Bound Beneath His Pain: A Dirty Little Secrets Novel

by Stacey Kennedy

  Micah

  Rain pours from the skies, soaking my gray T-shirt and dark blue jeans, as I watch the taillights of the Bentley slowly fade into the night. The aroma of cooked meat fills the air from the vendor on the street corner near Pier 39. It’s an exceptionally dark night, while young people fill the streets, heading into the clubs and pubs, enjoying their weekend.

  That’s my plan as well as I turn to the building behind me, spotting the O’Keefe’s burgundy sign decorated with a gold Celtic knot. I enter the pub, and the roar of noise is a quick indicator of how packed this place is already. The heavy wooden door shuts behind me, and the design of the pub looks better suited for a small town in Ireland than downtown San Francisco. But I have always thought that’s part of the pub’s charm.

  Looking through the crowd, I find Gabe working behind the bar, flipping bottles high in the air, putting on the show he’s known for. My muscles begin to relax and finally the tension in my shoulders loosens. I need a little familiarity right now. And O’Keefe’s means kicking back with good food, great beer, and live music.

  I move toward the bar, hearing the Irish folk music coming from the band in the back, which is right when Gabe sees me. He gestures with a tilt of his head toward the end of the bar, where there’s an empty seat. I adjust the tip of my baseball cap a little lower on my face, hoping no one recognizes me as I make my way through the crowd.

  Once there, I drop down onto the wooden stool, watching Gabe move to me with a beer in his hand. His hazel eyes rake over me as he slides the beer my way. “You look like shit,” he quips.

  “Never one to hold back your thoughts, are you, Gabe?” I take a sip of the crisp beer, attempting to reconcile my mood with myself, and in fact, feeling like complete shit.

  Allie hadn’t been the first woman to look at me like I’d torn the fabric of her soul apart. The difference being: my reaction to that look. My stomach knotted, a dullness forming in my chest the second she left me today, and those sensations remain now and had even grown worse. I’m not used to the longing I feel for her. Nor am I used to second-guessing myself. The sadness in her eyes is haunting me. And tonight I came to Gabe’s pub so I wouldn’t go to her house.

  I lower the bottle from my mouth, enjoying the bite of the cold hops aftertaste. “It’s been a rough day.”

  “Yeah, I see that.” Gabe grabs a rag out of his back pocket and begins wiping away the spills on the wooden bar in front of me. “But luckily for you, bartenders are the best therapists.”

  I snort. “You’re not a bartender. You’re the CEO.”

  “Semantics!” Gabe smiles, tucking the rag back into his pocket.

  I doubt most customers in this bar realize that Gabe’s not a struggling bartender, but is a Harvard-educated multimillionaire. Yet he suits his bar, standing proud of his Irish roots. “Important semantics, however,” I remind him.

  “Maybe.” Gabe shrugs, resting his arms against the edge of the bar, leaning closer to me. “What’s up?”

  There’s no one in the world I trust more than Gabe, not even Levi, and that’s saying something, since I trust Levi with my life. Even so, I’m hesitant in how much I tell him. “I’ve met someone.”

  Gabe’s eyes widen, a rise in his vocal pitch. “A chick has you looking like this?”

  “She’s become a complication,” I admit.

  I’m expecting his question when he leans in even closer to keep the conversation private. “A DC complication?”

  Is this my problem, too? is what’s unsaid between us. For men who belong to the Dominants’ Council, the question is a valid one. “No.” I shake my head. “She’s my complication.” I’ll keep Allie being Darius’s half-sister to myself for now. I don’t need Gabe chastising me over this. But I admit to him, “I’m wanting something that I shouldn’t have.”

  “Ah, now, that I understand.” Gabe’s eyes dance as he leans away, putting space between us. “I’ve got one of those forbidden treasures myself.” He turns his head, glancing at the woman behind the bar with him, wearing a dark pair of skinny jeans and a tight black T-shirt with O’Keefe’s written in gold across her chest. “Kenna,” he calls, waving her over to us.

  She delivers a beer to her customer, then settles in next to Gabe. “Whatcha need, boss?”

