I'll Sleep When I'm Dead Read online

  “Why wouldn’t I want you to drive me home?”

  “I’m not saying you wouldn’t. But it’s another layer of safety. I don’t want to hand you over to an Uber. Or we can ask someone at the club to drive you home in that car, if you can’t drive, and we can drive them back. I want as many layers of safety there for you as possible this first time. Maybe next time we play you’ll want us all to ride together. But that’s my condition for this first time, or I vote no right now.”

  Ken slowly nodded. “I’m not saying that’s my feelings, but I’ll agree to it.”

  Hal, then Trace, finally nodded their assent.

  They all looked to her and she realized they were waiting for her answer.

  “Okay,” she said. “Sure, but I don’t think it’ll be a problem.”

  “I hope it won’t be,” Steve said. “But we can’t undo this once it’s done. I’d prefer to take it slow.” A sexy smile filled his face. “Not like we don’t know where you live, Denny-girl.”

  * * * *

  Hal was itching to get his hands on her, put his marks on her, and had been ever since the night they’d watched Landry play with her at the club. He’d fantasized about this exact moment, and had a hard time not begging her to play right that minute.

  Which was why he knew they had to take this slowly and carefully.

  All he knew was he felt glad she hadn’t gone to the club without them and played with Landry, or even with Abbey.

  He wanted her to themselves, even if it was only for play.

  They’d had a discussion with Landry the last time they’d gone to the club for a rope night, where he’d quickly sussed out their situation and had given them some very sage advice.

  “She’s already yours, gentlemen,” Landry had said. “No, she didn’t say anything to me, but I watched how she looked at you that night you encountered her here. Lust and longing, definitely. But if she’s living with you, it’s only a matter of time. Bide that very same time showing her all the benefits that could be hers.” He’d smiled. “I speak from experience.”

  It was Trace who ended up driving her to the club the next night while the other three men followed in Ken’s car. They’d literally drawn cards for the right to do it.

  Hal had called shotgun and all the way there, following Trace, he imagined everything he wanted to do to her.

  “Slow your roll,” Ken said to him as they pulled into Venture’s parking lot. “You need to take it easy.”

  “What? Don’t tell me you don’t want to play with her.”

  “I do,” Ken said. “We all do. We can’t scare her.”

  “I don’t want anyone but us playing with her.”

  “Not our call unless or until she decides she wants no one but us,” Ken said.

  “We feel you,” Steve said. “Believe me, we want her, too.”

  “Someone’s gonna get fucked hard tonight,” Hal growled. “Because I’m gonna be horny as hell.”

  Ken chuckled. “I think we’ll need to draw cards for that order, too, because yeah. We’re all gonna want that.”

  * * * *

  Arden nervously walked into the club with the men and didn’t even try to argue with them when they paid her entry fee.

  Wasn’t like they couldn’t afford it.

  She was surprised, though, when Trace pulled Cali aside for a brief chat. When he rejoined them, he wore a smile.

  “What?” Arden asked.

  “Extra level of safety. When we’re ready to scene, she’s going to come DM for us personally.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we want you to feel comfortable with us.”

  “I do.”

  “Then humor us, please?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  All four men grinned, and it finished soaking her panties.

  They headed inside and she didn’t want to waste time sitting in the social area.

  She wanted a spanking.

  Needed it.

  More than just a spanking, though. The men had her go through their toybags earlier that day to remove anything she didn’t want them to use on her, but…

  She hadn’t removed anything. She wasn’t sure if that’d freak them out or not, but both Landry and Abbey had whaled on her pretty damn hard, and both had many scarier things in their toybags than the men did.

  Right now, it was about an hour after Venture opened, and while it wasn’t super-busy there were others already playing. She wanted them to snag a bench on the other side of the space so they could have a longer scene. Once things got busy, the DMs enforced the time limit on each piece of equipment to keep things fair for everyone.

  They ended up having to wait for Cali to finish giving a new member an orientation before she could switch places with one of the DMs to watch their scene. As the men set up and Arden eagerly prepared, she felt her pulse spike.

  This was really happening.

  Her vibrator was sooo getting a workout tonight when they got home.

  “Any last-minute changes or requests?” Steve asked her.

  “No, Sir. I want this.” Damn, it’d be hard to remember not to call them that outside of a scene. It was increasingly easy to think about them more as Doms than friends and bosses…except that was all on her end, nothing the men were overtly doing.

  If anything, the harder she pushed, the more they slowed down.

  Arden climbed onto the bench and settled in, closing her eyes and wishing they were in a bed and about to make love to her.

  Or spank her first.

  Countless dirty fantasies of all sorts had run through her mind with the four men playing starring roles.

  Now, at least one portion of them was about to be made real.

  Hands stroked her back, her arms, her thighs, kneading muscles and checking for bone, muscle, fat. It wasn’t long before she was being spanked bare-handed.

  Subspace didn’t even have to beckon tonight. She ran to it, willingly diving head-first into it as hands gave way to floggers, paddles, canes, crops.

  When everything finally stopped, she moaned, whining. “No! I want more.”

