Page 25 of Hard Ride
I could. I could say ‘red’ now, and it would stop. I could leave and go back to my apartment and my job, and pretend Tate didn’t make me come in the hallway and that Lucas didn’t see me naked and kneeling on the floor, my hands cuffed behind my back.
But my mouth won’t form the word. Saying it would be giving in, would be letting both of them know I can’t handle this, that I’m just as much of a coward now as I was back then, letting that one awful experience ruin sex for me forever, and I can’t do it. So, no. I’m not going to say it.
“No, Sir,” I manage to get out.
“Good.” Lucas’s voice is warm, but I can hear the authority in it. There’s a gentler edge to his than Tate’s, and my breath catches hard. He’s coming closer too, I can feel it, and then he’s standing beside me. He’s just out of my field of vision, but I’m so hyper aware of him that I can sense him. I can feel him staring too, a pressure at the back of my head. “You may address me as Daddy,” he says, and my face gets even hotter. Daddy? Fucking Daddy? It sounds wrong, ridiculous even, yet there’s nothing ridiculous about the nervous anticipation gathering inside me. About how I can feel the two of them staring down at me.
Two men? What a little whore.
Just as the insidious voice of my mother whispers in my head, warm fingers grip the back of my neck in a strong, possessive hold. It’s him. It’s Lucas. “What do you say, sub?” he asks softly. “Master Tate must have taught you some manners. Don’t disappoint him.”
I swallow, my mouth as dry as the desert. “Y-yes, D-daddy,” I force out, part of me cringing at the word, even as other parts of me want to press myself into his grip.
“Nice.” The warmth is back in his voice again. “A good sub.” He lets go of the back of my neck and runs his fingertips downmy spine in a feather-light touch, and my whole body trembles in reaction.
I always treated him as my closest friend, even when I knew that what I felt for him wasn’t friendship, but there’s nothing friendly in that touch. It’s deliberate, intentional, and my response to it is helpless. I can’t hide it from him, and I can’t hide it from Tate, and I don’t know how I’m going to get through this now. I’m used to hiding, to running away when things get uncomfortable, and this is very,veryuncomfortable.
But I already decided I wouldn’t say my safe word when Lucas walked in, and I’m not going to say it now just because he touched me. If Tate is hoping to push me by adding Lucas to the mix, I won’t give him the satisfaction.
“A drink?” Tate asks above my head.
“Sure,” Lucas answers, and I watch his shoes move away to the armchair opposite Tate’s. He sits down, his long legs stretched out in front of him, and I hear Tate go over to the drinks cabinet.
“Sub,” he says as he gets out a bottle and two tumblers. “Go and show Master Lucas how pretty you are.”
Instantly, my breathing gets short and sharp. Show him? What does he mean by ‘show him’? How do I do that?
“Don’t think,” Tate says, seeing my hesitation. “Just do it.”
“Yes, Sir,” I say hoarsely, and force myself to my feet.
I don’t want to see the expression on Lucas’s face. I don’t want to know what he thinks about this at all, so I don’t look at him as I move over to where he’s sitting, keeping my attention on the carpet. I’m unsure about what to do next, but Lucas isn’t. He sits up, spreading his knees, reaching for my hips. “Let’s have a look at you,” he murmurs, the shock of his hands on my bare skin making my breath catch as he pulls me closer, so I’m standing between his thighs. He’s looking at me, I can feel the pressure of his gaze, but I still can’t look back. He was a friend,but he’s very much not now, and my face feels like it’s on fire, a pulsing throb between my thighs.
I always wanted him to look at me, and now he is, but Tate is right there, and I have no idea what to do with myself.
“Very pretty. Very pretty indeed,” he says, and it should be patronizing as hell, yet a stupid part of me glows like the sun at the approval in his voice.
“Look at me, sub,” he orders.
I don’t want to. I don’t want to look at him, have the electricity that has always been between us become real, yet there’s no escaping it if I don’t want to use my safe word. If I want to prove to both of them, and to myself, that I can handle this.
So slowly, I lift my gaze to his, only to find myself caught there, a fly in a spider’s web, unable to get away.
His eyes are bright gold and they’re blazing, fierce with anger and desire, and other things too complicated for me to work out. But God, he’s beautiful. He makes my heart beat just as fast Tate does.
“You’re forgetting something,” he says, chiding.
Oh fuck. “Yes, Daddy,” I say, and I don’t even cringe a little as I say it.
“Good girl.” His gaze slowly drops down my body as he studies me. My nipples have gone hard, and it’s impossible to hide them, just as it’s impossible to hide how fast I’m breathing. “Turn around. Show me those wrists.”
“Yes, Daddy.” I swallow and turn my back to him, my brain running in frantic circles again. Is he going to make me suck him off like he did with Cherry? With Tate in the room? I feel hot all over at the thought.
“Nice,” he murmurs, and I feel him tug gently on the short chain connecting each cuff, then drop a hand to the curve of my bare ass, stroking lightly. I can’t stop the hiss of breath in mythroat as he touches me. It’s so loud in the room I want to cringe. “Responsive, too. Turn around, please.”
“Yes, Daddy.” This time, I try to get myself together as I turn back to him, to not be so rabbit-in-the-headlights. But it’s impossible, because he lifts a hand and brushes the backs of his fingers over the curls between my thighs. The touch is light, gentle, yet it makes me shiver like a tree in a high wind. “Natural redhead,” he says. “I always wondered.”
Tate comes over and puts a tumbler of amber liquid on the little table beside Lucas’s armchair. “Beautiful, yes?” he says casually.
