“How do you even know him?” Ryder added.
Austin crossed his arms over his chest. “I told you, we met at MIT. And we’ve been friends ever since. When his marriage fell apart, I offered to help him move down here. One of the reasons was to get him away from Quantico, so he wouldn’t have to deal with that hell anymore. And the other reason…” He paused, took a deep breath, and met Ryder’s eyes squarely. “The other reason…was the two of you.”
“I don’t understand,” Lyss said for both of them.
Austin looked aside briefly, then turned back with an expression suddenly devoid of his earlier anger. “He told me about you, Ryder. Told me about what happened between the two of you. And how it ended. And he told me how much…how much he wished he could have a second chance. To be with you.”
Ryder’s throat closed even as Lyss’s fingers tightened painfully around his hand. “He said that?” Ryder grated hoarsely.
Austin nodded. “Yes. He said that. And I’ve been trying to get the three of you together ever since he moved down here. Tonight was the culmination of that plan.”
“Why not just tell us?” Ryder asked incredulously. “Why not just say, ‘Hey, Ryder, your old flame, A.J., moved to Houston and is a member of Club S’? Why didn’t you just say something?”
“Because you needed the fucking wakeup call,” Austin growled. Ryder and Lyss both started to protest, but he made a slashing motion with one hand, cutting them off. “You failed to make the first move, so A.J. felt he had to do it himself. Unfortunately for him, that plan almost backfired when you decided to let him think you might not claim him at all.”
Austin’s blue eyes were back to flashing anger. “And after what you just did to him out there, I’m tempted to ship him off to somewhere you’ll never find him again, just so you won’t have a chance to hurt him anymore. Seriously, guys. How the fuck could you do that do him?”
Lyss lunged forward, outraged. “How were we supposed to react, Austin? We didn’t know he was going to be here! How did you even know he was a sub, or a slave, or that he’d even want to do this? I mean, we suspected he was, but…”
“Doesn’t matter,” Austin said flatly. “What does matter is what you plan to do from this moment on. A.J. might be new to the lifestyle compared to the four of us, but he’s not some shiny newbie who has no idea what he wants. A.J. isn’t just a sub. He’s a slave. A true slave—or he would be, if either one of you had the balls to declare yourselves and give him a chance to submit to you. You’ve had him for weeks, yet neither one of you have made a move to claim him. Well, he’s made the first move now, guys. Offered you his submission on a silver platter, even though I’m not sure you deserve it right now. So, are you going to accept it? Or are you going to abandon him again, Ryder?”
Ryder snarled, “Why the fuck do you keep saying that, Austin? I didn’t abandon him! He’s the one who left me!”
“And you’re the one who let him go,” Austin riposted, expression deadly serious.
Was this guy for real? Where the fuck were the accusations coming from? He backed away in confusion. “What the fuck should I have done, huh? He fucking left! In the middle of the fucking night! I woke up to an empty bed. What the fuck was I supposed to do? He was gone!”
“Oh, please,” Austin said, rolling his eyes. “You knew where he was going. You had his address in Boston. I know you did, because A.J. told me he gave it to you before he left. You knew exactly where he was going, yet you never went after him. That’s on you, Ryder.”
Ryder backed up a few more paces, his thigh hitting the table in the center of the room. “Why would I go after him when he left me?” he said, voice growing hoarse. The old pain, the rage he’d felt that morning, started rushing back. “He didn’t want to be with me. He left me. Why would I go after someone who didn’t want me? He got up in the middle of the night and left me. I woke to find him gone. Not even a good-bye!”
“Are you seriously trying to convince me you didn’t wake up?” Austin said softly. Ryder froze. “Are you seriously trying to say that you didn’t know? Come on, Ryder. You were sleeping together in your bunk. A tiny college dorm room bunk, which was barely large enough for one grown man, let alone two. Are you seriously trying to convince me that you didn’t wake up when he was crawling around, trying to get out of bed?”
