Secrets Remembered Read online

  Table of Contents

  Legal Page

  Title Page

  Book Description

  Dedication

  Trademarks Acknowledgement

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Epilogue

  New Excerpt

  About the Author

  Publisher Page

  A Totally Bound Publication

  Secrets Remembered

  ISBN # 978-1-78430-324-2

  ©Copyright Raven McAllan 2014

  Cover Art by Posh Gosh ©Copyright October 2014

  Edited by Jennifer Douglas

  Totally Bound Publishing

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, Totally Bound Publishing.

  Applications should be addressed in the first instance, in writing, to Totally Bound Publishing. Unauthorized or restricted acts in relation to this publication may result in civil proceedings and/or criminal prosecution.

  The author and illustrator have asserted their respective rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book and illustrator of the artwork.

  Published in 2014 by Totally Bound Publishing, Newland House, The Point, Weaver Road, Lincoln, LN6 3QN

  Totally Bound Publishing is a subsidiary of Totally Entwined Group Limited.

  Warning:

  This book contains sexually explicit content which is only suitable for mature readers. This story has a heat rating of Totally Burning and a Sexometer of 2.

  Diomhair

  SECRETS REMEMBERED

  Raven McAllan

  Book three in the Diomhair series

  What comes first—your happiness or your job?

  Ailsa McLagan is sent undercover to investigate possible shady dealings at the private BDSM club Diomhair. The last thing she expects is to be confronted by one of the Masters there. Not only does he make her want to sink to her knees, but he seems to see straight through her disguise, too.

  Aidan is instantly attracted to the clueless sub he stumbles upon. Even though he knows she is hiding her true identity, he can’t help but push her to discover her limits, and introduce her to the delights of subbing to him.

  Scared by the intensity of her reaction, Ailsa runs and all seems lost.

  When the truth is revealed, can they work towards a true Dom/sub relationship, even though theirs started on a lie?

  Dedication

  To Jenny, who sees my mistakes and sorts them, and to Paul, who has to tame the dust bunnies.

  Trademarks Acknowledgement

  The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

  Doc Martens: R. Griggs Group Ltd

  Ducati: Ducati Motor Holding S.p.A

  Honda: Honda Motor Company, Ltd.

  “No one puts Baby in a corner” (Dirty Dancing): Vestron Pictures

  Chapter One

  The thought of the luxury of an evening to himself wasn’t lost on Aidan Jefferies. He stretched back in his office chair and wriggled his tight shoulders. He needed a ten-mile run or a massage. Or a good workout with a sub. No not a sub, his sub, he corrected himself.

  As he was damned sure he’d not fit time for the run into his schedule in the near future, and was currently sub-less without anyone on the horizon to change that, he’d have to sort out a massage sometime soon. He needed to de-kink. Well not de-kink exactly. He sniggered to himself. There was about a cat in hell’s chance of that, but definitely de-knot his muscles. However, not that evening. He intended those hours to be lazy, kick back and relax ones. No massage, no companion, no thinking about work, only chilling.

  Aidan glanced at the clock. Three hours and counting before he could lock his office door, get on his motorbike and ride the seven miles home. He checked the specification he’d written up, pressed send on his computer and made a note of what he’d done. There was nothing outstanding or urgent that had to be addressed there and then. His mind made up, Aidan turned on his intercom.

  “Jacks?”

  “She’s left for hot sex with her man. This is a recording.” His PA’s voice came over the line. “All queries can be sorted tomorrow. If she can walk.” The staccato voice stopped. “Hi, Ade, what’s up?” They didn’t stand on ceremony.

  “Not a lot. Just get as much done as you can so we can clock off early. I reckon we need it.”

  “Too right. Give me time to beautify myself, eh? Shugie’s home tonight.” Shugie, otherwise known as Hugh, was her husband. He worked away a lot of the time. “Ah shit, hold on, that’s the phone. Let me get rid of whoever it is. How dare they ring when we’re going to dog off?” The intercom went dead.

  Aidan shook his head. Dog off? That was an expression he hadn’t heard for years. Why not skiving or playing hooky? She’d never change. Aidan took a swig of water and contemplated the evening ahead. He’d earmarked a steak and a good robust red wine for dinner, along with a gritty drama he’d recorded a few nights previously. He might even stretch to a sticky toffee pudding for dessert. Pure pig-out indulgence. Then it was going to be slouch on the sofa time, and watch hot women and steely-eyed men dice with death, and each other. Right until the credits rolled on a satisfactory ending, be it happy or not.

  He wasn’t needed that evening at Diomhair, a private BDSM club based in a rebuilt Scottish castle not far from where he lived. It was the place where he worked for pleasure and not necessity. Diomhair was proving to be very popular, and he was more than glad to lend a hand when necessary, over and above his allocated shifts, both as a dungeon master and a Dom. He blessed the day he’d discovered it and its owners. They had become more than good friends. In fact, they were, he acknowledged, a lifeline at times, and he never minded pulling an extra shift or doing a nice knife or wax demonstration for them.

