Friends with Benefits (Club Risqué Book 5)

Chapter 28

Trinity threw herself on her bed the following day and lay there, spread across it diagonally, arms flung out to her side, staring at the ceiling as if it held the answers to life, the universe, and everything Christian Knightley.

Her body was still humming after their intense scene the evening before and Trinity wanted to crawl out of her skin, she was so damn horny.

The scene they had shared had been phenomenal. Truly, one of the most fulfilling of her entire life, but as she had feared, it left her even more conflicted about her feelings for Christian than she had been before.

She was in danger of falling all over again—if indeed, she had ever truly gotten over him the first time—and that wasn”t something Trinity wanted. The whole idea had the future looming cold and lonely ahead of her.

The contract was all well and good, but it was finite. It had an expiry date that crept closer with each passing day.

All too soon, Christian would be gone from her life once again. And where would that leave her if she had been stupid enough to have fallen in love with him all over again?

Or did it make any difference? Her entire adult life seemed to have revolved around Christian. Right now, the years he’d been out of her life almost felt as if she’d just been treading water.

Trinity rubbed her hands across her face and rolled over on her bed, groaning out her frustration into the muffled softness of her feather duvet. She’d been horny enough before, and reliving the electrifying events of the previous evening had her even more worked up.

She briefly considered getting herself off, but she already knew with absolute certainty, it wouldn”t help. It might bring a modicum of short-term relief, but what her body really craved was the delicious feeling of a hard, primed body pinning her to the bed while a thick cock filled her up and satisfied those hidden places in both her body and her soul, which nothing else could reach.

A knockon her door had her rolling onto her back with a scowl as she looked at the clock on her bedside cabinet. It was just shy of eleven am on a Sunday morning, the only day she could ever guarantee being off, since the club was closed.

It was her day to do nothing but veg out and she couldn”t help wondering who would interrupt it. Her tummy gave a little lurch, which arrowed predictably down to her lady parts, when she wondered if it might be Christian.

Scrambling off the bed, she trotted to the door. Peering through the peephole, Trinity felt a wave of heat climb all the way from her chest to her face when she saw Micah standing there. Closing her eyes and trying to get her embarrassment under control, Trinity realised, guiltily, that she’d completely forgotten about their tryst agreement for today.

Her stomach lurched at the thought, but she couldn”t just leave him standing outside in the outer hallway of her apartment building.

Taking a cleansing and hopefully steadying breath, Trinity opened the door and gave Micah a wobbly smile. ”Hi,” she said, trying for bright, but it came out as a hopelessly hoarse rasp.

”Hi back.” Micah sauntered in, raising an eyebrow in query as he did so.

She knew better than to think she could get anything past him. ”I forgot you were coming over,” she replied lamely to his unspoken question.

Micah grinned and the smile lit up his ”surfer dude” facade and made him look decidedly boyish, despite his bodybuilder physique. ”That temporary lapse in memory wouldn”t have anything to do with that scorching hot scene I witnessed between you and Master Night yesterday, would it?” He leered in amusement.

Trinity felt the heat ride up her face even further, although she wasn”t quite sure why she should be so mortified. They managed a BDSM club together, and their live sex licence meant that intercourse was often a part of the scenes that took place there. Not that she”d actually had sex, she reminded herself primly… but she had been begging for it, she knew.

As if he read her mind, Micah took a step closer and captured her chin in his hand, encouraging her to meet his amused gaze. ”I don”t recall ever hearing you beg to be fucked before, Trinity,” he declared with a wicked laugh.

”Urgh!” Trinity bowed her head and buried it in the broad width of his chest. Micah just laughed all the louder and scooped her up in his powerful arms, striding with her into the bedroom.

Eying the clearly made but crumpled bed before he tossed her on it and pulled his straining tee-shirt over his head, he asked, ”Is someone horny, by any chance?”

Trinity looked blankly back at him. Suddenly, none of this seemed right anymore. The thought of having no strings sex with Micah left her cold, despite her raging libido, and had her stomach churning with nausea.

”Problem?” Micah asked perceptively.

Trinity frowned and kneeled up on the bed, determinedly pulling off the flimsy sundress she was wearing. ”No,” she denied as she pulled the garment over her head, leaving her clothed in just a comfortable pair of lacy boy shorts and struggling with the desire to cover herself with her hands. That was a first. Normally, serving Micah on a sustained, if irregular, basis was one of the things that gave her the most pleasure in life.

Damn Christian! She knew this unexpected impression that she was cheating was because of him.

Sure, she had asked for exclusivity, but only once their contract had been consummated. After that, she would return the same compliance to him, but they hadn”t made it that far yet. And damn it, she couldn”t afford for him to have this kind of adverse effect on her life.

