I was pretty sure it was the confirmation I needed. I needed to stop this—to halt this before it got messy. Even messier than it already was.
“You’re always there when things get rough,” I spoke slowly, letting myself feel out the words before I said them. I was going to sound insane, paranoid, and probably egotistical, but I still needed to get this all out. “You always say the right things and you always take my side over my husband’s. That’s pretty weird behavior for his best friend.”
Brent stood up and walked away from me, hands on the railing, facing away from me. I had a sudden burst of insight that told me he just didn’t want me looking at this face right then. Why? Unless I was right …
His voice was smooth, but there was an edge of sadness when he said, “I know how hard David can be is all.”
“Look, couples have arguments,” I continued on, looking at his back. “No marriage is going to be easy. I knew it going into this. Most of my friends have been divorced, so yeah, I get it. It’s never going to be a smooth road—not all of the time. I wasn’t expecting anything of the sort when I married David.”
“I don’t know what you’re thinking,” he replied, his voice strangely tight. “But you’re way off. I lived with David for years. We were in college together. I know how hard he can be to live with. That’s all there is to it.”
I frowned, trying to study him, but it was difficult when he wouldn’t even look at me. The thing was, he wasn’t quite acting like he was telling the truth. His actions were just a little bit suspicious. I always tried to see the best in everyone, but I wasn’t born yesterday.
But he was my husband’s best friend, and I didn’t want to have conflict with the man. “Are you sure that’s all, Brent?”
“I just wanted to help.” Brent didn’t look at me as he said the words. “I wasn’t trying anything else. I’m sorry if you took it that way.”
Ugh. He was trying to make me sound like I was crazy, wasn’t he? Just then and there, my alarm level jumped up, making me take a few more steps away from him. He was sorry if I took it that way.
I could swear I wasn’t taking it ‘that way’ for no reason. But he was trying to act like nothing was going on. I didn’t know if I bought it. I could be wrong, but my intuition was telling me something was going on here.
“I just want to be your friend.” Brent finally turned around and his face was completely composed. But when I looked closer, I saw tightness around his eyes and lips that I was sure he wasn’t even aware of. I was looking for the signs and I saw them everywhere. “I just want to help you and David. I want you guys to make it.”
As always, he was saying all the right things. A little bit too right. I frowned, looking him over, and searching his face—his eyes. I didn’t like what I saw. “Please don’t worry about me.” My voice sounded very formal to my own ears, but in this case, it was definitely better to be too formal than too friendly. I didn’t want him to have any hope he would ever have anything from me, other than my friendship.
I hated being so cold, especially when I’d liked Brent so much before, but I wasn’t going to lead anyone on. My allegiance was to my husband, and no other man should think they had a shot.
“As if I could stop myself.” He gave me a smile. “But I’ll butt out if that’s what you really want, Kaye.”
“David is in his office, I believe, if you came to see him. Have a good night,” I said softly, then walked into the house. My body didn’t feel big enough to hold my emotions and if I stayed any longer I knew it might get messy.
It took a lot to annoy me, but this whole situation was starting to. With David acting so bizarre, and now Brent being just a little bit too conveniently there, I’d had enough. There was only so much one woman should be expected to take and I was far beyond it.
Maybe I was insane. Maybe the signs I was getting from Brent weren’t accurate. After all, I was hardly very good at telling when people wanted me. I’d always kind of ignored the whole attraction thing, at least until I’d met David.
I was on high alert, though, and I didn’t think I was wrong. I was fairly certain I knew the look in Brent’s eyes, and it was desire. Did he want me sexually? Or worse, did he think he could have me?
Did he, for some reason, think he could take me from David? From the only man I could ever love?
Surely he wasn’t so stupid. I had never given him even the slightest sign …had I? My mind raced as I thought back to all of our interactions. There were so few of them, it didn’t take me long.
Flopping down on my bed, I shook my head. I had allowed him and David to dominate me together …and I had liked it. But it hadn’t been my idea. I never would have done it without David there, either.
Well, it was a no-brainer for me to say it would never happen again. I had to be perfectly polite to Brent, but firm. I didn’t want to make things awkward, and Brent hadn’t actually done anything, so I didn’t want to create problems between Brent and David.
But I was definitely going to be much more careful around Brent from now on.
Part Four
Chapter 16
David
I was very, very busy. Yes, I was. Completely occupied with staring down at piles of paperwork as I tried to make sense of everything.
When the door was pushed open, I looked up sharply, expecting Kaye. Expecting her to tell me off again or to beg me for the baby that I—if I were completely honest with myself—wished desperately to give to her.
But it wasn’t Kaye with desperate pleas on her lips. It was Brent, and he looked more out of sorts than I could ever remember seeing him before.
Brent wasn’t the sort of guy who took anything very seriously. He sort of floated through life, seemingly untouched by most things. So to see him on edge, as he so obviously was, instantly made me nervous.
“What is it?” I asked, and gestured for him to come in. He flopped down in the chair opposite mine, the one across the desk, where Kaye had been sitting not so very long ago.
