Rose, Tara - Behind Blue Eyes [The Doms of Sybaris Cove 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Read online

  The Doms of Sybaris Cove 1

  Behind Blue Eyes

  Sales VP Alaina Pembrooke isn’t happy when her ex-boyfriend screws up yet another order with one of her biggest accounts at Phoebe’s Playthings. Shipping department heads Taj Durante and Jeff Raleigh finally have no choice but to fire him. When Alaina, Jeff, and Taj realize that Alaina’s boss and her ex were secretly lovers, all three become unwilling pawns in a dangerous game of corporate greed and betrayal.

  Taj and Jeff are descendants of the men who founded Phoebe’s Playthings, and are also under the curse placed on the males of both families. If they try to leave the island, they die. Both men have buried themselves in the work of running the company, but when Alaina becomes their lover and their submissive, they know they’ve found the woman they’ve each waited for.

  But can they stop Alaina’s boss and her ex from ruining the company their ancestors built, and from driving away the woman they love?

  Genre: BDSM, Contemporary, Ménage a Trois/Quatre

  Length: 45,620 words

  BEHIND BLUE EYES

  The Doms of Sybaris Cove 1

  Tara Rose

  MENAGE EVERLASTING

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  IMPRINT: Ménage Everlasting

  BEHIND BLUE EYES

  Copyright © 2014 by Tara Rose

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-63258-065-8

  First E-book Publication: August 2014

  Cover design by Harris Channing

  All art and logo copyright © 2014 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.

  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  Letter to Readers

  Dear Readers,

  If you have purchased this copy of Behind Blue Eyes by Tara Rose from BookStrand.com or its official distributors, thank you. Also, thank you for not sharing your copy of this book.

  Regarding E-book Piracy

  This book is copyrighted intellectual property. No other individual or group has resale rights, auction rights, membership rights, sharing rights, or any kind of rights to sell or to give away a copy of this book.

  The author and the publisher work very hard to bring our paying readers high-quality reading entertainment.

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

  Amanda Hilton, Publisher

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  www.BookStrand.com

  DEDICATION

  To Lesli and Trish, my two besties. Thank you for always being there with a word of encouragement, to share a laugh, and for our text message marathons.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Pagee

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  About the Author

  BEHIND BLUE EYES

  The Doms of Sybaris Cove 1

  TARA ROSE

  Copyright © 2014

  Chapter One

  Alaina Pembrooke stomped down the hall that led to the shipping department offices of Phoebe’s Playthings, knowing that some confrontations were simply too important to be done over the phone. This was one of them. She didn’t have much occasion to come to this part of the sprawling complex that housed the company’s headquarters, but each time she did, she couldn’t help glancing toward the cubicles that housed various shipping clerks.

  Somewhere in that labyrinth was Alex Nesfield, the man who was responsible for the bitching out she’d just taken from her boss, Sallyanne Raleigh. Sallyanne was a social-climbing bitch who, unfortunately for Alaina, had an uncle who just happened to be one of the CEOs of the company.

  All the CEOs and department heads were descended from the Raleigh or Durante families. There was no getting away from that in this company, so Alaina swallowed her pride several times a day because her job paid well, and on the days Sallyanne wasn’t micromanaging her work, she truly loved what she did.

  But today was not one of those days. She’d just taken a tongue lashing over something which had been the shipping department’s fault, and specifically the shipping clerk who had fucked up the orders for one of their largest customers. Since Alaina had landed that account, there was no way she was going to take the fall for this.

  She didn’t stop at Alex’s cubicle, even though she heard his voice talking on the phone as she passed the row. He was a fuckup, but that wasn’t the only reason his voice irritated every nerve she had. Once upon a time in a land called California, which was as far away from this island off the coast of Louisiana as she’d ever been, Alaina had been involved with Alex. Until he’d sent nude pictures of her to his friends via e-mail, that is.

  The fact that the scumbag had freaking followed her to Sybaris Cove was incidental, as far as she was concerned. He had his life and she had hers. Months passed without her ever having to see his name cross her desk, much less hearing his voice. So this wasn’t personal. It was a matter of principle and pride in her work.

  Her boots sounded softer on the carpeting than they had on the tile floors, and she instinctively slowed her pace, just as she always did when she approached executive offices in this building. The ambiance had been designed for that.

