by Mari Carr
“What?”
“Caden protected me by collaring me. It wasn’t a ruse. It wasn’t a game. He owned me.”
Weston’s whole body flushed cold with shock. “No, no.”
“Since before I graduated high school, I’ve been his submissive. His slave, even if he never used the word. Caden believed in the lifestyle. When he spoke, I obeyed or I was punished. We went to clubs, we did scenes, because that’s what Caden wanted. And when he wasn’t fucking me in public, using me as a prop while he demonstrated the correct technique for a whip, or maintaining my training, we were running around the country doing whatever your parents wanted, because it was the only thing we could do to protect Tabby.”
Tears tracked down Rose’s face.
“Caden told me he loved me every day. And I never once said it back. I couldn’t. Because I didn’t love him, and never could.”
“Rose, Rose…” This couldn’t be.
“I never could because he treated me the same way they did.” Her chest rose and fell with a shuddering breath. “And because I never stopped loving you. One of my ways of escaping the pain was to daydream. I’d imagine that you hadn’t died. That you’d come back for me. That I’d be free, and safe, and loved.” Her voice broke. “And no one would hurt me anymore.”
Weston couldn’t stand it—he dropped to his knees and pressed his forehead against her thighs. He wanted to grab her and hug her, but he wouldn’t do that—he wouldn’t restrain or constrict her. Not after what she’d just told him.
He pictured Rose the way she had been that horrible night in the kitchen—terrified, ashamed, trembling with fear. He remembered the way she’d bitten down on her cheek so hard she spat blood over the counter when she’d started begging for mercy. And then he imagined Caden taking up the cane rather than freeing her. How hopeless, and powerless, she must have felt.
“I’m so sorry, so sorry.” He ground out the words. “Sorry I didn’t know. Sorry I didn’t come back. Sorry I— Oh God, I used bondage cuffs on you.” He’d thought he was so smart, picking something she’d be comfortable with and that wouldn’t raise any red flags if his internet purchases were being tracked. Instead he’d been tapping into a lifetime of fear and abuse. “I thought that would be easier for you. Familiar. I thought you were upset because it was me, not Caden, using them.”
“It’s too late now,” Rose said quietly. “I am what they made me. You saw it—when I hear an order, I obey. Like a whipped dog who responds to commands.”
“I would never, never have spoken to you that way if I’d known.” Weston dared to tip his face up.
She was looking down at him. Her eyes were luminous, her face pale.
“I never stopped loving you,” he said.
“I’m not that girl anymore. She died, the same day you did.”
Weston sat back on his heels, bowed his head, and started to weep, for the second time today. Before now, he hadn’t shed a tear in years.
“And now you know my secret,” she said. “I never loved Caden, but he was…he was all I had. I went numb when he died, and losing him hurts. But it doesn’t feel the same way it did when I lost you.”
Weston wiped his face and looked up. “I’ll…no, we’ll stop them.”
Rose shook her head. “I can’t face them. Elroy and Barton continued to use me up until about seven years ago.”
He’d thought it couldn’t get worse. Foolish. It could always get worse. “But, but Caden…”
“They used me to motivate him, for the times when the threat to Tabby was too vague.”
Weston stared at her. “All these years…why didn’t you run?”
Rose flinched and Marek stepped around the coffee table to stand near her. “Getting away from an abusive situation is far more difficult than people assume. And Rose’s situation was particularly complex.”
“I didn’t mean to blame you,” Weston said to Rose.
She looked at the fire. “I blame myself. I should have left, but Caden was…Caden was as close to ‘home’ as I had. And with Caden, it wasn’t rape. I was willing. I enjoyed it. But I hated that collar. I hated that he wanted me as a submissive, not as Rose, and no matter how we tried we couldn’t change. Hated that when he gave an order, I obeyed.”
Weston rose to his feet and lifted his arms as if to hug her, but then dropped them. “You’ve been hurting for so long.” And that was on him. He’d let his own pain keep him away from her. How many horrors could he have spared her from if he hadn’t insisted on hiding and licking his wounds?
Rose tried to shrug, but it came out like a shudder.
Weston felt ill from what he’d learned. He wanted to beat his fists against the wall. Shoot something. Scream at someone. He would kill Elroy with his bare fucking hands.
“Rose, Weston. It’s time we went to bed together,” Marek said sternly.
“All three of us, together?” Weston asked in shock.
“Yes. Together.”
Chapter Thirteen
Weston’s brow creased in confusion. His response was the one Marek could understand. It was Rose’s bleak, practically blank stare that unnerved him.
She’d retreated deeply into that place she appeared to have built to protect herself. Marek didn’t want her distant and alone.
She needed to be here. With the boy she loved. And with him.
Marek reached out his hand to her. “Will you come to bed with us, Rose?”
Rose didn’t accept his outstretched hand. Instead, she walked out of the sitting room and into the bedroom. They followed her in time to watch her walk to the bed, climbing onto the tall mattress, kneeling with her head bowed.
Her pose was submissive. Her expression resigned.
Marek walked to the side of the bed, determined that somehow, someway, tonight would begin the healing. Weston and Rose had suffered enough in their lives. He wouldn’t allow that pain to continue. They were going to close the wounds and staunch the bleeding.
