“Do you, um, think you’d ever want pets of your own again?” I asked, deciding to just put it out there and feel him out before Murry and I grew too hopeful.
“I would love to be Daddy to a pair of wonderful, curious pets if the opportunity presented itself,” Dorian said. “Especially if it turned out to be the two of you.”
I heard Murry gasp, but before he could say anything, I rushed ahead to answer for both of us.
“Yes, please.”
9
MURRY
“That window looks marvelous,” Aspen declared. “You guys have a gift for arranging things in an eye-catching way without being vulgar.”
“You don’t think it’s too much?” Raleigh asked as he stepped back to admire our work.
“Honey, we sell fetish gear here; you can’t get more over the top than that,” Aspen replied. “And yet, you dressed those mannequins like they were going to a black-tie affair. A kinky one, of course, but you still showed enough restraint to paint the picture of what we sold here without offending anyone. I love that you focused on the combination of leather and mesh for the men while still allowing a peek of the harness to shine through with that jacket. You give them a tease and a clue without revealing the goods.”
“Nice! I’m glad we did good,” I declared.
“You did better than good,” Aspen declared. “In every aspect. You could have gone with full headpieces; instead, you styled the pets like they were going to a masquerade ball. I love thethin chain leashes; they almost go unnoticed unless someone is looking for them. Talk about sublime, I just realized that was a joker-tipped flogger sticking out of the Dom's pocket. At first glance, I thought it was part of the pants.”
I watched as he moved more closely through the display, seeking out some of the other hidden elements we’d woven throughout the outfits we’d chosen to dress the mannequins in. Daddy Dorian, as we now got to call him, was upstairs sorting through the requests that had come in through the website, as well as the ones that had been left in the book after the show. When he was finished narrowing it down to the ones he wanted to work on for his next collection, we were going to watch some videos of the animals at play so we could work on mimicking them while he drew. Until then, we helped Aspen create new displays for the shop and handle the steady stream of customers who’d been flocking in since the runway show. One guy had traveled from three states over with his pets in order to purchase each of them their own dragon gear.
We were officially sold out when the green and purple gear walked out the door. The scales on them were small, pleated, and hand-stitched, which gave each outfit a truly reptilian feel, not to mention the visual aspect they presented when light hit them and glittery hues stood out. The pets, Lyle and Micha, had stomped around the shop after trying them on, roaring and rearing up as they playfully batted at one another. Their daddy had been so pleased that he’d ordered a second set of gear for each, but in different hues of their favorite colors. I knew Daddy Dorian was going to have fun with the green; he had a whole swatch sheet of lime green, forest, and spring apple that he was itching to weave together.
“Holy shit!” Aspen squealed. “You did not use nipple clamps as tie clips!”
Giggling, Raleigh nodded his head. “We did!”
“I love the way your brain thinks,” Aspen praised, while Raleigh stood there grinning ear to ear, basking in it.
Aspen might not know it yet, but the feedback he was giving Raleigh was only going to drive him to allow more of his creative side to peek through.
“I had a ton of help,” Raleigh insisted.
“Hey now,” I jumped in, cutting off anything else he might say to try and minimize his influence on the project. “I just helped with the assembly. The ideas and how to put them together were all you, or are you forgetting what my initial plan was?”
His cheeks puffed up as he choked back a snicker, then the air rushed out of him in a whoosh as giggles slipped out. Several times he tried to gain control, waving his hand, pressing it to his chest, and sucking in a breath before opening his mouth to say something, only to erupt into another fit of laughter.
“Do I even want to know?” Aspen asked, barely keeping himself together, then he glanced over at Raleigh, choked on a snort, and vigorously nodded his head. “Never mind, forget I asked that question. Of course I want to know. Spill it, Murry. What were you about to do to my window?”
“Attach a leather dildo to a harness and have one of the pets on his knees for one pair, and for the other, have the pet reared up on his hind legs, paws pressed to his lips in a sort of shocked admiration.”
First, Aspen’s eye bulged, then he choked and slapped his hands over his lips, coughing, sputtering, and finally doubling over as laughter erupted from him, which meant Raleigh started laughing harder until finally I couldn’t hold mine back and started laughing with them. There were still the occasional snickers even once we’d settled back down, until Raleigh’s stopped abruptly, his eyes fixed on the figure that stood outside of the glass, staring at us.
“Son of a bitch,” Raleigh growled, bolting between two of the mannequins, causing one to start wobbling. Fortunately, I was smaller and didn’t collide with it in my haste to catch up to him.
I got there as he started to yank the door open. Instead, I slammed my hand against it and pinned it closed. I locked it too and molded myself against Raleigh’s back, clinging to him as the guy smirked, flipped us off, and walked away. That’s when my temper threatened to snap, which made it a good thing that Raleigh was between me and the door because I was going to rip his fucking head off.
“Is that Sean O’Leary?” Aspen asked, all traces of humor gone from his voice. “That little prick better not even think about setting foot in here. I wouldn’t sell him a tablespoon of ice water if his ass was on fire.”
“You’ve had run-ins with him too?” Raleigh asked, finally taking his hand off the door handle, not that I eased up on the hold I had on him, not when I was still seething and fighting back the urge to stalk after the bastard and finish the beating I’d started by Raleigh’s bike.
“On more than one occasion,” Aspen remarked, patting Raleigh’s shoulder before jerking his thumb toward the refreshment station he’d set up. “Come on, I think we’ve earneda fifteen-minute break and some tea, which should give you plenty of time to tell me what you two got into it with him over.”
“It was mostly me,” Raleigh said, straightening up, which forced me to finally take a step back and let go of him while Aspen reached past us, flipped the sign to closed, and marked that we’d be returning in fifteen minutes.
“No, it was all him,” I snapped. “And he clearly hasn’t learned his lesson yet.”
