by Tawny Taylor
They spent the next several hours talking and laughing. Sharing and deepening the bond with Blair that had been there all along, making it stronger. But Trey could tell Blair was still holding back for some reason. She did a lot more listening than talking, and when there was a lull in the conversation, she’d ask Damon another question about their act or traveling. Clever girl. She knew exactly what she was doing.
She left them just after sunrise, promising to come back later that night.
Then it was just the two of them again. And the huge pink elephant that neither wanted to talk about. If they didn’t find the words, Trey was terrified that these two weeks might do the one thing nobody had ever been able to do before—destroy their love.
* * * * *
Twelve nights gone. Somehow. Too fast. Much too fast. The day her guys would leave was creeping closer, closer. No, it wasn’t creeping, it was charging at her like a pissed-off bull. She’d never dreaded a day more, not even the day her family had moved.
They were closer now, the three of them. Much of it had to do with time spent just talking about things. Jobs. Hobbies. Dreams. Hopes. As well as disappointments.
But the sex had also played a huge part, especially the bondage. Over the nights, Damon and Trey had pushed her a little farther, helped her work past her doubts and fears, her guilt and regrets. And in the process, they’d gained her trust, her unflagging faith. And, most of all, her love.
With Trey and Damon, sex was all about giving, sharing, trust and love.
Tonight, she wanted to ask them to do something special for her. She could see the emotions in their eyes when they looked at each other, and she sensed something was building between them, something that was threatening to tear them apart. She’d hate herself forever if she caused them pain, even if it wasn’t anything she’d done intentionally.
She did a final makeup check in her car before heading into the building for her thirteenth night. Only one more night to go. Oh God.
Tonight, she wasn’t greeted by a semi-translucent image of herself, or a black panther or any other bizarre illusion like she had the last twelve. Nor was there a gift like there had been every night. No earrings, necklaces, picture frames, jewel-encrusted boxes. Nothing.
Instead, she headed empty-handed straight back through the reception area, through the warehouse, past some stacks of crates and boxes, to the dungeon. The empty dungeon.
What the hell?
Something squeaked behind her, and she swiveled around.
“Where did that come from?” she asked, breathing a sigh of relief. Standing before her was a super-sized replica of the box Damon and Trey had sent to her house that very first day. She just knew her guys were in that box.
Too bad she’d never figured out how the smaller version worked. Neither had Sandy.
The box stood roughly five feet tall, not quite as high as her refrigerator. The lid was freaking heavy. The hinges stiff. She struggled to get it open.
The box was empty, as she expected.
“Well, hell.” She fought the lid back down then gave the big, stupid, infuriating thing a long glare. “I don’t want to spend the night trying to guess how to get my guys out of this silly contraption. I want to spend it with them!”
She walked around the box’s perimeter then pushed open the lid again, hoping it was just a matter of closing and reopening the box, like it had been the smaller version.
No Damon. No Trey.
“Haven’t I had enough of the magic stuff, guys?” she called out. “Come on, let’s play another game, something more fun, like ‘tie up the girl’.”
Nothing.
She shut the lid, took another trip around the box, using her fingers to search every inch of all four sides. She found no secret button or lever.
Growing more frustrated by the second, she walked back into the reception area and dragged a chair back to the box. Again, she pushed the lid up. This time, however, she climbed up on the chair to get a good look at both the lining of the lid and the padded interior of the box.
A little scared, she climbed over the side and dropped inside. The floor was hard, solid. She walked back and forth, stomping her feet, searching for the trap door she just knew had to be there.
She found it!
The floor gave way beneath her feet and the world around her became a blur of colors for less than two racing heartbeats. She landed on a huge padded cushion. The trap door above her closed with a dull thud, closing her in pitch black so thick she could practically taste it. There was no sound but the resonant pounding of her heart and the whistle of her gasping breaths. A soft, scented waft of air caressed her cheek, and out of pure instinct, she turned toward it. “Damon? Trey?” The shadows swallowed up her voice.
Shivers quaked up her spine, despite the fact that the darkness had always been an escape, the most reliable source of protection. She’d learned at an early age that the monsters didn’t hide in the shadows. They walked in broad daylight.
She fingered the velvet-covered walls around her, stood on her toes and reached as high as she could, trying to find the latch for the trap door. Still, she remained trapped.
This had to be part of the plan. But why? Why’d Damon and Trey want her in this stupid dark pit? This illusion was nothing like the rest.
“Is the dark still your refuge, Blair?” one of them whispered. Damon, it was Damon.
“Not as much as it used to be.”
“Why are you still hiding in the shadows?” This time it was Trey’s voice. “What are you hiding from?”
“Nothing. I’m not hiding from anything. I fell when I was looking for you two. In the box. Can you guys get me out of here?”
“No, we can’t help you,” Damon whispered from somewhere close by. “It’s your choice, to step into the light or not.”
What kind of game was this? It wasn’t like the others. It wasn’t sexy or mysterious or exciting. No. More annoying and frustrating, confusing. “There’s no light down here. I’m in a pit or something. Underneath the floor.”
“Tell us your secret and we will tell you ours.”
