The Reluctant Dom

Chapter Two

Seth finished his evening back at his brother’s house, alone in his room, with a few shots of tequila. When he awoke the next morning, hungover and blurry eyed, the prior evening’s discussion with Kaden rushed back to him.

He closed his eyes and prayed he’d go back to sleep. A nightmare was preferable to thinking about his best friend dying.

Fuck.

Dinner.

Seth stumbled through his day, changing his mind about going at least once every five minutes. He barely made it through his morning classes and was glad that at least today he didn’t have any labs.

Kaden and Leah had been his two biggest supporters when he decided to go back to college and get his nursing degree. After the Army he’d spent years in construction, but with the housing bust that was far from a great occupation. After the divorce from hell-bitch number three, he’d decided why not make a clean break in all ways? His credit wasn’t totally fucked, so at least he’d been able to get a good student loan and a couple of grants for tuition. He’d had medic training in the Army and enjoyed helping people. Besides, it was one of the few occupations where demand constantly exceeded supply, especially in Florida.

At six o’clock, Seth took a deep breath and stepped into the shower. A steady diet of Tylenol and ginger tea all day had finally eased the worst of his hangover.

The bombshell pressed into his mind every few minutes. He’d be thinking about his classes, trying to run through things in his mind, then suddenly the thought.

Kaden’s dying.

Trying to memorize something.

Kaden’s dying.

Like a horrific heartbeat in his brain.

Kaden’s dying.

What the fuck would he do without his best friend? He was closer to Kaden than he was to his own brother. Emotionally, at least. He knew Leah hadn’t liked any of his three exes. Neither had Kaden, but they’d done their best to include the women into their close triad of friendship, welcomed them in.

How many times over the years had he wished he could find someone like Leah?

He wasn’t excusing his own behavior. His first doomed marriage—Kelly—was, in retrospect, an attempt to find another Leah. She’d been the spitting image of his best friend’s wife. Even Leah gently teased him about it in private.

Paula was a money-grubbing bitch who was more interested in how high Seth could raise her credit card limit.

Then, of course, there was Jackie. She’d sworn for richer or poorer, but when he told her he might have to file corporate bankruptcy because of the housing market tanking and his business going under, she’d taken off like a scalded cat.

Seth closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the cool shower tile.

Kaden’s dying.

Fuck.

He’d fought the urge—and lost—to look up pancreatic cancer at the university library between classes. After five minutes of reading he closed the book and shoved it back onto the shelf.

No, Kaden wouldn’t want to go out like his father had, wasting away in a hospital bed, sick for months before that from chemo and weakened by surgery to try to remove the tumors on his lungs.

As Kaden’s friend, after sitting on the sidelines and watching it unfold, Seth couldn’t blame him either.

Seth dug a pair of khaki slacks out of his closet and found a button-up shirt that didn’t need ironing. Normally he would just wear shorts and a T-shirt. Tonight was different.

He wasn’t sure what Kaden was asking of him. The knowledge that his best friends had this secret life for decades still shocked him. They were so…

Normal.

Kaden was a successful corporate lawyer, for chrissake. Leah didn’t work, but she volunteered tirelessly for a couple of charities and nonprofits. Hell, when they went swimming in their pool she wore a one-piece bathing suit. He’d never seen her in anything racier than a sports bra and jogging shorts.

It’d shocked him several years ago when he’d seen a tattoo on Kaden’s arm, circling his left bicep, an intricate vine pattern highlighting a small, round symbol of some sort. Kaden with a tattoo?

That was almost as shocking as seeing Santa in a lace bra and panties.

At the time, when Seth asked about it, Kaden had smiled and shrugged, said Leah liked it, and left it at that.

Seth sat in his car outside his brother’s house, simultaneously trying to talk himself into and out of dinner. If he didn’t go, maybe that would mean this wasn’t real.

But he’d promised.

Over the years, Kaden and Leah had been better to him than he could have ever asked. They’d never asked for or expected anything in return.

Ever.

Was he really going to pull the chickenshit move now that Kaden was finally making a request of him?

Just to hear him out.

He pounded the steering wheel, which set off another round of throbbing in his iffy head.

Kaden’s dying.

He didn’t handle death well. Not his own grandparents or parents. And this was Kaden.

He started his car and pointed it toward Kaden’s house.

At the front gate, Seth punched in the code he knew by heart and drove in. The small, luxury-gated estate community was comprised of large, wooded lots of over five acres each. It was hard to believe there were fifty homes in the development. He’d built some of them, including Kaden’s. Kaden and Leah’s home sat far enough off the road you could barely make out the lights through the trees.

He parked his beat-up Mustang behind Leah’s Lexus sedan. Kaden’s new Ridgeline was parked to the side.

