Free Punishing for Pleasure by Avery Gale

better care of herself. For a sadist you seem to be getting pretty fucking sappy. Shocked at the direction of his thoughts, Ash decided talking to himself probably wasn’t really a bad sign until he started carrying on both sides of the conversation.
    Ash had the feeling she hadn’t told them everything yet and when he looked over her head at Dex, he saw the almost imperceptible shake of his head. Obviously Dex had the same idea, so they would just wait her out. It was several long minutes before she finally continued, “There was a breakin at my home a few days ago. I’d sent the staff all home because I was just done , you know?” They waited while she took a couple of deep breaths and sighed. A part of him wanted to shake her until her teeth rattled, but there was also a small part of him that understood exactly what she was saying. He’d felt much the same way after missions that hadn’t gone well. “Have you ever been so tired and lonely that all you wanted was to be alone and drown it all in alcohol?” When they’d both snorted and nodded in understanding, she went on, “Well, that was where I was that day. Anyway, the perimeter alarms are the oldest of the security on the estate, so they went off just a few seconds before the house alarms started wailing. I didn’t hear my phone ring when the security company called because I was soaking in a bubble bath, and while I was busy scrambling for a robe, I slipped and fell.”
    Dex heard her soft laugh and saw her shaking her head, but the moonlight was bright enough he saw her eyes had filled with tears and knew how frantic she must have felt. “Hell, on my best day I can be a klutz, but that night was even over the top for me. I’m still wearing long sleeves to hide all the bruises, and we won’t even talk about the other places that are black and blue. Anyway, by the time the police arrived, there wasn’t anyone to be found and nothing was missing that I’ve been able to find. The only thing wrong was there was a small bouquet of m onkshood laying in the center of the dining room table.”
    “What the fuck?” Dex’s confusion echoed Ash’s own bewilderment.
    “See? I didn’t know either, but one of the female officers Googled it and evidently it means ‘You’d better watch your back’. Who knows that kind of thing? I mean really, what kind of sick piece of navel lint sits around figuring out something like that?”
    Meri finally reluctantly conceded the situation had gotten out of control and she needed help, and despite the fact he’d found her reference to her stalker as a piece of lint amusing, Ash found himself barely being able to hold back his anger. And finding out Parker Andrews had been one of the officers called to her home the night of the breakin hadn’t done anything for Ash’s good humor either. He planned to have a nice long chat with his fellow Dom about the importance of sharing information. Well, fuck! At least he had planned to have a come-to-Jesus meeting with Master Andrews until he realized neither he nor Dex had any real claim on Meri. Even though they had been playing with her exclusively since they’d met, they hadn’t made any public declarations—hell, they hadn’t even made a private commitment to her. For just a moment Ash wondered how that had impacted her decision to try to handle this situation on her own.
    Ash wasn’t the “people person” Dex was, but he felt certain her submissive training would have kicked in if she’d felt more secure in their relationship. At the very least she would have called them after the breakin because she had to know Parker Andrews would eventually share the information. It didn’t seem to matter how he looked at it, the bottom line was, Ms. Lanham wasn’t solely responsible for this mess. And somehow, punishing her for a situation they’d helped create just didn’t seem right.
    Dex’s question broke through his musing, “Any idea who might want to hurt you,