Taming Avery_A MFM Menage Romance Read online

  “You’ve got to shake it off.” Maddox’s voice is bracing. “I remember I was in Mali once, and our hotel got attacked by a group of armed men. It wasn’t fun. People died that day. My next assignment was in Benin. I didn’t want to go. I went anyway.”

  I raise my hand for another drink.

  “When’s your next surgery?” Maddox asks.

  I hold my right hand out. There’s a tremor there, one that hasn’t gone away in seven days. “I’m not cutting anytime soon.”

  “Oh.” Maddox is at a rare loss for words. “Fuck. I’m sorry, buddy. Have you talked to someone about it?”

  “Joanna Wadsworth suggested I talk to a shrink.” The hospital administrator had done more than suggest. She’d flat out insisted. “I declined. I’m taking some time off instead.”

  Maddox gives me a sidelong look. “How much time?”

  As long as it takes.

  I shrug. My Scotch arrives, and I gulp it down. “Are you looking for a submissive?” he asks. “To scene with?”

  Yes. Everything feels out of control. I need to be in charge tonight.

  Then a woman walks into the room, her dark hair gleaming under the golden light. She’s wearing a short black skirt, a black leather corset, lace stockings and high heels.

  My breath whooshes out in an exhale.

  Avery Welch.

  After all these years.

  As gorgeous as she was the last time I saw her.

  No, more beautiful.

  I’m not the only one who thinks so. Every head in the club turns. I see the dominants in the club check her out, their gazes covetous and avid.

  What the hell is she doing at Club M?

  Maddox freezes at my side.

  “Beautiful woman,” a voice next to me says. Xavier Leforte sits down at our table. “I hear you two know her.”

  Maddox raises his head and glares at our friend. “What the fuck are you playing at, Xavier?”

  The club owner spreads his hands. “Nothing,” he replies. “She filled out the form, and I interviewed her.”

  “She’s into BDSM?” Ten years ago, Avery had been relatively innocent, but brightly curious and eager to explore. In the hands of the wrong dom… I clench my hands into fists.

  “Totally new to the lifestyle,” he replies. “I asked Caleb to show her around. Maybe they’ll hit it off. He loves training new submissives.”

  I want to punch him. I’m not the only one. “You asked Caleb?” Maddox growls. “What the fuck, Xavier?”

  He frowns. “She said you were involved once,” he says. “I assumed you wouldn’t want to show her around. Besides, since when did either of you train new submissives? Maddox, you’re never around long enough, and Kai, everyone knows how you roll. Two weeks, isn’t that right?”

  Caleb says something to Avery, his head bowed, his mouth close to her ear. There’s a smirk on his face, and when I see how close he is to her, a pulse of pure anger runs through me. It’s been ten long years since I’ve seen her, but I remember everything. How she moaned when I nibbled her earlobe. How she came when I pinched her nipples, her thighs pressed tightly together, her eyes hazy with desire.

  We’d been in London, Maddox and I. Maddox was working his way through Europe, using London as his base. He hadn’t needed to; his maternal grandfather had died shortly after Maddox turned twenty-one, and he’d left him a fortune. But Maddox was trying to build a name for himself, and the only way to do it was to take every freelance assignment that came his way.

  I was doing two years of residency at St Bartholomew's Hospital. Both my parents were surgeons, and it was always assumed that I’d follow them, but I’d wanted to travel before I picked a discipline. Of course, being a resident meant that I worked sixty and seventy hour weeks, falling into bed exhausted at the end of every long shift. I didn’t get to see as much of London as I would have liked, but I loved it nonetheless. Camden, where I rented a small one-bedroom flat above a bustling cafe, was a world away from the quietly affluent Kalorama Heights neighborhood I’d grown up in.

  We’d met Avery at a bar called the King’s Arms. She was a bartender, young and fresh-faced. From the moment she’d poured me my first pint, I’d been attracted to her, but I’d fought it as much as I could. Avery was an innocent, and Maddox and I were drawn to darker things, desires that would send the laughing bartender screaming.

  Or so I’d thought.

