If Liam hadn’t felt exactly sober ten minutes ago, he did now. Work with Hammer to heal Raine? After a month of arguing, it boggled the mind, really. Hammer had been part of the problem for so bloody long, crushing her fragile spirit with his indifference, then dragging her to his bed and fucking her within an inch of her life. Liam didn’t see this working.
But nothing else he’d tried had helped, either. Though he hated to admit it, no one knew her background, habits, and tendencies better than Hammer. After nearly a month with Raine as her Dom and her lover, Liam knew her better sexually, maybe even emotionally in some ways. More importantly, together they knew her inside and out. And they probably needed every bit of knowledge to reach her because he feared Seth had a point that a heart divided couldn’t heal without both parts.
Beck and Seth’s conversation drifted through the bar, becoming more faint as they headed out of the room. The meddling fucks had left him alone with Hammer. Seth, the last of his good friends, had thrown him to the enemy. Or it felt that way. He sighed.
“They’re right,” Hammer said into the solemn silence.
“About what?”
“Everything. She only wants a Domme because we’re too stubborn to get along.”
Yes. Because Raine wanted them to be friends again, she had given up on the sort of Dom she needed. It was his duty to put her needs first.
Fuck.
“Our bickering has torn her apart,” Liam conceded.
“Yep.” Hammer tapped the rim of his coffee cup. “All we’ve done is put her between us in all the wrong ways and made her life difficult.”
“I don’t like this idea.”
“I don’t, either,” Macen agreed. “The other thing to consider is, if we don’t offer her a choice between us and a Domme, we’re not being fair. And she might dig in her heels.”
“A choice? Who could we bloody offer to give her to? And what if Raine picks that option?”
“It’s a chance we have to take,” Hammer pointed out. “She’ll only do the work with us if she chooses to. Seth says that’s what she wants…and I believe he’s right.”
“Finally! First smart thing you’ve said all night,” Beck called back, peeking around the corner with a grin.
“Fuck off!” he and Hammer both shouted in unison.
Liam waited until Beck disappeared again, then turned back to Hammer. “I don’t suppose helping her together could be any worse than what we’ve already done to her separately.”
“Well, I don’t know about that.” Hammer sighed heavily.
Juliet. Of course that tragedy would plague Macen’s thoughts. It had for over eight years. “I think I do. She loves us both, according to Seth, but is eaten up with guilt. If we took that off her shoulders and focused on her…”
Nodding, Hammer stared into his coffee. “At least she wouldn’t have to worry about us anymore.”
Liam couldn’t dispute that. Still, Hammer had been twenty kinds of asshole over the past month. He knew why now…but that didn’t make this idea more palatable. His old friend could be a damn good Dom, but Hammer had never been a demonstrative partner with his wife. Sexually, yes. Where his heart was concerned? Liam couldn’t remember more than a handful of occasions when the man had told Juliet that he loved her. Raine needed those words. She needed a man who would both show her and tell her how he felt. When Hammer didn’t, she would likely distance herself from him.
And Liam would have her all to himself again—the way it should be.
He smiled, rather liking that plan.
Of course, they had to fulfill her needs and heal her first.
“I can’t disagree.” Liam nodded the other man’s way. “Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that we intended to work on helping her together.”
Hammer leveled him a stare. “All right. Let’s do that.”
“What do you think are her most pressing issues? We can’t overwhelm her too quickly with too much. If you had to pick a few of her worst habits to focus on, tell me what you’d choose.”
“I’m sure you have ideas, too. But one thing I know—that we’ve just seen in the past few days—is the way she retreats into her head. She doesn’t share what she’s thinking. If we’d known, I wouldn’t have had to pry from her how late her period was. You would have known about her migraines. I don’t think she would have ever left home if she’d been able to talk through her problems with one or both of us.”
“I agree. Raine not only has difficulty saying how she feels, she’s not always honest. She’s given me a lot of half-truths. She’s quite good at telling me what she thinks I want to hear.”
“Or what will keep her ass out of trouble.”
Liam sent him a reluctant grin. “She’s good at that, as well.”
“That has to stop,” Hammer insisted.
“It does. One of her biggest problems has been that she can’t purge her hurt, share her fears, or tell me what she bloody wants. I’ve been trying to drag it out of her and guess along the way. Raine is afraid I’m going to tell her that she’s too much trouble or something.”
