Texas Blaze Read online

  

  Club Esoteria Texas 1

  Texas Blaze

  [Siren Menage Amour: Contemporary, BDSM, Cowboys/Western, Menage, Small Town, Public Exhibition, MMF, HEA]

  After losing her Master, Blaze Richards’ life spirals out of control until she winds up hospitalized and fired from job as a social worker fighting for children’s protection. Swooping in to rescue her best friend, Jillian, with Gunnar’s help, move her to Texas.

  Wyatt Jackson and Levin Taylor, Gunnar and Jillian’s neighbors and co-owners of the Rocking JT Ranch, are involved in a Master/slave relationship while looking for a submissive woman to join their family. Meeting Blaze brings them not only a woman they both want in the bedroom, but also the social worker their ranch, which works with rehabilitating horses and men-in-training, needs.

  Will Blaze be able to lay her memories to rest and embrace a new BDSM relationship with Levin and Wyatt? Will the men be able to open their tightknit duo to embrace a third? Will Blaze be able to play rope bunny to her new Masters without melting down?

  Length: 33,000 words

  TEXAS BLAZE

  Club Esoteria Texas 1

  Cooper McKenzie

  

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  Texas Blaze

  Copyright © 2019 by Cooper McKenzie

  ISBN: 978-1-64637-062-7

  First Publication: December 2019

  Cover design by Siren Publishing

  All art and logo copyright © 2019 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.

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

  If you find a Siren-BookStrand e-book or print book being sold or shared illegally, please let us know at [email protected]

  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  DEDICATION

  Dedicated with many thanks to Amanda and the staff of Siren Publishing who took a chance on me and the original Club Esoteria all those years ago.

  Author’s Note

  While Texas Blaze is a standalone and the beginning of a new series, readers might want to revisit Taming Blaze and Gunnar’s Submissive from the original Club Esoteria series to learn the background of both Blaze and Club Esoteria Texas.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Cooper McKenzie always thought she had been born a hundred years too late, though she appreciates air conditioning, computers, and other conveniences of modern-day life. She lives in central Texas with her mixed breed companion, Honey, the Princess Fuzzybutt.

  For all titles by Cooper McKenzie, please visit

  www.bookstrand.com/Cooper-McKenzie

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  TEXAS BLAZE

  Prologue

  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

  Epilogue

  TEXAS BLAZE

  Club Esoteria Texas 1

  COOPER MCKENZIE

  Copyright © 2019

  Prologue

  Six months earlier

  Her Master was dead.

  Blaze Richards remained at the grave site long after everyone else walked away. The crowd for the funeral had been huge, so big she wondered where they had all come from. So many men in black or blue firefighter and police dress uniforms. Not just the men he worked with but firefighters and police officers from all over the state, and from neighboring states as well. The simple service her Master had once confided that he wanted had become a public spectacle he would have hated.

  Especially when the television vans showed up, turning her sad day into state-wide news. At least no one had approached her about doing an interview. Yet.

  She wasn’t sure she would be able to talk about the man the rest of the world knew as Shift Commander Andrew Zimmerman without referring to him as Master Z at least once. And that would have brought up all sorts of additional questions and comments she knew she couldn’t answer. Not today. Not anytime soon. What she and Master Z had shared was their business and theirs alone.

  Andy had filled out paperwork naming her his next of kin shortly after she’d moved in with him, so she was able to have a hand in keeping things simple. Or as simple as a funeral attended by what felt like half the city government could be. At least it was over. The post-funeral reception was invitation only, but she still wasn’t sure how she would get through it.

  She needed her Master by her side. He was the only one who could keep her calm, focused, and balanced during times of extreme stress, such as today.

  But he was dead and buried and no longer in a position to help her.

  How was she supposed to smile and be polite while those who knew only the public side of Andrew Zimmerman shared stories of his life and mourned? Though her presence at the gravesite held up the grave diggers from finishing their job, she did not care. Once she walked away, it would be real. Andy, her beloved Master Z, would be gone from her forever.

  She had been lying to herself until now. She had almost convinced herself that Andy had not collapsed from a brain aneurysm while fighting a three-alarm fire, dead before his body hit the ground. But she had seen his body in the casket before the service and witnessed the truth, that her beloved man was dead.

  After more than seven years together, she had been certain they would be together forever, even without a wedding tying them together. The gold chain locked around her neck and the matching key on his keyring had meant more to them than any church vows ever could. Too bad Fate, and Master Z’s stubbornness about seeing a doctor about the headaches he’d been having, did not care about her thoughts.

  Blaze wished she didn’t have to go to the reception and be polite with the mayor, fire chief, and chief of police. She would rather head to Club Esoteria to mourn with their real friends. Thinking of the club brought a worrying thought to the forefront of her things to consider.

