by Tara Rose
“Yes, but only because I know what’s going on behind the scenes. Ria’s recent behavior has to do with her parents, not with you.”
“How do you know for sure?”
Alexa picked up a flat stone and sent it skipping across the water like she’d been doing it all her life. Marisol was impressed. A warm breeze blew across her face, carrying the smells of spring. It was such a perfect day that Marisol found it difficult to believe a tornado had wiped out downtown Racy only two weeks ago.
“I know because Luke talks in his sleep almost every night.” She cut her glance quickly to Marisol. “And when he’s awake at night, it’s because he’s had bad dreams. Don’t misunderstand me. Things are fine between us. Better than ever, in fact. But I can tell this is on his mind more than usual right now because of all that’s going on with Rafe. He’s torn and he doesn’t know what to do.”
While Marisol was happy to realize that she most likely hadn’t done anything to push Ria away, if Luke was this torn up, that meant Rafe was, too.
Alexa moved aside the neck of her top and showed Marisol a stunning necklace of what looked like real diamonds. “This was a birthday present from Chase and Luke, but it’s also my collar. Two days after they presented me with it and asked me to be their sub, we went to Luke’s house to break the news to his parents that I was dating both their son and Chase. We never got as far as telling them I was also their submissive.”
Alexa sighed deeply and sent another stone skipping across the river. “They don’t go out much. They’re very hard-working people without a lot of friends. They knew I had been seen in town with both Luke and Chase, and I’d been to their home for dinner with Luke, but when we tried to explain that the three of us were together, as in happily-ever-after together, they went nuts.”
“What happened?”
Alexa stopped walking and faced Marisol. “By the time we left, Luke was barely holding back his tears. I thought I was going to lose him as quickly as I’d found him, Marisol. His family is very close-knit. And they’re good people. Please don’t think for a moment that they aren’t. Maggie has helped Kari and me with the shop so much. Pep has already asked for a job if we ever get busy enough where we need help, and we’re probably going to hire her anyway because she seriously needs some direction in her life. They’re not tyrants. They’re simply old school, and they want grandchildren. From the males, you see. It’s tradition.”
Marisol averted her gaze. “Well, isn’t that possible anyway?”
Alexa shook her head. “I was abused as a teen. It’s a long story. I don’t want to go into it. Suffice it to say I can never conceive. And even if I could, we could never be sure which man was the father without DNA testing, and we would never do that simply for the sake of determining which man’s sperm made it into my egg first.”
“So that’s what has them so upset? The possibility of no grandchildren from one of their sons?”
“No. Not entirely. From what Luke has told me, his parents have never treated Rafe the same way as they treated him. Rafe never had the drive or the business sense that Luke had. I wasn’t in school with any of them, obviously, but Sean and Maddox once explained that Rafe was always the brawn of the pair, and Luke was the brains.”
“So, they expect less from Rafe?”
“Not exactly. It’s just that of the two, Luke was always the son more likely to defy them than Rafe. They gave him leeway that they never gave Rafe because he got straight As and never got into trouble in school. Rafe was just the opposite. They were always on his case about something, and now they’re finding it impossible to treat him any differently.”
Marisol nodded. “They see his relationship with me as outright defiance.”
“They do. And even if they believed you and Rafe didn’t have sex when you were fourteen, they don’t want him seeing you now because they know you’re also with Ellis. That would mean that both their sons would be in a sinful relationship, and it’s more than they can handle.”
Marisol stared at Alexa, at first not comprehending, and then the light bulb went on. “Ria.” Ria had told them the details. Who else could have? Rafe certainly wouldn’t have done that. “Ria told them how deep this was, didn’t she?”
Alexa nodded as her big blue eyes grew moist. “I’m sorry, Marisol. Luke finally told me that she told them. But Marisol, you have to understand that in her mind it’s not a betrayal of your friendship. It’s being loyal to her parents. And I don’t think she spilled the beans to be malicious. I really don’t. I think she was just trying to get them to be reasonable, and it slipped out.”
