Sexual Healing for Three (23 page)

He hadn’t been so vulnerable and open since he was a teen and had started to learn how to control his abilities and put a lid on what he received. But once he had immersed himself in the circumstances, he hadn’t been able to turn back, shut the valve, Russ’s and Donna’s desire and hunger an emotional and physical banquet, drawing him in and firing his own lust.

Chance stumbled to the bathroom, his head light and legs wobbly as he leaned against the door jamb for support. He turned on the light and took several deep breaths before peeling off the condom and dropping it into a nearby wastebasket. He went to the sink, turned on the cold tap, and splashed a few handfuls of water on his face.

He took one of the fancy paper towels from the wire mesh basket perched on the carpeted toilet tank to pat dry his face, taking a few minutes to enjoy his plush, vibrant surroundings, from the sparkly burgundy tub to the burgundy-and-tangerine underwater motif shower curtains and matching shag rug before the toilet.

He put the burgundy toilet lid down and sat on the seashell image, his eyes closed and head between his legs like someone preparing for a crash landing on a plane, which was appropriate since no good could possibly come of this relationship despite Donna’s current state 178

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of satisfaction and serenity. Crash-landing was about the only outcome for all of them.

Chance could feel Russ’s possessiveness all the way from the living room, saw the things his brother wanted to do to Donna—how he wanted to bind and blindfold her, spank her, make her submit and come at his command—and wondered how Russ had ever allowed Chance close enough to breach Donna,
helped
his brother take her from behind, without ripping Chance’s face off. That’s how strong Russ’s psychic brand was, the fierceness of it flaring from his aura like a neon hands-off-my-property sign.

The really wild thing about all this was that Chance was turned on by the bondage and submission fantasy. He’d never been turned on by the idea of either before, but seeing it from Russ’s perspective,
feeling
it, made him hot.

Was it hereditary, this sickness, this need to dominate a woman?

Chance trembled at the thought, didn’t like comparing Russ to his father, didn’t like thinking that
he
was like his father, a man he barely knew except through the violent images he had foolishly purloined from Russ.

Was
what Russ enjoyed a sickness? Or was it just his way of expressing love, the only way he knew how?

Chance used to think that he was a bad person and a coward to shy away from relationships, especially long-term relationships that involved too many questions and too much intimacy. But seeing how Russ dealt with intimacy just put a whole new spin on the relationship game for Chance, let him know he wasn’t alone in his dysfunction.

Someone knocked on the doorframe, and Chance jerked up his head to see Russ standing on the threshold of the large bathroom, clad in his jeans and cross-trainers and holding his shirt and Chance’s boxer briefs in one hand.

He tossed the underwear to Chance, stepped into the room, and closed the door behind him before he put on and started to button up his shirt. “We need to talk.”

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Chance stood to put on his underwear, feeling a little less exposed and glad for his brother’s thoughtfulness.

Russ took up a spot several steps away, sitting on the edge of the tub. “You know.”

Chance took his seat back on the closed toilet lid, looked at Russ, but didn’t respond, couldn’t.

“What do you think?”

“I don’t know what to think.”

“You know what to think. You just don’t want to hurt my feelings.”

That and he couldn’t countenance the idea of standing in judgment over anyone, especially Russ, especially not when his own backyard was far from in order.

Nonetheless he asked, “How can you want to treat a woman like that after the way my father treated our mother?”

“It’s not the same thing, Chancellor.”

He gritted his teeth at Russ’s familiar ploy to throw him off-balance. “How is it different?”

“It’s complicated.”

“I’m not a kid you have to protect from the real world,
Russell
.”

“It’s different because I would never do anything to Donna that she didn’t want me to do. I would never hurt her.”

“Don’t you mean you would never hurt her the same way my father hurt our mother?” Even if Chance hadn’t had the ability to read his brother’s mind, the tic in Russ’s jaw beneath the five o’clock shadow told him that he had hit a nerve.

