Текст книги "Chains"

Suncoast Society

Tymber Dalton

SIREN SENSATIONS

Siren Publishing, Inc.

www.SirenPublishing.com

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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

IMPRINT: Siren Sensations

CHAINS

Copyright © 2015 by Tymber Dalton

E-book ISBN: 978-1-63259-130-2

First E-book Publication: April 2015

Cover design by Harris Channing

All art and logo copyright © 2015 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

PUBLISHER

Siren Publishing, Inc.

www.SirenPublishing.com

Letter to Readers

Dear Readers,

If you have purchased this copy of Chains by Tymber Dalton from BookStrand.com or its official distributors, thank you. Also, thank you for not sharing your copy of this book.

Regarding E-book Piracy

This book is copyrighted intellectual property. No other individual or group has resale rights, auction rights, membership rights, sharing rights, or any kind of rights to sell or to give away a copy of this book.

The author and the publisher work very hard to bring our paying readers high-quality reading entertainment.

This is Tymber Dalton’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect Tymber Dalton’s right to earn a living from her work.

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DEDICATION

This one’s for Gidget, the inspiration for Chewi.

One of these days, she’s going to find appropriate “minuns,” and then we’ll all be in trouble…

AUTHOR’S NOTE

While all the books in the Suncoast Society series are standalone works which may be read independently of each other, the recommended reading order to avoid spoilers is as follows:

1. Safe Harbor

2. Cardinal’s Rule

3. Domme by Default

4. The Reluctant Dom

5. The Denim Dom

6. Pinch Me

7. Broken Toy

8. A Clean Sweep

9. A Roll of the Dice

10. His Canvas

11. A Lovely Shade of Ouch

12. Crafty Bastards

13. A Merry Little Kinkmas

14. Sapiosexual

15. A Very Kinky Valentine’s Day

16. Things Made Right

17. Click

18. Spank or Treat

19. A Turn of the Screwed

20. Chains

Eliza first appears in A Roll of the Dice, and also appears in A Turn of the Screwed.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Author's Note

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

About the Author

CHAINS

Suncoast Society

TYMBER DALTON

Copyright © 2015

Chapter One

It was a gorgeous day for a joust. Sunny, not too hot, and with just enough of a cool breeze blowing through the woods surrounding the grounds to keep things comfortable without wreaking havoc with the tents or blowing dust everywhere.

Rebecca sat in the shade of her tent and took a moment to watch the people walking the grounds. Elegant ladies modeling their finery, handsome knights, a few knaves and wenches, even the occasional pirate. And, of course, plenty of common folk. The scent of roasting meat and other delicacies hovered in the air, on the breeze, as well as the hint of horse manure.

The latest project she was working on lay safely nestled in the folds of her skirt, forgotten as she focused on a jester annoying a couple trying to eat their roasted turkey legs in peace.

A woman who’d been browsing some of Rebecca’s wares held up a bracelet.

“Excuse me, do you take credit cards?”

“Sure do, m’lady.” Rebecca had a small table set up next to her to hold the chainmaille rings and supplies she needed. So she transferred the project in her lap to the table and reached inside the tent to grab her tablet from the messenger bag she used as her purse.

Turning it on, she brought up her credit card software, swiped the woman’s card through the reader hooked into the earbud jack, and then e-mailed the woman a receipt while she put the bracelet on.

“Oh, what an adorable dog!” she said, making Rebecca glance behind her.

Chewi, awakened by the discussion, was standing at the opening of Rebecca’s tent. The little four-year-old, short-haired tri-color terrier-Chihuahua mix wore an ornate chainmaille vest of many colors. Just over fifteen pounds, he frequently acted like he weighed a hundred and fifteen.

“Thank you. Chewi’s my baby. He goes everywhere with me.”

Chewi sat and sneezed at them.

“Do you sell online?”

“I sure do.” Rebecca reached over and plucked a couple of cards from a business card holder on her table, handing them to the woman. “I have an Etsy store and a website.”