“It’s hopeless,” Brent murmured, and it startled me badly to hear him say those words. I didn’t know hopeless was a word he even knew. Much like me, Brent was pretty amazing at getting what he wanted, regardless of who or what was set against him.
Why was Kaye so different?
“It’s not hopeless.” I tried to cheer him up, but he just shook his head and ran his fingers through his hair, messing it up. It was usually so neat. I’d never seen him this agitated.
“It is. I can’t do it. She knows. I don’t think she knows everything, but she knows I’m trying to get her into bed.”
There was more to it, though. Brent wouldn’t be so upset about this otherwise. “She can’t possibly know,” I argued.
“She knows, and she’ll never go for it,” Brent continued, raising his eyes to meet mine. “Damn it, David, she’s too damn smart for her own good. I swear I didn’t push her too fast. I just tried to comfort her, hug her, tell her she was too good for you, and she flipped out at me.”
Too good for me?
The words made me faintly sick to my stomach. Weren’t they true? Kaye was a genuine person—maybe the first one, male or female—I had met in my entire life. I could hardly claim to be the same way, not with what I was pulling.
She was too good for me. It would be better for both of us when all of this was over, so she could move on and maybe find someone who actually did deserve her.
Even thinking about it made me angry, but I tried to push it away. I had no claim on her. I didn’t want a claim on her. The whole point of this was to get her to give herself to someone else.
What was wrong with me?
“We have to push harder,” I realized. We would both lose out on all of this if she didn’t cave. We’d been treating her too gently, but clearly a bolder approach was called for.
It was risky. It could end up costing us everything, but when I thought back to the night at the BDSM club, I thought I might have a way to minimize the risk.
I thought about how Kaye had moaned and writhed for us, how she’d been so wet, hot, and tight as she clenched around me.
“What are you thinking about?” Brent asked, and there was hope in his voice again. I was glad to see it, in a way. He had never been the type to give up and seeing him so close to surrender was odd and unsettling.
I took a deep breath. This was yet another chance for me to back off, I knew that for sure. For me to just accept the wonderful wife fate had tossed into my lap. It was tempting—more tempting every time the thought came up.
Kaye was loyal. I had thought a woman could never be, but she was. She had shut Brent down before he’d even gotten very serious about going after her. Getting her to cheat on me was going to be harder than expected.
It made my heart lighten in my chest to think about it. She would never betray me. I tried not to be so happy about the whole thing, but I was. If I let myself, I could be downright ecstatic.
However.
It was an awful lot of money for me to let go and we had come so far.
Brent was still waiting for me, and I pulled myself together. Who was I kidding? As tempting as it was to just forget about the whole thing, I wanted what was mine, even if part of me did still wonder if it wasn’t too late to take her up on her offer of giving me half of what she’d inherited.
Probably. How would I bring up the conversation? Besides, it would make her suspicious because we were married.
What a mess.
“Okay. So do you remember the night at the club? Where we tied her up together?”
Brent smirked suddenly and gave me a nod of acknowledgment, his eyes suddenly shining with what I could swear was arousal. That was a good thing, I told myself firmly. If he wanted her, he’d work harder to get her.
Who wouldn’t want her?
“I remember,” he murmured. I clenched my hands into fists in my lap and did my best not to launch myself over the table at the man who was so obviously fantasizing about Kaye. About my wife.
“She was really into it.” I clenched my jaw to keep my voice from sounding too angry. I hoped. “So we can use it against her. I haven’t gotten too much more into BDSM with her …”
Except for the one night where she’d gotten me out of my bad mood by giving herself to me—the night I’d cuffed her to the bed. My cock twitched and I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself down.
I had all sorts of highly contradictory emotions running through me and it was more than I could take. Anger, arousal, joy—it was all there, and it could make me unstable if I let it.
“Oh, okay, I get it. So you think I should get her alone and just try to dominate her?”
From the sound of Brent’s voice and the way his face lit up, I could tell he liked the idea. I gave him a pitying look. Even after all of his interactions with her, did he not know Kaye at all?
“No. She’d run screaming,” I spoke very surely, knowing it was true. There was bold and then there was outright reckless. His proposed plan was the latter.
“Then what?” Brent was getting frustrated, and I sighed softly. If only there had been someone else to pick for this job. Brent was too reckless and impatient.
Too handsome. Too charming.
Too likely to succeed.
Conflicted, I tried to pull myself together, but it was honestly hard for me to come to a firm decision about what I even wanted.
Once more, I made the effort and pulled my thoughts together. I really was going insane, I could barely focus on our conversation. Kaye’s face kept drifting through my mind, utterly distracting me.
“You and me, together.” I looked at him. “Just like the last time, only here. In our bedroom, so she feels comfortable. I’ll tease her—play with her until she can’t think of anything but having someone inside her.”
Once more, my cock swelled, and I shifted uneasily, glad for the desk that hid my arousal from Brent.
“I think I get where you’re going,” Brent smirked, and I nodded at him slowly.