Ryder just stared at him. No, he was wrong. Austin hadn’t been there. He wasn’t the one who’d been abandoned. He hadn’t woken up to…to an empty bed…
“I’ve…actually wondered that, too,” Lyss said suddenly. Ryder looked at his wife sharply, finding her watching him with clouded, worry-filled eyes. She was biting her lower lip. “You always wake up, Ryder. If I so much as move my hand across the pillow, you wake up. You’ve been like that since we started sleeping together. I’ve always wondered…if you wake up so easily when you’re in bed with me, why didn’t you wake up when A.J. left?”
Ryder swallowed hard. “It’s because of A.J. that I do that now,” he grated. “I woke up to an empty bed, once. I never wanted to have that feeling again. So I taught myself to wake up. Because of him. Because I…”
“Because you let him go,” Austin interrupted. Ryder glared at him, but Austin remained adamant. “You let him go. He was a young, scared, naïve kid, Ryder. Hell, you both were. You’d just experienced something far more emotional and complex than either one of you expected. A.J. was overwhelmed. He didn’t know how to process his emotions back then. And…neither did you. So you let him go. Because you didn’t know how to deal with it any better than he did.”
“You weren’t there,” Ryder growled.
“No, I wasn’t,” Austin agreed easily. “But I did see the aftermath. I saw what it did to A.J., once he realized you’d let him go. He blames himself, still. Told me once that if he had a second chance, he’d go back in time and turn himself around, go back to you. He said, once, that he understood why you didn’t come after him. Because you were just as afraid of the emotional connection as he was. He blames himself for not being strong enough, Ryder. But I don’t. I blame you for not going after him.”
“I didn’t…” want to let him go. Ryder gulped, pressing his palms against his temples. “He left…I didn’t know what to do…He didn’t want to be with me…”
Austin waited until Ryder looked up again before speaking. “He did. He does. And now that he’s met Lyss…well, let’s just say that the pair of you represent the fulfillment of A.J.’s fantasies. But I won’t let either one of you hurt him again, Ryder.”
“What are you talking about?” Ryder whispered, although he was starting think Austin was much, much closer to the truth of the matter than Ryder himself had ever been. “We don’t want to hurt him. That’s why we were taking our time, okay? We wanted to give him a chance to adjust to the idea, to accept it…”
“No, you weren’t.” Austin sighed, loudly, and crossed his arms again. “You were giving him a chance to run again. You were giving yourselves a chance to see if he was going to stick around. You let him go eight years ago, Ryder. You let him go, but you still blamed him for running. And all this time since he showed back up in your life, you’ve been waiting to see if he would run again. And now, because the two of you are a package deal, you’re also trying to protect your own relationship. Giving A.J. a chance to prove his willingness to be with you before committing yourselves and risking getting hurt. I understand that…to a point.”
Austin looked at Lyss, then back at Ryder. “But after tonight, you need to make a choice. A.J. made his declaration, and he made it publicly. Are you going to let him go again? Are you going to give him a chance to doubt himself so that he runs a second time?”
“It’s only been a few weeks,” Ryder protested. “How can you say that’s too long to wait? Are you serious right now?”
“As serious as I’ve ever been,” Austin confirmed. Then he relented. “Look…I do know you probably had good intentions. But A.J. doesn’t need good intentions, guys. He needs
to be claimed. To know that you want to own him. Yes, he ran from you eight years ago. But you let him go. You claimed him that night, but then you let him go. And I won’t let you do it to him again.”
“Why are you doing this, Austin?” Lyss whispered, tears in her voice. “Why are you being so cruel? And why do you care so much about our relationship with A.J.?”
Austin looked down, then met her eyes. “I care because…because I care about him. I want to see him happy. Once…” He paused, grimacing as he ran a hand through his hair. “Once, I thought I might be the one to make him happy. But that was a long time ago, and now all I care about is A.J.’s future. He is my best friend, and I love him as such. I don’t want to see him hurt.”
“We’re not trying to hurt him,” Ryder grated.
Austin turned and met his look. “I know you believe that. But believe me when I say that A.J. doesn’t know that. He honestly believes that you let him go all those years ago because you regretted what happened between you two. And yet, all this time, he’s kept a special place in his heart for you, Ryder. He needs you—both of you—whether I like it or not. He needs you. And you let him go once before. Are you going to do it to him again?”
