You Only Love Twice (17 page)

“I’ll look forward to it and she’s a girl.” She winked
Taggart’s way and turned to the crowd. Phoebe nearly shrank back when she
realized where Charlotte’s eyes had fixed. “Phoebe, I think my husband would
feel infinitely better if he got to beat on you for a while.”

She shook her head and started to turn to walk right back
upstairs. “Nope.”

“Chicken.”

Phoebe stopped and turned, staring at Charlotte and trying
to judge if she was serious. “That is the most immature thing I’ve ever heard
come out of your mouth.”

“Oh, then you haven’t been listening to her very long. Give
her time. It gets way worse.” Taggart stood on the stage, his eyes lit with
mirth. He did have the most bent sense of humor.

“Chicken shit,” Charlotte continued. “That’s actually what I
meant to say. You’re a little chicken shit, Phoebe Graham. Or is it Grant?”

Taggart nodded. “See, there it is.”

“Do you really think calling me names is going to work on
me?” Anger started to build in her system. She hated the bullying crap.

Charlotte stepped off the stage, moving carefully down the
stairs. Phoebe was well aware that every eye in the dungeon was on them.

“Maybe we should go back to our room,” Jesse offered,
looking between Phoebe and Charlotte.

“Maybe we should have this out here and now.” She wasn’t
backing down from some pregnant chick. “You know it’s really unfair of you to
pull this shit while you’re pregnant and I can’t show you just how chicken I’m
not.”

Charlotte grinned as she approached. “That’s the best part
of being pregnant. I can say anything I like and no one gets to punch me. As to
why I’m being such a bitch, that’s easy. I’m doing that for you.”

“Well, don’t let me forget to send you a fucking thank you
note.”

“If I don’t push you, you’re going to end up going back
upstairs and you won’t have tried a damn thing. Jesse won’t push you. He’s too
sweet, but I think you need a little shove because I think you’ll enjoy it.”

“Shouldn’t that be my call?”

Charlotte’s head shook. “Absolutely not because you’re a
chicken.”

This was the most immature argument she’d ever been in, and
she couldn’t seem to force her way out. “I am not. You know I spent time in a
Chinese prison. It wasn’t exactly the Ritz and I’ve got the scars to prove it.
I’m not some wilting flower.”

“Then you can handle one little flogging,” Charlotte shot
back. “They’re not even stingy floggers. Are those deerskin, babe?”

Taggart held up a set of floggers. “Yes, two perfectly
matching floggers. Same weight, same material. Deerskin. They’re soft and
produce a nice thud.”

Floggers. Those were big old floggers and Ian Taggart would
be wielding them. “I’ll do it with Jesse.”

“Uh, I’m not qualified to do Florentine,” Jesse said. “It’s
two floggers working in time. If you do it right, you pretty much create a
circle-eight pattern. It’s really cool to watch, but you have to be careful to
stay on the big muscles, the shoulders, butt. You don’t want to hit the wrong
place or you could damage the sub’s kidneys. I would have to practice on Darla
for a couple of weeks before I would be willing to do it.”

“Who’s Darla?” She’d figured out that Sanctum was full of
gorgeous, submissive women and they all seemed to want her man…well, they all
seemed to want Jesse.

It was annoying.

Jesse’s hand found hers, squeezing gently. “She’s a
life-size doll. We use her to practice on.”

She still didn’t like Darla. And she definitely didn’t like
the idea of being at Taggart’s mercy.

Jesse let go of her hand. “It’s all right. We’ll go to the
bar and have another drink or we can just call it a night.”

Damn Charlotte Taggart and her manipulations. “No. I’ll do
it. Does my safe word work on him?”

“In this setting it does.” Sometimes when Taggart smiled he
looked like a shark getting ready to go into feeding-frenzy mode.
Unfortunately, this was one of those times.

“It’s just no for tonight, Tag,” Jesse explained.

“That’s no fun. I thought she would pick expellifucktis or
something,” Tag replied.

“It’s expelliarmus,” she corrected. “And actually that’s a
good one. I really wouldn’t be thinking that in the middle of this and it is a
disarming spell that forces your opponent to drop whatever they’re holding, so
it works.”

Now she sounded like a nerd.

