Bound Temptations: Stories of Temptation and Submission (19 page)

Then he shoved to his feet
and grabbed his beer, moving away from the couch.

“
What’s this favor you want,
Tania?” He turned away from her and drained his beer.

She was quiet for so long,
he wondered if he’d scared her, angered her.

But she was just waiting for
him to look at her, he guessed, because as soon as he turned back
around, she said, “Did you know Kyle had told his brother about…”
She swallowed and took a deep, nervous breath before she finished.
“He told him about our sex lives.”

“
He
what
?” Drake stared at
her. Pieces fell into place, forming a picture. A
horrifying
picture.

Yeah, Drake liked rough
games. But they were games and he never went any rougher than his
partner liked. He had his own limits, too. Anything that went more
than rough play or a little discomfort was over the line for
him—yeah, some people got off on that, but he wasn’t one of
them.

But Drake
knew things about Kent—things Kyle had
known
but hadn’t wanted to admit. Kent
didn’t just like rough games—he liked hurting people. A lot. The
one calming influence in his life had been Kyle.

Tania stared at him, her
eyes full of shadows and misery. “He told him. The morning Kent
broke in, he…”

Crossing the floor, he sat
on the coffee table and caught her hands. They were cold, shaking.
“You don’t have to tell me this. I can piece it together,
baby.”

“
Ever
since that day, it’s like he broke something inside me, damn it,”
she said, her voice trembling. There was misery in her eyes, but
fury as well. “Ever since that day, a part of
me
is missing.”

Drake smoothed her hair back
from her face, brushed away a tear.

She closed
her eyes, took a deep breath. “He stole it, a piece of me. I hate
it. I hate that I can’t even think about my husband without
remembering what his brother did to me. I can’t even have a fantasy
sex life now because what I
liked
was what he ruined—he told me the same things that
I used to love hearing from Kyle when we were messing around, but
it wasn’t a
game
with Kent. I begged for him to stop, told him I didn’t want
it. I
meant
it and
he wouldn’t
stop
!”

She was crying now, crying
and shouting.

It broke his
heart.

He reached for her and
pulled her against him. “Shhh. I know. Shhh…”

Damn it, if she hadn’t
already killed Kent, he would have done it in that
moment.

“
Why did
he do that? Why did Kyle tell him, and why did that bastard think
he could do that to me? I didn’t
want
him!”

Stroking a hand down her
back, Drake stared off into the distance. “Kent was always a little
fucked up, Tania. Ever since we were kids.” Shit, that was only
touching on part of it, but Drake didn’t know if it would help her
or hurt her to know all of it. Pressing a kiss to her brow, he
said, “Kyle helped steady him, but with his brother gone, I guess
Kent lost it.”

“
He broke me—somewhere
inside, I feel broken.”

“
No.” Drake eased back,
cupped her face in his hands. Looking into dark, damp eyes, he
repeated, “No. You’re not broken. He hurt you, but you’re only
broken if you let him win.”

“
But
I am
. I
can’t even be me, because those memories win out. I can’t even want
what I
want
,
because of him. I can’t think about Kyle without remembering him—I
can’t look at my damn wedding pictures without remembering. That’s
letting
him
win. He
has that piece of me, and until I take it back,
he wins
, and I’m
tired
it.”

Abruptly,
she stopped—she closed her eyes and took a deep, slow breath. “I’m
tired of it. I’m so damn tired of it and I’m
done.
It stops. I’m taking my life
back, my memories, all of it.” She opened her eyes and looked at
him. “That’s why I asked you over.”

Oh,
hell
.

And he knew. Now he knew.
That inkling he’d had was more right than he’d guessed.

She wasn’t wanting just
training wheels.

“
I need my life back. I need
my fantasies back. But I need to do it with somebody I can trust.
And I can’t think of anybody I can trust more than you.”

Fuck
.

Drake stroked a thumb over
her damp, soft mouth.

Training wheels. Teddy bear.
Band-Aid. Basically, that’s what he was going to be. Oh, and a fuck
toy.

He leaned in and pressed his
brow to hers. “You sure about this, Tania?”

In response, she angled her
head and kissed him. When she pulled back, she whispered, “Yes. I’m
sure.”

“
Okay. When?”

“
Tonight. At least…I want to
try. Maybe just not all-out sex. Hell, for all I know I won’t even
be able to get far before I freak out, but I’m tired of waiting for
things to fade—I’m not waiting anymore.”

With a pained glance, he
pulled away. “I wasn’t exactly prepared for something like this. I
don’t have anything with me…”

Tania shrugged. “I do. And
I’ll be honest. I don’t think I’m going to be up to having sex
tonight.” With a weak smile, she said, “We might make it to third
base before I freak out.”

“
Third base.” He chuckled.
“Well, I don’t think I’ve done any hot and heavy necking in a long
time. Might be fun.” He skimmed his hands down her back. “I think I
want another beer. You want any more wine?”

“
Yeah. I think I
do.”

He took a few minutes longer
than he needed, letting his blood cool, forcing himself to
think.

He was
about to go out there and engage in sexual antics with the woman of
his dreams…but not because she had any sort of romantic feelings
for him. It was because she
trusted
him.

Shit
.

Back in the living room, he
gave her the wine and sat down with his beer. “Before we do
anything, we need to talk.”

“
Do we have to?” She
scowled, staring into the wine.

He laughed. “Yeah.
Considering that I don’t want to screw this up, we probably
should.” He reached up, brushed a strand of her golden brown hair
back behind one ear. “If we were just going to have some quick
anonymous sex, no strings, no baggage, it would be one thing. But
we aren’t anonymous, there is baggage…and what we’re going to be
doing isn’t just typical sex. Is it?”

