Casey's Secrets (Full Trilogy) (4 page)

Casey’s Discovery: Chapter 2

R
ick and Max had always been tight and I’d envied their relationship. My friendship with Sarah was coming close to the kind of loyalty I saw between my stepdad and his best friend, but I had a feeling you had to go to war with someone before you could find the kind of unspoken understanding the pair of them had. Not to mention during family barbecues the pair were always the best looking men at the party. Where my stepdad was dark haired, Rick was a blond Adonis, with curly hair he’d let grow since the military. He was also one of the sweetest men I’d ever met, always bringing gifts for me or my mother, which made it all the more tragic when his wife had been killed a few years earlier. He hadn’t been the same since.

Rick’s greeting died on his lips when he caught sight of me.

I gave him a little wave. “Heya, Rick. Fancy seeing you here,” I said in a cheery tone.

Blue eyes wide with shock, he gaped at me. His tanned and blond-stubbled face went slack with surprise. He stared at me for several moments, then scrubbed his palms over his face and shook his head as though he still didn’t believe what he saw.

“Casey … I—I’m sorry … fuck. I should probably go.”

“Wait,” I said, and he paused before opening the door again to escape. “I have a question for you.”

He cleared his throat and kept his gaze deliberately averted from me, though his jeans looked uncomfortably tight just in front. He nodded, “Ah, sure, what is it?”

“You’ve known Max a long time, right? Did you ever notice anything unusual about his, um, sexual preferences?” I scrunched up my face when I said the words, going for subtle but hoping he’d get the hint, especially if he knew the kinds of details I hoped he did.

Heavy footsteps thunked down the stairs. Behind me Max said, “Don’t answer that, you’ll only encourage her.”

A heavy terrycloth robe draped over my shoulders, but I shrugged it off.

Rick studied his boots thoughtfully for a moment, then turned and leaned his shoulder against the door. He looked at Max where he stood beside me, holding the robe again and looking like he was about to wrap me in it like a straitjacket.

“Since when are you ‘Max’ to her, buddy?” Rick chuckled and looked at me again, making a low mm-mm sound in his throat. “Big mistake doesn’t even come close if this is what you meant. If you were hoping to get even with Tanya, I think you went a little overboard.”

I sidestepped Max and sauntered a few steps closer to Rick. “You’d be contributing to my education if you answer my question, Rick. Tell my
stepfather
that he can’t close the door now that he’s flung it wide open.” I turned to look back at Max, my heart pounding in my chest over the exhilaration of my rebellion — something I’d never really considered doing in my life, in spite of my growing understanding that I wanted something very different than what most girls my age seemed to enjoy — something that wasn’t as far out of my reach as I’d thought. “I have no regrets. I hope you don’t, either.”

Max’s shoulders sagged. Rick was grinning from ear to ear and looked almost on the verge of laughter. I might have been offended at his attitude if it hadn’t been for the giant hard-on filling the front of his jeans.

“I think I need a quick rundown of exactly what you did, Max,” he said. “Just so I can make an informed decision about what I should or shouldn’t tell the woman.” He paused and looked me up and down appraisingly. The frank appreciation in his gaze made my nipples prickle. In a low voice he added, “Because,
my God
, but you are a far cry from a girl now, honey.”

I smiled, gratified by his response, and crossed my arms beneath my breasts trying not to betray how breathless I was with the excitement of the moment. I stared at Max with my eyebrows raised. “I’ll tell him my version if you want,” I said. “I especially liked the part where you …”

“Fuck, all right!” Max yelled. He sat heavily on a bar stool by the kitchen island. “Last night I wasn’t exactly in a good place. When you came home I was furious at your mother — twelve years
wasted
. I left behind a life I didn’t think I’d ever miss when I married her. The spanking was just my misplaced way to get back at her, but then … goddamn, Casey if I’d known …”

Rick watched us both, his interest never wavering. He glanced at me now.

I said, “What he means is that if he’d known how much I’d enjoy being spanked, maybe he wouldn’t have done it. Isn’t that right?”

“Things went a direction they shouldn’t have, Casey,” Max said.

