Awakening Her Racy Passion [Racy Nights 9] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (7 page)

“Don’t you worry about Maddox and his club. With Zach Kincaid as our mayor now, Ellis and Rafe both working for the city, and the three detectives as regulars at the club, I don’t think we have to worry.”

“And don’t forget about Chase Taylor. He works for the city as well.”

“That’s true. And Marisol works in the court system.” She’d opened up the perfect segue herself. Trent wondered if she realized it, or if it had been unintentional?

“I guess we should talk about that. About Marisol, I mean.”

“Only if you still want to.”

She shifted her weight and gave him a curious stare. “I need to ask you something first. I want to understand why you want to help me with this.”

Trent took a long sip of his beer. Why indeed? He should just tell her. But if he did, it might make her uncomfortable, or at least conflicted about her date later that night. But she wasn’t stupid or blind. Surely she’d seen the way he’d been looking at her since Saturday night. Then again, even if she had, what if she simply wasn’t interested in him? The only way to know the answer to his questions was to take a chance and just say it.

He glanced over his shoulder toward the stairs, feeling like a giant shit, but she was waiting for an answer and he owed her that, at the very least. “I know you’re having dinner with Wyatt, and I know this must seem like a shitty thing to do, but we have a problem here. I like you, too, and I want to get to know you better. Much better. I want to help you with this because…well…this is the part about being a Dom that I love. Taking an issue that a woman wants to change about herself and helping her find a solution. Helping her become a better person.”

She looked like someone had just told her that they’d help her find nirvana. “I don’t know what to say.”

He realized that he knew next to nothing about Ria’s dating past. Did she even have one? Had no one ever offered to help this girl overcome an aspect of herself that she obviously hated? Or was this realization on her part recent because of what she’d done last summer?

As he watched the emotions pass through her pretty, dark eyes, he honestly thought she was going to cry, and he wasn’t sure how to react because he didn’t understand why what he’d offered was so extraordinary.

So he trusted his instincts and scooted closer, placing an arm across her shoulder. The immediate effect was to make his dick as hard as a rock again, but how could that be helped? This woman had fascinated him for a long time, and to be this close to her now, in relative privacy, was too much for any man to resist.

“No one has offered,” she said. “You need to understand that. They’ve judged, and criticized, and told me what a rotten person I am, but no one has offered to help me figure out how to fix this.”

The corners of his mouth turned up, and he kept his voice soft on purpose so she wouldn’t think he, too, was chiding her. “You already know how to fix it. Deep in your heart, you know what you have to do.”

“I need to talk to Marisol.”

“Yes. For starters.”

“How? What do I say?”

“You could start by apologizing to her.”

“What if she won’t talk to me? What if she hangs up on me?”

“What if she doesn’t? Are you more afraid of taking the first steps back toward your friendship with her, or of something else?”

He watched more emotions cross her face, and just before fat tears splashed over her lids, the most vulnerable and insecure look he’d ever seen on a woman’s face passed across hers. It made him want to hold her all night, kiss away her tears, and protect her from the world. He was in deep, deep shit here.

She swiped at the tears. “I’m afraid I’ve waited too long. I’m afraid I’ve not only lost Marisol’s friendship, but my brother’s respect. Both of them. I’m afraid I’ve lost any chance of being part of…of a circle of friends with everyone who attends Maddox’s club. I feel like a pariah, and I’m not saying they have no right to treat me like one, but I don’t want to be in this spot anymore. It’s horrible. I’m afraid I’ve lost any chance I’ve ever had of climbing out of this pit.”

He started to speak but stopped when she wiped away more tears and shifted her weight so that she was facing him, because it was obvious she wasn’t finished. “I know I brought this on myself. I know that. I understand now what I did. It wasn’t just to Marisol and Rafe. It was to all of them. To all of you. But I have to live there. With my parents, I mean. I have no place else to go, and I sure as hell don’t make enough money working for Luke to afford a condo or an apartment on my own. I’m stuck.”

“So you play the dutiful daughter because you need a roof over your head.”