  A fleece blanket was draped over her, and Trace whispered in her ear. “Sweetie, we’ve been at it for ninety minutes and we need to clear the bench.”

  Sugarballs! Her eyes flew open. Cali was still DMing, but now stood farther from them, watching over several scenes and not just theirs.

  Trace helped her sit up and kept her swaddled while Hal grabbed her clothes. Ken and Steve were busy trying to get everything put up.

  “Ninety minutes?” she asked.

  “Uh-huh,” Hal said. He wore a playful grin. “Damn, sweetie. You wore us out.”

  Her whole body was one sweet stinging glow, centered mostly in her ass and thighs, but she’d have marks all over tomorrow.

  The men got her on her feet and moved over to a vacant sofa for her to chill out. Steve and Ken moved all their bags and wiped down the bench, quickly joining them.

  Cali walked over, smiling, a thumbs-up aimed at Arden.

  She nodded and gave her a thumbs-up in return.

  Cali nodded and left, and Arden closed her eyes, tipping her head onto Trace’s shoulder. “That was…amazing.”

  “Any complaints?” Ken asked.

  She started to say yeah, that they weren’t going to take her home and fuck her senseless, but she managed to hold that back.

  “Not a dang one,” she said.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Their scene left Arden’s mind reeling in the best way possible. The men had kept to their word and weren’t pressuring her to repeat the experience, either.

  She needed to process it, though. It’d be too dang easy for her to want to keep scening with them, every week—or more—and let her heart go somewhere that it shouldn’t with them.

  The men seemed contented with each other as sexual partners, so where would she even fit in there?

  Best to wait until after her return from New York with Ken in less than three weeks.
Because the closer they drew to that trip, the more nervous he seemed to get.

  The other three men had all talked to her privately about Ken’s relationship with his family. He loved them, felt responsible for them, and desperately didn’t want to lose them, regardless of how he knew they’d react if they knew the truth about him.

  All three men encouraged her to do whatever she had to do to help Ken sell it to them, that nothing would be held against her for it on their part.

  That all three of them felt grateful to her for being willing to help him out in a way they couldn’t.

  As the time drew closer for Arden to travel to New York with Ken, he took her shoe shopping and ordered her some clothes from Amazon in advance of the trip. If he wanted to spend the money on her, she wasn’t going to argue with him. This was critically important to him, and she would go along with whatever he wanted to do, or wanted her to do.

  It wasn’t like he couldn’t afford it, although she didn’t want him thinking she was only friends with him—or any of the men—because they could buy her things.

  Finally, the Friday arrived for them to fly up. They would arrive in the city with plenty of time to go to their hotel, settle in, relax, change, and then head to the rehearsal dinner.

  At TIA, Arden sucked in a nervous breath as she sat at the boarding gate with Ken. It was hard for her to remember not to huddle close to him. She was only playing a part, not really his girlfriend.

  “Are you nervous?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Did I mention I’ve never flown before?”

  “Never?”

  She shook her head.

  He draped his arm around her shoulders and she let him pull her against his side. He felt warm and solid and when he nuzzled the top of her head, she could pretend he was her boyfriend and not her gay boss. One of her hunky bosses.

  Okay, so more than a boss—a friend with spanking bennies.

  “S’all right, Denny. Gonna be a fun weekend.”

  “What if I goof up around your family?” She was in no hurry to move and loved the feel of his breath against her scalp.

  “Honey, you’re not going to goof up. Just be yourself and pretend I’m your boyfriend. You’re helping me head off a whoooole bunch of garbage I don’t want to deal with. I trust you. I know you won’t let me down.”

  He was the closest thing she had to a boyfriend. Well, him and the other guys. “If you need to…I mean, whatever we have to do or say to sell it to them. Please, don’t hold back. I’ll play along, and I won’t hold anything against you later.”

  “You mean if I hold you against me?”

  His smile couldn’t be denied a reply. “Yeah.” She sighed. “Please don’t hold it against me if I enjoy it a little too much, though.”

  “You sound like a woman in desperate need of a good snuggle.”

  “You can say that again.”

  When his lips pressed against her ear, the good kind of shivers rushed through her. “A struggle snuggle?”

  She swallowed but nodded. Why deny it? They’d spanked her ass.

  They knew what she liked.

  He tipped his head to the side, his deep brown eyes watching her for a long moment. “We had fun that night. All you ever have to do is ask, and we’ll be happy to help you out. But we’re not going to pressure you. You have to come to us. Or, if you want more. Just ask.”

  Ooooh, this was sliding hard and fast into really sexy fantasy territory. “Believe me, I’ve thought about that a lot,” she said before she could suck the words back.

  “About me, or all of us?”

  Heat filled her face. “All of you,” she whispered.

  She wondered if that would bother him, that it wasn’t just him starring in her fantasies.

  A wide, sexy smile played across his lips. “I think when we get home we’re all gonna have a lot of fun, sweetheart.”

  She wondered if he was simply teasing her.

  Does it make me a slut that I hope he’s not?

  * * * *

  Oh, were they going to have some fun.

  Sure, it’s the gay guy who ends up finding the perfect girl for us.