“Great, thank you!” The woman tucked the cards into her purse. “Have a nice day.”

“Thanks! You, too.” Rebecca sat in the camp chair again and reached over to pet Chewi. “Well, that was another couple of weeks of your kibble,” she joked. “Guess I can keep feeding you.”

This was an old private joke between them. He simply glared at her, as if the idea of her not feeding him was ludicrous.

Here I am, thirty-seven, and I’m talking to my dog.

Worse, there were times, frequent times—as in every day—that she held full conversations with Chewi, including an entire mythos about him trying to rule the world.

And he talked back.

I need help.

No, what she needed were more friends, or…well, maybe she did need therapy.

Over in “the pit,” as everyone called it, she heard a roar from the crowd as the jousting display kicked off. That likely meant business would be slow for the next thirty minutes or so. Once the crowd broke up, they’d head for the main row of food tents located just past her, meaning a flood of people.

Including ones with sticky fingers.

She was lucky she lost very few items to theft, and then usually only small things like earrings or bracelets.

For good measure, she pulled some of her more expensive pieces off the table and slipped them into a glass-topped display box with a few intricate and ornate pieces she never left in the open. Then she thinned out the bracelet display, removing a couple of duplicates, as well as some of the earrings.

Never hurt to be safe.

By the end of the day, she’d made over five hundred dollars in sales and didn’t appear to have lost anything. Not her best day, but not bad for a Friday, and at least she’d almost made back her vendor fee for the event. Tomorrow would be busy, and she’d tip over the scales into the black in terms of what she’d shelled out for the vendor space.

After noting which pieces she’d sold so she could remake them, she packed her merchandise and supplies in totes to stack on her cart to take back to her RV. All the while, Chewi sat and watched her with a baleful glare.

“This would go faster if you’d help me, you know, instead of giving me dirty looks,” she shot back at him.

He sneezed at her.

* * * *

Some of the other vendors boondocked on the grounds at the South Carolina park, tapping into an iffy electrical system or using their gennys, but Rebecca didn’t want to do that. Not at this venue.

Not when there was an excellent RV park literally five minutes away with all the comforts of home, including free Wi-Fi.

And, since she worked from her “home,” she could deduct part of her costs as business expenses.

She loaded her stuff into the back of the Toad, her green Honda CRV, got Chewi’s safety harness on him, strapped him into the passenger seat, and hit the road.

The RV park was a nice one she’d stayed at plenty of times before, always booking herself a space in advance as soon as she had the next Ren fair’s dates in her calendar and had confirmed herself a vendor space. For this fair, which lasted three weekends, she’d spend the entire time living there at the RV park. It meant catching up on shipping orders for her Etsy store, replenishing her supplies because she’d be in one spot long enough to receive a shipment, and being able to actually sit and make new products instead of driving to the next venue.

It also meant her best friend, Eliza, could ship her any mail she had sitting there at her and Rusty’s house in Sarasota. Most everything Rebecca did was online, including paying her bills, but there were things, like renewing her license plates and her insurance, that required a permanent address.

She’d known Eliza and Rusty for years, meeting them through their participation in Ren fairs and the SCA in Florida back when Rebecca was in college. Any time she was in Sarasota—which wasn’t often, unfortunately—she parked at their house and she and Chewi stayed with them for a few days. Normally she saw them a few times a year up in Tampa, or Orlando, or at other events around the state, where they came to see her.

Sarasota, unfortunately, was an area Rebecca tended to avoid.

Too many bad memories, and as unrealistic a fear as she knew it was, she didn’t want to run into her ex.

And with her luck, she likely would.

* * * *

Rebecca had arrived at the RV park late Wednesday night, and Thursday had been spent checking in with the fair officials, finding her vendor space, and getting her tent and display tables set up. So she hadn’t even had a chance to settle in to her temporary home yet.

