Demons Within [For Love of Authority] (Siren Publishing Ménage and More)

by Rhiannon Ayers

  Tatum closed his eyes, squeezed her forearms where they wrapped over his stomach. “You can’t know that,” he replied dully. “Allen has a history of running away. I don’t think he’s the type to turn around and go back once his feet have gotten moving in a certain direction.”

  “Normally, I would agree with you,” she said seriously, coming around in front of him to look up into his face with earnest eyes. “But not this time. It was just too much for him today—Brock, followed immediately by his father. He only came to accept himself, to accept us, in the last few days, Tatum. His foundations weren’t strong enough to withstand blows like he received today without suffering some damage. Once he’s had a chance to think, to get past the hurt, he’ll realize we weren’t angry with him. He’ll come back. I know it.”

  Something snapped in Tatum’s chest. He wrenched out of Sidri’s arms, whirled to face her, face clouded with anger. “And what if he does, Sid? How many times are we going to go through this with him, huh? Are we going to spend the rest of our lives wondering when he’s going to run again? Wondering if we’re going to come home the next day to find his bags packed and his stuff missing? How long can we seriously put up with that?”

  “Don’t.” Sidri hissed dangerously. “Don’t go there.”

  Tatum laughed, but it was a painful, dead sound. “Don’t go where? You know what I’m talking about. Not like this hasn’t happened before, right? You’ve never had to worry about it, because the guys are always more than happy to stay with you. Maybe I’ve been the problem all along, did you ever think of that? Do you think Allen would have reacted so badly if his father had caught him kissing you? Maybe he ran to get away from me. Did you even consider that?”

  Sidri took two steps forward, drew back a hand, and slapped him so hard Tatum saw stars. He stared at her, ears ringing, eyes wide with astonishment. “Don’t make this about you,” she said in that quiet, deadly voice of hers. “Don’t do it, Tatum. Or I swear to God, Allen won’t be the only one to walk out that door today.”

  Tatum blinked, brought a hand up to rub his stinging cheek. He swallowed, tried to speak, couldn’t find his voice. Sidri stepped back, unrepentant, and crossed her arms underneath her breasts. “Allen isn’t Zach. Don’t pretend they’re the same. Don’t you dare.”

  Tatum flinched backward so violently he lost his footing and sat down hard on the foot of the bed. Shit, she was right. He was comparing the two of them—and for no other reason than his own insecurities.

  Zach was the first lover they took, after discovering their need for another man in their bedroom. Tatum had fallen hard and fast for the guy right from the start. But it had taken him a while to figure out that while Zach might love Sidri, the only thing he valued about Tatum was his cock in their bed. When it came to their relationship, Zach considered him nothing more than a sex toy, good for a romp between the sheets but an embarrassment in the cold light of day. He was the one who had destroyed Tatum’s confidence in himself, the one who had convinced him he couldn’t sleep in bed with his lovers and hope to be accepted come morning. It was his cold blue eyes Tatum had seen every day for almost a year, his hard stares and looks of disgust whenever he woke to find Tatum next to him. He was the reason Tatum ran that third night, and the first, the reason he’d been terrified Allen would reject him right from the start.

  He was the one who had broken Tatum’s heart the first time. The one who had convinced him, whether he truly realized it or not, that this relationship idea Sidri wanted to pursue was nothing more than a pipe dream. It could never work, not as a true triad. Tatum would never be anything more than a warm body in bed, a cock to help heighten the pleasure between Sidri and her lover. He would never be needed for himself, never valued as a partner.

  He would never be loved the same way Sidri would.

  Swallowing hard, he dropped his hand from his cheek and closed his eyes. “What are we doing, Sid? Is Allen right? Was he right to run away? Maybe we’re fooling ourselves that this triad thing can really work. Maybe I should be the one to leave.”

  “Stop,” Sidri said tiredly. “Just stop. You’re in pain right now, afraid—just as I am—that Allen is out there somewhere, hurting, where we can’t protect him. Because it’s your pain talking, I can forgive you for insulting both of us like that.”

