The Reluctant Dom

Chapter Three

Kaden stood and turned his back to Seth for a moment as he wiped his face. He finally took a deep breath and then turned and nodded. “Thank you,” he quietly said. “I can’t begin to tell you how much I appreciate this. It takes a huge burden off me.”

Seth felt emotionally drained. Not only from his own feelings, but from what he’d just witnessed.

He also worried he might not be able to step up and take over. Could he deal with that responsibility?

He was the perpetual fuck-up. Could he ever truly be strong and steady Kaden?

“You won’t let her down,” Kaden said as if reading his mind. “You’ll do fine. I know you will.”

Seth shook his head. “What am I getting myself into?”

“Let’s go talk. Give her a few minutes to recover.” He grabbed his shirt and glasses and led Seth back to the living room where they settled on the large sectional sofa. “Do you have early classes tomorrow?”

“No. I have one at eleven.”

“Why don’t you spend the night? I’m taking off the rest of the week for Leah. I need to finish up some things at work over the next few weeks, and then I’m going to stay home for her. I still have some projects going on that I need to wrap up or hand off. I can mostly work from here until they’re taken care of.”

Here he was, dying, and still talking about doing things for Leah.

Seth’s eyes flicked to the hallway. “I don’t know if I should spend the night tonight, dude. I mean…” He didn’t know how to finish, so he didn’t.

“Get used to seeing her naked. It’s how she usually dresses. Unless it’s chilly or she’s not feeling well, she’s usually wearing only her collar. I mean, how many times have you dropped by unexpectedly and caught her ‘just out of the shower’ and wearing only her robe?” Kaden used finger quotes around the phrase.

Seth mentally reeled. He’d joked with her that his timing always sucked and that she needed a new bathrobe. He caught her wearing it fairly frequently, always pulled high around her neck…

He closed his eyes. “Shit.”

“Yep. Makes sense now, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“Come on, I mean, really. Did you honestly think she manages to take showers just when you show up?” Kaden laughed, amused. “That’s why it’s usually hanging behind the front door.”

Seth flushed. He had noticed that on more than one occasion but hadn’t thought anything about it. He assumed she left it there to put on in the morning when she walked down the drive to get the paper.

Kaden continued. “There’s plenty of times when she thought you might be stopping by, or if she suspects anyone might be coming by, she’ll keep a pair of shorts and a T-shirt by the door so she can slip them on quickly. Then she’s usually wearing her day collar, not the one she’s wearing now.” He worked his wedding band around his finger. “Call your brother and tell him you’re spending the night. You’ve stayed here before. That way he won’t worry. We can talk, have breakfast in the morning.”

“How am I supposed to get used to seeing your wife walking around here naked?” Seth didn’t want to voice the last part of his statement.

Kaden smirked. “Buddy, you have to. Kind of hard to make love to her with her clothes on.”

Horrified, Seth recoiled from his friend’s words. “Dude! She’s your wife! I can’t…I can’t ask her to have sex with me!”

“Why not? You’re going to be her Master, her husband. She’ll want it. I damn sure know you’ll want it.”

Seth tried to reconcile what Kaden had told him earlier. He dropped his voice to a hoarse whisper. “Dude, after what you told me—”

Kaden shook his head. “This isn’t the same. You won’t be forcing her, trust me. She likes you. She’s attracted to you.”

Seth fell silent, trying to process this information. He didn’t know which shocked him more, the matter-of-fact tone Kaden used or his friend’s obviously well-thought-out plans. Just when Seth thought he’d hit the high-water weird mark, Kaden raised the bar yet again.

Kaden’s dying.

Kaden stretched back, an amused smile on his face. “We’re married, not dead. No, we don’t sleep with other people.” His smile faded. “Before now. This will be a first for us.”

“I’m so not doing you, buddy.” How much more did Seth not know about Kaden?

And how much did he not want to know?

Kaden laughed. “Don’t worry. I don’t swing that way either.” His voice softened. “Remember that girl that one time?”

