Mastering Lexie (Stronghold Book 4) (10 page)

"And it worked, so it was worth it," Angel said, going
up on her tiptoes to kiss his nose.  Adam's head swiveled around and she
caught his cheek instead, as he looked at Lexie.  

"What do you mean it worked?"

Lexie smiled, smugly.  Adam had always stepped into Patrick's
place as leader of the Sentinels when Master Mold wasn't around.  It had
driven her up the wall.  Some of the other guys, like Chris or Andrew, she
could wheedle her way around when she wanted something.  Occasionally even
Justin, who was normally a major hardass.  Patrick or Adam, never.  

"I'm going back to work at Stronghold, and Patrick's agreed
to start training me as a submissive," Lexie said, smirking at him. 
Ha! 
Take that!
 

Adam's expression darkened.  "I see."  He
looked like he wanted to say something more, but his jaw muscles tightened, and
he nodded his head.  "Ladies, I'm going to shower, and then I'll be
out of your way."

As soon as he was out of the room, all three women burst into
giggles.  Lexie knew that if she hadn't been drinking, she probably would
have been more pissed than amused.  The guys were always thinking they
could run her life, but with Patrick finally on her side, there wasn't much
they were going to be able to do.

"What the hell, Patrick?!"

Patrick lifted his head from his paperwork and grinned at the
irate Domme standing in front of him.  Dressed in her leathers, her
flaming hair up in an intricate bun, Olivia had one hand on her hip and the
other holding a crop which she was tapping against her thigh.  The club
submissives, seeing her in such a position, would immediately fall to their
knees and beg for forgiveness for whatever crime Mistress thought they had
committed.  Patrick, on the other hand, was filled with a sense of satisfied
glee. 

Apparently someone had gotten around to looking at her next
Introduction scene assignment. 

"Yes, Olivia, is there something I can help you with?"
 He said the words with relish, indicating that he knew exactly what she
was upset about, and that he'd done it on purpose.  

Her silvery eyes narrowed at the same time as her usually lush
lips thinned.  "Lexie belongs in the club, and you know it."

"This has nothing to do with Lexie."

"You're such a liar sometimes."  She let out a
frustrated huff of air, the crop tapping at her calf a little faster.
 "Fine.  I'll take my punishment, for pointing out the obvious
and calling you on your idiocy."  The tip of the crop came up to
point directly at him.  "But you'd better not try to keep that girl
out of the club anymore.  If I have to do Introduction scenes with mewling
subbies, whom you
know
 Lisa and Erin would prefer, then you have to
follow your own damned rules and stop trying to block Lex from getting what she
needs."

He grinned.  It felt good, finally being one up on the
Domme.  Not only had he already agreed to train Lexie, but Olivia was
going to have to deal with her least favorite type of submissive.  The
most recent male sub asking for an Introduction scene had indicated that he was
eager to serve, enjoyed being humiliated and degraded, and that he would
happily lick the boot of whatever Domme put one in front of his face. 
Mistresses Lisa and Erin both liked their subs like that.  Olivia
preferred the hard cases, the men who tended to have trouble admitting their
submissive desires, the ones that needed a little extra encouragement to
submit.  This Introduction scene was going to bore her out of her mind,
but she was honor bound to make the submissive happy.  Which she would, even
though it wasn’t her preferred type of scene.  Hell, half the time, when he
gave her the eager-to-please subbies, they ended up begging her to serve her
past the Introduction scene.  The fact that she was less interested in them
only made them want her more.

Before he could tell her that he'd already arranged to train
Lexie, the door to his office banged open, and Adam came barreling in, looking
like the blue-eyed Viking that Angel claimed he was.  Except, instead of
Viking armor, he had on black leathers.

"What the hell, Patrick?"

Olivia burst out laughing as Patrick raised his eyebrows. 
The Domme grinned and jerked her thumb at the irate blonde Dom.  "How
many people do you get in here asking that same question?"

"On a good day?"  Patrick let his voice trail off,
both amused and a little pissed.  Normally no one dared speak to him that
way, and now two of his friends had come barging in, cursing him.  Not
exactly the start of a good night.  Especially because he hadn’t wanted to call
Adam in the first place, figuring that it was better to have the Dom watching
over Angel, Leigh and Lexie.  Unfortunately, no one else had been able to come
in on such short notice, and he’d been forced to call Adam as a last resort. 
It was that or be short a Dungeon Monitor.  Even though they rarely had
problems in the club, Patrick couldn’t help but feel that was risking the safety
of his members, and that was something he refused to do.  Since the girls were
staying in, it should be fine.  At least, that’s how he reassured himself.
 "What now, Adam?"

