Their Discovery (Legally Bound Book 3)

by Rebecca Grace Allen

  “You ever miss it?” Brady asked.

  “Eating like we used to?”

  “No, dumbass. Football.”

  Nick shook his head. “Nah. It was just a game.”

  Brady went back to his food. Nick had moved on from the Terriers in a way Brady hadn’t. Football was where Brady felt the same as the other guys, on the outside at least. And it helped that he loved the sport. It was half about the game, half about the good times. He got to play like a monster and eat that way, too. He missed that camaraderie.

  “What did you have in mind for tonight, anyway?”

  “There’s a basketball game on. We could watch at Barrel ’n’ Flask.”

  Brady made an eh face. He’d be into the pub they liked by Fenway, but he wasn’t much of a basketball fan. He’d watch a game if the Celtics were playing, or hockey if the Bruins were on the ice, but it wasn’t like watching the Pats. Sports were tied with Marvel movies in Brady’s head, save for football which superseded everything. It was sacrilege, to be a Native New Englander and not worship the team that had dominated the NFL the last few decades. He was still glowing from their last Super Bowl win, but that also meant there were no more games until September, and they were weeks out from baseball season, when watching the Red Sox would get him through till the fall.

  Nick took a bite of his lettuce-crap. Brady scowled at it.

  “Sam would sell a kidney to get me to eat like you do.”

  “You should listen to her. Speaking of Sam, would she be up for joining us? She was going out with us for a while there.”

  Brady stared at his food. Sam had joined them for a few nights out, but for the most part he’d been going out without her. She’d always said she preferred staying home rather than ask her parents to babysit last minute. That he should go. Have fun.

  He’d thought it was because she hadn’t wanted to be around him.

  “I dunno.” He popped another bite in his mouth and wiped his messy hands on his napkin. Truth was, he didn’t have the first clue what Sam was up for.

  A beat of silence passed. Nick put his food on his plate. “You two okay?”

  “Sure.” Lie. “Why?”

  “No reason.”

  For the most part, Brady had put up a front with his friends and family, keeping the problems with him and Sam on the DL. He didn’t like to burden other people, and honestly hadn’t wanted to tell his best friend with his perfectly stable marriage anything about it. But Nick clearly knew something was up, so Brady had to say something.

  “Sam had a job interview yesterday.”

  “I know. Gabe told me.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Duh.” Because the two of them talked, like normal couples did. “She needs work. To get out and do something for her.”

  “Yeah.” Nick’s eyebrows were raised. Brady raised his back at him.

  “Dude, I know I’m hot, but we’re both taken and I’m straight. No need to stare at what you can’t have.”

  “You’re such a fucking pain in the ass.”

  “That’s what he said.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “That’s what he—”

  “Brady, will you be serious for a second?”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Because you and Sam were barely speaking at the wedding and you’re gonna joke around until someone forces it out of you.”

  He couldn’t argue with logic. Brady spun his ring around. “Things aren’t…good right now. We keep fighting. And we haven’t had sex in forever.” Except last night had been the start of a thing. Hadn’t it?

  He looked up at Nick, who hadn’t spoken. “TMI?”

  “Dude, I saw you sweaty, smelly and gross in a campus locker room. I think we passed TMI a decade and a half ago.”

  He talked about locker rooms so easily. Like he hadn’t been beaten to a pulp in one.

  “You talking to Sam about it?” Nick asked. Brady shook his head. “You talking to anyone?”

  “I’m talking to you now, aren’t I?”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  “I talked to Jack and Patrick, a few months back.”

  “And?”

  “And…it sucked,” Brady replied.

  It had been his own personal Spanish Inquisition, and not the fun Mel Brooks version. It was emasculating as hell, being taken out to lunch by his perfect big brother and his big brother’s friend who Brady had looked up to since he was five. Ten minutes in and he’d felt like he was on one of those old ABC Afterschool Specials—except those shows never ended in bedroom advice from two men in their forties. It had been Patrick’s bright idea, and Brady discovered that not only was he not as smart or as good looking as Jack, but he’d ended up on the shallow end of the gene pool with sex, too.