They’d never lorded their wealth over him. He’d never asked Kaden for money even though there were times Kaden hinted to him that if he needed a hand he’d help him out.

It was the last thing Seth wanted to do, ever, to bring money into their friendship. Even when Leah begged him to handle building their house he’d reduced the final price, not wanting to make a profit off his friends. Kaden had nailed him on that, too, asking why the cost was lower than the others he’d built and wanting to pay full price. Seth had refused to let him do that.

He’d managed to make it on his own and would keep figuring it out somehow. He’d asked Kaden for help with plenty of things over the years, but money was never one of them. And never would be.

The silence as he shut off the engine nearly deafened him and allowed the mental heartbeat to return.

Kaden’s dying.

He forced himself out of his car and walked up the winding concrete path to their front door, rang the bell.

A moment later, Leah answered.

He noticed her normally beautiful green eyes first. Tonight they looked puffy, red, swollen. Kaden had obviously broken the news. His eyes traveled down her body…

Holy fuck!

She wore a short, black leather skirt that barely hung past the bottom of her ass. He didn’t know she owned shoes like that—black, strappy, stiletto fuck-me pumps—much less ever wore them. He’d never seen her dressed in anything remotely like this. Obviously braless, her short crop top was cut low enough to nearly expose her nipples, which was ironic, because it was high enough that it barely concealed her breasts. She wasn’t big-chested, just naturally perky, more than enough for a pleasant mouthful…

Holy fuck, what am I thinking?

She normally wore her shoulder-length brown hair either down, for dressier occasions, or pulled back into a plain ponytail. He rarely saw her wear makeup. Even then she was always very conservative. Tonight she’d not only set her hair in an alluring updo, but her makeup was just a few sexy breaths on the legal side of slutty. Around her neck she wore a dainty black leather collar, with a heart-shaped lock and small silver tag affixed to the buckle.

For the first time he realized she normally wore a delicate, intricately braided silver choker around her neck, with a small charm and tag attached.

A charm like the symbol in the tattoo on Kaden’s arm. But tonight, she wore the collar.

“Hi, Seth,” she softly greeted him.

Shock briefly overrode his ability to speak. He finally managed to open his mouth and make words come out. “How are you doing, sweetie?”

A weak smile caressed her face. He fought the urge to hug her like he normally would. He couldn’t do it. Not tonight. Not when she was dressed like this, looking hotter than hell and…

Jesus, what sort of sick freak am I?

His dick throbbed in his pants anyway. He was only human. He’d been best friends with his right hand for over a year.

“I’m okay,” she replied. Her voice sounded weaker than normal. He suspected it was from grief because she wasn’t showing the slightest bit of discomfort from his eyes crawling all over her. The Leah he’d known all these years was a strong, feisty, playful woman, never mean or cruel. The two of them had developed a pleasant friendship, teasing, almost like brother and sister with a little more spice to it. He’d always carefully steered away from blatant sexual talk with her, because she was his best friend’s wife.

But he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t attracted to her. He’d always thought she was beautiful.

Especially tonight, dressed like this.

“Is he here, Leah?” Kaden called from the kitchen.

Leah motioned Seth in and closed the door behind him, started walking toward the kitchen. “Yes, Master.”

Seth had started following Leah. At her words he stopped, as if plowing into a brick wall.

Master?

Holy fuck!

He had a feeling that would be a common expression for him tonight, if what he’d just seen was any indication.

As she continued walking he spotted her tattoo, one he never knew she had. Her skirt rode low on her hips, exposing her lower torso in a way he’d never seen. In the center of her hips, just above where he imagined the cleft of her ass started, she had a tattoo, a vine design similar to Kaden’s, with the round insignia over her spine.

Leah apparently sensed he wasn’t following and turned. “Seth? Are you okay?”

He dumbly nodded and followed her.

He still hoped that at any moment the two of them would break into broad, beaming grins and laugh that they’d really suckered him in this time, setting up the next round of practical jokes amongst them.

In the kitchen Kaden stood, barefoot and dressed in jeans and a chambray shirt. He chopped vegetables at the counter. He looked up and smiled as Seth walked in.

“There you are.” He looked at Leah. “Are the steaks ready?”

She nodded. “Yes, Master.”

He leaned over and kissed her. “Good girl. Go put them on, please.” He wiped his hands on a dish towel and shook with Seth while Leah picked up a plate of steaks and took them outside to the screened lanai.

Seth’s eyes followed Leah as she disappeared through the sliding glass doors. Realizing Kaden was watching him watch his wife, Seth jerked his eyes back to his friend.

Kaden smiled. “She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”

Seth dumbly nodded.

