*~* The Next Day *~*
Derek to Caden: He’s back in Los Angeles.
Caden to Derek: What do you mean? Dex is still here isn’t he?
Derek to Caden: Yes, he arranged it with Sean, said he had to head back for something urgent. We know otherwise. Dex & Raine leave for New York tomorrow; he’ll be meeting them there. Dex says when he sees him, he’ll talk to him.
Caden to Derek: Thanks, I appreciate it. You guys coming over tonight?
Derek to Caden: Wouldn’t miss it.
THIRTY~FOUR
*~* ARYN *~*
“I don’t need a fucking lecture, Dex,” I bark into the phone.
“Who’s lecturing you?”
I sigh into the phone. “I freaked out.”
“Well hello, Captain Obvious, welcome to the party.”
“Fuck you.”
He sighs into the phone, and I know his disappointment must rival mine over running away from Nashville.
“Look, I’m sorry. I just wish you’d talk about it.”
I take a deep breath. “There is nothing to talk about.”
“Obviously there is, you ran away.”
“I just, I’m fucking confused,” I admit as I start to pace my apartment.
“About what? Caden?”
“No,” I snap.
“Yeah, alright. Listen, Caden is concerned about you. I’m going to text you his number. Please call him, or text him. Tell him you’re alright?”
“Fine.”
“You know what, jackass? Despite what you think, there are people in this world that fucking care about you. Caden is torn up over whatever it is that happened that night and he needs to know you’re at least physically okay. It doesn’t have to be any more than that.”
“Alright,” I relent. “I’ll text him.”
“Good. See you in a couple hours.” He hangs up.
We arrived in New York a couple hours ago with Talon, Eric, Calvin, plus the security team, sans Tori who stayed behind with Addison and Kyle. The twins are too young for traveling right now so Talon came alone. He’s a mess. He’s talked to them at least three times since we left the house in Los Angeles. I’ve never seen him so lost and confused, but if I know Talon when the shit starts moving and he’s on the spot, he’ll be right as rain.
We’re only missing Dex and Raine who will arrive soon. Tonight the band has their first appearance on one of the late night shows. This starts the week of album promo that will have us running around like madmen crisscrossing the city.
When Caden’s number came over, it took everything I have to talk to him. Rather than texting him, giving him an outlet to reach me, I blocked my number and called him. Hoping like hell he’d be busy and not answer his phone. Private numbers usually turn people off from answering their lines.
There was no answer and no direct send to voicemail which means I truly did catch him while he was busy and I left him a message.
“It’s Aryn, I’m perfectly fine. I, uh, I’m sorry I ran out on you the other night, but uh, yeah, I’m alright.” I hung up the phone and did my best to push all things Caden from my mind.
A task that is proving to be impossible.
He’s all I’ve thought about since that night. He’s all I see when I close my eyes. That night was something else altogether and I’m not sure I’m capable of explaining it to myself anymore. All I know is that Caden rejected me with the sweetest, kindest, warmest touch I’ve ever experienced before in my life. That rejection was confusing since I know he wanted me, he was hard as a rock, and yet he reacted the way that he did. Who does that?
But what makes me the craziest? The fact that his touch completely obliterated all my concerns, my fears. It made me feel safe, wanted, protected and most importantly, it made me feel like I really mattered. He touched me like that and rejected me in the same breath.
That is what I don’t understand. What I can’t wrap my head around.
A knock on my door, pulls me out of my thoughts about Caden, despite the fact that he remains there, in the back of my mind regardless of what I’m doing.
I open the door and Mills greets me by saying, “Time to roll.” I nod, grab all of my gear and head out.
THIRTY~FIVE
*~* CADEN *~*
“Why is this so important to you?” Derek asks me through the phone.
“It just is.”
“He’s fine, Caden.”
“I just wish he’d call me again,” I tell him.
“Why don’t you call him back?”
“I would if he hadn’t blocked his number and believe me, I’ve already tried to crack his encryption.”
He snorts into the phone. “Good luck with that. Those boys have some of the wildest technology, even you’d be jealous of it.”
I frown. “And you still won’t give me his number?”
“No, I won’t. He hasn’t given Dex or me permission to do so. Why does this mean so much to you?”
I sigh. “I’ve never felt like this about anyone.”
“Do you really think he wants to be a submissive?” he counters.
“No, I don’t. I don’t think he wants to be, but I think he’s coming to the reality that it just might be who he is. He had no problem following my commands that night, let alone the fact that he wanted permission from me before he’d consider giving me head. I’m pretty sure his realization of that fact is what sent him running. You know as well as I do that it happens all the time.”
He snorts again. “You think his confession is what sent him running? What about the fact that he may not be gay.”
“I’m not gay either.”
He chuckles, “You tell yourself that, but Caden, do you honestly think you’d be as attracted to him as you are if you weren’t at least bi?”
“Bi I can accept, but I’m not gay. I enjoy women just as much as you do. I enjoy them more when they are at my feet, but that’s beside the point.”