“Is that Harry Potter stuff?” Jesse asked.

Yep, she was a super nerd. “Yes and I think Ian would make a
good Voldemort.”

“He was a pussy.” Taggart gestured to the play area. “Now if
Hermione here would please take the stage, we can get started. Jesse, tie her
to the middle cross, please.”

“Cross?” Phoebe hesitated.

Jesse pointed to the back of the stage where there was a
wooden
X
on the wall. There were leather cuffs on the top and bottom
of the
X
, obviously where her hands and feet would go.

It struck her suddenly that she would be all alone up there.
She would be stripped down and vulnerable and at the mercy of a man who likely
had none.

Was this their version of revenge? Was this how they got
back at her for lying to them? She stared at that cross and hated Phoebe Graham
in that moment. This vulnerability wasn’t her. She was strong. She’d built up
walls over her lifetime that were so strong almost no one could get through
them.

Until Jamie died and she found out that all the shit that
came before was nothing compared to how hollowed out grief could leave a
person.

The old Phoebe would have shoved everyone the finger and
then told them to go to hell because she wouldn’t have cared about them. This
stupid weak Phoebe didn’t want to be laughed at, didn’t want to find out what
they really thought of her.

“I don’t want to be tied up.” She would be helpless. She
couldn’t be helpless.

Taggart looked down at her, his face as soft as it ever got.
“I’m not going to hurt you. I promise you that. Like I told you, all my rage is
far better expended on your brother.”

She shook her head. “I can’t stand the thought of being tied
up. This isn’t right for me.”

“Phoebe, this is about learning to trust,” Ian explained.
“You wouldn’t be the first sub who couldn’t stand the thought of being tied
down and vulnerable, but you’ll also never know what it means to utterly trust
a partner so much that he could do anything and you would know it would be all
right.”

“I can’t.”

“All right.” Tag gave up. “I’ll get someone else. I can’t
flog her with her just standing there. There’s too much risk that she would
move at the wrong time.”

“Let me be her cross,” Jesse said suddenly. He stepped
forward. “She can hold on to me, lean on me. That way I can tell if she’s
handling it all right.”

Taggart seemed to think about it for a moment. “She can use
her safe word at any moment, but she’s got to be still until I stop.”

“I won’t move.”

Taggart nodded and gestured for Jesse to join him in setting
up the scene. Phoebe was left watching them, wondering if she was making the
right choice.

If Jesse was with her, she could try it. It would be better
to know than not. If they made fun of her, or if Taggart decided to hurt her
for kicks, then she would know that he was the same as all the other assholes
she’d met. She didn’t think so, but then she’d only seen how he treated the
people he loved. How would he treat her?

People liked to hurt other people. That was what life had
taught her. Her childhood had been one long succession of adults who failed
her. She’d watched her foster brothers and sisters damn near kill each other
over as little as an extra soda. Only Ten and Jamie and their dad had ever
offered her refuge, and then they’d sent her off to fight a war no one even
knew was raging.

“Just hold on to Jesse.” Charlotte was suddenly at her side.
“I promise it won’t hurt. It’s like a really nice massage. Try to let your mind
drift. Hear the rhythm of the floggers moving and let go. Jesse will catch you.
He won’t let anything happen to you.”

Phoebe turned to Charlotte. “I thought you were hoping to
watch me squirm.”

“Only in a good way. Phoebe, if I hadn’t challenged you, you
would have stayed out there in the audience all night. You needed a push and I
gave it to you. Trust me, I know how to deal with stubborn women who need a
swift kick in the ass from time to time. I’m Chelsea’s sister after all.” She
got serious for a moment. “I think you need this every bit as much as she did.
Women like you, like us, we need to be able to let go from time to time. We
need to know we have a safe place.”

“I had one once.”

“I know and you can have another one.” Charlotte reached up
and smoothed back her hair, a gesture that made Phoebe wish she’d had an older
sister.

“Why are you being nice to me?” It didn’t really make sense
when she thought about it.

“Because you’re my friend.”

“I lied to you.”