Is he right? Did I let A.J. go on purpose, all those years ago?
He looked at Lyss, saw her worried frown. Oh, God, was she worried that Ryder regretted losing A.J.? He did, but that did mean he wasn’t happy with what became of his life afterward. Lyss was his world. He crossed back over to her, taking her in his arms and pressing his forehead to hers. “If I hadn’t let A.J. go, I might never have found you, Lyss.” He was pleading, but didn’t care. He had to convince her. “Afterward…okay, yeah, I regretted it. But I’ve never regretted meeting you. Never regretted falling in love with you. I’ll always love you.”
“I know that, Tex,” she said, wrapping her hands behind his neck. “Our love—yours and mine—isn’t the question here. A.J., and what he could mean to both of us, is. Because as much as we love each other, as much as we mean to each other, there are things we can’t provide each other.” She kissed him gently, sweetly, and continued. “You know it, and I know it. And there’s a man downstairs, waiting for us, who could be the one to fulfill those needs. The question now is, are we ready to claim him? Are you ready?”
“We were taking it slow, remember?” Ryder whispered. “A.J.’s marriage…”
She shook her head, her bangs brushing against the bridge of his nose. “No, Tex. This was never about giving A.J. time. It was about you. Because even though he’s back in your life, even though you told him you wouldn’t let him go again, there’s been this part of you that still acts like you’re afraid he’s going to leave. Like you’re still expecting to wake up and find him gone again. We couldn’t even begin to start talking about anything else, about D/s, or BDSM, or claiming him, until you decided whether you could trust him with your heart again.”
“What are you talking about?” Ryder asked. “I trust him.”
“Do you?” she queried, pulling back enough to look him in the eye. “I’m not so sure. Know why?” He shook his head, and she continued with a sad smile. “Because of what just happened out there. In the auction. You weren’t freaking out because A.J. was on stage. You weren’t freaking out about finding him in a BDSM club when we weren’t even sure if he knew he was a sub. You were freaking out because you were afraid—deathly afraid—that the reason he was on that stage was so he could give himself to someone else. You were afraid he was up there, auctioning himself off to the highest bidder, just so that you wouldn’t be able to claim him.”
“That’s crazy,” Ryder protested, then winced at his own lie.
“That’s the truth,” Lyss said. “You froze, Ryder. You froze, and so did I, because we were both afraid that we’d missed our chance. That he was choosing to give himself to someone else, simply because we hadn’t claimed him ourselves. Yes, baby. That is what happened. It wasn’t until he looked at you, and me, too, that we both understood why he was up there. And now he’s waiting, wondering if he made a mistake.”
She pulled out of his arms, taking both of his hands in hers and looking up at him earnestly. “So, are we going to claim our man, Tex? Are we going to claim him for good this time? And I do mean ‘we,’ by the way. He may have been yours first, but I’m staking my claim, too. He was meant to be ours. Is meant to be ours. That is…if you can forgive him for hurting you. And…if you can forgive yourself for abandoning him when he needed you the most. So what’s it gonna be, Texas Ranger? Can we forget the past and move on with our future? A future together?”
Could he? God, he didn’t know. Ryder was shaking, shaking under his skin. Lyss’s words had hit home on so many levels. Levels he hadn’t even been aware of. He’d told himself he was allowing A.J. time to adjust to the idea of the threesome, but in reality, he’d been giving himself time to trust the man again. A.J. had hurt him, when he let his fear win over his love for Ryder. Though Ryder had told himself it didn’t matter anymore, part of him knew it did. Could he bring himself to trust A.J. again? Could he bring himself to love the other man again? No, not again. Still. Could he admit that he still loved A.J., despite the hurt, despite the years of separation?
Could he trust A.J. with Lyss’s heart as well? Because this was a package deal, now. Where he went, Lyss went. Could he trust A.J., not just with his own heart, but hers, too?
They both wanted to fill the missing pieces of their lives. But was that worth the possibility of shattering it altogether?
Ryder stared in his wife’s loving hazel eyes for a long, long time. Somewhere, a door opened and closed. Somewhere, voices raised in laughter and conversation. And somewhere, the voice of a friend said, “A.J. is in the temple suite, the room you reserved. Go to him whenever you’re ready.” Then another door closed, and they were suddenly alone together.