“Let me ask you this, Chance.” Russ stood and took a few steps closer. “You’ve been in her mind. I know you have. What do you think Donna wants? What do you think she craves?”

Chance didn’t want to think about what he felt when he was in Donna’s mind, the bizarre and unfathomable urges that drove her.

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What woman wanted that? What woman derived pleasure from being treated the way Russ wanted to treat Donna? What man derived pleasure from
treating
a woman like that?

You
do, Chance! You and Russ do.

“Let me put it in terms you can relate to. Like you and Angela being Wiccans, the fetish that Donna and I engage in is a way of life guided by a set of definite principles and rules. And the same way your faith has its followers who engage in the black arts to hurt people and get what they want is the same way BDSM has its followers who don’t always employ safe, sane, and consensual practices. And SSC

are the guiding principles I subscribe to, the principles of a healthy BDSM relationship.”

Russ paused here and stared at Chance as if to make sure he was getting everything before he continued. “I would do anything to make sure no harm came to Donna. I would do anything to please her, Chance. That’s what being a good Dom is about—protecting what’s yours. But in order for me to do that and satisfy my urges, as dark as you think they are, Donna has to trust me. Nothing less will do. And she doesn’t. Not yet.”

“You want me to leave you alone with her. Is that it?”

“No. I’m going to leave you alone with her because she does trust
you
.”

“How can you say she doesn’t trust you?”

“Believe me. I know what I’m talking about. Donna only thinks she trusts me because she wants me. But I don’t think she would have let what happened here tonight happen if you weren’t here too. And I’m pretty damn sure I would have handled things a lot differently and probably scared her off if you weren’t here, as subtlety isn’t my forte, and it’s been a long time since I’ve been in the Life. I’m out of practice.”

Great. His brother was out of practice, and
he
was totally without a clue.

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Chance almost laughed when he remembered how Donna had considered Russ a buffer against Chance’s abilities while the reverse was reality—he was Russ’s buffer, his brother’s in with Donna.

Chance stopped short of shaking his head, his brain and emotions overwhelmed by all the information Russ had just fed him. He wasn’t sure he was any more ready to deal with this and trust Donna and Russ as much as Russ evidently trusted him.

He stood to face his brother, didn’t know whether to expect a hug or a punch, so when Russ thrust out his hand for a shake, Chance gratefully took it.

Russ jerked him forward and pulled him into a half hug, holding him as he whispered in Chance’s ear, “Take care of her, Bro. She needs you.”

* * * *

Russ leaned his forehead against the bathroom door and took several deep breaths to prepare himself to leave Donna and Chance in the apartment alone and to their own devices.

It was eating him up inside, took every ounce of self-restraint in him, to walk down the hall back to the living room to say good night to her. And when he saw the anxious expression shining out of her mink-brown eyes, his lungs and heart constricted, making it hard to breathe.

She was back in her Daisy Dukes and Henley shirt, and the fact that she wasn’t naked should have mitigated his hunger, but the outfit only intensified it, especially when he remembered exactly what was beneath the hip-hugging, sexy-ass shorts and the form-fitting top—

pert, luscious breasts; round, voluptuous derriere, and the tightest sultry-hot pussy he had ever had the pleasure of sinking his cock into.

As short as she was, at least to his six-three, her shapely, creamy legs went on forever, and when she walked across the room to stand 182

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in front of him, Russ’s dick swelled at the sight of them eating up the distance between them.

She stared at him for a long time before speaking, as if searching for evidence of a fistfight or other physical confrontation that had happened between him and his brother.

“Everything okay?”

“Of course.”

She arched a brow as if she didn’t believe him.

Russ didn’t blame her. He wouldn’t believe him either because things were far from okay between him and Chance, and he was beginning to wonder if they ever would be okay again.