  “Micah Holt, this is McKenna Archer,” Gabe introduces. “She’s been working for me now for…”

  “A month or so,” Kenna offers.

  “Ah, yes.” Gabe grins. “And what a month it’s been.”

  I see what draws Gabe to McKenna. He likes his women blond, shorter than him, and curvy, and McKenna has all those traits. Plus her eyes are intoxicating, a mix between green and amber, holding strength and sass. “Nice to meet you,” I say to her.

  She smiles. “You, too.”

  Gabe leans against the side of the bar, grinning boldly at her. “I’ve been asking Kenna out on a date for a couple weeks now and she keeps breaking my heart by refusing.”

  “Aw, poor baby.” McKenna grabs a beer out of the fridge below the bar and cracks it open. “Don’t worry, I’m sure there’s a hundred women ready to bandage you all back together.”

  Gabe’s eyes shine as he presses a hand to his heart. “See how she wounds me?”

  McKenna shakes her head, laughing, and strides away.

  “Like I said,” Gabe says, turning to me, “a forbidden treasure.”

  “What do you want from her?” I ask, watching McKenna deliver the beer to a customer.

  “I’d like to string her up and fuck her mercilessly.” Gabe hesitates, then groans when McKenna bends down to grab another beer out of the fridge, giving a perfect view of her round ass. He finally looks at me again with a frown. “Anything more than that would create problems.”

  I take a sip of my beer, realizing my mistake. Allie had been a forbidden treasure, and I knew that the day I met her. Our worlds cannot possibly mix. Hers is so innocent, so pure, so untainted. Mine is something else entirely.

  I’d felt the unusual draw to her, the intense pull to have her, and that should’ve been my warning to stay away. Now there’s no turning back. I had a taste of something I hadn’t had before—a woman who touches my basic instincts, as well as stirs emotion inside of me, especially the desire to claim. I keep expecting my dark needs to swell inside and overwhelm me, needing an outlet to be released, but the beast is still quiet and calm, and I believe that has to do with Allie and the warmth and kindness she offers me.

  She’s giving me something different, and I want to keep it…keep her.

  I sigh heavily and give Gabe the reply he’s waiting for: “That’s some great advice, if only I’d heard it days ago.” The damage has already been done. I can’tt forget her. Nor can I ignore that I want to be in bed with Allie right now.

  Gabe is watching me closely, cocking his head. “This complication, it’s that bad?”

  “Worse than you could imagine.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  Leave her alone, is what I should do. It’s what I must do. She’s Darius’s little sister, for fuck’s sake. He’ll have my head on a stake the second he hears about this. Why? Because I’m not the man he’ll want for Allie. I’m not the man she deserves. She deserves a man who works nine to five and wants to have kids with her, taking them to their team sports in a goddamn minivan.

  I’m not that guy.

  I’m the guy who wants my woman beneath me, while she’s bound in my ropes.

  “That I don’t know yet,” I finally admit to Gabe and myself.

  Gabe’s eyes widen, as does his grin. “Well, that’s a first.”

  I nod, it being the only answer I need to give.

  I always have a plan. Women don’t get to me. I don’t let them, and Gabe knows this, too. But Allie’s getting right under my skin. I can feel her there, all that warmth and light weaving within me and tugging me to make this right with her.

  For years, I have kept absolute control over my life. I chose Juliet to f
ulfill the needs that most women cannot. I don’t date women who consent to kinky sex. It confuses things for me. I have rules in place to keep a firm grip on my life. I set boundaries to keep everything in line. I don’t do emotional relationships. Yet I feel myself slipping.

  I’m wanting things I shouldn’t want.

  And I’m wanting them with a woman I shouldn’t want.

  Chapter 11

  Allie

  “You can’t avoid him forever,” Taylor says softly, staring at me through my Mac computer the next morning. “He’s going to want to talk to you again.”

