Bound (Hidden Pleasures, #4) (4 page)

But did love mean that she should let them abuse her?

Had she been abused?

It was all muddled up and confusing. When she awoke bound to the bed, and Gavin had stalked into the room then used her as he had...at the time she wanted to take his pain from him.

Now? All she felt was ragged. Like a whore who had been used and tossed aside.

Her chin shook and she clamped her jaws together.

I will not cry. I love him, both of them...but I cannot be taken that way.

A single tear escaped and slid over her cheek to the corner of her mouth. Salt exploded on her tongue.

Sliding across the sheets, she winced as she stood up. Walking was going to hurt. A tangled up dirty T-shirt caught her foot and damn near tripped her on her way to the bathroom. Gavin was right, Luis was a slob.

Dirty clothes littered the floor, his dresser was covered in old receipts and other assorted crap from his pockets, and a bowl with old cereal in it had been left on the bathroom counter.

Who ate cereal in the bathroom?

A single folded towel remained in the cabinet to the right of the shower stall. She cranked up the hot water and stood under the spray, lost in thought. The warmth of the liquid helped her feel better, cleaner, even though washing between her thighs was an exercise in dabbing at her sore flesh rather than rubbing it.

Cool air streamed into the stall as she had her head tipped back to rinse shampoo suds away, and she cracked her eyes open. Gavin stood at the door wearing a pair of sweat pants low on his hips.

Mmm...sexy. But if he thinks I’m going to invite him in here, he’s fucking crazy.

“Hi.” Uncertainty clouded his eyes and he winced when she turned to present her back to him and peeked over her shoulder.

“Hi.” Anger rose from her belly and she frowned at him. Nothing made sense to her today. Everything she’d thought she understood the day before was gone.

“I brought you some clothes.” He stubbed his toe on the tile floor.

Like a little boy ashamed of what he’s done.

She took note of the folded T-shirt and pants on the counter. “Thanks.”

“Look...I know what I did was wrong. So totally...I fucked up bad.” The overhead lights lit the blonde streaks in his hair to a strange golden yellow and he rubbed his palm over his stubble.

“You think so? I didn’t try to stop you, but I should have.” Shame over her own behavior clouded up the angry pain and she shook her head. “But I’m not sure I trust you anymore. This whole thing between us...it only works if I can trust you. And I don’t think I can now. I’m not here to be your rage fuck when you’ve had a bad day.”

“I know. I...can we talk when you get out of the shower? The three of us?” The hope and bared fear in his face, the way he almost hugged himself as he waited for her answer cracked through the wall she was trying to erect against him.

“Okay.” She grabbed conditioner off the shelf and put a generous amount on her hair. “All three of us.”

“We’ll be in the kitchen. I’ll make something to eat.”

The door snicked shut, but she heard him over the water.

“I love you Ronnie.”

***

T
he hard wood was cold and unforgiving under the soles of Gavin’s feet. He descended the stairs like a man about to be thrown off a speeding train into an oubliette.

Without a doubt, he knew he’d single handedly fucked up his relationship...their relationship...with Ronnie.

Luis lounged in a chair at the table, his feet propped up on the one opposite him, pretending to read the paper. An untouched cup of coffee rested near his elbow. He’d gone to the club for a short time and handed off the responsibility for the night to Nate, his oldest and most trusted monitor. After checking on Ronnie, he’d come into the kitchen and sat waiting for her to wake up.

Gavin had a feeling that Luis was gearing up for a monumental lecture about how bad he’d fucked up.

I hate this crap. Waiting on him to kick the shit outta me.

“Let’s hear it. Lay it out for me.” He yanked one of the free chairs out from the table and plopped down into it. “I know I fucked up royally.”

“More than just that. You abused her. That is not the way a Dom behaves.” Luis fixed a dark eyed furious glare on him and he wanted to crawl under a rock and die. “She accepted what you gave her, because she has a soft heart and she loves you. But I am deeply concerned about you. And her. Anyone else did that...I’d beat their face in.”

“I know.”

