A House of Cards: Deconstructing Ethan (22 page)

We stayed in the shower, kissing and talking until the water ran cold. Back in his bedroom, he showed me where his clothes were so that I could use them for the time I was there. I threw on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt and sat on the bed watching him finish up. For once in my life, I felt normal. I laid on the bed watching him pack. There were no expectations, no urgency – just a pending sense of loss. In my head, I saw going to work at a hospital in Chicago and coming home to Gabriel every night. We would work effortlessly together in the kitchen. Drink a glass of wine while things were cooking, before relaxing in each others’ arms on the couch in front of a movie or making love in front of the fire. After, I would fall asleep in his arms each night and wake up in them again each morning. I was broken from my thoughts when Gabriel opened a box on his dresser and brought something over to me. He set the small set of keys into my hand.

“These are my spare keys. Stay here for a couple of days and just think about where you want things to go. You can be alone here, without distractions. Okay?” he asked gently and I nodded. “Whatever you decide, we will still be friends – always.” I pulled him in to a hug. There were so many things that I wanted to tell him. All of a sudden, I didn’t want him to go, but I knew that he had to. After I helped him put his bag in the Jeep, I kissed him deeply.

“I’ll see you in a few days,” he said smiling and pulled out of the drive. As I watched the Jeep disappear around the corner, I felt a sense of loss. I went back into Gabriel’s house, what could be „our’ house if I just said yes, and I knew I had some serious thinking to do. I picked up my phone off the counter and sent a text to Lexi and Jayden, letting them know that I would be there the next night, vaguely noticed that I didn’t use the word „home’. Walking back through the house, I felt a bit stupid exploring when Gabriel wasn’t here. These were his things, not mine. That set off the thought that I didn’t really know him as well as I should. I didn’t feel comfortable there without him and it saddened me.

Chapter 12

I went into the kitchen and pulled out a bottle of wine. Finding some fruit in a nearby bowl, I made a pitcher of sangria. Drinking was probably not in my best interest, but the choices I had to face were just too much; the situation with Jayden and Gabriel’s admission and invitation. I needed to take things one step at a time and, at that point, alcohol seemed like a logical first step. Grabbing a glass, I carried it all out onto the deck and set it on one of the tables. Standing next to the pool, I drank my first glass quickly and then stripped out of my clothes. The huge privacy fence surrounding the yard made me comfortable about being naked in his pool. After refilling my empty glass, I lowered myself carefully into the shallow end, priding myself on not spilling a drop.

Soon, that glass and two more were gone. Floating on my back in the water, I thought about where I wanted my life to go. As I saw it, I had three options – stay with Gabriel, go back to Jayden and Lexi or return to Washington alone. The last choice was the easiest to rule out; I didn’t want to be alone. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t alone and I didn’t want to lose that. The first choice was the hardest.

I cared about Gabriel, although I couldn’t say that I love him yet, because I wasn’t quite sure what that meant. I questioned myself and the real reason I was with Gabriel, worried I was only with him to appease my loneliness or because Jayden was unavailable. It was unfair, he deserved better than the half of myself that I could give him. He deserves to be loved and needed by a whole person – not by me. But I am inherently a selfish creature and I didn’t want to give up the comfort that he gave me. Christ, that sounded so fucking awful.

I deserved to end up alone.

Between the alcohol and the swimming, I was completely relaxed. Rather than sleeping on one of the lounge chairs and risking sunburn, I dried off and put the mostly empty pitcher in the refrigerator. After heading up to Gabriel’s bedroom to lie down for a while, I relaxed onto the bed with my head on his pillow, inhaling his scent. My cock hardened. I was relaxed, drunk and fairly turned on, so I thought about the shower that morning. No one had ever done that for me before. Spreading my legs wide over his big, soft bed, I ran my hands over my chest, my legs and my hips.

