The Dom Collars His Sub [Unchained Love 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (14 page)

“What about Sam?” asked Jubilee.

“At least at the start she’s going to need a man out there with her anyway, to do the heavy weeding, pruning, and digging. Oliver’s keen to help her and Omar is fine to assign him to the garden. If Oliver’s not available one of the older men can help her. That should satisfy Sam for now. Later…” Larry shrugged.

“Has Sam…settled down somewhat?” Carey asked.

“Good question. I’d like to say the judge put the fear of God into him, but I think he’s just pretending to comply, and I’m constantly waiting for him to do something outrageous again. I know for a fact Omar doesn’t trust him either, and that worries me, too. Omar may be an arrogant cat, but he’s not stupid.”

Jubilee hid a smile. So cats and dogs did still fight. The old saying was as true as ever. But Omar
was
a tad bossy. That much was accurate.

There was a moment’s silence before Carey cleared his throat. Jubilee raised her gaze to his. What was he about to say? Was he going to discard her after all? Suddenly, the delicious meal she’d just eaten started to roil in her stomach and saliva filled her mouth. Oh shit, was she going to throw up?

Carey stared at her then gave her the world’s sexiest grin. Her stomach stopped bouncing and her panties dampened. Now her body was sweating for a completely different reason. Every time he looked at her like that she wanted him to take her. Immediately.

“I think it’s time we all told each other what we want out of our relationship. Each of you has said various things to me, but I’m sure you haven’t told me everything. But the time has come for everyone to be up front about everything they want from our triad, both in the short term and in the longer term. We’re meeting here because it’s neutral territory. Here we can talk as three equal members of our little group,” said Carey.

That was a clever move by Carey. No Dom or sub or switch. No business manager of the community in which they all lived.

“Jubilee, you start.”

Can I? Can I bare my soul like that?

Well if I don’t, I can never complain if it doesn’t come true, can I? Where is the woman who told Leticia to go get what she wants?

Taking a deep breath, Jubilee glanced from Larry to Carey and back to Larry. “For a long time I’ve wanted to be Carey’s slave formally and officially. To wear his collar. To belong completely and utterly to him. If we’re to become a permanent threesome, I’m happy for you to…um…exercise all your preferences in our relationship, Larry. I do like you, very much.”

“Larry?”

“I’d rather speak last, if you don’t mind.”

“Or even if I do mind?” Carey grinned. “All right. I’ve known for a while how Jubilee feels, but I wasn’t ready to tie her to me, because although I love her and want her, I felt something was missing from our relationship. Larry, you’ve filled that empty space. With you in our relationship as well, I feel complete. At this stage I still don’t think I could allow you to Dominate me, but if you wanted to Dominate Jubilee sometimes, as long as I was in the dungeon as well, I could deal with it. I’d like us to be acknowledged as a committed unit. A triad. If that means people need to see you as more Dom than sub, I could go with that.”

Jubilee wasn’t sure whether that was good news or not. She’d thought Carey would finally claim her if she was the perfect sub, that it was because of her failings that he wouldn’t collar her. And he still hadn’t said he’d claim her or collar her. On the other hand, it certainly seemed as if he wanted the relationship to continue, that he wanted and needed them both.
Well, it all hangs on what Larry wants.

Jubilee lowered her gaze to the tablecloth. She couldn’t meet Larry’s eyes, didn’t want to see rejection of herself in them.
No, I must look. If I don’t stand up for what I want, I’m betraying my own selfhood.

Larry smiled at her then at Carey. “If we’d had this conversation a few weeks ago, what I’m about to say may have been quite different. It’s only very recently that I’ve come to see how very freeing it is to be myself. All my life I’ve hidden my shifter side, hidden my sub side, hell, hidden almost anything personal about myself. Because of my job, I haven’t dared let anyone know the real me, so my life has been strictly compartmentalized, with each group of people only knowing that particular side of me.”

Carey was nodding. Jubilee was sitting on the edge of her chair, fingers knotted together, hardly daring to breathe. What would he say next?

“I love my job, but it’s a balancing game, keeping everyone’s interests in synch so no one group is supreme over the others. The well-being of the community as a whole needs to be supreme, and that’s not always easy to do, nor is it even clear how to achieve it. Only when I ran as a wolf with the other wolves did I understand how much I needed to do that, to let my wolf out to play. I’ll be shifting more regularly in the future. And only with both of you in the dungeon has my sub side been fulfilled. At some future time I may need to be a Dom in the dungeon, but I’m beginning to think all the Dom needs in me are more than fulfilled by whipping all the other Doms and shape-shifters plus an Alpha into line in my job. I’m ready to ‘come out’ as your partner now.”

“Does that mean you’re ready for some kind of commitment ceremony? Or just that you don’t mind people finding out we play together?” asked Carey.

“I reckon people have already worked out we play together after the scene we did at the party. I won’t wear a collar, but I’ll support you in a ceremony collaring Jubilee. And I’m ready to commit to us as a threesome, as long as I’m recognized as a switch. Between the three of us, I think I’m happy to be a sub in the dungeon. But there may come a time when I need to let my Dom out to play.”

“Very well. I’ll plan a commitment ceremony for the three of us, and a collaring ceremony for Jubilee. Are we all on board with that?”

“Yes.”

Jubilee was so happy she thought she might burst. At last Carey was going to collar her, and Larry would stay with them. Nothing could make her happier than that. “Oh yes,” she replied.

* * * *

A commitment ceremony was a private thing between the three of them, usually a precursor to a formal bonding ceremony. Carey had not mentioned a formal bonding, and he didn’t think Larry was ready for that yet. But somehow Jubilee’s collaring had to be included, and that was an added complication as well as an extra dimension. Collaring could be either private or communal, and Carey decided Jubilee would prefer it to be done surrounded by her community. After all, this had been her heart’s desire for over a year now.