“She’s also afraid to be too vulnerable with anyone, and it didn’t help that I turned her away the one time she worked up the courage to be honest about her feelings.”
No, it hadn’t fucking helped at all, but taking out his irritation on Hammer now, while satisfying, would be pointless.
“So we’re agreed?” Liam asked. “Communication and honesty. But I think there’s more.”
“No question. Raine has other issues.”
“The biggest must be trust.” Liam hated to say it, worried that Hammer would see it as an indication of the weakness in his relationship with her. “You may not agree.” The other man probably didn’t have half the problem with earning Raine’s trust since she’d been there for six years. But after barely a handful of weeks with her, Liam was struggling to catch up. “But I know it’s true.”
Hammer didn’t hesitate. He simply nodded. “I think she probably trusts me more than about anyone, but there are chunks of her past and her feelings that she still won’t share. I’ve asked, pressed, insisted, demanded, threatened. Nothing.”
That made sense. All the way until her last moment as his submissive, Raine had never trusted that he meant to stay. To hear that she lacked trust in everyone, even Hammer, set him back on his heels.
“Do you think she’s really ready for this?” Liam asked.
“Yeah. I could hear it in her voice.”
Liam shrugged. “I’ve heard that before. Her resolve doesn’t always last. The minute she gets scared…”
“We won’t let her falter or hide.”
“We can’t, I know. But what if she quits on us?” Liam hated to voice the question, but that possibility was too real to ignore.
“That’s another chance we take. We’ll have to monitor her constantly.”
“True.” He looked Hammer’s way to find the man staring back at him.
“So we’re on the same page. Communication, honesty, and trust?” Macen asked.
“If I had to pick three, yes. I think they feed into most other issues she’s struggling with.”
“Absolutely.”
And hadn’t that agreement come easily? They’d never quarreled as fiercely as they had since Liam had taken Raine for his own. But now? It felt like old times…but better.
Liam stood and paced from one end of the room to the other. Why was that?
“Would you sit down?” Hammer complained.
“I’m thinking.” He traveled the length of the bar a few more times. “You know, we never talked about what Juliet needed this way.”
“You hadn’t been with Juliet as long as I had.”
“I haven’t been with Raine as long as you, either.”
Hammer shrugged. “You were young, still in your early twenties and having fun.”
“Give me a break, Hammer. I’m only five years younger. And I wasn’t immature or stupid.”
“No, you weren’t. I guess…I didn’t want to burden you.”
“I didn’t want to step on your toes.”
“I thought I had it all under control,” Hammer admitted. “I probably would have resented your suggestions at the time. Besides, I knew you didn’t love her.”
He’d enjoyed her, sure. And he would never have told Juliet that truth. Her spirit had been too breakable to hear it. He’d wondered now and again if she’d known and that was part of the reason she’d committed suicide.
“I still wanted to give her something she needed,” Liam said. “I just didn’t know what that was.”
“In retrospect…” Hammer sighed heavily. “Neither did I. If I had, she would never have chosen the silent way out.”
“But Raine isn’t Juliet. Granted, she may have one or two issues, but surely, if we put our shit aside for a bit and do what we should, they’re nothing too difficult to handle.”
“The question is, can we put our shit aside?” Hammer asked with brutal honesty. “We haven’t done a good job of that for a while.”
Liam couldn’t disagree. If someone would have told him on his flight from New York to Los Angeles that he and his best friend would soon be at one another’s throats, he would have laughed himself silly. Looking back over the past month, they’d said—and done—things to hurt the other. He regretted the sad state their friendship had fallen into. Hammer must also or else the man would have simply ceased speaking to him altogether.
“We’ve been friends for much longer than we’ve been enemies.”
“And we’ve shared before.” Hammer let out a tight breath. “We know some of the warning signs to watch for.”
“True. If we’re at all serious about this, we have to negotiate a few things.”
“We’ll definitely talk to Raine about our intentions, ask her for her hard limits and whatnot. But I don’t want to give her too much up front. The less she knows, the less she can prepare ways to sidestep us.”
“Can’t argue with that. And I already know Raine’s hard limits. I asked her before I collared her. But that’s not what I meant. You and I need to negotiate our behavior.”
“For instance?” Hammer’s voice turned chilly.
Liam refused to let the man’s tone change his agenda. “First off, we can’t help Raine if we start fighting in the middle of a scene.”
“At this point, I think that would be the worst thing for her.”
