Tethered Love (The Knot Duet Book 2)

by M. Mabie

  “Hello, I’m Denise. I work here at Penelope Stables. Is there anything I can get for you? Something to eat? Something to drink?” Denise was middle aged and wore the same type of attire as the guy who took the Range Rover earlier.

  “Rum and soda?” Nora asked politely.

  “Certainly, and you?” She smiled in my direction.

  I asked, “Do you have cold Heineken?”

  “Yes, sir. Would you like it in a glass?”

  “No. Thank you. Bottle is fine,” I assured her. Nervously she laughed and placed a hand over her chest, then took a long sweep over my body.

  Flustered, she said, “Enjoy the pool. I’ll put your drinks over there.” Then pointed to patio furniture tucked under a large shade umbrella.

  Then I caught a glimpse of Nora. She’d turned to me, head cocked and a hand on her hip.

  “I think her and Dirk would make a handsome couple,” Nora teased with a clever smile.

  That couldn’t be jealousy. She didn’t think like that.

  “I think you’re right,” I agreed.

  It wasn’t long until Janel and Ives joined us, but Nora never left my side. She sat on a benched edge in the pool next to me and held herself up with her arms, slowly kicking her feet back and forth.

  Janel told us about how she’d applied for a guide position at the museum. It was easy to see why Nora and Janel got along so well. They were both smart and business-minded. They reminisced, and as I relaxed, enjoying the tales of Nora as a coed, the other group arrived.

  Having spent most of the afternoon there drinking and lounging, we hopped out of the water to greet them.

  “We’ll be right back,” one of the ladies said as she pulled her husband off to go inside. “Excuse us.”

  As far as I knew, Janel and Ives only knew Justin and Penelope. The other two couples were friends of the Beckhams.

  “Reggie,” Justin laughed as he neared with his hand stretched out. “I should have put two and two together.”

  I was both relieved to know someone and apprehensive about the aftermath. “This place is spectacular,” I said, firmly shaking hands.

  “And this must be Nora, Janel and Ives friend?”

  Friend, yes. I’m her lover now.

  “Nora Koehl, this is Justin Beckham and his wife Penelope,” I introduced. His wife was a petite strawberry blonde, I’d met her a few times at events and dinners. Penelope was a sweet woman, and she smiled brightly at Nora as she leaned in to give her a kiss on the cheek.

  “Thanks for coming,” she said to us.

  “What a treat. The view from our room is spectacular. Thank you,” Nora replied in a tone I recognized as her professional work voice. I’d heard her speak on the phone to her counterpart many times, and it was always the same, but her voice was contrasted to how she normally spoke to me.

  “Well, please, make yourselves at home. Most of the staff will be leaving us in a while. They’ll be in and out in the afternoons from about lunch until after dinner. Other than that, help yourself to anything.”

  Justin scratched his chin and asked, “So Nora, how’s that foot? If I remember correctly, you’d hurt it or something around the Fourth of July. You didn’t get to come out on the boat.”

  Her foot?

  I thought her friends had canceled that night. I watched her sway a little and hold her foot out, “That’s right. Good as new.”

  They didn’t cancel?

  She’d stayed on her own.

  I didn’t even care that she’d lied.

  Penelope smiled sympathetically, and Justin clapped his hands, “Good, I’m glad you were able to make it this time, and bring Reggie, too. It’ll be a great break for all of us.”

  “Yes, it’s nice to meet you,” Nora replied to my colleague. It was a little peculiar wondering what Tuesday would be like in the office after this long weekend. But he didn’t seem to mind we were there, so I didn’t dwell on it.

  I was still going to try. Maybe even harder now to prove I could adjust—prove it to myself.

  “Well,” he started and looked from me to Nora, then to Janel and Ives. “Real quick, Janel and Ives, I’m guessing you’ve met Calvin and Tracy.” The other couple waved from where they stood next to Nora’s friends; we waved back. Then, Justin continued, “And Brad and Courtney just ran up to their room. They’re on a fertility schedule, so it’ll definitely be a fun weekend for them, although we might not see them much.”