  For more than two months, we kept going back to that pub. I flirted, of course. I never pretended to be a monk, after all. But my true desires, I kept hidden. I wanted her to kneel on the wooden bar, naked, her knees spread wide, just because I told her to. I wanted to spank her round ass, and most of all, I wanted to watch her suck Maddox’s cock while I sank into her tight cunt. I wanted her to be overwhelmed with sensation, delirious with the pleasure that I gave her. I wanted to introduce her to perversion.

  I still do.

  That inconvenient realization shocks through me like a live current.

  She always flirted back, Avery. She was never coy. She didn’t play games. Then one day, late at night, when it was almost time for the bar to close, she’d asked us to stick around. “Today’s my last day,” she’d told us.

  The idea of never seeing her again had felt like a lead weight in my stomach. “Onward and upward?” I’d asked her, suppressing my disappointment. She’d once let it slip that she was working at King’s Arms while she went to Cambridge, though she rarely talked about her school work.

  A strange look had flashed across her face. “Something like that,” she’d replied. She’d swallowed then, her cheeks coloring. “I’m taking two weeks off,” she’d murmured. “I’ve never been to Ireland.”

  “I have two weeks off too,” I’d replied. “And Maddox doesn’t need to be in Rome until the end of the month.”

  At my side, Maddox had narrowed his eyes speculatively. We’d both resisted her. We’d both done our level best not to corrupt her, to taint her sweetness with our darker desires.

  “I know.” Her voice was soft, so quiet that even in the empty bar, I had to strain to hear her. “Would you like to come with me?”

  I’d lifted my eyes to her face. “You know what you’re asking for?”

  She wasn’t a fool. We were both attracted to her. Neither of us had made any secret of it. The question was, was she brave enough to take the plunge? To do what society considered unconventional, scandalous?

  “Yes.”

  I’d tried one more time. To save her. To save myself from her. I had known instinctively that Avery wasn’t someone I could walk away from. The attraction was too strong. Too visceral. We would ruin her, and she would wreck us. I’d known that from the moment I set eyes on her. “Are you sure, little one?”

  Her lips had curled into a smile. “Nobody’s called me that before.”

  “We’re going to share you, Avery,” Maddox had said, low and dangerous, his words deliberately crude. “We’re going to fuck the sweetness out of you. Take you in every hole. Make you beg for it. Beg for the pleasure that only we can give you.”

  If he thought that he would scare her off, he was wrong. “Should I beg now?” she’d responded, her cheeks still flushed. “I’m nineteen. I’m not a virgin. I know what I’m asking for.”

  She might not have been a virgin, but in the ways that counted, she was an innocent. And heaven help us, we wanted to corrupt the fuck out of her.

  For two glorious weeks, I thought we’d found the perfect woman. What Xavier and Rafael had with Layla Shleifer, we’d found with Avery. For two glorious weeks, when I wasn’t thinking of her, my head was filled with plans for the future. I didn’t have to head back to the States to finish my residency. I could stay in London. Maddox could restrict himself to shorter assignments. It would be tough, but we’d make it work because Avery was worth it.

  Then, on the fourteenth morning, when I woke up in a hotel room in Dublin, reluctantly aware that we had to head back to London that evening, she was gone.<
br />
  No note. No explanation. Nothing.

  Frantic with worry, we’d tracked her down.

  Then our world had crumbled in front of our eyes.

  Because the day after she left us, she’d married another man.

  Victor Lowell.

  Who had been twenty-seven years older than her.

  Titled and wealthy.

  Who she’d never once mentioned.

  The bleak truth stared us in the face.

  She’d sown her wild oats with us. Then, she’d married for money.

  Avery Welch taught me a very important lesson when I was twenty-six. One that lingers to this day.

  Because of her, I’ve never been with anyone for more than two weeks.

  3

  Avery

  This is a crapshoot, I tell myself as I sign in. I check my coat, surrender my phone, and step through a metal detector, moving on autopilot, my nerves on edge. There’s no guarantee that Maddox and Kai are going to be at Club M.

