Steady Rain

  Her stomach rolled, the old, familiar demons breaking free of the pits she’d thought she’d safely relegated them to, fluttering around in her brain and making her heart race as she struggled to remain calm.

  How often was this woman over there, anyway?

  Why hadn’t Jess met her before now?

  Why…why…why?

  Another of those dismissive gazes from Marilyn. It triggered another painful series of memories.

  Of feeling less-than.

  Of feeling used and discarded and inadequate and like she’d wasted people’s time by wanting their love and attention.

  “Sorry, Tristan,” Marilyn said. “If I’d known you wanted to join us, I would have extended the invitation to you. Maybe some other time. I know Dillon really was looking forward to seeing Kyle tonight.”

  “Thought Louis didn’t like him,” Tris said.

  “He’s working this weekend.”

  “Does he know you’re here? Your boyfriend?” Jess asked before she realized she’d even spoken it.

  Fuck.

  The last thing she wanted to do was get into a fight with Dillon’s mom, but dammit, this was…

  It felt like her life, the life she’d begun to see as her new future, with the men, was sliding through her fingers and she was helpless to stop it.

  “I don’t need his permission to invite people over,” Marilyn snapped.

  * * * *

  This wasn’t how Tris had planned for their afternoon to go when Jess had shown up unexpectedly. “Mee-row,” he muttered under his breath, just loudly enough Kyle could hear him. “I smell a catfight. My money’s on Jess.”

  Kyle elbowed him “Shut up. You’re not helping.”

  “Of course I am. I’m on Team Jess. You should be, too. Duh.”

  Tristan was actually hoping for some sort of confrontation between the women that would drive Marilyn off for good. Not that he wanted Dillon to suffer, but Marilyn needed to beat feet once and for all and focus her relationship-seeking senses on a new target, instead of picking assholes that couldn’t hold a candle to Kyle on Kyle’s worst day in some lame attempt to try to coax him back out of pity.

  If Kyle wanted to play part-time step-daddy, that was his business. But dammit, three was a magic number, and Jess was the spice holding their spell together.

  It hadn’t worked the first time between Marilyn and Kyle, and Tristan wanted a chance for him and Jess to show the man this could be for life, if he’d just let it happen and get out of his own way about it and stop taking things slow and carefully.

  Even cautious Kyle couldn’t deny the insane chemistry the three of them had together. Tristan could see the way the guy chubbed when they played with Jess—much less how hot the three of them were in bed—and for one goddamned time, Tristan would like a chance to get the girl and the guy.

  The perfect girl, and the perfect guy.

  Perfect for him, at least.

  He didn’t think Jess was fat, not by a long-shot. But the dramatic difference in their body types struck Tris as he watched Jess look Marilyn up and down. Mostly down, since she had a good seven or eight inches on her, if not more. He wasn’t entirely sure Jess couldn’t easily pound Marilyn into the floor with one fist tied behind her back.

  Kyle held up his hands and stepped forward. “Okay, I think everyone’s kind of gotten off on the wrong foot here.”

  Tristan opted to stand back and keep his mouth shut. Except as he watched the way Jessica’s expression went blank, a thought hit him.

  Her ex cheated on her. With a toothpick.

  This was going to be a massively nasty trigger for Jess, he could see it already. Kyle was, of course, clueless. Because Kyle was no cheat. While Kyle might be pretty damn savvy when it came to relationship and D/s negotiations, that possibility wouldn’t smack him upside the head with a clue-by-four.

  Tris could already map the path Jessica’s thoughts were taking as she stepped back, her gaze dropping to the floor.

  “You know,” she softly said, “I’m going to go. I need to pick up Stanley and get some things done at home.” She turned and headed for the kitchen, where her purse sat on the counter.

  Fuck.

  He followed her, “Jess, honey, wait. Please?”

  But she didn’t. He could feel the walls going up already, and dammit, this was all fucking going to hell before he could try to get it to work out right.