“I don’t have a secret.” That was a lie. She did have a secret, one she’d never told anyone, not even her mother. But it was about something that had happened a long time ago, and really it didn’t matter anymore because she’d finally put everything behind her. There was never a good reason to stir up old crap. It would just kick the stench into the air again. Better to leave it alone, cover it up with layer after layer of defenses—denial and justification being a couple of her favorites.
“It’s your choice,” Trey said a little louder.
Silence.
Oh, this sucked in so many ways. Sure, she wasn’t claustrophobic, so at least she didn’t mind sitting in dark so thick she couldn’t see her hand in front of her nose. But she only had one more night with Damon and Trey. They should be teasing and tormenting her like they did so well, not leaving her to sit here by herself.
They were losing out too. Didn’t they realize that?
“We’re wasting a lot of time,” she said on a sigh.
“We don’t think this is a waste,” Damon countered.
“What are you hoping to accomplish?” she shot back, her voice reflecting the rising level of her frustration.
“Something more important and meaningful than an orgasm,” Damon said.
He didn’t say the words, but she heard we’re not going to back down loud and clear in his tone.
She was totally clueless why things that happened over a decade ago would be so important now, with only one day before they left. She’d already overcome them. Why ask her to open up to them, become more vulnerable? They had to know what that would mean, how agonizing it would make their leaving.
Shouldn’t they be withdrawing from her? Preparing her for their departure? Distancing themselves?
Hot tears gathered in her eyes and her nose started to burn. She didn’t want them to leave her. It was going to feel like her heart was
being ripped out of her chest. Maybe to some people the games they played in the dungeon were just about the sex, fantasy, exploration, orgasm. But for her they ended up being so much more.
Trust. Vulnerability. Self-discovery. Healing.
It was easy to think in the box, the dark, to let her mind wander. Kind of like it did when she was in the shower, or lying in bed at night, semi-awake but with her eyes closed and the soft sounds of the nighttime drifting through her window.
If this was the culmination of all the games they’d played thus far, it might actually make sense. It wasn’t as erotic, maybe. But it was still centered on the theme of trust and secrets. The box was just another way of restraining her, she supposed. The only thing missing was the erotic element. But maybe that would come after she answered their question.
She could tell them just a little bit, hold back the worst. Maybe it would be enough and they’d reward her like they had every night before.
She just wanted them to hold her. Touch her. Kiss her.
Reluctantly, she searched for the right words. It wasn’t easy, putting into words the kind of pain she’d endured back then.
“Okay. I’ll tell you. Are you still there?”
“We’re here, sweetheart,” Trey said, his voice encouraging.
“I wish I could see you.”
“I think it’ll be easier this way,” Damon suggested.
Maybe he was right.
“I think you know what I’m about to say. It’s probably just a matter of me actually speaking the truth, so I’ll do it.” She took a few deep breaths. “After we moved, things got worse with my stepdad. You knew it would, didn’t you?”
“We hoped we’d be wrong.” Damon’s voice was tense, his words clipped. “Tell us.”
“He went from verbally abusing me—calling me names, humiliating me, that kind of thing—to physical abuse. And finally, when I was sixteen, he—” Shit, this was hard. “He tried to sexually abuse me too. He didn’t actually…he made me take him in my mouth. So there you have it. My dark secret. You’ve heard it. Now please. Just hold me.”
That was it. That was all she was going to say. All she could say. Her throat had collapsed like a rubber hose under an elephant’s foot. Her chest felt like tight bands were squeezing, tighter, tighter. Hot tears streamed down her cheeks.
“Turn toward my voice,” Damon whispered.
Blair turned.
“Reach straight in front of you.”
When she did, a blade of red light illuminated her hand. Something small, kind of long and sparkly dropped into her palm. A chain? Necklace maybe? She closed her hand around the thing and looked up, shocked to find a black tube with a red glowing light inside, directing a stream of crimson light down. She reached up, touched the tube and realized it was rubber. A soft tug and the entire side of the pit fell open.
Blinded by the soft light outside, she staggered out, accepting Trey and Damon’s gentle help.
Damon yanked her against him, holding her tightly, one hand cupping the back of her head, the other splayed across her lower back. “I’m sorry we weren’t there for you. Didn’t protect you.”
“How could you? We were too young. You weren’t ready to take care of me. Hell, you had your own problems to deal with.”
“My problems were nothing. You were all that mattered.”
Trey moved up behind her, wrapped his arms around her waist and rested his chin on the top of her head. “We did try to find you. We were caught, taken home. But when we left again, they didn’t take us home the second time. We were locked up for two years after being caught breaking into what we thought was an abandoned trailer home.”
“See? You tried. It’s not your fault.”
“It will always be my fault,” Damon muttered, sounding tortured. “Because if we hadn’t been caught, we would’ve gotten to you.”
Her fist still closed around the small thing from the box, Blair tried to back away a little, just enough to be able to look up into Damon’s dark eyes. But he wouldn’t loosen his hold on her.
Trey was being much quieter than usual through all this, she noticed. She wondered why.
