Trust An Even Hand

by Chloe Cox

  And what she read there filled her with warmth.

  ROSIE: “You lose that bet, big brother. Mom wants to know who you’re bringing to the wedding ;)”

  So he had a little sister. And a mom. And a wedding to go to, apparently.

  Relief flooded her, and she collapsed back on the bed, phone in hand. Charlene knew what it was like to be without a functioning family—her grandmother was long dead, her mother kept moving and didn’t keep in touch, and her father had never wanted to know her much. It was like a dull ache that you eventually learned to ignore, but you did it by ignoring the part of you that had so much love to give.

  She hadn’t realized how sad it had made her to think of Luke like that. Because if anyone deserved better, it was Luke Logan. He was so silent and strong, you’d never know the size of his heart unless he decided to show it to you.

  Like, say, by being the patient, caring Dom who managed to heal Charlene’s subby side when she couldn’t even tell what she needed.

  Charlene sighed, looked at the text one more time, and leaned over to replace the phone on the table. She flopped back into her mass of pillows, thinking about the man in her shower and how on earth she was going to keep a lid on all of these feelings.

  Should she? Should she tell him? She wasn’t crazy, right, he had looked at her the same way. He had felt it. She’d seen him feel it.

  And yet…

  “Daydreaming?”

  Charlene looked up—and her brain short-circuited.

  Luke.

  Wet.

  Naked, except for a towel.

  …And there went the towel.

  So it took her a few wonderful, wonderful seconds to realize that her Dom was waiting on an answer.

  “Oh,” she said, blushing slightly, and barely able to tear her gaze away. Eyes are up here, Charlie.

  And as soon as she met his eyes, she couldn’t keep the smile off of her face.

  “I was just wondering what your folks are like,” she said. “You never did tell me about them.”

  There was a beat.

  A beat where everything seemed to change.

  Charlene would probably never forget the expression on his face. It reminded her of nothing so much as that expression she’d seen when he thought she was still asleep, that frowning stare into the middle distance, that wall behind which he kept his real life, his worries, his fears.

  It was like watching the sun going behind a cloud.

  And then, just as quickly, it was…nothing.

  Blank. Stone.

  “That’s because they’re not part of my life,” he said.

  Charlene was too stunned to say much of anything at all. She just watched him pull his old shirt over his head, watched him pull his jeans on, watched him grab his phone. The whole time his words hitting her, working through her flesh, like lead shot.

  “I’ll make coffee,” Luke said as he walked out of her bedroom. “I’ve got a lot of stuff to build for that wedding.”

  And then he was gone.

  Luke had fucked up.

  He didn’t even know how it had happened, which was the part that got him. Luke was an engineer, a builder. He was the guy who could figure out how things worked. He could take things apart, figure out what made them tick, make them do what he wanted.

  Charlene Bastien was the one thing he could not figure out.

  No. The way he felt around Charlene Bastien was the one goddamn thing he couldn’t figure out, and it was a problem.

  He was glad to have all this work to do, glad to have something to keep him moving. He was expanding the gazebo he’d built for the dinner, making it big enough for the wedding party. Lots of wood, lots of tools. Lots of sweat.

  None of it helped.

  Because in the end, none of it could change the fact that he’d let himself fall for her.

  It wasn’t Charlene’s fault that she made it so easy. It wasn’t her fault that she made it so easy to laugh, to relax, to forget that he had a goddamn responsibility. But she made him…heedless.

  Like last night. He’d lost himself. He was a Dom, and he’d lost himself in her, and it fucking scared him.

  A Dom who lost control wasn’t much of a Dom.

  And if Luke lost control, he was worse. He knew what he was capable of. No one else did. No one else knew that past.

  And he would protect Charlene from that if it were the last thing he did.

  Which meant keeping his distance. Which definitely meant he wasn’t taking anyone to his mother’s goddamn wedding.

  That text from Rosie had left a sour, metallic taste in his mouth, because he knew what it meant. He’d have to go and take his mother’s abuse one more time, and Rosie would get her heart broken again, and there would be nothing he could do about it.

  And the idea of Charlene being exposed to any of that hurt made him want to rage against the whole damn world. If she knew his past, she’d feel bad for him, like women always did. She’d feel closer to him. And that would just make it cut deeper when he couldn’t be what she wanted.

  He’d do anything to keep that from happening. He’d cut off his own damn arm before he let her come to harm. That was a goddamn fact.

  And because he’d lost control and let himself love her, that might be what he’d have to do. If Charlene kept the terms of their arrangement, that would be fine. He could live with that. He could love her from afar and never let it get in the way.

  That’s it.

  He looked up from the pile of wood planks he’d assembled, his tools glinting in the high noon sun. He could do that. He could do that for her.

  He took off his work gloves and left them where they fell as he strode back up to the house, eyes intent.

  He’d booked it out of there that morning knowing he had to figure this out before he talked to her, leaving his sub with some uncertainty after a night like that. Without proper debrief. Without proper aftercare. That was a mistake, and it was a mistake he’d rectify right now.

