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She had bent over to slide on a pair of underwear, and for a moment his mind blanked of everything other than the sight of her tits and rounded ass, and the hint of pussy between her shapely legs. If he’d thought he finally had control over his dick, he’d been sadly mistaken. As though she had every right, she went straight to his bag and pulled out one of his T-shirts. He watched in aroused amusement as she pulled the shirt over her head. It was difficult to object when his clothes always looked better on her anyway.
She grabbed a brush and got into bed with him.
“You can’t just let it dry without brushing it first,” she admonished. She positioned herself behind him and started working at the tangles, the feel of her running the brush and her fingers through his hair just as orgasmic as it had always been. Before they had started arguing, months ago, she’d done this all the time. At first he’d thought of it as annoying and sisterly, but after he’d refused to let her do it anymore, it wasn’t long before he’d realized how much he missed it. True affection was hard to come by. Affection from Will usually took the form of noogies or twisted nipples, not anything gentle or nice.
“If I tell you, I don’t want your pity, okay? And I don’t want you telling anyone else.”
“Does that mean I’m not allowed to hunt him down and destroy him?”
“I don’t know why you say that every time this comes up. It’s not as bad as what you’re probably thinking. It’s not like he abused me or anything. What Bethany did to your brother was far worse.”
He relaxed a fraction, glad that whatever had been done to her hadn’t been abusive, at least. “And it’s honestly the reason why you refuse to get involved with anyone?”
“Scout’s honor.” She sighed, and the brush stalled for a moment before it moved again and she continued. “I met Nigel when I was in university. First year. The typical story. Mom busted her butt to send me to the same school as Mia.”
“And Mia is . . . ?”
She paused, and when she spoke again, her voice
sounded odd. “My best friend. She was like a sister.”
Grant’s brows rose. Arabella had never even mentioned the girl.
“You had a friend you were that close to?”
“Yeah. We . . . don’t speak to each other anymore—haven’t in years.”
Weird. Considering what he and Arabella had been through in their relationship, the girl would have had to be a real jerk for Arabella to write her off—she was more tolerant than anyone he knew. Before he could ask, she went on.
“Nigel and I bumbled around trying to figure our D/s relationship out for the first while. He wasn’t vanilla, but he didn’t know how to be a Dominant. I’d done some reading, so I knew how things usually worked. We dated for a year, and then when sophomore year started we moved out of the dorms and into an apartment together. We stayed in our place through the summer and worked, then did third year.”
She paused, and made a small braid at either of his temples. He didn’t usually keep those in, but she liked them so this time he let her and didn’t take them out. It wasn’t like anyone was going to see him.
“Sounds good so far,” Grant forced himself to say. It was stupid to be jealous of her ex, but Grant wished he could have known her then. “He was a good Dominant though?”
She sighed and he had to grit his teeth against the urge to turn and kiss her and claim her as his—which she definitely wasn’t.
“I’ve always felt there was a special connection between a Dominant and his first submissive. His style of dominance was a perfect match to what I craved—probably because he grew into his role with me as his partner.”
At that point he wasn’t sure he’d survive the story. He’d asked if he’d been a good Dominant, but he’d wanted to hear something about the guy being an asshat or a bad fit for her, not for her to sing his praises. He grunted something noncommittal, hoping she’d take the hint and skip to the end, but that seemed to be enough encouragement, because she continued.
“When my mom got sick, he was there for me. I had such a hard time that he was afraid to leave me alone, and that’s when Mia moved out of her place and in with us.” She stopped for a moment, swallowing hard enough for him to hear. “We’d been best friends since second grade. If anyone could help Nigel get me through losing my mom, it was Mia.”
Arabella never talked about her family, but on Mother’s Day one year he’d overheard her tell Andromeda that her mother was dead and her father had skipped out on them when she was small. But the best friend? She’d never breathed a word about her.
The penny dropped.
Ohhh.
Shit, no. That fucking bastard.
“Apparently one night when I was at work, Nigel and Mia got drunk together,” she said, her words tumbling out fast. “I came home and found them in bed. Nigel swore up and down that he’d crawled into the wrong bed after going for a piss, and had mistaken Mia for me. They were sprawled out naked, all tangled together so it was pretty obvious they’d had sex. Hard to believe he couldn’t tell the difference between us.”
Grant tried to think back to some of the worst benders he’d been on as a teenager and wasn’t sure he would have been able to tell one girl from another when he was drunk and stoned out of his mind. He wasn’t about to tell her that though. It had to be different, too, when it was someone you loved and had a relationship with.
“Maybe they were just that wasted?” he offered, not sure why he was defending the man. Probably because he could tell this still hurt her. Believing it was a mistake would hurt less.
“Well, he would have had to be pretty drunk not to notice Mia was blond and almost a foot taller than me, but sure,” she said sourly.