“Yes. Exactly. It’s awful having Teresa there. The second bedroom in the apartment had all my stuff in it, and now all that crap is shoved into every corner so Teresa can have a place to sleep. Her shit is everywhere, too, and she cries all the time. I don’t know what to say to her.”

Trent was curious to know why Teresa was back and what had happened to her, but this wasn’t the time to ask. “Isn’t there an apartment above the new bar?”

“Peppi lives there. It’s nice, too. Two bedrooms but they’re bigger, and there’s lots of storage space.”

“Couldn’t you move back in with her? You lived with her over the old bar, right?”

“Yes, I did. I suppose I could move in with her again. I never asked her. And I’d have to ask Luke’s permission, too. He owns the apartment as well as the bar. Peppi is working for Kari and Alexa in Tye Me Up. Did you know that?”

He knew. Kari Tye was a sub to Noah Wells and Adison Kincaid. She and Alexa owned and ran Tye Me Up, Racy’s fetish shop on Lawnview Drive. “Yes, I know.”

“She’s going to school, too, so she needs her privacy and time to study.”

“You wouldn’t really be in her way, would you? You’d each have your own room, and you work different hours than she does.”

“I suppose that’s true.”

“Okay. Let’s put aside that issue for now and get back to Marisol. You said you feel ostracized by your brothers and by the BDSM community. Have you considered how difficult it was for both your brothers to tell your parents about their lifestyle choice?”

“Yes. I know it was. And I know it’s hard for them now, being estranged from our family.”

“How do the rest of your sisters feel about all this?”

“They don’t care. I mean, they’re not judging Luke or Rafe. Rosa is the only one who sides with our parents, but not entirely. She says she thinks they’re being too stubborn and should try to accept Alexa and Marisol, as well as Chase and Ellis, but then in the next breath she condemns the entire BDSM lifestyle. She’s a sock puppet. She has no real opinions of her own.”

“Have your other sisters encouraged your parents to accept Alexa and Marisol, and to make peace with their sons?”

“Yes. Some Sundays, that’s all we talk about.”

“And what have you told them?”

“I keep my mouth shut.”

“That sounds like a cop-out to me.”

“You don’t understand. You don’t have Catholic Hispanic parents.”

Even before he was able to rein in his reaction, she realized what she’d just said. She reached out to touch his shoulder and the gesture sent shock waves of desire up and down his spine. “I’m so sorry, Trent. I don’t know why I said that. It was just a knee-jerk reaction. Forgive me.”

“No forgiveness necessary. I know you didn’t mean anything cruel by it. And you’re right, of course. They weren’t Catholic or Hispanic.”

The pain on her face nearly broke his heart, but at least he’d been right about her. There was good in this woman. A lot of it. But why was she so afraid to let others see that?

“I can’t imagine what you and Wyatt went through when they died.”

“It wasn’t easy.”

“They caught the driver of the truck, right? If I remember correctly? He’d been driving drunk.”

Trent nodded, amazed still that after sixteen years, the memory of that night was as fresh as if it had happened last week. “They caught him, but he almost got away with it. That was the incident that sparked Wyatt’s decision to go to law school, and mine to become a paramedic.”

Ria hugged herself, and he could almost see the shiver pass through her body. “Thank God you had each other. I’ve never had anyone close to me die tragically like that. All the people in my family who have died have done so because of old age.”

“It’s a different kind of experience to go through. It changes you.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really. And I’m not saying that to be callous. We’re here to talk about you and Marisol.”

“I wasn’t trying to change the subject.”

“I know. And thank you for the offer. But back to you and your parents. You do realize, don’t you, that until you confront them and tell them how you feel, you won’t be able to approach Marisol.”

She sighed. “I know. Luke said that to me months ago. Rafe said it to me, back when he was still speaking to me. Bonnie and Leela have said it to me. Even Peppi told me that.”

“Then what’s stopping you?”

“I’m afraid of them.”

He bit his tongue so he wouldn’t laugh, because he knew she was being sincere. “What the worst thing that could happen?”

“They’d throw me out.”

“That’s it? That’s the worst thing?”

“Well, that and scream insults at me in two languages. But I’ve been there before, so yes. The worst thing would be that they’d make me move out of the apartment, and I wouldn’t be able to get my car fixed anymore.”