I massaged my balls with one hand, using the other to stroke my cock as I closed my eyes and thought about what he would look like riding me. My hips would thrust up into his, causing him to bounce and buck on top of me, with a look of sheer pleasure on his beautiful face, as he moaned and writhed. But, as my cock jumped in my hand and I felt my orgasm almost upon me, the vision changed. Suddenly, I was in the playroom, my playroom, and Jayden was riding me. His hands were bound over his head, which was thrown back, his cock erupting all over my…

My world exploded as I climaxed hard over my chest and stomach. As I lay there panting, wondering what had just happened, the guilt seeped into my stomach like a dense fog. I’d just jacked off in Gabriel’s bed thinking about Jayden.

Could I get any more fucked up?

* * *

I fell asleep curled up naked on Gabriel’s bed and slept better than I had in a long time. Even though I’d fallen asleep in the early evening, it was early morning before my stomach and my bladder forced me from his very comfortable bed. I made it downstairs about ten minutes later and started coffee. Looking over, I saw that my phone was flashing with a voicemail. I scrolled through the list of incoming calls and saw that it was from Gabriel. Pleased, I punched in my voicemail password and listened to the message. He just told me he’d arrived safely, missed me and that he loved thinking about me lying in his bed. That just made me feel guilty all over again. He ended with a simple, sweet, yet incredibly troubling, “love you”. It troubled me because I should be able to return that simple sentiment and yet I couldn’t – because I’m emotionally retarded.

I took my coffee into his office and rummaged through his desk until I found a legal pad and pen. I wrote about how I felt about Gabriel – he was everything I could have asked for – loving, attentive, patient, kind, understanding, passionate and inventive. He’s safe and comfortable and I know that I could see myself staying with him forever. He’d never given any indication that he was into my lifestyle, but our shower yesterday proved that our sex life would be anything but mundane. Then there was Jayden. Jayden was exciting, combustible, loyal, protective, jealous, and…taken. Jayden was everything that I should have stay far away from, but couldn’t. However, if circumstances were different, I could see myself staying with him forever. My third alternative was to just go it alone. I could head back to Washington and talk to Nicole about taking Ryan on as a sub. I could live my life without either Gabriel or Jayden and not be forced to make that kind of heartbreaking decision. I wished I could figure it out already. I needed to talk to Jayden and Lexi in a few hours and I still had no idea what I wanted to say.

* * *

The entire way back to Jayden and Lexi’s house, I went over in my head what we needed to talk about. I would not sub for Jayden again, period, as my trust in his judgment was lost. My sexual relationship with them was also over which, to be honest, scared the hell out of me. What if I did need
something
to clear the chaos in my mind? Would Gabriel’s level of intimacy be enough – would his
love
be enough? It killed me to think that it wouldn’t. I couldn’t even stand to think about the look of disappointment that Gabriel would affix me with when he found out about my lifestyle. However, I pushed that out of my head. I needed to focus on the conversation that was about to take place.

All of the cars were in the drive and the door was unlocked when I headed in. While I didn’t see anyone in the living room, I heard a giggle from the kitchen. Odds were, if she was in the kitchen, Jayden would be there too. As I entered though the kitchen doorway, I was literally stopped in my tracks at the sight before me. Lexi was kneeling on the kitchen floor in front of Connor. His pants and briefs were around his knees and Lexi had his hard cock in her hand. It was well outside the boundaries of the playroom and she was going to hurt Jayden if she kept it up. Rage coursed through me.

“What the fuck is going on here?” I asked in a low, deadly voice. I wanted to yell it, scream it, at them, but I didn’t want Jayden to come down and walk in on them. How the fuck could she do this with Jayden right upstairs? How the fuck could she do this at all? How could she hurt him like this? Connor spun to face me, his cock still hanging lewdly out of his clothes, his face anxious. Lexi tossed something onto the table as Connor jerked his pants up.

“Connor, would you excuse us for a while? We can finish this later,” Lexi said calmly. What the fuck did she mean „finish this later’? Did she have no shame at all? Connor stood perfectly still, obviously unwilling to leave Lexi alone with me as angry as I was. “It’s okay, Connor. Go upstairs and I’ll come and talk to you in a little while.” I looked at Lexi, incredulous. Finally, he took the hint and left the room. I knew it wasn’t his fault; that Lexi was the one taking advantage, but it still pissed me off.