Marisol had to take a seat on the nearest bench. Her head was spinning and nothing made sense anymore. This couldn’t be happening. “Why couldn’t she just come clean then and tell me? She’s in there with Annalise like they’re best friends now.”
“Because she’s probably embarrassed and feeling guilty. She probably doesn’t know what to say to you. You’re her best friend, but family is a bond you can’t break no matter how hard you try to do it.”
Marisol shook her head.
“I thought you should know. And just to clear the air, I told Luke the same thing. That you had a right to know. He put the decision to tell you into my hands, because I think he agrees with me that Ria should have come clean with you, but he can’t tell her that.”
She glanced sharply at Alexa. “Does Rafe know what Ria did?”
“I believe so, but Luke wouldn’t really say. You’ll have to ask Rafe that question.”
Chapter Twenty
As Rafe drove her back to Ellis’s house, he told her that he wouldn’t be staying for dinner because he’d promised Luke he would go out to dinner with him. Marisol told him that she and Ellis would miss him, but that she thought it was good that he and his brother talk. If Rafe suspected she was dying inside, it didn’t show.
Marisol hadn’t been ready to confront him about Ria. She needed time to think first, so it was perfect timing that Rafe would be gone for dinner. She and Ellis ate in the kitchen, but the delicious food Sam had prepared might as well have been cardboard. Ellis tried to make small talk with her, but she answered him in monosyllables and barely met his gaze.
It wasn’t until he slammed down his fork that she glanced up, surprised to see confusion and frustration on his face. “Marisol, what the hell happened today?”
She stared at him for several seconds, and then it all came pouring out. The tears, her talk with Alexa, the betrayal she felt at the hands of Ria, everything. Ellis held her while she cried, and Marisol doubted he understood half of what she said because she knew she was rambling and referencing events he couldn’t possibly know about, but he let her go on, and whispered over and over that it was going to be all right.
By the time her tears were spent and her breath came in huge hitching sobs, she finally had the nerve to look him in the eyes. She’d expected disgust, or at the very least major annoyance, but all she saw reflected in his face was understanding and pain.
“I know exactly how you feel right now. She was your best friend,” he said quietly.
“I hope she still is, but after tonight I’m not sure that’s true.”
Ellis gazed at a spot over her shoulder for a moment, and then he looked down into her face again. “Best friends are complicated.”
“Ellis, are you okay?” She’d never seen him like this.
“May I tell you about someone? I don’t want to if it means you’ll think I don’t care about your pain. I do. But I’d like to share this story with you, the way Alexa shared hers, in the hopes it might help you right now.”
“Of course.”
Ellis pushed his chair closer to hers so that their knees were touching. “I had a sub for over ten years named Faith. She wasn’t only my sub. She was my best friend. I met her in Chicago, and she moved here to be with me. She helped me decorate this house, and when we finally called it quits six months ago I had the whole thing repainted, new window treatments done, and a few other things.
I spent a shitload of money covering up anything that might remind me of her, but of course memories like that never really fade, do they?”
Marisol shook her head. No, they didn’t. She’d spent eighteen years torturing herself with memories of a relationship that had only lasted four months. What must it be like for Ellis? “What happened with her?”
He shrugged. “I got tired of her constant criticism. And she got tired of trying to make me into something I was never going to be.”
“What did she criticize?”
“Everything. The way I wear my hair, the way I sip coffee, the fact that I prefer to be dressed in jeans rather than dress pants, the way I play, everything.”
“Forgive me for asking this, but why then were you with her in the first place?”
He laughed softly. “Why is anyone with someone like that? There’s something about them that draws you in at first, and you’re so infatuated that you overlook little things. And then those little things snowball into bigger things, but you convince yourself that it’s not really so bad. Before long, you spend more time wrestling with the fact that the only time you’re having fun with the person is when they’re not talking, because then they aren’t nit-picking at you about something. By then you’re in so deep that you don’t know what to do.”
