by Mari Carr
One step forward, twenty-seven back.
“So…” Isaiah said. “Where to? Late lunch or back to the hotel to regroup?”
“Lunch,” Caden’s one-word reply came out like a command. “But if you don’t mind, I need to make a phone call. It won’t take a second.”
Caden walked away from them, ensuring they couldn’t hear who he was calling or what he was saying.
“Caden was dead, but now he’s alive again?” Tess asked incredulously, wondering if Isaiah was reeling from the conversation they’d just heard as much as she was.
“And the same thing is true about his brother? How does that happen?”
Tess shook her head. “I have no idea. And it sounds like his parents were murdered.”
“But were they really?” Isaiah asked in a mocking horror movie voice. “Or will they rise from the ashes as well?”
Tess laughed. It felt good despite the uneasiness that hadn’t left her since Caden had walked away from them in the hotel last night. “Starting to wonder if we’re not actually starring in that movie based on one of your books. Does that make me the nerdy Evie?”
Isaiah reached over and took her hand, giving it a squeeze, then holding on to it. “Regardless of what Caden might think, you’re not nerdy. And neither is Evie,” he insisted.
She loved the warmth behind his touch and his words, grateful for Isaiah’s willingness to drop all pretense and let her in, let her see the real him.
“Doesn’t look like our lives are going to be boring,” he said, glancing back toward Caden.
“I don’t think he’s happy with this trinity,” she whispered, letting herself speak her fear.
Isaiah used his grip on her hand to tug her closer, pulling her into an embrace. “No, Tess. I think whatever is going on with Caden goes beyond you and me. I keep looking at him and seeing a man on the edge, someone who is working overtime to hold on. It’s only been a day. Let’s give him some space, show him that we’re here if he needs us.”
Isaiah’s reassurances did the trick. Perhaps her expectations were unrealistic. How could she have thought they’d all pull back the hoods on those robes and fall instantly, madly in love?
She chastised herself for being a romantic fool. “You’re right. We just need time.”
Isaiah bent down and gave her a kiss. She suspected he’d intended to keep it friendly, chaste even, but it grew heated quickly. His tongue touched hers and their lips lingered for nearly a minute, touching, tasting.
When they parted, he gave her a sweet wink and an endearing, funny pat on the ass.
She was only half a fool. Because after just twenty-four hours in, she was definitely quite smitten for one of her new partners.
Chapter Eight
Caden stared across the hotel suite and fought to keep his shit together. He’d called Devon after running into Priscilla Hancock on the street to tell the other man there was no longer any doubt in his mind that she was a purist. There had been too many veiled threats in the conversation to ignore. Years spent as Elroy’s lackey had taught him that nearly everything the purists said had two meanings.
Priscilla knew where Tabby was, knew that Weston had moved her. She didn’t give a shit about his sister. The comment was a threat, a way to let Caden know she could get to her if she wanted. It was the same ploy his parents had used for years.
She also made sure to make it clear she knew Tess and Isaiah’s names and the fact they were now a trinity. That gave her more pawns, more people to use to get him to bend to her will.
No one else close to him was going to be hurt. He’d done everything wrong with Rose. He wouldn’t make that mistake with Isaiah and Tess.
Devon had told him they needed real evidence, not gut feelings. Caden knew that and felt like a fool for calling, but when Priscilla said Tabby’s name, he knew the war wasn’t over yet.
Then Devon asked him if he’d read the room.
He had gotten off to a rocky start, thinking he’d play the double-agent role, pretend he would pick up where his parents had left off. He might have managed to keep up the act—but then she’d made it clear that she expected him to do her dirty work, the way he had for his parents, and something inside him snapped. She’d seen him as nothing more than a pawn to be manipulated and threatened, and he knew he didn’t have it in him to bend over anymore. He hadn’t been able to stop himself from telling her, in the polite terms people like himself and Priscilla preferred, to fuck off.