Seth finally laughed. “Yeah. Jillian.” He shook his head. “Man, she turned us every which way but loose that night. Well worth the two-day hangover that rotgut tequila gave me.”

The men fell quiet again for a moment until Kaden broke the silence. “We talk, Leah and me. We use fantasy. You’ve played a starring role in hers more than a few times.”

Seth reddened, simultaneously embarrassed and oddly pleased. “Yeah?”

Kaden nodded. “That’s another reason I thought of you first. I know she can love you. She will be as good for you as you will for her.”

Seth studied his hands. “I cannot believe you are telling me it’s okay to fuck your wife.”

“My life has changed a lot in the past few days, buddy. My whole way of thinking has changed.” Kaden removed his glasses and closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose, rubbed it. “I know her,” he softly said. “If I don’t hook the two of you up before… If something doesn’t happen between you two, it won’t. She won’t let it. She’ll feel too guilty, and that will leave her open to something horrible happening.” He opened his eyes and looked at Seth again. “And let’s face it. After, you’d normally not ask her out, right?”

Seth swallowed hard. “Right,” he softly agreed.

Kaden sadly smiled. “I have to do this. I don’t like that I have to make arrangements like this.” His smile faded. “We should have had fifty or more years together.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I want her to be happy, Seth. I want her to love and live and not spend her years in a black hole. Worse, I don’t want her to kill herself.”

“You think she’d do that?” One more worry on Seth’s plate.

“Not if she has you. She’ll have you to serve and take care of her. She’ll hurt, she’ll grieve, but if she has you she’ll keep putting one foot in front of the other. She won’t have a choice.” He opened his eyes again. Seth saw he was near tears. “I’m not saying you’ve got to do anything with her tonight. I’m saying you need to let things happen between the two of you. And it will happen. It can’t not happen.”

Kaden glanced at the cable box, where the time was displayed. “You need to call Ben and Helen and tell them you won’t be home tonight so they don’t worry.”

Seth numbly nodded and pulled out his cell phone to make the call. While he did, Kaden walked to the kitchen. He returned a moment later with two fingers of bourbon over ice and retook his place on the sofa.

“Let’s get you moved in by this weekend, okay? I want you settled as soon as possible so I can get the two of you into a routine. She needs structure.”

Seth had spent several nights at their house over the years, usually after a late-running card game or after having too much to drink after a cookout, but this felt different.

Weird.

The voice didn’t sound like his own, Seth thought. “Okay.”

“When does this semester end?”

Seth tried to force his brain to work. “A couple of weeks.”

“Did you already register for the next one?”

“Not yet.”

“You need to stop by the registrar’s office and talk to them, find out the procedure for taking time off. If you still need to take one class at a time or something that’s okay. You don’t want a heavy class load for a semester or two at least.” He looked away. “I doubt you’ll miss many.”

Seth stiffly nodded.

Kaden continued, his voice sounding hoarse. “I’ll get the paperwork drawn up for you next week.”

Seth shook his head. “I don’t need paperwork. I trust you.”

“I trust you, too. The problem is, Leah won’t be able to function. I need someone with legal authority to make decisions and get shit done. I need you to have a power of attorney, medical proxy, DNR order, my living will has to be changed, bank accounts, all of that. I need you on all that paperwork for her, too. Might as well do it all and make it official. It’ll make our lives easier later on. One less thing for me to worry about. Get it done and over with.”

Seth numbly nodded. That even control-freak Kaden could think of all of this at a time like this…must be the attorney training.

Kaden took a deep breath. “I don’t want to die in a hospital. I want to be here. We’ll have to get hooked up with hospice when the time comes. At least you’ll be able to practice your nurse training,” Kaden attempted to joke.

Seth snorted, but Kaden knew it wasn’t total amusement.

