Awakening Her Racy Passion [Racy Nights 9] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)

by Tara Rose

  “It is.” His voice sounded sad, and she wondered why.

  “Buying a new car or truck is always fun.” Not that she’d know. Her car was on its last leg, but there was no way she could afford a new one. Her father, who owned Racy Auto Repair, kept it running, but he had recently told her that there wasn’t much else he could do to it. She’d told him that unless he was offering to buy her another car, she had no choice but to beg him to keep fixing this one.

  “Sometimes it’s fun. Sometimes it’s just therapeutic.”

  Ria turned in her seat to face him. “Sounds like there’s a story behind that statement. Care to share it?”

  He gave her a quick glance full of indecision, but underneath that she was struck by an overwhelming intensity as well. It was as if he was dying to tell someone a secret, but wasn’t sure who he could trust with it.

  “I’m a good listener,” she said quietly. “Look, I know what people think of me, and they’re right. I’m a gossip. But I’m trying to change that. I lost my best friend because of it.”

  They stopped at a red light and Trent gave her a look filled with admiration. Ria’s pulse raced, just as it had in the back room earlier when he’d examined her wrists. It would be so easy to lean over and kiss him.

  “Ria Rodriguez, you surprise me. I’m so happy to hear you say that.”

  She didn’t answer him because so many emotions bubbled up at his words, including an overwhelming urge to cry.

  “There are a lot of people who would love to know how much you want to change things.”

  “I know there are. And I’m sure Maddox and Julie had plenty to say about me tonight.”

  “They did.”

  She was grateful he hadn’t tried to lie about it. As they pulled away from the traffic light, she leaned back against the seat. The hospital was just around the corner. She had three minutes tops to say what she wanted to say, and then she’d miss her chance until this X-ray ordeal was over. “I want to change but I don’t know how to. I don’t know where to start.”

  “I think I can help you with that.” His voice was soft, and totally devoid of judgment or condescension. She blinked back tears as they turned the corner.

  Ria waited to speak until he’d pulled into the employee parking lot. “How? What do I need to do?”

  He parked his truck, turned off the motor, and then faced her. “Let’s get this taken care of, and then we’ll pick up your car. I’ll follow you home, you can invite me in, and we’ll talk about it.”

  As she stared into his eyes, she imagined all sorts of things they could do in her apartment besides talk, if only Teresa wasn’t there. “My sister is back home, and since my parents weren’t thrilled with that, I’m stuck living with her in the apartment above their garage. It’s not a good place for us to talk privately.” Or do anything else in private, for that matter.

  He frowned slightly and nodded. “I see. Well, if we go back to my place, Wyatt will be there. Asleep, of course, since he has to be in court first thing in the morning. So if we’re quiet, we won’t disturb him.”

  Oh shit. Now the images running through her head involved both twins. What the hell was she getting herself into here? “I didn’t realize you lived with him.”

  “Yep. I’m afraid so. He was kind enough to take me in until I figure what to do with my life.”

  “Don’t you have it all figured out?”

  “Does anyone?”

  She chuckled. “I guess not.” Did he know she had a date with his brother? She couldn’t keep something like that from him. Not now. Not after the long, searching looks and all the things he’d just said to her. “I’m having dinner with Wyatt tomorrow. Um…I guess today, since it’s technically Tuesday already.”

  “I know. But I’m just inviting you back to talk. Nothing else is implied.”

  “Okay.” How disappointing. “But I wanted to make sure you knew that. Dinner, I mean.”

  “Relax, all right? Wyatt and I talk about everything.”

  “I see.” There were so many things she wanted to say, but she seemed to have lost her capacity for organizing a thought. The urge to kiss him was still strong, despite what he’d just said about inviting her back to his place merely to talk. What was wrong with her? She’d never played two men before, and she certainly wasn’t going to do it now, especially not with these two.