“Right. I also think you and I should have a word or phrase that will pause everything so we can discuss whatever’s happening.”
“A safe word?”
“Something like that, yeah.” Liam nodded. “I still find Raine’s hidden triggers now and again. We have to be mindful.”
Hammer relaxed, seeming to see the train of his thoughts. “Yes. She’s probably a damn landmine. The night I spent with her, I thought about doing so many things that I didn’t because I worried I might step on some hot spot.” He gave a self-deprecating laugh. “I’ve known Raine for so long, but I don’t know this side of her. How does she do with restraints?”
“She loves them.” As Hammer reared back, Liam shrugged. “After seeing what her father did to her, I’m a bit blown over too. But she hates gags.”
“Does that surprise you?” Hammer laughed.
Liam joined in. “Not much. If you let her, she’ll try to tell you what she wants in a scene. Of course she sometimes talks herself out of a panic, too. You don’t always know what you’ll get with Raine. She’s seemed leery of whips, so I haven’t given that a go. I think riding crops are a big ‘no’ for her, which is fine with me. She loves a good spanking.”
“Does she ever reach subspace?”
He nodded. “Surprisingly well, given her trust issues. It wasn’t easy at first, but over time, she’s become more comfortable.”
All this talk about Hammer partaking in her submission was making his guts churn. But if he was going to give Raine what she needed, he would have to grit his teeth and stifle his jealousy.
“Good to know.” Macen swallowed down more coffee. “How about if either of us says it’s time for a breath of fresh air, that will be our signal to pause and find another solution to the scene?”
“That will work.”
Hammer hesitated for a long moment. “You know, I think that’s a good idea. When we were with Juliet, I sometimes took her further than you thought I should have, right?” At Liam’s nod, he went on. “I wish like hell I’d asked your opinion and listened. She and I probably would have wound up divorced, but maybe she’d be alive.”
“You’ve got a hard head, Hammer. I don’t know that you’ll listen now, either.”
The man blew out a rough breath. “I’ve grown since then, but you’re right. I’ll do my best. Sometimes that dark side of me wants to take over. Having you to reel me in when that happens might be best. I don’t want to scare Raine or damage our progress with her.”
Since his old friend often seemed to think he knew best, that was a big admission for Hammer. It shocked the hell out of Liam—and made him look inward as well.
“I’ve been a bit too guilty of letting Raine have her way more than I should. I enjoy coddling her sometimes, and god knows she could use the tenderness. But she also needs firm guidance.”
“So I won’t let you shirk that. Got it.” Hammer smirked. “Look at us getting along and shit.”
“Don’t jinx it,” Liam scolded.
“What else?”
He paced the length of the room again. “We don’t know how long her progress will take.”
“It sure as hell won’t be overnight, but I’m willing to stick it out. What about you? If you had any intention of going back to New York after the winter, and she’s not ready…”
“I’m not leaving L.A. without Raine. I’d decided I was staying indefinitely, so I bought a house here. I’d planned to give her the key wrapped in a box the morning the shit hit the fan.”
Hammer stared, blinking. “You were planning to move her to this house?”
Liam squared his shoulders. “I was.”
“Holy shit.” Hammer sounded floored.
“Raine needs a steady home.”
Guilt flashed across Hammer’s face, and he raked a hand through his hair. “Goddamn it, I know.”
“You did the best you could at the time. Let’s not get off track. Raine won’t be moving on with her life at all if we can’t help her.”
“True,” Hammer agreed.
Another thought occurred to Liam, and he winced. “I also think it would be best if you were discreet with your other subs. I’m not suggesting you give them up, but it would help her if you hid them better than you did Marlie.”
Hammer cringed at her name. “Actually, I already gave them up.”
“Did that plastic whore give you a disease I don’t know about?” Liam sent him a sideways glance.
“No.” Hammer scoffed. “I haven’t scened with anyone in weeks. I haven’t fucked anyone since Raine. I don’t want to.”
That took Liam totally aback. Hammer loved sex, and he’d never imagined his friend would give it up, even temporarily.
“That’s bloody near a month, mate—a record for you. Your balls must be blue.”
“Yep, and my hand is damn tired of getting a workout. But no one else is Raine.”
As much as Liam wanted to, he couldn’t argue with that.
Hammer cocked his head and sent him a questioning glance. “Are we agreeing to do this? For her?”