In a few weeks, he would be gone, and she would still be here, trying to live her life to the best of her ability, without him once again. Trinity tried hard to clutch hold of that; she would still be here, and so would Micah. It wasn”t fair to throw over their long-term arrangement for the sake of a short-term contract.

Micah settled his bulk onto the bed next to her. ”You”re distracted,” he noted, grasping the longer tufts of hair on the crown of her head, and pulling her head back so he could feast on the soft skin of her neck.

The pull on her scalp and the feel of his mouth in that quietly erogenous zone sent electricity skittering down her spine, but before they could ignite in her intimate places, the feeling sputtered and died.

She knew Micah had felt her stiffen, and fought to relax in his arms and allow him to reignite the pleasurable sensations. But when his mouth cruised down her throat toward her breasts, she arched up and knew, in her heart, that it was in an effort to buck him off rather than to encourage him.

Micah knew it, too. He was far too astute to mistake any kind of body language, either willingly or unwittingly.

He leaned back on his elbow and looked down at her as she lay by his side.

”Talk to me, Trinity,” he demanded. ”I can tell you”re not on board with this; I just don”t know why. Is it because you need me to do something different, or is there another reason entirely?”

He trailed his big hand across one of her collarbones and down her arm, watching intently as goose bumps lifted in the wake of his touch, but intensely aware of how Trinity flinched and then cringed in direct contradiction.

When she said nothing, Trinity should have realised that he would make his own, uncomfortably vocal, assessment.

”Your body is humming, and you”re horny as hell, as I suspected when I came in,” he pondered. ”But your head is in a completely different place and denying the pleasure of my touch.”

His melted chocolate gaze seared into her silvery one. ”Is it just me?” he wondered out loud, watching the minutiae of her expressions very carefully. ”Or is there something distracting your enjoyment?”

Her eyes tightened, and although she thought it was almost indiscernible, she knew Micah was watching her closely enough to see it. They’d been friends for long enough that he knew her well, and Trinity knew he was confused by her responses.

As if following a gut instinct, he ran his fingers down the line of her sternum, in between her breasts and down to her abdomen, stroking gently there and feeling her belly quiver beneath his touch. Evaluating her every response.

A sheen of tears welled in her eyes, and with a sigh, Micah rolled onto his back and pulled her with him until she was sprawled halfway across him, cradled in his strong, comforting arms with her head resting on his bare chest.

“Are you going to tell me?” he enquired. ”Or do you want me to continue with my own evaluation?”

Trinity didn”t reply right away. She didn”t know what to say, but she pressed an affectionate kiss onto the smooth skin of his clavicle and moved her hand to play, distractedly, in his crinkly chest hair.

”Okay, let me start then, and you can correct me if I”m wrong,” Micah continued when nothing more was forthcoming.

”Your body is massively over-stimulated.” He ran his broad palm down the length of her spine, and they both felt the telltale shiver which followed. ”I would hazard a guess that it”s due to your scene from last night, since, although Master Night managed to have you begging for sex, he also denied you intercourse.”

Trinity buried her face further into Micah”s shoulder and wished her hair was still long enough to use as a curtain against his shrewd gaze and even shrewder mind.

”Knowing you the way I do, and knowing Night”s excellent reputation, I would make an informed guess that you specified that clause before your scene and he upheld it, like you probably asked and trusted him to.”

Micah continued to stroke his hand up and down her naked back, in what was meant to be a soothing gesture, though Trinity was too wound up to appreciate it.

”So that bit”s straight forward enough,” he mused. ”But your reticence to allow me to assuage that frustration is a little more complicated.” Trinity squeezing her eyes closed against his pinpoint accuracy, even though he couldn’t see her buried face.

”We”ve known each other for years, and we”ve enjoyed sex with each other dozens of times. We both know exactly where we stand, and there have never been any issues when either of us scenes with anyone else…” Trinity flinched and knew she’d given herself away… not that Micah was wrong, of course.

“…Until now!” he amended softly. ”You didn”t seem to have any issues with me becoming Charlotte”s training Dom, and the only thing that has occurred recently is your contract with Master Night.”

Trinity knew Micah felt the sudden unnatural stillness at the mention of the other Dom, that his guess that Christian was at the crux of Trinity”s issues was accurate.

“And Bingo!” he murmured almost to himself. “I’m surprised, though. You keep everyone at arm”s length, myself included.”

Trinity squirmed at how uncomfortably accurate his musings were. “I can”t help but wonder how a stranger to whom you were only introduced a few days ago, could have gotten under your very unflappable skin so quickly. Unless…”

He paused for a moment and Trinity held her breath.