“When she’s comfortable with my touch, you step in too. We both play with her, get her really going, and make her wet for us. Never quite kiss her or touch her where she really wants to be touched though.”
“Holy Christ, you’re devious,” Brent acknowledged, and he seemed almost admiring of my terrible brain.
“Once she’s really desperate and barely knows what’s going on, I’ll leave.” I swallowed down the bile creeping up my throat, hating myself for this plan—hating myself because I knew there was a good chance it would work.
It was such a betrayal, and she trusted me so much. It wasn’t the sort of thing a Dom should do to his sub—it was against all of the rules. Really, it was just a shitty, terrible thing to do to another human being.
Especially to one who genuinely seemed to love me with everything in her warm, loving, generous heart.
“Leaving her with me,” Brent said, grinning wider. “She’ll be so wet, maybe I can even get her to beg to take my cock.”
I didn’t wince. Very deliberately, I held my face completely expressionless and even forced a nod. It was, after all, the basic idea. He didn’t have to be so damn crude about it, though.
Kaye was my wife. I had been the only man she’d ever been with. Was he so completely clueless?
“She is only human after all,” I added as I thought about my wife shaking with desperation for my fat cock to fill her and take her all the way to the place only I could.
“I think it’s our only chance. She’s too …good.” There was something about the way Brent said those words. I didn’t like it. It was almost reverent, like he too was being drawn almost unwillingly into admiration for my lovely, sweet wife.
Of course, it was a ridiculous thought. Brent had never had much in the way of admiration, beyond the purely physical, for any woman. But I looked at him, trying to read his eyes.
I didn’t like it.
Brent looked back at me and there was still this look. Something about Kaye. I couldn’t quite read it, but I was fairly certain it could mean trouble for me.
No. I didn’t care about Kaye. I didn’t love her, and I never would. I shouldn’t even be thinking about her as my wife—our marriage wasn’t real. What did I care how Brent was coming to feel about her? It was probably just my imagination anyway.
What could the chances even be? Brent would never fall for any woman, but if he did, it wouldn’t be someone who still held on to so much of her innocence. Brent would be bored to tears by a woman like her.
Of course, I would have thought the exact same thing about myself.
One thing was utterly crucial. I couldn’t fall in love with her. It was the one thing I would never, ever allow myself to do. It loomed in my mind even larger than the money did. I had to keep my head about me. I couldn’t let her into my heart.
I would do anything to keep myself from doing that. I would pull out all the stops. I would force my wife into my best friend’s arms, just to keep myself from really, truly falling for her.
It wasn’t too late.
So we made our plans, and I fought down the sickening feeling trying to claim me.
Chapter 17
Kaye
I put my book aside when David came into our room. There was a strange, restless sort of energy in every movement he made and every step he took, and it would have been impossible for me to read him even if I had tried.
Was it possible he had given more thought to what I’d asked him about us starting a family? Had he maybe rethought his position?
I sat up in bed, my eyes fixed on him, barely daring to breathe. I didn’t speak. My entire focus was on David, because whatever he said next, I knew I wasn’t going to want to miss even a second of it.
A baby. I wanted it so badly. I had always wanted to have children eventually, like most women. And here I was, married to the love of my life, and eventually felt like it should be now.
So I waited, and eventually, David spoke. He stood over me, hands o
n his hips, looming, refusing to sit on the bed.
“I’m inviting Brent into our bedroom.” His gaze was forceful, almost defiant. “Just like when we were together at the club.” There was a brief pause and then he added, “Now.”
My head spun and the whole world seemed to reel crazily around me. The first time we’d ventured into uncharted territory in the BDSM world, it had felt like I’d had a choice. Like I could walk away from it all and nothing would happen.
Not this time. This time, I was being informed it was going to happen. Informed by His Majesty, King David. Told about it, as though he just assumed I would be compliant.
Did he seriously think that I was that weak-willed? Did he believe in his heart of hearts that he had married a woman who would be submissive at all times?
I would be submissive only when I decided to. And that would not ever be a permanent thing.
Anger had never been an emotion with which I was particularly familiar. I could do annoyance, and maybe, if pressed, irritation. Full on rage, however, was something I honestly couldn’t remember ever feeling before.
I felt it then as I looked at my husband, his chin jutting out defiantly. His chest puffed out as if he was lord and master of me. Well, he was about to find out just who he had married. For better or worse.
“No,” I stated, no hint of compromise in my voice. “No, Brent will not be coming into this bedroom, not now—not ever.”
Enough was enough. Hadn’t I just decided, after what had happened with Brent, that I would never allow him to touch me again? He would certainly never see me naked.
“Kaye …” David’s voice took on a tone of warning, but I wasn’t interested in hearing it. “Listen to me.”
I shook my head. “No! You listen to me,” my voice had turned into little more than a hiss. It was strange to hear, but I wasn’t about to let it stop me. “I’m telling you.” I glared at him, letting him know I was not to be played with. “Brent will never be welcome in our bed. Not ever.”
Vengeful Seduction_A Submissives’ Secrets Novel Page 17