She slid him a look from the
corner of her eye.

“
You want to make this
complicated,” she muttered.

“
It
is
complicated, to an
extent.” He took the wine from her, set it on the table next to his
beer. Then he caught her hand, tugged. “Come
here.”

She nibbled on her lower lip
and then eased across the couch.

Not good enough. He pulled
her into his lap, her back against his front. “You smell good.
You’ve always smelled so good,” he said absently, stroking a hand
up and down one thigh. “I don’t think I ever mentioned that it
drives me nuts.”

She was tense.

“
Am I making you
nervous?”

“
I don’t know. A little.”
She rested her hands on his thighs. “But it…well, it feels good.
You feel good.”

“
So do you.” He wanted to
tug that short little skirt higher but he didn’t, not yet. “I think
you should tell me what happened two years ago.”

She went rigid. He heard her
swallow and he braced himself for her to bolt off his lap.
“Why?”

“
Because whatever he did, if
I do it, it will trigger some bad memories, I bet. I don’t want
that.” Then he stroked a hand down her hair, brushed it aside to
bare her nape. “And…while I could be wrong, but I don’t think I am,
I suspect you haven’t ever told anybody what really happened. At
least not all of it. Have you?”

She
shuddered. Then she shook her head. “No.” She turned her head away,
dipping it low so that her hair hid her from him. “You know what
some people will think about…what I liked. Hell, they say it about
women who
don’t
have a taste for rough sex. If they’d known I had a thing for
kinky sex, that Kyle and I used to have all these role-playing
things where he pretended to rape me, where I’d beg him to hurt me,
where I’d beg him not to touch me even as I was burning up for
him…”

“
You were worried they
wouldn’t have believed you about Kent.” He blew out a
breath.

“
Yeah.”

He lowered his head, pressed
his brow to her shoulder. “I’m so sorry, baby.”

“
It was early. Almost three
in the morning. Can you hand me my wine?”

He reached for the glass but
when he pushed it into her hand, she was trembling so hard, she
could barely hold it. “Here,” he murmured, shifting her in his lap
and turning her so that he covered one of her hands with his,
steadying her as she lifted the glass.

She took a deep, deep drink,
then lowered it. Her brown eyes stared off into the distance,
seeing nothing—nothing but her memories, he suspected.

“
I was
sleeping. I can’t remember what woke me…I guess I heard something.
There was a shadow in the door. At first, I thought I was
dreaming—it was so like Kyle. There had been a few times when we’d
done that sort of thing. He’d wait until I was asleep and… Anyway.
Then I thought maybe the past year had been a nightmare and Kyle
wasn’t really dead, because he looked so
familiar
.”

“
But then he touched me, and
I knew. Even when Kyle was being his roughest, there was a care
there. He always made sure he never really hurt me. And that was
the first thing Kent did.”

She reached up, touched her
cheek. “I screamed and he covered my mouth, squeezed so hard I
thought he’d break my jaw. Then he laughed and said, ‘This is going
to be fun. I’m going to take my hand away in a second, just so you
can beg me, bitch. We know you like it this way, right?’ He let go
and I screamed, told him to leave me alone, asked him what he was
doing. He slapped me. In the face. I…I don’t like being hit.
Spanked, that’s one thing, but he hit me. Laughed. Told me that I
was going to beg for his cock, the way I’d always begged for
Kyle’s. I told him no, that I didn’t want him like
that.”

She was crying. Silent tears
that ran down her face. “He covered my mouth and told me not to be
so loud—somebody would hear, they wouldn’t understand. When I
wouldn’t shut up, he ripped my panties off, shoved them in my
mouth. Then he held my hands over my head and raped me. He tried to
get me to touch myself a few times, but every time he let go of my
hands, I fought him, hit him. Once I got him in the throat and…”
She stopped, paused. She closed her eyes and then blew out a
breath. “I think he realized then that I wasn’t exactly on board.
And he didn’t care. Hell, I think it excited him even more. He
finished fast. Climbed off the bed and walked over to turn on the
lights. While he was walking over there, I grabbed the gun out of
the bedside table. While he was talking over there, he said
something like… ‘No wonder Kyle was so into fucking you. We’ll
clean you up. Do it again, and this time, you’ll do some of that
shit you did with him.’ Then he turned around. He saw the gun and
he laughed. ‘That’s a new one.’ I told him to leave, and he just
smiled and started back over toward me. I shot him.”

She rubbed
the heel of her hand over her chest. “The cops showed up about two
minutes later. One of my neighbors
had
heard me screaming and somebody
else reported the gunshot. They took one look at me and knew what
had happened.”

Drake knew the rest. It was
all documented in an official report. She’d been questioned, but
anybody who looked at her that day could see how she’d been
brutalized. He’d visited her in the hospital, he’d stood guard
outside her door for hours. Once they’d let him in, he’d sat at her
side throughout the night, holding her hand.

Each bruise he’d seen, each
mark, they were like scars he’d carry on his heart
forever.

Knowing the words were
useless, he said them anyway, “I’m so sorry, Tawny.”

“
Tawny…” She smiled. “I like
that.”

“
Are you sure you want…?
Damn it, after what he did, maybe this just isn’t your thing
anymore.”

She shook
her head. “No. I’ve spent the past two years thinking that.
Thinking
just
that.
I’ve done counseling, I’ve tried nice, friendly
safe
men—they touch me and it’s just
as bad. I’ve tried to give myself time. But I’m still lost, and
I’ll stay lost until I find the pieces of me that he took, until I
take those pieces back. I’m not letting him win.”