The sun filtered through the tent’s mesh the next morning, waking Autumn much earlier than usual. She stretched and yawned, and reached for Shawn. A good morning kiss would be nice. But he wasn’t there.

“Shawn?” she sat up on the air mattress.

“Shush.” She looked to where he stood at the tent opening, his finger to his lip. She didn’t want to make any noise, so she stayed in place. Obviously, someone was out there. Why he was putting his hand to his mouth she didn’t know. It wasn’t as if the tent were invisible. Whoever was out there knew someone was inside.

He looked out through the open flap, then motioned her over. She moved as quietly as possible, and when she was at the door he stepped aside and pointed up.

Something black was flying through the sky, low over the Silver Creek vehicle.

“Drone,” he mouthed.

Autumn knew nothing about drones. How far could they fly? Surely the person controlling it had to be nearby. She wanted to ask these questions, but Shawn remained silent, staring at the object as it hovered over the vehicle.

“It must have some sort of live feed on it,” he said, his voice low. “Something tells me this is your friend Mr. Mach.”

The drone lifted in the air and flew toward the bank of hills where the abandoned silver mines were located.

“We’re going to need some help out here.”

Autumn turned to where Shawn was talking on the phone. She’d been so focused on the drone that she hadn’t even realized he’d moved away from her.

“We’ve got company, a drone, and whoever is controlling it,” he said.

She watched him as he listened. “Get your ass out here as fast as you can,” he said. He clicked off the phone.

“I’m going to greet your friend,” he said. He unzipped the tent and was out the door before she could locate her shoes so she could follow him. When she was finally outside she burst into laughter when she saw him standing there, both hands in the air with his middle finger extended.

The drone continued its exploration of the mining area. Autumn stared at the area. It had been too dark to see the area, but now she took in the scope of things, and realized that, even with the coordinates that led them to this area, it would be difficult to find the money.

There were three mines, marked by wooden triangles that shaped the areas that led into the mines. All of them were boarded up with warning signs against entry. A large wooden building set to the right of the mines. Autumn thought a good, stiff wind would knock it down. She wondered how it had stayed upright all these years.

The drone lifted suddenly and took off over the mountain.

“What’s on the other side?” she asked.

“Same as here, only there’s no mines,” he said. “That land belongs to my family, too. Whoever is there is trespassing.”

He yanked his phone out of his pocket. He punched the screen and held it up to his ear. “Jackson, it’s Shawn. Yeah, someone is going to be coming out of Blackhill Road in about half an hour, maybe less. Whoever it is, is trespassing on my land. I want them arrested.” He listened for a moment and said, “Got it, thanks.”

“Jackson?” she asked.

“The sheriff,” he said. “He’s Ethan’s former brother-in-law.”

“Ethan’s divorced?” she said. That might explain some of his anger toward her, except it seemed to come from her profession. Strange.

“No, he’s a widower,” Shawn said. “Come on, let’s eat. We’re going to get help soon and I want our search to be successful.”

They went inside the tent. She watched as he gathered equipment, then went outside, and set up a portable stove where he made coffee. “There should be croissants in the baskets and jam in the cooler.”

She gathered the items and when she came back out he’d set up two chairs and a small table. He had poured two cups of coffee and there were containers of sugar and creamer. They both helped themselves and ate in silence.

When she’d finished her first roll, she said, “I don’t understand how Mach found out about this.”

“I’m sure when you disappeared he figured you’d found something interesting.” Shawn drank from his coffee. “He’s not dumb, that’s for sure. I bet he either asked the storage unit owner about the unit, or he broke in to look at the records. From there he investigated. He might not have had the information you had, but he’s obviously smart.”

“Unfortunately,” Autumn said. She drank more of her coffee. “Do you think your sheriff friend will catch him?”

“Nothing deters Jackson,” he said. “He was born with a silver star on his chest.”

“I bet his mother hated that,” she said.

“Probably so,” he said, and they both laughed.

When they were done, he said he wanted to tear down the tent. She packed things inside, hoping she was doing it right since it was all so new to her. She was wondering about the toilet, which had proved to be quite useful, when Shawn stuck his head in tent.

“Done in here?”

She mentioned the toilet. He unzipped the tent from the covering around it and said, “Done. Oh, by the way, we were distracted this morning, so I didn’t get an answer to the question I posed to you last night. Which of the three would you choose?”

That came out of thin air, and she wasn’t prepared to answer. “Um, the bondage box.” She answered the question before she thought about it, and once the words were out of her mouth she knew it wasn’t the right thing to do.

“Why?” he asked.

“What?” she replied.

“Why?” he said again.

“Who, what, where?” she countered, hoping he would laugh. Instead, he frowned.

“Tell me why you would pick the bondage box,” he said.

