Their Discovery (Legally Bound Book 3) Read online

  Their Discovery

  Legally Bound Book 3

  Rebecca Grace Allen

  eBooks are not transferable.

  They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Rebecca Grace Allen Enterprises

  Their Discovery

  Copyright © 2019 by Rebecca Grace Allen

  Digital ISBN: 978-0-9992066-8-3

  Print ISBN: 978-0-9992066-9-0

  Print ISBN: 978-0-9998004-0-9

  Editing by Jennifer Miller

  Cover Design by Romantic Book Affairs

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Contents

  Introduction

  Praise

  Author’s Note

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Thank you!

  Acknowledgments

  Look for these Titles by Rebecca Grace Allen

  His Contract

  Her Claim

  The Club Free Read

  Taming Sugar

  The Missing Piece

  About the Author

  Exploring their fantasies could save their marriage…or push it over the edge

  Legally Bound, Book 3

  Samantha Archer’s life has hit a wall. Her world is housework, homework and reminding her husband—the biggest kid in the family—to help out at home. Once she felt confident, powerful and sexy, but Brady doesn’t seem to notice her anymore, and now all she feels is invisible.

  Brady has tried being the goofy guy who stole Sam’s heart, but it’s not working. He’s losing the woman he loves and doesn’t have a clue how to fix it. He’s keeping his darkest fantasies hidden, too, sure they’re not what Sam wants, and his inability to please her cuts him deeper than she knows.

  When Sam lands a new job at a law firm, Brady still won’t pick up the slack, and one night giving him orders unexpectedly reignites their missing spark. Sam discovers the Femdomme she didn’t know she was, kindling Brady’s submissive desires.

  But while things heat up inside the bedroom, life outside it starts unraveling. Brady’s need to call the shots at work complicates his hunger to kneel for his wife, and Sam has longed to experiment in more ways than one. Their exploration of dominance and submission goes a step too far when they invite Sam’s sultry switch coworker into their bed, and the fallout could cost them everything.

  Warning: Contains a six-foot-five, ex-football player geek and a ballsy, badass redhead who’s learning to unleash her inner Domme. Scenes depicting humiliation, pegging and threesomes could disturb, or stimulate a thirst for adventure.

  Praise for their discovery

  “I have been on the Legally Bound journey from nearly Day 1, and Their Discovery was the perfect way to end this series.”

  —4 star Goodreads review

  “I wish this had been the first novel of this genre that I had ever read.”

  —5 star Goodreads review

  “Wow! This book was way more than I expected…This was my first time reading this author’s work and will definitely be reading more.”

  —5 star Goodreads review

  “A tender, hot and real romance.”

  —4 star Goodreads review

  “Super exciting and steaming hot.”

  —4 star Goodreads review

  Praise for Her Claim

  “As emotionally fulfilling as it is blistering.”

  —RT Book Reviews, 4 star review

  “I love Allen’s voice! This story is a sexy twist on readers’ favorite erotic topes.”

  —Cara McKenna, author of Willing Victim

  “HOLY SEXY, BATMAN! …Her Claim is a fabulous addition to the Legally Bound collection.”

  —5 star Goodreads review

  “Hot like you’ve rarely read, frustrating and so so sweet.”

  —The Book Hammock, 5 stars

  Praise for His Contract

  “An explosive, deeply personal love story.”

  —RT Book Reviews, 4 star review

  “Ms. Allen’s newest series is off to a phenomenal start.”

  —5 star Goodreads review

  “As soulful as it is sexy. This book is everything 50 Shades wanted to be, and wasn’t!”

  —5 star Goodreads review

  “[A] beautiful, heartbreaking and heartwarming love story…His Contract is a 1-click you don’t want to miss.”

  —The Book Hammock, 5 stars

  “His Contract is an incredibly well-written love story with chemistry in spades.”

  —Pretty Sassy Cool

  “This is how erotic romance should be written.”

  —Bookaholics Not-So-Anonymous, 5 stars

  “Fifty Shades of Grey was my first introduction to the BDSM lifestyle… This is the book I should have read as an introduction… I absolutely fell for this book and couldn’t put it down!”

  —Kilts and Swords Book Blog

  Author’s Note

  This is the end of my Legally Bound series, and was perhaps the hardest to write out of all my books. It asked me to dig down and dredge up some really difficult emotions, and to put on the page things not seen in a typical romance novel.

  In many romance books, marriage and babies equals happily ever after. And in a lot of romance books, especially ones involving BDSM, the Dominant knows exactly what to do, executes everything almost perfectly, and knows how to fix things when they go sour.