  Ken would be lying if he denied he hadn’t felt a twinge of resentment when he first realized how much the others really dug her, but the more he’d let down his walls around Arden, the more he’d seen what the other three saw in her.

  Arden was a sweetheart, funny, smart, giving—and in so many ways a perfect match for all of them. Yeah, he’d been with women before, but the common denominator with most of them—the waitress incident notwithstanding—had been he’d gotten to know them and the attraction had slowly built over time, due more to her personality than her appearance.

  Just like with Arden.

  And he’d had a hella good time scening with her that night. Plus he’d left for New York with the other three men telling him they were good with anything that happened between him and Arden during the course of the weekend.

  Hal flat-out said he hoped being alone with Ken might help tip her over the edge into wanting more with all of them.

  When Trace, and even Steve, nodded in agreement, he’d fist-bumped all of them and kept his fingers crossed.

  He wouldn’t push her.

  But he damn sure wouldn’t discourage her, either.

  He could tell she felt scared as hell about the rehearsal dinner, but as they prepared, he pulled her in for a hug and held her, sensing from the way she nearly melted against him that she needed the contact.

  “If it makes you feel better, pretend I’m your Dom.”

  “Not hard to pretend that,” she mumbled against his dress shirt.

  He made her tip her face back, so he could look her in the eye. “Not hard to pretend you’re my sweet little subby girl, either.”

  “This…it won’t make things weird between us, will it?”

  “Not from my end. Your call.”

  She nodded. “Yeah. Let’s go with that. Please?”

  “All you ever have to do is ask us, Denny-girl. I’m good with that.” More good than you can imagine.

  He could tell she felt practically terrified when they walked into the rehearsal and she faced his large family. Most of them immediately gave him arched eyebrows and not-so-subtle silent ’tude about her being white, but no one was dumb or rude enough to say it out loud with her standing right there.

  His family might be stubborn and closed-minded in some ways, but at least they were polite.

  Momma was the first to hustle up to him and he nearly had to peel Arden’s fingers from his so he could hug her. “Momma, this is my girlfriend, Arden Hasegawa.”

  If only he could introduce her as more, but that would put pressure on her at her expense, even if it would take every last bit of pressure off him and, for the first time in his life, allow him to relax around his family.

  But…no.

  Maybe…

  Depending on how the weekend went, and whatever happened after they returned home…maybe in a few months he could be introducing her to them as his fiancée, let that play out for months—or longer—and keep his family off his case.

  The men had all been on board with that plan, Trace even raising the possibility of maybe trying that weekend, if the opportunity arose.

  Then, Ken had brushed it off as too soon.

  Now?

  It was starting to feel like a damned good idea with the fear of his momma’s potential wrath hanging over his head.

  Except he was used to his mother’s biting snark over not discussing his love life.

  After the success of Collidezkope, he and the guys were very careful about what they put out on social media, especially regarding their relationships. So it wouldn’t raise any eyebrows this weekend with his relatives that he hadn’t said boo about Arden online.

  And Arden only had twenty-three friends on Facebook—including the four of them. Plus, she’d retroactively set all her posts to friends-only. She wasn’t very active on the site, anyway, so no chan
ce of accidentally blowing this story with any of his family.

  Momma eyed Arden up and down before extending her hand to her. “Melanie Rossi. So nice to meet you, Arden. I’ve heard absolutely nothing about you from my son.” That side-eye she delivered to Ken.

  “Now, Momma. You know I don’t—”

  “You don’t tell me anything, baby boy. That’s the problem.” She hooked an arm around Arden’s shoulders and started guiding her toward the front of the church. Arden cast a desperate glance back at him, and he gave her a nod and a tiny thumbs-up to encourage her to go with it.

  Lord, please don’t let them eat her alive.

  * * * *

  The rehearsal dinner lasted longer than Ken had counted on. By the time they got out of there and caught a cab back to their hotel, poor Arden looked close to collapse. He sat with her snuggled against him, his arm around her shoulders.

  “How’d I do?” she asked.

  He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Fantastic, Denny-girl. They loved you.”

  Okay, that was a slight exaggeration, but telling her that the fact they were tolerating her without to-her-face reads wouldn’t exactly engender her with confidence.

  They had two queen-sized beds in the hotel room, but he had stretched out in his first, the TV on. When she emerged from the bathroom, her long brown hair loose down her shoulders, he went with his instincts.

  He patted the mattress next to him. “Let’s watch TV.”

  She didn’t hesitate to climb in with him, her oversized T-shirt hanging almost to her thighs and covering her more than adequately. Almost too much, in his opinion, but he wasn’t about to go there with her.

  Not yet, at least.

  She snuggled in, and moments later, as he’d hoped, she was sound asleep.

  His phone was within reach, and he took a selfie of them together to send to Steve and the guys. He knew when he and Arden returned home the other men would rightfully be hogging her free time for a few days, but he couldn’t help gigging them a little.

  Eat your heart out, boys. :)

  Maybe it wasn’t Steve or Hal or Trace in his arms tonight, but he definitely wasn’t objecting to the company.