  Lush, tropical plants native to the island lined the corridors, and the carpet was the color of the deep blue sea that surrounded them. Soft, sultry jazz played from the speakers in the ceiling, and artistic
prints featuring their most popular merchandise dotted the walls.

  She passed the photograph of alligator-skinned bondage cuffs, and then once she approached the one depicting their latest vibrator—Phoebe’s Triple Pleasure—she slowed her breathing. No sense in barging into their offices looking like she was ready to hyperventilate and punch someone. That wasn’t the way to handle Tajo Durante or Jefferson Raleigh.

  Truthfully, Alaina had no clue how to handle them. She’d had an erotic fascination with both men for eight years now, ever since she’d landed a job as a sales associate. It hadn’t been the position she’d wanted, but she’d taken it because she knew that with her MBA from Pepperdine and her work ethic, she would move up the ladder.

  And she had. She’d worked her way up to Assistant Vice President over the company’s Western US Territory, which included California, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona. And she’d be damned if she’d let the biggest mistake of her undergrad years do anything to jeopardize her current position or future with this company. No one she knew had a gig like this. No one. It was paradise.

  And the eye candy was worth the aggravation. Taj and Jeff, as they were called, continued to dominate her dreams. They were also the only men she’d ever met who rendered her tongue-tied and more likely to behave like a fifteen-year-old talking to her biggest crush than the rising star in sales that she was.

  And unfortunately, since they both ran the shipping department, they were the ones she needed to speak with today. This wasn’t the first time that Alex had fucked up an order in her territory. Something had to be done.

  Taj and Jeff had offices side-by-side, and each time she’d had occasion to speak with one of them, she usually found them together in one of those offices. She heard their voices as she approached Taj’s office, and stopped for a moment before tapping on the partially open door, squaring her shoulders and smoothing down her flowered skirt.

  “Come on in.” Taj’s voice had a deep, sexy undertone that never failed to make Alaina’s legs tremble, and sent images of her in front of him, on her knees, as he held a riding crop or a paddle in his hand. They were the only two men who had ever evoked such decadent fantasies in her, owing in part to the fact that she’d been listening to rumors about what kind of Doms they were for seven of the eight years she’d been here.

  There was no formal club on the island, but most of the males at Phoebe’s Playthings were Doms, and a few of the females were Dommes. Employees were always going to play parties or munches. Although Alaina had never worked up the nerve to attend, she was way beyond curious. Maybe one day, but not right now. Right now she had an issue to resolve once and for all.

  She pushed open the door and planted her feet because to take a step right now would likely result in her taking a nose dive into the carpet. Taj and Jeff were each perched on one corner of the desk, button-down shirts open at the neck and their sleeves pushed up over their forearms. As if that image weren’t sexy enough, their jeans hugged muscles that the clothing couldn’t hide. Their cowboy boots were so out of place here on the edge of the Caribbean, but they somehow managed to make them look perfect regardless.

  “Alaina.” Taj hopped off the desk and sauntered toward her, his hand extended. “How are you?”

  “Fine.” She stared into his gray eyes, completely at a loss as to why she’d come there in the first place. When she shook his hand, she had to take a deep breath to clear her head. Good thing he wasn’t a mind reader or he’d have seen that image of him fucking her six ways to Sunday that just danced through her head.

  Jeff gave her his lopsided grin, which only served to add him to the pictures running around in her brain. “What can we do for you?”

  She let go of Taj’s hand before he released hers, a fact which somehow managed to permeate everything else, and glanced into Jeff’s handsome face. He always had a five-o’clock shadow, and she’d often wondered what that stubble would feel like in the dark against her bare skin. His dark eyes were full of mischief, but not condescension. Neither man had ever treated her like a subordinate, unlike Sallyanne, Jeff’s sister.

  “I’m here to talk about Alex Nesfield again.”

  To his credit, a look of disgust spread across Jeff’s face. “What’s he done this time?”

  She handed him the stack of papers she’d printed, showing the original paperwork on the account, their first ten orders—five of which had minor glitches courtesy of Alex’s fucking up—and the latest order which had ended up overseas instead of in California. “They’re ready to pull out. They say we’ve breached the contract and I checked with Lucie on that one. She says they might be able to prove that in court.” Lucie Durante was Taj’s third cousin and head of the legal department. Her father, Asa, was the other company CEO.

