Bed, Breakfast, and Bondage (Emerald Valley) Read online

  An Emerald Valley Book

  BED, BREAKFAST & BONDAGE

  Riley Shane

  www.loose-id.com

  Bed, Breakfast & Bondage (An Emerald Valley Book)

  Copyright © November 2012 by Riley Shane

  All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part of this e-book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from Loose Id LLC. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  eISBN 9781623000929

  Editor: Ann M. Curtis

  Cover Artist: Mina Carter

  Published in the United States of America

  Published by

  Loose Id LLC

  PO Box 809

  San Francisco CA 94104-0809

  www.loose-id.com

  This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Warning

  This e-book contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language and may be considered offensive to some readers. Loose Id LLC’s e-books are for sale to adults ONLY, as defined by the laws of the country in which you made your purchase. Please store your files wisely, where they cannot be accessed by under-aged readers.

  * * * *

  DISCLAIMER: Please do not try any new sexual practice, especially those that might be found in our BDSM/fetish titles without the guidance of an experienced practitioner. Neither Loose Id LLC nor its authors will be responsible for any loss, harm, injury or death resulting from use of the information contained in any of its titles.

  Acknowledgments

  Writing is very often a solitary experience, but Bed, Breakfast, and Bondage would not be the story it is without the help of others. My thanks to:

  My brilliant editor, Ann Curtis, who makes every story shine;

  Treva, Allie, Doreen, and MT, who make Loose Id such a wonderful publisher to work with;

  AYH, who heard about Naya and Devlin constantly for a month and was always willing to lend an ear, give feedback, and cheer me on;

  And of course, I cannot forget The Fuzzy Critic, who helped make writing Bed, Breakfast, and Bondage a lot easier by staying off my keyboard for once.

  Chapter One

  The slide of silk against my bare back was a delicious counterpoint to the rough, calloused hands cupping my ass. I moaned as those talented hands slid downward to my calves before one circled around to come back up, past my knee to my thigh, where it stopped.

  “Anaya.” Hearing my name in the deep, husky voice of my lover sent shivers through me.

  I bit my lip and raised my hips in an unspoken invitation for that hand to continue upward, but a warning squeeze signaled that my lover would not be rushed. I was wet with wanting. Yet I held back my pleas and was rewarded when a thick finger brushed at my core. A second finger followed suit as my lover parted my labia. My gaze flew open when he touched my favorite spot, and I heard his throaty chuckle at my surprise. Then he leaned his head down, shifting ever closer to where I needed him most.

  My breathing grew heavy, raspy as Darth Vader and his Stormtroopers crashed in through the d—

  “What the what?” I woke abruptly and shot up into a sitting position, disoriented and fast losing any sensation of arousal. I blinked, terribly confused as reality came slowly back. I was in my bedroom. Flipping on the bedside lamp, I blinked, relieved for once that I was alone. I was having enough trouble figuring out what the hell had been going through my head without trying to explain it to someone else.

  A flashing light signaling a missed call on my cell phone gave me a clue as to how my erotic dream had turned into a creepy Comic-Con-gone-wrong scenario. I squinted at the phone. It was one in the morning, and only Leah had “The Imperial March” as her ringtone. Sure enough, before I could return the call, Darth Vader’s entrance music blasted at me again. With a groan, I answered, positive I was not going to like whatever my best friend had to say.

  “This better not be you calling for a late-night ice cream run again,” I said by way of greeting.

  I should have been so lucky.

  Everyone, no matter their age, race, gender, or nationality, has a phrase that will either make their insides shrivel or their eyes see red. “We need to talk”; “It’s not you, it’s me”; “Because I said so…” Whatever else comes of the conversation, there’s no quelling that flash of irritation or sense of dread. Personally, I’d learned back in kindergarten that the phrase “Don’t hate me, but…” leads to nothing but trouble.

  “Don’t hate me, but…”

  I groaned and flopped onto my back.

  “…there’s a hiccup in today’s plans.”

  That had me sitting straight up. Leah and I owned and operated Emerald Valley Bed & Breakfast, and Thanksgiving was one of our busiest times of the year. Emerald Valley was home to Oregon College, and with the way the college scheduled their finals, plenty of students couldn’t make it home for Thanksgiving. Which meant the Emerald was at full capacity with visiting parents.

  One of the not so surprising secrets to running a successful B and B? Having someone on staff who could cook a kick-ass breakfast. And of the Emerald’s staff of two, that someone was most definitely not me—I could burn water. I’m pretty sure I even managed to do it once. In the world of the Emerald, I was the Bed; Leah was the Breakfast. I lived at the B and B, handled the guests, was on-site for all emergencies, and dealt with the majority of business matters and promotions. Leah did the cooking, and we split the rest.

  Sure, I could buy breakfast for the guests; the town of Emerald Valley had some wonderful bakeries that opened early. But our annual Thanksgiving feast was a big selling point for the Emerald this time of year, and we generally generated a significant amount of new business, thanks to out-of-town guests who were only here for the dinner. Having me at the stove for Thanksgiving dinner was the quickest way for the Emerald to lose business, since my attempts at cooking could be described as “toxic” at best.