  He wished he’d never said anything to them about his marriage being in trouble in the first place. At least Patrick was the only one he’d admitted the truth about himself to. He’d mostly avoided both of them since.

  Nick folded his arms on the table. “I’d have thought Jack would be good at offering direction.”

  “Why? Because he’s so old?”

  “No, because he’s a Dominant.”

  Brady’s mouth dropped open. “Wait, how do you… Why do you know… What?”

  Nick laughed. “I know about Lilly being a submissive. It wasn’t hard to figure out that if she was one half of the equation, Jack was the other.”

  His jaw just about hit the floor. “How do you know about Lilly?”

  “She told me.”

  “She told you?”

  How did siblings talk to each other like that? How did anybody talk to anyone like that?

  Actually, Lilly was the only person Brady could talk to about this. He’d practically been her and Jack’s matchmaker, and his mad database skills had helped her win a case last year. But talking to your brother’s wife about the fact that you both liked to kneel was fucking weird, and every time he’d been around her lately, he’d worried she could smell it on him, like some BDSM sixth sense.

  I see kinky people. They don’t know they’re kinky, but they are.

  “Dude, we can’t talk about this,” Brady said. “It’s my brother and your sister.”

  “We’re not talking about your brother and my sister. We’re talking about you. That’s what people do. They talk about shit with each other.”

  But talking about this shit made him feel as small and knocked around as the puck he’d just slammed across the air hockey table. And he couldn’t tell if Nick was saying Jack could help because he had experience calling the shots, or if it was because his best buddy knew Brady liked having his shots called.

  He chose to ignore the elephant in the room. Brady gnawed off a piece of his burger and purposely talked with his mouth full. “I guess I’m not people.”

  “I give up.” Nick finished the rest of his crap-wich, balled up the wrapper and tossed it in the trash. Whew. Saved by the lack-of-table-manners. “Maybe if Sam gets the job it will help.”

  He’d keep his fingers crossed.

  Back in the office that afternoon, Brady’s concentration hit a wall. He tried to focus, but his thoughts kept going in circles. Nick was right. He should try talking to Sam. Not about their relationship, but what had gone down last night. At least then she could confirm what he’d thought had happened hadn’t, and put him out of his misery.

  His knee ached. Brady looked out his window. The sleet had changed to snow, the sky darkening even more than it already was at four o’clock. He wasn’t one of the bosses for nothing. He opened a chat to Wendell.

  “What do you say we call it a snow day and close up shop?” Brady typed.

  “You’re just trying to avoid an air hockey rematch.”

  He laughed. “You want to get your ass beat twice in one day?”

  Wendell followed up a second later. “I’ll play caboose and lock up. You get home safe.”

  His heart thudding in his chest, Brady packed his things and left.
r />   There was another car in the driveway when Brady arrived home. One that belonged to Sam’s parents.

  He didn’t mind his in-laws. They were good people, he saw them more often than he saw his own folks, and his fear of getting post-traumatic osteoarthritis was a bond he shared with Sam’s mom. It wasn’t that Brady and his parents didn’t talk, they just…didn’t talk. They FaceTimed with the kids when Dad could hold the phone up right, but Brady ended up looking up his mother’s nose half the time. Sam’s parents lived here, which meant his daughters spent more time with them, and Allegra contained her outbursts a little better when her favorite grandparents were around. But it meant he wasn’t likely to talk to Sam about anything.

  It was probably for the best. Stomping through the half foot of snow that had begun to stick, Brady pushed the door open.

  “Daddy!” The sight of Hope’s little body hurtling toward him was the image he was sure he’d remember when he walked her down the aisle.

  “Hey, munchkin.” Still in his coat, he picked her up. “How was school?”

  “Good. Nana and Pop are here. They’re helping Allegra with her homework.”