“Oh, honey, we all do things we probably shouldn’t. We do
them for our jobs. We do them to survive. We do them because we love someone.
When the chips were down, you picked him and that’s all I need to know. I hope
that you’re smart enough to pick yourself when the chips are down the next
time.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that I think walking away from Jesse would be an
act of sacrifice you don’t need to make. When you have to decide between him
and your job, between him and your first husband—and somewhere in your slightly
fucked-up head that’s happening—choose what will make you happy. Choose a
future, not the past. Choose us because guess what, we come with him in all our
glory and that includes a head of the family who likes to flog people. I also
chose you because you won’t use this time to try to get my husband to cheat on
me.” She turned suddenly, pointing a finger at a blonde girl who shrank back.
“That’s right. I’m talking about you. I hear everything and I will murder you
if you touch him.” When she turned back to Phoebe, she had a hand on her belly,
rubbing it thoughtfully. “After the baby. I’m not actually allowed to murder
anyone while I’m pregnant.” She leaned in. “And that girl back there didn’t
actually touch him. She just mentioned to someone that Ian was probably
sexually frustrated because his wife is a whale and she offered to take care of
him.”

“I’m not pregnant. I could murder her.” She hated mean
girls. Loathed them. It was one of the great things about the McKay-Taggart
women. They supported each other. They were kind to each other even though they
could be deeply sarcastic about it.

“See, you fit right in now.” Charlotte nodded toward the
stage. “They’re ready. And don’t worry about Ian. He’ll take care of you. You
don’t know it yet, but you are one of us.”

It was a sweet thought, but she certainly hadn’t earned it.
She stepped up to the stairs, deeply aware of the crowd around her. She turned
to her right and there was a woman in a corset smiling at her with
encouragement. She was a bigger girl, very likely considered overweight in the
outside world, but here she was beautiful. Here, she was accepted.

It suddenly occurred to her that Ian Taggart hadn’t liked
the outside world very much. They were alike in that thinking. But while she’d
simply put up walls to keep it out, Ian had done something about it. He’d
created his own world and invited people in. He’d built a place where he felt
comfortable and in doing so made others comfortable with themselves.

He’d built something lovely.

Jesse stood at the edge of the stage, his hand out to help
her up. God, she loved how big his hands were, how callused they were. His
hands were solid. They were hands that had worked, hands that protected. She
slid hers into his and immediately felt stronger. “Think about this for a
moment, Phoebe. You know he can’t flog you in that corset.”

Naked. She would have to be naked from the waist up, of
course, though no one had to see her except Jesse. She turned and looked at the
crowd. They weren’t all gorgeous. Many were normal and yet there was such
beauty in their acceptance of themselves and others. “Can you help me out of it?
I had to find Avery to help cinch me in.”

Now Avery was watching from the sidelines with Li. She gave
Phoebe a thumbs-up.

Even with Ten and Jamie, she’d been a little apart because
she was the only woman. They could love her, but they would never understand
what it meant to be her. Charlotte and Avery understood, and that somehow made
it easy to decide to shed her armor. And hey, the corset hadn’t covered much
anyway.

Jesse’s lips quirked up in a crazy, sexy smile. “Really?”

A confidence like she’d never felt before poured through
her. “Yeah, really.”

He would like her. He would praise her and it would be okay.

“Come here.” His voice went deep, his stance suddenly very
straight and proud. It made his shoulders even wider, his chest and abs stand
out. Not that they needed much help. He was wearing nothing over them but a
leather vest that seemed to showcase just how often the boy worked out. His
muscles were perfectly cut and she suddenly had the deepest desire to touch
them. “You belong to me tonight. In this place and for this one night, you’re
mine.”

Just one night. Just one place. It was unreal, like a few
hours that would only really exist in a dream. She could be his for a little
while. For a few moments, she could find that safe place Charlotte had talked
about. It wouldn’t be a betrayal of James. It was just a momentary vacation
from reality. “Yes.”

He pulled her close and his hands went to the back of her
corset. “Ian, could you give me a knife?”

Before she knew what was happening, she felt pressure as the
corset pulled tight and then blessed relief as it completely let go. She hadn’t
realized how tight it had been, how hard it was to breathe. Oh, and she
definitely hadn’t known how good the cool air would feel on her skin. Jesse
pulled the corset apart and her spine tingled with the delicious chill.