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  Kel fought the urge to put his fist through something—preferably Niall. “Who am I supposed to talk to?”

  “Well, one of us, fer starters.”

  “Isn’t that a conflict of interest?” Kel asked.

  “Normally, I’d say yes, except these are…extenuatin’ circumstances. She already told us she wouldn’t mind us workin’ with ye on yer own issues, as long as we maintain a level of confidentiality where she’s asked it of us.”

  “My ‘issue’ is that I’m afraid my wife’s going to die!”

  “Maybe that’s true,” Niall said, “but we’ll make room in our schedule for ye should ye wish to talk. I know Doug can easily fit ye in.”

  Kel honestly didn’t know what to say and didn’t even care Niall could hear him crying now.

  “Kel,” Niall finally said, “please trust us. Let us try. At least with the three of us, she knows she won’t face any judgment about the lifestyle. In fact, we can bring insights to the table, hold her accountable in different ways her team in Tampa wasn’t capable of. She knows she doesn’t need to hold back with us.”

  “I guess I don’t have any choice, do I?” Kel bitterly laughed. “She uncollared herself at the appointment today. Handed me her bracelet and asked me to hold on to it. She’s so fucking thin it slid right off her goddamned hand.”

  It sounded like Niall blew out a breath. “I’m sorry, Kel. I really am. I’m gonna give ye a hard piece of advice—if ye love her, ye need to let go an’ let her do what she feels she needs to do. She knows the risks. She loves ye.”

  “Then why won’t she let me help her? Why is she fighting me on this?”

  “Because ye’re too close to her pain. It’s time to step back an’ let yer girl show you how strong she truly is. Fer both yer sakes.”

  Chapter Four

  Kel was barely out of the driveway before Mal started working through her to-do list on her phone. Calling Niall was first on the list, and she’d finished that task already.

  Arranging an Uber to take her to their facility for her appointment late that afternoon was second, and she did that. Technically her appointment today would be with Doug, but Niall and Doyle would both be there, as well. Then Doug would drive her home after, because he was actually staying at work late for this.

  Kel had taken his truck and left her car for her. She hadn’t driven in…well, months. Yes, that was one of the things she knew she’d need to get used to doing again, but despite what Kel thought, it wasn’t that she was too weak to drive. She needed to rebuild her confidence, and rush-hour in Sarasota traffic during snowbird season wasn’t the best time to make her first attempt at it.

  She suspected there were a lot of things he thought she was too weak to do on her own, and she truly didn’t begrudge him that. She’d given him no reason to think otherwise, had allowed him to step into control in so many ways, so many unhealthy ways, that of course he only saw her weakness now.

  Third item on her list was to create a group text thread with the three men, to their personal phones, and send them a message.

  This is item 3. Items 2 and 1 also finished.

  Her finger hovered over the send button. They had made one unbreakable term when agreeing to take her on as a client—that once she agreed to do this, she had to follow their rules.

  That they wouldn’t do anything to cross any relationship boundaries of their own, or with her, but they would be trying an…unorthodox approach to her treatment.

  If she failed to follow through on any of their orders without safewording or without a damned good reason, or if she was anything other than one-hundred-percent honest with them, they would immediately terminate her as a client and one of them would drive her back to Tampa and admit her.

  And that they would relax certain rules depending on her progress.

  There were no other options.

  After taking a deep breath, she hit send.

  Within ten minutes, all three men had responded that they’d received her text, and she blinked back tears at their Good girl responses.

  Yes, there was irony that she was agreeing to this particular path, but she was desperate.

  She needed a hard reset across the board, which was why she’d asked Kel to stay at the apartment temporarily.

  She needed to find her footing without worrying about him feeling even worse about all of this, or like he’d failed her because of what she was attempting now.

  And he needed time to focus on himself, even if he didn’t see that.

  But…

  That also wasn’t her concern, or so Niall had told her last night when she’d confirmed with him that today was the day.

  The three of them—Niall, Doyle, and Doug—were in agreement they suspected part of the problem was the two of them were so focused on what the other was going through that neither of them had truly dug into their own souls to confront the truth. Which was why she kept relapsing, because despite their hearts being in the right place, they were unintentionally doing unhealthy things to each other, perpetuating unhealthy coping mechanisms in the name of love.

  They could only work on themselves to find healing. Once that path was smooth and sure, then they could repair them as a couple.

  That was why she’d uncollared herself, despite it feeling like she was ripping part of her soul out of her body.

  Because the men were absolutely right—she couldn’t focus on her when she was Kel’s slave and worried about him and what her anorexia was doing to him. And she knew despite Kel’s heart being one-hundred-percent in the right place, he would never be as hard on her or demand the same level of accountability from her as Niall, Doyle, and Doug would as her counselors, friends, and as Doms.

  Another analogy Doyle had shared with her from the point of view of a mental health professional and as a recovering alcoholic with twenty years of sobriety under his belt—she couldn’t throw Kel a lifejacket when she was already too busy drowning, and vice versa.