  So long as Charlene didn’t feel anything for him, everything would be fine.

  Charlene looked at her suitcase and felt momentarily silly all over again. This was, of course, her house. She shouldn’t be packing to go anywhere, if you thought about it like that.

  But it wasn’t just her house anymore. It was the house where Luke had shown her who she was. Where he’d given her that gift of learning to trust herself again. Where she’d fallen in love with him.

  And the thought of being here without him was just more than she could bear at the moment, so she was preparing for the worst.

  But maybe it won’t happen like that? Maybe he’ll…

  No. She couldn’t give herself false hope.

  For the first time since Luke had come into her life, Charlene hadn’t known what to feel. He’d said his folks weren’t part of his life when she still had the image of that text fresh in her mind, and she’d been dizzy, disoriented. It was almost like a flashback to when her ex had spent all that time telling her she was nuts for having feelings about the way he treated her, or that she shouldn’t believe her own two eyes.

  Except it had been worse.

  Because with Jimmy, some part of her had known he was lying, and she’d had to work hard to convince herself that he was right. But with Luke…

  It wasn’t that Luke had lied. It was that she’d been dead certain he was telling her the truth: they weren’t part of his life.

  And neither, really, was Charlene.

  Luke had never lied to her about this; he’d always been real clear on what the boundaries of their D/s arrangement were. Just because Charlene had crossed them didn’t mean they’d changed for him, too. And if they hadn’t, she had to protect herself. She had to get out now, before she lost her heart completely, with no hope of ever getting it back again.

  And anyway, Luke would flip if she told him she’d be staying here all by herself.

  God, this is really about to happen, isn’t it?

  Well, only if she
suited up and went out there and talked to him.

  Charlene reached down, grabbed her suitcase, reminded herself not to start crying again, and looked up.

  And found Luke standing in her foyer, looking confused.

  “Where are you going?” he said.

  “Right,” she whispered. “About that.”

  “Are you ok?” he said.

  Luke’s eyes narrowed as he watched her face, and he took another step toward her, his brow furrowed again.

  “You’ve been crying,” he said. All Dom. “What happened?”

  “Stop,” she said.

  Softly. So softly. But somehow it was the loudest thing she’d ever said.

  It wasn’t a safe word, but Luke could read her anyway. He stopped where he stood, only his eyes touching her.

  Charlene closed her eyes, said a prayer, and allowed herself to hope for a single second. Then she forced herself to look at the man she loved—and almost certainly couldn’t have.

  “I have so much to thank you for,” she said. “I can pretty much never thank you enough. But I’ve crossed a line, and I am…I am so sorry, Luke.”

  Dammit. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t cry.

  “I’m so, so sorry,” she said again.

  Luke’s eyes flashed, and she could tell he wanted to touch her. To hold her. It was exactly what she wanted.

  “There’s nothing you could have done that would make me cut you loose as my sub,” he said. “Nothing.”

  “‘As your sub,’” she echoed.

  “What happened, Charlie?” he said again.

  Charlene shook her head, trying to hide tears. Why was this so hard to say? She tried another tack.

  “When does this end?” she asked. “You and me. When does it end?”

  Luke looked at her hard, his face unreadable again. He felt so far away.

  “It ends when it’s no longer what one of us wants,” he said.

  There.

  This was it.

  This moment. Looking into the eyes of the man she loved. The man she could see a future with. A future that might, in the next second, disappear forever.

  “And what if one of us wants more?” she said.

  She was watching his face so closely, and she almost didn’t catch it. But something flashed in his eyes. Something flashed, passed across his face, and was gone in an instant, so quickly that she wouldn’t have believed it if Luke hadn’t already taught her to trust herself again.

  If only she knew what was in his heart, too.

  Finally Luke’s shoulders tensed, his eyes sad. He looked like he had when he’d defended her from her ex, when he’d protected her. Only this time it was just the two of them, and this sadness that covered them both like a gentle rain.

  “This can only ever be a D/s arrangement, Charlie,” he said. “That was the deal.”

  “I know that was the deal,” she said, her voice climbing, her fingers grasping at the suitcase that now felt so, so heavy. “I’m breaking the deal.”

  Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry.

  “Are you ok?” Luke asked again, and this time his voice was raw, and the obvious concern on his face made her crazy, because it looked so much like love. And yet, obviously, it wasn’t. And she had to deal with that.

  “I’m falling for you,” she said. “And if I don’t stop it now, I won’t be able to stop it at all. So I’m going to stay at the club for a while. And I think…”

  Charlene took a deep breath, and found she had to look away for this.

  “I think this has to end,” she said.

  Chapter Thirty

  Luke’s penthouse apartment still didn’t feel like home. It never had, because it was never supposed to. But he didn’t remember it being this big and empty.

  It had been a week, maybe two. He felt like a fucking zombie. Like every step he took he took underwater. But he’d do this all over again if it meant protecting Charlene from more pain.

  So this was his life now.

