Love's Tender Bond [Bonding Camp 6] (Siren Publishing Menage and More) Read online

  Bonding Camp 6

  Love’s Tender Bond

  When two people searching for love come together in a surge of heat, they realize love was right in front of them the whole time. Missy Blue and Sam Rodgers have attended bonding camps but never together. Once they make a connection, they find their feelings for each other are of a deeper sort of bond.

  Missy never had a real family life, and neither had Sam. Once they arrived at the compound owned by the law firm of Cane, Moss, and White, they both knew they had found their home. But a sense of family still eluded them.

  Left to themselves after the last member of the compound “family” found her mate, Missy and Sam become closer. Talking and getting to know each other quickly turns into an erotic exploration of their feelings for each other. Missy and Sam bond, their hearts becoming one as they find the family they’ve always longed for in each other.

  Genre: Contemporary, Ménage a Trois/Quatre

  Length: 22,106 words

  LOVE’S TENDER BOND

  Bonding Camp 6

  Christelle Mirin

  MENAGE AND MORE

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  IMPRINT: Ménage and More

  LOVE’S TENDER BOND

  Copyright © 2012 by Christelle Mirin

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-62242-035-3

  First E-book Publication: December 2012

  Cover design by Harris Channing

  All cover art and logo copyright © 2012 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

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  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  Letter to Readers

  Dear Readers,

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  This is Christelle Mirin’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect Ms. Mirin’s right to earn a living from her work.

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  LOVE’S TENDER BOND

  Bonding Camp 6

  CHRISTELLE MIRIN

  Copyright © 2012

  Chapter One

  Missy Blue stopped dead in her tracks and watched him.

  Sam Rodgers, the constant caretaker of the compound, was pushing a wheelbarrow loaded with mulch toward the back patio of the main house. He stopped, parking his load beside a flower bed, and pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket.

  Missy stepped off the path and melted into the tree line. She didn’t want Sam to catch her watching him. Not this time, anyway. She placed the palm of her hand on the rough bark of the tree she was hiding behind and caught her bottom lips between her teeth.

  He stood so she had a view of his profile, and when he lifted the cloth to wipe the sweat from his brow, Missy’s heart skipped a beat. Time slowed down, it seemed, as Missy focused on the play of his muscles beneath the tan skin of his upper arm. Today he wore a white tank top and a pair of faded jeans that fit like they were tailored just for him. Sam didn’t dress this way often. He would never let any of the members of the firm see him in anything less than slacks and a polo.

  Unless, of course, he was participating in a bonding camp session.

  Thinking of him in that way—totally naked, his body glistening with the exertion it took to convey his passion—caused Missy to dig her fingernails into the bark of the tree. Pain flared beneath the nail of her index finger on her right hand. She jerked her hand away from the tree and sucked in a breath. There was a splinter shoved beneath her nail, which was already beginning to throb.

  “Dammit.” She shook her hand and stepped back onto the path. She would need tweezers to remove the chunk of wood from her nailbed. And the closest place to find a pair of tweezers was in the main house kitchen first-aid kit. That meant she was going to have to pass by Sam to get there.

  Missy looked at him again. He shoved the handkerchief into his back pocket and reached for a spade that was lying on top of the wheelbarrow full of mulch.

  Fantasy-time over. She had to get this sliver out before she got an infection. Shaking her head, she started down the path toward the house. It had been stupid of her to dig her nails into a tree like that. She couldn’t afford to injure her hands. Missy was the company masseuse. She had to have full use of every part of her body, especially her hands, to be able to do her job.

  Missy could smell him before she could hear his movements. Sam smelled like pine trees, musk, and a hint of hard-working man. She almost closed her eyes, savoring his scent.

  “Hey, Missy. How are you?” He turned toward her with a smile and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.

  Missy’s heart did a little stutter then regained its rhythm. Every day it was getting harder to conceal her attraction to him. “I’m good.” She stopped beside him and raised her injured hand. “Except for somehow managing to ram a log underneath my fingernail.”

  Sam’s smile was replaced with a frown. He tossed the spade back into the wheelbarrow and wiped his palms on the front of his shirt before taking her hand in his and turning it palm up. “Let me see.” He moved closer to her, turning her hand for a better view. “Ouch,” he said with a wince. “We need to get that taken care of and fast.” He wrapped his fingers around her wrist and started toward the kitchen door, pulling her behind him.