Liam hated it, but saw almost no way around it. “I think it makes sense, but…” He scrubbed at his face. “Making it work is going to be…complicated.”
Because one topic could turn this truce back into a war.
Raine wasn’t his anymore—at least not technically. That meant Hammer was free to say or do anything to her, as long as she consented. Macen had already vowed to get her into bed the moment he could. Liam had few illusions. Raine loved the man. If she said “no” to him, it wouldn’t be for long.
“You mean, figuring out who gets to fuck her will be complicated,” Hammer drawled.
“Yes.” Liam spit the word. “But hell, after her speech today, maybe she won’t want either of us.”
“Don’t kid yourself, O’Neill. If she cares about us both, she’s going to want us. Maybe together…maybe apart. If she needs us, how can we refuse?”
Liam bit his tongue hard enough to taste copper as he fought to dial down a sudden red rage. The memories of Raine’s scent in his nose and her cries in his ears as he sank into the hot, soft depths of her body clawed need through him. But Hammer was right. If they wanted Raine to grow and be happy, they both had to do the right thing for her, even if it bloody killed them.
“All right,” he managed to choke out the words.
They stared at one another for a month of Sundays before Hammer cocked a brow at him and finally broke the silence. “Anything else?”
“To be clear, once we’re in a session, we have to be dedicated to it.”
“Yep. Whatever it takes.”
“No arguing.”
Hammer nodded. “No bullshit.”
“No putting your pride first.”
“No doing the same with your jealousy.”
Hell, Liam wanted to punch Hammer, but what was the point when he was right? “Fine. We present a united front to Raine. Whatever’s happened prior doesn’t make a damn bit of difference once we enter a room and begin to work with her. If we disagree, we do it calmly, rationally, and out of her earshot. Raine comes first.”
Hammer nodded. “We’ll make it work. We have to.”
“If we don’t want to leave her growth to someone else, yes. We come at her together. Strong. Focused.”
“Willing and able to give her what she needs—no matter what that is. United in coaxing her into giving us what we need.”
“Agreed.” Liam hoped to hold Raine again, happier and more whole—and eventually all his. But after this conversation, he wasn’t so sure. If Hammer helped shape her today, where did that leave their tomorrow?
Hammer held out his hand. “I’m in.”
Liam could do nothing but shake it.
#
As much as the man inside Hammer disliked this idea, the Dom in him saw the logic. He’d utterly failed Raine for years. He couldn’t put his guilt above her needs and fail her again—even if sharing her with Liam would chafe him raw.
Getting his wife between him and his best friend used to make Hammer’s dick as hard as steel. The power of their bodies claiming her as one and driving her to screaming orgasms and exhaustion had been the headiest rush he’d ever experienced. Maybe he and Liam had too much animosity between them now for that. But any chance to fuck Raine again was a chance Hammer intended to take.
Still, one concern kept gnawing away at him.
“I’m not sure Raine understands how much work is ahead of her.”
Liam shrugged. “I’m not sure, either. I want to reach her more than I want to breathe. But neither of us can force her to grow faster than she’s ready to.”
“If she hasn’t thought this through and isn’t serious, we’ll find out real fast. But she’s strong enough.”
“And stubborn enough, that’s for damn sure.”
“That she is.” Hammer chuckled. “We’ll need to praise her for every speck of progress. Once she tastes success, we’ll have to hope it motivates her to keep growing.”
“She’ll need more than praise,” Liam said. “She’ll need reassurance, too.”
“Naturally.” Hammer nodded. “But the one thing in our favor is that she aches to please. We’ve both seen it.”
“Her submission can be bloody amazing. But she can shut it down so quickly, you get damn near dizzy.”
Hammer grunted in understanding. Drawing out the submissive inside Raine wouldn’t be simple. He was a demanding Master—and he knew it. Pushing a sub to her boundaries and beyond under his hand—and his body—had always given him a thrilling sense of control. If Raine were truly willing to cast aside her cloak of security, the freedom and beauty she found would blow her mind.
But taking a sub that far fed something dark in him. He always wanted more and more. The need to believe that he’d owned every part of Juliet and to make her prove it every way he could conceive had been their downfall. Maybe it was a blessing, after all, that he’d have Liam there to balance him. His old friend hadn’t loved Juliet, and he hadn’t thought of her as his responsibility, so he’d seen no reason to curb any of Hammer’s more extreme demands. But Liam would watch over Raine and protect her with every cell in his body.