  She didn’t stop, barely slowed down as she snagged her purse off the counter and aimed for the front door.

  He actually had to run to make it there a step behind her, putting out a hand to hold the door shut as he dropped his voice. “There’s nothing romantic between her and him anymore. He got tired of touching that stove.”

  “Yeah, he’s not the only one,” she muttered, yanking on the doorknob.

  “He just wants to be there for Dillon, I swear.”

  “Fine.” She tried to open the door again and he kept his hand planted there, holding it shut.

  “Baby, please, slow down and just listen to—”

  “Red, Tristan.” She wouldn’t look him in the eyes. “Fucking red.”

  He let go of the door, his gut painfully clenching as she walked out and slammed the door behind her.

  Fuck.

  He stormed back to the living room, wishing he could control his anger better, but right now, he was pissed off.

  Without looking at Marilyn, he addressed Kyle. “Need some new rules and boundaries around here, dude. No more drop-ins.” He pointed at Marilyn, but kept his focus on Kyle. “Not without a call first.”

  “He doesn’t need your permission for his friends to come by just because your girlfriend can’t handle another woman around here,” Marilyn sniped.

  He knew he might hate himself for it later, but he couldn’t help it. He finally turned on her.

  “First of all, it’s my house, so yeah, he does. Secondly, she’s not my girlfriend, she’s our girlfriend.” He used a finger to point back and forth between him and Kyle. “We’re both dating her. We’re poly with her, and we’re play partners with her. She’s kinky, like us.” He was more than a little satisfied when her jaw dropped open over that.

  “Thirdly,” he barreled on, “Kyle and I are sleeping together, as in we fuck each other and sleep in the same bed every night, and will probably be getting married in a few months. So you need to step yourself back, honey, because that’s my man you keep eye-fucking.

  “And fourth, you supposedly have a boyfriend, and he’s not Kyle. Stop trying to make Kyle your baby daddy and forcing him into a fucking vanilla box when he’s been upfront with you that he needs BDSM to be happy. How about you find a decent guy for a change, instead of trying to guilt-trip Kyle into pity-fucking you, huh? Frankly, at this point, Dillon’s welcome here, but you aren’t. Not until you pry your head out of your fucking ass and stop causing trouble.”

  He didn’t bother looking at Kyle’s expression before he headed for his bedroom and slammed that door behind him, too.

  * * * *

  Shit.

  Kyle thought that couldn’t have gone worse if he’d tried.

  He studied Marilyn, whose eyes had widened in shock. Struggling against the urge to apologize, he took a few deep breaths and crossed his arms over his chest, waiting for her to say the next thing.

  Despite his delivery, Tris was right.

  One hundred percent right.

  While this whole thing had devolved into a shit sandwich, he wasn’t going to apologize for Tris or what he said.

  Because he was right, and he was Kyle’s boyfriend.

  Kyle had his back on this one.

  Marilyn needed to accept that there was no “them” anymore, and never would be again.

  Especially not now.

  He’d handle this first, and then figure out how to fix things with Jess.

  And Tris.

  But he didn’t want Dillon put in the middle of it.

  Selfishly, he also needed to worry a
bout the coupe. Sure, he had a written lease with Marilyn, legal and everything, but it’d be damned uncomfortable working there if this didn’t get straightened out now.

  Full-on Dom ’tude in the room. Marilyn had always bristled when he took charge, and Jess craved it.

  It was who he was, why he was good at his job, and trying to chip off that part of his personality and stick it in a box and hide it for anyone wasn’t going to happen.

  Not anymore.

  She looked a little heartsick. “I…I don’t know what to say.”

  He shrugged. “I won’t apologize for who I am. This is why we can’t be more than friends, and you know it.”

  “You didn’t tell me you were both dating her.” He noticed she went for the low-hanging fruit.

  “You didn’t ask. You assumed.”