“Sorry, buddy.” He paused a moment before he softly continued. “I want to be cremated. Whatever Leah wants to do with the remains is okay with me. You may have to help her make that decision. I’ll have a few things prepared. I’ll give them to my partner, Ed, so when it…happens, you can just call him and he’ll set the other balls in motion for you. You can focus on her for the immediate time, and Ed will take over and handle that stuff for you both. Okay?”

Seth nodded. Surreal. Nightmare. Wormhole still looked like a viable option.

Kaden leveled his gaze at Seth. “I don’t like talking like this. I don’t like planning like this. I want it fucking done and out of my way. Out of our way. I want it handled now, so I don’t have to think about it anymore. I want it done now, while I can think about it, so I don’t forget anything and we can spend the rest of my time doing what needs to be done for Leah.” He took a sip of his drink. “I don’t want her reverting in her stress.”

“What do you mean?”

“I know at first some of what I’ll ask you to do to and for her might run contrary to what you think and feel is right. Remember, I know her and I know what she needs. You have to trust me. You cannot let her put up a wall. If she does, she’ll hide behind it and then we’ll lose her. She’ll sink back into her old behaviors, and you won’t ever be able to get her back once I’m gone.”

“I thought you said you didn’t have to worry about that anymore?”

“I also told you she’s had three—well, now four—sessions in twenty-four hours. Usually she only gets them twice, maybe three times a week, if that, and sometimes I barely touch her. What you saw just now was mild compared to what she’s already had today.”

Stunned, Seth shook his head. “That was fucking vicious, man. You mean that was on the low end of the scale?”

Kaden nodded and sipped his drink, frowning. “You saw her ask for it. Physical pain like that helps her process emotions and ground herself.” He met Seth’s gaze again. “You can never let her emotionally detach. That’s almost too far gone if she gets to that point. You’ll learn to recognize her nonverbal cues, her body language. Sometimes all she needs is a barehanded swat to the ass to make her feel better. Sometimes she needs a lot more. Sometimes she’ll ask if she recognizes what’s going on. Your job is to spot the times when she’s not cued in to herself and doing it for her.”

“This is a lot to fucking learn, man. Are you really that worried she’ll cut herself again?”

“Why do you think I was chopping the vegetables before dinner? I won’t take the chance.”

Seth heard their bedroom door open. A moment later, Leah walked into the living room, her hair down, face washed and free of makeup, apparently wearing nothing but her collar and a long T-shirt that hung to midthigh.

Kaden held his hand out to her. “Come here, love,” he said.

She walked over and took his hand. She pressed her lips to the back of his hand before he pulled her into his lap. She curled there with her face buried against his chest, looking more like a lost child than a woman nearly forty years old. He kissed the top of her head, resting his chin in her hair, and met Seth’s eyes.

“Thank you. For both of us.”

Seth nodded.

They sat silently for a few minutes. Kaden shifted position, and Leah sat up and looked at him.

“Love,” he said, “Seth’s said yes.”

Her eyes teared up, but she nodded and looked at Seth. “Thank you,” she whispered.

He nodded.

Kaden patted her on the thigh. “Let’s go over a few ground rules, okay?”

She nodded.

“Are you comfortable calling him Master right now?”

She hesitated, but Seth answered for her. “Dude, I’m not comfortable with it yet. Can we wait on that? Please?”

Kaden thought for a moment. “How about ‘Sir?’ There needs to be a title.”

Leah nodded. “That’s fine, Master.”

Kaden sadly smiled and stroked her cheek. “Maybe that is better, for now. Less confusion.” He looked at Seth. “Okay with you?”

What was he supposed to say? He shrugged. “I can live with that, I guess.”

“Good. It’s important. Not all the time, just during play and when we’re formal.” He returned his focus to Leah. “We won’t be totally formal for a week or so. Let’s let things settle down. Seth’s going to move in, and we’ll start teaching him everything. You’re going to have to help him learn, especially at first.”

“Yes, Master.”

Seth so could not get used to that.