With Liam added to the equation, however, the expectations on her would double. They’d have to remain vigilant, delving deep and bolstering her often, to keep Raine from crumbling beneath the strain.
“I’m worried that Raine’s lack of experience in sharing her feelings could leave her overwhelmed and frightened,” Hammer said finally.
“I think that’s why communication is so critical. It’s the first point we have to drive home with her. If she’ll just share, we can erase some of her fear.”
Yes, and Hammer knew that if he expected her to trust him, to communicate openly and honestly, he would need to do the same…no matter how uncomfortable it made him.
“Replacing old patterns with new ones will take time.” And he hated that for a million reasons, too. His own impatience. His concern that he and Liam couldn’t get along indefinitely. Mostly, he hated to see her so miserable and lost. Nor could he risk losing her. Granted, she wouldn’t take Juliet’s way out, but she’d proven that she would pick up and leave if driven to flee.
“It will,” Liam agreed. “One of the first patterns I want to break is her bloody bad habit of trying to misdirect with sex.”
Hammer heard Liam’s words, but he better fucking not have heard them right. “What did you say?”
“When I’m displeased with Raine, her first instinct is to lose her clothes and rub against me. I hate to admit how often I let her distract me before I realized what she’d done.” He rubbed at the back of his neck with a wry grin. “She’s really damn good at it, too.”
“Son of a bitch!” Hammer grabbed the mostly empty bottle of tequila from the bar and zinged it across the room. The violence of the shattering glass startled Liam—but it didn’t do a damn thing to improve his mood.
“Have you lost your bloody mind?” Liam stared at him like he’d grown a second head. “Or do you just like to break things?”
“Raine uses sex as a distraction? I heard that right?”
“Yes.” Liam frowned. “Calm down. We’ll deal with it and anything else she throws at us. She won’t be allowed to instigate.”
“Goddamn right she won’t be. That behavior will fucking stop. Immediately. The first time she tries, I’m going to put her over my knee and beat the hell out of her ass.”
“Why are you getting so bent over this? It’s not a major issue. We’re aware and we’ll deal with it. But your hot button isn’t her problem.”
Hammer jumped off his barstool. “It’s my problem, your problem, and her damn problem, too. That kind of distraction is just one of the ways Juliet hid from me. She avoided telling me how she felt about anything by sidetracking me on her knees. I was stupid and selfish enough to let her. By god, I won’t let Raine do that. Why do you think I push her so hard when I want an answer?”
“So we’ll be watchful.”
“If we’re not, she’ll slip through our fingers.”
Juliet had taught him a valuable lesson he couldn’t fail to heed. If he did, her death would mean nothing.
“So…we’ll begin tomorrow morning?” Hammer prodded. “We can clean out the liquor supply room and—”
“No.” Liam shook his head. “She’s too comfortable here.”
“You said that she returned to Shadows because she wanted to be in her element.”
“Because it would be easier on her, yes.” Liam sent him a weighty stare. “None of this should be easy.”
“You’re right. If it is, she won’t learn anything. Too many familiar people and places here to hide behind. We can’t have her dodging us instead of doing the work.”
“Precisely. I think we should drive her up to my lodge in the mountains.”
“Why not the house you bought?”
“I’ve got plumbing work and painting going on. We want to be alone with her, not surrounded by contractors. Besides, at the lodge there’ll be no taxis to shuttle her back to the city if she gets the urge to run away. And I’ve got the perfect room there to suit our needs.”
“Go on,” Hammer urged, seeing the benefit of keeping Raine off-balance.
“Though she’s been to the lodge before, the surroundings aren’t nearly as familiar to her.”
“She has?”
Liam sent him a sheepish grin. “It’s where I brought her when I took her from Shadows.”
So that’s where the son of a bitch had spirited her away after she’d spent that mind-blowing night in his bed? He’d wondered more than once.
“It’s quiet there?” Hammer asked.
“Very.”
“Secluded?”
“Extremely.” Liam smirked.
“Then it sounds ideal. We’ll talk to her early, then. If she chooses us, we’ll pack her up and head out at dawn, before the traffic gets bad. I’ll call a few trusted club members to see if they can watch the place for a few days. But before we do any of that, I think we should agree on exactly how we’ll get her to learn these three lessons.”
Liam flashed a mischievous smile. “Now you’re talking.”