Chapter 1 #2
It wasn’t just concern over Zach’s anxiousness but some trepidation about what it meant for them. Amy was important to Zach, Kincaid knew that… but how important? Did he sometimes wish Amy was single? Or was Kincaid projecting just because he knew he was the first man Zach had been with?
“I’m fine. I think I might have tied my tie too tight.” Zach slid his hand under Kincaid’s to hold it. The touch helped soothe some of the emotions that were buzzing under Kincaid’s skin.
Zach was here with him. In public. Showing affection. And he’d told his sister about their relationship, even if he hadn’t worked up to telling his parents yet. Baby steps. As long as Kincaid could see some progress, he could live with that. He knew it was hard for Zach, but he was trying.
In front of them, Rick—another member of the BDSM clubs they went to—leaned over to his wife, not bothering to keep his voice down.
“What time is it? Isn’t this supposed to have started already?”
Beside Kincaid, Zach glanced down at his watch, and Kincaid looked over as well, joining Zach in his frown. The wedding should have started five minutes ago. Zach twisted around and froze, and Kincaid looked up as well.
Sam, one of Amy’s bridesmaids, was striding down the aisle with purpose—not walking slowly like she was starting the ceremony—and her gaze was locked on Zach. Shit. Something was wrong. He could see that the moment he saw Sam’s expression.
She came to a halt in a sweep of chiffon, the stray curls from her coiffure swaying at the sudden stop.
“Amy needs you,” she told Zach. “Now.” She looked up to meet Kincaid’s gaze. “You’d better come, too.”
The audience all burst into murmured noise as both of them leapt to their feet.
Zach didn’t even look back as he darted down the aisle ahead of Kincaid, too intent on getting to Amy.
Hurt darted through Kincaid, but he did his best to push it aside.
Sam was not an alarmist. If she had come to get them, there was a damn good reason.
Amy needed her Dom. This wasn’t about him.
The moment they burst into the room Sam led them to—she could move damn fast, even in three-inch heels—any hesitation Kincaid felt washed away the moment he caught sight of Amy.
They’d never been close; Zach had always kept them fairly separate, and Kincaid hadn’t protested because, as far as he was concerned, Amy wasn’t really part of their relationship.
Zach had certain needs as a sadist that Kincaid couldn’t fulfill. He was fine with Zach playing with others platonically. Even when Zach had stopped scening with anyone else other than Amy, he hadn’t made an effort to step in because their dynamics were all well established by then.
But it would take a harder, crueler person than him to be unaffected by the sight of her surrounded by her bridesmaids, her mom beside her with her arms around her, all of them huddled on the skirt of her dress where she knelt in the middle of the room, with the most anguished expression he’d ever seen on a woman’s face.
Standing in front of Amy and the crowd was Marissa, a sub with a bad reputation at Stronghold, who was nonetheless one of Amy’s bridesmaids.
She wore the same sage green gown as the others, and for a moment, Kincaid thought she must be the one causing the problem before he realized she was speaking to someone on a video call on the phone she was holding in front of her.
“You are both terrible people. Noelle, you can fuck all the way off and never come back. Jeremy, you never deserved Amy in the first place, you shriveled little dickhead. Do not contact her again.”
Jeremy. Amy’s fiancé. Noelle… another problem sub at the clubs. Also, one of Amy’s bridesmaids. What the hell is going on?
His brain was struggling to catch up, but apparently, so was Zach because he blurted the question out.
“What’s going on?”
Everyone huddled on the floor looked up at him as Sam went on her knees to join them, her arms going around Amy and hugging her. Amy’s pale face stared at him and Zach from over Sam’s shoulder, the look in her eyes piercing Kincaid’s heart.
He could see the shame, the humiliation, the pain, and it made his own chest ache in sympathy. He wanted to beat the hell out of whoever had put that look on her face.
“Noelle and Jeremy eloped, and they’re blaming Amy for their shitty behavior,” Marissa answered before turning back to the phone and glaring at it. “Do not ever contact Amy again. And Noelle, you can consider your membership to Stronghold and Marquis revoked.”
She hit a button on the phone, cutting off their voices as the two on the other side of the call started yelling back at her.
As Zach went down on his knees to join the group huddled around Amy, his voice soothing as he murmured something Kincaid couldn’t quite make out, Kincaid looked at Marissa and raised his eyebrow.
She shrugged.
“If anyone knows what it takes to get kicked out of Stronghold, it’s me. Noelle crossed one of the lines Patrick won’t compromise on—she took photos of Amy and shared them with a non-member. As soon as I tell him, she’s out on her ass.”
Kincaid would have replied, but a heartbreaking wail rose in the air as Amy flung herself into Zach’s arms and finally started to cry, sobbing as she buried her face in the shoulder of her Dom.
Fuck.