“Very good, love.” Kaden looked at Seth. “I think you’ve already noticed that. It’s one of our codes. We can use it even if we’re out with vanilla folks. We can still be formal in some ways and no one ever knows.”

Seth dumbly nodded.

Kaden continued. “I know that might take you a little while to get used to, and that’s okay. But it is important. Tomorrow night we’re going to the club, and I want you to go with us. Might as well bring your stuff over, at least plan on spending the night.” Seth started to protest, but Kaden intercepted him. “I’m not going to ask you to do anything tomorrow night except watch and learn. You need to see for yourself what we do, what happens.”

Seth relaxed. “Okay.”

Kaden looked at Leah. “Tell Seth our rule about your behavior.”

She looked at Seth. “How I behave reflects upon Master. My behavior must always honor Master.”

“And your behavior now will reflect upon Seth, too,” Kaden said.

She nodded.

“Very good, love.” Kaden kissed her temple. “He’ll have to learn things for you. You will have to be patient with him, especially at first. If he says or does something that’s contrary to what should be, you can red light and explain it to him. However, you need to understand, many things he won’t do exactly like me. He’s not me, and you will have to grow comfortable with that. Understand?”

She nodded.

Seth spoke up. “Red light?”

“Tell him.”

She looked at Seth again. “Safe words. Red, yellow, green. Red means immediate stop of activities, or if we’re someplace vanilla, it means we immediately switch to full vanilla mode until we can go somewhere private and talk about it. Yellow is caution. It means we need to check in with each other. Green is everything’s okay.”

Seth felt weird asking but knew he had to. “Is that what you were asking her back there?”

Kaden nodded as he stroked her hair. She closed her eyes and leaned into his hand, nuzzling him.

“You’re going to get an eye-opening experience,” Kaden said. “You’re going to get over any bashfulness with her.” His voice softened as he stared at Leah. “You’re also going to learn things about yourself you never knew. You’re going to have the time of your life, man.”

Kaden stroked her cheek and turned her face to his. “You have to get used to listening to him, too. When you’re alone with him, even if it’s just at the store or something, it’s as if you were with me. You must obey him.”

She nodded.

“He will take care of you. I promise.” Kaden’s eyes flicked to Seth, and Leah looked at him.

Seth nodded, barely able to speak. “I promise.”

Another sad smile. “Thank you,” she said.

Kaden kissed her again. “You’ll come to trust him the way you trust me. It’ll take some time. That’s why I wanted to start now with this, while we have time. I need to be able to spend time with him and show him.”

She nodded.

“From now on, the rule about asking for permission to speak to someone doesn’t apply to Seth. In fact, he can grant you permission to speak. He’ll pretty much be going everywhere with us from now on, so his word is as good as mine.”

She nodded.

“Seth’s going to need some time to get used to the way you normally dress around here,” Kaden said with a smile. He slipped his hand under her shirt. “In addition to not being totally formal, why don’t you keep a shirt handy for a while?”

Seth couldn’t get the memory of Leah’s naked body and shaved mound out of his mind. “I doubt that’s going to help,” he grumped.

“I don’t mind helping you with that,” Leah softly said, blushing.

Seth frowned, certain he’d misheard her. “Huh?”

Kaden closed his eyes and kissed her temple. “It will happen sooner or later.”

Seth felt like his body went numb. “Okay. While I’ll admit there’s part of me that wants to take you up on that right now, there’s another part of me screaming bloody murder that I’m totally creeped out by you both being so okay with this.”

“It’s okay, Seth,” Leah said. Her voice had dropped almost to a whisper. “Kaden and I talked.” She took a deep breath, and her eyes brimmed again. Damn it, he hated seeing her so upset. “He’s right that it will happen eventually. It’s not fair to you to keep you hanging. I don’t want to do that to you.”

Seth started to speak then snapped his mouth shut again, speechless. He finally managed to string coherent words together. “Give me some time to get used to this, guys.”

