“I appreciate that I’m the one who brought the situation to your attention, but I can’t stay here,” Autumn said. “I don’t have a regular job, which means I don’t have regular money coming in. That means I have to hit up storage unit auctions to see what I can find to sell to my cousin.”

She drained her wine glass. “Of course, if you want to give me my money I can hand you my research and be on my way.” She felt a little woozy. “Do we have a deal?”

“No,” Shawn said. “I’m not sure I trust your research, seeing as how you haven’t talked to witnesses, one of them a very important one, about what happened back in 1964.”

Autumn watched as Shawn refilled his wine. “All I can think is you didn’t talk to her because you didn’t want her to know we were looking. She might have a claim on it. But then again, since it’s stolen money, the only person to really have a claim to it is the bank. Is the bank still around?”

“Yes,” Autumn said. “First Fidelity of Pueblo.”

“It must be strong to have made it through the financial troubles of the past,” Ethan said.

Autumn looked down at her now empty plate. She was looking forward to her dessert, cheesecake. Where as she’d thought she might be eating it as a celebration of her new-found cash, she now knew she would be eating it to drown her sorrows.

“I’ll ask my attorney about it,” Ethan said. “There is every possibility that we could be able to claim part of it, or the bank might give us a reward.”

“Should we be making plans for the money before we’ve found it?” Shawn asked. “I think we should do a little search, see if there’s anything there. The first thing we should do is talk to the wayward wife, see if she still recalls what happened, and see if there is truth to all of this. Maybe one of the FBI agents who investigated is still alive.”

Autumn really wanted that cheesecake. She pushed away her plate.

“You’ve thought about all this, haven’t you?” Ethan asked. “You just didn’t want to be bothered with it. You wanted to take the money and pass us the problems.”

Autumn shrugged. “Yeah, so sue me.”

“At least she’s truthful,” Shawn said with a chuckle.

“She’s a treasure hunter,” Ethan said. “Not that I blame her. If I saw that amount of money written on a police report and thought I could get my hands on it, I would do the same thing.”

The waitress was back. She took away the empty plates, and moments later she was back with large slices of cheesecake. Her tray also held a selection of sauces they would use to adorn their desserts.

When she was gone, Autumn took a large bite and moaned in pleasure. “Sinfully delicious,” she said after she’d swallowed.

“Yes, it is,” Shawn said. “We need to talk, the three of us. Which means we need to conference with Randy. We can get X to show you around, or you can wait in your cabin. Which would you prefer?”

“I’ll wait,” Autumn said in between bites of cheesecake. “I’m not sure I want to watch anymore spankings tonight.”

They ate in silence, and when the last bite was gone, Shawn said, “You can take one of the carts back to your cabin. I’ll come by after we’ve made our decision.”

“Okay,” Autumn said. “Thanks for the wonderful dinner.”

She went down the stairs as the men went back into the lodge. The carts all had keys and she drove one back to her cabin. Once inside she shucked her heels and flopped down on the couch.

She could definitely use the money, but she was pretty sure it would not be coming her way now. Why hadn’t she done more research? She knew why; Ethan was right. She didn’t want to risk the idea that the woman would lay claim to the money and Autumn would be out of the funds she’d paid for the unit.

A big part of her wished she’d never won the auction. She thought about playing on her phone, doing a little surfing on the free Wi-Fi offered by the Resort, but then she remembered she’d left her purse in the office. Evil thoughts went through her mind, of Shawn, Ethan and the yet to be met Randy stealing the letter and figuring out where the money was on their own. But she knew they couldn’t do that, because the letter didn’t contain any sort of coordinates. The only place they could find those were in the research she’d done, which was in the trunk of her car. And the keys to her car were in her purse, and the purse was in the office.

“Hells bells,” she said as she pushed herself off the couch and ran out the door. She made it into the cart and pulled out headed toward the lodge. She’d been so soothed over by the delicious food, wine and cheesecake that she hadn’t thought about them rifling through her purse and then searching her car for the rest of her research. She hoped they wouldn’t do something like that, but how well did she know them? Not well at all.

She stopped the cart at the back of the lodge, just as a man she’d never seen before pulled a woman out of the house, and then started to attach her arms to a chain hanging from a beam of the deck. A second man came out right after him, carrying a bench, or at least that’s what she thought it was. It was waist high, which meant it would be hard to sit on. The second man placed the bench in front of the woman, then pulled leather straps from his back pocket.

The men worked together to bind the woman to the post. To Autumn, who was now held frozen in her tracks, it looked like a very uncomfortable position, pulling on your shoulders and arms.