  He’d bought this place as just a place to hang his hat while he got real work done, and it showed. He’d had to open the big, old factory windows to air out the funk that had gathered while he’d been at Charlene’s, but even with the fresh air it didn’t seem quite alive. He didn’t recognize it. Some past version of his self had lived here. He’d sell it soon.

  But in the meantime he had work to do.

  Not for his company. That was handled. He’d had the expansion plans in place for a while, and now that Wanda had proved she could handle the load, he was moving forward and making her a junior partner. That he could do in his sleep.

  But his real work was more important: making Charlene safe. He’d made her a promise, and he wasn’t going to break it just because he’d let things go too far between them. He had let her get hurt, and he wouldn’t ever forgive himself for that, but he could damn sure try to make up for it.

  He’d already put everything in motion, so he was expecting that phone call any day now.

  Which was why, as he made himself a protein shake in his huge, empty kitchen, he reached for his phone as soon as it started buzzing.

  Only it wasn’t the phone call he’d been waiting for.

  It was Gavin.

  Who might have news about Charlene.

  Luke snatched the phone up and barked into it.

  “What happened?”

  “Was going to ask you the same thing,” Gavin said. “You going to tell me what the fuck happened between you two?”

  “No,” Luke said. “Is she ok?”

  “Physically she’s fine,” Gavin said. “You’d know about the rest.”

  It was like a blow to the chest, but he deserved it. Luke took it in stride.

  “Just promise me you’ll offer her protection when she goes back home,” Luke said, gritting his teeth. He wanted to be the man offering to protect her, but he’d screwed that up. “If she hasn’t already.”

  If she was home, she hadn’t turned the alarm system on. Or if she had, maybe she’d changed the alert number—Luke wasn’t getting notifications anymore. It wasn’t his right to get possessive about it, but Luke did want to know someone was looking out for her, at least until he could do something about her ex-husband.

  “Is Jimmy that much of a threat?” Gavin asked. His tone was different, quieter. Which meant he was serious.

  “Yeah, he is,” Luke said. “But hopefully not for long.”

  Not as long as that phone call came through, at least.

  “Well, you know she’s like my kid sister,” Gavin said. “I’m not going to let anyone hurt her. And that includes you, Luke. I might kick your ass the next time I see you.”

  “Fair enough,” Luke said. “But know this was the best I could do.”

  Gavin didn’t say anything. What was there to say?

  “Thanks for looking out for her,” Luke finally said, and hung up.

  Just in time for his buzzer to go off.

  Ah. No phone call this time. Diego was making a house call.

  And he only did that when he had something big.

  Charlene had mostly stopped crying, but then she’d taken out her dumb suitcase again, and for some reason just looking at it made her start all over again.

  “You sure you want to go home?” Olivia said from where she was propped up in the corner by an army of pillows. “I kind of don’t want you to go home.”

  “I know, but I have to rip the band aid off sometime,” Charlene said.

  “I’ve never seen you like this,” Olivia said.

  Charlene smiled through her tears. “I promise it’s not as bad as it looks.”

  Which was a lie. Did anyone ever get used to heartbreak?

  “That’s not what I meant,” Olivia said, watching her friend carefully. “Obviously I hate to see you sad, but it’s more than that. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you feel this much at all, at least not in public. I’ve definitely never seen you spend this much time in the club without practically breaki
ng out in hives, that’s for sure.”

  Charlene had to laugh as Olivia threw her another box of tissues, because, well, her friend was right. That was another thing Luke had given her—she trusted her own heart enough to actually listen to it now. And she couldn’t imagine being a sub to anyone else, but at least the very sight of a St. Andrew’s Cross no longer made her cringe.

  Then she started to cry again, because she still couldn’t have the man who gave her all of that.

  “My God, being in love is the worst,” Charlene said. “How do you handle it?”

  “Having a Dom who isn’t a total dummy helps,” Olivia said. “But if you recall, it took Gavin a little while to get over being a total dummy. I think you helped him with that.”

  She had helped, but not even entirely on purpose. When Gavin broke up with Olivia, Charlene had been the one to chew his ear off, but she’d never had much doubt that Gavin would see the light on his own. In the end Gavin was no good without Olivia, and he knew it.

  Charlene didn’t think she’d had the same kind of influence on Luke. She’d wanted to, but…

  Life didn’t always work out the way you wanted it to.

  “Why are you crying?”

  Gavin’s low voice carried from the open door of the room Charlene had been staying in, as if he’d heard his name. Charlene just shook her head and tried to shake off the tears.

  Gavin wasn’t having any of it.

  “What did he do now?” he demanded. “You look almost as bad as he sounds.”

  Charlene whipped her head around so fast she nearly made herself dizzy.

  “You spoke to him?”

  “If you could call it that,” Gavin growled.

  “Is he ok?”

  Gavin looked at her. “I didn’t ask,” he said.

  But his pained expression told her volumes. And the thought of Luke suffering through this, even if he wasn’t as heartbroken as she was, made her cry all over again.

  “Oh my God, really?” she whispered.

  Gavin’s face darkened. “I told him I’d kill him if he hurt you and I meant it,” he said.