“It was perfect. I love the way you take control, and the occasional edge of pain increases the pleasure for me.”
Quinten joined them at the head of the bed as Ben withdrew and helped her lie down between them.
“Sorry we kept you waiting last night, baby,” Quinten murmured as he lazily stroked her abdomen. They’d arrived home from The Pony’s Halloween bash the night before to discover that a neighbor’s cattle had broken down their fence and were milling around in the acreage that made up their rather expansive front yard. The neighbor was having a hard time getting the cattle back through the fence. Ben would’ve been content to let them be until the morning, but his front entry didn’t have a cattle guard or a front gate, so they had to be contained somehow.
Both men had sent her inside to remove her costume, get cleaned up, and ready for bed. She’d giggled and gone inside after they’d told her that they’d be along directly to collect their due for dressing up for her.
“Directly” had turned into two exhausting hours of chasing cattle. Both men had been bushed from a full night at the club and then a strenuous night with the straying bovines. She’d been sound asleep by the time they’d come inside, in dire need of showers, and they’d decided to let her sleep.
“That’s okay. The long, hot bath relaxed me and I must’ve drifted off while I waited in bed for you.” She sighed and closed her eyes. “Y’all wore me out. I’m ready for my nap.”
Ben smacked her ass playfully and said, “Nope. Time for a shower. Then we have something we’d like to show you.”
Quinten grinned in commiseration, because she really did look ready for a nap, and said, “I’ll nap with you later. I’m still tired, too. But first we have a surprise for you.”
* * * *
Wondering what Ben and Quinten were up to, Camilla looked around as Ben parked in the parking lot of the old Huffield’s Hardware Superstore building. Weeds grew through the cracked asphalt in the parking lot, giving the area a neglected atmosphere. The building had sat vacant for a couple of years since closing during the economic downturn that had affected Morehead as much as the rest of the country.
Ben switched off the ignition and turned to her, a decidedly hopeful expression on his face.
She looked over at Quinten as he held up his hands like a frame to the windshield and squinted through at the building. “You’re gonna have to use your imagination, baby.”
A jingle caught her attention as Ben held up a keychain with two keys on it.
Her stomach acted like it was on a roller coaster as she switched her gaze from one man to the other and opened her hand to receive the keys Ben held out. “What are these for?”
Ben opened his door and climbed out as Quinten did the same on her other side. They stood there grinning like loons at her, and Ben replied, “That’s entirely up to you.”
She couldn’t move. “What do you mean?”
“Well, we figured that you’d want to name your club yourself.” He swept his hand toward the empty building. “Tah-dah! Of course, that is to say, if you like this location. We got the keys so you could look inside.”
“Have you been inside it?”
Ben smiled and shook his head. “No. I wanted to wait and look at it with you. Ethan has been inside it and suggested that maybe you might see the possibilities.”
She wasn’t sure why she felt better that they hadn’t already seen the interior. Maybe she wanted to experience it with them, like Ben had said, or maybe she liked that they weren’t steamrolling her into a club location already. She’d actually been thinking about looking around, and right then was as good a time as any to start.
Quinten clasped her fingers with his. “Ethan has had his eye on this place as a possible secondary location for a while. When Ben told him your plans, he suggested that maybe this was the reason the property had caught his eye.”
She leaned against his arm and allowed Ben to gather her other hand in his warm, callused one. “Thank you. Let’s look inside, I guess.”
The three of them walked hand in hand as she cast a critical eye around the deserted building. “The exterior and the parking lot need a lot of cosmetic work. Cleaning up.”
Quinten tripped on a crack in the asphalt. “Definitely.”
The old builder’s warehouse storefront looked like many others that were built in the 1980s and would have to be completely redone. The cinder block exterior had potential, and in her mind’s eye, she got a glimpse of the walls textured with stucco.
Don’t get ahead of yourself, missy. This place is enormous. Way bigger than you’d planned.