  The phone rang and he sighed. Obviously Jackie hadn’t managed to fob off whoever was on the line. He hoped it wasn’t going to stop them leaving early. Why did the ring sound ominous? Was it because a phone call might delay that perfect moment when he felt like a school kid playing hooky? Why it should hit him like that he had no idea. After all, Aidan was his own boss, and only had himself and Jackie to consider. She deserved time off. Over all the long and lean months she’d given him her support, and on more than one occasion had provided his lunch and told him to hold onto her wages. As she said to him, very firmly, she worked to provide the icing on the cake, not the bread and butter of life.

  She was a godsend. Now their accounts were firmly out of the red and Aidan had more work than one man could easily handle. If Jackie wouldn’t take a step upward, and she said she wouldn’t, then he needed to hire someone else to help with the workload. Whoever would have thought his little advertising firm would take off so well?

  The phone rang again, breaking into his reverie. He’d worry about the need for more staff later. For now he’d answer the damned thing.

  He picked up the instrument and enjoyed the feel of the soft, tactile handset under his fingers. He was pleased he’d followed Jackie’s advice and gone
for a reconditioned early 1950s one. It was fun and had so much more soul than a modern, hands-free piece of plastic. As he listened to the old-fashioned bell—no silly pop tunes or metallic notes—he wondered who Jackie had felt should be put through.

  “Aidan, it’s your father on the line,” Jackie said in a worried voice. It made him wonder what tactics his father had tried on his assistant this time to try to make her tell tales. “He sounds sort of annoyed.”

  “Nothing new there then.” Aidan began to tidy the mess known as his pencil box. Why on earth was there half a tin of mints and three vouchers, all out of date, for ten percent off at his local Italian restaurant amongst the pens, pencils and felt tips?

  Jackie groaned and the noise reverberated down the line. “No and this time I’ve upset him good and proper because I said a five grand bribe was chicken feed, and I got that as a bonus each month. I suggested he throw in tassel swinging as an incentive.”

  She didn’t get anything like the amount she’d teased his father with, but he knew that sort of talk would really piss his parent off.

  “Mind you, he wasn’t pleasant when I answered the call, and he’s a lot less so now, than he was. Sorry, you’ll no doubt get the flack, but he’d make a saint swear. You know sometimes I wish he’d show up here. Even if it was just so I could laugh at him. How he could have helped produce you, I have no idea. Are you sure your mum didn’t play away or you were adopted?”

  Aidan laughed as he reckoned she’d meant him to. “No such luck. I look like my grandpa on Dad’s side. Put him through, Jacks, and then, sod it, we’re going to shut up shop and have an early finish. We deserve it.”

  “Too right, and like I said, I’ll have a man around tonight. Shugie’s due back at eight. That’ll give me time to, er, prepare.”

  She gave her smoky, dirty laugh. One that never ceased to amaze Aidan, as she was adamant the only thing she’d ever smoked was not nicotine, was illegal and that it was only once. She confessed she’d been sick as a dog, and from then on got her highs from music and dancing.

  “Dinner,” she added. “Oh, and dessert.”

  The inference in her voice lightened the black mood the information regarding the caller had given him.

  “My father?” Aidan prompted, even though he’d rather have a root canal treatment than deal with the man.

  “Shit, forgot about his arsiness still holding on. Do you want me to buzz in after two?” Jackie asked him.

  Bless her. “Yeah, but make it five minutes or he’ll not have vented his spleen. Either he’ll be back on the line again, or take it out on mum long distance. After all, I don’t have to listen properly. I can put him on loudspeaker and tidy up around him.”

  “Okay, good luck.”

  He didn’t need Jackie’s intervention this time. His father’s demand for him to ‘Give up that stupid perverted lifestyle you live, and come back here’ he responded to with a flat no. After a few pithy swear words and a ‘You’ll never get anywhere without my backing’ speech that Aidan knew word for word, his father issued a threat.

  “I’ll make sure you stop that crap. No son of mine is going to be a pervert. You tell those weirdoes to watch out. Either they get rid of you, or I’ll get rid of them.” The line went dead as he ended the call.

  Aidan whistled. He had no illusions about his father. The old sod never issued idle threats, as several of his competitors had discovered. Never anything against the law, but Aidan wouldn’t have been surprised to find out it was a close run thing. Jeff, the co-owner of Diomhair, would need to be warned to take care. It had occurred to him his father might already have meddled. There had been more than one occasion lately where suspicious activity had been discovered on and around the estate that belonged to Diomhair. In one instance it had endangered life, and they were all very alert these days.

  Aidan frowned as he closed down his computer and locked up the desk drawers. There was no way he was going to let his father interfere with or upset his life, or that of his close friends. Never again would Aidan deny his needs and wants for the sake of an uneasy relationship with his parent. Not even if Hell froze over. Nor would he ever be at his father’s beck and call and work for him. It had taken Aidan a lot of soul searching to decide he had to stand up to the domineering man and tell him he wasn’t willing to compromise his lifestyle for the sake of his father’s perceptions and preferences. Unfortunately, it seemed the elder Jefferies wasn’t prepared to accept that.