  Would Master Dominic allow her to remain a member now that Master Z was no longer there to keep her bratty ways under control? They had first met because Master Taurus, one of the club’s previous owners, threatened to cancel her membership if she dared to play with anyone other than Master Z. She had been choosing the wrong dominants, and everyone, but her, knew it. She didn’t think anyone at the club believed they would last this long.

  “Come on, honey. Let’s go home,” Gunnar McNeil said as he stepped up beside her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

  “Just a minute.” Pulling Andy’s keyring from her pocket, she singled out the smallest gold-colored key. After working it free from the ring, she held it out to Gunnar and said, “Unlock it, please.”

  Gunnar frowned down at her. “Are you sure? You don’t have to take it off right now. You don’t ever have to take it off if you don’t want to.”

  “No. We had talked about it several
times over the years. This is what he wanted. Please, unlock my collar.”

  Shaking his head, Gunnar reached for the small heart-shaped lock that rested just below the notch of her collarbone. It took him only a few seconds to fit the key into the lock and twist. When the small lock popped open, he worked it free from the loops of chain it connected.

  Blaze took a slow, deep breath as she eased the chain from her neck. Taking the lock and key from Gunnar, she piled everything in one hand.

  “Good-bye, Master Z,” she said softly as she stepped to the edge of the grave.

  She turned her palm over and watched her BDSM slave collar, lock, and key fall into the hole to be buried with her Master. Though they had grown apart and become less communicative over the past few months, she still loved him dearly and would miss the loving control he had exerted over her life.

  Hugging the folded city flag that had been draped over Master Z’s casket to her chest, she took another deep breath as she forced herself to turn and walk away. Gunnar moved with her, walking on one side while Jillian, Gunnar’s wife and her best friend, stepped up to walk on the other.

  Tears continued to roll down her cheeks and fall as Blaze allowed the married couple, who had flown in from their home in Texas the night before, to guide her toward the only vehicle left in sight, Gunnar’s big black SUV.

  She was so happy to have her best friend with her during this time, though she never said anything to Jillian about the troubled waters they had been working through. Things had been rough between them ever since Jillian and Gunnar had moved to Texas, but the past few weeks, she and Andy had barely spoken. She had kept herself so busy at work that it had taken a condolence visit from her friends from Club Esoteria to realize it had been months since their last visit to the club.

  Gunnar helped her into the backseat of his ginormous SUV like she was as fragile as a piece of blown glass. He didn’t understand that Blaze Richards was more like the kudzu vine. As long as her heart kept beating and her lungs breathed oxygen, she would grow back. It might take some time, but she would recover from Andy’s death and be back terrifying dominants with her sassy, take-no-shit-from-anyone attitude.

  She slid across the seat so Jillian could climb in beside her once Gunnar hugged her and brushed a kiss on her forehead. Blaze had to look away from the love in Gunnar’s expression. Love that had been missing from her own Master’s expression of late. Once Jillian was in, Gunnar closed the door then climbed into the front passenger’s seat.

  “What am I going to do now?” Blaze asked softly, the question more rhetorical than information gathering. “How am I supposed to go on without Master Z?”

  Chapter One

  Six months later

  “What the hell were you thinking?” Jillian McNeil demanded as soon as Blaze opened her eye from her latest drug-induced nap.

  Turning her head to the right just enough to make out the blurry form of her best friend beside the hospital bed, Blaze licked her lips and swallowed. She immediately regretted that action, as everything on the left side of her face and around her neck lit up with fiery hot pain. When she winced, Jillian stepped closer and grabbed a cup off the rolling table. She then moved in and held a straw to Blaze’s lips. Swallowing the room temperature liquid caused Blaze to wince again, but at least her mouth and throat no longer felt like overdried beef jerky.

  “Who told you?” she whispered. “Why are you here?”

  With the one eye that wasn’t swollen shut, Blaze caught the look of stunned hurt that flashed across Jillian’s face as her friend took a step back as if she’d been struck.

  “You listed me as your emergency contact after Andy died, remember? And where else do you think I’d be with my best friend in the hospital?” Jillian asked, the pain in her voice causing Blaze to open her right eye again. She had to turn her head a little more to see her friend. “What the hell were you doing going into that house without police backup?”

  Blaze frowned, but only for a second because the change in expression caused knife-sharp pain to flash through the left entire side of her face. It took a moment to remember what she had been doing to earn this trip to the hospital. In her job as a social worker specializing in representing children, she’d been answering a call for help from her ten-year-old client. Her father had apparently shown up drunk and was beating on the mother. She begged for Blaze’s help in protecting her siblings.

  She focused on breathing until the pain eased off before answering. “I was trying to get three children out of hell. Did the cops get the father? Are the kids safe? What about the mother?”

