Chapter 17 #2
She whirled around and glared my way, ignoring Corbin and his question. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
“What?” I said in sync with Corbin.
She stared me down, muscles clenching as if preparing to fight. I knew Rose and Aspen grew closer over the past few months, but I hadn’t expected such a rabid defense of Aspen getting her feelings hurt.
“This is my club—my legacy that I fought for. You, more than anyone, know what that means.”
Between the week of drowning myself in work, the complete abomination of tonight, and the persistent clanging in my head, I couldn’t keep up.
“Baby, what are you talking about?” Corbin asked, struggling to follow as much as I was. He moved toward her, but she held up her hand, stopping him without looking away from me.
“I’m talking about him being a dumbass and getting into an argument—and not a quiet one—”
“We were quiet,” I leaped to defend myself, slowly catching on.
“Not quiet enough. Not quiet enough to keep people from hearing a dominant disrespecting his submissive.”
My mouth opened and closed, stumbling over the accusation. “I didn’t.”
“You did. You didn’t offer her the respect of having a conversation privately—without the pressure of time and outside opinion—about limitations.” She stepped closer. “You didn’t respect her safe word.”
Her words cleaved through my argument, leaving behind a deafening silence. Seconds ticked by agonizingly slow, extending the burn of shame and embarrassment.
“Lucian…” Corbin said slowly, examining me as if he’d never seen me before.
I didn’t like the way the shame pierced my heart. I didn’t like the embarrassment either, but I could dismiss that emotion more easily. I held up my hand to him. “Don’t.”
“No, you don’t,” Rose said. “You’re in my club.
Whatever you decide to do and how you play is up to you, but you do it within the rules of The Berkshire.
You want to change your agreement with your submissive that allowed you to fuck around with other women—that’s up to you.
But do it privately. Especially when I have VIPs sitting around the corner. ”
Fuck.
I’d been ready to deflect an argument about Aspen, but I knew better than to fuck with business. “Rose…” I implored. For what? I wasn’t sure, but I was spiraling and looking for anything to anchor me—even the woman spinning me faster.
“And don’t even get me started on whatever the hell is going on with you two personally, because I’m sure you did more than ignore your submissive’s safe word. You disrespected your fiancée.”
“You don’t know the first thing about our relationship,” I defended.
“Lucian…” She glared at me, her look saying I was more stupid than she originally thought. “Your best friend is my fiancé, and I’m not fucking stupid.”
I cut an accusing stare at Corbin and glowered, knowing he had to have said something to clue her in to my agreement with Aspen.
“Don’t look at him,” Rose snapped, pulling my attention back to her. “I overheard you talking, and can put two and two together to figure out the arrangement you made. She didn’t want you to steal her company, and you needed a wife in a hurry without complications.”
“Exactly. Without complications. So, you should know that I was very clear about my expectations. It’s not like I planned on going against those and cheating on her. It was just a spanking.”
Her brows raised, and she blinked slowly. “Just…a spanking…?”
“Yes. Corbin spanks other women, and your relationship is fine.”
She huffed a laugh. Then laughed some more. “You’re dumber than I thought.”
I clenched my jaw and ground out, “Corbin, can you talk some sense into your fiancée?”
My best friend—the guy who should have my back—merely held up his hands in surrender and shook his head without a word.
“Traitor,” I grumbled.
Rose pulled herself together. “Corbin and I have discussed at length what we allow in our relationship. If we have agreed that we are both comfortable with him demonstrating, then we have set boundaries that work for us. We do not demand that the other person agree to what we think they should feel.” She leaned forward as if she was about to impart a secret.
“I know you understand the complications of this kind of relationship—the complexities and variations that each couple deals with. I know that you know that when a submissive trusts you with their body—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. They can get attached and start thinking it means more than it does.”
“When a submissive trusts you with their body,” she repeated louder, as if I hadn’t understood her. “They also trust you with their mind, and even a piece of their heart, despite either party’s expectations. They trust you to give a shit about them.”
“I do give a shit,” I growled.
“Please,” she scoffed. “Your actions prove that you do not.”
“I do,” I shouted, the truth ripping free. “Too fucking much. I care too fucking much.”
Everything screeched to a halt. No one made a sound. No one breathed. As if my confession sucked all the oxygen from the room, leaving it vacant for nothing but painful honesty I didn’t know what to do with.
Rose’s expression softened with pity, and I despised it. The feeling it left behind was familiar, slick and suffocating, just like after Daria, when eyes had followed me everywhere. The only difference now was that this time, it was my own damn fault.
She sighed and shook her head. “Sit down, you dumb, dumb man.”
As if shouting the truth sapped all the fight from my body, I stumbled back two steps and collapsed into a chair.
“I’m still pissed at you,” Rose grumbled, pouring me a drink and walking it over. “But at least I understand now.”
I clutched the glass and dropped my head between my shoulders. “You don’t—”
“You think we don’t understand?” she asked, laughing. “You think Corbin doesn’t know what it’s like to fall in love again after getting divorced, or that I didn’t understand how scary it was for him to trust me?”
She chuckled, leaning back against the desk, and took a drink from her own tumbler. “You think we’re all not scared as shit?”
I shook my head, her words making love sound simple in a way my aching chest refused to understand. She didn’t get it. “What you and Corbin have is…”
“It’s amazing,” Rose finished for me.
“And,” Corbin chimed in. “No different than what you could have with Aspen if you pulled your head out of your ass long enough.”
“You joining in on this, too?” I asked, glaring at Corbin. The asshole smiled in answer. “Such a traitor.”
“Shut up and drink,” Rose said, exasperated with both of us.
“Mind getting me a drink too, babe? Looks like we’re about to have sharing time.”
“As if the night couldn’t get any worse,” I muttered and downed my drink in one gulp.