Kaden’s smile faded. “Just hear me out, please. Watch and listen. At the end of the evening, maybe you’ll understand a little more what and why I’m asking this of you.”

Kaden’s dying.

Stunned, Seth nodded again.

Kaden’s smile returned. He clapped Seth on the arm. “Thanks, buddy.”

Seth settled on a barstool on the other side of the counter, his usual perch where he normally sat when he came over. He watched as Kaden prepped the rest of the vegetables. He skillfully and confidently chopped them with the large butcher’s knife, the blade making snick snick sounds against the cutting board. Leah returned from the lanai and washed her hands, then smiled at Seth before shooting a pointed look at Kaden.

Kaden met her gaze and nodded.

She turned back to Seth. “Would you like a beer?”

“Yes, please.” He suspected he’d need something a lot stronger than that when he got home.

She walked to the fridge and retrieved a bottle—his favorite brand, he realized—and she opened it for him before handing it over.

Leah always stocked his favorite brand. She always opened the bottle before handing it to him.

There were a lot of things, crazy puzzle pieces suddenly slipping into place, things he’d never noticed before and now saw in a new light.

When he’d had hernia surgery a few years earlier, between wives two and three, Kaden and Leah had insisted on bringing Seth home from the hospital to their home for a week. He’d spent the night before the surgery with them. Leah took him to the hospital the next morning, waited there for him, met him in recovery, and got all of the doctor’s discharge instructions before bringing him back to their home. Back then they’d lived just south of downtown Sarasota. Seth hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary between his friends in the time he’d stayed with them. They’d been perfectly normal.

Except the way Leah took care of him.

In a way his exes never took care of him.

The way Leah always seemed to focus on Kaden, as if anticipating his every need.

The way she focused on Seth, too, it seemed, when he was a guest in their home.

“Thanks,” he muttered, watching them.

Kaden finished with the vegetables and poured them into a foil pouch, topped it off with some seasonings before he sealed it, and handed it to Leah. “Here you go, love. Stay out there with the steaks, make sure you don’t let Seth’s go too long. You know he likes his very rare.”

“Yes, Master.” She left again. Seth found himself unable to keep his eyes off her.

Kaden leaned against the counter and took a pull from his own beer, a different brand. “You okay?”

Seth nodded, numb.

“I’ve already told her about me, as I’m sure you’ve guessed. I’ve also told her about my plans.”

Seth finally met Kaden’s intense gaze. “You cannot tell me she’s okay with this.”

“Of course she is. Ask her yourself.”

“You are not serious?”

He studied his bottle. “She’s upset, of course. She doesn’t agree with my decision to not get chemo. I’m sure she’s mad about that, but it’s something we’ll work through. She also understands why I want to do this for her.” He looked up. “Seth, she knows you. She likes you. You’re the closest thing she’s got to family besides me and mine. There isn’t anyone else I would trust with her.”

“I can barely keep my own shit together, Kade. How the hell do you expect me to take care of someone else? It’s not like I’ve got a great track record.”

Kaden’s voice lowered, nearly a whisper. “Maybe you never met the right woman before. Did you ever think about that?”

Seth didn’t answer. It was too close to a thought he’d had many nights over the years.

“She needs someone strong, Seth. I’m going to get sick, and I’m going to die.” Kaden took a deep breath. Seth sensed his friend was once again close to tears. “She needs someone to get her through this. She’s going to need someone to take care of her.”

That didn’t make any sense to Seth. “You realize lots of women lose husbands and go on to do just fine, right?”

Kaden shook his head. “Not Leah. You’ll understand when you learn more about her, about us.”

“I think you’re underestimating your wife. She’s a fucking strong woman.”

“She’s brilliant. She can do nearly anything she puts her mind to, and God help the person who gets in her way,” Kaden agreed. “But there are things she needs that keep her…that keep her sane. That keep her grounded. And there are too many assholes out there who only want a willing sub to use. They wouldn’t do for her what she needs done.”

“You’ve lost me.”

“You need to see for yourself.” He took another drink from his beer. “I talked to my friend Tony this morning. He just moved back here from Denver a few months ago. If worst comes to worst he’ll take her on as his slave, but he can’t love her the way I do.” His eyes met Seth’s. “The way you do.”

Seth reddened and dropped his gaze. “Fuck, man. She’s your wife. I don’t love her.” That was a lie, and he knew it.

He just prayed Kaden didn’t know it.

“I’m not a moron. You’re not gay. You’ve got a hard-on right now. Admit it.”

Seth felt his face redden even deeper. They never talked about sex. There was one drunken night after high school graduation, before Kade went to college and he went into basic training. A bottle of tequila and a willing coed later, they’d had an incredible three-way, yet over the years they never talked about their sex lives.

“Fuck, you parade her around here dressed like that, and I’d have to be dead not to notice her.”