  Tatum looked up in time to see her green eyes flash, turning hard as emeralds. “But if I ever hear you talk about yourself that way again, if I ever hear you belittle the relationship we’re trying to build with Allen, I will strap you to a St. Andrew’s cross and whip the living shit out of you. Understand?”

  Tatum shoved himself up off the bed, running both hands through his hair. “Come on, you know I’m right. What was it our teacher at the club said? ‘Two Doms don’t make a right?’ You and Allen would do just fine without me. He loved you first, could have been perfectly happy with just the two of you. If he can’t be happy with me in the picture, why would I want to stay and make it that much harder for the two of you?”

  Sidri pinched the bridge of her nose. “You’re being ridiculous, and you know it. Allen is bi, just like you are. Neither one of you would be able to settle for one or the other, and you damn well know it. This is the only way all three of us can be happy. Don’t say such stupid things.”

  “It’s not stupid,” Tatum rasped. “It’s reality. Okay, fine, you’re right, being bi makes it harder to pick just one. But if he can’t accept himself enough to accept both of us, why should we force him? What gives us the right to manipulate him like that, huh? Maybe he never wanted to accept it, did you consider that? Maybe he was perfectly happy until we came along and fucked everything up for him. Maybe he never wanted to accept being bisexual or submissive or any of the other fucked-up things we’ve been shoving down his throat for two fucking weeks.” He laughed again. “Literally.”

  Sidri let her hands fall to her sides, expression blank. “So. You’re giving up? Just like that?”

  Tatum snarled, started pacing. “Of course I’m not giving up. I’m just laying out the facts, damn it. Can’t you see how hard this is going to be for him? We can’t expect him to just waltz into our lives and adjust to having two lovers, one of whom happens to be male, when he’s spent his whole life feeling like a freak for being bi in the first place. I mean, my God, the things his father drilled into his head. I’m surprised the poor guy had the guts to run in the first place.”

  “But he did,” Sidri said quietly. “He did have the guts. And he has the guts for this, too. He just hasn’t realized it yet.” She went to him, wrapped both hands around his neck, and looked into his eyes earnestly. “He took his key, Tatum.”

  Too riled up to think logically, Tatum scowled. “Key? What key?”

  “The house key,” she said, eyes sparking. “He took it with him. I checked—he didn’t leave it anywhere, not on the porch, not in the house, nowhere. It’s still on his key ring. Still with him.”

  “So what? Maybe he just didn’t feel right leaving it where someone might find it,” Tatum grated, throat thick.

  Sidri shook her head, squeezed his shoulders. “No, baby. He took it with him. On purpose. Whether he knew it or not, he intended to come back. If he didn’t, the key would be here, safety be damned. Have faith in him, Tatum. I do.”

  Tatum sighed, wrapped his arms around Sidri’s waist, and pressed his forehead to hers. He closed his eyes. “I’m trying,” he whispered. “I really am. But it’s so hard, Sid. I love him so much. I don’t think I can do this again. I don’t want to live the rest of my life afraid that the man I love is going to run from me. Can’t you understand that?”

  “I can.”

  Tatum and Sidri both froze. Then they separated, slowly, and turned toward the doorway.

  Allen stood there, looking disheveled and tear-stained, so beautiful it made Tatum’s knees weak. He grabbed onto Sidri, both of them staring at the apparition who had just entered their bedroom. Neither one of them had expected Allen to return this fas
t. They’d expected to be without him for weeks, maybe even months, before he got up the courage to come back to them. Yet here he was, watching them nervously, his hands shoved in his pockets as he leaned in the doorway.

  When neither one of them could find voice enough to speak, Allen cleared his throat and looked down at his shoes. “I’m sorry,” he said in a quiet voice. “I shouldn’t have run like that. I got scared, and I was hurting. I shouldn’t have taken off and left you to pick up the pieces. I’m sorry.”

  Sidri’s hand fisted in the back of Tatum’s shirt, preventing him from surging forward to take Allen in his arms. He glanced down at her, and she gave him a tiny, almost imperceptible headshake. Tatum sucked in a deep breath, let it out slowly. She was right. This needed to be Allen’s show. Tatum forced himself to look at the man he loved, and waited.