  Collectively, everyone laughed, and so did I. But what I was still stuck on was the revelation of Nora having backed out on her friends our first night together.

  She had chosen to stay. All on her own.

  Why didn’t she want me to know?

  Drinks flowed. We swam and laid in the sun. Denise grilled, and leisurely, we ate and sat around. It was a very laid back afternoon spent getting to know the people who were there with us.

  Evening turned into night, the mood was tranquil. Most everyone was tipsy and laughter filled the air. Justin started a fire in the impressive stone and glass fire pit on the lower portion of the patio nearest the lake, and soon everyone was there on the plush seating that surrounded it.

  “So now were considering IVF, and it’s a pain in the ass,” Courtney said and looked up at her husband. He gazed down at his wife lovingly and kissed her nose. They were an ideal couple. Brad was a physical therapist, and Courtney was a stay at home mother to their only child who had some health issues.

  Through the flicker of the fire, I watched him whisper something into her ear. Her eyes closed as he spoke, then she nodded.

  Nora was on my lap, in the massive club chair we shared. Her legs sideways over my thighs, one arm loosely wrapped around my neck, the other holding the wine she’d switched to.

  If she wasn’t careful, she’d overdo it. It had been a long day of drinking, I’d already began nursing my beers, slowing myself down.

  No one spoke, the only sounds were the water lapping against the dock several feet away and the crackle of the blue and orange fire.

  Then, Brad kissed his wife. It wasn’t a mild meshing by any stretch.

  I felt like I should look away, like I was poaching on someone else’s ground. Invading their privacy. I looked around the long semi-circle couch from them, where Calvin and Tracy sat, noticing his hand was already dipped into the side of his wife swimming suit.

  I swallowed, took a few breaths, and considered excusing us.

  Would she want to stay? Even if I left?

  I could try harder. It was the first damn night, and thankfully, I didn’t feel like I was in territorial mode. In fact, all afternoon everyone had been indeed respectful. There hadn’t been any wandering eyes or seedy behavior.

  I could try this. For her. I could give this to her.

  Besides that, as I looked around the fire, I saw no shame, only serenity. I could use some of that.

  My breathing picked up, not sure what I should do.

  “We don’t have to do anything,” Nora cooed in my ear, as if she’d read my mind.

  There’s that voice. I’d missed that timbre, and it relaxed me further.

  Justin and his wife were the only couple who had excused themselves for the night already. Penelope wanted to check on her horses before it got too late. So that eased my mind as well.

  Nora lifted my nearly empty beer from my hand and placed it on the table behind her, and when she stretched, her ass ground down into me. The hand I’d cradled underneath her flexed into her warm side.

  When she was settled again, she tipped her wine glass to my lips and let me drink from it. “No one will touch us, Reagan. We can just watch,” she purred.

  So I watched, and I drank from her glass each time she lifted it to my mouth.

  Courtney straddled her husband as he untied the back of her suit top. I was staring through the flames at them, guilty and voyeuristic at the same time. My dick growing harder as I watched Courtney bend backward while Brad laved at her breasts like they were alone.
Or like I’d only done when alone with a woman.

  The wine glass empty and discarded, Nora rested her head on my shoulder, and her hand rubbed my chest. My hips bucked more into Nora’s suit covered bottom when Courtney crawled to the ground below where Brad sat, and her head bobbed as she began sucking him in front of us.

  My free hand reached around the front of us and palmed the cheek of Nora’s ass, needing to feel the pressure of her against my cock. I pulled my eyes from the different displays happening in front of me and turned my attention to the siren on my lap.

  She lifted her chin to me, dreamy—almost sleepily looking—grey-blue eyes met mine. It was hard to read her.

  Was she as turned-on as I was? Surely, this was old hat for her.

  Was she drunk? That was a very good possibility.

  Or was she simply tired? It had been a long day.

  Regardless, the answer to all three questions was the same.

  Take her to bed.

