Grey simply wasn’t sure how much he wanted to share. He grew up with Vaughn, and they’d shared everything all their lives, even a few women. Though he’d only known Jake about a decade, he felt just as close to him, but something about what was happening between him and Anne felt almost sacred, and he didn’t want to tarnish it by swapping pussy stories with the guys.
“I went to the room earlier, and he wasn’t even going to let me in. Then he stood between me and the bed the entire time. If I hadn’t heard her sigh softly and seen the covers move, I wouldn’t have known there was a woman there.” Jake grinned.
“Here’s your card, Vaughn, and you’re all set for the night. Anything you want.” The waitress’s voice had gone all soft on the word anything.
Grey took in the scene almost in an out-of-body sort of way. How long had the three of them done this? Hit the bars and the clubs together, looking for women to take to bed, with no commitment, no hassle, just fucking. He wondered why women like that had appealed to him, because in this moment, none of it sounded appealing at all. He scratched his forehead.
“Thanks, sweetheart. We’ll holler when we need you.” Vaughn openly watched the woman’s ass as she walked away, then hit Jake’s arm. “You wanna double team her?”
“Maybe.” Jake took another sip and raised his booted feet to the bench beside Grey.
Vaughn seemed disappointed.
“Well, I’m guessing Mr. Mystery over here is out, and he’s usually my second. Step outta your country-boy boots for one night and walk in my rock-star ones.”
“Don’t let him rile you, Jake. He’s making up for lost time, after all.”
Vaughn snarled at him and took another long draw on his beer.
“Man, we’re all being asses tonight. What’s up with that?” Jake leaned back into the booth.
“He’s right.” Grey had no problem taking responsibility for his gruff attitude, but he wasn’t sure he could change it. He didn’t want to be there. He wanted to be back with Anne. Until he was, he was going to be damn pissed.
“Come on, dude, just spill. Tell us about her.” Jake implored.
“You know you’re gonna eventually.” Vaughn grinned, and it reminded Grey of when they’d been teenagers and Vaughn had been completely in love with some chick from a video. He’d been so convinced he was going to marry her that he hadn’t dated all through high school. The day they graduated, they’d headed west to find her.
His heart squeezed at the heartache Vaughn finally had to face when he wasn’t able to find his mystery woman.
“We really have been through a lot together.” He thought of all the memories he had of both of them.
“Climbing the celebrity ladder,” Vaughn added.
“Rehab.” Jake smiled and winked.
Good God, he’d put them through hell for years with his addiction, and they’d stood by him through it all.
“She’s not like the others.” Grey felt himself bringing down the walls.
“So we figured.” Vaughn showed of an exceptionally cheesy grin and made Grey want to take a swipe at his head.
“The timing is so bad.” He mused out loud the thought he’d had a hundred times since meeting Anne.
“Could be worse.” Jake tried to sound positive.
“Jake, always the eternal optimist.” Vaughn’s tone disparaged Jake. “Ow! Goddamnit, Jake, those pointy-ass boots hurt!”
Grey chuckled.
Jake shrugged.
“What’s so bad about the timing, Grey? I don’t get it.” Vaughn seemed more intent, more serious than he had been at the beginning, and something about the switch in attitude made Grey more comfortable about opening up.
“I’ve got the custody case going, and when I win, I’ll have a three-year-old to take care of.” His heart warmed at the thought of having his daughter living with him full-time and all the plans he had for them. “It wouldn’t be fair to Sophie, and it wouldn’t even be fair to Anne to try and split my focus.”
Vaughn snorted. “That may be, but good God, Grey, you’re still a man, and I know your sexual needs. You can’t be planning on celibacy, for fuck’s sake.”
Grey squirmed in the vinyl booth. “In all honesty, I hadn’t thought about it. I just knew I wouldn’t get into anything serious.”
“You just met this girl, right?” Jake asked before finishing the last drop out of his bottle. He held up a hand to signal the waitress. “Y’all want another round?”
“Yeppers.” Vaughn took that moment to finish his.