Kaden opened his eyes. Seth saw he struggled not to cry. “I don’t have a lot of time. We don’t have time for blushing bullshit. I don’t have time. I know you’re weirded out. I know it’s uncomfortable.” His hand stroked her hair again. Seth suspected it was more an unconscious gesture to comfort himself at that point. “There’s no use dancing around the fucking issue. While I appreciate that you love me enough to not be a prick about this, you don’t need to spare my feelings. After a couple of weeks with us I think you’ll understand how and why I can do this.”

Seth wasn’t sure of that, but he nodded anyway.

As if to pull himself back from the brink of his emotional pain, Kaden took a deep breath. “Back to the rules.” He looked at Leah. “No one is allowed to touch her—ever—except you and me. Only in an emergency.”

Back to mass confusion for Seth. “She’s hugged me before. And I’ve seen her hug and shake hands with people.”

Kaden shook his head. “Sorry. I mean in non-vanilla circumstances. Or when we’re vanilla-formal. Besides, a lot of the rules we have I’ve never applied to you. You’re around so much, you’re family. It wouldn’t have been practical without outing ourselves.”

Seth pinched the bridge of his nose. “Do I get a glossary of terms and a syllabus for this whacked-out course I’m cramming for?”

Leah actually laughed a little at that. When Seth looked at her again, her sad smile made his heart thump in a strange way. At least he’d made her smile in this whole crazy mess.

She shared a brief glance with Kaden. He nodded. She spoke. “Vanilla means, you know, everyday, plain, normal setting. Like what you used to see us as before all this. Vanilla formal means we’re doing something but no one else knows what’s going on. Like a private game in public. Formal is just that, how I address you and Master in public or private, how I dress, what you do with and to me. Informal is still we’re playing but not with the protocols.”

“Protocols?”

“You’ll learn them,” she quietly said. “It’ll be okay. You’ll do fine. I know you will.”

“Do you ever, you know, relax in private?”

Kaden took over, nodding. “Usually, unless Leah’s very stressed, she doesn’t call me Master unless we’re having a session. But for now…” He stroked her hair again. “It’s comforting to her. It helps her cope.”

She nodded but didn’t speak.

Seth felt his heart break for both of them. How the hell was he supposed to help them through this and do what he was supposed to do and deal with losing Kaden?

Kaden’s dying.

Kaden kissed her one more time. “We can deal with more stuff later. Go get the big guest room ready for him. We want him in there. It’s got its own bathroom.”

She nodded, climbed out of Kaden’s lap, and kissed his hand again. She started to leave the room, then turned to Seth. “I know this isn’t any easier on you than it is on us. I appreciate this. I really do.”

Seth watched her go. He finally turned back to Kaden.

“You’ll need to go to the doctor,” Kaden said, low enough his voice wouldn’t carry down the hall. “I don’t want to sound like an asshole, but you need a full round of testing for HIV and STDs. Your last ex was a royal bitch. Frankly, I heard rumors she slept around on you. I also want you to get a full physical. I’ll pay for it.”

Seth felt his stomach roll in a bad way. He’d heard the same rumors but never wanted to think about them. “Okay,” he hoarsely whispered.

“I’ll have Leah make you an appointment with my doctor. She’ll go with you and take care of the bill. I also want to make sure you’re healthy. If you’ve got any issues we need to catch them early, get you taken care of. I know you’ve got VA, but I want you checked out now. It’s bad enough I’m dying on her. She damn sure doesn’t need to lose you, too.” His voice choked at the end. Seth wondered at his friend’s inner strength. If their positions were reversed, Seth suspected he’d be a blubbering mess by this point.

“What if I fuck this up?” Seth whispered. “What if I can’t do this right for her?”

Kaden drained the last of his drink. “You can, and you will. I know you can. She won’t let you fail. Neither will I.”

“Glad you’re so confident.”

They sat in silence until Leah returned. She took Kaden’s hand and kissed it before cuddling in his lap.

When Leah next spoke, it nearly startled Seth.

