Clifftop Fantasies [BDSM Menage Fantasies] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (24 page)

“You nearly sent me into shock,” he said, almost accusingly, but began to look a little friendlier now.

“Why? Who did you think it was?” Allie had a sudden image of Jane coming in and doing the same thing, and then a picture of herself questioning his coworkers to see how often Jane had visited. No, she really couldn’t let herself go there.

Brad colored a little. “Nobody. I mean, you just startled me.” They regarded each other for a second.

“Well,” Allie said finally, wishing she’d knocked first. This wasn’t going at all as she’d planned. “Do you want to go to lunch? I thought it would be good to discuss how you’re feeling about things today. I mean, a lot changed last night.”

“Yes, it did,” Brad agreed enigmatically. “Okay. Let me just shut this down and we can go.”

He turned back to his computer, and Allie stood up, hoisting her purse back onto her shoulder. But something on the screen caught her attention and she leaned forward just as Brad closed the site he’d been at.

“Were you looking up the club?” she asked him, understanding now why he’d been so freaked out to be snuck up on.

He flushed again but nodded, glancing around to make sure no one was approaching his door that might overhear. “With the kind of business the two of you are talking about, I thought I should find out more about the local community. And you’ve been there. I just wanted to see what it was like.”

She followed him out the door, trying to decide if there was anything about their exchange that should worry her. It seemed perfectly reasonable. If he’d gone to a leather club without her, she would have been tempted to Google it as well. So she couldn’t complain, she supposed. Maybe it was a good sign. Maybe it meant that he really was interested.

They asked for an outside table at the diner across the street from his office. The sun was still warm, but the ocean breeze was definitely turning cooler now that it was autumn. They sat next to each other, facing the sun and the door through which the servers were coming and going, so they could see anyone approaching their table.

When their drinks had been delivered and their orders taken, Allie turned to Brad. He had an uncomfortable expression, like he was trying to decide how to say something unpleasant. She felt a pang of disappointment. She’d been so happy about the new arrangement, but Brad definitely didn’t look like he was feeling the same way.

“So how are we supposed to be acting now?” he said, almost aggressively.

“What do you mean?”

“Should I still be calling you ‘my lady’ and…and letting you lead me around and stuff?” His face was a little red, whether from anger or embarrassment she couldn’t tell.

She frowned at him. “I wouldn’t. It might look kind of odd to other people, don’t you think?”

He relaxed a little. “I just don’t know where we’re at anymore,” he confessed. “What’s going on, Allie? Where is this stuff taking us?”

She took a sip of her iced tea, considering. “I guess it can take us wherever we want it to. But before we talk about the future of the business, let’s talk about last night. If we can’t make that work, none of the rest of it will, either.”

He nodded. “Okay. Last night. Did you enjoy yourself?”

The accusatory note was back. “Yes, I did,” Allie said, looking at him squarely. She had no reason to feel guilty, she told herself firmly. “Didn’t you?”

He hesitated. “Yes, I suppose I did,” he said finally. “But now I’m not really sure what to think about it. I don’t know where the playacting stops and real life begins again. I don’t know if you’re with me, or with him, or what. I don’t know how I feel about the fact that you fucked somebody else.”

Allie resisted the urge to point out that technically Karl had fucked her and not the other way around, but that didn’t seem like a useful argument to get into. Instead she said, “I think I’m with both of you now. I’m not going to apologize for last night. Everything was negotiated beforehand, and you were fully aware of what was happening. The question is can you handle it going forward?”

“Do I have a choice?” His voice was bitter.

“Of course you have a choice,” she said, trying to be as open and honest as possible. “I mean, I love you, and I don’t want to lose you. But this way of life really appeals to me, and I want to try it. I think Karl can be very helpful to us in running the business. So as I see it, we have a couple choices. If you want me to give up the business and Karl, then I’d say no and we would probably split up. If you want me to give up Karl and keep the business, well, we’d have to discuss that. It would be hard to cut off a relationship that’s so new and seems so promising. But the fact that I’m interested in Karl doesn’t mean that I’m not interested in you anymore.” She leaned toward him and laced her fingers into his. “I love you. I’m falling in love with Karl, too, but that doesn’t change my feelings for you. In fact, in some weird way, to me our connection is even stronger. I don’t want to have to choose between you. I don’t see any reason we can’t all be together. It’s different, I know, and most people probably won’t understand it, especially your family. But if you can accept it, I think it can work.”

He passed his free hand over his eyes. “I just keep picturing what my dad would say. Then I feel like I should hate both of you, even though I know you didn’t do anything behind my back. Did you?”

Allie shook her head in frustration. She’d wanted to ask him the same about Jane, so she supposed it was only reasonable, but the question still made her angry. “No. Have you?”

He stared mutely at her for a minute. “You’re the one who’s got a new lover. You can’t blame me for wondering.”

“If you think I’m the kind of person who’s going to sneak around on you, then what kind of relationship do we have?” she exploded.

“What kind of relationship do we have anyway, Allie?” Brad countered, speaking softly and earnestly. “What the hell are we doing?”

“I think we’re trying out a new paradigm,” she said, becoming calm. “There’s nothing to say we can’t go back to ‘normal’ if it doesn’t work out. But just because it’s something different doesn’t mean it can’t work or that it’s wrong. We’ve thought about it and discussed it and decided to give it a shot. It’s bound to be a little scary, but that’s no reason to give up on it so soon.”

Brad nodded. “I understand the concept, but it’s just so—out there. How do I deal with the thought that I shouldn’t be willing to share my girlfriend?”

Allie sat back. “I don’t know. I think we’re all going to have thoughts like that. I’m sure initially there will be things about this new lifestyle that are hard to understand and accept. I guess we’re at a point where we need to decide if we dump convention and figure out what’s best for us. Or not, and you go back to Kansas on your own.”

