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“It’s up to you.” Seth rose. “But if you don’t, she’s a pretty girl. She won’t be alone for long. In fact, feel free to keep fucking this up. Once she leaves your sorry asses, I’d be so happy to tap that.”
If Liam hadn’t felt exactly sober ten minutes ago, he did now. Work with Hammer to heal Raine? After a month of arguing, it boggled the mind, really. Hammer had been part of the problem for so bloody long, crushing her fragile spirit with his indifference, then dragging her to his bed and fucking her within an inch of her life. Liam didn’t see this working.
But nothing else he’d tried had helped, either. Though he hated to admit it, no one knew her background, habits, and tendencies better than Hammer. After nearly a month with Raine as her Dom and her lover, Liam knew her better sexually, maybe even emotionally in some ways. More importantly, together they knew her inside and out. And they probably needed every bit of knowledge to reach her because he feared Seth had a point that a heart divided couldn’t heal without both parts.
Beck and Seth’s conversation drifted through the bar, becoming more faint as they headed out of the room. The meddling fucks had left him alone with Hammer. Seth, the last of his good friends, had thrown him to the enemy. Or it felt that way. He sighed.
“They’re right,” Hammer said into the solemn silence.
“About what?”
“Everything. She only wants a Domme because we’re too stubborn to get along.”
Yes. Because Raine wanted them to be friends again, she had given up on the sort of Dom she needed. It was his duty to put her needs first.
Fuck.
“Our bickering has torn her apart,” Liam conceded.
“Yep.” Hammer tapped the rim of his coffee cup. “All we’ve done is put her between us in all the wrong ways and made her life difficult.”
“I don’t like this idea.”
“I don’t, either,” Macen agreed. “The other thing to consider is, if we don’t offer her a choice between us and a Domme, we’re not being fair. And she might dig in her heels.”
“A choice? Who could we bloody offer to give her to? And what if Raine picks that option?”
“It’s a chance we have to take,” Hammer pointed out. “She’ll only do the work with us if she chooses to. Seth says that’s what she wants…and I believe he’s right.”
“Finally! First smart thing you’ve said all night,” Beck called back, peeking around the corner with a grin.
“Fuck off!” he and Hammer both shouted in unison.
Liam waited until Beck disappeared again, then turned back to Hammer. “I don’t suppose helping her together could be any worse than what we’ve already done to her separately.”
“Well, I don’t know about that.” Hammer sighed heavily.
Juliet. Of course that tragedy would plague Macen’s thoughts. It had for over eight years. “I think I do. She loves us both, according to Seth, but is eaten up with guilt. If we took that off her shoulders and focused on her…”
Nodding, Hammer stared into his coffee. “At least she wouldn’t have to worry about us anymore.”
Liam couldn’t dispute that. Still, Hammer had been twenty kinds of asshole over the past month. He knew why now…but that didn’t make this idea more palatable. His old friend could be a damn good Dom, but Hammer had never been a demonstrative partner with his wife. Sexually, yes. Where his heart was concerned? Liam couldn’t remember more than a handful of occasions when the man had told Juliet that he loved her. Raine needed those words. She needed a man who would both show her and tell her how he felt. When Hammer didn’t, she would likely distance herself from him.
And Liam would have her all to himself again—the way it should be.
He smiled, rather liking that plan.
Of course, they had to fulfill her needs and heal her first.
“I can’t disagree.” Liam nodded the other man’s way. “Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that we intended to work on helping her together.”
Hammer leveled him a stare. “All right. Let’s do that.”
“What do you think are her most pressing issues? We can’t overwhelm her too quickly with too much. If you had to pick a few of her worst habits to focus on, tell me what you’d choose.”
“I’m sure you have ideas, too. But one thing I know—that we’ve just seen in the past few days—is the way she retreats into her head. She doesn’t share what she’s thinking. If we’d known, I wouldn’t have had to pry from her how late her period was. You would have known about her migraines. I don’t think she would have ever left home if she’d been able to talk through her problems with one or both of us.”
“I agree. Raine not only has difficulty saying how she feels, she’s not always honest. She’s given me a lot of half-truths. She’s quite good at telling me what she thinks I want to hear.”