  “Let’s go get this done.” He opened his door, and by the time she’d scooped up her purse and opened her door, he was already there, holding out his hand to help her down from the truck. “You practically need a ladder to get in and out of this thing.”

  “Oh, ha-ha. That’s so funny.” His gloved hand was warm, and Ria hung onto it even after both feet were firmly on the pavement because she wanted to see if he’d let go of hers first. He didn’t, and they walked hand-in-hand into the ambulance entrance of the ER.

  “This way.” He led her into an exam room and then told her to wait. Ria sat in the chair, wondering what she’d say to anyone who happened to come in the room and ask why she was there. She didn’t have to worry about that because Trent returned in less than one minute, followed by Donna Kenton, an X-ray technician that had been a couple years behind Ria in school.

  “Donna’s going to sneak you in. Come on.”

  “Why all the subterfuge?”

  “Do you really want to register and wait several hours for a couple of X-rays?”

  “No, I really don’t.”

  “Then come on.”

  * * * *

  Trent felt like he was poised on top of a cliff, and jumping off would surely kill him, but he didn’t care. He was going to do it anyway. He tried to tell himself that he was merely being kind to someone who had been injured. He also tried to tell himself that he was only trying to help her patch things up with Marisol, for the good of the BDSM community here in Racy. But he was a damn liar and he knew that as well.

  He’d almost kissed her in the back room of the bar, and unless he was mistaken, she’d have let him. And then, in the parking garage, he’d almost done it again. He hadn’t said anything to Luke about wanting to drive her here because he knew Luke would have made a fuss about it, and Trent hadn’t wanted to deal with Luke’s big-brother act tonight. He wasn’t sure what the dynamics were between Luke and Ria, but he already knew they were strained. He didn’t want to make them worse, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. He had to be near Ria.

  As Donna took her X-rays, his earlier thoughts about Wyatt and how he would never deliberately hurt him kept clanging around in his brain, like a death knell. He wasn’t doing anything wrong. He hadn’t crossed any lines. All he’d done was help a friend in need. Right? Surely Wyatt himself wouldn’t read anything else into this evening, would he?

  Once her films were done, he had Ria sit in the radiology waiting room where no one would question her being there, and then he talked Shari Gratis, the ER doctor who was on that night, into reading them. That was the beauty of small-town hospitals. They’d do favors for friends like that and not make a fuss about rules and regulations.

  The films were negative for fractures, so Shari told Ria to rest them as much as possible for a few days and come in during clinic hours if they got worse. Ria promised to do that. And, as Trent had promised, Ria was out of the ER and back in his truck within half an hour.

  After picking up her car from behind Luke’s Bar, she followed him to the condo he shared with his twin. Wyatt would be fast asleep, but this was still madness. If he woke up and found Ria there, he might assume Trent was making a move on her, or that something had been going on and Trent hadn’t told him. Was something going on? Trent wished there was, but he couldn’t do that to his twin.

  Then why did you bring her here?

  It was just to talk. They were going to talk about Marisol, and about what Ria could do to make things right again. That’s all. That’s what he’d told her in his truck, and that’s what he had to keep in the forefront of his mind. He simply wouldn’t allow a
nything else to happen. He had enough self-control to handle this.

  Sure. Just keep telling yourself that.

  She parked her car out front and Trent watched her walk toward him, then he opened the front door and listened. Nothing. Wyatt had left the small table lamp on, just inside the door, like he did every night. He motioned Ria inside. “Do you want anything to drink?”

  “No. Thanks, though.”

  “Have a seat. I’m going to get a beer, if you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all.”

  He really didn’t need to drink beer at almost one in the morning, but he did need a few seconds to collect his thoughts. As he opened the fridge, he hoped the blast of cold air would tamp down his raging hormones, but no such luck. All it did was force up an image of her nipples, taut from the cold, straining against the front of her sweater.

