The Dom's Patience is Rewarded [Unchained Love 4] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (3 page)

She was confident they’d settle into a threesome under Oliver’s Dominance. She knew she and William were both natural subs, so that would be fine. That was one really good thing about living here. Even though she’d been confined to her room so much, when she had talked with the other women she’d gotten to understand the BDSM lifestyle and knew she’d fit right in. It was what she was inside. Like coming home. This entire community gave her the feeling of being at home at last.

She could see it would take quite some work to arrange for the three of them to be together, though. Her father was going to resist that idea very strongly. Her father.
Oh!
“What has my father done now, Oliver?”

Oliver and William settled on the blanket beside her, and Oliver asked, “You know JB planted an electronic bug on your father’s car?”

“No, I didn’t know that, but it makes sense now why no one followed him when he ran away from here.”

“Yes, well, today a couple of people followed the bug to see where he was staying, and he’s with the rogue panthers. In fact he was sitting talking to the head of the rogue panther group this morning.” Oliver’s voice was cold and steady, but his gray eyes were looking deep into her own eyes. She knew he was worried about how she’d react to this news.

“Uh-oh,” said William.

“But that doesn’t make sense. Why would he do that?” She couldn’t understand it. Her father was terrified of the rogue panthers. Why would he talk to them? Leticia smoothed her hands over her thighs, aware she was trembling from the shock of the revelation.

“Sweetie, nothing your father has done for the last year makes sense. What’s logical about shooting you?”

“I don’t understand. He’s been so adamant the rogue panthers are the devil incarnate.” Leticia shook her head wildly from side to side then winced as her shoulder reminded her to move slowly and gently. Her shoulder. Just another sign that her father had changed so much lately. Twelve months ago, even six months ago, she would have been ready to swear her father would never harm her. That he would die to save her. Since then, he’d shot her through the leg—by accident, he said, although he’d never apologized for doing it—and then dislocated her shoulder trying to drag her into his car.
Wait!

“Does that mean when he was trying to force me to go with him a few weeks ago, he was actually taking me to the rogue panthers? That he was going to give me to them after saying over and over again only he could protect me from them?”

“Holy shit!”

“I don’t know, Leticia. Going to meet the leader may have been his plan B when plan A of taking you away with him failed. But it’s possible that was his idea all along.”

“Oliver, you’re scaring me worse than the head nurse at the hospital doing an unscheduled inspection on my patients does. If Sam is hanging around the rogue panthers, we’re going to have our work cut out protecting Leticia from her own father, let alone from the entire rogue panther pack,” said William, jumping to his feet and pacing up and down between the rows of garden beds.

“You are
not
locking me in my room and lying across the doorway. I’m never going to stand for that again,” said Leticia. She’d only just started to discover freedom and make friends. No way was she turning the clock backward.

“No, nothing like that. William and I have an option that wasn’t available to your father. All you have to do is commit to the two of us. Mate with William and me. That means you’re no longer of value to the rogue panthers and, incidentally, it fulfills a wish I’ve held for a long time, to make you mine,” said Oliver.

His eyes were filled with love. A line creased his forehead and his lips tilted up at the ends with the hint of a smile. Leticia knew he wanted to say much more to her, but didn’t plan to push her at all. She loved the way he showed his care for her like that. He was giving her a free choice, not trying to demand she accept him.

“Do marry me please, Leticia. I love you,” added William. William’s big dark eyes were just like a puppy dog’s, huge, dark, and filled with pleading. But again, just like Oliver, he didn’t demand she accept him. He was asking, not forcing.

Oh, how she wanted to marry them both. She loved them so much, appreciated them, wanted to be with them. But no. It was much too soon, and there were so many other considerations to worry about. Could she even think about doing something her father would oppose so violently? What if what Oliver was talking about was all a misunderstanding? And what about the other unmated females?

“But won’t that make life more dangerous for Autumn and for Serena and Verity?”

“For a start, I don’t think Autumn’s in danger, being only half-panther. But even if she is, I’m pretty sure she could solve that little issue herself right quickly.”

William laughed. “I don’t live here, and even I know that Nicholas and Curtis want her and she wants them!”

“As for the cougar twins, there’s never been the least hint of danger around them. In fact, the only person who was ever attacked was Ramona. Not you, despite what your father may have worried about. Anyway, whatever happens, the community here will protect all its women. But if your father is working with the rogues, you will be in danger,” added Oliver.

Leticia was having some horrible thoughts. “Do you think he’s going to get them to kidnap me just to prove he was right all along and I was in danger? Then he’ll rescue me from them?”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to try to figure out what your father has in mind. He hasn’t been thinking logically lately, and we could tie ourselves in knots trying to second-guess him and still be wrong. I wish he’d talked to the counselor when the court ordered him to, but he didn’t. Meanwhile, as Oliver has said, the problem is solved if you marry us. We want to marry you. Will you agree?” asked William.

Leticia looked down at the tiny green shoots of plants half-hidden under a blanket of weeds. That was so like her life had been lately. Her personhood had been carefully hidden while she tried to be the daughter her father seemed to want. Yet nothing had pleased him. No matter how patiently she’d waited all day in her room, he still never seemed to want to let her talk to anyone, not even other female panthers.

She’d been attracted to Oliver for a long time now. Maybe even a year. But she’d never dared to do anything about her attraction. She knew if she started a friendship with him her father would have banned him from seeing her or speaking to her, possibly even thrown him out of the pack. Then when she’d first met William, with Tor, she’d wondered if she was going crazy, liking two men at once. Of course she’d soon learned it was possible to have two men. Once she’d seen how well Gaynor’s relationship with both Tor and Cameron had worked, she’d known that’s what she wanted for herself.