  “Sam, really, I can take care of this myself.” She didn’t want him to think she was a wimp, but she couldn’t just jerk her arm out of his grasp, either.

  “Stop arguing.” />
  “I’m not arguing.”

  “Yes, you are.” He opened the kitchen door and drew her into the coolness of the air-conditioned house. He closed the door behind her then turned her so they were face-to-face. He looked her straight in the eye. “And you know it won’t do you any good to fuss with me because I will always win.” A smile bloomed on his lips. His ocean-blue eyes sparkled with mirth, the corners of them crinkling with laugh lines.

  Missy couldn’t help but smile back. He’s so easy on the eyes. When he smiles, it warms my heart.

  “Now that we’ve got that settled, let’s take care of your injury. Come and sit.” He led her to the kitchen table and pulled out a chair for her.

  She sat, the vinyl of the seat chilly on the backs of her legs. Missy wore her usual workout garb of short, loose shorts and a sports bra. She had been jogging earlier and was walking the paths that crisscrossed the estate to cool down when she had spotted Sam. Glancing at him while he dug through one of the cabinets searching for the first-aid kit, she secretly sniffed herself, hoping she didn’t smell too bad after her run.

  “Here we go.” Sam straightened and turned toward her, a small white box in his hand. “Found it.” He moved to the table and set the kit down. Then he grabbed another chair and drew it closer to Missy. “You’re not going to go all girly on me and cry, are you?” he teased, sitting down in front of her, their knees touching.

  They both had their chairs turned so that their sides were to the table, Missy parking her right arm on the tabletop. “I won’t go all girly on you,” she replied, tilting her head. “But if you stab me, I might end up kicking you.”

  His eyes went round in exaggerated surprise and he stopped rummaging through the kit. “You be careful where you plant those feet.”

  Missy forced down a giggle. “It would be a reflex. Just sayin’.” She shrugged and looked away before she smiled. She was teasing and he knew it.

  Sam chuckled, the sound like a low rumbling. He took her hand in his.

  Missy turned her gaze back to him. He held the tweezers just above her finger.

  “Are you ready?” he asked, eyebrow raised.

  She nodded, curling her left hand into a fist in her lap. “Go ahead.”

  He nodded, then squeezed her finger tightly. “Here goes.” He focused on what he was doing, gingerly probing the tip of her finger.

  Missy jerked, sucking in a sharp breath when he bumped the sliver with the tweezers.

  “Sorry.” Sam winced but didn’t pull back. “Almost got it.”

  One hot poker of pain and then he held the sliver up for her to see. “There!” He grinned.

  Missy thought he looked like a young boy who had managed to fish a prize out of a claw game vending machine. Sam Rodgers may be over forty but there was still the spark of a child hiding inside him.

  “Thank you, Sam.” Missy smiled at him.

  His gaze flicked from the splinter to her eyes. “You’re welcome.” He looked at her for a moment, seeming to search her face, then rose from his chair and deposited the splinter in the trash. “Now we have to disinfect it,” he said, returning to his seat.

  Missy watched him dig through the kit for cotton balls, peroxide, and some bandages. When he had them all lined up on the table, he held out his hand. “Finger please?”

  She presented her still-throbbing finger to him, and he began to tenderly dab it with a peroxide-soaked cotton ball. Thankfully, it didn’t sting.

  “You know, you’re the only person around her that calls me Sam.” He gave her finger a final wipe then prepared a bandage.

  There was something about the way his voice sounded just then, all soft and wistful, that made Missy yearn to give him a hug. “Calling you Rodgers, like everyone else, has never felt right to me.”

  She watched a smile tug at the corners of his mouth. He wrapped the bandages around and over her finger, fitting one over the top and the other around it to secure the ends.

  “There you go,” he said, finally looking up to meet her gaze. Their eyes locked and held for the span of three heartbeats. Sam was the first to look away. “Guess I’d better put this where I got it and get back to work.” He rose from his chair and started gathering up all the things from the first-aid kit and put them back in the box.

  Missy wasn’t ready to let him go just yet. “Why does everyone call you Rodgers?” She asked the question in a soft voice, not really sure if it was a sore spot with him or how far she could go with her inquiry. She had never seen him take offense at being called only by his last name, but the look on his face a few minutes ago had piqued her curiosity.

