A.J. shuddered again, burying his face in his hands. “Get out. Both of you. Just get out.”
“No,” Ryder refuted. “Never again, A.J. We’re not leaving. End of story.”
He heaved a sigh, letting his head fall back against the wall beside the tub with a dull thunk. “Fine. What do you want from me? I promise you, I have nothing left to give.”
“How about…just you?” Lyss said, smiling softly.
A.J. laughed, but it wasn’t a happy sound. “Yeah, sure. Look at me. Look around. You really want this fucked-up shit? You really want to drag my sorry ass home with you?”
“Yes,” they said in perfect unison.
A.J. blinked. Then he looked at them. Really, truly looked at them, for the first time since realizing they weren’t apparitions come to haunt him from his dreams. Both of their clothes were wet, mostly from contact with A.J.’s body. Lyss’s hair was disheveled, her face streaked with tears. And Ryder had tears on his cheeks, too. Big, strong, intimidating Ryder, who could face down a bad guy and shoot to kill without blinking, was standing there with tears in his eyes. Both of them were looking at him with such open love, it was impossible for A.J. to doubt.
Yet he couldn’t quite find strength to believe. Not yet.
“You’re both insane,” he whispered. “Crazy.”
Ryder snorted. “This is where we’re supposed to say something cheesy, right? Like ‘crazy for you,’ or some shit? Sorry, man. No dice. Take your ‘I love you’s’ and be happy about it.”
A.J. cracked a smile, probably his first since his son passed away. “You haven’t actually said that, you know.” The words came out soft, breathless, almost daring to believe. “You haven’t actually said the words.”
Ryder stared at him in silence for a moment. Then he leaned forward and cupped A.J.’s cheek. “I love you,” he whispered, his voice hoarse and breathy. “I always have, A.J. Ever since you were a skinny little sixteen-year-old, come stumbling into my heart too young to do anything about it. I loved you the four years we roomed together, and I loved you the entire eight years we were apart. I never stopped. I never will stop. I love you, A.J.”
Tears brimmed yet again as A.J. stared into amber eyes that were full of compassion, sincerity, and utter devotion. He glanced at Lyss, wondering how she felt about her husband declaring his love for another man. But she didn’t look upset. Instead, she looked elated. Her hazel eyes met his, and she wrapped both small hands around A.J.’s knee, bending to kiss his clenched fist.
“I loved you from the moment I met you. I told you that, once before. It is still true, A.J. I think I fell in love with you the moment Ryder first told me about you. And I really, truly believe, that this was meant to be. The three of us belong together. And you belong to both of us. I love you. We love you. Like Ryder said, end of story.”
“I…” A.J. choked as more sobs threatened. “I don’t…know how to do this…anymore. I don’t…know how to handle…”
“That’s okay,” Lyss assured him, smiling even as another tear trickled down her cheek. “We can help. I promise, baby. We can help.”
When A.J. did nothing but stare at the two of them, Lyss and Ryder both rose to their feet. Lyss reached for the shower—turning the hot water on, this time—while Ryder drew A.J. up until he was standing between them. Then they both helped him strip out of his wet jeans and shorts, shedding their own clothes along the way. When Lyss judged the water was hot enough, all three of them stepped under the spray.
A.J. stood woodenly, his tears blending with the hot water as his lovers cleaned him. Lyss ran a washcloth over every inch of his flesh, so tenderly he almost couldn’t stand it. Ryder provided an unmovable wall at his back, keeping him upright even when he wanted to buckle from their loving ministrations. Then Lyss brought him to his knees in front of her, and washed his hair—just as he used to do for her, back when he still believed in love. While Lyss did so, Ryder briefly stepped out of the shower, returning with a small white cup filled with greenish liquid. When A.J. frowned at him, Ryder snorted.
“Dude, I love you, but seriously…I’m not kissing you until you rinse. Period.”
A.J. laughed. And kept on laughing, even while he rinsed his mouth out with Scope. The laughter turned back into tears somewhere in the middle, but he didn’t try to stop them. A.J. let his lovers gather him into their arms, sobbing and laughing by turns as they held him close. When he finally got control of himself, he looked up into Ryder’s eyes, prepared to see mischief—and saw blatant, open lust.