She opened her mouth, only to hear Ethan call out Shawn’s name. “Saved by the man who doesn’t like me,” she said.

“It just gives you time to compose a really good answer,” he said. “I’ll expect it tonight. Come on, let’s search.”

Autumn pulled her notebook out of her pack and went outside. She gave the coordinates to Shawn and watched as he and Ethan punched it into his phone, and then walked it out. She stayed close, but not so close that she would be hovering. There were two new vehicles now, and five men standing around with shovels. They all wore hardhats with lamps attached.

The actual spot of the coordinates was between two of the abandoned mines.

“Let’s dig here, and if we don’t find anything then we’ll go into the mines,” Shawn said. “Autumn, let’s examine them and see if any of the wood nailed to the shafts looks newer.”

That was a good idea, she thought as Ethan called for the men. They brought their shovels and started to dig.

Autumn and Shawn studied the mines. “Neither of them look like they’ve been entered in the last fifty years,” Autumn said. “In fact, the wood looks like one good kick would shatter the planks.”

“Yeah,” Shawn said. “There’s no telling what is inside the mines.”

“You played here as a kid, right?” she asked.

“Sometimes we’d come down here, but we never went into the mines,” he said. “We’d heard too many stories about them collapsing and killing miners. We’d heard there was no silver left inside, that the mines had been depleted back in the twenties.”

As the day progressed the heat took over. Autumn watched the men dig, and when one took a water break she took over his shovel. Shawn and Ethan did the same thing, and soon they’d dug long and deep, and found nothing.

Ethan turned to her. “Can I see the letter with the coordinates, please?”

She wanted to defend herself, to say there was nothing else in there, but she didn’t want to antagonize him. She dug the letter out of her pocket where she’d stuffed it earlier. He read it, shook his head and handed it back to her.

“It’s a bust,” Ethan said. “I guess we should pack it in. You earned yourself a good five grand.”

“Not so fast,” Autumn said as she stared at the paper. “There were books in with the letter, three fiction books.”

“What were they?” Shawn asked. “And, where are they?”

“I sold them to a bookstore,” she said. “I looked through them. There was no letters, no marked passages. Nothing. They were lesser known books. The only one that struck a bell was one by Fortenberry, you know the horror writer?

“I’ve read everything Fortenberry wrote,” Shawn said. “My Dad loved him. He had all his books. There was one story that involved treasure hunting. In it the main character found a treasure by looking for a beetle symbol that was etched into the map.”

“Fan out,” Ethan called out. “Look for a beetle etched into the wood on the mines.”

A frantic search proved futile.

“Crap,” Shawn said.

It was past mid-day. Autumn knew they were all hot, and hungry. They’d eaten sandwiches and chips that Ethan had brought with them, but it was getting close to the end of the day.

“Let’s pack it up and go back to the resort,” Shawn said. “We’ll put our heads together and see what we can come up with.”

The trip back seemed to take ten times longer than the one there had. Autumn felt a sense of loss. She’d expected to find something, anything that was worth money. But they’d found nothing. But the trip had not been a total loss, she told herself. The night in the tent with Shawn had been wonderful. She still remembered him fucking her tits while the dildo slid in and out of her pussy.

Her pussy grew wet at the memory. They were in the car alone, close to the resort now.

“Don’t give up,” he said. “This was our first attempt. I would have been surprised if we’d found it.”

“I guess I was overconfident,” she said. “I just thought it would be easy. I’m not sure why. Nothing in life is ever easy.”

“We’ve had an easy road,” he said. “Or at least I think we have. You’ve taken quite well to rough sex.”

Autumn nodded. He was right. It was almost embarrassing how she’d taken to it, and how she craved more.

“If our search is over, that means the experiment is over,” she said.

“Does it?” He pulled up behind what she decided was his cabin. It was at the far end of the resort, and had its own private drive way in the back.”

She didn’t answer him, because she didn’t want to admit she didn’t want it to be over.

“Are you going to make me walk back to my cabin?” she asked.

“You’re staying with me now,” he said. “There’s no sense in our traveling back and forth. Plus, we could use the cabin you were in for Mach.”

“Are you still letting him come?” That shocked her.

“I don’t like someone lying to me, and neither do Ethan and Randy,” Shawn said. “Yeah, he’s coming, but he won’t be giving us a good review when he’s gone.”

That made her laugh.

“You’re not afraid he’ll report you as being a sex resort?”

“It’s no secret this is a BDSM resort,” he said. “No one is paid for sex here, and if they were, this is Nevada.”

“True,” Autumn said. “Well, I hope you don’t mind having me as a roommate for the next few days.”

“Few days? Sweetie, if I have anything to say about it you’ll be here for more than a few more days.” He leaned toward her. “Would you like that?”