So perhaps Jubilee’s collaring should be done first, with Larry also participating. Not collaring her, that was for Carey to do himself, but perhaps saying something to her. Then the three of them would go somewhere for their commitment ceremony.

But where would they live? He couldn’t put Larry in an awkward position as business manager of Carnal Connections by asking him to allocate them extra space. Or could he? If he could keep his little apartment, he could use it as his office during the day and he could get another couch so it could function as a private living area for them to relax in. But there was no way they could all live there. He could buy a bigger bed, but there was nowhere for the others to put their possessions. Already his own gear was piled in boxes against one of the walls as he had no place to store it.

Would it work if they didn’t actually live together? As long as they could hang out together in their spare time?

Somehow that idea didn’t really appeal to him.

Which brought him back to a thought he’d had a while ago about checking out the empty rooms in the main building to see if there was one big enough for the three of them to use as a “home.”

But how could he do it without embarrassing Larry?

Carey decided to go looking by himself. He wandered through the main building and up the stairs to the top floor. The basement was one large communal dungeon, with several small dungeons that community members could book and use. The first floor was the communal kitchen and dining room, with some shared lounging areas and the offices of those who worked there. The next two floors up were the bedrooms of those single people who worked at Carnal Connections, plus a number of guest bedrooms, which people like Leticia, Autumn, Serena, and Verity were still using.

He had no idea what was on the top floor. In fact, he couldn’t even remember going up there before.
I hope to God I’m not imposing on someone’s private space!

It was perfectly silent on the top floor. There were no sounds of bathrooms or people working or playing. Everything seemed muted. This main building was a solid stone house, quite old and built to last. Well, it had lasted. Likely it was a hundred years old, although the electricity and plumbing had been upgraded. The community was too fond of the Internet and air-conditioning not to have renovated to bring that sort of thing up to date.

Cautiously, Carey knocked on the first door on the left before trying the door handle. The door was unlocked and opened onto a standard single bedroom just like on the previous floor. The next room was exactly the same, obviously unused, then came a bathroom, followed by another bedroom. Carey continued pacing his way along the hallway. At the end of the hall the door opened into a much larger room, intended for more than one person. It was quite clean but had an aura of emptiness. He thought no one had lived in it, or even stayed in it as a guest, for some time.

Leaving the door wide open in case he was wrong and it was someone’s personal room, Carey walked inside. This was a large room, and even though a big double bed was against the far wall, there was plenty of space around it for a table and chairs or a couch and television or whatever they might want. Carey moved over to the windows and looked out. There was a good view over the property from this height. The room was at the back of the house, overlooking the rundown garden Leticia planned to work on, and then with a view out to the trees of the uninhabited area. A really nice, relaxing view.

Carey turned and opened what he assumed was a closet door, but it was a connecting door into the next room. Here were two twin beds and a wall of closets. Carey opened the doors and was certain there was more space than he would need three times over. Of course, as a female Jubilee undoubtedly had far more clothing than he did, but even so there should be more than adequate space for the three of them. The shelves went from floor to ceiling and they could put boxes of out-of-season clothing on the upper shelves, leaving the lower ones for the things they’d need.

If the twin beds were removed there’d be more than enough space for his long desk and he could work from here. He crawled along the floor looking for electrical outlets.
Hmm.
There weren’t enough, but he could get around that with power strips. Maybe he should check with JB first, though. He couldn’t risk tripping the house’s circuit breaker or anything like that.

Now what about a bathroom?

The first room heading back down the hall on the left side was a bathroom. Carey walked in and out of the inner bedroom and in and out of the bathroom two or three times, trying to measure distances with his arms. He thought there was space to knock a hole in the wall between the two rooms and put in a connecting door, but he couldn’t be sure. It really wouldn’t be good if the shower was too close and the door opened into it.

And what about the other rooms on this floor? There was a bathroom between the third and second rooms on the right, but was there one for this side as well or was this bathroom the only other one?

Carey closed the doors again and looked in the rooms on the left side of the hall. They were exactly the same as on the right, with a bathroom between the second and third bedrooms. So the end bedroom was the only large one, evidently intended for a family. Was it fair to ask for it? After all, Larry was the business manager. If he’d been a married man with a child, presumably that would have been his room.

But still, would it be rude or unfair of Larry to effectively allocate the only big room to himself? No, Carey didn’t think so. After all they’d be getting back the use of the room Larry already had, which came with a bathroom, and Jubilee’s room, which had a tiny half bath, and his own small house as well. So, all in all, he reckoned it was a fair exchange. Provided it was going to be possible to cut a doorway from the inner room to the bathroom. He didn’t fancy running naked down a public hallway in the middle of the night just to use the facilities.

Carey left the building and hiked down the road to the maintenance barn JB used as his office. JB wasn’t always there, but if he was out, someone would know where he was or when he’d be back. Carey was almost there when JB exited the barn and started walking toward him. Carey waved to attract JB’s attention then stood and waited for the man to reach him.

JB was a stocky, dark-haired man in a relationship with Omar, the big black panther, and Ramona, a puma and one of Jubilee’s friends.

“Hi, Carey. Do you need something fixed?”

Carey realized he was going to have to tell JB more than just what he wanted done. He’d have to give an explanation. He took a deep breath and said, “This is very private, JB.”

The stocky man nodded.

“I’m planning a commitment ceremony with Jubilee and Larry.” Carey kept his gaze fixed on JB’s face, but the other man didn’t even blink.