  “Isn’t that nice of them. Who helped you with yours?”

  “Nobody. I did it by myself.”

  “All by yourself? No way.” She nodded. Kid had inherited her mother’s brain, all right. She’d probably be doing calculus this time next year.

  He put her down, toed off his shoes and shook off his coat. He slung it over the banister, then stopped himself and put it in the coat closet. That would make Sam happy. Hope took him by the hand and towed him into the kitchen.

  “Daddy’s home!” she said.

  Sam turned around from the stove. Her hair was doing some kind of magical bouncy shit, soft and curling around her shoulders. She was wearing that sweater thing she loved, the one with the hood and the pockets, skin-tight leggings and slippers beneath it. But it wasn’t her body, her clothes or her hair that got his attention.

  It was her smile.

  “Hope,” Sam said. “Go and tell everyone it’s time to wash up. I need to talk to Daddy.”

  Hope dutifully ran to the living room, and Brady stood awkwardly while Sam stirred something green and stringy in a pot.

  “I have something to tell you,” she said.

  “What’s that?”

  The three beats of silence made him worry his lunchtime burger truly was giving him a heart attack.

  She put down the ladle. “I got the job.”

  “For real?” He wanted to pick her up, to twirl her around in celebration, but he wasn’t sure she’d appreciate the advance. “That’s great!”

  She laughed, looking almost giddy, and that was good enough. Man, she shouldn’t have been stuck at home all this time. The woman in front of him seemed like the Sam he used to know.

  “I can’t believe they decided so quickly,” he added.

  “It turns out they always wanted me. One of the partners knew Arnold Dawes.”

  “No shit.” He winced, then remembered the girls weren’t in the room, and she didn’t make any comments about his language anyway. Sam didn’t talk about the congressman she’d worked for often, but Brady knew he’d been like a second father to her. “When did you find that out?”

  “Yesterday. In the interview.”

  A weird tension coiled up in Brady’s chest. She’d known and hadn’t said anything? “That’s cool. How come you didn’t call me at work and tell me you’d gotten the job?”

  She shrugged and went to the fridge to retrieve a jar of tomato sauce. “I was busy.”

  The tension wound tighter. “Oh. Okay.”

  Sam put the jar on the counter and paused. She took a step toward him, hesitant. Almost experimental. “And I wanted to tell you in person. I thought it would make me…happy.”

  There was a weight to her last word, like she was trying to tell him something.

  Brady’s thoughts slowed. He stared at her. “Did it?”

  No longer joyful, Sam’s smile morphed into the sly one she’d worn so often in college, the one that said she knew what he was thinking but didn’t care to share it. “It did.”

  “Oh.” His pulse was practically strangling him. “Good.”

  She went back to the stove, and Brady watched her move, the sway of her hips. He wanted her. Wanted permission to touch her.

  Permission. Fuck if that didn’t send shudders up his spine.

  “I start on Monday,” she said, her back to him. “My parents offered to come over to help with stuff, since HR sent me a boatload of paperwork.”

  He ignored the stab of jealousy that she’d told them first. “A boatload of paperwork for a part-time job?”

  “They do everything by the book there. They even needed a photo of my diploma. But I’m going to have an early start from now on. I’ll need you to get the girls out the door in the mornings.”

  Point taken. “Will do.”

  “I’d planned on telling them about the job at dinner. Allegra might freak less with my parents here.”

  “Right.” He couldn’t tear his eyes away from her ass. Her hair. Her everything. “So you like it?” he asked. “The job?”

  It seemed silly to ask her now, after she’d already accepted it. But Sam didn’t seem to mind. She moved the pot to the sink and dumped what was in it into a strainer.

  “I do. It’s mostly phones, mail and filing, but that’s what I did in DC. And it won’t disrupt the girls’ schedules much.”

  “That doesn’t matter if it makes you…happy.”

  He was testing his words now, too, looking for a reaction, but he’d also meant what he said.