  “‘A hiccup’? Lei, no. Not today. We’ve got twenty-two for dinner.”

  “I can’t make it today.”

  The undisguised fear I heard in Leah’s voice had all thoughts of the Emerald flying out of my head. “What’s wrong?”

  A pause.

  “Lei, you’re scaring me. What’s going on?”

  “I think I’m in labor.”

  My blood ran cold. Leah was only partway into her third trimester.

  “Jon and I are on our way to the hospital,” she continued. “I…I…”

  “You’re going to be fine. Both of you. You hear me?” I tried to keep my voice level, made sure I sounded confident. But a shaken Leah terrified the hell out of me.

  “Yeah. Yeah… Shit, Naya, I’m scared. What if—”

  “Hey, no.”

  “Everything is going to be all right. Keep calm, baby,” I heard Leah’s husband say in the background.

  “Listen to Jon, Lei.” I tried to sound soothing. “That niece of mine is just being a diva like her mom. Or she’s sick of all the ice cream you’ve been feeding her and wants to make an early prison break. Either way, it’s all going to be fine. I’m sure this kind of thing happens all the time. The doc’ll take care of it.”

  There was a gasp, followed by a deep exhalatio
n. “Ouch. Hell. Okay, yeah. You’re right. We’re almost at the hospital. It’ll be okay.”

  “Exactly. Calm down. Do you want me to come to the hospital?”

  Another deep breath sounded in my ear. “Calming. And no, we’re not canceling on our guests; it’d be a disaster. But I did need to talk to you about today.”

  “Are you kidding me? Leah Rachael Montgomery-Levi, don’t you even think about the Emerald right now.”

  “Can’t help it. I don’t want any guests joining me in the ER if you cook.”

  I barked out a nervous laugh. If she could make a joke, her nerves were settling. That had to help. Or at least, I believed it did. Now I wished I’d paid more attention to the gory details my sisters had been wont to share when they were pregnant. Being seven weeks early for delivery wasn’t that bad nowadays. Was it? I had no clue; all I knew was that I had to keep Leah from growing agitated.

  “I’ll figure out something, okay? I’ll make it work, even if I have to break into a restaurant and steal a cooked turkey.”

  “I think I can save myself bail money. Don’t hate me, but…”

  I cringed. There it was again. That phrase.

  “…Devlin’s staying with us, and I made Jon ask him to help you out while I was waddling to the car.”

  Leah tended to smush words together to speedily get out something she knew would have me contemplating amicicide, so it sounded more like “DevlinstayingithusnIadeonasimoelpuotileIasaddlingothar,” but I parsed it together. And immediately wanted to bang my head against the wall.

  “Lei—”

  “We’re here. Love you, thanks, bye.”

  Dammit.

  “Love you too. Take care of yourself and the baby.” But I found I was talking to myself.

  I made sure the volume of my phone was turned all the way up, then put it back on my nightstand. After rolling out of bed, I shuffled my way to my small living room, where I paced back and forth. I lived on the top floor of the Emerald. My apartment itself wasn’t too big—a bedroom, bathroom, and a living room/kitchen area—but it was cozy and private, my spot to relax in at the B and B. Only I didn’t feel too relaxed at the moment. And I worried my pacing might wake the guests on the floor below.

  When I plopped down on the couch, my gaze immediately zeroed in on the photographs displayed under the glass of the coffee table. A few pictures of my family were there, of course, along with places I’d been and some memorable events. But most of the images were of Leah and me together, taken at various stages of our lives. We’d become best friends the first day of kindergarten, when a boy I knew who’d lived down the street from me made me cry by calling me “Annoying Anaya,” and Leah punched him in the nose. I’m sure she’d probably gotten into trouble for hitting him, but all I remembered was the bond of sisterhood that had sprung up between us, the instant form of friendship only five-year-olds could forge. Unlike most kindergarten friendships, which eventually ended, ours had stuck. No matter how often she made me want to wring her neck, after twenty-seven years, Leah was more of a sister to me than my own blood relatives were.

  I smiled and traced my finger over the glass to yet another photo, this one taken more than two decades after the fateful nose-punching incident. Leah had told the boy whose nose she’d bloodied that she would do worse if he ever name-called again. To this day, she swears she upheld her vow. At twenty-six, said boy—now an exasperated (justifiably, in my opinion) adult—had called Leah “a complete pain in the ass,” and she’s long since said her revenge was better than any nose punching: she married him.

  And now they were going to have a baby. I let out a breath and said a silent prayer for Leah and the baby’s health as I sat back against the couch cushions, my gaze still on Leah and Jon’s wedding photo. I didn’t dare look at the image I knew was only two photos down and to the right. It was the only photo I had of Devlin that I allowed myself to keep on display, and I justified its presence by saying it was taken when we were nine. Long before everything went sideways.

  In just a few hours, Devlin would be here, in my home and back in my life, and I wasn’t sure if I was ready. It had been years since he’d set foot in the B and B. Not because he wasn’t welcome. Devlin was Jon’s twin, which meant I’d have welcomed him to the Emerald even if I hated his guts. At times, I wished I did. It would certainly have made our…situation…less complicated.