  The answer didn’t come from her best friend but from the other side of the room. She stiffened for a moment before recognizing Gunnar’s voice. “The kids are with the grandmother until the mother gets out of the hospital. The husband is missing. When the mother found out what he did to you, she called her mother, who has come to town and is making plans to take them all back to Indiana with her.”

  She relaxed back into her pillow. “Thank God.”

  “Question is, what are you going to do now?” Gunnar said as he moved into view. He rounded the foot of the bed and stopped behind the chair his wife now sat in.

  “What am I going to do now? I’m going to get better and go back to work. What else would I do? Not all of us have a hot, sexy billionaire to take care of us.” Blaze winced as she heard the bitter anger she was spouting.

  She watched Jillian bite her lip as she glanced over her shoulder at her husband. Tears blurred Blaze’s vision in the next second so she couldn’t see the hurt she knew Jillian was feeling at her caustic words.

  “No, you’re not,” Gunnar said, crossing his arms. With that simple move, he reminded her so much of Master Z that Blaze had to glance away. She slowly lifted her arm and wiped away her tears. “Your boss told me you’ve been taking increasingly greater risks since Andy’s death. This time you went so far over the line of legality that you’ve been terminated for cause. While they will be paying the costs of your medical care since you were injured on the job, you are no longer welcome back to the Department of Social Services.”

  The loss of the last stable thing in her life hurt nearly as much as losing Master Z six months earlier had. “So, what am I supposed to do now? I have to work if I want to eat, if I want to live.”

  She looked to Jillian as she asked the question but knew her bestie wouldn’t have an answer. Jillian had given up her job and sold her business a year earlier when she and Master Gunnar had been going through a rough patch in their marriage. When Jillian dropped her gaze to her lap, Blaze looked to the big man who still reminded her of a modern-day Viking. He was sure to have the answers she needed.

  He didn’t disappoint. “You’re moving to Texas. You’re going to let us take care of you until you are whole and healthy and back to your feisty, too strong for your own good self. Once you’re ready to take on the world again, I’ll help you find a job, a place to live, and a new Dominant to keep you from getting too wild. You will then live happily ever after. In Texas.”

  Blaze stared at the man in shock. “Texas? You want me to just up and move to Texas? What the hell am I supposed to do in Texas?”

  Gunnar’s expression darkened for a moment. “Language, subbie. For now, you won’t do anything except rest and heal. When the doctors release you, you and Jillian will get on my plane and come to the ranch. I’ve already spoken to your landlord, and he’s agreed to release you from your lease. The contents of your apartment are being packed up as we speak and will be sent, along with your car, to the ranch.”

  Blaze stared at the man who had stepped in and taken over her life without being asked. “But … but … you can’t do that,” she tried to argue, though her voice was weak, as tiredness began to roll over her once again.

  “I did. It’s done. Accept it. Now drink some more water and get some rest. Jillian will be back to see you in the morning,” Gunnar said as a nurse pushed into the room and frowned at them since
visiting hours had ended twenty minutes earlier. “Yes, ma’am, we know visiting hours are over. We’re on our way out now.”

  Before Blaze could argue about Gunnar’s plan for her future, they were gone. The nurse moved about the room without a word, efficiently doing her job. She checked the monitors set up beside the head of the bed and injected something into the IV line taped to Blaze’s right wrist. The woman then stepped up next to the bed. With a touch so light Blaze didn’t feel any pain, the woman wiped the tears from her cheeks.

  “I’ve just given you some pain medication that should help you sleep. Just close your eyes and relax. Things will look better in the morning.”

  Blaze nodded. She was too tired and in too much pain to argue. Closing her eyes, she sank down into the black nothingness that welcomed her with open arms.

  * * * *

  “You two still looking for a wife?” Gunnar asked as he glanced over at the man sitting next to him on the front porch a few days later.

  The man’s life partner was providing them with high entertainment as he chased one of Jillian’s goats. Winslow had escaped his pen. Again.

  In the days he had been back on the ranch without Jillian, that damn goat had gotten out at least twice a day. It was driving him and everyone else crazy as the young goat looked for the lady who spoiled him with snuggles and kisses and carrot treats.

  Wyatt Jackson didn’t bother to look his way as he said, “You know we are. While your club is great for finding women to share for a night or a weekend, we’re looking for a more permanent relationship. Why? Do you have someone in mind?”

  Gunnar drank the last of his beer before he said, “Jillian and Blaze are coming home tomorrow. While I’ve never been accused of being a matchmaker, Blaze needs a strong, steady Dom who doesn’t risk his life on a daily basis. Her last master confided in me not long before he died that he was planning to release her, that he could no longer give her what she needed due to his increasing work commitments. I’m thinking you two might be just the steadying influence she needs. She might also be able to fill that new position of social worker on your staff the state is requiring you to fill. Would you be interested in meeting her once she’s up for visitors?”