  Sitting behind my rustic whitewashed desk in my home office, I agree. “Oh, I know.” The light purple walls surrounding me should soothe me and improve my mood, as should the wall of bookshelves with all my favorite reads. Even the sun shining through the wall of windows should make me smile. I couldn’t ask for a better Sunday, but without booze, there’s no changing my mood today. “At least I have all day today to figure out how to talk to him without nearly breaking into tears.” Yesterday, after work, I told Taylor every single detail of what had happened with Micah. Yet for some reason, we’re still talking about him the next day. And I know why that is. I like this guy. A lot. And that really sucks, since it can’t work between us. “God, you should have seen me. I almost broke down right in front of him.”

  “Well, he hurt your feelings, so it’s totally understandable,” Taylor says with a soft voice. “Besides, your gentle heart is why I love you so much. Don’t ever change, especially for some guy who doesn’t deserve a single one of your tears. You can’t help how you feel.”

  I push my chair back and prop my feet up on the edge of my desk. “Yeah, I know, and that’s the problem.”

  “Why?” Big bouncy curls frame Taylor’s face today, and her eyes are shiny and bright. “Because you like him?”

  “I like the guy who isn’t leaving me in the morning.” I sigh, rubbing my temple, fighting off the looming headache. “Hell, I even like the guy he showed me when I was about to walk out the door, yesterday in my office. But the thing is, I don’t see that guy all the time.” I pause, collecting my thoughts before I start rambling. “The only person who can take care of me is me, and allowing anyone into my life who can’t understand that a woman would want him there in the morning seems…well, stupid, to put it simply.”

  Taylor frowns. “Yeah, I hear you, but sometimes you can’t help falling for someone you shouldn’t. It just happens and there’s nothing you can do about it, no matter if it’s the right or wrong thing to do.”

  She’s talking about herself, I know that, and I hate that my issues are reminding her of her problems with Shawn. I scrape my hand across my eyes, suddenly feeling tired. “I don’t even know why I allowed this to happen in the first place. You know me, and you know how much I dislike this type of guy. I guess a part of me thought he wasn’t that guy or that he’d change for me or…Hell, I don’t know what I was thinking.” I pause, trying to figure it all out in my mind. “But even if Micah hadn’t left me like he did, I still want a normal life. I want morning coffee together, date nights, and meals around the dinner table. The real romantic stuff.”

  Taylor gives me an empty, distant stare. Of course she understands, because she’s gone through that with Darius, and she went through that confusing time with me when I got a little lost before I started working at Richardson.

  I couldn’t stand the way people looked at me when they would attend Darius’s fancy dinner parties at the house, which had nothing to do with a party and everything to do with business. It was so pretentious, even many of Darius’s business partners’ daughters wanted to befriend me, but it wasn’t because they really liked me. They saw my status in high society and what my friendship could do for them. I never wanted to be a socialite. I wanted people to like me for me.

  Taylor sighs, breaking me away from my thoughts. “So, it’s complicated?”

  “Very,” I agree. Because I don’t get why this guy is bugging me so much. Heck, my last boyfriend, who I dated casually for a month, didn’t affect me like this. When I broke up with Jon, I was over it by the next day, because it was my choice to end the relationship. I liked Jon and we’re still friendly if I see him, but the spark wasn’t there and I had to stop pretending that it was. I chose to end things with Micah too, so why is he still on my mind?

  And yet I know the answer.

  I like this guy. Really, truly like him.

  We stay silent a moment. Two best friends, who are hours apart, yet somehow she’s making me feel better because I can see and talk to her.

  I finally break the silence. “God, this is so depressing.”

  “Maybe depressing is a good thing, though,” Taylor says with a soft smile. “Maybe it means that things aren’t over like you think they are. Maybe it’s that Micah needs to do something to deserve you. And maybe it’s about damn time you met someone who you can’t walk away from so easily.” She pauses then half shrugs. “I sincerely doubt that Micah’s dated a lot of women who expect more out of him. You’re kinda one of a kind because of your past. So, maybe, all you need to do is give him the chance to catch up with you. Who knows, maybe he’s looking for a little real himself.”

  Now it’s my turn to shrug and say, “Maybe,” for the thousandth time in the last few seconds. Because now I’m beginning to wonder if I’m being too hard on Micah. He tried to apologize. Why didn’t I let him?