“You both must be supervised from now on. You cannot have sex alone. I won’t allow it, Gavin.” A
bang
resounded through the room and Gavin jerked in his chair. Luis had slammed his palm down on the table. “You’re going to therapy. You’re changing your phone number. And you will agree with whatever terms I set for your play with Ronnie.” Luis dropped his voice an octave. “I can’t trust you alone with her. I love you both too much to let you hurt her, or yourself.”

Years of memory stretched between them. Only Luis knew the secrets he carried, of the abuse he’d suffered at his mother’s hands. At the hands of her johns.

“How’d you know my mother called?” They hadn’t spoken about the incident, Luis had been largely silent since he’d come downstairs and discovered his best friend sitting at the table drinking coffee.

“Gavin. We’ve been friends for too many years to ask me such an inane question.”

Ronnie padded into the room, her wet hair slicked back from her forehead, her breasts jiggling beneath the shirt he’d given her. She looked beautiful, all fresh and rosy from her shower.

He offered her a smile he knew looked sickly and weak. She cocked her head to one side and smiled back, stopping a few feet away.

Luis got to his feet and offered her a chair.

“No thanks. I think I should be going.”

“No. You will sit. We need to talk first.” The Dom in Luis came to the forefront and she wilted a little under his stare, sinking to perch on the edge of the chair. She made a small pain sound in the back of her throat. “Gavin, go and get Ronnie some ibuprofen.”

Even he couldn’t withstand the force of Luis’s personality when his friend wanted to turn up the part of himself that demanded control and to protect the more submissive people around them.

When he returned with a glass of water and the pill bottle, Luis had Ronnie’s slender hands clasped in his and was bent at the waist toward her, talking in low tones. Luis raised her hands and kissed the backs of both.

“Gavin, come over here.”

I am such an asshole.

He reached the couple and stood, uncertain, and ashamed.

“Kneel next to Ronnie.”

Everything in him quailed at the order, resisted it. He didn’t kneel. He was a Dom, for fuck’s sake.

And then he saw Ronnie peek at him from under her lashes, and he knew if he didn’t do this, he’d lose her forever. She might still have sex with him, and play with him, maybe even be his friend.

But her love would change into something else, and she’d put him on a shelf or a box, where she’d put a dog that had bitten her. A dog she liked, but no longer trusted fully.

Luis rose to his feet, tugging Ronnie up with him, and he met both their eyes before sinking to his knees. No way in hell he was lowering his head, but he could do this for her.

For all of them.

“From now on, Ronnie, you are not allowed to play alone with Gavin. If you wish to have sex with him, and I am not there to supervise, it has to be at the club. Nate can be trusted to monitor you both.”

“But—” Her cheeks flamed red, her words cut off when Luis shook his head.

“You have a responsibility as a submissive to know you limits and use your safe word. You’re new to the lifestyle, and I think your love for Gavin clouded your judgment.” Luis turned his attention downward to Gavin. “And you, as the acting Dominant, have an even greater responsibility to care for your sub. Our sub. She should never have marks that last for more than a day or two. But what bothers me most of all is that you did not spank her because she enjoys the pain. You spanked her because of your anger. You were out of control and you abused her.”

“I know.” He dropped his head and stared at the floor. The pit of shame in his gut would swallow him whole. “I don’t—”

The pressure of slender fingers under his chin tipped his head back, and tears pricked his eyes. “Gavin. Shhh...Luis is right.” She closed the gap between them and wrapped her arms around him, cuddling him in close to her belly. “I was thinking about leaving here and never looking back. But I love you both too much to do that.”

“Gavin.
Hermano
. Promise me you will do as I ask.”

He looked at the both, the two people he loved the most in the world and nodded. “I promise. I’ll go to therapy. I’ll change my phone number. And I won’t play with Ronnie alone. Not even vanilla sex until you feel that it’s safe.” He took Ronnie’s hand and kissed her palm. “Someday, I’ll tell you about my...my mother. Can you wait until I’m ready?”

“Of course.” She dipped down and kissed him, an almost chaste press of her lips to his, but a wave of relief so powerful he trembled swept over him.

He surged to his feet and crushed her to his chest in a hug, picking her right up off the floor. “I thought for sure that you’d leave and never come back. I was prepared to sleep outside your door until you forgave me.”