  “I’m going to assign you a mentor,” Xavier Leforte had said to me at the tail end of my interview. “He’ll show you around. Make sure you’re comfortable, that nothing happens that you aren’t prepared for.”

  That guy, Caleb Reeves, is waiting for me at the entrance. “You’re Avery Welch?”

  I nod. He gives me a friendly smile. “You look nervous,” he says. “Relax. No one bites. So, what brings you to Club M?”

  He seems like a nice guy. He’s giving me the once-over, and it’s obvious he likes what he sees, but his gaze is warmly appreciative, not sleazy.

  Things would be so much easier if I could let go of the past, but I can’t. Ever since Fiona Clarke mentioned Kai, my dreams have returned, over and over again, to the fortnight I spent with the two American men. When I close my eyes, I see Maddox Wake laughing at something, his brown eyes dancing with merriment. When I dream, Kai Bowen saunters into my mind as if he belongs there, his stormy blue eyes smoldering with intensity.

  I don’t want to give Caleb the wrong idea. I tell him what I told Xavier Leforte. “I dated a couple of the members here a long time ago,” I say quietly.

  “And you were hoping to rekindle the flames?”

  “Hoping being the operative word.”

  That’s an oversimplification. I made a lot of mistakes ten years ago. I thought I was doing my duty by my parents when I married Victor, but my heart had never been in it.

  My marriage had been two years of hell. Victor was hypercritical of me. I could never do anything right. I wore the wrong clothes. I talked in the wrong accent, to the wrong people. I was too friendly to the help. I was common.

  About the only thing I had going for me was that I was young. Victor was in his forties, and he wanted heirs. At nineteen, I was bound to be fertile. Except I didn’t get pregnant. And then, when he hit me, I finally found the courage to leave.

  Caleb steers me into the room, one hand in the small of my back. I’m about to pull away from the possessive gesture, but the moment I enter the club, heads turn in my direction, and several faces fill with avidly covetous stares. “Umm, wow.”

  “What’s startling you? The decor or the attention?”

  “The attention.”

  Caleb chuckles. “Why does that surprise you? You’re a beautiful woman, Avery.”

  I murmur acknowledgment of the compliment while taking in the room discreetly. The rich golden hues are unexpected, but that’s not what’s holding my attention. It’s the people. Men wear bespoke suits; the women are in cocktail dresses. Not as much leather as I feared, and hardly any nudity, except for the raised platform in the middle of the room, where a completely naked woman dangles, suspended in the air, her body bound by intricately knotted ropes that make her breasts bulge. “How long has she been there?” I ask, swallowing the nerves that clutch my throat. “Is she okay?”

  Is this what Kai and Maddox expect?

  Caleb gives me a reassuring look. “See the man sitting by himself?”

  I follow his gaze. “Yes.”

  “He’s her dom,” he says. “He’s watching out for her.”

  He’s right. Now that he points it out, I realize that the man has never taken his eyes off the bound woman. “How will he know she’s had enough? Does she have a safeword?”

  He nods. “Some people play without safewords, but in the club, that’s not an option. See the red ball in her hand?”

  “It wasn’t her hands I was looking at,” I mutter under my breath.

  Caleb laughs again. “If she drops that, he unties her. And if he misses it, there are at least five monitors who are also keeping an eye on her.” His lips twitch. “I get the sense you’re dying to be next on the center stage, Avery,” he teases.

  “Yeah, I need to work my way up to that.” I continue to search the room, sifting through the crowds, looking for the two men I’m here to find. Where are Kai and Maddox?

  Then the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. The weight of their gazes pulls at me, insistent and demanding. I look up and see them in a corner, their stares hard, their expressions closed.

  As you deserve.

  They’re angry. It’s visible in every line of their bodies. Every tightly clenched muscle. For one second, I fight a shameful urge to pivot on my heels and flee. Go back to the bland safety of my life, the one I’ve fought so hard to make my own.

  But their gazes tug at me like a tidal wave, and I’m pulled under. One glance, and I’m drowning.

  Kai’s chocolate brown wavy hair is untouched by gray. There are a few lines around his face, but otherwise, he looks exactly the same as he did ten years ago.

