper sounded particularly accusatory when it crinkled.

Daniel’s toe caught Delia’s wireless mouse and it tipped over, winking its baleful red eye at her until he carefully righted it.

“Food crumbs on the floor. All this extra gear dragged up here. You two not

waiting for me in bed like you were supposed to be. And yeah, I know I was a half-hour late getting home, there was a wreck on the interstate and traffic was backed up for miles and then my cell ran out of juice. But still.”

He sighed, the deep and long-suffering sigh of a man with responsibilities, whose

followers have minds of their own.

“But that isn’t the real point. The
real point
, ladies, is that if I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a dozen times. The bedroom television is
not
for playing computer games.” He fixed them one at a time with his best, steely, eyebrow-enhanced glare. “The bedroom television is for watching porn.”

About the Author

After earning two graduate degrees, practicing law awhile and then working for the

public school system for over ten years, Delphine finally got a clue. She tossed all that aside and started doing what she should have been doing all along, writing novels! In hindsight she could see the decision was a no-brainer. Because which sounds like more fun? Being a lawyer/special educator/reading specialist/educational diagnostician…or writing spicy romances?

When not writing or doing “mommy stuff”, Delphine reads voraciously, watches

home improvement shows, noodles around with html and css coding, and plays

computer games with her darling (and very romantic) husband. She is fortunate enough to have two absurdly precocious children and two rotten but endearing rescued mutts.

Delphine and her family are all Texas natives, and reside in unapologetic suburban

bliss near Houston.

Delphine welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and email

address on her
author bio page
at
www.ellorascave.com.

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Delphine Dryden

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