“Say it,” Ryder grated, reaching up to collar A.J.’s throat with one hand, even as Lyss wrapped her arms around his torso and pressed her wet breasts against his back. “Say the words.”
“I love you,” A.J. admitted brokenly. “I love you, Ryder. And I love you, Lyss. I never stopped. God help me, I never stopped.”
Ryder pounced, claiming A.J.’s mouth in a hot, open-mouthed kiss even as Lyss wrapped both hands around A.J.’s cock. He gasped into Ryder’s mouth as all the blood went swooshing southward, hardening his dick instantly. His knees went weak, his skin buzzing from the duel stimulation, but his lovers held him up, refusing to let him fall.
Maybe, just maybe, he could eventually believe they wouldn’t let him fall at all. Never again. Not while he stood between them.
United we stand, divided we fall, came the woozy, half-formed thought.
“Don’t let me fall,” he whispered against Ryder’s mouth, slipping his fingers through Lyss’s wet hair as he held her close while she kissed his neck.
“Never again,” Ryder whispered, immediately followed by Lyss’s breathless, “We’ll hold you up together. Always.”
And for the first time in a long time, A.J. thought he might actually believe it.
Epilogue
Lyss sat in front of the vanity mirror, using a flattening iron to straighten her wavy brown hair, humming softly to herself. Less than an hour until the commitment ceremony. She needed to get a move on, or risk being late to her own special day.
No, not just her special day. A.J.’s and Ryder’s, too. The thought was enough to make her smile like a contented cat.
The last few months had been pure insanity…but in a good, way, mostly. Getting A.J. to come back home with them had only been the beginning. He still needed help—professional help, since she and Ryder weren’t exactly qualified to help someone with his kind of emotional trauma. Their first order of business had been to find him a good psychologist, immediately followed by a PTSD specialist. He still suffered from nightmares, fits of despair, and sometimes debilitating depression, but he was starting to recover. Progress had been made.
Progress of any kind was a victory, as far as she was concerned. But she knew that, as long as the three of them were together, A.J. would be able to hold it together, too. It took a long time, but eventually, he started to believe it when they told him they loved him.
That was a victory worth waiting for.
Their regular lives had calmed down somewhat, too. Lyss had passed her first exams, bringing her that much closer to her own psychology degree. She’d discovered that she absolutely adored working with children, to the point where she now wondered how she’d ever been happy simply being a nurse. If things continued to go well on that front, Sidri and Allen had assured her a place as a counselor for Street Smartz. It was a dream come true, even if it wasn’t the dream she’d originally gone after. The work was fulfilling, to say the least. And for her, there could be nothing sweeter.
As for Ryder, he’d discovered he had a knack for working security, far greater than any of them would have anticipated. For one thing, he got to know the folks at his BDSM club on a personal level, and that made his alpha male protective tendencies increase a hundredfold. He took his job very, very seriously, to the point where he’d gotten his boss to hire A.J.’s company to help him design a new security system for the club. That was yet another project on their plate, but one that would eventually be useful throu
ghout the BDSM community. All in all, their efforts would eventually provide a safer, saner environment, and that was, after all, the ultimate goal.
A.J.’s business was on the rise again, too, a fact that had shocked him into near-speechlessness when he discovered the cause. When he abandoned IT Matters after the shootings, he’d assumed the business would go under. He hadn’t counted on his friends, though, or their combined determination to help him, in any way they could. Amber—tiny, petite, quiet little Amber—had single-handedly kept the business afloat. She’d taken over A.J.’s clients, outsourcing what she could, selling what she couldn’t, and had basically kept the whole venture alive by sheer force of willpower. When A.J. found out, he’d offered to let her keep it, out of sheer gratitude.
He hadn’t counted on Amber’s reply, or the veracity in her eyes when she told him off. “Like hell you will, Andre Johannes. I busted my ass to keep this thing alive, and I’m damn proud of that achievement. But so help me God, if you don’t take the business back, I will find a step-stool and smack the ever-loving shit out of you. Are we clear?”