  “Lucie would know,” said Taj, giving his cousin a dark look.

  “Look, I know he’s worked for you guys for seven years now, but I’ve been here for eight and I moved up like five pay grades in that time. He’s moved up two. I do a good job. Hell, I do a great job, despite what your sister thinks of me.” She gave Jeff a pointed stare for a second, letting her words sink in.

  “I brought this account to us. Restraining Orders does a third of the business that we do, and they have a dozen stores now. They were ready to sign on with us for their store in New York. New York City, guys. I don’t even have that territory, and I’d be thrilled with getting that on location on board.”

  She tapped the stack of papers in Jeff’s hand with one manicured nail. “And now we might lose them completely. The order went to England. England. How the hell did he ship that order to England? Is he geographically challenged as well as clueless about our country codes? Shouldn’t he have this information committed to memory after all these years?”

  Taj closed his door and perched on the edge of the desk again. Alaina watched his face carefully, already knowing she’d wasted her time once again in walking clear across the building to try and talk to these two. Apparently she was wasting her time fantasizing about them as well. Even if there was a remote chance either of them was interested in dating her, she’d probably just eliminated that possibility in the last two minutes.

  He opened his mouth a couple of times without speaking, and then finally he looked her square in the eyes and spoke. “We can’t fire him.”

  “Why on earth not?”

  The two exchanged a look that she couldn’t interpret, but that only pissed her off even more.

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  “Jesus H. Christ. Who the fuck is he sleeping with? Seriously?” She normally attempted to curb her tendencies toward swearing like a drunken sailor during a hurricane while inside the complex, but this was too much. Her job was on the line here, and Alex was a sleaze bucket. And his personal life aside, he was a piss-poor worker.

  Something about the way Taj averted his gaze made her stomach queasy. What the hell was going on behind the scenes that she didn’t know about? “You’re not going to tell me, are you? You’re seriously going to let me lose my job rather than get rid of someone who can’t do his. You know this isn’t the first time he’s fucked up an order.”

  “We know,” said Jeff. “And I can personally guarantee that you will not lose your job.”

  “Oh really? And who will guarantee your word? Your sister? Your uncle? I graduated third in a class of one hundred at Pepperdine. Pepperdine, guys. I know you’ve never left the island, but it’s a really prestigious school. I could have taken my MBA and gone anywhere.”

  The quick flash of pain that crossed their faces made her wish she’d tempered her outburst. She knew why they’d never left the island. Anyone who had spent more than a week with this company knew. Guilt washed over her, heavy and dark. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that about the island.”

  They shook their heads in nearly identical gestures, which only served to make them look more adorable. “It’s okay,” said Jeff. “I know you meant no harm. And you’re right. You
have marketable skills and one heck of a résumé. That’s why you were recruited. You’d be a huge loss to us. That’s why I swear to you that my sister will back off. I give you my word on that.”

  She wanted to believe him. She really did. Not only because he and Taj had been the objects of her unrelenting lust for eight years, but because if she lost this job, she’d be gutted. It was exactly what she’d pictured herself doing in school, and she loved it here. Who wouldn’t love a tropical island with mansions on hilltops and white, sandy beaches? It was paradise and decadence, just as the name suggested, and if she left, she’d never see Taj or Jeff again unless she was the one who returned.

  “I appreciate that. I really do. But it’s not only my job I’m concerned about. Restraining Orders is our largest customer, and we had the potential to add all their stores. Alex has put that in jeopardy. If you two can’t do something about that, who the hell can?”

  Taj and Jeff were direct male descendants of William Raleigh and Iago Durante. William and his brother Robert, along with their friends Agapito and Iago who had been cousins, bought and eventually colonized this island with the help of money from running rum and other illegal activities.

  Lots of in-fighting had been going on among the natives, and the four had promised to bring peace and order. As they became more powerful, the natives sold the island to them in chunks, until they owned the entire thing.

  Robert, William, Agapito, and Iago’s sons had started a mail order business in 1979 specializing in adult toys. Since then, the company had grown to be one of the top online stores in the world selling adult sex toys and bondage equipment. Most of the merchandise was still made on the island, and the rest they shipped from outside locations. Seventy percent of the island residents worked for the company.