“Tally, this won’t help,” he said gently, setting the decanter back on the bar as he pried the glass from her other hand. “Whatever happened can’t be that bad.”

She stilled the snarl that trembled on her lips, though her teeth snapped together in fury. Rounding on him, she clenched her fists in the edges of his shirt as she jerked at it hard, watching his eyes round in surprise as he bent to her involuntarily.

“I can still hurt you, Jesse,” she snarled into his narrow-eyed expression. “I am to be feared. In all ways. At all times. Is this understood? You are not safe from me. Never think you are.”

Jesse had suffered through tar thick coffee, stale doughnuts, mouse traps in his desk drawer, thumb tacks in his chair and any number of nasty little surprises for attempting to put her in her place in the past. His arrogance had been a complete pain in the ass. Training him had not been easy and she would be damned if she would lose ground with him now.

“Of course, Tally.” She saw that worried little glimmer in his eyes even though his attempt at sarcasm was sufficient to fool his wife.

Nodding sharply, she released him but didn’t return to the liquor. She needed a clear head to get through this.

Breathing in deeply, she fought to still the tremors in her stomach, the nerves that caused her hands to shake and made her heart beat a frantic rhythm within her chest. Terrorizing Jesse always seemed to help restore her balance. If she could master him, surely she could master Dev and Lucian. Couldn’t she?

“Tally, are you forgetting that’s my husband?” Terrie asked her, though laughter lurked in her voice as she watched the byplay in interest.

Tally breathed in deeply. “Yeah, well, he was my problem first,” she reminded her. “I have years of his torture to make up for. He could have scarred me, you know, working for his depraved ass.”

“Scar you?” Jesse snarled from behind her. “My depraved ass? At least my brother has his own wife.”

“And you brought in Lucian when you knew I disapproved.” She turned to him sedately, her voice cool, sarcastic. Now here, she was on even ground. “You, my friend, deserve pain. But I’ll be nice since Terrie is a friend of mine.”

Yes, that returned her sense of generosity. See? She told herself soothingly, all hope was not lost.

Jesse snarled silently, glancing at his wife as she fought her laughter. “Deal with this crazy woman,” he snapped, pointing his finger at Tally as she arched a brow imperiously. “I’m going to shower. I want her gone when I get back.”

He stomped from the room and up the stairs, his muttered curses drawing a small smile to Tally’s face.

“I love it when they fear me.” Tally sighed in satisfaction. “It just seems to make my day better.”

“I take it Lucian and Dev weren’t too frightened of you?” Terrie asked as she headed for the kitchen, motioning to Tally to follow her.

Tally frowned at her friend’s back. That parting shot had to be in return for reminding her husband of his place in the scheme of Tally’s Perfect Order. There was no other explanation.

“I need coffee if I can’t have whisky,” Tally said, following her. “Then I have to leave. I just know those two think they can handle me now,” she sneered, thinking of the satisfaction that filled them as she had screamed beneath Dev’s thrusting cock the night before. “I’m certain Jesse called them as soon as he escaped. I knew he couldn’t be trusted.”

Chapter Fifteen

Lucian disconnected his cell phone slowly after the brief discussion with Jesse. At least he knew where Tally was, knew she was safe. His jaw tightened in irritation at Jesse’s furious refusal to discuss her, though.

“If you want to discuss that viperous little witch then call my wife,” he had snarled. “Maybe she can talk about her reasonably.” Which meant Tally was there, at least. And evidently, she had once again struck the fear of Tally into Jesse’s heart. She was one of the few capable of it.

Across the room, Dev stared out into the steadily growing morning, silent, pensive.

“The woman is a pain in the ass,” Dev finally snorted. “You would make us fall in love with a control freak with commitment issues.”

Lucian winced, but grinned. He wasn’t pleased with Tally right now, to say the least, but he wasn’t exactly worried either.

“And she thinks we’re depraved perverts with sharing issues,” Lucian reminded his brother with a laugh. “At least she’s rational and safe. We can deal with the rest.”

He controlled his laughter as Dev turned back to him with a frown. “That woman is never rational,” he grunted. “Snide, mocking, psychotic maybe, but never rational.”

“And we are?” Lucian was having a hard time containing his amusement. “Maybe it takes someone just slightly off center to appreciate the relationship she’s stepping into here, Dev. Give her time, she’ll be her normal self soon.”

“Yeah, that’s what worries me.” Dev tucked his hands into his jeans and shook his head in exasperation. “Hell, she almost scares me.”

Lucian laughed at that. Tally terrified damned near every man she knew. She could cut them off at the knees with a look, or unman them with a few carefully chosen words. She would challenge them, amuse them, infuriate them to no end and he found himself looking forward to it, as he did nothing else.

“Let her get her bearings.” Lucian finally shrugged. “A day or two and she should begin to see that the loss of control isn’t as big an issue as she thought it was. She’ll want more then. Tally’s adventurous, Dev, and she’s had a taste of satisfaction now. She’ll be back.”

Dev hesitated as he moved from the window, heading to the doorway. He looked over at Lucian with brooding reflection as a grimace crossed his face.

