Chapter Twenty
Ben catches me as I’m stepping out of my study. Rather than a walk-and-talk, I detour to his office to go over a few things and then head upstairs.
The kids have already started eating, and Chris is just sitting down with his plate. He likes to cook dinner for and with them as much as possible, to have them help him cook, a family bonding ritual I wish I could take part in more often.
Kev often does, when he’s here.
“You just missed Leo,” Ivy tells me.
“I saw him downstairs and told him to come say hi.” I fake a smile and slide into a chair. “Homework all done?”
“Shae, take my plate, hon,” Chris says, starting to stand. “I’ll make myself another one.”
I stay him with a hand. He’s not pulling Sir bullshit on me right now. “No, I’m good. Just sit and eat. I’ll need to run back downstairs in a little while anyway. I have some calls to make.”
I get the kids talking about homework, and stuff they did at school today, and even though it’s still months away I get them thinking about their motherfucking Christmas lists to Santa, because yes, I’m that tricky. I bring up how they’re going to get to help pick out the Christmas tree for the residence, and decorate it, and all sorts of fun we’re going to have.
Anything to keep a conversation going so Chris doesn’t have an easy way to box me in.
We’re already getting their passports arranged so we can take them to England with us at the end of November. I have to attend a summit in London, and Chris is going to take them and their grandparents sightseeing.
Chris maintains his arched eyebrow so long I’m pretty sure he’s going to get a forehead cramp.
Once dinner ends, I move to stand when the kids get up to take their plates into the kitchen, but Chris points at me and makes a motion I know damn well. One Kev’s used on me countless times.
Stay.
Fuck that noise.
I’m meeting his gaze as I stand, shoving my chair back a little harder than I intended, and then I turn and leave the dining room.
He’s not my Sir.
I mean, he is, but he’s not.
Not the one I need right now.
Not the one I need because I feel like I’m letting him down by not being there for him.
Leo’s “empty well” comment comes to mind.
Chris will stay upstairs with the kids now because Yasmine has left for the day. I mean, sure, he could tag in one of the Secret Service agents, since we’ve requested at least two female agents be on duty at all times when the kids are home, just in case we need them for the girls for some reason if I’m not there, but he’s a good dad.
He’s a far better dad than I am a mom, that’s for damn sure.
I feel…broken.
I’m alone downstairs in my study and on a call with a diplomat in Japan a little before midnight when one of the agents appears in my study doorway.
My heart pounding, I ask the diplomat to hold on and instead of muting the call I go old-school and cover the mouthpiece with my hand. “Yes?”
He looks…uncomfortable. “Mr. Bruunt asked me to tell you he’s going out, and that he requested one of the agents stay upstairs with the children until you return.”
Shit. “Where’d he go?”
“He didn’t tell me that, ma’am.”
Goddammit.
There’s only one place he would be going this time of night that was so important he couldn’t tell me first, and I’m enraged I’m not going with him.
I finish my call with the diplomat and hurry upstairs to check on the kids and dismiss the female agent. Then I call Chris on his personal cell, and it goes to voice mail after five rings.
Goddammit!
I storm into our bedroom just to see the screen go dark on his personal cell, where it’s sitting on the charger on his dresser.
Of fucking course.
His work phone is there, too.
I know I could literally order his detail to turn around and bring him back right fucking now, but if I do that, it’ll cause even more problems. The situation’s bad enough.
Adding a headline like PRESIDENT SAMUELS PITCHES WORLD-CLASS TEMPER TANTRUM IN MARITAL SPAT wouldn’t be helpful in any known universe.
I go take a shower, where I slide to the floor, sobbing, wishing I didn’t feel so motherfucking.
Goddamned.
Helpless.
* * * *
It’s almost four a.m. when the bedroom door opens. Chris slips into the bedroom and heads toward the bathroom.
“How is he?”
He stops and turns toward the bed. “Bad.”
I sit up without switching on the light. “Why didn’t you tell me you were going?”
“If you hadn’t bratted on me after dinner—”
“Whoa. I didn’t brat—”
“Shae.” Something raw and wounded and ragged in his tone pulls me up short. “I can’t do this, baby. Not right now. I just can’t. I can’t be me and be Sir to you. I’m sorry. Kev needs me right now, and the kids, and everything else we have going on. I’m sorry I’m not him.”
I’m wearing one of Kev’s T-shirts that he’d left here last week and smells like him. I climb out of bed and walk over to him. He’s wearing jeans and a black tee and smells like—
Lube.
I guess I snapped? Next thing I know, I’m facedown over the edge of the bed and getting my bare ass spanked and my face shoved into the mattress with his other hand on the back of my head.
Not a fun-time spanking, either.
Like the sadist is well and truly back in the house at this moment.
He fists my hair and holds me down with it as he kicks my feet apart and steps between my thighs..
How twisted am I that I know I’m wet right now? That despite the serious fucking spanking he just gave me, I’m…
Really fucking wet.
“This what you wanted, girl?” he hoarsely breathes in my ear, “Because it’s what you’re getting. It’s all I got in me right now.” I feel him fumbling with his belt with his other hand, and I don’t know what fucking prompts me to say it, because yeah, this is what I wanted, actually.