“What would I do here?” she asked.

“Serve me,” he said.

Autumn nibbled on her lower lip. “That sounds wonderful, but I meant for a living, to make money,” she said.

“You’re making a lot of money hunting for items for your cousin?”

“No, but I do make a living, sort of,” she said. “I mean sometimes the ends don’t meet, but—” She let her words trail off. “What would I do?”

“We’d find something for you,” he said. “You’re a writer. We could add something to the blog where you interview guests about their experiences here. Or work on the ads. Or just spend your day sucking my dick. That last one works for me.”

“I need lots of practice in that,” she said.

“I’m quite willing to let you practice on me,” he said.

“Let’s go inside and shower, then take an afternoon nap,” he said. “We have a busy night ahead.”

“I thought we were going to meet about the hunt.”

“Ethan and I set that for after dinner.” He put his hand on the door. “We thought we should all download a copy of The Sacred Beetle and see what we can figure out. The book was written in the 1800s, so it should be in the public domain. Afterward you and I are coming back here. I have a treat for you tonight.”

“Really? What’s that?” Autumn leaned into his kiss.

When it broke, he said, “I’m going to fuck your sweet butt tonight. I can’t wait to slide my hard dick in between your ass cheeks and up your tight little butt.”

“So, did everyone read the book?” Randy asked.

I can’t wait to slide my hard dick in between your ass cheeks and up your tight little butt.

“It’s just a short story,” Shawn said. He took a drink and Autumn stared at his hands. “It shouldn’t have taken that long to read.”

I can’t wait to slide my hard dick in between your ass cheeks and up your tight little butt.

“So, the gist of the story is the protagonist was an Egyptologist who stole a sacred beetle necklace and when weird things started happening he became scared and buried it in a park near his house. He marked the tree near where he buried it by etching a beetle in the bark.”

When Shawn finished speaking he took another drink from his beer.

“The story didn’t give me any other clues,” Autumn said. Not that she’d read it that closely. She couldn’t concentrate. All she could think about was Shawn’s pronouncement that he was going to take her in the ass tonight.

“Fortenberry was one of my Dad’s favorite authors,” Shawn said. “It can’t be a coincidence that the book was included in that package.”

“No reason is jumping out at us,” Randy said. “Maybe we should go back out tomorrow and look again. I do think we should station a few workers out there to guard the area. Have you heard from Jackson? Did he find anyone in the area?”

“Nope,” Shawn said. “Jackson is not sure how they got away from him, unless they rushed from the area before I called him. I gave him Brent Mach’s name, and he ran his plates. He’s looking in local cities to see if he can find him.”

“My guess is he flew in and rented a car,” Autumn said.

“Yeah, I’m sure Jackson thought about that,” Shawn said. “If he’s in the area, Jackson will find him.”

“You know I’m really pissed at Kate right now for not doing the right thing back in 1964 and turning the loot over to the cops,” Autumn said. “This has put all of us in a bad situation.”

“If you’re mad at her you need to be mad at my Dad, too, for helping her to hide it,” Shawn said. “We can’t change what happened. We can just move forward and try to right the wrongs. That includes keeping Mach and his buddies from getting their hands on the loot.”

Autumn glanced out the window. “That includes us trying to benefit from it. When I found that letter, all I saw were dollar signs. I didn’t think about the people who could have been injured during the robbery, or people who lost their money, even if it was insured. Now, I feel horrible.”

“Don’t feel bad for having a human reaction,” Shawn said. “I have to admit I thought about the money, too.”

“Yeah, we all did,” Randy said. “Nothing quite like the idea of free cash.”

“I’m going to send three guys out there to camp,” Ethan said.

“Make sure they’re armed.” Randy stood up. “I don’t trust that guy.”

“Which brings us to the next bit of business,” Ethan said. “Josh has scheduled a last-minute public punishment session for Mary tonight. He’d like us to be there.”

“I have other plans for this evening,” Shawn said.

“Push it back,” Ethan said. “Josh is one of our best customers. I’d like to keep him happy, and he specifically asked for all three of us.”

Shawn nodded, but Autumn could tell by the tension in his body that he wasn’t happy about this change in plans.

“It starts at ten,” Ethan said.

The meeting broke up and Autumn and Shawn started to walk back to his cabin. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“It just pushes my plans back,” he said. “Taking your anal cherry is not something to be taken lightly. I want time to build up, and time for aftercare. So, your ass is safe tonight.”

She couldn’t help but laugh. “You announced that you were going to—take me anally like you were ordering pizza. Now you’re saying it takes time? Which one is right?”

“I wanted you to be mentally prepared,” he said. “Tell me what you’ve been thinking about all afternoon.”