“Nah, I’m good.” Grey swizzled his straw around his still-full glass.
While they waited for the waitress to bring their drinks, Jake and Vaughn shoved one another’s hands back and forth across the table top, playing for dominance like a couple of first graders. Grey thought about Jake’s last question. He had just met Anne. Thinking about anything long-term so fast was idiotic, yet still, there was a part of him that honestly never wanted to let her go.
“She has such blatant trust in her eyes when she looks at me.” He was really talking more to himself, forgetting for a moment he had a captive audience. “Makes me want to give her the world.”
“Here you go, Vaughn.” The waitress put the bottles down on the table. Vaughn gave her a heated gaze—Grey was quite certain that it made her panties wet—then she left.
“So give her the world and let her fuck you senseless on occasion.” Jake grabbed his bottle. “It’s not like you can’t afford it.”
Grey growled low in his chest. “She’s not that type of girl, that’s not what I meant, and it’s not the point.”
They wouldn’t care he was taking his mood out on them. They took turns, it was their thing, but he wished he could just figure this thing with Anne out in his head.
“Okay, Grey, come clean here. I’ve never seen you give a woman a real second thought. You fuck ’em and move on. That’s been you since Angela Greenly in ninth grade. So what the fuck is up with this chick? Why has she got your innards all wound up?”
Grey laughed. Every now and again Vaughn’s country hick upbringing shone through his hardened, rock-God exterior, but it was a good question, one he wished he had an answer for but simply didn’t.
“You know, it’s the damndest thing. She’s sweet.”
“Oh God no, not that!” Jake held up his bottle, and Vaughn clinked his with it while they both laughed at Jake’s over dramatization. Grey wanted to punch the both of them, but he held back.
“She’s also innocent.” He stopped, wondering how wrong it was to share this next part, knowing he was going to regardless. “This girl isn’t in the scene. I’m responsible for her and…I tied her. She’d never been bound before.”
His mind went back to the memory. He saw her beautiful pale skin as she bent over for him. His fingers twitched, wanting to run them over her back and down her ass. Then the memory changed to earlier in the bathroom when he’d spanked her with his bare hand. His cock hardened.
“She trusted me.”
“Grey, you’re always tying up women.” Jake took another swig of his bottle. “Between his erotic art”—he motioned his bottle at Vaughn—“and your stories of actually doing it, I’ve had quite the education in all things perverse and twisted.”
“Quiet, Jake.” Vaughn’s tone grew dark. “You’re initiating her?”
Grey growled and pulled the knit cap off his head. He fucked up from the moment he met Anne.
“She’s definitely a sub. She’s eager to learn.”
With each word the pain in his heart grew deeper. He wanted to be the one to teach her everything, and he was walking a very fine line with his ethics. He knew a lot of ass-hats who claimed to be dom and didn’t give a rat’s ass about their sub. Grey cared. He knew what his responsibilities were to Anne, but did he have it in him to give her to another dom to train and protect her once he was forced to leave her?
“Goddamnit!” He slammed his glass down on the table, causing the liquid to spill ov
er the top. Neither Jake nor Vaughn said a word, just grabbed for napkins.
“I fucked up here, Vaughn. I can’t claim her. I can’t give her to anyone else.” He fidgeted in his seat, knowing it was time for gut-wrenching honesty, no matter how bad it made him look. “As long as I can remember, I’ve had this hunger in me to…well, for lack of any better way of putting it, I’ve wanted to possess a woman. More than love, more than cherish, I want to own her soul. I want to give everything I’ve got to her and spend my life taking care of and providing for her.”
As he freed the words from his soul, something settled over him, something perfect.
“How very caveman of you.” Vaughn snidely replied, but Grey didn’t let it stop him. He knew Vaughn, and he knew of all people, he’d understand.
“Hmmm, I know, and thanks.”
Vaughn smiled, winked, and raised his bottle. “Anytime.”