“Is it really?” Derek counters. “Think about it, Caden. Is Aryn really what you want or is the challenge of turning him, molding him, what’s really driving all this? You, more than anyone else I know, love this kind of challenge. It’s what keeps you motivated and more importantly, it’s what keeps you single. When you have a submissive at your side, you’re content until they’re trained, until they stop putting up a fight. The minute that they become compliant, you want to dump them for someone else.”
“Hardly,” I argue.
“Regardless, he’s a challenge, but what if he doesn’t want you, what if he’d prefer someone else? A woman?”
I shake my head despite the fact that he can’t see me through the phone. “I don’t think that’s the case.”
“But you don’t know,” he argues and I can’t dispute that because honestly, he’s right. I don’t know.
“That’s why I want to talk to him,” I tell Derek softly. “I can’t know until I hear it from him. You, above anyone else, should understand that.”
“What are you talking about?” he asks.
“Oh, I don’t know, you aren’t exactly the poster child for rational thought here my friend.” He knows exactly what I’m talking about, his own insane decisions make mine look like a cake walk at a school carnival.
“Fair enough,” he tells me. “But that doesn’t mean I’m handing over his number. But-” he hesitates, “You plan on going to any of your premieres?”
It’s my turn to snort. “No. You know I don’t do those damn things anymore.”
“Well, you might want to.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask him.
“You might want to reconsider.” He muffles the phone then comes back on, “I have to run.”
“Derek, what do you mean?”
“Just consider it. I have to run.”
He hangs up the phone, leaving me hanging, wondering why the upcoming Lost Hope premiere is suddenly so important.
*~* ARYN *~*
“We need to talk,” Dex tells me the m
oment we get to the hotel from the airport. I’ve already been here for half the day when their flight finally arrived.
“We don’t have time for it.”
“Bullshit,” he counters. “We have plenty of time and this won’t take long.” He opens the door to his hotel room. Raine had some stuff to do and discuss with Mills so they’ve gone off to another room on the floor. Since Addison stayed home, this one is on Raine to handle and this is her first time handling a press tour for 69 Bottles. I have every confidence in her, so does everyone else that’s here, but she’s completely distracted. She’d said something in the car about how they should have gone back to Los Angeles so that she could discuss stuff with Addison and get things straight, but the Top in Dex took over and he handled her in a way that gave her no choice but to comply. Though one would say the situation would seem forced, but for me, I realized that his comfort and control over Raine is a comfort to her. His encouragement and praise are a trait to be admired and I won’t lie, the jealousy returned.
“We’re here, so talk.” I lean against the wall, crossing my arms over my chest.
“Stop posturing. You know as well as I do that we are not in here for me to attack you.”
“No, you just want information so that you can feed it to Derek who can pass it along to Caden and I don’t need you or Derek meddling in my business.”
“Listen here, asshat.” Dex turns on me. “I don’t give a shit what you think, but you fucking know me better than that. I brought you in here because I am genuinely concerned about you. About what happened that night.”
The sincerity in his eyes tells me he does mean it. “Since when do you give a shit about someone other than yourself?” I argue back at him.
“When have I ever not given a shit about you?” His voice is tight, he’s pissed and he is fighting his anger and it fuels me just a little bit more. But he’s right with what he said. Dex, despite his hard ass exterior and assholishness, has always been there for me, no matter what.
“There is nothing to talk about.”
“Did he force you?”
My arms fall from my chest, “What? God, no. In fact it’s quite the opposite, he rejected me.”
That stops Dex cold. His anger subsides completely and his posture softens along with the hard stare in his eyes. “You wanted him?” His intention was clear in his eyes, strong and sure that he knows the answer to his own question but his words come out in more of an unsure whisper.
I shrug. “Does that bother you?”
He doesn’t answer. He turns toward the window that overlooks Time Square. “No, I guess I just never thought that you were gay.”
I huff. “I’m not gay.”
He turns toward me. “Then what?”
“Curious might be a better word for it.”
“How long have you been curious?” he asks.
“I’m not sure you want me to answer that question,” I tell him and lean back against the wall. I’ve baited him and I know damn well what’s going to come next.
“Me, isn’t it? You want me?” His voice is confused, concerned and a hint of curiosity.
I give him a hard stare. “Hardly.”
He rolls his eyes. “Denial does you no good.” He turns back toward the window and adds, “Since when?”
I shrug, despite him having his back to me. “Probably around the third or fourth chick we shared together.”
He turns back around, and I expect him to be angry, to come try and fight me, but he doesn’t, he just looks at me calmly.
“Look, it’s entirely irrelevant. I knew you didn’t want me, that it would never go that way between us and I accepted that, Dex. It’s not like I was in love with you or anything.” I stop talking and he just stands there. His eyes bore into me and I know he wants me to finish, but I don’t know how to tell him that I wanted to take things up a notch with him. That I wouldn’t have minded turning the tables on the girls we were with. Giving them a little more of their fantasy. But it never went there. I never talked about it with him and more importantly, I never told him, until now.
“But what?” he finally asks.
