Broken Submission

Family Matters

"Lil' bro!" The blonde woman launched herself through the doorway and catapulted herself into Derek's arms.

He staggered against her 5'10 frame, shocked laughter ringing through the apartment.

"What are you doing here?" he gasped, grinning.

The woman, Freya, disentangled herself from his arms. "I can't come see my little brother? What's it been now? Two years?"

"Good grief," he blinked. "It's got to be around that. I don't know how we let time get away from us. How are the boys?"

Her smile softened. "The usual. They keep me on my toes. Maverick was able to come with me. He's getting settled at the hotel."

"And Charlie?"

"They're stuck at work." She shrugged. "I'm hoping that they'll be able to get off early and make some of the trip. Anyway!" She shook off a bit of her gloom. "Who's this lurking on your couch?"

"Oh!" Derek's eyes shot toward Amelia. "I'm sorry Amelia; it's just been forever since we've seen each other. Freya, this is my girlfriend, Amelia—Amelia, this is my big sister, Freya."

Amelia slid off the couch with a tentative smile. "It's very nice to meet you," she said, offering a hand.

"Isn't she adorable?" Freya clasped Amelia's hand in a firm grip, her green eyes warm as she smiled at the shorter woman.

Amelia glanced back and forth between the two. "I can see the family resemblance."

Freya laughed. "Yeah, we're kind of the oddballs of the family. We got so tired of people asking if we were adopted that in highschool, we pretended we were."

"That didn't stop the questions," Derek snorted.

Freya winked at Amelia, "But it added to the intrigue."

The resemblance Amelia noticed wasn't just physical. There was something about the way they carried themselves, a sort of low-key charisma. Nothing flashy, but carrying a certain gravity.

"Well come on, let's sit down," Derek said, playing host. He seemed a little unsure of the dynamic with both of them in the same room.

The nervousness that had been fluttering in her belly bloomed further. Now that the introductions were over, real conversation would be expected, and Amelia knew next to nothing about Derek's sister. She realized now that, in an attempt to avoid talking about her own, Amelia hadn't encouraged conversation about families in general.

Remembering how close Derek seemed with his family on the few occasions that she'd seen him interact with them, guilt nagged at her for potentially closing off an aspect of his life that was important to him.

"So how did you two meet?"

And so it begins. Amelia paused, unsure how to answer. In truth, they had met in the BDSM club that Derek owned. But what if Freya wasn't aware of that aspect of her brother's life?

Derek came to the rescue. "At the Club. She'd been coming for a while and was actually just about to cancel her membership." With a roguish wink, he said, "I convinced her to stay."

Freya rolled her eyes. "I bet you did."

"So you're into the lifestyle?" The question popped out before she could censor herself.

Freya turned and smacked her brother's arm. "You really haven't told her anything, have you?"

She faced Amelia. "Derek and I built that club together. I eventually moved to start another location when it became clear that having two dominant chefs in the kitchen wasn't working."