When Caden told Devon he’d had it and his days of pretending to be a purist were over, that he wouldn’t be ingratiating himself to the Hancocks, Devon had surprised him by saying he understood. The support had taken him aback. Next thing Caden knew, he was vowing to his nemesis that he would bring the Hancocks down. That he’d get the information they were seeking without buddying up to that bitch Priscilla, and he would destroy the villains.
All of a sudden, he was willingly working for the Trinity Masters.
Hell had frozen over.
He would have expected that idea to make his skin crawl, but for the first time ever, he didn’t mind what he was doing. Because it seemed to have an honorable purpose. He had spent so much of his life fearing that he was exactly like his fathers, but he didn’t feel that anymore. When Priscilla cast those racial slurs at Isaiah, he’d wanted to kill her. There was no place in the Trinity Masters for people like her. Hell, there wasn’t any place for racists like her in the world.
Tess’ soft laughter caught his attention, and he looked over at her and Isaiah sitting next to each other on the couch.
He’d been trying to keep his distance from them, but they weren’t making it easy. Trust wasn’t something he had much experience with, yet there was a nagging voice inside his head telling him he could trust them.
After a late lunch, they’d returned to the hotel and spent a very pleasant afternoon, polishing off a couple of bottles of wine while continuing to get to know one another.
Or at least, Isaiah and Tess were. Caden had been less forthcoming.
Isaiah’s childhood hadn’t been as pleasant as it sounded like Tess’ had been; he’d grown up with a single mother in a rough neighborhood in Philly, but had never succumbed to the pressure to join a gang or drop out of school. Isaiah’s teen years had been a far cry from Caden’s.
Then he reconsidered that thought. Caden may have been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, spending summer holidays in Greece and Paris, but that privilege had come with a cost.
One he couldn’t share with his very straight, very vanilla partners.
Too much depended on the three of them forming a strong union. Devon had taken care to stress once more that the fate of the Trinity Masters was in their hands.
The three of them had debated their next move, and they’d decided their next stop should be Hamilton Grange. They’d considered heading to Tess’ parents’ place in D.C. first, to pick up the framed copy of the poem, but having seen both items, Tess was convinced there was more to learn from the fan. She’d hypothesized that the drawing of the fan with the letters was the cipher, and that someone—probably Adams—had followed the practices of the Culper Ring, using invisible ink to conceal a clue on the fan.
If she was right, they needed to get their hands on that fan. She had placed a call earlier to her boss at the Smithsonian and asked if he could pull some strings to get them access to the fan. Fortunately, both he and the head of the National Parks Service were Trinity Masters’ members, so the permission had been granted before the end of the workday.
With the decision to travel to New York City made, Caden had booked them first-class seats on the Amtrak Acela for the next morning. Isaiah had tried to convince him to wait a couple of days, to give the three of them a chance to work on the relationship aspect of their new trinity, but Caden couldn’t do that.
He just couldn’t.
It was hard enough to keep catching flashes of hurt on Tess’ face every time he gave a terse answer or tried to
pull away from them. How could he tell them who he really was, what he’d done? They’d hate him, and there wouldn’t be a damn thing they could do about it. Trinity marriages were for life.
Right now, when they looked at him, it was with just the slightest bit of leeriness and—God help them both—hope. Neither was ideal, but it was better than seeing that hope turn to disgust and hate.
“We should probably turn in,” Caden said, needing to escape once more. “Train leaves at nine tomorrow morning.”
Isaiah rose from the couch as he started to pass and gripped Caden’s upper arm to halt his retreat.
Caden reacted on instinct, his whole body going utterly still. He turned hard, merciless eyes on Isaiah. “Let go of me.”
Isaiah released him, but didn’t back away. “It’s not going to work this way, Caden.”
Caden laughed, even though nothing about this was funny. He hadn’t managed more than a couple of hours’ restless sleep last night as he imagined Tess and her sexy white nightie lying in bed just across the hall.