As Connor rounded the corner to head upstairs, Lexi rounded on me. “What the hell is your problem, Ethan?” She questioned in a low voice.

“Oh, I don’t know…you on your knees for that guy in Jayden’s kitchen maybe? What would you have done if Jayden had walked in on you two instead of me? You’re in the fucking kitchen, for God’s sake,” my voice was low and harsh.

“I would have told him that I was measuring Connor for a harness. We’re looking for someone to take over his training and we’ll have people coming by. I thought a harness and leash were appropriate,” she said in a scathing tone, picking up the object she’d tossed on the table when I came in. It was a tape measure.

Of course they would harness him to put him through his paces, but that didn’t alleviate my concerns about the other things I’d seen though, so I continued.

“Why did you safe word that night with the wax? I have never once seen you safe word…Ever. He wasn’t in danger, you weren’t in danger. Why did you stop the scene?” I asked her, not quite sure I wanted to hear the answer anymore. She looked at me like I’d lost my mind.

“He was screaming, Ethan, or did you not notice? If I had been screaming like that in a scene, what would you have done? If you had been screaming like that, what would Nicole have done? I had to calm him down. Thank God I did because I was able to find out the reason he freaked out so badly,” she said sighing as she sat down at the table. I stood where I was with my arms crossed, watching her. “I went to see Connor after the session and found him sobbing in his room. I held him, trying to find out what made him so upset. Finally, he told me. When he was a young boy, his house burned to the ground. His mother was trapped inside and his father tried to get in to save her. He listened to his mother screaming and his father trying to reach her. In the end, his father was crippled and his mother died. When he saw the flames and heard me screaming, it triggered something in him. You, of all people, should be able to understand that, Ethan.”

All too well I understood.

“Connor feels comfortable with me and we’ve been talking through things – just like you and I used to talk through things.”

Then she stood up from the table and walked over to me, thought for a minute she was going to hug me, but she didn’t. She pushed me hard into the refrigerator. Completely unprepared for the force of her blow, I almost fell to the floor. “I can’t believe, after all of these years, you would think that I would be capable of that, Ethan!” Her eyes flashed with fury, her face was flushed. “I have never, ever been anything but faithful to you during our arrangement.
You
are the one who went out and found someone else to fuck while you were playing with us. You
fucking hypocrite
.”

“Hey, what is going on here?” Jayden asked as he ran into the room. “Jesus, Lexi I heard you all the way upstairs.” He grabbed her around the waist and pulled her back as she attempted to push me again. I stood there stunned as she struggled to get out of Jayden’s arms, and realized I had never seen Lexi so angry.

“How could you think that about me?
You
are the one who let yourself get emotional with your sub.
You
are the one who took it outside the playroom.
You
are the one who hasn’t told your little boy toy that you tie Jayden up and fuck him.
You,
Ethan, not me!” She yelled. I was completely shocked.

She was absolutely right.

I had just accused her of everything that I had done myself.

Only she wasn’t the one that was guilty of it, I was.

“Okay, I’m going to take Lexi upstairs. Tomorrow we’re going to see that art exhibit that you and Lexi wanted to see. I’d put it off, but tomorrow is the last day it will be there,” Jayden said, still holding Lexi firmly against his chest. “The three of us are going together. We need to find some way to reconnect with each other. We have been so close for so long, I can’t stand the thought of losing that. Please. Then, we’ll have dinner, come home and open a bottle of wine and talk.
All of us. About everything.
”

“Lexi, I…“ I started, but she stopped me. When she looked up at me, the hurt in her eyes was staggering and I felt a sharp pang of guilt. It was my Lexi, my best friend, and I had hurt her. All she had done was comfort the boy because of a horrible trauma he’d had to live through and I raked her over the coals for it. She was such a good person and, yet again, I was the monster.
I
was the one who was taking advantage of everyone that I knew.
I
was selfish.