“I’m glad Kade asked you. If nothing else…” She choked up, paused, then spoke. “If nothing else, I mean, down the road…I know I can always turn to you, like that at least, even if you decide you want to move on. I know I can count on you. You guys have been best friends for so long. You’re my best friend, too. You’re my oldest friend. I mean that. You really are. I’ve always felt comfortable around you.”

“Even that night in the Keys?”

She laughed, loud and genuine that time. “Yeah. Especially that night.”

Kaden smiled. “She almost let the cat out of the bag that night.”

Seth thought back, then remembered. “Wait! You did call her ‘love’ that night, I remember now. And you—”

She nodded. “I almost called him Master.”

Seth remembered the night fifteen years earlier. They’d been on a lobster trip with some other friends, hitting the two-day mini season when every yahoo with a tickle stick and a lobster gauge was out on the water. Two of their buddies got into a bar fight. Kaden had gone to the bathroom before it started, and by the time he returned the whole place was involved.

Leah had gotten trapped in a corner behind two guys duking it out. When Kaden started her way, another guy jumped him. Seth, realizing what happened, immediately abandoned the friend he’d been trying to help and fought his way over to Leah, grabbed her, and ran outside to the car with her.

And in near hysterics when she’d seen Kaden fighting with another guy, she’d screamed for him, shouting, “Mas—Kaden!”

When Kaden finally fought his way out a minute later and ran to join them, he scooped her into his arms and called her ‘love.’

Seth never would have admitted it, but later that night he lay in his bed in their rented condo and listened to them make love the next room over and thought how good it felt holding her for those few seconds, how good her hair had smelled, how protective he felt of her.

How envious he’d felt of Kaden.

“I made apple pie this afternoon,” she said, bringing him back to the present. “I bought vanilla ice cream for you. Can I get you some?”

He blushed again. Leah taking care of him.

“Admit it,” Kaden gently teased. “She takes good care of you already.”

“How the hell do you read my mind like that?”

“I keep telling you. Maybe the problem all these years was that you hadn’t found the right woman.”

“I’ll be honest with both of you. I’m not sure I can get used to having a ‘slave’ serving me hand and foot.” Seth used finger quotes around the word.

“It’s not like that,” Leah insisted. “I get as much out of this as Kade does. With you, too.” She blushed. “I mean, when I’m doing things for you. Like cooking dinner and stuff.”

Kaden patted her thigh. “Go fix us some pie, please.”

She kissed him and went to do it.

Kaden dropped his voice. “It’s not about sex, either. That’s tied into it, but in our case it boils down to giving her what she needs to function. Some people are in it for the sex. Yeah, the sex is hotter for us because of this. I won’t lie. You’ll find it’s the hottest fucking sex you’ve ever imagined. But it’s not about the sex. It’s about fulfilling a need for someone. She needs to serve. She needs the structure, the safety and security. And the release for her emotional pain. Just keep an open mind. Have I ever lied to you?”

Seth shook his head. No, Kaden had never, as far as he knew, lied to him.

He was probably the one person Seth knew never would lie to him.

Kaden stood and motioned Seth to follow him to the kitchen. They took up two seats at the counter and watched while Leah finished the preparations. She even nuked Seth’s a little to warm it before adding the ice cream.

The perfect way he liked it.

She handed Kaden his first. When she slid Seth’s plate in front of him, she touched his hand and waited until he met her eyes.

“It’s okay,” she said. Then she gently squeezed his hand before letting go and fixing her own plate.

He hated himself that her touch made him harder than a rock.

“Any house rules I need to know about?” he asked, to distract himself more than anything.

Kaden shrugged. “Toilet seat down after you go, but you’re good about that anyway.”

“I figured you’d tell me rules about the dungeon,” Seth snarked.

Kaden laughed, then sighed. “Honesty. Never lie. The only way this works is if we all talk to each other. It’s going to feel weird and uncomfortable at first. It will get easier, I promise.”

“Can’t get much fucking worse,” Seth muttered.