He wanted her, and the realization terrified him. She couldn’t handle the way he would take her.
“Trust me, Isaiah. This isn’t going to work no matter what. The Grand Master made a mistake.”
“No. She didn’t.” Isaiah’s voice was deep, strong, powerful as he enunciated each word. It was obvious he was intelligent, well educated. The man probably gave guest lectures at Ivy League schools. He might have been a late bloomer with no legacy, but he was just the type of person to attract the attention of the Trinity Masters. To make them stand up, take notice, and recruit…even if he was older.
And Tess was pretty, smart, sweet. He’d listened to her talk to her father, heard the genuine affection in her voice and realized that she’d probably lived an idyllic childhood, doted on by three adoring parents. She wouldn’t understand the darkness that pervaded every corner of his soul, and God help him, there was no way he’d be responsible for hurting another woman.
“Caden,” Tess said. “I know this is unusual, but we all knew—”
“We all knew what joining meant,” Caden cut in.
Tess blinked at his almost hostile tone.
“Trust me, Tess. You don’t know what the Grand Master unleashed here.”
Her stunned confusion only fueled his anger more.
He shouldn’t be here.
She didn’t back away. “Tell us then. Explain it to us. Tell us why you’re rejecting this trinity, holding yourself away from what the three of us could be together.”
He shook his head, too many emotions—fear, anger, frustration, depression—closing in on him.
Tess stepped closer to him, too close. She lifted her face to him, and all he could think about was the kiss he hadn’t given her at the altar yesterday. Even now, even after spending the day with him and his surly attitude, he could see in her face that she wouldn’t push him away, wouldn’t reject that kiss.
“We’re going to be married, Caden. I’m going to be your wife and you—”
Caden reached out, gripping her face in his palms tightly, giving her no chance to escape. “You really don’t get it. You want a kiss from your future…” He stopped himself just short of saying Master. He’d never fucking be that again. He couldn’t. “Husband? Fine.”
He leaned down and kissed her. And he didn’t screw around with one of those gentle, sweet kisses like the one Isaiah had given her at the end of the ceremony. He didn’t do sweet. And he sure as hell didn’t do gentle. His parents had worked very hard to beat anything they viewed as weak out of him.
Caden pushed her lips open with his, then forced his tongue into her mouth.
Force was probably the wrong word. Tess wasn’t passive, and she wasn’t resisting either. Her tongue darted out to touch his, but he pushed against it, crushing her mouth harder.
She needed to know, to see what she was dealing with. Caden drew his fingers through her hair, then closed his hands, fisting the long auburn tresses and tugging.
She whimpered, the sound muted by his kiss, and he felt a small shred of success.
Until her hands looped around his neck and she stepped closer, pressing her breasts against his chest.
Caden released her quickly, taking two giant steps away from her.
Tess actually looked disappointed, and for a moment, he thought she might try to resume the kiss, so he took another step away.
“Wow,” Isaiah mused.
Caden had almost forgotten about the other man, about how he’d been so ready to unleash icy fury on him just a few minutes earlier. He figured Isaiah could handle himself. He certainly had the look of someone who wouldn’t come out of a street fight with more than a few bruises.
It was Tess, with her wide-eyed innocence, who was in the most trouble here. Maybe there had been a time when Caden could have loved her, treated her gently, studied her without wondering how that porcelain-white skin would look painted with red stripes from his whip, but that time was long gone.
“Wow what?” Caden asked, not bothering to look over at Isaiah.
“I think it’s safe to say our sex lives are going to be a lot more interesting from this point on.”
Caden shook his head. Interesting? No. What he’d do to them wouldn’t be interesting.
He’d been raised to believe sex was nothing more than a power exchange—a one-way exchange. And his fathers had been damn certain to train him so he knew how to claim that control and hold on to it.
Just as they’d trained Rose to submit. Whether she wanted to or not.