After nearly ten years of existing like this, she had it down to a science. Living in an RV suited her, allowing her the freedom to vend at different events without worrying about a home left behind.

It also meant no way for Sam to be able to track her down.

She knew she was being paranoid. It’d been four years since the last time she’d received word from someone that Sam had asked about her or mentioned her.

Not one to take chances, she preferred the anonymity of a roving life to being a sitting duck.

This RV was her second, and at thirty-two feet it was ten feet larger than her last one. She’d saved up for it, buying it used, but it’d been only two years old and had less than ten thousand miles on it when she got it.

So far, it was holding up well. One day she’d like to upgrade to a slightly larger one, but that was future thinking. And the Toad, as she’d dubbed her green CRV, was in great shape even though it was ten years old. Most of its road miles were earned while being towed on the car dolly behind the RV.

Tonight she got Chewi and her stuff unloaded and inside the RV before locking herself in and taking a long, hot shower.

That was another reason she didn’t want to boondock. After years of doing this, she knew some of these Ren fairs were dusty, dirty events. She wanted the luxury of a long, hot shower without worrying about water supplies or how full her grey-water tank was getting. Being hooked directly into the sewer line, and with an incoming fresh-water supply, meant she could take as long a shower as she wanted. Her tankless water heater kept up with it, no problem.

Finally, she emerged, wearing a T-shirt and with her long, curly brown hair wrapped in a towel. She sank down onto the couch and stared at where Chewi had taken up residence in his bed on the passenger seat, which she’d turned around backward so he could see the interior.

“Ready for dinner?”

He sniffed at her.

“Of course you are.” She scooped him out a bowl of kibble and set it down for him next to his water bowl.

He stared at her, not moving from his bed.

“I told you last night, no more pawside service. Not when you keep trying to bury it in your bed.”

Slowly, he stood, stretched, then jumped down and walked over to his bowl, staring up at her.

Bitch.

Well, that’s what his expression read, anyway.

“Deal with it,” she told him as she tried to decide what she wanted for dinner. First, though, she flipped on the TV and scrolled through the channels until she found something interesting. She’d invested in a satellite package that meant no matter where she was, she could usually get reception.

Worth every penny, and then some.

She settled on nuking a bowl of leftover macaroni casserole, a mix of ham and cheese and broccoli, instead of cooking something else. Then she settled back on the couch to watch TV and eat before her next part of her routine would begin.

Paperwork.

Logging in what she’d sold, bookkeeping, and checking for new online orders. She also specialized in custom BDSM collars for people, collars that looked like chainmaille jewelry and could be worn every day without causing suspicion. Three quarters of her online income was that demographic.

Unfortunately, it was also how she’d met Sam, in a local BDSM community in the Sarasota area.

When she’d divorced him and taken off for a roving RV life, she’d unfortunately left that part of herself behind. She missed having a Dom, and she wouldn’t deny it.

But not that Dom. And maybe after being independent for so many years, she knew she might not even be fit for a relationship, much less be a submissive in a D/s one.

Didn’t mean she didn’t miss being in one.

* * * *

By the time she was ready to collapse for the night a little after ten, she’d caught up with her bookkeeping and made two bracelets to replace ones she’d sold that day. She’d e-mailed Eliza the RV park’s address, too, something she’d meant to do the day before and had forgotten.

With Chewi curled along her back, she settled in, the RV’s AC unit humming and helping to drown out the various sounds outside.

Overall, other than the occasional loneliness, she didn’t have many complaints about her life. Her parents lived in California, a state Rebecca didn’t like driving the RV through. Not the southern part of the state, at least. Too much traffic, and gas prices were too damn expensive. They usually flew out and met her somewhere every Christmas, usually somewhere warm, and they’d spend a week with her in whatever locale Rebecca had picked for the holiday.

She had plenty of friends online, via Facebook and FetLife, as well as friends she regularly saw at events where she vended.

She could pay her bills, had a decent savings account built up, owned her home—technically—and had a fairly low-stress existence.