  That once she could safely tread water on her own, then she could think about giving up the lifejacket to him—if he’d even take it.

  Again, something she had no control over.

  Another point all three men were in agreement on, that she’d spent the past eighteen months worried about trying to control every aspect of her life in unhealthy ways and which ran contrary to her desired outcome.

  That she’d never learned how to process and accept in healthy ways not being in control of certain aspects of her life, and that had led to her trying to maintain an unhealthy death grip on all aspects of her life…

  Meaning she had no control over anything and now doubted herself in everything.

  While the facility she’d been at was great for eating disorders, their staff specialized in that focus, and Niall and the others suspected they’d missed deeper triggers in the process.

  They were going to use a variety of approaches with her. Niall would focus on using hypnotherapy and try to teach her to learn to come to peace with what she could and couldn’t control in her life and to finally deal with past issues.

  Doug would focus on CBT methods with her and addressing the aspects of her OCD that had led to her eating disorder so she could better process triggers and reconfigure her habits, as well as help her work on new, healthy coping mechanisms to deal with her fresh and ancient grief.

  Doyle, who spent quite a bit of time out of town on the road with his rock-star husband, ironically the other Mal in their group, would mostly be working with her over the phone and approaching it from a codependency and addiction treatment angle.

  But through all of it, one of her jobs was to approach this as if she now had three Doms to deal with, despite the fact that Douglas was actually his husband’s slave.

  That was something none of them had told Kel about, and was another reason she’d uncollared herself this morning. Because she knew at this point in the process she couldn’t bring herself to do any of it if she still wore his collar. It would feel too much li
ke cheating in some ways. Mal the wife could rationalize it was for her survival, but Mal the slave was too intrinsically woven into that identity to give up her devotion to Kel.

  Something that could possibly literally kill her if she didn’t get a handle on it.

  Closing her eyes, she ran her left thumb over her engagement and wedding rings. For now, they would be her silent reminder of who she was, of who Kel was to her, with regaining her collar from Kel as her second-most important goal.

  Beating her anorexia and not dying was her first goal.

  Once she knew if this was actually helping her or not, then she’d tell Kel about that aspect of it. Because if it did help her, she knew he’d be okay with it.

  It would also mean she’d be better able to deal with the guilt she’d no doubt feel over his reaction to it.

  He wasn’t a failure, and he’d feel like one. She needed to be able to deal with that—and the fact that his reactions weren’t something she could control.

  Right now, she had another mission. Doug would take her grocery shopping on their way home from her appointment—another reason he was driving her home—but she needed to eat something for lunch, or she’d need to drink another of the pre-packaged shakes she’d brought with her. She had to keep her calorie count up through meals and snacking to maintain her steady weight gain.

  She opened the fridge, her heart aching when she realized that Kel was basically subsisting on crappy frozen meals.

  I should be cooking for him. For us.

  But he had eggs in the fridge, and cans of soup in the pantry.

  She selected a can of chicken noodle soup and put one of the eggs in a small pot of water to hard-boil it. Once her lunch was ready, she took a picture of it, noted it in her new fitness tracker app on her phone, and then texted the picture to the group thread, along with a text.

  Lunch.

  She also added the picture to her tracking log, but for now the men wanted her physically texting the picture to them, as well.

  Once she finished eating, she texted them a picture of what was left—about a quarter cup of the soup, which she saved in the fridge for later. Then she adjusted her food log accordingly so it accurately reflected her portions and calories.

  Her new fitness tracker, which she’d received at the facility on Friday from Amazon, and had put on its charger there at the house once Kel left, was now fully charged.

  She fastened it around her wrist, shocked that she had to adjust the strap to the tightest hole and it was still loose. But she synced it to her phone app—which all three men had login access to for monitoring her—and took a picture of it on her wrist to text to them.

  If she took it off to charge it, she had to notify them immediately by text, and then notify them again when she put it back on.

  They would use it to make sure she wasn’t resorting to unhealthy exercise patterns. It also had a GPS tracker feature, through the phone app. So if she tried running to burn calories, she wouldn’t be able to lie about it.

  It would be yet another way to keep her accountable.

  This had been one of Doyle’s prerequisites. That it would be her full-time “sober companion,” in a way. Something he was experienced with, because he’d made a living being a professional sober companion to celebrities, which was how he’d met his husband.

  Doyle had pointed out that when she had doubts about herself and her progress, she’d be able to review all the logs and counter the disordered thinking that would try to sabotage her—and which had sabotaged her in the past.

  That she had to learn to lean first on herself and understand everything she was capable of, and to be accountable to herself first and foremost, and to trust what she saw with her eyes in terms of results and logs versus listening to disordered thinking.

  It had all been delivered with a firm tone from all three men, a no-nonsense vocabulary, and while respectful, she had been made well aware that they wouldn’t coddle her. She’d seen first-hand how sadistic Niall and Doyle could be in their Dom modes. She had no doubts all three men would give no ground and call her out immediately if she slipped in unacceptable ways.