“No,” Caden said. “It’s not.”
His new partners wore matching looks of puzzlement.
“I don’t think there should be secrets between us.”
Caden looked at Tess, surprised by the steel in her voice. She was considerably smaller than him and Isaiah—she couldn’t be more than five-four—with an angelic, freckled face that seemed to bespeak innocence and sunshine. To a regular guy, that would probably be appealing.
The Dom inside him viewed her as someone he could demand and win submission from.
But that wasn’t what he wanted.
He may have killed his parents, but he couldn’t erase their “training,” the conditioning they’d done to him and Rose and Weston to guarantee the three of them would always struggle to trust or love.
“I’m not good at sharing personal shit,” Caden said. Rose had typically done the speaking for them. She was better at knowing what to reveal and what to keep private, a skill she’d perfected not only with Barton and Elroy, but with him as well.
Even now, it sickened him to think about how much she might have kept from him. Had he frightened her? He knew he’d hurt her physically, and he would never know if that pain had truly given her pleasure. The coward that resided inside wouldn’t analyze that question too deeply. Because that knowledge would be too difficult to live with.
But what about emotionally? Had she loved him? She’d never said it, not in all the years they’d been together.
Guilt is a weakness a Dom can’t afford.
Another of dear old Dad’s platitudes. Caden had so many of those “words to live by” floating around inside his head, it was sometimes hard to figure out which were wise and which were abusive bullshit.
Isaiah put his hand on Caden’s shoulder. Caden tensed up, his hands clenching into fists, but he didn’t shake off the other man’s touch. “She’s right, Caden. We’re essentially strangers. I get that, but we can’t continue this way. Like I said, it won’t work if you don’t share.”
Caden had been with men before. His fathers had trained him with both male and female subs. After all, there was no way of knowing who he would be bound to, and considering Elroy and Barton had been placed together in a trinity, it was obvious they thought it was important to cover all the bases.
In his parents’ trinity, there was no denying Elroy had been the top dog, the true Dom. However, Caden had never seen Barton submit. Rather, he mai
nly deferred most decisions and the leadership role within the trinity to Elroy. Outside the house, Barton had been in charge, and focused on building the family’s empire and making money. Caden had no way of knowing—and in truth, he really didn’t want to know—how things played out in the bedroom between the two men.
It was funny how he’d begun to think of them differently now that they were finally dead. In the past, he’d called Elroy Father and Barton Dad. Not anymore. They hadn’t deserved those names when they were alive, and he’d be damned if he’d use them now that the bastards were nothing more than ashes.
“Are you disappointed with this trinity? With…me?” Tess asked. The strong woman was gone, replaced with one whose feelings had been hurt. He couldn’t blame her. He’d acted like an ass ever since stepping into the altar room.
Isaiah didn’t let him respond to her. The man was probably afraid of what he’d say. “Caden, it’s just that you seem angry with us. You knew when you joined that you would be partnered up with strangers. And you also knew you were signing on for a lifetime deal. The three of us are in this for the long haul. Forever. If we’re not what you were expect—”
Caden had to stop this line of thinking. “It’s not you.” He looked over at Tess. “It has nothing to do with either of you.”
Isaiah sighed. “The way I see it, we can play this one of two ways. One, we trust each other right out of the gate, working together as a true trinity. Or two, we climb the ladder one painful rung at a time, fighting each other every step of the way. The Grand Master has given us a task—a challenging one. It’s going to be difficult to focus on that if we’re worried about this part of it.” Isaiah motioned to the three of them with his hand. “Something’s bugging you, Caden. It’s been obvious from the second you pulled down your hood at the binding ceremony. Just tell us what it is and let’s try to fix it.”
Caden laughed. Not because Isaiah had said anything funny. It was simply his assertion, his genuine belief that what was wrong with Caden could be fixed.
Isaiah scowled, but Caden raised his hand, warding off the man’s anger.