“I just thought maybe it would be fun.” I shrug, trying to portray to him that was honestly what I thought, which is true. “I don’t even know if I could have done it to be honest with you, but, you were nice to look at. Especially if we had a rather uninteresting girl between us.” I rub my palms on my thighs. “It was nothing more than a fantasy that I never acted on.”
“That’s good because I wouldn’t have, not that. Oh for fuck’s sake, I’m not into that. Not curious about it. Not now, not even back then.”
My shoulders drop. “I know, which is why I never acted on it. But you have to admit, for as close as we are, it wouldn’t be hard for someone’s signals to cross and well, maybe they did with me a little bit. But Dex, I never would have done anything to you. I never did do anything to you. I threw the fantasy out the window for a couple of reasons, one of which being that I knew you weren’t into it.”
“What’s another reason?”
“Because I didn’t want to ruin the friendship we have. You know, the whole sex between friends thing.”
Finally he nods. I know this conversation hasn’t gone the way he probably planned on having it go, in fact, it wasn’t what I wanted to talk about either, but it seems to have distracted him from Caden, which was my intention.
“You need to get ready to go-”
“What about Caden?” he cuts me off.
“What about him?” I snap.
“Did you text him?”
“No,” I tell him. I didn’t text him, I called him.
“Why the hell not?”
“What’s the point?” I grumble. “He rejected me, remember?”
“I don’t think that was his intention, Beck.”
I shrug. “So what, it’s what happened.”
“So you were ready and willing to have sex with him and he rejected you?”
“Not exactly.”
“Then what, exactly?”
“Why do you need all the fucking details, Dex? This isn’t about you, this isn’t about Derek, hell, this isn’t even about Caden. This is about me and no one else. I was willing to give him what he wanted. He wanted me to do it, he ordered me to do it, and then he flipped a switch and rejected me because I was honest with him.”
“About what?” Dex snaps.
“Don’t get fucking pissy with me, asshat. You fucking dragged me in here to talk.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That I’d never sucked a dick before.”
“Oh.” He stops and relaxes again.
“Are you happy now? You’ve gotten it all out of me.”
“Not hardly. Why did you run away?”
“Fuck me, come on, man, that’s really none of your fucking business.”
He takes steps toward me. “Yes, it is. You abandoned me in Nashville, left me to bodyguards who are not paid to watch over me and Raine. What if something had happened to me or her while you were running away and wallowing in your personal pity party?”
“I fucking ran away because I was willing to give a man, who I barely fucking know, a goddamn blowjob because he ordered me to do it. Then he turned around and rejected me at the same time he was comforting me. He showed me the first inkling of fucking affection I’ve had in my entire life. It scared the living shit out of me, Dex. What the fuck else was I supposed to do? Not only was I ordered to give a man a blowjob, but I was more than willing to surrender to him, to do what he asked, despite the fact that I have never done anything like it before. So not only was I dealing with the fact that you all seemed to see it before I did, the fact that you all saw I was a submissive and not a Top, you all let it go, let me flounder, let me look weak in Caden’s eyes, in everyone’s eyes because here I was introducing myself as a Top and low and behold, I’m nothing but a goddamn submissive.”
With that, I turn and leave the room, making a bad attempt
at slamming an air controlled door on my way out.
THIRTY~SIX
DEX AND I don’t talk about Caden anymore after that. Despite his attempts throughout our busy week in New York. A look was all it took to shut him down. I got the impression that he squealed to Derek about what I’d told him and he was trying to come back at me with a counter argument from Caden. Frankly, I don’t want to hear it.
I had hoped that the press tour and getting back to Los Angeles before taking off with Alyssa would be enough to put Caden out of my mind, but it didn’t happen.
Despite all my best efforts, I couldn’t get him out of my mind and there were three failed attempts with random barmaids that made me wonder what the fuck was wrong with me. Ironically enough, when their lips would land on mine as we fell into bed, all I could see was Caden. I wanted to be kissing him and that bothered me that much more.
When I got back to California, I was pulled into duty with Alyssa Serin and her tour. Casey and Troy kept me occupied with plans for the premiere circuit. We planned our routes, our escapes and lastly our timing on where we needed to be and when we needed to be there. Unfortunately, like with 69 Bottles, we don’t have the ability to search out the venues beforehand and we certainly don’t have the chance to practice for anything, but that’s what makes us such a great team.
Fortunately for us, these events are under tight security anyway so what goes on in the buildings is hardly a concern for us. Our only goal is Alyssa and making sure she’s protected and taken care of.
Alyssa’s issues with her previous bodyguard are obvious to me when I meet her. She’s a tiny, sexy thing. Only about five two or three with long blonde hair. She’s gorgeous, but I knew that already. Actresses are notoriously gorgeous on the red carpet but hardly gorgeous outside of their ‘stage’. Alyssa is an exception to that rule. I won’t lie, I had a very hard time controlling myself and of course the raging hard-on she excited in me before I managed to push her off me. Which explains why her previous bodyguard was compromised and the suspicions behind his inability to remain objective are confirmed.
Aryn's Desire: A BOLD Security Novel (Finding Submission Book 1) Page 18