Autumn’s mouth dropped open as X appeared with a tray. The two men took floggers from the tray and took aim. When X was gone the men started to flog the bound woman, the strands landing on her bottom and thighs.

The woman cried out in a mixture of pain and pleasure, and Autumn’s gaze was locked on the scene. The sub’s hips moved, and Autumn wondered about the position of the bench, if the wiggling would put pressure on her clit and make her come. What would it feel like to have an orgasm while two men were slapping floggers against her bottom.

“Were you looking for me?” Shawn’s voice sounded in her ear. When had he come up? He was standing right behind her. He pressed his front against her back, and wrapped his arms around her waist. “We need to wait here so we don’t interrupt their playtime.”

“Playtime,” Autumn whispered the word softly. “It looks more like… punishment time.”

“For some people punishment is playtime,” he said. “Look at her. You can clearly see the pleasure on her face. And her nipples, they are hard. She’s loving it.”

Autumn couldn’t argue with him. She was crying out, but most of the sounds seemed to be from pleasure.

“Is the rule of the land that they can do things like this anywhere they want?”

“Things are set up where they can have a scene anywhere they want,” Shawn said. His breath was hot on her neck and it made her nipples hard. Yeah, she told herself, that’s what caused her arousal, his voice, not the obvious pleasure coming from the woman on the deck.

“I thought you were going to your cabin,” Shawn said.

“I forgot my purse in your office,” she said.

“Oh, well, so did I,” he said. “Let’s go retrieve it and we can talk in there. Unless you’d like to stay for the finish.”

“Are they going to, well, are they…” She wasn’t exactly sure what to say, or how to ask what was going to happen next.

“Are they going to fuck her?” Shawn supplied the words for her, which made her moan every so slightly.

“Yes, that,” she said.

“Probably not,” he said. “Although you’re never quite sure what will happen. The Doms and sub you’re watching are a committed threesome. They visit every month or so to have outdoor sex. So, yeah, they might end their session with sex.” Shawn nuzzled her neck. “Do you want to watch?”

“No,” she said. “Let’s go get my purse.”

The words came out of her mouth, but her feet didn’t move.

“Are you a voyeur?” he asked.

“No!” she said, loud enough that one of the men heard them. Well, she figured all three heard, but only one of them turned around. He waved and went back to what he was doing, which was flogging the woman.

Autumn turned her back on the deck.

“Let’s go retrieve my purse.”

“As you wish,” Shawn said. He took her hand and they headed up the stairs. The higher they climbed the louder the noises from the scene became. Autumn turned her head to the left, so she couldn’t see. As she walked, though, she wondered about the reasons behind things like this. She’d only had two lovers in her life, and the kinkiest thing she’d ever done was have sex in a pool.

They were inside the lodge now, and there was no one else around. She could hear the fading sounds of the flogging.

“Where is Ethan?” she asked as they went into the office. “Have you made a decision?”

“Slow down, storage girl,” Shawn said. “Ethan had an appointment with one of our unattached ladies. I’ve been authorized to negotiate with you on our behalf.”

The scene she’d witnessed faded as his words took hold.

“Negotiate?” She turned to him. “You’re going to buy the items I have?”

“Let’s talk about it in the office, where we can be assured that no one will overhear us,” he said.

Once they were inside he closed the door. “Wine? Or a gin and tonic?”

“No, no more alcohol,” she said. “Just tell me what you guys decided. Am I getting money?”

He sat down in a wingback chair and indicated she should take the one opposite him.

“Well?” she said. She knew she sounded exasperated, and she hated it, but she wanted to know what was happening.

“We think the information you have is interesting,” he said. “We understand that this is how you make your living, and we’re prepared to offer you five thousand dollars for the letter and the research.”

“Five thousand dollars?” She huffed in disgust. “I’ll be going now. Does someone need to let me out of the gate?”

They stared at each other. Finally, he said, “If you were going you would have left now. Let me finish what I was going to say. Ethan is going to call his attorney about the ownership of bank robbery money. He is pretty sure we would have to turn it over to the bank, or the government, especially the amount of money you are talking about. It’s not like you can spend a little here or there and not have people wonder where it came from.”

She’d thought of that, although she didn’t want to admit it to him. “So, I bring you everything and all I get is a lousy five thousand dollars.”

“You didn’t let me finish,” he said. “We would like you to help with more research. I want to talk to the lady who wrote the letter, and I want to take you with me. I want to interview the FBI agent, if he’s still alive, and I want you to go with me. Plus, I want you to go off-roading with me to the coordinates you have and see what we find.”

“So, you’re hiring me,” she said.

“We are,” he said. “And, if we find something, and we get to keep the funds, you get a percentage.”

“How high a percentage?” she asked.

