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“He hired me on Church’s recommendation. I’d been handling Church’s investments for a while, since his last guy had retired. Severin’s money was just sitting in a bank account. I went to that meeting hoping to impress a difficult man. There was just...something. Like an electric current in the air I could almost hear buzzing every time we were in the same room. Then he started fucking with me – subtle things that made me wonder if he was playing power games, and whether our meetings had started turning him on the way they were doing with me. I never would have thought I could switch. I was never interested in submitting to anyone, but with him? It was natural.” Rodrigo sighed.
“It freaked you out a little?”
“Yes! Nothing like going into meetings with the man and having a raging boner just walking into the damned house. Then we started hanging out. I’d go to discuss something and he’d put me off while he watched a movie, or he’d feed me drinks until I started talking to him. He never talked back much. One day he found out I was a tattoo artist when I was in school, and he told me I was going to tattoo him. Equipment started showing up at my house.”
“Typical presumptuous
asshat.”
Rodrigo grimaced in agreement. “So, I tattooed him a few times. Then more. Then it was piercings and drinking and bikes and that weird Severin hanging out thing where you’re with him but he’s not talking but he doesn’t want you to leave. Not that I wanted to leave. I’d drool over him while he almost seemed to forget I was there sometimes. Other than the time we were drunk and I confessed I had it bad for him, nothing happened. I thought he’d forgotten. That was years before you came along. I didn’t think things would go anywhere, but I loved him, and if he just wanted to be friends, that was good enough.”
“Then me.”
“Then he brought you over, and he was sharing you with me. And you were hot and cute and funny, and I got to see him fucking and dominating you.” He sighed, smiling. “It was more than I’d ever hoped for.”
“Then he kissed you in the alley.”
“That was completely unexpected. If I’d had any idea he’d eventually act on what was between us, I would have warned you.” He sighed. “I’m not sure what happened, but I won’t complain, except... I’m just sorry I kind of insinuated myself into your relationship. You didn’t get much of a say.”
She let her leg swing and brushed the toe of her shoe on the pretty cobblestones. “I think he got jealous of Loïc and realized he might lose you to his brother.” She grinned, remembering the look of panic on Severin’s usually scowling face. “I can’t say I’m sorry you’re in our relationship. All I needed was his permission to be in love with you, and I was.”
A muscle in his jaw flexed and his gaze seemed far away. Minnow watched a woman trying to calm a raging toddler.
“The first day he brought you to me, I wanted to hate you. I meant to scare you off with the piercing scene, and instead I ended up half falling in love with you on the spot.” He winced, looking ashamed of himself. “You went from being my enemy to being my access to him. You made it possible for me to be more intimate with him, even though I couldn’t touch him. Then there was you, yourself.”
He looked down at her and caught a lock of her hair between his fingers again, winding it around and giving it another gentle tug. Between the warmth in his gaze and the subtle violence, she wasn’t sure whether to feel loved or lusted after.
“Me?”
“You’re exactly what I always wanted in a submissive, but then you were his and I was allowed to fuck you but not fall in love with you. I felt guilty every time he asked me to touch you because I really wanted to touch you, and not as a favor to him. And then you and I started talking on the phone all the time and we clicked so well, and I wondered if maybe you were meant to be mine and not his.” He groaned. “I’m in love with him and have been for years. He’s my best friend, and yet I fantasized about making you mine. He knew it too. He told me I could stop pretending I wasn’t in love with you, and also mentioned that my acting sucked.”
Her heart did a little flip in her chest. Before she had a chance to think of a response, he kissed her again.
“I’m sorry if I’ve upended your happily ever after.”
She pulled him down for another kiss.
“You were always part of that. Sometimes I’d think about how you’d eventually claim a submissive again, and I’d get this weird jealous feeling I had no right to. I’d have to stop thinking about it. Sometimes I’d pretend you’d choose a girl who liked me and maybe we could still be close, but it wouldn’t have been the same. I didn’t like it.”
Their gazes met, and he grinned crookedly at her.
“Right before the night in the alley, I was seriously contemplating taking a step back from you two and finding someone else. As much fun as you were, being your confidante and a sex toy was getting hard on my ego. After so many years of waiting and hoping I realized I needed more. There’ve been people around who were interested in more with me over the years, but I chose to stay available in case he wanted me, and then to be available as an extra in your relationship. Being a stunt cock isn’t love, no matter how much you’re in love with the people using you.”
Guilt twisted at her. She’d thought Rodrigo had simply enjoyed being single. She’d had no idea he was staying available in the hopes for more.
“I’m sorry you felt used. At the time I thought you were having fun tormenting me with Severin.”
“Oh, I was. Still am.”
“But you wanted a relationship with him and now you’re stuck marrying both of us.” She bit her bottom lip mischievously. “Not that you proposed or anything.”
“I’ll have to agree with Severin on that one. Asking leaves too much of a possibility that you’ll say no.”
She was about to glare at him, but his dominant smirk made her shiver instead. He ran his thumb along her bottom lip.
“You like to pretend you have a choice?” he asked quietly.
A knot of desire twisted low in her belly, and damn him, he saw it.