  Allen licked his lips, eyes darting back and forth between them when neither one of them responded to his heartfelt apology. Finally, he cleared his throat. “I don’t blame you for being upset with me. I’m upset with myself. But honestly, I needed to get away, to think. And I realized a few things.”

  “Like what?” Sidri asked, deadpan. Tatum could feel her vibrating, feel how much effort it took for her not to go to their lover. It made him feel better that she was in the same state as he was. This was a hell of a lot harder than he’d ever thought it would be.

  Allen swallowed. “Like the fact that I’m always running away instead of facing my problems. Like the fact that there are things I need to tell you, things about me and my past, that you need to know before I can let myself believe that you love me. If I don’t tell you, if I wait until these demons from my past come back to haunt me, I will always wonder if one of them will destroy your faith in me, make you hate me as much as I’ve always hated myself. I would rather you know, now, right at the beginning, than live with the fear that I’ll fall even further in love with you, only to have you turn on me after you find out those things.”

  He licked his lips, eyes pleading. “Please, Sidri, Tatum. Give me a chance to explain why I ran. Give me a chance to tell you about what happened to me, the things I went through. If, when I finish, you can bring yourselves to forgive me for letting my fear win, then I promise you I will do everything in my power to earn your trust again. Please.”

  Then he took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, took two steps into the room—and dropped to his knees.

  If Tatum had been stunned before, he was thunderstruck now. Allen was offering himself to them, body and soul, and it appeared as if he knew exactly what he was doing. As Tatum watched, Allen crossed his wrists behind his back and lowered his head, sitting back on his haunches in the perfect pose of a submissive waiting for judgment from his Master or Mistress. That he did it immediately, without hesitation, told both him and Sidri volumes about just how much he’d come to accept about himself, even over the last few hours. If they could have, they would have stopped him right there—but they also knew they needed to let him speak, let him purge the demons from his own soul. If they did it for him this time, he would never believe they were gone, never accept the cleansing.

  Tatum saw Sidri suck in a breath, her eyes going wide for a moment as she glanced up at him. Then, as one, they walked to the bed and sat on the foot, a king and queen sitting on their thrones while a penitent supplicant knelt before them. Tatum tried to speak, but couldn’t make his voice work. Sidri squeezed his hand.

  “Tell us,” she said simply. Her voice had no inflection, no leeway. She was letting Allen know she was reserving judgment until she heard his words, even though the decision had already been made.

  Allen shuddered, raised his head, and met their eyes squarely. He stayed on his knees the whole time he spoke, the whole time he told them of the horrors he’d gone through as a child. How his adopted mother had quickly discovered that Allen’s hairless skin also didn’t scar—how she’d burned him, every night for three years, with cigarette butts, just to see if he could withstand the pain without shrieking. About how his father—his real father, whom he’d thought was just his adopted father at the time—and his older brother had physically abused him, telling him he was nothing more than a slave in their house, that he had no choice but to do what they wanted because he was worthless for anything else.

  And that was just the beginning.

  Tears streaked down Tatum’s cheeks as he listened. God preserve us. Allen had been through so much. He was lucky, so damn lucky, that the rape never went beyond oral abuse. If it had, he never would have been able to bring himself to trust Tatum enough to let him inside his body, never would have even given them the chance to love him. Allen’s words, spoken in a hushed whisper on their very first night together, came back to Tatum in a rush.

  “I’ve never…wanted a man to touch me before.”

  Christ God in Heaven. He’d assumed Allen meant that he’d never been able to accept his sexuality before then, couldn’t bring himself to act on his desires. Then, after hearing about that bastard Marcus, he’d assumed Allen had been referring to that, or maybe to the time he spent as a reluctant street whore. Those things were bad enough—but to discover he’d been emotionally and physically abused in the home of the people who were supposed to love and take care of him…

  Tatum wouldn’t have survived it. He knew that, down to the marrow of his bones. Had he been in Allen’s place, he would have given up long ago. He would have killed himself, or killed the people responsible for his pain, ending up in prison for murder. He never, never would have made it as far as Allen had, never would have had the courage to let anyone into his life, much less two people who said they loved him.