  “I guess I did.” More uncomfortable silence, but he let it settle between them. Maybe this was what had been needed to finally flip her switch to really seeing that he wasn’t available to her like that anymore. “Why didn’t you tell me about you and Tristan?” she finally asked.

  “Because I don’t owe you an explanation of who I’m sleeping with or dating, just like you don’t owe me one. Not your business. Shouldn’t be a shocker. I told you I was bi when we were dating.”

  “Yeah, but…” She apparently didn’t have a way to end that sentence.

  “Look,” he finally said. “I’ll never abandon Dillon, but Tris is right. We need some healthy boundaries between you and me now that I’m in a relationship.”

  Her gaze dropped to the floor, but she slowly nodded. “Yeah,” she quietly said. “I guess we do.”

  He resisted the urge to step in and hug her, try to soften the blow. He would have, before Tris and before Jess.

  Not now. There was no room for error anymore.

  “Obviously if Dillon has an emergency,” he continued, “that’s different. I’ll never turn my back on him. But from now on, you need to text or call me before coming over, and wait to get an okay before you just show up. How would you have felt if you’d dropped by and we’d had Jess naked in ropes in the living room? Or if we’d been in bed? Worse, what if you’d had Dillon with you, and he’d run in like he’s used to doing and we’d had her tied up and couldn’t untie her in time?”

  Her cheeks reddened, but she didn’t respond, didn’t look up.

  He continued. “I’ve been respectful and not interrupting you at home when I go to work on the coupe. I park in back, use the back gate, and I don’t come knocking on your door.”

  “You’ve come to the house, though.”

  “Not without you or Dillon coming out first and getting me if I haven’t called and cleared it already, or you haven’t texted or called me first.”

  She started to argue with him, but the Dom in him watched and he could see her catch herself as she realized he was right.

  He waited again.

  This was still salvageable, if she wanted to let it work for Dillon’s sake. He got it. Despite their history together, she wasn’t used to having a relationship with a guy like him, where communication was central to everything else. She’d been raised in a dysfunctional family and had spent a lot of time using unhealthy mechanisms out of habit to try to manipulate him when they’d dated. She’d managed to dodge around the aspects she didn’t like of him and his personality while they were seeing each other, and the fights always started when she rebelled against him trying to force her to sit down and talk to him like an adult, or she acted passive-aggressive about his kinky activities, even when he wasn’t intimate with anyone else.

  “If you’re…whatever you said you are…then why can’t we date, too?”

  Okay, so this wouldn’t be so easy.

  “We tried once before and it didn’t work for either of us. Dillon deserves better than that from us. Plus, that still doesn’t address me and Tris and Jess. I’m not giving them up.” He belatedly realized he could have phrased it better but let it sit there to see how she’d react.

  She looked up and he hated that there were tears in her eyes. “What if I let you go do this stuff? Could we get back together then? If you’re both dating her, and each other, why couldn’t you date me, too? We could try again.”

  “No. There’s still the fact that you have a boyfriend, and yet you’re standing here propositioning me. Frankly, that really bothers me. I never stepped out on you when we were together. I always made it clear to my play partners that I had a girlfriend and I wasn’t available for anything but play. Besides, you ‘let’ me go do BDSM stuff before, and you made life miserable for both of us in the process. That was without me doing sexual play with anyone. I tried to get you to come to rope nights to see what we do, tried to open that side of myself to you, and you hated everything about it and shut me down every time. Face it, you need a vanilla, monogamous guy who is a decent guy, not the douchebags you’ve been dating. I can’t argue with a damn thing Tris said.”

  “What if I try the kinky stuff?”

  “No. We are not going there. I refuse to play with someone who’s only doing it because they think they have to. That’s not consent, that’s coercion. Look, you’re a great woman, you’re smart, you work hard and have a decent job. But you also have this idea you think you need a guy, and you settle for these assholes who want a victim, not a partner. I love you as a friend, and I love Dillon. You and I are never going back to that battlefield. It’s not happening. Period. If you can’t respect that, we are going to have to have a serious conversation that neither of us are going to enjoy.”