A.J. grinned for days afterward, much to her and Ryder’s amusement.
So A.J. was back in the IT business. He’d lost a few of his corporate clients over the scandal, but most of his core business remained. And there was the growing demand for his now patent-pending recording software, the program he’d developed for Club S after returning to Houston. The system was still in beta testing, but all signs pointed toward a usable, reliable way for BDSM clubs to allow their members to record sessions without fear of having the footage leaked. A.J. already had a waiting list of club owners that was over twenty pages long, and growing daily.
Austin, of course, tried to take credit for the whole thing, since it has been his idea originally. If Lyss hadn’t known the man was teasing, she’d have been seriously pissed off. That software was A.J.’s baby, not Austin’s, no matter what that blond-haired idiot liked to claim. That said, it was so good seeing Austin joke around with A.J. again, she felt reluctant to tear him down a notch.
Austin had been distant even since A.J. disappeared, and downright ornery since he returned. At first, Lyss had believed the man was still pissed at her and Ryder, still believing they had something to do with what happened that tragic day. Eventually, though, she realized the reason was much, much more complicated. Austin had been pissed, not at them, but at A.J. For abandoning their friendship. For refusing all contact while he was on hiatus, hiding in his mother’s house. Austin had still been angry at A.J. for not reaching out—and, especially, for letting Ryder and Lyss help him instead of Austin himself.
Lyss could think of only one reason why Austin would act that way…but she wasn’t willing to broach the subject, not with either one of them. If the two men could be friends now, without airing dirty laundry that might end up getting one of them hurt, so be it. It wasn’t her place to interfere. At least they were talking again. That would have to be enough.
“Lyss? Beautiful, are you decent?”
Lyss grinned at her reflection, setting the straightening iron on the vanity. “I don’t know about that, sugar, but I’m not naked, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Ha, ha,” Ryder droned, coming up to stand behind her. He settled his hands on her shoulders, squeezing lightly. “You look delicious, my dear. Absolutely edible.”
Lyss winked at him in the mirror. “You think A.J. will approve?”
Ryder snorted. “I think A.J.’s gonna have a tough time talking, since his tongue is going be hanging out of his mouth through this whole ceremony thing. Especially since he’s gonna be on eye level with that.” And he gestured toward Lyss’s new corset, a confection of white lace and satin made with real whale-bone staves and custom stitching. Since the high shelf-bra barely contained her ample breasts, she’d added a light, see-through webbing of white lace at the top of the corset, just to keep everything in until she wanted to let it out. Her long white skirt had a split that went all the way up to her waist—an idea she’d stolen from Mistress Elise—so that every time she moved, her entire leg was revealed, including her white-lace stockings.
“And you look like a naughty James Bond,” she teased, reaching up to caress his fingers, which still covered her shoulder. “And that’s saying something, considering how hot Daniel Craig looked wearing a suit like that.”
Ryder snorted, giving himself a look of pained disgust. He hated dressing up, especially when the clothes cost more than he made in a year. But their rich friends had insisted on buying him the best for this day, so he wore a hand-made Brioni suit of rich, dark gray and a blue silk tie to match A.J.’s eyes. And, since it was the same kind of suit worn by Daniel Craig in his James Bond movies, she could tease him about it.
“I’m almost afraid to move in this damn thing,” Ryder complained. “What if I spill something on it? Sidri is going to kick my ass.”
Lyss chuckled. “Sidri? Oh, honey. Allen will rip your balls off and feed them to you if you ruin that suit. It’s his favorite designer.”
“Fucking rich people,” Ryder grumped. “How the hell did we end up friends with them, again?”
“You tagged along after college, remember?” she said with a snicker. “Stuck on them like a burr on a dog’s behind, if I recall correctly. Oh, stop fussing, Tex. You look magnificent. And I know A.J. will have a harder time keeping his eyes off you than he will me. I’ll be in the same boat.”