“She’s wearing a lot more than she normally wears.”

This couldn’t be real. Seth looked at Kaden, who wore a sly smile.

Kaden continued. “Normally she’s only got her collar on when we’re home alone. The hair and makeup aren’t normal when we’re home. That’s special for you tonight. I wanted her to look her best. Usually she wears a slightly longer skirt and shirt when we go to the club or private dungeon parties.”

“Club?” Dungeon parties?

“Yeah. There’s a private BDSM club we’re members of up in Sarasota. We usually go once a week. You’ll have fun.”

Seth sat back and held up his hands. “Whoa. Dude, I said I’d hear you out. I never promised I’d agree to this. I don’t think I can just…beat a woman.” The thought turned his stomach.

The thought of Kaden beating Leah damn near made him sick. And angry.

Kaden’s face hardened. “I do not beat my wife. I have never hit her.”

Okay, now he was confused. And more than just a little relieved. “Then what the fuck are we talking about? Isn’t that what BDSM is all about?”

“It’s one of those things I have to show you. Trust me, there’s a huge difference between what we do—which is carefully scripted and I’ve spent thousands of hours practicing so I don’t injure her—and some fucking peckerhead who takes a swing at his wife.”

He took another swallow from his beer. “As I was saying, Tony agreed that if worst comes to worst he can take her on as his slave, but there won’t be the emotional connection for her. I’m worried it wouldn’t be enough for her. If you agree to this, you can be there for her. I won’t have to worry about her after I’m gone.”

Kaden drained his beer. “I want you to move in with us. I want you to live with us, and I’ll teach you. We’ll teach you. She’s nearly an expert in shibari, so she can take over teaching my classes. She’s going to need your help taking care of me. After I’m gone, she’ll need you to take care of her.”

“I’ve got to eat, man. How am I supposed to do all this and go to school and work?” He was trying to find an excuse to get him out of this, one that Kaden would agree was valid.

One that wouldn’t make him look like a total chickenshit asshole.

Kaden’s dying.

“Quit your job. You’re only working part-time, for crying out loud. I’ll take care of everything. I’ll even draw up an agreement. You take at least a couple of semesters off. We’ll pay for your school, pay off your outstanding student loans, everything. You live here, help Leah, help me. Once…” His voice choked up. Seth felt something inside him die at the sound.

“Once I’m gone,” Kaden finally continued, “you marry Leah and stay with her for at least a year. I’ll draw up a prenup for you guys. After the year, if the two of you want to get divorced you can, as long as you promise you’ll still be her Master unless she falls in love with someone else who is capable of taking over. You can make sure he’ll take good care of her. If he meets your approval, then you can train him for her.”

As crazy as this situation was, the thought of someone else being with Leah spun a strange, cold thread inside Seth. It knotted around his gut, drawing tight.

“Dude,” he whispered, shocked, “you’re asking me to marry your wife?”

“Well, not until after I’m dead.” Kaden’s practical smile chilled Seth. “It’ll keep the government from taxing the hell out of you. You’ll be able to access the assets, as her husband. Hell of a lot easier than trying to leave it to you.”

Kaden was a control freak, meticulously planned everything, he always had. Probably one of the reasons he was such a damn good attorney.

This, however, stretched beyond the pale.

Apparently Kaden sensed Seth had reached his immediate limit for processing information. He went quiet and let his friend think things through. After a few minutes, Kaden quietly spoke. “She enjoys it. I didn’t force her into this. She craves it. It’s security for her. She knows I will always protect her. I promised.”

“This isn’t a cave where some other guy will drag her away by her hair, dude. Get real.”

Kaden glanced through the sliders to the lanai, where Leah tended the steaks on the grill.

“I’m not going to tell you everything tonight. I will, however, give you a little insight. Leah grew up in foster care, spent most of her childhood there.”

Well that made things clear as mud. “So?”

“Her biological father was sent to jail. Her mom died when she was two.”

If Kade had a point, Seth wished he’d hurry the hell up and make it. “Again, so?”

Kaden took a deep breath. “He went to jail for raping Leah when she was seven.”

Seth felt like the wind had been knocked out of him. “Holy fuck,” he whispered.

Kaden nodded. “Her life went downhill from there, if you can imagine that.” He walked to the fridge and got another beer. He held up one for Seth, who shook his head.

Maybe he shouldn’t have a lot of alcohol tonight.

“That’s why we’ve never had kids,” Kaden explained. “Why she can’t have kids. Between that and…other things that happened to her over the years. She didn’t want to go through the surgeries and IVF and all that crap. I respected her decision.”

