Trixie kept fluttering her feet. Her shoulders dropped and she stared at the water as if she saw her history there, a past she’d much rather drown in that lake than acknowledge.
“I’m your husband. We don’t have secrets.”
“Apparently we do,” she said, hoisting herself away from the dock. “You’ve sat on your secrets. I’ll closely guard mine.”
“Careful, Trixie,” Brock said, biting back that overwhelming need rising within.
The challenge hung in the air. An emotional tug-of-war had begun.
Without a doubt, Mitch would thrust Trixie into the throes of Domination and submission. He wouldn’t let her tiptoe around the realms of desire. He would push her limits and test her control.
“Careful, Trixie,” she mocked him. “You’re a fraud, Brock. Where Domination and submission are concerned, you may have been one way with some of your other women, but once you married me, you weren’t about to pursue that lifestyle because you were afraid of what my dads might do or say. You wanted approval from my family more than you wanted satisfaction in the bedroom.”
He leapt to his feet and grabbed her arms. “Damn it, Trixie! That’s not what happened! Do you really want to wake a sleeping bear? Do you?” He pursed his lips and studied her wide eyes. Those big blue eyes were frightened and while he didn’t want to scare her, he was bound and determined to show her another part of himself, the side that had been in hibernation for far too long.
“I’m not nineteen anymore. I’m a grown woman with wants and needs just like you.”
“And I’ve met those needs, thank you very much. Don’t cut off the hands that feed you, Trixie.”
“I won’t,” she said, pushing him away. “But I don’t have a problem slapping away the very hands holding me back.”
As if she’d spoken her final words, she stormed off the dock and darted up the small hill leading back to the island huts. Brock watched her rush away and made a decision, one he’d considered several times over the past few years.
“Sub, stop right where you are!”
Trixie kept walking.
“I didn’t ask, Trixie. You will stop right there or so help me when I catch up to you, I’ll punish you for a week and make you so crazy for me you’ll cry for a fuck and beg for one simple touch. And you will not receive anything more than your rightful punishment!”
Trixie came to an abrupt halt. She slowly turned. The expression on her face was absolutely priceless.
Lust marked its place in her hooded eyes. Her lips appeared dry. Her cheeks were in full bloom, rosy and swollen with the hot air she’d quickly inhaled in an effort, no doubt, to still her temper.
Mad or not, she was excited. She was horny all right. And Brock knew precisely how to use her current predicament to better his positional advantage.
Chapter Sixteen
Back at the lodge, Rory was pressing his luck. In another minute, Mitch would be dangerously close to telling Rory to go fuck himself.
“You walked away from Trixie because you couldn’t run away from Jordie Anne?” Rory asked, rephrasing his question for the tenth or eleventh time.
“I won’t keep doing this, Rory,” Mitch stated flatly. “Trixie and I understand the situation better than anyone. I discussed my reasons with Trixie at the time.”
“I know all about those excuses.” Rory leaned forward. They were practically nose-to-nose. “Let me tell you what I don’t appreciate.”
“Why don’t you?”
Rory stood and went to the fireplace where he relaxed his arm against the mantel. “You rush back into our lives and pretend you never left. You act as if we’ve been sharing Trixie with you for the better part of over half a decade.”
“Whether you realize it or not, you have been,” Mitch said. “I own a piece of her heart. You can’t change that, Rory. If you could’ve, I believe you would’ve.”
“Trust me when I tell you this. Brock and I haven’t spent every waking hour worrying about you, Mitch. While we assumed you would eventually reappear, we didn’t focus on that possibility.”
“You didn’t think about it at all until Jordie Anne made the Cartwell women her targets.”
“That’s not entirely true,” Rory said. “When you talked to Brock and told him you were marrying Jordie, we saw your proposal for what it was. You had to marry her.”
“I what?”
“Matrimony was your only option,” Rory said. “You didn’t have a choice. You married her so she couldn’t testify against you. If she had been called as a witness, there would’ve been so many lawsuits brought against the Colony family and Cow Camp in general that we wouldn’t be standing here now.”