  He meant it in a way he didn’t know if she’d understand.

  Sam put the pot down. Her gaze was intense, a little quirk to her smile. Was something going on here? Or was he making shit up, seeing things he wanted to see?

  “I can reach out to the sitters who responded to the ad after dinner,” he added, because he’d finally gotten to that this morning. “See if any of them are free in the afternoon. In case you get stuck at work or something.”

  Her eyes remained steady. “I’d like that.”

  Lightning shot through him. Brady almost couldn’t breathe. It seemed like something different, something more was buzzing beneath their words, but neither of them was acknowledging it, like some strange kinky version of Russian roulette.

  “Okay. I will then.”

  Allegra came crashing into the room, Sam’s parents behind her, the two of them waving around the homework they’d helped her with and going on about how much more work kids had to do these days. Brady greeted them, thanking them for coming by. They bookended Allegra at dinner, who didn’t freak out at Sam’s announcement. She wanted to know what on earth they were eating and if she’d still be able to go to dance class after school.

  Crisis averted. Sam caught Brady’s eye and smiled.

  Once dinner was finished—a surprisingly good meal of edamame noodles that he hoped cleansed his system from lunch—Brady excused himself and went to the basement. It was part laundry room, part family room, part at-home workspace for him. He left the light off when he reached the bottom, not wanting anything to drive out the image of Sam’s smile. It made him wired. Edgy.

  It was dangerous, what they were dancing around. Dangerous how happy he wanted to make her.

  Dangerous to expose the secret he’d kept from her.

  Not so much a secret as he’d thought, but how? He’d been positive she wanted one thing since those stupid books came out—an aggressive man in a three-piece suit.

  Unless she wanted to be the one in the suit.

  He fell into the chair, his whole body tingling. Was it possible? If so, he was sunk—turned on beyond belief, and absolutely fucking terrified. He’d kept a stopper in this bottle for so long, he didn’t know what uncorking it would do to him.

  But the idea of her coming home in fancy work clothes, tying him up and ordering him to please he
r had him rock hard at his desk. Closing his eyes, he plucked fantasies like candies from a jar, thinking of all the lewd acts a Dominant Sam could perform. Her dressed up in leather, demanding that he kneel. Tying him up and teasing him with that mouth of hers. He hadn’t felt it in a while, but his wife’s skills at oral were mind blowing. There were dozens of ways she could drive him into subspace, that drunken high feeling he’d read about in chat forums on FetLife before nerves had driven him to cancel his account. He imagined her introducing him to the prostate orgasm, wielding toys that would bring the kind of pleasure he’d only dreamed about or seen in porn.

  The door at the top of the steps creaked open. Brady instinctively shot forward, hiding his hard-on beneath the desk. Sam appeared at the top of the steps. She was hidden in shadow, the hallway light silhouetting her, and didn’t question why he had the lights off.

  “Cassie texted.” Her voice was different. Stronger, yet softer somehow. “She wants to celebrate my getting the job. So we’re going out with everyone on Friday.”

  Brady swallowed. These sounded like commands, ones he had no problem obeying. “Okay.”

  “And my parents are taking the girls for the weekend.”

  “The whole weekend?”

  “All of it.”

  Did that mean what he thought it meant? He couldn’t see her face, but she didn’t say anything else, and her words hung there like a warning or a promise.

  “Okay,” he said again. Sam waited a moment before closing the door.

  Brady exhaled heavily. Part of him wanted to lock that door, wrap his fist around his dick and take care of things right now. But the rest of him wanted whatever opportunity she was offering him, wanted Sam’s hands, Sam’s words, Sam ordering him to the edge and allowing him to go over it.

  Something new and crisp was crackling between them, something finally uncovered after all these years. He still wasn’t sure that was where they were at—if she truly knew—but if she did and didn’t hate him for it, then he could wait.

  A weekend alone with her. It could be the opportunity he’d waited for.

  And he wasn’t going to wreck it.

  9