Seth reeled. Leah seemed to be the most put-together person, besides Kaden, that he’d ever known. He’d never heard her talk about her past or her family beyond meeting Kaden. He just assumed she was estranged from them. He never would have guessed…

Holy fuck.

Kaden leaned over the counter and dropped his voice. “She needs things. It helps her cope. She doesn’t feel or express emotional pain like you and me. She needs safety and security. She needs someone who will care for and about her and understand why she needs…things. Someone she can put her full trust in. It’s how she’s made it all these years.”

Seth could barely stand the intensity in Kaden’s grey eyes.

“Seth, I wouldn’t ask you if I didn’t think you could take good care of her.”

“What ‘things’ are you talking about?”

“I’ll show you after dinner.”

When Leah returned with the steaks and vegetables—Seth’s steak cooked exactly the way he liked it, as always—he couldn’t help but stare at her.

She managed a wan smile and looked at Kaden.

He nodded. “Tonight, that’s one you don’t have to worry about. Okay, love?”

Seth couldn’t help himself. “One what?”

“Rule,” Kaden replied, as if it was nothing. “Normally when we’re formal she must ask for permission before speaking to someone unless I’ve already said it’s okay.”

Seth didn’t know if it was his friend’s words or the matter-of-fact tone that threw him. “Permission?”

Leah nodded. “Master takes very good care of me. He wants to make sure I don’t talk with someone I shouldn’t. I prefer it that way.”

He’d seen this woman work a room full of hundreds of people at a fundraising banquet, Sarasota’s movers and shakers, greeting guests and organizing the caterer and servers.

And she was asking permission to speak to him?

As if reading his thoughts, she smiled again. “I know it’s sort of a lot to get used to.”

“Get used to?” He stared at them. “I mean, I thought I knew you two! You’re my best friends. How could I not know this was going on?”

“What was I supposed to say?” Kaden asked. “Hey, Seth, guess what? Want to hear what Leah and I do when the door’s locked and the blinds are drawn?”

“You weren’t doing this when I stayed with you after my surgery.”

Leah nodded. “Yes, we were. We just weren’t formal while you were with us, but we were still doing this.”

“But…but you’re so normal!”

Finally, a genuine, sly smile from Leah. “You’ll be surprised who’s into the lifestyle.”

Kaden took over. “That’s the whole point. It’s not like what you see on the Internet. A majority of the people who are into some sort of kink, you’d never know it unless you ran into them doing it somewhere. It’s not a bunch of horny freaks fucking anything that moves and wearing masks. I mean, yeah, there are some people like that. Most people are like us.” He gently stroked Leah’s cheek. Something about the tender gesture saddened Seth. “Well, maybe not like us. A lot of people aren’t into it twenty-four/seven like we are.”

Seth studied them. They both watched him. “Leah, are you telling me you’re willingly his slave?” He already knew her answer. How many times had he envied her devotion to Kaden over the years?

A lot.

“Master takes very good care of me.” Her voice choked up a little at the end as Kaden’s eyes met hers. “He’s always taken very good care of me,” she whispered, nuzzling his hand when he stroked her cheek again.

“Let’s eat before it gets cold,” Kaden said as he removed his glasses and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

After dinner, Leah cleared the table while Kaden led Seth to the back of the house, to a room he’d always assumed was Kaden’s private home office. He hadn’t been in there since construction was completed. Normally it stayed locked, a small electronic number combination pad just above the knob.

“You need to see this,” Kaden said. “And I don’t want you to be shocked or surprised.”

“Too late for that,” he muttered.

Kaden opened the door.

Inside looked like something out of a porn movie, only better quality and more tastefully decorated. A low, padded bench with leather cuffs attached at each end. An X-shaped frame. A large rack holding…

Holy fuck.

Whips, riding crops, and various other implements of torture.

The odd collection explained the keyless lock. During construction, Seth had asked him if he needed it because of his files.

“Something like that,” Kaden had said with a smirk. “Keys are a pain in the ass. I’d rather have a combo lock. I don’t want people wandering in here when we have guests over.”

Seth hadn’t questioned it at the time. He knew Kade had a lot of high-profile corporate clients. It made sense to him then.

Made perfect sense now, even if he was still in shock.

Kaden walked across the room to a bookshelf and pulled down a photo album. “Come here,” he said.

His legs numb, Seth walked over while Kaden flipped through the pages, finding what he wanted.

“This is shibari.” He pointed to a page of pictures of Leah trussed in intricate rope bindings, a ball gag in her mouth, looking…

Well, looking like she was enjoying herself.

Kaden flipped through page after page, naming the different rope configurations.

“She’s my model and assistant during classes.” He smiled, his finger trailing over one particularly intricate looking configuration. “And at home, of course, she’s my practice model.” He closed the album and put it back on the shelf before pulling down another one. This time he flipped to a page of pictures taken by someone else apparently, because Kaden and Leah were both in the shot. It looked like he was speaking to a gathered group of people. Leah was bound—naked—to a bench similar to the one in the room behind him.