  On the heels of that thought, he imagined himself licking her taut nipples until they were wet as well, and then he pictured himself fondling her breasts. He’d never seen her naked, but she wore her clothing tight enough to let his imagination run wild. It was obvious she had nice tits. And she had a firm, round ass that he would love to paddle until it was red, and then fuck it, slowly, with one hand teasing her clit until she came more times than she could count.

  Christ on a cracker. He was in big fucking trouble here.

  Chapter Seven

  After Trent adjusted his dick, he walked into the living room, hoping she didn’t glance at his crotch, and then took a seat at the opposite end of the sofa. He almost groaned as she took off her sneakers and curled her legs underneath her body. He loved that gesture. It was so innocent yet also flirtatious. He had no idea why it had that effect on him. He only knew it drove him wild.

  “I meant to ask you something earlier,” she said. “Who was the paramedic with you Saturday night? I can’t remember his name and it’s been bugging me.”

  Trent sighed. Talking about Paul should deflate his dick quite readily. “Paul Wakefield.”

  She snapped her fingers. “Oh, right. I remember him now, but I never really knew him that well.”

  “I wish they hadn’t partnered me with such a tight-ass. He hates all things BDSM. He thinks we’re all going to hell in a hand basket.”

  “Half the town believes that.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you all still think there’s anything to worry about? I mean, no one bothered Maddox but Bernie and a few of his cronies, right?”

  “That’s what I remember from when I lived here before, And Wyatt said the same people from Paul’s church and the Baptist church occasionally march up and down Birch Lane in front of Maddox’s house holding signs, but that’s all they do.”

  “Bernie might be in jail, but his supporters aren’t. I’d hate to see anything happen to Maddox’s club.”

  “Don’t you worry about Maddox and his club. With Zach Kincaid as our mayor now, Ellis and Rafe both working for the city, and the three detectives as regulars at the club, I don’t think we have to worry.”

  “And don’t forget about Chase Taylor. He works for the city as well.”

  “That’s true. And Marisol works in the court system.” She’d opened up the perfect segue herself. Trent wondered if she realized it, or if it had been unintentional?

  “I guess we should talk about that. About Marisol, I mean.”

  “Only if you still want to.”

  She shifted her weight and gave him a curious stare. “I need to ask you something first. I want to understand why you want to help me with this.”

  Trent took a long sip of his beer. Why indeed? He should just tell her. But if he did, it might make her uncomfortable, or at least conflicted about her date later that night. But she wasn’t stupid or blind. Surely she’d seen the way he’d been looking at her since Saturday night. Then again, even if she had, what if she simply wasn’t interested in him? The only way to know the answer to his questions was to take a chance and just say it.

  He glanced over his shoulder toward the stairs, feeling like a giant shit, but she was waiting for an answer and he owed her that, at the very least. “I know you’re having dinner with Wyatt, and I know this must seem like a shitty thing to do, but we have a problem here. I like you, too, and I want to get to know you better. Much better. I want to help you with this because…well…this is the part about being a Dom that I love. Taking an issue that a woman wants to change about herself and helping her find a solution. Helping her become a better person.”

  She looked like someone had just told her that they’d help her find nirvana. “I don’t know what to say.”

  He realized that he knew next to nothing about Ria’s dating past. Did she even have one? Had no one ever offered to help this girl overcome an aspect of herself that she obviously hated? Or was this realization on her part recent because of what she’d done last summer?

  As he watched the emotions pass through her pretty, dark eyes, he honestly thought she was going to cry, and he wasn’t sure how to react because he didn’t understand why what he’d offered was so extraordinary.

  So he trusted his instincts and scooted closer, placing an arm across her shoulder. The immediate effect was to make his dick as hard as a rock again, but how could that be helped? This woman had fascinated him for a long time, and to be this close to her now, in relative privacy, was too much for any man to resist.

  “No one has offered,” she said. “You need to understand that. They’ve judged, and criticized, and told me what a rotten person I am, but no one has offered to help me figure out how to fix this.”