“Red.”
The fist in my hair tightens. I feel his breath against my cheek. “If you really fucking mean it, Shae, say it again. Otherwise, keep your goddamned mouth shut unless I’m shoving my cock into it.”
My heart races, but I can’t make myself say it. This truly is my sadist.
He’s back.
Damn, I’ve missed him.
“That’s what I fucking thought, girl.” His cock slams home inside me and in three thrusts I’m impossibly coming, moaning, my goddamned toes fucking curling as he rides me like he stole me.
The hand stays in my hair and he tightens his grip as he finds his groove, a rhythm meant for his pleasure, not mine. This is an old chapter of our story we haven’t revisited in quite a while, a dynamic we had before we added Kevin to the mix.
When Kev returned to his life, the sadist shifted to a more subdued, ritualized pattern. Still quite the sadist, but…predictable.
My sadist had been wild and felonious and unpredictable and the good kind of scary.
This kind of scary.
He doesn’t bother trying to get me off again, not that he was trying to finish me off in the first place. That was totally coincidental. He comes deep inside me with one last, haggard grunt and takes maybe two breaths before he’s pulled out and stalking toward the bathroom.
Leaving me lying there and trying to catch my breath with the delicious echoes of the pain in my ass, and in my scalp where he’d had a damned tight grip on me.
I hear the shower start in the bathroom.
It takes me a minute, but I drag myself upright and follow him.
By the time I make it there, he’s standing under the spray, his forehead pressed against the wall, eyes closed.
None of this feels…right.
Not a damn bit of it.
My delicious fear has already fled, because I know my sadist is gone already, and this man is Christopher, Special Agent Bruunt.
The First Spouse.
A dad.
Not Priest, not even Sir.
I strip off the T-shirt and step in to join him. That’s when I see fresh scratches on his back that I didn’t put there, more on his ass, the kind of scratches the boy leaves on his Sir’s body when the sex between them is raw and powerful and downright scary, and so very breathtakingly beautiful to watch as a result.
The full-on first-round version of what I just got.
I make him turn to face me, and find a love bite on his left pec.
I slip my arms around him and kiss the spot, closing my eyes and willing my love and energy into Kevin through it, a briefly tangible connection between us.
Chris draws in a shaky breath before his arms close around me and he leans against the wall again, this time with me cradled against him.
“Please bring him back here,” I say. “Go get him before it gets much later. Right now. No one will see him.”
“He won’t come, honey. He needs some time.”
I picture him in Chris’ arms, his face a rictus of pleasure as Chris fucks him. Biting down to stay quiet because the agents next door would absolutely hear them. Maybe even biting down because Chris had cupped the back of his head and pressed Kev’s mouth there for just that reason.
“Why won’t he let me take care of him?” I ask.
“Because he doesn’t know how not to take care of you, sweetheart. He’s my good boy and when he shifted into that dynamic with you, it permanently shifted something inside him. He has to let go for a while and feel his grief. He knows if he comes back it’s too easy for him to flip into self-medicating with work and with you. That’s not what he needs right now.”
“I hate that he’s alone.”
He nuzzles my head. “I’m going back tonight. Secret Service will move the cordon farther out today to keep spectators away. It should solve that problem. They’re going to take me in right after dark. Plus, it’s supposed to rain, so that’ll help. If the area is clear earlier, I’ll go over earlier. They’ll keep me posted. Kev asked me not to come if there are a lot of people around.”
“Give him something for me, huh?”
“What?”
I rise up on my toes and slowly kiss him, the way Kev’s kissed me so many times now, differently than how the sadist kisses, even different than how Chris kisses.
I channel Kev and every kiss he’s ever given me. I think about my Sir and how he quiets my mind. I think about his gentle energy, his strength, how he calms and focuses me.
How he loves me.
And I do love Kev. I love Chris, and I love Kev, and I’m in love with both of therm.
It terrifies me.
My Priest, and my Prophet.
It truly terrifies me because they’re secrets, and I already know how that ends, if someone’s not careful.
I think of how they’re weaknesses someone could break me with if we’re not perfect in our steps.
I kiss him and think about Kevin and optics, about my Sir and his careful mind.
I think about what we’ve built and how it’d be a waste to throw it all away just because I can’t stand the thought of someone else being there for Kev when I want it to be me.
I stand on my own feet, because I need to. To do anything else is an insult to Lauren’s memory and how hard she worked for me. It’s an insult to Kevin’s grief.
I’m better than this.
I end the kiss with my nose nuzzling his. “Give him that for me, Sir,” I whisper. “Please? Just like that?”
“I will, baby. I promise. Did you ever eat?”
“I’m fine,” I lie, which also helps me dodge the question. “Make sure to take care of him.”
He sighs, and I’m sure he knows what I just did, but he doesn’t call me on it. We’re both too tired. “I will, sweetie.”
We get out of the shower and dry off. Then he sets the alarm and we curl up together in bed for a brief nap before we have to start our day and get the kids to school.
It’s going to be a long damn day.