  Sam shrugged and snapped the kit shut then placed both hands on the tabletop. “I don’t really know. It could be a guy thing. A lot of guys call each other by their last names.”

  Missy took a chance and slid her hand across the table, touching her fingertips to his. He didn’t pull back. “That would explain why Justice and Morgan do it, maybe, but even the women here call you Rodgers.” She shook her head. “Now that I think about it, the ‘guy thing’ explanation doesn’t fit either. All the men here are on a first-name basis.” It was true. Everyone who worked for the law firm Cane, White and Moss were very close. The firm owned the compound here in upstate New York and used it to conduct what they liked to call bonding camps, an exercise to connect with partners and employees. But the ties they made with each other were deep, exposing the attendees’ every desire. Most times, bonding camp included a lot of bondage also. The firm, including all of the associates and staff, were very, very close indeed.

  Sam cocked his head. “Why does this interest you so much?”

  Missy swallowed. “Because I care about you.”

  Sam blinked, then chuckled. “We’ve worked together for quite a while. We’ve become close because of it.” He walked across the kitchen and put away the first-aid kit.

  Missy tapped a fingernail on the tabletop, making a “click-click” sound. It was obvious to her that her statement about caring for him had surprised him and possibly even struck a chord inside him. Too bad he hadn’t opened up to her right then and there. Instead, he had slammed a wall up between them and tried to shrug it off with a chuckle. But she had glimpsed a side of him she hadn’t seen before, a vulnerability he kept hidden from view. If Missy could crack the shell Sam kept himself in, she might be able to touch his heart.

  “Well, if you’re okay, I’m heading back outside to work,” Sam said, turning toward her and breaking into her thoughts.

  She met his gaze. His eyes held a calm, knowing look. Did he realize just how much she cared for him? He had a small smile playing over his lips. Missy could almost swear he could read her mind and knew how much she wanted to get to know him better. And not only that, she wanted to love him in ways he’d never known. What they did during bonding camps, the sexual sharing between them, wasn’t love. It was intimacy and bonding. She wanted so much more from him. Missy had been watching Sam for a long time and had learned about his honesty and integrity along with his sensuality. What was it going to take to get him to notice her in the same way?

  After a moment, she smiled. “I’m fine. It was just a sliver.” She held her now-bandaged finger up. “It’s not even thumping anymore.”

  Sam placed his hands on his hips and nodded. “Good. Well, I’m off.” He turned and reached for the doorknob.

  “Be careful, Sam. I’d hate to see you strain your back or something.”

  He glanced over his shoulder. “Well, if I do, I know someone who can give me an awesome back rub, don’t I?”

  Chapter Two

  Sam looked into Missy’s warm, brown eyes. Accented by the freckles that were sprinkled across her nose, her eyes were large and held an inviting gaze. What he really wanted to do right now was snatch her up and place both hands on her cheeks so he could look deeply into that warmth and bathe in it. He shook the feeling off, even though the vibe he got from Missy gave him the idea she’d be very open to his advances. They worked
together, and having a relationship with someone you worked with could become not only dangerous but complicated. Sam could handle that, but he wasn’t sure Missy could. She was so much younger than him. He was forty-one and Missy was only twenty-seven. He had blown through his wild days of youth and she was just getting started. There was no way she could be satisfied with him.

  Her face lit up with a smile. “If you do strain your back, you give me a shout. I’ll fix you right up.” She raised her hands and wiggled her fingers. “A good massage will take care of your sore muscles.” She tilted her head prettily, her blonde ponytail swinging slightly. “In fact, why don’t you come over to Solitude after you’re finished and I’ll give you a rubdown. You know, just so you don’t cramp up during the night from all that strenuous activity.”

  The thought of her hands roaming over his body caused a tingle in his groin. Missy had given him massages before, and every time he’d had to fight off the urge to take her into his arms and have his way with her. “I’m sure I’ll be fine, Missy, but thank you. If I get too achy, I might take you up on that though.”

  Her smile grew wider. “Well, you know where to find me.” She rose from the table. “I guess I should grab a shower and get to work myself. Thanks for the first aid.” She waved her bandaged finger at him.

  “You’re welcome. Be more careful with your hands. It could have been worse.” Actually he had enjoyed removing the splinter from her finger. Just holding her hand in his had been a joy. “I’ll see you later,” he said, opening the door.

  “Give me a call if you need me.”