“Yes, it has. I checked that. I’m not stupid.”
“Good to know.” York grinned at his big friend. Poor Bronx looked quite stunned at the thought there might be a woman around who could partner with them. He’d gotten to know Nevis some during their card games each week, and didn’t think she’d panic at the thought of having to clean up an old trailer and turn it into both an office and a home, at least until the business was up and running properly. Not that he knew much about establishing a transportation business. His skills were more in computer technology. But he could follow instructions well enough.
“All right. So where is this woman? And how do we convince her to come to Pine Corner with us?”
Fuck! That was going to be a tricky question to answer.
Chapter Two
Nevis had spent several hours online, but there weren’t any jobs she really wanted. Several speech pathologists were looking for a new partner to buy into the business, but a couple of the advertisements looked dodgy to her and the rest were out of her price range. She needed a practice in a town big enough to have enough clients for her to work full-time, but she didn’t want to be in a major city where too many clients were likely to be adult victims of accidents and violence.
“You’re too fussy. That’s your problem,” she told herself, standing up from her laptop and wiggling her shoulders.
She shrugged out of her T-shirt and pulled off her jeans, putting her bathing suit on, then getting dressed again and grabbing a towel. She’d go do her absolute favorite thing. Sit in the hot spring and relax.
Sometimes there were other people there to talk to, other times she was alone. Either way was fine by her. The hot, bubbling water relaxed and soothed her the way nothing else had done in years. In fact, the only thing better than a soak in the hot spring was a damn good orgasm, and she hadn’t had one of those in so long it was a distant memory. If only she could have found herself a Master she might be chained up in a dungeon right now, getting her ass whipped and reaching orgasm that way.
She sighed and headed down the stairs to the lowest basement where the hot spring bubbled up from the rock of the mountain.
One of the other women, Katie, was just leaving as she arrived, and they exchanged a quick, “Hi, How are you?” before Nevis settled into her favorite spot in the pool. Because it was a natural hot spring, the pool was an organic shape, not square or rectangular, surrounded by rock, with rock sides and a rock base. Fortunately, the water bubbling over the stones for millennia meant the base was perfectly smooth to stand and walk on and surprising comfortable to sit on and rest her head back.
The farthest corner of the pool had a curtain on a wire which could be pulled across for privacy. Apparently sometimes Masters used that area with their subs, but Nevis had never been here when it was in use. It seemed to her that the people who lived here didn’t visit this amazing pool nearly as much as they should. She was going to miss it when she left, that was for sure.
She sank in the water and closed her eyes, relaxing. Maybe she should look for an office job instead of one as a speech therapist, she thought. She’d had plenty of experience with paperwork. Even a speech therapist had hours of that to fill in each week. She was reasonably competent with computer programs. Maybe a nice brain-dead job in an office entering data or shuffling paper would suit her. But no, it wouldn’t. She liked to keep her mind active. A paperwork job would need some challenges or she’d be bored to tears in a couple of days. Well, damn. That was another good idea she couldn’t use.
A little while later she heard male voices and opened her eyes again. York was standing in the doorway, talking to the huge man who’d just arrived on the helicopter this afternoon. Maybe he was a visitor and York was showing him around.
“Hey, Nevis, I’ve been looking for you,” called York, coming into the room.
“Me?”
“Yes. This is Bronx. He wanted to meet you.”
She wondered what the etiquette was here. Should she stand up? They were both fully clothed. She decided perhaps she ought to rise, so she stood and waded across the spring to the side nearest the men. “Hi.”
Bronx took her hand, and instead of shaking it, he turned it over and kissed her wrist. And oh, what a kiss it was. He nibbled and licked at her skin, raising her blood pressure until her honey began to drip from her pussy. And she was only wearing a swimsuit. She hoped neither of them would be able to tell.
Bronx gazed deep into her eyes—his were gray, she noted—and said, “I very much need to talk to you but I didn’t bring any swimwear with me. If I draw the curtain, will you step behind it with us?”