High pitched giggling filled the room and she kissed his nose. “You’d make a very sexy doormat.”

Luis cleared his throat and they turned their heads. For the first time in his life, Gavin thought his ultra-confident and self-possessed friend looked very uncertain.

“Ronnie, Gavin and I bought you something. We were going to give them to you after dinner the other night, but we got distracted.”

Distracted with a whole lot of mind blowing sex.

He smirked and Ronnie crinkled her forehead. “What are you guys up to?”

“Come with me.” Luis left the room, and rather than put her on her feet to follow, he shifted his grip and carried Ronnie in his arms.

“I’m too heavy for this.” She wound her arms around his neck and shifted.

“No you’re not.” He knew now what Luis was going to get, and a thrill of anticipation flitted around, making his heart beat faster.

Luis met them in the living room, a long flat box in his hands. He lifted the lid and Ronnie gasped.

Resting on a black velvet lining were two slender emerald cuff bracelets. They’d also bought her a pair of fur lined leather ones for club play.

“Holy mother fucker.” She gasped and squirmed until he set her on her feet. “These are...wow...”

“We know that you aren’t ready for a collar, and frankly, neither are we.” Luis’s cheek creased on one side. That was the smile anyone rarely saw from his best friend. The relaxed, truly happy smile. Gavin wanted to kiss Ronnie all over again and worship at her feet for having brought the reaction out of Luis.

“They were sized to fit you perfectly.” Gavin ran his thumb over her lower lip and cradled her face with his palm. “We had Shea find out what size you needed.”

Luis took one cuff from the box and passed it to Gavin. He removed the remaining cuff and tossed the box across the room. They each held their remaining hand out, palm up.

“We will care for and love you, Ronnie. Let us give you this symbol of our commitment to you. Of our bond.”

Fucking Latino with all his smooth words.

Not to be outdone, Gavin cleared his throat to get her attention. “It’s also a symbol of all the orgasms you’re going to have.”

She snorted and began to laugh, Luis rolled his eyes and shook his head, but joined in her mirth.

She placed her wrists in their hands without hesitation, eyes big and round as they snapped the clasps closed.

Luis tugged her in close and took a deep long kiss from her, sliding one hand up the bottom of her shirt to cup her breast. When he released her, she looked drugged, her lips swollen and eyes glazed.

He had no idea how to follow that up, but scooping her off the ground seemed like a good place to start.

When they broke apart, neither one could breathe well.

“Let’s have some breakfast.” Luis petted her hair and strolled from the room.

“I hope you mean actual food and not pussy. Because I’m really not up for any sex right now.”

He carried her back to the kitchen, grateful for her weight in his arms. “I’ll make waffles. With whipped cream and strawberries.”

“Mmm...you know what—”

Luis met them with a stern, freezing glare. “No. No sex today. You need time to heal.”

A wicked gleam entered her eyes and she arched one red-orange brow up. “I didn’t say I wanted sex. I was thinking that maybe I’d have a more interesting use for the whipped cream...than my waffles.”

The crooked grin hitched his friend’s face up again and his own cock jerked to life in his pants. “Great, now I’m going to have a fucking hard-on the entire time we’re eating.”

“Oh, you poor baby.” She kissed his cheek and he knew she wanted down, so he set her on her feet.

Watching her perch on a chair and make kissy faces at Luis, contentment filled him.

He finally had a complete family.

Luis met his stare for a brief moment, and they had one of those instant connections that flashed between them sometimes, and Gavin knew his friend felt it too.

THE END

Overcome (Hidden Pleasures Book One)

A chance late night meeting in her hallway apartment leads Ronnie to multiple orgasms...and sexual partners.

Cuffed (Hidden Pleasures Book Two)

Gavin and Luis cuff Ronnie and hold her captive for a sex game she can’t possibly win...

Melt (Hidden Pleasures Book Three)

A dinner date where the food gets burned because Ronnie is the only thing on the menu Gavin and Luis want to eat.

K
itty Hunter is just a figment of your imagination...

She loves to write naughty, sexy, books that fulfill fantasies. The Hidden Pleasures collection will continue to follow various couples and all different sorts of kink.

Because sex is awesome.