”Do you know him?” Micah asked abruptly, leaning up so he could see her face. ”Have you met him before?”

She knew he could tell by her expression that he’d hit the nail on the head; the question was should she confide in him now and get everything that was bugging her off her chest.

Trinity sighed. There was no keeping anything from the man. Maybe talking it over would help.

”Years ago, before I became a submissive, I was in a relationship with Christian,” she finally confided. ”Except, it wasn”t a relationship, because he wasn”t ready for that kind of commitment, and he had good reason,” she defended, when she saw Micah”s frown.

”How old were you, Trinity?”

She could hear the gears turning in his head. They had known each other for five years, and he knew Christian hadn”t been on the scene when they met.

”I met him when I was seventeen and I was completely smitten…” Micah sucked in a breath and, knowing where his thoughts were going, she hurried to continue. ”…but we didn”t become lovers until my nineteenth birthday.”

”Young enough!” Micah grumbled.

”It was what I wanted, and he was careful not to promise anything he couldn”t give…”

She trailed off, this was where it always got difficult.

”What happened?” Micah prompted, holding her tight within his strong, comforting embrace and resting his chin on the top of her head.

”We carried on just like that for three years,” Trinity confided. ”I thought if I was there for him, if I did everything I could to make the things he was having to deal with easier for him, and if I didn”t push too hard, then one day the worst of it would be over and we could settle into a proper relationship.”

”You loved him.” It was a statement, but Trinity answered anyway.

”Yes, I did…and then one day came, but instead of settling down with me, he broke my heart. He told me he had met someone else and wanted to marry her…”

Trinity”s voicetrailed off again, her warm tears dripping onto Micah’s chest.

He hugged her tight and his heart ached for the gentle soul who would have given so completely of herself while demanding nothing in return. He had always known that Trinity”s giving nature left her open to being taken advantage of, and he had always admired the way she was cognisant of the fact and worked hard to make sure that didn”t happen, nourishing her service geared character traits within the relative safety of the lifestyle. Looks like she had learned the hard way, just like he had.

”Did he know how you felt?” he asked carefully, aware it was probably a tender subject.

”I never told him, if that”s what you mean.”

But Micah knew it wasn”t always necessary to be told. Sometimes you just knew when somebody wanted more from you than you were able to give. Micah knew from bitter experience that it wasn”t any easier to be on the other side of such a relationship.

He closed his eyes for a moment, battling his own demons, then took a breath, concentrating on Trinity once again. He didn”t want to remember Sara and everything that had transpired to haunt his own life.

If anyone could sympathise with Christian”s unenviable position, then, ironically, it was Micah himself.

Micah switched gears and tried to put a few stray puzzle pieces together. ”So where”s his wife?”

”Apparently, the marriage lasted less than a year.” Trinity laughed without humour. ”Seems she was actually more interested in his money than his lifestyle.”

Micah cast his mind back over Christian Knightley”s membership form and remembered there was an addendum regarding a woman by the name of Bianca James and the sanction, by none other than top lawyer and co-owner, Logan Thornton, that the woman was never to be allowed access to any of his clubs since she was considered to be a lifestyle predator.

”So let me guess,” he ventured. ”You agreed to continue with the contract for whatever reasons, but now, because your present and previous feelings for Christian are all mixed up, you feel torn at the idea of having sex with me?”

Trinity sighed and rolled away from him and onto her back, staring at the ceiling as if it, once again, held the answers to all the things she didn”t know.

”It isn”t fair!” she said, bitterness creeping into her tone. ”He”ll be gone again in a few more weeks and I don”t want him disrupting the life I lead now, but somehow, the idea of continuing what we usually share makes me feel like I”m cheating.”

”That”s because your deeper emotions are involved,” Micah excused.

”It”s still not fair,” she spat vehemently. ”You”ve been there for me for the past five years, helping me, supporting me. And you”ll be the one who”s there long after he”s gone again, so that makes me feel guilty that I”m not providing what you need. Shouldn”t I feel like being with him is cheating on you?”

Micah leaned over her again and his face split into a cheeky smile, that little boy grin evident once again as he playfully kissed the end of her nose.

”But you don”t love me, so you”re never going to feel that way,” he said matter of factly.

Was that the problem? Trinity wondered. Was she still in love with Christian?

Another knock on the door precluded either of them dissecting that possibility.

”Expecting someone?” Micah asked as he rolled off the bed and sauntered through her lounge.

”No.” Trinity frowned as she fumbled for a robe and tied the sash as she followed him to where he was checking her peephole.

He looked back at her with amusement. ”Well, this could be the answer to some of your dilemmas,” he told her with a shit eating grin before he threw open the door to reveal Christian, himself, standing on the other side.