Kaden continued. “Whenever red is called, whatever’s going on immediately stops without question, regardless of whether it’s her or you or me calling it. You’ll learn the routines and protocols as we go. It becomes automatic after a while. Oh, I’ll give you keys in the morning. You already know the gate code, and the house alarm code is 1218.”

“Leah’s birthday.” Seth didn’t realize he’d spoken aloud until he looked up and saw her sad smile.

“You remember.”

Kaden also smiled, to Seth’s surprise. His friend clapped him on the arm, squeezing briefly before letting go. “See? You’ll do fine.”

They finished. Finally, Seth excused himself. “I need to go to bed, guys. I’m worn out. Frankly, my brain’s fried. I don’t know how I’m going to get through class tomorrow.”

He walked to what was now his bedroom and closed the door behind him. Looking around, even though he’d stayed here before, he saw it for the first time. The bed was perfect, king-size, a helluva lot better than the rocklike mattress at his brother’s. Not that he’d ever complain to his brother, because it had been free and a roof over his head. He always slept well when he spent the night at Kade’s. The room was nearly twice as large as the one at his brother’s, and the attached bathroom as large as many master bathrooms in smaller homes.

He’d started unbuttoning his shirt when he heard a soft tap on his door. He opened it. Leah stood in the hall. Kaden had apparently gone on to bed, because their door was shut.

Seth’s heart hammered, panic threatening. “Leah, I meant it when I said I can’t do anything—”

She shook her head. “No! No. I…I just wanted to say good night. And thank you.” She looked up at him. “And you didn’t give me my hug when you got here tonight.”

He laughed but it came out sounding harsher than he intended. “You sort of caught me off guard with that outfit.” This one wasn’t much better, especially now that he knew what was under it. Or rather, what wasn’t.

After a long moment, he opened his arms to her. Even though he tried to lean his upper body into it, to keep her away from his hips and feeling his hard-on that demanded attention, she pressed into him. Not lewdly or even seductively.

Desperately.

When he realized this, he relaxed and held her tightly, worried she’d cry. But she didn’t, despite clinging to him like a drowning woman.

It took several minutes before she relaxed a little. “Thank you,” she whispered. “I know this sucks for you. I’m sorry.”

“Hey.” He made her look at him. “Stop. If things were different and we were single, I’d…” Suddenly, that sounded like a really stupid thing to say under the circumstances.

But she smiled again. “Yeah. I would, too.” She rested her head on his chest for a moment longer and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy it.

“Just…go easy on me, okay?” he said. “You guys are going to fry my brain at this rate.”

She stretched up and kissed his cheek. He was a little taller than Kaden’s five eleven and knew that would be an adjustment for her.

“Just remember, I can and do have the ability to stop anything I don’t like,” she assured him. “I always have. There have been times in the past I’ve red-lighted a scene. Kaden usually does before I do, but I have. So don’t ever worry about going too far. As long as you respect the safe word, you won’t hurt me.”

She left, quietly closing the door behind her.

Seth got up around two a.m. to get a drink of water. Leah had left a robe hanging on the bathroom door for him. Instead of getting dressed he pulled that on. When he opened the door he heard a soft, strange, rhythmic noise he couldn’t quite place.

The house was dark. A few carefully placed nightlights and his familiarity helped him make it to the kitchen without incident. The noise sounded louder now and almost sounded like…splashing?

He spotted a dark shape on the lanai. When he stepped out the kitchen slider, he saw Kaden standing in the shadows, staring at the pool and leaning against the wall near the sliders leading to the master bedroom.

The pool light wasn’t on. In the dark water, Leah maintained a blistering pace down and back. He knew she swam a lot, one of the reasons Kaden had the large twenty-five meter pool built, but…day-amn.

Kaden didn’t look at him, never took his eyes off the pool. He leaned in as Seth stood next to him. “Your first lesson. Never leave her alone when she’s like this,” he murmured.

“Does she know we’re watching her?”