  “Everyone calls you Reggie,” she stated quietly to me, face to face. The fire cast a warm glow on her sun-ripened skin.

  “What do you want to call me?” It was becoming inconsequential. Except, I thought, in the bedroom. If not anywhere else, that’s where I needed to be Reagan with her.

  “I don’t know,” she tipped her head in thought. “I’m not sure I know who I’m with.”

  I wasn’t completely tuned out with what was happening around us, there was moaning and other sounds that only had one origin, but I focused on her.

  “It’s me,” I said.

  “Yeah, but you have two different versions.”

  Touché.

  I let her go on, not interrupting her thought. I relished the moments when she was like that. Sweet and honest. Sexy and innocent at the same time.

  “You have a bit of Jekyll and Hyde in you. Reggie and Reagan.”

  I had to smile because it was true. I couldn’t argue. She paid attention to me well.

  I tipped my chin at her and queried, “Who do you like better?”

  A tempting grin spread across her face, and she replied, “Please, don’t make me choose. You’re perfect for me—two men in one.”

  My mouth sought hers, and she kissed me back in earnest. I craved all of her, but I didn’t feel the need to share anymore. They’d had enough of her for the day.

  “Take me to bed,” she requested around my lips. “I want you. Please.”

  I picked her up, behind the knees and under her arms, how she sat in my lap. Thankfully I was steady because I hadn’t over indulged. I wasn’t keen on drinking too much and taking medicine, especially away from home. I didn’t want to drop her, but at the same time, I wasn’t about to fucking let her go.

  “Goodnight, everybody,” she said in a soft voice over my shoulder to the group. I didn’t even look back. Then, as I climbed the well-lit steps to the main house, she sucked and kissed my neck, my shoulder, and my chest.

  I did my best to ignore her as I made my way up the stairs to our room, finding it wasn’t that challenging opening a door with her in my arms.

  I didn’t even set her down as I climbed atop the bed.

  I was grateful the day had been kind to us. That, even though it was a completely foreign experience to what I’d had in the past, I hadn’t let it divert me from giving her what she asked of me. I was open-minded, and honestly, I’d enjoyed myself.

  An accomplishment, regardless of how minor in the broad scheme of things, the day was a success.

  Any day where I carried her to bed, hearing she wanted me, was a victory.

  “I’ll call you Reagan, if you call me baby,” she said, and she kissed her way down my stomach and wrapped her mouth around me.

  NINE

  PRESENT

  NORA—Sunday, September 19, 2010

  I stared down at him, I felt my body move, but I was somewhat disconnected. I was in a different place, a different time. It was like a dream.

  “You haven’t called me baby, in a long, long time.” I ached to hear it, and admitting that was hard but true.

  He said he’d never get his fill of me, and there in that bed in Somewhere, Oregon, I felt much the same. He’d never get enough, and sadly I’d never have enough to give him.

  “You haven’t seemed like her in a long, long time.”

  “She misses you.” My eyelids lowered and rose, but at a snail’s pace.

  “When you popped up again, I thought that was our chance.” He continued to talk, all the while teasing me. Coaxing me.

  But that didn’t make any sense, he was the one who ran out of the courthouse. I might have been hurt and scared, but he’s the one who ran away from me.

  Well, at least the last time.

  “I thought it was, too.”

  He climbed up the bed, sideling himself between my legs, but not so much that he pressed against me where I wanted him.

  “Where did the man, who always looked for a way go? The one who needed all the answers.”

  The familiar feeling of a storm brewed in my chest.

  We lay very still and spoke words I never thought I’d hear. Words so heavy they almost crushed me straight through the ground, forcing me into the Hell I knew was waiting.

  “He gave up, baby.”

  PAST

  NORA—Thursday, September 25, 2008

  The summer faded quickly after Labor Day, which had been an interesting weekend. After that Friday night, I felt so many things I’d never experienced. We actually spent most of the day on Saturday to ourselves. Aside from dinner, and a few drinks afterward, we were in our room.

  Then, we came back to the city on Sunday. Reagan’s excuse was because he didn’t want to fight the holiday traffic, which I sort of believed. Traffic gave him anxiety.