“I’m okay now. Honest. I’m not an emotional train wreck like you seem to think. I live with the past the way most normal people do—by putting it behind me and moving on. That’s what everybody does. Either that, or they let the past eat them alive. I wasn’t going to let that happen. Walking through hell just means you grow a thick skin. Right?”
Damon didn’t answer.
“Sure,” Trey agreed.
Time to change the subject. This was too intense. Too everything. She turned her head and pressed her ear against Damon’s chest. Not surprisingly, his heart was pounding hard and fast. He was angry. But it wouldn’t do any good, being furious about something that couldn’t be changed.
“So what’s your secret?” she asked, remembering Damon’s earlier promise.
“Well, actually, I kind of made that up to get you to talk. Both Trey and I sense you’re holding back.”
“Yeah, I…was. I didn’t know if I wanted to tell you. Or how to tell you. I wanted this time together to be a good thing, about the present, not the past.” Once again, things were turning to her again. She didn’t want them to realize there was still more she hadn’t found the courage to tell them yet. She peered up at Damon’s face. He was getting angry again. She knew how to turn things around. “I wanted to ask you two if you’d do something special for me tonight.”
“What’s that?” Damon asked.
“You two have been lovers for a long time.”
“Yes, we have.” Trey kissed the top of her head. “What do you want to ask us?”
“If you’ll make love to each other this time. I want to see you share that intimacy with each other.”
“Why?” Damon asked, finally letting her go. He caught her face between his hands and lifted it, forcing her to look up into his eyes. “Why ask such a thing?”
“I don’t know.” She thought about it for a minute. “I guess because a part of me knows you two have been together as a couple for a long time. But right now you’re so focused on me it’s hard to see that. I want to know you as you were before this. And know what you’ll go back to being…after.”
“We won’t go back to being the same after,” Damon said, shooting a glance over her head. “There’s no way we’ll be the same.”
What did that mean?
“I don’t know about this,” Damon said finally after a long and awkward silence. “Our time together is coming to an end, and I’d rather spend it with you—”
“I’d like to do what Blair asked,” Trey interrupted.
More silence. The air felt heavy, the room charged with electricity. She watched the guys exchange looks, Damon’s tight and unrelenting, Trey’s equally demanding.
“It could bring her closer to us,” Trey suggested.
“Or it could make her feel uncomfortable, like she doesn’t belong with us,” Damon volleyed back.
Blair felt herself frowning, uncomfortable with the tension she saw pulling her two guys apart. “I’m not going to be uncomfortable, Damon. Maybe you should talk about this privately, just the two of you.”
“Good idea,” Trey agreed.
“No,” Damon snapped. “We’re not going to talk about anything. We had a plan for today, and that’s what we’re going to stick to.”
Trey dragged his fingers through his hair. “But Damon—”
“No!”
Wow, she felt like this huge wedge, pushing the two of them apart. She pulled away from Damon, turned an apologetic glance to Trey. The frustration and hurt she saw on his face nearly made her weep.
That was it. Somehow, she had to convince Damon to do this. From what she could see, his relationship with Trey wasn’t just on shaky ground, it was sitting on top of a huge fault line. And the big earthquake was about to start.
She unfurled her fingers, finally taking a second to see what she’d
caught inside the box.
A beautiful bracelet, alternating diamonds and, of course, flashing red rubies.
Chapter Five
Trey could see the center of his world, the relationship that had been the cornerstone of his life, crumbling like a sandcastle being battered by a tsunami.
Yet he felt absolutely powerless to do anything about it.
Right here, just now, a huge chunk had broken off and shattered into a million pieces. And what made it a thousand fucking times worse was that Damon wasn’t just clueless or blind to what was going on, he was the one who was busting it apart.
Fuck. Damn.
He felt sick, as if someone had kicked him in the balls, run over him with a Hummer and then disemboweled his quivering, crushed body. The guy holding the fucking knife was Damon.
He couldn’t breathe.
Trey caught Blair’s wide eyes, so full of shock and worry. Normally he’d be right there, looking for the words to comfort her. Not this time. The words were gone. He simply lacked the ability or strength to utter them. Everything was slipping from his grasp, like sand sliding through his fingers. Going, going, gone.
He needed some air. He needed to get out of that fucking warehouse, away from Damon. For just a few minutes. To find his head. To suck in a few breaths. To get his feet back under himself.
He did a one-eighty, made it only a couple of steps away before Blair grabbed his arm, slowing his progress. “Please,” he said, prying her fingers away. “Just give me a minute.”
“No. I’ll go.”
“No you won’t,” Damon said, dragging her back to him again.
So that was really the way Damon wanted it? Had Damon decided he was done with them, that he wanted Blair now, only Blair?
The man could have put a knife in his gut and it would’ve hurt less.
“It’s fine. I’ll go.” More desperate than ever to get out of there, Trey hurried toward the exit.
This time it was Damon who stopped him. Not with his hands but with one word, “Please.”
“Please what?” Trey asked, not turning around. He couldn’t look Damon in the eye right now, couldn’t stomach seeing the flatness in his gaze as he looked at him. The glimmer that used to be there was gone.