Kaden wore jeans but was shirtless and holding a—

“Is that a whip?”

Kaden nodded. “Singletail. Specially made. That one’s my favorite. Cost me nearly eight hundred dollars. This was a basic singletail class. Problem is, too many assholes think they can use one on a person when they really can’t. I spend several hours a week practicing to get and stay as good as I am.”

Maybe that explained Kaden’s naturally muscled physique despite never going to a gym. Kaden wasn’t ripped, yet he was firm and trim while Seth had managed to gain about twenty pounds and go soft since his best days in the Army.

Kaden put that album away and turned to Seth. He dropped his voice. “Have you ever looked at her arms?”

Seth hesitated before he nodded. He’d noticed the scars. Now he wondered if Kaden had done that to her. The possibility sickened him.

“She did most of that to herself before we ever met. Do you know what cutting is?”

“Not really.” But relief crept back in.

Kaden glanced to the open doorway behind Seth, as if listening for sounds from the kitchen. Leah was still cleaning up dinner. Seth could hear her singing to herself at the other end of the house. Apparently satisfied that she couldn’t hear them, Kaden lowered his voice and continued. “Some people, for various reasons, need pain. They use it. It’s how they function, how they deal with their emotions. Some use it to help relieve intense emotional pain in an external way. Some use it to feel like they’re connected to life again. Some just flat-out get off on it.”

“There’s medications for that kind of crap, dude.”

“When you’re a fourteen-year-old girl and being forced to give your foster brother blow-jobs and getting sodomized by him because he threatens to get you thrown out on the street, you don’t exactly trot down to a shrink and ask for a pill.”

Seth blanched, sickened. What kind of hell had she been through?

“She didn’t take the news well last night, obviously. I needed to give her a long session last night to get her to cry. She’s had two more today already. I took the day off from work. I knew she’d need me.”

“She likes this?”

“She needs it. There’s a lot I can’t tell you tonight. You just have to see it for yourself. She’s not a pain slut like some are. We have very specific routines and rituals we’ve developed over the years that help her stay calm and focused and deal with life.” He motioned Seth over to a chair in the corner. Seth walked over and sat, his mind reeling.

“When we were first dating,” Kaden continued, “she worked at a restaurant near USF. That’s where we met. I went in after class one day. She was beautiful. I never believed in love at first sight until I met her. She claimed she was a klutz in the kitchen, always getting these weird injuries, mostly cuts and burns on her arms. She always had something. I had no reason not to believe her. Until I talked her into spending the weekend at my apartment and she got up to make coffee.”

Kaden’s gaze drifted, his mind’s eye traveling back in time. “She didn’t hear me get up. I walked into the kitchen and watched her take a knife out of the drawer and lay it against her arm. She closed her eyes like she was saying a prayer or something, and when I screamed, she jumped.

“I wanted to haul her to the hospital. I thought she was trying to kill herself. She was so upset I’d seen her, she got dressed and ran out. I panicked. I couldn’t find her. She wouldn’t answer my calls, wouldn’t come to the door at her apartment. I finally staked out her workplace and made her talk to me.

“She wouldn’t tell me why. She broke up with me right there even though she was crying and…it just felt like she didn’t really want that. I can’t explain it. I begged her to talk to me and she wouldn’t. I knew I was in love with her, and it was killing me that she wouldn’t talk to me. I knew she’d had a crappy life, but I didn’t know everything.”

Kaden wiped his eyes. This wasn’t easy for him. “I went in every day after class and would sit and try to get her to talk to me. When she quit a few days later, I finally got one of the other waitresses to tell me where she went. Then she told me something else. ‘She loves you, but she’s scared of people. If you want her to open up to you, you need to prove you’re not going anywhere and won’t hurt her.’

“I was losing my mind. After three weeks I waited for her at her apartment one night and begged her to let me talk to her. She finally let me in, and she was like a fucking zombie, man. She looked like a dead woman. She told me she loved me, but that she couldn’t see me anymore. I was sitting there on the couch trying to talk her into changing her mind when she got up and walked to the kitchen. Before I could get there, she’d cut herself.”

“Fuck!”

Kaden nodded. “Then she started screaming. She screamed and cried, and she let me hold her. I sat there on the floor with her for an hour, and she finally told me about her father and the shit that happened to her growing up. What she did to deal with it. She told me she wanted me to find someone ‘normal’ who could feel emotions without cutting them out of her flesh.” He studied his hands for a minute. “I told her I didn’t care. I loved her. That I wanted to help her.”