So what if she didn’t have a guy?

She had Chewi, at least.

I’m pitiful.

Chapter Two

How long are we going to keep going on like this?

Toby Sorto stared out the kitchen window at their large backyard garden. Herbs, vegetables, even some fruit, with a manicured tropical ornamental border around it. It was a beautiful Saturday morning, and Logan was still asleep, meaning Toby had peace until his partner awoke and they started what passed for their routine now.

He loved this house, loved what they’d done to it, loved that they’d put their heart and soul into it. But it felt like every day, more and more, that everything was slipping through his fingers.

Ever since Julie had left, it was like part of them had left with her.

Well, part of them, and a chunk of their bank account. They’d never expected her to betray them sexually or financially. They could have pressed charges, but unfortunately, they had nothing in writing and her name was on the account, too.

Thank god it was only money in checking and she didn’t have access to our savings account.

She could have wiped them out if she had. It was only because Logan had received text alerts about the withdrawals that he’d been able to immediately stop her from taking any more money out of the account.

At least the house hadn’t been in her name, and she hadn’t changed her driver’s license or car registration to their address. That meant when they dumped all her shit in the front yard for her to come get it, there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it.

And they had thrown a tarp over everything when it started raining. They could have been dicks about it and let it get soaked.

Now, six months later, they both still stung and had drawn apart, and he didn’t know how to get “them” back.

Or if they even could.

Toby had tried coaxing Logan into seeing a counselor with him, but his typically closemouthed partner had shut down even more, like some hermetically sealed vault with no way in.

He didn’t know if it was the loss of Julie, or her multifaceted betrayal of them, or the fact that it had been Logan who’d met Julie and then pressed Toby to open their relationship to a poly triad that weighed on Logan’s mind heaviest.

Hell, he didn’t know what was weighing on Logan’s mind since the man didn’t want to talk.

He loved Logan, but if this was the kind of relationship they’d have for the rest of their lives, Toby knew he’d have to give serious consideration to thinking about moving on if Logan refused to deal with this. With him.

With them.

He was forty-two and Logan was forty-four. Long past the playing games phases of their lives.

Turning from the view, via the front windows he caught sight of the mailman heading their way. He walked outside and down their long driveway to meet him and say hi. Their expansive front yard was mostly lawn, with azaleas surrounding the four oak trees scattered around. Easy to maintain, unlike the high-maintenance backyard. They had nearly two acres total. They’d purchased it together seven years earlier and enjoyed working on it. They both worked in downtown Sarasota—him in the county’s zoning department and Logan at the Clerk of the Court’s office—and drove in together every day.

It meant the weekends were theirs to do with as they wished.

Except lately, those weekends had felt pretty empty, indeed.

He was waiting across the street at the mailbox when the carrier drove up. “Hey, Toby.” The carrier handed a bundle of mail out the window to him. “Thank god it’s Saturday, right?”

“You can say that again.”

“Hey, can I ask you a question?”

“Of course.”

“Is your neighbor okay?”

“Who, the Smiths?”

“No.” He hooked a finger over his shoulder at the property next door and directly to the west of them. This rural area in northeastern Sarasota County, east of I-75, had been a mix of agricultural and residential properties. As developers bought some of them, they were divided. But there were still larger properties scattered throughout the neighborhood. Theirs was one of them, as was their neighbor’s.

Only the neighbor owned a much older house, one story, maybe built in the 1950s, and had nearly ten acres.

“Jackson Hames?” Toby asked.

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know. We don’t talk to him a whole lot, but come to think of it, I haven’t seen him coming or going the past few days. Why?”

“His mailbox is overflowing, and I can’t fit anything else in there. No mail hold, like he went out of town or something. I know he lives alone. At least, he never gets any mail for anyone but him.”

A bad feeling settled in Toby’s gut. “I’ll take it up to the house.”

The carrier handed it to him. “Better empty his box, too.”

“Sure. Thanks.”