  Taylor adds, “Listen, I know he scares you. I know this is one of the most intense relationships you’ve ever had. But you’re either in this all the way, or you’re not. You can’t keep waiting for him to drop the ball on you and turn out to be the biggest asshole of all time.”

  I sigh, my face warming. “I guess you’re—”

  My cellphone ringing on my desk breaks my eye contact with her. One look at the screen tells me I have to go. “Babe, I gotta take that, it’s Liv.” I yank my feet off the edge of the desk. “I’ll call you later, okay?”

  Taylor blows me a kiss. “X and O.”

  “Back atcha.” I end FaceTime, grab my cell, and press the Talk button. “Hi, Liv.”

  “Yes, it’s Sunday and I shouldn’t be calling,” she says, voice chipper. “But you’ll be happy about this call. Promise.” She pauses. “Well, you’ll be happy about the first part anyway.”

  I don’t pretend to know what she’s talking about, but I do know something. “You’re right, you shouldn’t be calling because you shouldn’t be working.”

  “Please.” Liv snorts. “Like you’re not totally sitting behind your computer right now trying to find the Lowes a house.”

  “Okay, you win. Point for you.” I laugh softly, pulling one leg underneath me, staring off at the high-rise next to my condo. “What’s up?”

  “Kevin called me because he couldn’t get ahold of you.”

  “Shit! He called me?” I never heard the phone ringing this morning, but I also hadn’t checked to see if anyone had called either after I got out of the shower. God, I gotta get my head back in the game. “What did he say?”

  “His clients have agreed to let the Lowes see their house.”

  “That’s fabulous news!” I exclaim, bouncing in my seat. Mainly because it means I won’t have to spend hours today looking at MLS listings and I can curl up with a good book, reading the afternoon away.

  “I know, right? Awesome stuff.” I can hear the smile in Liv’s voice when she adds, “So, I’ve been chatting with the Lowes over email this morning and I’ve scheduled you to meet them at Kevin’s house on Monday morning at nine. Okay?”

  “You’re the best.” I glance away from the high-rise to Union Square, seeing all the people looking like blurry ants. This deal needs to work out and I’m crossing my fingers that it does. I grab my mouse and hit the Send & Receive button, then I delete the couple of spam messages in my inbox. “So, if we’re looking at the house on Monday, I’m wondering if you should—”

  “Already on it,” Liv quips, a
nd I can hear her fingers typing on the keyboard. “I’m sending all the information on the property to your email right…now.” The pride at being such a badass assistant echoes off her sassy tone, as her email is delivered to my in-box. “Okay, so for the second thing…” She hesitates, drawing in a long breath before getting very serious. “Micah stormed into our office a couple minutes ago. I think he thought you were here or something, because he looked so disappointed when he saw me. I told him you never work on Sundays, and that I only dropped in quick to get the details on the property for you. After that…well, let’s just say it didn’t go over well. He looks horrible.”

  “What do you mean, horrible?”

  “Like someone gave him the cutest puppy ever.” Liv pauses, for dramatic effect, I’m sure. “And then went serial ax murderer on it. Seriously, he looks like he didn’t sleep at all last night.”

  “Weird.”

  “Mmm-hmm,” she adds, then her voice lifts. “Remember when I said you must have the secret to snag a billionaire?”

  “Yes, I recall such a statement,” I muse.

  “Well, apparently, it’s not a secret, it’s a drug, because that guy is jonesing for you.”

  I’m wondering how I can hate to hear something and love it at the same time, when she continues. “But I thought I would warn you, because it kinda seemed like he planned—”

  A loud knock bangs on my front door.

  “To come to my house?” I finish for her.

  “Glad to know my instincts are still sharp,” Liv mutters, dryly. “Good luck.”

  “It’s not luck I need,” I tell her, dead serious, hearing another loud knock. “It’s willpower.”

  Micah

  I raise my hand to knock again when Allie’s door suddenly flies open. Regardless of my mood, my mouth twitches. She looks cute this morning. Her hair is resting on top of her head in a loose bun, and she’s wearing black yoga pants and a tight soft pink T-shirt, detailing the tempting curves of her breasts.