The resounding bass coming from the bar’s small stereo system beat out a steady rhythm as George Thorogood’s “Who Do You Love?” played on the juke box. Grey felt the kinship of his friends, even if neither would entirely understand. He had started this story, and he was going to finish it.
“I do understand that women of this era do not take kindly to being taken care of. I thought…” He stopped, wondering if he really wanted to share his greatest humiliation with them, but they were his brothers for all intents and purposes. “I was such a dumb ass, I thought Brittany…” He shrugged. “She only wanted my fame and money.”
The old pain rolled on a razor’s edge through his heart. How had she been able to play him so effectively? He wasn’t stupid. She wasn’t that good of an actress. He should have seen through her long before he had. The only real explanation was that he hadn’t wanted to.
“Whatever.” He shook the thoughts from his head as they really didn’t matter anymore. “She figured after she had Sophie, that’d be enough to keep me tied to her side, no pun intended. She changed after that.”
“No. She let you see who she really was after that because she assumed she had her ironclad in.” Vaughn didn’t bother to hide his contempt, but it wasn’t as if Grey hadn’t known of his friend’s feelings for Brittany. He’d been rather vocal about it all the time they’d been together. He only wished now he’d listened. But then, he wouldn’t have Sophie. That little girl had very literally saved his life, and he couldn’t ever regret her.
“Maybe I’m not as sure of my ability to read a woman as I used to be. Maybe my heart is still way more fragile even now than I wish it was. Maybe I simply don’t think a good woman could ever really love me and give me what I need.”
In truth, he’d shut down after Brittany, afraid to show his true self to anyone. Something in Anne’s delicate blue eyes, however, spoke to him of other things, deeper truths—of hope. On the other hand, he wanted, he needed his friends’ buy-in before he could go any further.
“So fine, Vaughn, I’ll give you that point. Brittany screwed me over, but here’s my question, do you think…” He stopped to choose his words wisely so he’d get a thoughtful response and not a smart-ass one—hopefully. “Do you think that deep need to completely possess a woman is just something broken in me? Maybe something from watching my parents do their abusive dance all those years, or maybe it’s just a character flaw like my arrogance.” He smiled, gladly accepting his flaws. “You guys know me, though. I’m not a bastard. I’m not cruel. I’d die before I’d hit a woman ever. I’m not talking about being controlling or wanting to squish some woman under my boot heel. I crave what I crave, but I want a woman to want it, too. I want her to be submissive to me sexually, but I want her to have her own life and dreams yet need me desperately at the same time. The little slave girls, they don’t appeal. Owning someone that completely isn’t what I’m talking about. Most women at the clubs, they’re just there to play, and I need more than that.”
He ran his hand up over his head, feeling like he’d completely lost his train of thought.
“Do you think it’s possible that I could find a woman in this day and age that would not only let me own her, but relish it, crave it, without having to take on a slave or a pet in the scene, or am I just a fool lost in the wrong time and culture?”
He waited, tense, wanting to know what his friends really thought and willing to take any criticism with a good attitude.
“Wow.” Vaughn leaned back in his chair.
“Da-yum, Grey.” Jake pushed back his cowboy hat. “I don’t know what I was expecting, but I wasn’t expecting that.”
Grey fought off the uneasy feeling swirling up in his gut. He’d exposed himself. That came with risk, but he was at one of those moments in life where it was important to lay it all out on the line, so he refused to regret it.
“Grey, you know as well as I do there are people who live the lifestyle twenty-four-seven. You always said you weren’t into that, sounds like you’re still saying it.” Vaughn scratched at his hairline, his brow furrowed.
“Right, I’m still not…I mean I don’t want a woman to be chained to my bed at night. I don’t want a woman to scrub my toilets naked. I don’t want a woman who’s anything less than equal. I just want…”
What did he want?
“Not to be too dense, Grey, but are you thinking this girl could be what you’ve been looking for, or is she a separate issue altogether?”
Grey considered Vaughn’s question and realized they were separate.