“Yeah, but which one of us will she hurt when she does?” he grunted. “She likes Jesse, admits she does, and she has him terrified of her. That’s not a good sign, Lucian.”

Lucian laughed at this as he slapped his brother on the shoulder and they headed out the door. “No, simple pain would be too easy for her. Castration would be more Tally’s style. Maybe we should hide the knives for a while.”

“Or keep her restrained,” Dev growled. “I liked her much better tied down and at our mercy. Being at Tally’s mercy would be scary.”

Lucian restrained a shudder . “Don’t even think like that.” He couldn’t imagine the horror of it. “Hell, I’m going to work. Let her pout it out and come looking for us. I’ll be damned if I’ll chase after her any further.”

Dev grunted. “Yeah, with a knife. Watch my back, brother, and I’ll watch yours; otherwise, we could both end up sacrificed to sweet Tally’s fury.”

“Or her lust,” Lucian murmured, and that was part of what he was fighting for. They had her love, he knew that to the bottom of his soul. All they had to do now was ensure the surrender she had made the night before.

Going to their respective cars, they pulled out of the parking lot and headed back to the large house they owned outside of town, but in the opposite direction of the Wyman home. There was plenty to do while they waited on Tally to accustom herself to the events of the night before. Jesse suggested going after her, giving her no time to regain her balance or her strength. But Jesse was uncharacteristically wary of Tally. He swore she would make an excellent serial killer. There were times Lucian almost agreed with him.

* * * * *

“So, are you going to let them get away with it?” Terrie’s voice was amused yet filled with all the loving concern of a true friend.

There were few people Tally allowed close enough that she called them true friends. Terrie was one of those people, unfortunately. True friends knew your past, your secrets, your foibles and faults. Most of which had been revealed through more than one night of drunken revelry after the death of Terrie’s first husband.

Tally propped her chin on the palm of her hand and regarded the other woman seriously. “Sister Redempta said vengeance is a sin,” she reminded her lightly.

The good sister had a face like a prune with squinting, hard hazel eyes that sent shivers of dread chasing down the spines of all the good little girls at St. Augustine’s Academy.

Terrie snorted. “I remember your reply to that one, my friend.”

Tally cleared her throat and affected an innocent look. The sister had been rather offended when Tally informed her that since she was Satan’s spawn, Vengeance could be her middle name and she would practice the art on the nuns of the academy the minute she came into her full power.

Not that Tally had gone unpunished. That damned wooden ruler with its metal sides had lashed her bare butt for what seemed like hours. She had then been locked in her room for a total of two weeks, during which time the nuns who brought her food and took her to the showers were forbidden to speak to her.

“She broke me.” Tally sighed. “I didn’t think she had, but she did.”

She ignored Terrie’s surprised look.

“Tally, you’re the strongest person I know.” She shook her head in confusion. “How could you ever imagine you didn’t win over that old bat?”

Tally sighed somberly. She lifted the cup, playing for time as she sipped from the warm brew and gathered her courage to face things she had only just realized herself.

“I never truly orgasmed until last night, Terrie,” she finally said, lowering her head to avoid her friend’s gaze. “I would freeze up, lose the intensity, but it always ended the same. I could get off, but I couldn’t orgasm.” She knew her friend could understand the difference between the two.

“Until Lucian and Dev?” Terrie asked. “It’s different when you’re with someone you love, Tally.”

Tally swallowed before licking her lips nervously. Yes, it was different when you loved, when you felt loved. For all their dominance and rough play the night before Tally had felt the difference in Lucian and Dev.

“Everyone I’ve ever loved has been horrified by me.” She tried to smile as though unconcerned, but she felt the warning tremble of her lips. “The sisters told my parents about catching me with what’s-his-name.” She frowned, trying to remember the boy’s name and couldn’t. It didn’t matter, she remembered the event well enough. “They still remind me of their shame at being called into Sister Redempta’s office and being informed that I was caught allowing some nasty little boy,” she affected the sister’s tone, “to put his mouth in my private places and daring to beg him to do other disgusting things to me.”

The truth was, she had been begging him to push his finger deeper up her ass as his tongue whipped at her clit. Damn, she had been close when that evil old bat had thrown the door open to the gardener’s shed and interrupted them.

“You parents are prudes, Tally. You’ve always admitted that,” Terrie said softly. “How did that break you?”

“Because, they allowed the sisters at the academy to punish me as they pleased.”

She shook her head. The whippings had been the worst, the lectures, the silence from the other girls because they were forbidden to talk to her. She had endured nearly a year of it before she was able to leave.

Looking back now, Tally realized that her defeat had begun long before that day. Slowly, insidiously, the academy had wreaked havoc on her growing sensibilities; turning her into the mocking, cold-hearted bitch others accused her of being.

It wouldn’t have been such a terrible thing if she hadn’t already been uncertain of her emerging sexuality. The need for stronger sensations, that edge of pain and extreme sex that had been growing within her, was frightening in itself. Sister Redempta’s harsh, derogatory lectures had only made it worse.