Chapter 11
Eleven
Jack
My thoughts are going a million miles a minute when I pull into the same dingy parking lot as on the street view. Sure enough, I spot Arthur’s car in the lot.
So he’s here with Bennett. They weren’t dragged away by kidnappers—they came of their own accord.
What is inside this apartment building?
After parking, I get out of the car and try to pinpoint Bennett’s dot. There. It’s one of those two apartments across the way, first or second floor. How do I know which is which, though?
I expect that I’m overreacting. It’s probably just a dinner at a friend’s house, maybe some board games. I do wish I’d been invited, though.
Is that part of the reason I’m here? Simple jealousy that I wasn’t included, yet again?
No, something is off. I know it in my bones.
I head upstairs to the top-floor apartment and knock on the door. After a few moments, I hear footsteps on the other side, and the door opens.
It’s a very, very old human woman. She squints at me when I appear.
“What is it?” she demands.
“Sorry, I’m at the wrong house,” I say, backing away. “Looking for someone else.”
She cups a hand over her ear. “What?”
“I’m at the wrong house,” I repeat.
“What?” She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a hearing aid. I wave both my hands.
“It’s fine, I’m sorry for bothering you.” I head for the stairs, only to hear the old woman grumble something about young people barging in.
That leaves downstairs. At the first-floor apartment, I knock on the door once again. I wait and wait, but there’s no answer.
That’s when I hear it, though—a woman’s voice. And she’s most definitely moaning in pleasure.
What the fuck is going on here?
There’s a heat rising in me as the sound grows louder. Deep down, I already know what I’m going to find. I turn the knob, and when it gives, I push open the door and step inside.
It’s definitely a woman’s voice, and now that I’m in the apartment, I can make out Arthur’s frantic groans, too. I don’t bother closing the door as I race into the living room, which looks normal, if a bit messy.
How did this happen? Who is she?
Now my heart is beating like a racehorse’s hooves on the track, wind roaring in my ears. They’ve been lying to me. They’ve been seeing a woman and making up stories about it.
My rage is blinding by the time I reach the room at the end of the hallway where all the sound originates. I shove open the door and inside is a massive bed, surrounded on all sides by professional lighting equipment.
The hell is this? A stage?
On the bed are Arthur and Bennett, my partners in life. Satyrs I never, ever could have believed would lie to me this way. They’re both on their knees, holding a plump, redheaded woman between them, Arthur inside her pussy and Bennett in her ass while they work together to hold her aloft.
Everything freezes when I storm into the room.
“Jack?” Arthur asks hoarsely. Immediately, both of them drop her. She falls to the bed, their cocks slipping out of her, and she yelps.
“Oh fuck,” Bennett says, scrambling to the edge of the bed while the woman does something on her nearby laptop. “Jack, it’s not—”
I hold up a hand. “Don’t even say it.” My fury is so hot and bright that I can’t think straight. The world is tinted blood red, the pain in my soul just as acute as my anger.
I’m devastated that they would do this. That they would hide it from me.
Marilee all over again. But even worse this time. They are performing, obviously, for the camera at the foot of the bed.
Now both Arthur and Bennett are on their feet, reaching for their clothing on the floor. The woman on the bed watches me, her mouth twisted like she ate something sour. Red, curly hair billows down her shoulders, and her skin is pale and covered in freckles.
That’s when it hits me. The smell. Not just the scent of sex, but the scent of her.
I would know that smell anywhere after what happened in the breeding room.
“It’s you,” I breathe, approaching the bed. “You. You’re the surrogate. From DreamTogether.”
Ever so slowly, she nods. “I’m Bree.”
“I don’t give a fuck what your name is,” I hiss.
I have never been such a mass of warring emotions. I want to leap onto that bed, press her down to it, and fuck her like she’s never been fucked in her life. And yet, whatever bullshit kind of nonsense is going on here, I know she’s at the root of it.
“Jack,” Arthur says, putting a hand on my shoulder. I shove him away, enraged that he would try to touch me right now. “Please, you have to listen to us.”
“I don’t have to listen to shit.” I glare at both of them, my husbands, who once committed to me, who said pretty vows to me, all while they didn’t mean any of it. “You lied to me. I… I can’t believe you would both…”
The words stick in my throat as the hurt comes crashing down. Suddenly, I can’t breathe. I can’t take it. Spinning on my heel, I storm back out of the apartment the way I came in.
“Jack!” It’s Arthur, running after me. “Please, stop!”
“Fuck you,” I snarl before getting into the SUV.
“Don’t drive mad!” he calls out, but I ignore him, backing out of my spot as Bennett also appears at the front door, just wearing his pants.
Then I throw the car into drive and roar out of the parking lot.
Arthur
That was all extremely bad. Which is the understatement of the century.
I stand in the parking lot naked, holding my pants in one hand as Jack speeds away in his car, tires screeching.
Damn it. I should have listened to Bennett about telling Jack. Now we’ve lost our chance to come clean on our own terms, and instead, he had to find us like that.