“I think I’ll never figure out anything with any woman until I’m true to myself. And honestly, right this sec, I think I’m realizing that I’d rather be alone than be in a relationship where I had to play that I was satisfied when I wasn’t.”
Grey thought back to his time with Anne, to how she gave herself to him completely. That was what he wanted. The problem was that it was new to her—exciting. How long would it be before she tired of it and he was once again told he was a complete freak?
“The sad thing is I find myself too kinky for vanilla girls and too vanilla for most of the kinky women I’ve known.” He laughed to console himself.
“Look, Grey…” Jake’s expression commanded attention, and Grey gave him his, undivided. “I had amazing parents who loved each other deeper than midnight. My ma, she’s the greatest woman I’ve ever known, and I’m going to tell you what she’s always tellin’ me. You’ve got to be true to your heart. Anything else will wear on you like cheap denim on your balls.”
Grey choked.
Vaughn spit beer across the table.
“Look, I’m a country boy. What do you want? But, Grey, I’m serious. I believe God made you ’zactly how you are. If he made you with the need to possess a woman, then he’s made a woman with a need to be possessed, and if you aren’t accepting of that truth then you screw not just yourself, but her as well.” Jake stood from the table. “Now, if y’all will ’scuse me, I gotta piss.”
Jake’s words rang in Grey’s ears as his friend walked away from the table. If he made you with the need to possess a woman, then he’s made a woman with a need to be possessed. He wasn’t lying to Anne earlier when he told her he had a deep faith. He believed deeply in the God of his understanding, to quote his twelve-step program. He was eternally blessed more than he could ever repay, and he had come to a complete level of comfort with his faith and his sexuality, but Jake bordered on saying “soul mate,” and even his heart squeezed at the thought. How could he believe in something he’d never seen?
The hypocrisy of his thought smacked him hard. He believed in a God he couldn’t see. Or did he? Was he just giving lip service to the spiritual aspect of his life? He didn’t think he was, but was it truly possible that such a thing as a soul mate existed, and how on earth did his questioning sex and women suddenly lead to a crisis of faith?
“Well, that’s one weird-ass dude.” Vaughn signaled the waitress for another beer.
Grey smiled. Jake had seriously given him something to think about.
“He was right though
. Come on, Grey, you know running from yourself doesn’t work. Look at your sister.”
Grey cringed as pain ricocheted through his heart.
“Being authentic is scary and risky, but damn, Grey, your sister tried to play it safe and wound up with that cocksucker wife-beating—”
“I know. I know.” He held up his hand to stop him. He didn’t want to think of all his sister had gone through.
“Come on, Grey. We’re artists. We’re freaky. At some point you just gotta come to grips with that, stop worrying about your image, and just jump.” He raised one shoulder and shook his head. “Now may be that time.”
He drew a deep breath, and images of Anne, naked with his cum running down her belly, shot through his mind. He went rock hard and groaned.
“Grey, I’ve decided to take the oath.”
That brought his thoughts rushing back to the present.
“I’m sort of speechless.” He knew exactly what Vaughn was alluding to—it was something they’d both been presented with—but he hadn’t realized Vaughn had taken the idea so seriously.
Vaughn made a face, but the look in his eyes was a dead-serious one. “I only bring it up because I know you’re considering the offer they made you as well, and if you agree to the tenets, there is no gray area. You know what you have to do with this woman, one way or the other. Are you prepared for that?”
Queasiness settled on him. He had a daughter to raise. He had a custody case to win, and Brittany had enough ammo against him from their sex life to definitely put a tarnish on his side. His lawyer wasn’t happy and had given him a set of no-exception rules, which he’d pretty much demolished the day he met Anne.
“I’m in so deep. It happened so damn fast.” Grey shook his head, not entirely understanding how it was possible to feel so much so instantly.
“You need help?”
Grey swallowed and stared across at Vaughn, knowing exactly what he meant.
“No,” he growled in response.
Lucas, Samantha - The Seduction of Anne Ruby [The Seduction 2] (Siren Publishing Classic) Page 14