“I’m sorry, Ellis. I had no idea.”
“No one did, except Maddox. And he knew better than to lecture me. He knew I’d eventually figure it out on my own.”
“Who left whom?”
“She left me. She started wanting to go to clubs in Chicago because she said she was no longer comfortable at Maddox’s. She knew he didn’t like her, and as he watched me become more withdrawn, he made no bones about how he felt toward Faith.”
“Did you go to clubs in Chicago with her?”
“For a short time, but I was over that whole scene long before I moved back home to Racy. I prefer to play here, in my house, or at Maddox’s. I’m pretty sure she met someone, because suddenly she was driving up there to have lunch with her girlfriends once a week. Then it became more than once a week. Then she started asking permission to spend the night with one of them. I don’t know for certain, and it’s unimportant now, but I believe she was meeting a man instead.”
“Ellis, I don’t know what to say.”
He gazed at her tenderly and brushed the hair off her face. “You don’t have to say anything, Marisol. I only wanted to share it with you. Faith was my best friend. At least, that’s how it felt at the time. And I loved her once. It’s the most painful thing in the world to realize you’ve lost a friend, but even worse to realize you probably never really had the person to begin with.”
He stopped speaking and watched her carefully, as if he were letting those words sink in for a moment. Marisol wasn’t entirely convinced that this was the same situation, but she had to concede the point that the person she’d witnessed today was probably more the true Ria than she’d ever been able to see before.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen with you and Ria, but it will work out, Marisol. It will work out in the way it’s meant to. And whatever the outcome, I’ll be here for you.”
“Thank you, Ellis. That means a lot to me.”
A shadow of doubt crossed his face. “Do you know if Rafe knew that Ria told his parents how involved you are with both of us?”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t. I just couldn’t talk to him about it in the short time it took him to drive me back here.”
“We’ll need to clarify that.”
“I know.” She sighed loudly. “But I don’t want to think about it right now.”
“Marisol, even if he knows, it’s not like he betrayed you. He’s torn up about this. He probably doesn’t know which way to turn right now.”
“Has he talked to you about it?”
Ellis shook his head. “No. He keeps things close to his heart, and we’re still navigating the murky waters of our friendship. If Luke can’t get him to open up, I doubt either of us can.”
Once again, Marisol couldn’t help but wonder if she was truly meant to be with Rafe. The fantasy she’d built up all these years was nothing like reality. In so many ways it was better. Rafe was funny, and amazing in bed, and when they were just hanging out he was easy to be with. It was only when the subject of his parents came up that things got complicated.
Luke and Alexa had managed to get past the fact that Luke’s parents would never accept his relationship with her and Chase, but would Rafe be able to do the same? Or would he give her up rather than defy his parents? And what about Ellis? Where did she fit into his life? Was she only a plaything, or did he want her as a sub and a best friend as well?
As Marisol watched Ellis clean up the dinner dishes, the realization that she’d never fallen out of love with Rafe surfaced. It wasn’t anything earth shattering or new. Not really. She’d always known it. She’d never voiced it out loud or let it fill her waking thoughts for very long, but she’d always known it was there. That epiphany wasn’t the one that sent her mind reeling right now, or caused her pulse to race and her palms to suddenly become clammy. Oh no. It was the other thought that suddenly reverberated through her brain doing that. The one that made her admit she was falling in love with Ellis McCree.
Ellis moved around his kitchen as easily as he did everything. He was the most laid-back person she’d ever met. Even in bed he was unhurried and uncomplicated. The day she’d spent car shopping with him had been as much fun as any she’d ever had with her girlfriends, and less drama-filled to boot. Ellis was too handsome for words, charming, and so self-assured that he put others around him at ease rather than intimidating them. And the sex…it was freaking amazing incredible, and over-the-top.