“Arthur!” Bennett calls from the door. I turn around and hustle back inside, trying to get my hooves into the pant legs. He’s throwing on his shirt. “We have to go home and meet him.”
“Home?” I scoff. “I doubt he’s going home.”
Either he’ll find his way to the gym where he can beat up a punching bag, or possibly head out to the lake so he can scream at the sky.
I wonder if we might never see him again. After Marilee, I wouldn’t put it past him to simply disappear on us. He’s been betrayed once before by someone he loved, by someone who committed to him, and here we are, doing it again.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Bennett grabs his mane and pulls his hair. Bree appears in the hallway, putting on her own shirt. “I can’t believe he found us like that. Damn it!”
She says nothing as she joins us. Now she’s caught up in this, too. The way Jack treated her, he’s already made her the enemy. He’s going to blame this poor woman as much as he blames us, when she did nothing wrong.
My heart feels pulled in a hundred directions at once. I turn to her, put my hands on her shoulders, and bump her forehead with mine.
“I’ll figure this out,” I say with far more confidence than I feel. She just sighs, shakes her head, and draws away. This is probably a perfectly fine time for Bree to say I told you so, but she doesn’t, which is kind of her.
Then I put an arm around Bennett’s shoulders as he yanks out his phone and frantically types a text message to Jack.
“He’s going to think there’s something wrong with him,” Bennett’s saying, tears tracking down his furry cheeks. “I need him to know that we love him.”
I put my hand on the phone to stop him from sending. “Maybe we should go home,” I say. “Wait there for when he comes back.”
We both turn to Bree.
“Sorry,” is all I can say.
“Go find him,” she answers, and ushers us out the door.
The whole drive home, Bennett grips the wheel tight. I replay the memory over and over of the door bursting open and Jack walking in on us. The expression on his face… I’ve never seen anything like it. As if he’d been cleaved right through the chest.
I keep my breathing even until we reach the house. The lights are all off inside, and Jack’s SUV is gone.
Fuck, I hope he comes back. I hope he comes back.
Bennett and I silently make quesadillas, then sit at the table, neither of us eating them.
“I’m going to call him,” Bennett says. I don’t try to stop him as he brings out his phone and dials Jack. But it just rings and rings, as I expected.
“Honey,” Bennett starts his voice message, “please come home and talk to us. Please give us a chance to explain ourselves. We love you so, so much.”
It sounds pathetic, even to my ears. And I’m probably a pretty pathetic satyr right now.
When Bennett sets down the phone, he drops his head into his hands and his shoulders shake. I don’t have the energy to comfort him, and besides, what comfort could I offer?
We outright lied to Jack. We hid this from him, and now I have to face that fact.
Nothing could be worse when it comes to our husband, not really, than lying.
It was Marilee who first lied to him, who told him she loved him and would be with him forever, when she really wanted someone else.
Once they were engaged and she’d gotten what she needed from him… they were both gone.
After cleaning up the dinner we didn’t eat, we sit side by side on the couch in the darkness.
“What if he divorces us?” Bennett asks, his voice raw.
My brain had not actually gone that far. Until now, I’ve simply believed that once we told Jack our story, we would figure out a way through. But divorce?
There is a very good chance he could leave us over this. Decide we aren’t worth the heartache.
Now there are tears in my eyes, too, and Bennett hugs me as I collapse forward on the couch.
That’s when the front door suddenly flies open. I hadn’t even heard the car turn into the driveway. It’s Jack, and his expression is as hard as stone.
“Jack!” Bennett flies up from the couch and runs toward him. “You’re home, I’m so glad—”
“Get out of my way.”
Bennett freezes, then obediently backs up, making room for Jack to come into the house.
Jack wipes off his hooves first, pointedly ignoring us until he approaches the table.
“We’re going to have a dinner,” he says, slapping a hand down on it so loudly it surprises both of us. “The surrogate will come. The two of you will insist she come. And we’re going to sort all this bullshit out.”
He glares at Bennett and me, as if we might contradict him. Eagerly, I nod in agreement.
“Yes, whatever you want. I’m sure she’ll come.”
“She’d better.” Jack rises to his full height again, and even though he’s not as tall as I am, his presence is commanding and dangerous. “Find somewhere else to sleep.”
With that, he stalks past us toward the bedroom, goes inside, and slams the door closed behind him.
Bennett wilts. “He won’t even let us explain.”
“I think… there’s nothing to explain.” I sigh as I sit down at the table. “What he saw is what it is. What can we possibly say?”
“Nothing.” Bennett sinks into the couch. “I guess you’re right. Fuck, we had better find a really good way to apologize.”
“At least he’s giving us dinner, whatever the plan is.” Though it doesn’t sound good if he wants Bree there.
I sit down beside Bennett, and we both stare into the dark television screen until he says, “I’m sleeping on the pull-out in the office. You get the couch.”
With that, he climbs to his feet and retreats. I fall onto the couch, close my eyes, and wish I’d gone about all this very differently.