Ryder rolled his eyes, then gave her a soft, loving smile. He helped her to her feet, then helped smooth the long train of her gown. “You ready for this?” he said, when they’d both straightened.
Lyss nodded, ignoring the shakiness of her hands as she picked up the box that held their hopes and dreams. “Never been more ready.”
Ryder turned and presented his arm, just like a true gentlemen. “Then let’s go claim our man. Club S style.”
Lyss laughed and wrapped her fingers around his elbow, allowing him to lead her from her dressing room. Sudden nerves made her knees weak, but she ignored them ruthlessly. Today was the most important day of her life, so far. No one and nothing would ruin it.
Ryder led her down one of the long, hotel-like hallways on the private floor of Club S, helping her into the elevator once they’d made the trek. Her heart started beating in her temples on the ride up, but she tried not to let her nervousness show. This was something she’d wanted, something she’d craved, for most of her adult life. No way was she going to back out of it now, come hell or high water.
The elevator dinged, and the doors opened, revealing the opulently decorated grand ballroom. Rows of white-painted chairs bracketed a red carpet walkway that bisected the space. People they knew, friends and family as well as club members, filled every available seat, and they all turned to look as she and Ryder made their way down the aisle. Gentle, flowing music filled the room, not quite a bridal song but not far from it. At least a hundred eyes watched the two of them pace slowly toward the dais at the opposite end, and at any other time, Lyss probably would have gotten a good case of stage fright. But not today.
Today, all she could see was the man kneeling in the center of the dais. He had his head bowed, his black hair recently styled into short waves, and he wore nothing but a pair of boxers. He had his wrists crossed behind his back, his knees spread wide on what must have been an uncomfortably hard surface, but he didn’t seem uncomfortable. No, the man kneeling there practically vibrated with anticipation, his very being reaching out to her and Ryder, trying to draw them closer, faster. His yearning was so strong, they simply could not resist the pull of his need. She and Ryder practically raced up the last few steps, finally taking up stances on either side of him.
“We gather today for a commitment ceremony of a different sort,” said Sidri, beaming from her place behind a short podium that stood just behind the kneeling man’s position. “This ceremony is designed to bind three individuals who have chosen to belong to one another, and who have chosen to liv
e their lives by the rights and privileges of a BDSM relationship.”
The crowd behind them murmured appreciatively.
“This servant-slave desires the ownership of a set of individuals who have already made a commitment to one another. He desires to be owned, body and soul. He desires to serve the needs of his owners, anticipating their every wish, devoting himself to their pleasure, be it physically, emotionally, or spiritually. He desires to be claimed. To be cherished. And above all, to be loved. I call upon this assembly, now. Are there two such individuals, willing to claim ownership of him and all his wants, needs, and desires?”
“I do,” said Ryder, stepping forward to lay a hand on the kneeling man’s shoulder.
“I do,” said Lyss, doing the same on his opposite side.
“And does the servant-slave accept the ownership of Sir Ryder and Lady Lyss St. Claire? Does he choose to give himself to them, body and soul, to be owned, claimed, worshiped, and adored, as long as you all shall live?”
Finally, as if a spell had been broken, A.J. lifted his head. He met Lyss’s eyes briefly, then Ryder’s, then looked straight at Sidri and said, “I belong to them.”
“So be it,” Sidri said simply. “The servant-slave now has two owners. You may collar him, at your convenience.”
With shaking hands, Lyss opened the box she still held. Ryder reached in, and removed a solid platinum ring collar. A club submissive stepped forward, proffering a tiny key ring. Ryder used the key to open the collar, swinging the two halves open wide before stepping directly in front of A.J.
“Lift your chin.”
A.J. did, looking up at Ryder with so much devotion, it made Lyss’s knees weak. She watched as her husband collared their slave, taking his time with the locking mechanism until he was satisfied with the fit. When he stood back, another club submissive stepped forward and presented him with a silver chain necklace. Ryder threaded the tiny key ring through the necklace, before slipping it around his own neck. Then he stepped back with an encouraging smile for Lyss.
Saints United [For Love of Authority 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 33