Even when he was fully into Dom mode, she found his commanding voice and stern looks sexy as hell. She’d fallen into submitting to him without even realizing she’d done it, and without any feelings of having given up part of her life or herself to do so. Her submission enhanced every aspect of her life rather than detracting from it.
But love? It had been only two weeks. How did you fall in love with someone in two weeks? How long had it taken her to fall in love with Rafe? And at fourteen, had she truly been in love, or merely infatuated and beyond flattered that a gorgeous senior had been interested in her? What made the line between love and lust disappear and the two intermingle, and what did it matter if all you wanted to do was be with that person, in or out of bed?
Marisol didn’t know the answer to any of those questions. She only knew two things. She didn’t want to think about Ria or her parents tonight, and she wanted to make love to Ellis in every room of his house. Right now.
* * * *
Sometimes Ellis liked to do his own dishes instead of letting them sit for his housekeeper to take care of the next morning. The simple act of cleaning something was so mind-numbing that he could do it and not think about it. Right now, as he finished washing the dinner dishes, he was hyper aware of Marisol in the room, watching him.
Her perfume still filled his senses. It had been the most difficult thing in the world to refrain from kissing her into oblivion as she’d cried in his arms. Having her open up to him about Rafe and Ria had made her more vulnerable than the heaviest bondage he could have placed her in, and the result had been arousal for her that had reached crazy heights within seconds.
Physical restraints only prevented her limbs from moving and gave him control over body. A true Dom/sub relationship would give him control over much more, and she had taken the first step toward that tonight without even realizing it when she’d opened a chink in that armor of hers and finally let him inside.
He didn’t think she was even aware of how high the walls around her were. She’d been working on them since she was fourteen. She’d built up a fantasy of what her life with Rafe should have been, and consequently had shut herself off to the possibility of anything else, with any other man, including him. Sure, she’d given her body to him
, but not her heart. Not until tonight.
Ellis glanced quickly over his shoulder and caught her watching him with an expression of thoughtfulness on her face. He gave her a quick smile and returned to his mindless task. As he worked, he tried to tell himself that what he was feeling for Marisol was simply a rush of happiness that she had finally trusted him enough to talk to him as she would to Ria or one of her other friends, but it went much deeper than that and he knew it. He was falling for her. How could he not be, after all?
She was everything Faith had never been. Marisol was fun and easy to be with, she didn’t complain or criticize anything, and she even loved the way he dressed and the cologne he wore. She was a caring, kind person who was loyal to her friends and cared about the residents of Racy, including those she didn’t even know.
He couldn’t help but compare the way Faith would have reacted in the face of someone telling her that her best friend had all but betrayed her, and then hadn’t come clean about it but instead had ignored her. Faith would have gone ballistic, and the result would have been a screaming match between Faith and the best friend. He’d been a firsthand witness to that more than once in Chicago.
But not Marisol. She had kept her cool and not confronted Ria. He would have rather she’d done that in private at least because he certainly didn’t want her to be a doormat, but he suspected she probably just needed time to come to terms with what had happened. And she also hadn’t blasted Rafe for not telling her what his sister had done. She understood that there was probably much more to it than that, and she was willing to wait and talk to him first before passing judgment. All that made her more diplomatic than most of the people in the Racy city government. Maybe she should run for mayor?
He finally finished, dried his hands, and turned to face her. She slid off her chair and advanced toward him, her eyes full of lust. He grinned, not knowing where that had suddenly come from and not giving a shit because he liked it.
As she fell into his embrace, his dick jumped to attention, and he inhaled her sweet, musky scent. If he was falling in love, then so be it. This time it was a heady, uncomplicated feeling, and he welcomed it. He kissed her like he’d never kissed her before, with wild abandon and fingers tangling in her hair, all the while pushing her up against the nearest hard surface, which happened to be the table on which they’d just eaten dinner.