He took his glasses off and laid them on the bookcase. “She tried. Man, she fucking tried. I got her to move in with me. Every day I felt it building in her. Like a volcano. But the weird thing was, the more I felt it building in her, it’s like the deader she got outside, right? She came home from work all happy one afternoon, and I saw she had a new burn on her arm.”

He looked at Seth, his eyes glistening again. “I got so fucking scared and angry that she’d hurt herself. I just lost it. She’d promised not to do it anymore. I should have known better, that she couldn’t stop herself. We got into a fight, screaming at each other. I grabbed her and hauled her into my lap, yanked her pants down and spanked the crap out of her.”

“Fuck!” Seth couldn’t imagine Kaden blowing his cool. He’d never seen his friend lose it, ever. He was the hothead, Kaden always coming to his rescue.

Kaden smiled. “I felt like shit, like fucking dirt. Then she fell off my lap, and she looked up at me and had this…absolutely gorgeous smile on her face. My hand hurt like a sonofabitch. I knew I must have bruised her a little, but she looked at me in a way I’d never seen her look at me before. She grabbed me and fucking kissed me and practically raped me right there on the couch. It was the hottest sex we’d had, and the sex was pretty damn good to start with.

“So I asked her after, when we’d finally made it to my bedroom a few hours later, what the hell that was about. She shook her head and said she didn’t know. It was like something had just sort of popped free in her when I did that. So I made her a deal.”

He frowned, working his hands again. “I told her if she could go the entire next day, just one damn day, without hurting herself, and that I would check every inch of her flesh for a new wound, I would spank her again the next night.”

“Fuck!” Seth wished he could say something—anything—other than that, but that was all he could manage.

Kaden nodded. “Right. That’s exactly what I thought. I was desperate. What the hell was I supposed to do? I didn’t even know if it would work. So I get home from classes the next day and she gets home from work later and she runs in, I mean she’s stripping her clothes off the second she gets through the door, asking me to look at her and check her over. I made her stand there and wait. She started to beg. I told her if she didn’t behave, I wouldn’t spank her.

“It’s like she became a freaking statue, just waiting for me. I finished what I was doing and told her to go lie in bed. I get there and she’s waiting for me. I start looking her over, taking my time, trying to be seductive about it, and I realize she’s fucking wet. I mean, like you wouldn’t believe. I asked her what was up with that, and she said she couldn’t stop thinking about getting spanked all day.”

“Did she ever hurt herself again?”

“A few times early on. After that, no. Not intentionally. We had a deal that if she got hurt, she would immediately tell me so I would know it wasn’t intentional. I haven’t had to worry about that for years now. That’s because we have this. Usually she doesn’t even need it every day, or just something light, not a full session. The deal was I would take care of that for her. I was in control of that. She began to beg for more. One day I had to threaten her again that if she didn’t behave, I would make her wait another day before her next spanking. That made her even hornier.”

Kaden smiled. “We’d been married for about a year when I found out about the local BDSM club and got hooked up with others. Learned a lot more. She was like a changed person since we’d started the spanking, but she wanted more. I wasn’t doing it because I wanted her to feel pain. I was doing it because she wanted me to do it. She trusted me enough to let me into her life and take charge of that for her. She literally turned control of her pain over to me, not just physical but mental. Once we started doing that, it’s like she was able to move on. It all progressed from there.”

He met Seth’s eyes. “You and me, we deal with emotional shit. No problem. She never had that, never learned it. She didn’t have a family she could go to, someone to teach her safe and healthy ways to process her emotions. She was in survival mode for most of her life, and at the hands of the fuckers who were supposed to take care of her. I was literally the first person in her life she could trust not to hurt her. Well, I mean, you know what I mean. She went through a lot. Yes, I could have forced her into a shrink’s office and made her go through years of therapy and medicated her out of her mind and maybe accomplished the same thing. What we do, she enjoys it. It helps her cope, and it keeps her happy. I love making her happy. Who am I to force her to do something we don’t even know will work when we’ve got something we can do together that she loves?”

Seth looked into his friend’s eyes. He would be the first to deck anyone who accused Kaden of not loving Leah. He’d seen their relationship firsthand all these years. Well, thought he’d seen it.

“What do you want me to do?” he quietly asked.

Kaden cocked his head to the doorway and listened, then called out. “Love, are you finished with the dishes?”

“Almost, Master. I’m wiping down the counters.”

“Very good, love. Come here when you’re finished.”

Seth noticed something else, the term of endearment. He didn’t remember hearing Kaden call Leah “love” before, although he’d heard him call her many other equally sweet things over the years.

“We have a sort of code,” he explained to Seth. “You’ll learn it. That’s another reason I need you to move in. It’s easier for you to learn it when you’re living here. She’s going to need you.”