“Greedy, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I can be,” she said. “How much?”

“We haven’t decided,” he said. “Less than fifty, but more than twenty-five.”

“Less than fifty?” she laughed. “I think I should at least get fifty percent.”

It was his turn to laugh. “Fifty thousand is not fifty percent,” he said. “You are being greedy.”

She shrugged. “Fifty percent.”

“I say we go with thirty percent,” he said.

“Fifty,” she repeated.

“Well, if you think you deserve that much you can search for it yourself,” he said. “I’ll allow you to come on our land… for fifty thousand dollars.”

Autumn laughed. “All right, we’ll go with thirty percent. But I want it in writing.”

“Done,” he said. “Shall I escort you back to your cabin?”

Autumn thought about the scene taking place outside. “Maybe that would be a good idea.”

“You’re uncomfortable,” he said. “How about a movie? We can pop some corn and have a soft drink. It will help you relax, because I can tell that you’re hyped by what you saw earlier.”

He’d get no argument there, she thought. “A movie sounds good, an action one, that will take my mind off things.”

“It will give us a chance to bond,” he said. “We’re going to be spending a lot of time together.”

The trio was gone when they made their way out of the lodge. Autumn wasn’t sure if she was happy about that, or if she wanted to watch a little more of the scene, as Shawn had called it.

They went to her cabin where he selected an action movie that Autumn had never seen. But that didn’t matter. She didn’t want to watch a movie. She wanted to think about what she’d seen. Shawn had said the trio was a committed threesome. Did people really live that way? In her world that didn’t happen. The couples that lived on her block were male/female, two adults and their children.

Every other thing she’d ever thought of had been fictional, until now.

Autumn reached into the big bowl of popcorn between the two of them. She took out a handful and absently ate it.

“Should I have downloaded a romantic comedy?”

She turned to Shawn, who was studying her.

“What?”

“You’re not paying attention,” he said. “Is there something you want to talk about?”

“I’m just processing,” she said. “This is all so—strange to me.”

“The movie, the threesome, the flogging, or the upcoming treasure hunt?”

Autumn couldn’t help but laugh. “Do I have to make a choice? I didn’t see a flogging video on your website, especially one where the woman was outnumbered.”

He ate some popcorn and turned his attention back to the movie. For a moment she thought he was not going to say anything else. But then he said, “When ladies, or gentlemen, come to see us for the first time they generally have had some sort of exposure to the BDSM world. You haven’t.”

“You’re right about that,” she said. “Watching them flog her was nothing like reading it in a book.”

“Many times the reality of life shocks people,” Shawn said. “People who dream about the lifestyle see it up close and it frightens them.”

“I’m not frightened,” she said. “I’m really just—I’m not really sure what I am.”

“Let me ask you a personal question,” he said. He took more popcorn from the bowl but didn’t eat it. He had his feet up on the coffee table in front of them. She waited for the question, but it didn’t come.

“Well?”

“When I found you, you were mesmerized by the flogging.” He glanced at the huge TV on the wall, then looked back to her. “Is that a fair statement?”

Autumn considered her answer. “I wouldn’t exactly call it mesmerized. I’d just never seen anything like that. It just… oh crap, I couldn’t tear my gaze away from it, so yeah, I was mesmerized. It sort of freaked me out, though.”

“Did it make you wet?”

“Oh, there’s the personal question you were going to ask me,” she said with a laugh. “I thought you wanted to know if I liked chocolate chip or oatmeal cookies or something.”

“You use sarcasm as a weapon,” he said.

“Did I wound you,” she asked.

“No, you don’t want to answer the question, so you’re trying to put me off guard.” He ate more popcorn. “It won’t work. After many years in this business I’ve learned to read people.”

How many years? Autumn thought back to what she’d read on the website. The Silver Creek Resort had been open for almost twenty years. But Shawn wasn’t old enough for that. She figured he was around her age, which was close to forty.

“Did you open this place on your own?”

“No, my older cousin did,” he said. “He and his wife ran it for years, and then they sold it to me, Ethan, and Randy about seven years ago. My cousin and his wife are living in the Caribbean now. They have a resort down there.”

“Silver Creek Resort on the Shore?” she asked.

“Something like that,” he said. “But I have been involved in the lifestyle since I was in my early twenties.”

“Did your wicked uncle bring you in?” she asked.

“No, I had a lover who liked to be spanked,” he said. “After that it was a natural progression into full blown BDSM.”

“Why do you like it?” she asked. “I’m not being sarcastic. I’m just curious, especially after seeing what I saw earlier.”

He brought the popcorn on his lap, and turned his attention to the TV. He ate and was silent, and Autumn wondered if she’d crossed some sort of line by asking her questions. She hoped he didn’t withdraw his offer on the treasure hunt.