For the better part of his teens and early adulthood, he had worked to be the best mentor and guardian his brother could ever have, at eighteen taking on the responsibility of mother and father with the same dedication and intensity that he took on everything. The idea that the gifted little boy whose nose he’d wiped and whose diapers he’d changed more than three decades ago saw him as anything less than honorable and a man to emulate and admire hurt him more than he could have ever thought possible, more than he wanted to admit.

He lived his life not worrying too much what people thought about him, except those closest to him, the ones who counted. And he didn’t realize until now how much he wanted his brother’s approval, how much he needed it.

It made him wonder how Donna would deal with his kink. If Chance was having such a hard time dealing with it, what would she think about it despite her desires? How far would she go to deny her true self, maintain her regular status quo, and act like fucking two men at the same time was the standard? How far would she go to act like she had not been changed by what they had done here tonight?

True, he sensed in her a natural submissive, but despite her years, she was also inexperienced. He’d wager to guess she’d never been in a BDSM relationship, probably didn’t understand half of the desires she had, how to get what she wanted, or what to do once she got it. He
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would be literally starting from scratch with her, which was probably well and good, since he was so out of practice himself. They’d learn the ropes together as he trained her.

Working up his resolve and reaffirming his intentions centered him, made him see this situation a little clearer. They both needed time and space to deal with what had happened tonight. And he needed to start mapping out exactly how he wanted to pursue Donna and not alienate his brother.

The most important thing he needed to do was keep the lines of communication open—between himself and Chance and Donna.

Sounded simple, but he knew from fourteen years of marriage that it was anything but.

Suzie had not been a happy camper when he finally revealed his kink, and how important it was to him, to her. She especially hadn’t appreciated that he had been hiding such a basic part of his nature from her for so long and in the name of protecting her. Never mind the fact that she
hadn’t
been able to handle his hungers and didn’t want to engage in anything outside of non-kinky sex, which proved his point.

But the thing that had hurt her the most was the idea that their more-than-decade-long marriage had been a farce. For a long while after the divorce, she’d had a little complex about her ability to please any man, not just Russ. Russ made it his duty to let her know it wasn’t her, it was him, his kink, and his displeasure with their sex life had not been a failure on her part, but his.

He realized he would have to do some of the same ego stroking with Donna and, to a lesser degree, Chance, to make them see things his way. That was another side to the Dom nature, the ability to persuade and lead.

Donna stepped closer, wrapping her arms around his waist as she rested her head against his chest. “You have to go.”

It was simultaneously a statement and a question and let him know exactly how confused she was by all that had happened, not just 184

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tonight, but the entire day. Yep. Time and space was what they all needed.

Shit. Being the understanding, self-sacrificing good guy seriously sucked sometimes. He thought he had gotten over this little weakness after he’d made his confession to Suzie and gotten divorced. But that ever-present need to care for another at the expense of his own happiness was ingrained, probably going back to his trying to make up to Chance all that he had lost as a kid.

Russ nodded in response and gently squeezed Donna to him, relishing the vanilla scent wafting up from her hair and skin. He trailed his hands down her back to her ass, cupped the full, firm cheeks, and lifted her off the floor, into his arms to whisper in her ear.

“I have to get back to my kids. I don’t want them to wake up in the morning and I’m not there. Otherwise…” He let the sentence hang, not sure himself what he would do if he stayed, just assuming that she’d let him.

Donna nodded. “Duty calls.”

“Chance will take care of you. And you should let him.”

“Is that an order?”

He pulled back to look at her, remembering a couple of instances during their limited scene when she had paused with a look on her face that said she took umbrage with his tone, instances where he had doubted she’d do his bidding.

He had been so turned on at the idea of her defiance, had hoped that she would push his limits so that he could begin to push hers. But Chance had been present.

What would have happened had his brother not been there? How far would he and Donna have gone? Might they still be at it, Russ properly initiating her into the world of Dominance and submission and teaching her about the woman, the sexual being, she could be?