But how well did she really know them? She wasn’t exactly experienced in sexual relationships or even in deep male/female nonsexual relationships. And what if she found she didn’t like BDSM? Talking about it was likely very different from doing it.

What if Oliver and William couldn’t coexist harmoniously? There was no divorce in panther matings. If they weren’t happy they were still stuck with each other. Besides, her parents had been unhappy before her mother died. What if she ended up like her mother, suffering a lifetime of unhappiness and no possibility of mating with Mr. Right?

What if her father was engaged in doing something important to help her? If the watchers had missed the point, simply didn’t understand the facts? What if when he came back to explain everything to her she done something rash and it was all too late?

No. Much better to take no irrevocable steps right now.

But how could she protect herself? What if her father really was going to sell her to the rogue panthers?

How could she balance all these things? There had to be a way.

Leticia glanced at both men. William seemed very tense, his hands twisting on his lap, but he was still looking at her with hope shining over his face.

Oliver’s face was impassive, but the line on his forehead was deeper. Actually, there were two lines there now and his hands were in his pockets. Was that to stop him fidgeting with them like William?

Suddenly, the answer came to her.

“A long time ago people used to get handfasted. It was sort of halfway between being engaged and being married, or mated. The ceremony was performed, the vows said, the couple—or trio, I guess—moved in together and lived together, but there was a period of time when everything could be dissolved if one of the parties was unhappy. I will agree to that. A ceremony and a trial marriage or handfasting, but with the option to undo it all if any of us decides it doesn’t work. How about we have a three-month contract marriage? I think I’ll know if this is going to work after three months. If we are all happy the marriage stays. Otherwise we agree to dissolve it completely at the end of the three months’ trial period. What about you two?”

William stared at her. His mouth opened and closed again, then he gulped, but he didn’t say anything.

Oliver frowned. “You want the mating ceremony in front of the pack and the community, so it’s as if we were married. But the paperwork will state we can dissolve the marriage after three months unless all of us are content?” he asked.

“We may as well have the ceremony. Hopefully, we’ll all be happy and we’ll continue on as we are. But I’m not ready for an irrevocable decision. I need the freedom to leave if it’s not working. I’ve never lived with a sexual partner, far less two of them. I’ve never been involved in BDSM. For the past few months I’ve done nothing, communicated with almost no one, lived a very strange life. This is a major adjustment. I need to be free to change my mind if it’s not working.”

Leticia spoke firmly and looked both the men in the face. She meant this. It was a brilliant idea and gave her everything she needed—the men she loved and wanted, plus an escape clause if she needed it. Or if either of them did. She couldn’t bear the thought of them being locked into a relationship if one or more of them hated it.

“I agree,” said William, gently stroking her cheek with one finger.

“Very well.” Oliver nodded. He stood up and straightened his back, instantly looking very businesslike.

“I’ll have to explain all this to Omar. Then I’ll see if we can use Carey’s apartment as our pied-
à
-terre until we can build a house of our own. It’s very small, and you’ll both need to put most of your things in storage, but hopefully it won’t be for too long. At least we’ll be able to spend the nights together there,” said Oliver.

“Most of my possessions are already in storage anyway. I only have a bedroom in the main house. Besides, being together just the three of us will be nice,” said Leticia, happiness bubbling under her skin. Tomorrow night. They would be handfasted to each other tomorrow night. Oliver was a Dom. Would he introduce her to BDSM sex straight away? She’d listened with great interest to the things Jubilee had said about BDSM. She rather liked the idea of trying some of them out. Or would they begin with ordinary sex? Ordinary sex, that was a joke. One woman and two men together was not exactly the definition of ordinary sex.

* * * *

William paced around the parking lot as he thought about what had just happened. He was so confused. On the one hand, he loved Leticia with all his heart and it had almost killed him when her own father hurt her not once but twice. Her father’s actions didn’t fit into any stereotype of domestic violence he’d studied in nursing school, but it sure seemed like domestic violence to him. First, the old man basically kept her totally locked up and away from everyone she cared about, then he shot her, and finally he tried to kidnap her when she complained about his treatment of her.

On the one hand, marrying her, making her his to love and to cherish ’til death parted them, was his dearest wish come true. He loved her so much. The hours he’d spent when he was off-duty at the hospital, sitting beside her bed, watching her sleep, or, even better, talking to her as he guarded her from rogue panthers and anyone else who may wish to hurt her, had been the best time of his life until now.

But on the other hand was Oliver. William was a realist. Oliver had been in Leticia’s life long before William had even met her and fallen in love with her. Oliver was not only a panther, like Leticia, but also a Dom, and William didn’t have a Dom bone in his body. He couldn’t even argue back like Tor did when some idiot of a doctor mistook which patient was which in his ward at the hospital.

William acknowledged that Oliver had waited patiently until the time was appropriate to ask Leticia to marry him. And not only that, but Oliver had included him as well in the deal, which proved he was an honorable man. In fact Oliver had done everything as well as he could have done it himself. Likely even better.

Oliver never pushed William aside or talked over him when they were all together. But then, they weren’t all together very often.

William thought he could trust Oliver to be fair to Leticia. Certainly he’d never hurt Leticia like her crazy father had. But where did it leave him? Human not panther, sub not Dom. Would he only get the scraps of Leticia’s attention when she wasn’t fully occupied with Oliver? Would Oliver even acknowledge his existence once the mating took place?

Even the scraps of her attention, the unused corners of her life, would be better than not having her at all.