Marek looked back toward the door. Weston hadn’t moved. His eyes were locked on Rose, whose own gaze was steadfastly lowered.
Weston’s expression had morphed from confusion and guilt to one of horror and anguish.
“Are you coming, Wes?” Marek prodded.
Weston walked toward them slowly, hesitantly, like a man forced to stand before the firing squad. “Not with her like that. I won’t hurt her.” He swallowed. “Any more than I already have.”
Neither of these beautiful, wounded souls seemed capable of remembering what had drawn them to each other in the first place.
Love.
Love didn’t hurt, command, or control.
It soothed, gave, supported.
Marek would have to guide them back to that. Slowly. “We’re not going to hurt her. This won’t be about pain.”
He reached for his undershirt, tugging it over his head to bare his chest.
His actions captured Weston’s attention, but Rose’s training would be a harder thing to overcome as she held perfectly still, her eyes lowered.
“Rose,” he said softly. “Would you like to look at me? Touch me?” Marek was careful to ask, not demand. No one was going to be forced. Everything would be given freely or it wouldn’t happen.
Her dark eyes lifted to his. “I only know one way to…” Her words came out haltingly, as if it physically hurt her to speak them. “…to do this.”
“I won’t command you, Rose. Ever. Weston is in love with you and I’m…” He tried to find the right word to convey his feelings for her. “I’m in awe. You’re strong, intelligent, and the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met. I would like to lie in this bed with you and Wes. I would like to hold you and kiss you. But it has to be your decision. If you don’t want that, say no, and Weston and I will find another place to sleep tonight.”
“I would like to touch you,” she admitted, her words provoking a smile he didn’t even try to hide. Then she looked at Weston. “I’d like to touch both of you.”
W
eston glanced at Marek’s bare chest and gave her a rueful grin. “I’m not going to fare well in comparison.”
Rose laughed huskily. The sound was warm and happy, and it clearly surprised her as much as him and Weston.
“It’s not a contest, Wes.” Marek saw the reticence in Weston’s eyes, so he stepped closer to the other man and began unbuttoning his shirt.
Weston made no attempt to stop him. Marek had never touched another man sexually, had never felt that pull.
Until now.
He had always assumed he would follow in his parents’ footsteps, marrying the one person who captured his heart. It appeared the relationships shared by his grandparents, the loving yet complex trinities, had made a deeper impression than he realized.
Weston allowed him to continue to strip off his shirt, letting Marek tug the soft cotton over his shoulders to toss it to the floor.
Marek didn’t agree with Weston’s assessment of his chest. He was a large man, muscular, despite the scars lining so much of the right side of his body. The burns didn’t stop at his neck, but drifted along one shoulder as well.
Perfection was overrated. Weston’s body told a story, spoke of the pain, the danger, the hardships he’d faced and overcome. It made him appear stronger, not weaker as Wes thought.
“If it were a contest, you’d win,” Marek admitted.
Weston snorted in disbelief. “Have you ever been with a man, Marek?”
Marek shook his head.
“I didn’t think so.”
“Have you?” Rose asked. Marek noticed she had moved closer to where they stood next to the bed. Gone was the submissive. In her place was a woman under no man’s control.
She sat watching them, her flushed cheeks betraying her arousal.
Wes nodded just once. “Pet wasn’t the only submissive my parents played with. Elroy believed it was important for a good Dom to know how to control submissives of both sexes.”
“I didn’t know that,” Rose whispered.
“It was only a couple of times.” Weston looked at Marek. “And it was nothing like what’s happening now.”
Marek saw the same attraction he felt reflected back at him.
“Tonight there is no past, no Dom, no submissive. It’s just Wes and Rose and Marek.”
Rose clasped her hands together in her lap as she looked at Marek. “I’d like that.” She slid from the bed, filling the small space between him and Weston.
She reached down, gathering the material of the sheer gown in her hands, pulling it up.
Neither he nor Weston moved as she bared herself to them. Marek had caught glimpses of her shapely figure when she’d stood before the fire. He’d had to force himself to look away, determined to be a gentleman. Rose made it hard. She was so lovely.
“Rose.” Weston’s voice was reverent. “I’ve wanted this, you…” His voice broke slightly.
Rose shivered and Marek reached for her, ready to warm her if needed. “Are you cold?” he asked.
“No.”
She stood directly between them, her sides pressed against them. Reaching up, she ran her hands down their chests at the same time. Then she turned to face Marek, lifting her face, enticing him to kiss her.
He considered her invitation, understood that she’d chosen to start with him because there was less baggage, fewer emotions.
Reaching down, he cupped her cheeks, then bent his head to kiss her. Every gentlemanly thought went out of his head when his lips touched hers. Rose’s hands gripped his sides and he couldn’t decide if she was trying to tug him closer, or gaining purchase to push him away.
She was the very definition of contradiction.
Fire and ice.
Sweet and tart.
Fear and longing.
He didn’t let go. He couldn’t. Tilting his head, he deepened the kiss, stroked his tongue against hers.