“No. If she cries before she gets out, she’ll be okay. If she comes out looking like a fucking zombie, I’ll immediately take her to the playroom.”

Seth stared at Kaden. Kaden smiled in the dark. “Sorry. That’s what we call it. Sounds better than ‘dungeon,’ don’t you think?”

Seth stood vigil with Kaden for nearly an hour. He couldn’t believe she was still going when she finally pulled up short at the shallow end and stood, gasping, leaning against the edge. She stood frozen for several minutes, then sank beneath the water.

A low moaning sound floated out of the pool, accompanied by a flurry of bubbles. She broke the surface and took a long, hitching breath before sinking below the water again.

Kaden nodded. “That’s good.”

“What the fuck?”

He looked at Seth. “She’s screaming.”

She repeated this for nearly ten minutes before resting her head on her arms on the pool’s edge, softly crying.

Kaden nodded again and gently tapped Seth’s arm, pointing to the kitchen sliders. They went inside and closed the door behind them.

“What the fuck?” Seth asked again.

Kaden shrugged. “She wears herself out in the pool, pushes herself to the point of physical exhaustion. I mean, she can’t spank herself. She promised me she won’t cut herself, although right now I’m scared she might not be able to keep that promise if we can’t keep on top of things. She punishes herself. If it was daylight, she’d probably go run five miles or something. She hasn’t had to do this in a long time. I thought she might do it last night but she didn’t. She was too exhausted from crying.”

“How will I know?”

Kaden looked grim. “You’ll know. You might think you’ll sleep through it, but you’ll get to the point where if she rolls over in bed at night, you’ll know it.”

Seth glanced out the sliders, where in the soft moonlight he watched Leah crying in the pool. “Shouldn’t we go out there to her?”

Kaden shook his head. “Not right now. Not in a case like this.”

“Fuck.”

“There will be times she’ll come to you and outright ask to play.”

“Play? Is that whips-and-chains-excite-me code?”

Kaden smirked. “Yeah. Whatever. There will be times she gets bratty.”

“Bratty?”

“I know. It’s a lot to explain. When she’s bratty, sometimes she needs play, and sometimes she needs punishment.”

“Whoa.” Seth rubbed his forehead. “If whipping her isn’t punishment, what is?”

“Withholding.”

“Huh?”

“Not letting her play. You’ll learn the difference about what she needs.”

“You’ve so fucking confused me now, I’m lost.”

“If a kid begs for ice cream in a store and pitches a tantrum, do you give it to them?”

“What the fuck do I know about kids?”

“Well?”

Seth sighed. “I don’t know. I guess not.”

“You don’t give it to them. It’s rewarding bad behavior if you do. A lot of times you’ll know from her body language, how she’s talking, interacting with you. You’ll see her start to…I call it ‘dull down.’ It’s like she’s zonked out. Not just tired. Like she’s detaching. It’s fucking spooky. You’ll learn to tell the difference between normal tired and that. Then she needs a session. Under normal circumstances our regular trips to the club are enough to keep her going without extra sessions. We might have very light play sessions here during the week.

“But now…” He looked out the sliders. “I’m hoping once the shock wears off and she’s helping teach you that it will give her enough to focus on and I can back off on the sessions for a while. We’ll have to keep a close eye on her.”

It sounded both weird and right for Kaden to say “we” when talking about her. “Why aren’t we out there with her right now?”

“Because when she does something like this and can find release on her own, it’s better for her to handle it on her own. It’s helping her cope in a healthy way. She’ll come find me—or you now, too, I guess, depending on what’s happening—if she needs aftercare.”

Seth rolled his eyes. “Great. More vocabulary.”

Leah climbed out of the pool. Now it registered in Seth’s mind that she was naked. In the low light he hadn’t noticed before.

Kaden headed for his bedroom. “I’ll talk to you in the morning.”

Seth finally got his drink of water and returned to his room in a daze.

What had he said yes to?

Despite his swirling mix of emotions, he knew he couldn’t back out now.