“I’m sorry if I pried,” she said.

“Not at all,” Shawn said. “People learn by asking questions. I’m just trying to come up with an answer that fits what you want to know.”

“Are up a sadist?”

He laughed softly.

“Okay, now I guess I did cross a line,” she said.

“You’re allowed to ask questions,” he said. “I didn’t start out as a sadist. But I do derive sexual pleasure from delivering pain to ladies who like it. I would never do something to a woman who didn’t like it.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” she said.

“The main part about BDSM that a lot of vanillas don’t understand is the words safe, sane and consensual. You always do things safely, you keep things on the up and up, and you never do anything to someone without their permission.”

“But does everyone follow the rules?”

“They do here,” he said. “People don’t just decide to come here one day and show up on our doorstep. People fill out applications. We have a private investigator who does background checks on everyone who applies. Once they pass the background check they interview with either myself, Ethan or Randy. This resort is not a free for all. It’s a carefully run machine, and we are cautious to make sure no one is injured.”

She wasn’t exactly sure how to respond to that.

“You have a book I can read?”

“I have several,” he said. “But not tonight. I want you to relax. You’ve had a busy day, and you’ve seen things that freaked you out. We should pick a comedy, so you can laugh and enjoy yourself. Or we can play cards. Blackjack? Texas Hold ‘Em? Five Card Stud?”

“Chinese checkers?” she asked.

His eyebrows shot up, and she couldn’t help but laugh.

“That’s a new one,” he said. “But I do believe we have it in the closet. Each cabin is stocked with games.”

“You mean they’re not stocked with sex toys?”

He laughed. “That closet is in the dungeon,” he said. “The people that visit here are not engaged in sex the whole time they’re here. Sometimes they just want to relax with a nice game of cards.”

“I’ve changed my mind,” she said. “I want to see the dungeon. Is it downstairs?”

“There is no basement,” Shawn said. “The term dungeon is symbolic. It’s actually a room behind the kitchen.”

That brought a smile to her face. “You cook up food in the kitchen, and cook up fun in the dungeon.”

“Something like that,” he said. “Do you want to see it?”

“Yes.” Actually, she wasn’t a bit confused on whether or not she wanted to see the dungeon. “What about the toys, vibrators and such? Do you get a discount at local sex shops? Or do you reuse them?”

“Every toy is new for each customer,” he said. “We order in bulk.”

That made her laugh.

“Someone thought of everything,” she said.

“My cousin and his wife are very business minded.” He tossed a piece of popcorn in her lap. “Now do you want to see it, or not?”

“Let me prepare myself just a little bit longer,” she said. “Is there a big dungeon in the lodge?”

“There is,” he said. “We have collaring ceremonies there, or group play sessions. Would you like to see it, too?”

Collaring ceremonies. She touched the rhinestones that she still wore around her neck. Why hadn’t she taken it off? She’d just considered it part of the outfit she wore. Autumn reminded herself that it was nothing like the large, leather collars she’d seen on the women at the lodge. Even the woman with the two men on the deck wore a huge collar that looked very uncomfortable.

The choker that Autumn had around her neck right now was nothing more than a piece of jewelry.

“Is something bothering you?” he asked. His voice was soft, as if he really cared, and it made her feel a bit of a connection to him.

“Besides the fact that I saw a woman whipped? Um, no,” she said.

“Remember, it was something she wanted,” he said. “If you want you can talk with her tomorrow, along with the first woman. We have a very open policy here.”

Autumn didn’t respond. She wasn’t comfortable with the way this conversation was going. She wanted to turn it back toward the talk of the dungeon.

“Does the lodge dungeon have the same equipment as the one in each cabin?”

“Basically,” he said. “But the lodge dungeon has more toys, to provide for more play.”

“That makes sense,” she said. She didn’t really want to see the room in the lodge. There was too much chance that someone was there, playing. She wanted to see something more private, which meant the dungeon in her cabin.

“Show me where it’s at,” she said.

“I will,” he said. “I’ll answer your every question.”

“Because you have an open policy?”

He put the popcorn bowl on the table, stood and offered her his hand. She took it, wondering what in the blue blazes she was doing. They walked through the kitchen, and each step they took reminded her of the rhinestone collar around her neck.

It’s just jewelry, she said to herself as he stopped in front of a door, turned the knob and pushed it open.

The first thing she saw when he flipped on the light was a life-sized X standing in the middle of the room. One wall had manacles, and near that was a large cage.

Her gaze took in too many things to register. She shook her head and started to back out, but decided he would think she was a wimp.

It was time to act like a big girl, and start asking questions.