  This is not one of those books.

  This is a story about marriage, and how after a while, you can forget to see the partner you’ve chosen—how love gets lost in the hectic and sometimes humdrum pace of life. It’s also a story about beginner BDSM, where people make mistakes. They try new things, and while those things occasionally go over smoothly, they can also sometimes crash and burn.

  Sam makes mistakes. So does Brady. You’re going to be mad at them. Your heart may break for them. But stick with them. They’ll win you over in the end.

  On a separate note, some reviewers who received advanced reader copies of this book pointed out issues with the story regrading Sam’s weight loss journey. I wish to thank them for their honesty. If you would like to read my statement on the issue, and find out more about my personal weight loss journey, you can find that information here.

  1

  Samantha Archer was disappearing.

  Not in the literal sense. People saw her—saw her as a wife, as a mom, and she
was still visible in her redheaded, five-foot-six form. But here in the passenger seat of her family’s car, her evening gown smudged with wedding cake and a husband beside her who’d barely looked at her all night, Sam felt herself fading away.

  “Mom?”

  Sam glanced over her shoulder. Hope was fast asleep, her head lolled to the side on the headrest, legs barely visible beneath her dress. But Allegra, of course, was wide awake. “What is it, honey?”

  “I still don’t know where my pink gloves are.”

  Sam closed her eyes for a second and took a breath.

  She’s not defiant. Just distracted.

  “I told you before we left that we’d look when we got home. It was part of your plan tonight, remember?”

  The Plan was one of Allegra’s behavior-management tools—a check-in with reminders, whenever they left the house.

  Tonight it hadn’t stuck.

  “Daddy is going to help you find them,” Sam added as calmly as she could. “And you can wear them to school tomorrow.”

  She glanced to the left, waiting to catch Brady’s eye. His gaze remained fixed on the road, more dazed than distant. He’d been like that since they left the reception, his mind someplace else again. Sam willed him to speak up, to pitch in, to do something to prove he was still present in their marriage. Today had been a long day for everyone, but would it kill him to respond?

  “But what if we can’t find them?” Allegra whined, and Sam knew what was coming next. She had to manage this meltdown before it started.

  “We’ll find them,” Sam replied, forcing every ounce of motherly soothing vibes she could into her words. The psychologist had said they needed to be patient. Allegra’s impulses weren’t always within her control. “As soon as we get home. Daddy will help you, right?”

  When Brady didn’t reply, Sam elbowed him across the armrest. Jolted from wherever he’d gone in his head, he glanced in the rearview mirror.

  “Right,” he said. “We’re gonna find it, honey. No problem.”

  It was the it that made Sam cringe. “Them. Two gloves. We’re going to find them.”

  A heartbeat passed before he responded.

  “Right. Of course, two gloves. One glove would be silly. Who’d walk around with one glove on?”

  Allegra giggled, mollified by her father’s response. Sam, however, was not. Brady would need a reminder about the gloves when they got home, as well as the babysitter job posting she’d asked him about on Friday. He promised he’d do it by the end of the weekend, but between yesterday’s snowstorm, Jack’s wedding today and Brady’s propensity to forget everything she said, Sam was pretty sure he hadn’t done it. At least football season was over. Brady’s attention was even harder to get when the Patriots were playing, worse if they were winning. Impossible when they were in the Super Bowl. She would’ve taken care of the posting herself, but she’d been busy entertaining their children during their midwinter break. And it was the only thing she’d asked him to do.

  “I’m sorry about your dress,” Allegra said.

  Sam looked over her shoulder again. That was her eldest child, flipping from infuriating to sweet on a dime.

  “It’s okay, sweetie.” Sam knew the wedding would overstimulate her, not to mention all the decadent food. She hadn’t wanted Allegra to have any cake at all—the fondant was enough to spin her into overdrive—but she’d allowed it against her own better judgment. Allegra’s powerful temper had flared anyway when Hope had gotten a bigger slice than she did, triggering yet another it’s not fair meltdown. One slam of her no-longer-little fist on the table had sent a forkful of Sam’s own dessert straight onto her black velvet gown. “You didn’t do it on pur—”

  “Aunt Lilly looked pretty tonight.”

  Sam sighed, and not just at Allegra’s inability to stop herself from interrupting. “She sure did.”

  The bride had looked lovely, but no one in this car had noticed how Sam had looked, or the fact that she’d finally fit back into this dress. It was selfish, to want to be the center of someone’s attention on her brother-in-law’s wedding day. She shouldn’t have felt this way.