"Lexie says you're going to be training her."
 Crossing his arms over his chest, Adam glared down at him.
 "What the fuck?  We've been keeping her out of the club for
months, and now
you're
 going to train her?"

"What ever happened to minding your own business?"
 Olivia snapped, stepping up beside Adam and glaring at the big, blonde Dom. 
Even though she was a little bit shorter than Adam regularly, with her wickedly
spiked boots they were right on eye level.  All amusement that she'd shown
upon Adam's arrival was wiped away.  "What the hell is wrong with you
idiots that you can't see Lexie belongs in the club?  And that she wants
to be trained?  Specifically
by
Patrick."

Behind his desk, he winced a bit at Olivia baldly stating what
everyone knew, but no one talked about.  Adam winced too.  None of
them wanted to acknowledge Lexie's interest in Patrick, or his returned
interest in her, because it was too uncomfortable.  It messed with the
status quo.  It also messed with the group, because obviously people were
already taking sides - and there was more than two sides to take.  

"She's too young."

"There are plenty of submissives in the club who are younger
than her," Olivia said flatly, crossing her own arms over her chest. 
The end of the crop waved rather threateningly in the air.  "Try
again."

"She's like a little sister to us.  It's...
incestuous."

"No one's asking you to train her, and if Patrick doesn't
feel that way, then that's his business."

"She's too innocent!"

Olivia rolled her eyes.  "Please tell me you don't think
that Lexie is a virgin."

Silence fell over the room.  Adam shifted uncomfortably as
Patrick grimaced.  No, neither of them thought that... but neither of them
wanted to think about the fact that she'd had sex before.  Patrick,
because he didn't like to think about anyone else touching Lexie, even though
he knew he had no right to think that way.  Adam, because no older brother
wanted to think about his little sister having sex, even if she was an adopted
little sister.  Which, of course, was the crux of the problem.  Other
than Patrick, who had initially been horrified to realize that he was attracted
to Lexie, all of the guys saw her as a little sister.

None of them wanted to see her as a sexual object. 

In the club, that would be hard to avoid unless Patrick kept her
to the private rooms, like Liam did with Hilary.  But it was obvious that
Lexie liked the exhibition aspect of kink, which meant that if he was going to
fulfill her needs, they would need to spend some time in the main
Dungeon.  Where her 'older brothers' might see her in all her naked, ecstatic
glory.  

Patrick couldn't say what had finally flipped the switch in his
head, to make him see Lexie differently, but he could still sympathize with
what Adam was feeling. 

"I just..."  Adam scrubbed his hands over his face,
one of them lingering to rub over his goatee.  

"You just want her to never grow up," Olivia said, her
voice full of false sympathy.  She let her arms drop from their crossed
position and patted Adam on the shoulder with her free hand.  The one that
wasn't full of riding crop.  "She’s already grown.  Welcome to the
real world, sweetie; where women have male friends and little girls grow up and
have sex.  I know this year has been oh-so-difficult for you, but you're
such a trooper."

"Fuck off," Adam said, brushing her hand away.  The
others in their group had, mostly, stopped ribbing Adam about his jealous
reactions to Angel's friends, but it was a topic that never got old for
Olivia.  Probably because she and Adam had always been close, and she
thought his reaction to Angel's guy friends was both hypocritical and ridiculous,
along with being amusing.  She didn't have a whole lot of sympathy for any
of the guys when she thought they were dealing badly with their women.  

Sitting quietly wasn't normally Patrick's thing, but he was happy
to let Olivia fight this battle for him.  For one, his first response
would have been to be defensive, and it probably would have ended in a shouting
match between himself and Adam.  For two, he wouldn't have been nearly as
eloquent as Olivia, because he still wasn't sure he was doing the right
thing.  He was doing what he
wanted
 to do, after having
resisted those desires for months, but was it the
right
 thing to
do?

"What about Jake?" Adam demanded, looking back and forth
between Patrick and Olivia.  Patrick winced.  "What are we
supposed to tell him?"

"Nothing," Patrick said, firmly.  "Not until
he gets home and then
I'll
 talk to him about... whatever it is I
need to talk to him about at that point."