  With a groan, I lay back on the couch and did my best to focus on the present, on the B and B and what I’d have to get done today. At least in one respect, Leah’s Thanksgiving Hail Mary substitute pass would work out. Saying Devlin was my polar opposite in the kitchen was probably the most self-flattering way I could put it. He’d left Emerald Valley at eighteen to pursue his dream of becoming not just a chef, but a famous chef. And he’d succeeded, making a name for himself in Los Angeles, where he now dished out his creations to Hollywood’s brightest stars.

  I smiled a bit, thinking back to our teen years. I remembered when he’d first told me he wanted to turn his love for cooking into a career. Even at fifteen, he’d been so determined, so hopeful. I’d never doubted he would be able to do it. To this day, I followed his career with a curious mix of pride, pleasure, and pain. I was so, so happy for Devlin, so proud of him. But God, I missed him.

  Knowing my goal of blocking out the past was in shambles, I leaned over and slid the glass of the coffee table up a touch and snagged the picture I wanted of Leah, myself, Devlin, and Jon in our soccer uniforms before settling back against the couch again. We were nine in the picture, and by that time the director of our youth league had given up separating us; the four of us could be deathly competitive when placed on different teams. Put us on the same team, though, and we were unstoppable. At least we were when Jon and Leah weren’t trying to outdo each other. My mom had taken this photo of the four of us, probably in a failed attempt to get us to settle down postgame. I traced our smiling, laughing faces, stopping when I hit Devlin’s. He was born, or so his mother said, with a charmer’s smile, but the grin on his face in this photo was one of pure, artless joy, a side of Devlin most people never saw.

  I sighed and sat up, then carefully slipped the photograph back into its proper place. I was dwelling, as I often did when I knew I would be seeing Devlin. And it was of no use. I’ve always been a home-and-hearth kind of woman, at my happiest running a B and B in the town I grew up in. And from the moment he’d hit puberty, Devlin had one foot out the door, eager to be in the center of one of the biggest cities in the country as he studied his craft and built his professional reputation. No matter how we felt about each other, life had taken us in two different directions. We’d known it would, even as teenagers. Yet we’d still taken the plunge, going from friends to boyfriend/girlfriend to lovers. But there was always the damn proverbial clock ticking down our time together. That was the problem; it always had been.

  The faint ticking noises of my kitchen clock reminded me I had a big day ahead of me, and now I had to get up even earlier than planned. I trudged back to the bedroom. Getting caught up in the past and losing sleep were not going to help me deal with what was surely going to be the day from hell. With that thought in mind, I reset my alarm clock and forced myself to climb into bed. But going back to sleep proved to be difficult while worry for Leah and thoughts of Devlin preyed on my mind.

  Chapter Two

  The demon that was my alarm clock woke me well before dawn. I’d gotten way too little sleep, and it was only through sheer determination that I managed to remain upright while showering and getting dressed. I checked my phone for updates on Leah and found a few from Shannon Levi, Devlin and Jon’s mother. They’d stopped the labor, and Shannon had already contacted Leah’s parents to let them know premature birth had been averted. More updates were to come.

  Feeling relieved that Leah and the baby were out of immediate danger, I grabbed my binder with all the tasks facing me today, figuring I’d reassess and rearrange priorities after I got that first cup—or thre
e—of coffee in me. I was so focused on the siren song of liquid caffeine that I’d stepped through the Emerald’s kitchen door before I realized I had company. Six feet of olive-toned male muscle covered only by a pair of low-slung jeans was standing by my coffee machine like some sleep-deprived woman’s daydream. And he was definitely not one of the guests.

  Devlin.

  The muscles in his back flexed as he twisted slightly and leaned down to write something on a nearby notepad. Holy hand grenade, he’d filled out even more since the last time I’d seen him. Was there an inch of him that wasn’t cut? If he’d just turn around, I’d have a better clue…

  My heart skipped a beat. Oh hell. I was not ready for the sight of him, never mind the teasing glances, charming smiles, and seductive touches that always tempted me to throw away common sense and jump into bed with him. And that was before I took into account my traitorous heart.

  I attempted to say something, but my tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth. Or maybe it was lolling out, and I was drooling. At the moment, I wasn’t sure. My synapses didn’t usually fire up without the help of caffeine, and Devlin’s unexpected early arrival was enough to wreak havoc with my brain circuitry when it was in full working order. I was immensely grateful at the moment that his back was turned, because right then, the only thoughts running through my head were of Devlin.

  In my kitchen.

  Bare-chested.

  Bare-chested and in jeans that were cupping his oh so fine ass.

  Could a person be jealous of a clothing item? I might’ve been at that moment. And clearly—if I was standing in my kitchen salivating and contemplating whether or not to be jealous over some well-worn denim—I’d taken leave of my senses. Dear Lord, the man was hell on my IQ. He was half-naked and just a touch damp, and suddenly I’d turned into an idiot. Wait a minute…

  “Why are you wet?”