  All of this resonated with her in a way nothing had before.

  Another reason she was desperate to follow through with it.

  Another reason she was desperate to risk it.

  And another reason she was willing to risk hurting Kel now, because she knew if she could really persevere this time, he’d readily forgive her.

  Then, and only then, they’d be able to move forward with their lives.

  She hoped.

  Chapter Five

  Mal knew Niall and Doyle but didn’t know Doug from anything other than their phone sessions. So it was with some trepidation that she signed in at the reception desk and took a seat in the lobby to wait for him after filling out paperwork.

  She knew he’d been a priest and was recently married to Connor, a friend of Doyle, Niall, Aden, and Etsu, among others. She also knew he’d been married to a woman before that, who’d died shortly after giving birth to their baby, so he was freshly familiar with grief.

  She wasn’t sure what to expect when a man entered the lobby area and appeared to scan it. He was a little under six feet tall, with brown hair and the start of a beard and mustache, and grey eyes.

  When his gaze landed on her, she knew it was him, even before he walked over to her while wearing a kind smile.

  “Mallory?”

  She nodded. “Yes, Sir.”

  The few other people in the lobby wouldn’t know she meant it with a capital S.

  He held his right hand out to her. “Douglas Strickland. Nice to finally meet you in person.”

  She nervously swallowed as she took his hand, unable to ignore her relief at how he gave her a normal handshake. “Nice to finally meet you, Dr. Strickland.”

  “Follow me.”

  Nervously, she stood and he led her down a corridor to an elevator. “Are you warm enough?” he asked while they waited for it.

  There was no teasing or sarcasm when he asked it, but she was wearing two sweaters, well aware now how easily she got cold.

  Before, she was usually the one sweating her ass off when everyone else was freezing, but that was one of the “blessings” of her new body, and one she hated.

  “I’ll be okay.” She forced a smile. “The transition from outside to inside. I’ll warm up.”

  She shivered—and not from the chill in the air—as he gave her “the look.”

  It didn’t need a name other than that, because it seemed every damn Dominant she’d ever met in her life had some variation of “the look.”

  “If I’m still cold in a little while, I’ll tell you, Sir,” she added.

  He slowly nodded. The doors slid open and he indicated for her to go first. Once he’d pressed the button for their floor and the doors slid closed again, she relaxed.

  “You can call me Doug, or Sir, whichever is more comfortable for you,” he said. “You don’t have to call me Doctor, if you don’t want to.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  He tucked his hands into the pockets of his khakis. He wore a dress shirt and a tie, but his long sleeves were rolled up just under his elbows. A playful smile curved his lips. “And ‘Father Strickland’ is right out, I’m afraid, even though I do have other clients who are more comfortable calling me that, and who I allow to address me as such. Under our special circumstances, one of the conditions my Sir has is that you aren’t allowed to call me ‘Father.’” Mirth sparkled in his eyes. “It would seem some people have a priest fetish. Imagine that,” he drawled.

  She couldn’t help it—she laughed, and it was the first time in as long as she could remember that she’d had a deep, hard belly laugh.

  The doors slid open and he motioned for her to step forward. “Feels good, doesn’t it?” he asked as he led her down the hallway.

  “What?”

  He opened an office door for her and held it. “Laughing like that.”


  “Yeah. It does.”

  “Well, let’s hope that’s a good sign, then.” He let the door swing closed behind them and pointed her at a sofa. “Let me tell Doyle and Niall you’re here, but we can get started while we’re waiting on them.”

  She sat on the left end of the sofa, next to an end table holding a box of tissues, and where a small trash can was discreetly tucked under it.

  He walked behind his desk, made two quick calls, then picked up a notepad, pen, and took a seat in a comfortable chair not far from the sofa. “Did you want a bottle of water, or coffee, or anything?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “All right,” he said. “Let’s talk ground rules, then. You’ve had more talks with Doyle and Niall, but you’ll be seeing me more frequently than you’ll see either of them, so I get to do this while we’re waiting.”

  He ticked off points on his fingers as he talked. “Niall told me you uncollared yourself, and that will be on our discussion list today. For the duration of what we’re doing, we still consider you collared to Kel and will proceed accordingly. Nothing we do will approach any sexual or even sensual territory, excluding, of course, any conversations you feel you need to have about sexual topics regarding you and your husband as part of your therapy.

  “You will follow the daily rituals we’ve already started putting into place with you, or safeword immediately to explain why you can’t. If we feel at any time your health is in jeopardy, or we’ve hit a critical snag that is beyond our ability to help you with, we will readmit you to the treatment facility immediately, even if we’re forced to do so against your will.”

  He leveled a serious gaze at her, waiting, and she knew what he wanted to hear.

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Before you and I leave today, we’ll stop by the dietician’s office and get the meal plan from her that she’s drawn up. You will be expected to follow it, for now. We’re setting your first weight goal at gaining and maintaining five pounds by the end of four weeks, which will put you at one-twenty, correct?”