I can’t wait to slide my hard dick in between your ass cheeks and up your tight little butt.

“When you’re new at BDSM, and your lover announces that he’s going to fuck you—that way—it tends to stick with you.”

“That way,” he said with a chuckle. He pulled her to a stop in the middle of the lane. There was no one else around. She supposed everyone was getting ready for the evening’s activities. He inhaled deeply. “I want to hear you say I’m going to put my dick in your ass.”

Autumn looked around. Right now, she wanted someone to come along and disrupt this conversation.

“Say it.”

The words stuck in her throat. “I’m scared of it.”

“Say it.”

“Can I have a few days to get used to the idea?” she asked.

“Just say the words,” he said.

“All right.” She wrung her hands. “You’re going to put your dick in my ass. You’re going to go where no man has ever been before. You want to do something I’ve never even fantasized about.”

“Come on,” he said. “We’ll get ready for tonight and we’ll discuss this later.”

They walked the rest of the way in strained silence. Shawn’s cabin was much different than the one she’d been staying in. It was more like a loft, with a large open living area/kitchen. The bedroom was at the top of a circular flight of stairs. His playroom was to the left of the living room.

She’d been upstairs earlier but she hadn’t really noticed many things. She’d showered and then read the short story while Shawn went out to take care of a few things. The idea of him taking her anally had distracted her then, as it was doing now.

“Come upstairs,” he said.

She followed him, and when she reached the top he told her to strip.

As she took off her clothes he picked up the box of toys they’d picked up in Las Vegas. He placed a few items on the bed. When she was naked she craned her head to take a look.

“What are those?”

“No questions,” he said. He picked up a remote and pointed it at the large TV on the wall. It came on, and moments later there was a porno movie on, of a woman on her back, moaning as a man stuffed his prick in her ass.

“More, more, fuck me in the ass. Give me your big dick up my ass,” the woman moaned as she spoke.

“Original dialogue,” Autumn said.

Shawn crossed the room and came up behind her. He put his hands on her hips and placed his crotch against her ass. Even though he still wore jeans she could feel his hard cock pressed against her.

“Watch them,” he whispered in her ear. He held her tight, one hand on either hip. He started to thrust against her, as if he were fucking her. Autumn groaned. She couldn’t help but watch the scene in front of her as the man slid in and out of the woman’s butt.

“You like my big dick in your butt? Say it.” The actor’s voice was rough. The woman told him she loved it.

Shawn picked up Autumn and tossed her on the bed.

“On your stomach,” he ordered.

Fear raced through her. Was he going to change his mind and take her now, hard and without any preparation that he said was so necessary for this.

“Shawn,” she said.

“Sir,” he corrected. “On your stomach, now.”

Despite her fears, she did as he asked. She needed to trust him, to know that he wouldn’t do anything to hurt her.

The sounds of the couple on the screen filled the room; they repeated the words ass, fuck me, fill me and claim me.

“Turn your head and watch them,” he commanded.

She did as he asked. He didn’t touch her, which surprised her.

“Watch his dick, going in and out, in and out.”

Autumn was mesmerized. For one thing she’d never seen a porno film before, so watching people fuck was new to her. The man’s dick came all the way out of the woman’s ass. She begged him to put it back in. He did so, and then he pulled out once again. She begged again. It went on that way.

“Are you wet?”

“Yes, Sir,” she said.

“Lift your hips, put your hands on your clit,” he ordered.

“Gladly,” she said. She continued to watch as she played with herself. When Shawn climbed on top of her it took her a few moments to realize he still wore all his clothes. He started to hump her, pressing her into her hand, and into the bed.

“Tell me you want me to fuck you in the ass,” he said.

“No,” she said, “please, Shawn, don’t make me say that. You know it scares me.”

He continued to hump her, and he put his mouth near her ear, pressing his entire weight into her. She pulled on her clit, which pulsed with need.

“Say it.” Autumn whimpered at his command. She was so close to coming, but she didn’t want to admit it.

“Say it,” he repeated, his voice low.

Despite her best intentions she pressed back into him, giving herself room to pinch her clit as hard as she could. She came as she continued to pull on her clit and she screamed, “Fuck me in the ass! There, I said it, fuck me in the ass! Put your dick in my butt!”

She was trembling now, and Shawn continued to hump her, making her want what she’d just asked for. She’d never thought she’d ever say anything like that, or feel anything like that.

Shawn collapsed on top of her. He didn’t say a word. She turned her head to him. “Are you all right?” she asked.

“Yeah, I just have to hold still before I come in my jeans like an inexperienced teen,” he said. “Hearing you say that almost sent me over the edge. You’re a nasty little girl who is just now learning how nasty she really is. You and I were meant to be together, Autumn. We need to talk about turning this experiment into something permanent.”