Ryder tried to clear his throat, but his voice still came out scratchy and scared. “I’m not perfect,” he told Lyss.
She smiled, caressing the side of his jaw. “Neither am I, Tex. And neither is A.J. We don’t need perfect. We just need you. Both of us.”
“How can you be so certain?” he asked, hating himself.
“Because you are the man we both choose to submit to,” she answered in a breathy whisper. “A.J. declared himself for us tonight, Ryder. We were expecting him to be unaware of his sexuality, but he’s not. He knows exactly what he is. And he’s exactly what we need.”
Ryder took a deep breath. Took another. And another.
And nodded.
Chapter 16
A.J. knelt on the plush black carpet that covered the playroom floor, his heart still going a mile a minute. Were they coming? Had they changed their minds? Did he fuck this up right from the very beginning?
He started to reach for his collar again, but forced himself to leave it alone. God, he never should have listened to Austin. He should have done this privately, not up on some stage in a room full of people. What if they thought A.J. had intended for someone else to bid on him? What if they thought he’d come here tonight with the specific intention of giving himself to another Dominant? What if they thought he didn’t want them?
What if they thought he was cheating on them?
The very thought made his stomach churn. Marian’s accusations, her vituperative anger, her vindictive choice to take his son away, all came rushing back. His whole life had come crashing to the ground, simply because she thought he was cheating on her. Was it all happening again? Was he going to fuck up this relationship, too?
He was working himself up into a near-panic when the door finally opened and Lyss and Ryder both walked in.
Heart now in his throat, A.J. immediately sat back on his heels, head bowed with his wrists crossed at the small of his back. He heard the door close, then two pairs of footsteps crossing the layer of tile that bordered the room—then nothing, as they crossed onto the thick, sound-dampening carpeting. He wanted to look, needed to look, to see if
they were angry with him, but didn’t dare raise his head. He’d made a choice, tonight. A choice to hand himself over to them, for better or worse. Until they gave him their own versions of the rules, he would adhere to the ones he knew. So he kept his head bowed, eyes on the floor, while his heart did an interesting hopscotch dance between his throat, temples, and stomach.
And then that voice, that beautiful, honeyed Texas drawl, said, “Now there’s a sight I could get used to seeing every damn day.”
A.J. closed his eyes. Ryder approves. Thank God, Ryder approves.
“Mmm,” Lyss agreed, her words rolling over his bare back like wet velvet, “I’d have to agree with you on that one, Tex. But then, I’ve always been partial to seeing a strong man on his knees.”
Lyss approved, too. Relief made him giddy, enough that if he hadn’t already been kneeling, he would have fallen to the floor. They weren’t angry. They weren’t displeased with him. They were here to claim him.
At least, for the length of the contract. That thought made him pause, a slight frown drawing the corners of his mouth down.
“A.J., look at me,” said Ryder.
A.J. forced himself to breathe, just breathe, for a long moment. Then he slowly raised his head, letting his gaze travel over both of them on the way up, until he met Ryder’s golden stare. There was lust, love, and a whole lot of confusion in Ryder’s expression. But, thankfully, no anger.
“Is this what you truly want?” Ryder asked, his voice soft.
A.J. nodded once. “With everything I am.”
Ryder held his gaze for a long, silent moment. Then he nodded as if to seal the deal, and took a step back. Lyss came forward and slipped her fingertips beneath A.J.’s chin, tipping it upward so he was looking into her eyes.
“Which contract did you choose?” she purred.
A.J. swallowed hard. There were several iterations of the contract, each designed for a particular kind of submissive. Some had been easy to discard—he had no desire to be a little, or spend his days as a human pet. Nor was he a masochist, so the contracts that centered around impact play were completely out. Some of them were too taboo for him, despite his acceptance of the darker aspects of the BDSM lifestyle. And some of them just turned him off, like “slut” submission and humiliation play. There were a few, though, that did pique his interest. But of the remaining choices, only one of them called to him on the deepest level of his psyche.
Saints United [For Love of Authority 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 18