  Not so Maddox. Ten years ago, Maddox’s hair had been shoulder-length, pulled back in a ponytail. Now, it’s cut short. His goatee is gone, replaced by honey-gold stubble, but though he looks different, I’d know him anywhere.

  Caleb’s saying something at my side. I tear my focus away from Kai and Maddox and transfer my attention to him. “I’m sorry. I got distracted.”

  His expression is knowing. He bends his head toward me. “Let me guess,” he says into my ear. “The men you used to date. Kai Bowen and Maddox Wake?”

  My throat is dry. “Is it that obvious?”

  “They’re friends of mine,” he replies, his lips curling into a smirk. “Although it’s hard to tell, given the way they’re glaring at me.” His expression turns serious. “There are rules in place to protect you,” he says quietly. “You can always say no. You never have to do anything you don’t want to. You don’t have to go over there.”

  Actually, I do. From the moment Fiona Clarke mentioned Kai, I’ve been fighting this compulsion. Now that I’m here, I’m done pretending. “I want them,” I say simply. “Will you help me?”

  He’s a perfect stranger. There’s no need for him to do anything.

  His hazel eyes survey me thoughtfully. “’A long time ago,’ you said. How long ago?”

  “Ten years.”

  His eyebrow rises. “You met in London?”

  I nod. He smiles slowly. “How interesting,” he says. “Come on then, Avery. We’re going to go over and say hello. Follow my lead.”

  4

  Maddox

  They’re coming over.

  Ireland was ten years ago. There have been plenty of women since. I haven’t been pining for her. Nothing as stupid or naive as that.

  Avery Welch should be nothing but a distant memory.

  I shouldn’t remember the way her skin felt under my fingers. Shouldn’t remember the gray-green shade of her eyes. The exact dusky pink rose of her nipples.

  I’d taken pictures of her during those two weeks. The negatives sit in my darkroom, undeveloped. She’d pouted when she realized that I was using film, not a digital camera.

  Smartphones hadn’t been as ubiquitous as they are today. She’d wanted a picture of us, she’d said. What’s the hurry? I’d asked her lazily, my fingers tracing circles on her inner thigh, my cock hardening at the way her legs splayed open
at my touch.

  Then I’d realized that there was a time limit on our relationship.

  She’d left us, and the next day, she’d married some Baron with estates in Surrey.

  She married for money.

  Joke’s on her. Even then, I was significantly richer than her husband. And I was crazy about her. I would have given her everything.

  She’d taught me an important lesson, one I should have learned well. Money corrupts.

  Of course, I’ve had a more recent refresher course in that particular lesson. She isn’t the only gold-digger I know, after all. What my brother Gage did for money is far worse than anything Avery ever did.

  You never forget the first girl to break your heart.

  “Maddox, Kai.” Caleb reaches our table and smiles down at us expansively, his arm around Avery’s waist. My eyes zoom in on her ring finger. No wedding ring. It appears she’s not married to Lowell anymore. “Good to see you guys.”

  I don’t like the way he’s touching her. “Caleb.” My voice is clipped. “Avery. It’s been a while.”

  “You know each other?” Caleb’s eyebrow rises. “What a small world.” He sits down, uninvited. Avery remains standing. I grit my teeth and pull a chair up for her.

  “Thank you, Maddox,” she says softly.

  What the hell is she really doing here?

  “Avery’s interested in exploring her submissive tendencies,” Caleb says. He trails a finger down her arm, and I tighten my grip on my glass to keep from punching him. “I’m looking forward to helping her.”

  That’s it. I’ve had enough. As has Kai. “Reeves,” he growls. “Leave. Now.”

  He has the nerve to smirk. “Wait,” he asks innocently. “Do you want to train Avery?” He tilts his head to a side and gives us a mocking look. “But you never train a novice.”

  “Another word, Caleb,” I say pleasantly, “And you’ll regret it.”

  He chuckles and gets to his feet. “Have fun, Avery,” he says. “You know where to find me if all this growling intensity gets to be too much.”