“Well, if that’s the worst thing, don’t worry about your car. I know people who can keep it running. And as for your living situation, I’d suggest you talk to Luke and Peppi as soon as possible and see if you can’t move into the apartment above the bar.”

She smiled. “You’ve just solved all my problems.”

He shook his head. “No. I’ve simply given you solutions that you already knew existed. The real work still has to come from you.”

“What if I can’t do it?”

“Ria, only you can decide what’s more important right now. You’re sitting here crying and in obvious pain over what’s happened during the past year. If you do nothing to change that, you can live in the apartment above your parents’ garage for the rest of your life, but that won’t make your discomfort right now any easier to bear. It will always be there. Always.”

She swiped at more tears and stared at him with so much intensity, he thought he would go out of his mind with the need to hold her and kiss away that look on her face. He’d never wanted any woman as much as he wanted her at that moment. Time stopped. There was only Ria, her big, dark eyes, and that look full of pain and lust in them.

He actually heard her swallow. “And then what? After I confront my parents and move out? What do I do next?”

“You talk to Marisol.”

“Do you believe I can do this?”

He placed his beer on the coffee table. “I wouldn’t be here with you right now if I didn’t.” Trent knew it was wrong. He knew it was the worst timing, and he knew it was playing with fire, but he couldn’t have stopped it even if he’d had to in order to save his life.

He pulled her close and held her for a few seconds. Her sharp intake of breath wasn’t from shock or revulsion. He knew that as sure as he knew that he was going to kiss her hair. It smelled like greasy burgers but he didn’t care. When he moved to her forehead, she moaned softly in the back of her throat and that did it. There was no way to stop it now.

He cupped her face and stared into her eyes, so full of trust and desire, and then he touched his lips to hers and kissed them.

Ria moaned loudly in the back of her throat as Trent’s lips moved over hers in ways she hadn’t expected. He tasted like beer, but she didn’t mind that. Fireworks exploded inside her head. Her pussy was soaked within seconds and her clit throbbed. She parted her lips, and Trent’s tongue moved inside to send her hormones into a raging mass of confusion and unbridled lust. Images of them both, naked and sweaty, filled her head.

She wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders and shifted into a kneeling position so that she could move closer to the rest of his body. When his hands grasped her hair, she groaned again as shock waves of desire raced up and down her spine. She became dizzy, but that only spurred her on. She imitated his movements with her own tongue, and when he began to moan, she forgot all about Marisol, Luke, Rafe, and everyone else in Racy.

Nothing else existed. There was only Trent and his incredible mouth, doing things to her that had her ready to rip off her clothes and fuck him silly, right there on the sofa. She had to have him. It was inevitable. Nothing could stop it, and she didn’t want anything to. She gave herself over to the raging fire of lust that consumed them.

He moved her around until he was lying on top of her, and she wrapped her legs around his muscled thighs and arched her hips, pushing closer to the impressive bulge in his jeans. How long had it been since she’d had sex? She had no clue. She couldn’t think. All she could do was kiss him and hold him, and try to pull him closer still as his mouth moved to her neck.

He planted tiny kisses and bites along her jawline, and then over both breasts through her sweater. “I want to fuck these. I want to suck your nipples and then fuck your tits. I want to fuck every square inch of your body.”

“Yes,” she whispered. She’d let him. She’d let him do anything he wanted. Tears spilled over her lids again as he began to tease her nipples through the cashmere. She wanted him to rip off the damn sweater, and her bra, but he seemed content to torture her instead. “Do it. Fuck me. Fuck me now.”

“Oh God…” Trent moved lower, parting her legs to bury his face in her groin. Even through her jeans she could feel his mouth on her pussy. “You’re so fucking sexy. You’re so fucking beautiful. I want you so badly.” Her orgasm was right there, ready to explode. She was going to come before she even had her clothes off. She was sure of it.

A noise stopped them both. Trent sat back on his heels and glanced toward the stairwell. Ria had to blink a few times before her eyes focused enough to watch a man descend the stairs. Trent took her hand and helped her sit up, but by the time she did, one look at Wyatt’s face told her it hardly mattered. He’d seen enough to know what had just happened.