They sat in silence for a few seconds, contemplating that until their food came. Brad ate a few french fries, staring vacantly into the distance.

Finally he said, “Suppose we do throw away everything we’ve been taught about relationships. How does this ‘my lady’ stuff work?”

“I guess that’s up to us to decide,” Allie told him, picking up her Reuben. “I don’t think we need to be in character all the time. We will need to talk about when and how you want to be submissive to me and I want to be submissive to Karl. I personally don’t want to always have to act like we’re in a Shakespeare play, or learn to speak in Middle English or something. But you did seem to enjoy the role-playing last night, so maybe there’s a place for that. I do think we should listen to Karl’s advice about how to run the business, since he knows a lot more than we do about the lifestyle. But that doesn’t mean that you and I don’t have any say in things. We’re important, too.”

Brad nodded, considering it. “So you’re serious about turning the place into a kinky resort?”

She was startled. “Of course I’m serious about it.”

“And you think it’ll be successful?”

“I don’t know. I hope so. I think there’s a strong possibility. You’ve got to meet the people at the club. They’re much nicer and more down-to-earth than I would have expected. Karl—” Allie stopped herself. It probably wasn’t a good idea to keep raving about how much Karl knew and what a good resource he would be for them. Brad was already feeling threatened by his presence.

Brad was nodding a little glumly, as if he was thinking the same thing. “So was the sex with him better than the sex with me?”

“No, damn it. It’s not a competition. It was a completely different kind of situation,” she said, hoping she didn’t sound as annoyed by the question as she felt. “And I’m not going to compare, anyway.”

“You won’t be able to help but compare,” Brad said. “And I can’t hope to compete with someone who’s so ‘experienced.’ I just have the feeling that in the end we’ll split up anyway. What point is there in going through all of the hassle first?”

“Is that what you want?” Allie’s eyes narrowed. If he was trying to talk himself into leaving, she thought, maybe she should make it easy for him. Tell him she wanted Karl. Let him go running back to his precious family and their church. He could be the prodigal fucking son.

“I don’t know what I want.”

“You’re right you don’t know. Neither of us does. This is all new. You never wanted to make the hard decisions, and now we have somebody who can.” Allie gritted her teeth and tried to control her anger.

“So if you’re having sex with him, does that mean I’m free to have sex with other women?” The question jolted Allie. Not that she hadn’t been thinking about it, of course, but this was a blatant challenge.

She made an effort to control her desire to shout, “Not with Jane, no!” Instead she forced herself to speak calmly. “It’s something we can discuss, of course. But I didn’t have sex with Karl behind your back, and it won’t be acceptable for you to have sex with someone behind mine—ours. If there is someone you want to fuck, we’ll all need to sit down and discuss it, just like we all discussed adding Karl. It’s not a free-for-all. We’re not throwing out all consideration for each other’s feelings.”

“Well, what about my feelings?” Allie could see that Brad was allowing himself to get worked up again. His voice was clipped, and his eyebrows were drawn together. “Did you guys have sex again this morning?”

“If I’d known you were going to be such an ass, I’d have fucked him blind,” Allie spat out before she could stop herself. “But no. We wanted to make sure you were okay first. Poly isn’t about sex as much as it is about building relationships, and I don’t want to sacrifice our relationship for the sake of having sex with Karl. But I would like to spend some time with him learning about all of this, and that will include sex.”

“It’s just happening so fast,” Brad grumbled. “This just happened last night. Now I have to decide that either it’s fine for you to go and fuck him all you want, or we split up? Is that the choice?”

“Yes. That’s the choice.” Allie resisted the urge to throw her drink in his face. She didn’t want to stop now. She couldn’t stop now. How could Brad not have felt the completeness of their energy last night, like she had? To her, it was as if the piece that had been missing in their lives had finally clicked into place. He was as much a part of their newfound unit as she or Karl was, but if he couldn’t accept it, there would be nothing left. But she couldn’t just tell him that. It was important that he feel it himself. For now, they needed to focus on one decision—whether Brad could be comfortable with polyamory.

She waited until she could be sure her voice sounded calm and reasonable. “I don’t want your answer right now,” she said quietly but with a firm tone. “But soon. If we’re going to try this, we need to commit. I’m not going through this bullshit every time you have doubts. Jealousy is a real emotion and we’ll have to deal with it, but you have to make a choice. Either it’s all of us or none of us. I’ve made my decision, now you need to. Mine is for all of us. What’s yours going to be? I’ll expect your answer in a day or two.”

She stood up and walked out without another word. She didn’t look back.

Chapter 21

Allie drove home in a fog. She found Karl in the barn, as she’d expected. He was painting again, and again he pushed it toward the wall where she couldn’t see what he’d been working on.

“Hi,” Allie said, resisting the urge to run over and turn the easel around. But she felt shy now, especially since she would have to tell him that they couldn’t have sex this afternoon.

“Hi, yourself.” Karl came to her, wiping his hands on his jeans, and took her in his arms. “Did you talk to Brad?”

She nodded, feeling a bit dazed by his closeness, looking into his eyes and wondering if she was actually melting into them or if it just felt that way. “He—”

He dipped his head down, and their mouths came together in a warm, lingering kiss. Allie realized with a shock that it was the first time. Even though technically they’d already had sex, they had been so engrossed in making sure that Brad was okay that they hadn’t actually kissed each other, either during the scene or afterwards when they were settling down for sleep. And this morning, she knew, if they had started it would have been impossible not to get carried away with it. She wondered how she’d managed to wait until now.

But this wasn’t the time. She reached up and pushed away from him while she still had the strength to, even though it felt like she was ripping herself apart to do it.