  Leaving early didn’t bother me though.

  He’d tried very hard. Exceeded my expectations. Enough, in fact, that I felt like I owed him a debt, but I couldn’t figure out a way to pay it.

  I wondered if he would have stayed by the fire with the group, had I not asked him to take me to bed. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer. That night had caused me a lot of confusion.

  Those feelings were off and on daily.

  Sometimes I overthought everything and wondered where the woman I used to be was—the one who just went with the flow.

  Sometimes I thought some of him was rubbing off on me. Parts I liked and parts I hated, ones that made me feel ugly.

  I couldn’t get enough of him, then I felt smothering.

  I was greedy with our time, but I needed some space to sort out my feelings.

  I wanted him all to myself, and I’d been jealous.

  That night by the fire, I’d felt it. The way he watched them. I was jealous of his bravery, his willingness to try what I’d asked, and the way his cock got hard looking at them.

  People think that polyamorous people don’t get that way, and some don’t. Up until him, I’d never experienced it myself.

  Jealousy was born of fear; the daunting threat someone might take away something precious. I’d never felt possessive with a lover like I was with him. Worse than that was the fear they’d go willingly, and forget you.

  I didn’t know everything, and I couldn’t speak for everyone—monogamous or otherwise—but my fear was like a cancer, and it spread through every thought. Made me second guess myself. Made me its puppet to do and say things I didn’t trust.

  And in those weeks following Labor Day, I couldn’t rely on my feelings.

  We’d been invited out to drinks with Justin and Penelope, but I hadn’t wanted to go.

  I could tell there was something brewing with him, too.

  “How’s that toe?” he asked over the phone.

  It took me a moment to pick up on our never-ending joke, I’d been lost in my head for most of the afternoon. I wasn’t familiar with so many new emotions. I didn’t know how to handle them, which was one reason I’d never been interested in a committed relationship. With anyone.


  “It’s fine.” I laughed, but it was weak. I knew he wanted to see me. “I think I’m going to stay home tonight. I’m kind of tired.” I half-expected him to knock on my door any minute.

  I’d been working a lot with many fall and winter events coming up. Plus, I was leaving town before the holidays—which I still hadn’t found a good way to bring up. My head hurt from the stress of it. I just wanted to lay on my couch and watch the news until I fell asleep.

  There was a long span of silence over the line.

  “I haven’t said anything since you’ve been working so hard, but you’ve been different lately. If something is up, or changing, you have to talk to me.”

  I’d be glad to talk to him if I could figure out how I felt. That’s where the trouble was. I had no fucking clue.

  “I know,” I said.

  Janel thought how I felt was attributed to how I’d never met anyone like him before, and therefore I didn’t know how to cope with it. Ives thought that if being with Reagan was what I really wanted, then I wouldn’t feel so confused—if it was right, it would have felt right.

  In some ways, they were both correct.

  “Do you still want this?” he asked, point blank. Sometimes I marveled at his honesty, and I looked for mine. Other times, it frightened me.

  This was so vague.

  Was it his body? His attention? Yes.

  Or was it our relationship? Because I wanted it, but it made me so crazy. Was that normal? Was that how regular couples felt most of the time? Like part of them was fading, and other parts were finally being colored in?

  I admitted, “It’s just harder than I thought. Maybe it’s because it’s all happening so fast.”

  I could hear his breathing pick up, an escalating tempo.

  This was exactly what I meant. I hated making him feel anything but happy, but I was drowning in all of these new emotions, and he was safely waving from the shore, sipping a cocktail.

  “What do you need from me?” Another question that seemed so direct, but again one that I didn’t know how to articulate.

  I reached for an answer. “Patience? Time?”

  “Nora, do you love me?”

  My stomach bottomed out, and I pulled my feet into my body and lay my head on the back of the couch. I ran my fingernail over the fabric, and it made a zipping sound. I didn’t want to disappoint him, but I didn’t want to lie. What did I know about love like he was talking about?