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"I never encouraged him, not once, not even slightly!" she exclaimed defensively. "Nothing ever happened; I tried hard to make sure of that!"
"Hey, I wasn't suggesting that it had." Joel cupped her cheek to calm her and drew this thumb along her cheek bone.
"What did he do?" Joel was careful to use words that placed the blame firmly on Eric's shoulders.
"It started out harmlessly enough, just the odd leer and suggestive comment after he'd seen us at the club." Desi picked at her nails, her head bowed and her gaze unfocused. "Then he started badgering me about subbing for him, especially after Jake joined us in a couple of scenes."
Joel made a low grumble of annoyance in his throat, and Desi hurriedly continued. "I fobbed him off, told him you were my Master and it wasn't for me to decide."
Joel nodded, outwardly calm, but inside, he was seething that a man he had considered his friend—at the time, at least—had disrespected him in such a way, had dared to make a move on his woman.
"But I had no intention of ever scening with Eric, whatever you might have said!" Desi stated decisively, and Joel couldn't help smiling. He took her hand in his to stop her from wrecking her cuticles and waited for her to continue.
Desi took a deep breath. "Then, one evening, he got a bit out of hand. He cornered me in your living room and tried to kiss me, then he put his hands inside my top and started groping. He went on about how you didn't mind sharing and that he wanted to get in on the action…" Her voice trailed off, and Joel squeezed her hands gently in silent support, even as he struggled to contain his fury.
"I pushed him away and slapped his face and told him I was going to tell you what he'd done, but Eric got mad, he said he'd deny it was his fault. Said he'd tell everybody that I came on to him and that you'd never believe me over him because I was just a common slut who whored for you, whereas he'd been your friend since you were kids and your families were tight." Desi's voice had risen higher and higher as her speech became faster and uncharacteristically panicked. She finally raised her eyes to his face. "Did he tell you that? Is that why you didn't defend me, didn't come after me? Is that why you were mad?"
Joel cupped Desi's face in both of his hands and the breath whooshed from his lungs, but he deliberately kept his voice calm and even, determined that she wouldn't mistake his anger as being directed at her, ever again. "No!" he told her firmly, looking her right in the eye. "And I would have believed you. I knew you better than that."
A shudder of regret rippled through Desi at his words. How many times had she thought about telling him, convinced their relationship was stronger than his friendship with Eric? In fact, she had made the choice to do just that, but then Eric had backed off and it didn't seem worth dredging up a bucket load of trouble over something she considered resolved.
Joel sighed audibly. "I also knew that something had happened with Eric." He pressed his thumb to her mouth when she tried to interrupt to defend herself again.
"He hassled me all the time about allowing you to scene with him, and I made excuses because I didn't want him near you. The way he was fixated about it, about you…it just didn't sit well with me." Joel sat back again and settled her against him once more.
"Then, suddenly, he did a complete about face, started bitching about you and slagging you off." Joel cursed and knocked his head against the seat back.
"To be honest, I was so relieved that he'd stopped obsessing about having sex with you that I let it go…I shouldn't have. But I did, and it got to be such a regular thing that we just started to ignore him. When you came down to the basement that night and he was running off his mouth, Jake and Logan and I were all simply ignoring him, but of course, not all of the lads there knew the story." Joel corroborated what Jake had told her.
He started to rub her back again. "When I saw you in the doorway, I was mad that you'd had to witness his obnoxiousness. I was mad that he belittled you. I was mad that I didn't defend you, and I was ashamed that you'd seen that. I was never, ever mad with you," he reiterated, catching her gaze, and she could see the sincerity in his eyes.
"Jake went after you and I thought he'd bring you back, meanwhile, I completely lost my head with Eric."
Joel scrunched his eyes up and pressed his lips together. "I punched him."
Desi gasped and sat up, her hand flying to cover her mouth.
"A lot—in fact, I pretty much beat him to a pulp," he finally admitted. "I didn't come after you because I spent the night in a police cell after putting Eric in the hospital, and Jake and Logan spent the night trying to straighten things out for me—getting my dad on my side to smooth things over with the dean so I didn't get kicked out of school, doing damage limitation so that it wasn't splashed all over the papers or affecting the companies share prices."
Desi let out a strangled sob and threw her arms around his neck, hugging him tight. Joel dropped his forehead onto her shoulder in shame, his breath heavy against her neck.
"I looked for you," Joel revealed when he'd steadied himself somewhat.
"I searched the art courses in every other university; I searched tax information to see if you'd started a job; I tried to track down your family. I pestered your roommate, Charlotte, so much that she threatened to press charges for harassment."
Desi shook her head and bit her lip. "She never mentioned any of that, not to this day!"
"You're still in touch with her?" Joel raised his head in surprise.
"Charlotte helped me. I couldn't go crying to my parents. I was too humiliated. There was no way I could try and explain my relationship with you and why what happened had affected me so badly. They were always one hundred percent supportive of everything I did, but my mother always chided me on how impulsive I was, how only fools rush in where angels fear to tread, how I needed to think before I jumped." She worried her bottom lip between her teeth, chewing off all her carefully applied lipstick.
"But I never did. I jumped from virgin to submissive sex toy in one blind leap." Desi laughed humourlessly. "I jumped straight into a BDSM relationship with you when I didn't have the first idea about having a regular relationship, and I wasn't equipped to deal with the fall out. I was still a teenager, for Christ's sake, I had no business getting in as deep as I did with you and Club Risqué. I simply wasn't mature enough!" She rubbed her hands across her face.
"I was just some foolish, flighty kid, rushing head first into life without a single thought for the consequences, and when life turned around and slapped me in the face, I didn't have enough experience to deal with it, and I simply fell apart. I didn't want my parents to know how stupid I'd been, how badly I'd let them down."
Joel hugged her close, offering what little comfort he could. He didn't know what to say. He had never considered her weak or foolish, but he wasn't in a position to refute her own feelings.
She'd always seemed perfectly comfortable with their D/s relationship, although in hindsight, he realised that she had viewed it rather differently than he had. She had simply seen them as a regular couple who indulged in a bit of kink, whereas he had viewed her as his regular submissive. Sure, he had felt more for her than just that; he wasn't sure what exactly. That was another one of those things that he refused to examine too closely. She had made him happy, he liked spending time with her socially, and their sexual compatibility had been off the scales. He had been content to just let it run its course.