  But she did.

  Allegra grew quiet, distracted once again by the iPad Sam had given her in one of the many attempts to keep her calm. Screen time was a lousy cover for Sam’s less-than-stellar parenting, but she needed a few moments of silence. She looked out the window as Brady took the exit off the Mass Pike to the quiet, tree-lined streets of Newton.

  Ten miles west from downtown Boston, it was a patchwork of villages, an old mill town turned suburb. The schools were good, and it was close to her parents and to Brady’s job. Adjacent to Brookline and Cambridge, it was a stone’s throw from the Harvard campus and housed the famous Heartbreak Hill—the spot known to Boston Marathoners for hitting a wall.

  Sam knew the feeling.

  The brakes shuddered a bit when they came to a light, but Brady’s car handled it. They both drove strong, sturdy cars built for weather like this. The thaw they’d seen on Valentine’s Day had been nothing more than a tease, and now fresh powder from last night’s squall rested atop a layer of frozen slush.

  The Northeast in February wasn’t fun, but like their cars, Sam valued her toughness on being able to handle it. She liked to say she was a born-and-bred New Englander, hardy and unfelled by the frequent blizzards and the average high of just above freezing. She’d even joke about the winters she’d spent in DC, and how the city was crippled by the lightest snowstorm. Those were moments of bravado though, when she put on her I’m fine mask. The one she wore so much she forgot it wasn’t her anymore.

  Most people tonight had no idea Sam was barely keeping it together. That Allegra’s anger over her younger sister’s existence made her downright mean sometimes, and that Hope never asked why Allegra got rewards for doing day-to-day things, never mimicked her sister’s disruptive behavior or sought revenge. People at the wedding had said Hope was the best behaved seven-year-old they’d ever seen, but the truth was she’d become overly passive in the face of Allegra’s paths of destruction, and Sam had no idea what to do about it.

  The truth also was that she and Brady were barely connecting at all.

  By the time they’d pulled into their driveway, Allegra was as dead to the world as Hope was. Brady cut the engine, and Sam reached up to finger her necklace, a nervous habit she couldn’t shake. Those first few moments of sleep with Allegra were precarious, and having her pass out minutes before they got home was only going to make her crankier. Sam tried to anticipate potentially explosive situations, but it almost never worked, and would be even less likely to tonight. Spending Sunday evening at Jack’s wedding was enough of a catalyst to get Allegra out of whack, and after the cake incident and the pink gloves lost to the void of the house, waking her was going to be a nightmare.

  “Can you carry her?” Sam whispered. “Keep her asleep as long as possible?”

  “I can.”

  He turned Sam’s way, a boyish smile behind his dark, full beard. It was crazy how her heart could still flutter at his baby face and silky brown curls. Even in this dim light, she could see amusement playing in his eyes, a bright blue that turned nearly turquoise sometimes. She hoped that smile meant he’d noticed she’d reached her pre-baby weight, that he was finally going to tell her how nice she looked.

  “Or I could throw her in the sled, aim for the door and hope for the best.”

  Nope. Not the reaction she’d wanted.

  Brady’s smile paused, a question mark hanging in the air that was now growing cold between them. Or maybe it was their marriage, devoid of anything resembling heat.

  “What?” he asked. “I was kidding.”

  He was always kidding. If her husband wasn’t lost in his own thoughts or working, he was trying to be funny.

  Sam didn’t need funny. She needed a partner. Someone who picked up the slack at home and shared the mental workload of parenting with her. Someone who noticed her and made her feel wanted
and interesting again.

  She grabbed the handle and shoved the door open. “Just carry her, please?”

  Brady let out a defeated sigh. Sam’s chest pinched at the sound, but she pushed it aside. His bruised ego could manage, and it wasn’t as if he wasn’t going to joke around again.

  She closed the door and tightened her coat around her body. Christ, it was cold—the kind of frigid that burned your face and hurt your teeth when you opened your mouth. The shock of the icy night air was going to startle Allegra if being pulled from the car didn’t, and Sam braced herself for the impending screaming fit as they opened the back doors.

  Allegra didn’t so much as blink when Brady lifted her from the seat. Her head slumped on his big shoulder, and her legs dangled limply along his sides. Exhaling in relief, Sam unbuckled Hope’s seatbelt and picked her up, but struggled to close the door with her hip the way she usually did, heels slipping on snowy pavement. Brady quickly walked around the car, shifted Allegra onto one arm and reached the other out. Sam passed Hope over, amazed at how he could hold both of them with ease He was still built like a linebacker, even if he didn’t play anymore.