The carrier drove off while Toby walked over to Jackson Hames’ mailbox. Sure enough, it was filled to capacity.

His dread only increased as he realized some of the junk mailers were nearly two weeks old, based on ones they’d received.

With his arms full of mail, he crossed their rural road and headed up the man’s dirt drive. It looked like he hadn’t mowed in nearly two weeks, either, which also wasn’t like the man. He had a tractor with a mowing deck that he used. And his truck sat in the same spot it’d been parked in for a while, which also wasn’t like their neighbor. He remembered the man once counseling him and Logan not to park in the same spot every day so they didn’t get bare patches in their grass. To alter their pattern.

As he approached the house, the breeze shifted, coming to him from the north, from behind the house. On the wind a foul stench flowed over him, and Toby knew.

Still, he moved forward, hoping he was wrong.

He knocked on the front door as well as rang the bell. “Mr. Hames? It’s Toby, from next door. I have your mail.”

Nothing.

Fighting the tight, sickly feeling that grew thicker with every second, he did it again, and again.

The front curtains were drawn, so he couldn’t see inside. But he walked around the house and found curtains that were open on two of the back windows. One was a bedroom, he guessed. It looked like there was a bed in there, somewhere.

Maybe.

Although there were some flies inside the window, ineffectively beating themselves against it, a pile of them dead on the windowsill.

He’d never been inside the man’s house, although the few times they’d chatted, he was friendly. Didn’t seem to be an asshole about them being gay. He’d had no clue the man was a hoarder.

The next window opened on an equally cluttered dining room. This time, there were more flies, and he saw a bare foot, and the lower cuff of a pair of jeans, on the floor and disappearing out of sight behind a couch.

Dammit.

Between the flies, and the fact that the foot was a blackish blue color, he knew.

Turning, he pulled his cell phone out and called 911.

Twenty minutes later, Logan, who he’d called and woke up, was standing in the front yard with Toby, comforting him as he talked to the deputy who’d initially responded. The man had obviously been dead for a while.

A deputy from the county’s forensics team, who wore a full hazmat bunny suit, emerged from the house. He held an envelope in a plastic evidence bag pinched in his fingers as he walked over to them.

“Do you know a Rebecca Hames?” he asked them through his respirator and protective face mask. The smell of decomposition washed off the man.

“His last name was Hames,” Toby said, “but I don’t know a Rebecca.”

He showed them the envelope. In black marker in a spidery hand was also written Emergency Stuff in large letters. “It’s got her name on it, and the name and phone number of an attorney in Sarasota. It was stuck to the front of his fridge by a magnet.”

“Sorry. Don’t know her.”

“We’ll contact the attorney. Must be his next of kin.”

After questioning, they were allowed to leave. One of the deputies let Toby put the man’s mail in another brown paper evidence bag large enough to hold it, and said they would deal with it.

Toby didn’t want to see them wheel the man out. Fortunately, he didn’t have any pets.

When they closed the front door behind them, Logan turned to him, his hands resting on Toby’s shoulders.

“I’m sorry,” Logan quietly said, sounding, for once, like the man Toby had fallen in love with.

“For what?”

“For being an asshole the last few months. I don’t want to end up like that, alone and dead and the only reason someone figured it out was because the mail stacked up. I’m sorry. We can go to counseling, if you still want to. I love you, and I don’t want to lose you.”

Toby threw his arms around him. “I think that’s the best thing I’ve heard in the past six months. And I love you, too.”

* * * *

Normally, neither of them were heavy drinkers. But that morning, they both needed something after what they’d seen.

And smelled.

And now they knew what they needed to do, which was rebuild that shattered bridge between them. After they grabbed a shower to sort of symbolically restart their day on a more positive note, Toby made them a pitcher of mimosas while Logan prepared an omelet.

They took everything outside onto their screened lanai and talked.

And talked.

And drank, but they mostly talked.

Hope returned to Toby’s soul as Logan admitted he felt guilty about bringing Julie into their lives, only for her to betray them.