“Forgive me for calling your bullshit,” I said. “You loved it as much as I did.”

Rick cleared his throat. “So, what happened next?”

I started to speak, but he raised a hand to stop me. “No, I want to hear it from Max,” he said with a serious look.

My stepfather stared down at his hands, flexing his fingers into tight fists and then opening them again. He let out a heavy sigh. “It brought me back to before, man. The heat of her ass under my palm. Goddamn it felt so good, and then I realized she was …” I bit my lip at the memory of his hand brushing my pussy and discovering how turned on I was, then finding my piercing.

I knew when Max looked at me that he was picturing it as vividly as I was. “She was so wet from it. You know how fucking much I
love
seeing a woman turned on by pain. That was when I think I lost it. Then to find out all the things she’d already done to her body. All but one thing.” His voice grew low and soft. “I had to have you, Case. And it had to be like that once I knew that I’d be your first. But I can’t let anything else happen … your mom …”

Rick and I both erupted with objections at the same time. In the middle of me trying to say, “You don’t owe Mom a fucking thing,” I heard Rick’s words and I stopped and stared at him.

“What did you say?” Max and I both asked.

Casey’s Discovery:
Chapter 3

“I
said, if you don’t, I will. You know damn well what kind of dangerous shit she could get involved in left to her own devices. Don’t forget what happened to Aurora after she left the club. We failed her. Don’t let the same thing happen to Casey.”

“Aurora and Casey are nothing alike. Aurora’s judgment was flawed to begin with.”

“She got a bad start and we had the chance to help get her on the right track without hurting herself. We should never have let her leave, and you know that. I’m serious, man.” He gestured at me and continued. “She’s … Well fuck, I know saying this makes it sound supremely creepy, but I love her like a daughter, too. But the fact is,
she isn’t your daughter.
She won’t even be your stepdaughter in a matter of weeks
.
What she is, is a gorgeous, young, and
very
determined woman and she needs your guidance.”

I stood quiet, though I had to restrain myself from running to Rick and kissing him for such a profound argument. My stepdad’s attitude was visibly changing — I could see it in his expression as he worked through everything Rick had said. He eyed me with a level of affection that was more of a comfort than anything. I’d never doubted that he loved me, but his look made me feel a little guilty for asking him to do this thing for me … to show me how to be like him. Rick clearly knew precisely what that meant, though.

“How do you know so much about … all this?” I asked, looking at Rick. “Who … who is Aurora?”

He looked a little wistful at first. “Max and I have always been a team. In the Navy and then after. We were pros at
all this
once upon a time. Under a Dom named Lola.” He looked a Max. “Those were the days, huh? We could have it again if we wanted, now that we’re both about to be unattached.”

“Don’t fucking remind me,” Max said, frowning and glancing with venom at the sheaf of papers on the counter.

Ignoring him, Rick continued. “Aurora was a woman — not much older than you — who we took under our wing. Things didn’t go too well with her, though.”

“She could never follow the rules,” Max said. “It wasn’t just about pleasure, Casey. It was also a job for us. There are right ways and wrong ways to approach the lifestyle and she had all the wrong ideas. We tried …”

“But we couldn’t turn her around,” Rick finished. “She left and sort of dropped off the map for awhile. When we found her again we were way too late.”

“What happened to her?” I asked, instinctively covering my breasts in light of the serious turn the conversation had taken. A draft came through from the screen door and blew up my nighty at the same time, completely contradicting my urge for modesty.

Rick’s eyes flicked to my exposed, naked hips and his eyebrows twitched. He blinked a couple times and coughed. “Uh … um, institutionalized. Bipolar disorder apparently, probably not much we could have done to help that, but she’d obviously been abused since we’d seen her.”

“She hooked up with a sketchy Dom after she left us,” Max said. “Not someone who was sanctioned by Lola’s club. We know others, though, Case. I’m not going to just let you figure this out on your own. There’s the right Dom out there for you. I’ll help you find one.”

Rick made a low noise in his throat, probably in response to the angry look I shot at Max.

“I don’t want someone else. I want you. Or … or Rick. I trust both of you.”