Hot breath on his cheek told him Weston had moved closer. Unwilling to merely observe, he’d shifted forward, caging Rose between them, placing his hands on top of hers at Marek’s sides.
Marek lifted his head just a few inches to find Weston, to see his eyes.
Weston was looking at him, his hungry, hopeful expression telling Marek everything he needed to know without words.
Weston was still suffering.
He was with them, but there was no denying he wasn’t sure he had the right to be.
And it wasn’t Marek who could ease that fear.
He looked down at Rose, who had begun to kiss his neck. She was stalling, scared of the same thing Weston was.
“Be brave, Rose,” Marek whispered.
Her startled gaze flashed upwards, meeting his. His courageous woman took a deep breath, and then turned.
Marek didn’t step back, didn’t yield his place in this. Rose and Weston would be together again, but two was going to be three from this point on.
For Marek, his future had never been clearer.
“I love you, Rose,” Weston said softly. “I always have.”
“I love you, too.”
“Please forgive me.”
Marek swallowed heavily, hating the sound of pure anguish in Weston’s plea.
“You heard Marek,” Rose said. “No past. Only us.”
She turned her head to look at him over her shoulder, and the years seemed to melt away before Marek’s eyes. He could almost see the young, innocent boy and girl they used to be, before the world and Weston’s parents conspired to destroy them.
Marek stroked his hands gently up and down the soft skin of Rose’s hips, her back, her ass, as Weston cupped her jaw, turned her face back to his, and poured a lifetime of lost love into his kiss.
Weston drew back first, and Rose, understanding the move, twisted, stepping out of the circle slightly, so that Marek and Weston could share their first kiss.
It was different from every kiss Marek had shared with women in the past. He was gentle with women. Had always been taught to treat them with respect and kindness.
Weston kissed him with a brute strength, a power that revealed something Weston didn’t want them to know. While he didn’t practice BDSM, the Dom was still there, lurking beneath the surface. Weston had held back with Rose, unwilling to frighten her. Which meant he needed to cast Marek in the role of submissive.
That wasn’t a place Marek would go willingly. He added his own strength to the kiss, gripping the sides of Weston’s head, the textures of each side completely different as he felt the healthy skin versus the burned.
Weston deepened the pressure, his hands reaching around to grip Marek’s ass, to pull their hips together, their erections smashed each other. Marek resented the pants they were still wearing, wanted them gone.
The kiss was hard and rough and, God help him, so passionate it hurt.
Rose’s soft gasp next to them captured Marek’s attention. He broke the union, seeking air.
“That was…” She didn’t finish. Like Marek, she was struggling to find words that could convey how incredible this night was turning out to be.
Marek reached for her, but she dodged out of his grip, stepping backwards. Then Rose lifted her hand, curling her finger, issuing her own unspoken command as she climbed back onto the bed.
Marek and Weston slid their pants down at the same time, both of them taking a second to enjoy the unhindered view of the other.
Weston started to reach for his cock, but Marek shook his head. There would be time for the two of them to explore what was happening between them, but tonight had to be about Rose. While she put on a serious game face, she was skittish as a cat. They needed to fix the old before they ventured on to the new.
Weston appeared to understand that, as his hand dropped and he walked to the far side of the bed. They joined her, sandwiching her between them on the plush mattress.
They lay together, all semblance of hesitance gone as they reached for each other, forming that tight circle of three bodies once more. Marek kissed her as Weston grasped her brea
st, squeezing it, sucking on the taut nipple.
Rose seemed to revel in her freedom, her unbound hands stretching out to explore, moving quickly as she touched both him and Weston everywhere she could reach.
No restraints. No limits. No rules.
She was like a delicate flower at springtime, breaking through the dark soil, its petals unfurling in the bright sunshine.
Weston’s face appeared next to his, so he released Rose, allowing the other man to take over kissing her. Marek did his own explorations, running his fingers over her flat stomach. She was too thin. He recalled her doubled over with hunger in the cellar, and the memory bothered him.
Even tonight, they’d forgotten to eat. He would have to take better care of her, of them. His motto had always been to protect those who needed help. In the past, that protection had come in the form of muscle and might. It would be much different with his two lovers. They had no problem fending for themselves in a fight, but they also put themselves at great risk as they fought these purists. What they needed was someone to protect them from themselves.
Rose’s hips jerked slightly when he drew his hand lower. He stroked her clit slowly, softly at first, but when Rose turned her face away from Weston to look at him, he understood that tonight he needed to feed a different hunger.
Weston backed away, lying on his side so that he could watch and play as well. As Marek continued to toy with her clit, Weston stroked his fingers along her wet slit.
She reached down to grasp Marek’s cock, but he shook his head.
“No, love. Not tonight. This isn’t going to be about sex. The three of us are going to get to know each other. And we’re going to take it slowly.”
“But I need—” Her request came to a gasping halt when Weston pushed three fingers deep inside her.
“We know what you need, Brown Eyes. There’s nothing I won’t give you.”
Marek pressed harder on her clit, his knuckles and Weston’s brushing against each other as Weston fucked her with his fingers.
Marek bent his head to suck her nipple into his mouth at the same time Weston cupped her cheek and drew her lips back to his for another kiss.