"Oh my god, you Neanderthals!"  Olivia
exploded.  The crop whacked down on Patrick's desk, making both men
jump.  Not a normal occurrence for Patrick; he'd never been anything but completely
in control when in his office.  This thing with Lexie had him all sorts of
fucked up in the head when he couldn’t anticipate Olivia’s reactions.
 "Jake doesn't get a say in who Lexie dates.  You don't get a
say in who Lexie dates."  She poked Adam in the chest with the crop
and then swung it around to point at Patrick.  "The only reason
he
 gets
a say is because he's who she wants to date."

"We're not dating," Patrick growled.  "I'm
just training her."

"Call it whatever you want," Olivia snapped at him.
 "The point is, it's her life.  She's an adult, and she gets to
make her own decisions.  Not that I think Jake will be an asshole about
this, but even if he was, it's still Lexie's life, not his.  You all need
to get your heads out of your asses."

"You don't fuck around with your best friend's little
sister," Patrick snapped back, his fist coming down on the desk as he
glared at Olivia.  "Not without talking to him about it.  I get
that you don't understand, but that's just the way it is."

Adam nodded, although he turned his own furious gaze back on
Patrick.  "But that’s exactly what you'll be doing if you train
her."

"We're.  Not.  Going.  To.  Fuck."
 Patrick clipped the words out with finality.  Even though the back
of his mind was already chafing at the restriction.  "What the hell kind
of options do you think I have, Adam?  I can't keep her out of the club if
she wants to come in here with Michael.  Even if I do keep her out of the
club, what's to stop her from going to Blush?  Or Chained?"  He
named two of the other club options for BDSM activities.  Blush, despite
its discreet name, didn't have the best reputation.  Patrick abhorred
Blush because it didn't screen its members and he knew of more than one
submissive who had had an "incident" while at Blush.  Incidents
in which the club's so-called Dungeon Monitors didn't intervene.  Chained
was newer, and so far they hadn't heard anything bad, but it was way too far
away for any of them to be able to keep an eye on her there. 

To his credit, Adam winced and stayed quiet, not having an answer
for any of those questions.

"Tell the others," Patrick said, taking back control of
the reins from Olivia and Adam.  They both immediately turned their bodies
more towards him, responding to the seriousness of his tone.  "I'm
training Lexie.  No one is going to distract Jake by running to him with
the latest gossip.  
I'll
talk to him when he gets back. 
People can think whatever the hell they want privately, but Lexie will be safe,
here, at Stronghold, with me.  I'm not going to explain myself twenty
different times.  We're not going to have people fighting in the group
about this.  Like Olivia said, it's nobody's fucking business."
 He barked an unamused laugh and looked at her.  "Hell, if
anyone else has any questions or objections, I'm sending them to talk to
you."

"Please do," Olivia said, smiling with a sweetness that
was as dangerous as it was false.  "Now if you two will excuse me,
I'm going to go find an accommodating subbie to beat on."

Both men were silent as she left the room, Adam sinking down into
one of the chairs across from Patrick.  The door slammed shut behind her,
and Adam winced. 

"I feel sorry for whomever she picks up tonight," Adam
murmured, his hand automatically going down to cradle his groin.  Patrick
didn't think the other man even realized he'd made the gesture.

"She'll choose someone who can handle it," Patrick said,
although he felt the same.  But he knew whoever Olivia chose would be
ecstatic at her attention, not to mention her viciousness.  Just because
he didn't understand the appeal of having his balls in a vise... well, to each
their own.  

"Can you seriously handle Lexie?" Adam asked, his voice
concerned instead of combative.  "Not to mention Jake?  I'll
tell the guys but... we're all used to thinking of her like a little
sister."

"You're telling me," Patrick said.  He picked up
the pen he'd been using to do paperwork and then put it down again.
 "I don't know how things changed between her and me.  I don't
know why.  I was thinking about talking to Jake... but then he got
deployed, and I didn't want him worrying about her while he was gone."

Adam nodded.  "When does he get back?"

"I don't know."  Patrick glanced at the clock.
 "He's supposed to Skype me sometime this evening, and I'm hoping
he'll be able to give me a clearer idea.  But in the meantime, I've
started thinking that maybe it's better this way.  Lexie is definitely
submissive.  She needs to be trained, and I don't trust anyone else to do
it right and keep their hands off of her while doing so.  If I handle it
personally, then I can at least explain everything to Jake and be solely responsible
for her.  I'm not sure how he'd take me just handing her off to someone
else."