Leah appeared in the doorway a moment later. She stopped at the threshold and looked at the floor.

“Come here, love,” Kaden said.

She walked over. He made a hand gesture. She dropped to her knees in front of him.

Seth felt weirded out, yet his cock throbbed in his pants again.

“Love,” Kaden said, “I’ve told Seth we’ll give him a demonstration.”

“Yes, Master.”

“Is that all right with you?”

“Whatever Master wants me to do.”

“That was not my question.”

“Yes, Master. It is all right with me.”

“Prepare for me.”

She stood, her entire body flushed. Seth first thought it was embarrassment then realized it was arousal.

She quickly undressed. Seth noticed she wasn’t wearing any panties under her skirt. She neatly folded her skirt and shirt and laid them on a nearby shelf, then put her shoes on the floor underneath. When she wore nothing but her collar she turned and looked at Kaden, waiting for instructions.

Kaden was unbuttoning his shirt. “Are you all right, love?” he softly asked her.

“Yes, Master.”

“Where are we, love?”

“Green, Master.”

Seth wordlessly watched their exchange, his jaw slightly gaped. Her shaved pussy looked swollen, like she was…

Fuck.

Kaden draped his shirt on a hook apparently there for just that purpose. Seth had never paid attention before to how fluidly smooth his friend could move. And now he definitely saw the tattoos were matching.

“Love,” Kaden said to Leah, “I’ll let you choose this time. You pick what you want me to use.”

Leah nodded and turned to the rack of implements. Without hesitation she reached for a coiled whip, one of several lying on a shelf.

Seth’s blood ran cold, but he remained silent.

She walked over to Kaden and knelt before him, offering it up to him.

“The four-footer?” he said, almost sounding amused. “You don’t want to take it easy on poor Seth tonight, do you?”

“Please, Master. I need to feel the bite.” Her voice sounded choked, and her eyes looked red, like she was near tears again.

His face softened. He nodded and took the whip from her. “Of course, love,” he said, his voice incongruously gentle. “Set of twenty?”

“Yes, Master. Please.”

“Take your place, love.”

She stood and walked over to the bench and lay across it, her arms and legs falling near the attached cuffs. Kaden walked over to her and stroked her ass. Seth, who felt he was now an outsider in this tableau, remained silent and still.

“Do you want the cuffs, love?”

Leah’s eyes were closed. Seth had seen her tightly peaked nipples.

“Master’s choice.”

“Do you mind if we don’t use them tonight? I think this will be intense enough for Seth without seeing that right now.”

“I understand, Master.”

Seth looked up as Kaden uncoiled the whip. He realized the ceiling in this room was higher than in the other bedrooms. While the living room and dining room had tall, vaulted ceilings, the other bedrooms were standard eight-foot ceilings. During the planning stage, Kaden had asked for this room to have a vaulted ceiling and no ceiling fan.

Now he understood why.

Kaden backed away from the bench and shook out the whip. He stretched his neck and rolled his shoulders, loosening up. His tone changed, firm, authoritative, sounding totally unlike Seth’s soft-spoken friend. “Do you need to feel the bite, slave?”

From the bench, it looked like Leah actually wiggled her ass and hips at Kaden. “I need to feel the bite, Master.”

“Set of twenty, love.”

“Twenty, Master.”

“Count.”

Seth flinched, unprepared as Kaden nailed her with the whip, striking her squarely in the middle of her left ass cheek.

“One, Master.”

His face a mask of concentration, Kaden slowly worked through the set, Leah keeping count with each strike. It was obvious Kaden knew what he was doing, making it look effortless and apparently striking his intended spot each time.

It was also equally obvious that Leah was…enjoying wasn’t perhaps the best word, but she definitely wasn’t upset about it despite the tears running down her face by the time he finished.

Kaden coiled the whip. “Where are we, love?”

“Green, Master.”

“Very good, love.” He walked over to her and knelt beside her, touching his forehead to hers, whispering to her. She nodded and cried. He pulled her into his arms and sat on the floor, holding her in his lap for many long, tender minutes as she sobbed, her agonized screams echoing through the otherwise silent house. Kaden remained silent as she clutched him, his face buried in her hair.

Now Seth felt even more uncomfortable. He wanted to get up and walk out and give them privacy, yet felt that would disturb them more than him just quietly sitting there.

Kaden nuzzled the top of her head, and that was when Seth spotted his friend’s tears.

Leah eventually composed herself. Kaden whispered something to her, then tenderly kissed her temple. She nodded, stood, and left the room.

From his place on the floor, Kaden wiped his eyes and looked at Seth.

Taking a deep breath and knowing he could not refuse his friend, Seth softly said, “I’ll do it.”