  Tatum was in awe of him.

  Allen really was an angel. A suffering angel, with the strength of mountains behind his guileless brown eyes. Anyone else would have become a psychotic murderer after going through what he’d survived. Yet Allen was still pure innocence, pure goodness, wrapped around a core of titanium.

  “All that was before I ran away,” Allen said quietly. A single tear tracked down his left cheek. It took everything Tatum had to remain still, not rush over and wipe that tear off his lover’s beautiful face. He bit the inside of his cheek, took Sidri’s hand in a death grip. She held on just as tightly, obviously fighting herself just as hard as he was.

  They waited.

  Allen took another breath. “After I ran away, things got worse. I told you about Marcus, and about getting arrested for prostitution. After I finally decided to stop demeaning myself, I ended up getting captured by a group of guys who were brewing crack in their house. They turned me into a mule for them, had me steal from drug stores so they wouldn’t get caught at it. They kept me locked in a room at night with bars over the windows. I was with them for about six months before I managed to escape.

  “They took me to Mexico. Made me swallow a bunch of balloons full of white powder so no one would know we were bringing drugs with us on the way back. I got sick. Really, really sick. The authorities at the border wouldn’t let us cross, refused to let the guys go through the checkpoint. They had me taken to a hospital in an ambulance, pumped my stomach. I spent three days in juvie, with cops breathing down my neck, trying to get me to turn on the guys who were using me. I told them what I knew—which was next to nothing—and waited until they called Child Services. I ran away from the lady they sent for me, disappeared into the streets of El Paso for a while.”

  He licked his lips, eyes going distant. “I probably should have stayed there. It wasn’t Houston, which meant my so-called family was far away. But I didn’t know the city, didn’t know how to take care of myself there. So, I found a truck yard. I made a deal with a trucker who was heading back here. Blowjobs whenever he wanted, as often as he wanted, in exchange for a little food and a ride home.”

  “Oh, baby,” Sidri whispered. Tears were running full tilt down her cheeks. “Sweetheart…”

  Allen shook his head, looked back down at the floor. “Please, I need to tell
you this.” He cleared his throat. “He took me up on it. Who wouldn’t, right? Anyway, things were fine—until we got here. He didn’t want to let me go. He tried to trap me in his truck, tried to chain me. I had to beat him to get away. Really beat him. Totally lost control. I broke his nose, his jaw. Broke a couple of ribs and his arm. He was lying in a bloody heap on the ground next to his big-rig when I ran off. I don’t know if he survived or not.”

  Tatum sucked in a breath, his whole body shaking with the need to hold Allen, comfort him. “Allen…”

  To his surprise, Allen actually looked up and gave him a small smile. “It’s okay. I’m almost finished.” He closed his eyes, sighed deeply. “After I ran from the trucker, I realized he’d taken me clean through Houston, almost to Louisiana. I had no idea where I was, where I should go. All I knew was the freeway was right there. I picked a direction, and I started walking.

  “I don’t know how long I walked. Several nights, maybe even several weeks. Long enough that my shoes, which were already in tatters, disintegrated right off my feet. I limped for another couple of miles until I found a construction yard with a few tarps lying around. I curled up and went to sleep.”

  His smile grew, eyes distant. “That’s when Buddy found me.”

  And he told them about the man who saved his life, about the man who became his father in all but name. Told them about learning the trade of the construction worker, about running errands and becoming the mascot for Buddy’s team of workers. Told them how Buddy had put him on the books as an employee right from the start, even though Allen thought he was working for room and board, so that the day he turned eighteen, Buddy handed over a wad of cash that was his earnings over the past two years. About how he kept that money, adding to it over the next year, saving up to buy a place of his own.

  “Buddy was so proud of me when I bought that townhouse,” he said with a little grin. Tatum wanted to pick him up, squeeze the hell out of him, he was so fucking cute right now. “I moved in when I was nineteen. Started saving up for a car after that. Rode the bus every day for three years. When I finally got the car, I went over to Buddy’s place, took him for a joyride. Never seen the old man so happy as he was that night.”