  “We seem to be having a serious conversation now, and I know I damn sure ain’t enjoying it.”

  “Neither am I, but it would be the kind of conversation that would make this look light.” He finally played the card he’d hoped to avoid. “Besides, Tris has made you a hard limit. I can’t be with him and be with you.”

  She drew back a little, probably wasn’t even aware she’d recoiled. “Me?”

  “You. He had a front seat to our year of warfare and, honestly? I don’t want to go back there, either. He and I are compatible.”

  “So you just…turned gay?”

  “No. I was honest with you when we started dating that I’m bi.”

  “But you’d never been with a guy.”

  “Not until Tristan, no.”

  “What am I supposed to tell Dillon?”

  “About what?”

  “You and Tristan. And…Jess. I know he hoped we’d get back together.”

  Kyle arched an eyebrow at her. “He didn’t get that idea from me. He’s never mentioned it around us. I’ll be happy to have a talk with him if I need to.”

  He watched her flinch when he said it and knew he’d just caught her in a lie, and he hated it. Because he suspected it meant she might try to leverage Dillon in an attempt to play on Kyle’s emotions. He prayed he was wrong.

  But Dillon wasn’t his son, no matter how much he loved the kid.

  And he had his own life to live. A life that finally seemed to be on the right track emotionally.

  He continued. “Dillon knows Tristan, Jess, and I are in a relationship. We’ve talked to him about that. The first night he met Jess, actually. And I circle back to the fact that you have a boyfriend, and you’re trying to proposition me right now.”

  She dodged that. “And…Jess? How do I tell Dillon about that?”

  “You don’t—it’s not your business to tell him. And like I just said, if you’d actually listen to me, we already told him. She’s our girlfriend. You’re complicating this. Kids are easy to talk to. They don’t care if adults have nontraditional relationships. It’s how the adults around them treat it. Just like you and I never did anything improper in front of him, neither do Tris and I, or Jess.”

  It felt like the temperature dropped fifteen degrees in the room. “I guess I should go.”

  “Not a bad idea. It’s not that I don’t want to be friends with you, but you have to respect the fact that you and
I are not dating, and we will never date again. I’m not fond of Louis, but you are in a relationship with the guy and now you’ve put me in an extremely uncomfortable position as your friend. Plus, now I have to make things up not only to Tristan, but to Jess.”

  “Good luck with that,” she muttered, then let herself out.

  Terrific. He headed down the hall to Tristan’s room to undo that damage first.

  Then, hopefully, they could talk to Jess together.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Jessica’s stomach threatened to upend as she drove. It took her by surprise and only helped slam home what had just happened. She hadn’t realized how…calm and happy she’d felt in her weeks with the men.

  I’m an idiot.

  No, worse than an idiot, I was an idiot that damn well knew better.

  Sure, she thought she was making the right choices with the guys.

  Obviously not.

  They had a great reputation, but that was only in public. Who knows what the hell someone does behind closed doors?

  Apparently, they wanted to do tiny women who were built like toothpicks.

  Fuck.

  Them.

  She went through that before with Brad, him trying to explain away the obvious and her ignoring the signs because she didn’t want to believe he’d cheat on her.

  Why else wouldn’t they have introduced her to Marilyn before now? And the men knew damn well the kind of woman Brad had left her for. How’d they think she was going to react? Why else would they wait, unless it was because they had something to hide?

  Why else would the men have the two of them listed on Fet and Facebook as being in a relationship together, but hadn’t yet said anything about her adding them on either one, and had made no motion to add her on theirs?

  Like she…was a secret.

  She thought about the talk Kyle had with Dillon the first night she’d met the boy.

  She thought about how Kyle went out of his way to pick Dillon up or take him back to Marilyn’s. Marilyn had never come to the house when Jess was there. Not and come in to meet her.

  Kyle would always get Dillon ready and rush him out the door to her car before she could even get out.