“That part was obvious,” Rick said with a grin. “I can’t imagine you’d hang out half naked in a room with two men you didn’t trust.”

Max shot Rick a glare and was rewarded with a helpless shrug. He remained silent, deliberating. I hated this part because it usually meant I’d end up having to make some stupid compromise at the end.

“All right,” Max said, standing again. He crossed his arms and gave me an almost stern look. If I hadn’t seen the corners of his mouth twitch, I might have taken the look seriously. As it was, he looked like he was about to start a game that he knew he would win, but Max had always been more about playing the game.

“Really?” I asked, smiling broadly.

“As long as I have help, if that’s all right with the two of you. I’d be more comfortable if Rick was involved. To keep me honest.” He dropped his arms and stepped toward me. “If we’re going to do this, baby, we’re doing it right, but I won’t lie to you. You mean the world to me. I got carried away last night and I can’t let that happen again.”

I gazed up at him, entranced by the intensity in his eyes. He raised a hand and brushed a knuckle lightly down my cheek. My eyelids fluttered closed in response to the sensation and I let out a slow exhalation when his thumb caressed my lower lip.

Warm skin grazed against the front of my body as he shifted his hand to the back of my neck and pulled me close. His mouth descended to mine, his tongue warm and wet between my lips. I opened up to him with a small moan. God, how much I wanted this. More of what I’d only had a taste of so far.

Rick’s throat cleared and his hand rested on the bare skin of my shoulders from behind. “Remember why we’re here, man,” Rick said.

Max pulled away with a tiny sound of regret. “Yeah. We have work to do, don’t we Casey? You need to learn how to follow the rules, first of all. I think you forgot something when you got dressed this morning.”

His hands slid down my back, caressing gently over the round contour of my ass. One hand shoved the hem of my nighty up and abruptly he lifted the other hand and brought it down in a loud
smack
against my flesh. I jumped and squeaked in response, clutching at his sides with my fingernails.

He held me against his chest with his other arm, and did it again. The broad, warm flesh of his palm met my ass with a sharp crack. I gasped, the bright burn of pain flooding through me, heating my core and spreading through my body like wildfire.

“That’s right, Baby. You misbehave, you get punished.”
Smack
.

I bit into his chest when his hand struck me again, and again, the burn stinging more and more each time. And each time he struck me, the force pushed my hips against him until I was as acutely aware of the steel-like ridge of his cock pressing against my belly.

I loved that he loved doing this to me as much as I loved having it done, but I wanted so much more. I turned my face so that my cheek rested against his chest. Max paused for a moment, his hand lightly clutching my sore bottom.

Rick was standing to the side, simply watching, alert.

“You brought ropes for loading the truck, right?” Max asked. “Think they’re good enough to re-purpose temporarily?”

Rick laughed. “Yeah, you’re not going to believe this … be right back.”

He disappeared out the door and I sighed into Max’s chest. “Thank you,” I said sincerely. Tension had built up all morning and for the first time since I’d come downstairs, I felt like all was right in the world again.

“Don’t thank me yet. We’re only getting started. One thing you need to learn is to pace yourself, all right? If you
ever
have doubts about continuing, even if it’s just a physical limitation, you say so.”

I nodded into his chest, inhaling the scent of his aftershave that had acquired a completely new and wonderful association for me in the past twenty-four hours.

His hand clutched my chin and urged me to look at him. “I need you to say you understand, Case. I’m not fucking around here.”

“I understand,” I said. I cast a quick glance at Rick who had just come back in with a handful of neatly wrapped bundles of white rope.

Max caught sight of what Rick held and laughed. “That’s not exactly what I’d call tiedown rope, man … Why the hell would you waste good silk ropes to help me move?”

“It’s what I had on hand. I wasn’t exactly using the stuff. Thought it should go to some use and I’m glad I brought it now. Must be fate, huh?” He grinned.

Max nodded and looked down at me again with a sparkle in his eyes. “I have a feeling you might be right. Bend over the table now, Casey.” He moved the chairs aside and nodded toward the small breakfast table that could seat four. I swallowed and stepped over to it, then leaned forward, placing my palms flat against the cool glass surface. \