  Whatever anyone thought to the contrary, Aidan’s desires as a Dom were as necessary to him as breathing. Not every day, and not in a whole lifestyle scenario, not anymore. But he was a Dom, and as such could not and would not be anything else. His parent demanding he stay away from all things even remotely connected with BDSM was a no go, and he’d said so.

  His father had retaliated by sacking him from the company business, removing him from his will and effectively washing his hands of him. As he also refused to give Aidan references or salary in lieu of notice, at first, money had been tight. Only a lovely and unasked for loan from his godmother, along with the offer of a cottage she no longer used, had saved him from the dole queue.

  Aidan had packed his bags, walked out of his company flat and never looked back. Within a year or so, by dint of hard work, two jobs and scrimping and saving, he’d repaid the loan and been flabbergasted when his godmother had gifted him the cottage.

  “Saves a bit of inheritance tax,” she’d told him with a grin.

  Now after listening to his father ranting, he wondered how he’d stuck it all for so long. From the first flogger his father had ‘discovered’ hidden under Aidan’s bed—who had given his parent that information? he wondered—to the threats to use it on him. Such as, ‘I’ll show you what for’, blustering and threatening to show him what a ‘real’ whipping was like. His father was a bully. If it hadn’t been for his mum, his gentle, wouldn’t say boo to a goose let alone Murison Patterson Jefferies mum, Aidan would have left sooner. Eventually, though, his mum had urged him to leave.

  “I will if you will,” she’d said.

  They both had. Leona Jefferies moved to Lanzarote to be close to her sister, then to live a happy and fulfilled life, and eventually get a rich Spanish boyfriend, and Aidan to Scotland. To also live a happy and fulfilled life, but until recently not anywhere approaching rich.

  “Okay, are you all set?” Aidan asked Jackie as he locked his office door behind him. He took his jacket and bike helmet down from the cloak stand and helped Jackie into a bright, multi-colored fluorescent jacket that almost hurt his eyes. It clashed magnificently with her electric blue skirt and flowery Doc Martens.

  “Yep. You okay? I didn’t hear any shouting or the stapler hitting the wall.”

  “I didn’t need to go that far. He worked himself up into an early temper and hung up. Thank goodness. I can’t spare the energy to interact with him. It’s much too exhausting. Anyway that’ll be it for a few weeks until something or someone else rattles his cage.” Aidan had no intention of worrying Jackie by sharing his father’s threats unless he had to. “Right, let’s be off.”

  “You’re on.” Her feather earrings stroked her shoulders and she flicked them away with impatience. “Damned things, I should know better.”

  * * * *

  Every time he drove the ten minutes or so it took to ride his precious Ducati from one village to the next, Aidan realized over again how right he’d been to have his office away from the house. It gave him time to wind down and, in his mind, change from Aiden the ad-man to Aidan the whatever he fancied. Tonight he needed those few minutes of enjoyment that his bike brought him. The conversation with his father had rattled him more than he’d realized. By the time he turned the bike into his driveway, he was relaxed and ready for a chilled out evening.

  His phone rang as he unlocked the front door. Aidan didn’t think it would be his father, not yet. His way was to simmer for a few days, plot and plan then send in the big guns. Whatever or whoever t
hey were.

  Last time it had been Lynette. A pneumatic brunette who was supposed to be a lawyer, and a wannabe sub. He’d soon found out that, apart from the fake breasts, that was wrong on both other counts. She’d lit no spark of interest in Aidan whatsoever and in a fit of pique had revealed she was there on his father’s behest. To blackmail him into, as she called it, turning normal or being taken to court.

  Aidan had waved her goodbye instead.

  He kicked the door shut behind him, dropped the bike and house keys in the ornate porcelain bowl on the side table and fished his mobile out of his jeans pocket. As ever it snagged. He swore under his breath, released it and answered the call. It was from Jeff, one of the owners of Diomhair, who sounded more than flustered.

  “Shit and bugger, Ade, thank God I got you. I know you need an evening off, but you did say you had nothing planned. Shit, please don’t now tell me you’ve got a hot date with a leggy blonde or whatever. Oh blimey, why does it happen like this? Jess and David are away overnight and, hells bells, Kath’s gone into labor.” Kath was his sub and partner, who was due to give birth to their twins, obviously somewhat earlier than anticipated. Jess was his sister and co-owner of Diomhair. David was her Dom and her husband. They were all people Aidan counted amongst his closest friends

  “It wasn’t supposed to happen yet. Fuck, she’s due to go in at the weekend for a section,” Jeff continued in a rush. His words tumbled over each other. “Two babies and all that, and her being little. Oh damn information overload and I’m babbling. Yes, pet, I won’t be long.” Aidan assumed that was for Kath, not him.

  “Anyway, Ross isn’t capable of leading wax, or knife play, not yet, and there’s a potential sub booked a private session. She’s been cleared and everything, but can you help? I really don’t want to cancel if possible because she’s said how worried she is. I reckon it’s now or never, and God almighty she shouts sub. She’s been to several group nights and now wants to take it a step further. Ross will be there as back-up, as will Connie Dores. Otherwise I’d have told her to reschedule.” There was a strange keening noise from the phone.