“You were so good about everything,” he said. “You agreed to trying poly, to letting her into our lives, and then she did…that. I feel like this is all my fault.”

“Hey, I was willing,” Toby said. “Don’t shoulder this burden alone. I fell for her, too. It wasn’t like you had to force me into it. You know I’m bi, just like you. I thought she was our unicorn, I really did.” He reached over and took his partner’s hand. “She just wasn’t the right unicorn for us.”

Logan let out a snort. “She was a goat masquerading as a unicorn.”

“Hey, that’s an insult to goats.”

Logan finally smiled. A genuine, pain-free smile.

The first one of those Toby had seen on his face since…then.

The day.

The day their lives turned upside down and everything they thought they knew was questioned.

The loss of trust.

“I really want us to be okay,” Toby said. “I love you.”

“I love you, too. And if you can forgive me for being a jackass, and I haven’t totally screwed us up yet, I’d like another chance.”

* * * *

“You haven’t screwed us up,” Toby said. “And you’re not a jackass.”

Logan felt like a jackass. That morning’s discovery right next door, however, had rattled him to his core.

Life was too damn short. He didn’t want to waste another day. Especially not when he had a damn good guy by his side to share life with.

A guy he loved.

“So, date night tonight?” Logan asked.

Toby smiled, his handsome blue eyes lighting up. “We haven’t had a date night in months.”

“I know. I feel badly about that, too. I haven’t felt like going out much.”

“Sigalo’s tonight?”

“Sure. It’ll be good to see the gang.” They hadn’t even been out to the club in months. The first few times they had, it painfully reminded them of Julie and what she’d done to them. Add to that people who had no clue what had happened asking where she was…

It was a painful situation.

“I’ll text Loren and make sure that’s still happening,” Toby said.

“And we can go to the club after.”

Toby’s smile widened to a grin. “Really?”

“Really. I know we won’t play, but I miss our friends.”

Toby leaned in and kissed him. “I really missed you most of all.”

“I missed me, too.” He laced fingers with Toby, stroking his thumb across the other man’s hand. “If I let what she did to us ruin our life, our happiness, who we are, then she’s won. I choose not to be chained to her anymore.”

Toby lifted their hands to his mouth, kissing the back of Logan’s. “Thank you.”

He smirked. “Sure, you thank me now. Wait until I feel like playing again.”

“Maybe tonight after the club?” He waggled his eyebrows at Logan in a playful way, another aspect of their relationship that had been missing.

The fun.

“Maybe. If someone’s a good boy.” Between them, Logan was more dominant, even though they didn’t have a formal dynamic. And he was a bit of a playful sadist. Toby was a masochistic switch, which was why when submissive masochist Julie came into their lives, it seemed like a perfect match for them all.

“And I want to put it out there on the table that if we do meet another woman who we click with, I’m okay with exploring things.” Toby lowered their hands. “This time, we won’t let her have access to our bank account.”

“Damn straight,” Logan agreed. “Play only, at first. Or sex. She’ll have to prove herself before we take it any farther than that.”

“Agreed.”

Julie wasn’t the first woman they’d shared, or the first woman they’d played with.

But she was the first woman they’d felt a stronger, closer bond with.

Enough so that they’d moved her in with them when her roommate moved out, leaving her unable to pay her rent when she couldn’t find another roommate in time.

In retrospect, they knew that should have been a red flag, but they’d been so eager to help, to rescue the damsel in distress, that they’d ignored all the red flags.

After breakfast, they finished off the mimosas and headed into the backyard to work on their garden.

Logan was relieved to hear Toby humming, to see the change in him. That he’d relaxed, and not just because of the drinks. But genuinely happy.

He knew he’d been so wrapped up in his own pain and guilt lately that he’d neglected Toby, sinking deeper and deeper into a spinning cycle with no end.

That stops now. Today. It’s me and my guy. Julie can go fall off the face of the earth, for all I care.