  The corners of his mouth turned up, and he kept his voice soft on purpose so she wouldn’t think he, too, was chiding her. “You already know how to fix it. Deep in your heart, you know what you have to do.”

  “I need to talk to Marisol.”

  “Yes. For starters.”

  “How? What do I say?”

  “You could start by apologizing to her.”

  “What if she won’t talk to me? What if she hangs up on me?”

  “What if she doesn’t? Are you more afraid of taking the first steps back toward your friendship with her, or of something else?”

  He watched more emotions cross her face, and just before fat tears splashed over her lids, the most vulnerable and insecure look he’d ever seen on a woman’s face passed across hers. It made him want to hold her all night, kiss away her tears, and protect her from the world. He was in deep, deep shit here.

  She swiped at the tears. “I’m afraid I’ve waited too long. I’m afraid I’ve not only lost Marisol’s friendship, but my brother’s respect. Both of them. I’m afraid I’ve lost any chance of being part of…of a circle of friends with everyone who attends Maddox’s club. I feel like a pariah, and I’m not saying they have no right to treat me like one, but I don’t want to be in this spot anymore. It’s horrible. I’m afraid I’ve lost any chance I’ve ever had of climbing out of this pit.”

  He started to speak but stopped when she wiped away more tears and shifted her weight so that she was facing him, because it was obvious she wasn’t finished. “I know I brought this on myself. I know that. I understand now what I did. It wasn’t just to Marisol and Rafe. It was to all of them. To all of you. But I have to live there. With my parents, I mean. I have no place else to go, and I sure as hell don’t make enough money working for Luke to afford a condo or an apartment on my own. I’m stuck.”

  “So you play the dutiful daughter because you need a roof over your head.”

  “Yes. Exactly. It’s awful having Teresa there. The second bedroom in the apartment had all my stuff in it, and now all that crap is shoved into every corner so Teresa can have a place to sleep. Her shit is everywhere, too, and she cries all the time. I don’t know what to say to her.”

  Trent was curious to know why Teresa was back and what had happened to her, but this wasn’t the time to ask. “Isn’t there an apartment above the new bar?”

  “Peppi lives there. It’s nic
e, too. Two bedrooms but they’re bigger, and there’s lots of storage space.”

  “Couldn’t you move back in with her? You lived with her over the old bar, right?”

  “Yes, I did. I suppose I could move in with her again. I never asked her. And I’d have to ask Luke’s permission, too. He owns the apartment as well as the bar. Peppi is working for Kari and Alexa in Tye Me Up. Did you know that?”

  He knew. Kari Tye was a sub to Noah Wells and Adison Kincaid. She and Alexa owned and ran Tye Me Up, Racy’s fetish shop on Lawnview Drive. “Yes, I know.”

  “She’s going to school, too, so she needs her privacy and time to study.”

  “You wouldn’t really be in her way, would you? You’d each have your own room, and you work different hours than she does.”

  “I suppose that’s true.”

  “Okay. Let’s put aside that issue for now and get back to Marisol. You said you feel ostracized by your brothers and by the BDSM community. Have you considered how difficult it was for both your brothers to tell your parents about their lifestyle choice?”

  “Yes. I know it was. And I know it’s hard for them now, being estranged from our family.”

  “How do the rest of your sisters feel about all this?”

  “They don’t care. I mean, they’re not judging Luke or Rafe. Rosa is the only one who sides with our parents, but not entirely. She says she thinks they’re being too stubborn and should try to accept Alexa and Marisol, as well as Chase and Ellis, but then in the next breath she condemns the entire BDSM lifestyle. She’s a sock puppet. She has no real opinions of her own.”

  “Have your other sisters encouraged your parents to accept Alexa and Marisol, and to make peace with their sons?”

  “Yes. Some Sundays, that’s all we talk about.”

  “And what have you told them?”

  “I keep my mouth shut.”